3294. The Lord’s Eternal Rest

A Sermon Published On Thursday, March 21, 1912.

This is my rest for ever: I will dwell here; for I have desired it. {Ps 132:14}

1. These are the words of Jehovah himself concerning the hill of Zion, but it is clear that he did not intend us to understand them merely in their literal reference to Zion, because Zion could not be a fitting place for his eternal rest. Nor has he made it literally his rest for ever, for Zion has been trodden down by the Gentiles for all these centuries. I have no doubt that the Lord had in his mind the greater Zion, “the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, … the general assembly and church of the firstborn, who are written in heaven.” The eternal God, looking down from his throne of glory on all the creatures he has made, selects his Church, elect, blood-bought, called, preserved, and sanctified, and he says concerning this Church, “This is my rest for ever: I will dwell here; for I have desired it.”

2. We should never have ventured to conceive of God as finding rest in such puny creatures as we are. However beloved, and however filled with his Spirit, it would seem too great a thing for the Creator ever to rest in his creature, yet it is true that this is the place where he finds his rest. It is concerning the redeemed souls who make up the Church of Christ, that he says, “This is my rest for ever: I will dwell here; for I have desired it.”

3. I must, at the outset, confess my inability to dive into the depths of this subject; I can only, as it were, flit across its surface as the swallow with swift wings skims over the brook. I am going to speak, first, about God finding rest in his Church; then, about the duration of that rest; and, in closing, I want to say a few practical words concerning our finding rest where God finds rest.

4. I. First, then, let us think of GOD FINDING REST IN HIS CHURCH.

5. He does this, in the first place, because in his Church all the three divine persons of the Trinity are honoured. A man does not find rest in anything which gratifies only one part of his nature; hence it can truly be said to Christians, concerning this world, “This is not your rest”; for, whatever gratification it may yield to the body, it can never satisfy our soul. If there were in the Church of God honour only for God the Father, but none for God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, it could never be the Lord’s eternal rest. But, beloved, when the Father looks at the Church, he views with delight his own chosen children, and sees his eternal purposes accomplished in them; he thinks of the covenant into which he entered with his dear Son on their behalf, and of the atonement which he gave for them when he gave his only-begotten Son to die as their Substitute and Surety. As for God the Son, when he looks at the Church, he sees those for whom he paid the ransom price on Calvary; he has purchased every member of that Church with his own blood, and therefore he looks at them with special satisfaction. As for God the Holy Spirit, he — 

      Takes delight to view

   The holy souls he formed anew.

6. As he gazes at them, he sees the gracious results of his regenerating energy, and he rests in holy contemplation. I hope, beloved, you will never exalt one member of the ever-blessed Trinity above either of the rest; it is quite a mistake to ascribe the work of salvation entirely to the Father, or to the Son, or to the Holy Spirit. In the new creation, it is most emphatically true that God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” The first creation was the work of Deity as a whole, and so is the new creation; and for both we may most justly sing, — 

   ”Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”

7. All are equally concerned in perfecting the Church, the true Zion; and therefore God, in the Trinity in Unity, — Father, Son, and Spirit, — says concerning the Church, “This is my rest for ever: I will dwell here; for I have desired it.”

   Arise, oh King of grace, arise,

      And enter to thy rest,

   Lo, thy Church waits with longing eyes,

      Thus to be own’d and blest.

   Enter with all thy glorious train,

      Thy Spirit and thy Word;

   All that the ark did once contain

      Could no such grace afford.

8. Just think for a minute or two what this rest of God is. Is it the entire cessation from toil? When we do nothing, but sit still in listless inactivity, that cessation from toil may yield us a measure of rest, but it is not rest of a kind that we could love for long, certainly it is not such rest as we should wish to enjoy for ever. We would be in a most unresting state if we had nothing to do; we would soon be worn out with the weariness of living an aimless, purposeless life. I believe the truest state of rest happens when a man has just as much to do as he can perform with ease. If your mind does not think at all, it is in a state of coma, or in a kind of fainting fit; but when it is occupied with pleasing themes, not working out difficult problems, but meditating on simple themes which you can easily understand, then it is at rest. Perhaps you sit down quietly by the fire, and indulge in what we call day-dreams; your mind is active all the while, yet its activity does not prevent it from resting. Heaven is a place and state of perfect rest, yet it is not the rest of silence and stagnation. In one sense, they do not rest day nor night, yet they serve God continually, and that is perfect rest.

9. It is in his Church that God finds his rest, for it is there that he finds work exactly adapted to his infinite capacities. The blessedness of God must consist partly in his activity; what an active Being God is! There is not a cloud that flies across the sky of which he is not the pilot. How busily he worked in creating the heavens and the earth and all that they contain, yet he never rested in them, for the visible creation is too narrow a couch to provide a resting-place for the Eternal. But when he comes to the mightier work of redemption, and reveals the combined majesty of his justice and sublimity of his love in those whom he forms anew, then he is engaged in a task that occupies those attributes which he most delights to exercise, and therefore he says to his Church, “This is my rest for ever: I will dwell here.” When he made the earth, “the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy”; but you never read that God sang at the creation. When he is working in the higher sphere then he says to Zion, the Church of his choice, “The Lord your God in your midst is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over you with joy; he will rest in his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.” In the new creation he finds such rest as the old creation never could afford him. We know so little of the infinite God that we must speak with due humility and reticence concerning these great mysteries; yet it seems to me that, in the making of those who shall proclaim his praise for ever, he is doing a work in which he especially delights, and in which he therefore rests and rejoices as he does in nothing else.

10. Further, he rests in his Church because he sees there his eternal purposes fulfilled. Whenever a soul is saved, God sees there another of his divine decrees accomplished, and that affords his heart rest, — to speak after the manner of men, and we cannot speak in any other way. As, one by one, those who were chosen by him for eternal life, those whom he gave in covenant to his Son, those who were redeemed by that Son’s precious blood, are delivered from the Egyptian bondage of sin, conducted safely through the waste howling wilderness of this world, and carried across the Jordan of death into the Canaan of heavenly rest, God sees his eternal purposes fulfilled, and in it he finds most blessed rest. When the entire Church of God shall have been brought, safe and perfected, to his right hand in glory, then he will say, in the words of our text, “This is my rest for ever: I will dwell here; for I have desired it.” I must confess that I do not understand the condition of mind of those brethren who are not able to perceive in the Scriptures a clear revelation concerning the purposes of God in the salvation of his elect. It would be strange if the work of grace were left to chance. An architect would not permit an important building, like St. Paul’s Cathedral, for example, to be erected according to the whims and fancies of the individual workers employed. He would not leave to the free will of every labourer the decision concerning where each pillar should be placed, or what stone and other materials should be used in the building, but he has everything done according to the plan that he designed before the work was begun; and shall not the Most High, who is building a habitation for himself, have it erected in harmony with the plan that he had prepared from all eternity? I think, brethren, it is because God has planned what his Church is to be, and because that plan will be exactly followed until the whole building is complete, that the Lord says concerning it, “This is my rest for ever: I will dwell here; for I have desired it.”

11. Then, in the next place, have we not in the Church of God almighty energies rewarded? God rested on the seventh day because creation’s work was done, and God rests in his Church in so far as it also is a finished work. Every soul saved by grace, every soul brought home to glory, is the result and the reward of almighty labour. He who spoke and it was done in the making of the material world did not make his Church so easily. It was with his word that he made this world, but it was the incarnate Word that was necessary for the new creation. No blood needed to be spilt for the making of this earth in all its pristine beauty and glory, but the new heavens and the new earth could be cemented by nothing less than the product of almighty suffering. The Church of God is a most wonderful fabric on which not only have the purposes of God been exercised from all eternity, but “all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” has been at work to accomplish this marvel of marvels, which shall set all heaven ablaze with astonishment when it is at last complete and perfect. For many centuries stroke upon stroke from God’s hand and instruments has been shaping the rough block of marble, and when the last touch shall have been given to it, and the work appears in all its glory and beauty before the eyes of God, he will rest, just as a skilled workman does in the successful accomplishment of some great task which he has undertaken, and which he regards as his masterpiece.

12. Best of all, however, is the next reason why God rests in his Church, that is because it is the reward of stupendous suffering. We are told that “the Lord smelled a sweet savour” when Noah offered burnt offerings after he came out of the ark; the marginal reading is “a savour of rest,” and when God is dealing with sinners now, he finds no savour of rest except in the sacrifice of his dear Son. All the world over the spirit of justice flew in search of a righteous man, but the only result of that long search was the verdict, “There is no one righteous, no, not one.” Justice next looked to see if there was any helper who could deliver the guilty, but no one could be found until she turned her eyes to the cross where hung the Son of God in extreme agonies; and as she saw the falling blood, the bowed head, and the crown of thorns, and heard the voice that said, “It is finished,” she rested; her long quest was over, for she had found the One who was himself perfectly righteous, and who was therefore able to deliver the guilty by the full and complete atonement that he offered for their redemption. The Son of God takes delight in his Church because he sees that, in her, all his pains and agonies have yielded to him a glorious harvest; and God the Father, who struck his Son so heavily when he took the place of his sinful people, delights in his Church because he sees in her a full reward for all that his well-beloved Son endured.

13. Then do you not think that God finds rest in his Church because of the relationships developed there? Where do you find rest, dear friends? You not only rest in the garden which you yourselves have planted, and in the house which you have bought with a great effort, but your best rest is found with the children whom you so fondly love. There is no stranger in the family circle, the door is closed, the fire is burning brightly, and now is mother’s time for rest, and father’s time for joy, for there are only loved ones around the hearth. The merchant comes home from the office where he has been on the watch all day lest he should be deceived and over-extended; but he can come down from his watch-tower now, for he has no fear of being deceived in the family circle. The judge has been sternly administering the law while he has been on the bench, but he lays aside all his sternness when he takes off his robes of office, and gathers his children around him. The toiling labourer wipes the sweat from his brow, and gladly rests at home among those whom he loves. “Perfect love casts out fear,” and fear is like a thorn in our nest, it prevents us from resting; but when “perfect love” comes, then we are perfectly at our ease. When you are at home, you may say what you wish, and do what you please; there is no one to slander and malign you there. You do not say all you feel in the presence of your servants; they are faithful and true, but you do not tell them all that is in your heart; when you are among your children then you feel free and unrestrained. So it is with God. Not even among the angels does God find his rest; bright and perfect beings though they are, they are only ministering spirits waiting in the great temple of God to render service to the saints; but here, where he sees his own likeness in every blood-bought soul, here where he sees those whom he has begotten again to a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, it is here that he feels at home, and finds his rest. Do not think that I am speaking too boldly when I use the family metaphor to illustrate this great truth, for I am only following the example of our Lord Jesus himself when he said, “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him?” He rejoices over the son who was dead, and is alive again; who was lost, and is found; and because he is our Father, and we are his children, he says of us and of the whole company of his redeemed, “This is my rest for ever: I will dwell here; for I have desired it.”

14. II. Now I am to speak briefly concerning THE DURATION OF GOD’S REST IN HIS CHURCH: “This is my rest for ever.”

15. Then this proves that there will always be a Church of God. There are certain people who are constantly subject to great fear, and their fears make them quiver and shake, and then they imagine that God’s Church is quivering and shaking, which is a very different matter. They hold up their hands, and cry, “Alas! Alas! the Church is in danger!” Well, some particular church, designed by men, may be in danger; but I do not believe that the Church of God is, or ever was, or ever will be, in danger. It is thought by some that Popery will swallow the Church of Christ just as the big fish swallowed Jonah; but if it should do so, the Church would come back again as surely as Jonah was cast up on the dry land. There is no sword made that can strike the Church of God, nor will there ever be one. There will be a Church as long as there is a world; and when this world is burned up, the Church shall shine more brightly than ever, and it shall keep on shining for all eternity, and be a rest for God for ever.

   Glorious things of thee are spoken,

      Zion, city of our God!

   He whose word cannot be broken,

      Form’d thee for his own abode:

   On the Rock of ages founded,

      What can shake thy sure repose?

   With salvation’s walls surrounded,

      Thou may’st smile at all thy foes.

16. Further, there will always be a Church with God in it, and such a Church as God can rest in. Some people think that there is no church of which they can comfortably be members; but, dear friends, there is a Church of which Jesus Christ is a member, for he is the head of it; and if you cannot be members of any visible church, do not be content unless you are members of that Church in which God rests for ever, for that is always a pure Church. You sometimes hear a great deal about apostolic succession; it is a gross lie as it is generally understood, but in itself it is a great truth. The apostolic succession may be very clearly traced through the Novatians, and Donatists, and Lollards, and Albigenses, and Waldenses, and Anabaptists; and Huguenots, right down to the Christians of various denominations that exist today. There is a true line that never entered the Stygian {a} bog of Rome, a pure silver stream which has flowed down to us right from the times of the apostles. There always has been a Church in which God could dwell, and there always will be a Church that shall be his dwelling-place. You know that Christ prayed, “Holy Father, keep through your own name those whom you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are”; and I do not believe that Christ prayed any prayer that will not be answered in due time. More than that, I believe that the Church of Christ is one now. “Oh, but!” says someone, “look at the many divisions and denominations that there are.” Yes, I know about them; but the only true unity is that of the spiritually-quickened souls that form the mystical body of Christ. Whatever division there may be among them at present is only external; if we could see beneath the surface, and judge as God judges, we should perceive that, in the truly vital matters, they are one. Being one with Christ, they are also one with each other. We must look less and less to mere externals, and think more and more of what is spiritual, for it is only in the invisible and spiritual Church of Christ that God finds rest. I do not believe that he finds rest in the Baptist denomination, or in the Independent, or in the Church of England, as such; but he finds his rest in all the saved to whatever denomination they may belong. His rest is not in great human organizations, but in those whom his grace has called, who are already one in Christ Jesus.

17. Another inference that I draw from the text is that the Church of God will always be secure. “I will dwell here,” says the Lord; and there would be no rest for him if the enemy could be continually scaling the ramparts, damaging the walls, and carrying away his people as captives. A king within his capital could not rest if one suburb after another fell into the hands of his foes. The rest of a shepherd would be effectively broken if he heard a lion scrunching the bones of any of his sheep, or if a wolf seized even one of the lambs of his flock. When the Lord says, “This is my rest for ever,” he seems to me to guarantee the eternal security of every soul that is in the true Church of Christ. All who are in the Church which Jesus bought with his precious blood must be perfectly safe for ever.

   The soul that on Jesus hath lean’d for repose,

   He will not, he will not desert to his foes;

   That soul, though all hell should endeavour to shake,

   He’ll never, no never, no never forsake!

There may be many in any part of the visible church who will perish, but there shall never be one who is truly a member of the Church of the living God who shall be lost. I was startled a little, the other night, when a brother said that, once we are brought into the Church, we are safe for ever; but when he went on to show that by the expression “the Church” he meant what God means by those words, I fully agreed with him. This is the Zion of which Jehovah says, “This is my rest for ever: I will dwell here; for I have desired it”; and it is his rest because he knows that all who are within it are safe for ever. At the last, Jesus will be able to say to his Father, “Of all whom you gave me have I lost no one.”

18. I also infer from the text that the whole Church will be eternally glorified; otherwise, God could not say of it, “This is my rest for ever.” The living stones that are to form the “habitation of God through the Spirit” are being quarried, and shaped, and polished here below, and one by one they are being transported to the holy hill above, and so “all the building fitly framed together grows to a holy temple in the Lord”; and when it is complete, he will say, “I will dwell here for ever.” The eternal duration of the Church’s blessedness ought to be a theme of greater consideration and rejoicing than it is. Think of it, beloved, that the great God will for ever find his rest in you and in others like you who have been redeemed by the precious blood of his dear Son. Does this not make time seem a mere trifle, and earth only a tiny speck scarcely worthy of our notice? Then, since you are for ever and ever to be the object of divine delight, can you not see that you must always have been so? Oh, revel in this thought, that every blood-bought soul shall eternally be the temple and abode of God himself, and that all of them united in one shall be his rest for ever!

19. III. Now we are to close with a few practical words concerning OUR FINDING REST WHERE GOD FINDS REST.

20. God finds his rest in his Church, is that where we find our rest? I wonder how many here could truly repeat the language of Dr. Watts, — 

   Let others choose the sons of mirth

   To give a relish to their wine;

   I love the men of heavenly birth,

   Whose thoughts and language are divine.

Do you, dear friends find rest in the company of God’s chosen people? The ungodly do not. If some gracious person should go to their house, and begin talking about the mysteries of the cross, their impatient glances at the clock would soon show that such a theme was a weariness to them. When they go up to the place where God’s people meet to worship him, the shorter the service is the better they like it; and the reason is that they do not savingly know the Lord. A man without sight would not be likely to be very much charmed in a picture gallery, and a man who was stone-deaf would not be very delighted with the grandest oratorio that was ever performed. In the same way, we cannot expect that those who have no spiritual sense can find delight in the company of God’s people. But how different it is with the man who is really saved! He can say, with David, of the saints that are on the earth, that they are “the excellent, in whom is all my delight.” A good old saint, whom I went to see on her death-bed, said to me, “It always gives me comfort, sir, to think that God is not likely to send me to dwell with the wicked, for I never liked their company here. I believe he will let me go with my own company, and I have always kept company with his own people since I have learned to know him.” I assured her that I believed it would be so. It is a sign of grace when we find rest with those who are really spiritual because they are spiritual. You may love some saints of God, yet it may be no sign of grace on your part; there may be something especially lovable about them so that you cannot help loving them, or you may have received some temporal kindness from them, and therefore love them for purely natural reasons. But it is a very different matter when we can say, with John, — ”We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren.” Some of us can truthfully declare that our happiest hours are those that we spend with the saints of God, and we can fully sympathize with Dr. Watts when he says, — 

   My soul shall pray for Zion still,

      While life or breath remains;

   There my best friends, my kindred dwell,

      There God my Saviour reigns.

God says of his Church, “This is my rest for ever”; and we can say the same. I cannot say that concerning any visible church, I should not like to have to rest for ever in any portion of the church on earth; but in union with the redeemed in glory, I can rest. When I think of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, when I read the lives of prophets and apostles, when I turn to more modern times, and think of Calvin, and Luther, and Zwingli, and Berridge, and Wesley, and Whitfield, and a host of others, I can say, “Ah, let me once get into their company, and then I shall feel, ‘This is my rest for ever. I do not want anything more than this except to be in the Master’s own company.’” Oh, what rest it will be to be with him! This is our rest even now, — to be with him; and to be for ever with him will be the perfection of rest.

   Let me be with thee, where thou art,

   My Saviour, my eternal rest!

   Then only will this longing heart

   Be fully and for ever blest.

21. Do you not think that Abel must have felt very strange when he went to heaven? How startled the angels must have been when they saw the first soul redeemed by blood in glory alone! I think they must have hushed their songs for a while to ask all about him. Here was a man come to sing in heaven, to chant before the eternal throne the praises of a sacrifice greater than any that he had offered. Yes, but Abel could not have felt perfectly at rest, for Paul tells us that the Church in heaven will not be made perfect without us. When another and yet another joined Abel in heaven, I think it must have increased even his happiness; and now, as others keep on going home, the glorified saints welcome them with very great joy, for they all feel that their bliss will not be perfect until every redeemed soul is gathered there with them, and all the shining ranks are filled. Then, when everyone shall be there, each one of them will say, as God himself now says, “This is my rest for ever: I will dwell here; for I have desired it.”

22. I wonder if there are any here who will never find rest in the Church of the firstborn, who are written in heaven. If you want to get into the Church of God, do you know the way to get in? You say, “I must come before the elders.” No, no; that is the way to get into our church here, but not into the invisible Church above. “Well, then, I must be baptized.” No, that is the ordinance for you after you have entered the Church of God. “Well, then, how am I to get in?” He whose hand was pierced says, “I am the door: by me if any man enters in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.” The only door to the Church of God is Jesus Christ. {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3287, “The Only Door” 3289} Trust in his precious blood sprinkled on the altar to give you access to and acceptance with God, and having that blood sprinkled on yourself you may venture to draw near even to the Eternal, for you shall be “accepted in the Beloved.” May God grant that it may be so, for Jesus’ sake! Amen.

{a} Stygian: Pertaining to the river Styx, or, in a wider sense, to the infernal regions of classical mythology. Black as the river Styx; dark or gloomy as the region of the Styx. Infernal, hellish. OED.

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Ps 132}

A Song of Degrees.

1. LORD, remember David, and all his afflictions.

God had entered into an everlasting covenant with David, “ordered in all things and sure,” and in this Psalm either David himself or some of his people or descendants pleaded that covenant in time of affliction and trial: “Lord, remember David, and all his afflictions.” The Lord would not forget either David or his people, yet it pleased him for them to come before him in prayer, and to remind him of the covenant that he had made with his servant. Using this prayer in a gospel sense, we bow before the Lord, and cry, “Lord, remember Jesus, the Son of David, and all his afflictions; remember all that he endured as his people’s Substitute, and have pity on us, for his sake, as we plead that eternal covenant which you have made with him on our behalf.” That ancient covenant was made with David, and the far more ancient covenant of grace was made with “great David’s greater Son,” our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

2-5. How he swore to the LORD, and vowed to the mighty God of Jacob; “Surely I will not come into the tabernacle of my house, nor go up into my bed; I will not give sleep to my eyes, or slumber to my eyelids, until I find a place for the LORD, a habitation for the mighty God of Jacob.”

David remembered that he had built himself a palace, but he wished even more ardently to build a palace for his God, a house for the celebration of his worship: “a habitation for the mighty God of Jacob.” But where can a worthy house be built for God? Where can there be made a fit dwelling-place for the Most High? He fills all things, yet all things cannot contain him. There is only one dwelling-place of God, it is in Christ Jesus, for “in him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” Oh! how we ought to thank God that he has provided himself a fitting dwelling-place in the person of his dear Son, in whom all believers also are built together for a habitation of God through the Spirit.

As for the ark of the covenant, it had long ago in David’s day dwelt in obscurity.

6. Lo, we heard of it at Ephratah: we found it in the fields of the woods. {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2590, “Finding Hearing, Seeking” 2591}

God is willing to dwell in the woods. Many a time he does so. In many a cottage far removed from the haunts of men, God is found; and for many a backwoodsman God is as near as he is to those who worship him in a temple or cathedral. “We found it in the fields of the woods.”

7. We will go into his tabernacles: we will worship at his footstool.

This Psalm is called “A Song of degrees.” Notice the steps described here. We heard of it, we found it, we will go into it, we will worship in it. It is a good thing when, in our prayers and praises, we ascend step by step, — not on the stepping-stones of our dead selves, which is a piece of rubbish, — but by the living stepping-stones on which the ever-living Spirit helps us to rise tier above tier, his own almighty hand helping us continually to rise higher and higher.

8. Arise, oh LORD, into your rest; you, and the ark of your strength.

Let us pray that the Lord may constantly find rest in the midst of his people. He finds rest in them because they are one with his well-beloved Son. Come, Lord, at this moment, and take your rest in the midst of this assembly, and make us also rest in you.

9. And let your priests be clothed with righteousness;

This is the best robe for all God’s holy ones, who are priests and kings to him; this is better than snow-white linen or robes bedecked with crimson and gold.

9. And let your saints shout for joy.

The worship of God should be very cheerful and even demonstrative. We may shout. Sometimes the overflowings of joy demand more than ordinary expression, therefore we pray, “Let your holy ones shout for joy.”

10. For your servant David’s sake do not turn away the face of your anointed.

Much more may we ask this for our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake. Oh God, remember your Son, our Lord and our King, and for his sake look in love and pity on us today!

11, 12. The LORD has sworn in truth to David; he will not turn from it; “I will set the fruit of your body on your throne. If your children will keep my covenant and my testimony that I shall teach them, their children shall also sit on your throne for evermore.”

The house of David reigned over Israel for a long time; but they proved unfaithful, and therefore the sceptre passed out of their hands; but it is still in the hand of another Son of David. In a spiritual sense Jesus Christ has a throne and a dominion that shall know no end.

   Jesus shall reign wherever the sun

   Does his successive journeys run;

   His kingdom stretch from shore to shore,

   Till moons shall wax and wane no more.

13. For the LORD has chosen Zion; he has desired it for his habitation.

The literal Zion was the Lord’s habitation for a time, but the spiritual Zion will be his dwelling-place throughout eternity.

14. “This is my rest for ever: I will dwell here; for I have desired it.

God rests in his people; the whole company of the redeemed shall be his abiding-place for ever.

15. I will abundantly bless her provision: I will satisfy her poor with food.

God sends the necessary provision for his people, and sends his blessing with it. We are so poor that we do not have even spiritual food for our souls to eat unless he gives it to us; but here is his gracious promise, “I will satisfy her poor with food.” This he will do both literally and spiritually.

16. I will also clothe her priests with salvation: and her saints shall shout aloud for joy.

In the ninth verse we had a silver prayer, but here, in this sixteenth verse, we have a golden answer. The prayer of the psalmist was, “Let your saints shout for joy”; the Lord’s answer is, “Her saints shall shout aloud for joy.” God always gives good measure, pressed down, and running over. Often, we do not have because we do not ask, or because we ask amiss. His command to each one of us is, “Open your mouth wide,” and his promise is, “I will fill it.” If you ask great things from him, he will give you even greater things for he is “able to do very abundantly above all that we ask or think.”

17. There I will make the horn of David to bud: I have ordained a lamp for my anointed.

Oh, that today the horn of David might bud again! May every believer in Jesus feel the life of God reviving within him; and in many a case where there is no spiritual life at all may divine life begin today! Pray for it, beloved; and then look for it, and you shall surely see it.

18. I will clothe his enemies with shame: but on himself shall his crown flourish.”

We have no King but Jesus, and his crown is always flourishing. It sits well on his blessed head. Let us crown him once again today with our glad praise and thanksgiving.

Feathers for Arrows; or, Illustrations for Preachers and Teachers, from my Note-Book. By C. H. Spurgeon. Cloth. Published at 2s. 6d., offered at 2s.

Barbed Arrows, from the Quiver of C. H. Spurgeon. A Collection of Anecdotes, Illustrations and Similes. With Preface by Pastor C. Spurgeon, A companion Volume to “Feathers for Arrows.” Cloth. Published at 2s. 6d., offered at 2s.

Illustrations and Meditations; or, Flowers from a Puritan’s Garden. Distilled and dispensed by C. H. Spurgeon. Cloth. Published at 2s. 6d., offered at 2s. ature, yet it is true that this is the place where he finds his rest.