Now, what strikes us first, or ought to strike us, in these psalms, is David’s utter faith in God. I do not mean to say that David had not his sad days, when he gave himself up for lost, and when God seemed to have forsaken him, and forgotten his promise. He was a man of like passions with ourselves; and therefore he was, as we should have been, terrified and faint-hearted at times. But exactly what God was teaching and training him to be, was not to be fainthearted—not to be terrified. He began in his youth by trusting God. That made him the man after God’s own heart, just as it was the want of trust in God which made Saul not the man after God’s own heart, and lost him his kingdom. In all those wanderings and dangers of David’s in the wilderness, God was training, and educating, and strengthening David’s faith according to His great law: To whomsoever hath shall be given, and he shall have more abundantly; but from him that hath not, shall be taken away even that which he seems to have. And the first great fruit of David’s firm trust in God was his patience. He learned to wait God’s time, and take God’s way, and be sure that the same God who had promised that he should be king, would make him king when he saw fit. He knew, as he says himself, that the Strength of Israel could not lie or repent. He had sworn that He would not fail David. And he learned that God had sworn by His holiness. He was a holy, just, righteous God; and David and David’s country now were safe in His hands. It was his firm trust in God which gave him strength of mind to use no unfair means to right himself. Twice Saul, his enemy, was in his power. What a temptation to him to kill Saul, rid himself of his tormentor, and perhaps get the kingdom at once! But no. He felt: “This Saul is a wicked, devil-tormented murderer, a cruel tyrant and oppressor; but the same God who chose me to be king next, chose him to be king now. He is the Lord’s anointed. God put him where he is, and leaves him there for some good purpose; and when God has done with him, God will take him away, and free this poor oppressed people; and in the meantime, I, as a private man, have no right to touch him. I must not do evil that good may come. If I am to be a true king, a true man at all hereafter, I must keep true now; if I am to be a righteous lawgiver hereafter, I must respect and obey law myself now. The Lord be judge between me and Saul; for He is Judge, and He will right me better than I can ever right myself.” And thus did trust in God bring out in David that true respect for law, without which a king, let him be as kind-hearted as he will, is but too likely to become at last a tyrant and an oppressor.