Spurgeon: June PM
* 06/16/PM
"The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the
Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?"
--Psalm 27:1
" The Lord is my light and my salvation ." Here is personal
interest, " my light ," " my salvation "; the soul is assured of
it, and therefore declares it boldly. Into the soul at the new
birth divine light is poured as the precursor of salvation;
where there is not enough light to reveal our own darkness and
to make us long for the Lord Jesus, there is no evidence of
salvation. After conversion our God is our joy, comfort, guide,
teacher, and in every sense our light: He is light within, light
around, light reflected from us, and light to be revealed to us.
Note, it is not said merely that the Lord gives light, but that
He is light; nor that He gives salvation, but that He is
salvation; he, then, who by faith has laid hold upon God, has
all covenant blessings in his possession. This being made sure
as a fact, the argument drawn from it is put in the form of a
question, " Whom shall I fear ?" A question which is its own
answer. The powers of darkness are not to be feared, for the
Lord, our light, destroys them; and the damnation of hell is not
to be dreaded by us, for the Lord is our salvation. This is a
very different challenge from that of boastful Goliath, for it
rests, not upon the conceited vigour of an arm of flesh, but
upon the real power of the omnipotent I AM. " The Lord is the
strength of my life ." Here is a third glowing epithet, to show
that the writer's hope was fastened with a threefold cord which
could not be broken. We may well accumulate terms of praise
where the Lord lavishes deeds of grace. Our life derives all its
strength from God; and if He deigns to make us strong, we cannot
be weakened by all the machinations of the adversary. " Of whom
shall I be afraid ?" The bold question looks into the future as
well as the present. "If God be for us," who can be against us,
either now or in time to come?