Psalms 48:8

Psalms 48:8

These words of the prophet and psalmist seem to contain a short and plain account of the temper and behaviour of the friends and Apostles of our Lord during those days of hope and patience which came to an end on the morning of the first Whit-Sunday.

I. They waited patiently for the Lord. They had taken it on His word, however unaccountable it might sound, that it was expedient for them His going away; and they were prepared to trust Him still further and to abide in faith and quietness any length of time during which the Comforter might delay His coming.

II. Observe the place where they waited. The prophecy had described God's people as waiting in the Temple. Our Lord ordered His Apostles to tarry in the city of Jerusalem, and they were continually in the Temple.

III. This teaches, first, that patient waiting is the strength of God's people, that they greatly err if they pretend to fix His times or to take His matters into their own hands; and, secondly, that they are to take things as they find them and set out on God's work in their social callings from the present moment and the present state of things, whenever and whatever it be.

IV. There can be no such encouragement to serious repentance, to serious improvement, to patient continuance in welldoing, as the answer which God gave to those prayers in which our Lord's disciples and His mother continued during the ten days from His ascension to Pentecost. The return of these prayers was the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, Jesus Christ coming by His Spirit to save us one by one from the power of sin for the future, as He had before come in His own person to offer Himself an all-sufficient sacrifice for us, and save us one and all from the punishment of sins past.

V. If the disciples were to wait for the Comforter in Jerusalem, in or near the visible Temple, much more ought we to take care how we wander in any way, even in thought, beyond the bounds of the spiritual temple, the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. Let us so long and strive for these mercies, as never to forget the sort of persons to whom they are promised.

Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times" vol. vii., p. 127.

References: Psalms 48:8 . J. Keble, Sermons from Ascension Day to Trinity, p. 151.Psalms 48:9 . J. C. Gallaway, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiii., p. 275.