God's love for living creatures.
This psalm celebrates and proves it. For, see—
I. HE HAS PLACED THEM EVERYWHERE. The sea, the air, the land, all teem with it, as this psalm tells. And the lower life points to the higher, and proclaims that when God's will is done, that, too, shall fill earth and heaven.
II. HE HAS ABUNDANTLY PROVIDED FOR THEM. Food, habitation, refuge (Psalms 104:16-18). And Christ came, that we might have life, and have it more abundantly. "He is able to save to the uttermost." Full provision for fulness of life is made.
III. AND SUITABLY LIKEWISE. The trees for the birds' nests, the hills and rocks for those creatures that dwell there. And so his grace is according to our need. He has a niche for each of us to fill, which will suit none else so well, and he prepares us for the place in which he would have us be.
IV. AND ALL HIS CREATURES BUT OURSELVES GLADLY ACCEPT HIS PROVISION. They never refuse his bounty, but depend on it always. Each makes its way to its own home. Christ is the soul's home: shall we turn away from that?—S.C.
The psalm of creation: the first day.
This psalm should he read in connection with the story of God's creating the heaven and the earth.
I. IT BEGINS BY THE PSALMIST SEEKING TO ATTUNE HIS SOUL FOR HIS STUDY OF THE WORKS OF GOD.
1. He would that the Lord should be praised, and by himself especially. "O my soul" (cf. Psalms 103:1-22.). If the study of nature were entered on with this desire, how far more fruitful it would be! None of the good that has resulted from that study would be lost, but much of the incidental ill that too often accompanies it would be avoided. Science would be transfigured into worship, with all the moral and spiritual advantages that worship brings.
2. Then there is the spirit of awe. "Thou art very great."
3. Of adoration. "Clothed with honour and majesty." It is not the mere power, skill, and ingenuity of the Creator that strike the psalmist's soul, but the moral characteristics of God, which bring to him honour and majesty as they ought to do. A study so begun cannot but be fruitful of good.
II. THEN HE SPEAKS OF THE WORK OF THE FIRST DAY—THE CREATION OF THE LIGHT. He does not tell, as Genesis does, of what preceded that, but comes at once to the blessed and final result.
1. There had been a previous creation. "In the beginning God created," etc. Without doubt it had all been fair and beautiful, as in the moral creation; for there, too, man was made in the image of God, perfect, upright, without sin.
2. But ere the light was formed, a sad change had come. We find that "the earth was without form," etc. Chaos reigned. Moreover, the waters seem to have rushed in, and darkness brooded over all. What a true picture of the moral condition ere the spiritual light came! Disorder, subjection to sin, impenetrable ignorance, the darkness of the soul.
3. There must have been, ere this, some terrible shock which turned God's far off original creation into the hideous deformity of which Genesis 1:2 tells. Certainly it is so with man's moral nature. God made him in his own image. He is, until regenerated, the victim of a moral chaos. There must have been some "fall," some terrible catastrophe, which changed man, made in God's image, into what we know unregenerate human nature to be.
4. But, as with the earth and heavens, so with redeemed man, there has come a blessed change. God shed abroad the light, covered himself with it "as with a garment" (Genesis 1:2). This is how God began the creation work. "Let there be light." There had been, indeed, the Spirit brooding over the face of the deep, but the first manifestation of the creating work was in the creation of the light. And is it not ever so? Does not God always begin thus his regenerating work? The man comes to see himself as he really is—how wretched, miserable, apart from God; how hopeless, helpless, and every day getting worse; and then cometh the further light of God in Christ (2 Corinthians 4:6). And then, as the forlorn earth yielded itself to the plastic hand of the Creator, to be formed and fashioned as he willed, so, under the power of the light of the soul, it yields itself in like manner. And the Spirit of God is the Author of all this. We know not how long he may have been brooding over the darkness in the one case or the other, only that the light was through him. This impartation of light is ever his work. When he comes he convicts the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment: that is the first and preparatory work. God says, "Let there be light," and there is light. The result is that when God comes into the soul he seems to be clothed with light, so widespread, so intense, is the illumination of the soul. The peril is lest any should quench that light, or, having seen it, should cease to walk in it. What wonder, when the light is seen and welcomed, there should be a quickened conscientiousness, a scrupulosity and carefulness, which hitherto the soul had never known!
III. LET US PRAY THAT THAT FIRST DAY'S WORK MAY BE DONE IN US. So only can we truly know ourselves in God; so only can we enter on that career which all along shall have the favour of God and end in the eternal rest.—S.C.