VII.

DELIVERANCE WITH HONOUR


He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble:
I will deliver him, and honour him.
With long life will I satisfy him,
And show him My salvation.

Ps. xci. 15, 16.

_He shall call upon Me._ He shall need Me. He shall not be able to live
without Me. As the years pass over his head he shall learn that there is
one need woven into human life larger and deeper and more abiding than any
other need--and that need is God. Thus doth divinity prophesy concerning
humanity. Thus doth infinite foresight predict a man's need.

We peer in our purblind fashion into the future and try to anticipate our
needs. We fence ourselves in with all sorts of fancied securities, and then
we comfort ourselves with the shrewdness and completeness of our
forecasting and provision-making. And sometimes it is just folly with a
grave face. 'He shall call upon Me.' A man has learned nothing until he has
learned that he needs God. And we take a long time over that lesson. It has
sometimes to be beaten into us--written in conscience and heart by the
finger of pain. How the little storehouse of life has to be almost stripped
of its treasures, how our faith in the things of the hour has to be played