Psalm 84:1-12 How amiable are your tabernacles, O LORD of hosts!… The Christian loves the sanctuary — I. BECAUSE IT IS THE DWELLING-PLACE OF THE MOST HIGH. In the works of creation and providence we behold Him coming forth as a God of ineffable goodness, unable, as it were, from the graciousness of His nature, to withhold unnumbered good things even from the fallen. But it is the sanctuary which is the tabernacle of His glory. There He specially reveals Himself as the God of all grace; there is the mercy-seat; there, sinful though we be, we may draw nigh to the God of our spirits through the High Priest of our profession, the Son of His love. II. BECAUSE HE FEELS PLEASURE IN ITS HALLOWED EMPLOYMENTS. He knows by experience that as in Ezekiel's vision the healing waters flowed from the sanctuary, and imparted life and fertility to every region through which they wound their way, so the gifts and graces of God's Holy Spirit, descending from the heavenly Zion, pour their refreshing and sanctifying current through the courts of the Lord's house, and that from its services, as from consecrated channels, he drinks of that stream which makes glad the city of God. III. BECAUSE IT IS THE SYMBOL OF BETTER THINGS TO COME. Our mental joys within these earthly temples are but the beginnings and the foretastes of the joys of heaven; our songs in the assembly of the great congregation, they are but the representative of the vast multitude who are even now singing the new song of the redeemed; and all the privileges which surround us, and in which we now delight, are the only outline of the final state of perfection when we appear in that land of which the Lord God is the light, and the glory, and the sanctuary. Oh! how glorious shall be that service compared with this! (S. Bridge, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: {To the chief Musician upon Gittith, A Psalm for the sons of Korah.} How amiable are thy tabernacles, O LORD of hosts! |
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