Because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.' The prelude to the assertion makes all the difference. Here is the warranted confidence of a simple faith.
The man who clasps God's hand, and has Him standing by his side, as his Ally, his Companion, his Guide, his Defence--that man does not need to fear change. For all the things which convict the arrogant or mistaken confidences of the other men as being insanity or a lapse from faith prove the confidence of the trustful soul to be the very perfection of reason and common sense.
We may be confident of our power to resist anything that can come against us, if He be at our side. The man that stands with his back against an oak-tree is held firm, not because of his own strength, but because of that on which he leans. There is a beautiful story of some heathen convert who said to a missionary's wife, who had felt faint and asked that she might lean for a space on her stronger arm, If you love me, lean hard.' That is what God says to us,' If you love Me, lean hard.' And if you do, because He is at your right hand, you will not be moved. It is not insanity; it is not arrogance; it is simple faith, to look our enemies in the eyes, and to feel sure that they cannot touch us. Trust in Jehovah; so shall ye be established.' Rest on the Lord, and ye shall rest indeed.
In like manner the man who has God at his right hand may be sure of the unalterable continuance of all his proper good. Outward things may come or go, as it pleases Him, but that which makes the life of our life will never depart from us as long as He stands there. And whilst He is there, if only our hearts are knit to Him, we can say, My heart and my flesh faileth, but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever. I shall not be moved. Though all that can go goes, He abides; and in Him I have all riches.' Trust not in the uncertainty of outward good, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy.
The wicked man was defiantly arrogant, and the forgetful good man was criminally self-confident, when they each said, I shall not be moved.' We are only taking up the privileges that belong to us if, exercising faith in Him, we venture to say, Take what Thou wilt; leave me Thyself; I have enough.' And the man who says, Because God is at my right hand, I shall not be moved,' has the right to anticipate an unbroken continuance of personal being, and an unchanged continuance of the very life of his life. That which breaks off all other lives abruptly is no breach in the continuity, either of the consciousness or of the avocations of a devout man. For, on the other side of the flood, he does what he does on this side, only more perfectly and more continually. He that doeth the will of God abideth for ever,' and it makes comparatively little difference to him whether his place be on this or on the other side of Jordan. We shall not be moved,' even when we change our station from earth to heaven, and the sublime fulfilment of the warranted confidence of the trustful soul comes when the tomorrow' of the skies is as the to-day' of earth, only much more abundant.'
