Psalm 62:8 Trust in him at all times; you people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. Selah. You believe in God; that is to say, He has a place in your intellectual notions; you could not on any consideration allow His name to be blotted out of your creed; you are intellectually sure that He lives. Now, be true to your own creed, and trust in Him. You believe that the river runs to the sea, and that the sea is large enough to sustain your ship, — then act upon your faith and launch the vessel. If you keep your vessel on the stocks when she is finished, then all your praises of the ocean go for nothing; better never have built the ship than leave her unlaunched — a monument of your scientific belief, but also a testimony of your practical infidelity. This figure will serve us still further. This faith in God is truly as a sea-going ship. You have this great ship; she is well built; you know her preciousness — but there you are, hesitating on the river, running down to the harbour-bar and coming back again aghast as if you had seen a ghost: have faith; pass the bar; leave the headlands behind; make the stars your counsellors, and ride upon the great sea by the guidance of the greater sun. This is faith: not a mere nodding of the assenting head, but the reverent risking of the loving, clinging heart. To have a God in your belief is to sit in a ship which is chained upon the stocks; but to have a God in the heart, ruling the understanding, the conscience, and the will, is to sail down the river, enter upon the great ocean, and pass over the infinite waters into the haven of rest. Trust in Him at all times. Religion is not to be occasional but continuous. In the daytime our faith is to shine as the sun; in the nighttime it is to fill the darkness with stars; at the wedding-feast it is to turn the water into wine; in the hour of privation it is to surround the impoverished life with angels of hope and promise; in the day of death it is to take the sword from the destroyer and to give the victory to him who is apparently worsted in the fight. In exercising this trust there are two things to be remembered. First — We get some of the highest benefits of life through our most painful discipline. The very act of trust is a continual strain upon the understanding, the affections, and the will. The trust is not an act accomplished once for all, something that was written down in a book long ago and may be made matter of reference and verification; religious trust is the daily condition of the soul, the state in which the soul lives and moves and has its being, the source, so to say, from which it draws all its inspirations, the feast at which it sustains its confidence, and the whole condition which underlies and ennobles the best life. We must remember, too, that the time of full explanation is not until by and by. It is hardly to be questioned that our disappointments may one day come to be reckoned amongst our blessings. We need thus to be taught the lesson of patience, to be chastened, mellowed, and subdued, and to be taught how good a thing it is, not only to wait upon God, but to wait for Him, to wait through long days and weary nights, to stand outside heaven's door and to abide there in the confidence that at His own time and in His own way tim King will come, and do for us exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. The exhortation takes another turn "pour out your hearts before Him." Though He knows all, yet He must be told all. Make God your confidant. Hannah said, "I have poured out my soul before the Lord." The figure represents the act of giving up the whole of the contents of the heart to God's keeping. It is not a word now and then that has to be spoken, or a hint that has to be given, or a signal that has to be held out; the action is a complete emptying of the heart, the outpouring of every secret thought, purpose, motive, desire, and affection, that thus the man may stand in a right attitude and relation towards his God. Our communion with heaven should be unreserved. The very first condition to true, profound, and edifying worship is that we should cleanse out our hearts of every secret and pour out the whole contents of our being in penitence and thanksgiving before God: then the vision of heaven will shine upon us, then the comforting angels will be seen with gospels from the throne of grace, then new heavens shall beam above us, and a new earth shall spread out all its flowers and fruits for our delight and our sustenance. Our communion should not only be unreserved, it should be long continued: "pray without ceasing." As our breathing is continual so ought our aspiration to be unceasing. The only true analogy about the soul's life in reference to communion with God is to be found in the continual breathing of the bodily life. We breathe without knowing it. When we are in health we are not aware that we have a physical nature at all; everything works harmoniously and smoothly, and without giving any reminder to the man that he is inhabiting a decaying or uncertain dwelling-place. It is even so with the soul. This is a sense in which we may enjoy an unconscious piety that has lived itself out of the region of statute and machinery, scaffolding and external upholding, and that poises itself as on strong wings at the very gate of the morning. This is not carelessness; it may be the very last expression of long-continued spiritual culture. There should be some difference of a most obvious and practical kind between those who believe in God and those who do not. Trust in God should express itself in calmness and beneficence of life. The Christian should live to give. Christianity is expenditure. We have nothing that we have not received, and because we have all things in Christ we are to give and labour with both hands earnestly, leaving God to provide for the future as the future may reveal itself. If we may so say it, we can give God no greater pleasure than to cast all our care upon Him, to entrust to Him every concern and every detail of life with absolute fearlessness and perfect consecration. The very hairs of our head are all numbered. Our down-sitting is of consequence to God, and our uprising is matter of note in heaven; yea, our going out and our coming in would seem to touch the solicitudes of our Father. All this will be romantic to the soul who has had no spiritual experience; but we must not consult the blind upon colours, or the deaf upon harmonies, or the dead upon the duties, the enjoyments, and the sacrifices of life. "Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God." The natural man does not understand spiritual things; they can only be spiritually discerned. (J. Parker, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. Selah. |
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