But one word more about Ruth, for if we really desire thus to be made nigh, her words to Naomi may serve to illustrate the spirit in which we must come to the Lord Jesus. If we were to call this a type such an application of them would lead to nothing but confusion. But looking at it simply as a piece of history they may suggest a most important illustration. She said to Naomi, ‘Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.’ If you desire to be made to sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus kneel down, and from the bottom of your heart say the same to Him. You may be still far away from God, a stranger in a strange land. But there is He, having come amongst us to fetch you home, to seek you, to save you, to raise you to Himself. Let there be then the loving surrender of your whole soul into His hand; and let the prayer of your inmost heart be, ‘Whither thou goest, I will go; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.’ VI. THE SPIRIT. ‘Into thine hand I commit my spirit; thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth.’—Ps. xxxi. 5. IT is a very happy thing for the Church of God that David’s life was chequered by trials, and his character by no means free from fault. If he had never been in difficulty, we should never have been taught how difficulty drove him to his God; and if he had been a man without sin, we should not have had from him any lessons on repentance as we now have in his penitential psalms. To his difficulties we are indebted for the 31st psalm, and to his sins for the 51st. For this 31st psalm, ‘Trust in difficulty’ would be a suitable heading. It opens with the words, ‘In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust;’ and after referring to many sources of anxiety, it concludes with that noble appeal to all believers, ‘Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord.’ But I am not about to attempt any examination of the whole psalm, but simply to draw your attention to this one sacred verse, and to the spirit of confiding trust expressed in it. In the study of it we will examine, first, the trust, then the redemption which was the foundation of it. May God teach us so to realise the plenteous fulness of that redemption that we may be always able in confiding faith to exercise the trust! * * * * * I. The trust This is expressed in the words, ‘Into thy hand I commit my spirit.’ There are few words in the whole word of God, presented to us with more sacred authority than these, for they were quoted by our Lord Himself even on the cross, and were almost the last words uttered by Him before His death. We must therefore approach them with a hallowed sense of profound reverence, and remember that the place whereon we stand is holy ground.