(Concluded from p. 225.)

"The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and His Word was in my tongue." Have we not the true character of inspiration here:"The Spirit of the Lord spake by me?" He was one of the "holy men of God" who "spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." And he who was spoken by was spoken to at the same time (vers. 2,3). This communication of the divine mind was for David as for others.

So we see that David is made the instrument for the utterance of the thoughts of God. He was formed of God in all his varied experiences and circumstances to be the means used to convey to others not his own mind and words but the mind and the words of God. And this is the human in inspiration. The vessel is made for the service, and various vessels for various services, as the faucets in a large house may be of differing shapes for differing uses, while the water flowing through them is from the same source of supply. All the channels of inspiration have been made of God, separated from the womb, and molded and fashioned in their history for the distinct and peculiar form of their ultimate ministry and service.

And now we come to the communication, "the last words" themselves.

"The God of Israel said"-not "the God of Jacob" now. Israel is the prince with God, what he is as favored and blessed of God, and He, the God of Israel, is "the Rock of Israel" also. As "God" He is to be adored, reverenced, and obeyed. As "Rock" He is to be run to, hidden in, and relied on. The God and the Rock of Israel speaks; and at once the thoughts of the sweet singer are carried on beyond himself and his surroundings, and centered on Christ, the coming Ruler over all. "He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God." And this will be the character of Christ and His kingdom. "Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment. And a man shall be as an hiding-place from the wind, and as a covert from the tempest, as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land" (Isa. 32:2, 2). For that King, for that Man, creation waits. Its groans shall be hushed. Its sighs, and sorrows, and sufferings shall cease. The desert shall blossom as a rose and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands because of Him.

The long dark night of His refusal and absence draws to its close, the true light now shineth, and Christ is near at hand. Creation's Hallelujah Chorus shall soon sound forth. Already the day star, the harbinger of the morning, has arisen in the hearts of His own, and this Sun of Righteousness thus heralded will soon rise "with healing in His wings."

"And He shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds:as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain." The day dawns, the shadows flee away, and in that morning without clouds, "from the sunshine after rain the green grass springeth from the earth." All below shall prosper and shall bear fruit for the glory of God and for the good of all His creatures as everything emerges into the liberty of the glory of the sons of God, who will themselves enjoy to the full their higher and heavenly portion with the Ruler Himself. Blessed prospect, indeed! "Lord, haste the day!"
All has been in a major key hitherto. What God, has done and what God will do has engaged his "well-tuned harp." But now the plaintive strains of a minor note or two are to be heard, as, for the moment, the singer thinks of himself and his responsibility. "Although my house be not so with God." He has to realize how he and his domination have been unlike the Ruler, and the rule, and its results of which, he has sung. His own life has been far from being a morning without clouds. Thank God that we have Christ, that we are "in Him," for each one, however honored and privileged, has to own his own utter unprofitableness. Happy it is for us if we have learned, like John on the bosom of our Saviour rather than like Peter at the fireside of those who are His and our enemies, to find ourselves out as we commune with Him in the warmth and sunshine of His deep love, instead of through self-confidence fallen into temptation and discovering the evil of our hearts when openly denying our Lord. But the experience has to be gained that "The mind of the flesh (even in the believer) is enmity against God; it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." As it has been remarked, "The hardest lesson we have to learn is wrapped up in five words, 'The flesh profiteth nothing'" (John 6:63). It is an unmendable evil and all efforts to educate or to improve it are in vain. Another has said, "Sublimate the flesh however much you may, it is flesh still." These conclusions are but the echo of our Lord's own words, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh." It originates in flesh, has the character of that whence it originates, and in that character will remain, whatever may be done to amend or ameliorate it.

Our "house is not bo with God," and our house takes its character from us, and from our fallen nature which is incurably and incorrigibly bad. And perhaps its evil is most clearly evidenced in "the iniquity of our holy things." We may think that we serve God better than others, or preach or pray with greater fluency or acceptance than some one else, or that our labors are more effective than those of our fellow-servants. All this is of the flesh and to be judged before God.

David had to make this sad admission in order to magnify the great grace of God. The artist about to present the object of his fancy in the foreground of a picture will first paint in the dark background which will the better set off that which he wishes to be prominent to the beholder's eyes. Our evil brings to light the manifold grace of our God.

And wherever we turn in human history we find, "Not so with God." We see it in the fall of our first parents, in man's history before and subsequent to the flood, in Israel's journeyings and breakdown under lawgiver, leader, judges, kings, and prophets, in the Gentile's pride of dominion, in the rejection and crucifixion of Christ, and refusal of the testimony of the Holy Ghost to Christ glorified. And we see it to-day each for himself in individual and personal unfaithfulness, as we see it also in that house which professes Christ's name, the Church of which we form part. "Not so with God" stamps itself everywhere in every dispensation, and this serves to turn us from "the first man" and his descendants to the "Second Man"- the Man of God's right hand made strong for Himself and (we may add by His grace) for us.

But the low minor bars are completed. The major notes are to be sounded with force and feeling now.