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PRAYER DAY

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PRAYER DAY

21 minuten leestijd Arcering uitzetten

“Lord, lift Thou up the light of Thy countenance upon us,”Psalm 4:6b.

BELOVED:

According to Eccl. 12:13 it behooves all men to fear God. We are all God’s offspring as has been declared of old, in the days of Paul. We are created after God’s image and are adorned with His glory. God is our Creator and Provider, and however deep we have fallen through sin, God maintains His claim upon us. Our life and all our ways are in God’s hand. He gives us life, breath and all things. Moreover, like Adam, we have broken the covenant of works, but it has pleased God, immediately after the fall, and before time, to make known the covenant of grace as the revelation of the eternal will of God in Christ.

O, it is an abominable sin and base ingratitude not to acknowledge God. It behooves all men to fear God, for everything which we receive from day to day, both in nature and in grace, are proofs and evidences of God’s mercy. God still causeth His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. The way of salvation as revealed in Christ is still being preached to us, and God continues to proclaim to us that He delights not in the death of the wicked but that we should repent and live, Ex. 33:11. Day by day we are being loaded with God’s mercies. If God were to deal with us according to justice and righteousness, we would sink away into eternal damnation, but He continues to dispense a labor of love upon man. O that the goodness of God would lead us unto repentance.

On this day we are gathered to implore God’s blessing upon the crops of the field. Our fields shall be tilled and sown again, but the blessing must come from above. May we be deeply persuaded and impressed so that in humility we might look up to God. From our side all blessings are unmerited, but may God, for Christ’s sake, remember us and the nation, and still give seed for the sower and bread for the eater. Ah, may we stand in need of God, not only for the temporal things, but above all for our spiritual welfare. May God’s Spirit work the needs in our hearts as was in the heart of David imploring God for the lifting up of the light of His countenance as we wish to consider at this time.

“Lord, lift Thou up the light of Thy countenance upon us,” Psalm 4:6b.

Outwardly the circumstances were very difficult in which David and his people found themselves, when in the words of our text he poured out his heart before the Lord. David was being persecuted by his enemies. It is very likely that this psalm was written at the time when he had to flee from his son Absalom. God had bestowed much grace upon David. It was no secret to David why God led him through such a way. Heeding God’s command, the prophet Nathan had told him, that although God had forgiven his sins, yet the sword would not depart from his house. God settles accounts with his people here below.

No, David did not manifest any enmity and did not curse those that so mercilessly persecuted him, but in deep humility he bowed down before God. God’s grace triumphed in his heart and as fruit thereof there was an accepting of the ways in which God led him. There was no murmuring nor rebellion, but a real humbling in his soul. God brings His people down to the deepest abasement. David was enabled to practice something of that which the Lord speaks in Matt. 11:29: “Learn of Me that I am meek and lowly in heart.” The outward professor, who with all his religion is a stranger of God, knows nothing of this.

Moreover, in all his outward misery, David was favored with a clear consciousness of the justness of his care and of the high and wonderful favor which he had with God. We may also observe in David’s life that for special ways, God gives special grace to His people. Out of infinite love, and immutable faithfulness, God descends into the depths with His people and encourages them under the cross. Wherever the poor world sinks away and becomes desperate, there He grants His people strength and grace to find their strength only in God.

By grace he was enabled to look into that eternal peace treaty, where the Father had separated His Son as a favorite, and with Whom He had made and confirmed the covenant. In that favorite, Christ Jesus, he had also been chosen and loved by God from before the foundation of the world.

It is a great mercy if we may receive this from God, but it is still greater that with this consciousness, we may carry it about in our heart by the sealing of the Holy Spirit. David was assured of his portion, and standing in the immediate light of God, he was enabled to testify of this.

Upon this basis he comes to admonish his enemies but also comforts and strengthens his wavering friends. In safety and with a joyful heart David laid himself down as if he slept that night upon the royal couch in his palace and not in a field.

In Psalm 4 David had an open throne, and with all his needs and wants, he had a bold access to the heart of God.

When heaven is closed to a child of God, he is oppressed and everything condemns him. But if he may go to God, in Christ, the greatest misery does not bother him.

When David had been expelled and thrust off his throne and out of Jerusalem by his son Absalom, there was still a small group of faithful followers who accompanied him. They could not forsake the king. They were firmly convinced that David had been anointed by God to that office and that Absalom was an intruder.

O, those faithful followers had so much love and respect for David. While believing in his divine calling they wanted to share all misery with him. They still believed that the Lord would defend His child and servant. After all the persecutions by Saul, it became clearly manifested to the entire nation and in the establishing of his kingdom, they had seen that the Lord was with him. God had given grace and glory to the son of Jesse. Would God not do it now? They had believed and hoped for a long time, but now being in the fortress, (Mahanaim), the enemy had assembled themselves for war (II Sam. 17:24), the necessary foods were lacking and their faith is shaken and their hope wavering. They became confused, and now that they see death before their eyes, they become panic-stricken.

They had expected a reversal of things for a long time, but now it really seems that not David, but Absalom, would be the victorious party. Hence, David had not only to contend with the enemies without, but also with doubt and despondency within in his closest surroundings. O how everything in the life of God’s people, by permission as it were, conspire to ruin those people. How fearful the days are when they have to experience, but

“However dark God’s way may be,

He looks in favor upon those that fear Him.”

They have a mighty Helper and the faithful Jehovah shall not permit the righteous to waver.

Did not David also become despondent and sad in that critical moment? We would expect it, but it was not so. God was the strength of his heart. The faithful Jehovah was as a wall of fire around him. As the rebellion spread and the degenerate son with his thousands had already crossed Jordan and is chasing his fleeing father to destroy with one blow his power and rule, and his faithful ones are wavering, David’s faith is like an immovable rock.

David did not rave at his enemies, but neither did he seek by reasonings to conquer the doubt of his friends. He knew by personal experience that there is no reasoning against unbelief and little faith because David was no stranger of his own heart.

David knew a better remedy against unbelief and despondency; he placed the prayer, “Lord, lift Thou up the light of Thy countenance upon us” in opposition to this. David was enabled to look up to God. 0, what a great mercy this is. We have closed heaven by our sins. By virtue of our deep fall, we are separated from God, but 0 eternal wonder, God had thoughts of peace and not of evil toward His people, and that from eternity.

It has pleased Him, for His own sake, to glorify Himself freely and sovereignly in the lustre of His virtues unto salvation and preservation of some of Adam’s sons and daughters. To that end He did not spare His Son but delivered Him up so that with the retention and glorification of His infinite justice, He could impart Himself to death and hellworthy sinners.

All hope was cut off on man’s side, but God gave His Son so that He could satisfy God’s justice, heal the breach which there was between God and us, and by that blessed Jacob’s ladder reunite heaven with earth, and earth with heaven. That ladder was set upon earth, and the top reached to heaven, Gen. 28:12. The ordained Surety and Mediator was true God but also true and righteous man. He came into the world to bridge the gap by humbling himself unto the death of the cross.

He was also raised again by the Father, and as that Great High Priest, He entered into the veil with His own blood having brought about an everlasting reconciliation. Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one can come to the Father but by Him. But, also, only in Him, the Father exercises communion with His people.

No worthiness nor merits from our side are considered, but only upon the basis of the blood and righteousness of Christ Jesus and being emboldened by God’s Spirit, God’s child may look up to heaven and lay itself down before the throne. O, when God’s Spirit prepares a sinner, he can no longer find any satisfaction in the world. Everything is cut off and closed so that by faith, he shall boldly go to the throne of grace to obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

In the way of His adorable providence, God brings His people into straits so that they shall need Him and know what God is for them. The Name of the Lord is a strong tower to those people; the righteous runneth unto it and are safe. Christ becomes indispensable and more precious to those poor people.

It can never be expressed what it is for a lost sinner that he may find an hearing ear in heaven, no God Who damns, rejects, and disowns him forever, (and what would be eternally just if that would happen), but One Who will listen to the groans of such a wretched one.

God is satisfied with His people because their Surety has satisfied the Father’s demands. God was, in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself (II Cor. 5:19).

Christ was forsaken by God so that His people would nevermore be forsaken by God but would meet His friendly countenance; no angry Judge but a reconciled God and gracious Father Who delights Himself in discovering and imparting of Himself to those whom He has loved and known from eternity.

God’s countenance is His discovered Being. From that countenance radiates the glorious and lovely light of His perfections especially of His power, love and grace. In the light of God’s countenance is life, joy and happiness through the Holy Spirit.

The lifting up of God’s countenance is the sign and the manifestation of His favor and help to the saving and preservation of His favorites. Moses stood in need that God’s countenance would go with him to reassure him. The poet of Psalm 80:4 implored, “Cause Thy face to shine and we shall be saved.”

In opposition to the lifting up stands the turning away and the hiding of God’s countenance which is a sign and manifestation of God’s disfavor and wrath. Thus speaks the Lord in Isa. 64:7, “For Thou hast hid Thy face from us.”

There is nothing God’s children fear more than for the hiding of God’s countenance. Consider Psalm 27:9, Psalm 30:7, and Psalm 69:8. How earnestly they desire that God would cause His face to shine upon them. These are surely fearful times when God hides Himself and is as a bear lying in wait and as a lion in a secret place, Lam. 3:10. Then their moisture turns into the drought of summer and the enemy takes advantage of that to wound their soul with his sharp darts. O how bitter sin is, and how sorrow and want consumes their inward life.

For that reason, David did not know of any better remedy against the disease of doubt and wavering than the lifting up of the light of God’s countenance.

As the sun in its rising, that lovely and powerful light drives away the darkness of the soul, the darkness of judgment and the darkness of unbelief.

When on the morning of the third day after its setting upon Golgotha, the Sun of Righteousness arose again on the horizon, and being glorified by the Father, manifested itself. Then the watchers became as dead men and fled to the city. Not an enemy was left.

Thus it is also when in our heart and life, God causes His face to shine. The power of hell is embodied, and through that glorious light a joy and happiness is being poured out into the bowed-down heart so that it may be seen on their face. That lifting up of God’s countenance is a conception that God is near with His help and deliverance. O, it is the experience of all God’s children throughout all times and ages, that when God hides His face from them, they are troubled; but if He lifts up His countenance upon them in Christ, then their heart is widened and gladdened, then they walk, even when under oppression, bravely and joyfully in the light of God’s coutenance. Their soul then agrees with God’s ways and doings knowing and believing that all things shall work together for good for those that love God and who are called according to His purpose.

Yea, the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in them. The lifting up of God’s friendly countenance puts an end to the many foolish expectations, needless concerns, and sinful complaints with which our heart is filled.

Yea, that lifting up of God’s countenance causes the restless heart to come to rest. It is then experienced, “Truly, my soul waiteth upon God; from Him cometh my salvation.” All needs and wants, both inwardly and outwardly, are made known unto God with prayer, supplication, and thanksgiving. We surrender ourselves with our ways, into God’s hand. Then we have nothing to say but follow the Lord through sown and unsown fields, we follow the Lamb wherever He may go, being glad and filled with His presence. We have enough in God, and we delight ourselves in Him Who is a God of perfect salvation for His people. Then all sin and guilt fall away. The precious blood of Christ, God’s Son, cleanses from all sin, but that blood also makes them precious in the sight of God. They enjoy a peace which passes all understanding and which keeps heart and mind in Christ Jesus. God shall neither be angry with them nor rebuke them. His favor strengthens more than the choicest meat.

The lifting up of God’s countenance also gives vital strength and courage. O how should God’s child be able to go out into this waste, howling wilderness without the lovely countenance of God in Christ Jesus. Through God they shall do valiantly, and they can do all things through Christ which strengthens them. There is peace in their heart, even though the faces of the enemies are turned wrathfully against them.

Christ triumphed on the cross over all the powers and forces of hell, and in Him they are more than conquerers.

Even though sin may raise its head, nothing shall separate them from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, their Lord.

They travel, while walking in that light, being comforted and strengthened toward death, since Christ has swallowed up death into victory and the sting has been removed. Christ’s righteousness is the gate of the Lord through which all the righteous people enter into the city which has foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God.

Blessed are they, who with David, look away from all circumstances and, during their life, truly stand in need of the lifting up of God’s countenance.

Alas, poor man has no need of this by nature. By virtue of his fall, he lives without God in the world, and concerns himself only about the things of this world.

Yea, the Bible itself tells us that man has loved darkness rather than light.

We have extinguished that light which at one time shone in the state of rectitude. Now we are darkened in our understanding and strangers of the life of God. How miserable our state is after the breaking of the covenant of works. We are entirely lost in ourself. God is a consuming fire to us and an everlasting burning with Whom no man can dwell. There would never be any more expectation if God Himself, in the Son of His eternal good pleasure, had not devised a way in which and by which it is possible to again be delivered out of the darkness. God has bestowed help upon One Who is mighty to save. God, Himself, has declared the way after Adam and Eve had sinned themselves out of that light, and when they sat in the night of sin, guilt and judgment. The apostle wrote to the church, “We have a more sure word of prophesy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts,” II Peter 1:19.

Christ was the true Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. Through the intercession of that Surety of the Covenant, Who appeased God’s wrath and quenched God’s indignation, God is able to light up His countenance in favor again.

But, oh beloved, that want of God must be discovered again in our life by God’s Spirit, and that want must become unbearable it we ever will stand in need of God. We shall have to agree to that wholeheartedly but also accept it with our heart that it would be eternally just if God caused us to sink down into eternal darkness where shall be weeping and ganshing of teeth. God’s Spirit teaches those convinced and discovered people to love God’s justice more than their salvation.

The Spirit also glorifies Christ in the hearts of the elect. When the time of God’s good pleasure has come, then the light arises for those people who walk in darkness and who dwell in the land of the shadow of death.

They become aware that it is good for their eyes to behold the Sun. God manifests Himself in Christ to His people, and that manifestation is unto their salvation. Their honor and riches, their joy and gladness consists in knowing and possessing God. That is their all. To miss this is worse than death to them. They cannot live without it although they can so often do without it. Those are happy times when they cannot for one moment be without it but have wrestlings with God and rejoice in that light.

They shall forever walk in that light in heaven. There shall be no more darkness because there shall be no more sin. Here it ever remains as seeing through a glass darkly; but then it shall be face to face through the Lord’s Spirit.

May it become a serious examination for each one of us whether we ever felt the need of that friendly countenance of God. The time is short and we are all traveling to such a great eternity. It shall be twice as heavy to have lived beneath the light of the Gospel, and then to perish. Then it shall be, “My own fault, my own fault.” May God bless and sanctify this word to true conversion while we still live in the day of salvation and while the door has not been forever put upon the night latch. May God have mercy upon us and our children to the glory of His illustrious Name. People of God, may we not be content with our conversion, or live out of our justification, but constantly stand in need of communion with God in Christ. The enjoyment of that shall give peace and rest in our hearts.

APPLICATION

May God cause His face to shine upon us during this season of the year. The king, himself, is served by the field. May the Lord give His blessing upon the labor and make the fields fruitful. The blessing for the field must also come from above. May God look down in mercy from heaven and enable each one in his own work to fulfil the calling which God has given in this life. We are all so dependent upon God and are unable to stir or move ourselves without His will. May the Lord bless the labor of our hands and may we together be fed with the food suitable for us, Prov. 30.

May the Lord keep us and our livestock as well as the fruits of the field from special disasters and calamities. May the Lord prolong the peace among the nations of the earth and not deliver us to the destruction of war, preserving us from famine and pestilence. God could righteously deliver us and our children to greatest destruction, but may He be gracious unto us, and in His wrath, remember mercy to the glory of His Name. May also the authorities and especially the President of the country receive light from above and be endowed with the fear of God to rule our land and people according to the demands of God’s Word and Law. In the keeping of God’s command there is great reward, Ps. 19, but whosoever despiseth the Word shall be destroyed, Prov. 13:13. O, that there might be a breaking with sin and a returning to the Law and the Testimony.

May the Lord have mercy upon us and upon our children and keep us with the pure doctrine which is according to godliness. But above all, that the truth may work powerfully unto salvation through the irresistible ministration of the Holy Spirit. Then we would stand in need of God and have no rest before we were reconciled to God through the blood of the Lamb. Yea, then it also would become a real need, “Lord, do not let me depart from here except Thy presence go with us to reassure us.” O that the God of all grace, out of sovereign kindness for Christ’s sake, grant us this year temporal, but above all, spiritual blessings in heaven in Christ Jesus. Body and food shall be destroyed. Everything here is perishable and shall fall away. Yea, also the goods of this world cannot fill our heart. The Triune God is the all-fulfilling and all-satisfying good. If God lifts His friendly countenance upon us, then we may enjoy real comfort and die happily.

O beloved, may David’s prayer be wrought in our heart by the Holy Spirit and be, or become, the chief concern of our life. God fulfills it initially in this life, but by and by perfectly in heaven, because of the blood of His Son, through the Holy Spirit. AMEN.

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Bekijk de hele uitgave van vrijdag 1 maart 1974

The Banner of Truth | 20 Pagina's

PRAYER DAY

Bekijk de hele uitgave van vrijdag 1 maart 1974

The Banner of Truth | 20 Pagina's