On Thy Favor
“In Thy favor is life” — Ps. xxx. 5.
How anxious are we to stand well with our fellow-men, and secure 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 ears will forever terminate. But the favor of God — how ennobling, constant, and enduring! In possession of that favor, we are independent alike of what the world gives and withholds. With it, we are rich, whatever else we want. Without it, we are poor, though we have the wealth of worlds beside. Bereft of Him, we can truly say with aged Jacob, “I«m bereaved.” Nothing can compensate for His loss, but He can compensate for the loss of everything!
“Thou art, O God, the life and light
Of all this wondrous world we see;
Its glow by day, its smile by night,
Are but reflections caught from Thee! Where’er we turn, Thy glories shine, And all things fair and bright are ITiine.”
My soul! art thou living a stranger to this favor, under the cheerless sense of alienation from God? Sin uncancelled — peace unpurchased — all uncertainty about the question of thine eternity? Who need ask, living thus, if thou art satisfied, or happy? Satisfied! Impossible — nothing can satisfy thine infinite capacities but the infinite God. lothing can fill up the aching voids of thine immortal being but Him ‘’ who only hath immortality.” Hapjoy I impossible, too. There can be no happiness with sin unforgiven — the conscience unappeased — imperishable 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 tear-drop, “My Father!” What though the perishable streams be dried, if thou art driven to learn the truth, “All my well-springs are in Thee T’’ He may empty thy cistern, but the Fountainhead remains. Job was the sorest of sufferers, but he could bear patiently to be bereft of all, save One — “O that I knew where I might find Him .-”’ “Go,” said Chrysostom, exulting in this favor of the King of kings, when an earthly princess tried to shake his spirit — “Go, tell her that I fear nothing but sin.” Blessed state of conscious security!
“If Thou art mine, Eternal God!
Let fraud or malice, storm or flood,
Bear all besides away:
The soul’s best treasure lies too deep For spoiler’s arm or fortune’s sweep, Or time’s more sure decay!
Death, that all meaner bliss destroys, Robs not the spirit of its joys;
And if his stroke can sever
The fleshly seal, ’tis but to bring
The living waters from their spring,
And bid them gush forever.”
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! do Thou encompass me this night with Thy favor as with a shield, and then
I WILL BOTH LAY ME DOWN IN PEACE AND SLEEP; FOR THOU, LORD, ONLY MAKEST ME DWELL IN SAFETY I”