Sermon Bible Commentary
Psalms 23:6
(with Isaiah 52:12)
These two passages are the expression by different men, in different ages, of the same religious confidence, namely, confidence in an unseen Presence shielding from harm and ensuring blessing, in an unseen Presence encompassing the weak during their exposure to danger and that might be depended upon for protection and support, whatever threatened, from whatever quarter, in an unseen Presence covering unguarded points and accompanying unguarded moments.
I. Notice the ugly things that are lying in wait for us sometimes when we are wholly at rest and quiet, like ambuscades towards which, all blindly, gay troopers ride, carolling love ditties or exchanging jests, and are suddenly cut down. How sometimes ugly things have lurked in our path, big with sorrow for us, that could so easily have been avoided, and would have been had we only known. We little dream of the number of instances in which we have run carelessly along the edge of dark pits within an ace of engulfment, of the terrible pursuers that have been at times at our heels and on the point of seizing us.
II. Again, may we not say that goodness and mercy are frequently following us to our salvation from threatening mischief in the truer thoughts, the better feelings, that start up behind our frequent false inclinings and prevail against them, in the wiser mind that presently awakes to arrest and scatter the foolish, in the wholesome heart that rises to check the unhealthy? St. John of the Apocalypse beheld a door opened in heaven, and heard a voice inviting him to ascend. Have we not on occasions beheld in our own breast a door opened in helland then suddenly shut to, as by an angel's hand?
III. True as it is that every day bears upon it the fruit of yesterday's sowing, that we are constantly inheriting, whether for good or evil, what we have been, and have been doing true as this is, yet are we not often conscious that we are spared reaping the full harvest of a foolish or unworthy past, that there is a withholding in part of what we might have suffered from it, of what it might have inflicted upon us? It must have seemed to us all at times that goodness and mercy were following our transgressions in some mitigation of their consequences, that we were not receiving from them all the stripes that we might have looked to receive.
S. A. Tipple, Sunday Mornings at Norwood,p. 233.
I. Look, first, at these companions of our life: Divine kindness and Divine grace. These companions accompany us. It is Jehovah's goodness and Jehovah's mercy that are with us. These companions are Divine, pleasant, useful, sympathetic, everlasting, unchangeable, and familiar.
II. Notice the period of this companionship: "all the days of my life." Life is made up of days not so much of years as of days. (1) Goodness and mercy have been our companions through past days. Their hands held us up in childhood; they have been the guardians of our youth; they have been ministering angels in our manhood; they have been a refuge and strength in old age. (2) Goodness and mercy are our companions today. To-day we walk with them and talk with them; today we receive their benediction. (3) And to-morrow goodness and mercy will accompany us. There is nothing in any day or days of life to separate us from goodness and mercy. The day is not too long, the day is not too dark, the day is not too stormy, the days are not too many, for these Divine companions. Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, sends us these good angels, and secures for us their services. He would have us continually rejoice in their presence. He would have us "be quiet from fear of evil."
S. Martin, Comfort in Trouble,p. 170.
The earthly and the heavenly sanctuary.
I. Exactly in proportion as we recognise the worth of the institution of the Sabbath, we shall recognise the necessity that there is for a public provision for its right use and improvement. A Sabbath in a land without churches would be a day, in all likelihood, of open licentiousness rather than even the appearance of devotion. Preaching is the appointed ordinance of God, by and through which He gathers in His people. The solemn setting apart of places for Divine worship is not of human device, but possesses all the sanctions which can be derived from the known will of our Creator.
II. The words of David may be regarded as referring to a future life as well as to a present. The Evangelist saw no temple therein, for he adds, "The Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it." Observe then what a change must have passed on our present condition ere churches can be swept away without injury, nay rather with benefit, to vital religion. (1) If a man could safely dispense with churches as being able safely to dispense with Sabbaths, then must he be where everything around him breathed of Deity, where every creature with whom he held converse served and loved the Redeemer, where there was no exposure to temptation, and where nothing that defileth could ever gain entrance. (2) The words of John also tell us that in heaven we shall be free from every remainder of corruption, that we shall no longer need external ordinances to remind us of our allegiance and strengthen us for conflict, but that, "made equal to the angels," we shall serve God without wavering and worship God without weariness. (3) It shall not be needful, in order to advance in acquaintance with God, that the saints gather themselves into a material sanctuary; they can go to the fountain-head, and therefore require not those channels through which living streams were before transmitted. Present with the Lord, they need no emblem of His presence.
H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit,No. 1848.
References: Psalms 23:6. G. Bainton, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xii., p. 85; Bishop Thorold, The Presence of Christ,p. 217; W. Cunningham, Sermons,p. 1; T. T. Munger, The Appeal to Life,p. 67.