GOD Is The Rest Giver

1Ki 5:4  But now the LORD my GOD hath given me rest on every side, so that there is neither adversary nor evil occurrent.

GOD is the Rest Giver, When He surrounds us on every side with his protecting care, so that our life resembles one of the cities of the Netherlands in the great war inaccessible to the foe because surrounded by the waters of the sea, admitted through the sluice then neither adversary nor evil occurrent can break in, and we are kept in perfect peace, our minds being stayed on GOD.
    
Hidden in the hollow of his blessed hand, Never foe can enter, never traitor stand.
    
Have you experienced the rest which comes by putting GOD round about you, on every side like the light which burns brightly on a windy night because surrounded by its four panes of clear glass! 

Ah! what a contrast between the third and fourth verse: Wars on every side; Rest on every side.

And yet the two are compatible, because the wars expend themselves on GOD, as the waves on the shingle; and there are far reaches of rest within, like orchards and meadows and pasture lands beyond the reach of the devastating water.
    
Out of such rest should come the best work. 

We are not surprised to find Solomon announcing his purpose to build a house unto the name of the LORD.

Mary, who sat at the feet of Jesus, anointed Him.

Out of quiet hearts arise the greatest resolves; just as from the seclusion of country hamlets have come the greatest warriors, statesmen, and patriots.

Men think, foolishly, that the active, ever moving souls are the strongest. It is not so, however. They expend themselves before the day of trial comes.

Give me those who have the power to restrain themselves and wait; these are they that can act with the greatest momentum in the hour of crisis.

~F. B. Meyer~

He Knows Us

Gen 18:19  For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him.

GOD wants people that He can depend upon. He could say of Abraham, "I know him, that he will command his children . . . that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken."

GOD can be depended upon; He wants us to be just as decided, as reliable, as stable. This is just what faith means.

GOD is looking for men on whom He can put the weight of all His love and power and faithful promises.

GOD'S engines are strong enough to draw any weight we attach to them.

Unfortunately the cable which we fasten to the engine is often too weak to hold the weight of our prayer; therefore GOD is drilling us, disciplining us to stability and certainty in the life of faith.

Let us learn our lessons and stand fast.

~A. B. Simpson~

GOD knows that you can stand that trial; He would not give it to you if you could not.

It is His trust in you that explains the trials of life, however bitter they may be.

GOD knows our strength, and He measures it to the last inch; and a trial was never given to any man that was greater than that man's strength, through GOD, to bear it.

Faint Not!

There is an experience of soul exactly like the fainting of the body.

When a person faints there is an utter loss of strength accompanied with a real sickish feeling, paleness and a clammy sweat, causing the body to get limp, beyond the control of the will, and fall away in an unconscious swoon.

There is a real fainting of the soul which we are admonished against in the Word, "My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him."

We have this treasure in earthen vessels, for which cause we faint not. " Faint, yet pursuing."

Some of the feelings which may lead the Christian heart to faint are the following:

A feeling of loneliness of soul, as if we were isolated from all other spirits, and especially shut off from the souls that are around us.

We seem to be a castaway on some ethereal and desert island, with all intelligible communication with other souls cut off.

We sometimes think we would like to open all our inner feelings to a fellow-spirit, but if the opportunity occurs to do so, an invisible yet powerful check is laid upon us.

We seem to be more in fellowship with the souls of far-distant ages than with those near by.

We seem to pace the boundless shore of our solitary island, waiting for any sort of a change to break upon our experience, until we feel like sinking down under sheer sameness and monotone of soul.

Another feeling is that of being caged in, hampered and tied in an inextricable manner.

Providence seems to go off and leave us to the heartlessness of a thousand petty demons who pervade every little circumstance; who seem, like the fabled Liliputians, to tie our hands and feet while we sleep; who snap all the threads in our financial looms; who upset our ordinary plans; who turn anticipated joys into ashes; who bother us with a host of mental perplexities too subtle to define and too numerous to count. 

There are times when a current of such things seems to set in; times when everything seems to weave itself into a network of crippling environment, and any effort to extricate ourselves only bruises us.

At such times the question is shot into the mind, "What's the use?"

Another feeling is that of a strange pressure and a heavy bearing down in the soul, it seems we cannot get low enough to slip out from under the weight; the floor or ground is entirely too high for us.

Another feeling is that of paralysis. The faculties seem benumbed and unable to exert themselves.

Prayer is not versatile and fluent, but is reduced to a heart groan or the simple cry of the woman in the gospel, "Lord, help me."

This inertia of the faculties is accompanied with a sense of weariness in the soul;

The Holy Spirit recognizes this state of experience and distinctly mentions this heart tiredness, "Lest ye be weary and faint in your minds."

The Spirit has given us three remedies to prevent soul-fainting: 

One remedy is, " Consider Him who endured lest ye be weary and faint."

When prayer is inert, when every pinion of heart and mind is bound, we are to quietly fix our consideration on Him who endured;

Spread out before the mind how He was cramped, limited, contradicted; 

His inner feelings fettered and smitten in a thousand inconceivable ways;

How the normal yearnings of His heart were denied and snubbed;

How the whole of His outward environment was at such horrible disagreement with the fitness of things in His soul;

To consider all this, and much more which will occur to a meditative soul, will bring a sense of fellowship with Him which is excellent medicine for faintness of spirit.

Another remedy is, "Despise not thou the chastening of the Lord."

God arranges, or permits, for our chastening to come to us in such strange and unlooked-for ways, in such mortifying and disagreeable circumstances, by such undignified and outlandish agencies that we are apt to "despise the chastening."

We think we could take the scourging much better if it were applied with a more dignified and beautiful whip.

Our chastisement often occurs by things in which we see no semblance of divinity.

The trials, the besetments, the persons, the events, the gnarled and knotty annoyances, which God employs to correct or rebuke us, seem often so low and mean and out of harmony with the fitness of things that we are liable to despise the correction.

Now, if we can discover the hand of God in all these ugly things, if we can see the divine presence under all this network of unpleasantness, it will at once throw a new light on them, and the recognition of His presence will keep us from fainting. 

Despise not the chastening of the Lord nor faint when thou art rebuked by Him.

Another remedy for soul-fainting is the manifestation of Jesus to the inner spirit.

Paul tells us in second Corinthians, fourth chapter, that God hath shined in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and says this manifestation is a treasure which we have in earthen vessels.. 

Then, after alluding to our peculiar sufferings, concludes by saying, " For which cause we faint not."

So the best cure for heart-fainting is the blessedness of Jesus revealed in us by the Holy Ghost.

The dear, deep apprehension of Jesus as a personal, sympathizing, indwelling Saviour is a soul tonic, an invigorating balm to the spirit which nothing else can be.

~G. D. Watson~

Fear Has Its Place

Pro 28:14  Happy is the man that feareth alway: but he that hardeneth his heart shall fall into mischief.

The fear of the LORD is the beginning and the foundation of all true religion.

Without a solemn awe and reverence of GOD there is no foothold for the more brilliant virtues.

He whose soul does not worship will never live in holiness.

He is happy who feels a jealous fear of doing wrong. Holy fear looks not only before it leaps, but even before it moves.

It is afraid of error, afraid of neglecting duty, afraid of committing sin. It fears ill company, loose talk, and questionable policy,

This does not make a man wretched, but it brings him happiness.

The watchful sentinel is happier than the soldier who sleeps at his post.

He who foreseeth evil and escapes it is happier than he who walks carelessly on and is destroyed. 

Fear of GOD is a quiet grace which leads a man along a choice road, of which it is written, "No lion shall be there, neither shall any ravenous beast go up thereon."

Fear of the very appearance of evil is a purifying principle, which enables a man, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to keep his garments unspotted from the world.

Solomon had tried both worldliness and holy fear: in the one he found vanity, in the other happiness. 

Let us not repeat his trial but abide by his verdict.

~Charles Spurgeon~

A Strong Heart

Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD"  Psalm 27:1).

Wait! Wait! Let your waiting be on the LORD! He is worth waiting for. He never disappoints the waiting soul.

While waiting keep up your spirits, Expect a great deliverance, and be ready to praise GOD for it.

The promise which should cheer you is in the middle of the verse -- "He shall strengthen thine heart." 

This goes at once to the place where you need help.

If the heart be sound, all the rest of the system will work well. The heart wants calming and cheering, and both of these will come if it be strengthened.

A forceful heart rests and rejoices and throbs force into the whole man.

No one else can get at that secret urn of life, the heart, so as to pour strength into it. He alone who made it can make it strong.

GOD is full of strength, and, therefore, He can impart it to those who need it.

Oh, be brave; for the LORD will impart His strength to you, and you shall be calm in tempest and glad in sorrow.

He who penned these lines can write as David did -- "Wait, I say, on the LORD." 

I do, indeed, say it. I know by long and deep experience that it is good for me to wait upon the LORD.

~Charles Spurgeon~