The Location of the Psalm
Have you ever noticed just where this Psalm is located? It lies between the Twenty-second and the Twenty-fourth Psalms. A very simple statement that—but how deep and wondrous a lesson lies hidden therein!
The Twenty-second Psalm. What is it? It is "The Psalm of the Cross." It begins with the words uttered by Christ on the cross: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" It ends with the exclamation of the cross: "He hath done it," or, as it may be translated, "It is finished." The Twenty-second Psalm, then, is the Psalm of Mount Calvary—The Psalm of the Cross.
What is the Twenty-fourth Psalm? It is the Psalm of Mount Zion—a picture of the King entering into His own. How beautifully it reads: "Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory." The Twenty-fourth Psalm, then, is the Psalm of the coming Kingdom of Glory.
There you have the two mountains; Mount Calvary and Mount Zion. What is it that lies between two mountains? A valley with its green grass, its quiet waters, its springing flowers, with shepherd and grazing sheep. Here, then, is the lesson we learn from the location of the Psalm: it is given to comfort, help, inspire and encourage God's people during this probationary period of our life, between the Cross and the Crown.
Is not this the reason why the tenses of this Psalm are present tenses? "The Lord is my shepherd"; "He maketh me to lie down"; "He leadeth me." Even the last verse, "I will (not I shall) dwell in the house of the Lord for ever," describes the present attitude of the soul of the Psalmist, who determines by no means to miss participation in the fellowship of the saints in heaven.
We love the Christ of the Cross. We may not yet fully understand that cross; may not yet have found any particular theory of the atonement which completely satisfies our intellect. But we have learned to say that we believe in the atonement and in the vicarious death of our Redeemer. Somehow or other we have come, by faith, to throw our trembling arms around that bleeding body and cry out in the desperate determination of our sin-stricken souls to Him who hangs on that cross to save us by His death. We have come to express our faith in that divine sacrifice in the words of the hymn:
Other refuge have I none,
Hangs my helpless soul on Thee.
Let us never forget that we reach the Twenty-third Psalm by the way of the Twenty-second Psalm—the Psalm of the Cross. "The way of the cross leads home." We love the Christ of the Twenty-second Psalm, the Christ of Calvary, the Christ of the Cross.
We also love the Christ of the Throne and the Glory. It may be, that, at times, we have trembled and feared as we have thought of the coming judgment, but when we have remembered that He who sits upon the throne is our Elder Brother, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh; that He left His throne in the glory and took on Him the form of a servant, dying the ignominious death of the cross that He might redeem us and save us from the just wrath of God against sin; that some day, He who loved us and gave Himself for us, will say: "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world," then we take courage and look forward with joy to the time when, having washed the last sleep from our eyes in the river of Life, we shall gaze with undimmed vision upon Him, whom having not seen, we have yet loved.