The Favor of God from The Night
Watches by John McDuff. In his favor is life. Psalm 30
verse 5. How anxious are we to stand well
with our fellow men and secure in their favor. Are we equally
so to stand well with God? The favor of man, what is it? A passing breath, which a moment
may alienate, a look forfeit, and which at best a few brief
years will forever terminate. But the favor of God, how ennobling,
constant, and enduring. In possession of His favor, we
are independent alike of what the world either gives or withholds. With it, we are rich, whatever
else we lack. Without it, we are poor, though
we have the wealth of worlds beside. Bereft of him, we can
truly say with aged Jacob, I am bereaved. Nothing can compensate
for his loss, but he can compensate for the loss of everything. Reader, are you a stranger to
His favor? Under the cheerless sense of
alienation from God, sin uncancelled, peace unpurchased, all uncertainty
about the question of your eternity? Who need ask, living thus, if
you are satisfied or happy? Satisfied? Impossible. Nothing
can satisfy your infinite capacities but the infinite God. Nothing
can fill up the aching voids of your immortal being but Him
who only has immortality. Happy? Impossible. There can be no happiness with
sin unforgiven, the conscious unappeased, eternal interests
hanging overhead unsettled and unadjusted, death and judgment
and eternity, all unprovided for. Living at this dying rate,
peace must be a stranger to your bosom. Seek to make up your peace
with God. Covet His life-giving favor.
What a blessed fountain of unsullied joy has that soul which can look
up to heaven and say, God is mine. That word, that thought,
wipes away every teardrop. My Father, what though the perishable
streams are dried, if you are driven to learn the truth, all
my springs are in you. He may empty your cistern, but
the fountainhead remains." Job was the sorest of sufferers,
but he could bear patiently to be bereft of all, save one. Oh,
that I knew where I might find him. Go, said Chrysostom, exulting
in his favor of the king of kings when an earthly princess tried
to shake his spirit. Go tell her that I fear nothing
but sin. and blessed state of conscious
security. The same mighty consolation which
supported Jesus in his season of humiliation forms the solace
and rejoicing of his true people. Because he is on my right hand,
I shall not be moved. Blessed Jesus, O encompass me
this night with your favor as with a shield, and then I will
both lie down and sleep in peace. For you alone, O Lord, make me
live in safety. Psalm 4 verse 8