Ministry, at the Lord’s Table, on Psalm 73
It is evident this psalm was written after the events of which it speaks. It is the experience of a godly man viewing things around him both naturally and spiritually. He looked at the seeming good forte of the ungodly. “I was envious,” he says, “at the foolish when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For there are no bands in their death, but their strength is firm. They are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other men. These are the ungodly, who prosper in the world; they increase in riches.” He as it were passes his judgment on them, and says, “When I thought to know this it was too painful for me.” He could not understand why the lot of the ungodly should be so different from his own. He says, “Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed mine hands in innocency. For all the day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morning.” I am constantly oppressed, and the wicked flourish on the earth. Now a godly man may look at things in a natural way, and this is what makes the judgment of saints so to differ. If you could see the same thing with God’s eye your opinion of it would be very wide of what it is looking at it from a human standpoint. We see this wonderfully exemplified in the book of Daniel; with man’s eye the image which Nebuchadnezzar saw bore a head of gold, but from God’s standpoint the head was that of a lion, the king of beasts—all the confusion results from what view we take of things. Daniel, the man of God, saw things with God’s eye, and Nebuchadnezzar viewed things in a natural way. The one had a spiritual, the other a natural judgment. There is not a difference amongst the children of God but is the result of the world coming in and giving color to their thoughts. If I differ from a brother as to any matter, great or small, it is because the world is influencing him or me. It may be in us both, therefore we need to be very patient and wait on the Lord, that we may “all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the son of God unto a perfect man.”
The Psalmist was perplexed as he looked around and saw the wicked in power. He betook himself to the sanctuary of God, and then he found the judgment of the court above reverse that of the courts below. He now gets inside with God and gets a Divine sight of that which before he looked at in a natural way. Now all is explained. He was confounded until he went into the sanctuary of God, “then,” he said, “understood I their end.” The glitter was gone now. The external was seen to be false, and the reality of everything was known to him. It was not now the golden-headed image, but what God saw that figure to be. It is a great thing to get into the sanctuary with God, and to know when we are there. With the Psalmist it was like one on earth looking through a telescope, which showed him what was going on there, but with us it is different. We do, not look through the telescope and see heaven in the distance, but we are there. By faith we are seated there. We are in Christ, and “one spirit with the Lord.” Our communication is perfect, and our entrance there has been accomplished. “Having boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,” we are now in the presence of God. We have been brought there by one who took a veil on Him, that He might take the veil from us. We have entered by “the new and living way which He path consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say his flesh.” We have boldness by the blood of Jesus. But what are the characteristics of His presence? How do we know when we are there? The first characteristic is light. We have power to discover what is of God, and to refuse that which is not of God. How we stop short in carrying out this great characteristic of His presence We feel its divine action on our souls, but we shrink from the thorough acting according to the light. Love we feel is more what suits us, but love without light, or before light has done its work, would lead to rationalism. It is the light that convinces of evil and shows the true place for the exercise of love. Jesus said to Nathaniel, “When thou wast under the fig tree I saw thee.” Light made him the object of love. Light convicts. The woman in John 4 gave her testimony to this, “Come See a man which told me all things that ever I did.” Light makes the secrets of the heart manifest. We are the children of the light. “Light in the Lord.” We are always “in the light,” though we do not always walk according to it. This is our responsibility, and we must know what we are, and where we are. David found the thoughts of his heart changed when he got into the sanctuary. His natural judgment of this scene was reversed. Now many view things in a natural way, and yet are most sincere. They judge according to the light of their minds, and take a common sense view of things. When we get into God’s presence no such judgment will stand. Light, then, is the first characteristic of the presence of God. “Surely Thou didst set them in slippery places; Thou castedst them down into destruction; How are they brought into desolation! They are utterly consumed with terrors.”
Next you get a true knowledge of God and of His power. “As a dream when one awaketh, so, Oh Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image.” The stamp that marks you is that you have been with God. His greatness fills your soul. You comport yourself as a son of God. Do you bear the impress that you have been with Him? Have you been in trouble and have you had an audience with Him about the matter? Have you made known your requests to Him, and does His peace now control you? Bless the Lord for the trouble—your circumstances took you into His presence, and you return to your circumstances to go through them empowered by what you have got there—your state took you into the sanctuary, but when there you dropped your state—all fear, perturbation, tumults, left you when there your cares you gave to Him, and you returned to this scene with God’s state characterizing you—you came laden with heaven’s air—you have the peace God which passeth all understanding. It is not that you are taken out of trouble, but now the trouble does not press on you—you have got superiority to it—you have come out from the presence of God with the impress of His state upon your heart. This is the first thing you get. First you were detected by the light, and now you receive an impress of the God of light. To speak of what is small in the presence of that which is great, it is like a person getting an audience with the sovereign of this country. It is not sending in your request by one of her ministers of state, but you see the Queen herself, and you come out from her presence sensible of the greatness of the one with whom you have been. Peace reigns where God is; so I come out from my audience with Him possessing “the peace of God which passeth all understanding.” I am not troubled now. God has undertaken for me, He is equal to anything. “As a dream when one awaketh, so, oh Lord, when thou awakest thou shalt despise their image.” Their prospects are vain, the prosperity of the wicked is but a phantom. “Thou shalt despise their image.” The psalmist’s thoughts of himself are now gone. It is God and His judgment of the whole thing. When self got place the heart of the psalmist was grieved; and he says, “I was pricked in my reins.” In New Testament Scripture we learn self is gone on the Cross of Christ; and with us it ought to have no place. Would that it were so; but it is ever getting a place. Even in our worship meetings, we sing of ourselves and our blessing, and very feebly rise to God’s mind as to this. If self gets in at all let it only be that it may be put out. I have no place before God now, I am gone. Let me be at the vanishing point. So David saw himself when He got into the sanctuary. “So foolish was I and ignorant: I was as a beast before Thee.” Man has no place there. It is new ground altogether, and yet a third thing comes out. Though there is no reckoning of me now, yet “nevertheless I am continually with Thee.” As to me I am as a beast, a Gentile dog, yet I never before had such a sense that I am an object to God. “I am continually with thee; Thou hast holden me by my right hand. Thou wilt guide me in Thy counsel, and after glory Thou wilt take me.” When I get into the presence of God, then I learn His love. I find that I am cared for with a Father’s love, and “carried like a child.” If once you know this, have tasted it but a little, you will so long for more of it, that nothing will satisfy you but abiding under the shadow of His love.
What a great thing then, beloved brethren, it is to be in the sanctuary. The Psalmist longed for it as the poet does for the land of his fancy. Prophecy is very like poetry, for it brings you into the realization of something in which you are not yet; brings you sensibly there, before, in fact, you are there. But ours is no poetic fancy. We are there—brought to God. So the psalmist’s experience is in fact what ours should be. But a fourth thing comes out—I have learned that I am God’s object, but I also find He becomes mine: “Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides Thee. My flesh and my heart faileth; but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion forever.” I have Christ in heaven and on earth, I want no one else. There He has no rival, and if I look to earth, I can do without all besides Himself. Saints are lifted up to this. Christ’s death has shut out everything, and it has shut me in to Himself. I am perfectly happy in His presence. With Himself only. This is the proper thought for us as we sit at the Lord’s Table. You think of nothing then but Himself. The cares of life, one’s family matters, are all outside that scene. I am happy then with Him, But the disciples said they had no bread, though Christ was with them: very like us! Christ is bread and all for our hearts. God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. My afflictions are gone, my joys have no place at His table. His death and the living Lord Himself is all my thought. When I go again into the world I thank Him for all His mercies, but at the Table, the afflictions and joys of life have no place. I am engaged with Christ, whose death hath separated me from all else. Beloved brethren, may this be our experience, when by the Spirit we are gathered to His blessed Name, and break bread, showing forth His death till He come. J. B. S.
Glasgow, March 25th, 1877.