1–3. These
verses contain an account of a temptation to distrust God, with which David
was, upon some unmentioned occasion, greatly exercised. It may be that in the
days when he was in Saul’s court he was advised to flee at a time when this
flight would have been charged against him as a breach of duty to the king, or
a proof of personal cowardice. When Satan cannot overthrow us by presumption,
how craftily will he seek to ruin us by distrust! He will employ our dearest
friends to argue us out of our confidence, and he will use such plausible logic
that unless we once for all assert our immovable trust in Jehovah, he will make
us like the timid bird which flies to the mountain whenever danger presents
itself. David seems to have felt the force of the advice, for it came home to
[his] soul, but he would rather dare the danger than exhibit a distrust in
the Lord his God. Doubtless, the perils which encompassed David were great and
imminent; it was quite true that his enemies were ready to shoot
privily at him; it was equally correct that the very foundations of
law and justice were destroyed under Saul’s unrighteous government; but
what were all these things to the man whose trust was in God alone? His answer
to the question, what can the righteous do? would be the counter-question,
“What cannot they do?” When prayer engages God on our side, and when faith
secures the fulfilment of the promise, what cause can there be for flight,
however cruel and mighty our enemies?
4–7. David
here declares the great source of his unflinching courage. He borrows his light
from heaven—from the great central orb of Deity. The God of the believer is
never far from him; he is not merely the God of the mountain fastnesses, but of
the dangerous valleys and battle plains.
4. The Lord is
in his holy temple. The heavens are above our heads in
all regions of the earth, and so is the Lord ever near to us in every state and
condition. Why, then, should we fear? Since Jehovah is in his holy temple,
delighting in the sacrifice of his Son, will he not defeat every device, and
send us a sure deliverance? The Lord’s
throne is in heaven. He reigns supreme. Nothing can be done in heaven, or
earth, or hell, which he does not ordain and overrule. His eyes behold.
The eternal Watcher never slumbers. His eyelids try the children of men.
As men, when intently and narrowly inspecting some very minute object, almost
close their eyelids to exclude every other object, so will the Lord look all
men through and through. God sees each man as much and as perfectly as if there
were no other creature in the universe. My danger is not hidden from him; I may
rest assured that he will not suffer me to perish while I rely alone on him.
5. The Lord
trieth the righteous. He does not hate them, but only
tries them. They are precious to him, and therefore he refines them with
afflictions. None of the Lord’s children may hope to escape from trial, nor,
indeed, in our right minds would any of us desire to do so, for trial is the
channel of many blessings. But the wicked and him that Ioveth violence his
soul hateth. If God hates them, I will not fear them. If God is in the
quarrel as well as ourselves, it would be foolish to question the result, or
avoid the conflict.
6. Horrible tempest.
Some expositors think there is in the Hebrew an allusion to that burning,
suffocating wind which blows across the Arabian deserts. What a tempest will
that be which will overwhelm the despisers of God! A drop of hell is terrible,
but what must a full cup of torment be? How foolish is it to fear the faces of
men who will soon be faggots in the fire of hell! Think of their fearful end,
and all fear of them must be changed into contempt of their threatenings, and
pity for their miserable state.
7. The
delightful contrast affords another overwhelming reason why we should be
steadfast, unmovable, not carried away with fear, or led to adopt carnal
expedients in order to avoid trial. It is not only the Lord’s office to defend
righteousness, but his nature to love it. He would deny himself if he did not
defend the just; fear not, then, the end of all your trials, but “be just, and
fear not.” God approves, and, if men oppose, what matters it? He delights in
the upright. He sees his own image in them, an image of his own fashioning.
Shall we dare to put up hand to iniquity in order to escape affliction? Let us
keep to that fair path of right along which Jehovah’s smile shall light us.
Excerpt from:
The Treasury of David
By Charles H Spurgeon
