grain.

II. So, secondly, note the help sought.

The Psalmist is like a man standing on the edge of some precipice, and
peeping over the brink to the profound beneath, and feeling his head
beginning to swim. He clutches at the strong, steady hand of his guide,
knowing that unless he is restrained, over he will go. 'Keep Thou back
Thy servant from presumptuous sins.'

So, then, the first lesson we have to take is, to cherish a lowly
consciousness of our own tendency to light-headedness and giddiness.
'Blessed is the man that feareth always.' That fear has nothing cowardly
about it. It will not abate in the least the buoyancy and bravery of our
work. It will not tend to make us shirk duty because there is temptation
in it, but it will make us go into all circumstances realising that
without that divine help we cannot stand, and that with it we cannot
fall. 'Hold Thou me up, and I shall be safe.' The same Peter that said,
'Though all should forsake Thee, yet will not I,' was wiser and braver
when he said, in later days, being taught by former presumption, 'Pass
the time of your sojourning here in fear.'

Let me remind you, too, that the temper which we ought to cherish is
that of a confident belief in the reality of a divine support. The
prayer of my text has no meaning at all, unless the actual supernatural
communication by God's own Holy Spirit breathed into men's hearts be a
simple truth. 'Hold Thou me up,' 'Keep Thou me back,' means, if it means
anything, 'Give me in my heart a mightier strength than mine own, which
shall curb all this evil nature of mine, and bring it into conformity
with Thy holy will.'