May 1926
T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
266
7X* ’v - -
^ Victory Over Death! REV. ADAM MURRMAN
ANSWERED !
You prayed . . . No answer came— Again! again"! it was the same! God did not seem to hear; You questioned, “ Does He care? The same sharp thorns Beset you; The same keen trials Met you; It seemed no.use to pray Unanswered day by day; And in the midst Of all the strain, You may have felt You" could not pray again— He seemed so very, very far away. Dear heart! How dare I speak for Him? And. yet I must, Tho’ less than dust, But for His Grace, That bids the sinner Seek His Face; Who shed His Blood In crimson flood For you! for me! On Calvary. Through many pains and stresses. His seeming, seeming silences. (The unseen is so glorious! The battle is victorious! We can afford to wait His coming state— He never is too late!) Trust Him, just as you, love Him— Through and through; The greatest gifts of all Are waiting you! Not seeing, trust Him wholly; Not knowing, trilst Him solely; And, tho’ you cannot understand His silence . . . yet Say: “ Yes, Lord! Yes!” And He will not forget. The very trial itself Will be a crown; The- very clouds become As light as down, To shield you from the glare Of earthly things, That you may see Him there, And try your wings; Mounting, by faith, to. where He has ascended,. Never to leave His children Undefended! Your circumstances may not change, But you will see them From a different range; And He will there Reveal Himself to you. And you will know That He has answered you! — Jean Newberry. Whyt^eafe, Surrey. May; 1925. To understand' And so, He gives His word That I should speak to* you Of things both old and new— He works the lesson first in me, Then bids me tell it unto thee; For I have learned.
This- unique and beautiful menage of comfort from the Twenty-Third Psalm is of peculiar interest in view of the fact that soon after it was written, the author was himself called home by the Lord whom he served so long and so devotedly in Pennsylvania, California and several com munities in the Middle West. Mr. Murrman was a preacher and teacher of outstanding ability, bringing conviction to many sinners and consolation to many saints.
verses all of the compound names of God, by which He revealed Himself to Israel and reveals Himself to us. Jehovali-jireh, “ the Lord will pro vide,” is seen in the expression “ I shall not want.” Jehovah-rapha, “ the Lord that heal- eth,” is found in “ He restoreth my soul.” Jehovali-nissi, “ The Lord our ban ner,” is seen in the verse, "Thou pre- parest a table before me in the pres en ce of mine enemies.” Jehovah-Shalom, “ The Lord our peace,” is expressed in the words, “ He maketh me to lie down in green pas tures; He leadeth me beside the still waters." Jeliovali-ra-ali, “ the Lord my shep herd,” is found in the first verse. Jehovah-tsidkenu, ' “ the Lord our righteousness,” is shown in the verse, "He leadeth me in the paths of right eousness, for His name’s sake.” Jehovah-shammah, “ the Lord is present,” is shown in the verse, “ I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.” Practice the presence of God now and you will have that presence here after. Jesus of the New Testament is the Jehovah of the Old Testament. Christ is called the Good Shepherd, the Great Shepherd, the Chief Shep herd. Third: There is peace and comfort for us in our severest trials. Our peace and comfort have to do with Him, not with religion.' Christ is best suited to our deep est needs. Serious days are coming; we will need Him more than all else. How blessed is the promise given us that: “A M an shall be as an hiding place from the wind and a covert from the tem pest, as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary • land" (Isa. 32:2). 'M ’ iK "In the days of primitive Christian ity, it would have been deemed a kind of apostasy not to sigh for the return of the Lord.”— Massillon.
“ Ÿca, though I walk through the val ley of the shadow of death, I unit fear no evil, for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." Psalm 23 :4.
|N these words of the Psalmist three things are indicated that we do well to contem plate.
First: Death and -evil have a nat ural relation, to each other, an affinity for each other, and while they may not be avoided, the evil of, them need not be feared. Those who walk with God now, will find God present then, and in passing through the valley of the shadow, they will not only be following a path that has been blazed by the good Shepherd Himself, but will have His personal presence there. Death is an evil— the wages of sin — and where the sin question is not settled, death is tlje prophecy of some thing far worse than that which we see in thé mortal remains of ourJoved ones, for the Book tells us plainly of a second death which is far worse than the first death and following it. Death is never pictured in Scripture as a friend, and one of the strangest interpretations of our Lord’s state ment to His disciples that He would come again and receive them unto Himself, is that it means that His coming is at death. No; the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. Death is an e n e m y,— the mortgage that sin has placed upon the race. It must be lifted by the resurrection. The believer in Christ does not d^n" the shadows, but he has light and is r,ot afraid of them. He does not deny the sorrow!,, but has comfort in them; and he does not say, that there is no death, but he walks through it, hand in hand with the Prince of life. Second: Jehovah the Lord is greater than death and therefore, “ I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.” This twenty-third Psalm is a marvelous work, in that it contains in its six " 0 death, where is thy stingT O grave, where is thy victoryT”'
i
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs