I must not dwell, as I had hoped to do, upon the last words preceding my text, The Lord God is a Sun and Shield'--brightness and defence--the Lord will give grace and glory': grace,' the loving gifts which will make a man gracious and graceful; glory,' not any future lustre of the transfigured soul and glorified body, but the glory which belongs to the life of faith here on earth. Link that thought with the preceding one. The Lord is a Sun, the Lord will give glory ; like a little bit of broken glass lying in the furrows of a ploughed field, when the sun smites down upon it, it flashes, outshining many a diamond. If a man is walking upon a road with the sun behind him, his face is dark. He wheels himself round, and it is suffused with light, as Moses' face shone. We all, with unveiled faces beholding, are changed from glory to glory.' If we walk in the sunshine we shall shine too. If we walk in the light' we shall be light in the Lord.'
No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly.' Trust is inward, and the outside of trust is an upright walk; and if a man has these two, which, inasmuch as one is the root and the other is the fruit, are but one in reality, nothing that is good will be withheld from Him. For how can the sun but pour its rays upon everything that lives? Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights.' So the life is blessed that talks with God; that has fixed its desires on Him as its Supreme Good; that is irradiated by His light, glorified by the reflection of His brightness, and ministered to with all necessary appliances by His loving self-communication.
We come back to the old word, dear friends! Trust in the Lord, and do good, and verily thou shalt be fed.' We come back to the old message that nothing knits a man to God but faith with its child, righteousness. If trusting we love, and loving we obey, then in converse with Him, in fixed desires after Him, in daily and hourly reception from Him of Himself and His gifts, the life of earth will be full of a blessedness more real, more deep, more satisfying, more permanent, than can be found anywhere besides.
Who was it that said, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no man cometh to the Father but by Me'? Tread that path, and you will come into the house of the Lord, and will dwell there all the days of your life. Believe in God, believe also in Me.'
