of His patient love, that on you may fall in that day of the coming of
the King, the blessing of the servants who wait for their returning
Lord, that 'when He cometh and knocketh, they may open unto Him
immediately.'




GUIDANCE IN JUDGMENT


'Good and upright is the Lord; therefore will He teach sinners in
the way. 9. The meek will He guide in judgment; and the meek will He
teach His way.'--PSALM xxv. 8, 9.

The Psalmist prays in this psalm for three things: deliverance,
guidance, and forgiveness. Of these three petitions the central one is
that for guidance. 'Show me Thy ways, O Lord,' he asks in a previous
verse; where he means by 'Thy ways,' not God's dealings with men, but
men's conduct as prescribed by God. In my text he exchanges petition for
contemplation; and gazes on the character of God, in order thereby to be
helped to confidence in an answer to his prayer. Such alternations of
petition and contemplation are the very heartbeats of devotion, now
expanding in desire, now closing on its treasure in fruition. Either
attitude is incomplete without the other. Do _our_ prayers pass into
such still contemplation of the face of God? Do _our_ thoughts of His
character break into such confident petition? My text contains a
striking view of the divine character, a grand confidence built
thereupon, and a condition appended on which the fulfilment of that
confidence depends. Let us look at these in turn.