PROPHETIC PSALMS

 

 

IN THEIR RELATION TO ISRAEL

 

 

By

 

 

BENJAMIN  WILLS  NEWTON

 

 

 

SECOND EDITION

 

 

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The Psalms may be regarded as God’s own commentary on the things recorded in other parts of His Holy Word.  In other parts of Scripture He has revealed the events which have, or which shall, under His appointment, come to pass in the earth.  In the Psalms we find descriptions adapted to those events - descriptions not unfrequently supplied by the words of supplication, or of thanksgiving employed by those who are personally acting in the circumstances referred to.

 

 

THE EARTH and things manifested therein, whether by God for good, or by Satan for evil, are the peculiar subjects of the Psalms, and that in especial connection with Israel, the earthly people of God: Israel, and the Land of Israel, being the sphere       especially appointed of God for the manifestation of His dealings in the earth, whether in judgment or in mercy.        The past manifestations of the miraculous power of God, from Moses to Jesus, have been seen [Page 4] in Israel.  There Satan has been permitted to make the great display of his enmity against God in crucifying Jesus; there, too, he will develop the matured results of “the mystery of iniquity” in the latter day.  There we have beheld the one perfect manifestation of righteousness in the person of the Son; there the full manifestation of iniquity will be seen in the person of Antichrist.  There the Righteous One was scorned and rejected; there the “lawless one” shall be exalted and glorified.  And when the appointed hour comes for judgment to be heard from heaven, and for iniquity to have an end, Jerusalem and the Land of Israel is the place where the great manifestation of that judgment is to be.  Armageddon is there; the valley of Jehoshaphat is there.  And when righteousness and truth shall be established in the earth, Jerusalem and Zion are to be the manifested centre of the earth’s new government.  “Out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”

 

 

In the historically prophetic Psalms therefore (I speak not now of the others) there is little said respecting the present period during which Jerusalem is desolate, and the Lord is as one that hath withdrawn Himself into His place, silently gathering out a remnant from Israel, and from the nations.  After describing the place of suffering righteousness occupied typically by David, and fully by David’s Antitype, after dwelling on the cross of Jesus, and the wickedness there manifested against Him, these [Page 5] Psalms rapidly pass on to those yet future manifestations of evil and of good that are to mark Israel’s history in the latter days.

 

 

There is., however, one verse that should be noted as belonging, and that exclusively, to this present period.  It is the first verse of the 110th Psalm: “Jehovah said unto my Lord, Sit Thou at my right hand until I make, Thine enemies Thy footstool,” or more literally, “until I shall have set Thy foes a footstool for Thy feet.” These words addressed to the Lord Jesus in consequence of His rejection by Israel and the earth, are quoted more frequently than any other by the Lord and His Apostles, because so characteristic of the dispensation which their ministry had introduced.  But how are these words forgotten!  Men love to dwell on the angel’s saying, “Peace on earth, good will toward men;” they, love to speak of the birth of Jesus as if thereby the earth, and all that is in it, were effectually brought to blessing and to God; but they seem to forget that Jesus has been rejected, and that as rejected He, now sitteth, not on His own throne, not on the throne of His father David, but on His heavenly Father’s throne, waiting till His enemies shall have been set as a footstool for His feet.  We read of Joshua of old planting his victorious foot on the necks of his enemies, a type of the doom reserved for those who, after rejecting the, testimony of Christ’s grace, defy the glory of His risen power.  If we read what the Scripture says respecting Armageddon [Page 6] (Rev. 16: 16) and the valley of Jehoshaphat (Joel. 3: 12), we shall see where His enemies shall be gathered, and how they will be crushed. To that hour the second verse of this Psalm belongs: “Jehovah shall send the rod of Thy strength out of Zion: rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies.”  The Land of Israel - Immanuel’s Land - shall teem with enemies then.  Antichrist will be there: the kings of the whole Roman world and all their armies will be there: but in the midst of them Christ shall come forth to rule.  “Then shall He speak unto them in His wrath, and vex them in His sore displeasure.”  “Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision, for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.”  But that day of judgment on the nations is to be the day of forgiveness of the remnant of Israel - that remnant that is to be made “a strong nation.”  “Thy people (Israel) shall be willing in the day of Thy POWER;” that is, they who have so long despised the day of Thy weakness; they who have so long refused “the foolishness of preaching,” shall, in the day of Thy power, be willing, and render themselves up as a free-will offering unto Thee.

 

 

But before we refer further to passages such as these which speak of Israel’s blessedness in the latter days, we must turn to some other Psalms which speak of the darkness and sorrow which is to precede.  We have seen, on other occasions, how the Jews will return to Jerusalem in unbelief and [Page 7] restore their temple, and how they will be seduced by Antichrist who will glorify himself on Zion and fill Jerusalem with iniquity.  It is to this period that many of the Psalms refer.  In the tenth Psalm, for example, we find a very full description of “the man of the earth,” his pride, his treachery, his persecution of the poor and humble - that is, of those who, because they refuse to make his wickedness their strength, remain in weakness to meet the fierceness of his hatred.  Such will be the condition of some in Israel whose hearts will then begin to be softened by the Lord, and who will refuse to abandon hope in the Jehovah of Israel, for the sake of the great oppressor.

 

 

The futurity of this and similar Psalms is proved by the futurity of the deliverance referred to in such verses as these:- “Arise, O Jehovah!  O God! lift up Thine hand: forget not the humble.  Wherefore doth the wicked contemn God?  He hath said in his heart, Thou wilt not require it.  Thou hast seen it: for Thou beholdest mischief and spite to requite it with Thy hand: the poor committeth himself unto Thee: Thou art the helper of the fatherless.  Break Thou the arm of the wicked and the evil man: seek out his wickedness till Thou find none.  The Lord is King, for ever and ever: the Gentiles are perished out of His land.  Lord, Thou hast heard the desire of the humble: Thou wilt prepare their heart, Thou wilt cause their ear to hear: to judge the fatherless and the oppressed, that the man of the earth may no [Page 8] more oppress.” (Psalm 10.)  The arm of wickedness is not yet finally broken.  The Gentiles are not yet perished out of God’s land.  The man of the earth has not yet ceased to oppress.  The Psalm, therefore, as a whole, must be interpreted as future; although many of its verses may be applied to similar developments of evil, wherever or whenever manifested.  We, do not take from Scripture the proper width of its application, because we say it must first be interpreted of that to which it primarily belongs.  If a description be given of evil in the full maturity of its development, that description will include lesser and earlier developments: for the greater comprehends the less.  And on this principle Scripture is written.

 

 

The twelfth Psalm may also be referred to as descriptive of the Antichristian period of Israel’s history.  “Help, O Jehovah! for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men.  They speak vanity every one with his neighbour: with flattering lips and with a double heart do they speak.  The Lord shall cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things: who have said, With our tongue will we prevail: our lips are our own: who is lord over us?  For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the Lord: I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him.  The words of the Lord are pure words; as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.  Thou shalt [Page 9] keep them, O Lord, Thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.  The wicked walk on every side, when the vilest men are exalted.”  Now Jehovah has not yet arisen to set the poor and needy at rest from him that puffeth at him; neither is it as yet in the full sense true that the needy have ceased, and the vilest been exalted.  The Psalm, therefore, as a whole is manifestly future.  Nevertheless, similar elements of evil, though in an embryo form, were manifested when David fled before the wickedness of Saul: and again in more advanced development, when the Holy One suffered; and now they may be seen giving each day more and more a tone to human society around us.  When, for example, was there a time when the tongue was more ready to speak “proud things”?  When was man more ready to say, “Our lips are our own; who is lord over us?”  Antichrist, in the fulness of his lawlessness, can scarcely say more than this.  Antichrist, during the earlier part of his career at any rate, will not so much introduce new principles of evil as centralize and give effect to those with which men will have been long conversant.  This Psalm, therefore, although future, has a solemn application to present things; each day bringing society nearer to the hour when the picture will be fully verified.

 

 

In the, fourteenth and fifty-third Psalms also, which are nearly counterparts, we, find especial reference made to the atheistic blasphemy of that period: “The fool hath said in his heart, There is [Page 10] no God.”  The chief distinction between these two Psalms is, that in the fourteenth the oppressors of Israel are addressed: in the fifty-third, Israel themselves are addressed.  “Ye have shamed the counsel of the poor, because Jehovah is his refuge,” are words addressed by Jehovah as the covenant God of Israel, to Israel’s oppressors.  But in the fifty-third Psalm, Israel is thus addressed: “God hath scattered the bones of him that encampeth against thee (Israel): Thou hast put them to shame because God hath despised them.”  This mention of the destruction of the enemies of Israel clearly marks that this Psalm is, as a whole, future.  It will not be accomplished till the prayer of the concluding verse shall have been answered.  “Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion!  When God bringeth back the captivity of His people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad.”

 

 

The Psalms which I have quoted may be sufficient as examples of those which describe the moral features of the [present] Antichristian [immoral, apostate, and anti-millennialist] period.  I will now refer to some which express the experiences and feelings of the remnant in Israel during the time of Antichrist.  First, however, it may be desirable to state more explicitly who this remnant of Israel are.

 

 

Heavy and fearful judgments, the like to which have never yet been, are to fall upon Israel after they have returned to their land in unbelief, before they are forgiven and grafted again into their own [Page 11] olive tree.  “There shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people (Daniel’s people, Israel) shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.” (Daniel 12.)  Those who are thus delivered, are in other places called “a remnant.”  Thus in Isa. 10: 20: “And it shall come to pass in that day, that the REMNANT of Israel, and such as are escaped of the house of Jacob, shall no more again stay upon him that smote them; but shall stay upon the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth.  The REMNANT shall return, even the REMNANT of Jacob, unto the mighty God.”  How many will be thus spared in that part of Israel which will at that time be scattered among the nations, we are not told: but of those who are “in the land” a third part is to be spared.  “And it shall come to pass, that in ALL THE LAND, saith the Lord, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the THIRD shall be left therein.  And I will bring the THIRD PART through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried; they shall call on my name, and I will hear them; I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The Lord is my God.” (Zech. 13.)  At what exact moment the hearts of the remnant will first be aroused and become sensible that Antichrist is the destroyer and not the saviour of their people, we are not told.  When Antichrist shall first befriend Israel “and make a [Page 12] covenant with them”* (Dan. 9: 27), they, like the rest of their people, will probably be thoroughly deceived. But after he has begun to “practise” in Jerusalem, and to “cast down” all truth with a view to bringing in his own abominations, their hearts will be aroused, and it is just at this time that their prophetic description in the Psalms begins.

 

* This covenant which Antichrist will enter into with Israel is also referred to in Isa 28: 18.  “Your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell [Heb. ‘Sheol’] shall not stand.”  The period for which Antichrist makes a covenant with Israel is said in Dan. 9 to be seven years - one hebdomad of years.  The whole period during which he “practises” in Jerusalem as described in Dan. 8., is days, which is a little more than six years and a half.  The period during which he becomes the avowed persecutor of Israel, and establishes his own idolatrous worship in their temple, is 1260 days, or three years and a half - being the latter half of the seven years mentioned above.

 

 

In the New Testament we find that as soon as the idolatrous worship of Antichrist is established in Jerusalem, every servant of Jesus is commanded instantly to quit both Jerusalem and Judea.  Christianity, therefore, will cease there to exist.  As respects Israel, it will be, as if every saint were taken from the earth.  Jerusalem will be left in blackness of darkness, that THE FOOL who saith, “There is no God,” may there, reign and glorify himself, and “establish mischief by a law.”  Israel, looked at as a whole, will have become a nation of blaspheming infidels, and as such would be swept into quick perdition if it were not that they are [Page 13] God’s nation - beloved for the fathers’ sake - a people of whom God has said, that He will not make of them “a full end.”  Accordingly, at this very moment He sends into Jerusalem another testimony not indeed that of the grace of the Gospel; for as soon as the servants of Jesus quit Jerusalem that testimony will depart with them, and it will not again be heard in that city until after the great (day of visitation shall have passed) but there, will be sent into Jerusalem another testimony - the sackcloth testimony of the witnesses: “I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy … clothed in sackcloth.”  They will testify of mercies rejected; of sins that have been and that are being committed; of the judgment that is at the doors; and although the mass in Israel will reject this, like every previous testimony of their God, yet there will be some softened hearts who shall be ready to say, “The summer is passed, the harvest is ended, and we are not gathered.”  The ministry of the witnesses will stand nearly in the same relation to the Advent of the Lord in glory, as the ministry of John the Baptist did to the Advent of the Lord in humiliation.  The ministry of John led to repentance and moral rectification, and to future hope in One who was to come ; but those whom John taught were not brought into recognised salvation until Jesus Himself came.  So will it be again.  The hope of the remnant of Israel will be, not deliverance from, [Page 14] but protection through the terrors of the day of the Lord.  It is while they are passing through the terrors of that day that the Lord shall say of them, “My people,” and they shall say, “The Lord is my God.”  None, therefore, among them will be owned as belonging to Jesus, nor be brought under the recognised protection of His name, until He appears.  Nor will the light that they will previously receive be received at once.  They will receive it gradually as well as partially, as the Psalms we are about to consider plainly show.

 

 

In the seventy-fourth Psalm we find one of their earliest cries.  Their expression of confidence as to the preciousness of Israel in the sight of their God is very decided.  “Oh deliver not the soul of Thy turtle dove into the multitude of the wicked: forget not the congregation of Thy poor for ever.  Have respect unto the covenant; for the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty.  O let not the oppressed return ashamed: let the poor and needy praise Thy name.  Arise, O God, plead Thine own cause: remember how the foolish man reproacheth Thee daily.  Forget not the voice of Thine enemies: the tumult of those that rise up against Thee increaseth continually.”  These words imply a strong appreciation of the darkness that broods over the nations, and of the preciousness of Israel in the sight of their God: but there is little of confession in this Psalm - little recognition of the sins that had brought upon Israel these calamities. [Page 15] Surely they had little reason to say, “O God, WHY hast thou cast us off? ... WHY does Thine anger, smoke against the sheep of Thy pasture? ... WHY withdrawest Thou Thy hand?”  Yet such are the expressions of this Psalm; and their lamentation seems rather to be over the desolation wrought by the enemy, than over their own or their people’s sin.  “Lift up Thy feet unto the perpetual desolations; even all that the enemy hath done wickedly in the sanctuary.  Thine enemies roar in the midst of Thy congregations; they set up their ensigns for signs.  A man was famous according as he had lifted up axes upon the thick trees.* But now they break down the carved work thereof at once with axes and hammers.  They have cast fire into Thy sanctuary; they have defiled by casting down the dwelling place of Thy name to the ground.  They said in their hearts, Let us destroy them together: they have burned up all the synagogues of God in the land.  We see not our signs: there is no more any prophet: neither is there among us any that knoweth how long.”  These words are vividly descriptive of the desolation that Antichrist and Anti-christianism will be working in the midst of Israel, and vividly descriptive too of their own felt blindness.  “We see not our signs; there is no [Page 16] more any prophet: neither is there among us any that knoweth how long.”  How contrasted with the condition of these who having given heed to the true Prophet of Israel, will be walking in the fulness of light, and will see in the very things of which this benighted remnant of Israel speak, the signs that their redemption is drawing nigh.  This Psalm may be regarded as probably the earliest used by the awakened remnant of Israel just immediately preceding the hour when Antichrist will fully establish his idolatry in their defiled temple.

 

* That is, men become no longer famous by putting forth their strength in felling mighty trees for Thy sanctuary, but they now become famous by breaking down its carved work with axes and hammers.

 

 

Another Psalm of like character is the seventy-ninth, but in that we find more of the language of confession.  “O God, the Gentiles are come into thine inheritance; Thy holy temple have they defiled; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps ... How long, Lord? wilt thou be angry for ever? shall Thy jealousy burn like fire? ... O remember not against us former iniquities: let Thy tender mercies speedily prevent us: for we are brought very low.  Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of Thy name: and deliver us, and purge away our sins for Thy name’s sake ... So we Thy people and sheep of Thy pasture will give Thee thanks for ever: we will show forth Thy praise to all generations.”

 

 

In neither of these Psalms, however, do we find the real need of Israel specified.  We find no recognition of their need of being “quickened,” and of being “turned” by the hand of God, and of being [Page 17] blessed in the title of another’s name.  In the eightieth Psalm, however (and this may be regarded as the fullest of Israel’s confessions during the time of their sorrows) we find no less than three verses saying, “Turn us again, O God.”* We find them also saying, “Quicken us, and we will call upon Thy name:” and again, “Let Thy hand be upon the man of Thy right hand, upon the son of man whom thou madest strong for Thyself” - words which seem clearly to indicate their expectation of being blessed through Him who is now seated at God’s right hand.  But beyond this the experience of Israel does not go during the day of their calamity.  It is not fruition, but expectation: not present recognised acceptance, but hoped-for mercy.

 

* See also Jer. 31: 18, “Turn Thou me and I shall be turned, for Thou art the Lord my God.  Surely after that I was turned, I repented: and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh.”

 

 

And now let us turn to other Psalms which describe the manner in which these supplications will be answered.  They will not be answered until the Gentile, oppressors of Israel shall have given full expression to the thoughts of their rebel hearts in saying of Jehovah and of Christ, “Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us,” and in saying of Israel, “Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.”

 

 

The second Psalm describes the last great confederation of the nations against Jehovah and [Page 18] against Christ. “Why do the Gentiles rage, and the peoples imagine a vain thing?  The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against Jehovah, and against His anointed saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.  He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord (Adonai i.e. Christ) shall have them in derision.  THEN shall He speak unto them in His wrath, and vex them in His sore displeasure.  Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.”  The word THEN, which is emphatic in the original, sufficiently shows that the Psalm, as a whole, must be interpreted of a yet future period; although it may be applied (as in the New Testament it has been) to confederacies that have already been.  There is, however, only one confederacy that is to be crushed so immediately by the judgments of heaven, that as soon as it has been gathered, THEN it is to be, overwhelmed.  There is only one confederation whose destruction shall be succeeded by the installation of God’s King upon Zion, the mountain of His holiness.  The day of the triumph of evil shall end for ever as soon as Christ shall arise to “speak in wrath and vex in sore displeasure.”  The Scripture is full of allusions to the gathering of this great confederacy and its overthrow.  Armageddon is the place of its gathering: the valley of Jehoshaphat under the walls of Jerusalem, the place of its overthrow.  Its gathering is described in Rev. 16.: its overthrow in Joel 3.

 

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When last the hosts of earth dared to confront the visible glory of God, Israel were the subject of conflict.  God said of Israel, “They are my people,” but Pharaoh said, “Though they are His people I will destroy them.” Neither the past remembrance of God’s power, nor the sight of the divided waters, nor the presence of God’s visible glory on which he had gazed all night, awed the proud heart of the monarch of Egypt into submission, or into fear.  So will it be again.  Antichrist, and the nations under him, will rise up against Israel, not to enslave them merely, or to scatter them, or to tread them down, but “to cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.”  “Keep not Thou silence, O God; hold not Thy peace, and be not still, O God.  For, lo, Thine enemies make a tumult, and they that hate Thee have lifted up the head.  They have taken crafty counsel against Thy people, and consulted against Thy hidden ones.  They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.  O my God, make them like a wheel; as the stubble before the wind.  As the fire burneth a wood, and as the flame setteth the mountains on fire; so persecute them with Thy tempest, and make them afraid with Thy storm.  Fill their faces with shame: that they may seek Thy name, O Lord.  Let them be confounded and troubled for ever: yea, let them be put to shame, and perish: that men may know that [Page 20] Thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the Most High over all the earth.” (Psalm 83.)

 

 

Such will be the cry of those who fear God in the midst of Israel.  Nor will it be unanswered.  Many a triumphant Psalm of Israel describes the overthrow of the hosts of the alien.  “In Judah is God known: His name is great in Israel.         In Salem also is His tabernacle, and His dwelling place in Zion.  There brake He the arrows of the bow, the shield, and the sword, and the battle.  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 horse are cast into a deep sleep.  Thou, even Thou, art to be feared; and who may stand in Thy sight when once Thou art angry?  Thou didst cause judgment to be heard from heaven; the earth feared and was still, when God arose to judgment, to save all the meek of the earth.”  See also the forty-eighth Psalm: “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness.  Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great king.  God is known in her palaces for a refuge.  For lo, the kings were assembled, they passed by together.  They saw it, and so they marvelled; they were troubled and hasted away.  Fear took hold upon them there, and pain, as of a woman in travail.  Thou breakest the [Page 21] ships of Tarshish with an east wind.  As we have heard, so we have seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God: God will establish it for ever.”  And again, in the forty-sixth Psalm: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.  Therefore will we not fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.  There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacle of the Most High.  God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved; God shall help her, and that right early. The Gentiles raged, the kingdoms were moved: He uttered His voice, the earth melted.  The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.  Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations He hath made in the earth.  He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; He breaketh the bow and cutteth the spear in sunder; He burneth the chariot in the fire.  Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the Gentiles, I will be exalted in the earth.  The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.”

 

 

The 124th Psalm should also be read: “If it had net been the Lord who was on our side, now may Israel say: if it had not been the Lord, who was on our side, when men rose up against us; then they had swallowed us up quick, when their wrath was [Page 22] kindled against us; then the waters had overwhelmed us, the stream had gone over our soul; then the proud waters had gone over our soul.  Blessed be the Lord, who hath not given us as a prey to their teeth.  Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers, the snare is broken, and we are escaped.  Our help is in the name of the Lord, Who made heaven and earth.” Such are the Psalms which describe the deliverance of Israel, and the overthrow of their enemies, and of God’s enemies in that day.

 

 

But why are the delivered remnant of Israel thus precious in the sight of God?  Is it merely because they are the seed. of Abraham according to the flesh? or will they be viewed as united to a greater than Abraham - as one with Christ, and therefore precious according to His preciousness?  The eighteenth Psalm will answer.

 

 

There are few parts of Scripture that have been more erroneously interpreted than this Psalm; and the error has hence extended itself to other parts of the word of God, and introduced principles of interpretation that have affected Scripture as a whole.  For if the solemn language of this Psalm, which describes so vividly the manifestation of the glory of God, can be explained away on the grounds of poetic exaggeration and the like, it is very obvious that every similar passage may on similar principles be nullified.  If heightened language be employed here to produce fictitious effect, it may be equally [Page 23] employed in other parts of the word of God, and how then could the Scripture be called the Scripture of truth?  And now observe the solemn power of the (description in the passage before us.  “In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried unto my God, He heard my voice out of His temple, and my cry came before Him, even into His ears.  Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, because He was wroth.  There went up a smoke out of His nostrils, and fire out of His mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it.  He bowed the heavens also, and came down; and darkness was under His feet.  And He rode upon a cherub, and did fly: yea, He did fly upon the wings of the wind.  He made darkness His secret place: His pavilion round about Him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies.  At the brightness that was before Him His thick clouds passed, hail stones and coals of fire.  The Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave His voice; hail stones and coals of fire.  Yea, He sent out His arrows and scattered them; and He shot out lightnings, and discomfited them.  Then the channels of waters were seen, and the foundations of the world were discovered at Thy rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of Thy nostrils.”

 

 

Will anyone affirm that God thus manifested His glory, and shook the heavens and the earth when the typical David was delivered from the hands of Saul?  Or was there any such manifestation of glory when [Page 24] Jesus rose from the dead?  He rose during the silence of night, unseen by mortal eye.  The heavens were not bowed; the foundations of the round world were not discovered: the channels of waters were not seen; Jehovah did not send out arrows to scatter, nor lightnings to discomfit.  So far from the resurrection of Jesus being followed by destructive judgment, it was followed by that ministration of grace which is even still being directed towards a lost world.  The Psalm, therefore, is clearly unfulfilled.  It was spoken by the typical David Prophetically. There is in it no empty metaphor - no poetic exaggeration.  Every word will be fulfilled with close exactitude in the great day of coming visitation.

 

 

Moreover, what is the result of this visible interference of Jehovah when He shall bow the heavens and come down?  The result is the deliverance and exaltation of the antitypical David, whose enemies shall be made as dust before the wind, and Himself be exalted, not invisibly in the heavens as now, but manifestly in the earth.  “Thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle: Thou hast subdued under me those that rose up against me.  Thou hast given me the necks of mine enemies, that I might destroy them that hate me.  They cried, but there was none to save them; even unto the Lord, but He answered them not.  Then did I beat them small as the dust before the wind: I did cast them out as the dirt in the streets.  Thou [Page 25] delivered me from the strivings of the people; and Thou hast made me the head of the Gentiles; a people whom I have not known shall serve me.  As soon as they hear of me, they shall obey me; the strangers shall submit themselves unto me.  The strangers shall fade away, and be afraid out of their close places.”  Such will be the language, of the great Head of Israel in that coming day: I say day, for the strangers have not yet faded away.  They have not yet been made to fear out of their close places.

 

 

But how, it will be asked, can the commencing verses of this Psalm be used of Christ?  How can He be spoken of as “compassed” at any future time by “the sorrows of death,” and by “the floods of ungodly men?”  “The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid.  The sorrows of hell compassed me about; the snares of death prevented me.”  How, it will be said, can circumstances such as these be ever again supposed to attach to Christ?  To Christ personal, indeed, they can not attach, for He is beyond the power of human evil, crowned with glory and at the right hand of the majesty in the heavens; but to Christ mystical they can and will attach.  Christ is one with His brethren.  “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou ME?” There is an hour coming when the elect remnant of Israel, compassed truly by floods of ungodliness (the like to which have never been) shall be suddenly looked on by Jehovah through the [Page 26] preciousness of the blood of Jesus; and that moment they shall be one with Jesus in His sight.  Their cry shall be as the cry of Jesus - their sorrow as His sorrow.  In answer to that cry, He boweth the heavens and comes down to confront their enemies.  He sendeth forth His arrows, and scattereth them: He shooteth forth His lightnings, and discomfiteth them.  His people are delivered, and then Christ speaks of their deliverance as His deliverance; of their rescue as His rescue; and, connecting His innocency with their worthlessness, He speaks of His innocency as rewarded in their salvation.  “He brought me forth also into a large place; He delivered me, because He delighted in me.  The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands hath He recompensed me.  For I have kept the ways of the Lord, and have not wickedly departed from my God.  For all His judgments were before me, and I did not put away His statutes from me.  I was also upright before Him, and I kept myself from mine iniquity.  Therefore hath the Lord recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in His eyesight.”  Such words as these become the lips of One only, and prove that it is Christ who speaks.  Standing thus as the recognised Head of Israel, He speaks of every foe being scattered, of all strangers submitting.  “As soon as they hear of me, they shall obey me: the strangers shall submit themselves unto me.  The strangers [Page 27] shall fade away, and be afraid out of their close places.  The Lord liveth: and blessed be my rock: and let the God of my salvation be exalted.  It is God that avengeth me, and subdueth the people under me.  He delivereth me from mine enemies: yea: Thou liftest me up above those that rise up against me: Thou hast delivered me from the violent man.  Therefore, will I give thanks unto Thee, O Lord, among the Gentiles, and sing praises unto Thy name.  Great deliverance giveth He to His king: and sheweth mercy to His anointed, to David, and to his seed for evermore.”  How surely [during the time of His millennial reign] shall every word of this blessed Psalm be fulfilled!  How truly shall all the earth thus see the salvation of God!  Yet how could we explain one verse of this Psalm, if Christ were not one with His people?  Accordingly, the Apostle Paul quotes from the first verse of this Psalm in the Epistle to the Hebrews, as a proof that Christ is one with His brethren: for the saved remnant of Israel will be the brethren of Jesus in that day.  He shall be recognised as the true Joseph sent before them to preserve life.*

 

* It is exceedingly important to remember this identification of Christ with elect Israel.  The name “Israel” is twice given to Christ in the prophets.  “When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt,” and again, “Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified” (Isa. 49: 3.) one with His brethren, the elect remnant of Israel, whose circumstances are described in this Psalm.

 

 

The words, “I will put my trust in Him,” quoted by the Apostle in the Hebrews, are found in the eighteenth Psalm as given in 2 Sam. 23: 3.  They are quoted by the Apostle to prove that the people of Christ are one with Him and His brethren.  The Apostle, in using this argument, assumes that Christ could only apply the words of the eighteenth Psalm to Himself on the ground of being one with His brethren, i.e., the elect remnant of Israel, whose circumstances are described in this Psalm.

 

 

It is interesting to observe, that in the Hebrews, the Apostle, by his two quotations (viz., Ps. 22: 22, “In the midst of the congregation I will praise Thee,” and that from the eighteenth Psalm) quotes two millennial texts to prove the brotherhood and oneness of converted Israel with Christ, before, by his third quotation, (“Behold, I and the children whom God hath given me,”) he proves the brotherhood and oneness of the saints of the present dispensation with Christ.  He begins with Israel because he was writing to Hebrew Christians.

 

[Page 28]

And now let us turn to some of the Psalms of triumph by which Israel will express their thankfulness in that day of joy.  Often, during the period of the earth’s woe, the voice of solitary thanksgiving has been heard.  Individuals, alone and together, have often, even in the midst of sorrow, raised the accepted song of praise: but the voice of accepted national worship will not and cannot be heard until Israel, “converted and healed,” shall worship in spirit and in truth.  They, indeed, shall truthfully say, “Make a joyful noise unto God all ye lands: serve the Lord with gladness: come before His presence with singing.  Know ye that the Lord He is God: it is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture.  Enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise: be thankful unto Him, and bless His name.  For the Lord is good: His mercy is everlasting; and His truth endureth to all generations.”  Blessed words! but can we use them now?  What nation, what national assembly can now truthfully say, “We are Thy people, and [Page 29] the sheep of Thy pasture?”  Ritualism has, indeed, pretended to change servants of the world and of Satan, into sheep of Christ’s field; and, therefore, Christendom (willingly deceived) daily repeats these words.  But it is a solemn thing to mock God with falsehood.  Neither Christendom, nor any nation within it, is entitled to say, “We are Thy people, and the sheep of Thy pasture;” nor does God authorise any one to say to the nations now, “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord ALL YE LANDS.”  How can nations, fast bound in misery and iron - nations whom gross darkness covers - nations tyrannised over by Satan and Satan’s servants, how can such make a joyful noise before Jehovah, and come into His presence with a song?  Can he that is bound in iron, dance?  Can he that groans in agony, sing?  God asks not for joy where no joy is.  He asks not for worship from those, whom Truth has not brought into the knowledge of His love.

 

 

Disastrous, indeed, has been the result of the perversion of the millennial Psalms.  When men, deceived by the formalities of Ritualism, are told that these Psalms of triumph are, by God’s own appointment, theirs - when they are taught to regard themselves as the Zion of God, and to say, “Walk about Zion, mark well her palaces, consider her bulwarks,” and the like, is it any wonder that a picture so pleasant and so flattering should be welcomed?  Delusion becomes indeed riveted upon the soul when it receives, upon the supposed [Page 30] authority of God, falsehoods that harmonise with its own desires.  And how great the delusion!  In human life, when the poor maniac mistakes the darkness of night for the brightness of day, when he hears the wail of anguish and thinks it to be the song of joy, we do not deceive ourselves as to the fearfulness of his malady.  Shall we then be blind to that moral madness, which, although “darkness covers the earth, and gross darkness the peoples,” persists in acting, and speaking, and worshipping, as if we were in the morning of light; and which calls on the nations to be joyful, and the trees of the wood to clap their hands, and all things to give thanks, during the time that creation groans in the bondage of corruption?  Do we, indeed, mistake that groan?  Do we think it to be the hallelujah of the Day of God?

 

 

Again, there are some whose minds have been disenchanted of the spell of Ritualism, and who seek rest in believing nothing.  Lost in the gloom of infidelity, unhappy inwardly and outwardly, groaning, perhaps, under cruelty and oppression, they are told that now is the time when the earth and all things in it are expected to clap their hands, and to rejoice, and to sing the new millennial song. This it is said, is the commandment and the claim of God.  But “as he that taketh away a garment in cold weather, and as vinegar upon nitre, so is he that singeth songs to a heavy heart.” Prov. 25.  To sing songs to the miserable, or to require songs from them, is not [Page 31] what God commandeth.  And if we should arouse it on the alleged authority of God, can we wonder if we should arouse into still greater fierceness the spirit that already murmurs against Him.  But what if we should speak the truth?  What if we should say to the discontented or writhing heart, that the present order of human things is not according to God; that He well knows that all things are out of course; that He feels for the universal groan, and that He will soon put forth the power of His Almighty hand and alter all; and that then, and not till then, He will call on all things to rejoice - after He has filled the earth with blessing?  How different the aspect thus presented!  It might, under God’s blessing, strike the soul in the power of the truth, and be the means of bringing it to Christ.  Truth, if received, softens: but falsehood (and there is no more potent form of falsehood than perverted truth) can only harden.

 

 

I have already referred to the hundredth Psalm as one example of those which pertain to the future period of Israel’s and the earth’s millennial joy.  The ninety-eighth Psalm is another.  “O sing unto the Lord a new song; for he hath done marvellous things: His right hand, and His holy arm, hath gotten Him the victory.  The Lord hath made known His salvation: His righteousness hath He openly shewed in the sight of the Gentiles. He hath remembered His mercy and His truth toward the house of Israel: all the ends of the earth have seen [Page 32] the salvation of our God.  Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise.  Sing unto the Lord with the harp, and the voice of a psalm.  With trumpets and sound of cornet make a joyful noise before the Lord, the King.  Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof; the world and they that dwell therein.  Let the floods clap their hands: let the hills be joyful together before the Lord; for He cometh to judge the earth: with righteousness shall He judge the world, and the people with equity.”  The ninety-fifth, ninety-sixth and ninety-seventh Psalms belong to the same period.  How bright the light thus thrown upon the earth’s future history!  This blessedness will result, not merely from the judgment which will sweep away evil, and “destroy them that destroy the earth,” nor will it spring simply from the fact that converted Israel will be set as a new governmental centre for the nations: Christ will Himself assume a new relation to the earth, in undertaking the immediate administration of its government.

 

 

Administration of power is not the same thing as its possession: for possessed power may for a season be delegated, so as not to be administered by its possessor.* In the days of Daniel, governmental power in the earth was delegated by the throne of God to certain Gentile empires.  This delegated [Page 33] power is not yet resumed, nor will be until Antichrist shall have fully matured his evil, and then the Son of man shall be brought before the Ancient of Days and invested with the administrative power of earth.  Then shall be heard voices in heaven saying, “The sovereignty of the world has become the sovereignty of our God, and of His Christ ... We give Thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, ... because Thou hast taken to Thee Thy great power, and hast reigned.”  The power is regarded as having been ever His; but the thanksgiving is rendered because He has taken it to Himself to exercise.  Then will be brought to pass the words of the prophet, “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.  In His days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely; and this is His name whereby He shall be called, JEHOVAH OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.” Jer. 23: 5.  Then also shall be, accomplished the words of the angel to Mary, “The Lord God shall give unto Him (Jesus) the throne of His father David.”  This throne has not yet been given to the Son of David.   As the rejected of earth, He sits now at the Father’s right hand waiting.  As the Melchizedek Priest and King, and as Mediator, He sits on the throne of the majesty in the heavens, exercising all the power of that throne; but He has not yet sat down on His own throne.  To this He Himself [Page 34] refers when He says, “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me, in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in His throne.”

 

* I say “possessor,” because he which is able to delegate power must have it vested in himself.

 

 

Nothing, perhaps, proves more wonderfully the terrible power of Satan, than the ability he possesses of [deceiving and in] leading men to use the most solemn parts of Scripture without their being in the least conscious of the real meaning of the words they utter.  How often do they say, “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ.”  “Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.” These are the words they choose to themselves to sing in the days of their pomp and revelry.  But what if they be verified whilst they are being sung?  What if the true hallelujahs of heaven should supplant the mock hallelujahs of earth?  Who among the careless throng would be ready?  Would not the very tongues that were seeming to raise the heavenly anthem of praise shriek with the shriek of everlasting woe?  Would they not call on the rocks to hide them, and the mountains to cover them?  Ah! when are the [present-day apostate, disbelieving and Anti-millennialist] assemblies of the world more dangerous than when they clothe themselves in the garments of the sanctuary, and in careless thoughtlessness amuse, themselves with words which holy angels hear with awe?

 

 

How gladly the heart turns from these present things to the earth’s future prospects, when Christ, as the antitypical Solomon, the Prince of Peace, [Page 35] shall administer the government of Israel, and of the [whole] earth.  This is the subject of the seventy-second Psalm.  It speaks of One royal in lineage as well as in power, a king’s son as well as a king - prepared to be the administrator of God’s righteousness, and of God’s judgments in the earth.  “Give to the king Thy judgments, O God, and thy righteousness unto the king’s son.  He shall judge Thy people with righteousness, and Thy poor with judgment.  The mountains (i.e., the greater seats of authority) and the hills (the lesser seats of authority) shall bring peace to the people by means of righteousness.”  In other words, all seats of governmental authority throughout the earth, being made seats of righteousness and truth, shall by means of their righteous rule bring peace to the governed.  How different from the time at which Babylon occupies the seven mountains of governmental influence!  And how strange that any should ever have thought that this Psalm was fulfilled in the reign of the typical Solomon! Could it be said of him, “He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that water the earth?” Solomon did not reign “from the river unto the ends of the earth.”  It could not be said of him, “His name shall endure for ever,” nor were all men blessed in him, nor did all nations call him blessed.  They do not as yet even call Christ blessed; but a time is coming when they shall; and this we pray for when we say, “Thy kingdom come.”

 

[Page 36]

The last verse of this Psalm is remarkable: “The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.”  The manner in which his kingly soul longed for the application of right principles and right government to a disordered and groaning world, is manifested in his dying words: “He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God.  And he shall be as the light of the morning when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain.”  David well knew that unless men could be taught their right relation to God so as to own Him, to know His truth and to worship Him; unless also His wise and blessed principles could be efficiently applied so as for the condition of nations, educationally, socially, and politically, to be thoroughly regulated by the laws of God, David knew that the nations must continue to be what they then were - miserable.  David had not been instructed in the wisdom of these latter days, so as to think that God and His revealed truth were to be ignored in human government.  He thought that to exclude God and His principles was to exclude, light, and life, and love, and power, and wisdom, and everything else from which human happiness could spring, or by which it could be preserved. When, therefore, he was enabled to see in prophetic vision the reign of Him who should effectually apply the principles of God to all the circumstances of human life, he felt as if the great desire of his kingly soul touching [Page 37] the earth, and man in it, was attained; and his prayers ended, because they were answered.

 

 

Many, indeed, are wont to say, that it is beneath the dignity of Christ to concern Himself with the government of [this] earth.  Why, then, was it not beneath His dignity to love and to die for sinners?  Christ considers nothing beneath Him that concerns [the manifestation of His glory down here (Hab. 2: 14. cf. Zech. 6: 12b-13, R.V.,] the glory of God and the welfare of man.  And if right government be a good - if God’s glory and man’s blessing cannot be secured without it, it is not beneath the dignity of Christ to provide it.  God once descended on Sinai, an earthly mountain, and thence legislated for an earthly people, without thereby resigning His heavenly glory or heavenly abode.  Why, then, should Christ not display His glory on Zion, the mountain of holiness and of grace, and thence legislate for Israel and the earth without resigning His heavenly glory and heavenly abode?

 

 

Christ, as the Son of David, will truly occupy the throne of His father David, and will execute judgment and justice in the earth; but He will not therefore cease to be, the Son of Man “crowned with glory and honour” above the heavens.  Blessed as the seventy-second Psalm is, the eighth opens a yet higher and wider sphere of glory.  Christ as the antitypical Solomon will reign over Israel and over all nations; but as the antitypical Adam He will be manifested as the Head and Lord of all creation.   As Son of Man, all things shall be made subject to [Page 38] Him.  This is the glory ascribed to Jesus in the eighth Psalm: “Thou madest Him (Jesus) a little lower than the angels: Thou hast (now) crowned Him with glory and honour.  Thou madest Him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands; Thou hast put all things under His feet; all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.  O Lord our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth!”  We have seen (says the Apostle to the Hebrews) Jesus made a little lower than the angels: we see Him now crowned with glory and honour at God’s right hand, but we do not yet see all things put under Him, we do not yet see all things actually subjected to His power.  At present He is in title “Head over all things,” and as such He is owned in heaven.  Angels willingly bow to Him as Lord of all, but in earth His title is rejected.  He enforceth it not as yet, but He will enforce it when He clothes Himself with His millennial power.  Then we shall begin to see things in [and throughout this] earth brought into subjection under Him.  I say begin, for it is not till the end of the millennium that we shall behold the complete, perfected subjection of all things, when death, the last enemy, shall be subdued.  At the commencement however, of the millennium, creation shall be freed from its groan, and shall be ready to join in the commanded song of praise: “Praise the Lord from the earth, ye dragons and all deeps; fire and hail; [Page 39] snow and vapours; stormy wind fulfilling His word; mountains and all hills; fruitful trees and all cedars; beasts and all cattle; creeping things and flying fowl; kings of the earth and all people; princes and all judges of the earth; both young men and maidens; old men and children; let them praise the name of the Lord: for His name alone is excellent: His glory is above the earth and heaven.  He also exalteth the horn of His people, the praise of all His saints; even of the children of Israel, a people near unto Him.  Praise ye the Lord.” (Ps. 148.)

 

 

But they whose horn shall thus be exalted in the earth will be contrite and lowly in heart.  It will not cease to be true that God giveth grace unto the humble.  Their sense of what they owe to God for their deliverance is expressed in such words as these: “If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, now may Israel say; if it had not been the Lord who was on our side when men rose up against us: then they had swallowed us up quick, when their wrath was kindled against us: then the waters had overwhelmed us, the stream had gone over our soul: then the proud waters had gone over our soul.  Blessed be the Lord, who hath not given us as a prey in their teeth.  Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we are escaped.  Our help, is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” (Ps. 124.)  Their sense of the Lord’s continued protection is [Page 40] expressed in Ps. 125: “They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth for ever.  As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about His people from henceforth, even for ever.  For the rod of the wicked shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous, lest the righteous put forth their hands unto iniquity.  Do good, O Lord, unto those that be good, and to them that are upright in their hearts.  As for such as turn aside unto their crooked ways, the Lord shall lead them forth with the workers of iniquity: but peace shall be upon Israel.” The chastened and subdued condition of their hearts is seen in Ps. 131. “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.  Surely I have behaved and quieted myself as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child.  Let Israel hope in the Lord from henceforth and for ever.”  Unity, and that in the truth (for no other unity is according to God) will be effectually manifested in them, and abidingly: “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!  It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron’s beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments; as the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for evermore.”

 

[Page 41]

Their power of worship may be seen in such Psalms as the 122nd. and the 134th.: “Behold, bless ye the Lord, all ye servants of the Lord, which by night stand in the house of the Lord.  Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, and bless the Lord.  The Lord that made heaven and earth bless thee out of Zion.”

 

 

These Psalms sufficiently show the condition of the heart of Israel in that day.  How different from that of the crooked and perverse, generation that will then have passed away for ever!

 

 

Let us beware, then, of deceiving ourselves and others by a false interpretation of the Psalms.  From the moment that Gentile Christianity quitted the path of Nazareth, and sought the glory of the world, first in the courts of Constantine, and afterwards in the yet more arrogant elevation of Papal Rome, these Psalms have been perverted to hide the present realities of sorrow and evil, and to sanctify abomination.  It is not wonderful that Rome [and anti-millennial Protestantism] should say that the privileges of Israel have been for ever forfeited, and, that they have been transferred to her, and that she is the City of God, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel, that “her walls are salvation, and her gates praise.”  Rome founds her glories on the ruins of Truth.  She can breathe in no atmosphere but falsehood.  But for Protestantism, that owns the authority of Scripture, to confound the period of the Truth’s suffering with the period of the Truth’s exaltation- [Page 42] the period of Christ’s rejection with the period of Christ’s triumphant reign - the period when Satan is the god of this world with the period when he shall deceive the nations no more - the period of creation’s groan with the period of creation’s release into liberty and joy - the period of Israel’s holiness and triumph with that of Israel’s blindness and down-treading; - for Protestantism to confound these things, and falsely to divide the word of Truth touching the present, and touching the future, is sorrowful indeed.  Rome hallows Ecclesiasticism, and Protestantism may seek to hallow Secularism: but both Ecclesiasticism and Secularism are ripening for the judgments of God.   We cannot force the songs of the morning of joy into applicability to this present night of human progress.  The fires that men now kindle in the darkness, and the sparks in the brightness of which they walk, is not the light of “the morning without clouds.”  Let us beware, then, of greeting these fires of the night with the songs of the morning, lest delusion fall on us; lest we be overtaken by that “hour of temptation which is coming on all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.”

 

 

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