I said that the words on which I have been commenting thus far, seem to
break in two the continuity of the stream of blessings and promises. But
there may be observed a certain distinction of tone between those
promises which precede and those which follow the cry. Those that follow
have a certain elevation and depth, completeness and fulness, beyond
those that precede. This enhancing of the promises, following on the
faithful grasp of previous promises, suggests the thought that, when God
is giving, and His servant thankfully accepts and garners up His gifts,
He opens His hand wider and gives more. When He pours His rain upon the
unthankful and the evil, and they let the precious, fertilising drops
run to waste, there comes after a while a diminution of the blessing;
but they who store in patient and thankful hearts the faithful promises
of God, have taken a sure way to make His gifts still larger and His
promises still sweeter, and their fulfilment more faithful and precious.
But now notice the remarkable language in which this answer is couched.
'Thou hast made the Most High thy Habitation, there shall no evil befall
thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.'
Did you ever notice that there are two dwelling-places spoken of in this
verse? 'Thou hast made the Most High thy Habitation'; 'There shall no
plague come nigh thy dwelling.' The reference of the latter word to the
former one is even more striking if you observe that, literally
translated, as in the Revised Version, it means a particular kind of
abode--namely, a tent. 'Thou hast made the Most High thy habitation.'
The same word is employed in the 90th Psalm: 'Lord, Thou hast been our
Dwelling-place in all generations.' Beside that venerable and ancient
abode, that has stood fresh, strong, incorruptible, and unaffected by
the lapse of millenniums, there stands the little transitory canvas tent
in which our earthly lives are spent. We have two dwelling-places. By
the body we are brought into connection with this frail, evanescent,
illusory outer world, and we try to make our homes out of shifting
cloud-wrack, and dream that we can compel mutability to become
immutable, that we may dwell secure. But fate is too strong for us, and
although we say that we will make our nest in the rocks, and shall never
be moved, the home that is visible and linked with the material passes
and melts as a cloud. We need a better dwelling-place than earth and
that which holds to earth. We have God Himself for our true Home. Never
mind what becomes of the tent, as long as the mansion stands firm. Do
not let us be saddened, though we know that it is canvas, and that the
walls will soon rot and must some day be folded up and borne away, if we
have the Rock of Ages for our dwelling-place.
Let us abide in the Eternal God by the devotion of our hearts, by the
affiance of our faith, by the submission of our wills, by the aspiration
of our yearnings, by the conformity of our conduct to His will. Let us
abide in the Eternal God, that 'when the earthly house of this
tabernacle is dissolved,' we may enter into two buildings 'eternal in
the heavens'--the one the spiritual body which knows no corruption, and
the other the bosom of the Eternal God Himself. 'Because thou hast made
Him thy Habitation,' that Dwelling shall suffer no evil to come near it
or its tenant.
Still further, notice the scope of this great promise. I suppose there
is some reference in the form of it to the old story of Israel's
exemption from the Egyptian plagues, and a hint that that might be taken
as a parable and prophetic picture of what will be true about every man
who puts his trust in God. But the wide scope and the paradoxical
completeness of the promise itself, instead of being a difficulty, point
the way to its true interpretation. 'There shall no plague come nigh thy
dwelling'--and yet we are smitten down by all the woes that afflict
humanity. 'No evil shall befall thee'--and yet 'all the ills that flesh
is heir to' are dealt out sometimes with a more liberal hand to them who
abide in God than to them who dwell only in the tent upon earth. What
then? Is God true, or is He not? Did this psalmist mean to promise the
very questionable blessing of escape from all the good of the discipline
of sorrow? Is it true, in the unconditional sense in which it is often
asserted, that 'prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament, and
adversity of the New'? I think not, and I am sure that this psalmist,
when he said, 'there shall no evil befall thee, nor any plague come nigh
thy dwelling,' was thinking exactly the same thing which Paul had in his
mind when he said, 'All things work together for good to them that love
God, to them that are called according to His purpose.' If I make God my
Refuge, I shall get something a great deal better than escape from
outward sorrow--namely, an amulet which will turn the outward sorrow
into joy. The bitter water will still be given me to drink, but it will
be filtered water, out of which God will strain all the poison, though
He leaves plenty of the bitterness in it; for bitterness is a tonic. The
evil that is in the evil will be taken out of it, in the measure in
which we make God our Refuge, and 'all will be right that seems most
wrong' when we recognise it to be 'His sweet will.'
Dear brother! the secret of exemption from every evil lies in no
peculiar Providence, ordering in some special manner our outward
circumstances, but in the submission of our wills to that which the good
hand of the Lord our God sends us for our good; and in cleaving close to
Him as our Refuge. Nothing can be 'evil' which knits me more closely to
God; and whatever tempest drives me to His breast, though all the four
winds of the heavens strive on the surface of the sea, it will be better
for me than calm weather that entices me to stray farther away from Him.
We shall know that some day. Let us be sure of it now, and explain by it
our earthly experience, even as we shall know it when we get up yonder
and 'see all the way by which the Lord our God has led us.'