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Palms of Elim: Chapter 14 - The Lord Upright

By John MacDuff


      "This is the resting place, let the weary rest; and this is the place of repose"--

      "The Lord is upright; He is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in Him." Psalms 92:15

      The Psalms from which these words are taken is entitled "A Psalms or Song for the Sabbath Day." It is also supposed to have been a Temple song: that, from the reference to the instrumental music of the Temple--"the instrument of ten strings, the psaltery, the harp"--it may probably have been intended to be used for the public service of the sanctuary. Nor was this use to be on Sabbath only. From verse 2, it has been further surmised that the Psalms may have been employed at the daily offering of the morning and evening sacrifice--"To proclaim Your love in the morning and Your faithfulness at night." Remembering, moreover, in connection with the name of this Volume, how the Temple was decorated with palm as well as cedar (the palm, as previously noted, chiseled by the engravers are all round the sacred walls, interlaced with open flower-work and cherubic figures, while the doors and roof were from the forests of Lebanon), how natural that these two trees should be taken to symbolize the character of the acceptable and accepted worshiper (ver. 12).

      It may well be designated, from its whole scope, 'the Psalms of old age.' The writer seems to delight in rehearsing the experiences of a bygone happy, because holy life. He compares, as we have just said, the true Believer--"the Righteous man"--to the gracefulness and beauty of an Elim-palm, combined with the strength and indestructible vigor of a Lebanon cedar. Not like the trees of many an earthly forest, whose bared tops proclaim that they have outlived their best, and that they are only the ghostly memorials of what once they were; these spiritual trees of the Lord's planting are "full of sap." They know no infirmity, no decay--"They still bring forth fruit in old age" (ver. 14).

      Old age without true religion is the saddest of experiences--gathering up the faded flowers of pleasure; attempting to drain the exhausted bowl, or to extract honey from the empty comb. Nothing, on the other hand, is so attractive and lovely as the closing life of a true Christian--an old veteran warrior about to sheathe his sword and pass to his crown. How calm, and tranquil, and subdued! Like wine mellowed by years; or like the decaying, ivy-encircled ruin--grandest in its decay! His outward man may be perishing, but his inward man is renewed day by day. His life is hid with Christ in God--his roots are moored in the Rock of Ages. Lessons of tribulation have wrought patience. Christ becomes more and more precious. Heaven has more of the aspect and association of home. Gleams of its glory come flashing on the aged countenance, as the rising sun tips the mountain-top before it has reached the horizon. Oh, the gray head is indeed "a crown of glory" when thus "found in the way of righteousness;" and when death does come--the stern Reaper with his sickle--it is only to fall like a shock of corn in its season, fully ripe!

      Beautiful, too (what our motto-verse may be regarded as embodying), is the dying testimony of such--"The Lord is upright." This is the end of their 'planting' and 'growing' and 'flourishing' (verses 13, 14). The sweet singer, in this last note of praise, repeats the opening stanza, testifying, morning and evening, to Jehovah's faithfulness. The palm-tree waves its joyous tribute by the side of the Elim springs. The cedar, as it battles with the storm on high Lebanon, wafts it on the breath of the tempest. It is a testimony to God's unchanging faithfulness to His covenant promises, and that, too, amid all diversities of rank and age and circumstance. Palms of the lowly valley, cedars of the lofty mountain--rich and poor, young and old, learned and unlearned--are ready to witness that the Lord has proved Himself 'upright,' and that not one of His declarations have failed. He has made the shoes of His people "iron and brass," and to the very close of the wilderness journey "as their days, so shall their strength be" (Deuteronomy 33:25).

      The writer finally adds his own subscription and personal experience to all he has just said. He has been painting no hypothetical picture--describing no mere poetic dream. He is himself ready, with the closing harp-strain, to endorse all his utterances of sober prosaic truth--that the righteous is the happy, joyous, God-protected man he has described him to be. "He is my rock," he adds, "and there is no wickedness in Him." I have tried Him, and He is all He said, and all He promised. "He is my rock." As a rock I have built on Him, as a rock I have stretched myself under His shadow--"O taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who trusts in Him."

      It reminds us of the close of some of Paul's Epistles--"The salutation of I, Paul, written in my own hand." That blind Apostle-prisoner seems to have employed a secretary to take down at his dictation the rest of his letter. But he cannot refrain tracing upon the parchment the closing salutation or postscript, in his own autograph, thus to seal and ratify all that had been written. So it is here. "He is my rock." Witness my signature. I have tested His faithfulness; I now firmly rely upon it. I warble this farewell attestation "on the harp with solemn sound"--with earnest soul-musing, as it means--not only, as has been said, "with harp-strings, but heart-strings." "I believe, therefore have I spoken."

      Delightful and precious are such old age and deathbed testimonies as these to the sustaining grace of God. The world of unrealities is at an end then. The gold is separated from the alloy. We see the real strength of the vessel when left to itself to grapple with the hurricane--in other words, the power of Gospel truth and religious principle. The noblest and most convincing of all Christian evidences is to lead the skeptic to a dying couch, and there, amid weakness and depression (it may even be racking pain,) to let him hear prayer mingling with praise--the alternate breathings of submission and thankfulness, arising from the consciousness of the presence of a gracious though unseen Savior, and the quickening anticipations of an opening heaven!

      Can that sustaining Gospel be a lie? Can that dying 'grace' be an illusion? Can that Redeemer--that Being who seems to be clung to almost as a near and loving friend--be nothing but a myth or phantom of the brain? When the feeble lips are proclaiming, "He is my rock," are they mistaking for a solid footing what is like the desert mirage or the shifting sand? No. The Rock of Ages is a sublime reality. That aged believer has clung to Jesus as an Almighty Savior on earth. He has loved Him, prayed to Him, praised Him, committed his eternal all to Him; and now the music of that same Name refreshes his soul in death. "He is my rock." Oh, that such may be our testimony! Sitting calmly under the Beloved's shadow, when the day is about to break, and all other shadows to flee forever away--"Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!"

      "When I draw this fleeting breath,
      When my eyelids close in death;
      When I soar to worlds unknown,
      See Thee on Thy judgment throne,
      Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
      Let me hide myself in Thee."

      "A Man will be like a shelter from the wind and a refuge from the storm, like streams in the desert and the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land."

Back to John MacDuff index.

See Also:
   Chapter 1 - Divine Immutability
   Chapter 2 - All For Good
   Chapter 3 - The Sympathy of Jesus
   Chapter 4 - The Wind Tempered
   Chapter 5 - The Fatherhood of God
   Chapter 6 - Transcendently Able
   Chapter 7 - Right Guidance
   Chapter 8 - Higher Uses
   Chapter 9 - The Gracious Word
   Chapter 10 - A Reigning Savior
   Chapter 11 - Divine Leading
   Chapter 12 - The Farewell Gift
   Chapter 13 - The Compassion of Jesus
   Chapter 14 - The Lord Upright
   Chapter 15 - Full Satisfaction
   Chapter 16 - The Secret of Submission
   Chapter 17 - A Risen Christ
   Chapter 18 - The Creator and Redeemer
   Chapter 19 - Proof and Triumph of Love
   Chapter 20 - Future Unfoldings
   Chapter 21 - A Great Salvation
   Chapter 22 - Fears Quieted
   Chapter 23 - The Way Known
   Chapter 24 - Prayer
   Chapter 25 - Tender Dealings
   Chapter 26 - Sleeping and Waking
   Chapter 27 - The Return to Zion
   Chapter 28 - The Great High Priest
   Chapter 29 - Fatherly Chastisement
   Chapter 30 - God Unchanging
   Chapter 31 - Healing for All
   Chapter 32 - Divine Power
   Chapter 33 - Providence and Grace
   Chapter 34 - Transformation at Death
   Chapter 35 - The Incarnate Savior
   Chapter 36 - The Rebukes of Love
   Chapter 37 - The Unspeakable Gift
   Chapter 38 - Jehovah Jireh
   Chapter 39 - Glorious Attributes and Ways
   Chapter 40 - The Second Coming
   Chapter 41 - Imputed Righteousness
   Chapter 42 - Christ Ever the Same
   Chapter 43 - The Soul's Portion
   Chapter 44 - Hope
   Chapter 45 - The Supreme Rule of Jesus
   Chapter 46 - The Perpetual Presence
   Chapter 47 - Christ's Deity
   Chapter 48 - THE Imperishable Gift
   Chapter 49 - The Recompense of Trust
   Chapter 50 - The Riches of God's Mercy
   Chapter 51 - Acceptance of the Little
   Chapter 52 - None Cast Out
   Chapter 53 - The Blessed Hope
   Chapter 54 - The Divine Way Perfect
   Chapter 55 - Perseverance
   Chapter 56 - Delight in God's Law
   Chapter 57 - Christ the Propitiation
   Chapter 58 - Fullness of Joy
   Chapter 59 - Inviolable Security
   Chapter 60 - The Safe Deposit
   Chapter 61 - All Power of Jesus
   Chapter 62 - Help in Extremity
   Chapter 63 - Prevailing Intercession
   Chapter 64 - A Pardoning God
   Chapter 65 - A Gracious Message
   Chapter 66 - Perfect Trust
   Chapter 67 - God All Satisfying
   Chapter 68 - Salvation to the Uttermost
   Chapter 69 - Asleep in Jesus
   Chapter 70 - The Last Musing

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