Psalm 42:8 Yet the LORD will command his loving kindness in the day time, and in the night his song shall be with me… Here this great pleader is in deep distress, both in body and soul. He feels overwhelmed and broken down; and he pathetically explains, in jerky sentences, as though he really were in trouble, he explains to God what is the matter. And then all at once there comes a gleam of hope, and he begins instantly, just as if by the invisible touch of another hand and another power outside himself. As that gleam of hope comes, he begins to blend prayer and praise together, and says, "I will sing, sing in the night, in the quiet and silent darkness I will sing." Some time ago, during a monsoon, when we were steaming down the Indian Ocean on our way to Australia, the clouds and atmosphere were thick. Sometimes it rained in torrents, and sometimes there was a kind of indescribable mist that wetted the ship and everything and everybody there. And then all at once, as by the strange magic of nature, there would come an aperture in the cloud; and just on one spot, and not so long as the area of this chapel, it seemed to me, just on one spot the sun would shine on the troubled and turbid waters. And everybody rushed on deck the moment that the sun thus glistened, and they got to the spot where they could see it best. And we all of us, with a kind of strange joy, hailed that gleam, that flash of sunlight on the sea. And it seemed to have taken us at once into a new world. And here in this psalm, amid all the storm, did you hear it pelt, as I read it? Here is David talking to God, and David's soul is disquieted. And then all at once there is a gleam, yea, despite it all, and in the teeth of it all, "And the Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night His song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life." I. And, first of all, let me say that EVERY SOUL HAS ITS OWN PRAYER — "My prayer unto the God of my life." Whoever we are, whatever we may be; it must be, specially, exclusively, intensely my own prayer. No man can ever take the place of my soul, and feel its sins, and its sorrows, and its wants. And so he can never breathe my prayer. It must be "My prayer unto the God of my life." And if we think a minute, we see that it must be so. For prayer springs from different causes; it is uttered in different circumstances and conditions; it is expressed in different words — and must be! The learned and refined man will express his prayer to God in refined and beautiful language. But the unlearned, as Paul calls them, and the unrefined men will express their prayers in quite another way. But we have one common centre; we are every one of us on the main road that leads unto Him who is, and will be for ever, the Light, the Truth, the Way. All along the line that is it: the sinner must pray for himself. Every soul has its own prayer. II. And now, the next thing that I think there is in the text is this: EVERY TRUE PRAYER IS TO "THE GOD OF MY LIFE." Brethren, I am deeply thankful for that beautiful definition of God, "The God of my life." When I went to Mr. Spurgeon's College, the first theological book put in my hand was Hodge's Outlines of Theology. There are very many definitions of God there also, but I have forgotten them all. I have not, however, forgotten this, in any change in my life and circumstances: "God of my life." Yes, every step of the way, all along the dark roads, and all along the sunny days, "the God of my life." He is the God of all the mysteries, as well as of all the things that are palpable. The things that you and I cannot explain, for which we find no reason, lie is still "the God of my life." Why that father, who is the bread-winner for a wife and several children, at the most critical time in the family's life, why should he be smitten down to death? Why is all this? He is "the God of my life" and of yours also. And I am sure, in the face of every enigma, He is "the God of my life." When Jacob was dying, he wanted to bless the two boys of Joseph. And in doing so he said a most beautiful thing, which is a beautiful description of God. Did you ever dwell on it? "The God which fed me." Now, I like that. "The God which fed me all my life long unto this day, the angel that redeemed me, bless the lads." The poetry of that is to me exquisite. But the description of God comes home to my very heart. "The God who has fed me all my life long unto this day," you show you have a God of Providence as well as a God of grace. Do let me say to you, it is to that God, "the God of my life," that the prayer is directed every morning, and at noonday, and at night. He is the God of my life, the God of my joys, the God of my sorrows, the God of my hopes, the God of all my burdens and forgivenesses, the God of the lovingkindness that crystallizes and shines and glitters round the cross. He is the God of an infinite love, of an infinite salvation. (W. Buff.) Parallel Verses KJV: Yet the LORD will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life. |
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