Psalms 27

Psalms 27:1-14

The heart’s desire after Jehovah’s house and face. [A psalm] of David. The third psalm of this series emphasizes the positive side of the separation, from evil, that which makes it true sanctification, the longing desire after Jehovah Himself. This has been already expressed in the previous psalm, but here it is the theme. And this being the fruit of Jehovah’s own work in the soul, -the response to His own invitation and command to seek His face, -how could the faithful and unchangeable One possibly deny or draw back from him who now drew near to Him? He had said, “Seek ye My face!” could He have said that in vain? Here then is a third ground of confidence for the heart; and it is a sure one at all times. He who has said, “Come unto Me, and I will give you rest,” has added to this no limiting word, to be a means of doubt and self-torture to him who would gladly obey His invitation.

Nay, He has taken care rather to give special assurance to the laboring and heavy-laden, to those consciously sinners, to the “lost,” that His salvation is for them. And to all that come, without exception, He has declared: “Him that cometh to Me, I will in no wise cast out.” Well may this then be a perfect ground of confidence for the soul that turns to Him for refuge from sin and self, from the judgment to come, from the uncontrollable evil within. Here is the one Haven of refuge, the Shelter from the storm, the Rock of defence: and “blessed are all they that put their trust in Him.”

1. The psalm begins with a joyous strain of confidence, in which all fear is dismissed as unworthy and impossible. “Jehovah is my light and my salvation: of whom shall I be afraid? Jehovah is the stronghold of my life: of whom shall I be in dread?” The argument is short and complete; all the more complete that it does not look round or take account of any special evils, but looks up, and only needs to look up, into Jehovah’s face. The “light” not merely manifests what is around me: it is God Himself who is manifested in it; and thus His own character becomes the conscious security of the soul. What an assurance -what a joy and blessing the light is! Beauty, warmth, the vigor of life itself, are all found in it; and thus salvation is closely connected with this primary thought.

The light of the first day meant salvation out of its ruin for that world which it disclosed yet buried under the waters; the first pulsation of its rays was the throb of a new life which had come in for it. And with God known the light apprehended is the dawn of an endless day, the power of an eternal life begun, which is but the inner process accomplishing of His salvation. 2. Now we have the testimony of deliverance experienced and the argument from that experience. But the argument transcends the experience: the enemies that he has seen defeated swell into a host, the single battle lengthens into a war, and the sounds of strife which he imagines awaking around have no power to disturb his perfect tranquility. Experience has only called forth the intuition of faith which is not to be measured by it: to which indeed all experience must and does conform, because the law which underlies it has no exception. How grandly is Jehovah, the Unchangeable, realized in these abiding laws of His, which pervade the spiritual realm as they do the natural! 3. Thus the heart reposes in God its strength; and God becomes its one desire and sufficiency. “One thing have I asked of Jehovah; this do I seek after: that I may dwell in Jehovah’s house all the days of my life, to behold the graciousness of Jehovah, and to inquire in His temple.” One can imagine the attraction for a true Israelite of that place where Jehovah dwelt in the midst of the people, even though the inner sanctuary could not be penetrated. Faith would still, as it were, penetrate it, and God not withhold Himself from the heart thus longing after Him. These longings the Psalms exhibit to us, and they constitute largely the charm of this precious book. To us the “graciousness of Jehovah” has been displayed in a way which makes all that was known before to be only rudimentary knowledge. He has unveiled His glory.

He has come out to walk amongst men. He has given us boldness to enter into the holiest, and an abiding place in His presence as priests and worshipers.

And yet how little are we beyond the admonition of these yearnings of the men of an elder time! This “one thing” which some of them could speak of, -this burning, seraphic longing after One to sense the Invisible, -have we no need of self-questioning whether to us it is the passion that these psalms express? Ah, have we not need of it? Think of the complete revelation of God now made to us; think of the open volume of Scripture in our hand; think of how of necessity the soul thirsting after God must turn to these stores of heavenly treasures, infinite yet accessible, and exult in the search, with the Spirit given to us, of the “deep things of God” (1 Corinthians 2:10); think of the intercourse, the communion, enjoyed by those who will come together to compare their individual gains in this way, sharing with others that which in being divided increases the more we divide it. There is no need to ask the extent to which all this is realized; and there can be only deepest humiliation in thinking of how little beyond the surface of Scripture we are or care to be. “To inquire in His temple,” when its roof is the whole arch of heaven, -when its length stretches from the beginnings of history to the end of prophecy, -when His word and work unite in Christ as the Life-Centre and glory of all! -ah, how is it possible to imagine how little in eighteen centuries of a completed Bible and the indwelling Spirit has been attained! The security of the sanctuary the psalmist dwells on next. “He shall lay me up in His pavilion in the day of evil; in the secret of His tent will He secrete me: He will lift me high upon a rock.” The immediate application here is to human adversaries, though the literal sanctuary furnishes, as is evident, only the figure of spiritual truths of much wider range. For us how surely it is true that the way of escape from spiritual foes is just what is here indicated! God has indeed lifted us high upon the rock-foundation of Christ’s blessed work; and in Him entered into the heavenly sanctuary, we are securely hidden from the enemy. “Because I live,” He says, “ye shall live also” (John 14:19). He there too is our sanctification; and “we all, beholding the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Thus the sanctuary is our safe retreat at all times: it is the place where the world takes its true shape for us, where the entanglement with it is loosed, the darkness and mists disappear, sin is rebuked and banished, the holiness of truth is found. The peace of that serene Presence encloses us as with the glory of an eternal summer, unvexed by even the threatening of a storm. Here the head is lifted up over all enemies therefore, and the sacrifice of praise becomes the necessary relief of a full and grateful heart. 4. From all this blessing and joy we drop into a state of trial, in which the voice of supplication is heard instead of praise, and that in tones of distress and uncertainty. Such alternations are common enough and rapid enough in the Psalms, and in the experience of those whose utterance the Psalms are. But the depths that the soul is plumbing are not bottomless. In the place of testing, the ground of his confidence is tested and found firm; and the language of faith becomes thus the language of experience also. The cry is still to the Unchangeable (Jehovah), and this is the bottom in which faith’s anchor alone can hold. The cry is for grace and needed answer, and then what gives confidence is declared and pleaded. This is Jehovah’s own invitation and command to seek His face; to which faith has answered earnestly and gladly. The suppliant could say, “I do seek Thy face, Jehovah.” And would He now hide that glorious face, and repel with anger him that sought Him? nay, would He, as it were, deny the help that He had given, and though the God looked to for salvation, cast off and forsake? No, assuredly; this could not be: the ground is firm, and the anchor holds; experience will confirm and not put the soul’s confidence to shame: father and mother might forsake, but not He from whom came these relationships, with all their tender affection. They might forsake; not He: and if they did, all the more would Jehovah’s pitifulness be shown out. Such an outcast would be the object of His special care. 5. Thus relieved and quieted, even though the circumstances remain unchanged, these can be made all the more an argument with the Lord to manifest His care. First of all, to make known His way: for there no pitfall is, and there He, the Wise and Strong, is. The real sense of weakness will not suffer us to seek our own will, but the contrary. What wisdom of our own can be like His? what tenderness like His? And under the eyes of those watching for one’s halting, the path with Him will be found really the smooth one, for before Him the mountains are leveled to a plain. Oppressors are still there, false witnesses, those whose panting eagerness breathes out violence: these the suppliant points out to the Guide and Guard with whom He goes. But he walks firmly, if humbly, counting on deliverance. And the pressure felt in the soul is only made known in the outburst which at the same time reveals the confidence which supports it, -“If I had not believed” -but then I do! -“to see Jehovah’s goodness in the land of the living!” And now a lesson of experience fitly closes the fifth section of this psalm. It is a very brief and a very simple one; yet it is a lesson of perfection, declared in the Word to be that: for “let patience have her perfect work,” and we shall be “perfect and entire, wanting nothing.” (James 1:4.) What a glorious result of so simple a matter! “Wait on Jehovah!” wait, and not weakly and timidly, for the call to patience is no cause for fear: “be strong, and let thy heart take courage!” Such, thank God, is the wisdom derived from an “experience” that “worketh hope.” (Romans 5:4.) This harvest is assured to him that quietly will sleep and rise, and let it grow. Test it, prove it, whoever will! who is there that may not prove it for himself? there is none! Let the glad, sure hope cheer the darkest hours with its comfort: “Wait -wait -on Jehovah.”