I Will Praise Thee, O LORD!

Psalm 9:1  To the chief Musician upon Muthlabben, A Psalm of David. I will praise thee, O LORD, with my whole heart; I will shew forth all thy marvellous works.

Praise should always follow answered prayer; as the mist of earth's gratitude rises when the sun of heaven's love warms the ground.

Hath the Lord been gracious to thee, and inclined His ear to the voice of thy supplication? 

Then praise Him as long as thou livest. 

Let the ripe fruit drop upon the fertile soil from which it drew its life. 

Deny not a song to Him who hath answered thy prayer and given thee the desire of thy heart.

To be silent over God's mercies is to incur the guilt of ingratitude...

It is to act as basely as the nine lepers, who after they had been cured of their leprosy, returned not to give thanks unto the healing Lord. 

To forget to praise God is to refuse to benefit ourselves...

For praise, like prayer, is one great means of promoting the growth of the spiritual life.

It helps to remove our burdens, to excite our hope, to increase our faith. 

It is a healthful and invigorating exercise which quickens the pulse of the believer, and nerves him for fresh enterprises in his Master's service.

To bless God for mercies received is also the way to benefit our fellow men; "the humble shall hear thereof and be glad." 

Others who have been in like circumstances shall take comfort if we can say, "Oh! magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together; this poor man cried, and the Lord heard him." 

Weak hearts will be strengthened, and drooping saints will be revived as they listen to our "songs of deliverance." 

Their doubts and fears will be rebuked, as we teach and admonish one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. They too shall "sing in the ways of the Lord," when they hear us magnify His holy name.

Praise is the most heavenly of Christian duties. 

The angels pray not, but they cease not to praise both day and night...

And the redeemed, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, are never weary of singing the new song, "Worthy is the Lamb."

~Charles Spurgeon

The Tyranny Of The Customary

In the Old Testament, the enemy that threatened Israel the most was the dictatorship of the customary. 

Israel became accustomed to walking around in circles and was blissfully content to stay by the safety of the mountain for a while. 

To put it another way, it was the psychology of the usual. 

God finally broke into the rut they were in and said, "You have been here long enough. It is time for you to move on."

To put Israel's experience into perspective for our benefit today, we must see that the mountain represents a spiritual experience or a spiritual state of affairs. 

Israel's problem was that they had given up hope of ever getting the land God had promised them. 

They had become satisfied with going in circles and camping in nice, comfortable places. 

They had come under the spell of the psychology of the routine. 

It kept them where they were and prevented them from getting the riches God had promised them. 

If their enemy, the Edomites, would have come after them, the Israelites would have fought down to the last man and probably would have beaten the Edomites...Israel would have made progress. 

Instead they were twiddling their thumbs, waiting for the customary to keep on being customary.

~A. W. Tozer

An Undecided Man Is A Halting Man!

1Ki 18:21  And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.  

It is strange that people will not get over the idea that a consecrated life is a difficult one.

A simple illustration will answer this foolish impression. 

Suppose a street car driver were to say, "It is much easier to run with one wheel on the track and the other off," his line would soon be dropped by the public, and they would prefer to walk.

Of course, it is ever so much easier to run with both wheels on the track, and always on the track, and it is much easier to follow Christ fully than to follow with a half heart and halting step.

The prophet was right in his pungent question, "How long halt ye between two opinions?" 

The undecided man is a halting man. 

The halting man is a lame man and a miserable man

And the out-and-out Christian is the admiration of men and angels, and a continual joy to himself.

Say, is it all for Jesus, As you so often sing, Is He your Royal Master, Is He your heart's True King?

~A. B. Simpson

Stripped Lying At The Feet Of Jesus

Heb 4:13  Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

The literal translation of that phrase in Hebrews is, "all things are stripped and stunned." 

Such is the force of the Greek words. 

The figure is that of an athlete in the Coliseum who has fought his best in the arena, and has at length fallen at the feet of his adversary, disarmed and broken down in helplessness. 

There he lies, unable to strike a blow or lift his arm. 

He is stripped and stunned, disarmed and disabled, and there is nothing left for him but to lie at the feet of his adversary and appeal to him for mercy.

Now this is the position to which God wants to bring us, where we shall cease our struggles and our attempts at self-defense or self-improvement and throw ourselves helplessly upon the mercy of God. 

This is the sinner's only hope, and when he thus lies at the feet of mercy, Jesus is ready to lift him up and give him that free salvation which is waiting for all.

This, too, is the greatest need of the Christian who seeks a deeper and higher life...

To come to a full realization of his nothingness and helplessness and to lie down, stripped and stunned, at the feet of Jesus.

~A. B. Simpson

Former Blessing No Argument For Present Compromise

The whole question of spiritual fullness is at stake. 

 

I have spoken of what might have been in the case of Jonathan. 

 

David came to the kingdom in fullness, and Jonathan might have been there at his side, his strength and support in the kingdom...

 

But no; instead of that, he passes out in this tragic way. 

 

In a sense, there is nothing wrong with Jonathan; but he has become involved in compromise with another one and another instrument and another order of things, because he did not make a clean cut. 

 

It is not for us to judge why, but it does seem that it must have been that he argued on the ground of natural reasoning about this thing. 

 

What does it all amount to? 

 

If spiritual fullness is to be reached, we have to be governed by Divine and heavenly principles, and not by human considerations. 

 

Divine principles; not...What will the consequences be? 

 

Not, What shall we lose? 

 

Not even, What will the Lord lose? - because that is a very subtle argument. 

 

The Lord does not ask us to reason this thing out on that level at all. 

 

He says, 'What is the Divine principle? Let that principle govern and guide.' 

 

You may not see at all how it is going to work out. 

 

If you are governed by Divine principles you may seem to lose a lot here; you may, for a time, have to go out with David and wait. 

 

But in the end the principles will be vindicated. 

 

You Have To Recognize That Compromise On Principle Only Brings Disaster. 

 

You see it everywhere.

The need is to seek to know what the Divine principle is in any matter. 

Has God revealed His own thought and mind?...

Then I Must Not Pursue Some Other Way on the ground that the Lord has blessed and the Lord has used that other way. 

That was true of Saul; that was true of Jonathan. 

But there came a point at which an ultimate issue was raised on principle by the revealing of God's full mind. 

Now I cannot argue that because people have been blessed and used of the Lord though they have not at given times and in given ways stood for that full mind, therefore it is not necessary for me to be abandoned to God's full thought. 

That is human argument. We must not do it.  

The Lord blesses when the heart is wholly for Him, but that does not mean that everything is there that He wants. 

The very people whom He is using He will presently bring to see something more of His will and how much more deeply His thoughts go. 

Then it is no less an issue than Amalek...

Human judgment must be utterly put away, in the light of the Divine mind then revealed.

I have no doubt you can see through what I am saying a great deal more...

If you do not grasp the whole thing, just take this as a guiding lesson in life, that where Divine fullness is concerned, the fact that the Lord blesses does not warrant us in arguing that we can stay in a certain position, that there is nothing more required. 

The point is, has the Lord revealed something more than is actually represented in the sphere where we have known His blessing? 

If so, it is for us to go on in the light of all that the Lord has revealed, and take the consequences. 

In the end it will be seen whether the principle was vindicated by God.

This story of Jonathan is, I say, a terribly pathetic and tragic story. 

No doubt he had a good argument for what he did, but he certainly did not argue from the heavenly standpoint. 

He did not say, 'God has made it perfectly clear that it is through David that His full purpose is to be realized. 

I knew from the beginning that David was the anointed, and not my father; I have had it confirmed again and again...

I told David that he was going to have the throne and the kingdom; my heart is with him...

And yet he is out there in the wilderness and I am here with my father. 

What am I doing here?

He did not argue, 'That is the direction in which the Lord's full purpose lies; it is for me to be there.' 

He doubtless had his arguments and his reasons and could probably have been very plausible as to why he was still sticking to his father and to the kingdom from which God had departed. 

He Was Compromising...

His Loyalty Was Divided...

And He Was Involved In The Tragedy.

It is a fresh call to us to act on principle with the Lord and not to argue from any other standpoint, on any other ground. 

We must say, 'What has the Lord revealed? 

It will mean this, it will cost that, it will involve me thus; but that is not the point. 

I am not going to be influenced or governed by consequences at all. 

Policy must have no place with me. 

What God has revealed - that is the only argument for me.

So Amalek became the occasion for bringing up the whole question of obedience to the Lord, involving the necessity for the setting aside of a great deal of natural judgment. 

Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord?

1Sa 15:22  And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. 

Beyond all outward observance and profession, the LORD  looks for Full and Uncompromising Obedience to His Revealed Will.

~T. Austin Sparks~