The Ordinances of God from the
Night Watches by John McDuff. With joy you will draw water
from the wells of salvation. Isaiah chapter 12 verse 3. A wilderness is your place of
sojourn. But Emmanuel has provided wells
in this Baca, this valley of weeping, for the refreshment
of his pilgrims. In merciful adaptation to their
weaknesses and needs, He has furnished means and instrumentality
to keep alive the flame that would otherwise languish and
decay. These are the golden pipes which
convey living water to the soul, fed by Christ Himself from the
great cistern of His own grace. Reader, do you love the ordinances
of God's appointment? Is the Sabbath to you a holy
and welcome season? Do you gladly respond to the
summons? Go you up into the house of the
Lord? Have you felt that it is there?
He commands a blessing even life forevermore? or holier ground
still. Do you rejoice as a solemn season
comes round to covenant afresh with your adorable Redeemer at
His own sacred feast, to record anew your unalterable attachment
to Him as your Lord and Master, and commemorate His dying, ever-living
love? See that it is not to be the
reverse of all this. Do the hours of the Sabbath once
a delight, day of all the week the best, hang heavily upon you? Is prayer now less a privilege
than it was? Is the closet less habitually
frequented? Is the fire burning with a sicklier
glow on the domestic altar? Have the services of the sanctuary
become more matter for the head than for the heart? Be assured,
these are lamentable symptoms of declension, tokens of a backward
and downward state. You did run well. Return speedily to the deserted
closet. Crucify quickly the deadening
sin. Have you not thought of it over
and over at a communion season? Why allow it again to have dominion
over you? Robbing you of all your joy.
Extracting all relish from ordinances. Impeding grace. Grieving the
spirit. Lose no time in seeking restoration
of lost filial nearness. Restore unto me the joy of your
salvation. The lost bride in the canticles
found her Lord beside the shepherd's tents. You may sometimes have
longed to wait at the Gospel Bethesda's. One of the men lying
there had been sick for 38 years without any visible blessing.
But be assured, the angel of the covenant will in due time
come down and show that he is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul that seeks him. Wait then on the Lord. be of
good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart. Seek to value ordinances,
but do not overvalue them. Put not ordinances in the place
of the God of ordinances. They are at best but the pole
upon which to suspend the brazen serpent, the scaffolding by which
to get up beside the chief cornerstone. Hold me up, and I shall be safe. It is not the altar of God, but
God himself, who is the exceeding joy of his people. And thus, even if wasting health
and pining sickness should deprive me of outward ordinances, I may
look upwards to that God, who though he loves the gates of
Zion, does not forget the dwellings of Jacob, and say, I will lie
down and sleep in peace. For you alone, O Lord, make me
dwell in safety. Psalm 4 verse 8