Psalm 84:11 For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.… I. BLESSINGS IN THEIR FULNESS. "The Lord God is a sun." 1. Then, if God is mine, I have not only light, but I have the source of light. 2. God is a sun: that is infinity of blessing. There is no measuring it. 3. It is an immutability of blessedness (James 1:17). 4. There must be added concerning God as a sun — that He is for ever communicating His light and heat and excellence to all who are about Him. I cannot conceive the sun shut up within himself. An unshining sun is a sun unsunned; and a God that is not good and pouring forth His goodness has laid aside His deity. It is contrary to the very notion and idea of an infinitely good God for Him to restrain His goodness, and keep it back from His people. II. BLESSINGS IN THEIR COUNTERPOISE. One blessing alone might scarcely be a blessing; for in being too great a blessing it might crush us. We may have too much of a good thing. We want some other boon to balance the single benediction. So notice here, "The Lord God is a sun and shield." "Sun and shield" hang before my eyes like two golden scales. Each one adds value to the other. When God is a sun to His people it may be He warms them into temporal prosperity with His bright beams, so that their goods increase, their body is in health, their trade succeeds, and their children are spared to them: they are grateful to God, and joyful because of the blessings which He has bestowed upon them. When everything is bright with us the Lord knows how to sober His children's spirits so that they use, but do not abuse, the things of this life. Even when they most abound with worldly joys He makes His people feel that these are not their heart joy. He shades us from the noxious effects of wealth and content. He suffers not the sun to smite us by day. Is not this a gracious style of counterpoise? It is also a great mercy that when God gives His people great spiritual joys He usually gives them a humbling sense of themselves at the same time. Its gives them grace so that they can be full of assurance, and yet full of holy fear; always rejoicing and yet never presuming; lifted up, and yet lying low before the Lord. III. BLESSINGS IN THEIR ORDER. The Lord is to us first a sun and then a shield. Remember how David puts it elsewhere: — "The Lord is my light and my salvation." Light first, salvation next. He does not save us in the dark, neither does He shield us in the dark. He gives enough sunlight to let us see the danger that we may appreciate the defence. We are not to shut our eyes and so find safety, but we are to see the evil and hide ourselves. Ought we not to be very grateful to God that He so orders our affairs? Ours is not a blind faith, receiving an unknown salvation from evils which are unperceived; this would be a poor form of life at best. No, the favour received is valued because its necessity is perceived. The heavenly sun lights up our souls and makes us see our ruin, and lie down in the dust of self-despair; and then it is that grace brings forth the shield which covers us, so that we are no more afraid, but rejoice in the glorious Lord as the God of our salvation. Then notice the order of the next two things — grace and glory: not glory first: that could not be. We are not fit for it. Grace must first blot out. sin and change the nature. We could not enter glory or enjoy it by any possibility while we are sinful at heart. Grace must renew us or glory cannot receive us. IV. BLESSINGS IN PREPARATION AND BLESSINGS IN MATURITY. "The Lord will give grace and glory." Grace is glory in the bud; you shall see the rod of Aaron full of blooming graces; but this is not all — glory is grace in ripe fruit: the rod shall bear ripe almonds. The Lord will give you both the dawn and the noon, the Alpha and the Omega, grace and glory. What is glory? He that has been in heaven five minutes can tell you better than the sagest divine that lives; and yet he could not tell you. Nay, the angels could not tell you, you could not understand them. What is glory? You must enjoy it to know it. Glory is not merely rest, happiness, wealth, safety; it is honour, victory, immortality, triumph. V. BLESSINGS IN THEIR UNIVERSALITY. "No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly." Is there some good thing which does not come to us by the Lord's being our sun? We shall not lose on that account. Is there another good thing which cannot be included in God's being our shield? We shall not be deprived of that. Is there some good thing that cannot be comprehended in grace? I cannot imagine what it can be, but if there be such a thing we shall not miss even that. Is there some good thing that is not comprehended even in glory? Well, it does not matter, we shall have it; for here stands the boundless promise — "No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly." ( C. H. Spurgeon.) Parallel Verses KJV: For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. |
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