Treasury of David

Charles Spurgeon

PSALM 36
 

TITLE. To the Chief Musician. He who had the leadership of the Temple service was charged with the use of this song in public worship. What is everybody's business is never done. It was well to have one person specially to attend to the service of song in the house of the Lord.

Of David the servant of the Lord. This would seem to indicate that the Psalm peculiarly befits one who esteems it an honor to be called Jehovah's servant. It is THE SONG OF HAPPY SERVICE; such a one as all may join in who bear the easy yoke of Jesus. The wicked are contrasted with the righteous, and the great Lord of devout men is heartily extolled; thus obedience to so good a Master is indirectly insisted on, and rebellion against him is plainly condemned.

DIVISION. From Verses 1-4 David describes the rebellious.

In Verses 5-9 he extols the various attributes of the Lord.

In Verses 10-11 he addresses the Lord in prayer.

In the last verse his faith sees in vision the overthrow of all the workers of iniquity.
 

EXPOSITION

Verse 1. The transgression of the wicked. His daring and wanton sin; his breaking the bounds of law and justice.

Says within my heart, that there is no fear of God before his eyes. Men's sins have a voice to godly ears. They are the outer index of an inner evil. It is clear that men who dare to sin constantly and presumptuously cannot respect the great Judge of all. Despite the professions of unrighteous men, when we see their unhallowed actions, our heart is driven to the conclusion that they have no religion whatever. Unholiness is clear evidence of ungodliness. Wickedness is the fruit of an atheistic root.

This may be made clear to the candid mind by cogent reasoning, but it is clear already and intuitively to the pious heart. If God is everywhere, and I fear him, how can I dare to break his laws in his very presence? He must be a desperate traitor who will rebel in the monarch's own halls.

Whatever theoretical opinions bad men may avow, they can only be classed with atheists, since they are such practically. Those eyes which have no fear of God before them now, shall have the terrors of Hell before them forever.

Verse 2. For. Here is the argument to prove the proposition laid down in the former verse. David here runs over the process of reasoning by which he had become convinced that wicked men have no proper idea of God or respect for him. God-fearing men see their sins and bewail them; where the reverse is the case, we may be sure there is no fear of God.

He flatters himself in his own eyes. He counts himself a fine fellow, worthy of great respect. He quiets his conscience, and so deceives his own judgment as to reckon himself a pattern of excellence; if not for morality—yet for having sense enough not to be enslaved by rules which are bonds to others. He is the free thinker, the man of strong mind, the hater of holiness, the philosopher. The servants of God are, in his esteem, mean spirited and narrow-minded.

Of all flatteries, this is the most absurd and dangerous. Even the silliest bird will not set traps for itself; the most reproachful attorney will not cheat himself. To smooth over one's own conduct to one's conscience (which is the meaning of the Hebrew) is to smooth one's own path to Hell. The descent to eternal ruin is easy enough, without making an icy slope of it, as self-flatters do.

Until his iniquity be found to be hateful. At length he is found out and detested, despite his self-conceit. Rottenness smells sooner or later—it is too strong to be concealed. There is a time when the leprosy cannot be hidden. At last the old house can no longer be propped up, and falls about the tenant's ears.

Just so, there is a limit to a man's self-deception; he is found out amid general scorn, and can no longer keep up the farce which he played so well. If this happens not in this life, the hand of death will let light in upon the hidden character, and expose the sinner to shame and contempt!

The self-flattering process plainly proves the atheism of sinners, since the bare reflection that God sees them would render such self-flatteries extremely difficult, if not impossible. Belief in God, like light reveals—and then our sin and evil are perceived. But wicked men are in the dark, for they cannot see what is so clearly within them and around them, that it stares them in the face!

Verse 3. The words of his mouth are iniquity and deceit. This pair of Hell-dogs generally hunt together, and what one does not catch the other will; if iniquity cannot win by oppression, deceit will gain by chicanery. When the heart is so corrupt as to flatter itself, the tongue follows suit. The open sepulcher of the throat, reveals the foulness of the inner nature.

God-fearing men make a conscience of their words, and if they sin through infirmity they do not invent excuses, or go about to boast of their wickedness. But because wicked men think little of evil and deceptive speeches, we may be clear that God rules not in their souls.

The original by declaring that the words of the wicked are falsehood and deceit, is peculiarly strong; as if they were not only false in quality, but actual falseness itself. He has left off to be wise, and to do good.

From the good way he has altogether gone aside. Men who fear God proceed from strength to strength in the right path, but godless men soon forsake what little good they once knew. How could men apostatize if they had respect unto the supreme Judge? Is it not because they grow more and more forgetful of God, that in due season they relinquish even that hypocritical reverence of him which in former days they maintained in order to flatter their souls?

Verse 4. He devises evil upon his bed. His place of rest becomes the place for plotting evil. His bed is a hot-bed for poisonous weeds. God-fearing men meditate upon God and his service; but when men turn all their thoughts and inventive faculties towards evil, their godlessness is proved to a demonstration. He has the devil for his bed-fellow who lies abed and schemes how to sin. God is far from him.

He commits himself to a sinful course. When he gets up, he resolutely and persistently pursues the mischief which he planned in his bed. The worst of ways he prefers for his walking, for he has taught his heart to love filthiness, having accustomed himself to revel in it in imagination.

He abhors not evil. So far from having a contempt and abhorrence for evil, he even rejoices in it, and patronizes it. He never hates a wrong thing because it is wrong, but he meditates on it, defends it, and practices it!

What a portrait of a graceless man these few verses afford us!

His corruptness of conscience,
his licentiousness of speech,
his intentness upon wrong doing,
his deliberate and continued preference of iniquity, and
withal his atheistic heart, are all photographed to the life!

Lord, save us from being such.

Verses 5-9. From the baseness of the wicked, the psalmist turns his contemplation to the glory of God. Contrasts are impressive.

Verse 5. Your mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens. Like the ethereal blue, God's mercy encompasses the whole earth, smiling upon universal nature, acting as a canopy for all the creatures of earth, surmounting the loftiest peaks of human provocations, and rising high above the mists of mortal transgression. Clear sky is evermore above, and mercy calmly smiles above the din and smoke of this poor world. Darkness and clouds are but of earth's lower atmospheres—the heavens are evermore serene, and bright with innumerable stars.

Divine mercy abides in its vastness of expanse, and matchless patience, all unaltered by the rebellions of man. When we can measure the heavens—then shall we bound the mercy of the Lord. Towards his own servants especially, in the salvation of the Lord Jesus, he has displayed grace higher than the Heaven of heavens, and wider than the universe!

O that there atheist could but see this, how earnestly would he long to become a servant of Jehovah!

Your faithfulness reaches unto the clouds. Far, far above all comprehension is the truth and faithfulness of God. He never fails, nor forgets, nor falters, nor forfeits his word. Afflictions are like clouds, but the divine truthfulness is all around them. While we are under the cloud, we are in the region of God's faithfulness; when we mount above it we shall not need such an assurance. To every word of threat or promise, prophecy or covenant, the Lord has exactly adhered, for he is not a man that he should lie, nor the son of man that he should repent.

Verse 6. Your righteousness is like the great mountains. Firm and unmoved, lofty and sublime. As winds and hurricanes shake not an Alp, so the righteousness of God is never in any degree affected by circumstances; he is always just. Who can bribe the Judge of all the earth; or who can, by threatening, compel him to pervert judgment? Not even to save his elect would the Lord allow his righteousness to be set aside. No awe inspired by mountain scenery can equal that which fills the soul when it beholds the Son of God slain as a victim to vindicate the justice of the inflexible Lawgiver!

Right across the path of every unholy man who dreams of Heaven stand the towering Andes of divine righteousness, which no unregenerate sinner can ever climb.

Among great mountains lie slumbering avalanches, and there the young lightnings try their callow wings until the storm rushes down amain from the awful peaks; so against the great day of the Lord's wrath the Lord has laid up in the mountains of his righteousness, dreadful ammunition of war with which to overwhelm his adversaries.

Your judgments are a great deep. God's dealings with men are not to be fathomed by every boaster who demands to see a why for every therefore. The Lord is not to be questioned by us as to why this and why that. He has reasons, but he does not choose to submit them to our foolish consideration.

Far and wide, terrible and irresistible like the ocean—are the providential dispensations of God. At one time they appear as peaceful as the unrippled sea of glass; at another time they are tossed with tempest and whirlwind, and are evermore most glorious and full of mystery. Who shall discover the springs of the sea? He who shall do this, may hope to comprehend the providence of the Eternal.

Yet as the deep mirrors the sky, so the mercy of the Lord is to be seen reflected in all the arrangements of his government on earth, and over the profound depth, the covenant rainbow casts its arch of comfort, for the Lord is faithful in all that he does.

O Lord, you preserve man and beast. All the myriads of creatures, rational and irrational, are fed by Jehovah's hand. The countless beasts, the innumerable birds, the inconceivable abundance of fish, the all but infinite armies of insects—all owe their continuance of life to the unceasing outgoings of divine power. What a view of God this presents to us! What a debased creature must he be, who sees no trace of such a God, and feels no awe of him!

Verse 7. How excellent is your loving-kindness, O God. Here we enter into the Holy of Holies. Benevolence, and mercy, and justice, are everywhere, but the excellence of that mercy only those have known whose faith has lifted the veil and passed into the brighter presence of the Lord; these behold the excellency of the Lord's mercy.

The word translated excellent may be rendered "precious;" no gem or pearl can ever equal in value a sense of the Lord's love. This is such a brilliant as angels wear. King's regalia are a beggardly collection of worthless pebbles when compared with the tender mercies of Jehovah.

David could not estimate it, and therefore, after putting a note of admiration, he left our hearts and imagination, and, better still, our experience, to fill up the rest. He writes how excellent! because he cannot tell us the half of it.

Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of your wings. The best of reasons for the best of courses. The figure is very beautiful. The Lord overshadows his people as a hen protects her brood, or as an eagle covers its young; and we as the little ones run under the blessed shelter and feel at rest! To cower down under the wings of God is so sweet. Although the enemy be far too strong for us, we have no fear, for we nestle under the Lord's wing.

O that more of Adam's race knew the excellency of the heavenly shelter! It made Jesus weep to see how they refused it—our tears may well lament the same evil.

Verse 8. They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of your house. Those who learn to put their trust in God shall be received into his house, and shall share in the provision laid up therein. The dwelling place of the Lord is not confined to any place, and hence reside where we may, we may regard our dwelling, if we are believers, as one room in the Lord's great house. We shall, both in providence and grace, find a soul contenting store supplied to us as the result of living by faith in nearness to the Lord.

If we regard the assembly of the saints as being peculiarly the house of God, believers shall, indeed, find in sacred worship the richest spiritual food. Happy is the soul that can drink in the sumptuous dainties of the gospel—nothing can so completely fill the soul.

And you shall make them drink of the river of your pleasures. As they have the fruits of Eden to feed on, so shall they have the river of Paradise to drink from. God's everlasting love bears to us a constant and ample comfort, of which grace makes us to drink by faith, and then our pleasure is of the richest kind.

The Lord not only brings us to this river, but makes us drink: herein we see the condescension of divine love. Heaven will, in the fullest sense, fulfill these words; but those who trust in the Lord enjoy the foretaste even here. The happiness given to the faithful is that of God himself; purified spirits joy with the same joy as the Lord himself. "That my joy may be in you, that your joy may be full."

Verse 9. For with you is the fountain of life. This verse is made of simple words, but like the first chapter of John's Gospel, it is very deep. From the Lord, as from an independent self-sufficient spring, all creature life proceeds, by him is sustained, through him alone can it be perfected. Life is in the creature, but the fountain of it is only in the Creator.

Of spiritual life, this is true in the most emphatic sense; "it is the Spirit who quickens." "We are dead, and our life is hid with Christ in God."

In your light shall we see light. Light is the glory of life. Life in the dark is misery, and rather death than life. The Lord alone can give natural, intellectual, and spiritual life; he alone can make life bright and lustrous.

In spiritual things the knowledge of God sheds a light on all other subjects. We need no candle to see the sun, we see it by its own radiance, and then see everything else by the same luster. We never see Jesus by the light of self, but self in the light of Jesus. No inward intelligence of ours leads us to receive the Spirit's light, but rather, it often quenches the sacred beam. Purely and only by his own illumination, the Holy Spirit lights up the dark recesses of our heart's ungodliness.

Vain are those who look to learning and human wit. One ray from the throne of God is better than the noonday splendor of created wisdom. Lord, give me the sun; and let those who will, delight in the wax candles of superstition and of corrupt philosophy. Faith derives both light and life from God, and hence she neither dies nor darkens.

Verse 10. O continue your loving-kindness unto those who know you. We ask no more than a continuance of the past mercy. Lord, extend this grace of your to all the days of all who have been taught to know your faithful love, your tenderness, your immutability and omnipotence. As they have been taught of the Lord to know the Lord, so go on to instruct them and perfect them. This prayer is the heart of the believer asking precisely that which the heart of his God is prepared to grant.

It is well when the petition is but the reflection of the promise.

And your righteousness to the upright in heart. As you have never failed the righteous, so abide you in the same manner, their defender and avenger. The worst thing to be feared by the man of God is to be forsaken by God—hence this prayer; but the fear is groundless, hence the peace which faith brings to us.

Learn from this verse, that although a continuance of mercy is guaranteed in the covenant, we are yet to make it a matter of prayer. For this good thing will the Lord be inquired of.

Verse 11. Let not the foot of pride come against me. The general prayer is here turned into a particular and personal one for himself. Pride is the devil's sin. Godly men may well be afraid of proud men, for the serpent's seed will never cease to bite the heel of the godly. Gladly would proud scoffers spurn the saints or trample them under foot; against their malice prayer lifts up her voice. No foot shall come upon us, no hand shall prevail against us, while Jehovah is on our side.

Let not the hand of the wicked remove me. Do not allow me to be driven about as a fugitive, nor torn from my place like an uprooted tree. Violence with both hand and foot, with means fair and means foul, strove to overthrow the psalmist, but he resorts to his great Patron, and sings a song of triumph in anticipation of the defeat of his foes.

Verse 12. There are the workers of iniquity fallen. Faith sees them scattered on the plain. There! before our very eyes sin, death, and Hell, lie prostrate. Behold the vanquished foes!

They are cast down. Providence and grace have dashed them from their vantage ground. Jesus has already thrown all the foes of his people upon their faces, and in due time all sinners shall find it so.

And shall not be able to rise. The defeat of the ungodly and of the powers of evil is final, total, irretrievable. Glory be to God, however high the powers of darkness may carry it at this present, the time hastens on when God shall defend the right, and give to evil such a fall as shall forever crush the hopes of Hell; while those who trust in the Lord shall eternally praise him and rejoice in his holy name.