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In this psalm troubled men find help.

I. How shall we meet our troubles?

1. There is no better way than to go into the sanctuary of God. Sorrow is almost a blessing if it drives us there.

2. Next, we may well look on to the end of things.

3. Best of all, we must be careful to maintain the blessed life. To be continually with God, cultivating the momentary sense of His presence.

II. BUT WHY ARE THESE EXPERIENCES NOT MORE PERMANENT? We read that "Daniel continued." Oh to be steadfast and unmovable!

1. We must always distinguish between our emotions and our attitude. The one may die off our lives like the sunset glory from the ridges of the Alps, that seem so grey and cold when it is gone; but the other should resemble the changeless perpetuity of the everlasting hills, unaltered by the transitions of the ages, dr the alternations of day and night. You may not always feel as happy, but you can always say "Yes" to the will of God, and realize your attitude in the risen, ascended, loving Jesus, amongst the thousand thousands that minister to Him. In moments of depression, be sure to live in your will and His will.

2. We must be careful to maintain this attitude of the will unaltered. God is constantly putting into our lives little or greater occasions of testing. Unless we are watchful in applying to each new point the principle of surrender, which we have assumed, we may drift from full face, to three-quarter, and half-face, before we are aware.

3. We must exercise ourselves to have the "conscience void of offence toward God and toward men." Not a scrupulous, but a sensitive, conscience. Conscience and the Holy Ghost are expressly allied by the apostle — the crystal stone ever bathed in the translucent glory of heaven.

4. We must ever keep our heart open to the Holy Spirit. It is His province and prerogative to nurture the inner life, and to fill it with the realized presence of the Lord.

5. We must be very careful to maintain unbroken the habits of the devout life. Too many are like the slip-carriage, which runs for a little from the impulse received from the engine, but then slackens till it comes to a stand; instead of resembling that which keeps its connection with the speed and strength of the locomotive. In a laundry, the other day, I saw two kinds of irons. One, the usual sort, needing to be put on a heated surface at frequent intervals to fit them for their work. The other, in which the iron was attached by a flexible gutta-percha tube to the gas-pipe, so that it was easy to use it, and inside the iron a jet of flame, fed by the gas, which maintained it at a regular temperature, and counteracted the chilling effects of its work. Is not this what we want? Not depending on the outside stimulus of a convention, a mission, or a sermon; but receiving straight from God Himself that inward fire of the Holy Ghost, to give and perpetuate which is the dearest passion of the heart of Jesus. All this will cost us something; the daily dying to self; saying "No" to the flesh; the cutting-off of hand or foot; the dropping down into the earth to die: but these sufferings are not worthy to be compared with the growing glory of our life, or its blessedness.

(F. B. Meyer, B. A.)

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KJV: Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory.

WEB: You will guide me with your counsel, and afterward receive me to glory.