Psalms 32:7

Thou art my hiding place.

Our hiding place

A man who is pursued as if he were a wild beast can appreciate the value of a safe hiding place.

I. we need a hiding place for the soul.

1. For there is an enemy to our souls ever seeking their destruction. Is it true that there is a wicked devil? Some think not, but Jesus tells us that there is. He tells us also that there is a hiding place from Satan’s power, and it is the Lord Himself.

2. From our own inclinations. Some years ago I was walking with one of my children over a canal on a very narrow bridge. The child was frightened, and begged me to hold her tight, as she felt as if something were pulling her down into the canal. And so, like that child, we all of us have an inclination to fall from purity, and we shall fall unless the Lord hold us fast. And He will, if we ask Him. He will no more let you fall into sin, if you call on Him with all your heart, than I would have let that child fall into the canal. Though we have an inclination to sin, there is at all times a hiding place in which our souls may shelter until the danger be past.

II. there are special times when we need a hiding place.

1. One of those times is, when the fear of death comes upon us. Who can help us when we die?

2. Allow me to say a word about the hiding place we need when the sorrows of poverty afflict us. Ah, don’t you think that such people need a hiding place? How blessed is the Gospel to them! They suffer, but they know, they feel, that our Heavenly Father cares for them. (W. Birch.)

The believer’s refuge

I. the refuge which he needs. Refer to David in the stronghold; man-slayer in city of refuge; Noah in the ark. The sinner needs a refuge under the guilt of sin, under the demands of the law, under the dangers of life.

II. the confidence he indulges. “Thou shalt preserve me from trouble”--not that actual exemption from trial is promised, but so preserved as that we shall not sink under it. The argument is that past deliverances are a ground of future hope. If He delivered me as a rebellious sinner, shall He not deliver me as a praying believer? It rests on the promise and faithfulness of God--“For the mountains shall depart,” etc. The Christian, after one trial, should prepare for another. It is supported by the experience of the Church.

III. the joy he anticipates. “Songs of deliverance.” (Study.)

God our hiding place

There is no statement more true, and no truth more important, than that maxim of Martin Luther--“Nolo Deum absolutum.” Who, indeed, can meet an absolute God? God absolute is a consuming fire. His holiness is irreconcilably hostile to sin; His justice sternly demands the sinner’s punishment; and His truth obliges Him to execute the penalty of His violated law. In an absolute God there is no hope for a sinful creature. But now, through the incarnate Word, my atoning Sacrifice and interceding High-Priest, the devouring Fire becomes my protection, the almighty Adversary assumes the character of a friend, and with full assurance of faith I take up the song of the royal saint--“Thou art my hiding place, thou wilt preserve me from trouble; thou wilt compass me about with songs of deliverance.” Concerning the ungodly it is said--“The hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.” But “their rock is not as our rock, even our enemies themselves being judges.” I have seen the name of Benvenuto Cellini scratched with a nail upon the rugged stone wall of his cell in the Castello Sant’ Angelo; and have handled the sad mementos of Torquato Tasso in the convent of Sant’ Onofrio--his last refuge, the gate by which he entered paradise--midway between his cradle at Sorrento and his dungeon at Ferrara. But my sacred asylum can show many a worthier record and many a holier relic, for it has been the dwelling-place of the saints in all generations. Here Paul and Silas sang their midnight hymn, and the heroic exile of Patmos heard the chanting of immortal tongues. Here Ignatius challenged the lions with his “Gloria in Exeelsis,” and brave old Sanctus as long as he had power to speak confessed--“I am a Christian.” And cheering it is to know that these, and such as these--a fire-crowned host of priests and kings--have been here before me. The cities of refuge were six, and were so distributed that one of them was always within half-a-day’s flight of the man-slayer: and the gates were ever open to admit him. And yet, from one cause or another, he might not reach it. But our defence is ever accessible. Nay, I carry my refuge constantly with me: and not as the Arab carries his tent, or the soldier his shield, or the turtle its shell; for Christ is not only immanent in His word and movements, but dwells--a living Spirit--in every living heart. And the provision is as vast as human want and as various as human woe. And there is perfect safety there. The psalmist is certain of it. “Thou wilt preserve me from trouble.” Not, indeed, from earthly ills--the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to; but with Thee always present I can endure these. But from sin, the source of all trouble, and itself the only real trouble, I know Thy grace is sufficient to save me. My faith, like the eagle’s wings, bears me above the hurtling thunder into the eternal sunshine. Like the skylark, I sing as I soar, and pour music out of the cloud. Like the nightingale, I lift a cheerful lay in the twilight, and charm the night with melodies of love and hope. Thus will the Lord, my hiding place, compass me about with songs of deliverance. (J. Cross, D. D.)

God a hiding place

Adam hid from God; David hides in God.

1. From the penalties of a broken law.

2. From the enmity of man.

3. From the trials and sorrows of life.

4. From the fear of death. (C. D. Bell, D. D.)

Thou shalt preserve me from trouble.--

Saints preserved from trouble

If we content ourselves with that word which our translators have chosen here, “trouble,” we must rest in one of these two senses; either that God shall arm, and endue those that are His, with such a constancy, as those things that trouble others, shall not trouble them, but, “As the sufferings of Christ abound in them, so their consolation also aboundeth by Christ, as unknown, and yet well known, as dying, and behold we live, as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing, and yet possessing all things”; for God uses both these ways in the behalf of His servants; sometimes to suspend the working of that that should work their torment, as He suspended the rage of the lions for Daniel, and the heat of the fire in the furnace for the others; sometimes by imprinting a holy stupefaction, and insensibleness in the person that suffers, so St. Laurence was not only patient, but merry and facetious when he lay broiling upon the fire; and so we read of many other martyrs, that they have been less moved, less affected with their torments, than their executioners or their persecutors have been. That which troubled others never troubled them; or else the phrase must have this sense, that though they be troubled with their troubles, though God submit them so far, to the common condition of men, that they be sensible of them, yet He shall preserve them from that trouble so as that it shall never overthrow them, never sink them into a dejection of spirit, or diffidence in His mercy. They shall find storms, but a stout and strong ship under foot. They shall feel thunder and lightning, but garlands of triumphant bays shall preserve them. They shall be trodden into the earth with scorns and contempts, but yet as seed is buried, to multiply to more. Thou shalt make me insensible of it, or Thou shalt make me victorious in it. (J. Donne, D. D.)

Preserved in Christ Jesus

There used to be an old battered safe standing in the Broadway, New York, on which was the notice, “It stood the test; the contents were all saved.” It had been in one of the hottest fires New York ever saw, but the old safe had carried its treasures safely through it all. No life so safe as that which is guided and controlled by Christ. (J. Ellis.)

Thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance.

Songs of deliverance

Song is the natural language of the feelings. The heart in song seeks relief, as the swollen lake flows over in rills that make music as they flow. Songs of deliverance, therefore, are above all others songs of joy. And joy is far more vivid when it is a recoil from grief or terror, than when it is a continuance or higher degree of the same joy. And such songs strike, also, most powerfully the chords of feeling in other hearts and call forth an echo: for all can sympathize in such joy. And they are peculiar to men. Angels have no dangers, devils no deliverance. They are characteristically human songs: they stamp the singer a native of earth. See the song at the Red Sea (Exodus 15:1.; and that in Judges 5:1.). And we, too, have songs of deliverance. Let us speak of some of them.

I. that sung on our deliverance from the most appalling danger. The Christian’s most thankful praise is praise for deliverance. The joy that breathes in his song is the joy of recovered safety. His whole happiness is a treasure rescued from utter wreck; he is a delivered man. In whatever scene, with whatever fellowship he mingles in his eternal career, he shall be marked as one that has been delivered. All the greatness that may yet come to him, all the blessedness that eternity shall put to his lips, all the glory to which his nature may ascend, cry out of deliverance. His is not the joy of the happy child who has never passed beyond the home of love and purity, but the joy of the reformed prodigal, who, despite a wasted heritage, blighted hopes, and a dishonoured name, has, after weary wanderings, again found a home of peace and love.

II. the believer’s song of deliverance from earthly sorrows and troubles. As the Christian has many a sorrow, so he has many a song. He has songs of deliverance when the judgments which threatened to overwhelm him have not been permitted to come nigh; songs of deliverance when they have come, and all God’s waves and billows have gone over him, and he has passed through the cloud and the sea unharmed. Even the dread chastisements of God which came upon David in consequence of his sin lost their terribleness and all that should make them dreaded. They were henceforth to work together for good; and therefore he lifts the song of deliverance, though the troubles were still with him. Evil in its outward aspect is not changed, but to the soul its spiritual relation is reversed. In the life of the true penitent the fruits of past wickedness, severed from the tree that nourished them, lose their noxious quality, and fatten the soil for future harvests of good. And therefore the pardoned sinner counts it all joy when he falls into tribulation. Hear again David’s song: “Many sorrows shall be to the wicked; but he that trusteth in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about.”

III. the song of final and eternal deliverance. It is not till the Church has reached her heavenly home, and every member of the great body of Christ is finally redeemed from the power of the world,--and death, the last enemy, destroyed, that the glorified Church shall stand on the shores of the glassy sea, and swell high the anthem of triumph that began in the deliverance of Israel under Moses, and is consummated in the triumph of the Lamb, over the world, and sin, and death, and the grave. Then her joy shall be full, in the sense of her own safety assured for ever against all enemies. Nothing shall remain but joy add song. (J. Riddell.)

Compassed about with songs of deliverance

That is, not to have one or two, or a few occasions or deliverances to sing praises to God for, but abundant, yea innumerable causes to praise and magnify God, so as a man can look no way round about him, but he shall see many and infinite mercies, and so many songs and praises, every new mercy being a new matter of a new song of deliverance. For look as when a man hath endured an heavy, dark, and uncomfortable night, the morning approacheth, and light begins to appear, not in any one side of the heavens, but on every side, that, let a man look where he will, the light compasseth him, and it groweth lighter and lighter until perfect day: so, although God’s children seem to be in darkness and in the night of affliction, yet God affords some deliverance, and brings the joyful morning, and then they see the light of comfort on all sides, and can say, Now they are compassed with light and salvation. So as the thing which our prophet here professeth, is; first, that the Lord would afford him matter enough to frame and compile holy songs of joyful praise and thanks. Secondly, that this matter should be so plentiful and abundant, that nothing should on any side be about him, but that whence he ought to provoke himself to return joyful thanks, he should be begirt with blessings and mercy. (T. Taylor, D. D.)

Many deliverances, many songs

What need is there of plurality of songs: may not one song serve; and if one may, what need many? One song perhaps may serve for one deliverance; but if there be many deliverances, must there not be many songs? And must there not be many deliverances when there are many bondages? And are there not many bondages when I incur a new bondage as often as I commit a new sin? And yet another reason as great as this: for say that God’s deliverance be but one, will that one deliverance require but one song? O my soul, it deserves, and therefore requires, I say not a plurality, but an infinity of songs; for there must be some songs to express it, and others to extol it; some songs of “miserere” and others of “magnificat”; some “de profundis,” and others “in excelsis”; some songs of praise, and others of thanksgiving; and though there will be a time when all these songs shall be collected into one, and so collected make the great “Cantieum Canticorum,” yet till that time come there will be need of many songs; and seeing I shall need many, I hope, O God, Thou wilt not see me want, and tie me to one song, but wilt compass me about with songs of deliverance. (Sir Richard Baker.)