SONGS OF DEGREES

We closed the previous time by stating that the servants of the Lord also were privileged to wish a blessing unto the homeward going multitude. Well, they have indeed done this in the manner which our text indicates above.

The Lord’s servants may speak a word of farewell at this time which does not come from themselves but from the Lord of hosts, from that God Who dwells in the heaven of salvation and from which place He governs and directs the entire universe.

The servants of the temple say now, “The LORD bless thee out of Zion.”

What a rich word! After all, the blessing of the Lord is all that matters. Everything hinges upon that blessing. For indeed, their going to the temple only, oh, that could have been merely an outward doing, a matter of form. The objective observance is not the subjective experience. It was true, was it not, that at that time, too, they were not all Israel, which were of Isreal (Rom. 9:6). Therefore, if it is to go well with them but also with us, it is necessary that the Lord would grant His forfeited blessing to rebellious people.

It is, according to a certain author, as if the priests and levites are saying here: The Lord bow down Himself to you in His rich favour.

Now, we should observe time and again that the blessing of the LORD, is a deed, it is an action.

It is a blessing if the Lord begins to uncover and reprove of sin, righteousness, and judgment.

It is a blessing if it does not stay at being a conviction but that a bending over may be born.

It is a blessing if a man learns to own the punishments of his iniquities.

It is a blessing if the Lord begins to open His Word for one poor in spirit that he may read and experience that there is still a way and possibility of deliverance in Another.

It is a blessing if the soul is led back in the deep covenant-breach in Adam.

It is a blessing if Christ is pleased to reveal and declare Himself in the heart of one who flees to Him with weeping and supplication.

It is a blessing if we may not only speak of a revelation of Christ but if also an applied Christ may be known.

It is a blessing if the soul may be brought back to the Father.

It is also a blessing if we then still cannot become somebody but have to learn to understand in a way of sanctification that after grace received, our sins make often a deep separation, and that the Lord Himself is always the First One again to prove that though His rod their sins reprove, His mercy He will not remove.

“The LORD bless they out of Zion,” says the psalmist. The people were going home again and needed, no, not blessings and laying on of hands by men, but the blessing of the LORD out of Zion.

From His Sanctuary comes down every good and perfect gift. From the dwelling place of the Most High flow all things that pertain unto life and godliness. And that is possible only because He has sent His Son down from the Sanctuary, that heavenly Zion, so that He may send blessings down from Zion unto His people and in the end they may be drawn up into that Zion, following their King Who ascended up on high. Oh, Song Hamma’aloth — song of ascent!

Again, how is this possible? This can be only because God sent His Son in the fulness of time to carry away the judgment of the Church, to wash away their sins by His precious blood, and to bring in an everlasting righteousness.

God atoned by God and by this blessing, so that the sinner can be restored again unto a reconciled relationship with God. And all of this is out of Zion, the eternal dwelling-place of the Lord. The origin is divine.

In order to accomplish this, He is almighty. God is omnipotent, hence the phrase, “That made heaven and earth.” He That created all, is also able to recreate the sinner and grant new life to him.

Time and again the Lord points in Holy Spiriture to His omnipotence. Look at Psalm 121, “My help cometh from the LORD, Which made heaven and earth.” When Zion is so discouraged and cries out in lamentation, “My way is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my God!” then the reply encourages so preciously, “Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard„ that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth fainteth not, neither is weary?” (Is. 40:27, 28). Oh, all power in heaven and on earth is given unto Him and therefore He can bless you out of Zion.

Reader, we have come to the end of a simple discussion of the Songs Hamma’aloth. These songs are sung spiritually in the experimental life of God’s Church. The Lord grant us together to need those blessings which endure all time. And might Christ, the King of His dearly bought Church, add yet many unto the congregation who shall be saved.

Amen.

Chilliwack, B.C.

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