Psalms 131

Psalms 131:1. LORD, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me.

I commend this verse to some who profess to be Christians, but who are always puzzling their poor brains with intricate questions, who want to solve the mystery of where free will and predestination can meet, how man can be responsible, and yet God's predestination can be fulfilled, and I know not what beside. These are great waters the waves whereof are too big for our little barques. We have quite enough to do, my brother, to attend to the plain things of God's Word, and to strive after holiness and the salvation of our fellow men, without addicting ourselves to tying knots and trying to untie them. It is an unprofitable business; it gendereth to pride rather than to anything else, and well did David say, «My heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me.»

Psalms 131:2. Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child.

That is a very blessed thing to be able to do, to quiet yourself when, like a weaned child, you are crying under the afflicting hand of God, when you feel a proud spirit murmuring, or when you want to pierce the darkness that veils divine truth, and want to understand what cannot be understood, and you worry because you are not omniscient. Oh, it is a blessed thing, then, to say to yourself, «Be quiet, child! Be quiet! « What art thou but a child, after all, at thy best? What dost thou know? What canst thou know? Art thou not satisfied to hear thy Father say, «What thou knowest not now, thou shalt know hereafter»? Dost thou not know that here we know but in part, and see but in part? By-and-by, we shall know even as we are known, but not yet. «I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother:»-as a child who sucks his finger, and goes to sleep sobbing «my soul is even as a weaned child.» David did not say, «My soul is even as a weaning child,» fretting, worrying, wanting to have its own will. There is no happiness in that state; but when it is not the weaning, but the weaned,-not the present participle, but the past,-then we get into comfort: «My soul is even as a weaned child,» who has given up his old comfort, that which he thought was as necessary to him as his life. He finds that, after all, he can live without it, and grow without it, and come to a better manhood without it than with it: «My soul is even as a weaned child.»

Psalms 131:3. Let Israel hope in the LORD-

You will never be weaned from him if you are his; but if you are weaned from the world, so as to have all your hope in the Lord, thrice happy are you. Now, too, you will grow; now you will come to the fullness of the stature of a man in Christ Jesus, which you could never have done if you had not been weaned. I remember that when Sarah weaned Isaac there was a great feast at the weaning, and I believe that God's children often have a great feast at their weaning from the world. All the while they are but babes, and suck their comforts from the world, they get but little real joy; but when, by divine grace, they outgrow that state of things, then is there a great feast made for them.

Psalms 131:3. From henceforth and for ever.

That is real comfort that you may always enjoy, hoping in the Lord from henceforth and for ever. In life and in death here is a blessed confidence that will never fail you. God grant that we may enjoy it now and evermore! Amen.

This exposition consisted of readings from PSALMS 129, 130, and 131.