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A PEACEABLE HABITATION

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A PEACEABLE HABITATION

12 minuten leestijd Arcering uitzetten

Isaiah 32:18a: “My people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation.”

APEACEABLE habitation is a good and desirable place. It is a place that is free from quarrels and strife, war or hostilities, and from disturbance and commotion. It is a place of tranquillity, harmony, concord, and amity. Most places are not peaceable habitations, being full of quarrels and strife, enmity, envy and slaughter. Both places are described in our Bible. Do you observe the great difference? What place or habitation do you prefer? Do you dwell in a peaceable habitation, a place given by Christ in free grace?

Before Adam left his God and Creator, he dwelled in a peaceable habitation. The Creator brought him forth and adorned him with His blessed image. God, the eternal light, did shine forth in Adam, the father and head of the whole human race. God, in His great goodness, gave him the Garden of Eden as his peaceable habitation. God’s Fatherly heart full of love, goodness, favor, light and life, was it spiritually. How exceeding was his excellency above all creatures upon earth.

Adam lost this peaceful habitation in his deep and lamentable fall. God’s anger was kindled as a consuming fire. The fallen creature became a sinner in the hands of an angry God, and not only Adam, but all God’s chosen ones will see, feel, and believe it, when it pleases God in Christ Jesus to send His truth and light into the dark and lost soul of man.

Paradise was no longer a glorious peaceable habitation for Adam and Eve. What did they do in Paradise after they had polluted their peaceable habitation? They were filled with fear and fled when “they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.” There was no more peace and joy in this habitation: “So He drove out the man; and He placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.” That paradise was no longer a peaceable habitation for Adam or any of his posterity. Every human creature is guilty of the original sin, worthy now of that place prepared for the devil and his angels, as Jesus has spoken of it. O, awful place for the wicked, where there shall never be any peace, but eternal woe, weeping and gnashing of teeth forever!

How great an evil has man committed, and God is a perfect and righteous God. He is not obliged, by virtue of His righteousness and truth, to give any peace and rest to any of these fallen creatures unless His justice and truth has received a perfect satisfaction. Will there then never be peace any more, or a peaceable habitation for any soul? Must they all perish and suffer the eternal consequences of sin in hell? Observe what God says in our text: “My people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation.”

God has a peculiar people, who are called “His people.” Those people He has loved with an eternal love, Jer. 31. They are His chosen people as Paul speaks of them, saying, “As He has chosen us in Him (Christ Jesus), before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.” Ephes. 1:4,5. And he says in Rom. 8:30, “Whom He did predestinate, them He also called: and whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified.” O, wonderful Chain of Salvation, in which all the Lord’s people are included, and what power of darkness can break this divine chain ?

Do observe in these words that Christ Jesus shall be the All and in All for these people that shall dwell in a peaceable habitation: the Sovereign and Almighty Covenant-God, His eternal decrees, His unbreakable Covenant, and His eternal Son, a peaceable habitation for His blessed people. This Son of God has been ordained before the foundation of the world, and given Himself to the Father as a Surety and Substitute, to the end that He in their stead might atone their sins, pay the open account of their debts, and merit life — eternal life for them. He received them all out of the Father’s hand, to accomplish this great work for them: “Thine they were, and Thou gavest them to Me.” John 17:6. He finished the great work of meriting salvation upon Calvary, when He cried out, “It is finished!”

Through Christ and His atoning work shall now the promise be fulfilled, “My people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation.” Christ Jesus has become the Fountain of all blessings, the unfaltering basis and foundation of all these loved people and their salvation. Jeremiah has proclaimed, “In His days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is His name whereby He shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.” In a way of righteousness there shall now be peaceable habitations for a people that can find no rest in things without God and Christ. “Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteousness.” Isa. 1:27.

When quickened by the Holy Spirit in spiritual birth, and led into the depths of sin and misery, they have no “peaceful habitations.” Hear a certain awakened soul exclaim:

“When free grace awoke me, by light from on high,
Then legal fears shook me, I trembled to die;
No refuge, no safety in self could I see —
Jehovah Tsidkenu my Savior must be.”

Reader, do you know these things by experience; have you sought rest for some time without Christ Jesus, and not found it? No peaceable habitation in sin, in self, in the works of the law, in tears, in frames, in creature-help, etc. O, blessed people whom the Lord shall prepare for and lead in peaceable habitations. These habitations are also called “gardens” — “Thou that dwellest in the gardens, the companions hearken to thy voice: cause me to hear it.”

Some of these peaceable habitations are as follows:

1. God Himself, the eternal God. God is His own eternity. He is the eternal God by nature and essence. The eternity of God is the duration of God. He shall be their eternal peaceable habitation. How a convicted soul, feeling the breach through sin, can long to have God as its portion and peaceable habitation! Being reconciled to God and having made peace with God through Christ Jesus, the soul dwells by faith in God as its peaceable habitation. “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Rom. 5:1.

Moses says in Psalm 90, verse 1: “Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.” A dear servant of God has commented on these words as follows: “God is a perpetual refuge and security to His people. His providence is not confined to one generation; it is not one age only that tastes of His bounty and compassion. His eye never yet slept, nor hath He suffered the little ship of His church to be swallowed up, though it hath been tossed upon the waves; He hath always had compassions to pity us, and power to protect us; He hath a face to shine, when the world hath had an angry countenance to frown. He brought Enoch home by an extraordinary translation from the brutish world; and when He was resolved to reckon with men for their brutish lives, he lodged Noah, the phoenix of the world, in an ark, and kept him alive as a spark in the midst of the many waters, whereby to rekindle a church in the world; in all generations He is a dwelling place to secure His people here, or entertain them above. His providence is not wearied, nor His care fainting; He never wanted will to relieve us, for He hath been our refuge, nor ever can want power to support us, for He is the God from everlasting to everlasting.”

2. A triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. By heavenly instructions the blessed people of the Lord shall learn to know these three Divine Persons, and possessing them, will dwell in them as peaceable habitations. How are these heavenly blessings withheld from the church in our dark days! What is the cause but our sins? But these Divine Persons and their distinct work are certainly wonderful peaceable habitations.

3. All the holy perfections or attributes of God. These are eternal. All things in God are eternal: His immutability, omnipresence, simplicity, almightiness, goodness, grace, mercy, wisdom, etc. In them is the safety of the whole church throughout all generations, as we find in Psalm 125: “As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about His people from henceforth even for ever.” The Lord shall lead His people in these as peaceful habitations.

4. Christ Jesus, and His finished work. He is set forth in our Bible as an “Ark”, and a “City of Refuge.” God will give His people no rest without this peaceable habitation. He is the Peace and Rest of His people. The spiritual dove seeks and finds rest in Christ. A pilgrim in this world has said,

“Apart from Thee I long and thirst,
And nought can satisfy;
I wander in a desert land
Where all the streams are dry.
In Thee my soul is satisfied,
My darkness turns to light,
And joyful meditations fill
The watches of the night.”

“He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in Him will I trust.” Psalm 91:1,2.

5. We may also consider the gatherings of these people as peaceable habitations. Jesus appeared in the midst of His disciples, and said, “Peace be unto you.” He makes them to dwell in these peaceable habitations in this sinful and turbulent world, in which they must endure so many tribulations. How can they long to dwell in such a peaceable habitation at times. Hearken unto David when in great troubles and pursued by his enemies: “How amiable are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord: my heart and flesh crieth out for the living God. Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even Thine altars, O Lord of hosts, my King, and my God. Blessed are they that dwell in Thy house: they will be still praising Thee.”

6. Besides others, let us consider the heavenly Paradise, that peaceable habitation where all God’s people shall dwell forever. That is their eternal abode. No enemy can enter therein and disturb their peace and rest. “And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and His servants shall serve Him: And they shall see His face; and His name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.” Rev. 22: 3–5.

How unfortunate and wretched are those who do not belong to the blessed people of the Lord. They may have some outward and natural peaceable habitation; it is, however, only for a short time. All things in this world are of short duration, and are not proportioned to a soul made for an eternal continuance. A portion in this life only is the lot of those who shall be forever miserable; but God is an everlasting portion to them that are designed for eternal happiness. God is their portion forever, Ps. 73:26.

O, what if a sinner shall die in his sin, and receive hell as his eternal habitation! Shall that be your portion, reader? O, may the Sovereign Spirit, Who works where and how He wills, enter your heart and give you no soul rest before you also know by experience how blessed that promise is, “My people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation.”

Many have prepared peaceable habitations for themselves in their own work, in their own self-will religion, in their imaginations, etc. The Lord says, “Woe to them that are at ease in Zion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria.” O, do remember what Jesus says of the foolish builder in Matthew 7.

The blessed promise we have considered is for all God’s dear people, struggling forth in this howling wilderness here below, and who learn to know so many places where they have no peace and rest. But God says, and shall fulfill, “My people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation.” At such places, they are found at times. Peter said, finding such a place, “Lord, it is good to be here!” No wonder he was anxious to stay at that peaceable habitation, At such places they have light, and give honor and praise to God. The peaceable habitations which they receive in this world, assure unto them that they shall dwell forever in the peaceable habitation of heaven, where God shall wipe all tears and where they shall sing forth His praises forever.

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Bekijk de hele uitgave van maandag 1 maart 1954

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A PEACEABLE HABITATION

Bekijk de hele uitgave van maandag 1 maart 1954

The Banner of Truth | 16 Pagina's