You set all the boundaries of the earth; You made the summer and winter. Sermons
I. THE NATURAL SUMMER. This is what is referred to in our text: the psalmist appeals to it as a plea for God's much-needed help. His infinite power, which had made summer and winter, and had been manifested in so many marvellous ways, was able to help Israel in their great distress, and their trust was that he would. 1. Israel had to maintain stoutly the truth that God made all things. A whole mob of idol gods was put forward and worshipped by the heathen as the authors and creators of the powers of nature. 2. And our missionaries to the heathen have to maintain the same truth of God the Creator of all. It is by no means universally or generally believed even yet. 3. And in our day and in our own land, professedly Christian as it is, we may not slacken our testimony to this truth. It is not that we have to contend with rival gods, as Israel had, and the missionary still has, but the existence of any God at all is either openly questioned or flatly denied. It is not polytheism, but atheism, that confronts and opposes the Christian advocate today and here at home. Natural law is everything; as if a law could do anything without an executive to put it in force. The ancient Greeks were pantheists, but our men of science have, too many of them, sunk down to a lower depth than that. The Greek saw gods everywhere and in all things; we see God nowhere. Shall we give in to this proud yet miserable atheism? God forbid! Let us still maintain with the psalmist, "Thou hast made summer." As we look round on all the rich glories of the season, let us confess, with our great Puritan poet - "These are thy works, Parent of good," etc. II. THE SUMMER OF GOD'S PROVIDENCE. How many are enjoying this! God's daily gifts of life, health, and joy are lavished upon them. They bask in the sunshine of his love. Everything bids them rejoice. But forget not the Giver of your joy - him who made the summer. That holy memory will be to you like the string attached to the child's kite, which is soaring away up in the blue heavens to the child's exuberant delight. But let that string be broken which now steadies and sustains, it, not hindering but aiding it in its upward way through the sunlit air, and then you know that at once it will come tumbling ignominiously to the ground. So if we let ourselves forget our God, and we be in thought and affection separated from him, then our poor joy, like that child's kite, will soon fall to the ground, and our gladness will soon be at an end. It is the remembrance," Thou hast made summer," which does not hinder but help our joy, steadying and sustaining it as did that cord the child's toy. Let us not forget this. And we would bid you remember God, because, else, the summer of God's providence, like the natural summer, is apt to breed many forms of evil life, like those many creeping, noisome, and miserably destructive insects, etc., which the summer sun calls forth, and which in our fields and gardens we are ever seeking to be rid of. How full the Bible is of records of the ill that the summer of God's providence has occasioned to many unwatchful and God-forgetting souls! Remember, too, that such seasons let that live which is not really strong, and which the first frost of winter will speedily kill. So is it easy, when no trial or persecution arises because of Christ, to appear as if we were really his. But when they do arise, what then? III. THE SUMMER OF GOD'S GRACE. 1. This may be in us - is so when the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts. It is very delightful; is independent of every other summer; comes by degrees; is the result of conflict; unlike the natural summer, it never ends, though it may be interrupted. And: 2. It is above us, waiting for us in the future world. There is the "land of pure delight." The lovely scenes of earth are reminders of it. It is the true, real, most blessed, because unending, summer of the soul. - S.C. (Stopford A. Brooke, M. A.) II. IT REMINDS US OF GOD'S BEAUTY. To the Jew God was full of wisdom, and justice, and patience, and tenderness, and benevolence, and this was the supreme primal glory which lights up with splendour both heaven and earth. "How great is His goodness, and how great is His beauty!" And the New Testament fully recognizes this glorious truth. "The word was made flesh, and dwelt among us; and we beheld His glory," etc. The Deity was made known to us as the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valley — the most delicate and majestic beauty of character and action were revealed in Him. He was strong, wise, pure, gentle, longsuffering, just, true, and full of infinite love and grace. This is the beauty of God, the beauty of holiness, and all other beauty is but a broken gleam of this. III. IT REMINDS US OF GOD'S LOVE. In the day of creation, "God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good." And blighted as creation has been by sin and wrath, we still know that the essentim plan is good, the deepest facts and laws are the best. Evil is on the surface; it is the accident, not the fundamental fact of the world and life. Philosophy and science tell us that all beauty is organic, that it always springs from the depths of a thing; and so let us be sure that, where there is so much beauty in the form of things, there must be love at the heart of things. IV. IT REMINDS US OF GOD'S BLESSEDNESS. "He hath made summer." He must be happy; it is the entrancing expression of His deep happiness. What a joy to know that the omnipotent One is the blessed One — a great bright ocean of sunshine and music! And does not the summer remind us that God wishes us to share His gladness? And many of us, perhaps, are full of darkness and distress. What we want is the summer putting into us. We want the tender blue sky putting into our mind; we want all the flowers that grow about our feet to spring in our heart; we want to hear in our spirit the music of the world; we want to get the rainbow into our conscience; we want all the fruits of light to enrich and adorn our life. This is what we want most of all. Well, is not God waiting to do this very thing for us? (W. L. Watkinson.) Homilist. Summer illustrates —I. SOME ASPECTS OF THE DIVINE CHARACTER. 1. God's love of beauty. 2. God's wonderful wisdom.(1) The simplicity of the agencies which produce such a variety of results — creating the beautiful, picturesque, and the sublime — sustaining life — increasing happiness, and producing expansion of soul.(2) The permanent maintenance of these agencies. Earth still wears the freshness of Eden, wherever there are the perceiving eye and the sympathizing heart. And is not the truth felt by us, that the mind of God is unchangeable towards man, although His final purposes are not vet completed? 3. God's infinite benevolence.(1) It is given to all to enjoy.(2) It is appreciable by all. II. SOME ASPECTS OF HUMAN LIFE. 1. The imperceptible progress of the spring into summer is a representation of the gradual advance of the mind in knowledge. 2. The gladsomeness of summer is an emblem of the temporal prosperity of man. 3. The luxuriance and loveliness of the summer is an emblem of the progress of the soul in the Divine life. There was as violent a struggle in nature between winter and spring as there was in the soul between sin and holiness; but the latter gained the victory, and it expands with life under the influences of the Holy Spirit and the Sun of Righteousness, as the fields and woods under the heat of the sun. And as the life of nature depends on the bounty of God, so does the life of the soul. And as the scenes of nature excite our admiration and love, souls Consecrated to His service in the dawn of manhood will kindle emotions of gratitude in our hearts too deep for utterance. (Homilist.) It may be well enough, perhaps, to show one's acquaintance with nature, by talking learnedly of climate as affected by the sun's rays; the elevation of different regions above the level of the sea; the influence of mountains and currents; but, after all, we must discover in these several agencies the Hand of the Great and Good God. "Thou hast made summer." The constant repetition of this mercy should teach us —I. THAT GOD'S POWER IS NEVER DIMINISHED, NOR HIS RESOURCES EXHAUSTED. II. Again: The text reminds us HOW PATIENTLY THE GOOD LORD BEARS WITH THE INGRATITUDE OF MAN. The slightest disappointment of our unimportant plans by a shower of rain will be met by complaints and murmurings, as if we were the only beings to be thought of, and our convenience to be consulted before that of all others. "All weather is good; sunshine is good; rain is good. One may see in Europe artificial waterworks, cascades constructed by the skill of man, at enormous expense — at Chatsworth, at Hesse Cassel — and the remains of magnificent waterworks at Marly, where Louis XIV. lavished uncounted millions of gold... The traveller thinks it a great thing to see a little water thus pumped up by creaking machinery or a panting steam-engine, to be scattered in frothy spray; and do we talk of its not being a good day when God's great engine is exhibited to us, His imperial waterwork sending up the mists and vapours to the clouds, to be rained down again in comfort, and beauty, and plenty?" III. If we are bringing forth the FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT, no doubt the Holy Ghost has visited and blessed us. There is a delightful period of the year, known as Indian summer, and, in some parts of Europe, as St. Martin's summer. The woods put on their most brilliant colouring, the waters of the lakes are smooth and unruffled, and the red man of the forest are wont to welcome it as the special gift of their most honoured Deity, to whom they believe their souls go after death. As in nature, so in grace also do we find a pleasant illustration here: "In the life of the good man there is an Indian summer more beautiful than that of the season — richer, sunnier, and more sublime than the world has ever known — it is the Indian summer of the soul. When the glow of youth has departed, when the warmth of middle age is gone, then the mind of the good man, still ripe and vigorous, relaxes its labours, and the memories of a well-spent life gush forth from their secret fountains, enriching, rejoicing, fertilizing; and the soul, assuming a heavenly lustre, is no longer shut up within the narrow confines of business, but dwells happily upon the summer which awaits it within the gates of Paradise." Does not the same gracious God who makes summer in the physical, make it also in the spiritual world? And if the summer of the one be glorious, must not the summer of the other be even more glorious? Surely the joyful song of the ransomed ones, during the days of millennial glory, will be, "Thou hast made summer." (J. N. Norton.) Winter God has made the winter. It now claims our thought, and has as much happiness as gloom. Week by week we have watched decay doing its work on earth. The harvest was gathered in and the fruits of the earth, and then came the wind and the rain to gather the harvest of the leaves and flowers. And gradually all around winter has deepened, and there is no light in the sun nor heat in the bones of the earth. We strive to create joy and brightness at home to balance the mourning of the world. By the fireside when the light is low, we re-create the year, and recall its varied changes. And we see the image of what is when the winter of life comes chill on us in age. We had our spring and summer, and our days were warm with glowing love and happy friendship. Now these things have grown cold around us. Love remains, but the heart does not beat as heretofore. And in the dim firelight, as We sit silently, it is not living presences that haunt the room, but the ghosts of men and women long loved, long dead, and unforgotten. It is winter, not Summer. We had our harvest time, but we can only look back upon it. Such is our retrospect in the first days of gloom. What kind of prospect have we then? It also is imaged in the world of winter. The earth after the frost is bound in iron bands. The waters of the land are hushed, frost has chained their rippling light. The flowers, the trees, the birds and beasts, all suffer in their own way. The patient earth is dead; over its dark face the pitying heaven draws the winding sheet of snow, and the grey and bitter fog hangs over it the funeral pall. It is death we see, and death we look forward to, and death only in this first hour of wretchedness. And it is well to look straight into the gloomy eyes of the worst fate, and look into it however hard it be, without fear, and know it to its depths. For only so can we wring out of it its secret, and then, as is our way, when we have once seen the worst, we invent the better. We find we can rise above the evil and despise it, and we think we have power to create the good. And we do so by the aid of memories of the past. As the winter drives us to our homes and to life indoors, so the winter of age drives a man home to himself, and our life becomes an inner life. But our heart's happiness will depend on how we have lived our past life, if it has been truly and lovingly human, if it has been kind, and true, and good. For on that all will depend whether we can summon any and what guests to our hearts. And not only the memory of past love but the sweetness of love present, will make glad the winter of age. Love is not lost, nor beauty, nor all we mixed with love. Age may possess both a noble and a beautiful life. Only you must make ready for it. Keep your soul healthy, your heart and brain awake to noble thoughts. And there is far more than death in winter. See the life hidden away in every root, in every seed. Not death but life in preparation — hidden, but in slow activity, is what we see.:Faith arises for ourselves, and we forget the winter of age to realize the enchanted youth of the life to come. "It was the winter wild," when our Saviour came at His first advent, as if to tell us of the immortal spring that lies hidden in the winter of humanity. By His eternal life in us we conquer the decay of winter and the frost of death.(Stopford A. Brooke, M. A.) I. THE BEAUTIES OF WINTER.II. THE WONDERS OF WINTER. One of the greatest wonders of winter is its most common product, ice. Had water followed the general law, and contracted and become specifically heavier in the act Of freezing, how terrible would have been the consequences to our comforts and perhaps our lives! Whenever the atmosphere had reached the freezing point, the water on the surface of lakes and rivers would, in the act of freezing, sink and form a layer of ice on the bottom. Another layer would immediately follow from the same cause, and this process going on through the several months of winter, would solidify all the water available for the use of man so thoroughly, that the heat of summer could never melt it, and after a time, the springs of water in the earth would cease to flow except in the tropical regions. How fully does the existing order of nature obviate all such difficulties and dangers, since the ice remains on the surface, and prevents the cold from solidifying the water to any great depth, and then is exposed to the direct rays of the sun and the warmth of the atmosphere, which liquefy it, whenever the season of cold is past. What a continued and apparent evidence have we thus furnished us during the winter, of the wonderful wisdom of God, and His wonderful care for the welfare of man. Another wonder of even greater value to us is, that the atmosphere we breathe is not capable of being congealed. If it were otherwise, life would speedily come to an end in the arctic and temperate zones. That it is not so, is an evidence of the kindness and wisdom of Him who is "wonderful in counsel." III. THE BLESSINGS OF WINTER. Suppose there was no winter, and consequently no cold and no difference in the degrees of temperature on the face of the earth. Many, without reflection, would say that if this monotone of temperature could be such a delightful medium as we sometimes enjoy in spring or autumn, it would be a great blessing to have it perpetuated. But if this state of things should exist, wind which is caused by the air rushing from a colder to a warmer place could not exist, and there could be no stirring of the atmosphere, except on such a limited scale as artificial means could effect. Then the impurities of the air which are now carried away and disinfected by the winds, would remain stationary until the atmosphere became loaded with them; the vapours which arise from the ocean would also remain stationary, and could not be wafted over the land to refresh by their shade, and invigorate by their descent in rain; and the deadly impurities of the air would be supplemented by the deadly drought, and would be aided by the deadly contagion of disease, to sweep the face of the earth with the besom of death, and make the imaginary paradise a perpetual desert. Let us never forget it as one of the chief causes of gratitude for earthly blessings, that we can say to our God, "Thou hast made winter." (N. D. Williamson.) I. ITS LESSONS.1. Divine power. (1) (2) (3) 2. Divine equity. As in grace, so in nature; He is no respecter of persons; "He maketh His sun to shine upon the evil and the good," and though the blessings of nature are infinitely diversified, yet each zone has natural products, wisely adapted to its peoples. God decrees the alternation of winter and summer for the general good. At our summer solstice He says to the north, "Give up I" and winter gradually returns; and at our winter solstice, He says to the south, "Keep not back!" and the south flinging open her sunny gates, permits the return of summer to bless our isle. 3. Divine providence. The preservation of the feathered tribes in this season clearly and pleasingly illustrates this doctrine. You have seen during protracted snow storms, these interesting creatures picking up a precarious meal as best they could. Naturalists tell us considerable numbers necessarily perish; the wonder is all do not die, that any are left to warble the overtime of spring, or swell the chorus of summer. Well, winter teaches us of a great Provider who "opens His hand, and satisfies the desire of every living thing," and reminds us that He who in summer makes the lily more beautiful "than Solomon in all his glory," in winter cares for the feathered flocks "which have no storehouse or barn." If the providence of God respects the less, will it neglect the greater? II. ITS EMBLEMS. 1. A barren Church. 2. A backsliding state. 3. Old age. 4. Death. (1) (2) (T. J. Guest.) (W. Blatch, M. A.) I. WINTER BELONGS TO THE PLAN OF HEAVEN, and is a season indispensably necessary. It aids the system of life and vegetation; it kills the seeds of infection, and destroys pestilential damps; it refines the blood; it gives us vigour and courage; it confirms the nerves, and braces up the relaxed solids. Snow is a warm covering for the corn; and while it defends the tender blades from nipping frosts, it also nourishes their growth. Isaiah remarked this. Winter is the needful repose of Nature, after her labours for the welfare of the creation. But even this pause is only to acquire new strength; or rather it is a silent and secret energy of preparation to surprise and charm us again with fresh abundance. II. WINTER IS A SEASON WHICH HAS ITS PLEASURES. I love to hear the roaring of the wind. I love to see the figures which the frost has painted on the glass. I love to watch the redbreast with his slender legs, standing at the window and knocking with his bill to ask for the crumbs which fall from the table. III. WINTER IS A SEASON IN WHICH WE SHOULD PECULIARLY FEEL GRATITUDE for our residence, accommodations, and conveniences. Things strike us more forcibly by comparison. Let us remember how much more temperate our climate is than that of many other countries. Our winter is nothing when we turn to the Frigid Zone. When the French mathematicians wintered at Tornea, in Lapland, the external air suddenly admitted into their rooms, seizing the moisture, became whirls of snow; their breasts were rent when they breathed it; and the contact of it with their bodies was intolerable. We read of seven thousand Swedes who perished at once, in attempting to pass the mountains which divide Norway from Sweden. IV. THIS SEASON CALLS UPON US TO EXERCISE BENEVOLENCE. Sympathy is now more powerfully excited than at any other period; we are enabled more easily to enter into the feelings of others less favoured than ourselves. And while we are enjoying every convenience and comfort which the tenderness of Providence can afford — oh, let us think of the indigent and miserable. My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth. V. WINTER SHOULD IMPROVE US IN KNOWLEDGE. It affords leisure, and excludes many interruptions — it is, therefore, favourable to application. Let us read, and study, and prepare for action and usefulness in life. And let us not pass heedlessly by those subjects of reflection and improvement which the very season itself yields. How instructive, for instance, is the goodness of God, not only in the preservation of the human race, but in taking care of all the millions of animals during a period which threatens to destroy them! What a number of retreats does He provide for them! Some of them, by a singular instinct, change the places of their residence. Some of them are lulled into a profound sleep for weeks and months. And all this teaches us, first, to resemble Him, and be kind to every being. If we learn of Him, we cannot be cruel to the brute creation. The season is also instructive as an emblem. Here is the picture of life — thy flowery spring, thy summer, thine autumn, and at last thy winter. See to it that thou art possessor of eternal life. (W. Jay.) (John Foster.) 4006 creation, origin 1347 covenant, with Noah The Prophet of the Highest. How those are to be Admonished who Abstain not from the Sins which they Bewail, and those Who, Abstaining from Them, Bewail them Not. The Wisdom of God Balaam's Prophecy. (Numb. xxiv. 17-19. ) Synagogues: their Origin, Structure and Outward Arrangements Jesus Makes a Preaching Tour through Galilee. The Sun Rising Upon a Dark World The Justice of God Psalms |
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