"Return Unto Your Rest"
(No. 2758)
A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, DECEMBER 22, 1901.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
SEPTEMBER 7, 1879.
"Return to your rest, O my soul; for the Lord hats dealt bountifully
with you." Psalm 116:7.
You who have not be1ieved in our Lord Jesus Christ have no rest to
which you can return, for you have never found any. May God grant to
you the Grace to come to Christ that you may find rest unto your souls!
But we who believe in Him do enter into rest. We are sometimes
described as journeying through the wilderness towards Canaan, and the
type is quite allowable, but still, it must not be pressed too far,
for, in another sense, we have already entered into our rest. We have
entered the Canaan which our Joshua has given to us. Moses, by the Law
of God, could not lead us into this promised land, but Jesus has
brought us into it and we now have our portion and our inheritance in
the Covenant blessings which God has provided for His people in Christ
Jesus His Son. God's people, when they are as they ought to be, are in
a state of rest even now. I do not mean that they will have rest so far
as this world is concerned, for this earth is not our rest, it is
polluted. But I do mean that as the Apostle Paul writes to the Romans,
"There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ
Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." I mean
that, as he also says, "Being justified by faith, we have peace with
God through our Lord Jesus Christ." And that peace includes "rest,
sweet rest"–especially that "peace of God, which passes all
understanding," which the Apostle declares, "shall keep your hearts and
minds through Christ Jesus."
If I am, at this time, addressing any who have, for a while, lost the
enjoyment of this blessed rest, my message to them is, "Return to your
rest." I hope that they will be able to take the Psalmist's words to
themselves and to say with him, "Return to your rest, O my soul; for
the Lord has dealt bountifully with you."
I. The first thing for us to remember is that THE BELIEVER HAS HIS
REST. The Psalmist says, "Return to your rest, O my soul,"
There is a position, or an experience in which the Believer's heart is
perfectly at rest. While trying to think how I should describe it,
nothing seemed to strike me as a more full and accurate description of
the Believer's rest than the apostolic benediction with which we are
accustomed to dismiss our assemblies. He has true rest of heart who
abides in the spirit of these words–"The Grace of the Lord Jesus
Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be
with you all. Amen."
The first rest of the heart comes to us through the Grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ We generally speak of Him as the Second Person of the
blessed Trinity, but in the benediction He is put first because, to our
experience, He is first. No man comes unto God the Father except by God
the Son. So, to us, Christ is first because that is the way His Grace
works in us. And, Beloved, when you know how to come to Christ for
Grace–no, when you havecome to Him and have received from Him the
Grace to cover all your sin–the Grace to justify you in the sight of
God–the Grace of adoption, by which you become a son of God in Him who
is the Father's only-begotten and well-beloved Son–when you have
received the Grace of union with Christ so that you know yourselves to
be members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones–when you know
that all His Grace is yours and that He, Himself, is yours, then it is
that you get rest unto your souls!
Sin can no longer disturb you, for it is drowned in the Red Sea of His
stoning Sacrifice. Your necessities cannot distress you, for they are
all supplied by God "according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus."
Nothing need perplex, or afflict, or worry you any more. All the
troubles of thought are ended as you believe what your Lord tells you.
All the cravings of your heart are satisfied as you take Him to be the
Beloved of your soul. All the struggles of your conscience are ended as
Christ brings to you peace and rest forever concerning all your sin. In
fact, as soon as you come to Him, He gives you, through His abundant
Grace, rest about everything!
This, then, is the first rest of the Believer which comes to Him
through the Grace of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
There is a further rest for us who believe and a very sweet one. It is
in the love of God. I t comes to us when we hear such a gentle whisper
as this, "I have loved you with an everlasting love: therefore with
loving kindness have I drawn you." Or this, "Since you were precious in
My sight, you have been honorable and I have loved you: therefore will
I give men for you and people for your life." Or this, "Fear not, for I
have redeemed you. I have called you by your name; you are Mine. When
you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the
rivers, they shall not overflow you: when you walk through the fire:
you shall not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon you. For I
am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior." Oh, what
blessed rest springs out of electing love and adopting love! What sweet
rest we obtain from the assurance that God the Father and God the Son
both love us, even as our Lord Jesus said to His disciples, "He that
has My commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loves Me: and he
that loves Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him and will
manifest Myself to him." Thus is the love of God shed abroad in our
hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given to us.
This glorious fact gives us rest with regard to our position here. We
cannot be troubled by affliction because it is sent to us in love. We
cannot be worried about the future for all its concerns are in the
hands of the God of Love. We no longer harbor doubt and mistrust, for
we know that "God is love." O dear Friends, when you once come to
really know the love of God, it will give you wondrous rest! You will
feel that He never smote a child of His except in love, that He never
even frowned at one of His children except in love–and that He never
was angry with one of His children except in love! And love, perhaps,
never rises to a greater climax of affection than when it is forced to
show its anger and so uses the rod more to its own pain than to the
suffering of those who feel it. Beloved, I trust that each one of you
who believes in Jesus, knows what that rest of heart is which enables
you to say, "My God, my Father, You can do nothing to me but what
Infinite Love dictates, for I know that You love me even as You love
Your first-born and only-begotten Son."
The third rest of the Believer is in the communion of the Holy Spirit O
Beloved, this is the truest rest of the soul–so far as your actual
experience is concerned–when the Holy Spirit comes and takes complete
possession of you, so that your will does not any longer struggle
against the will of God, but sweetly yields to its control–your
desires no longer wander, but stay at home in full content and you give
yourself up entirely to the Divine indwelling, so that Christ dwells in
you and you abide in Him by the power of His gracious Spirit. Then that
same blessed Spirit brings to your mind the deep things of God which
are full of rich comfort for the soul, and the precious things of the
everlasting hills of the Covenant of Grace which abound in all the
blessings that you can possibly need between here and Heaven, for it is
the Holy Spirit's special office to be the Comforter of Christ's
people–and He makes the soul either to sit still at the feet of Jesus,
to listen to His gracious words, or else to run with cheerful, yet
restful alacrity on His errands, for there is such a thing as rest in
running in His holy service!
Now, dear Friend, if you have these three things–the Grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ, the Love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit–I
am sure I need not stay to prove to you that in your experience you
have realized what it is to enjoy rest for your soul! Do you all know
what it is thus to rest in the Lord? I thank God that I do! I feel,
especially at certain times, that I could not ask the Lord for anything
more than He has given me. I could not wish anything altered, I could
not desire to be in any other state–no, I do not even wish to be in
Heaven at such times as those to which I am referring! When I sit down
beneath His shadow with great delight and His banner over me is love,
and His fruit is sweet unto my taste, it is a little Heaven on
earth–the vestibule of the palace of the great King! Many of you must
know what this rest is–I feel sure that you do!
II. This fact makes it rather sad work to turn to the second division
of my subject which is that SOMETIMES THE BELIEVER LEAVES THAT REST. He
should not do so–it is most grievous that he does but, alas, he does,
as many of us are only too well aware by painful personal experience.
Sometimes, he leaves it through affliction and especially if that
affliction comes from man. The Psalmist tells us that in his haste, he
said, "All men are liars." Perhaps he said some other naughty things
for which he was sorry afterwards. It is not always easy to be calm and
prudent when you are provoked–and to be quite restful when everybody
speaks ill of you, or tries to lay traps to catch you. But the child of
God should so try to master himself that all the dogs that bark can no
more disturb him than the baying of a hound would turn the moon out of
her nightly course. Happy and blessed is that man whose heart is fixed
so that he can sing and give praise even though his adversary is all
the while speaking bitterly against him. Yet the flesh is very frail,
and aches and pains of body as well as cruel slanders against the
character will sometimes turn the Christian aside from his restful
state. He is not quiet and calm. He is in a hurry, the leisure of his
heart is broken and he is in great confusion. God save us from getting
into such a sorrowful condition as that! For, if we had more confidence
in our God we would have less confusion in our own experience. We would
be much more restful if we did but do our God the justice of trusting
Him at all times, for He can never fail us!
I have known some Christians to be driven from their restful state
through a lack of submission to the Divine Will O dear Friends, when
you have been in sharp trials. When things have gone awry with you and,
especially, if some beloved object of your heart's affection is taken
from you, then you have had a quarrel with your God! It is a very sad
thing that we should ever differ from Infinite Love, or think that we
know better than Eternal Wisdom, or begin to suspect the Grace of the
Most High! It is sorrowful that this should ever be the case with any
of us and we cannot, without many tears, confess that we have sometimes
had a dispute with God about what He has been doing with us. And then,
of course, we could not rest, for, in addition to our other sorrows,
our wise and loving Father chastised us for our naughtiness. He would
not spare us for all our crying, but He went on with His own designs
concerning us even while we were so willful and rebellious!
Perhaps He even chastened us more because of that rebellion. We may be
sure that we shall never truly rest in the Lord while we have a
stubborn will! Until every desire learns to lay its head on Christ's
bosom and is fully satisfied with Him, we shall never be at perfect
peace. There is, for each one of us, a modified agony and bloody sweat
until, like our Lord, we can truthfully say to our Heavenly Father,
"Not my will, but Yours, be done" That lack of submission to God lies
at the root of half our unrest. We must submit to Him–it would be well
for us if we did so at once.
Some Christians lose their rest through lack of contentment. They are
very happy in their present condition, for God has greatly blessed
them, but their eyes catch sight of a Christian who is better off than
they are and, straightway they want to have as much as he has. They are
not quite so well dressed as that Brother is and they wish that they
were. Their wife and family do not look, as the world says, quite so
"respectable" as his and, sometimes in their folly, they will throw
themselves out of a happy position in life, where they have the
privileges of the means of Grace, and go into a state of spiritual
starvation just for the sake of being a little better-off in temporal
things, which is both foolish and wrong!
Now, until we are perfectly content with what the Lord appoints for us,
we shall not have rest unto our souls. Until we can honestly say–
"To Your will I leave the rest, Grant me but this one request– Both in
life and death to prove Tokens of Your special love,"
we shall never know what it is to enjoy full rest of heart.
I fear that there are many Christians who lose their rest in another
way, namely, through the world's joys. Have you ever been with a party
of friends where there has been a great deal of mirth and very little
Divine Grace? If so, have you not felt, when you got home, that you
could not pray as you were known to do? Sometimes you have been taking
your recreation properly enough, but you have not carried Christ with
you as you should have done–and you have found, after a while, that
your rest has gone. Laughter and merriment may do you untold harm
unless they are sanctified by the Word of God and prayer–if they are
so sanctified, they may not cause us to leave our rest.
Frequently, too, Christian people lose their rest through allowing some
conscious sin. Christ and you will not long keep company with one
another if you permit anything in your heart, or speech, or shop, or
home that is not according
to His mind! His communion is with "the poor in heart for they shall
see God." But if sin is knowingly harbored, communion with Christ will
not be enjoyed. The old Puritan was right when he said, "Sinning will
make you leave off communing, or else communing will make you leave off
sinning," for the indulgence of any known sin is not compatible with a
close walk with God. If, Beloved, you and I get at a distance from God.
If we follow Christ afar off, as Peter did. If we grow cold in heart,
if we are neglectful of prayer, if the Word of God is not the subject
of our constant study, if we get worldly and carnal like so many of our
fellow Christians are, we shall soon find that the rest of our soul is
gone.
It is a great mercy if you know when it is gone. It is a terrible thing
to lose the joy of the Lord and the rest of your spirit and yet to be
hardly aware that it is so with you. There is a very simple simile of
this state of things, but it is a useful one. You know that a hen, if
she has some eggs under her, will keep on sitting. You may take half
her eggs away, you may take three-fourths of them away–but she still
keeps on sitting, for I suppose she cannot count. Now, there are some
Christians who are very much like that hen–they lose the most of their
Grace, yet they are just as happy as they were before. But, Beloved,
your spiritual sense ought to be something much higher than the
instinct of a poor silly bird! Your care of the Divine Grace entrusted
to your charge ought to be something far superior to the care of a
sitting hen over her eggs! To lose a little Grace is to lose a great
deal. To miss even five minutes communion with Christ is to lack an
incalculable blessing! Therefore, Brothers and Sisters, if you have
lost the blessed rest you once enjoyed, do not be satisfied to remain
in that condition. Do not sing, with Cowper–
"What peaceful hours I then enjoyed, How sweet their memory still/"–
unless you can also say with him–
"But now I find an aching void The world can never fill."
Never be happy unless you are truly resting in Jesus!
III. That brings us to our third point, which is that THE BELIEVER,
WHEN HE HAS GONE AWAY FROM HIS REST, SHOULD RETURN TO IT and the sooner
he does, the better. Return at once, dear Friends, if you have gone
away from your rest. As Noah's dove came back to him, fly back to
Christ, who is your Noah, your Rest, for that is the meaning of the
name.
And I would argue with you to come back, first, because it is quite
certain that you can never rest anywhere else. A man who knows not the
Lord Jesus Christ can find rest in many places–such rest as it is.
Give him a large estate, abundance of money and plenty of worldly
friends, and you will find him quite content with those things. Like
the mole, which has its home in the earth, he will go and burrow and
make his home there. An eagle cannot do that and you are one of God's
eagles if you are a Believer in Jesus Christ! Neither in wealth, nor in
honor, nor in pleasure, nor in conjugal domestic comfort, can you ever
find perfect rest! You have eaten the white bread of Heaven, so your
mouth is out of taste for the brown bread of earth. You might have been
satisfied with the world if you had never known Christ, but you are
spoilt for that now.
A countryman who has lived all his life in a lonely village where he
never heard any music, might be charmed when he first listened to one
of our street organs, but let him hear some of the sweet strains of
true music, then the noise of the street organ jars upon his ears and
he cannot endure it! So, Beloved, your ears have been attuned to
something better than the world's merriment that can never satisfy you.
To you there is only one rest–and you must come back to it. Some of
you backsliders have come in here tonight–you have not been here
lately, and you have been trying to be happy and comfortable apart from
God–but, as surely as the Lord loves you, you will have to come back
to Him and, the longer you stay away, the more bitter will be your
weeping and lamentation when you do come back. Oh, that you would be
wise and return at once, and never wander away again! You know too much
and you have felt too much to ever rest except in Christ, so do not
attempt it!
Further, this unrest puts you out of order for everything. I should
like to put the question to you, who love the Lord, but are not
perfectly at rest in Him–Does not your present state very much spoil
your devotions? You cannot pray as you used to do when you had such a
sweet sense of the love of God–you know that you have not the power in
prayer that you had–God does not hear you, now, as He once did! You
used to run to Him with your request and come back with the favor you
had asked of Him! But now you ask many times, yet you receive no reply.
The reason is that you are walking contrary to Him and, therefore, He
walks contrary to you.
Does not this lack of restfulness also decrease your power of working
for Christ? You cannot plead with a sinner as you used to do. You
cannot speak to the anxious as you once did for, while your own soul is
in the dark, although you may wish to give light to others, you feel
that you cannot do it. If you really wish to serve the Lord
effectively, you must have the joy of the Lord to be your strength.
Then, do you not think that your lack of rest is putting you into a
state in which you are very liable to be tempted and to be overcome?'
'The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the
rocks." And they are very sensible conies to do so, for there are many
beasts of prey to seek their lives, but they run into the rocks and so
they are safe. If you are out of your Rock, you are, like the coney,
exposed to danger–so run back again as quickly as you can! You are
never so safe as when you dwell in the wounded side of Jesus,
peacefully resting in the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of
God and the communion of the Holy Spirit.
There is one thing more that I must say to those of you who are not
thus resting. That is, this unrest can do no possible good. I say this
to myself as well as to you, for I, too, have sometimes erred in that
way. I am ashamed to confess that it is so, for it ought not to have
been the case, and I feel that I am more guilty than some of you in
having done so. But I never yet have found any good come of a state of
unrest. When I have not rested in God about everything, I have nearer
found things improve any the more for all my worrying. Suppose a farmer
grumbles against God because the wheat is spoiling–does his grumbling
save it? Suppose a tradesman begins quarrelling with God because
business is dull–he will not bring one more customer to his shop by
all his complaining! No, there is no good in grumbling, and no use in
complaining. The very best thing that you can do for yourself is just
to come back and rest in God and say, "It is the Lord, let Him do what
seems good to Him. I have done all I can that was right for me to do,
but I know that it is vain for me to rise up early, and sit up late,
and eat the bread of carefulness unless He is pleased to send the
increase. So I leave it all with Him. I will not fret and worry any
longer. I cannot improve matters if I do, so I will just leave
everything in the Lord's hands."
That is a right decision, my Brothers and Sisters, for the end of your
heart's controversy will be the beginning of your heart's rest. So,
"rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him." "Cast your burden upon
the Lord, and He shall sustain you: He shall never suffer the righteous
to be moved." "Delight yourself also in the Lord; and He shall give you
the desires of yours heart." But if you will be unbelieving, if you
will rebel and revolt against your God, you shall be smitten more and
more and no rest will come to you at all. So cry with the Psalmist,
"Return to your rest, O my soul" and not only say it, but actually
return at once unto your rest!
IV. The last thing about which I am going to speak to you is this. THE
BELIEVER HAS ONE EXCELLENT ENCOURAGEMENT TO RETURN. "Return to your
rest, O my soul; for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you."
The Psalmist tells us in detail what the Lord had done for him or,
rather, he tells the Lord–"For You have delivered my soul from death."
In the fourth verse, He prayed, "O Lord, I beseech You, deliver my
soul." That was a single prayer, but he received a triple answer to it,
for God is always "able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we
ask or think." So the Psalmist proved it and he was able to say to the
Lord, "You have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears and my
feet from falling." Now, Believer, you ought to come back and rest in
God because you have received from Him these three marks of His Divine
favor.
First, He has delivered your soul from death. You will never die the
second death. You are a saved man! For you, as a Believer in Christ,
death has lost its sting. You may die, after a fashion, yet living and
believing in Jesus you shall never see death in the full sense of that
term. For you there are no flaming fires of wrath, no bottomless pit,
no curse of, "Depart." Your soul has been delivered from death! Now, if
that does not make you happy, what will? Why, my dear Friends, the fact
that God has saved our soul from death ought to fill our hearts with
perpetual delight! Suppose I should be starved to death? Still, it is a
small matter now that my soul is delivered from forever going to Hell!
Suppose I had to live in poverty and obscurity, and die like the
martyrs at the stake? Well, what of that? There is an everlasting crown
that fades not away that will abundantly recompense all!
"Strike, Lord," said Luther, "now that You have heard me! Do what You
will with me, now that You have delivered my soul from death." I know
how very poor you are, my dear Friend, and what grievous burdens you
have to carry, but still, do not forget that the Lord has delivered
your soul from death! You may be very poor, and very sick, and very
sad, but you can never be lost! You may be laughed at by the ungodly,
but you can never be cast into Hell. Blessed be God for this! Surely,
that is one thing to make you glad and to encourage you to return unto
your rest.
Next, the Psalmist says, "You have delivered my eyes from tears. " And
the Lord has done the same for many of us. We have no cause for grief
now. "No, cause for grief?" exclaims one. No, none whatever! "But I
have lost my dear mother! Shall I not weep?" Well, she loved the Lord,
so she is gone to Heaven. She is now before the Throne of the Most
High. So, if you weep because you have lost her, then immediately begin
to sing with joy because she is up among the angels! "But I have lost
my little child who was so very dear to me." Oh, well, in that case you
are mother to one who is praising God day and night! So wipe those
tears away. I rather like the idea of a young person, at Brighton, who
asked that she might have grey horses to draw her to her funeral. Why
not? Why always have black ones? Why not have the white horses of
delight? Let those who linger here sorrow that their loved ones have
gone, but let them not be so ungenerous as not to sympathize in the
eternal joy upon which righteous souls have entered! No, wipe your
tears away, for "you sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For
if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, they also, who
sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him."
"Oh, but," cries another tried Friend, "I have real cause for sorrow
because I suffer so much and I am so poor." Well, if it is so, it will
all be over soon and remember what the Apostle says, "For our light
affliction, which is but for a moment, works for us a far more
exceeding and eternal weight, of glory." "Yes," you say, "but, still,
you do not know how much I suffer." No, I do not, and you do not know
how much I suffer, but I know this–if the two of us put all our
sufferings together, they are not worthy to be compared with the
eternal love of the blessed God who sent us all these aches and pains
that we feel! They are all sent by Him in love, so why should we cry
over them? He has wiped our tears away, so let us not weep any more,
or, if tears must come, let the salt that is in them tend to our
sanctification. Do not let us shed one rebellious tear–no, not even if
all we have in the world were taken from us!–
"Why should the soul a drop moan Who has a fountain near– A fountain
which will always run With waters sweet and clear?" If I have all
things, I have them in my God. And if all things are gone from me, I
would find them all again in Him!
Now, lastly, God has also delivered our feet from falling as He did in
the case of the Psalmist. I know that one reason why so many do not
fully rest is because they are afraid that they shall fall from
Grace–afraid that they shall dishonor their profession and so on. Now,
dear Friends, I hope that you will never get rid of the godly fear of
falling into sin and never lose that holy insecurity with regard to
yourself–but do not let that feeling extend to your God! You know that
our Lord Jesus Christ said, "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them,
and they follow Me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall
never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand. My
Father, which gave them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able
to pluck them out of My Father's hand." He has delivered your feet from
falling, so He will keep you! Therefore begin to praise Him and bless
Him this very moment! Cast away that fear of being cast away, and sing
Jude's doxology, "Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling,
and to present you faultless before the Presence of His Glory with
exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty,
dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen."
No, you have nothing at all to fret about! Your soul is delivered from
death, your eyes from tears and your feet from failing–so rest, rest,
rest, rest! You will glorify God by resting. One of the highest acts of
devotion is to rest in the Lord. God grant it to you now, especially at
His Table, for His name's sake! Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM85
In my brief comments upon this Psalm, I shall not feel bound to keep to
the immediate occasion for which it was written, but shall seek to find
a use for it in the present circumstances of God's saints.
Verse 1. Lord, You have been favorable unto the land: You have brought
back the captivity of Jacob. Whenever you are in a low state of mind or
heart, remember God's past loving kindnesses. Recall the record of what
He has done for His people in ages long gone by, for He is the same God
forever and ever and, therefore, what He has done in the past, He will
do in the future. As the wise man said, "The thing that has been, it is
that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be
done: and there is no new thing under the sun." It is certainly so
concerning God's dealings "Lord You have been favorable unto Your
land," even when it was stained with sin, "You have brought back the
captivity of Jacob." Even when that captivity was brought upon the
people by their own fault. Lord, bring back my captivity! Be favorable
unto me! Deliver me from my spiritual declensions and give me back my
joy and peace.
2. You have forgiven the iniquity of your people, you have covered all
their sin. Selah. What a sweet subject for our meditation we found,
last Lord's-Day morning [Sermon #1492, Volume 25–THE FIRST NOTE OF MY
SONG] in those words of the Psalmist, "Who forgives all your
iniquities"! Now, if God has indeed blotted out the sin of His people,
what a plea this is to use with Him for all that we still need from
Him! Will He pardon us and yet leave us to perish? Will He pay such a
ransom price as the blood of His well-beloved Son to set us free from
the bondage of sin, and then will He not help us even to the end? Will
He not lift up our heavy heart and revive our drooping spirit? Ah, that
He will if we know how to plead His former mercy and to urge upon Him
that because He has forgiven our iniquity and covered all our sin, He
should now heal our diseases, redeem our life from destruction and
crown us with loving kindness and tender mercies.
3, 4. You have taken away all Your wrath: You have turned Yourself from
the fierceness of Your anger Turn us, O God of our salvation, and cause
Your anger toward us to cease.' 'Let us have a special application of
the general mercy. Your wrath to Your children has passed away, so let
us no longer sit down and cower beneath it, fearful of its terrors.
Lord, bring us back to You! Our heart desires conversion, but You alone
can give it to us to the fullest. Turn us, O God of our salvation, and
we shall be turned."
6. Will You be angry with us forever? Will You draw out Your anger to
all generations?' 'You might well do so if You were dealing with us
only according to the strict requirements of Your righteous Law, but we
are Your children, Lord, and is a father always angry with his
children? You have forgiven us our iniquity and, therefore, the great
cause of Your wrath against us is gone. Now, O Lord, reveal Your love
to us! Let us not any longer be under the sense of our guilt, or feel
the absence of the joy and peace which You give to those whom You
forgive."
6. Will You not revive us again: that Your people may rejoice in You?
"We have got down very low, great God. We have been, these last six
days, mixing with the world and, perhaps, we have forgotten You. Come
to us, we pray You. Give us fresh life! Revive us again! Many a time
have You, spiritually, raised us up as from the grave's mouth. Will You
not do it again? All that You have done for us in the past will be lost
if You do not continue Your mercy to us. 'Will You not revive us
again?' You love to see us happy and You are, Yourself, the Happy God!
Oh, make us happy, too, by reviving us, 'that Your people may rejoice
in You'!"
7. Show us Your mercy, O LORD, and grant us Your salvation. So far, the
Psalm is a prayer. Now the Psalmist seems to stop and wait for the
answer to his supplication. Beloved, always do that when you pray. When
you have spoken to God, wait for Him to speak to you. Do not let it
appear that your prayer needs no answer, but really expecta reply to it
and then, in patience and in silence, wait for it.
8. I will hear what God the LORD will speak: for He will speak peace
unto His people, and to His saints: but let them not turn again to
folly. For, if they do, their darkness will return and they will again
have to mourn their Lord's absence. Perhaps the rod will fall more
heavily upon them and their souls will sink into a deeper despondency.
For a Christian to once be a fool, is a sad thing, but for him to turn
again to folly is a multiplied form of iniquity which God will surely
punish!
9. Surely his salvation is near them that fear Him; that glory may
dwell in our land. O beloved Brothers and Sisters, lay hold on that
salvation which is near you and exalt in it! And even now let your
spirits feel the glow of His glory shining in your soul!
10. Mercy and truth are met together But only at one place–the Cross
of Calvary, where Jesus died. There, "mercy and truth are met
together."
10. Righteousness and peace have kissed each other Through Christ's
death, sin has been punished, sinners are saved, God's Law is
vindicated and the depths of His mercy are displayed! "Righteousness
and peace have kissed each other."
11. Truth shall spring out of the earth. Promises which lay hidden in
God's Word, like seeds buried in the earth, shall spring up before our
eyes like flowers carpeting the earth with beauty! "Truth shall spring
out of the earth."
11. And righteousness shall look down from Heaven. As if so pleased
with the state of things brought about by the atoning Sacrifice of
Christ that it flung up the windows of Heaven to look down and see this
great sight! "Righteousness shall look down from Heaven."
12, 13. Yes, the LORD shall give that which is good; and our land shall
yield her increase. Righteousness shall go before Him; andshall set us
in the way ofHis steps. May God thus revive us, by His Holy Spirit, for
Christ's sake! Amen.