May 17, 2012

• Ascension Day: "He went up, scattering blessings; & he has done nothing but bless them ever since"

  Luke 24:51  And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. 51  And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven. 52  And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy: 53  And were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen.

  

  "April 1, 1816.

  "I am so worn down with constant cares and labors, that my affections seem to be all dried up, 'and I am withered like grass.' However, I hope you have received, ere this, a few lines, as a proof that I have not quite forgotten, or ceased to love my mother.
  
  "Our revival still lingers: it, however, increases slowly. I have conversed with about forty who entertain hopes, and with about sixty more who are inquiring. Twenty-three have joined the church since the year commenced. The work is evidently not over; but whether it will prove general, is still doubtful. There is quite a revival at Bath, below us. Nearly two hundred have been awakened. In Philadelphia, seventy one were added to a single church at one time, a few weeks since. In New York and Baltimore, also,  there are revivals. You have probably heard, that there have been revivals among the Hottentots. Two hundred were added to the church in one year, and ten Hottentot preachers ordained. There is much more good news of a similar nature. Surely we live in a good day, and I believe you will yet see good days in Rindge. Their liberality in raising father's salary, is a token for good; and I rejoice in it more for that reason than for any other. Those who are most willing to pay for the gospel, are most likely to have it blessed to them.
  
  "We go on very happily in every respect. I have been favored with a long calm, or rather sunshine. Every thing is easy; I am careful for nothing; Christ is so precious and so near; my cup runneth over. Every day I expect a storm, but it does not come. Doubtless I have many bitter, trying scenes to pass through yet; worse than any I have heretofore experienced. But I care not. He will carry me through. I wish to mention to you some passages, which have been peculiarly sweet of late. One is this: 'He caused them to be pitied of all them by whom they were carried away captive.' Scarcely any passage of Scripture seems to me so expressive of God's goodness to his people as this. After they had provoked him, till he banished them from the good land, still he pitied them, and made their enemies pity them. It sounds like David's language— 'Deal gently with the young man Absalom for my sake.'
  
  "Another is the account of our Saviour's ascension, in the last chapter of Luke: 'And he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. And while he blessed them,' &c. Observe 'while he blessed,' &c. The last thing he was ever seen to do on earth, was to bless his disciples. He went up, scattering blessings; and he has done nothing but bless them ever since."

  ~ Edward Payson in "Memoir, select thoughts and sermons of the late Rev. Edward Payson, Volume 1 by Edward Payson (1783-1827) and Asa Cummings,"  366-367.

  Psalm 68:7  O God, when thou wentest forth before thy people, when thou didst march through the wilderness; Selah: 8  The earth shook, the heavens also dropped at the presence of God: even Sinai itself was moved at the presence of God, the God of Israel. 9  Thou, O God, didst send a plentiful rain, whereby thou didst confirm thine inheritance, when it was weary. 10  Thy congregation hath dwelt therein: thou, O God, hast prepared of thy goodness for the poor...

  19  Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Selah. 20  He that is our God is the God of salvation; and unto GOD the Lord belong the issues from death. 21  But God shall wound the head of his enemies, and the hairy scalp of such an one as goeth on still in his trespasses.
      
  
  From Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary on Psalm 68:

  The glory of Zion's King is that he is a Saviour and benefactor to all his willing people and a consuming fire to all those that persist in rebellion against him, 19-21. We have here good and evil, life and death, the blessing and the curse, set before us, like that (Mark xvi. 16), He that believes shall be saved; he that believes not shall be damned.

        1. Those that take God for their God, and so give up themselves to him to be his people, shall be loaded with his benefits, and to them he will be a God of salvation. If in sincerity we avouch God to be our God, and seek to him as such, (1.) He will continually do us good and furnish us with occasion for praise. Having mentioned the gifts Christ received for us ( 18), fitly does he subjoin, in the next words, Blessed be the Lord; for it is owing to the mediation of Christ that we live, and live comfortably, and are daily loaded with benefits. So many, so weighty, are the gifts of God's bounty to us that he may be truly said to load us with them; he pours out blessings till there is no room to receive them, Mal. iii. 10. So constant are they, and so unwearied is he in doing us good, that he daily loads us with them, according as the necessity of every day requires. (2.) He will at length be unto us the God of salvation, of everlasting salvation, the salvation of God, which he will show to those that order their conversation aright (Ps. l. 23), the salvation of the soul. He that daily loads us with benefits will not put us off with present things for a portion, but will be the God of our salvation; and what he gives us now he gives as the God of salvation, pursuant to the great design of our salvation. He is our God, and therefore he will be the God of eternal salvation to us; for that only will answer the vast extent of his covenant-relation to us as our God. But has he power to complete this salvation? Yes, certainly; for unto God the Lord belong the issues from death. The keys of hell and death are put into the hand of the Lord Jesus, Rev. i. 18. He, having made an escape from death himself in his resurrection, has both authority and power to rescue those that are his from the dominion of death, by altering the property of it to them when they die and giving them a complete victory over it when they shall rise again; for the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. And to those that shall thus for ever escape death, and shall find such an outlet from it as not to be hurt of the second death, to them surely deliverances from temporal death are mercies indeed and come from God as the God of their salvation. 2 Cor. i. 10.

        2. Those that persist in their enmity to him will certainly be ruined (21): God shall wound the head of his enemies,--of Satan the old serpent (of whom it was by the first promise foretold that the seed of the woman should break his head, Gen. iii. 15), --of all the powers of the nations, whether Jews or Gentiles, that oppose him and his kingdom among men (Ps. cx. 6), He shall wound the heads over many countries),--of all those, whoever they are, that will not have him to reign over them, for those he accounts his enemies, and they shall be brought forth and slain before him, Luke xix. 27. He will wound the hairy scalp of such a one as goeth on still in his trespasses. Note, Those who go on still in their trespasses, and hate to be reformed, God looks upon as his enemies and will treat them accordingly. In calling the head the hairy scalp perhaps there is an allusion to Absalom, whose bushy hair was his halter. Or it denotes either the most fierce and barbarous of his enemies, who let their hair grow, to make themselves look the more frightful, or the most fine and delicate of his enemies, who are nice about their hair: neither the one nor the other can secure themselves from the fatal wounds which divine justice will give to the heads of those that go on in their sins.

  Lamentations 3:2  It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. 23  They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. 24  The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. 25  The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. 26  It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD. 27  It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. 28  He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him. 29  He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope. 30  He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach. 31  For the Lord will not cast off for ever: 32  But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies. 33  For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men. 34  To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth, 35  To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High, 36  To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not.

  Romans 8:28  And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. 29  For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30  Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. 31  What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? 32  He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

  Psalm 73:1
  Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart.

  Deuteronomy 33:25b
  ... as thy days, so shall thy strength be.

  Psalm 31:19
  Oh how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee;
  which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men!

  
  

  O God of Bethel, by Whose Hand
  (Philip Doddridge, verses 1-4; unknown Scottish author, verse 5)

  O God of Bethel, by Whose hand
  Thy people STILL are fed,
  Who through this weary pilgrimage
  Hast all our fathers led.

  Our vows, our prayers, we now present
  Before Thy throne of grace;
  God of our fathers, be the God
  Of their succeeding race.

  Through each perplexing path of life
  Our wandering footsteps guide;
  Give us each day our daily bread,
  And raiment fit provide.

  O spread Thy covering wings around
  Till all our wanderings cease,
  And at our Father’s loved abode
  Our souls arrive in peace.

  Such blessings from Thy gracious hand
  Our humble prayers implore;
  And Thou shalt be our chosen God,
  And portion evermore.

  Proverbs 30:8b (ESV)
  ... feed me with the food that is needful for me.

  

  Luke 11:9  And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. 10  For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. 11  If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? 12  Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? 13  If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?

  
  Are you importunately asking, seeking, and knocking,
  that God the Father might feed you,
  that He might supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus...
  or have your turned your back on God because your current circumstances are causing you to doubt the goodness of God?

  Of Christ's fullness, are you expecting to receive...
  from mercy to mercy (~ Lam. 3:22-23),
  from grace to grace (~ John 1:16),
  from glory to glory (~ II Cor. 3:12-18),
  from light to light (~ Prov. 4:18)?

  When was the last time you blessed God for His blessings to you, as David did?
  
  "Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation."

  ---

  Related:

  • "Your business is to trust, and go forward." (Edward Payson)
  • Embittered, pricked in heart? Go into the sanctuary of God (Psalm 73)
  • All things (even bad things) work together for good...
  • the Lord God must be my strength and my portion
  • Why not pray for the baptism of the Holy Spirit?
  • trusting the eagles' wings (reliance on the Holy Spirit)
  • As a deer pants ... Is your soul panting for God? (Psalms 42 & 43)
  • Where do you go when the world is unlovely? (Psalm 84 & the theology of Biblical counseling)
  • Where are you lifting up your eyes? Psalm 121:1-2
  • "I will be like the dew" (Hosea 14:5) ~ Precious Dew, Heavenly Shower
  • Blessed dependence ~ "Leaning upon her beloved"
  • "As your days, so shall your strength be"
  • "Dependence" by William Cowper
  • A Hymn for "Shelf" Times..."Lord, We Know That Thou Art Near Us"
  • As the Visible Disappoints
  • Advent #1 WHY HAS JESUS COME? that we might have life & life more abundantly
  • Advent # 5 WHY HAS JESUS COME? So we might draw near to God | Even a Vapor
  • don't waste your new year ~ teach us, satisfy us, make us glad (Psalm 90:12-15)

  My letters on assurance & fighting for joy including:

  • Letter 16 on assurance and fighting for joy (our prayers, His wise denials and joy)
  • John 3:36a Whoever believes in the Son HAS eternal life (letter 64 on assurance & joy)
  • "give me also springs of water" - Will you be an Achsah? (letter 66 on assurance & fighting for joy)
  • Doubting one, do you know Me as a rewarder? | letter 78 on assurance & fighting for joy
  • Do you know the LORD as your portion? | a hymn by John Newton - letter 80 on assurance & joy
  • Are you a radiant Christian or a drunken old woman? (letter 82 on assurance & fighting for joy)
  • year end reflections, # 1: "end of the year ... in the midst of heartache" | Letter 97 on joy
  • year end reflections, # 2: rejoicing in "The Often Unwanted but Necessary Gift" | Letter 98 on joy
  • the pilgrim's Assurance ~ His Sovereign pouring | letter 110 on assurance & fighting for joy
  • Can there be more? | letter 113 on assurance & fighting for joy

  Scripture quotations unless otherwise indicated are taken from the King James Version of the Holy Bible.

  Scripture quotations marked ESV are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  Work found at http://www.pitts.emory.edu/dia/detail.cfm?ID=10992 / {{PD-Art|PD-old-100}}

  • 7:36 PM
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