Psalms 121:2

Psalms 121:2

This expression of dependence upon God is not merely a formal act of piety, but the utterance of a truth which is seen to be more profoundly true for all of us the more we think of it.

I. It is plain that in all man's great discoveries he only observes the energies of nature, which are not his own, but are really the energies of God; and in his inventions he follows up hints which are given him by nature itself, so that he is bound to acknowledge God in every step of his advancement. The law of man's development is an ever-closer union of the finite with the Infinite, and this is its true glory. It is, in a lower sense, the ever-advancing incarnation of the Word of His power and the "taking of manhood into God."

II. That which is true of outward and material things is also the law of our salvation from sin and death. Man works out his salvation by union with God, who "worketh in him to will and to do of His good pleasure." The finite gains the victory only by closest union with the infinite Spirit. The one all-embracing condition of salvation is faith in Christ; that is, union of heart, and soul, and mind with the Power which alone can, and which certainly will, carry us from this world of sin and death to everlasting life.

III. If you have taken hold of this Power, remember that it has also taken hold of you, and will hold you in its grasp for ever as it holds the stars in their places. It is a Power which can transform you into something Divine. It is the Power which converts carbon into the diamond, a little earth and gas into the cedar of Lebanon, an invisible germ into the most perfect form of beauty. And it is set on converting us into something far more glorious than these things: into sharers of His own glory for ever in the person of Christ.

E. White, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxx., p. 149.