June 20
Charles Spurgeon · Faith's Checkbook
THE LORD OUR COMPANION
"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will
fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort
me" Ps. 23:4
Sweet are these words in describing a deathbed assurance. How many have
repeated them in their last hours with intense delight!
But the verse is equally applicable to agonies of spirit in the midst
of life. Some of us, like Paul, die daily through a tendency to gloom
of soul. Bunyan puts the Valley of the Shadow of Death far earlier in
the pilgrimage than the river which rolls at the foot of the celestial
hills. We have some of us traversed the dark and dreadful defile of
"the shadow of death" several times, and we can bear witness that the
Lord alone enabled us to bear up amid its wild thought, its mysterious
horrors, its terrible depressions. The Lord has sustained us, and kept
us above all real fear of evil, even when our spirit has been
overwhelmed. We have been pressed and oppressed, but yet we have lived,
for we have felt the presence of the Great Shepherd, and have been
confident that His crook would prevent the foe from giving us any
deadly wound.
Should the present time be one darkened by the raven wings of a great
sorrow, let us glorify God by a peaceful trust in Him.