Part 7 (1/2)
CHAPTER SIX
[Ill.u.s.tration]
=”Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the +LORD+ for ever.”=
The writer was once called to speak with a Scotch Presbyterian elder who was rapidly pa.s.sing from this life. I had read to him this last verse of the Psalm, when, turning in his bed, he said to me in words that were almost his last, ”Take my Bible and read that verse to me from 'The Psalms in Metre' in the back of my Bible.” I took his Scotch Bible from a table close by and read:
Goodness and mercy all my life Shall surely follow me, And in G.o.d's house for evermore My dwelling place shall be.
--_William Whittingham_
Some one has well said that ”goodness and mercy” are G.o.d's two collie dogs to preserve the Christian from all danger. Others have likened ”goodness and mercy” to the Christian's footmen to wait upon him daily.
”The house of the +LORD+” is doubtless here contrasted with the tent of the shepherd, just as the words ”dwell for ever” are contrasted with the fact that the fugitive was allowed to stay in the shepherd's tent only a limited time.
This verse expresses the confidence of the Christian with regard to the future. It is the Christian's confidence that in the Father's house a mansion is prepared for him, and that when the earthly house of this tabernacle is taken down and dissolved by death he has a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. This is surely a grand provision for old age, a life insurance worthy of the name, a home for the winter of life, and a blessed a.s.surance with regard to one's eternity. How poor indeed is that soul that cannot say, ”Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,” for the grave is not the terminus but the pa.s.sageway that leads to endless light and life, into the glory and beauty of the house of the Lord in which the believer shall ”dwell for ever.” Beyond the night of death lies the perfect day; beyond the valley of the shadow lie the plains of peace.
One cannot help but wonder if you, reader, have such a confident hope with regard to your future life. Only those who are able to say ”The +LORD+ is my shepherd” are able to say ”I will dwell in the house of the +LORD+ for ever.”
A famous Scotch preacher tells us that a demented boy, who was in the habit of attending one of the cla.s.ses in his Sunday school, was sick unto death. The minister was asked to go to see the boy. He went to the house, and in speaking with the lad and after reading the Scriptures he was about to leave, when this boy, with only half his reasoning power, demented and partly idiotic, asked the great preacher if he wouldn't kneel down and recite for him the Twenty-third Psalm. In obedience to the boy's request he knelt and repeated the Twenty-third Psalm, until he came to the last verse which, as you know, reads ”Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the +LORD+ for ever.” But the preacher did not repeat this last verse, for he was saying to himself while on his knees, ”this verse can hardly be true of this boy, surely goodness and mercy has not followed him all the days of his life, and further, what does he know about the determination of this verse--to dwell in the house of the +LORD+ for ever?” And so the great preacher was rising from his knees, having omitted the last verse, when the boy reached out his hand and, placing it on the shoulder of the minister, pressed him again to his knees and repeated the last verse of the Psalm--the verse the preacher had omitted, as it is written in the Scotch hymn book:
Goodness and mercy all my life Shall surely follow me; And in G.o.d's house for evermore My dwelling place shall be.
--_William Whittingham_
This was a lesson the preacher never forgot. Can you, my reader, you, with all your senses, your keenness of brain and intellect--can you say what this idiotic boy could say: ”I will dwell in the house of the +LORD+ for ever”?