Psalm 121:3

Verse 3,4. -- A poor woman, as the Eastern story has it, came to the Sultan one day, and asked compensation for the loss of some property. "How did you lose it?" said the monarch. "I fell asleep", was the reply, "and a robber entered my dwelling". "Why did you fall asleep?" "I fell asleep because I believed that you were awake". The Sultan was so much delighted with the answer of the woman, that he ordered her loss to be made up. But what is true, only by a legal fiction, of human governments, that they never sleep is true in the most absolute sense with reference to the divine government. We can sleep in safety because our God is ever awake. We are safe because he never slumbers. Jacob had a beautiful picture of the ceaseless care of Divine Providence on the night when he fled from his father's house. The lonely traveller slept on the ground, with the stones for his pillow, and the sky for his canopy. He had a wondrous vision of a ladder stretching from earth to heaven, and on which angels were seen ascending and descending. And he heard Jehovah saying to him, "Behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest." --N. McMichael.

HINTS FOR PASTORS AND LAYPERSONS

Verse 3. (First clause). -- The preservation of saintly character the care of the Creator.

Verse 3. -- Comfort for a pilgrim along the 'mauvais pas' of life. We have a Guide omniscient, omnipotent, never slumbering, unchanging.

Verse 3. -- He that keepeth thee will not slumber.

(b) It is involved in the nature of our religion, which is a personal thing.

(c) It is affirmed in Scripture. Examples; promises; experiences. "He loved me," etc., etc.

(d) It is confirmed by experience.

(b) He is never indifferent to it.

(c) He is never weary of helping us. We sometimes think he sleeps, but this is our folly.

--Frederick J. Benskin, of Reading, 1882.