I. Tms SEEMS AN UNNECESSARY PRAYER-AT LEAST AT FIBST' SIGHT. If any truth is obvious, it is this-of the brevity and frailty of life. Brief at longest (Ps. xc. 10), especially if we reckon the time spent in sleep or dissipated in numberless trifles (ver. 5); frail,ever carrying within it the germs of decay and dissolution. Utterly u1icertain-the strongest life may in a. moment snap like a. thread or be torn like a tree from its root. Who knows not all this? II. YET IT IS A VEBY ~"EEDFUL AND WISE PBAYEB. For there is no truth so obvious and certain which men take so little to heart. "All men think a.11 men mortal but themselves." 'l'be picture Charles Dickens has drawn of the lawyer who is for ever harping on the duty of making your will in health, and who dies intestate, is very true to human nature. The psalmist's prayer is not for everybody else, but for himself-" Teach me . . . mg days." How account for this blin<l insensibility of men to the certainty of the future-this "walking in a vain show"? It seems unaccount- able, yet so ingrained, nothing less than Divine teaching will cure it. III. THE TEACIIING HERE PRAYED FOB IS NOT TO INFORM UB OF THE FAOT, WBICII EVERYBODY KNOWS-AND FORGETS, BUT TO ENABLE UB TO LEAilN I'l'B LESSONS, Not mere knowledge, but wisdom. 1. Do not anchor your hope on a life so frail, or store your treasure in a world you may leave to-morrow-must leave soon (ver. 6; Matt. vi. 19-21). 2. Do not leave to-day's work to be done to-morrow. A certain eminent statesman is ~a.id to have made it a rule to "do nothing to-day which you ran put off till to-morrow." This bas two great disadvantages: (1) To-morrow will have its own burden, without being double-weighted. (2) You may not be here to-morrow to do it (John ix. 4). 3. Cast the care of the unknown future on God. The frailest thread of lire canr.ot break in his band unless he wills (Matt. x. 22-31; vi. 30). 4. Live as pilgrims," like unto men who wait for their Lord" (ver. 12). If you are a believer in Jesus, a child of God by faith, then the keys of life and death a.re in the hands once nailed for you to the cross, of which he says, "Neither shall any pluck them out of my hand" (John x. 28). Death will but come as his messenger, Learn to look full in the <lark angel's face and smile, and you will see an answering smile (Hcb. xiii. 14; 2 Cor. v. 1, 8). Ver. 7.-God, the Refuge of the soul. "My hope ie in thee." This is the single note of joy the psalmist strikes from his harp amid its mournful music-like a ray of sunshine from a. stormy sky. From his own private sorrow, from his wide BW"vey of the troubles of human life, he takes refuge in God. I. A HOPE OF PRESENT HELP, IMMEDIATE DELIVERANCE. (Ver. 13.) He is n stranger and a sojourner with God (Lev, xxv. 23); but he hopes the brief remainder of his pilgrimage will be divinely led, even as his fathers had the manna, the water from the rock, the pillar of cloud and fire, in the desert. Hope in God i,i not a far- away hope, but looks to him a.s "a very present Help" (Ps. xlvi. 1; John xiv. 18). II. A HOPE THAT LOOKS BEYOND THIS LIFE, FOR GoD IB THE EVEB-LIVING. (John xiv. 19.) If hope in God stopped short a.t the grave, the transient gle~m would make PB, U:XIX, 1-13,] THE BOOK OF PSALMS. 307
the de.rknese but more terrible (1 Cor. xv. 19; comp. Heb. xi. 13-16). Wonderful pleasure seems taken by critics and commentators in casting doubt on the knowledge or hope of a future life among God's ancient people. HO'ID could they be ignorant of what formed the basis of Egypt's religion and wisdom, on the one hand, and was no less believed, on the other, by the Greeks, Assyrians, Babylonians, etc.? King Saul was no saint, but certainly he fully believed that the spirit of Samuel existed after death (1 Sam. xxviii. 11). III. 'l'HIB HOPE BESTS WITH 0EBTAmTY ONLY ON Go». This is our Lord's argu- ment against the Sadducees, to prove that the Old Testament Scriptures do teach immortality (Matt. xxii. 31, 32). Immortality apart from God would be no glorious hope, but the most appalling of our terrors. IV. THIS BLESSED HOPE-to those ancient believers matter of sheer faith-RESTS FOB CHRISTIANS ON AN IMMOVABLE DOUBLE FOUNDATION-the resurrection of Christ, which is an actual physical demonstration of life beyond death; aad the promises of Christ, which bind our lives personally to his (2 Tim. i. 10; 1 Pet. i. 3; John xiv. 1-3). No wonder if the faith of the ancient saints sometimes wavered; but ours should be as strong as its foundation (2 Tim. i. 12).