The Pulpit Commentary — Psalms — Volume 2 — Section 66

the dem1md for the good_s you are making continue, or suddenly cease? Will the harvest he geod or bad? You can no more tell than whether you will be able to attend to your business this day week, or be lying delirious with fever, 2. We need guidance becm,se of the JaJ,libility of our jwlgment. Were there no cloud on our knowledge, ye! i,· the balance of judgment bang awry, we may easily involve ourselves aud others in irreparable misfortune. This was what so humbled the psalmist. He perceived I hat his ,iudgment of human affairs ha.d been completely at fault. He bad adopted a "·holly false standard, and, if left to choose for himself and for others, he would have d1Men disastrously wrong. God's thoughts, he saw, are not our t.houghts, any more tban God's ways are our ways. "What, then, is the guidance?'' he asks. "With thy counsel." "Counsel" has a double meaning: "advice," and "plan, or purpo8e," He may mean, "Lead me by thy Word and thy Spirit, teaching me how to judge, making my duty plain;" or, "Choose my path and lot according to thine own wise purpose." nut the first sense really includes the second; for if God shows us our way, it must be the way he choose.s for us. Calvin says, " Although sometimes things turn out well when we are rash and foolish (for God mends our mistakes, and turns our wrong beginnings to happy endings), yet his more common and fuller blessing lies in giving wisdom to his people; and nothing is to be more earnestly prayed for than I.hat we may be ruled by the Spirit of wisdom and counsel." 1L Thererore these words are A PRAYER FOB DIVINE GUIDANCE. As much as to say, "I need guidance; my future is hidden; my judgment is fallible. To thee the future is as the present; the darkness as the light. All events, all seasons, all minds and wills of men, a.re in thy hand. Choose thou my way. Lead me in thy path, and teach me. Make my path plain; but, even if it be obscure, let me rest in this -that it is thy counsel, not my own." It is one thing to believe the fact of Divine guidance; another to be willing to follow it. One thing, also, to trust God to lead us in the path we have chosen; another to say, "Not my will, but thine." And yet it ought to be easy! What is the whole Bible but one continued proof that God's way i~ the right way, and the ways men choose for themselves, wrong? "All we like sheep," etc. ; •• He that spared not," etc. (Isa. liiL 6; Rom. viii. 32), III. AssURANCE THAT Go» WILL GUIDE. Therefore what we need that God should do, because he can and we cannot; and what we are willing he should do, and ask him to do for us,-that we may expect him to do. These words are more than the cry of need ; more than the surrender of self-will; are the triumphant utterance -0/ faith. " '.l'hou wilt guide ... to glory." Here is a snnbeam of clear hope and inspired promise breaking through all the clouds of doubt, fear, and ignorance. One such test 1s enough to prove that it is a huge mistake to suppose the hope of immortality hidden from the .ancient saints. (Indeed, even apart from inspiration, the Hebrews could not be ignorant of what was well known to the Egyptians, ages before Moses.) Here the balance rights itself. Why do the ungodly prosper? Because they are" men of the world, whose portion is in this life'' (Ps. xvii. 14). Why does God not give his children their portion here? That he may prepare them for their portion hereafter (2 Cor. iv. 16-18; John xiv. 2-4, 6). Here is the difference between the foresight of faith and the foresight of worldly calculation. To earthly foresight it is the near fut1;1re that is plain; tbe further it recedes, the thicker the mists gath~r. To the eye o~ faith it is the near future which we can contentedly leave uncert.am, because the distant, the eternal future, is revealed. " We know not wbat shall be on the morrow; " but we know what shall be when the heavens and earth that are now shall have passed away, ,.We know" (2 Cor. v.1). Ver. 26.-Strength in weaknes6. "My £eeh ... for ever," •Asaph's psalms bear no lees the stamp of Divine inspiration than David's; yet their character is wid~ly different. The Holy Spirit employs different instruments for different ends. ·Reading David's psalms and D!lVid's life, one is ready to l!BY we have an epitome of all hum~D experience. Yet Asaph shows us depths of experience in!o which probably Da".1d never penetrated. This psalm opens abruptly : " surely '---or, as lil the margm, "yet," nevertheless-" God is good to Israel I " This points back to th&t severe mental conflict in which A.J;aph had barely escaped overthrow (vers. 2, 3). ~ struggle with doubt, in which many can sympathize. In vere.16, eto., he shows how his PS, u:xrn. 1-28.] THE BOOK OF PSALMS. 75