For in the time of trouble He shall hide me.
Safety in time of trouble
I. David makes account that, while he lives here on earth, he is liable and subject to manifold evils. Reasons--
1. God’s Divine sovereignty, whereby He may do with His own what He will, and dispose of His dearest children to endure both sorrow and great affliction.
2. Because of iniquity.
(1) David’s own sins made him liable to evils of affliction.
(2) Likewise the sins of the wicked in his time.
(3) Satan’s malice.
(4) The malice of the wicked, who are the seed of the serpent.
Uses--
1. For instruction. See from David’s resolution what is the case and condition of all the godly, viz. to be subject to evils and troubles.
2. For admonition.
(1) To the wicked of the world, to beware of self-deceit in promising to themselves continued happiness and freedom from evils, because for the present they enjoy peace and prosperity (1 Peter 4:17-18).
(2) To the godly, to bethink themselves with David that troubles may come, and therefore to prepare for them, and to glorify God under afflictions.
II. When God shall grant to David to dwell in His house, he doth assure himself of special safety, and protection in times of trouble (Psalms 61:3-4; Psalms 61:6-7).
1. He put his trust and hope in God (Psalms 21:7; Psalms 11:1; Psalms 16:1; Psalms 86:2).
2. He testified his trust in God by prayer (Psalms 7:1; Psalms 116:3-4).
3. He made conscience of a godly and upright life, and thereon grounds his assurance of special protection (Psalms 4:3; Psalms 18:17; Psalms 18:20)
Uses--
1. For instruction. See here with David the true and right way of safety in time of trouble. In the days of grace, and times of the New Testament, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He dwells with them (Revelation 21:3).
2. For admonition. As we desire safety and shelter in time of trouble, so we must with David strive to endeavour after a sure place in God’s house, become true members of God’s Church.
(1) Break off the course of all known sin, for that prevents society with God.
(2) Labour for true faith in Christ.
(3) Walk in new obedience.
3. For comfort;. This makes greatly to all true believers, in times of trouble: for certainly they have right and title to this immunity of God’s house.
(1) God will not fail them, nor forsake them (Hebrews 13:5-6).
(2) God will cause their troubles to work for their good (Romans 8:28; Hebrews 12:10).
(3) God will give an issue with the trial, that they may be able to bear it (1 Corinthians 10:13). (T. Pierson.)
The influence of religion upon adversity
To a thoughtful mind, no study can appear more important than how to be suitably prepared for the misfortunes of life; so as to contemplate them in prospect without dismay, and, if they must befall, to bear them without dejection. Power has endeavoured to remove adversity to a distance; Philosophy has studied, when it drew nigh, to conquer it by patience; and Wealth has sought out every pleasure that can compensate or alleviate pain. While the wisdom of the world is thus occupied, religion has been no less attentive to the same important object.
I. religion prepares the mind for encountering, with fortitude, the most severe shocks of adversity; whereas vice, by its natural influence on the temper, tends to produce dejection under the slightest trials. In the course of living righteously, soberly, and godly, a good man acquires a steady and well-governed spirit. He has learned firmness and self-command. He is accustomed to look up to that Supreme Providence, which disposes of human affairs, not with reverence only, but with trust and hope. The time of prosperity was to him not merely a season of barren joy, but productive of much useful improvement. He had cultivated his mind. He had stored it with useful knowledge, with good principles, and virtuous dispositions. These resources remain entire, when the days of trouble come. His chief pleasures were always of the calm, innocent, and temperate kind; and over these the changes of the world have the least power. His mind is a kingdom to him; and he can still enjoy it. The world did not bestow upon him all his enjoyments; and therefore it is not in the power of the world, by its most cruel attacks, to carry them all away.
II. the distresses of life are alleviated to good men, by reflections on their past conduct; while, by such reflections, they are highly aggravated to the bad. During the gay and active periods of life, sinners elude, in some measure, the force of conscience. Carried round in the world of affairs and pleasures; intent on contrivance, or eager in pursuit; amused by hope, or elated by enjoyment; they are sheltered, by that crowd of trifles which surrounds them, from serious thought. But conscience is too great a power to remain always suppressed. There is in every man’s life a period when he shall be made to stand forth as a real object to his own view: and when that period comes, woe to him who is galled by the sight! Whereas, tie who is blessed with a clear conscience, enjoys in the worst conjunctures of human life, a peace, a dignity, an elevation of mind peculiar to virtue. The testimony of a good conscience is indeed to be always distinguished from that presumptuous boast of innocence, which every good Christian totally disclaims. The better he is, he will be more humble, and sensible of his failings. But though tie acknowledge that he can claim nothing from God upon the footing of desert, yet lie can trust in His merciful acceptance through Jesus Christ, according to the terms of the Gospel. He can hope that his prayers and his alms have come up in memorial before God. Tim piety and virtue of his former life were as seeds sown in his prosperous state, of which he reaps the fruits in the season of adversity.
III. ill men, in the time of trouble, can look up to no protector, while good men commit themselves, with trust and hope, to the care of heaven. The human mind, naturally feeble, is made to feel all its weakness by the pressure of adversity. Now, whither should the ungodly, in this situation, turn for aid? After having contended with the storms of adverse fortune till their spirits are exhausted, gladly would they retreat at last to the sanctuary of religion. But that sanctuary is shut against them; nay, it is environed with terrors. They behold there, not a Protector to whom they can fly, but a Judge whom they dread; and in those moments when they need His friendship the most, they are reduced to deprecate His wrath. But of all the thoughts which can enter into the mind, in the season of distress, the belief of an interest in His favour who rules the world is the most soothing. Every form of religion has afforded to virtuous men some degree of this consolation. But it was reserved for the Christian revelation to carry it to its highest point. For it is the direct scope of that revelation, to accommodate itself to the circumstances of man, under two main views; as guilty in the sight of God, and as struggling with the evils of the world. Under the former, it discovered to him a Mediator and an atonement; under the latter, it promises him the Spirit of grace and consolation. The same hand which holds out forgiveness to the penitent, and assistance to the frail, dispenses comfort and hope to the afflicted.
IV. good men are comforted under their troubles by the hope of heaven; while bad men are not only deprived of this hope, rut distressed with fears arising from a future state. How miserable the man, who, under the distractions of calamity, hangs doubtful about an event which so nearly concerns him; who, in the midst of doubts and anxieties, approaching to that awful boundary which separates this world from the next, shudders at the dark prospect before him; wishing to exist after death, and yet afraid of that existence; catching at every feeble hope which superstition can afford him, and trembling, in the same moment, from reflection upon his crimes! But blessed be God who hath brought life and immortality to light; who hath not only brought them to light, but secured them to good men; and, by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, hath begotten them unto the lively hope of an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away. Justly is this hope styled in Scripture, the anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast. For what an anchor is to a ship in a dark night, on an unknown coast, and amidst a boisterous ocean, that is this hope to the soul, when distracted by the confusions of the world. In danger, it gives security; amidst general fluctuation, it affords one fixed point of rest. (H. Blair, D. D.)
A sure promise
If a man should write upon his sign-board the words, “Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee,” he would have plenty of callers. No man dare try the experiment; but God has had those words written above His door for thousands of years, and none have ever called upon Him in vain. (S. Sellars.)
In the secret of His tabernacle shall He hide me.--
Safety in the secret of the tabernacle
Not only are non-Muhammadans forbidden to enter the sacred enclosure at Mecca, but the territory around Mecca--the Beled el-Harem, or district of the sanctuary--is regarded as a sacred asylum. Here, according to the sacred law, no war can be waged, no blood can be shed, no animal can be killed, no tree can be cut down. Not even a fly can be killed in the sacred district; but if any of the insect pests which are so common in the East annoy the pilgrim, it is permitted to him, “if they cannot well be endured any longer, to remove them from one part of the body to another.” The idea which underlies these whimsical rules is that the place of God’s sanctuary should be open only to true believers, to whom it should always be a safe retreat from peril of their enemies. Burton, in his El Medinah and Mecca, gives several specimens of Muhammadan belief regarding the miraculous safety to be found in Mecca. The Black Stone and the Place of Abraham have been miraculously preserved from their foes; at the time of the deluge, the great fish of the sea did not eat the little fish of the Meccan Sanctuary; ravenous beasts will not destroy their prey in the Beled el-Harem; no one is ever hurt in the Kaabah; ten thousand mercies descend upon it daily; and when men see the sacred building for the first time their hearts are filled with awe and their eyes with tears. The Quran expressly teaches that the Kaabah is a safe place of refuge: “Verily the first house appointed unto men was that which is in Becca (Mecca).. . therein are manifest signs, the place where Abraham stood; and whoso entereth therein, shall be safe.” This is but the relic of the old sanctuary idea which is seen in the case of the cities of refuge among the Jews, and in the (limited) right of sanctuary at the horns of the altar (1 Kings 2:28-31). In many of the ancient Greek temples criminals were given the right of sanctuary, and protected from their pursuers; and in some of the old English churches a stone seat beside the altar was provided for those fleeing to the safety of the church. In pre-Protestant Scotland, excommunication was the penalty of dragging a fugitive from the sanctuaries of the church. A trace of the sanctuary law still exists in Scotland (or existed until lately) in the sanctuary for debtors in the Abbey of Holyrood. (American Sunday School Times.)
Now shall mine head be lifted up above mine enemies.--
The head uplifted among enemies
As contrasted with Occidentals, the Orientals seem in many respects to be simply grown-up children. They do not attempt to veil extravagant or unseemly demonstrations of joy or grief, as a European would do, but display their feelings as openly as does a junior schoolboy. Especially is this seen in the conduct of enemies toward one another. Those who were in Egypt after the massacre in Alexandria, and before the bombardment, say that they will not soon forget the change which passed over the bearing of the natives toward the foreign Christians at the time of the massacre. Those who before showed an almost servile respect toward the European residents, now marched proudly through the streets, pushing the hated Franks insolently out of their way, and gibing and jeering at their comparative helplessness. All travellers in the East notice the different bearing of an Oriental when he is in an enemy’s country, and when he is in a place where his friends are in a majority. The man who skulks in Medeenah will swagger in Mekkeh. An Oriental seldom cares to conceal his consciousness of power, nor does the ruling party conceal its contempt for the ruled. Let a revolution of the political wheel reverse the position of two parties, and the former serf passes into the braggart, and the former braggart into the serf, without any shamefacedness on either side. The psalmist, therefore, compares the safety which he feels to be his in God, to the confident security of the man whose power is assured, and who can lift up his head without fear in the midst of his cringing enemies. (American Sunday School Times.)