"Praise the Lord!
Blessed is the man who fears the Lord,
who greatly delights in his commandments!
2 His offspring will be mighty in the land;
the generation of the upright will be blessed.
3 Wealth and riches are in his house,
and his righteousness endures for ever.
4 Light dawns in the darkness for the upright;
he is gracious, merciful, and righteous.
5 It is well with the man who deals generously and lends;
who conducts his affairs with justice.
6 For the righteous will never be moved;
he will be remembered for ever.
7 He is not afraid of bad news;
his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord.
8 His heart is steady; he will not be afraid,
until he looks in triumph on his adversaries.
9 He has distributed freely; he has given to the poor;
his righteousness endures for ever;
his horn is exalted in honour.
10 The wicked man sees it and is angry;
he gnashes his teeth and melts away;
the desire of the wicked will perish!"
Psalm 112
This is a Psalm which portrays with great clarity the attractiveness of the life of godliness, and the magnitude of its impact upon society. One readily recalls the Apostle Paul's words to Timothy (1 Timothy 4:8): 'Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come'. We should note first of all the connection between this Psalm and the previous one: the former magnifies the character and acts of God, and this one, the character and acts of the godly man, with similar phrases used to describe God in the first and the godly man in the second (compare especially the third verse in each Psalm). The point of this kind of similarity is that the man of God is in a very real sense a reflection of God in the world, His image, no less (are we not to be conformed to that image, and is not the work of sanctification precisely to make us more and more like Him?) This is the dynamic concept at the heart of the Psalm, and we shall see its significance at different points as we go on with its exposition. One thinks of Paul's marvellous phrase 'magnifying the Saviour' (Philippians 1:20) - making Him bigger to the gaze of men, making Him easier to see. This is what distinguishes the godly man - he makes it easier for others to believe in God. We should note first of all the juxtaposition of 'fear' and 'delight' in 1. Real godliness, contrary to general belief, is something delightsome, and something to delight in, not a bandage or a burden. C.S. Lewis well points out that although Christianity seems at first to be all about morality, duties and rules, 'yet it leads you on, out of all that, into something beyond. One has a glimpse of a country where they do not talk of those things, except perhaps as a joke. Everyone there is filled full with what we should call goodness as a mirror is filled with light. But they do not call it anything. They are not thinking of it. They are too busy looking at the source from which it comes'. Have we found out that secret yet? Or is our Christianity very much a chore, a burden?