No object can well be more dull and meaningless than the stained window of an ancient church, as long as you stand without and look upon a dark interior; but when you stand within the temple, and look through that window upon the light from heaven, the still, sweet, solemn forms that lie in it start into life and loveliness. The beauty was all conceived by the mind, and wrought by the hand of the ancient artist whose bones now lie mouldering in the surrounding churchyard; but the beauty lies hid until two requisites come together—a seeing eye within, and a shining light without. We often meet with a verse upon the page of the Old Testament Scriptures very like those ancient works of art. The beauty of holiness is in it—put into it by the Spirit from the first, and yet its meaning was not fully known until the Sun of Righteousness arose, and the Israel of God, no longer kept in the outer court, entered through the rent veil, and from the Holy of Holies, looked through the ancient record on an illuminated heaven. Many hidden beauties burst into view upon the pages of the Bible, when Faith’s open eye looks through it on the face of Jesus. One of these texts is now before us. . . . The first clause tells how the guilt of sin is forgiven; the second, how the power of sin is subdued. Solomon unites the two constituent elements of the sinner’s deliverance in the same order in which his father experienced them: “I have hoped for thy salvation, and done thy commandments” (Ps. cxix. 166). It is when iniquity is purged by free grace that men practically depart from evil. . . . Mercy and truth meet in the Mediator. In Christ the fire meets the water without drying it up: the water meets the fire without quenching it.—Arnot.
By iniquity God and men are severed, and never can iniquity be pardoned until God and man meet again. To procure this meeting there must be a meeting of mercy and truth, of mercy in God and truth in man. And these do call the one for the other. The mercy of God being ready to forgive iniquity, calleth for truth in man to confess iniquity; the truth of man being ready to confess his iniquity calleth for the mercy of God to pardon his iniquity. Now these two readily concurring, God and man are rejoined, and by their reunion iniquity is purged. But then there must follow a departing from iniquity. . . . For iniquity, forgiven and not forsaken, doubleth the iniquity both in man’s guilt and God’s wrath. Wherefore, let the mercy of the Lord breed a fear in thee, and let the truth of thy repentance appear, as well in shunning iniquity as in forsaking of it.—Jermin.
main homiletics of verse 7.
Pleasing God.
I. There are times when men’s ways do not please the Lord. The ways of the ungodly do not at any time please the Lord. Because they have no sympathy with His laws, and are at variance with His character. “God is not in all their thoughts” (Psalm x. 4), and it is impossible for God to be pleased with the ways of them who do not think Him worth thinking about. A man must forsake his own ways and come into God’s ways before his ways can please the Lord. The ways of a good man do not at all times please the Lord. They sometimes stray from the royal road—the highway of righteousness—and get into bye-paths, and thus bring down upon themselves the displeasure of their God. David, though in the main a “man after God’s own heart,” more than once walked in paths that were displeasing to the Lord, and several incidents in his life teach us plainly that some ways of a godly man may be very contrary to the Divine mind.
II. But God can be pleased by a man’s ways. Those who strive to conform to our desires—who are in sympathy with our minds—naturally yield us pleasure. And a good man’s desire is to conform his ways to the Will of God—he is in sympathy with the mind of God, and his life is the outcome of that sympathy. Therefore he can yield pleasure to the Eternal. If the Creator, in looking upon the inanimate works of His hands, pronounces them “good” (Gen. i. 31) when He sees them fulfilling the design of their creation, how much more good in His sight is it when a moral and responsible creature who has power to turn out of the path ordained for him seeks patiently to continue in well-doing notwithstanding all the temptations he has to encounter.
III. The consequence upon men’s minds of thus giving pleasure to the Divine mind. The way of pleasing the Lord promotes “favour and a good understanding in the sight of God and man” (chap. iii. 4). He whose aim is to please God will desire and strive to live at peace with men. And in cases where his godliness provokes the enmity of the ungodly, God, by His overruling Providence, often directly interferes on his behalf. He did so in the case of Jacob and Laban, in that of Joseph and his brethren, etc.
outlines and suggestive comments.
The doctrine of this verse, stands in apparent contradiction to 2 Tim. iii. 12. The truth seems to be that neither of the passages is to be taken universally. The peace possessed by those who please God does not extend so far as to exempt them from having enemies, and though all godly men must be persecuted, yet none are persecuted at all times. The passage from Timothy may, therefore, refer to the native enmity which true godliness is certain to excite, and the proverb to the Divine control over it.—A. Fuller.
There would be more sunlight in the believer’s life if he could leave the dull negative fear of judgment far behind as a motive of action, and bound forward into the glad positive, a hopeful effort to please God. . . . This is one of the two principles that stand together in the Word, and act together in the Divine administration. Its counterpart and complement is, “If any man would live godly in Christ Jesus, he must suffer persecution.”. . . Both are best; neither could be wanted. If the principle that goodness exposes to persecution prevailed everywhere and always, the spirit would fail before Him and the souls that He has made. Again, if the principle that goodness conciliates the favour of the world prevailed everywhere and always, no discipline would be done, and the service of God would degenerate into mercenary self-interest. . . . A beautiful balance of opposites is employed to produce one grand result. . . . A Christian in the world is like a human body in the sea—there is a tendency to sink and a tendency to swim. A very small force in either direction will turn the scale. Our Father in heaven holds the elements of nature and the passions of men at His own disposal. His children need not fear, for He keeps the balance in His own hands.—Arnot.