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David's deliverance from his enemies was the work of no human strength or skill, but of the unseen Master whom David served, and therefore he is so buoyant and hopeful as he looks forward to the future. The future had troubles in store for David, — troubles in his family, troubles with his subjects, and, worst of all, troubles that would come of his own misconduct. But be the future what it may, David can rest upon the moral certainty that he will still enjoy that illuminating and strengthening presence of which he has had experience in the past. This confidence in a light that will not fail in the dark hours of life is eminently Christian. There are three dark shadows which fall across every human life — the shadow of sin, the shadow of pain, and the shadow of death.

I. THE SHADOW OF SIN. Sin is the transgression in will or in fact of the eternal moral law. Sin itself is the contradiction of God, it is the repudiation of God, the perverse activity of the created will. Sin is not always an act: often it is a state; it is an attitude of the will, it is an atmosphere of mind and disposition; it pervades thought, it insinuates itself into the springs of resolve, it presides over life where there is no conscious or deliberate intention of welcoming it, it changes its form again and again. But throughout it is one in root and principle, the resistance of the created will to the will of God: and this resistance means darkness, not in the sky above our heads, but far worse — darkness in the moral nature, darkness in the moral intelligence, darkness at the centre of the soul. This darkness was felt in the degree possible to them by the heathen. It explains the vein of sadness which runs through the highest heathen literature. For us Christians the sin is blacker, and the shame is greater in proportion to our higher knowledge of God and His will. In order to escape from this dark shadow, men have tried to persuade themselves that sin is not what we know it to be, and the conscience which reveals it to us is only prejudice, or a bundle of prejudices accumulated through centuries of human life. But the shadow of sin cannot be conjured away; it lies thick and dark upon human life. Upon us, sitting as we are in the darkness of the region of the shadow of death, there shines the sun of God's pardoning love, and He, our Lord and God, in very deed makes our darkness to be light.

II. THE SHADOW OF PAIN. We know pain, not in itself, but by its presence, by its effects. The problem of pain is a distressing, almost overwhelming one. It is pain which dogs our steps from the cradle to the grave. It is not limited to man's bodily constitution; the mind is capable of sharper pain than any that can be caused by a diseased or wounded body. How to deal with pain; how to alleviate it; how to do away with it — these have been questions which men have discussed for thousands of years. Pain, on the whole, remains inaccessible to human treatment, and especially does it resist attempts to ignore its bitterness. Pain in the world of men is the consequence of wrong-doing, but our Lord did no guile, and yet He was a sufferer. Man suffers more than the animals, the higher races of men suffer more than the lower. As the Man of Sorrows, our Lord showed that pain is not to be measured by the reasons for it which we can trace in nature; it has more and larger purposes, which we can only guess at, but as associated with resignation, love, sanctity, pain is most assuredly the harbinger of peace and joy. On the Cross its triumph was unique; it availed to take away the sin of the world.

III. THE SHADOW OF DEATH. The thought that death must come at last casts over thousands of lives a deep gloom. No real comfort is to be had by. reflecting that the laws of nature are irresistible. The darkness of the grave is not less lightened by our Lord and Saviour than is the darkness of sin or the darkness of pain. He has entered the sphere of death, and with Christians death is no longer dark. That our Lord makes these three dark shadows to be light is the experience in all ages of thousands of Christians.

(Canon Liddon.)

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KJV: For thou wilt light my candle: the LORD my God will enlighten my darkness.

WEB: For you will light my lamp, Yahweh. My God will light up my darkness.