Psalms 78

Psalms 78:12

THE OF GOD Psalms 78:14; Psalms 78:72I MAKE no claim of a balanced ministry. It has been the custom of years when the Sunday service is finished, to face the eternal question, What is the next need of my people; and in most instances, I have been thinking of progress in the individual life and in the collective body of church believers. I fear, therefore, I have been more of a leader of the flock than a shepherd to the same. The great Shepherd Psalm opens after this manner, “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to He down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul”.For the most part, I have spent my time in trying to keep my flock from lying down, thus saving them from being lulled to sleep by too great a quiet. In other words, I have emphasized the strenuous endeavor.This text presents another side of religion entirely, the side of rest and trust, the cultivation of a quiet spirit, the upbuilding of confidence; and certainly, that is a side not to be overlooked. Life itself seems now to be divided into three sections per day, eight hours for work, eight hours for play, and eight hours for sleep.

This is the program that men have deliberately adopted, the program everywhere preached as the Gospel of component parts. There may be those who would take issue with the first and say eight hours was too little, or too much, for work.

There are many of us who believe that eight hours is too much for play; but few indeed would deny that eight hours, in daily rest, is nature’s demand. If the body demands so much quiet and utilizes that quiet for rebuilding and recuperation, may we not imagine that the soul’s interest demands a kindred treatment? If it be true, as the Scriptures teach, that God giveth to His beloved in sleep, may we not also conclude that His method of bodily refreshing is His method of soul refreshment? Pacivity, therefore, is a spiritual necessity; and it is a great thing to know that God regards that fact, and in His grace makes provision for it.Rest and trust, these are also Christian graces. We are told to “Trust, and not be afraid”; and these texts, taken from this seventy-eighth Psalm, present the true ground of peace; the basis of restful confidence.The Psalmist would remind Israel of the time when the sea stretched across their path. The enemy, pushing hard from the rear, left only the prospect of destruction. But the Lord made the waters to stand up as an heap and Israel to go over dry shod; and in connection with the event “In the daytime also He led them with a cloud, and all the night with a light of fire”.GOD’S , THEN, IS In the daytime He leads with a cloud. There are people who verily imagine that they need no leader in daytime. Daylight makes the path of life plain; daylight frightens voracious beasts back into the forest or sends them under ground; and daylight is supposed to be destitute of danger. There are many of us that imagine, as the little child did when about to retire at night, saying, “Dear Lord, look after me till sun-up; during the daytime I will take care of myself.” Her speech was frank and sincere and it voiced the egotistical opinion of her elders. When all is well, when no storm gathers, when no opposing army is at hand, when no blackness of darkness is roundabout, we imagine we can look after our own affairs. We can guide ourselves by common sense, we can determine the path to take by reason; we can provide against exigencies by consulting experience, therefore, whether we confess it to ourselves or not, we practically say that we can get on without God.

What folly! As dear Joseph Parker said, “Daytime men go most astray. In the daytime they make the biggest fools of themselves, outwitting their own sagacity, and following things that have no reality.”Upon a little reflection we find these words true to fact. Our biggest mistakes are made in the moments when we are least alarmed and feel the least need of carefulness, much less, guidance. “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fair” and they are both exercised in daytime. The poet had cause for his words:“Saviour lead me, lest I stray, Gently lead me all the way; I am safe when by Thy side, I would in Thy love abide.” In the darkness God guides. “And all the night with a light of fire”. Has it not occurred to us that the guidance at night is more positive than in the daytime? A fire is more brilliant than a cloud. There is sound reason for such leadership. When darkness is oh we need the greater light. The moon and the stars are not adequate for that; the sun is now set. God does not leave us to nature’s uncertain shining; He provides a light beyond the brightness of the moon and above the brilliance of all the stars, the light of fire. It is possible, then, to be guided in the hours of danger by even a better path than we follow in bright day.

Our very fear of the danger fixes our eyes upon the light, and following that point, we may make straighter tracks, take a straighter course than we would do in bright day.Who is there, then, looking back over a long life, will not say frankly, my greatest mistakes were made in my apparently best hours; my most careless steps were taken when the sun was at the meridian? In the night I walked with caution and came into less danger; and consequently, less often fell before calamity. The most of us have had bright days that we could banish from our personal history and lose nothing. Not so with the dark nights through which we have come. Who would forget them! Who could forget the pressure of the Father’s hand, the whisper of His love, the consciousness of His grace and constant care, the sense of His long-suffering presence.In God’s guidance there is definite direction.

Some men say, “Oh, if I only knew the path of duty!” As for myself I have little trouble on that score. I find I only lose God’s definite direction when I have refused to follow it. “If any man will do His will, he shall know”.

There are a good many people in the world who complain that life’s pathway lies always in the wilderness, or over the trackless desert, and man is a wanderer and lost because no path has been cleared in the forest; no well-beaten track appears in the sand. But these are the people who have tried life’s pilgrimage alone—asking no favors of God. The man who starts from New York to San Francisco without guide or map will find the road crooked and long, and will lose it many times, if he ever makes the distance at all. The man who puts his trust in the Nickel Plate and Santa Fe engineers, takes his seat in a sleeping car and rests, will be in San Francisco in four days over a definite road, never having left the track by the space of an inch. If you would find out God’s way, look in God’s guidebook, the Bible, and follow that, and the direction will never be indefinite or in doubt. He is a wise man who with the Psalmist prays, “Oh, Lord, * * for Thy Name’s sake lead me, and guide me”. He is a very foolish man, who in the morning kneels beside his bed and asks God to lead him that day, and then goes off in the path of his own pleasure or preference.“If thou but suffer God to guide thee, And hope in Him through all thy ways, He’ll give thee strength whatever betide thee, And bear thee through the evil days, Who trusts in God’s unchanging love Builds on the rock that cannot move.”

Psalms 78:14

THE OF GOD Psalms 78:14; Psalms 78:72I MAKE no claim of a balanced ministry. It has been the custom of years when the Sunday service is finished, to face the eternal question, What is the next need of my people; and in most instances, I have been thinking of progress in the individual life and in the collective body of church believers. I fear, therefore, I have been more of a leader of the flock than a shepherd to the same. The great Shepherd Psalm opens after this manner, “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to He down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul”.For the most part, I have spent my time in trying to keep my flock from lying down, thus saving them from being lulled to sleep by too great a quiet. In other words, I have emphasized the strenuous endeavor.This text presents another side of religion entirely, the side of rest and trust, the cultivation of a quiet spirit, the upbuilding of confidence; and certainly, that is a side not to be overlooked. Life itself seems now to be divided into three sections per day, eight hours for work, eight hours for play, and eight hours for sleep.

This is the program that men have deliberately adopted, the program everywhere preached as the Gospel of component parts. There may be those who would take issue with the first and say eight hours was too little, or too much, for work.

There are many of us who believe that eight hours is too much for play; but few indeed would deny that eight hours, in daily rest, is nature’s demand. If the body demands so much quiet and utilizes that quiet for rebuilding and recuperation, may we not imagine that the soul’s interest demands a kindred treatment? If it be true, as the Scriptures teach, that God giveth to His beloved in sleep, may we not also conclude that His method of bodily refreshing is His method of soul refreshment? Pacivity, therefore, is a spiritual necessity; and it is a great thing to know that God regards that fact, and in His grace makes provision for it.Rest and trust, these are also Christian graces. We are told to “Trust, and not be afraid”; and these texts, taken from this seventy-eighth Psalm, present the true ground of peace; the basis of restful confidence.The Psalmist would remind Israel of the time when the sea stretched across their path. The enemy, pushing hard from the rear, left only the prospect of destruction. But the Lord made the waters to stand up as an heap and Israel to go over dry shod; and in connection with the event “In the daytime also He led them with a cloud, and all the night with a light of fire”.GOD’S , THEN, IS In the daytime He leads with a cloud. There are people who verily imagine that they need no leader in daytime. Daylight makes the path of life plain; daylight frightens voracious beasts back into the forest or sends them under ground; and daylight is supposed to be destitute of danger. There are many of us that imagine, as the little child did when about to retire at night, saying, “Dear Lord, look after me till sun-up; during the daytime I will take care of myself.” Her speech was frank and sincere and it voiced the egotistical opinion of her elders. When all is well, when no storm gathers, when no opposing army is at hand, when no blackness of darkness is roundabout, we imagine we can look after our own affairs. We can guide ourselves by common sense, we can determine the path to take by reason; we can provide against exigencies by consulting experience, therefore, whether we confess it to ourselves or not, we practically say that we can get on without God.

What folly! As dear Joseph Parker said, “Daytime men go most astray. In the daytime they make the biggest fools of themselves, outwitting their own sagacity, and following things that have no reality.”Upon a little reflection we find these words true to fact. Our biggest mistakes are made in the moments when we are least alarmed and feel the least need of carefulness, much less, guidance. “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fair” and they are both exercised in daytime. The poet had cause for his words:“Saviour lead me, lest I stray, Gently lead me all the way; I am safe when by Thy side, I would in Thy love abide.” In the darkness God guides. “And all the night with a light of fire”. Has it not occurred to us that the guidance at night is more positive than in the daytime? A fire is more brilliant than a cloud. There is sound reason for such leadership. When darkness is oh we need the greater light. The moon and the stars are not adequate for that; the sun is now set. God does not leave us to nature’s uncertain shining; He provides a light beyond the brightness of the moon and above the brilliance of all the stars, the light of fire. It is possible, then, to be guided in the hours of danger by even a better path than we follow in bright day.

Our very fear of the danger fixes our eyes upon the light, and following that point, we may make straighter tracks, take a straighter course than we would do in bright day.Who is there, then, looking back over a long life, will not say frankly, my greatest mistakes were made in my apparently best hours; my most careless steps were taken when the sun was at the meridian? In the night I walked with caution and came into less danger; and consequently, less often fell before calamity. The most of us have had bright days that we could banish from our personal history and lose nothing. Not so with the dark nights through which we have come. Who would forget them! Who could forget the pressure of the Father’s hand, the whisper of His love, the consciousness of His grace and constant care, the sense of His long-suffering presence.In God’s guidance there is definite direction.

Some men say, “Oh, if I only knew the path of duty!” As for myself I have little trouble on that score. I find I only lose God’s definite direction when I have refused to follow it. “If any man will do His will, he shall know”.

There are a good many people in the world who complain that life’s pathway lies always in the wilderness, or over the trackless desert, and man is a wanderer and lost because no path has been cleared in the forest; no well-beaten track appears in the sand. But these are the people who have tried life’s pilgrimage alone—asking no favors of God. The man who starts from New York to San Francisco without guide or map will find the road crooked and long, and will lose it many times, if he ever makes the distance at all. The man who puts his trust in the Nickel Plate and Santa Fe engineers, takes his seat in a sleeping car and rests, will be in San Francisco in four days over a definite road, never having left the track by the space of an inch. If you would find out God’s way, look in God’s guidebook, the Bible, and follow that, and the direction will never be indefinite or in doubt. He is a wise man who with the Psalmist prays, “Oh, Lord, * * for Thy Name’s sake lead me, and guide me”. He is a very foolish man, who in the morning kneels beside his bed and asks God to lead him that day, and then goes off in the path of his own pleasure or preference.“If thou but suffer God to guide thee, And hope in Him through all thy ways, He’ll give thee strength whatever betide thee, And bear thee through the evil days, Who trusts in God’s unchanging love Builds on the rock that cannot move.”