resence of God kept
him; it kept him from sin, "I have kept myself from mine iniquity." How
so? Why, "I was upright before Him," in the former part of the same
verse. So long as he walked before God, in God's presence; so long he
walked upright, and kept himself from his iniquity; or rather God's
presence kept him: and, as it kept him from sin, so it kept him from
fear also; "tho' I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I
will not fear." Mark what he saith, though he walk, not step; and walk
through, not step across; and through, not a dark entry, or a churchyard
in the night-time, but a valley, a large, long, vast place; how many
miles long I know not; and this not a valley of darkness only, but of
death, where he should see nothing but visions of death, and not bare
death, but the shadow of death: the shadow is the dark part of the
thing; so that the shadow of death, is the darkest side of death; death
in its most hideous and horrid representations; and yet behold, when he
comes out at the farther end, and a man would have thought to have found
him all in a cold sweat, his hair standing upright, his eyes set in his
head, and the man beside himself. Behold, I say, he doth not so much as
change colour, his hand shakes not, his heart fails not; as he went in,
he comes out; and though he should go back again the same way, he tells
you, "I will not fear." How comes this to pass? How comes the man to be
so undaunted? Why, he will tell you in the very same verse, speaking to
God, "For Thou art with me." God's presence kept him from fear, in the
midst of death and horror. Thus it was, I say, with David, while he
could keep God in his presence, he was immoveable, impregnable; you
might as soon have stirred a rock, as stirred him, "I shall not be
moved." Indeed, so long as he was upon the rock, he was as immoveable as
the rock itself; but alas! sometime he lost the sight of his God, and
then he was like other men; "Thou didst hide Thy face from me, and I was
troubled." When God hid His face from him, or he hid his eyes from God;
then how easily is he moved? Fear breaks in, "I shall one day fall by
the hand of Saul." Sin breaks in, yea, one sin upon the heels of
another; the adulterous act, upon the adulterous look, and murder upon
adultery, as you know in that sad business of Uriah the Hittite; once
off from his Rock, and he is as weak as dust, not able to stand before
the least temptation of sin or fear; and therefore