Around me, mine enemies.
After me, goodness and mercy.
Ahead of me, the house of the Lord.
“Blessed is the day,” says an old divine, “when Psalm twenty-three was born!” It has been more used than almost any other passage in the Bible.
v. 1.—A happy life.
v. 4.—A happy death.
v. 6.—A happy eternity.
Take Psalm 102:6-7: “I am like a pelican of the wilderness: I am like an owl of the desert. I watch and am as a sparrow alone upon the housetop.” It seems strange until you reflect that a pelican carries its food with it, that the owl keeps its eyes open at night, and that the sparrow watches alone. So the Christian must carry his food with him—the Bible—and he must keep his eyes open and watch alone.
Turn to Isaiah 32, and mark four things that God promises in verse 2: “And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.” There we have:—
The hiding place from danger.