only when we come to where we shall have trodden Satan under foot, but in the midst of the battle, raging behind, before, around us, we are to come to where the Lord spreads our table. He says, "Sit down here and eat, and I will make the enemy wait until, by your eating, you shall be ready to stand up and fight the battle through”. By giving us peaceful moments in the midst of the distress and the struggle of our lives He spreads a table before us in the presence of our enemies.

"Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever." David's temple was more to him than our churches ought to be to us. We live in a larger temple. Ours is a broader conception of God's presence than David could possibly have. We may say to ourselves, " I will dwell in the house of the Lord," certain that in faithfulness to the duties of life, in steadfastness under the pressure of care, every occupation, every house, may be to us the house of the Lord. The house of the Lord is this universal world. The rooms of our house are in every possible experience. Our church life should be something between the temple life of David and the rich life foretold in the Revelation, where there is to be no temple.

Could there be a psalm more full of peace than this? For every sorrow that comes to man it provides absolute consolation. It is written not

simply for David, with his experience, but for all the experiences that would come to men.

Let your souls rest in peace on God. Only be sure it is really He on Whom you rest. He is continually caring for your souls, and will not let you rest in absolute torpor. You cannot rest too peacefully, too tenderly, on the love of God, if only it is really God's love.

This psalm is a picture of that wonderful life which we dream of as coming some time, which we are almost impatient to have come at once, in which we shall serve God as we have never been able to serve Him here, and trust in His care with a sense of His love deeper and more complete than we now can know.

EXPOSITION OF THE FIFTY-NINTH

PSALM.

In order to place ourselves in a position to understand these Psalms it is necessary to remember the conditions under which communications are made between God and men. Although God manifests Himself in many ways, any complete revelation to the human race must always be through humanity. And this revelation through humanity is made not merely by words, but by all the means through which man communicates thoughts or emotions to man.

In the parable of the husbandmen we are taught that God sent into the world many different kinds of messengers; and at last He sent His Son. If we turn back to the prophets of the Old Testament, we shall feel in them less personality than in Jesus. We can conceive of the words of Isaiah or Jeremiah being sent abroad into the world without any personal medium. But when Jesus came all was different. If it were possible for Jesus always to live and manifest Himself on earth, we might conceive of His words not being preserved. The person of Jesus Christ would be

i

the great manifestation of God under the New Testament dispensation.

A complete revelation is not in words simply, but in individual life—a manifold dispensation through various activities. Think of the lives that you have known in your existence here. While you remember precious words spoken by those with whom you have come in contact, the words are not the real revelation made to you by your friends. Think of the greatest teacher with whom you have had communication. Suppose

you were offered the choice of either of two things: to keep a perfect remembrance of every word, the intrinsic truth to be continually with you; or to retain the force of his personality, to be allowed to keep personal impressions of character and life, while forgetting every word that was ever uttered. Can you doubt for a moment which you would select? However precious the words might be, you would gladly let them all go, that you might keep the impress of character. You look back and remember how he acted, how he bore himself in the different experiences of life. Out of all his activities comes one impression of his character, stamping itself upon your character in a way which would be impossible for any uttered words. All the best manifestations come through characters acting upon our lives.

Greater, always, than the Bible is the Christ of whom the Bible tells us. Let us have the reality

of Jesus in our hearts, and we might let Matthew, Mark, Luke and John be forgotten if we could keep the impression of His personality.

Bear this in mind always in reading the Psalms of David. They contain words of great wisdom, words of precious truth. But in the words is not their supreme value. That which gives the Book of Psalms its supreme value, which has made it the book of all centuries, that in it which has impressed so many souls with the power of God, is its revelation of human nature. The strong richness of that great humanity, manifested by one who, starting as a shepherd boy, became the ruler of the Jews has left its impress upon all history. David comes to us through David's Psalms. And the great value of the Psalms is that they let us know David, his character, and the way God treated him. In the Psalms human nature in its relation to God is revealed as it never has been in any other writings in all time.

Now, apply this to the Fifty-ninth Psalm. David here invokes all sorts of evil upon his enemies. The words burn out of a fiery heart. He calls upon God not to spare them. "Slay them not, lest Thy people forget; scatter them by Thy power, and bring them down." He begs God not to grant them the merciful cruelty of death, not to take them from the world, but to torture them in their boastful pride, that their fate may be a perpetual warning.