tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">[9a]  And if hidden in Him, can anything really hurt us?  Is not His salvation a sufficient wall?  Shall anything that can really hurt us enter in by those gates which He has closed with praise?  In holy peace, then let the songs of deliverance rise before Him.  Let the unspeakable blessedness of the divine safety call forth the notes of thanksgiving.  If the sweet note of praise was heard by the prisoners from the inner dungeon at Philippi, [9b] shall it not be heard by the whole church of God from those who have found a hiding-place in their Lord?

II.  The Lord’s Reply to the Forgiven Man.

Such, then, was the language of the forgiven man to the God who had forgiven him.  What reply did he receive?  “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with Mine eye.”  You will observe that what is here promised is His own divine guidance and instruction, and you will see at once how appropriate such a promise was under the peculiar circumstances of the case.  David had grievously fallen.  He had been walking, in former times, in God’s way, but had turned aside in a most awful manner.  We do not know what was the preparatory process in his mind.  Perhaps he had forgotten his weakness; perhaps he had grown self-confident and fell.  But we see what God promised now that he was restored.  He undertook in future to keep him Himself, by His own instruction and His own guidance.  The Lord Himself undertook to guide him, and so keep him safe from the danger of another fall.

There are two points in this promise.  It was in the way, not about the way, that God promised to guide him.  When he was walking in the narrow way God under took to walk with him there, and to hold him fast in His own right hand till the journey should be complete, and the rest reached at the end.  Let us all learn the lesson that God’s teaching is only found in the path of God’s commandments.  If we choose to walk in some way of our own choosing, we must not expect the guidance of the Lord.

Observe also what I may term the delicacy of the promise and the intimacy of the relationship.  God says, “I will guide thee with Mine eye.”

When David was living in a state of impenitence, the strong hand of God was upon him day and night.  But now a look is enough.  No force is needed.  The heart is tender, the ear is open, the eye is fixed on the Lord Jesus, and the least intimation of His will is sufficient.  The passage seems to describe the eye of the Lord watching over His children, and the eyes of His children fixed on the Lord.  When the Lord Jesus looked on Peter, Peter must have been looking on Him, and one look melted his heart.  And so when the Lord is guiding us, there is no need of strong or violent discipline, of the wind, the storm, or the earthquake, for the still small voice is enough.  What is needed is that we should be living looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, seeking to know His will, drinking in His word, watching the guidance of His providence, applying the principles of Scripture to common life, and so not waiting till conviction is forced upon us, but, with a tender heart and a ready mind, seeking hour by hour to do His will.  It is in such an attitude of mind that we can realize the sacred promise, “I will guide thee with Mine eye.”

Such, then, was the intercourse of this forgiven man with God.  How close, how intimate, how sacred, how blessed, the communion!  And how complete must have been the forgiveness that prepared the way for it.  It seems almost impossible to believe that this was the same man on whom God’s hand had been heavy day and night, the same whose bones had waxed old through his roaring all the day long, now forgiven, now brought into happy intercourse with God.  Does not the passage teach a wonderful lesson to every soul that has been mercifully forgiven in Christ Jesus?  When we think of the precious blood of Christ, and how the Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all, can we suppose for a moment that the forgiveness bestowed on us is less complete, or the restoration less perfect, than that of David?  Since, then, in his case, the insuperable barrier of his guilt was so completely broken down that he was admitted to this sacred and intimate fellowship, why should any one of us remain at a distance?  Why should not we, even we, go before the same Father to find in Him our hiding-place, and receive from Him the same blessed assurance, “I will guide thee with Mine eye”?  May He accompany us through life with that loving guidance and watch over every step we take till, by His great grace, we are safe from danger.

THE SAVIOUR SEEKING THE SINNER

“What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?”—St. Luke xv. 4.

There are many amongst us truly and conscientiously seeking the Lord whose souls are ill at ease, and whose hearts are far from peace.  They are feeling after Him, if haply they may find Him; but they are like blind men groping for the wall, for they have not found Him, and they have no firm resting-place for their faith.  They have been reading many passages about seeking the Lord, and have endeavoured to seek Him, but they are sorely discouraged.

Let us, therefore, change the subject, and instead of considering how they are to seek the Lord, let us see how the Lord seeks them.  Let us look at the Divine side of the transaction, and instead of being absorbed by the subject of the sinner seeking the Saviour, let us look at the boundless grace of God which is shown by the Saviour seeking the sinner.

It is the great subject of this chapter, which contains three illustrations of the one subject, and thus forms an illustrated comment on His words, “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” [13]  According to those words He came for the lost, and came not only to save them when they should succeed in finding Him, but to seek them in order that He may save.  He does not save without seeking, nor does He seek without saving.  Let us glean some lessons, from the combination of the three illustrations, as to the loss of the sinner, and the seeking of the Saviour.

The Loss.

In all three cases the recovered one is said to have been lost.  The sheep was lost.  The coin was lost.  The son was lost.

If we study the illustrations in detail we shall see that there are three ways described in the chapter in which this loss is brought about.

It is brought about, in the case of the lost sheep, through simple ignorance and the folly of pursuing each passing object of attraction.  The wandering sheep has no particular intention of going wrong.  It does not set off with a deliberate wish to run away; it is simply led on step by step by any attraction that lies beside its path.  And is not this the case with thousands of those who have wandered from the Shepherd’s care?

In the second parable the loss is occasioned by the neglect of