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Instruction

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Instruction

9 minuten leestijd Arcering uitzetten

In Psalm 42, the poet speaks of a thirsting for the living God. This psalm is known for its instruction. The poet gives us a glance into his heart, and he explains what God is for him and what he may find in Him.

We cannot say with certainty who the author is of this psalm. But our thoughts go to King David as the author. For in it we hear the soul-cry of one man who is separated from the institutions of God. In this psalm, David is in very difficult circumstances. He cannot go to the temple of God, whom he cannot miss, to have communion with Him. And, as he wanders far away, the enemy mocks him with: Where is now thy God? Not only is it dark outwardly, but also inwardly. It is storming in his heart. He feels forsaken of the Lord, and that especially causes him to go so bowed down over the world.

No, David was not a stranger of grace. He had come to know the Lord as a holy and righteous God, and also as a God full of grace and mercy in His only beloved Son, Christ Jesus.

Oh, what a wonderful time that was for David when the Lord showed him that outside of himself He has opened a way for a sinner to be saved — when the love of God for His people was poured forth in his heart —that love which is from everlasting. He has had wonderful times when he could experience here below that communion from above.

But now, he has to miss all this. That friendly countenance no longer makes his heart rejoice. Now the Lord hides His face. That is why sorrow and fear fill his heart. He cannot help himself in regard to what has happened in the past. Where it was once light, it is now dark. Where there was once joy, now there is sorrow. Where there was once possessing, now there is missing. That is why fear fills his heart. He misses God and without God he has nothing.

Who, of God’s children, cannot understand this? How, also in their life, they must experience that the days of darkness are many. They never counted on that. When the Lord opened a way where there was no way, when heaven descended and a little of the love of God was felt within, then they said: “Now we will go from strength to strength. We will never doubt again. Now it will always be light; the darkness is past.” And at that time, they meant this with their whole heart. “Now we will never sin again.”

But it is so different from what they thought. There came a day when His nearness could not be felt anymore. Fear filled their heart. Has the Lord withdrawn Himself? It became dark within and without. The voices within began to speak. Where is now your God? Where is He who was your life, your salvation? All that you have experienced — was it really God’s work? Perhaps it was all of yourself. How fearful it became! Then they ask, “Lord, if it was Thy voice which spoke, Thy hand which touched, let me hear and feel it once more.” Is that the experience of your heart today? See then, that this is exactly the purpose of the Lord in the hiding of His blessed countenance from His children — so that again they may look upon their empty hands and stretch them forth unto Him who gives songs in the night.

Will we ever rightly value the blessed presence of God unto our soul, then it is necessary that there are times that we miss His blessed presence. When David missed that sweet communion of the Lord, there a soul-cry was born. He went outside by himself and walked out unto the hills to find a quiet place to sink down in prayer and cry out his needs unto the Lord. And when he is there upon his knees, then he hears something he has heard many times in his travels, but it has never pierced his heart as at this time. He hears the crying of a hart (a female deer). This hart is in a desperate need and feels close to death. Only when a deer is close to death, does it cry out with such a heart-rending cry. What is the problem with this hart? It is exhausted and cannot go on. Oh, how it pants, how its heaving sides gasp, and how it longs for the cooling stream! Not only that it may drink large draughts of the fresh waters and quench that burning thirst, but also that it may swim across and escape the hunters who continue to pursue.

Oh, is there yet such a stream of cooling waters in this entire wilderness? Yes, when the sun’s rays fall upon it, then the hart can see the water far below; it can smell the water, but there lying high above upon the cliff the hart cannot come to the water. There it raises its head and in deep despair her cry resounds across the hills. You can hear that it is a matter of life and death. When it cannot quench its terrible thirst, then this hart must perish.

How strong, how striking the figure! And yet strong as it is, how earnestly does David employ this to set forth the panting of his soul after God. As the hart pants after the water brooks, so pants his soul after the Lord. Without the Lord, he cannot continue. He feels that to miss God is to miss everything. Now, while he is lying there, his heart is destitute of what formerly gave him so much hope and courage. Now he says, “My soul thirsteth for the Lord.” That thirsting is a mark of the grace of God in his life. Even when he cannot see it at this time.

A person in his natural state does not know the thirsting after God. He may thirst after gold, after land, after honor, but he does not thirst after God. True, many thirst after God’s heaven, knowing that heaven will give eternal rest. But only grace poured forth in the heart of man causes a true thirsting after the God of heaven. This does not mean that this thirst is always equally as strong in the life of God’s children. How many days pass by when it is so cold within that it seems as if nothing can ever be made warm again. How dead within when heaven does not quicken and hell not frighten! No, we cannot enter into the fulness of the figure David uses.

PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY

We cannot, we dare not lay our feelings stretched out fully side by side with his or use the same burning, vehement, ardent expression. But, we may see what is the experience of a child of God. No, then you must not be utterly cast down when you cannot find the exact same thirst in your life as was David’s experience. The question is, “Can you find any?” If so, take courage, for the Lord despises not the day of small things. That new life is the work of His hands. It can be covered under the ashes of sin, but it never dies. Those hands which have placed it there, will also uphold it.

What a blessing when that new life may grow, and the missing which is felt within becomes a sorrow after God. Then a living complaint ascends up unto the living God. When your inner life is the work of His hands, then you will continue to need those hands. Those hands do not always work the way you think they should. For those hands have much work to break down what you build, to lead in a way that is always against self, but in a way where the Lord will receive all the honor and the sinner God’s salvation. Under those hands, those people may become less and less — nothing—and God becomes more and more — everything.

What a privilege to know that inward thirsting! It is often so different. We are often so “converted” in our own eyes; we can live with what lies in the past and there is so little need for the Lord. Is it then any wonder that it is so dead within?

With the poet, it is different. He cannot miss the Lord anymore. When his thoughts go back to Jerusalem, there stands the temple, there is the altar dripping with blood, there the entire service speaks of that blood which alone cleanses all sins.

Is it then any wonder that he pants for the house of God? That he longs for that assurance which flows from the cross of Calvary? There a dying Savior thirsted as no creature ever thirsted. But through His mediatorial thirsting, He opened a fountain of living waters. And now He can say, “If any man thirsts, let him come unto Me and drink.” Those thirsting ones will never be ashamed. The more they may drink from that fountain, the stronger they will long for communion. There are times when they may lift up their eyes and say: “When shall I come and appear before God?”

When a foretaste is already so sweet, what shall it be to one day be there where God will be all in all! Then they may forever drink without ever being thirsty again.

Rev. J. Den Hoed is pastor of the Netherlands Reformed Congregation of Rock Valley, Iowa.

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Bekijk de hele uitgave van zaterdag 1 april 1989

The Banner of Truth | 28 Pagina's

Instruction

Bekijk de hele uitgave van zaterdag 1 april 1989

The Banner of Truth | 28 Pagina's