Psalms 43:3

LIGHT AND TRUTH

‘O send out Thy light and Thy truth, that they may lead me: and bring me unto Thy holy hill, and to Thy dwelling.’

Psalms 43:3 (Prayer Book Version)

The forty-second and forty-third psalms give us an insight into the very heart of the Psalmist. David there appears as the man whose affections were set upon God, and who in all the changes and chances and dangers of a chequered life looked upward, aspired for closer communion with God; and it is for this that he is our teacher and our example.

I. We need to have this teaching and this example in this life of weary toil.—We need to have our spirits lifted up, not to be always earthward bound, but raised, elevated, borne up to the contemplation of higher things, higher and also more lasting. That is one great corrective of worldliness, one great protection for our soul, amid the temptations, pursuits, business, and pleasures of this present world—to look upward.

II. Observe how entirely Christian the prayer is, for what is it we here ask of God?—We ask for His light and for His truth. What is this but to ask for Christ to dwell in our hearts? When we pray for God’s light and God’s truth to lead us, we pray that Jesus Christ may dwell in us, and work in us, and rule in us, to the sanctifying and saving of our soul.

III. The dwelling of God, where is it?—In the highest heaven. Even those words are inadequate to convey a just idea of His habitation. ‘Behold, the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him.’ God is present in all places, at all times, but is present according to His true promise wheresoever two or three are gathered together in His name.

—Canon R. D. B. Rawnsley.

Illustration

‘After the ministers of the Disruption (the Free Church of Scotland) had reached Tanfield Hall, May 18, 1843, and Dr. Chalmers had taken the chair as moderator, he rose to give out the psalm. “A heavy thunder-cloud had for some time darkened the heavens, and, as the eye ranged at that particular moment over the dense mass of human beings who covered the immense area of the low-roofed hall, individual forms had almost ceased to be distinguishable through the sombre shade. The psalm which Dr. Chalmers had chosen was the forty-third. He began at that touching and beautiful line—

‘O send Thy light forth and Thy truth,’

and, as the words sounded through the hall, the sun, escaping from behind his cloudy covering, and darting through the windows which pierced the roof his brilliant beams, turned on the instant the preceding darkness into day.” ’