Text: “Thou art more glorious and excellent than the mountains of prey. The stout-hearted are spoiled, they have slept their sleep; and none of the men of might have found their hands. At Thy rebuke, O God of Jacob, both the chariot and the horse are cast into a dead sleep.”
Psalm 76:4-6.
Good morning, Christian resting in Christ’s Victories! Christ’s Holy victories are what holds us,
‘His people’, up, amidst all that would seek, vehemently, to pull us down, and
mar our public witness for Him. Of
ourselves, we are weak, and foolish, and too often found wanting in the midst
of the daily Spiritual Battle – but, in Christ Jesus, we are always fully
assured of the eventual and total victory.
All glory to the Name of all names, King Jesus Christ! Hallelujah!
“Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He hath redeemed from
the hand of the enemy…” (Psalm 107:1-3)
Verse 4. “Thou art more glorious and excellent than the mountains
of prey. What are the honours of war but brags of
murder? What the fame of conquerors but
the reek of manslaughter? But the Lord
is glorious in Holiness, and His terrible deeds are done in justice for the
defence of the weak and the deliverance of the enslaved. Mere power may be glorious, but it is not
excellent: when we behold the mighty acts of the Lord, we see a perfect
blending of the two qualities.” (C.H.
Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 325)
Because we that are redeemed by Christ’ sinless Blood have been
permitted to see Christ Jesus with the eyes of God-given faith – we more fully
understand the Lord’s motivations in every act of Spiritual war He engages
daily. All just, all merciful, all
gracious, all loving, and all and impeccably Holy, is our Lord God Jehovah –
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Knowing this by faith through His amazing grace, we see that
everything that our Lord God does is done in perfect righteousness and
grace. Therefore, ALL that God Almighty
is and does, we applaud and give thanks to Him for it. What a privilege to belong to the Lord God
and to be permitted to have a portion in all His most powerful victories. Glory to the Lamb!
“Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him
that loved us.” (Romans 8:37)
When the Living Lord God subdues enemies, they immediately wither
and fade into insignificance. Tyrants
and oppressors who show no mercy towards those less powerful than themselves,
and especially towards Christian witnesses, are reduced to trembling cowards at
the rebuke of the Lord God.
Verse 5. “The stout-hearted are spoiled. Daring men, who fear nothing, are turned
into Magor-missabibs (definition: terror on every
side), the name given by Jeremiah to Pashur the priest when he smote him and
put him in the stocks for prophesying against the idolatry of Jerusalem.
( Jeremiah 20:3 )
– fear round about; their stout hearts are taken from them, and then they are
so far from being a terror to other men, that they run from the shadow of a
man; their courage is down; they cannot give a child a confident look, much
less look dangers or enemies in the face.”
(Joseph Caryl, 1602-1673)
Check out what the Lord did to
Pashur the priest, for playing the tyrant with His servant Jeremiah: “For
thus saith the Lord, Behold (look, and fully understand), I will make thee a
terror to thyself, and to all they friends: and they shall fall by the sword of
their enemies, and thine eyes shall behold it: and I will give all Judah into
the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall carry them captive into Babylon,
and shall slay them with the sword. And thou, Pashur, and all that dwell in
thine house shall go into captivity: and thou shalt come to Babylon, and there
thou shalt die, and shalt be buried there, thou, and all thy friends to whom
thou hast prophesied lies.” (Jeremiah 20:1-6)
It is wise to remember that the
Lord God is a God of Holiness, wrath against all sin, and a strict upholder of
justice – as well as a Lord God of grace, mercy, and matchless love. He will not be mocked by infidels or
Christ-rejecting reprobates. Take heed!
“Be not deceived; God is not
mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” (Galatians 6:7)
For the angel of
death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the
face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the
sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but
once heaved, and forever were still!
And there lay the
steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there
rolled not the breath of his pride:
And the foam of his
gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the
spray of the rock-beating surf.
And there lay the
rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his
brow and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were
all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted,
the trumpet unblown.
George Gordon, Lord
Byron (1788-1824)
Verse 7. “Thou, even Thou, art to
be feared. Not Sennacherib, nor Nisroch his god, but Jehovah
alone, Who with a silent rebuke had withered all the monarch’s host. The fear
of man is a snare, but the fear of God is a great virtue and has great power
for good over the human mind. God is to be feared profoundly, continually, and
alone.” (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, pages 325-236)
Verse 10. “Surely the wrath of man
shall praise Thee: the remainder of wrath shalt Thou restrain. …The
Devil blows the fire and melts the iron, and then the Lord fashions it for His
own purposes. Let men and devils rage as
they may; they cannot do otherwise than subserve the Divine purposes.” (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 326)
Thought: Contemplate for a moment,
all the powerful victories of our great Lord God! Give heart-felt thanks to Him, for His mercies endure forever for 'His people'.