Psalms 2:3

Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.

Sinners vainly attempt to dissolve their obligations

I. The obligations sinners are under to God.

1. Natural obligations. Their nature, as dependent creatures, forms an intimate connection between them and their Maker. They cannot exist a moment without the immediate exertion of Divine power. Their dependence is absolute and universal. It respects all their natural powers and faculties, whether corporeal or mental. They are not sufficient to think, or speak, or act of themselves, independently of the presence and efficiency of God.

2. Moral obligations. God is a Being possessed of every natural and moral excellence. He will never do anything contrary to the perfect benevolence of His heart. Every sinner is capable of knowing that God is perfectly good, so he is under moral obligation to love Him for His goodness.

3. Legal obligation. God’s absolute supremacy gives Him an independent right to assume the character of a lawgiver. It properly belongs to Him to give law to all His intelligent creatures.

II. Sinners endeavour to free themselves from all the obligations which they are under to God. They wish and endeavour to break His bands, and cast away His cords.

1. This appears by their mode of speaking upon this subject.

2. By their mode of reasoning as well as speaking. They endeavour to reason away all their obligations to God.

3. It appears from their mode of acting, also, that they desire and endeavour to free themselves from all obligations to become reconciled and obedient to God.

III. All their endeavours to get loose from their obligations to God will be in vain.

1. They cannot destroy the existence of God.

2. Or their own existence. Improvement.

(1) We may see what is the great subject of controversy between them and their Creator.

(2) Though sinners are naturally disposed to free themselves from their obligations to God, yet they are not always sensible of it. They commonly think that they have no such disposition to complain of the bands and cords by which they are bound to God, and to desire and endeavour to break and cast them away.

(3) We see why sinners are the most opposed to the most essential and important doctrines of the gospel.

(4) If they endeavour to free themselves from their obligations, then they always endeavour to stifle convictions.

(5) If sinners are under such natural, moral, and legal obligations to God as have been mentioned, then He can awaken and convince them at any time He pleases.

(6) Sinners are extremely averse from prayer.

(7) All sinners, without exception, are bound to be religious or to fulfil their obligations to their Maker, who has made them rational, immortal, and accountable creatures.

(8) If sinners are bound to God by bands and cords which they cannot break nor cast away, then it is their immediate and imperious duty to cease from contending with their Maker, and to become cordially reconciled to the bands and cords by which He has bound them to Himself. (W. Emmons, D. D.)

Tendency of the young to infidelity

1. From their limited views. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, as it too often encourages self-conceit and lays the foundation for many a hasty conclusion. A slight and imperfect view of the subject is taken as the whole. Judgment is rendered without even hearing the evidence. A few second-hand objections are suffered to cover the whole ground. Bacon says, “It is true that a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds back to religion;--for while the mind of man looketh upon second causes scattered, it may sometimes rest in them, and go no further; but when it beholdeth the chain of them, confederate and linked together, it must needs fly to Providence and Deity.”

2. From their defective training. In the religious education of youth the principal things have not always been made prominent. The youth perhaps knows no other Christianity than that which belongs to his own denomination, or some idle ceremony or some doubtful tenet has been inculcated with all the solemnity of religion and all the sanctions of eternity. The result is a narrow-minded, bitter bigotry. When the charm is broken, and its influence destroyed, the mind, left loose, too often swings at once to infidelity. The training is often defective in another way. That the mind may be free from unfounded prejudice and sectarian predilections, nothing is taught. To escape one evil they run into another and more fatal one. The native soft brings forth thorns and briars.

3. Another source of infidelity is the conduct of too many called Christians.

4. Another is an uneasiness of restraint. The spirit of wildness and wilfulness is manifest in the first dawn of intellect. The earliest period of childhood shows restlessness and hatred of restraint. Thousands are infidels because they dread the inspection of God and hate the restraints of religion. Their lives require such an opiate to their fears.

5. A love of distinction--an ambition to appear above the vulgar. Young men and boys affect infidelity for the same reason that they learn to swear or to chew tobacco. It gives an air of spirit and independence that spurns old traditions and vulgar prejudices.

6. Some are infidels in self-defence. They were once, perhaps, not far from the kingdom of God--it may be, deemed themselves citizens of that kingdom. But the world spread its charms before them. And they have found shelter from scorn and reproach in blank infidelity. Combine all these causes which are continually at work and is it wonderful that in the face of all the light of truth there should still be infidels? (D. Merrill.)

Bands that cannot be broken

The yoke that our Saviour would lay on this world is not a galling and exasperating code of laws, but a yoke in which humanity would be renewed, transformed, uplifted to the highest and eternal joy. It is of that “yoke and burden” that the world’s proud captains say, “Let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us.” Bands and cords! It is an invidious description of “the yoke that is easy and the burden that is light.” What can be the issue of the effort to break the bands and cords of the Almighty? What can come of it? “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.” The Psalmist is very bold: the laughter of God! the derision of the Most High! What a figure to use! It is a poet’s phrase, but it is a prophet’s truth. There is a spendthrift who is resenting the bands of economics and arithmetic; who says in regard to a plain and accurate cash statement, “I will break these bands asunder,” and in his foolishness he makes the attempt; but he cannot divert from their inflexible proportions the laws of parts and quantities, of plus and minus considerations. He may wish that ten amid ten should make twenty-five, but they will not. “He that sitteth in the heavens”! Great fixed proportions!--they won’t bend to amuse a prodigal; they won’t break to gratify a spendthrift. They claim their value and issue their writ, and the man who has lived and spent as though two and two made fifty is the object of the laughter of arithmetical law, and is by it had in derision. (F. W. Macdonald.)