A NEVER DISAPPOINTING TRUST IN GOD

Many tribulations are the portion of God’s Church in this low world. Flesh and blood never submits itself to such a way, no, it cannot. It is, however, the gracious inheritance of the chosen generation of God in Him, our blessed Surety and Mediator, Who was oppressed till the whole work of redemption was completed. Every one who has by grace become a new creature in Christ Jesus, according to the eternal pleasure of God, becomes conformed to His death and shall be crucified with Him, crucified to sin, world, and their own life, that they may live unto God, although it is only a beginning here in this life. They are bought with a valuable price and therefore both body and soul belong to God through all eternity. This is also a mystery of godliness. This can never be discovered by human wisdom, but something is learned of this by all who fear the Lord. He gives them heavenly instructions. David says of this in Psalm 119: “I know, O Lord, that Thy judgments are right, and that Thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me.” Oh, let Thy favor appear!

In Psalm 10, as in other psalms, a picture of God’s Church in tribulation is presented to us. She is looking forward to and longing for the favor of Jehovah, sighing under the abominations and conflicts inwardly and outwardly. The most grievous thing was the hiding of God’s blessed contenance, according to the first verse.

It is evident from the 14th verse that the psalmist has come to a God-glorifying trust in Jehovah and a blessed submission unto the Lord and His way, with an acknowledgment that the Lord is God. He is wise, good, and just, even if His way goes through a sea of calamities and adversities. The great purpose of God with His people therein is that they, being foolish and blind, shall give all things into His hands. O beloved, how much grace is necessary to let God be God! In this way our supposed life and sinful being must enter into death. Such souls become dust and ashes before God, and in a childlike and humble submission at his feet, exercise the trust of faith upon Him Who is almighty and faithful. When the psalmist feels something of this holy matter, he can no longer hide the blessedness of this poor people, and exclaims: “The poor committeth himself unto Thee.” Who are they but the poor in spirit, who are called “blessed” by Jesus in Matthew 5:3? The time shall come that they shall all hear from the mouth of their Redeemer: “Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”

By nature we are all spiritually poor, but we are blind and dead so that we do not see nor feel it; thus we are not poor in spirit. We are full of pretended riches and presumptous imaginations; as self-idolators we would have God and all people with their ways and dealings at our feet. Oh, terrible state of death in which a natural sinner lives, as is the state of us all in a fallen Adam. May the Lord show mercy unto us and our seed, to open our blind eyes for the first time or again, before it is forever too late to be saved and we as subjects of God’s wrath shall have to enter into that place prepared for the devil and his angels.

The case is so different with the poor in spirit as mentioned above. By the Spirit of the Lord they have come to a knowledge of their spiritual poverty, and feel that they are really poor. Now there have been people at all times who make themselves poor, keep themselves poor, and yet have many goods. They reason and talk much about poverty and make thereof a ground of salvation. They are even so foolish that they rejoice when they at all places carry out and show their poverty. He who is really made poor in his own sight and feeling by the Lord, however, will not glory in his poverty, but will shame himself before God and man, and that chiefly in secret. O Reader! we have such a deceitful heart. May the Lord lead us in His way, to walk in His truth.

The poor, as mentioned in our text, are destitute of all that is good because they miss God and His all-surpassing favor and communion, although by grace they want to justify God with their whole heart and are filled with godly sorrow and repentance for their many sins. Not only this, but they will be convinced of their total impotence and unwillingness to do anything that is good and their inclination to do that which is evil. They understand something of Paul’s experience expressed in the 7th chapter of Romans. At times when they find themselves in a slavish bondage of sin (although against their will), they must exclaim with the Apostle: “O wretched man that I am!” In tribulation they may be rebellious, having little or no, faith and no light to see aright; although they have more faith than they think, for they justify God and condemn themselves.

We may now say: How can such souls commit themselves unto God, while they, when they remember God, are troubled, Ps. 77. O yes, the poor in spirit say this also. They learn to know that it is an impossibility for them to commit themselves unto the Lord and trust in Him. They say: We are forsakers of the Lord; we do not honor Him and acknowledge Him in all our ways. Yet they must confess likewise with their whole heart that God is worthy to be worshipped for His own Name’s sake. When Jonah was in the belly of the fish and went down to the bottoms of the mountains, he said: “I am cast out of Thy sight”; but behold what now follows, as a wonder of God: “Yet I will look again toward Thy holy temple.” David says: “I was brought low, and He helped me.” “The Lord raiseth them that are bowed down.” “He shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper.” A poor wise man delivered a besieged city. (Eccl. 9). This can also be applied to Christ. He became poor, that He might show the poor in spirit His help unto deliverance. He will regard the prayer of the destitute, Ps. 102. The Lord now opens the gates of righteousness. God was reconciling the world with Himself in Christ Jesus. Mercy and truth meet each other here. Righteousness and peace kiss each other. Hope revives according to His command. Their Savior is their God. What is impossible with man, is possible with God. It is all the work of God. He makes poor, and He makes rich. When Asaph did not know anything any more and he became a great beast before God, then eternity opened itself up before him and he did see that his salvation flowed out of this eternity before the world was made. Then he could commit himself unto God and he exclaimed: “Thou hast holden me by my right hand. Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory.” He went overboard with all that was of himself, and stood without, but in God’s work and salvation he was within, because God willed it. Here we may see the truth of these words:

Wisdom and goodness without end and limit,

Are God’s ways for the poor in spirit.

The poor committeth himself unto the Three-in-One God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Such a soul is born again unto a living hope in God. In the beginning of spiritual life, a soul does not yet know God as her Father. However, she goes to God as a Father in childlike love, fear, and trust. The prodigal son said: “I will arise and go to my father.” Jesus has said: “No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him.” The soul cries: Lord, draw me, and lead me in the way upon which the fool shall not err.

The quickened soul will also commit herself unto the Lord Jesus when, as Paul, she counts all things but loss and dung for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus. Such a poor in spirit must become conformed unto His image and be found in Him, for she knows herself as lost in Adam’s fall. Oh, may such souls experience what it is to lose themselves and all that they have in that dear Surety and Savior; then Christ shall be All in their soul, and they themselves shall be nothing. Then it is a complete relying upon Him, a sinking upon the Righteousness of that eternal Rock Whose work is perfect. These are the poorest people of the world in themselves, and they learn to understand the Apostle Paul’s words: “As having nothing, and yet possessing all things,” namely, in their glorified Head, Christ Jesus. They learn by experience that without Christ they can do nothing, but that they can do all things if He strengthens. They need a Leader continually, and say with David: “Thy Spirit is good; lead me into the land of uprightness.” They have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit of God, that they may know the things freely given unto them from heaven. They will be sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. He shall abide with them till the end of their days, shall lead and comfort them, shall sanctify and make them meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.

Let it be observed here that only those, in whose heart a Triune God is glorified, shall receive a need for the Three-in-One God, that they may possess Him and consecrate both body and soul in His service. Then it shall be practiced more or less: God is all, and we nothing. This can only be the work of God, and He is glorified only in His own work. God’s true people, who have been made poor in spirit, do not wish for another way. They are qualified to glorify God, to abhor their own life and sinful being, which at all times seeks self and not the honor of God.

Here upon this earth it is all only in part; there is much oppression and many voids. After this life it shall be all perfection; there shall be no sin any more forever. In heaven there is no more poverty, but God’s people shall live forever in the communion, blessed peace, and perfect enjoyment of a Three-in-One blessed Covenant-Jehovah.

Beloved reader, if we now examine ourselves in the light of that which has been written, may we not ask the earnest question: How is it with our never-dying soul? Do we have the marks of these poor (and yet so rich) people of God? Another way unto salvation has never been revealed. Moreover, this way will never be altered for God is unchangeable, and the (election) “gifts and calling of God are without repentance.”

Romans 11:29.

Do we in our days not very much resemble the church of Laodicea, which is placed before us in the third chapter of Revelations? She was rich and increased with goods; yes, rich in imagination, and did not know that she was wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. Are we not living to see such days as the Lord describes in His Word, the days of the coming of the Son of man, which would be as the days of Noah and the days of Sodom’s destruction? Is there not a preparation everywhere for the judgment of God? Do we not constrain God to come with His righteous judgments from heaven, and do we not draw forth a curse upon ourselves and our children in putting our trust in an arm of flesh? Do we not awfully rely upon ourselves for help, and seek a covering which is not of God? And that in our church, home, and social life as well as in our soul life personally? When Christ comes, shall He yet find faith upon this earth?

Ah, dear Reader, may these questions (which only briefly touch these important matters) be considered with a prayerful heart, and may we be made sincere before the great God. “We have sinned with our fathers, we have committed iniquity, we have done wickedly.” May the Lord graciously lead us into our guilt and shame before Him. Oh, that we may return to Him with a hearty confession of our many sins. His hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither His ear heavy, that it cannot hear. It is our iniquities, however, which have caused a separation, and our sins have hid His face from us, that He does not hear. (Isa. 59:1, 2). No matter how dark it may be, or how grievous things may look, nevertheless the Lord has yet left in the midst of us “an afflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the name of the Lord.”

O people of God, who must now say oftentimes: “I am wretched, and poor, and naked”; do keep courage. Pour out before Him your whole heart. “Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thy heart.” Soon your cause, which is really the Lord’s own cause, shall be placed in the light. Then it shall be evident that you did not commit yourself unto the Lord in vain. Oh, how terrible it shall then be for those who would not live with this poor and needy people and suffer affliction with them as Moses did, and who continue to seek the pleasures of Egypt. If you die in this state, it would have been better if you had never been born. Oh, do yet call upon Him while He is nigh and it is not yet too late to be saved. May the Lord remember you “with the favor that He beareth unto His people.” Ps. 106:4.

Lastly, poor people in yourselves, you have the promises in Christ Jesus for this time and for the future. “All things are yours … and ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.” If we by grace may rely upon the faithful Lord and commit ourselves unto Him, we shall never be made ashamed; but the Bible and experience teaches us that we certainly will be made ashamed with ourselves and the world. In all things put your trust in the faithful Jehovah. Keep your eye in all your ways upon God, and the end shall be peace.

The late Rev. J. Vande Hoef

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