Untitled Sermon (64)

Psa 23:4

Psalm 23:4 KJV 1900

4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

As we look at this verse

Please allow us to to look at some words in this verse which are very significant

1. Though:- H3588

כ

kı̂y

kee

This word :- Speaks of Not if you walk but When or since you are walking through

2. Walk H1980

הָלַךְ

hâlak

haw-lak'

kin to H3212; a primitive root; to walk (in a great variety of applications, literally and figuratively): - (all) along, apace, behave (self), come, (on) continually, be conversant, depart, + be eased, enter, exercise (self), + follow, forth, forward, get, go (about, abroad, along, away, forward, on, out, up and down), + greater, grow, be wont to haunt, lead, march, X more and more, move (self), needs, on, pass (away), be at the point, quite, run (along), + send, speedily, spread, still, surely, + tale-bearer, + travel (-ler), walk (abroad, on, to and fro, up and down, to places), wander, wax, [way-] faring man, X be weak, whirl.

3. Through - Not Around , Not out of But Through

A] Beware the valley ill Come

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil;

For You are with me;

Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

a. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death:

This is the first dark note in this beautiful psalm.

Previously David wrote of green pastures and still waters and paths of righteousness.

Yet when following the LORD as shepherd, one may still walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

i. David used this powerful phrase to speak of some kind of dark, fearful experience.

It is an imprecise phrase, yet its poetry makes perfect sense.

• It is a valley, not a mountaintop or broad meadow.

A valley suggests being hedged in and surrounded.

• It is a valley of the shadow of death – not facing the substance of death itself, but the shadow of death, casting its dark, fearful outline across David’s path.

• It is a valley of the shadow of death, facing what seemed to David as the ultimate defeat and evil.

ii. Notably, David recognized that under the shepherd’s leading, he may walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

It isn’t his destination or dwelling place.

Like the Preacher in Ecclesiastes, David might say that all of life is lived under the shadow of death, and it is the conscious presence of the LORD as shepherd that makes it bearable.

iii. This line is especially suggestive when we read this psalm with an eye toward Jesus, the Great Shepherd.

We understand that a shadow is not tangible but is cast by something that is.

One can rightly say that we face only the shadow of death because Jesus took the full reality of death in our place.

b. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death:

This line from the psalm – and the psalm as a whole – has proven itself precious to many a dying saint through the ages.

They have been comforted, strengthened, and warmed by the thought that the LORD would shepherd them through the valley of the shadow of death.

i. Near death, the saint still calmly walks – he does not need to quicken his pace in alarm or panic.

Near death, the saint does not walk in the valley, but through the valley.

ii. “Death in its substance has been removed, and only the shadow of it remains…. Nobody is afraid of a shadow, for a shadow cannot stop a man’s pathway even for a moment.

The shadow of a dog cannot bite; the shadow of a sword cannot kill; the shadow of death cannot destroy us.” (Spurgeon)

iii. “It has an inexpressibly delightful application to the dying; but it is for the living, too….

The words are not in the future tense, and therefore are not reserved for a distant moment.” (Spurgeon)

c. I will fear no evil:

Despite every dark association with the idea of the valley of the shadow of death, David could resolutely say this because he was under the care of the LORD his shepherd,.

Even in a fearful place, the presence of the shepherd banished the fear of evil.

i. We might say that the shepherd’s presence did not eliminate the presence of evil, but certainly the fear of evil.

4.Valleys of the shadow

The royal poet is putting a spiritual meaning into the various experiences of his shepherd’s life; and as he once led his flock to the green pastures and by the still waters, so he ascribes whatever of peaceful happiness, his own life had known, to the kindly guidance of God.

Today let us give David’s metaphor a practical application to our own character and fate.

No man knows what is the real meaning and worth of life till he has consciously passed through the valley of the shadow of death.

All healthy life is at the beginning unconscious. The analogy of the body helps us to understand this.

A happy child lives without at all thinking of life--what it is, when it begins, how it must end. One can conceive of such a life as this prolonged through manhood and old age; but there would be something less than human in its unconsciousness.

And there are lives, far more frequent, which are unconscious in another way, because today they eat and drink, and tomorrow die, and never know that there is anything more in existence than this; which are below the consciousness of sin, and never rise to a knowledge of their own wretchedness.

So much is common to these two kinds of unconsciousness, that they can only be startled out of themselves by a touch of pain.

The consciousness of sin can alone reveal the infiniteness of duty, the pangs of sorrow make plain the depth and compass of life.

But no one of us ever goes down into the valley of the shadow of death of his own accord.

We are willing to live the unconscious life if we can. We know the depths that lie below, but none the less rejoice to skim lightly over the surface.

By and by God comes, and with His own Fatherly hand He leads us into the gloom, and leaves us there awhile alone.

There is not one of us who would not rejoice in life-long exemption from bitter bereavement, who would not, if he could, choose this form of blessing almost before shy other.

And yet it is far better that God’s visitation should come this way than not at all.

If the soul has in it a certain capacity of education into the likeness of God, and can acquire a strength and a sweetness that were not in it at the first;

if, moreover, this growth into a finer force, and symmetry is to be manifested upon a larger than any earthly scale,--then these blows of fate are not mere subtractions from the sum of happiness, and therefore to be wholly deprecated, but stages of discipline, states of training to be accepted, when they come, as part of the tuition of life.

There are troubles and distresses the characteristic of which is to recall us to God from the mere external shows and shadows of life, and so out of seeming darkness to bring us into real light.

But sometimes a darkness falls upon us which will not lift, and whose peculiar horror it is to rob us of the belief that there is any light at all.

It may be the result of misfortune; it may come from reasoning overmuch; it may be the dizziness of the imagination.

Every day men go down into this darkness, not knowing it, and able, almost content, to live in it.

Can anything be so truly pitiable as to be altogether without life’s divinest thirst, as never to know the desire which transcends all others, as to be wholly unconscious of the satisfaction which, once felt, is recognised as including all strength and all happiness?

It would not be good for us never to go down into the valley of the shadow of death until we were called upon to make the inevitable transit from this life to another.

Until we are shaken out of our moral unconsciousness by some great shock and conflict of the spirit we cannot tell what nobleness of strength, what debasement of weakness, lie concealed within us.

Our faith is never firmly rooted in our hearts till we have looked out upon life and faced what it would be without faith.

We never know what God is, and may be, to our spirits till we have gone down with Him into the valley of the shadow, and there in the thick darkness felt the stay of His presence and the comfort of His love. (C. Beard, B. A.)

5. Fearless in dangers

I. That great calamities, and terrible dangers, even the shadows of death may befall the people of God.

For the understanding of this assertion premise these particulars, namely, that there are several shadows of death, or terrible dangers; some are--

1. Natural: as grievous diseases and sicknesses, which do even close up the day of life.

2. Malicious: which arise from Satan and from evil men, his instruments.

3. Spiritual: these dangers of all others are the most sore.

These shadows of death, or great and near dangers, do cause them to shake off their great security.

When a storm ariseth it is time for the mariner to awake and look to his tackling, and when the city is beleaguered it will make every man to stand to his arms.

Standing waters gather mud, and disused weapons rust.

They do demonstrate the solidity and validity of true grace.

They increase the spirit of prayer more.

They do dissolve and loosen the affections more from the world.

Shadows of death make us better to discern the shadows of life, the poor empty vanities of the world, and set the heart more on heavenly purchases.

II. That righteous persons are fearless even under the shadows of death.

And the reasons or causes of this fearlessness of man, or dangers by man, are these--

(1) God hath wrought in them a true fear of Himself; He hath put His fear into their hearts (Jer 32:40).

Now, the true fear of God purgeth or casteth out all vain fear of men.

(2) They know that the originals of fear are not in the creatures.

Men are afraid of men because they take them to be more than men.

(3) They are in covenant with God, and God with them, therefore they fear no evil.

(4) They have much clearness in conscience; and integrity in conscience breeds audacity in conscience.

(5) They have faith in them, and can live by faith. The just shall live by his faith (Heb 2:3).

(6) Lastly, they may be fearless notwithstanding all dangers, forasmuch as those dangers shall never do them hurt, but good.

And who is he that will harm you if ye be followers of that which is good? (1Pe 3:13.)

1 Peter 3:13 KJV 1900

13 And who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?

III. That God is present with His people in all their dangers and troubles, and that presence of His is the ground of their confidence.

(1) That God is present with His in all their dangers.

(2) Divine presence is the ground of Christian confidence.

Some distinguish thus; there is a fourfold presence of God--

(1) One is natural.

And thus is He present with all creatures. Whither shall I flee from Thy presence (Psa 139:7).

Psalm 139:7 KJV 1900

7 Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?

(2) A second is majestical.

And thus is He said to be present in heaven; and we pray to Him as our Father which is in heaven.

(3) A third is His judicial presence.

And thus is He present with ungodly men.

(4) A fourth is His gracious or favourable presence.

Consider the qualities of His presence with you, and it may yield you singular comfort and support.

(1) It is the presence of a loving God.

(2) It is the presence of an Almighty God.

(3) It is the presence of an active God.

At such times you will certainly need the presence of God.

Our affections are apt to be most impatient. Our fears are apt to be most violent.

Our unbeliefs are apt to be most turbulent. Our consciences are apt to be most unquiet.

And Satan is most ready to fish in troubled waters. (O. Sedgwick, B. D.)

6. Light in a darkened way

I. A picture of the way of life darkened.

When this will be we know not.

Bunyan puts it midway, but sometimes it is nearer the beginning than the end.

Childhood knows it not; gladsomeness and enjoyment are his of right.

But later on life darkens.

But come how and when it may, it will come at the right time and in the right way.

If it ever work evil, the fault will be ours.

Sometimes the shadows are those of sorrow.

At others, of doubt.

At yet other times it is the result of some sin.

The sorrow of wasted power, of lost confidence, of violated vows, is a pang which wrings the human heart with an agony it knows not how to bear.

Such experiences are stern and solemn realities.

II. No man need go down the valley alone.

There is light in the darkened way.

“Thou art with me.”

And He is with us to help and protect.

Augustine would leave Carthage to go to Rome.

His pious mother, fearing the snares of Rome for her wayward boy, begged him not to go.

He promised to remain, but in the night stole away.

But there, where his mother feared he would be lost, he was saved.

Years after he wrote thus, “Thou, O God, knowing my mother’s desire, refusedst what she then asked, that Thou mightest give her what she was forever asking.” (George Bainton.)

The valley of the shadow of death

I. The pass and its terrors.

“The valley of the shadow of death.”

Get the idea of a narrow ravine, something like the Gorge of Gondo or some other stern pass upon the higher Alps, where the rocks seem piled to heaven, and the sunlight is seen above as through a narrow rift.

And so troubles are sometimes heaped one upon another, pile on pile, and the road is a dreary defile.

It is exceedingly gloomy.

Some of you don’t know such troubles.

Do not seek to know.

Keep bright while you can.

Sing while you may.

Be larks and mount aloft and sing as you mount.

But some of God’s people are not much in the lark line; they are a great deal more like owls.

But desponding people, if to be blamed, are yet much more to be pitied.

Still, the covenant is never known to Abraham so well as when a horror of great darkness comes over him, and then he sees the shining lamp moving between the pieces of the sacrifice.

And there are parts of our life which are dangerous as well as gloomy.

The Khyber Pass is still terrible in men’s memories, and there are Khybers in most men’s lives.

No doubt the Lord’s ways are ways of pleasantness, but for all that there are enemies on the road to heaven.

And then its solitude.

This is a great trial to some spirits, and mingling in crowds is no relief, for there is no solitude of the spirit so intense as that which is often felt in crowds.

Still, this valley is often traversed.

Many more go by this road than most people dream.

But it is not an unhallowed pathway, for our Lord Jesus Christ has gone along it.

II. The pilgrim and his progress.

1. He is calm in the prospect of his dreary passage.

2. And is steady in his progress.

He walks through, does not run in haste.

3. And he is secure in his expectancy.

There is a bright side to that word “through.”

He expects to come out into a brighter country.

4. And he is free from fear.

I have read of a little lad on board a vessel in great peril.

Everybody was alarmed.

But he kept playing about, amused rather at the tossing of the ship.

When asked what made him so fearless he replied, “My father is the captain. He knows how to manage.”

Let us so believe in God. Yet--

5. He is not at all fanatical.

He gives a good reason for his fearlessness. “Thou art with me!”

III. The soul and its shepherd.

“Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.”

The rod and the staff, the tokens of shepherdry, are the comforts of the saints.

1. The rod is for the numbering of the sheep.

2. For rule.

3. Guidance.

4. Urging onward.

I have had to lay on the rod at times on certain fat sheep not so nimble as they ought to be.

But their wool is so thick that I can scarcely make them feel.

But the Great Shepherd can, and will.

5. For chastisement.

6. For protection. How David defended his sheep.

May God give us all the faith expressed in our text. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The path of life

I. The path of life as shadowed by death.

“The valley of the shadow of death.”

David does not speak of the article of death here as some suppose.

He does not say, though I may walk, or though I should walk, or though I must walk, but though I walk.

He is speaking of his walking it now.

There is a bright sun, it is true, in the sky of life, otherwise there could be no “shadow”: but the figure of death is so colossal that its shadow covers the whole sphere of our existence.

II. The path of life as trod with a fearless soul. “I will fear no evil.”

1. Some tread the valley of life with a stolid indifference. They seem utterly regardless of the dark shadows on the path, and whither the path conducts them. “Like brutes they live.”

2. Some tread the path of life with a giddy frivolity. The everlasting jest and ceaseless round of hilarious excitement indicate that they have never been penetrated with a true idea of life.

3. Some tread the path of life with a slavish dread. They are afraid of their end.

4. Some tread the path of life with moral bravery. Thus did David.

III. The path of life as walked in companionship with God.

1. Thou art with me as the infallible Guide in the ever-thickening gloom.

2. Thou art with me as a safe Protector from every conceivable evil. (Homilist.)

The valley of the shadow of death

Preparation for death is two fold--of state and of susceptibility. We may be prepared in state, as David was when he cried, “Oh, spare me that I may recover strength before I go hence and be no more seen,” but he was not prepared in feeling. But here in our text he is prepared in both ways. “I will fear no evil”; his experience was ripe for death, and he could anticipate the event with confidence. The Psalmist looked upon the Shepherd in this place as the Master of death, and so “feared no evil.”

I. To some the valley of the shadow of death is a place of danger and alarm. That one could say he feared no evil is no proof that there is no evil for others. For the ungodly there is. For--

1. He must feel “the sting of death,” which “is sin.” That removed, death is no more dangerous than a serpent whose sting is withdrawn.

2. Then, too, conscience will be roused, and there will be no means to pacify it. Conscience cannot sleep then, though they have dozed and slumbered undisturbed by the thunders of Sinai, and the noise of death cutting down some old barren fig tree in their neighbourhood.

3. Then, too, Mercy will depart forever. She outstays all others, but now even Mercy says, Good-bye forever. Thou didst never see a morning when I did not meet thee with my arms full of kindnesses toward thee. Thou art now going where I have not been and whither I shall never come--Good-bye! And the hope of man is lost!

3. There also must he meet the wrath of God without a hiding place. It had been declared many times that it was approaching; but there was no way of escape. But now it is too late to turn back. God’s wrath must now be faced. The terrors of God array themselves against the ungodly men.

II. The godly man’s confidence in the face of death. “I will fear,” etc. Yet how terrible the description of death.

1. A valley--a deep and dismal place. Some live their lives in the hilltops of prosperity, others in the vales of adversity and sorrow, but this valley lies lower than these. Yet the godly man fears not.

2. A dark valley--a valley of shadow, “the shadow of death where the light is as darkness.”

3. A dreadful valley--for it belongs to death. This is its home, here its court and throne. Some have fainted at the sight of some of its subjects; what of the King Himself? But here is one going down into its domains. It is probable that he will run silently through, and as swiftly as he possibly can, until he is nearly breathless. No. He intends walking slowly through, as if resolved to view it well, the only time he shall go that way. Probably he intends crossing it in the narrowest place. No. He speaks of walking the whole length of the valley. Is he afraid he may fail and faint half way? No. He confidently trusts that he will reach the farther end.

III. The grounds of his confidence. God’s presence. “Thou art with me.” No one is so timid as a godly man without God. He will go nowhere without Him. But with Him he will go anywhere. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. (David Roberts, D. D.)

The valley of the shadow of death

I. the circumstances in which the believer is placed. “The valley of the shadow of death” has been supposed to describe a gloomy defile in which the traveller sees, as it were, the image of death depicted wherever he turns his eyes. Others, again, and perhaps with greater simplicity of interpretation, have found the idea of dark shadow, impenetrable gloom cast by some overhanging object which shuts out all light. The natural effect of peril is to create alarm; and it is nothing less than a signal triumph over the strongest instincts of the human constitution for a man, when he walks “through the valley of the shadow of death,” to fear no evil. It is, however, a triumph over nature, to which the religion of the Bible frequently calls, and for which she abundantly prepares her followers.

II. The feelings which in these circumstances he is able to entertain. The Psalmist does not say, “I will not fear,” though even had he said so we should have known how to interpret his words with due restrictions; but he says, “I will fear no evil,” that is, I will apprehend no real or ultimate injury. The Psalmist had made too enlarged an observation, he had passed through too varied an experience of life, to suppose that the clouds which lowered upon the scene before him would always pass away innocuous. Exactly so the Christian now has no reason to expect that he will be spared the suffering--and that to the extremity of mortal endurance--of what is painful, and desolating, and agonising; but every Christian may be assured that all these things shall fail to do him real evil. And while this is the feeling which every child of God may be expected to entertain, in every condition in which he can be placed of deadly gloom and peril, so it is peculiarly the sentiment which he is called upon to cherish when treading in particular that dreary path which, to most minds, Is suggested by the appellation, “the valley of the shadow of death.” A sharp thrill of undefined yet overwhelming terror is apt to shoot across his soul that, in the words of the Psalmist, he exclaims, “My heart is sore vexed within me, and the fear of death is fallen upon me.” But it will be but for a moment that the Christian, trusting in his Redeemer, will suffer such gloomy thoughts as these to involve his spirit; presently, as he proceeds deeper and deeper down the perilous descent, you will hear a voice of solemn yet not desponding melody ascending from the shades, “I will trust and not be afraid”; “Yea, though I walk through,” etc.

III. The reasons on which the Psalmist grounds and justifies his persuasion. That, with whatever circumstances of direct and most deadly peril he might be environed, no real evil should befall him.

1. The fact of Jehovah’s friendly presence.

2. The fact of Jehovah’s pastoral care: “Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.” The Scriptural expression, “to be with one,” denotes the special presence of Jehovah with those whom He loves, to guide, to help, to protect, to favour, and to bless them; as when Abimelech, for example, congratulated Abraham on the manifest tokens which his history presented that he was the object of Almighty favour, by saying, “The Lord is with thee in all that thou dost,”--when our Lord, in order to encourage His apostle amidst the arduous toils and trials that awaited him at Corinth, spake to him in vision,--“Fear not, for I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee.” (T. B. Patterson, M. A.)

A funeral sermon

Death is what human nature is prone to dread. Most men shrink, as long as they are able, from the entrance into “the valley of the shadow” of it. Let us consider what are the evils to he encountered in passing through “the valley of the shadow of death.”

I. In the first place, the pains of death must be encountered by us; and these fill many minds with dismay. God has been pleased, notwithstanding the redemption of our race from utter destruction, to leave in the world demonstrations of their fall, and amongst these are the anguish and manifold distresses which accompany our mortality.

II. The valley of death is rendered terrible to man, because it interrupts and terminates all his earthly pursuits and expectations.

III. The separation from the objects who were endeared to us, and the scenes and pleasures which delighted us in the present world. But how happy those who in this solemn hour can entrust not only themselves, but all whom they love, to the tender and faithful protection of God.

IV. Another thing which renders death terrible to many is the darkness with which it is encompassed. Shadows, clouds, and gloom rest upon it. To the infidel it is dismally obscure. Bones and ashes are all he can discover. Conscience fills it with ghosts and spectres and images of terror. They shudder as they enter. They cry aloud for light.

V. But the greatest of all the causes of anxiety and fear which the children of men encounter at the approach of death is the apprehension of the judgment which will ensue. (Bishop Dehon.)

Through the dark valley

Observe that dark valley attentively. Consider what it is; whither it leads; what its shadow means; what are its evils; what its security in the midst of those evils. You are daily approaching it.

I. A gloomy shadow.

II. A fearless traveller.

III. A present God. (R. Halley, M. A.)

The valley of the shadow

We are debtors, every one of us, to that old poet, whoever he was, who, in ransacking a teeming brain--teeming with images of idyllic peace and happiness, and also with images, of nameless dread and gloom--lighted upon the “valley of the shadow of death,” as Bunyan afterwards lighted upon a “place where was a den,” and gave to all that in human experience which before death is worse than death itself, a local habitation and a name. Different forms of the religious sentiment have their different values in regard to the dismal experience thus happily named. None of them has actually the value assigned to it. Religion, natural temperament, courage, cheeriness, all mingle in the confidence of him who here says “I will fear no evil.” For aught we know, there may have been as much of the one as of the other. Natural temper and disposition count for much, usually for more than anything else, in the most trying moments of human life. Then, the natural man is apt to part company with his costume of habits and customs, and to show himself as he was born, the bravest of the brave or the weakest of the weak. It is not the most pious man in the regiment, I suppose, who is always the coolest in the forlorn hope. Some men, like John Wesley, are brave on land who are great cowards at sea; others, like some of Elizabeth’s buccaneers, are timid in regard to the least adversity occurring in a hospital, but undaunted in regard to it if it threatens in a gale. Not according to differences of religious belief, but according to idiosyncrasies of disposition or accidental habits of mind, the valley of the shadow of death varies its character. As regards the last fact of all, which makes all human life a tragedy, we who look forward to it with a shudder cannot help envying the coolies of St. Helena and elsewhere, who lie down to die as peaceably as if it were to sleep; or the Turkish soldiers at Plevna, who preserved such coolness in presence of the horrors there. You can scarcely call their fatalism religious sentiment, yet it did that for them. Some surgeons say that there are people without nerves. What is a terrible ordeal to some in the way of pain, to others is a mere trifle. Now, though religious people will hardly allow, it, it is a fact that natural temperament has far more to do with heroism in its most striking forms than religion has. But religion has to do with it, and different forms of the religious sentiment have, therefore, different values in this respect. That it is glorious to die for one’s country was an idea with which the whole Greek and Roman life was saturated in a way unknown to the Hebrew race. That sentiment produced its natural effect in Plutarch’s Lives, the reading of which is like reading the Charge of the Light Brigade. But it is when you come down to Christian times that you have the religious sentiment, the rise of which takes you back to this Psalm and earlier, and we find it so pervading the lives of multitudes of common men and women that they are found to be instinct with a courage and patience which can hardly be matched in Plutarch. It is a heroism, not of the general and his staff, but of plain people. And we have it here in this Psalm. The trust in the Divine Shepherd is an antidote to all alarm. What that sentiment has done to lighten, for countless multitudes of human beings, all adversity, and the last adversity of all, to make the unendurable tolerable or even welcome, may be partly imagined but cannot certainly be told. It is still what it has been--to multitudes it is still what nothing else is or could be in the way of solving the enigmas of life and making the heavy and the weary weight of it intelligible and supportable. (J. Service, D. D.)

Deep shades

The image of David’s Heat distress, “the valley,” or ravine, “of the shadow of death,” or, as it may be translated, “of deep shades,” can, without any fancifulness, be connected with the scenery through which he passed in his flight. He must, after crossing Olivet, have descended to the fords of the Jordan by one of the rocky passes which lead from the tableland of Jerusalem. These deep ravines are full of ghastly shadows, and David passed down one of them as the evening had begun to fall, and waited by the ford of Jordan till midnight. It is not improbable that we have here the source of the image in this verse. Such a march must have impressed itself strongly on his imagination. The weird and fierce character of the desolate ravine, the long and deathly shadows which chilled him as the sun sank, the fierce curses of Shimei, the fear behind him, the agony in his own heart repeating the impression of the landscape, fastened the image of it in his memory forever. He has thrown it into poetry in this verse. For now, when be mused upon his trial, he transferred to the present feelings of his heart at Mahanaim the agony of that terrible day, but added to it the declaration of the faith in God which his deliverance had mane strong within him. And his words have become since then the expression of the feelings of all men in the intensity of trial. Not merely in the last Heat death trial, for God knows that there are valleys of the shadow of death in life itself which are worse than death a thousand times. Thousands welcome death as the reliever, the friend,--they who have seen every costly argosy of hope sink like lead in the waters of the past, and whose future stretches before them a barren plain of dreary sea on which a fiery sun is burning; and they who look back on a past of unutterable folly and darker sin, and who know that never, never more “the freshness of youth’s early inspiration can return.” The innocent morning is gone, and they hide their heads now from the fiery simoom of remorse in the desert of their guilty life. It is the conscience’s valley of the shadow of death. There are times, too, even in youth, when, by a single blow, all the odour and colour have been taken out of living, when the treachery of lover or friend has made us say, as we were tortured and wrung with the bitterest of bitterness, that all is evil and not good. It is the heart’s valley of the shadow of death. And there are times in the truest Christian life when all faith is blotted out, and God becomes to us a phantom, a fate, impersonal, careless, and we cry out that we have no Father in Heaven; and of our prayer, too, it may be said though we have prayed, oh how fervently, “He answered never a word.” It is the spirit’s valley of the shadow of death. Now, what was David’s refuge in one of these awful hours? It was faith in God, the Ever-Near. David had entered the valley of the shadow of death of the heart; he had been betrayed, insulted, exiled by the one whom he had loved best. It was enough to make him disbelieve in Divine goodness and human tenderness, enough to harden his heart into steel against God, into cruelty against man. In noble faith he escaped from that ruin of the soul, and threw himself upon God--“I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.” The next verse, supposing the Psalm to have been written at Mahanaim, is at once comprehensible. For far away in the Eastern city there came consolation to David, through the visit and help of Barzillai, who brought him food. “Thou preparest a table for me,” etc. One of the sad comforts of trial is this, that it is the touchstone of friendship. We realise then who are true gold. We often lose in trial what is calculable; we oftener gain what is incalculable. Precisely the same principle holds good in the spiritual world. The blessing of all trial is that it disperses the vain shows of life on which we rested, and makes Christ, the eternal Certainty, more deeply known. But how? How do we know another? Only by entering into his spirit, by sharing in his life. There is a broad distinction between an acquaintance and a friend. We may see an acquaintance every day, but we never see his heart. We hover with him over the surfaces of things, touching, it may be, now and then the real inward life as a swallow touches a stream in its flight, but we never dwell with him within the temple of inward thought or enter with him into the inner shrine of feeling. A friend--how different! one to whom your heart has opened itself freely, to receive from whom is pleasure, for whom to sacrifice yourself is joy. So we become at home in his nature, and so is it with Christ and the Christian man. If you would be the friend of Christ you must partake of His life--the life of self-sacrifice. (A. S. Brooke. M. A.)

The shadow of death

This valley, in Bunyan’s dream, lies about midway in the journey of life. This is one of those revelations of the soul’s experience which makes Bunyan’s book a mirror. If this valley lay right across our path at the outset it would wither our life at the spring. While if it came too near the end it would be too late to bless our souls. No, not near the beginning is that valley. I have often seen a little child sit beside the coffin that held its mother, with as fair a light on its face as I hope to see in heaven. And I have said, there is no valley and shadow of death for these little ones. Nor, either, for those who are still young. Sorrow comes, but they recover. They soon resume the natural habit of their life if you let them alone. They break out into the warm bright world again, like a Norway spring, and it is by the tender mercy of God that they do so. And in old age that valley and shadow lie behind us. When a great English painter in water colours was past work, and was waiting for his summons to depart,--for he was ninety-one,--he told his servant to bring in his masterpiece, that he might see it once more before he died. It was a picture of a shipwreck. He looked at it a good while and then said, “Bring me my pencils and lift me up; I must brighten that black cloud. It used to seem just right, but I see now it is too dark, and I must brighten it before I go.” And when it was done he died. Now, I doubt not that when he painted that picture the cloud was not one shade blacker than be felt it ought to be; because true painters always dip their pencils first in the water of their own lives, and press the pigments out of their hearts and brains. But the way from middle age to ninety-one had lain upward into the light, the sweet, calm sunset of his life. And so it is with every healthful old age. Travelling into these high latitudes we touch at last a polar summer, where the morning twilight of the new day comes out of heaven to blend with the evening twilight of the old. The fear of what death may do, and the awful sense of what death can do, falls on us most heavily, through the prime of our life, when all our powers are sturdiest. It is in mid-ocean that the storms come. And this experience is universal. I notice it in all the saints whose lives are revealed to us in the Bible. And Christ Himself passed through it. Bunyan makes all his pilgrims who come to any good go down into it. But with a wonderfully sweet pathos, he makes it easier for the lame man who is getting on in years, and for the maiden, and for the mother with her children, than he will ever allow it to be for stout stalwart souls like his own. If a man should come to me and say, “I have never been down there, I know nothing about it,” then his future is a sorry one. It is because we bare a soul and a future that we have to go through all this. But for this man would be mere vanity and hollowness. And there is a great growth of goodness down in that valley. Do not go alone, then. Have God with you as David did. Muster all the promises you can hold in your heart. I would try to trace the beatitudes even in the flames of hell. And look on to the dawn of the new day. (R. Collyer.)

The valley of the shadow of death

This hymn is the pilgrim’s song of the soul on its way to eternity. The Psalm is beautiful and impressive, if we take the central death as its keynote. Then all that goes before is the preparation for that dark crisis which is the turning point of endless joy. The valley rules the whole; what precedes is its anticipation, and itself is the anticipation of heaven.

1. Mark with what exquisite simplicity the anticipation of the valley is introduced. The idea of death is inwrought into the habitual thought of the godly man. There is a sense in which life is a continual alternation of light and shade, of open pastures and shaded valleys. The whole of our probation may be said to be spent under the shadow of the great death that sin hath begotten, of the terrible cloud that has come between us and God. True religion is a constant and distinct realisation of the fact that we live to die, and must so live as not to be taken by surprise. This will give to life a certain solemnity and pathos which nothing else will give. It is, nevertheless, certain that the expectation of the valley cannot really distress the religious soul. It is very different from that horror which the ungodly and the unsanctified feel. There are, indeed, some who are all their lifetime in bondage, though true Christians, through want of trust in the resources of the Gospel. Many reasons conspire to this palsy of their faith. They love the world too much, they do not drink deeply enough of the river of life, they do not meditate as they ought on eternal things, and thus they cannot join the chorus of our hymn. But the anticipation that makes this Psalm so glad is better taught. The Christian singer is one who lives under the powers of the world to come; and those powers are to him the working forces of the present state. He lives in a supernatural world, and regards everything in its relation to that world. The thought of the valley becomes the familiar and cheerful habit of the soul. It does not diminish the energy of life nor blunt the appetite for such pleasures as God does not interdict.

2. The singer sings his way into the valley that he had predicted for himself. The language of his poetry blends the future and the present, “I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.” The pilgrim is guided into the valley by the Good Shepherd Himself. Here is the secret link between death and preparation for death. The blessedness of all our religion, whether in life or death, is union with Jesus. Our preparation to die well is the habitual communion of our soul with God. Jesus went that way of sorrows before us. We may be sure that the Saviour is most intimately with and in His dying servant. His rod is the symbol of His authority in the domain of death: it is His alone. The staff is the symbol of the strength He gives the dying saints. The pastor’s crook, the shepherd’s rod, is no other than the Redeemer’s mediatorial sceptre swayed over one special region of His vast empire, that which is under the shadow of death. We may interpret the staff as that special support which the Redeemer affords to every dying saint when his heart and flesh would otherwise fail. (Mr. B. Pope.)