Psalms 20:2

Send thee help from the sanctuary.

The sanctuary

I. It is the place where God’s honour dwells. When Israel would have the help and guidance of Jehovah, they made application at the temple where His glory was seen in the holy place, and where He had appointed to respond to their supplications.

II. The house of God is the place of united and fervent prayer. The increased efficacy of prayer when united and fervent, and the assurance that it will have unity and fervency in the sanctuary, point out that place as the source of their help in the hour of danger and of suffering.

III. The house of God is the radiant point of sanctifying truth. From the lips of the living preacher go out those doctrines that operate to sanctify the hearts of men. And who dare hope that society can prosper where no hearts are sanctified?

VI. The instruction of God’s house is the grand agent in the formation of public sentiment. An influence goes out from the holy place to affect all men, whether they will or will not be controlled by the influence. To the ungodly, public sentiment is an irresistible law. There is no means powerful like the house of God in the formation of public opinion and sentiment.

V. The house of God sustains all the other civilising and healthful influences. Identified with it are a preached Gospel and the ministry of reconciliation. These all sustain each other.

VI. From the house of God are selected the subjects of His grace. Those only who frequent the sanctuary are at all likely to be regenerated. It is in the lips of a living ministry that God has pledged Himself to bless. Men bring misery on themselves when--

1. There is a satiety of hearing the Word of God.

2. When the spirit of decay esteems the support of Gospel institutions a burden.

3. When there is a disrespect for the ministry of the reconciliation. (D. A. Clark.)

Help from the sanctuary

The name sanctuary means the holy place, and sometimes refers only to that which was the most holy place, but at other times to the tabernacle generally. It was made holy by God’s dwelling there, and specially by the manifestation of His grace through mediation and sacrifice. To the sanctuary the pious Israelites turned when in trouble and in great emergency, specially besought the Divine protection by clinging to the horns of the altar. Something of the same kind we find in mediaeval Christian times in connection with particular churches. In the Chapter House of Westminster there is a beautiful picture depicting a scene which was often witnessed at the abbey porch. The venerable abbot, with the elevated host in his hand, is staying the progress of a strong angry warrior, while behind him a woman and her children, with terror in their faces, are clinging to his vestments and claiming his protection. But we take the word sanctuary as in its common meaning amongst us today; as the house of God, the place of worship. Help from the sanctuary, therefore, suggests the spiritual strength obtained through the observances of the religious ordinances connected with the day and the house of the Lord. Christ blesses us through them. They are no charms or talisman, but simply channels of His blessing.

I. We all need help. Every soul has its own sadness. Some spiritual, through the conflict with sin. Others temporal, through the difficulties of life.

II. It is a comfort to know that there is help from the sanctuary. For in the sanctuary we draw near to God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and as we appropriate Him to ourselves as our own God we find ourselves strengthened and encouraged. We are in our lives like a schoolboy learning to write, and every week is a page in our copy book, and every day a line. On the first line, and in the sanctuary, Christ has set before us His own beautiful example, and we start out to imitate it. But as we go down line after line we too largely lose sight of that which He has written, and when we get to the bottom our work is all irregular and blotted, and the paper, mayhap, also blistered with our tears. Then comes the first day of the week again, and when we enter into the sanctuary Jesus speaks to us words of cheer and sets us a new copy, and so we begin again. Thus page after page is covered. It is poor work enough, but it improves a little every time, and it is much better at the end of the book than it was at the beginning, for at the bottom of the last page the Master writes, “Well done!” Thus the sanctuary counteracts the evil influences of the week. And there have been special blessings coming to earnest Christians through some particular portion of the service of God’s house. The Lord guides His Word to the hearts of His people. He knows how to direct the minister to preach aright. See how minute are the directions given by which Cornelius was to find Peter and Ananias to find Saul of Tarsus in Damascus. And the Holy Spirit acts in like manner still.

III. To get this help we must come to the sanctuary. I do not deny that we can get to God in Christ anywhere. But a particular promise is made in connection with the sanctuary. “Where two or three,” etc. It may be difficult to analyse this special blessing, but it is reality. How lamentable, then, that so many stay away, and on such slight pretexts.

IV. If he would be the means of conveying this help the minister must keep close to Christ. For it is the Christ of the sanctuary that constitutes its value, and if he, on whom most of all the character and quality of the services depend, loses sight of Him, then the Church is reduced at once to the level of the Lyceum, and all spiritual power is gone. The soul of a saint cannot be nourished by a scientific disquisition. The best way to defend the truth is to expound it. Above all, must they know Christ experimentally. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)