Psalm 31:20 You shall hide them in the secret of your presence from the pride of man… These are great words surely. They are an expression of David's confidence in God's power and will to hide His people in Himself. He is to be hid from "the pride of men," and from "the strife of tongues." I suppose that by these phrases we may understand the whole of that cruel and disturbing interference of one man's life with another's, which may take such an endless variety of forms. The abuse and fault-finding and frivolousness, the foolish quarrellings, strifes of social ambition, of business rivalry, from these we need a refuge as strong as David needed from his enemies. It is good to see how God comes and offers Himself, just here, to the human soul. "In the secret of My presence I will hide you." 1. Try first to understand how the soul finds refuge in communion with God. Of all the deep phrases in the Bible, where can we find one deeper than this of David, "Thou wilt keep him in the secret of Thy presence"? They mean that when a man is spiritually conscious of the presence of God it secludes and separates him from every other presence. Can we understand that? You go into a room full of people, and the tumult of tongues is all about you. You are bewildered and distracted, in the ordinary language of society, which sometimes hits the truth of its own condition rightly, you "feel lost." You lose yourself in the presence of so many people. You are merely part of the tumult. But by and by you meet your best friend there; somebody whose life is your life; somebody whom you sincerely love and trust; somebody who thoroughly satisfies you, and, by the contact of his nature, makes your taste and brain and heart and conscience work at their very best. As you draw near to him it seems as if you drew away from all the other people. As he takes hold of you, he seems to claim you, and they let you go. The worry and vexation of the Crowd sink away as he begins to talk with you, and you understand one another. By and by you have forgotten that all those other men are talking around you. You have escaped from the strife of tongues. You are absorbed in him. He has hid you in the secret of his presence. And now it is possible, instead of your best friend, for God Himself to be with you, so that His presence is real, so that lie lets you understand His thoughts and lets you know that He understands yours, so that there is a true sympathy between you and Him, if mere vision and hearing. are not necessary go the Divine company, and as close to you — nay, infinitely closer — than the men who crowd you round, and whose voices are in your ears, the unseen God is truly with you, what then? Can any tumult of those men distress you? They parade their foolish vanities before you, and you hardly see them. This gives the very simplest notion of the meaning. Now we suppose that this becomes habitual, the constant temper and condition of a life. We suppose this friendly meeting with one who interests you thoroughly to pass into a friendship, pure, continual, devoted. If not in bodily presence, still in thought and sympathy, our friend is always with us. We always judge ourselves by his standard. We think what he would like or what he would condemn; we appeal even in his absence to his approbation. Is not the protection which we saw given to a man by his friend's company for an hour while they talked together extended now over all his life? 2. A true Christian faith starts with the truth of a personal redemption and leads the man up to personal duties. It takes this poor indistinguishable atom and says to him: "God knows you. To Him you are not only one of the race; He knows you separately; He made you separately, His Son died for you, and there is in you that which, in some way which belongs to you alone, can glorify Him. What are you doing in this feeble, unconscientious life? Have you never heard of such a thing as responsibility? Get up; repent. Come to God. Get the pattern of your life from Him, and then go about your work and be yourself." If the man is really a Christian he hears that summons, and it is the birth of a true personality, of the real sense of himself in him. It is a revelation. 3. As we look over Christ's career, how can we describe its serenity and composure except in these words: "God hid Him in the secret of His presence from the pride of man, and kept Him secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues." How the strife of tongues raged about Him all His life I From the time when Herod and the scribes debated where He was to be born, that they might murder Him, till the day when the people cried, "Crucify Him," and mocked Him as He hung upon the Cross. But, close to His Father always, clear in His own duty always, and always trying to help men so earnestly that He was not capable of being provoked by them, He was completely apart from all the strife. He was hid in the secret of His Father's presence. (Bp. Phillips Brooks.) Parallel Verses KJV: Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence from the pride of man: thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues. |
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