Now, I need not remind you, I suppose, that all this is just as true
about us as it was about David, and that the emotion or the act of his
will and heart which he expresses in these words of my text is neither
more nor less than the Christian act of faith. There is no difference
except a difference of development; there is no difference between the
road to God marked out in the Psalms, and the road to God laid down in
the Gospels. The Psalmist who said, 'Trust ye in the Lord for ever,' and
the Apostle who said, 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt
be saved,' were preaching identically the same doctrine. One of them
could speak more fully than the other could of the Person on whom trust
was to be rested, but the trust itself was the same, and the Person on
whom it rested was the same, though His Name of old was Jehovah, and His
Name to-day is 'Immanuel, God with us.'

Nor need I do more than point out how the context of the words that I
have ventured to detach from their surroundings is instructive: 'Let all
those that put their trust in Thee rejoice because Thou defendest them.'
The word for defending there continues the metaphor that lies in the
word for 'trust,' for it means literally to cover over and so to
protect. Thus, when a man runs to God for His refuge, God

'Covers his defenceless head
With the shadow of His wings.'

And the joy of trust is, first, that it brings round me the whole
omnipotence of God for my defence, and the whole tenderness of God for
my consolation, and next, that in the very exercise of trust in such
defence, so fortified and vindicated by experience, there is great
reward. All who thus flee into the refuge shall find refuge whither they
flee, and shall be glad.