Psalms 43:4

Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy.

The altar of joy

This is the expression of a twofold desire, a desire for communion with God, and for communion with God through public worship. There is a great wail of sorrow in the psalm, but it is not a sorrow without hope; faith struggles with despondence, and gets the victory. The authorship of the psalm we cannot be certain of. Nor of the occasion, whether some event in David’s reign, or in Ahaz’s, or in the captivity, or yet some other. Augustine held that the psalm is the proper expression of the Church while she is an exile in this world. They are unquestionably words for all individual souls who feel that something intervenes between them and God--whether it be exile of the body or of the heart only. Often we are separated from the house of God, from the worship that we love, and which has been so precious because so helpful to us, and we yearn for restoration to our privileges. Or it may be the yearning of the heart for spiritual joy, for delight in worship, for the kindling inspiration, the answering voice, the holy rapture which once we knew but now do not, though all the outward service is still ours. Or it may be the longing of the holy soul for God’s heaven, that presence of God in which there is fulness of joy and of which sometimes in our holiest hours we have visions and foretastes. Thus in different experiences and moods we make these precious words our own. But to the psalmist they told--

I. Of his strong desire for restoration to the public worship of God. It is of the very essence of the religious heart that it should yearn for God. Let a man’s religious life be full and fervent, and the use of what are termed “the means of grace” may be safely left to the instincts of his own soul. But does not every pious heart sympathize with David’s delight in the house of the Lord? Who of us has not realized there a fuller and more fervent feeling of His presence than anywhere else? Who of us neglects or disparages God’s house without coldness and dulness creeping over our whole devotional life? Its services are the festivals of our piety, it is the place where His honour dwelleth. But the psalmist speaks of worship before God’s altar. Why the altar rather than the mercy-seat? It is not enough to say that he spake the language of his dispensation, which was one in which sacrifice was prominent. Why was it so? There is but one satisfactory answer--that it was an institution prophetical and preparatory to the great sacrifice of Christ. By no satisfactory process, at least to minds like my own, can it be explained away or reduced to a mere symbol of self-sacrifice. The facts and instincts of our moral consciousness all agree to the doctrine of sacrifice as it is set forth in the Bible.

II. The psalmist’s superlative joy in such worship. Why have we not more joy? It is absent almost everywhere. In all churches and services, in hymns and prayers. It is because we fail of the personal character essential to it, and because we think hard and false thoughts of God. (H. Allen, D. D.)

The altar of God

The devotional spirit is the life of religion; and there never was a man of piety who was not a man of prayer. The text opens to us two important views.

I. The peculiar nature of that worship which God has authorized. It is going to the altar of God. We ought all to be aware that there is a peculiarity in the worship which God authorizes. There is--

1. The recognition of our sin. When man was innocent he needed no atonement. There was no altar in Paradise. But now we need one.

2. Our first liability to punishment is acknowledged.

3. And that God is propitious through the atonement He has appointed. A mere sacrifice is not sufficient, for it might have been a human invention merely. But this God has appointed. Atonement is for the penitent (cf. 2 Chronicles 6:29).

II. The emphatic description which is given of the joy of it.

“God, my exceeding joy.” This joy arises from--

1. Our being placed in the presence of a Being of infinite glory and perfection. It supposes reconciliation with God.

2. Because this worship enables us to appropriate this display of glory to ourselves. David speaks of “My God.”

3. It is the joy of confidence.

4. And in going to the altar of God we have the renewed assurances of His favour.

5. And there is the joy of life. (R. Watson.)

The believer going to God as his exceeding joy

Especially does he thus come to God in the holy ordinance of the Lord’s Supper, which was called by the ancients the Eucharist or Sacrifice of Praise. Now--

I. In this ordinance there are to the sincere Christian many sources of joy.

1. The fullest assurance and the clearest evidence of the forgiveness of sins.

2. The strongest and most illustrious proof of Divine love.

3. The fullest assurance of receiving from God all that is necessary for comfort and happiness while in this world, and that both for spiritual and temporal life.

4. A pledge and earnest of heaven.

II. Practical improvement of this subject. See--

1. How great is God’s goodness in providing for us now so rich entertainment.

2. What joy and consolation there are here be the fearful and doubting Christian.

3. And, indeed, to all without exception, because here we see that God is in Christ “reconciling the world unto Himself.” (J. Witherspoon.)

God, my exceeding joy

I. Cheerfulness is health and duty (Proverbs 17:22; Nehemiah 8:10; Isaiah 64:5). It is our duty as Christians to rise to

“What nothing earthly gives, nor can destroy
The soul’s calm sunshine and her heartfelt joy.”

II. God alone is “exceeding joy.” He alone lasts, He only overflows. And all this but natural to Him who is the Lord of the universe. And this exceeding joy is undisturbed by any fear of coming to an end. The bridal pair are very happy, but the thought often comes, One of us must survive the other; which, alas? But the joy of God cannot be disturbed by any calamity. And how elevated it is. For “none of them that trust in Him shall be desolate.”

III. There is a great difference between thinking about God and enjoying him. It is one thing to apprehend God, and another to appropriate Him. The God of experience is the God we need. (E. Paxton Hood.)

The good man’s duty and blessedness

“And then I shall be happy: heaven only can make me happier. Oh, if I can but get near to God and procure a smile from Him, all the world will be as nothing to me.” A happy frame of mind this, to meet trouble in. Consider--

I. The good man’s duty--going to God. This implies--

1. Submission as to his Sovereign.

2. Friendship so as to commune with God as to his troubles, joys, sins, fears, hopes, needs.

II. The good man’s blessedness--exceeding joy in God. It exceeds all other joy.

1. In its nature. It is not earthly but spiritual and divine.

2. As to its degree. Creature joy is but little--a drop--at most, but in God’s presence is fulness of joy.

3. As to duration. It is as the house on the rock compared with that on the sand. Let us ask, What is our joy?

III. Improvement.

1. How wrong not to go to God. We are either still children of wrath, or if not there has been some sad declension from God.

2. How great our obligation to Christ.

3. Let us long for heaven. (Samuel Lavington.)

Communion with God, the Christian’s aim in attending Divine ordinances

I. In what manner we should attend upon God’s ordinances; in imitation of David’s example.

1. He resolved to deal with God only by the intervention of an atonement.

2. He intended not to continue an idle spectator, nor to consider himself as such, during his attendance in God’s tabernacles. Here is the market-place, where all that is truly valuable is exposed to sale by God’s authority, and may be bought without money and without price.

3. He resolved to bring somewhat with him into God’s tabernacles which he might offer upon His altar. And every Gospel worshipper, when he “comes into God’s courts, ought to bring an offering with him.” If you are duly affected with what He has done for you, nothing less will satisfy you than to offer yourself, and all your services, and all your talents, and all your possessions as a sacrifice of thanksgiving upon the Gospel altar.

4. tie would present his gift upon the altar, and expect the acceptance of it only in that way. When you present your supplications to God, remember that you can receive no gracious answer, whatever it is that you pray for, unless through Christ. And when you make an offering of yourself and your services to God, consider always that it is only for the sake of Christ and His atoning sacrifice that any of your offerings can be accepted.

II. What it is to go to God himself at his altar or in his ordinances.

1. A cheerful and ready forsaking of all sin. Our degree of intimacy with God in ordinances will always bear a proportion to our diligence and success in cleansing ourselves from sin.

2. A turning of our back upon the world and leaving it behind us. We must go to heaven, not by any local motion, but by an elevation of our hearts, affections and desires above the vanities of a present world; and setting them upon “the things that are above,” “where Christ is at the right hand of God.”

3. A believing acceptance of God Himself as the person’s everlasting and all-satisfying portion upon the footing of His own gracious grant and promise. In that wonderful declaration, “I am the Lord thy God,” so often repeated, God makes over Himself to us; as a portion, in the enjoyment of which we may be supremely blessed, even through an endless eternity.

4. An offering up to God all our desires in a way of fervent supplication.

5. A diligent searching after God, and after communion with Him in His ordinances.

6. An attendance upon God in ordinances with a view of being so much nearer to the full enjoyment of Him in the holy of holies above.

III. In what respect it is, on what grounds, that God may de called his people’s exceeding joy.

1. Why is God called His people’s “joy”?

(1) God is the author and the efficient cause of all the believer’s joy. It is one of the fruits of His Spirit dwelling in His people.

(2) God is the object of the believer’s joy.

2. Why the believer’s joy in God has the epithet “exceeding.”

(1) It exceeds all the joy that arises from the possession of any other, or of all other objects. All other objects are but the works of His hands. Therefore, that joy of which He is the object exceeds all that arises from other things, as far as the Creator is superior to the creature.

(2) It exceeds all the grief, heaviness and sorrow incident to the child of God through the manifold trials and miseries of all this life.

IV. Inferences.

1. All attendance upon Divine ordinances must be fruitless and unprofitable when persons are not concerned to come to Christ in ordinances.

2. No person comes really and acceptably to Christ who comes not, at the same time, unto God through Him.

3. In vain will any person attempt to come unto God, any otherwise than through Jesus Christ.

4. In this text we may see who among us shall be acceptable worshippers in God’s tabernacles; and particularly who will be welcome guests at His holy table to-day.

God our exceeding joy

God is the exceeding joy of the godly man.

1. As the immutable source of his supreme satisfaction. Let a man possess the favour of Him in whose presence there is fulness of joy, and he needs no more. Our lesser sources of satisfaction may be destroyed, but our greatest can neither perish nor change by the influence of evil.

2. As a perpetual supply of good which he may always appropriate. As the objects which constitute the materials of earthly happiness are all external, consequently they, as well as the happiness they create, are alike subject to change and decay. But they who rejoice in God have that redundant spring whose waters fail not. External sources of comfort may be dried up, like the prophet’s book, but the inward solacements of piety remain.

3. As the wise controller of all worldly events. It is on this ground that the believer can maintain his serenity of mind amidst outward causes of perturbation. Amidst all his trials he is well assured that God has attached an ultimate design of mercy to every sorrow. He can generally perceive that design, even if he cannot understand its full extent of good. In some cases it comes to prove and exhibit the excellency of his principles, the beauty of confiding faith, and the power of quiet meekness. In other instances it is to correct the evils of his heart, wean him from earth, and stimulate him to seek all his joys at God’s right hand.

4. As that Being who will eventually recompense the trials and sorrows of His people with eternal joy. Here the Christian is but a pilgrim through the wilderness preceding that promised good land, of which he gets but few and scanty gleams. Here, he has the flower of hope; there, God will give him the fruit of perfect joy. The largest desires of the soul shall hereafter be amply satisfied. The spirit, freed from all the sorrows, sins, and imperfections of this world, shall find perfect purity its element, and shall reflect the happiness of God for ever, as jewels the rays of sparkling light. (James Foster.)

God--the saint’s exceeding joy.

It is observable that, in the courts of kings, children and common people are much taken with pictures and rich shows, and feed their fancies with the sight of rich hangings and fine things; but the grave statesman passeth by such things as not worthy taking notice of--his business is with the king. Thus it is that in this world most men stay in the outer rooms and admire the low things of the world, and look upon them as pieces of much excellence; but the spiritually minded man looketh over all these things that are here below--his business is with God. (J. Spencer.)