Moral effects of communion with God.
I. What is prayer? It is conversingwith God. We converse with our fellow-men, and then we use familiar language, because they areour fellows. We converse with God, and then we use the lowliest, awfullest, calmest, concisest language we can, because He is God. Prayer then is Divineconverse, differing from human as God differs from man. Prayers and praises are the mode of the Christian's intercourse with the next world, as the conduct of business or recreation is the mode in which this world is carried on in all its separate courses. He who does not pray does not claim his citizenship with heaven, but lives, though an heir of the kingdom, as if he were a child of earth.
II. Now it is not surprising if that duty or privilege which is the characteristic token of our heavenly inheritance should also have a special influence upon our fitness for claiming it. He who does not pray not only suspends the enjoyment, but is in a way to lose the possession, of his Divine citizenship. The case is like that of a language or style of speaking of this world; we know well a foreigner from a native. Prayer has a naturaleffect in spiritualising and elevating the soul. A man is no longer what he was before: gradually, imperceptibly to himself, he has imbibed a new set of ideas, and become imbued with fresh principles. He is as one coming from the King's courts, with a grace, a delicacy, a dignity, a propriety, a freshness of thought and taste, a clearness and firmness of principle, all his own. As speech is the organ of human society and the means of human civilisation, so is prayer the instrument of Divine fellowship and Divine training.
III. We know how men feel and act when they come to die; they discharge their worldly affairs from their mind, and try to realise the unseen state. They are leaving their goods, their deeds, their sayings, their writings, their names, behind them; and they care not for them, for they wait for Christ. To one thing alone they are alive: His coming; they watch against it, if so be they may then be found without shame. Such is the conduct of dying men. And what all but the very hardened do at the last, if the senses fail not and their powers hold, that does the true Christian all his life long; and therefore day by day he unlearns the love of this world and the desire of its praise: he can bear to belong to the nameless family of God, and to seem to the world strange in it and out of place, for so he is.
J. H. Newman, Selection from the "Parochial and Plain Sermons" 1878, p. 349 (see also vol. iv., p. 226).
I. The believer's confidence is simple and sincere. " Onething have I desired of the Lord." One thought has the mastery in his soul over all other thoughts; one aim gives unity and concentration to all his efforts; one affection draws all other impulses and desires into its swift current. The double-minded man is unstable in all his ways, but this singleness of heart gives the life a clear and steadfast aim, binds all its parts into harmonious consistency, inspires it with continuous hope, braces and invigorates it with celestial strength.
II. This confidence is essentially of a spiritual character. The "one thing" which the Psalmist desired was that he "might dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of his life." Well David knew that a very different lot was appointed him than in the peaceful and cloistered retirement of the Temple; that it would be his one day to sit on the throne of Israel, to go forth as their leader to battle, to do judgment and justice, as the father of his people, in the gate. Set there and thus, he might be as closely encircled by the sense of the Divine presence, and as consciously drawing strength, and happiness, and peace from inward communion with his God, as if he had been keeping perpetual vigil before the altar.
III. This confidence in God was calm and joyous. It enabled him to say that in the time of trouble God would hide him in His pavilion, and set his feet upon a rock. When things are at the darkest, the believer has a bright outlook into the future, and may be assured that nothing can reach or affect the sources of his confidence. Within the circle of the Divine protection, his life is unassailable. "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee."
J. D. Burns, Family Treasury,April, 1863
I. Beauty at first was conceived of as physical. Probably the earliest admiration of it as a moral quality was in the conception of courage. Then men learned, at a later stage, not only that courage is beautiful, but that suffering and self-sacrifice are beautiful. Everybody understands that love is beautiful. And so, step by step, moral qualities come to be considered beautiful. In general, as beauty rises, it rises from the material towards the spiritual, and in the spiritual it is appreciated in the proportion in which men are themselves developed so as to recognise, to love, to revere, that which is spiritual.
II. The Old Testament was, in the first place, full of a rapturous admiration of God as presented in nature. Then comes the long period of the development of physical ideas of beauty into spiritual ideas; and this the whole New Testament borrows clear down to the last book. Then comes Revelation and again lifts up the old standard, and fills its mighty chambers with the glory and beauty borrowed from the heaven, from the earth, from time, and from imagined eternity. When at last we are purged from sense and flesh, and rise to behold God as He is, then the beautifulness of God, as well as His graciousness, love, and tender mercy, will fill the soul with admiration for ever and for ever.
H. W. Beecher, Sermons,1882-3, p. 221.
I. Notice David's singleness of purpose in worship. The idea of worship was a ruling thought that kept every other thought of his mind in subjection to itself; it was a central thought around which every other object revolved. (1) Mark the intensity of David's desire: "That will I seek after." Genuinely earnest desires are living seeds that germinate and bring forth precious fruit in good works. The earnest soul should not rest until it realises its spiritual aspirations. (2) Observe the source from whence the Psalmist hoped to obtain his object: "One thing have I desired of the Lord."
II. Notice the particular place where he desired to worship: "That I may dwell in the house of the Lord." He desired, above all things, that his life should be spiritual decidedly and supremely spiritual. (1) Observe that David had a particular object in view in going into the house of the Lord. He entered it "to behold the beauty of the Lord." The beauty of the Lord is His holiness. David desired to behold it that he might be changed into the same image. (2) Observe the inquisitiveness of the Psalmist's spirit in the house of God: "To inquirein His temple" He entered the house of the Lord to learn.
III. Notice David's determination to persevere in the worship of the true God: "That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life." If the soul is to be carefully nourished, it must have assiduous and constant attention all the days of our life. The Psalmist desired to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of his life (1) because it gave him a sense of safety; (2) because it gave him a sweet sense of rest.
D. Rhys Jenkins, The Eternal Life,p. 88.
References: Psalms 27:4. Christian World Pulpit,vol. xi., p. 113, and vol. xxiv., p. 163; G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount,p. 106; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons,p. 251; A. Watson, Sermons for Sundays, Festivals, and Fasts,3rd series, p. 304; S. Cox, The Bird's Nest,p. 328; J. M. Neale, Sermons on Passages of the Psalms,p. 28. Psalms 27:5. Ibid.,pp. 39, 46.