Quicken me, O Lord, according to Your word.

Posted : 20 Jun, 2013 02:10 AM

Psalm 119:107 I am afflicted very much: quicken me, O Lord,

according to Your word.





It would seem, that this holy saint's covenanting season was a

time of deep affliction: while his determined resolution to keep

God's word of obedience, gave boldness to his pleading, that

God would perform His word of promise- Quicken me, O Lord,

according to Your word. And this is our high privilege, that we

are permitted to pour our troubles into the ear of One, who is

able perfectly to enter into, and to sympathize with us in them;

"who knows our frame," who has Himself laid the affliction

upon us: yes, more than all, who in "all our affliction is"

Himself "afflicted;" and who "suffered being tempted, that He

might be able to support them that are tempted." There are

none- not even those most dear to us-to whom we can

unbosom ourselves, as we do to our heavenly Friend. Our

wants, griefs, burdens of every kind-we roll them all upon Him,

with special relief in the hour of affliction. An affecting contrast

to those who are indeed afflicted very much; whose souls,

"drawing near unto death," and knowing no refuge, are ready to burst with their own sorrows, "the sorrow of the world"-

unmitigated-unrelieved-"working death!"

There is a "needs-be" for the afflictions of the Lord's people.

The stones of the spiritual temple cannot be polished or fitted

to their place without the strokes of the hammer. The gold

cannot be purified without the furnace. The vine must be

pruned for greater fruitfulness. The measure of discipline

varies indefinitely. But such is the inveteracy of fleshly lusts,

that very much affliction may often be the needful regimen.

Yet will it be tempered by one, who knows the precise

measure, who can make no mistakes in our constitutions, and

whose fatherly pity will chasten "not for His pleasure, but for

our profit." And need we speak of the alleviations of our trials,

that they are infinitely disproportioned to our deserts-that they

are "light, and but for a moment," compared with eternity-that

greater comfort is given in the endurance of them, than we

even ventured to anticipate from their removal-that the fruit at

the end more than balances the trials themselves? Need we

say-how richly they ought to be prized, as conforming us to

the image of our suffering Lord; how clearly we shall one day

read in them our Father's commission, as messengers of love;

and how certainly "the end of the Lord" will be "that the Lord is

very pitiful and of tender mercy?"

Perhaps affliction-at least very much affliction-may not be our

present lot. Yet it is our duty, and wisdom, as the good soldier

in the time of truce, to burnish our armor for the fight. "Let not

him that girds on his harness boast himself as he who puts it

off. Because the wicked have no changes, therefore they fear

not God." The continual changes in Christian experience may

well remind us of the necessity of "walking humbly with God,"

that we may not, by an unprepared spirit, lose the blessing of

the sanctified cross. How many of the Lord's dear children

may bear Ephraim's name-"For God has caused me to be

fruitful in the land of my affliction!" Sometimes they are so conscious of the present good, that they dread affliction

leaving them, more, probably, than the inexperienced

professor dreads its coming.

But great affliction is as hard to bear as great prosperity.

Some whose Christian profession had drawn out the esteem

of others-perhaps also their own complacency-have shown by

"faintness in the day of adversity their strength to be small,"

and themselves to be almost untaught in this school of

discipline-shaken, confused, broken. Special need indeed

have we under the smart of the rod, of quickening grace to

preserve us from stout-heartedness or dejection. We think we

could bear the stroke, did we know it to be paternal, not

judicial. Have we, then, "forgotten the exhortation, which

speaks unto us as unto children?" Do "we despise the

chastening of the Lord?" 'Quicken me, Lord, that I may be

preserved in a humble, wakeful, listening posture, to hear and

improve the message of Your blessing of the sanctified cross.'

Do we "faint, when we are rebuked of Him?" "Quicken me, O

Lord," that I sink not under the "blow of Your hand." Thus will

this Divine influence save us from the horrible sin of being

offended with God in our fretting spirit. We shall receive His

chastisement with humility without despondency, and with

reverence without distrust; hearkening to the voice that

speaks, while we tremble under the rod that strikes: yet so

mingling fear with confidence, that we may at the same

moment adore the hand which we feel, and rest in mercy that

is promised. Our best support in the depths of affliction is,

prayer for quickening according to Your word! and which of

the exercised children of God has ever found one jot, or one

tittle of it to fail? "Patience working experience, and

experience hope, and hope making not ashamed," in the

sense of "the love of God shed abroad upon the heart by the

Holy Spirit which is given unto us"-all this is the abundant

answer to our prayer, "You who have shown me great and

sore troubles, shall quicken me again, and shall bring me up again from the depths of the earth. You shall increase my

greatness, and comfort me on every side." Nothing will bear

looking back to with comfort, like those trials, which though

painful to the flesh, have tended to break our spirit, mold our

will, and strengthen the simplicity of our walk with God.



by

Charles Bridges

Post Reply