God Hath Spoken

You blame yourself for the change, and it is right and proper that you should do so.

You have not now those happy experiences that you once had; neither do you enjoy such blessed visits from your Lord as you had a year or so ago. You know that the fault lies with you; still, remember that faith is never dependent upon feeling, and our confidence is never to rest upon our inward condition. Otherwise, it rests on the shifting sand; but, if this is the case with you, now is the time for you to exercise faith, and to say, "Though I am, as it were a cast-off and the Word of the Lord is not just now solacing my heart, yet 'God hath spoken,' and, sinner as I am, if I be not a saint, I trust to what God has said to believing sinners, and 'I will rejoice,' even though I seem to be only a cast-off.

He says, in the 12th verse, "Give us help from trouble: Those, who said that they would never leave me, and who never did leave me while there was anything to be got out of me, are all gone. I said in my haste, 'All men are liars,' but 'God hath spoken in his holiness; I will rejoice. That was the kind of faith that Habakkuk had when he sang, "Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: Ready-to-halt; nay, better than that, surely this will take Ready-to-halt's crutches away and enable him to run without weariness in the ways of the Lord.

Here are the wings of eagles for you, if you only know how to use them: Get you a rejoicing grip of this great truth and the dwarf shall become a giant, the feeblest among us shall be as David, and the house of David shall be like the angel of the Lord. I will rejoice, I will divide Shechem, and mete out the valley of Succoth. The Lord will have his own people, and he will carry out his own purposes and decrees. They stand fast for ever, so the best thing for us is to do nothing at all.

God says that there shall be a harvest; so there is no need for our sowing, and we can lie abed as late as we like. He girds up his loins, and says, "God hath spoken in his holiness; I will rejoice, I will divide Shechem, and mete out the valley of Succoth. Suppose that he has promised you comfort, do not rest satisfied without that comfort. Suppose he has promised you joy and peace in believing; never rest till you have that joy and peace. Suppose he has promised you complete sanctification, full deliverance from the power of evil, do not be satisfied till you are delivered from it all.

Never say, "Ah, that is a constitutional sin; that is the result of my temperament. Some Christian people are living, spiritually, on a penny a week, when their income might be ten thousand a day. You might live like kings, yet you are starving like paupers. Your faith might lay hold on God's exceeding great and precious promises, and so fill her mouth with good things; but, instead of doing so, you are quivering with the palsy of unbelief, and so not grasping what God has put within your reach. There lies Succoth, but you do not mete it out.

There lies Shechem, but you do not divide it. Yet they are both of them yours by divine donation. Oh, if our faith did but really grip the promises, and believe in the promise-keeping God, she would never rest till she possessed all the blessings that are really hers! I think that every young Christian should say when he joins the church, "Now, I do not want to be merely an average Christian. I am nothing, and less than nothing, in myself; but, if there is any blessing to be had from God I will have it. If I can have a closer walk with God than others have, I will have it.

If there is more of Christ's likeness to be had than others possess, I will have it.

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By God's grace, 'I will divide Shechem, and mete out the valley of Succoth. Be no longer like the starveling professors that, now and then, taste a little of the heavenly manna; but, generally, live on the leeks, and the garlic, and the onions of Egypt. So, if we have faith in God, we ought to take possession of all that is ours, and, further, we ought to know what we really do possess.

It is delightful to see David here mentioning his various possessions: Gilead is mine; Manasseh is mine, Ephraim also is the strength of mine head; Judah is my lawgiver, Moab is my washpot; over Edom will I cast out my shoe; over Philistia will I triumph. Who will bring me into the strong city who will lead me into Edom? He had seen Shechem, and he knew that it was a place worth possessing; and Gilead, and Manasseh, and all the other places interested him, if they do not interest you.

And when a child of God looks over his spiritual treasures, and mentions them one by one, he takes an interest even in the very mention of them. The Bible is a dull book to a person who has no part or lot in it. There is no drier reading, in all the world, than the reading of a will in which one has no interest; but there is nothing that would interest you more than listening to the will of your old uncle, in which he had left you a large fortune.

You would lean forward, and you would put your hand to your ear lest you should lose any of it, and you would think that you had never heard a more eloquent discourse than that, and when a man gets to know what "God hath spoken," what he hath written for him in this blessed Book, which contains his will, every word is music to him, and he is ready to pick out some of the choicest words, and say, "Regeneration is mine; justification is mine; adoption is mine; sanctification is mine; union to Christ is mine; resurrection is mine; eternal life is mine; yea, all things are mine;" and he would dwell upon each one with a holy unction, at least to his own soul.

Then, if you know what God has given you, mind that you use it all. What does David say? I have been adopted by God; I am his child; so I will plead with him, and will get all I can from my Father to use in his service! I am justified, I have peace with God; so I will go forth, and, in the power of that peace, I will let others see what bliss Christians know.

Then I also have sanctification given me in Christ; so I will use that, and seek to be a true saint, that my life may be a blameless, holy, gracious, Christ-like life. By God's grace, I will not have even one unused privilege. David, being in the spirit of full faith in God, now manifests the spirit of enterprise, for he says, "God has given me Edom; then I will have it. There is that strong city of Petra, the rock city.

It is like an eagle's nest upon a crag; who is the bold man that can capture it, and take the spoil? The fierce sons of Edom, in the defile, will be sure to slay the first men who dare to march into that rocky chasm. You know that your Savior's name is "Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. Then think what room for enterprise you have among your fellowmen. Have any of you enterprise enough to go up against the strong cities that are still in rebellion against the Lord Jesus Christ? Can any of you go, and look after those who walk the streets, and seek to bring them to Christ?

That would be conquering Edom itself. Have any of you enterprise enough to go down into the slums and dens of London, to seek out the poorest and the vilest of the people? Have you confidence enough to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ can give you that Petra-like city, that dark spot where thieves congregate, where blasphemy is the current language, and where profanity seems even to pollute the very air? Have you "pluck" enough to undertake such an enterprise as that?

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Is there manliness enough in any one of you to attempt it? Then, having asked the question, "Who will lead me into Edom? Thou hast spoken; wilt thou not also act, through thy people, so that all flesh may see the salvation of God? If you really are linked with omnipotence, prove it. Do not talk about it, but let your deeds show that the Lord of hosts is with you, and that the God of Jacob is your refuge.

If, indeed, the Lord's arm be with you, smite as the Lord would smite. If, indeed, he speaks through you, speak as he would speak. Be strong, and very courageous, and press forward; in the name of God, set up your banners; and who knoweth whether even this feeble message of mine, in rousing you to action upon the basis of confidence in the Word of God, may not cast down some stronghold of the enemy, and make the walls of some mighty Jericho to fall flat to the ground?

The Lord grant it for his name's sake! Let me say, before we begin our reading, that the th Psalm is made up partly of the 60th and partly of the 57th; yet we are sure that the Holy Spirit is not short of language, so that he needs to repeat himself. It is always a pity to think that any portion of Scripture can be tautology.

It cannot be; there is some good reason for every repetition; and you will see that, in the two Psalms, which we are about to read, the latter part of the 57th coincides with the first part of the th; and that, in the 57th Psalm, we have prayer and praise, and, in the th, we have praise and prayer. My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise.

Let the lions open their cruel mouths, and roar, and let wicked men, "whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword, do their worst against me; let my every footstep be among the nets and pits that they have set and dug to catch me; even in the midst of danger, 'my heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I still sing and give praise. Awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early.

David did this, notwithstanding all the trials of his surrounding circumstances.

I will praise thee, O lord, among the people: I will sing unto the among the nations. For thy mercy is great unto the heavens, and thy truth unto the clouds. Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens: Have not some of you found God's mercy to be "great unto the heavens"? It even seemed to reach above the heavens; and as for God's truth, you followed it till you could follow it no further, for it had ascended above the clouds. We could scarcely, I think, ever expect to understand here all the truth which God has pleased to let us hear or read.

It reaches "unto the clouds," and there we must leave it for the present. When God ceases to reveal anything, we may cease to enquire concerning it. I saw, in Florence, a picture of "The Sleeping Savior. So, when God bids truth sleep, do not try to wake it. There is enough revealed for thee to know, and more that thou wilt know by-and-by, so, pry not between the folded leaves; but wait your Lord's appointed time to teach you more of his will.

O God, my heart is fixed; I will sing and give praise, even with my glory.

Awake, psaltery and harp: The prayer in Psalm God has spoken — by his prophets First Line: God has spoken — by his prophets Tune Title: George Wallace Briggs Meter: Anglican Hymns Old and New Rev. God has spoken by the prophets First Line: God has spoken by the prophets Tune Title: Baptist Hymnal God has spoken by His prophets Tune Title: Bible, Word of God ; Attributes of God.

Celebrating Grace Hymnal Gpd has spoken by his prophets Tune Title: Church Hymnal, Fifth Edition God hath spoken by his prophets First Line: God hath spoken by his prophets Date: Complete Mission Praise God has spoken by his prophets First Line: God has spoken by his prophets Meter: Hymns and Psalms God has spoken by his prophets Tune Title: Hymns for Today's Church 2nd ed. God has spoken - by his prophets First Line: God has spoken - by his prophets Tune Title: Lutheran Service Book The Word of God.

Education, Christian ; The Word of God. Moravian Book of Worship The Scriptures ; Christian year--Trinity ; Scriptures. Scripture Song Database George Wallace Briggs Scripture: Hebrews 6; Hebrews 1: Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal God has spoken by His prophets First Line: Singing the Faith George Wallace Briggs, Meter: The Celebration Hymnal The Covenant Hymnal God Has Spoken First Line: