See Reader what a blessed joyful conclusion! What could open more gloomy and discouraging than this Psalm did! What can end more triumphant and joyful! But do not fail to trace the whole to its source. Salvation is of God. Yes! Jesus saith, Mine own arm brought salvation, and of the people there was none with me. Isaiah 63:3-5. Oh! Lord! suffer me never to rob my God of his glory, by mingling anything of my wretchedness with the finished redemption of my Saviour. Lord Jesus do thou have all the praise, for thou alone art able to bear the glory. Zechariah 6:12-13
REFLECTIONS
CAN I, my soul, read this Psalm of David's distresses in his flight from Absalom, and not behold David's Lord in his agonies and conflicts, the very same spot of the Mount of Olives? Must I not suppose that the Holy Ghost was shadowing forth in the instance of David, as in numberless other cases, in the trials and afflictions of the faithful, in the Old Testament scripture, the outlines of the Lord of his church, to be brought forward in the after ages of the New? And shall not such scenes, which the Lord of life and glory passed through in the days of his flesh, when enduring the contradiction of sinners against himself, endear the Lamb of God to my heart, and animate me in all my exercises, that I may never be weary nor faint in my mind?
Learn, my soul, from what is said of David in this Psalm, what a holy composure, faith in God's love, and dependence upon God's grace, is capable of inducing under the most afflicting circumstances. It should seem that David meditated this Psalm, if he did not immediately write it down, when he was in such a situation of hurry and confusion, as was enough to have discomposed the stoutest mind. And so it would, had not the Lord been his shield, his glory, and the lifter up of his head. Oh I precious Jesus! do I not learn from hence, that the only security and defense against all danger is the leaning upon thee and thy great salvation. Oh! Lord, let the arm of thy strength be under me, and the light of thy countenance shining upon me, and then will I not fear though ten thousands set themselves against me round about.
Reader! behold from the perusal of this sweet and blessed Psalm, what must be your confidence now in your nightly slumbers, and what alone will be your confidence then, when laying down in the long slumber of the grave; even sleeping in Jesus. You need not be afraid in the recurrence of every night to drop asleep, if so be your soul is sustained by its union with Jesus. And a consciousness of the same interest in all that belongs to Jesus, will be the well grounded security, when the body falls asleep in Jesus unto the day of the resurrection. Everything speaks in the language of a covenant God, as the Lord did to the Patriarch: fear not to go down into Egypt, even the Egypt of the grave, for I am with thee. Blessed Jesus! it is thou, that by thy death hast overcome death, and made the grave a sweet chamber of repose, until thou shalt call upon thy members to arise at the great day of everlasting joy. Then thou shalt call and I will answer thee, for thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands.