REST

Verse Second.

"He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;

He leadeth me beside the still waters."

After, in verse I, announcing the theme of the Psalm to be a comparison between the Lord’s care of His people and a shepherd’s care of his flock, the sacred poet goes on to illustrate the different kinds of fortune through which human beings pass and in which they experience the divine care and sympathy; and each of these is illustrated by a corresponding situation in the history of the sheep under the shepherd’s guidance. Life is full of transitions and vicissitudes; sometimes it is in sunshine, sometimes in shadow; sometimes it is on the heights, sometimes in the depths; but in every one of its varying phases God is still at hand, watching over His own and doing all things well.

The imperial singer begins with prosperity, of which he gives this picture taken from the pastoral life: "He maketh me lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the still waters." This is, as someone has said, the most complete picture of happiness that ever was or can be drawn.

But why does he begin with this? Why does he describe the experience of prosperity before that of adversity? Someone has answered, Because it is the commoner state. The lot of God’s people is, on the whole, one of happiness. Seasons of suffering there are, indeed; and they are vividly remembered — just as an obstruction in a river makes a great show and causes a great noise; but the life of the Christian is for the most part like a tranquil stream, which flows deep and does not invite attention.

Lord Bacon has the aphorism that, while prosperity was the promise of the Old Testament, adversity is the blessing of the New. But is this true? There are doubtless many weighty words of the New Testament which speak of the cross which Christians must bear and the persecutions they may have to suffer: "Whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple"; "Marvel not if the world hateth you; ye know that it hated Me before it hated you." Such words abound among the sayings of our Lord and His apostles. But they do not stand alone; and, when quoted alone, they convey a misleading impression. What said the Master Himself? "Verily, I say unto you, there is no man who hath left house, or brethren or sisters, or father or mother, or wife or children, for My sake and the gospel’s, but he shall receive a hundredfold more in this time, houses, and brethren and sisters, and mothers and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life." Similarly an apostle declares: "Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life which now is and of that which is to come." The New Testament is not a sadder book than the Old; on the contrary, it is far more sunny and melodious; and this is not only because the misery of the present life is to be compensated by the felicity of the life to come, but this life itself is a happy one.

                              The world’s no blank to us

Nor blot; it means intensely, and means good.

1. Temporal Prosperity.

This is true in regard to temporal prosperity. The tendency of things is to throw into the lap of God’s people the best blessings even of this earthly life.

What are these? Health is one of them. This is a fundamental blessing, on which many more depend. All sights look dreary when seen through the jaundiced eyes of disease, and all pleasures are tasteless when they touch an unhealthy palate. But, when the blood is flowing limpidly through the veins and the brain is fresh and unclogged, God’s glorious world, with its sights and sounds, gratifies the senses and awakens desire; things have their natural taste, and the simple elements of life are enough to satisfy without the condiment of artificial pleasure. Now, health is most likely to be the heritage of those who obey the laws of God. By the excesses of an ungoverned youth, many are sowing in their own bodily constitution the seeds of a debilitated manhood and an early death. They are burning out in themselves the very sense for natural pleasure and creating the necessity for artificial stimulation, which loses its effect the oftener it is applied. Those who listen to the voice of God and follow the path of virtue may be scoffed at, because, during the opportunities of youth, they do not follow the hot and highly seasoned pleasures which others pursue; but their enjoyment lasts longer, and at the period when others are falling bankrupt they are coming into the full enjoyment of their heritage.

Another of the best blessings of life is love. It is by the heart mainly that human beings are made blessed or miserable; and it is a notable evidence of the equality of nature that love is restricted to no class or grade of culture or fortune. The poorest may feel the glow of pure affection and be loyal to the vows of friendship. Love culminates in the home, and he who possesses a happy home, where the hunger of the heart is satisfied and the voice of innocent mirth is heard, has not missed the best which this earthly life can yield. But to whom does the blessing of love belong? Many prostitute the name by applying it to indulgences which make true love impossible; for impurity "hardens a’ within and petrifies the feeling." He who wastes his youth is robbing himself beforehand of the power of giving to a pure woman, should he be so fortunate as to win the love of such a one, heart for heart; he is robbing himself beforehand of the power of looking in his children’s faces unashamed; and it is more than possible that his offspring may have to pay with lives of misery the penalty of his sin. If the glory of friendship is that each friend knows the other to be absolutely transparent and true; if love is the exchange of hearts which have been kept for one another unspent and undefiled; if home is, as has been said, the one bit of Paradise left in a fallen world; then is the gift of love, in all its perfection and splendour, peculiarly the heritage of those who have taken God’s law and Christ’s will as the rule of their life.

Another of these blessings is business success. Of this, indeed, too high an estimate may be formed. In a business community financial success is deified, and multitudes, though perhaps they are hardly aware of the fact, worship no other God. On the other hand, it is possible to depreciate success too much. Business is, by the allotment of Providence, that to which the majority have to devote the most of their time and the best of their strength. To depreciate it, therefore, as if it did not matter whether or not a man did it with all his might, is only to confuse the mind and perplex the conscience. Business is a providential school of virtue, in which manhood is developed and the natural powers are exercised, and success is, as a rule, the evidence that we have not been faithless or laggard scholars. To whom does success fall? Some would answer. To the selfish and unscrupulous — to those who mind Number One and never hesitate to fling down or trample on a competitor, and to those who, when occasion requires, can, without flinching, stoop to falsehood. Alas, there are too many facts which might be adduced in support of such a view of business. Yet it is a partial view, and there is a vast body of facts on the opposite side. Unscrupulousness sometimes succeeds, and often quite eclipses honesty in the rapidity with which it reaches the goal; but its prosperity is frequently short-lived and its hollowness is exposed at last. Character tells in business. It may not do so today, but it will tomorrow. "The meek," said our Lord, cc shall inherit the earth." It seems a paradox; for are not the meek thrust aside and trampled in an age like ours by the pushing and self-assertive? Yes, they are; but their turn comes. The gilt of pretentious talents is soon rubbed off, and then what it has covered looks shabby; but the solid gold of character shines more and more the longer it is rubbed, and in due time its value is acknowledged. There are those who will tell you that the Decalogue is abrogated in the business-world, and that the Sermon on the Mount, though beautiful to read in a castle-in-the-air, has no meaning in the market-place. But the Decalogue and the Sermon on the Mount have a way of living on, whilst their critics pass away. Some men also venture to take these rules into the market-place; and the God who made the Decalogue and the Christ who preached the Sermon do not allow them to be put to shame.

Some possess all these blessings of the earthly life which I have mentioned and many more besides. They have the gift of health; they have known love in all its sweet, pure forms; their friends are warm and true; their home is a scene of tranquillity in which they find refuge from the turmoils of the world; their children are affectionate and well-doing; and God has so blessed the labour of their hands that they have never lacked bread to eat or raiment to put on. The lines have fallen unto them in pleasant places. Theirs is the condition our text describes: "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the still waters."

God has given these gifts. With what effect on the relation between your soul and Him? It is an astonishing thing how often in Scripture spiritual improvement is ascribed to affliction and misfortune. "Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I have learned thy law." "Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth." In experience, too, we find that religious improvement is closely connected with suffering. Hundreds of times we have heard of sinners being converted by a severe illness or a great bereavement; but who ever heard of a man being converted by a windfall of good fortune? It is not creditable that we are thus dependent for our religion on the withdrawal of temporal blessings and so little affected by the possession of them.

I do not, however, believe that loss alone sanctifies. Happiness does so too. A heart made happy by pure love is not far from the kingdom of God. The coming of a child into a family sometimes opens the door for Christ. Prosperity in business breeds liberality in giving. Only, such virtues ought far oftener to spring from God’s goodness. Many of us, if we would only, in a sequestered hour, look back on the way we have been led, and look round on the ample, and sunny heritage in which God has placed us, could see a thousand reasons for clinging with boundless gratitude and loyalty to Him and to the kingdom of His Son.

2. Spiritual Prosperity.

When, however, the psalmist says, "Thou makest me to lie down in green pastures, Thou leadest me beside the still waters," he cannot be referring to temporal blessings alone: this is also a description of the life spiritual.

Valuable as temporal blessings are, a Christian must hold them with a light hand and be ready to sacrifice them for the sake of the integrity of the life within. Christians have, in fact, often thus sacrificed every worldly possession and every worldly prospect and laid down even life itself. A Christian lives in the world like other men; he attends to business and derives profits from it; he enjoys the delight of friendship and the comfort of home; yet he has, at the same time, a life which ordinary men of the world have not — a life remote and solitary, hid with Christ in God. A portion of human nature which in other men is dormant has in him been awakened; he is in living intercourse with the world unseen; the powers of his spirit are in activity, going forth towards their proper objects — to God, to Christ, to truth, to eternity.

Now this spiritual life, taken as a whole, is a supremely happy life, and brings fresh currents of joy into the being. So voluminous are these that they are able to make up for the loss of ordinary temporal comforts and enjoyments. Look at a man like St. Paul. He lost much by being a Christian; he suffered much; but was he an unhappy man? On the contrary, an exuberant life throbs in all his movements, and an irrepressible joy rings, like a peal of bells, in all his writings.

What are the enjoyments of this hidden life?

One of them is love. I have already spoken of the deep pleasure of ordinary human love. But the heart of man has been fashioned with the capacity for a love profounder and nobler than the love of friend or father, wife or child. We are capable of loving God and His Son Jesus Christ. In many hearts this is a capacity and nothing more, just as other forms of affection may never reach their realisation. Many do not love God; they do not love the Saviour. But where this divine affection is awakened into activity, it is not only the most sacred and influential, but also the most delightful and satisfying emotion which the heart can know. If to love another human being, and to know that you are held dear by another human heart, be one of the crowning experiences of life, what must it be to love God and to know that you are held dear in the heart of Christ?

It is almost choosing at random from a wide field of selection, when I mention as another of the enjoyments of the interior life delight in the Word of God. I mention this because the words of our text have often been applied to it. When enjoying revealed truth, Christians often speak of themselves as lying down in green pastures and being led beside still waters. Thus one says, "What are these green pastures but the Scriptures of truth — always fresh, always rich, and never exhausted? Sweet and full are the doctrines of the gospel, fit food for souls, as tender grass is nutriment for sheep. When by faith we are enabled to find rest in the promises, we are like the sheep that lie down in the midst of pastures; we find at the same moment both provender and peace, rest and refreshment, serenity and satisfaction." There are those who read the Bible and enjoy it for its literary qualities alone; and, indeed, by its profundity of thought and beauty of diction, it is placed at the head of all literature. But the delight of a spiritual mind in it is deeper: the Bible is one of the principal means through which it maintains its connexion and intercourse with the divine heart which it loves.

Let me name but one more enjoyment of the hidden life — the bliss of doing good. This bliss is not, indeed, the exclusive property of the spiritual. There are those who, from natural goodness of heart or the influence of good tradition and training, care continually for the welfare of their neighbours; and none can do so, whatever be their motives, without having a rich blessing returned into their own bosoms. But the passion of doing good belongs peculiarly to Christians. They have learned it from Christ. Looking on their fellow-men through His eyes, they perceive both their infinite worth and their immeasurable danger. Having received salvation themselves, they feel an instinctive desire to communicate the secret to others. In this work many emotions are stirred, some of them painful and some pleasurable. It is work which is liable to encounter opposition; and the opposition may wax deadly. But, on the whole, the reward of such work is great. No man ever yet exerted himself for the temporal and eternal welfare of others without being himself enriched. And, when the work is successful, and men and women are saved, and they pour their gratitude on our heads, who can measure the joy? It is worth living for, to be made the instrumentality through which has been wrought an immortal good.

This is what some would call, not without a touch of contempt, the hedonistic or eudæmonistic aspect of Christianity; and they would deprecate the emphasizing of this pleasurable element in religion. Better, they would say, emphasize the sober fact that religion is a duty to be done, a yoke to be felt, a cross to bear. I do not, however, think so. Let each side of the truth have its turn. And, after all, Christianity must always be far more a gift from God to man than a gift from man to God.

It is of the utmost consequence to proclaim and reiterate that the blessedness of man is hidden at the centre of his own being: it lies in the opening up of the hidden world of the spirit, into which Christianity invites him. It is there that man meets God and enters into the fulness of salvation by Jesus Christ. Let no one leave the world without seeing the one vision it contains, or die without ever having lived.