The Christian Praying to be Upheld
C. Bradley, M. A. Psalm 17:5 Hold up my goings in your paths, that my footsteps slip not. We cannot ascertain at what period of his life David wrote this prayer. It was probably before his lamentable fall If so, we are ready to say he must have forgotten it after he had written it, for otherwise his fall could not have happened. But let us make this prayer our own. I. TRUE RELIGION IS A WALKING OR GOING ON IS GOD'S PATHS. Think of a country with many tracks in. it perhaps, but without any marked roads or paths; a country like one immense down or waste, where in the main men go hither and thither just as they will. Now this is how most men regard the world and their own condition in it. But God appears and marks out certain ways or paths in this world, and bids us inquire for them and keep to them. And this is true religion — obedience to this Divine call. It is a ceasing to live at random, to live as God dictates. II. THE PRAYER WE HAVE TO CONSIDER. It Implies — 1. A lively apprehension of the evil consequences of falling. An ordinary man does not care, he knows nothing of the malignity of sin. If for a moment sin has disturbed him by reason of some unusual transgression, the effect has been very shallow, very transient. Not so is it with the traveller in God's ways. He knows how evil and bitter a thing sin is. 2. A consciousness of his proneness to fall. Liability is not a word strong enough. All, even the holiest creatures, are liable to fall — witness Adam and the once holy angels — and even in the holiest places. But in us there is a direct tendency to fall. 3. A belief in the ability and willingness of God to thus hold us up. "Thou wilt hear me, O God," so he says in the next verse. There is such a thing as dwelling, if not too frequently, yet too exclusively on our weakness and danger. This is better than ignorance of them, and much better than knowing them, to be careless about them; but it comes far short of the perfection or completeness of true religion. That sees not alone the evil in us, but also the fulness of help for us which there is in God. Let us think much of the helping hand of God. III. THE MANNER IN WHICH WE MAY EXPECT SUCH A PRAYER AS THIS TO BE ANSWERED. 1. By mercifully removing occasions of falling out of our way. 2. By calling the sustaining graces of His servants into exercise. This a more honourable way for us. 3. By sending such afflictions as are calculated to keep them from falling. 4. By keeping alive a spirit of prayer within us for His upholding. As long as God keeps you prayerful, humbly and earnestly prayerful, be the ground what it may that you go over, you are safe. (C. Bradley, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Hold up my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip not. WEB: My steps have held fast to your paths. My feet have not slipped.