Character of Jesus

Our Highest Praise is but Silence Before God

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

Praise waiteth for Thee, O God, in Zion… – Psalm 65:1

Perhaps, you are aware, dear friends, that there are other translations of this verse. “Praise waiteth for Thee,” may be read, “Praise is silent unto Thee”-“is silent before Thee.” One of the oldest Latin commentators reads it, “Praise and silence belong unto Thee;” and Dr. Gill tells us, that in the King of Spain’s Bible, it runs “The praise of angels is only silence before Thee, O Jehovah,” so that when we do our best our highest praise is but silence before God, and we must praise Him with confession of shortcomings. Oh, that we too, as our poet puts it, might,

“Loud as His thunders speak His praise,
And sound it lofty as His throne!”

But we cannot do that, and when our notes are most uplifted, and our hearts most joyous, we have not spoken all His praise. Compared to what His nature and glory deserve, our most earnest praise has been little more than silence. Oh, brethren, have you not often felt it to be so? Those who are satisfied with formal worship, think that they have done well when the music has been correctly sung; but those who worship God in spirit, feel that they cannot magnify Him enough. They blush over the hymns they sing and retire from the assembly of the saints mourning that they have fallen far short of His glory. O for an enlarged mind, rightly to conceive the divine majesty; next for the gift of utterance to clothe the thought in fitting language; and then for a voice like many waters, to sound forth the noble strain. Alas! as yet, we are humbled at our failures to praise the Lord as we would…How, then, shall we proclaim to men God’s glory? When we have done our best, our praise is but silence before the merit of His goodness, and the grandeur of His greatness. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1023.cfm

Perpetual Praise

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

Praise the LORD! Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever. – Psalm 106:1

“His mercy endureth for ever:” let our praises endure for ever. He makes the outgoings of the morning to rejoice, let us celebrate the rising of the sun with holy psalm and hymn. He makes the closing in of the evening to be glad, let Him have our vesper praise. “One generation shall praise Thy works to another, and shall declare Thy mighty acts.” Could His mercy cease, there might be some excuse for staying our praises: but even should it seem to be so, men who love the Lord would say with Job, “Shall we receive good at the hand of the Lord, and shall we not also receive evil? The Lord gave, end the Lord hath taken away; and blessed be the name of the Lord.” Let our praise abide, continue, remain, and be perpetual. It was a good idea of Bishop Farrar, that, in his own house he would keep up continual praise to God, and as, with a large family and household, he numbered just twenty-four, he set apart each one for an hour in the day to be engaged specially in prayer and praise, that he might girdle the day with a circle of worship. We could not do that. To attempt it might on our part be superstition; but to fall asleep blessing God, to rise in the night to meditate on Him, and when we wake in the morning to feel our hearts leap in the prospect of His presence during the day, this is attainable, and we ought to reach it. It is much to be desired that all day long, in every avocation, and every recreation, the soul should spontaneously pour forth praise, even as birds sing, and flowers perfume the air, and sunbeams cheer the earth. We would be incarnate psalmody, praise enshrined in flesh and blood. From this delightful duty we would desire no cessation and ask no pause…”Praise waiteth for Thee” with a servant’s livery on, a servant’s ear to hear, and a servant’s heart to obey. Praise bows at Thy foot-stool, feeling that it is still an unprofitable servant. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1023.cfm

Continual Praises

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, Sovereignty of God, The Father, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

Praise is awaiting You, O God, in Zion… – Psalm 65:1

It is to be feared that some of our praise ascends nowhere at all, but it is as though it were scattered to the winds. We do not always realize God. Now, “he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him;” this is as true of praise as of prayer. “God is a Spirit,” and they that praise Him must praise Him “in spirit and in truth,” for “the Father seeketh such” to praise Him, and only such; and, if we do not lift our eyes and our hearts to Him, we are but misusing words and wasting time. Our praise is not as it should be, if it be not reverently and earnestly directed to the Lord of Hosts. Vain is it to shoot arrows without a target: we must aim at God’s glory in our holy songs, and that exclusively.

“Jesus, where’er Thy people meet,
There they behold Thy mercy-seat;
Where’er they seek Thee, Thou art found,
And every place is hallow’d ground,

For Thou within no walls confined,
Inhabitest the humble mind;
Such ever bring Thee where they come,
And going, take Thee to their home.”

There should be in all our solemn assemblies a spiritual incense altar, always smoking with “the pure incense of sweet spices, mingled according to the art of the apothecary”: the thanksgiving which is made up of humility, gratitude, love, consecration, and holy joy in the Lord. It should be for the Lord alone, and it should never go out day nor night. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1023.cfm

All Praise for Thee and Only for Thee

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

Praise waiteth for Thee, O God, in Zion. – Psalm 65:1

“Praise for Thee, and all the praise for Thee,” and no praise for man or for any other who may be thought to be, or may pretend to be, worthy of praise. Have I not sometimes gone into places called houses of God where the praise has waited for a woman-for the Virgin, where praise has waited for the saints, where incense has smoked to heaven, and songs and prayers have been sent up to deceased martyrs and confessors who are supposed to have power with God? In Rome it is so, but in Zion it is not so. Praise waiteth for thee, O Mary, in Babylon; but praise waiteth for Thee, O God, in Zion. Unto God, and unto God alone, the praise of His true church must ascend. If Protestants are free from this deadly error, I fear they are guilty of another, for in our worship, we too often minister unto our own selves. We do so when we make the tune and manner of the song to be more important than the matter of it. I am afraid that where organs, choirs, and singing men and singing women are left to do the praise of the congregation, men’s minds are more occupied with the due performance of the music, than with the Lord, who alone is to be praised. God’s house is meant to be sacred unto Himself, but too often it is made an opera-house, and Christians form an audience, not an adoring assembly. The same thing may, unless great care be taken, happen amid the simplest worship, even though everything which does not savor of gospel plainness is excluded, for in that case we may drowsily drawl out the words and notes, with no heart whatever. To sing with the soul, this only is to offer acceptable song! We come not together to amuse ourselves, to display our powers of melody or our aptness in creating harmony we come to pay our adoration at the footstool of the Great King, to whom alone be glory for ever and ever. True praise is for God-for God alone. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1023.cfm

Our Holy Worship

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

Praise waiteth for Thee, O God, in Zion: and unto Thee shall the vow be performed. – 65:1

Although we shall never cease to pray as long as we live here below, and are surrounded by so many wants, yet we should never so pray as to forget to praise. “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is heaven,” must never be left out because we are pressed with want, and therefore hasten to cry, “Give us this day our daily bread.” It will be a sad hour when the worship of the church shall be only a solemn wail. Notes of exultant thanksgiving should ever ascend from her solemn gatherings. “Praise the Lord O Jerusalem; praise thy God, O Zion.” “Praise ye the Lord. Sing unto the Lord a new song, and His praise in the congregation of saints. Let Israel rejoice in Him that made him: let the children of Zion be joyful in their King.” Let it abide as a perpetual ordinance, while sun and moon endure, “Praise waiteth for Thee, O God, in Zion.” Never think little of praise, since holy angels and saints made perfect count it their life-long joy, and even the Lord Himself saith, “Whoso offereth praise, glorifieth Me.’ The tendency, I fear, among us has been to undervalue praise as a part of public worship, whereas it should be second to nothing. We frequently hear of prayer-meetings, but seldom of praise-meetings. We acknowledge the duty of prayer by setting apart certain times for it; we do not always so acknowledge the duty of praise…In everything we are to give thanks; it is as much an apostolic precept as that other, “In everything, by prayer and supplication, make your requests known unto God.” I have often said to you, dear brethren, that prayer and praise are like the breathing in and out of the air, and make up that spiritual respiration by which the inner life is instrumentally supported. We take in an inspiration of heavenly air as we pray: we breathe it out again in praise unto God, from whom it came; if then, we would be healthy in spirit, let us be abundant in thanksgiving…”Praise the Lord; for the Lord is good: sing praises unto His name; for it is pleasant.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1023.cfm

Only One Altar

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

Praise is awaiting You, O God, in Zion; and to You the vow shall be performed. – Psalm 65:1

Upon Zion there was erected an altar dedicated to God for the offering of sacrifices…The worship of God upon the high places was contrary to the divine command: “Take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt offerings in every place that thou seest: but in the place which the Lord shall choose in one of thy tribes, there thou shalt offer thy burnt offerings, and there thou shalt do all that I command thee.” Hence the tribes on the other side of Jordan, when they erected a memorial altar, disclaimed all intention of using it for the purpose of sacrifice, and said most plainly, “God forbid that we should rebel against the Lord, and turn this day from following the Lord, to build an altar for burnt offerings, for meat offerings, or for sacrifices, beside the altar of the Lord our God that is before his tabernacle.”

In fulfillment of this ancient type, we also “have an altar whereof they have no right to eat that serve the tabernacle.” Into our spiritual worship, no observers of materialistic ritualism may intrude; they have no right to eat at our spiritual altar, and there is no other at which they can eat and live for ever. There is but one altar Jesus Christ our Lord. All other altars are impostures and idolatrous inventions. Whether of stone, or wood, or brass, they are the toys with which those amuse themselves who have returned to the beggarly elements of Judaism, or else the apparatus with which clerical jugglers dupe the sons and daughters of men. Holy places made with hands are now abolished; they were once the figures of the true, but now that the substance has come, the type is done away with. The all-glorious person of the Redeemer, God and Man, is the great center of Zion’s temple, and the only real altar of sacrifice. He is the Church’s head, the Church’s heart, the Church’s altar, priest, and all in all. “To Him shall the gathering of the people be.” Around Him we all congregate even as the tribes around the tabernacle of the Lord in the wilderness…So where Christ is the center, where His one sacrifice is the altar whereon all offerings are laid; and where the Church unites around that common center, and rejoices in that one sacrifice, there is the true Zion. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1023.cfm

The Great Redeemer Lives

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Father Leave a comment

I am He that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen. – Revelation 1:18

The Lord in the glory of His tenderness mentions…His atoning death. He says, “I was dead,” the original more correctly rendered is “was made dead.” Here we come upon the human nature of our Redeemer. As God and as man He had two natures, but He was not two persons. As one person He ever lives, and yet He was made to die. He came into this world in human form that He might be capable of death; the pure spirit of God could not die, it was not possible that He, the I AM, could be subject to death; but He allied Himself with humanity, and in that human form Jesus could die, and did die. In very deed, and truth, and not in semblance; Jesus bowed His head, and gave up the ghost, and they laid His corpse in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. Here to the child of God is a fruitful source of consolation. He died, then the atonement is complete; without the shedding of blood there is no remission, but the death of the Son of God brings plenteous pardon. There must be in the death of such a one of sufficient merit to remove guilt and cleanse transgression. Is it not written, “He hath washed us from our sins in His own blood?” Dost thou not hear that song in heaven? Will not its music make thee glad? His own blood hath washed thee; if thou believest in Him thou art clean. Look to Calvary, and as thou lookest there and perceivest that He was dead, “fear not.”

And then the master declared His endless life, “I am alive for evermore.” He who offered up the atonement lives again to claim the effect of His sacrifice. He has presented the meritorious sacrifice, and now He has gone to heaven to plead the sacrifice before the throne of God, and to lay claim to the place which He has prepared for them that love Him. Thou hast no dead Savior to trust to: thou reliest in Him who once died-this is comfort to thee, but He lives, the great Redeemer lives. He has risen from the tomb; He has climbed the hills of heaven; He sits at the right hand of the Father, prepared to defend His people. If thou hadst a Christ in the sepulcher that were sorrow upon sorrow; but thou hast a Christ in heaven, who can die no more. Be thou of good cheer. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1028.cfm