Herein is a marked contrast between Jehovah, the God of revelation, and all the gods which men have of themselves created. Man always imagines his supreme God as quiescent, impassive, eternally still. Revelation presents to us God as ceaselessly active, never still, everywhere working. All creation, involving sustenance, involves the constant energy and enterprise of God. Brahma is the infinitely silent one. The figures of a Buddha embody the perfection of listlessness and indifference. The Lord Jesus Christ gave us our primal and essential thought of God when he said, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work."

I. MAN IS SURROUNDED WITH THE ACTIVITIES OF EVIL. More than surrounded, for there is the more serious activity of evil within him. What has to be taken into full account is that evil is a ceaselessly and energetically active force. That truth is embodied for us in the description of evil as "a roaring lion, walking about, seeking whom he may devour." It is on account of that activity that we are bidden to "watch" When men sleep, the enemy is active, and goes sowing tares in their fields. One thing often surprises men. Temptation takes them at unawares; sometimes in their times of conscious strength, sometimes when they are unconscious of their weakness. Morning, noon, and night we have to take account of ever-active evil.

II. MAN NEEDS THE ASSURANCE OF THE SUPERIOR ACTIVITY OF GOD, illustrated by the way in which this need was felt by Persians, and met by Zoroaster, who taught the superior activity of Ormuzd over Ahriman - a superior activity which assured a continuous as well as a final triumph. This psalm brings on us an answering impression of the activity of our good God. And it is an activity

(1) in the sphere of the things that affect man, and

(2) in man himself. For it is the chief charm of the activity of God that we may think of it as the sanctifying activity of the Holy Spirit, who "dwelleth with us and in us," - R.T.

He "keepeth truth for ever" —

I. IN NATURE (Psalm 19.; Job 37.).

II. IN THE REGION OF MORAL BEING AND LIFE. He keepeth the truth of them for ever. In all ages, in all worlds, these impalpable things, truth, honour, purity, righteousness, charity, are one and are the same. He who has learnt to love them here has eternal kindred; he who has knit his soul to them here has eternal communion; he who has dared to die for them here has eternal renown. The Greek sage was right. The sisters of the unseen realities, which have the rule of us here, await us behind the veil. In vain shall we betray them here, if they affront us there with their retributions, and exact their penalties through eternity. If truth, honour, duty, be transitory and mundane things, the temptation is terrible to shirk them. They cost much, and to him who holds them in slight honour they bring slight rewards. But if "He keepeth their truth for ever"; if He who is eternal lives by them, works by them, and will so live and work for ever, it lends an awful force to the man who is ready on earth to live for them and die for them; and it blasts with an awful eternal desolation the life which dishonours them and treads them in the dust.

III. IN THE COVENANT OF REDEMPTION.

I. The truth of reconciliation. He declares that He is absolutely reconciled to us in Christ Jesus. That truth He keepeth for ever. Meet Him in Christ. Your sin has for ever vanished from before His face. Your soul is for ever under the heaven of His smiles (Colossians 1:19; Romans 5:1-11; Ephesians 1:3-12; Galatians 3:21; Galatians 4:7). That truth He keepeth for ever.

2. The truth of regeneration (Galatians 4:4, 5). If your life is built on this rock, God's calling of you as a son in Christ, if your hope is rested in this sovereign purpose of the Lord God Almighty, to present you complete in Christ in the day of the manifestation of the Son of God, then there is nothing in the universe which is stronger; nothing on earth, heaven or hell, nothing out of yourself can tear you away. And this is the end which God is pursuing through the whole of your discipline (Hebrews 12:1-12). He keeps the truth of this purpose for ever. To bring out the filial character, to enable you to comprehend His paternal character, is the great end of all you are called to endure.

3. The truth of His covenant engagement concerning man and the universe with His Son. We have His purpose and His love to trust to; but both grounds of assurance assume their strongest form and convey the surest hope when we contemplate the covenant which was established with the God-man when He finished the work which the Father had given Him to do. We are ever haunted in our endeavours to realize God's faithfulness by the thought of our own unfaithfulness, our utter unworthiness of such fidelity, such love. That we may have strong assurance God established His covenant with us as a covenant with the God-man, the well-beloved Son. Not what we are before the Father but what He is, our advocate, representative, and living head, is then the question. The building up of the spiritual universe under Him as its head, the redemption of the creature, all created things from the bondage of corruption, the realization of the ideal beauty, purity, and splendour, which has haunted like a dim dream in all ages the imagination of mankind, the completion of the New Jerusalem, the filling up of the muster-roll of its citizens, the gathering of the crowned victors of the spiritual battle around the throne of the Captain, to shine and reign with Him in the palaces of eternity, — these are assured to Christ by the terms of the everlasting covenant. And these the God "who keepeth truth for ever" will evermore secure.

(J. B. Brown, B. A.)