SONGS OF DEGREES

What a great privilege it is if a country and its people may live in peace, if no strange despots and tyrants enslave and exploit a nation, if also in the country itself no enemies rebel and try to overthrow everything that is according to justice and law. Valerius, a Dutch poet around 1625, sang one time: So happy is the land, which God the Lord protects. And so it is indeed, for only the protection of the highest King can cause a nation to dwell in peace.

But now the poet speaks of prayer for the peace of Jerusalem. That was the city of the great King, where He, during the life of His saints David and Solomon, has glorified His favour so richly. There was no cause in man for that, but He did so only from His free, electing love.

Now God’s servant commends to pray for it, namely, for that peace—the peace of God which passeth all understanding.

When God’s Zion on earth is being consumed by dispute and malice, the Lord cannot dwell there; however, when His peace dwells in their midst—and that can never be in any other way except in the way of humiliation of the Zionites—then this peace becomes evident.

Thus, a prayer for the peace of Jerusalem, granted by the Holy Ghost, is a wonderful, undeserved gift of grace.

When the Lord teaches something of that peace to His saints personally, when they may experience that His mercy can satisfy them early, then it becomes a matter of course to pray for that peace which comes down from heaven in the Zionite, as an individual, but also for the peace of the external manifestation of the Kingdom of the Lord on earth.

It is not so good if God’s children are unconcerned whether there is peace or not.

When Israel went and left God, you saw the sad consequences in the split of the kingdom during Rehoboam’s reign. And never did it heal. Oh, the consequences of our contentiousness are often awful in the minifestation of God’s militant Church on earth. How we should try to be least for each other so that the Name of the Lord be not greatly blasphemed. There has been so much unholy fire which has harmed the church immensely during the course of time.

To experience to be the least in sincerity before the Lord, however difficult this may prove for our flesh, still has always brought along the peace of God.

For this reason, then, the servant of the Lord testifies with liberty, “they shall prosper that love thee.”It is true, indeed, is it not, that it shall go well with us if we walk in the ways of the Lord. And then the Lord will take up the cause of His Church in strife and need, also in the days of scorn by the enemy and the attacks of the prince of darkness.

We can only prosper if there is a plain field between God and our soul. In a way of contention the Lord never comes over to us.

Do we also love Jerusalem? Or do we only have self-love? Do we have a desire after the peace of the heart by grace and the peace of God’s children among each other? That is only possible if we may have the Prince of peace as our King.

If we are occupied with self-love, then the Lord does not dwell with us; then we shall not have peace and we shall not prosper.

The King blow upon His garden (Song of Solomon 4:16) and He give us a lowly and humble life at His throne. Then we shall love Jerusalem. Then we shall not seek what divides but what unites. Then our heart shall long for this: that the peace of the Lord dwell in our midst unto the honour of His Name and the salvation of our souls.

By nature we all live in a condition opposite of peace. The Lord arise yet for us. But would that He arise also for His Church that it would become evident: “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” (Psalm 133:1). But then we need to experience Songs Hamma’ aloth—Songs of degrees. Why? Well, the Lord must teach us lowliness and meekness; He must draw us out of the depths and lead us together in peace and unity unto His temple. Oh, that He bring together the denominations now separated and torn asunder, insofar as the churches may still love the Old Truth, so “that glory may dwell in our land” (Psalm 85:9).

Happy is the man who experiences something, that one time all dispute and malice shall have vanished and that the peace of the Lord shall forever be the portion of His saints in the Jerusalem which is Above.

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