Our changing estimates of men.
"I have said, Ye are gods … but ye shall die like men." Life, in its progression, involves a process of "disillusioning." The youth builds "castles in the air," "castles in Spain;" but advancing life deals with them as the growing sunshine deals with morning mists. We begin life with admiring and trusting everybody; it is well for us if advancing life does not find us standing beside the psalmist, and saying, "All men are liars." David thought Ahithophel was a fast and faithful friend. He changed his ideas of him when he learned that "Ahithophei was among the conspirators with Absalom." No more bitter experience do men ever pass through than that of finding those they thought faithful "fail from among the children of men." Here the difficulty is the changed estimate we are sometimes compelled to make of our public men. The psalm concerns those in authority and office. The psalmist is distressed because he cannot think of them as he once thought, and as he would like to think; they had altogether fallen from the position in which he had placed them.
I. WHAT MEN OUGHT TO BE. There is a true and proper sense in which every man is an official. Every man has some one dependent on him, and every man can exert an influence, and be an influence, on some one. This may be put in another way—Every man is somebedy's ideal. In the text the judges are thought to be what they ought to be—uncorrupt, simple, sincere; agents that convey the pure word and will of God to men. And this is what every one of us who has influence on a fellow man should be. Those dependent on us should have good ground for making us their ideals. Using the word in its Old Testament sense, men should look on us, and in their admiration, say, "Ye are gods." We ought to be such in integrity, simplicity, and nobility, as to make their saying so reasonable.
II. WHAT MEN PROVE TO BE. Our ideas of them generally prove illusions, but there is no reason why they should not change for better ideas. They need not change for the worse. But life proves a heavy strain for all men. Some are sanctified through it, but some are deteriorated. The text contemplates those who prove unfaithful, untrustworthy, and even come under the judgments of God, for special sins, as Adam did. Impress that the ideal Christ never yet disappointed any man. There has never been reason for changing our estimate of him.—R.T.