Ver. 7.-0ur moraZ relations with God. "People of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand." Some writers try to amend this sentence, because the poetical figure seems complicated. It is much better to leave it in its poetical suggestiveness. It indicates familiarity with Eastern shepherding. The shepherd ,lives with his flock day and night; feels for them a personal affection; tends them in all their times of need with his own hands. So the Eastern sheep a.nd shepherd figures, for God and his people, are stronger and more suggestive than we can realize if we keep ourselves to Western shepherd associations. In so carefully putting peopZe into one sentence, and sheep into the other, the psalmist reminds us tbat God's sheep are moral beings, and the mere physical relations of shepherds to their sheep do but represent and illustrate the moral relations in which God stands to his people a.a moral beings. So we rise into a sphere in which we need the help of a.nother figure-that of the father and his family. The "Lord our Maker" here brings God before ne as the Universal Creator; and as the Fonnder of the lsra.elite nation. L OUB MORAL RELATIONS WITH GoD INCLUDE OUB CHARACTERS. Illustrate from the shepherd's estimate of ea.eh sheep. But the end at which the shepherd aims is health, fatntss. The end at which God aims is cultured, developed, perfected character. And this is the Divine aim for every man, and the Divine work in every man. If we can see the issue more plainly reached in some men than in others, this need not dim our confidence that the work is goiag on in all. II. Oun l!OllAL RELATIONS WITH GoD INCLUDE OUB MOODS. For no man can study human nature without observing that men are constantly acting, on occasion, out of harmony with their characters. 'l'he difficulty of dealing wisely wi~h child~en lies in their occa.sional strange lapses and oddities. God bears shepherd-like relation to the odd moods of his moral beings. . III. OUB MORAL RELATIONS WITH GOD INCLUDE OUB BINS. This brings us into a very familiar field, and opens to view the redeeming and sanctifying work of God. These moral relations of God to us are the real reason why we should "worship and boll' down."-R. T. Ver. 8.-Divided feeling in man. The psalmist assumes that they wish to hear God's voice, aad yet there is clanger of their hardening their heart. That double feeling is constantly to be found ia men. They are for ever putting stumbling-blocks in thtir own way. The head will often hinder the heart, and the heart will often hinder the head. Man is a single being, and he is bis own true self only when all the forces of his nature act in he.rmony together. But man can make himself into a dual being, PB, XOV, 1-11.] THE BOOK OF PSALMS. 317
nud sto.rt o. strife within himself that will prove morally destructive. Illustrate by the devil-possessed in the time of Christ. There was strife in the men. Their will pulled one wny, the mastering will that was upon them pulled the other. Or take the modern case or delirium tremens. Here in our text we have the power which lies in man to hinder himself. He rne.y "harden his heart," and so silence every high nnd noble desire he may feel. This hardening of the heart is always a man's own act to begin with, o.nd God's a.et to finish with. A man sets himself upon resisting right impressions and persuasions; he finds it easier a second time and a third; he is hard~n- ing so that the persuasions have little effect, and God at last puts his seal on the hardening, and the persuasions roll off altogether. I. WREN A MAN WANTS TO WORSHIP GoD, RE 0AN RARDEN ms HEART DY ENCOURAGING DOUBTS. Some one is ever ready to whisper, "Is there a God at all? If there is, is he really a good God? If he is good, might he not have done a great deal more for you?" Give room to euch doubts, and all interest in worship will soon take to itself wings and flee away. II. WHEN A MAN WANTS TO WORSHIP GOD, RE CAN RARDEN HIS HEART BY MURMURINGS. Illustrate from the historical allusion to Meribah (Exod. xvii. 1-7). If anybody wants to murmur, he can easily find something to murmur about. Thero is a sunny eide and a dark side to almost everything; and, if a man chooses, be can see only the dark side; and, if he does, be will surely spoil all desire for worship, all grounds for thanksgiving.-R. T. Ver. 8.-The sin of tempting Gcd. Tempting God is putting him to the test, as if you did not feel quite sure of him, and conld not fully trust him. The idea of the word is "assay," "test," as the refiner does metals, or as the chemist or analyst may do to substances submitted to him. It is always implied that the man who proves the thing either does not know what it is or is uncertain about it. It is just that ignorance and uncertainty which God's people never should have concerning him. It is that doubting God which makes all attempts to test and prove him altogether wrong. Take the case of Israel at Meribab, and show that, in view of the Divine deliverances, guidings, providings, and defendings, any attempt to prove whether God really cared for them, and could help them, was absolutely unworthy; it amounted, indeed, to an insult offered to their covenant-King. I. PUTTING GoD TO THE PROOF MAY BE PERMISSIBLE. But the conditions are very clear. If a man wants to believe, and wants encouragement to faith, God will permit him to put him to the proof. This is illustrated, in a very different way, by the sign of the fleece asked by Gideon. The rightness or wrongness of asking the sign depended entirely on the state of Gideon's mind and feeling. He wanted help to belief, so he may put God to the test. Circumstances may arise now which may allow of our proving God; but that work should never be attempted save at the utmost strain. II. PUTTING GoD TO THE PROOF IS GENERALLY UNPERMISSIBLE. Because generally it implies doubt of God's power, or faithfulness, or mercy. See the mood of the Israelites; and see the spirit in which the scribes and Pharisees came, putting Jesus to the test. They did not want to believe in him. They wanted to get something which would encourage their unbelief. So Jesus refused, saying, "There shall no sign be given unto them." Keep right attitudes and moods of mind, and right relatiuns with God, and then it will never come into our minds to attempt to put him to the test.-R. T.