Worshipping with Banners
““I will come into Thy house in the multitude of Thy
mercy.’’ — PSALM y. 7. Tuis is the word of a single worshipper, and yet he seems to be attended by a multitude of singing comrades. His mercies attend him like a shining host. He goes to God’s house, leading an endless retinue of gracious things which he has called together from the days and years that are gone. He blew his silver trumpet for worship, and old mercies came thronging around him, and he went into God’s house like some conqueror marching with banners. It is a triumphal procession.
If we change two of the words we shall be conscious of a startling difference, for we shall pass from springtime into winter. “I will come into Thy house in the multitude of my complaints.”” The wedding has become a funeral, and the dead are burying their dead. This man blew a doleful trumpet and he summoned a retinue to attend him to the house of God, and dark complainings began to assemble, and dull grumblings, and nipping peevishness, and a hundred gloomy fashions of ingratitude — and these black regiments attended him to the holy place of the Most High. This is not a fancy picture. It is an allegory with a core of vital truth. Let a man examine himself, and let him carefully know the character of his attendants when he ventures into the presence of God. Do bright things answer his call, things bearing the marks of heavenly love and grace, or are they dingy things, stingy things, ungracious things, things gathered from the streets of ingratitude and the haunts of discontent? This is the kind of challenge we should address to our souls. Is there much praise in our worship, or is there much complaint? Is it song or is it wail? Is its atmosphere a bleak forgetfulness, or is it light with thankfulness and happy memory? What is our retinue in God’s house? Let each one go through his ranks and know the truth.
Where did the Psalmist find the multitude of mercies which thronged him when he sought the presence of the Lord? He made time to look for them and to call them from their hiding. For it is one of the strangest things in life how the mercies of God can be overlooked and forgotten. Dark things linger in the memory while the bright ones pass away. December makes a deeper mark upon the consciousness than June. The lightning is recalled when the light is forgotten. The floods abide in the recollection where the gentle rains have no place. And thus memory is apt to be a very perverting minister in worship unless we deliberately rouse her from her,sleep and command her to gather together the sheep which she has lost. And this is what I think the Psalmist did. These Old Testament Psalmists had a way of talking to themselves in a very living and awaking fashion. And this one seemed to say, ‘‘ My soul, I am going into the house of God to hold communion with God. Let us rouse the memory, and let us go through the highways and byways of other days summoning the mercies of the Lord.. Let us seek through yesterday to far-off yesterdays.” And so they did. And from every side the mercies of the Lord trooped out, hundreds of them, thousands of them, mercies of strangely varied sorts, until the worshipper was exultant in the midst of the shining host. And in the fellowship of this company he entered into the secret place of the Lord, and as he went he sang in happy prelude, ‘‘I will come into Thy house in the multitude of Thy mercy.”
Robert Louis Stevenson, writing about somebody to one of his friends, has this word: “I will think more of his prayers when I see more of his praise.”’/ It is a good test, for it is a sure revelation of our spiritual worth. ‘ But praise is more than revelation; it is victory. ‘ Verily,’ says Apollinaris in Ibsen’s play, “‘ Emperor and Galilean,” “‘ so long as song rings out above our sorrows, Satan shall never conquer!’’ And, therefore, always and everywhere let us walk before the Lord with thankfulness and praise.