John Macfarlane
Psalms 28:7. The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in Him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise Him.
Many and great as the necessities of the believer are, he finds in his covenantant God a supply for them all. A sense of need, however, expressing itself in importunate supplication, comes before saving grace is given. This expression of exultation and joy is preceded by earnest prayer. It brings before us what God is to the believer, the believer’s reliance on God, and the resolution he forms in consequence of the aid he receives.
The Lord is my strength and my shield.
It is evident, before such language can be sincerely and intelligently adopted, that he who uses it must have views that are very different to the views of most people, both concerning God and concerning oneself. With the aversion to God which is natural to the fallen heart, His almighty power is regarded with alarm rather than with confidence, because our guilty fears suggest that this power may be exerted in punishing us rather than in protecting us. With the self-confidence which we naturally entertain, we imagine we can ward off danger with our own arm, or that at any rate we have received powers which, when suitably exercised, will serve to ensure our safety.
But when the love of God has been shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost given to us – when brought to feel that this God is our God – we rejoice in all His perfections. We rejoice in His justice, because it is satisfied; in His truth, because it is pledged for our well-being; in His power, because He is omnipotent to save. And, when brought to see that in us there “dwelleth no good thing”, that we are at once sinful and helpless, we are glad to betake ourselves to the rock that is higher than we are. The one class look on God with suspicion and on themselves with complacency; the other class regard God with confidence and themselves with self-abasement.
Thrice happy is he who, conscious of his weakness, can truly say, “The Lord is my strength”. He has a prevailing strength, for greater is the Lord, who is for him, than all they that are against him. He has a present strength, for “God is a . . . present help in trouble”. He has a perpetual strength, for the Lord will never leave nor forsake him. God will perfect his strength in weakness. “Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
Nor less blessed is he who can truly say, “The Lord is . . . my shield”. He has an ample shield which leaves no part of the spiritual warrior unprotected; an impenetrable shield which no weapon can pierce, a changeless shield, the qualities of which remain unaltered by the progress of time, untouched by the hand of decay.
Yet is it to be remembered that the support in the season of weakness and the safety in the hour of conflict which the believer enjoys, correspond with his reliance on God. “My heart trusted in Him, and I am helped.” The language is expressive. It denotes a dependence at once sincere and affectionate, the offspring of knowledge and of love.
What is the state of mind of the one whose experience is here recorded? It is not that vague and general reliance which is so often expressed in a time of adversity, or in the prospect of death, by those who conceive of the Almighty as such a one as themselves, and array Him in their imaginations with the qualities of mildness without moral excellence. The heart that trusts in Him has been opened to receive the testimony which Scripture bears to the spiritual character of its Author. This heart does not place its reliance upon an unknown God. The heart that trusts in Him has been brought into a measure of conformity to His image and acquiescence in His will. Its reliance is placed on the God it loves. Its trust is thus so far enlightened, cordial, cheerful, entire. And in proportion as it is so, it finds help. When such scriptural confidence is wrought in the heart, it is the forerunner of safety and repose. “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee; because he trusteth in Thee.”
Thus attuned to the exercise of thanksgiving, the rejoicing heart exclaims, “With my song will I praise Him”. And this is a song which does not consist in the mere language of celebration. It is not the effusion of gratitude which, passing away, leaves no trace behind it – like a dying echo among the munitions of rocks with which divine power has surrounded the soul, or along the mountain sides of the divine benefits. The believer desires that his whole life should become a song of praise to his fortress and deliverer, his buckler and the horn of his salvation. From a heart enlarged and purified by the emotions of grateful love, he desires that there should flow forth the streams of a holy obedience, in all the channels of Christian well-doing.
1Taken with editing from The Christian’s Daily Companion. Macfarlane (1798-1875) was at this time parish minister of Coleslie, in Fife.