_upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with
wings as eagles_."[90] It is said, the beautiful plumage of the Bird
of Paradise not only impedes its flight when flying against the wind,
but often in the ineffectual effort it is brought helpless and
exhausted to the ground--its golden hues soiled and ruffled. When,
however, a gentle breeze springs up, it spreads out its feathers in a
fan-like shape, and is borne joyously along! So with the believer.
When he is called to do battle with unbelief, the wings of faith are
often soiled, and mutilated, and broken; he falls a helpless thing to
the earth. But when God's own south wind blows, he spreads out his
glorious plumage, and, rising on the pinions of prayer, is borne
onwards and upwards to the region of heavenly peace and joy!
[90] Isaiah xl. 31.
There are one or two characteristics in David's prayer worthy of note,
with which we shall sum up this chapter.
1. Observe his INSTANT _resort to the "God of his life!"_
No sooner does the thought of prayer suggest itself, than he proceeds
to the sacred exercise. Like the prodigal, not only does he say, "_I
will arise and go_," but the next record in his history is, "_And he
arose, and came to his Father_."[91] Oh, how much spiritual benefit we
miss by procrastination! The cloud of blessing floats over our heads,
but we fail to stretch forth the electric rod of prayer to fetch it
down! We determine on embarking, but, by guilty delay, we allow the
vessel to weigh anchor, and we are left behind. Many an afflictive
dispensation thus loses its sanctifying design. When the heart is
crushed and broken, the heavenly voice sounds startling and solemn!
What a season, if timeously improved, for enrichment at the
mercy-seat! When "things present" are disenchanted of their
spell,--when time is brought to hold its relative insignificance to
eternity, what a season for the self-emptied one, to go to the
all-fulness of Jesus, and receive from Him every needful supply! But,
alas! we often know not "the day of our merciful visitation." The
heart, when the hammer might be falling on it, and welding it to the
Divine will, is too often suffered to cool. Solemn impressions are
allowed to wear away,--the blessing is lost by guilty postponement.
David might now have been so absorbed in his trials, as to have lost
the opportunity of prayer. He might have invented some vain excuses
for procrastination, and missed the blessing; just as the disciples,
by their sluggish indifference and guilty slumber, drew down the
thrice-repeated rebuke from injured Goodness, "_Could ye not watch
with me one hour?_" But the golden moment is not suffered by him thus
to pass. No sooner does he get a glimpse of the path of prayer, than
he proceeds to tread it. The very fact of the fire being so low, is
the most powerful reason for stirring it. Her Lord being lost, is the
strongest argument for the Spouse seeking Him without delay;--"_I will
rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways
I will seek Him whom my soul loveth._"[92]
[91] Luke xv. 20.
[92] Sol. Song iii. 2.
2. Observe David's _importunity_. He waxes into a holy boldness. He
seeks to know from "the God of his life" the reasons of this apparent
desertion--"'_Why hast Thou forgotten me?_' I cannot see or
understand, as Thy covenant servant, the reason of all this
depression--why, with all those promises of Thine, these hands should
be hanging down, and these knees be so feeble."
The mother does not cast off her sick or feeble child. Its very
weakness and weariness is an additional argument for her care and
love, and draws her heart closer than ever to the bed of the tiny
sufferer! David knew well that God, who had ever dealt with him "as
one whom his mother comforteth," would not (unless for some wise
reason) leave him to despondency. Looking to this immutable
Covenant-Jehovah, and lifting his voice high above the water-floods,
he thus, in impassioned prayer, pleads "the causes of his soul:"--"_In
Thee, O Lord, do I put my trust; let me never be ashamed: deliver me
in Thy righteousness. Bow down Thine ear to me; deliver me speedily:
be Thou my strong rock, for an house of defence to save me. For Thou
art my rock and my fortress; therefore for Thy name's sake lead me,
and guide me. Pull me out of the net that they have laid privily for
me: for Thou art my strength. Into Thine hand I commit my spirit: Thou
hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth._"[93]
[93] Psalm xxxi. 1-5.
3. The Psalmist _takes his_ SPECIAL TROUBLE _to God, and makes it the
subject of prayer_. He names in the Divine presence the cause of his
deepest perplexity. "_As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies
reproach me, while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?_"[94]
[94] Verse 10.
"Generalities," says a good man, "are the death of prayer." The
loftiest privilege the believer can enjoy is the confidential
unburdening of his wants into the ear of a _Father_. Just as a child
can freely unbosom to a parent what he can do to no one else, so are
we permitted to tell into the ear of our Father in heaven whatever may
be the heart-sorrow with which a stranger (often a friend) dare not
intermeddle. See the _speciality_ in the Psalmist's confession of his
sin. It is not the _general_ acknowledgment of a sinner. It is rather
an humbled penitent carrying _one_ deep crimson-stain to the
mercy-seat; bringing _it_, and _it alone_, as if for the moment he had
to deal respecting _it_ only with the great Heart-searcher. "MY _sin_
is ever before me." "I have done _this_ evil in Thy sight." "Wash me
from _mine iniquity_, and cleanse me from _my sin_." "I said, I will
confess _my transgressions_, and Thou forgavest the iniquity of _my
sin_."[95]
[95] Psalms li. and xxxii.
Let us not think that we can ever have comfort in merging individual
sins in a _general_ confession. This is the great and pre-eminent
advantage of secret closet-prayer. Social prayer and public prayer are
eminently means of securing the Divine blessing; but it is in the
quiet of the chamber, when no eye and ear are on us but that of "our
Father that seeth in secret," that we can bring our secret burdens to
His altar,--crucify our secret sins, acknowledge the peculiar sources
of our weakness and temptation, and get special grace to help us in
our times of need.
But we may here ask, Have we any assurance that the prayers of David,
at this critical emergency, were indeed answered? Or,(as we are often
tempted in seasons of guilty unbelief to argue regarding our prayers
still,) did they ascend unheard and unresponded to?--did the cries of
the supplicant die away in empty echoes amid these glens of Gilead? We
have his own testimony, in a magnificent ode of his old age,[96] one
of the last, and one of the noblest his lips ever sung, that Jehovah
_had_ heard him in the day of his trouble. It is a Psalm, as we are
told in the title, written by him on his return to his capital, when
victory had crowned his arms, and his kingdom was once more in peace.
The aged Minstrel takes in it a retrospective survey of his eventful
pilgrimage. Many a Mizar-hill in the long vista rises conspicuously
into view. He climbs in thought their steeps, and erects his
Ebenezer! As his flight and sojourn beyond Jordan formed the latest
occurrence in that chequered life, we may well believe that in
uttering these inspired numbers, the remembrance of his memorable
soul-struggle there must have been especially present to his mind. Let
us listen to his own words: "_The sorrows of death compassed me, and_
THE FLOODS OF UNGODLY MEN _made me afraid.... In my distress I called
upon the Lord, and cried unto_ MY GOD: HE HEARD _my voice out of His
temple, and_ MY CRY CAME BEFORE HIM, EVEN INTO HIS EARS." In the
sublimest poetical figures of all his Psalms, Jehovah is further
represented in this hymn of thanksgiving as hastening with rapid
flight, in august symbols of majesty, to the relief and succour of His
servant--"bowing the heavens"--"the darkness under His feet"--"riding
upon a cherub"--"flying upon the wings of the wind"--"sending out His
arrows, and scattering His foes"--"shooting out lightnings"--and
"discomfiting them." And with the writer's mind still resting on the
same emblems which he uses in his Exile-Psalm,--the "deep calling to
deep"--the "noise of the water-spouts"--the "waves and billows,"--he
interweaves other references and experiences with this unequivocal
testimony to God his "_Rock_," as the HEARER OF PRAYER,--"_He sent
from above, He took me, He drew me out of many waters.... Who is God
save the Lord? or who is a_ ROCK _save our God?... The Lord liveth;
and blessed be my_ ROCK; _and let the God of my salvation be
exalted!_"[97]
[96] Psalm xviii.
[97] Psalm xviii. 16, 31, 46.
* * * * *
Reader! let me ask, in conclusion, do _you_ know in your experience
the combined triumphs of _faith and prayer_--these two heavenly spies
that fetch back Eschol-clusters of blessing to the true Israel of God?
Do you know what it is, in the hour of adversity, to repair to "the
_Rock_ of your strength?" Do you believe in His willingness to hear,
and in His power to save? How sad the case of those who, in their
seasons of trial, have no refuge to which they can betake themselves,
but some fluctuating, perishing, earthly one;--who, when they lose the
world, lose their all! The miser plundered of his gold, cleaving to
the empty coffers;--the pleasure-hunter seeking to drain the empty
chalice, or to extract honey out of the empty comb;--the bereaved
grasping with broken hearts their withered gourd, and refusing to be
comforted! The worldling is like the bird building its nest on the
topmost bough of the tree. There it weaves its wicker dwelling, and
feels as if nothing can invade its security and peace. By and by the
woodman comes,--lays down his axe by the root. The chips fly off
apace. The pine rocks and shivers; in a few moments it lies prone on
the forest-sward. The tiny bird hovers over its dismantled home--the
scene of desolation and havoc--and then goes screaming through the
wood with the tale of her woes! The Christian, again, is like the
sea-fowl, building its nest in the niches of the ocean cliff, which
bids defiance at once to the axe and the hand of the plunderer. Far
below, the waves are lifting their crested tops, and eddying pools are
boiling in fury. The tempest may be sighing overhead, and the wild
shriek of danger and death rising from some helpless bark that is
borne like a weed on the maddened waters. But the spent spray can only
touch these rocky heights,--no more; and the curlew, sitting with
folded wings on her young, can look calm and undismayed on the
elemental war. "What is the best grounds of a philosopher's
constancy," says Bishop Hall, "but as moving sands, in comparison of
the Rock that we may build upon!"
Yes! build in the clefts of that immoveable Rock, and you are safe.
Safe in Christ, you can contemplate undismayed all the tossings and
heavings of life's fretful sea! So long as the Psalmist looked to God,
he was all secure. When he looked to _himself_, he was all
despondency. Peter, when his eye was on his Lord, walked boldly on the
limpid waves of Gennesaret; when he diverted _it on himself_, and
thought on the dangers around him, and the unstable element beneath
him, "he began to sink!"
Believer! is your heart overwhelmed? Are you undergoing a similar
experience with the Psalmist? Your friends (perhaps your nearest and
best) misunderstanding your trial, unable to probe the severity of
your wound, mocking your tears with unsympathising reflections and
cruel jests--"a sword in your bones!" Turn your season of sorrow into
a season of prayer. Look up to the God-man Mediator, the tender
Kinsman within the veil! _He knoweth_ your frame. When He sees your
frail bark struggling in the storm, and hears the cry of prayer
rising from your lips, He will say, as He said of old, "I KNOW _their
sorrows_, and I will go down to deliver them! O wounded Hart! panting
after the water-brooks, I was once wounded for _thee_. O smitten soul!
seamed and scarred with the lightning and tempest, see how I myself,
the Rock of Ages, was smitten and afflicted!" Ay, and thou canst say
too, "_God_ MY _Rock_!" Thou canst individually repose in that
sheltering Refuge, as if it were intended for thee alone. The loving
eye of that Saviour is upon thee, as if thou wert alone the object of
His gaze,--as if no other struggling castaway breasted the billows but
thyself!
Blessed security, who would not prize it! Blessed shelter, who would
not repair to it! Oh that the Psalmist's creed and resolution might be
ours--"_I will say of the Lord, He is_ MY ROCK _and_ MY _Fortress,
and_ MY _Deliverer._"--"_O come let us sing unto the Lord: let us make
a joyful noise to the_ ROCK OF OUR SALVATION!"
XII.
The Quiet Haven.
"Ah, if our souls but poise and swing,
Like the compass in its brazen ring,
Ever level and ever true,
To the toil and the task we have to do;
We shall sail securely, and safely reach
The heavenly Isle, on whose shining beach
The sights we love and the sounds we hear
Will be those of joy, and not of fear."
"David utters again strains of hope; not that faint and common hope of
possibility or probability, that after stormy days it may be better
with him, but a certain hope that shall never make ashamed; such a
Hope as springs from Faith, yea, in effect, is one with it.... Faith
rests upon the goodness and truth of Him that hath promised; and Hope,
raising itself upon Faith so established, stands up, and looks out to
the future accomplishment of the promise."--_Leighton._
"In that day, the light shall not be clear nor dark: ... but it shall
come to pass that at evening time it shall be light."--_Zech._ xiv. 6,
7.
"Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within
me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of
my countenance, and my God."--_Verse 11._
XII.
THE QUIET HAVEN.
We have now reached the close of this instructive Psalm--the last
entry in the experience of the Royal Exile. Here is the grand summing
up--"the conclusion of the whole matter." The curtain falls over the
scene of conflict, leaving the believer triumphant. As he began with
prayer, he now ends with praise; as he began with weeping, he now ends
with rejoicing; as he began mourning over the loss of his God, he ends
exulting in Him as "_the health of his countenance_." We are reminded
of the Great Apostle reaching, by successive steps in his high
argument, new altitudes of faith and hope,--beginning with "_no
condemnation_," till he ends with "_no separation_,"--mounting with
loftier sweep and bolder pinion, till, far above the mists and clouds
of the lower valley, he can utter the challenge, "_Who shall separate
me from the love of Christ?_"[98]
[98] Romans viii.
Joyful is it when a protracted war, which has been draining a
nation's resources and rifling its homes, is drawing to a close,--when
an army, amid hostile tribes, and the more fatal ravages of a hostile
climate, has succeeded in trampling out the ashes of rebellion, and is
returning triumphant from hard-contested fields of valour. Joyful is
it when a noble vessel, that has for long been wrestling with the
storm, enters at last the desired haven,--when the voyagers, who for
hours of anxiety and terror have been hanging with bated breath
between life and death, can now pass the gladdening watchword from
mouth to mouth--"Thank God, we are safe!" Joyful, too, when the tried
believer, as described in this Psalm,--"_persecuted, but not forsaken;
cast down, but not destroyed,_"--has surmounted wave after wave, that
has been threatening to sweep him from his footing on the Rock, and is
made "more than conqueror through Him that loved him!" The wounded
Hart we found in the opening verse bounding through the forest glades,
hit by the archers, with glazed eye and panting sides, has now reached
the coveted Water-brooks;--the fainting soul is now drinking at the
great fountainhead of consolation and joy. We have elsewhere an
appropriate inspired comment on the whole Psalm, with its successive
experiences: "_Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord
delivereth him out of them all._"[99]
[99] Psalm xxxiv. 19.
This concluding verse is so far a repetition of the fifth; and yet, as
we cursorily noted in the introductory chapter, there is an important
difference between them, to which we may again for a moment advert. In
the former, it is on the part of the speaker the language of faith in
the midst of despondency, expressing assurance that something _will_
be his, which he has not yet attained: "_Hope thou in God; for I
shall_ YET _praise Him for the help of His countenance_." In the
latter, he summons his soul to the exercise of the same hope and
confidence; but he now can exult in the realised possession of God's
favour and love--"WHO IS _the health of my countenance_." Nay, more,
in the fifth verse he stops with the words, "_my countenance_;" but in
the closing verse, he adds the expression of appropriating faith and
triumphant assurance. It is the Key-stone of the arch. Two little
words, which, like the ciphers following the unit, give an augmented
value to all that goes before!--"MY GOD!" The two last divine
expedients to which he had resorted (faith and prayer) have not been
in vain. They have loaded the cloud of mercy, and it bursts upon the
suppliant in a shower of blessing!
The 22d Psalm has been referred by commentators to this same period of
exile among the mountains of Gilead. There is much to confirm this
supposition in the general tone of the Psalm, as well as in its
incidental references. There is the same deep, anguished depression of
spirit,--words, indeed, denoting such an intensity of sorrow, that,
though primarily applicable to David, we must look for their true
exponent in the case of a Greater Sufferer. The challenge, "_Where is
thy God?_" of the 42d, seems echoed back in the 22d by the mournful
appeal, "_My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?_"
But in the latter, as in the former, (ere it closes,) light breaks
through the thick darkness. By a similar exercise of faith and prayer,
the Royal Mourner triumphs. "_Deliver my soul_," says he, "_from the
sword; my darling from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion's
mouth._" (Ver. 20, 21.) The prayer is heard while he is yet speaking!
At this point of the Psalm, the language all at once passes from
complaint into exultation--from prayer into praise; and the voice of
victory rises higher and higher, till it reaches the close. God has
taken off his sackcloth, and girded him with gladness. He already
anticipates the happy time when again he shall be the leader of the
festal throng on the heights of Zion. "_Thou hast heard me_," is his
opening burst of triumph, "_from the horns of the unicorns. I will
declare Thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation
will I praise Thee.... My praise shall be of Thee in the great
congregation: I will pay my vows before them that fear Him_."[100]
[100] Psalm xxii. 21, 22, 25.
Nay, further; what Psalm succeeds the 22d? Is it mere accidental
arrangement which has given the beautiful 23d (the best known and
loved of all David's Psalms) the immediate sequence? Is it a mere
devout imagination which leads us to regard it (from the place it
occupies in the Psalter) as the next his hand penned and his lips
sung, after these plaintive elegies? This Song of the chosen flock is
not, as many think, the Psalm of his boyhood, written in the days of
his innocence, with his shepherd's crook and harp, in the Valleys of
Bethlehem. The imagery of the Psalm _may_ indeed have been taken from
this sunny season of his youth. But, as it has been suggested,[101]
the emblem may as likely have been borrowed from seeing a flock of
sheep in these grassy regions reposing by "green pastures" and "still
waters"--or, at other times, wending their way out of some "dark
valley;"--one, perhaps a timid wanderer, clenched in the arms of the
shepherd, on his way with it back to the fold!
[101] See these references to the 22d and 23d Psalms well stated
in Blaikie's "David, King of Israel," pp. 322, 323.
We have witnessed, after a day of gloomy fog and rain and thunder, the
dense curtain that overhung the landscape rolling away.--The clouds
break, gleaming vistas appear through their golden linings; and the
rays of the long-imprisoned sun shine down upon ten thousand sparkling
pearls on grass and flower. The choristers of wood and grove had till
then been silent; but now are they seen brushing the rain-drops from
the branches, and filling the air with their music, and all nature is
glad again. So it is with the Great Singer of Israel; so long as God's
face is withdrawn, his wings are folded--his melody hushed--his harp
unstrung. But when the thunder-cloud has passed,--when, as the clear
shining after rain, the longed-for countenance again breaks
forth,--when, in answer to those prayers that were mightier than the
armies of Joab close by, his enemies are dispersed, and the way again
open to a peaceful return to his capital,--may we not imagine the
triumphant conqueror--strong in the Lord, and in the power of His
might--making the Gilead valleys resound with the hymn of
praise?--"_The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to
lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still
waters!_"[102] As he thought of all the trying discipline to which he
had been subjected to test his faith, drive him to prayer, and lead
him to thirst more ardently for "the living God," he could say in the
retrospect, what he was unable to do at the time--"_He restoreth my
soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's
sake._"[103] That path was a rugged one--that trial a severe
one--when he was found setting out barefoot, and dim with tears,
across Mount Olivet, compelled to take refuge beyond Jordan amid the
wilds of Bashan. But he acknowledges now that these were "_paths of
righteousness_." They were well and wisely ordered,--the hand of his
God had appointed them. He can repeat with greater assurance his
forbearing retort to the curses of Shimei--"LET HIM CURSE ON, FOR THE
LORD HATH BIDDEN HIM." Moreover, all this wilderness-experience not
only sustained him in the present--it nerved him for the future. God's
renewed faithfulness in this trying hour was a pledge for all time to
come. He had added another Mizar-hill to former memorials of the
Divine goodness. With the prospect, at his advanced age, of the last
and terminating trial of his pilgrimage, (the descent to the deepest
and gloomiest ravine of all,) he could, with his eye on the guiding
Shepherd, exclaim--"_Yea, though I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me; Thy rod
and Thy staff they comfort me._"[104] Even temporal mercies had been
largely and bountifully supplied him in the place of his exile. The
powerful chiefs of the Transjordanic tribes, as we previously
observed,--"Shobi of Ammon, and Machir, and Barzillai of
Manasseh,"--brought the rich produce of their fields and pastures for
the supply of himself and his army. He could say--"_Thou hast prepared
a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: Thou anointest my
head with oil; my cup runneth over._"[105] And now, with the prospect
before him of a joyful return to his throne, and the still more joyous
prospect of being a worshipper in God's house on earth,--the type of
the better Temple in the skies,--he can sing, as the closing strain of
his exile--"_Goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my
life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever._"[106]
[102] Psalm xxiii. 1, 2.
[103] Psalm xxiii. 3.
[104] Psalm xxiii. 4.
[105] Psalm xxiii. 5.
[106] Psalm xxiii. 6.