The Lord is my light and my salvation.
Implicit trust
This psalm was written by a man who was at the moment far down in the depths of spiritual conflict, and yet was holding a steady front against his troubles, after all. He prays so passionately, that we should deem him weak even to cowardice, if it were not for the fact that he praises so jubilantly, and lifts his head with a most unsubdued ring in his voice. The psalm is like a summer cloud just before a storm, in that it reserves an overcharge of power to be driven on by a sort of induction into the very verge of the final verse, from which it explodes with a glorious flash of lightning, which clears the air instantly. What are the conditions of implicit trust in the Lord of our salvation, such trust as will ensure peace and comfort? It is likely that most of God’s children, sooner or later, are permitted to journey on wearily over what seemed a highway, only to find, at the last, the sign inscribed, “No thoroughfare here.” A grim kind of consolation enters one’s heart as he murmurs, “Some one has been here before to put up the guideboard, at any rate!”
1. The main condition of resting in the Lord is found in looking outside of one’s self. There is a habit of morbid self-examination which needs to be shunned. Some experiences there are which are too delicate to bear this rude analysis. A woman’s love for her husband, a child’s confidence in his father, could be disturbed fatally and for ever, if only half as much violence were brought to bear upon it as some Christians are accustomed to exert upon their religious feelings. One can tear himself all to pieces, to no sort of profit, and to every sort of harm. The Lord is the one to look at, not ourselves.
2. The next condition of spiritual repose is found in the avoiding of unwise counsellors. We must learn to trust our trust, and not keep rooting it up. No plant grows which is continually being rooted up.
3. Another condition of rest in God is found in drawing a clear distinction between historic faith and saving faith. What secures to us a perfect salvation is spiritual trust in the Saviour, and this is the gift of the Holy Ghost. It is easy to receive facts, perhaps, but not so easy to understand experiences which lie deeper than any mere outward acts. Historic faith is not necessarily saving faith.
4. We are to cultivate confidence in the slowly reached answers to our prayers for Divine grace.
5. We must distinguish between emotions and religious states. The one may vary, the other is fixed. Faith is a very different thing from the result of faith; and confidence of faith is even a different thing from faith itself; and yet the safety of the soul depends on faith, and on nothing else. We are justified by faith; not by joy or peace or love or hope or zeal. These last are the results of faith, generally, and will depend largely upon temperament and education.
6. This unbroken courage is a condition of rest. David said that he came near to fainting, and should have done it, only be kept on believing to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. We must not think everything is lost when we happen to have become beclouded. (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)
Confidence in God
This psalm is an instance of what an old divine has called “confidence in God the best succour in the worst seasons.”
I. the occasion of this confidence. In David’s case we find this confidence--
1. In times of peril. The true children of God are oft in peril, and at such times nothing can stand them in such stead as this assured confidence. Luther felt it at Worms. Armed with it, the Christian may ever look even death calmly in the face. Man without it is in time of peril like a ship without anchor in the fury of the storm.
2. In times of privation. Apparently David was (Psalms 27:4) in exile, and deprived of the privileges of worship in the house of God. But he found his great support in his confidence in God.
3. In times of desertion. When he needed friends most, the ranks were thinnest, his standard most deserted. But he had a Friend who would never forsake him. Happy the man who, amidst general unfaithfulness, has found the great treasure of a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.
4. In times of calumny. A bitter element in David’s cup were false witnesses and slanderers.
II. some of the grounds on which this confidence rests.
1. The nature of God Himself in His personal relation to us: “My Light, my Salvation. .. the Strength of my life.” It is not what we are, but what God is, that affords a solid ground of confidence in time of trouble. There is an emphasis on that pronoun my which speaks of an eternal covenant, an appropriating faith, a mystical union.
2. Previous interpositions of God for our help. Verse 2 evidently refers to a period in the psalmist’s past history when he was delivered from great danger. As the child of God looks back on the way by which the Lord has led him, and sees how Divine strength has been made manifest in his weakness, confident is he that the grace which has brought him thus far will lead him safely home.
3. The religious experiences he has enjoyed (Psalms 27:8).
4. The promises of God received and rested on by faith.
III. the fruits of this confidence.
1. Complete deliverance from all fear (Psalms 27:1). Fear is unworthy one to whom Jehovah stands in such relations.
2. A positive sense of security from all harm. Jehovah, the Captain of our salvation, takes the timid soul into His own royal tent.
3. A well-spring of happiness. The Christian life has its hosannahs as well as its misereres--its notes of joyous triumph as well as its plaintive “songs in the night.” (T. H. Witherspoon, D. D.)
A psalm for life’s storms
I. courage in life’s storms.
1. This courage is founded on confidence in God. When the soul feels God with it, it becomes invincible.
2. It is heightened by memories of past deliverance. Recollection of past mercies strengthens our faith in future supplies.
3. It defies all future enemies, and faces the mysterious future with a jubilant soul.
II. shelter in life’s storms.
1. The scene where the shelter is sought. The house of the Lord: the place where He specially manifests Himself to His people.
2. The means by which the shelter is to be secured. Dwelling with God; delighting in God; inquiring after God.
3. The source from which it is to be derived. God Himself.
4. The spirit in which it is accepted. Confidence and praise.
III. prayer in life’s storms. The prayer is--
1. An earnest appeal to mercy for relief.
2. It expresses ready compliance with the Divine request. God requires us to seek His favour, not because we can induce Him to be more merciful; nor because our prayer can merit His favours; but because earnest prayer qualifies the suppliant to rightly receive, appreciate, and use the blessing sought.
3. It deprecates the disfavour of God as a terrible evil.
4. It recognizes the transcendent character of Divine friendship. Though all forsake, He remains faithful.
4. It indicates the true method of safety. Obedience to Divine law; interposition for Divine help.
IV. self-exhortation in life’s storms. “I had fainted unless,” etc. An admonishment to himself to be strong.
1. Faith in Divine goodness. The vision of Divine goodness is the only moral tonic for the soul.
2. Consecration to the Divine service. To wait upon the Lord is to serve Him lovingly, thoroughly, faithfully, practically; and such service is moral strength. (Homilist.)
Confidence in God
The Psalms are the outbreathings of the universal heart, a voice for man at all times. We are here reminded of--
I. A profound sense of need and danger This psalm is the cry of a soul in distress. David’s throne, honour, wealth, did not exempt him from suffering; rather they became occasions of distress. To all, the sky of life is often overcast, its path lies along a toilsome way, with burdens too heavy to be borne. Where find rest and safety?
II. the security of trusting in God. God was his Light, and in the consciousness of that light he could see that all things worked together for good to them that love God. The Lord was his Salvation: his safety was assured. Cast into a fiery furnace, One appears with the Christian whose form is like the Son of God. God was the Strength of his life, awakening holy impulses, irradiating his whole spiritual being.
III. the necessity of appointed means in communing with God. In the sanctuary, in the place and in the way of Divine appointment, the psalmist was filled with a sense of the Divine presence. There God’s light, salvation, strength, appeared in a reality and beauty nowhere else displayed. There God appeared not in nature, but in grace; not as a power, but as a Person; not as Creator, but as Redeemer. The psalmist therefore longed for the sanctuary.
IV. obedience to God is indispensable to confiding intercourse with him. At once he would seek, and actively seek, the Lord’s face. There is no real confidence in God without loyalty: obedience is the only atmosphere on which the wing of faith can rise. (Monday Club Sermons.)
The Christian’s boast
David was a boaster, but it was in God; hence it was lawful: “My soul shall make her boast in the Lord.” In any other source of confidence it is unlawful and dangerous.
I. the “one thing” of which David here speaks. The abiding sense of the Divine presence. The temple, or “house of the Lord,” was the place of God’s special manifestations. Abiding in this presence will give--
1. Light--the light of His countenance. It is one thing to abide in our own or in other light--as “the Pharisee” and Zaccheus; a different thing to be in the light of God’s face or presence. This light does two things: it reveals to us God, and shows us what sin is; it reveals God to us, and shows us what salvation is--making the Lord to be our salvation.
2. Satan may accuse, but, if God acquits, whom shall we fear? If the Law has been satisfied, the debt paid, we need fear neither penalties nor imprisonment. There is a second sense in which the Lord is light and salvation. No longer “afraid” of the condemning power of sin, we are warranted in standing in fear of its ruling power in our hearts. Therefore we are exhorted to “work out our salvation.” To do this we need the light to guide us into all truth, the salvation to deliver us from all evil.
3. Strength. “If God be for us” strength is on our side.
4. “The beauty of the Lord.” The beauty of His attributes, as they meet and harmonize for our blessing. The beauty, too, reflected in us; for in His light and salvation and strength we are “changed into the same image.”
5. Joy and singing. When our joy is dependent on the consciousness of what we are or ought to be to God, it is a very uncertain joy, and will rarely produce singing, but rather sighing. But when it is dependent on the sense of what God is to us, then we can say, “I will offer in His tabernacle sacrifices of joy.” To have this joy we must be taken out of self.
II. the condition of attaining this “one thing.” We must “seek after it.” We must “wait on the Lord.” To navigate the sea of life we must keep the eye fixed on this one thing, on the one magnet--Christ. Paul did this, which made his bark “press toward” the haven with such grace and nobility. (The Study.)
The Christian’s triumph
A beautiful affirmation; important possession; glorious triumph.
I. the affirmation.
1. The Lord is light in nature. “All things were made by Him.” All light in nature comes from God’s Son, who is emphatically the Light of the world.
2. In the sphere of reason. God made man with a mind to know, a will to obey, a heart to love--elevated far above the rest of creation. By sin the mind is darkened, the will perverse, the heart depraved. Hence--
3. God is light in the sphere of grace. Man, by the Fall, deprived himself and the race of “those divine gifts”; hence the need of a Redeemer. This we have: “the Lord is salvation.” Light shows us where and what we are--lost, ruined, dead. Christ, our salvation, brings us from the depths of the Fall, recreates us, imparts to us His Spirit, righteousness and life.
II. A most important possession. “My light,” “my salvation.” The beauty of the Psalms is in the pronouns. Light must be in us, or we walk in darkness; bread be eaten, or we starve; so an unapplied Saviour is no Saviour to man. This possession is ours only as we stand in living union with Christ Jesus our Lord.
III. the glorious triumph. “Whom shall I fear?” etc. In possession of Christ’s light and life, the Christian need fear neither sickness, death, grave, nor hell. Over all these lie has complete victory (Romans 8:34-39). (J. Hassler, D. D.)
David’s confidence in God
I. what God was to David.
1. The fountain of gladness to his heart.
2. The author of safety to his person.
3. The giver of strength and might, for the preservation of his life.
Uses--
1. For instruction.
(1) God’s all-sufficiency in Himself, for all His children.
(2) The happy estate of those who are in covenant with God.
2. For admonition.
(1) Search and try whether God be that to us which He was to David.
(2) If we find defect we must give all diligence thereunto (2 Peter 1:5).
(3) In the fruition of any of these blessings, see whither to return the honour and praise, viz. to God.
3. For comfort.
II. what benefit David reaped thereby. Having the Lord for his God, he is armed against all fear of men or other creatures (Psalms 118:6; Psalms 23:1-4; Psalms 3:3-6). Uses--
1. For instruction.
(1) There is great gain in true godliness, and much fruit in religion, to those who attain to true righteousness (1 Timothy 6:6; Psalms 58:11).
(2) See here the true ground of the difference between the wicked and the godly, about slavish fear and godly boldness (Proverbs 28:1). The godly have the Lord with them and for them, and that makes them bold; but the wicked have the Lord against them, and that strikes their hearts with fear and dread.
2. For admonition.
(1) Unless God be for us, the heart will fail when evils come. And none have the Lord for them but those that stand rightly in covenant with God; ‘repenting of their sins, believing in the Lord Jesus, and walking in new obedience.
(2) Those who have true courage and comfort in evil times must learn hence to give God all the glory (Psalms 18:29). (T. Pierson.)
The pathway of power
Light--salvation--strength: three great waves of the sea, telling that the tide can rise no higher. The tide is full. Even so it is with the heart that can say--
I. The Lord is my light.
1. In the natural world God gives us a night between every two days, and in the life beyond we hear of a bow of emerald that breaks the dazzle of the great white throne. Light means truth, and, as it advances in precision and purity, the steps of discovered truth become the songs of degrees with which the tribes go up to the great temple of God.
2. In the spiritual life, both as regards salvation and service, much depends on clearness of vision, and knowledge of how and where to look and what to look for.
II. the Lord is my salvation. The words “Christ for us” have now a clear and exact meaning, setting forth the condition and character of Salvation. And before Christ was crucified for sinners, the main feature of salvation was the same; it was from the Lord, a gift from His hand. “Blessed is the man whose sin is covered.” Sin was then also a transgression, a taint, and a tyranny, and from all the Lord delivered. It was His to deliver the soul from death, the eyes from tears, and the feet from falling. This fact at once humbled and upheld him; it was the Lord’s gift, and yet it was his own possession. And so he could say--“Whom shall I fear? The Lord is my salvation.”
III. the Lord is my strength. Light for the understanding and its judgment; salvation for the heart, its hardness and anxiety; and strength for action and usefulness. How often we come to the Lord, like James and John, and say “we are able”; but the Lord makes a thorough work of the first and second, the light and salvation, before lie entrusts us with the third, the strength on which He puts His own almighty name. We often bring misery upon ourselves, and darkness upon others, by trying to come into the Lord’s service before coming to the Lord Himself. Let us seek the power in the pathway of power:--light, salvation, strength. (G. M. Mackie, M. A.)
The Divine Light
I. David says this. He is in exile, engaged in some struggle on the frontiers of his kingdom: his foes have received a check: he is closely watched, but is, nevertheless, confident of victory. This is the only occasion in which David speaks of the Lord as his Light: the expression occurs only twice in the Old Testament. Micah says, “the Lord shall be a light unto me.” In other places light is spoken of as God’s gift--the light of revelation and of conscience. But here David says, “the Lord is my light.” David’s life was one of great vicissitude, and his temperament was very changeable. Hence he was liable to great depression, especially through the recollection of his awful sins--adulterer and murderer that he was. And yet he was a man after God’s own heart, because a man’s life is to be judged not by its exceptional acts, but by its governing principles. Nevertheless, David was damaged deeply and permanently by his sins. But they did not destroy, though they did deface his real character, his profound religious sense of God’s presence and claims. The leading acts of a man’s life may look one way, the governing principles of his life another. Philip II. of Spain encouraged and paid for the publication of the second great polyglot Bible that was ever printed. But how wrong it would be to infer from that one action what manner of man he was. And so with David: his exceptional acts do not reveal him in his real character and mind. Saul had no depth of character: moral levity and indifference to the claims of God are constantly chargeable against him. But David’s sins, though terrible, were but temporary, and never became the habit of his life, and they did not extinguish in him his deep love of God. Hence, still he could say, “The Lord is my light.”
II. Apply the words to our Lord jesus christ. In their deepest sense they can apply to none else. He whom Jesus said was greatest of woman-born--John the Baptist--was yet “not that light, but came to bear witness of that light.” Christ alone could say, “I am the light of the world.” Some of us may remember that great work of Christian genius, called the “Notre”: it is by Correggio, and is reckoned amongst the chief of the art treasures of the Dresden Gallery. In it the Divine infant is represented as with a body almost transparent with light, and from Him all around are illuminated, and in proportion to their nearness to Him. It is a representation on canvas of a great moral and spiritual truth. For Christ is the one light of men.
III. To the church. Was it not so in the days of persecution? Road the history of the martyrdom of Stephen.
IV. To Christian education. Our text is the motto of the University of Oxford, and expresses the truth that education apart from Him is vain.
V. To the individual conscience. Then refer to Him all teaching, all content. “Lead, kindly Light. .. lead Thou me on.” (Canon Liddon.)
Facts and arguments
I. The facts.
1. “The Lord is my light and my salvation.” The soul is assured of it, and therefore declares it boldly. Into the soul at the new birth Divine light is poured as the precursor of salvation. Where there is not enough light to reveal our own darkness, and to make us long for the Lord Jesus, there is no evidence of salvation. After conversion our God is our Joy, Comfort, Guide, Teacher, and, in every sense, our Light: He is light within, light around, light reflected from us, and light to be revealed to us. Not merely does He give light or salvation; He is light, He is salvation; he, then, who has laid hold upon God has all covenant blessings in his possession.
2. “The Lord is the strength of my life.” Here is a third epithet to show the writer’s hope was fastened with a threefold cord which could not be broken. We may well accumulate terms of praise where the Lord lavishes deeds of grace.
II. the arguments. 1 “Whom shall I fear?” A question which is its own answer. The powers of darkness are not to be feared; for the Lord, our light, destroys them. The damnation of hell is not to be dreaded; for the Lord is our salvation. This is a very different challenge from that of boastful Goliath: that rested on the conceited vigour of an arm of flesh; this on the real power of the omnipotent I am.
2. “Of whom shall I be afraid?” Our life derives all its strength from God: we cannot be weakened by all the machinations of the enemy. This bold question looks into the future as well as the present. “If God be for us, who can be against us,” either now or in time to come? (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Christ the True Light
In the New Testament, the idea which is hinted at in the language of David is expressly revealed as a truth. God does not merely give us His light. He is light, just as He is love in His own uncreated nature. “God is light,” says St. John, “and in Him is no darkness at all.” When St. John would teach us our Lord’s Godhead as clearly and sharply as possible, he calls Him the “light,” moaning to teach us that as such He shares the essential nature of the Deity. He is “light,” because lie is what He is--absolute perfection in respect of intellectual truth, absolute perfection in respect of moral beauty. And hence those momentous words, “I am the light of the world”; and hence that confession of the Christian creed, “God of God, Light of Light.” Thus the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ was to the spiritual world what the rising of the sun is in the world of nature. It had effects even upon the orders of the heavenly intelligences, of which St. Paul hints in his Epistle to the Ephesians. But, for the human soul, it meant a passing from darkness to light, from warmth to sunshine. And thus a prophet had bidden Zion arise and shine since her Lord was come, and the glory of the Lord had risen upon her; for He was announced as the Sun of Righteousness who should arise with healing in His wings, so that although darkness had covered the earth, and gross darkness the people, yet the Lord should arise upon Zion, and His glory be seen upon her. And, in the Benedictus, Zechariah salutes Him as “the day-star from on high, who hath visited us to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.” And Simeon, holding the Divine Saviour in his arms, says that He is “a Light to lighten the Gentiles”; and himself felt that the word of prophecy was fulfilled, when the people who walked in darkness had seen a great light; and they that were in the region and shadow of death, on them hath the Gospel light shined. Some of us may remember that great work of Christian genius, the picture of the Nativity--the “Notre,” as it is called, of Correggio, which is among the treasures of the Dresden Gallery. In it the Divine Infant is represented as with a body almost transparent with light; and from Him all around are illuminated. His mother, His foster-father, the angels who bend in adoration, they are illuminated in the ratio of their nearness to Him. And this is but a representation on canvas of spiritual and eternal truth. He is the one Light of the intellectual and moral world; and we are in the light just so far, and only so far, as we are near to Him. (Canon Liddon.)
Light and salvation
The combination of the two ideas, “light and salvation,” is very suggestive. Light is essential to life, health, and growth. What wonderful medicinal efficacy it possesses! There is no tonic like it. It imparts that green hue by means of which the plant changes inorganic into organic matter, creates and conserves what everything else consumes and destroys, and acts as the mediator between the world of death and the world of life. Take away the light from man, and immediately he becomes a prey to the dead, inert forces of nature. The tissues of his body degenerate, and the powers of his mind decay. It affects the stature, the blood, the hair, the liver, the whole body inwardly and outwardly. Under solar radiation, sickness is more speedily cured, wounds heal more rapidly, and the healthy acquire fresh vigour and elevated vitality. It is difficult even to express the full enjoyment of all the senses, except by metaphors drawn from light. Owing to this healing, life-giving power of natural light, we see how it becomes the salvation of the natural man. And in regard to our souls, the Lord is our salvation because He is our light. The plant instinctively and inevitably turns to the sunlight, wherever it is, because the sunlight is its salvation, its very life. Shut out from the light, it can neither live nor grow. A plant growing in a cellar, where but a feeble ray of light penetrates, is a dwarfed and forced growth, exhausting all there is in its seed or bulb mechanically, but adding no new material of growth, without any sign of inward vitality or promise of perennial production. It is a weak, blanched ghost of a plant, without any sap in its veins, or colour in its leaves, without any power to produce blossoms or fruit. But bring the miserable shadow of life out into the open sunshine, and it recovers itself; its white, brittle stem becomes green and full of sap; its leaves assume their natural vivid hue, and open out their blades in the golden air. The whole plant revives as if by magic, and speedily puts forth its beautiful blossom and fruit. What the sunlight is to the plant, God is to the soul. (H. Macmillan, D. D.)
Man’s True Light
When we were at New York, Professor Simpson and I went one night to the observatory. We found the astronomer by the light of a small candle, groping about for his instruments, and arranging the telescope. But when he had got the star full in view he blew out his little candle. He had now got the light of the world, and the candle served only to obscure his view. The dim light of your reason is of use only if it brings you to the Great Light. (Henry Drummond.)
Whom shall I fear?--
The believer’s freedom from fear
This is not the language of vain presumption, or the boastful utterance of affected boldness, but the confident, yet humble, utterance of Christian assurance.
I. shall we be afraid of God?
1. Is He not revealed as a sin-hating God? And are not all men sinners? How comes it, then, that the Christian man, though sensible of many infirmities, shortcomings, and aggravated sins--sins of thought, of word, and of deed--can say that he has no cause to be afraid of God? It is because of the new relation into which he is brought to God by virtue of his union to Christ, and of what Christ has done for him. The work of Christ was to satisfy Divine justice and reconcile us to God. Nor is this all. Every believer in Christ becomes a partaker of the Divine nature, sustaining a relation to him near and dear as that which His own Son sustained.
2. Is not the Christian exposed to temptation? May he not be stripped of the safeguard which Divine grace has thrown around him, and be exposed again to the dread vengeance of an insulted God? No; though he may fall, yet shall he rise again. So long as he is Christ’s he has nothing to fear from God, but everything to hope. The love of God dwelling in him, there is no place for fear, for “perfect love casteth out fear.”
II. shall we fear the law? “Cursed is every one that continueth not,” etc. “He that offendeth in one point,” etc. If a man’s life is to be brought to the test of the law, if he is to stand on the footing of his own merits in the eye of the law, then, indeed, is his condition hopeless, for “there is not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sinneth not.” “By the deeds of the law shall no flesh living be justified.” Now though all this be true, it is no less true that even of the law the Christian has no need to be afraid. To him it is invested with no terrors, on him it never flashes its lightning, against him it never peals its thunders, and why? Why, just because “the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made him free from the law of sin and of death.” Why? Because “there is no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”
III. shall we fear Satan? When we think of the life he has led us, the misery in which he has involved us, the grinding nature of that servitude be exacts from every one who is led captive by him at his will, we may well tremble at the thought of such an enemy, for unless we are ransomed from his hands by a mightier power than our own, well may we say that he is indeed a power to be feared. But it is only when under his power that this can truly be said of him. It cannot be so said of the believer, for his position is altered to Satan, and Satan’s is altered to him. Christ “has taken the prey from the mighty, and spoiled the captive of the terrible one.”
IV. shall we fear affliction? To fear it would be to mistrust the promises, and to doubt the faithfulness of Him by whom these promises are made. “Fear not, for I am with thee; be not dismayed, for I am thy God.” “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee,” etc.
V. shall we fear death? Death, which the world calls “the king of terrors,” and which wicked men feel to be such! Death, which for six thousand years has lorded it over the human race, and to whose sceptre countless myriads are yet destined to bowl Shall we not be afraid of death? No! To the Christian there is nothing in death to make him afraid. To the Christian all his power is over the material, not over the spiritual; over the body, not over the soul; and even ever the body not long. To the Christian he comes as an angel of mercy, as a messenger of peace. (H. Hyslop.)
The fearlessness of the good
I. springs from personal faith in God.
1. Intelligent.
2. Appropriating.
3. Soul-saving.
II. strengthened by the remembrance of past deliverances. Confidence comes of experience. The remedy we have proved we readily try again. The friend we have found faithful we trust to death. The commander under whom we have conquered we follow bravely to other fields. So should we act as to God.
III. sufficient for the greatest emergencies. What terror had Ahab for Micaiah, the man who had seen God? (1 Kings 22:19). What cared Elisha for “the horses and chariots” at Dothan, whose eyes beheld the angels of God ranged in his defence? (2 Kings 6:15). “If God be for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31). (W. Forsyth, M. A.)
David’s preventive of fear
The heroic man shows us the secret of his heroism.
I. the Lord was the psalmist’s light. Few things man recoils more from than darkness, whether physical, or of ignorance or of sin. This fear was no longer possible to David. He even anticipates John’s grand utterance, “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” What light was and ever had been to the world, the Lord was to David.
II. the lord was his salvation. As man dreads darkness, so he dreads captivity and oppression. David rejoices in God as his salvation. This conception of God first found expression in the song of Moses (Exodus 15:4), when God led the children of Israel through the Red Sea into the light and calm of day. The word “salvation” is Jeshua--Joshua--Jesus. So near does David come to the parallel Gospel phrase: “He shall be called Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.” Thus the psalmist gripped in advance two of the central truths of the Gospel--God as light and as salvation. In face of these assurances he asks, “Whom shall I fear?” This is the question of every reformer, who, in the strength of a mighty conviction, in the inspiration of high aims, goes to the help of the Lord against the mighty.
III. the Lord was the strength--the stronghold--of his life. The word has a more subtle meaning still. David looks upon God as the Life of his life, the Father of his spirit. He thus falls back upon a third Gospel truth: “God is a Spirit.” David’s life was in possession of a power which needed not to fear any foe. By a mighty faith he drew upon God’s omnipotence: be had not only enough obedience to be active, he had enough to be restful; and that power is greater than all other. Many a man, like John the Baptist, has courage and enthusiasm enough for the rush and battle of life, but falters when withdrawn into the hush of it, to await the oncoming of the foe. The strength of the psalmist enabled him to pass from “Whom shall I fear?” to “Of whom, then, shall I be afraid?” Therefore the second verse followed naturally: “When the wicked. .. they stumbled and fell.” (D. Davies.)
Fear banished
Having God as his light and salvation, the psalmist might well say, “Whom shall I fear?” Having his heart at rest in God, and having his times in God’s hands, what cause for fear remained? With peace within, and light without, he was raised above all earthly fears. His eyes were opened; and while he was compassed about with foes innumerable and most formidable, he saw himself at the same time surrounded with horses and chariots of fire, and realized that greater was He that was with him than all that could be against him; that the hostile things and persons of life could have no power at all against him, were it not given them for wise and gracious purposes by his heavenly Father. And so, if we fear God, we need know no other fear. That divine fear, like the space which the American settler burns around him as a defence against the prairie fire, clears a circle, within which we are absolutely safe. The old necromancists believed that if a man was master of himself, he enjoyed complete immunity from all danger; if his will was firmly set, the powers of evil could not harm him; he could defy a host of devils raging around. Against the malice of human and infernal power, the citadel of a man’s heart that is set upon God is impregnable. It is sin alone that is adverse to us; it is sin that makes cowards of us all. The soul infected with this radical evil is weak, and open to all adversities. Everything is adverse to it. It is out of harmony with God’s universe. But let this primary adversity of sin be removed, and all secondary adversities vanish; all things work together for good to them that fear the Lord. All providence becomes to us special providence; all things are eager and tender ministers to us. More important interests are involved in our salvation than in the fate of the whole natural creation; and sooner than a hair of our head shall be injured, God would bury the whole physical world in ruin. “God is our refuge and strength.” Perfect trust in God is perfect peace. (H. Macmillan, D. D.)
The Lord is the strength of my life.--
David’s strength
The keynote of David’s character is not the assertion of his own strength, but the confession of his own weakness. Nevertheless, he had strength, and that of no common order: he was an eminently powerful, able, and successful man. But he says it was from God. Even his physical prowess he ascribes to God. It is by God’s help he slays the lion and the bear, and has nerve to kill Goliath. It is God who makes his feet like harts’ feet, and enables him to leap over the walls of the mountain fortresses. And no doubt this was so: it is not mere metaphor. David was not likely to have been a man of gigantic strength. So delicate a-brain was probably coupled to a delicate body. But it is as the fount of light and goodness in his own soul that he chiefly thinks of God. In a word, David is a man of faith and prayer. And it is this which sustains him in every trouble, and gives enthusiasm and fire, life and reality, to his triumphant psalms. He had the firm conviction that God was the deliverer of all who trust in Him. And the same faith it is which gives to his penitence its manly tone, free from all cowardly cries of terror. He sees no angry, but a forgiving God, though he knows he is to be punished for the rest of his life. But he utterly trusts God, and is sure that God will restore him to goodness that He may thereby restore him to usefulness. Hence it is God demands not torturing penance or sacrifice, but the heart, the broken and contrite heart. It is such utterances as these which have given their priceless value to the little book of the psalms of David. Every form of human sorrow, doubt, struggle, error, sin; the nun agonizing in the cloister; the settler struggling for life in Transatlantic forests; the pauper shivering over the embers in his hovel, and waiting for kind death; the man of business striving to keep his honour pure amid the temptations of commerce; the prodigal son starving in the far country, and recollecting the words which he learnt long ago at his mother’s knee; the peasant boy trudging a-field in the chill dawn, and remembering that the Lord is his Shepherd, therefore he will not want--all shapes of humanity have found, and will find to the end of time, a word said to their inmost hearts, and for them, to the living God of heaven by the vast humanity of David, the man after God’s own heart; the most thoroughly human figure which had appeared upon the earth before the coming of that perfect Son of man, who is over all, God blessed for ever. (C. Kingsley, M. A.)