If it is manifest that God makes Himself known, bestowing blessings on a man, there lies in this a power of conviction which disarms his most bitter opponents, excepting only those who have in selfishness hardened themselves.—Delitzsch.
Whatsoever a man’s ways are, it is part of every man’s intention to please howsoever; it is the object that maketh the difference. All men strive to please, but some to please themselves, some to please other men, and some few to please the Lord. . . . The last is—1. A duty whereunto we stand bound by many obligations. He is our Master, our Captain, our Father, our King. He is no honest servant that will not strive to please his master. And he is no generous soldier who will not strive to please his general. And that son hath neither grace nor good nature in him that will not strive to please his father, and he is no loyal subject that will not strive to please his lawful sovereign. And yet there may be a time when all those obligations may cease, for if it be their pleasure that we should do something that lawfully we may not, we must disobey, though we displease. But we can have no colour of plea for refusing to do the pleasure of our heavenly Lord and Master, in anything whatsoever; inasmuch as we are sure nothing will please Him but what is just and right. With what a forehead, then, can any of us challenge from Him either wages as servants, or stipends as soldiers, or provision as sons, or protection as subjects, if we be not careful in every respect to frame ourselves so as to please Him? 2. It is our wisdom, too: in respect of the great benefits we shall reap thereby. There is one great benefit expressed in the text, and the scope of those words is to instruct us, that the fairest and likeliest way to procure peace with men is to order our ways so as to please the Lord. . . . The favour of God and the favour of men are often joined together in the Scriptures as if the one were consequent of the other. See Luke ii. 52; Prov. iii. 3, 4; Rom. xiv. 18, etc. . . . But it may be objected that sundry times when a man’s ways are right, and therefore pleasing to God, his enemies are nothing less, if not perhaps much more, enraged against him than formerly. . . . Sundry considerations may be of use to us in the difficulty, as, first, if God have not yet made our enemies to be at peace with us, yet it may be He will do it hereafter. Neither is it unlikely that we do not walk with an even foot, and by a straight line, but tread away in something or other which displeaseth God, and for which He suffereth their enmity to continue. . . . Or if He do not presently make our enemies to be at peace with us, yet if He teach us to profit by their enmity, in exercising our faith and patience, in quickening us unto prayer, etc., is it not in every way, and incomparably better? Will any wise man tax Him with a breach of promise, who, having promised a pound of silver, giveth a talent of gold? Or who can truly say that that man is not as good as his word who is apparently much better than his word?—Bp. Sanderson.
It is our peace with God that maketh Him to make our enemies to be at peace with us, and it is our enmity against God’s enemies that maketh God to be at peace with us. Now, the enemies of God are the sins of men, and if we be in a continual war with those, then do our ways please God. Then it is that He is ready to please us, when our ways please Him. Neither is He hard to please—a willingness, a desire to please, is accepted by Him. He looks not—He requireth not—that we should do exactly all that is contained in His commandments, but if we go about to please Him—if we put ourselves carefully in the way—then do our ways please Him. And then will He give us that glorious victory over our enemies which is above all others. For to subdue our enemies is but to make ourselves happy in their misery; but to make our enemies at peace with us is a victory for God’s hand, and giveth man a double triumph, as well over the hatred as the power of our enemies.—Jermin.
The subject of verse 8 is substantially the same as that of chap. [xv. 6] and [17]. See Homiletics on page 405, etc.
outlines and suggestive comments.
“Better,” for the tranquility of conscience, for the present enjoyment of this life, and for the life to come. In chap. xv. 16, we are warned against gain without religion, in chap. xv. 17, against gain without love to our neighbour: here, against gain without right.—Fausset.
Abraham would not take to himself of the spoils of Sodom so much as the value of a shoe-latchet, that it might never be said in after times that the king of Sodom had made Abraham rich; so neither will any godly man that hath learned the art of contentation, suffer a penny of the gain of ungodliness to mingle with the rest of his estate, that the devil may not be able to upbraid him with it afterwards to his shame, as if he had contributed something towards the increasing thereof.—Bishop Sanderson.
A little that is in man’s own is better than a great deal that is another body’s. Now that which a man hath with righteousness is his own, for there can be no better title than that which righteousness maketh. But that which thou hast without right cannot be thine, howsoever thou mayest account it, or others may call it. Possession may be a great point in human laws, but it is nothing in God’s law; the want of right overthroweth whatsoever else may be said. Tis true, thou mayest have quiet possession on earth, but there be adversaries that do implead the unrighteousness at God’s judgment bar, where they are sure last to be cast, and where themselves will give the verdict which the wise man here doth.—Jermin.
main homiletics of verse 9.
Man Proposes, God Disposes.