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Expositor's Bible Commentary Psalm 95:1 O come, let us sing unto the LORD: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Psalm 95:1-11 THIS psalm is obviously divided into two parts, but there is no reason for seeing in these two originally unconnected fragments. Rather does each part derive force from the other; and nothing is more natural than that, after the congregation has spoken its joyful summons to itself to worship, Jehovah should speak warning words as to the requisite heart preparation, without which worship is vain. The supposed fragments are fragmentary indeed, if considered apart. Surely a singer has the liberty of being abrupt and of suddenly changing his tone. Surely he may as well be credited with discerning the harmony of the change of key as some later compiler. There could be no more impressive way of teaching the conditions of acceptable worship than to set side by side a glad call to praise and a solemn warning against repeating the rebellions of the wilderness. These would be still more appropriate if this were a post-exilic hymn; for the second return from captivity would be felt to be the analogue of the first, and the dark story of former hard-heartedness would fit very close to present circumstances. The invocation to praise in Psalm 95:1-2 , gives a striking picture of the joyful tumult of the Temple worship. Shrill cries of gladness, loud shouts of praise, songs with musical accompaniments, rang simultaneously through the courts, and to Western ears would have sounded as din rather than as music, and as more exuberant than reverent. The spirit expressed is, alas! almost as strange to many moderns as the manner of its expression. That swelling joy which throbs in the summons, that consciousness that jubilation is a conspicuous element in worship, that effort to rise to a height of joyful emotion, are very foreign to much of our worship. And their absence, or presence only in minute amount, flattens much devotion, and robs the Church of one of its chief treasures. No doubt; there must often be sad strains blended with praise. But it is a part of Christian duty, and certainly of Christian wisdom, to try to catch that tone of joy in worship which rings in this psalm. The three following verses ( Psalm 95:3-5 ) give Jehovah’s creative and sustaining power, and His consequent ownership of this fair world, as the reasons for worship. He is King by right of creation. Surely it is forcing unnatural meanings on words to maintain that the psalmist believed in the real existence of the "gods" whom he disparagingly contrasts with Jehovah. The fact that these were worshipped sufficiently warrants the comparison. To treat it as in any degree inconsistent with Monotheism is unnecessary, and would scarcely have occurred to a reader but for the exigencies of a theory. The repeated reference to the "hand" of Jehovah is striking. In it are held the deeps: it is a plastic hand. "forming" the land, as a potter fashioning his clay: it is a shepherd’s hand. protecting and feeding his flock ( Psalm 95:7 ). The same power created and sustains the physical universe, and guides and guards Israel. The psalmist has no time for details; he can only single out extremes, and leave us to infer that what is true of these is true of all that is enclosed between them. The depths and the heights are Jehovah’s. The word rendered "peaks" is doubtful. Etymologically it should mean "fatigue," but it is not found in that sense in any of the places where it occurs. The parallelism requires the meaning of heights to contrast with depths, and this rendering is found in the LXX, and is adopted by most moderns. The word is then taken to come from a root meaning "to be high." Some of those who adopt the translation summits attempt to get that meaning out of the root meaning fatigue, by supposing that the labour of getting to the top of the mountain is alluded to in the name. Thus Kay renders "the mountains’ toilsome heights," and so also Hengstenberg. But it is simpler to trace the word to the other root, to be high. The ownerless sea is owned by Him; He made both its watery waste and the solid earth. But that all-creating Hand has put forth more wondrous energies than those of which heights and depths, sea and land, witness. Therefore, the summons is again addressed to Israel to bow before "Jehovah our Maker." The creation of a people to serve Him is the work of His grace, and is a nobler effect of His power than material things. It is remarkable that the call to glad praise should be associated with thoughts of His greatness as shown in creation, while lowly reverence is enforced by remembrance of His special relation to Israel. We should have expected the converse. The revelation of God’s love, in His work of creating a people for Himself, is most fittingly adored by spirits prostrate before Him. Another instance of apparent transposition of thoughts occurs in Psalm 95:7 b, where we might have expected "people of His hand and sheep of His pasture." Hupfeld proposes to correct accordingly, and Cheyne follows him. But the correction buys prosaic accuracy at the cost of losing the forcible incorrectness which blends figure and fact. and by keeping sight of both enhances each. "The sheep of His hand" suggests not merely the creative but the sustaining and protecting power of God. It is hallowed forever by our Lord’s words, which may be an echo of it: "No man is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand." The sudden turn from jubilant praise and recognition of Israel’s prerogative as its occasion to grave warning is made more impressive by its occurring in the middle of a verse. God’s voice breaks in upon the joyful acclamations with solemn effect. The shouts of the adoring multitude die on the poet’s trembling ear, as that deeper Voice is heard. We cannot persuade ourselves that this magnificent transition, so weighty with instruction, so fine in poetic effect, is due to the after thought of a compiler. Such a one would surely have stitched his fragments more neatly together than to make the seam run through the centre of a verse-an irregularity which would seem small to a singer in the heat of his inspiration. Psalm 95:7 c may be either a wish or the protasis to the apodosis in Psalm 95:8 . "If ye would but listen to His voice!" is an exclamation, made more forcible by the omission of what would happen then. But it is not necessary to regard the clause as optative. The conditional meaning, which connects it with what follows, is probably preferable, and is not set aside by the expression "His voice" instead of "My voice"; for "similar change of persons is very common in utterances of Jehovah, especially in the Prophets" (Hupfeld). "Today" stands first with strong emphasis, to enforce the critical character of the present moment. It may be the last opportunity. At all events, it is an opportunity, and therefore to be grasped and used. A doleful history of unthankfulness lay behind; but still the Divine voice sounds, and still the fleeting moments offer space for softening of heart and docile hearkening. The madness of delay when time is hurrying on, and the long-suffering patience of God, are wonderfully proclaimed in that one word, which the Epistle to the Hebrews lays hold of, with so deep insight, as all-important. The warning points Israel back to ancestral sins, the tempting of God in the second year of the Exodus, by the demand for water. { Exodus 17:1-7 } The scene of that murmuring received both names, Massah (temptation) and Meribah (strife). It is difficult to decide the exact force of Psalm 95:9 b. "Saw My work" is most naturally taken as referring to the Divine acts of deliverance and protection seen by Israel in the desert, which aggravated the guilt of their faithlessness. But the word rendered "and" will, in that case, have to be taken as meaning "although"-a sense which cannot be established. It seems better, therefore, to take "work" in the unusual meaning of acts of judgment-His "strange work." Israel’s tempting of God was the more indicative of hardheartedness that it was persisted in, in spite of chastisements. Possibly both thoughts are to be combined, and the whole varied stream of blessings and punishments is referred to in the wide expression. Both forms of God’s work should have touched these hard hearts. It mattered not whether He blessed or punished. They were impervious to both. The awful issue of this obstinate rebellion is set forth in terrible words. The sensation of physical loathing followed by sickness is daringly ascribed to God. We cannot but remember what John heard in Patmos from the lips into which grace was poured: "I will spue thee out of My mouth." But before He cast Israel out, He pled with them, as Psalm 95:10 b goes on to tell: "He said, ‘A people going astray in heart are they."’ He said so, by many a prophet and many a judgment, in order that they might come back to the true path. The desert wanderings were but a symbol, as they were a consequence, of their wanderings in heart. They did not know His ways; therefore they chose their own. They strayed in heart; therefore they had an ever-increasing ignorance of the right road. For the averted heart and the blind understanding produce each other. The issue of the long-protracted departure from the path which God had marked was, as it ever is, condemnation to continue in the pathless wilderness, and exclusion from the land of rest which God had promised them, and in which He Himself had said that He would make His resting place in their midst. But what befell Israel in outward fact was symbolical of universal spiritual truth. The hearts that love devious ways can never be restful. The path which leads to calm is traced by God, and only those who tread it with softened hearts, earnestly listening to His voice, will find repose even on the road, and come at last to the land of peace. For others, they have chosen the desert, and in it they will wander wearily, "forever roaming with a hungry heart." The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews is laying hold of the very kernel of the psalm, when he adduces the fact that, so many centuries after Moses, the warning was still addressed to Israel, and the possibility of entering the Rest of God, and the danger of missing it, still urged, as showing that the Rest of God remained to be won by later generations, and proclaiming the eternal truth that "we which have believed do enter into rest." The Expositor's Bible Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

O come, let us sing unto the Lord. Psalm 95 The grandest of creature services Homilist. I. It is the most RIGHTEOUS. Adoration rendered to — 1. The greatest Being. (1) Great in Himself (ver. 3). (2) Great in His possessions (ver. 4). 2. The kindest Being. (1) He made us. Possessing reason, imagination, conscience, freedom, etc. (2) He supports us — provides for our necessities, watches over us, guides us through intricacies, and guards us from perils. (3) He delivers us. "The rock of our salvation." The strong ground of our confidence, the foundation on which our safety rests. Who will say then that this service is not the most righteous, — to adore most the most adorable, to thank most the supremely kind? II. It is the most DELIGHTFUL. "Joyful noise." Worship is the only service that ensures happiness. 1. It accords with the highest dictates of conscience. 2. It gratifies our highest love. 3. It engages our highest powers. III. It is the most URGENT (vers. 7, 8). 1. The neglect of this service is the hardening of the heart. 2. The hardening of the heart leads to procrastination. 3. This procrastination involves most calamitous results. (1) It provokes the Almighty (ver. 8). (2) It leads to ruin (ver. 11). ( Homilist. ) The Venite D. Laing, M.A. I. A CALL TO PRAISE (vers. 1, 2, 6). Our call to praise and thanksgiving leads on, as we should expect such an one as David to teach us, to prayer. We praise for evidences of His nature, and such praise must lead us to pray that His attributes may find their exercise towards us; that He will deal with us as His perfect nature has dealt with other generations and other people. We offer thanks for the past, and every past mercy is ground of prayer for future mercies; every received mercy is a ground of hope upon which we build our prayers for new mercies. II. THE CAUSES WHICH DEMAND OUR PRAISE. 1. He is not only the Author of oar salvation, but He has made it strong, firm, immovable, resting upon Him, the Rock of Ages (vers. 1, 2). 2. We praise God for permitting us to observe His greatness; for the power to know Him in His works. It is not until we begin to examine the details of Creation — plants, birds, insects — to use the telescope upon the heavens, or the microscope upon invisible objects — that every single work, in itself a wonder, helps us to look up awestruck to the One Mind which made and which sustains all. 3. His individual care for each of us (ver. 7). III. A CAUTION AGAINST THE LOSS OF THE ACCEPTED TIME (vers. 7-10). Alas! we have daily teaching like the men in the wilderness, that the chastened may only harden themselves against the hand of love which chastens! And poverty and sickness, by which God seeks to draw His children to Him, and to purify them for Himself, are made the very grounds for neglecting and disobeying Him! IV. REJECTION COULD NOT FINALLY PASS UNPUNISHED. There was a sentence upon those despisers (ver. 11). God's truth requires that His promises should be as sure to His opposers as to His followers and friends; and the sentence will follow. They could not enter into God's offered rest, as Paul explains to the Romans, on account of unbelief. ( D. Laing, M.A. ) The genesis of praise W. G. Horder. This has been called the Invitatory Psalm. The Temple at Jerusalem had been restored. Its doors were again open for worship. And the psalmist sought to allure the people to a worship long neglected in the time of their exile. From the earliest times this psalm has filled a somewhat similar place in the services of the Western Church. It is the first note of praise in the order for morning prayer. I. THE SPONTANEITY OF SONG. Jehovah did not say: "Sing unto Me," but men said one to another: "O come, let us sing unto the Lord!" Men sang because they could not help but sing. There are some things so natural to men that no Divine command is needed. Song is one of these. It grows naturally out of the emotions of a godly heart. The deepest feelings of the race have always found their fullest expression in poetry, and poetry reaches its highest utterance when wedded to music, on whose wings it soars to heaven. II. THE RELIGIOUS INSPIRATION OF SONG. Love is the great kindler of song, and takes on its noblest, purest forms as it goes out to God. And hence it will be found that in proportion to the strength of love in any religion is the place and power of its song. To the lovelessness of most of the pagan and heathen religions is due the poverty and even absence of song in their worship. To all intents and purposes the Hebrew and its successor, the Christian, faith are the only ones in which song prevails. And it will be found, if you look into the history, that as their conception of God grew in depth and tenderness, the more lovable He was seen to be, so their song grew in volume and worth. The theology of each age is reflected in its hymnody. III. THE RELIGIOUS OCCASION OF SONG. The psalm before us probably sprang out of joy at the reopened temple at Jerusalem, that the feet of Israel could once more stand within the gates of Zion. Every lofty hymn has a sacred history. And thus the experience of elect souls is made to help other souls to higher levels of thought and feeling. They are like climbers who have reached the mountain summit, and beckon those in the valley to share with them the grand outlook to which their eye has reached. It is for us to respond to their call, so that as we sing we may be drawn upwards from the mists of earth to those. Goethe once advised, "as a means of making life less commonplace, that we should every day, at least, hear or read a good poem." Better still would it be if we allowed no day to pass without joining in a hymn of praise. Marvellous has been the influence of song in the furtherance of religion in the days that are past. The Arians were among the first to discover its power. They organized singing processions to propagate their doctrine. Then the orthodox party followed their example. When , the good Bishop of Milan, was ordered to give up one of his churches for Arian worship, he refused, and his devoted followers surrounded his house day and night to protect him from the troops of the Emperor. He arranged for his defenders hymns for every hour of the day and night. It was a charge against Luther that he was singing the whole German people into the Reformation doctrine. The gained their name from their custom of "lulling" — that is, singing softly. The Methodist Revival owed quite as much to the hymns of Charles Wesley as to the preaching of her saintly brother. The Oxford Movement owed its success not only to the "Tracts for the Times" and the sermons of Newman, but to "The Christian Year" of Keble. Where would the Moody and Sankey movement have been but for the "Sacred Songs and Solos"? The Salvation Army could not carry on its work without its rough but inspiring music. And my own conviction is that holy song will be one means of bringing to the Church a deeper unity. Through it the heart is permitted to speak, and by means of the heart, rather than the intellect, Christian people are drawn closer together. Theology has too often proved a dividing influence. Song usually tends to unity. ( W. G. Horder. ) Psalmody J. W. Reeve, M.A. I. THE PRACTICE OF SINGING. Old Testament saints, as well as New, seem never weary of celebrating the praises of their Lord and Saviour; because He was made an offering for their sins, dead, risen, and ascended to His throne. And this is still the sweetest subject in the Church of Christ; for happy are they who have the Lord for their God — yea, thrice happy they who have "the kingdom of God" set up within them, which "is righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." II. THE OBJECT OF SINGING PSALMS. The object of singing is, we see distinctly, the praise of Jesus. It is very important for you to notice that; for as the joy of the believer arises from his conscious standing in Jesus, so this joy is expressed in celebrating the praises of the glorious person and redeeming work of Jesus — for "God would have all men to honour the Son even as they honour the Father." Singing is the outward expression of inward joy; and this is no doubt why the Holy Ghost has enjoined it on believers. It shows their sense of the infinite love of God in Christ Jesus. But at the same time that believers find joy in singing the praises of Jesus, as they are set forth in the Book of Psalms, they may also as they sing learn lessons for the practice of daily life. They have an interest not only in all Jesus was, but also in what Jesus is. Do they see that His trust in God was unshaken? They trust Him to make theirs steadfast also. Again: was His walk "holy, and harmless, and undefiled," so that He could say in truth, "I have set the Lord alway before me; because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved"? Then they depend upon Him for strength to tread in His steps. Were His tempers perfectly holy, so that He could say, "Thou hast proved Mine heart; Thou hast visited Me in the night; Thou hast tried Me, and shalt find nothing; I am purposed that My mouth shall not transgress"? — when, I say, they sing of this, they admire His example, and through His Spirit they strive daily to "put off the old man" and to "put on the new." Again: was He carried through the greatest sufferings in perfect resignation, so that He could say, "Not My will, but Thine, O Lord, be done"? Then may they look up to Him in every trial for His promised support. Have the "everlasting gates" been opened, and "the King of glory" gone in? It is promised to them that they shall "see the King in His beauty" — yea, that they shall partake of that very glory. III. THE SPIRIT IN WHICH WE ARE TO SING. Two things are necessary — that a man should sing spiritually, and that he should sing intelligently — that he should know what he has to thank God for, otherwise he cannot do it intelligently. Have we not mercies to thank God for? Why not, then, join the Church of Christ in thanking Him for them? The believer should live as he sings; his life should be in harmony with his principles. ( J. W. Reeve, M.A. ) Praise the outcome of Divine influence The whole of Glasgow is supplied with water from Loch Katrine. It is brought through the intervening country, and is distributed in pipes along every street, and from the palaces above Kelvin Grove to the wretched flats in the Saltmarket it tells, to those who have ears to hear, sweet stories of lofty peaks, wooded slopes, cataracts, and sparkling rivulets in its Highland home. Embosomed in the Mountains of Eternity, and reflecting in its placid sweep the magnificent devices of uncreated wisdom, we see the vast unfathomable ocean of Divine love. From that ocean a bountiful outflow of holy influence has come down into the human mind, and been divided into little rills known as "psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs." Not to the rich only do they ripple, but also to the poor; labour forgets its weariness while taking in or giving out their sacred words, and the widow mingles their sweetness with her scanty food, and even the little child sends forth a triumph caught from their melody. Inciting one another to praise God You know how the birds stir up each other to sing. One bird in a cage will excite its fellow, who looks at him and seems to say, "You shall not outstrip me: I will sing with you," till all the little minstrels quiver with an ecstasy of song, and form a choir of emulating songsters. Hark how the early morning of the spring is rendered musical by the full orchestra of birds. One songster begins the tune, and the rest hasten to swell the music. Let us be like the blessed birds. Bless the Lord till you set the fashion, and others bless Him with you. ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) The Rock of our salvation Christ the Rock of our salvation J. W. Hardman, LL.D. The shipwrecked mariner, hoping for safety on the sea-girt rock; the hunted fugitive, flying for a refuge to the cliff on the plain; the fainting traveller, throwing himself down in the shade of rock in the desert; the steep and precipitous hill, with its encircling stream, forming the site of a mighty fortress: each of these pictures tells us of weakness finding comfort and aid, each sets forth the value of the redeeming work, and the mighty mission of Christ our Lord. For the very idea of a rock is that of stability and strength, that which cannot be moved, that on which we may rest secure. "For us and our salvation" Christ died, says the noble language of our Creed. He is the great example of self-sacrifice, and of the One who devoted Himself to death and suffering for the benefit of "the many." But how shall we apply to our own selves the benefit of Christ's work? How shall we find a refuge in the Rock of our salvation.? By a humble and faithful realization of what He has done for us. ( J. W. Hardman, LL.D. ) For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. Psalm 95:3 On the existence, greatness, and government of God W. Barns. I. THE TRANSCENDENT GREATNESS OF THE PSALMIST'S GOD. 1. He is great in the eternity of His existence. God "only hath immortality." Finite beings are always going forward to further immortality; but God possesses it in the most absolute sense. Other beings depend for their immortality on the will of their Maker, and flow of their duration; but He is "the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." And as He is infinite in essence, He must necessarily be indestructible in the nature of His existence; for the power that destroys must always be greater than what is destroyed. 2. He is great in the immateriality, unity, and immensity of His existence. These are all necessarily implied in His eternity. 3. He is great in Omnipotence. Creation, in all its works of greatness and grandeur, falls infinitely short of a full exhibition of omnipotent power. For no finite substances, however multiplied and extended, could ever fill boundless space, or circumscribe the efforts of God Omnipotent. Here we might contemplatively roam after the ways and works of the Almighty Architect, until we were bewildered and lost in the magnitudes, mazes, and mysteries of creation. His power is also manifested in upholding all things created. He commands all the suns, systems, and planetary orbs, and they move in obedience to His sovereign pleasure. 4. He is boundless in love. Our first parents proved His goodness in the Garden of Eden, where His benevolence lavished around them every charm. There the "Tree of Life," in grand and conspicuous pre-eminence, unfolded its verdant glories, and invited the human pair to partake of its immortality. The redemption of this fallen world is another proof of Divine love — into which angels desire to look, and in which we are everlastingly interested. 5. He is gloriously great in holiness. All the works of His creation, holiness of His laws, dispensations of His providence, influences of His Spirit, and condemnation and overthrow of wicked men and devils, proclaim that He is holy. And "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty," will be the sublimest song that immortal millions can endlessly sing in the heaven of heavens. 6. He is incomprehensibly great in omniscience. II. HE IS A "GREAT KING ABOVE ALL GODS." 1. His right to the empire.(1) Right of eternal priority. As there can be but one absolute and endless monarchy, so there is but one supreme and independent King.(2) Right of eternal sufficiency. His "throne is for ever and ever." It is founded in infinite wisdom, and upheld by everlasting strength. Amidst the revolutions of ages it stands the same.(3) Right of universal inheritance. In His administration no law can be defective, no faithful subject go unprotected, and no enemy be triumphant. The thunders of the throne shall prevent all invasion, and His omnipotence defy all usurpation, until His right to reign shall be indisputably acknowledged, and the God of everlasting sovereignty be gloriously magnified. 2. His extensive empire.(1) He reigns in the Kingdom of Nature. He reigns over inanimate nature by those fixed laws which regulate and revolve all matter; and carries forward as undeviatingly His superintendence over an atom as over a magnificent world. He reigns over animate irrational nature by instinct. He reigns over man by reason, conscience, and revelation.(2) He reigns in the kingdom of providence.(3) He reigns in the kingdom of darkness and damnation.(4) He reigns in the kingdom of grace, for the protection and complete triumph of His Church.(5) He reigns in the kingdom of glory — the heaven of heavens, the home of all the saint. ( W. Barns. ) God of gods T. Sanderson. I. THE DIVINE SOVEREIGNTY IN THE PHYSICAL REALM. Nature is full of the manifestations of a great intelligence, full of remarkable adjustments and adaptations, full of ordered sequences and wise contrivances. In other words, Nature, through all her domain, from those gleaming stars which shoot their rays through vast and interminable spaces down to those invisible and primordial atoms of which all substances are composed, and which maintain their ceaseless movements to and fro, is subject to a high and beneficent power. Everywhere there is manifest the sovereignty of law, and the sovereignty of law is the sovereignty of God. In most great cities they have a mansion house, or some similar building, which is a symbol and centre of that civic authority which rules over the whole of the area comprised in the civic boundary; and so this physical universe is the mansion house of creation's God — not a house empty and tenantless, so far as the Creator's presence is concerned, but occupied and inhabited throughout with that same creative spirit which in the beginning created all things, and which ever since has sustained and controlled all things. II. THE DIVINE SOVEREIGNTY IN THE MORAL AND SPIRITUAL REALM. The kingdom of grace is the extension of the kingdom of nature, and the laws and principles which operate in the one operate in the other. 1. There is the prominence given to beauty. One might almost say that the object of the Creator was the creation of beauty, and that the great Designer had set His heart upon producing a picture of surpassing loveliness. And the object of God in redemption is clearly the creation or the re-creation of beauty, not outward beauty merely, but inward — beauty of character, beauty of soul. 2. There is the insistence of the Divine constancy and faithfulness. Banks fail, governments are overturned, empires break up and pass away, but the sun never refuses to shine, and the earth never declines to bring forth the vintage of her fruits and the harvest of her flowers. And this characteristic of faithfulness belongs as truly to the sphere of grace as of nature. The promises of God are all "yea and amen." 3. There is the recognition of the value of the individual. Nature cares for the whole, and she cares not less for the individual parts of which the whole is composed. There is not a cowslip in the meadow, nor yet a blade of grass which catches its little drop of crystal and holds it suspended in the early sunlight but witnesses to the care and providence of God, and to the individualizing character of that providence. And the same is true of the grace which bringeth salvation. The disciples were all chosen and called separately and individually. There is not one of us, down to the least and the youngest, whose name is not written in Creation's book, and for whom there is not a place reserved in Redemption's record! ( T. Sanderson. ) The strength of the hills is His also. Psalm 95:4 The strength of the hills A. Mursell. The characteristics of the things made are characteristic of their Maker. What, therefore, I find suggestive in the hills I find suggestive of God. What is the strength of the hills? It is not mere bulk, size, hugeness of form, massiveness of outline. Strength is not one characteristic; it is a combination of characteristics. Strength is a harmony of various elements. I. BEAUTY. To see their green slopes speckled thin with sheep; the grey crag peeping out here and there like a hoary battlement; the purple heather making a feast of colour; the huge boulder, poised upon some dizzy eminence, seeming to threaten destruction to the venturesome climber; the cloud-shadows passing like swift and silent ghosts along the frowning steeps; is not all this an impressive exhibition in the picture-gallery of nature, open every day, and free of charge? And the thought of the psalmist is this, — that the beauty of the hills is in reality a beauty of God; that all this panorama of living loveliness is an indication of the loveliness of the Divine character. II. PERMANENCE. Who that has looked thoughtfully upon the mountains could imagine anything more typical of the immovable? Their sunless pillars are sunk so deep in earth that we cannot dream of their being moved out of their place; the idea of the fugitive and the transient is excluded as we contemplate the fixity of the hills. An Old Testament writer, indeed, has made them an image of permanence when he says that sooner than imagine that the kindness of God can pass away, or that the mercy of the Eternal can cease, the very mountains shall pass and the hills be removed. But even as he regards the one impossible, so he is sure that the character of God is fixed and unchangeable for ever. In this way does Nature become one of our best religious teachers. The hills speak to us of the permanence of the Divine. A fickle God would be worse than none at all. A God whose principles of action were continually changing would be the terror, and not the inspiration of his worshippers. Jesus Christ has given me a greater sense of trustworthiness and permanence than any one I know, and I think the reason is that He is the express image of the person of God. There is only one thing that abides — and it is character. There is only one thing that can make character — and it is love. There is but one man who lasts and keeps young throughout the centuries — "he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever." III. ATMOSPHERE. Why did your doctor send you away to the hills? It was to get change of air. He wanted you to get some of that mountain breeze into your wasted lungs; he knew that if he could get you away into that bracing ozone it would be better than all the pills and mixtures as before. The air of the hills is a tonic. The atmosphere ought to be an element in your religion. A religion without atmosphere is like a picture without perspective, dull, flat, uninteresting because unnatural. We are afraid to be natural in our religious life. Why is it that so many Christian people seem to be so bloodless, lifeless, atrophied in their character? It is simply want of air. They have no mountains in their creed. We shall never make much impression upon the world until we are less afraid of our own honest thought, and less bound by the rigid rule-of-thumb religion of society. Christ came to be to us the Truth, and to be the Truth that makes us free — free from our own ignorance, and sin, and unbelief, and fear — free to do the will of the Father by ministering health and kindness to our brethren. To be whole, holy, complete; to be like Christ, is at once the noblest, freest, hardest thing in the world, the one desirable attainment, the sole way to happiness; yes, to more than happiness, to blessedness; and the only way to reach this end is to live in the strengthening atmosphere of Christ's love, and to avail ourselves of all the manifold riches of His grace. IV. OUTLOOK. What is it that makes you so anxious to climb the hill? The view. To see the landscape lying outspread before the eye; to see the country stretching away to the distant horizon; to realize the sense of vastness; to revel in the subtle poetry of distance; this is enough to make you toil up the steep path, and scale the rugged crag, and for a moment call the spreading scene your own. And it is this sense of outlook we need to get into our religion if we would obtain from it the best it has to give us. There is no faith which gives to man such a sense of vastness as the faith of Jesus Christ. The outlook He gives is so commanding and so rich that the eye cannot take it all in, and the mind reels as it tries to grasp it. But the heart is satisfied with that outlook, and pronounces it very good. Do not allow your outlook to be bounded by the grave; stand by the side of the Saviour, and look beyond into the eternal city. ( A. Mursell. ) The strength of the hills R. S. Storrs, D.D. I. THE IMMENSE POWER INVOLVED. We read of the hanging gardens of Babylon and count them among the wonders of the world. Yet in magnitude they were insignificant compared to the everlasting hills. We climb a range of mountains and find building material sufficient for a hundred cities. It exceeds the power of arithmetic to calculate, and it surpasses the power of language to describe, the colossal greatness, power and wealth of which they are the embodiment. How easy are miracles to Him who built the hills! How terrible to live in a world of such energies, unless we are loyally obedient to Him who can create and can destroy, and who is as wise and benign as He is omnipotent! II. THE DAINTY AND MARVELLOUS BEAUTY OF THE HILLS. Their loveliness images the beauty which exists in the mind of the Builder. In form, and outline, and altitude, here in round or undulating lines, there in abrupt and jagged peaks, here lofty and there in lowly elevations, there is constant variety. So, too, in the relation the mountains bear to each other. Some stretch along in terraces and some in continental ranges or chains; some tower up apart and alone; still others tumbled together in confusion, but everywhere bringing refreshment to the vision of the beholder, who is alternately awed and delighted. The verdure that covers their slopes, from the beech and birch below to the evergreen of the higher slopes, with the wild flowers between the splintered crags or the mosses and lichens that cling to them, and the changing colour of the verdure as autumn touches it with brilliant hues — all teach us God's wonderful and eternal love of beauty and lift our thoughts to that city above which He is to make the crown and consummation of beauty eternal. III. THE UTILITY AND THE HELPFULNESS OF THE HILLS. They are rich in their stony or metallic materials, and in the forests that clothe them. Mountains influence the temperature, cooling in summer and protecting us from the rigour of winter. They are great hospitals for the sick, for some diseases cannot exist 2,000 feet above the sea. The springs that run among the hills unite to form the rivers that in turn pour their waters into the sea. There are moral as well as physical benefactions. The mountains teach us to face difficulties and to overcome them, inspiring strength to labour, perseverance and patience in toil and trial. The hills are helpful in stimulating the love of liberty, quickening great thoughts and poetic inspirations. The mountains have sheltered the persecuted people of God, and there the bones of His slaughtered saints have been sometimes laid. It was to the mountain Christ retired to pray; it was on a mountain He was transfigured; it was on a mountain He delivered that matchless discourse which will inspire men as long as time lasts. It was into "a great and high mountain" that John was carried, in the spirit, from which he saw Holy Jerusalem. Mountains are earth's spires. We build spires a hundred feet or more, but these spires are lifted up miles in height toward heaven, pointing to Himself and clothed with pure, white, awful majesty, as if to remind us of the great white throne of judgment which is to be revealed. IV. THE LITTLENESS OF MAN IS ANOTHER LESSON OF THE HILLS. Men may tunnel the earth and lift magnificent bridges, but with all their wealth and force they can neither build nor level the Alleghanies and the Sierras. God alone has reared them, and at His word they will vanish as a dream when one awaketh. "What is man that Thou art mindful of him!" V. How beautiful is the revelation of God in Jesus Christ! THE MOUNTAINS TELL US NOTHING OF HIS MERCY AND GRACE TOWARD SINFUL MEN. They tell of inexorable power, but not of forgiveness. It is in Christ alone we learn this: He who built the mountain opened the eyes of the blind, and blessed the little children. The Bible is the great moral mountain of the world. Why is it that men are unwilling to receive it? ( R. S. Storrs, D.D. ) The sea is His, and He made it. Psalm 95:5 Considerations on the sea Bp. Horne. When we place ourselves upon the shore, and from thence behold that immense body of waters, stretching away on all sides, far as the eye can reach; and when we consider how large, a portion of the globe is covered in like manner; what a noble idea are we hereby enabled to form of the immensity of that Being who is said not only to weigh the mountains in a balance, but to take up the sea in the hollow of His hand! In whose sight the hills are but as dust, the ocean is no more than a drop. The immeasurable breadth of the sea may remind us of God's boundless mercy; its unfathomable depth holds forth an image of His unsearchable judgments. When we see a mass of water rising up by a gradual ascent, till the sky seems, as it were, to descend and close upon it, a thought immediately strikes us — what is it which prevents these waters from breaking in upon and overflowing the land, as they appear in heaps so much above it? Let us adore that unseen power which, by a perpetual decree, keeps them in their proper place, nor suffers them to intrude themselves into one which is not theirs. Hear attentively the noise of the sea — how grand and awful the sound, even as the voice of the Almighty God when He speaketh! And is not this what the waves always say, — praise the Lord — praise Him with your voices, as we constantly do with ours, while we thus intelligibly proclaim aloud the might of His power and the glory of His majesty! Nor is the sea more wonderful in itself than it is beneficial to mankind. From its surface vapours are continually arising, drawn upwards by the heat of the sun, which, by degrees formed into clouds, drop fatness on our fields and gardens, causing even the wilderness to smile, and the valleys, covered over with corn, to laugh and sing. Thus the prayers of the faithful servants of God, daily ascending from all parts of the earth, return in large effusions of grace and blessing from heaven. But we are indebted to the ocean not only for the vapours sent up from its surface, but likewise for many springs, which have their origin from the great deep beneath, with which the sea communicates. These, arising in vapour through the lower parts of the earth, break forth and issue in streams, many of which joined form rivers, and so go back again to the place from whence they came; as the blood in the human body flows in streams from the heart, through the arteries, and returns to it again, in rivers, by the veins, which grow larger as they approach and are about to empty themselves into the great reservoir. In the greater, as well as the lesser world, there is a constant circulation maintained. The income is proportioned to the expense, and nothing is wasted. All rivers, saith Solomon, run to the sea, yet the sea is not full, or, does not overflow; to the place from whence the rivers come, thither do they return again; but not till, by their innumerable turnings and windings, they have refreshed and enriched large tracts of country in their passage. So Divine grace springs up in the heart of a Christian man, as water doth in a fountain, supplied from an invisible and inexhaustible storehouse. It flows forth in his words and action, doing good to all around it in its course, and is finally swallowed up and lost in the boundless ocean of infinite perfection. ( Bp. Horne. ) God's ownership of the sea L. Swain, D.D. God has given the land to man, but the sea He has reserved to Himself: "the sea is His, and He made it." He has given man "no inheritance in it; no, not so much as to set his foot on." If he enters its domain, he enters it as a pilgrim and a stranger. He may pass over it, but he can have no abiding place upon it. He cannot build his house, nor so much as pitch his tent within it. He cannot mark it with his lines, nor subdue it to his uses, nor rear his monuments upon it. If he has done any brilliant exploit upon its surface, he cannot perpetuate the memory of it by erecting so much as an arch or a pillar. It steadfastly refuses to own him as lord. And with this is co

95:1-7 Whenever we come into God's presence, we must come with thanksgiving. The Lord is to be praised; we do not want matter, it were well if we did not want a heart. How great is that God, whose the whole earth is, and the fulness thereof; who directs and disposes of all!, The Lord Jesus, whom we are here taught to praise, is a great God; the mighty God is one of his titles, and God over all, blessed for evermore. To him all power is given, both in heaven and earth. He is our God, and we should praise him. He is our Saviour, and the Author of our blessedness. The gospel church is his flock, Christ is the great and good Shepherd of believers; he sought them when lost, and brought them to his fold. 95:7-11 Christ calls upon his people to hear his voice. You call him Master, or Lord; then be his willing, obedient people. Hear the voice of his doctrine, of his law, and in both, of his Spirit: hear and heed; hear and yield. Christ's voice must be heard to-day. This day of opportunity will not last always; improve it while it is called to-day. Hearing the voice of Christ is the same with believing. Hardness of heart is at the bottom of all distrust of the Lord. The sins of others ought to be warnings to us not to tread in their steps. The murmurings of Israel were written for our admonition. God is not subject to such passions as we are; but he is very angry at sin and sinners. That certainly is evil, which deserves such a recompence; and his threatenings are as sure as his promises. Let us be aware of the evils of our hearts, which lead us to wander from the Lord. There is a rest ordained for believers, the rest of everlasting refreshment, begun in this life, and perfected in the life to come. This is the rest which God calls his rest.