Psalm 72

Taken from the book, Psalms: The Pilgrims Ascent, by A. B. Saint

The Unshakable City in View

For some reason unknown to me at the time, I found the names and lifestyles of two very different people in history being uppermost in my thoughts. Both men lived around the same time, but both lived very contrasting lives. The life of the first man which readily sprang to mind was a very able scholar, who even at the tender age of four began his studies in Latin and went on to become well versed not only in Latin but French, Greek and Hebrew. He was indeed an eminent scholar and poet, but remembered mostly I think because of his prolific hymn writing. He was of course Isaac Watts. 

He was born in the summer of 1674 and eventually after a long standing illness received his Home call in the winter of 1748. It is amazing to think that during his lifetime he wrote hundreds of hymns including many Psalms, some of which I believe were sung right after his sermons in order to gently ‘drive the point home.’ Isaac Watts of course was a committed Christian and his life was given over to God. During the course of this week, I have found myself singing one of his compositions which is called,  ‘Jesus shall reign.’ Watt’s hymns and psalms have proved such a blessing that his music is still being played today centuries after they were written. Small in stature but great in God, his legacy still lives on.

The other name which came to mind was that of the philosopher and historicist, Voltaire, not his real name but a nom de plume. He was a French man who lived between 1694 and 1778. Although not, it would seem, possessed with musical ability, yet he too was a gifted man. He was an avid writer, and we are told that he produced more than 20,000 letters and something like 2000 other pieces of literature. It seems he was also a keen playwright. However, unlike Watts, Voltaire was not a godly man; in point of fact he was quite the opposite. 

Isaac Watts promoted the Gospel whereas Voltaire sought to demote it. He wanted to unseat it and dispose of it altogether. In his eyes, the Word of God had been written by fools and the people who taught it were nothing but rogues. Much has been written about the comments he wrote during his lifetime with regard to his denunciation of spiritual things. Believing that he was living in the twilight of Christianity it has been reported that in 1776, two years before his death, he said, “One hundred years from my day, there will not be a bible on earth except one that is looked upon by an antiquarian curiosity seeker.”   

In his writings and his teaching’s, he assumed that Christianity was nothing more than an ‘infamous superstition.’ He vehemently opposed anything the bible had to say and poured cold water on faith in Christ. It seems he never changed his point of view, and it is told that even on his deathbed, he was asked by a cleric if he believed in the Deity of  Jesus Christ, to which he replied, “For the love of God, do not mention that man’s name.”  Shortly after this blasphemous affirmation, we read that Voltaire died.

Men like Voltaire are not new, they have lived in every age and are still with us today. Thinking to blot out even the remembrance of God and demolish all that which is holy, they only succeed in sealing their own fate. In presuming they and others like them will be attending God’s funeral, in the end they only succeeded in attending their own. What makes things interesting is that in a sense God Himself had the last laugh. It is no random coincidence that just fifty eight years after his death we read that the very house in which Voltaire had lived had become a ‘repository for bibles and religious tracts.’  I am always very grateful to those with a greater knowledge than my own, who having a love for history, take the time to research and tell their stories and publish such information for the benefit of others.  

Another such story which bears out the above is that of a Rev. William Ackworth of the British and Foreign Bible Society. He was sent on a mission to Switzerland and whilst he was there was invited to the former delightful residence in which Voltaire had previously resided. The new owner was a man born some one hundred years after Voltaire, and at that time was serving as the President of the Geneva Evangelical Society; as such he allowed the Society to store countless numbers of bibles and religious tracts in the unused rooms of the house. What would Voltaire have thought about this? So much for Voltaire’s prophecy. 

Stories such as Voltaire’s bring to mind a well-known poem called The Anvil thought to be written by John Clifford. It is one I think about at times like these, and I pass it on to you.

Last eve I passed beside a blacksmith’s door and heard the anvil ring the vesper chime.
Then, looking in, I saw upon the floor old hammers, worn with beating years of time.
‘How many anvils have you had,’ said I, ‘to wear and batter all these hammers so?’
‘Just one,’ said he, and then, with twinkling eye, ‘the anvil wears the hammers out, you know!’
And so, thought I, the Anvil of God’s Word, for ages sceptic blows have beat upon,
Yet, though the noise of falling blows was heard, the Anvil is unharmed – the hammers gone.

Earlier I mentioned about the hymn written by Isaac Watts which had come back to memory. It is thought that he began to write it after reading the Psalm we are looking at today. Right at the onset I must say that there is a difference of opinion as to who wrote Psalm 72. Some say it was written by king Solomon himself and others say it was written by his father David. Looking in my own bible for instance, the heading above the Psalm reads ‘For Solomon by David,’ however in another version it is seen as Solomon’s work. In the end it matters not. For various reasons which are the outcome of personal study in the past, I favour the latter. 

Psalm 72 is known as a Royal Psalm and was, I believe, written by a loving father for a much loved son. There are many saints of God who believe that it was in fact the very last Psalm which David ever composed, and they place it at the time of Solomon’s inauguration to the throne. In the previous Psalm known as Psalm 71, David prays both for himself and his son, and in verse 9 of that Psalm he points to his own old age when he prays, “Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength fails.” 

Like us all, David was to go the way of all flesh and Solomon would take up where David left off. Whatever Age or Generation we find ourselves living in there has always been and always will be the exchange of generations. If it was David who penned the lines, then laid out before us is a beautiful picture of a father’s hopes and prayers for his son. In praying for his son’s future, David committed both Solomon and the role which lay before him, to the Lord. Happy indeed is the son, whoever he is, whose father knows the Lord. 

Not all fathers are in this position; not all fathers know the Lord and not all fathers are able to leave the glories of an earthly Kingdom behind. Not every father, no matter the love he has for his son, will necessarily be able to pass on much perhaps in the way of material blessings. Nevertheless, it is paramount that we who know the Lord and have been on the road a little longer than those who follow after us, should be in that place to offer up such spiritual truths as will tell of the much longed for Heavenly Kingdom to come and so help light the way ahead. 

Looking back in history, Solomon’s reign was, as the meaning of his name suggests, Peaceable. It was also prosperous, and without doubt during his lifetime the main focus of the Psalm was on his earthly reign, but is he the only reason that Psalm 72 was written? Far from it, for not only is this a Royal Psalm but it is also a Messianic Psalm and as such even Solomon was not able to give total fulfillment to all which the Psalm depicts.

The ultimate feeling behind our reading is that it is prophetically looking forward to the time when it finds its total fulfillment in Christ, the ‘Prince of Peace’. The Psalmist looks forward to the Millennial Reign when Christ, ‘Who is Greater than Solomon’– Matthew 12 verse 42, will take up His place and rule and reign in majesty upon the earth. 

What a wonderful time this will be, indeed it will usher in the Golden Age. Christ will rule over the entire earth and righteousness and justice will be shown in it. There will be no smoky chimneys blotting out the landscape, and no signs of heavy industry at work, the focus it would seem will be on agriculture and so fertile will be the land that in type it will be as the Garden of Eden. What a precious thought nestled in verse 6 of this Psalm, “He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that water the earth.” The very Presence of Christ Himself is the One who brings sweet refreshing’s into the life which has become parched and how much more so in the New Age to come. What picture did David, the son of Jesse paint for us over in 2 Samuel Chapter 23 and verse 4: “And He shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun rises, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain.”

The first part of verse 16 has a lovely turn of phrase and it always arrests me whenever I read it and I find myself stopping and pausing for a moment or two. This is what it says: “There shall be a handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon: and they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth.” Is this not a truly lovely expression? Before us here is a picture of fruitfulness emerging from very small beginnings. What begins with just a handful of corn ends with a significant harvest, and look where the corn is to grow, in the mountains. 

Some admire the majesty of mountains, paint mountains, scale mountains, tunnel through mountains, take pictures of mountains, and some even prefer to pray in the stillness of the mountains, but here we have an abundance of corn growing on the mountains! What an extraordinary place to grow corn, how inhospitable in the natural and yet the Psalm alludes to so rich a crop growing there during our Lord’s Millennial Reign, that like the thick forested Lebanon whose cedars wave in the wind, so similarly will the profuse stalks or corn. 

Indeed, all things will change for the better on that Day. The Gospel started with just twelve men yet look how it has grown. Christ was despised and rejected of men at His first Coming, but here on this Day the scene has changed, and the latter part of the Psalm says, “His Name shall endure for ever: His Name shall be continued as long as the sun: and men shall be blessed in Him: all nations shall call Him blessed.  Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things.  And blessed be His Glorious Name forever: and let the whole earth be filled with His Glory; Amen and Amen.”

There couldn’t be a better ending I think than the hymn earlier referred to by Isaac Watts:

Jesus shall reign where’er the sun does its successive journeys run,
His Kingdom stretch from shore to shore, till moons shall wax and wane no more.
To Him shall endless prayer be made and praises throng to crown His head.
His Name like sweet perfume shall rise with every morning sacrifice.
People and realms from every tongue dwell on His love with sweetest song,
And infant voices shall proclaim their early blessings on His Name.
Blessings abound where’ere He reigns: the prisoners leap to lose their chains,
The weary find eternal rest, and all who suffer want are blest.
Let every creature rise and bring the highest honours to our King,
Angels descend with songs again, and earth repeat the loud Amen.

PRAYER:  LORD, we thank You that even though Your Church through the course of its history has sometimes undergone severe trials and hardened men have sought to even try and erase Your very Name, yet as verse 5 of our Psalm declares, “They shall fear Thee as long as the sun and moon endure, throughout all generations.”   

Surely the Lord has said, “I will build My Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Taken from the Gospel of Matthew chapter 16 and verse 18.

How we long Lord for that MORNING WITHOUT CLOUDS!

Taken from the book, Psalms: The Pilgrims Ascent, by A. B. Saint