Psalm 18:46

EXPOSITION

Verse 46. The Lord liveth. Possessing underived, essential, independent and eternal life. We serve no inanimate, imaginary, or dying God. He only hath immortality. Like loyal subjects let us cry, Live on, O God. Long live the King of kings. By thine immortality do we dedicate ourselves afresh to thee. As the Lord our God liveth so would we live to him.

And blessed be my rock. He is the ground of our hope, and let him be the subject of our praise. Our hearts bless the Lord, with holy love extolling him.

Jehovah lives, my rock be blessed! Praised be the God who gives me rest!

Let the God of my salvation be exalted. As our Saviour, the Lord should more than ever be glorified. We should publish abroad the story of the covenant and the cross, the Father's election, the Son's redemption, and the Spirit's regeneration. He who rescues us from deserved ruin should be very dear to us. In heaven they sing "Unto him that loved us and washed us in his blood;" the like music should be common in the assemblies of the saints below.

EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS

Verse 46. The Lord liveth; and blessed be my rock; and let the God of my salvation be exalted. Let us unite our hearts in this song for a close of our praises. Honours die, pleasures die, the world dies; but The Lord liveth. My flesh is as sand; my fleshly life, strength, glory, is as a word written on sand; but blessed be my ROCK. Those are for a moment; this stands for ever. The curse shall devour those; everlasting blessings on the head of this. Let outward salvations vanish; let the saved be crucified; let the God of our salvations be exalted. This Lord is my rock; this God is my salvation. Peter Sterry, 1649.

Verse 46. The Lord liveth. Why do you not oppose one God to all the armies of evils that beset you round? why do you not take the more content in God when you have the less of the creature to take content in? why do you not boast in your God? and bear up yourselves big with your hopes in God and expectations from him? Do you not see young heirs to great estates act and spend accordingly? And, why shall you, being the King of heaven's son, be lean and ragged from day to day, as though you were not worth a groat? O sirs, live upon your portion, chide yourselves for living besides what you have. There are great and precious promises, rich, enriching mercies; you may make use of God's all sufficiency; you can blame none but yourselves if you be defective or discouraged. A woman, truly godly for the main, having buried a child, and sitting alone in sadness, did yet bear up her heart with the expression, "God lives;" and having parted with another, still she redoubled, "Comforts die, but God lives." At last her dear husband dies, and she sat oppressed and most overwhelmed with sorrow. A little child she had yet surviving, having observed what before she spoke to comfort herself, comes to her and saith, "Is God dead, mother? is God dead?" This reached her heart, and by God's blessing recovered her former confidence in her God, who is a living God. Thus do you chide yourselves; ask your fainting spirits under pressing outward sorrows, is not God alive? and why then doth not thy soul revive? why doth thy heart die within thee when comforts die! Cannot a living God support thy dying hopes? Thus, Christians, argue down your discouraged and disquieted spirits as David did. Oliver Heywood's "Sure Mercies of David," 1672.

HINTS FOR PASTORS AND LAYPERSONS

Verse 46. The living God, and how to bless and exalt him.