'Because he hath set his love upon Me, therefore will I deliver him:
I will set him on high, because he hath known My name.'
--PSALM xci. 14.
There are two voices speaking in the earlier part of this psalm: one
that of a saint who professes his reliance upon the Lord, his Fortress;
and another which answers the former speaker, and declares that he shall
be preserved by God. In this verse, which is the first of the final
portion of the psalm, we have a third voice--the voice of God Himself,
which comes in to seal and confirm, to heighten and transcend, all the
promises that have been made in His name. The first voice said of
himself, '_I_ will trust'; the second voice addresses that speaker, and
says, '_Thou_ shalt not be afraid'; the third voice speaks of him, and
not to him, and says, 'Because _he_ hath set his love upon Me, therefore
will I deliver him.'
Why does this divine voice speak thus indirectly of this blessing of His
servant? I think partly because it heightens the majesty of the
utterance, as if God spake to the whole universe about what He meant to
do for His friend who trusts Him; and partly because, in that general
form of speech, there is really couched an 'whosoever'; and it applies
to us all. If God had said, 'Because thou hast set thy love upon Me, I
will deliver thee,' it had not been so easy for us to put ourselves in
the place of the man concerning whom this great divine voice spoke; but
when He says, 'Because _he_ hath set _his_ love upon Me,' in the 'he'
there lies 'everybody'; and the promise spoken before the universe as to
His servants is spoken universally to His servants.
So, then, these words seem to me to carry two thoughts: the first, what
God delights to find in a man; and the second, what God delights to give
to the man in whom He finds it.