RAIN:
The SOUL of Refreshing and
The Refreshing of the SOUL
1. THE DROUGHT THAT CRIES
Oh this will be one of those devotionals which I loathe! someone may say. It will be about my spirit, my candle of the Lord by which He examines my inward parts, as His word puts it. But yes! It is about your spirit, your living soul in the image of God whereby refreshing and disillusion, sadness and weariness of your being inward being, monotony or lifeless deficiency of tone in your life can be before us. But it would be apt to look to the Lord, as if you were a person - oh you are! Good then it will be most apt to look to the Lord SINCE YOU ARE A PERSON. Why shouldn't persons be personal? Why should robots be robotic. Let each be in its place. We certainly have enough robots! I speak metaphorically in that their increase in production may not be bad; it is the producers who depersonalise in great numbers, and man in the image of the robotic is idiotic. He is made by and for God.
But, you may say, this will be about barbs! No, a little work on "barbs, arrows and balms" does not ALWAYS have to be on all three. This one is about BALMS. Let me illustrate. Often when this or that happens to my surface exterior of the body, my skin, my little enclosure unit which is so delightfully an ORGAN as a whole, and over whole areas seems to have a sort of sympathy, part with part, so that to affect one point of skin you may have to entertain the needs of a whole area: then I use aloe. It is a most remarkable substance and no wonder they used it with dead bodies. It is a balm par excellence for the body; and the Lord is the balm of balms for the soul, the refresher of refreshers for the soul. After all, HE made it, and trouble in one point may well need integral action for your whole person! The world's ill's could be containerised in a moment if people looked after their souls in the Lord, for they are astonishing things; they reflect that OUR human lives (oh that they were HUMANE LIVES!) are made in the image, able to entertain fellowship with the Almighty.
With the ALMIGHTY! Yes, that is the position. It is wonderful, and as with many wonderful things, it can be ravished and ravaged in ways that relate to its construction. So millions of "mental patients", often ravished and ravaged souls, are pill-popped into some kind of mental anaesthesia, analysed (if there should happen to be time) into some kind of pagan, secular motivational situation, blind leading the blind, till the poor remnants are like a remnant sale about which the populace has been a tad vigorous in the division. I have even seen one (sweet) lady of around 70 years, dragged screaming from her (locked) motor vehicle, to be retained against the wishes of her (very patient and gentle husband, devoted to her welfare) and to her obvious detriment in a pill-pop place. I say "seen"!
Actually that was metaphorical. I HEARD of the screaming from her not unnaturally aggrieved husband; but saw the lady much latter, when trying very vigorously to secure her escape from this dormitory of horror, where inadequate staff (confessedly) tried to execute an inadequate program with overstated symptoms, since apparently they did not have time to find out, as we did, what in this area of behaviour, the actual deficiencies in her Alzheimer's condition were. At last we found a very senior psychiatrist who faced the facts and began to seek for her total release. (She had been allowed some days off, and time off was increasing, and how she loathed the very thought of returning to the hospital, which, in her Alzheimer condition, she sometimes referred to as "the toilet").
Unfortunately, she died,
after many months of our seeking an earlier physical release through supposedly
enlightened review committees, before this, her final and involuntary release.
Such are the tender mercies of men. In this interim, we sought to bring her to
the Lord, and it may be that she, appreciating it greatly, did come.
2. THE WONDER THAT REFRESHES
THAT is the refreshing that counts. There is a place for many temporary remedies at different times and in different conditions, but THIS is the remedy before all remedies; for the Lord REFRESHES His inheritance when it is weary, He confirms and establishes it; He restores it vigour and enlightens its vision. So we read in Psalm 68:9:
THOU O GOD, DIDST SEND A PLENTIFUL RAIN, BY WHICH THOU DIDST CONFIRM THINE INHERITANCE, WHEN IT WAS WEARY.
It is raining now, and it is just that sort of gentle rain from heaven of which William Shakespeare was so aware when he spoke of mercy! Psalm 65 deals with this beautiful restful, refreshing balm:
You visit the
earth, and water it; You greatly enrich it with the
As so often, there is a movement
- from the visible to the invisible,
- from the outward nurture of things apparent
- to the inward cherishing of things
- which cry and sigh, though there is no tape on which they are recorded;
- which yearn, though there is no measurement,
- things invisible in the domain of peace and beauty, goodness and understanding, though there be no meter;
- the things which above all weaponry determine, at the purely human aspect, the course of history,
- since these are the motivational springs, the qualities and the resurgences which move the hands which make the weapons, and the hearts which rebut them!
Here is the turf of destiny, such as moved so many European scientists of fame
and distinction, to rush off to
Of course, beyond all this that is invisible in man, is the architect of history, Himself; but within His hand, these motivations and activations have their significant place.
Man is not moved by
machinery, but by heart and enterprise, vision and desire, products of life
within him, whatever its quality... As to God, "He works all things after the counsel of His own
will", Ephesians
Such mercy is refreshing, delightful, and it extends to the gift in Love of His own Love, the Son of God, Jesus Christ, in agony excruciating of soul and body, to bear, even to the point of apparent displacement from His divine eternity, the crushing follies of flesh, though He had none of His own. Sacrifice was never so worthy, sublimity more divine.
Mercy can be like rain because He has already borne, ourselves apart, the pain. It is like a doctor who having done the research, can now make its results available. With God there is no need for research in this, that He knows all; but the results of what HE DID AT CALVARY,
- these are freely available, and
- are wholly transforming to the heart,
- first in its conversion to light,
- then in its conforming
to the glory of His light (Titus 3:5, II Corinthians
3. THE REJUVENATION OF THE REFRESHED
Enough, the refreshing of our spirits, our souls, our extraordinary, God-made lives when they are weary is a wonder performable in the end, only by God. Others may
- reduce irritation,
- attenuate frustration,
- minimise pain,
- but they do not endue with wisdom that sees,
- knowledge that delivers and
companionship which blesses into the highest internal reaches of the heart of man.
That? it is the nature of man, and the desire to denature him so that he may be restored in some pathetically superficial package of works, that is one of the gravely comic preoccupations of our dying Age!
But we are still to look at the NON-METAPHORICAL directness of things. Look at Psalm 72, in which the Messiah, that outward expression of the Father to the children of men, the Lord Jesus Christ is prefigured by prophecy, which as in all things, in this also is also true. Of Him it says this:
HE SHALL COME DOWN LIKE RAIN UPON THE MOWN GRASS, LIKE SHOWERS THAT WATER THE EARTH (Psalm 72:6).
That! it is to the point. Just as we have been seeing in the Psalms in the 60's, the metaphorical balm, so here it is actualised into palpable reality at the level of man himself. Rain on mown grass is especially delightful. The interface, being sharp after the cutting, is precise, and dewdrops tend to cluster at edges so that when the LIGHT COMES, there is a bedazzlement with point of gold, green, blue and yellow, rainbow symphonies in a drop! We sight it after rain, gleaming here one colour, there another till the very earth is paved with glory.
What does it mean? This, that when we are chastened (or even chastised if necessary as we grow in Christ), we are like mown grass. Hebrews 12:1-15 tells us much about chastening. It is never delightful in itself, but like mown grass after its becoming ragged, too long, too sprawling, it can have delightful results, apparent to all. It is amazing how readily we may see the NEED others have for chastening (we may of course often be wrong, but the principle is there!), see how beneficial the divine and paternal correction is for them; but when it comes to ourselves, I suppose it is partly because we would not need it so much if we realised in advance what was wrong, that it can come as rather a surprise.
For my part, at times I wonder how gentle it is, and at times, rarely, how strong! But that is the nature of discipline. It does not by any means always come because one KNEW better; often it is because one OUGHT to have known better, but being too indelicate in relation to the Lord, not sufficiently sensitive at some point for some reason, one did NOT realise! THIS helps the sensitivity situation and one can thus grow in grace! (II Peter 3:18) ... and in knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
OTHERS ought to do so,
obviously ... ; but ah! one
needs also oneself to grow in love and grace and humility and understanding and
prudence and courage and discretion and goodness and forbearance and vigilance.
In fact, read II Peter 1 on growth. It is vitalising
just to see there the steps in series, like someone in kindergarten looking on
to University in due course. We must all grow; and in fact, the bodily growth
is merely a pointer; for it is the growth in spirit, heart and mind which is
surpassing; for God? He IS a Spirit (John
Now one of the things that helps grass to grow is a gentle rain from heaven; and one of the things that helps us who are in the image of God (the 5 billion of us, or so, but within that, those who are PLANTED IN CHRIST - see Romans 6, Isaiah 61) to grow is the gentle application of His presence, the movement through His Spirit, which anoints so softly, leads so gently and refreshes to the uttermost reaches of the heart. It stimulates growth, appoints healing to wounds and glints with rainbow lights, as we are strengthened with new vision and gifted with new understanding, just as Paul describes in Ephesians 1:17-18:
- That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory may give to you
- the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him,
- the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know
- what is the hope of His calling, and
- what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and
- what is the
exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe,
- according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ
- when He raised Him
from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places,
- far above all
principality and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is
named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come, and has
put all things under His feet,
- and gave Him to the head
over all things in the Church, which is His body the fulness
of Him who fills all in all.
But let us return to Psalm 72 and the Messiah coming like rain upon the mown grass.
"He shall deliver the needy when he cries; the poor also, and he who has no helper. He shall spare the poor and needy, and save the souls of the needy. He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence and precious shall their blood be in His sight."
It is true that this Psalm is focussed on the COMING REIGN of Jesus Christ over the earth which, whether it has been free enterprise, communism or nazism does not show much talent for ruling itself. It is true that the latter two are devastating untrue and childishly, or infantilely corrupted, unable to stand before the logic of events as well as the logic of disciplined criticism of thought.
It is true free enterprise allows us to make our own mistakes, comparatively, which is far better, for man who would rule like god is worse than sod, he does not have this ability. Yet freedom, marvellous though it is, when misused can likewise lead to hell. Its rule, by itself, though incomparably superior to tyranny, can yield a tyranny of its own. Man in the end, cannot rule man.
The only exception is Jesus Christ, who though He was in the form of God, as Philippians 2 tells us and His works declare, for obedience and that final refreshing, the redemption of people, became man; and went willingly to the Cross where the price is paid for each who comes to Him. Otherwise, as He said, they die in their sins (John 8:24).
However, the redemption that presents peace within, channels grace and is the code of conquest in deliverance from death, from the devil, from vagueness and from the rule of that assassin of life, sin: this has come already, and with it and as channel for it, the resurrection of Christ's body, so that His power, as Paul indicated as written just above, is available to His body, the Church. THAT redemption, it was the final payment; but the dealings 'on account', these have long been operative for the saints of God from millenia ago. The redemption of the BODY? THAT is to come. This Paul declares in Romans 8:23, the securing of that which is already attested and guaranteed (Ephesians 1:13-14, John 6:51-54).
You often have in the Bible this movement, like range upon range in the distance, from the sufferings and redemptive activity of Christ, to the later glory, and He Himself signalised the transition and movement to the disciples very clearly indeed, as written in Luke 24:26-27.
Indeed, after His resurrection, He expressed something very like indignation that they, disciples who studied the Bible, had not realised these two great phases, the redeeming in suffering and rule in glory, in His regal progress in the way no other man has ever trodden; for no other man has the distinction of having been with the Father in glory before the world was, and being His word made flesh. It is when God becomes man that man may become godly.
It is for this reason of what was done by Christ - which earlier was predicted and still to come, but is now past : that David could call on the Lord and be answered with balm, grace and power, so that though he suffered, yet he prevailed in completing what for him then was the will of God.
As it was for him, so it is for us who believe: the Lord is near to those who seek Him, humble and contrite in spirit, by the path which He has appointed. The price is paid, the power He provides for His purposes, the fulfilment of His will. It is a path of peace, however many be murdered; for the invisible things of God are clearly seen, deeply felt, and acutely evidenced.
Thus we read:
"To this man will I look, even to him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembles at my word" - Isaiah 66:2; and -
"The Lord is near to those who are of a broken heart, and saves such as are of a contrite spirit" - Psalm 34:18.
And before it, this:
"The righteous cry, and the Lord hears, and delivers them out of all their troubles."
"God," said Jesus, " is a Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth".
And again (from John 14:9-11),
"Have I
been such a long time with you, and yet you have not known me, Philip?
He who
has seen me has seen the Father; and how do you say, then,
show us the Father? Do
you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I
speak to you, I do not speak of Myself;
but the Father
who dwells in Me, He does the works.
Believe Me that I am in the Father , and the Father in me;
or else believe me for the
very works' sake."
One of those great works is refreshing His inheritance when it is weary; and the refreshing is so wonderful, it is almost like a patient who finds hospital such a joy, that it was almost worth being sick ( I do not think hospitals have much chance to be like that now, and for my part, they seem next door to the morgue, but that is personal merely!).
"Rest in
the Lord, and wait patiently for Him;
do not fret yourself because of him who
prospers in his way,
because of the man who brings wicked devices to pass ...
For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be...
But the meek shall
inherit the earth,
and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace"
- from Psalm
37:7-10.
What then? This: "Delight yourself also in the Lord, and he shall give you the desires of your heat. Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass."
And waiting? Remember this:
"Have you not known?
Have you not heard,
that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, faints not, neither is weary?
There is no searching of His understanding.
He gives power to the faint; and to those who have no might He increases strength.
Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall,
but they who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint"
- Isaiah 40:28-31.
And what preceded this:
"Why do you
say, O Jacob, and speak, I
and the judgment due to me is passed away from my God?"
It is THEN, when the saints who are the believers in the Lord with the faith that has legs, that is not dead: it is then that the Lord so strengthens those who WAIT on HIM! Hidden their way may seem, but they are not hidden from God who changes the texture of their hearts, restores their strength, refreshes their beings, as if tensioning their spirits to their orderly strength in repose, their functional beauty in action. He is there to be enquired of, acting as He sees fit, the most perfect of physicians, the specialist who is also the Creator of the souls of mankind.
And then consider this:
"One
thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after:
that I may dwell in
the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
to behold the beauty of the
Lord, and to enquire in His temple.
For in the time of trouble He shall hide me
in His pavilion;
in the secret of His tabernacle shall He hid me;
He shall set
me up upon a rock" Psalm 27:4-5.
That Rock is
- immovable,
- imponderable,
- mighty, it is
- stable,
- restful, living rock, it
- penetrates to the heart of things and
- gives rest to the heart.
Strength lies within it and it communicates as it communes. THAT is the ROCK on
which the church stands (see The Shadow of a Mighty Rock, pp. 1061-1072 and Index), on which the Christian stands, in company
with which he/she walks, as at the Emmaus road (Luke 24).
To this rock, there is neither beginning nor end, and of His kingdom there shall be no end; and WHAT A KINGDOM! What A KING! See Psalm 45, 110 for His beauty, the beauty of holiness:
"Your
people shall be willing in the day of Your power;
in
the beauties of holiness from the womb the morning,
You have the dew of Your
youth... He shall drink of the brook in the way;
therefore shall He lift up the
head."
Look at John 21 for the way He lifted up the fallen head of ... Peter! He lives now as always, "Jesus Christ the same, today, yesterday, forever" (Hebrews 13:8).
Speaking
of beauty, let us pursue our earlier parallel, itself drawn from the Psalm, on
the rain on the mown grass. Remember this: that when you look at the grass from
slightly different aspects, moving, you see now golden yellow, now soft green,
then blue in a twinkling, as the angle of the light in the drop-prism changes.
SO too when you seek the Lord early, arising and seeking Him (cf. Proverbs 8),
when day by day you find new mercies as you arise, you find new insights, new
flushes the dawning of the morning which in time, will outdistance this time of
ours, and be the bloom of the perfect day in that place where, pilgrimage past,
the LORD HIMSELF will be both the light and the temple.
We are going to look at Psalm 22 to see
not only the
excruciating pain,
the meaning
of the sorrow,
actively
endured by the MESSIAH,
but the SCOPE
OF SALVATION
and the
meaning of its accomplishment to the world at large.
With this, we shall see that
NOT ONLY IS THE GOSPEL TO
ALL RACES, but it has been, since sin came to man,
FOR ALL TIME.
INDEED, DEVISED
BEFORE THIS WORLD BEGAN,
IT IS
ONE EVERLASTING GOSPEL,
IS ALL THAT SIN HAS EVER HAD,
EVER WILL HAVE, EVER SHOULD HAVE,
EVER NEEDS.
IT IS ALSO ALL IT IS GOING TO GET!
It is superabundantly sufficient, like
We shall be prepared in the prophets and the New Testament
for the coming excursion, and so establish it all more thoroughly. Especially
we shall look at Genesis, the Psalms and Isaiah.
We shall prepared in the
prophets and the New Testament for the coming excursion, and so establish it
all more thoroughly. Especially we shall look at Genesis, the Psalms and
Isaiah.
We are moving into nothing
less than
the eternal Gospel from
before time to all time, irrevocable, impermeable, unalterable,
to all peoples and sinners whether
here or elsewhere in creation, even in heavenly places...
There is nothing more, nothing else: from God,
to God for all who come, then marked, "Fragile, Handle with care" , a safe pass to God,
in Jesus
Christ.
(Cf. Items
20,29 below, Biblical Blessings Ch.3, The Other News, 33
and SMR Ch.9, pp. 751ff.)
1.
AUTUMN WITHOUT THE FALL BECAUSE MAN HAD FALLEN INTO SPIRITUAL WINTER
- From the FALL to the FALLEN,
- from sin's advent in the human heart to the first decline which accompanied it,
- and has developed ever since, often like rotten pears left alone after their first damage;