An everlasting foundation.

Posted : 19 Aug, 2013 02:13 AM

Psalm 119:152 Concerning Your testimonies, I have known of old, that You have founded them forever.





The "truth of the commandments," which the Psalmist had just

asserted, was an everlasting foundation. He stated it not upon

slight conviction. But he knew it-and that not recently-but as

the result of early consideration-he had known it of old. It is

most important to have a full certainty of the ground of our

faith. How else can we have that "good thing-a heart

established with grace?"-how "continue in the faith grounded

and settled?"-how be kept from being "moved away from the

hope of the gospel?" Praised be God! We feel our ground to

be firm. As God is the same, so must His testimonies be. We

cannot conceive of His promising without performance, or

threatening without effect. They are therefore expressly

revealed as a firm foundation, in express contrast with this

world's fairest promise.

But let us mark this eternal basis of the testimonies. The

whole plan of redemption was emphatically founded forever. The Savior "was foreordained before the foundation of the

world." The people of God are "chosen in Christ before the

world began!" The great Author "declares the end from the

beginning," and thus clears His dispensations from any

charge of mutability or contingency. Every event in the church

is fixed, permitted, and provided for-not in the passing

moment of time, but in the counsels of eternity. All God's

faithful engagements with His people of old are founded

forever upon the oath and promise of God-the two "immutable

things, in which it is impossible for God to lie." May we not

then "have strong consolation" in venturing every hope for

eternity upon this rock? nor need we be dismayed to see all

our earthly stays, "the world, and the lust, and the fashion of

it- passing away" before us. Yet we are most of us strangely

attached to this fleeting scene, even when experience and

Divine teaching have instructed us in its vanity and it is not

until repeated proofs of this truth have touched us very closely

in the destruction of our dearest consolations, that we take the

full comfort of the enduring foundation of God's testimonies,

and of the imperishable character of their treasure.

Now let me realize the special support of this view in a dying

hour: 'I am on the borders of an unknown world; but "my hope

makes not ashamed" at the moment of peril it is as "an anchor

of the soul, sure and steadfast;" and in the strength of it I do

not fear to plunge into eternity. "I know whom I have believed,

and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have

committed to Him against that day." I know-not His sufficiency

merely, but His All-sufficiency. I know His conquering power

over the great enemies of my soul. I know that He has

"spoiled the principalities and powers" of hell, of the strength

to triumph over His ransomed people. I know also, that He is

"the Lord; He changes not;" His word changes not; His

testimonies abide the same: I have known of old, that He has

founded them forever.' Thus we look for the removing of those

"things which are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain." The

scoffer may say,-"If the foundations be destroyed, what can

the righteous do?"-Let God Himself give the answer-"Lift up

your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath:

for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth

shall wax old like a garment, and those who dwell therein shall

die in like manner; but my salvation shall be forever, and my

righteousness shall not be abolished."



by

Charles Bridges

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