The Biblical Illustrator
Psalms 63:8
My soul followeth hard after Thee, Thy right hand upholdeth me.
Endeavour and support
I. The effort which the Christian makes. “My soul followeth hard after Thee.” This seen in his--
1. Uniform obedience to God. This obedience spiritual, of the heart; and universal.
2. Lively faith in the promises.
3. Communion and fellowship with God. Hence he follows hard after God as his guide, his refuge and his portion. Are we doing this?
II. The support which the Christian receives.
1. God delivers their feet from falling, His right hand upholds them.
2. Their hearts from fainting. Learn, then, to love the ordinances of the sanctuary and to improve them; and to ascribe all our good to God. (W. Tonse.)
The saint following hard after God
I. Following after God is the motion of the soul--
1. In knowledge (Hosea 6:3). The knowledge of the only true God, as God and our God, is the principle and root of piety (John 17:8). Lift up thy voice and cry for it. Follow hard after it. Search for it as for silver. Dig for it as for hid treasures. Read daily. Pray fervently. Think seriously.
2. In faith. “Believe in God,” saith our Saviour, “believe also in Me.” If we believe firmly, we will follow hard after Him. Following hard and believing firmly, is following and believing with vigour, and ardour, and constancy.
3. In love. The love of God shed abroad in the heart kindles in it love to Him; and the love which it kindles, impatient lest it lose sight of Him, follows Him with ardour. It cannot bear the thoughts of distance. It wishes to be near Him, and to enjoy the comfort of His presence.
4. In hope. Are we in prosperity? Let us follow Him in hope of its continuance. Are we in adversity? Let us follow after Him in hope of its removal. Are we in darkness? Let us follow after Him in hope of light. Are we in danger? Let us follow after Him in hope of salvation.
5. In desire. Desire is the stepping of the soul in the way toward God, the fountain of our blessedness and glory; and the stronger and more lively desire is, our motion in following after Him will be quicker and faster.
6. In obedience. New obedience is the motion of the soul after God in the way of His commandments.
7. In communion. God looks down on His chosen following hard after Him, and they look up to Him. In speaking and hearing. He speaks, and they hear.
II. The ardour of the soul following after God which the text expresses by the word “hard,” includes--
1. Keenness in respect of desire.
2. Diligence in respect of means.
3. Vigour in respect of exertion. With all our heart, soul, strength, and mind.
4. Perseveringly in respect of continuance.
5. Affectionately in respect of complacency and delight. This is ardour in piety. What more concerning it can we say? Alas! it is above our experience. O that the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord were shed abroad more diffusively in our heart by the Holy Ghost! (John 7:37).
III. The ends and purposes for which pious souls follow hard after God.
1. That they may see Him in His beauty and glory.
2. That they may be near Him.
3. That they may hear Him.
4. That they may be helped. They have weights to carry which are too heavy for their weakness, and exertions to make in obedience and self-denial which are above their strength. Of themselves they are nothing, and can do nothing but as succoured from above. Believing and feeling their own insufficiency, they would be always near their help.
5. That they may be enriched. God is rich, rich in mercy, rich in goodness, rich in grace; and in following after Him His people are enriched and filled with His goodness. The riches of His glory is their treasury; and Christ having the key that opens it, and authority and power over all it contains, their wants are supplied, and their souls filled with all the fulness of God.
6. That they may be preserved. Their adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour. The world is a numerous and formidable party, devising their hurt. Yet are they in safety, because they follow hard after God their preserver.
7. That they may be brought to His kingdom and glory. He is the breaker up of their way before them, and that they might not err, or go wrong, and come short, He hath appointed the Captain of Salvation their leader and commander. (A. Shanks.)
Holy ardour
I. Describe this state of experience. It implies--
1. A renunciation of the world. This results from a conviction of its vanity.
2. A deliberate choice of God, as the only adequate good of the soul.
3. A vehement and intense desire after Him.
4. The exercises of faith and hope.
II. Investigate the reasons why it is so rare. It is obvious few Christians enjoy this experience. The principal causes of their languor are--
1. Inattention to the state of their own hearts. They are not recollected; thy do not examine themselves closely. Hence they are ignorant of their real condition, and do not keenly feel their wants.
2. Permitting the objects of sense to make too deep impressions. These naturally tend to blunt the edge of holy desire, and to divide and weaken the soul.
3. Neglect of the instituted means.
4. The indulgence of wrong dispositions, etc. Unbelief, pride, vain curiosity, levity, censoriousness, uncharitable or useless conversation, etc.; all these, like cold water, tend to damp and weaken, if not wholly to extinguish, the desire for God.
III. Represent it as the most desirable experience.
1. It is the best security against the allurements and troubles of the world. A heart earnestly pursuing God has no leisure to gaze on the seductive charms of temporal good, and no disposition to pierce itself with the thorns of worldly solicitude.
2. It renders every duty delightful. In this state nothing is done through custom, formality, or any other inferior motive--but every duty is performed with the highest views.
3. It prepares us for the largest communication. We always receive from God what we earnestly and faithfully seek from Him (Luke 2:9). By this holy fervour the soul throws itself open to receive all the fulness of God--the shoreless, fathomless ocean of good.
4. It advances our sanctification, and consequently qualifies us for glory. (Sketches of Four Hundred Sermons.)
The divinity of a true life
I. God is the Supreme Object of a true life. “My soul followeth hard after Thee.”
1. As the centre of my affections. I want to fix, settle my heart, with all its varied sympathies and affections, in Thee. Thou art the original centre of my soul; but I have lost Thee, and now my intense desire is to come back to Thee.
2. As the guide of my life. I want a guide; I have lost my way; the path is intricate, perilous, and very dark.
3. As the companion of my heart. I want a friend, some one who understands me, can sympathize with me, calm my agitated nature. My sense of desolation sinks me like lead, saddens me as a thunder cloud.
II. God is the sustaining power of a true life. “Thy right hand upholdeth me.”
1. “Thy right hand” in the blessings of material nature.
2. “Thy right hand” in the beneficent influence of Providence.
3. “Thy right hand” in the moral forces of the Gospel. It is God’s power alone that can sustain the soul in its strugglings after life. (Homilist.)
The Christian’s pursuit
I. What is implied. Following hard after God supposes--
1. A previous acquaintance with Him. Holy affections are not heat without light, but light and heat combined; the mind is both illuminated and sanctified.
2. Ardent and intense desires.
3. Laborious exertion.
4. Perseverance in seeking. His seeming slights shall only increase their importunity.
II. Why David thus followed hard after God.
1. Guilt and distress followed hard after him.
2. His enemies followed hard after him.
3. He had followed hard after other things to no purpose.
4. We may add, the powerful attractives of divine grace. The reason why David followed after God was, that goodness and mercy followed after him. (B. Beddome, M. A.)
David following God, and upheld by Him
I. David’s carriage to God.
1. The inclination of a Christian’s heart to God, and his simple propensity towards Him. There are three notions in which we may took upon God, according to either of which the soul of a Christian is inclined and carried after Him. First, as the Author of nature. Secondly, as the Giver of grace. Thirdly, as the Bestower of glory and eternal life. All these three are considerable in God, and in reference to all of them are a Christian’s desires after God, and his soul does propend towards him.
2. A Christian’s importunity. A good Christian, if he be in some distance and separation from God for a time, yet cannot long be content to be so. This may be made good unto us according to a twofold explication; whether ye take it of a distance and separation in regard of spirit, a state of spiritual desertion; or whether ye take it of a distance and separation in regard of the means; a deprivation of the public ordinances and ministerial dispensations. A good Christian cannot long content himself in either of these estrangements from God; but while it is thus with him, his soul does follow hard after him. Let us therefore so carry ourselves that we may not provoke God to deal thus with as. It is a great deal better for us, and more kindly, and more to be wished for, that our desires should be carried after these things for the excellency which is in the things themselves, and our own closing with them, than from want and deprival of them. For which cause it concerns us to prevent God, that He may not be forced to deal so with us.
3. A Christian’s adherence, “My soul cleaveth to Thee”; so some translations render it; and indeed it is most agreeable to the original text, which signifies to adhere (Genesis 2:24; Proverbs 18:24). This cleaving implies three things: union as the foundation of it; fastening as the progress of it; perseverance as the accomplishment. Now, to quicken us so much the more to the practice of this present duty, which is here in David’s example commended to our imitation, let us further consider this with ourselves, that there is nothing else which is, indeed, fitting for our souls to cleave unto but God alone.
II. God’s carriage to him. “Thy right hand,” etc.
1. By the right hand of God, we are in one word to understand, His strengthening and confirming grace; which is called His right hand, in regard of the powerfulness of it, and dexterity for the preserving of His people. This is that which (as David here signifies) is extended and stretched forth to this purpose, as to himself, so to all other Christians, “who are kept by the power of God, through faith unto salvation” (1 Peter 1:5). This upholding of God’s right hand, thus explained, is often mentioned to us in Scripture (Psalms 138:7; Psalms 139:10; Song of Solomon 2:6). And many such places as these, all coming to this purpose, to show unto us God’s almighty power and grace in the supportment of His servants. This is seen, and does discover itself especially in two particulars.
(1) As to matter of sin, upholds me that I fall not into that.
(2) As to matter of affliction, upholds me that I sink not under that.
2. But why is the power of God in His stablishing and assisting grace expressed by the name of His “right hand,” here and in other places? We may conceive for three reasons especially.
(1) As it is a hand of strength, the right hand is such, it has more strength than the other hand has. And so is it with the grace of God. “The right hand of the Lord hath the pre-eminence,” as we find it twice there repeated (Psalms 118:15); hence, also, called a right hand of power in others (Matthew 26:64; and Mark 14:62), etc.
(2) As it is a hand of readiness, it is more expedite and ready to be used than the other is, and therefore we express all expediteness by a word taken from hence, which we call dexterity. So is God’s grace where it puts forth itself, it is very ready and expediting, and He Himself is ready presently to use it upon any occasion, for the good of His servants.
(3) As an hand of success. It is the right hand so, forasmuch as whatever it takes in hand prospers to it, and does infallibly obtain its effect. (T. Horton, D. D.)
The saint upheld by God’s right hand
I. The course of piety.
1. Begins in reconciliation.
2. Goes along the way of God’s commandments.
3. Ends in everlasting life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
II. The upholding of the soul in following hard after God in the course of piety.
1. The dominion of grace in the soul is maintained. Upheld by almighty strength, it lives and reigns.
2. The dominion of grace in the soul is extended. Under this influence faith increases, hope expands, holiness brightens, and the cross becomes light and easy.
3. The purposes of the heart under the dominion of grace to follow hard after God in the course of piety are accomplished by His upholding the soul with His right hand.
III. The right hand with which David believed himself to be upheld.
1. His power. Upheld by this attribute which is omnipotent, no weight can crush, no calamity can overwhelm, and no enemy can break the purposes of the pious heart, and turn it off the way of God’s commandments. What can He not do? what will He not do? what is He not ready to do for those who are upright before Him, and keep the way of His testimonies?
2. His mercy. In the upholding of power, mercy shines; and in the upholding of mercy, power exerts itself gloriously. What upheld you when your foot slipped? was it not mercy? What kept you out of the gulf of despondency? was it not mercy? What succoured you in the hour of temptation? was it not mercy? What strengthened you under burthens and vexations? was it not mercy?
Conclusion.
1. In the practice of unfeigned and lively piety there is reward.
2. Pious souls are upheld in their course.
3. Pious souls are sensible of their being upheld by the right hand of power and mercy.
4. Pious souls acknowledge their upholding by the right hand of the Lord to His praise (A. Shanks.).