Psalms 21:3

For Thou preventest him with the blessings of goodness.

God going before us

The word “prevent” is now generally used to represent the idea of hindrance. “Thou preventest him” would mean commonly, “Thou hinderest him.” But here the word “prevent” means, to go before. Thou goest before him with the blessings of Thy goodness as a pioneer, to make crooked ways straight and rough places smooth; or, as one who strews flowers in the path of another, to render the way beautiful to the eye and pleasant to the tread. God’s anticipation of our necessities by His merciful dispensations. The leading idea of the text is expressed elsewhere. In Isaiah 52:12, “The Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel shall be your reward.” Here is not only the idea of God following a man to shelter him and to protect him; but of God going before a man to make what preparation is necessary for his safety and comfort. God prevents us with the blessings of His goodness--

I. When we come into the world.

II. When we become personal transgressors.

III. When we enter upon the duties and cares of mature life. The word “providence” seems to represent something more passive than that which it is essential God should be to us and do for us. For example, you might make a provision for another, put that provision within his reach, and then leave both him and the provision you have made--and that would be providence. But that is not God’s providence. He leaves nothing. He is with everything--with things great and with things small. God has not, you know, constructed this world as a clockmaker constructs a clock--adapting the machinery to work rightly without his oversight or his interference, but only needing a little attention on the part of the individual who owns it. God has not put this world in such a position as that. Everything that acts, moves, and works--acts, moves, and works under the direct impulse of God. I know that men try to drive God away from His world, by talking of the laws of nature and of the powers and resources of nature. But as I understand the laws of nature, they are God’s usual mode of working. He does a particular work in the same way, month after month, and year after year--that is a law. But then, the law is nothing in itself--the law is no power or force; it is only God’s mode of doing the thing. You might as well talk of the law of carpentering, or the law of cabinetmaking, in terms which would show you do not consider the presence of the carpenter or the cabinetmaker necessary to his work. There are rules of carpentering and rules of cabinet making; but you require the carpenter and the cabinetmaker. Just so with reference to God. He works in the same mode, month after month, and year after year; but pray do not put the mode, the method, in the place of Himself, and speak of the mode of working as though it were the worker. And so God goes before us. He has been busy about that business of ours which we have just taken up as our occupation through life. He has thought of, cared, and provided for us.

IV. When we enter upon new paths.

V. When we enter the dark valley of the shadow of death.

VI. By giving us many mercies without our asking for them. What wretched beings we should be if God limited His gifts to our prayers! I know that sometimes we do ask great things, when our hearts are enlarged and when our lips are open; but I know that, at other times, we ask God nothing, and that our prayers are as poor as ourselves; and if God restrained His giving when we restrained our praying, in what utter destitution we should be!

VII. By opening to us the path of heaven and by storing heaven with every provision for our blessedness. Then let us praise God for His goodness, and let us imitate Him by seeking to prevent others in like manner. (Samuel Martin.)

The goodness of the Creator preceding the history of the creature

I. In the natural provision made for us as men. Let us look a little at this, and see how goodness went before us, worked for us ages before we made our appearance on the stage of life.

1. There was a home exactly fitted for our reception. How exquisitely fitted this earth is to our senses and our wants! Do we crave for beauty? What a gallery of magnificent pictures! Have we an instinct for music? What an orchestra, redolent with every variety of melodious strains! Do we need sustenance? What a rich banquet nature spreads before us! Do we crave for delicious odours? The air is laden with perfumes. Do we need facilities of transit? There is the prancing steed; by our side there grows the timber that will bear us over oceans, and there are the elements ready to our call. Goodness made everything ready here before we came.

2. There was parental love to welcome us. We were not sent into a world of strangers to make acquaintance with those who for us had no sympathy.

3. There were educational elements to develop our powers. Here was the piece of work waiting for us to do it. Here were men and women whose knowledge qualified them to instruct us: schools were here, and libraries.

4. There were wholesome laws to guard our rights. Goodness went before us and made this government.

II. In the spiritual provision made for us as sinners. Pardon and spiritual cleansing were here awaiting us. Redemptive agencies were at full work all about us as we commenced our life.

III. In the heavenly provision made for us as disciples. What this world was to us before we entered it, heaven is to us now.

1. This world was unknown to us. How ignorant is the unborn child of the home into which he is to be introduced! How little we know of heaven! “Eye hath not seen,” etc.

2. This world was exquisitely fitted for us. Its soil, climate, productions.

3. This world has infinitely more than we can enjoy. It is so with heaven,--its provisions are rich, varied, and unbounded.

4. This world welcomed our existence with love. (Homilist.)