DISCIPLINE

Verse Third.

"He restoreth my soul;

He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake."

In the Twenty-third Psalm the different kinds of experience through which the people of God pass are set forth by different incidents in the life of a flock of sheep. The point is, that the shepherd is always present and watchful, consulting for the welfare of the creatures committed to his care; and in the same way God is with His people in every variety of fortune, seeing to it that all things work together for their good. Verse 2 is a perfect picture of prosperity; but verse 3 is a picture of adversity.

1. The Fainting-fits of the Soul.

"He restoreth my soul," says the sacred singer. But this implies that the soul is in need of restoration. The picture is that of a sheep which, through heat and fatigue, has fainted away, or is on the point of breathing out its life; but the good shepherd, by administering a restorative in the nick of time, brings back the departing breath. Here we have a totally different picture from that of verse 2. There the sheep was in green pastures; all was sunshine and happiness; life was enjoyable and abundant. But here life is at the lowest ebb; and the sheep has fainted away.

There are such contrasts in experience. Life has its sunshine, but it has also its shadow. There are days of prosperity, when the tides swell the channel of life from bank to brae; but there are also times of adversity, when the pulse of life is low and hope has almost died out of the heart.

This is the case even in the Christian life. On the whole, it is a life of joy — it is the happiest of all lives — yet it has its seasons of faintness and despair, when the cordials and restoratives of the Good Shepherd are required.

What are the reasons for these fainting times?

First of all, a Christian is exposed, like other men, to the misfortunes and calamities of the human lot. There is a passage of Scripture which says that God maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth His rain on the just and unjust: there are certain common blessings in which all participate, whatever be their character. But the converse is also true, that there are common misfortunes from which none escape, be their character what it may. The lightning strikes the roof of sinner and saint indiscriminately; a bad harvest destroys the crops of good and bad alike; bad times blight the business of the honest as well as of the dishonest; illness and death are incident to all the children of men. At many points, indeed, godliness will supply alleviations of even such common calamities: when an epidemic is raging, the steady man’s chances of recovery are much greater than those of him who has wasted his constitution by dissipation; and, in times when trade fails, the industrious and saving have generally something to fall back on, whereas the reckless, who live from hand to mouth, are thrown on the rocks at once. Still there is in this world a mysterious body of evil from which none can altogether escape. "Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards," and, the more complicated life becomes, through the crowding of population, the more is the individual exposed to suffering for which he is not directly responsible.

Further, however, Christians are exposed to suffering through the very fact that they are Christians. Christ had to warn His first followers that they would be hated of all men for His sake. "Yea, the time cometh," He said, "when whosoever killeth you will think he doeth God service." In many ages this has been literally fulfilled, as is proved by the religious persecutions of ancient and modern times. Nor has the offence of the cross ever ceased. Public persecution has, indeed, ceased, but private persecution still continues; and it is sometimes harder to bear. The natural heart is still unchanged; and it resents the disturbance to its self-complacency caused by the presence and the criticism of the followers of Jesus. In the archives of the Church we have our books of martyrs, and these are by no means all written yet; but the unwritten persecutions are infinitely vaster in their proportions, and they form one of the causes from which the flock of God faints.

There are, however, deeper causes still. The Christian life has its own special pains and secret crosses. A Christian is a man who has seen an ideal: Christ is his ideal, and the life of Christ is the model with which he is always comparing his own. This breeds a divine discontent; he despises himself; he is often in despair because he has fallen beneath what he ought to be. Perhaps he has been on the heights of communion, inspiration and holiness; but the tides of the Spirit recede, the heart grows cold, indifference comes on, iniquity prevails against him. Even a St. Paul had to cry out in bitterness of spirit, "Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"

To mention but one other cause of the fainting-fits of the soul: Christians have on their shoulders and on their hearts the public cause of Christ, and, when it is in difficulties or is threatened with failure, they have to bear the burden and the shame. Sometimes it seems as if at the back of Christianity there were no almighty force; the world is too strong for it; ancient forms of wrong cannot be overcome; and wickedness, enthroned in high places, is scornful and insolent. In such cases the ungodly are always ready to exult and ask, "Where is your God now gone?" The Christian may feel in his own heart that his prayers are not being answered; perhaps someone near and dear to him is under the power of a vice from which even religion seems unable to deliver him; and the heart faints with the strain of unceasing shame and long delay.

2. The Restoratives of the Good Shepherd.

I have described the occasions of depression at length; but the Psalm does not do so. What it says is not, "I have many causes of trouble," but, "He restoreth my soul." It is as if the only element of the time of suffering which was remembered was the deliverance from it.

Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity. The sympathy, the tenderness, and the loving kindness of God would not be fully known were it not for the days of darkness in which He draws near to succour.

If God is ever certain to be near His saints, it is when they are in trouble. Which of all the sheep in a good shepherd’s flock is the most certain to have the shepherd’s attention? Is it not the one that is ailing P As soon as the cry of distress is heard from afar, see how the shepherd hastens over flood and scaur, leaving the ninety-and-nine to look after themselves. Of a mother’s children, which is the one that receives most assiduity? it not the one that is in danger? When a child is laid down with fever or has had an accident, the mother’s thoughts are never for a moment out of the room; the love in her heart increases with the danger, till it becomes painful in its intensity, and she takes no rest till the life is restored. Such human experiences make us acquainted with the heart of God; for the sparks of affection in our composition have been kindled from the fire of love in His nature. Never is He so near, never is His compassion so melting, as when we need Him most. And, when this is realised, the storm within us is changed into a calm. Any grief is bearable if we are able to say, My Shepherd knows.

But what are the restoratives with which God overcomes the fainting-fits of those who put their trust in Him?

They are numerous, and it would be impossible to specify them all. Sometimes, when adversity has lasted long, He causes it to be followed by a time of prosperity; and the joy of His goodness is all the greater because of the contrast with preceding suffering. The night may be dark, but the day succeeds the night; the rain may be continuous, and the storm may roar as if it would sweep man with all his works off the face of the earth, but the sunshine succeeds the rain, and calm comes after the storm. In the times of persecution which our forefathers had to endure, being hunted like partridges on the mountains, there came now and then, owing to various causes, longer or shorter periods when the zeal of the persecutor slackened and the persecuted were allowed repose. These pauses were called "blinks," and they were greatly enjoyed. At such times their souls were restored. Even in the lives which are most sorely beset with misfortune there are "blinks"; God knows that the human spirit is not able to bear the unceasing strain of calamity, and He gives these intervals of rest. When one source of comfort or joy is taken away, the vacant place is filled with a new one. Thus, into a home from which someone greatly beloved has been removed there is sent a new child; the bereaved hearts revive to welcome the young life; and the cypresses of the grave are hidden beneath the climbing roses of hope.

Sometimes it turns out that the road of adversity is the pathway to prosperity, and apparent calamity is only the disguise in which good fortune is for a little concealed. One of the most famous men of our century has put it on record that what appeared the misfortunes of his early life turned out in the end to be the steps to influence and renown. Again and again he attempted to find refuge from the stress of circumstances by putting into some little haven of commonplace comfort, where he might have lived and died a nonentity; but Providence shut up the way in every case and kept him out on the high seas, where, by battling with the storms, he acquired courage and power, and in due time he came to his kingdom. Providence seems sometimes to delight in steering the course of its favourites to the very verge of ruin, till the heart of the voyager quakes with terror, when suddenly, by a skilful turn of the Pilot’s hand, the vessel is guided into the sunny seas of undreamed-of success; and the poor human heart, which was half-dead with dismay, is filled with laughter and the tongue with song. If in the spiritual world there are seasons of dryness and of decline, when the tree of life appears to wither, there are also times of revival, when the breath of spring is in the atmosphere and the movement of spring in the ground —the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in the land. Over a congregation, or a city, or a country, there passes the wind of the Spirit of God; religion suddenly becomes real; the powers of the world to come can almost be seen and handled; and to be alive is a joy. This may be brought about for the individual through slight means — by meeting with a new friend, by the influence of a good minister, by a little success in winning souls, by realising some new truth of God’s Word, or the like. The Christian life is a succession of new beginnings; and they that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength.

3. The Best Use of Adversity.

The Psalm directs special attention to one of the uses of adversity in the words, "He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness."

Here the poet is holding fast by his metaphor; because it is a fact that in times of peril and fear the sheep of a flock follow close to the shepherd, and keep in a straight path wherever he may lead them. At other times they can expatiate over the fields and may easily wander; but terror makes them keep their eye on the shepherd and follow him without turning to the right hand or the left.

But how true to human experience also is the statement 1 Adversity has a great deal to do with sanctification.

For one thing, it makes prayer real. Some of us would, I daresay, confess that we never knew what prayer actually was till we were driven to the throne of grace by a calamity that was breaking our heart. I remember being in Germany immediately after the Franco-Prussian War; and I was told how, during the anxious months of the war-time, the churches, which usually are so empty in that country, were crowded, every time the doors were opened, with fathers and mothers whose sons were at the front. Prayer in days which are without suffering or change is apt to be only a pious form, of which we are weary; but, when the heart is dreading some impending calamity or the iron of loss has entered into the soul, the old forms are filled with fresh meaning, and the tides of emotion overflow the forms; we do not measure the time which we spend on our knees, and the words of prayer pour, new and living, from the heart.

The same might be said of the Bible: we read it with opened eyes when we have suffered. Passages which we have read scores of times without seeing their beauty lay hold of our sympathy. Deep calls unto deep — the experience of the writer finds its echo in our breasts. What Goethe said of poetry is true of Scripture:

Who never ate his bread in sorrow.

     Who never spent the midnight hours

Weeping and watching for the morrow,

     He knows you not, ye heavenly powers.

Thus by the avenue of prayer and by the avenue of the Word we are brought nigh to God through adversity; but adversity affects character in many other ways. I have known a Christian who, after years of careful living and useful testimony, fell into a state of carelessness and backsliding. Just at this stage a younger brother of his own came from the country to the city, and took up his abode in the same lodging. The younger had expected to receive from the elder a good example; but, not receiving it, he fell into evil courses, and the issue was disastrous in the extreme. But it terrified the backsliding brother back to his Lord. Thus are we sometimes taught, by the consequences of backsliding in ourselves or others, how evil and how bitter a thing it is to depart from the living God; and the immovable firmness with which a man stands in the right path, avoiding the very appearance of evil, may be due to the recollection of a fall and its calamitous consequences.

But, in whatever way adversity may lead us in the paths of righteousness and away from the paths of unrighteousness, this is by far the most blessed effect it can produce; for to a Christian nothing is so good as holiness and nothing so formidable as sin. We all naturally desire prosperity and seek to avoid adversity; but well may we say, Welcome adversity, welcome suffering, welcome the chastisements of God, if by these we are led in the paths of righteousness.

4. The Best Guarantee of Prosperity.

The phrase with which this verse closes is not to be neglected — the phrase, "for His name’s sake" — because, though the wording of it is brief, the meaning is profound.

Surely God restores the souls of His sheep and leads them in the paths of righteousness for their sakes. When we are in distress, He pities us; and pity causes Him to give aid. So, when He is leading us in the paths of righteousness, He is doing us a great kindness; for there is nothing either so discreditable or so miserable to a child of God as to be walking in the path of unrighteousness. But the Psalm takes a far bolder line: it says that God must do these things for His own sake.

If we look again at the image of the shepherd, we easily see how just this observation is. A shepherd succours his sheep when they are fainting, and leads them back into the straight path when they have gone astray, for their sake — because he is attached to them — but is not his own character involved in the matter? Would not the countryside ring with his dishonour if in such circumstances he neglected his sheep and left them to die? So the honour of God is involved in the welfare of His people. He has undertaken their salvation; and, having begun the good work, He must complete it. If God’s people were uniformly unfortunate, the young and the timid would be terrified away from religion. It brings reproach on the name of God when His professing people become backsliders.

This is a strong argument to use in prayer: we can ask Him to save us from our sins and to make us holy, because nothing reflects such credit on His cause as the consistency of those who have named the name of Christ. Nothing can give us stronger hope in praying for friends or relatives who may have fallen under the power of sin: "Good Shepherd, lead them back to the paths of righteousness for Thine own name’s sake." Such a form of prayer will impart dignity also to our own lives. We are too apt to seek deliverance from adversity for our own sakes alone; we wish to be in the sunshine of prosperity simply because it is more pleasant to ourselves. But life ought to have a nobler aim. God’s glory ought to be our chief end; and, if man is earnestly seeking to glorify God, God will see to it that he also enjoys Him forever.