Spurgeon PS035

EXPOSITION.

David’s faith enabled him to _lie down_; anxiety would certainly have kept him on tiptoe, watching for an enemy. Yea, he was able to sleep, _to sleep_ in the midst of trouble, surrounded by foes. “So he giveth his beloved sleep.” There is a sleep of presumption; God deliver us from it! There is a sleep of holy confidence; God help us so to close our eyes! But David says he _awaked_ also. Some sleep the sleep of death; but he, though exposed to many enemies, reclined his head on the bosom of his God, slept happily beneath the wing of Providence in sweet security, and then awoke in safety. “_For the Lord sustained me_.” The sweet influence of the Pleiades of promise shone upon the sleeper, and he awoke conscious that the Lord had preserved him. An excellent divine has well remarked–“This quietude of a man’s heart by faith in God, is a higher sort of work than the natural resolution of manly courage, for it is the gracious operation of God’s Holy Spirit upholding a man above nature, and therefore the Lord must have all the glory of it.”

Buckling on his harness for the day’s battle, our hero sings, “_I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people, that have set themselves against me round about_.” Observe that he does not attempt to under-estimate the number or wisdom of his enemies. He reckons them at tens of thousands, and he views them as cunning huntsmen chasing him with cruel skill. Yet he trembles not, but looking his foeman in the face he is ready for the battle. There may be no way of escape; they may hem me in as the deer are surrounded by a circle of hunters; they may surround me on every side, but in the name of God I will dash through them; or, if I remain in the midst of them, yet shall they not hurt me; I shall be free in my very prison.

But David is too wise to venture to the battle without prayer; he therefore betakes himself to his knees, and cries aloud to Jehovah.

EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS.

Verse 5.–“_I laid me down and slept; I awaked: for the Lord sustained me_.” The title of the Psalm tells us when David had this sweet night’s rest; not when he lay on his bed of down in his stately palace at Jerusalem, but when he fled for his life from his unnatural son Absalom, and possibly was forced to lie in the open field under the canopy of heaven. Truly it must be a soft pillow indeed that could make him forget his danger, who then had such a disloyal army at his back hunting of him; yea, so transcendent is the influence of this peace, that it can make the creature lie down as cheerfully to sleep in the grave, as on the softest bed. You will say that child is willing that calls to be put to bed; some of the saints have desired God to lay them at rest in their beds of dust, and that not in a pet and discontent with their present trouble, as Job did, but from a sweet sense of this peace in their bosoms. “Now let thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation,” was the swan-like song of old Simeon. He speaks like a merchant that had got all his goods on ship-board, and now desires the master of the ship to hoist sail, and be gone homewards. Indeed, what should a Christian, that is but a foreigner here, desire to stay any longer for in the world, but to get his full lading in for heaven? And when hath he that, if not when he is assured of his peace with God? This peace of the gospel, and sense of the love of God in the soul, doth so admirably conduce to the enabling of a person in all difficulties, and temptations, and troubles, that ordinarily, before he calls his saints to any hard service, or hot work, he gives them a draught of this cordial wine next their hearts, to cheer them up and embolden them in the conflict.–^William Gurnall.

Verse 5.–Gurnall, who wrote when there were houses on old London Bridge, has quaintly said, “Do you not think that they sleep as soundly who dwell on London Bridge as they who live at Whitehall or Cheapside? for they know that the waves which rush under them cannot hurt them. Even so may the saints rest quietly over the floods or trouble or death, and fear no ill.”

Verse 5.–Xerxes, the Persian, when he destroyed all the temples in Greece, caused the temple of Diana to be preserved for its beautiful structure: that soul which hath the beauty or holiness shining in it, shall be preserved for the glory of the structure; God will not suffer his own temple to be destroyed. Would you be secured in evil times? Get grace and fortify this garrison; a good conscience is a Christian’s fort-royal. David’s enemies lay round about him; yet saith he, “_I laid me down and slept_.” A good conscience can sleep in the mouth of a cannon, grace is a Christian’s coat of mail, which fears not the arrow or bullet. True grace may be shot at, but can never be shot through; grace puts the soul into Christ, and there it is safe, as the bee in the hive, as the dove in the ark. “There is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” #Ro 8:1|.–^Thomas Watson.

Verse 5.–“_The Lord sustained me_.” It would not be unprofitable to consider the sustaining power manifested in us while we lie asleep. In the flowing of the blood, heaving of the lung, etc., in the body and the continuance of mental faculties while the image of death is upon us.–^C. H. S.

Verse 6.–“I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people, that have set themselves against me round about.” The psalmist will trust, _despite appearances_. He will not be afraid though ten thousands of people have set themselves against him round about. Let us here limit our thoughts to this one idea, “despite appearances.” What could look worse to human sight than this array of ten thousands of people? Ruin seemed to stare him in the face; wherever he looked an enemy was to be seen. What was one against ten thousand? It often happens that God’s people come into circumstances like this; they say, “All these things are against me;” they seem scarce able to count their troubles; they cannot see a loophole through which to escape; things look very black indeed; it is great faith and trust which says under these circumstances “I will not be afraid.”

These were the circumstances under which Luther was placed, as he journeyed towards Worms. His friend Spalatin heard it said, by the enemies of the Reformation, that the safe conduct of a heretic ought not to be respected, and became alarmed for the reformer. “At the moment when the latter was approaching the city, a messenger appeared before him with this advice from the chaplin, ‘Do not enter Worms!’ And this from his best friend, the elector’s confidant, from Spalatin himself! … But Luther, undismayed, turned his eyes upon the messenger, and replied, ‘Go and tell your master, that even should there be as many devils in Worms as tiles upon the housetops, still I would enter it.’ The messenger returned to Worms, with this astounding answer: ‘I was then undaunted,’ said Luther, a few days before his death, ‘I feared nothing.'”

At such seasons as these, the reasonable men of the world, those who walk by sight and not by faith, will think it reasonable enough that the Christian should be afraid; they themselves would be very low if they were in such a predicament. Weak believers are now ready to make excuses for us, and we are only too ready to make them for ourselves; instead of rising above the weakness of the flesh, we take refuge under it, and use it as an excuse. But let us think prayerfully for a little while, and we shall see that it should not be thus with us. To trust only when appearances are favourable, is to sail only with the wind and tide, to believe only when we can see. Oh! let us follow the example of the psalmist, and seek that unreservedness of faith which will enable us to trust God, come what will, and to say as he said, “_I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people, that have set themselves against me round about_.”–^Philip Bennett Power’s ‘I wills’ of the Psalms, 1862.

Verse 6.–“_I will not be afraid_,” etc. It makes no matter what our enemies be, though for number, legions; for power, principalities; for subtilty, serpents; for cruelty, dragons; for vantage of place, a prince of the air; for maliciousness, spiritual wickedness; stronger is he that is in us, than they who are against us; nothing is able to separate us from the love of God. In Christ Jesus our Lord, we shall be more than conquerors.–^William Cowper, 1612.

[As a curious instance of Luther’s dogmatical interpretations, we give very considerable extracts from his rendering of this Psalm without in any degree endorsing them.

C.H.S.]

Verse 5.–“_I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the Lord sustained me.” Christ, by the words of this verse signifies his death and burial … For it is not to be supposed that he would have spoken so importantly concerning mere natural rest and sleep; especially since that which precedes, and that which follows, compel us to understand him as speaking of a deep conflict and a glorious victory over his enemies. By all which things he stirs us up and animates us to faith in God, and commends unto us the power and grace of God; that he is able to raise us up from the dead; an example of which he sets before us, and proclaims it unto us as wrought in himself … And this is shown also farther in his using gentle words, and such as tend wonderfully to lessen the terror of death. “_I laid me down (saith he), _and slept_.” He does not say, I died and was buried; for death and the tomb had lost both their name and their power. And now death is not death, but a sleep; and the tomb not a tomb, but a bed and resting place; which was the reason why the words of this prophecy were put somewhat obscurely and doubtfully, that it might by that means render death most lovely in our eyes (or rather most contemptible), as being that state from which, as from the sweet rest of sleep, an undoubted arising and awaking are promised. For who is not most sure of an awaking and arising, who lies down to rest in a sweet sleep (where death does not prevent)? This person, however, does not say that he died, but that he laid him down to sleep, and that therefore he awaked. And moreover, as sleep is useful and necessary for a better renewal of the powers of the body (as Ambrosius says in his hymn), and as sleep relieves the weary limbs, so is death also equally useful, and ordained for the arriving at a better life. And this is what David says in the following Psalm, “I will lay me down in peace, and take my rest, for thou, Lord, in a singular manner hast formed me in hope.” Therefore, in considering death, we are not so much to consider death itself, as that most certain life and resurrection which are sure to those who are in Christ; that those words (#Joh 8:51|) might be fulfilled, “If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.” But how is it that he shall never see it? Shall he not feel it? Shall he not die? No! he shall only see sleep, for, having the eyes of his faith fixed upon the resurrection, he so glides through death, that he does not even see death; for death, as I have said, is to him no death at all. And hence, there is that also of #Joh 11:25|, “He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.”–^Martin Luther.

HINTS TO PREACHERS.

Verse 5.–(1) Describe sweet sleeping. (2) Describe happy waking. (3) Show how both are to be enjoyed, “_for the Lord sustained me_.”

Verse 6.–Faith surrounded by enemies and yet triumphant.