A Blessed Hope

Psalm 43:5

    So far in considering David's words in Psalm 43, the chorus of our versification was not given. The time has now come for us to sing (PRC Psalter):

    O my soul, why art thou grieving?
    What disquiets and dismays?
    Hope in God; His help receiving,
    I shall yet my Savior praise.

    That is the way David ends his Psalm. He pleaded for help and was in deep need of spiritual light. And he wanted badly to go back to God's house where his joy was full, because there God revealed His boundless love in the forgiveness of our sins through the shed blood of Christ.

    But now, when God enlightened him, he wrote, "Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope in God: for I shall yet praise Him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God" (Psalm 43:5).

    You see, when we remember what God did for us through the cross of Christ, and typically displayed in the tabernacle, we are by God's grace given hope. And, remember, that hope is confident expectancy. To hope is to desire with the expectation that it will come. And because God enlightened him by causing him to think of what went on in the tabernacle, David had hope worked in him, and he was sure he would go back to it.

    Are you grieving?  Is your soul disquieted and dismayed because of something that happened to your earthly life? Is your soul cast down and you fail to look up to the "health of your countenance" and your God?

    Then take note of the fact that with all his troubles David went to God. Eight times in this brief Psalm he speaks of God and calls Him his God. With David go to Him as we can now meet Him in His word, and as we now have light shed upon that altar in His earthly house. For now we see the Lamb of God sacrificed for our sins and the veil of the temple rent in twain, because a way has been prepared for us to live with God. In hope look for that day, and your present sorrows will fade away, and you will with joy look for that day when you will dwell with Him in His glory. What a blessed hope that is!

Read: I Peter 1 
Psalter versification: Chorus of #120

Meditations on the Heidelberg Catechism

Song for Meditation: Psalter #200
Why not sing along??

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Through the Bible in One Year
Read today:
1 Chronicles 26:12-32 ;   1 Chronicles 27:1-34 
Romans 4:13-25 ;   Romans 5:1-5 
Psalm 14:1-7 
Proverbs 19:17 
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Quote for Reflection:

"How entirely is the life of the Christian a hidden life; 'hid with Christ in God;' hid from the world, as a spring shut up, so that they can neither see fully its excellence, nor reach it in such a way as to disturb or break it up at is source." ~ George Burrowes, The Song of Solomon, p. 384 (commentary on 4:12)