If we are in Christ Jesus, we may be as sure of the future as of the past. We may be perfectly certain of the truth of the words of the Good Shepherd, “They shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.” [94b] That promise is so sure that it can never fail, that hand so strong that all the powers of hell cannot pluck the weakest little one from its grasp, that heart so true that we may be perfectly certain He will never abandon one whom He has called by the Holy Ghost into fellowship with Himself.
II. The Determination.
“I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.” David delighted in the house of God; and clearly we must explain these words as referring to the holy worship of the sanctuary. But in order to enter into the full spirit of the passage, we must rise from the Church on earth to the sanctuary in heaven; to the heavenly home and the presence chamber of God. There, indeed, is the table spread, there is the anointing oil, there the cup runneth over; and now, through the rest of our pilgrimage, though the journey may possibly be through the Vale of Baca, [95a] though sometimes the soul may be bowed down, and that even when the heart is fixed, yet in the midst of it all, and through it all, we may live in a close intimacy with Him. We may quietly rest in His love, we may dwell in Him and He in us; and while He gives the gracious promise, “Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out,” [95b] we may resolve, God helping us, that we will never go out, and that, to the last day of our lives, we will hold fast by Him, till at length the veil shall be withdrawn, and the heavenly home open before us, and we realize what it is, in the highest possible sense, “to dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.”
THE END
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
LONDON AND BECCLES.
FOOTNOTES
[5] 2 Sam. xii. 13.
[6] Psa. li. 13.
[7] Psa. cxlviii. 14.
[8a] Exod. xv. 1.