Psalms 17:15

Psalms 17:15

Psalms 73:20

The period to which both David and Asaph look in these two verses is the end of life. The words of both, taken in combination, open out a series of weighty lessons.

I. The first of these is that to all men the end of life is an awaking. The representation of death most widely diffused among all nations is that it is a sleep. The recoil of men's heart from the thing is testified by the aversion of the languages to the bald name "death." And the employment of this special euphemism of sleep is a wonderful witness to our weariness of life and to its endless toil and trouble. But the emblem of sleep, true and sweet as it is, is but half the truth. We shall sleep. Yes; but we shall wake too. We shall wake just because we sleep. The spirit, because emancipated from the body, shall spring into greater intensity of action, shall put forth powers that have been held down here, and shall come into contact with an order of things which here it has but indirectly known. To our true selves and to God we shall wake.

II. The second principle contained in our text is that death is to some men the awaking of God. "When Thou awakest, Thou shalt despise their image." God "awakes" when He ends an epoch of probation and longsuffering mercy by an act or period of judgment. So far then as the mere expression is concerned, there may be nothing more meant here than the termination by a judicial act in this life of the transient "prosperity of the wicked." But the emphatic context seems to require that it should be referred to that final crash which irrevocably separates him who has "his portion in this life" from all which he calls his "goods." The whole period of earthly existence is regarded as the time of God's gracious forbearance and mercy, and the time of death is set forth as the instant when sterner elements of the Divine dealing start into prominence.

III. Death is the annihilation of the vain show of worldly life. The word rendered "image" is properly "shadow." "Thou shalt despise their shadow." The men are shadows, and all their goods are not what they are called, their "substance," but their shadow, a mere appearance, not a reality. That show of good is withered up by the light of the awaking God. What He despises cannot live. "When he dieth, he shall carry nothing away." Let us see to it that not in utter nakedness do we go hence, but clothed with that immortal robe and rich in those possessions which cannot be taken away from us, which they have who have lived on earth as heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.

IV. Death is for some men the annihilation of the vain shows in order to reveal the great reality. "I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness." "Likeness" is properly "form," and is the same word which is employed in reference to Moses, who saw "the similitude of the Lord." If there be, as is most probable, an allusion to that ancient vision in these words, then the "likeness" is not that conformity to the Divine character which it is the goal of our hopes to possess, but the beholding of His self-manifestation. These dim hopes suggest to us some presentiment of the full Christian truth of assimilation dependent on vision, and of vision reciprocally dependent on likeness. "I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness," cries the prophet Psalmist. "It is enough for the disciple that he be as his Master," responds the Christian hope.

A. Maclaren, Sermons Preached in Manchester, 2nd series, p. 1.

References: Psalms 17:15 . A. Raleigh, The Little Sanctuary, p. 257; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. i., No. 25; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iii., p. 277; Homiletic Magazine, vol. xiv., p. 233, and vol. xv., p. 47; Preacher's Monthly, vol. v., p. 180; G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount, p. 39; J. Irons, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. vi., p. 137; T. Binney, Christian World Pulpit, vol. i., p. 120. Psalms 17:0 I. Williams, The Psalms Interpreted of Christ, p. 296. Psalms 18:9 . J. E. Vaux, Sermon Notes, 4th series, p. 10. Psalms 18:16 . Spurgeon, Sermons , vol. xxiv., No. 1432.Psalms 18:19 . W. Wilkinson, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. vii., p. 80. Psalms 18:25 , Psalms 18:26 . J. Service, Salvation Here and Hereafter, p. 156.