Psalms 73:24

Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory.

God-guided freedom

Some, as the Church of Rome, would deny to men the right of free thought. They appeal to authority, and think it better that men should hearken only to their appointed guides. Now, I say that a Church which hinders and destroys thought curses the world. The men who think make progress; they become inventors, owners of the land they till and of the houses in which they dwell; they become foremen and masters; while the men who do not think are carriers of the hod, the hewers of wood and the drawers of water.

I. That a god-guided life is a pilgrimage.

II. Divine counsel is given to all who try to do God’s will.

III. Let the resolve of the psalmist be repeated in your soul. Thou shalt guide me and receive me. If you resolve to be true to yourself, by acting up to the light you have, then God will guide you by His counsel, and afterward receive you to glory. Our heavenly Guide will never steer us wrong. Trust Him. (W. Birch.)

Guidance and glory

In this psalm troubled men find help.

I. How shall we meet our troubles?

1. There is no better way than to go into the sanctuary of God. Sorrow is almost a blessing if it drives us there.

2. Next, we may well look on to the end of things.

3. Best of all, we must be careful to maintain the blessed life. To be continually with God, cultivating the momentary sense of His presence.

II. But why are these experiences not more permanent? We read that “Daniel continued.” Oh to be steadfast and unmovable!

1. We must always distinguish between our emotions and our attitude. The one may die off our lives like the sunset glory from the ridges of the Alps, that seem so grey and cold when it is gone; but the other should resemble the changeless perpetuity of the everlasting hills, unaltered by the transitions of the ages, dr the alternations of day and night. You may not always feel as happy, but you can always say “Yes” to the will of God, and realize your attitude in the risen, ascended, loving Jesus, amongst the thousand thousands that minister to Him. In moments of depression, be sure to live in your will and His will.

2. We must be careful to maintain this attitude of the will unaltered. God is constantly putting into our lives little or greater occasions of testing. Unless we are watchful in applying to each new point the principle of surrender, which we have assumed, we may drift from full face, to three-quarter, and half-face, before we are aware.

3. We must exercise ourselves to have the “conscience void of offence toward God and toward men.” Not a scrupulous, but a sensitive, conscience. Conscience and the Holy Ghost are expressly allied by the apostle--the crystal stone ever bathed in the translucent glory of heaven.

4. We must ever keep our heart open to the Holy Spirit. It is His province and prerogative to nurture the inner life, and to fill it with the realized presence of the Lord.

5. We must be very careful to maintain unbroken the habits of the devout life. Too many are like the slip-carriage, which runs for a little from the impulse received from the engine, but then slackens till it comes to a stand; instead of resembling that which keeps its connection with the speed and strength of the locomotive. In a laundry, the other day, I saw two kinds of irons. One, the usual sort, needing to be put on a heated surface at frequent intervals to fit them for their work. The other, in which the iron was attached by a flexible gutta-percha tube to the gas-pipe, so that it was easy to use it, and inside the iron a jet of flame, fed by the gas, which maintained it at a regular temperature, and counteracted the chilling effects of its work. Is not this what we want? Not depending on the outside stimulus of a convention, a mission, or a sermon; but receiving straight from God Himself that inward fire of the Holy Ghost, to give and perpetuate which is the dearest passion of the heart of Jesus. All this will cost us something; the daily dying to self; saying “No” to the flesh; the cutting-off of hand or foot; the dropping down into the earth to die: but these sufferings are not worthy to be compared with the growing glory of our life, or its blessedness. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)

Guidance to grace and glory

I. The conviction which led the psalmist to take a guide. Happily for him, that conviction came very early. If I am to have a guide on my journey, I should like to have one at the beginning, for it is the starting that has so much to do with all the rest of the way.

1.] suppose it was because of a work of grace upon his heart; for, naturally, we do not like being guided. It is a fine piece of knowledge when you have learned that you are not fit to take care of yourself, but need somebody to lead you all the way through life.

2. I suppose that the psalmist said to the Lord, “Thou shelf guide me,” because he had been convinced of his own folly, and therefore felt that it was well to commit himself into wiser hands; and also that he had obtained some knowledge of the difficulties of the way. To no one of us is the path of life an easy one, if we desire to be pure, and clean, and upright, and accepted with God.

3. The psalmist’s desire to have a guide also showed his great anxiety to be right. I wish that all men began life with an earnest desire to act rightly in it; and that each one would say, “I shall never live this life again, I should like to make it a good one so far as I can.” If this were the intense desire of every one of us, we should be driven at once to this conclusion, “I must have a guide. I want to live a glorious life; and if I am to do so, I must be helped in it, for I am incompetent for the task by myself.”

II. The confidence winch led him to take God as his guide. If we were but in our right senses, we should all do so.

1. A man, looking about wisely for a guide, will prefer to have the very best; and is not God, who is infinitely wise, the best Guide that we can have? Who questions it? Is not the Lord also the most loving, the most tender, the most considerate, who can be chosen aa a guide?

2. Choose Him also because of His constant, unceasing, infallible care. If I choose a guide who may die on the road, I am likely to be unhappy; but God will never die. If I choose a guide who, being my friend at the starting, will not care for me when I have advanced halfway on my journey, I am unwise in my choice; but God cannot change, He will ever be the same. But will God guide us?

3. Well, it were vain to choose Him if He would not; but of all beings God is most easy of access.

III. The heavenly commerce which now reigns between the soul and its guide. How does God guide us?

1. By the general directions of His Word. Obey the Ten Commandments. Imitate Christ.

2. There are great principles infused in every man who takes God for his Guide.

(1) Avoid everything that is evil.

(2) Live for the glory of God alone.

(3) Show love to your fellow-men.

3. God guides His people on the way of life by giving a certain balance of the faculties. When we come to God in penitence, when we are born again of the Spirit, and live by faith in Christ, then, first of all, fear is banished and faith takes its place. We are then better able to judge which is the right road. Above all, the grace of God guides us very much by the dethroning of self as the traitorous lord of our being, and makes us loyal to Christ When a man acts out of loyalty to Christ, he is pretty sure to act very wisely and rightly.

4. There is a special illumination of mind which comes from dwelling near to God.

5. At the very worst times, when all these things will fail you as a guide, you may expect mysterious impulses, for which you can never account, which will come to you, and guide you aright.

IV. The sure result of this guidance: “Thou shalt. .. afterward receive me to glory.” On earth, there is no real glory for us unless we are guided by God’s counsel. There is no true glory for any man who takes his own course. Afterward He will receive you to glory. This is a delightful thought, but I can now only answer this one question. When we die, who will receive us into glory? Well, I do not doubt that the angels will. John Bunyan’s description of the shining ones, who come down to the brink of the river to help the pilgrims up on the other side of the cold stream, I doubt not is all true; but the text tells us of somebody better than the angels who will come and receive us. Our dying prayer to our Lord will be, “Into Thy hands I commend my spirit,” and His answer will be, “I receive thee to glory.” (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The Lord the Guide of His people

I. In what way The Lord conducts and guides His people in this present state.

1. By His providence.

2. By His Word.

3. By His Spirit.

The Spirit of God does not reveal any new truths different from, or in addition to, those recorded in the written Word. He does not guide by impressions on the mind, the nature and tendency of which cannot be explained. But He opens the understandings to understand the Scriptures. He enables and disposes clearly to perceive, and faithfully to apply the truths already revealed in His Word, as the various cases and circumstances of His people require.

II. What is implied in that glory into which The Lord will receive His people, after He has led and conducted them through the present life.

1. Heaven may be represented by the term “glory,” because it is a glorious place. If this earth which we inhabit, defiled as it is with sin, exhibit to a careful observer such evident marks of the most consummate wisdom and design--what must be the majesty of that place, where the whole art of creation has been employed, and where God has chosen to show Himself in the most magnificent manner to the view of all its blessed inhabitants?

2. Oh! how glorious is the company that fill the mansions in our Father’s house above!

3. The employments of heaven are glorious.

4. The enjoyments of heaven infinitely transcend our highest conceptions. (A. Ramsay, M. A.)

A new year’s resolve

I. Man requires a guide in the path of life.

1. Man’s ignorance of the future.

2. Man’s proneness to consult false guides.

3. Man’s frequent mistakes.

4. The awful consequences of mistakes.

II. God is the only true guide for man in the path of life.

1. He alone knows all the future.

2. He alone understands the full relation of the present to the future.

3. He alone has capacity be provide for our future.

4. He alone has manifested that interest that would warrant our perfect confidence for the future.

III. God himself will guide man individually in the path of life. “Thou shalt guide me,” etc. The psalmist did not believe in the Pantheist’s god, he speaks of a person--“Thou.” Nor in the Deist’s god who cares only for the vast; it was for the individual “Me.” Every man requires special guidance. Each man is a world in himself and has an orbit of his own. No two are alike.

IV. Under the guidance of God the path of life becomes glorious. What does the world call glory? Conquest? You have conquest over evil when guided by God. Exalted fellowship? The greatest spirits of all worlds and times are the society of those whom God guides. Dignified position? They are kings and priests. (Homilist.)

Guidance and glory

I. Guidance here.

1. He confesses his need of guidance, It is a grand thing if God compels us to seek direction.

2. He professes confidence in God.

3. He announces his belief in God’s willingness to lead him. This is not included in the other; it is a distinct step. Are you sure that God will guide you? You may be sure, for He who wings an angel guides the sparrow; He who tells the number of the stars heals the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds.

4. He declares himself willing to be led.

II. Glory hereafter.

1. We are just as sure that it is to be revealed as we are that guidance is ours moment by moment. The glory seems more wonderful than the guidance, but it is not really so The flower is more beautiful than the bud, yet the flower was in the bud, and glory is but grace developed and revealed. The glory to which we are to be received is part and parcel of the guidance which we daily enjoy.

2. The only uncertainty is as to the time, and I think we ought to bless God that there cannot be full knowledge in this respect. It is enough that we know that He will receive us to glory afterward. Blessed word, “afterward”!--after the pain, after the struggle, after the toil, after the cross, after the temptations, after the work is done, that is when He will receive us. Do not ask to know more than that.

3. Did you notice that the arrival is called a reception? “And afterward receive me to glory.” Thank God for this! There is a welcome awaiting us there. I have known what it is, occasionally, to arrive unexpectedly in a strange place. The vessel draws up to the wharf, there is a crowd of folks to meet their friends, and one looks anxiously for a familiar face, but no, the message had miscarried, or there was some mistake about the time and there is nobody to extend a welcome. Oh, you do not run any such risk as regards heaven.

4. And what is there beyond the reception? Just this--glory! I was wondering what was the Scriptural use of this term glory. I find that in the Word of God it stands for riches, authority, sumptuous buildings and garments, and in some instances for hosts of warriors. Well, all these things are yonder in illimitable degree. (T. Spurgeon.)

Man’s constitution declares his need of Divine guidance

Suppose a man were to say about a steamship, “the structure of this vessel shows that it is meant that we should get up a roaring fire in the furnaces, and set the engines going at full speed, and let her go as she will.” Would he not have left out of account that there was steering apparatus which was as plainly meant to guide as are the engines to draw? What are the rudder and the wheel for? Do they not imply a pilot? And is not the make of our souls as plainly suggestive of subordination and control? (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The guidance of the Holy Spirit as compared to a compass

A mariner who puts out to sea, losing sight of land, beholds nothing but a waste of waters around him. The night comes on, and clouds and darkness gather in upon him. But in his chart and compass he has an infallible guide. He regulates the sail as the wind requires, and holds to the rudder, never losing sight of the compass, and watchfully keeps the narrow way to which it confines him by night and by day. So the wise Christian looks up as one continually dependent on the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the one source of all his spiritual life and motion. He is careful to watch the least breathing of the Spirit upon his soul that he may not quench it, but yield himself up to its full impression. And adding to this, his faith, all diligence and watchfulness, he is wafted onwards in safety, amidst the storms and wrecks around him in an evil world. (H.G. Salter.)