The Lord is my light and my salvation
AUTHOR: Spurgeon
"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?