God our Guide: a New Year's psalm.
In whatever special circumstances, or for whatever particular occasion, this psalm may have been written, it is certain that it is admirably suited to suggest New Year's thoughts to our minds. We shall best appreciate it if we consider—
I. THE GREATNESS OF OUR NEED. We have sometimes to face the future, and then we confront:
1. Certainties; duties, difficulties, vexations, trials, temptations, opportunities.
2. Uncertainties; possibly some very great joy, or some overwhelming sorrow, or some very sore perplexity, or even the last experience of death.
II. THE INSUFFICIENCY OF HUMAN HELP. We naturally and rightly look to our kindred and to our friends for sympathy and succor. But:
1. They do not remain with us; parents die; brothers and sisters are scattered far and wide; friends become estranged.
2. They cannot render us all the help we need. Oar wants go so far, and strike so deep, that human sympathy does not avail; it falls short; we need more than it can bring. We must not only look around, but above, must "lift up our eyes to the hills, from whence cometh our help," for our "help cometh from the Lord" (Psalms 121:1, Psalms 121:2).
III. OUR HELP IN GOD.
1. With him is all power. He who "made heaven and earth" (Psalms 121:2) can do anything, everything, for us. There can come no difficulty, no entanglement, from which he cannot deliver us; there can come no sorrow in which he will not be able to support us.
2. We can count on the constancy of his care. He "will not slumber," etc. (Psalms 121:3, Psalms 121:4). Not for one small moment will he forget us; day and night we shall be the objects of his watchful love.
3. He will be present to defend us everywhere. He will be our Keeper, our Shade upon our right hand (Psalms 121:5). His gracious power will overshadow us at every step we take. We cannot think o, any place, however remote, or obscure, or humble, where he will not be with his defending, delivering hand.
4. He will guard us from all forms of evil. Evil takes many forms; it comes to us in every guise. Now it is prosperity, and now adversity; it may be an intoxicating approval and adulation, or it may be a crushing depreciation and desertion; it may be a strong and sudden assault on our integrity, or it may be the more perilous approach of that which very gradually undermines or disintegrates. But whatever be its form, our God can "keep" us true, pure, holy. The sun shall not smite by day, nor the moon by night; "the Lord will preserve us from all evil" (Psalms 121:6, Psalms 121:7).
5. He will preserve us, ourselves; not only our home, our fortune, our credit, our reputation, but ourselves: "He shall preserve thy soul." He will "not suffer thy foot to be moved" (Psalms 121:3); he will uphold us in the path of righteousness; and if we have to walk "in slippery places," yet his right hand will hold us, and our soul will not be stained with the sin which injures and defiles.
6. He will attend us to the close of life (Psalms 121:8). "This God is our God forever and ever, he will be our guide even unto death" (Psalms 48:14).
HOMILIES BY S. CONWAY