This text is not the exclamation of a man to whom a truth has come as a flash; it is the deliberate outcome of a long and varied retrospect.
I. God will not be, in any true sense, before our face unless we set Him there. It is a matter which involves our determination and effort, a matter of special training and practice.
II. This having God before the face requires persistency. The Psalmist tells us, not only of an act, but of a habit: "I have set the Lord alwaysbefore my face."
III. One who thus keeps God before him makes discoveries. (1) He finds himself revealed. (2) Setting God before our face carries with it a power of growth. (3) It engenders hope. "Because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved."
M. R. Vincent, God and Bread,p. 59.
It will be admitted that few men get out of the powers with which they are endowed all they might get. And the reason is, their lives proceed without rule or system. They do not constrain the various forces of their nature into one direction, nor fling them with concentrated intensity on their object. Dissipation is the parent of mediocrity, because there is neither government, nor concentration, nor dominant idea in men's lives.
I. A dominant idea is an idea which has taken such firm hold of the mind, that it necessarily presents itself along with any other idea that may arise, passes judgment upon it, and either allows it free course, or condemns it to inactivity and ultimate suppression. Restraining ruling ideas spring up naturally. The motions are the first parents of ideas. But early in man's history, as in each individual life, is felt the force of some checking idea. Primitive man hears a voice rebuking mere animal desire, which says, "Thou shalt not eat of it," and the moment that voice is heard a moral nature has arisen and heaven becomes possible. But in many cases these intellectual centres, whose presence within us indicates our claim to be men, seem to arise accidentally, to be the product rather of external circumstances than of internal intention. They form almost without our notice. Side by side grow up other centres, quite unconnected with the former. At one time action is governed by one centre, and at another by another, and this is why we see the strange contradictions which surprise us in the lives of so many men. Instead of our lives being like some well-ordered State, they are more like mob anarchy, twisted and twirled by the last breath and the latest appeal a shapeless jumble of good, bad, and indifferent.
II. How are we to get rid of this state of things? It is a question we ought to settle even if there be no God at all. To be trundled into a grave by anybody who will deign to give us a push is not a very fine business for the heirs of all the ages. This; anarchy must be made to cease by setting up some governing authority endowed with absolute power. We must make our chosen idea into an established monarchy. We must determine to bring it before the mind every day. We must settle with ourselves that that one thing must be recalled whatever else is forgotten.
III. What shall be our dominant idea? The most natural, the most necessary, the most regulating, the most inspiring, idea is that of God. The idea of God is our birthright, but it is for us to make it dominant, that a new order may arise in what has been a moral chaos. Where God is sin cannot be, and where God is all beauty must be. Let this idea but become dominant, a new heaven and a new earth will arise, wherein dwelleth righteousness, and speckled vanity will sicken soon and die. "Time will run back and fetch the age of gold."
W. Page-Roberts, Oxford Undergraduates' Journal,June 10th, 1880.
References: Psalms 16:8. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxii., No. 1305; Homiletic Magazine,vol. xii., p. 18. Psalms 16:8-10. Archbishop Thomson, Lincoln's Inn Sermons,p. 62.Psalms 16:8-11. A. Maclaren, Sunday Magazine,1881, p. 738. Psalms 16:9. J. E. Vaux, Sermon Notes,3rd series, p. 52.