FOREVER

Verse Sixth.

"Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:

And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."

On a celebrated occasion King David, in thanking God for the singular success which had marked his life-history, made special mention of the fact that God had pledged to him His goodness for a great while to come: "Then went King David in and sat before the Lord, and he said, Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that Thou hast brought me hitherto? And this was yet a small thing in Thy sight, O Lord God; but Thou hast spoken of Thy servant’s house for a great while to come. And is this the manner of man, O Lord God?"

It is a wonderful mercy to be able not only to remember the past with gratitude, but to contemplate the future with confidence. Mortals are naturally terrified at the future. However bright the past may have been, the dread haunts them that in the future may be hiding some ironical revenge. After the foaming cup of life has been drunk, there may be bitter dregs at the bottom. We cannot tell what a day may bring forth. Only a step in front of every one of us hangs a dark curtain, which we cannot lift. Who knows what may be awaiting us in any of the unknown days of a new year? It may be some spectre of misfortune, which will turn all our bright life into darkness. So whispers our ignorance.

Nor is the fear of the future always so vague. Some know that it must contain exceptional trials for them. The young man who has just come to the city to push his fortune finds himself confronted with danger at every turn. All the influences which have hitherto supported and encouraged him are left behind; he is surrounded with new temptations; the pace of life is so fast that he has no time to think, and the numbers and the novelty bewilder him. He asks anxiously how he is to survive the trying time, and whether it is possible to come out with safety and honour on the other side.

Many who have long survived this initial stage yet fear the future, and not without good cause. They have passed the summit of life, and see before them the downward slope on what is called the sunless side of the hill. They must look forward to a more limited range of activity, to failing powers and to the infirmities of old age. Must the sweetness of life, then, be only a reminiscence of the past? So the world believes:

Gather the rosebuds while ye may,

     Old Time is still a-flying;

And that same flower which blooms today

     Tomorrow will be dying.

Such is the philosophy of the world. But is there a truer philosophy? is there a gospel which can assure us that the best is still in front — that the sun of life is not sinking behind our backs, but rising in the direction to which our faces are turned?

It is this blessed gospel which is embodied in the text. This Twenty- third Psalm, as we have seen, celebrates the past — it is a record of varied past experience — but it also speaks of the future "for a great while to come."

1. The Future on this Side of Death.

The sacred poet does not assume that the future will contain no difficulties or perils for him. On the contrary, he knows that his life is to be one of service and warfare. It is the same person we have speaking in this last verse who, in verse 5, described himself as seated at the table of the king, anointed with oil and drinking an overflowing cup. But, as we saw, that was a warrior, and the banquet was a reward for deeds bravely done. When, however, the feast is over, the soldier must gird on his armour again and return to the field. Enemies have been vanquished, but not the whole of them; there are still battles to fight and victories to win.

If we are in the army of God and know what it is to be rewarded by communion with Himself for past services, we must not grow weary in well-doing. There remains yet very much land to be possessed. God does not call us to a valetudinarian and cloistered virtue. He desires us to perform our part in the struggle of life, and in the common business of the world to play the man for Him. Besides, there is the burden of His cause to be borne, and the means have to be provided for extending His reign. The earth is the Lord’s and must not be surrendered to the devil. Every department of human effort is yet to be holiness to the Lord; every corner of the globe is to be filled with His glory; every tribe of the human race to be numbered among His people. Every false form of faith must be exploded; every practice of cruelty and oppression by which the world is cursed must come to an end. The struggle is a long one; it is full of labour and peril; no Christian, however, dare decline it; to his dying day he must be a soldier.

But, as he leaves the banqueting house, to return to the field of action, who are these two figures that accompany him by order of the king? "Goodness and Mercy shall

follow me all the days of my life." These two divine attributes are here personified: they are servants appointed to follow the departing guest, to see that no evil befalls him; they are guardian angels sent to protect him from calamity. In the Homeric poems gods and goddesses sometimes descend to the earth and visit the field of battle, to assist their favourites. In a moment of deadly peril a goddess will diffuse round the warrior who is too severely pressed a mist, in which he is removed from the sight of his foes; or, assuming human shape, a god will plunge into the struggle in which the mortal in whom he is interested is being worsted and, with a spear before whose point everything goes down, completely turn the tide of battle. No such mythology finds admission into the sacred Scriptures; but this is something like the function here intended for the personified Goodness and Mercy.

What attractive figures these two are — how full of sympathy and bounty! Can there be any misfortune for which divine Goodness cannot find a remedy? How can life ever become bare and empty when this kind angel is present, ready to pour in strength from the horn of plenty? Still more welcome is Mercy; ah, we cannot afford to be without her. Of all the dangers which the future contains, our chief fear is the danger arising from ourselves. The battle, however severe, would be nothing, if only we were absolutely sure of our own loyalty. But we have in us an evil heart of unbelief, which departs from the living God; the old man within us would betray the whole cause to the enemy; terrible is the force of besetting sin, frequent are our fits of coldness and backsliding. We require mercy every day.

But goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our life. In days of prosperity they will be with us, lest pride should betray us; in days of adversity, lest fear should make us turn back. It is true we can never tell with what a portent any new day may be in travail; but, let it be what it may, yet, if Goodness and Mercy be with us, what need we fear? In the hot days of youth and in the feeble days of old age; in the busy day of action, in the sequestered day of thought, and in the holiday of repose still they will be with us. As we sleep, they will keep watch and ward; and, when we awake, they will be ready to accompany us. In the day when friends are many they will be there, the best friends of all; and in the day when all have deserted us they will be there, never leaving or forsaking us. Finally, on the day of death, when the world is fading from our grasp, and around us are crowding the new shapes of the world unknown, still these old and familiar figures will be with us — "Goodness and Mercy shall follow me all the days of my life."

2. The Future on the Other Side of Death.

The "great while to come," for which David had received the assurance of the Divine countenance, did not merely reach to the very end of this earthly life but extended beyond the boundary of death — "and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."

"The house of the Lord" is a common phrase for the temple or the tabernacle; and many have so understood it here. In this sense the text would mean that David would always have free access to God in His earthly house; and, of course, "forever" might not mean more than as long as he should live.

But "the house of the Lord" is not here intended in an ecclesiastical sense. It is the palace of the Divine King — the same in which the banquet of verse 5 took place. As a reward for his exploits the warrior was admitted once into the palace as a guest; the banquet being over, he had to return again to the field of battle; but he looked forward to a time when, all his battles being finished, he would be invited back to the palace, not again to enjoy a banquet lasting only for a night, but to be a permanent inmate of the place; as Mephibosheth was fed every day at King David’s table.

The figurative language being stripped away, this looks as if it were the expression of an assurance that, after the efforts of the mortal life are over, those who love God will dwell forever in communion with Him in heaven.

To us there is nothing in the least novel in such an idea; but it is very unusual in the Old Testament — so unusual that many scholars would declare that it cannot possibly be supposed to have a place in one of the Psalms, especially if this be by David. One of the most extraordinary features of the Old Testament is the absence from it of the scenery of the future world to which in the New Testament we are accustomed. In the Books of Moses, for example, when the punishments are described which will ensue upon disobedience, all kinds of woes which can be endured in this world are piled up in the most appalling numbers, but no mention is made of punishment in a future state of existence; and, in the same way, when the rewards are mentioned which are promised to obedience, all earthly blessings, such as long life, plentiful harvests, political peace and domestic joys, are enumerated, but no mention is made of that which, according to our notions, ought to be most prominent of all — the promise of a reward in heaven after death.

Not that the Hebrews supposed that at death life is extinguished, and that there is no existence beyond. Many things might be adduced to prove that they were quite aware that they would continue to exist. Thus when anyone died, he was said to be "gathered to his fathers"; that is, he went to meet in the other world those who had died before him; and some passages appear to show not only that there would be recognition there, but that the inhabitants lived in nations and tribes, as they had done in this world. But the extraordinary thing is the quality of the future life as they imagined it. The place where the dead assemble is called Sheol; and they often speak as if it were located somewhere below ground; but there is no clear description of it; and no wonder, for it is "the land of darkness and the shadow of death; a land of darkness, as darkness itself, without any order, and where the light is as darkness." Dim and shadowy, too, is the existence there: "there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in Sheol."

In such a prospect there was nothing to attract, but quite the reverse. Accordingly, the way in which even good men speak in the prospect of death is totally unlike what we should now expect in the mouth of a Christian. Read, for example, the prayer of Hezekiah, when he was sick and expected to die. There is not in it a scintillation of any bliss to which he was looking forward on the other side of death. On the contrary, he says, "I shall not see the Lord, even the Lord in the land of the living. Nothingness cannot praise Thee; death cannot celebrate Thee; they that go down into the pit cannot hope for Thy truth." Similarly in Psalm Thirty, a good man in prospect of death, but pleading hard for life, prays, "What profit is there in my blood when I go down to the pit? shall the dust praise Thee? shall it declare Thy truth?" And another psalmist pleads in similar circumstances, "For in death there is no remembrance of Thee; in the grave who shall give Thee thanks?" "The dead praise not the Lord," says another, "neither any that go down into silence." The Ecclesiast is the most doleful of all: "The living know that they must die; but the dead know not anything; neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love and their hatred and their envy is now perished; neither have they any more a portion forever in anything that is done under the sun." What may have been the purpose of God in keeping the secret of the world to come hidden from so many of His servants, is an extremely interesting question. Perhaps it was because He wished them first to recognise that religion is a good thing for this life, apart altogether from a life to come. Certainly, when we read how the saints of the Old Testament rejoiced in God and declared that His love had made them happier than the godless ever could be, even when their corn and wine abounded, and when we reflect that these saints perhaps knew little or nothing about the rewards of the next life, we begin to suspect that perhaps their religious standpoint is not lower but higher than our own. Is our secret feeling not sometimes that the religious life in this world is a poor affair, the prizes and tit-bits falling mostly to the worldly and the wicked, but that what religion costs here will be compensated by the pleasures of the world to come? And, if this is our thought, were not those far above us who, apart altogether from the punishments and rewards coming afterwards, were confident that wickedness in all its forms is despicable and detestable, but that godliness is life and peace?

Another reason why the saints of the Old Testament were kept in the dark on this subject may have been that God does not reveal the truth till it is needed. Truth given to those unprepared for it would have been little prized; but, when they were stretching out their hands and yearning with their whole hearts for it, then the revelation was seized with avidity and retained with tenacity.

In the Old Testament we see the human mind being prepared for the revelation of immortality, till at last it may be said to be panting for it, as the hart for water-brooks.

The need of it was felt in two ways. On the one hand, it was felt to be necessary, in order to make up for the imperfect justice of this life. The Mosaic Law taught that godliness and righteousness would have for reward prosperity in this world; and this was echoed in a hundred forms in the sacred books, as in the First Psalm, "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law doth he meditate day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." But although this principle, of prosperity attending the steps of the righteous, was amply justified in the general course of history, it was not justified in every case. Sometimes the good man was not prosperous, and sometimes the wicked were. In such cases what was to be said? God’s justice was not vindicated in this life; must there not be compensations in another life? Job was an example of calamity after calamity falling on a righteous man, and the whole Book of Job may be said to consist of the moans and cries of the human soul, as it knocked at the gate of God for the revelation of immortality.

But the human spirit was also brought to the same point along a happier path. Life, according to Hebrew ideas, was the breath of God: at the Creation God breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living soul; death, on the other hand, is the withdrawal of the divine breath. But, by living in constant intercourse with God, might not the human being be so filled with the divine energy that he could not die? Sometimes the saints, when living very near to God, felt themselves to be so full of health and strength, derived from God Himself, that the conviction forced itself on their minds that nothing, not even temporal death, could separate them from His love. This is the glorious feeling of the Sixteenth Psalm:

I have set the Lord always before me:

Because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.

Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth:

My flesh also shall dwell in safety.

For Thou wilt not leave my soul to Sheol;

Neither wilt Thou suffer Thine holy one to see corruption.

Thou wilt shew me the path of life:

In Thy presence is fulness of joy;

At Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.

It was along this sunny path of communion with God that the singer of the Twenty-third Psalm also was led to belief; and, although his vision may have lasted only for a moment, it would be unwarrantable to deny that he may have seen the promised land.

We, however, are more favourably situated. In the interval between the Old Testament and the New the mists in which the other life was enveloped began to clear away; and the writers of the New Testament all adopted and developed the faith in immortality. Jesus Himself made the revelation of this hope peculiarly His own. He Himself breathed the atmosphere of the other world; He raised the dead and was Himself raised from the dead; He spoke of the many mansions in His Father’s house; and, as we follow His departing figure from the summit of Olivet, we obtain a very near view of that country in which those who have come to Him as the Shepherd and Bishop of their souls will be led to fountains of living water, and those who have worn themselves out in His service on earth will be made to rest from their labours forever.