1.
I will sing of the mercies of the LORD for ever: with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations.
2.
For I have said, Mercy shall be built up for ever: thy faithfulness shalt thou establish in the very heavens.
3.
I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto David my servant,
4.
Thy seed will I establish for ever, and build up thy throne to all generations. Selah.
5.
And the heavens shall praise thy wonders, O LORD: thy faithfulness also in the congregation of the saints.
6.
For who in the heaven can be compared unto the LORD? who among the sons of the mighty can be likened unto the LORD?
7.
God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him.
8.
O LORD God of hosts, who is a strong LORD like unto thee? or to thy faithfulness round about thee?
9.
Thou rulest the raging of the sea: when the waves thereof arise, thou stillest them.
10.
Thou hast broken Rahab in pieces, as one that is slain; thou hast scattered thine enemies with thy strong arm.
11.
The heavens are thine, the earth also is thine: as for the world and the fulness thereof, thou hast founded them.
12.
The north and the south thou hast created them: Tabor and Hermon shall rejoice in thy name.
13.
Thou hast a mighty arm: strong is thy hand, and high is thy right hand.
14.
Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face.
15.
Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound: they shall walk, O LORD, in the light of thy countenance.
16.
In thy name shall they rejoice all the day: and in thy righteousness shall they be exalted.
17.
For thou art the glory of their strength: and in thy favour our horn shall be exalted.
18.
For the LORD is our defence; and the Holy One of Israel is our king.
19.
Then thou spakest in vision to thy holy one, and saidst, I have laid help upon one that is mighty; I have exalted one chosen out of the people.
20.
I have found David my servant; with my holy oil have I anointed him:
21.
With whom my hand shall be established: mine arm also shall strengthen him.
22.
The enemy shall not exact upon him; nor the son of wickedness afflict him.
23.
And I will beat down his foes before his face, and plague them that hate him.
24.
But my faithfulness and my mercy shall be with him: and in my name shall his horn be exalted.
25.
I will set his hand also in the sea, and his right hand in the rivers.
26.
He shall cry unto me, Thou art my father, my God, and the rock of my salvation.
27.
Also I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth.
28.
My mercy will I keep for him for evermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him.
29.
His seed also will I make to endure for ever, and his throne as the days of heaven.
30.
If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments;
31.
If they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments;
32.
Then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes.
33.
Nevertheless my lovingkindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail.
34.
My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.
35.
Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David.
36.
His seed shall endure forever, and his throne as the sun before me.
37.
It shall be established for ever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven. Selah.
38.
But thou hast cast off and abhorred, thou hast been wroth with thine anointed.
39.
Thou hast made void the covenant of thy servant: thou hast profaned his crown by casting it to the ground.
40.
Thou hast broken down all his hedges; thou hast brought his strong holds to ruin.
41.
All that pass by the way spoil him: he is a reproach to his neighbours.
42.
Thou hast set up the right hand of his adversaries; thou hast made all his enemies to rejoice.
43.
Thou hast also turned the edge of his sword, and hast not made him to stand in the battle.
44.
Thou hast made his glory to cease, and cast his throne down to the ground.
45.
The days of his youth hast thou shortened: thou hast covered him with shame. Selah.
46.
How long, LORD? wilt thou hide thyself for ever? shall thy wrath burn like fire?
47.
Remember how short my time is: wherefore hast thou made all men in vain?
48.
What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death? shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave? Selah.
49.
Lord, where are thy former lovingkindnesses, which thou swarest unto David in thy truth?
THE FAILURE OF FAITH
‘Lord, where are Thy former lovingkindnesses, which Thou swarest unto David in Thy truth?’
Psalms 89:49
It was on the morrow of the profound humiliation of Jerusalem by Shishak, and amidst the political and religious ruins which it had brought with it, that the eighty-ninth psalm was written. The writer was an old servant and friend of the royal house: Ethan the Ezrahite. He was one of those wise men whose names are recorded as having been exceeded in wisdom by King Solomon, and had long taken part with Heman and Asaph in the Temple’s services; and thus at this sad crisis of his history he pours out his soul in the pathetic and majestic psalm before us, and of this psalm the keynote is to be found in the words, “Lord, where are Thy former lovingkindnesses, which Thou swarest unto David in Thy truth?”
I. ‘Where are Thy former lovingkindnesses?’—As he sings Ethan looks around him, and his eye rests on a scene of degradation and ruin. He suffers as a patriot; he suffers as a religious man; he suffers as the descendants of the old Roman families suffered when they beheld Alaric and his hosts sacking the Eternal City. What had become of the lovingkindness of God, what of His faithfulness, what of His power? Ethan, in his report of the promise, answered his own difficulty. The covenant with David was not an absolute covenant. It depended upon conditions. There is a difference between the gifts of the Creator in the region of unconscious nature and His gifts in the region of free, self-determining will. The former are absolute gifts; the latter depend for their value and their virtue on the use that is made of them. The race of David was raised from among the shepherds of Bethlehem to reign over a great people upon conditions—conditions which were summed up in fidelity to Him who had done so much for it. Ethan himself states this supreme condition in the words of the Divine Author of the covenant: ‘If David’s children forsake My law, and walk not in My judgments … then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their sin with scourges.’
II. Ethan’s cry has often been raised by pious men in the bad days of Christendom: ‘Lord, where are Thy former lovingkindnesses?’ And the answer is, ‘They are where they were.’ ‘The gifts and calling of God are without repentance.’ Now, as always, the promises of God to His people are largely conditioned. If the gates of hell shall not prevail against His Church, much short of this may happen as a consequence of the unfaithfulness of her members or her ministers. Of this let us be sure, that if God’s promises seem to any to have failed, the fault lies not with Him, but with ourselves; it is we who have changed, not He. The cloud which issues from our furnaces of passion and self-will has overclouded for the moment the face of the sun; but beyond the cloud of smoke the sun still shines.
—Canon Liddon.
Illustration
‘There are dark seasons when this expectation is not clearly displayed, and troubled hours when the soul finds it hard to seize the word of promise, so surely attested, and only by a great effort can cling to the word of the oath of the true Witness. Then there is danger, lest the praise of God, whose strength is still the ornament and glory of His people, should be hushed, or changed into vain complaining; lest by so long enduring of evil the hope of amelioration should sink into the fear of greater evil.’
50.
Remember, Lord, the reproach of thy servants; how I do bear in my bosom the reproach of all the mighty people;
51.
Wherewith thine enemies have reproached, O LORD; wherewith they have reproached the footsteps of thine anointed.
52.
Blessed be the LORD for evermore. Amen, and Amen.