A RARE PRIVILEGE

Part I

David was permitted to say this when for a moment he was privileged to speak to the Lord. O what a rare testimony, which gives us a deep insight into the soul’s life of the man after God’s heart.

He was one known from eternity. He was included in the covenant of grace, and because he had a place with God, he also received a place on earth, a special place, as child, king, prophet and poet. O how much God glorified His grace in his life.

From his childhood days he was led and instructed by the Lord. In 2 Chron. 17:3 God’s Word speaks of the former ways of David which means that in the beginning of his life, he lived close to God. According to the testimony of Asaph in Psalm 73 then it is good to be nigh unto God. That is the best, the most excellent and the most tender life. Separated from God means to be a stranger to God, and without God is nothing but misery.

By virtue of our deep fall in Adam, we are all separated from God. By wilful disobedience we tore ourselves away from God. In the state of rectitude we lived in communnion with God, but it did not please man to keep God in remembrance. We read of Adam and Eve that they hid themselves from the face of the Lord God. And of Cain we read that he went out from the presence of the Lord and became a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth.

Adam and Eve have been sought out by God and the promise of the Seed of the woman was given them. God Himself clothed them. God has glorified His free and sovereign grace in them, because He had from eternity thoughts of peace and not of evil.

So it was with David. In this psalm, he was led back to eternity, because there lies the firm foundation of God’s church. God has loved His people with an everlasting love. He has chosen them in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world. Their names are written in the Lamb’s book of life. He has given His Son for them, to be their Surety, Mediator, Savior, and Redeemer. Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable Gift.

The Son of God was willing, as He declared in the eternal council of peace “I delight to do Thy will, O my God, yea, Thy law is within my heart.”

In the fulness of time the Son assumed our human nature which was necessary to satisfy God’s justice and to redeem those whom He had received out of the hand of the Father as His heritage.

The mediatorial work of Christ did not only include the payment of the debt and reconciliation for iniquity, but also restoration of that church into communion with God. We read that plainly in I Peter 3:18, “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.”

And now God the Holy Spirit comes to quicken the elect sinner, who lies dead in trespasses and sins. That Spirit comes to convince the quickened sinner of sin, of righteousness and of judgment. The sentence of death and the curse of the law is proclaimed in their soul. They become aware that they have offended God, and stand as transgressors of all God’s commandments before a Holy and Righteous God. They are given to see that they are separated from God because of their original and actual sins; and that God cannot relinquish His justice, but because He is God, He has to vindicate Himself; and they would not desire anything else. Where the love of God has been shed abroad in the heart, they immediately receive respect and deep reverence, but also love for God’s justice and perfections. God’s justice supersedes their salvation. They would not want to be saved if the holy justice of God had to be offended. But for all that, the way becomes so narrow.

It is cut off from all sides: lost, lost, forever lost. But since God has loved His own from eternity, and because He has found a Ransom and is satisfied with the offering of His Son, therefore He does not permit them to sink into perdition. They start to cry from the depth of their lost condition, “Is there no way by which we may escape that punishment, and be again received into favor?” They acknowledge God’s justice, they accept their sentence, but they also cry for mercy.

Yea, it is something great to learn from God’s mouth through His Word that it is still possible, but through whom and how this shall take place is still concealed. It is a greater benefit when the Person of the Mediator is revealed in all His fulness. It is still greater when Christ is applied by the Holy Spirit, and through that Mediator they are restored into communion with God, and God’s Spirit Himself beareth witness with their spirit, that they are a child of God. O what an unspeakable wealth it is to be conscious of being restored into the blessed communion with God.

None shall ever be able to express in words what it is to have deserved eternal death and to receive eternal life. There are more souls who lack that knowledge, than there are those who may share in that knowledge.

O, the Lord is so free in the ministration and in the dispensation of His Divine grace. And it becomes so manifest in our life that we can receive nothing except it be given us from heaven. It is all of Him, through Him, and to Him, in order that God alone shall forever receive the glory of His work.

We renounce all false passiveness, and will not plead for that. Shame should often cover our faces because we make so little progress on the way of life. Then the apostle would say, “After all this time spent on you, you ought to be teachers, and ah, what do we know of it as yet and what do we possess of it? O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you,” etc. But on the other hand, how obvious it becomes in the life of God’s children, that it all depends upon the light and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. God’s people just have to remain beggars.

But when by saving grace we may learn to know a crumb of it, then it becomes the main point in our life, “How shall God attain His honor, and how does my soul obtain salvation?” It becomes the need of the soul, “How shall I ever become reconciled to God?” They cannot live on that way; they are hunted and vexed as a partridge of the mountains; and all their tears, wanderings, promises, and experiences cannot save them. It is awful to have an angry Judge above us, a cursing law within us, sins witnessing against us, and an open abyss before us.

They cannot live without God and they have to do without God, and then the distance becomes continually greater, and it becomes evermore impossible to them, to become reconciled to Him. While lacking that, and because of the impossibility on man’s side, those poor people groan and wrestle on earth.

At times they receive some relief when they go to God with their complaints, when they cry after Him, when they received love for God’s justice, when they taste and relish the sweetness of God’s Word and Gospel. At times they have been encouraged and sustained in all their sorrow and their want; but oh, they still walk upon earth with an unredeemed soul and an unpaid debt. They still lack a God for their heart and a Surety for their debt. It is so necessary that it comes to a solution for their soul and that they obtain peace with God through the blood of the Lamb.

Their sight becomes continually weaker, and they must experience more and more that God brings to naught the wisdom of the wise. We must step aside. Our light and sight must be extinguished in order that God’s work may shine clear and bright and brilliant.

However, we must consider it a great benefit when the wound remains open, until God Himself comes to heal the breach, and also that there may be a constant concern and desire after the immediate communion with God. Not only God’s concerned people but also the more exercised people of God are often so listless. How sad is our condition when we lose our concern, and we remain standing with so much which has become lifeless and which carries us farther away from God. Our foolishness becomes manifest in everything. We are rest seekers, ground seekers, but no God seekers, and in order that we may be able to seek God, we must constantly have our want discovered by God’s Spirit, but our want must also become unbearable, so that we pant after God as the hart panteth after the water brooks. Eternal life consists in the saving knowledge of the only true God and Jesus Christ Whom He has sent.

Beneath the precious Mediatorial wings of Christ there is healing for a sin sick soul, and beneath the shadow of the blessed Appletree it is pleasant and sweet. Also, in communion with God, there is an enjoyment which the whole world cannot give. The life of God flourishes only when the soul may be with God. The restless heart finds rest only in God, but also satisfaction and joy in God, and only then do they rejoice, because there they enjoy that peace which passes all understanding. Before it was a continual unrest. How often their soul is as it were pierced with the arrows of Satan. It was always a kingdom that was shaken, but now it is altogether different. The streams of the river shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacle of the Most High. God is in the midst of her, and that also means that the world has been overcome and Satan cannot disturb them as long as they experience that actual communion, nor can sin torture them.

“When I awake, I am still with Thee.”

David was favored to lose himself in those blessed all embracing and infinite thoughts of God. They were glorious, precious, and desirable to him. O, with that it is so different than with the things of this world. It is true, man runs after worldly things for by nature he has nothing else, but satisfaction is never to be found there. It leaves the poor man so empty, and how soon it loses its brilliancy.

It is altogether different with the eternal things. The finite mind can never comprehend the infinite, but as soon as the soul is accounted worthy to learn something of God by revelation, then it is so different.

When those people may come in contact with that precious Being, then they can never obtain enough of Him. The more revelation they receive from heaven, the greater their want becomes, but also their longing and desire. We see this in Moses, who after many revelations from the God of the covenant, implored Him, “Show me Thy glory.”

And Paul, who had learned so much of the blessed Christ in his life, writes in Phil. 3:10: “That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death.”

For God’s people it is a knowing and a following on to know which shall continue throughout the ages of eternity. It shall never end. O how blessed are those times when the thoughts of God and the glory of God in Christ Jesus may fill our heart day and night. When we may go to bed with them, sleep with them; and as we read of Jeremiah, that his sleep was sweet to him, but it is no less so if we can say with David, “When I awake I am still with Thee.” During his life, David knew of more such holy and refreshing days and nights. Just think of his testimony in Psalm 16:7: “I will bless the Lord Who hath given me counsel; my reins also instruct me in the night season.” And in Psalm 63:6, “When I remember Thee upon my bed, and meditate on Thee in the nightwatches.” O, to be favored whether asleep or awake to be so near and so close to that great and glorious God in Christ. In other words, that God is so good for us that nothing can come between us, that the devil is not permitted to disturb the peace of God in our hearts, and that we are kept from the ravages of sin. Those are the moments when with His special favor God remembers His people. Then the Lord takes everything under His control, and then it is as if the Lord says to His people, “My child, now you may take a rest.” At one time Christ also spoke to His disciples, “Rest a while.” Then they may bow blissfully under God, and all rebellion and opposition is broken. Then everything that God does is good.

At that time it is experienced that “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High, shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty,” to rest in the arms of the Lord Jesus and to awaken in the morning in the same condition. Truly it is a wonderful experience. How often our life is so different. Many times we walk on the earth so burdened! What storms and hurricanes blow continually upon the sea of life. It is as one of our blessed old English writers wrote, “That with which Satan cannot get us during the day, he often tempts us with at night.” O, when allowed to do so, how he torments and disturbs the soul of God’s children so that sleep is withheld from their eyes.

Those who have experienced it, know what sharp arrows Satan may shoot at our soul. It may be that we cannot stay in bed. O, at times we may get into such deep abysses, that with Peter we must cry out, “Lord save me, I perish!”, and it may be that we cannot make use of that weapon either. Everything may be so closed up and dark, that we can do nothing.

At times there is so much in our heart, home and surroundings, and in the church, which keeps us busy and disturbs our soul, that we turn and toss on our bed, and are unable to get from under it. Then again we are dissatisfied with and hostile to the ways and dealings of God. O, there is such a difference between fighting and wrestling. Only submission gives rest. But then that great Shilo, that Giver of rest, must step in and reveal Himself in His Kingly majesty and power to gain the victory and submission.

It also happens that we just lay ourselves on our bed without thinking about God. At times the whole world fills our heart and we are as it were buried under it so that there is neither desire nor place for heavenly thoughts. Sometimes when we awake, we feel guilty so that perhaps we say, “O God, here I lay down and slept all night without any issues of heart to Thee.” When we have known such times it may take such hold of us and condemn us; and it still does not change the inward condition of the heart.

O, how the depth of our fall becomes manifest in everything, because there are times when the soul is far from God and filled with all sorts of things, and for a time the true sorrow for that is lacking. When we put it all together, you can realize a little of what a rare privilege it is, when a child of God may testify with David, “When I awake, I am still with Thee.” But they do not have that of themselves. They have sold themselves to do evil, and they can do nothing but plunge themselves into misery. Those merciful thoughts which that precious Being has in Christ toward His people, are unspeakably great. During His sojourn upon earth, the Lord cleansed the temple; He drove them all out and by His acts it was confirmed, “The zeal of Thy house has eaten me up.” The Holy Spirit is a Spirit of judgment and burning; Who by His irresistible power expels sin and the world.

It is all a onesided work of God. Of ourselves we are so incapable of climbing up to God: and besides, how listless and without a felt need do we go on our way. It is more profitable for us to become involved in the worst conflict, than to be in a spiritless condition. Yet how surprisingly does the Lord continually come to His own. Time and again the Lord visits and fills His people at the most unexpected moments. He still comes when the doors are locked, and then not with a reproach as we would expect, but in love, mercy, and grace. Then He rebukes the enemy and comforts the heart of His favorites.

O what a wonder to be drawn out of self and of everything here below and to be filled with God, to be with the Lord, to receive precious revelations, to be led into the secrets of God’s will, counsel and covenant; to be with the Lord by faith, to behold Christ as God, Who is to be praised above all, to all eternity; but also as the Fairest of the children of men, and into Whose lips grace is poured.

“The King has brought me into His chamber,” and then “His banner over us is love.” No wonder that the poet sings, “Here my soul feasts with wondering eye.”

Then they acknowledge that, “the love of Christ passeth all knowledge,” and they become aware that the land of Immanuel is large. Then there is a blessed delighting themselves in the Person and in the work of the Holy Spirit, Who with the Father and the Son is the true and eternal God, and who proceeds from the Father and the Son. As He had and has His part in the work of creation and providence, so He is also active in the preparation of the church unto salvation.

Whenever something of that is revealed in the heart and we are favored to be busy and filled with it, what a blessedness is then tasted and enjoyed. Then it is in truth, “Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.” O what love and reverence then fills the heart. It is a silent admiring and wondering; it is a sinking away and losing oneself in a Triune God. Then they may put into exercise some of the original life in the state of rectitude, and taste that God is salvation. Then truly they have more gladness than in the time that the corn and the wine of the wicked are increased.

In the lips of him that hath understanding wisdom is found: but a rod is for the back of him that is void o f understanding. Proverbs 10:13

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