The Middle Way.
I. A desire that our circumstances should be favourable to our godliness reveals a soul alive to the meaning of existence. The man who values his health more than his raiment, and is more anxious to keep his body in a fit condition to work than to clothe it in purple and fine linen, reveals that he rightly estimates the comparative value of the two, and values most that which is worth most. But no man attains to a right estimate of the comparative worth of all that belongs to him until he values his character more than all things else, and is willing to suffer the loss of all his other possessions in order to preserve that. He is a wise man who, in the choice of clothes, considers first what will conduce to health; but the highest wisdom is that which leads a man in choosing—so far as he is able—his position in life, to consider first of all what will be favourable to his soul’s welfare. Such a man reveals that he has made the all-important discovery that the chief end of man is to glorify God, and that he can do this only by a holy life. He therefore makes it the aim of his life to say in deed as well as in word “Hallowed be thy name;” for he has learned the lesson of the text, that anything less than perfect dependence upon God is a denial of Him, and any act of doubtful integrity is “taking His name in vain.”
II. A prayer that our circumstances may be thus favourable, reveals a soul conscious of its own weakness. There can be no doubt that a man’s confidence in God ought to be so strong as to remain unshaken in the most adverse circumstances, and his spirituality ought to be deep enough to remain uninjured in the greatest temporal prosperity, but this is but seldom the case. All sincere and humble servants of God acknowledge their proneness to yield to temptation, and the more vital their godliness, the more earnestly do they put up the petition, “Lead me not into temptation.” Paul could say without boastfulness, “I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Phil. iv. 12, 13), but there have been but few men who would say this with truth, and those who have been most like him in spirit have been the most ready to acknowledge the danger of being exposed to either extreme. A very robust man can keep in perfect health either in the arctic regions or in the torrid zone, but there is most safety in living in a region between these two extremes, and the wisest men acknowledge this, and unless duty calls them, prefer the latter to either of the former. So a man of God, although he hopes that he might be found faithful in any circumstances, reveals a right spirit of humility when he puts up the prayer of Agur. For he knows that the tempter of men is most skilful in using our circumstances against our godliness, and that both great wealth and extreme poverty are weapons which he can use with great skill.
outlines and suggestive comments.
Verse 7. Agur re-enforces his request. It was honest, else he would never have begun it; but being so, he is resolved to follow it. So Jacob would have a blessing, and therefore wrestles with might and slight; and this he doth in the night and alone, and when God was leaving him, and upon one leg. . . . When poor men ask us two things we think we deal well if we grant the one. Few are Naamans that when you beg one talent will force you to take two. But God heaps mercies on his suppliants, and blames them for their modesty in asking.—Trapp.
Verse 8. We are not only to pray for the removal of sin, but for the removal of it at a great distance from us. As God removes it far away in pardon, the soul that abhors sin desires to have it far removed from the heart and life. Our Lord reaches us not only to pray against sin, but against temptation; for there is a strong inclination in the hearts of men to comply with temptations when they are presented to the soul. If a man has a bag of powder in his hands, he will certainly wish to keep at a distance from the fire.—Lawson.
Food convenient is obviously not a fixed measure. It implies, not a bare sufficiency for natural life, but a provision varying according to the calling in which God has placed us. “If Agur be the master of a family, then that is his competency, which is sufficient to maintain his wife, children, and household. If Agur be a public person, a prince or a ruler of the people; then that is Agur’s sufficiency, which will conveniently maintain him in that condition.” Jacob when “he had become two bands,” evidently required more than when in his earlier life “with his staff he had passed over Jordan” (Gen. xxxii. 10). What was sufficient for himself alone, would not have been sufficient for the many that were then dependent upon him. The immense provisions for Solomon’s table, considering the vast multitude of his dependents, might be only a competency for the demand (1 Kings iv. 22). The distribution of the manna was food convenient—nothing too much, but no deficiency—“He that gathered much had nothing over; and he that gathered little had no lack” (Exod. xvi. 18). And thus, in the daily dispensation of Providence, a little may be a sufficiency to one, while an overflowing plenty is no superfluity to another. Only let Christian self-denial, not depraved appetite, be the standard of competency.—Bridges.
Verse 9. Many in their low estate could serve God, but now resemble the moon, which never suffers eclipse but at her full, and that is by the earth’s interposition between the sun and herself.—Trapp.
For Homiletics on the subject of verse 10 see on chap. [xxiv. 28, 29], page 689.
main homiletics of the paragraph.—Verses 11–17.