​If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me: Psa:18

If I regard iniquity in my heart - literally, “If I have seen iniquity in my heart.” That is, If I have indulged in a purpose of iniquity; if I have had a wicked end in view; if I have not been willing to forsake all sin; if I have cherished a purpose of pollution or wrong. The meaning is not literally, If I have “seen” any iniquity in my heart - for no one can look into his own heart, and not see that it is defiled by sin; but, If I have cherished it in my soul; if I have gloated over past sins; if I am purposing to commit sin again; if I am not willing to abandon all sin, and to be holy.

The Lord will not hear me - That is, He will not regard and answer my prayer. The idea is, that in order that prayer may be heard, there must be a purpose to forsake all forms of sin. This is a great and most important principle in regard to prayer. The same principle is affirmed or implied in Psa_18:41; Psa_34:15; Pro_1:28; Pro_15:29; Pro_28:9; Isa_15:1-9; Jer_11:11; Jer_14:12; Zec_7:13; Joh_9:31. It is also especially stated in Isa_58:3-7.
​
The principle is applicable:

• to secret purposes of sin; to sinful desires, corrupt passions. and evil propensities;
• to acts of sin in individuals, as when a man is pursuing a business founded on fraud, dishonesty, oppression, and wrong;
• to public acts of sin, as when a people fast and pray Isa_58:1-14, and yet hold their fellow-men in bondage; or enact and maintain unjust and unrighteous laws; or uphold the acts of wicked rulers; or countenance and support by law that which is contrary to the law of God; and
• to the feelings of an awakened and trembling sinner when he is professedly seeking salvation.

If I regard: Job_27:8-9; Pro_15:8, Pro_15:29, Pro_21:13, Pro_28:9; Isa_1:15; Joh_9:31; Jas_4:3

If there is still the love of evil in his heart; if he has some cherished purpose of iniquity which he is not willing to abandon; if there is any one sin, however small or unimportant it may seem to be, which he is not willing to forsake, he cannot hope that God will hear his prayer; he may be assured that he will not. All prayer, to be acceptable to God, must be connected with a purpose to forsake all sin.  (Albert Barnes)

Psa_66:18 - “If I regard iniquity in my heart.” If, having seen it to be there, I continue to gaze upon it without aversion; if I cherish it, have a side glance of love towards it, excuse it, and palliate it; “The Lord will not hear me.” How can he? Can I desire him to connive at my sin, and accept me while I willfully, cling to any evil way? Nothing hinders prayer like iniquity harbored in the breast; as with Cain, so with us, sin lieth at the door, and blocks the passage. If thou listen to the devil, God will not listen to thee. If thou refuse to hear God's commands, he will surely refuse to hear thy prayers. An imperfect petition God will hear for Christ's sake, but not one which is willfully mis-written by a traitor's hand. For God to accept our devotions, while we are delighting in sin, would be to make himself the God of hypocrites, which is a fitter name for Satan than for the Holy One of Israel.
(Charles Spurgeon-Treasury of David)

Standing Before God
​And the men of Bethshemesh said, Who is able to stand before this
​holy LORD God? and to whom shall he go up from us? 1Sam 6:20

​THE PHRASE "to stand before God" designates a high-toned religious life; it includes the knowledge of God, the faculty of executing His commands, and the power of interceding for others. The phrase was a favorite one with Elijah, as expressing the spirit of his great career, and we surely desire that the spirit and attitude of our life may be designated thus. But if this is to be something more than a vague wish, or idle dream, there must be a close adhesion to great principles.

Amongst many it is the general tendency to follow the practice of the majority. We drift with the current, and allow our lives to be settled by our companions or our whims, our fancies or our tastes. If we have a momentary qualm, in contrasting our lives with the standards of primitive simplicity, of which Scripture, or the biographies of the saints are full, we excuse ourselves by saying that so long as the main purpose of life is right the details are unimportant. But what we are in the smallest details of our life, that we are really and essentially.

What a revolution would come to us all, if it became the one fixed aim and ambition of our lives to stand before God, and to do always those things that are pleasing in His sight. It would not make us less tender in our friendships, or less active in our service. It would not take the sparkle from the eye; the nerve from the grasp; or the warm glow from the heart. But it would check many a vain word, arrest many a silly jest, stop much selfish and vainglorious expenditure, and bring us back to whatsoever things are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely and of good report.

We must hold lightly to the things around us. It is difficult to say what worldliness consists in, for what is worldly to some people is an ordinary part of life's circumstance to others. But all of us are sensible of ties that hold us to the earth. We may discover what they are by considering what we cling to most; what we find hard to let go, even into the hands of Christ. Whatever it is that hinders us from living on the highest level, if it is a weight that impedes our speed heavenward, it should be laid deliberately on God's altar, that we may be able, without let or hindrance, to be wholly for God.
(Our Daily Walk)

​Then Asa went out against him, and they set the battle in
​array in the valley of Zephathah at Mareshah. 
And Asa cried unto the LORD his God, and said, LORD, it is nothing
with thee to help, whether with many, or with them that have no power:
help us, O LORD our God; for we rest on thee, and in thy name
we go against this multitude. O LORD, thou art our God;
let not man prevail against thee. 
So the LORD smote the Ethiopians before Asa, and before Judah;
and the Ethiopians fled. 2Ch 14:10-12

"Prayer in emergencies should be founded on a strong faith in God’s independence of human resources and methods of judgment. Much is gained when we appreciate the ease with which God achieves marvelous issues in response to prayer. "A God doing wonders" is one of His significant titles—significant of the usage of His dominion. To Him there are no such things as emergencies.

​The example before us suggests a profound sense of the inadequacy of all other sources of relief but God. We need to feel that we are shut up to God, and to God only.

Prayer in emergencies is a profound identification with God. "In Thy name we go against this multitude." In a selfish prayer we beat the winds. Nothing is sure in this world but the purposes of God. No interests are safe but His. No cause is secure but His.

One other phase of prayer in such emergencies is a hearty recognition of God’s ownership of us. "O Lord, Thou art our God; let not man prevail against Thee." By the right of creation and redemption we belong to God. Will God desert His own with such rights as these"?
(A. Phelps, The Old Testament a Living Book, p. 33)

"Asa acted promptly and energetically as the occasion required." Only one purpose moved him, and that was to bring out all the military strength of his kingdom, and at once, with no unnecessary delay, strike the foe, every soldier realizing that the crown of victory was the prize to be won or lost, according as he should be faithful or unfaithful in his particular duty. Having acted thus promptly and energetically, then--

​"Asa called on God for help. He did not ask God to work a miracle on his behalf." Whoever calls upon God for help without first helping himself, without first putting forth his own efforts to secure that for which he invokes the Divine aid, will call upon God in vain. 

"Courageous advance should follow self-distrust and summoning God by faith. It is well when self-distrust leads to confidence. But that is not enough. It is better when self-distrust and confidence in God lead to courage. And as Asa goes on, “Help us, for we rely on Thee, and in Thy name we go against this multitude.” Never mind though it is two to one. What does that matter? Prudence and calculation are well enough, but there is a great deal of very rank cowardice and want of faith in Christian people, both in regard to their own lives and in regard to Christian work in the world, which goes masquerading under much too respectable a name, and calls itself “judicious caution” and “prudence.” If we have God with us, let us be bold in fronting the dangers and difficulties that beset us, and be sure that He will help us.

The all-powerful plea which God will answer. “Thou art my God, let not man prevail against Thee.” That prayer covers two things. You may be quite sure that if God is your God you will not be beaten; and you may be quite sure that if you have made God’s cause yours He will make your cause His, and again you will not be beaten. “Thou art our God.” “It takes two to make a bargain,” and God and we have both to act before He is truly ours. He gives Himself to us, but there is an act of ours required, too, and you must take the God that is given to you, and make Him yours because you make yourselves His. And when I have taken Him for mine, and not unless I have, He is mine, to all intents of strength-giving and blessedness.
​(A. Maclaren, D.D.)

Let's Apply this to the New Testament Christian
​But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through
our Lord Jesus Christ. 
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable,
always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that
your labour is not in vain in the Lord. 1Co 15:57-58

Paul speaks in this chapter as if the resurrection of Christ were the victory over the grave. Was it impossible then, for men, before the resurrection of Christ, to look beyond the grave?

​The apostles unquestionably speak of our Lord’s resurrection as an unprecedented fact in the world’s history. But they say that its importance to human beings lay in this, that it declared Jesus to be the Son of God with power. It was an act retrospective and prospective. It revealed the Head of the human race. It revealed the relation of the human race, in the person of its Head, to the Father of all. That which was manifested to be true, when He who had taken on Him our nature, and had died as we die, rose out of death because He could not possibly be holden of it, had been true always. Those who believed in Christ could not doubt that man was to learn his condition from Christ, that he could learn it only from Christ. The evidence for the resurrection lay in all the history, in all the experiences and life of men, up to that hour. Fishermen and tent-makers could not establish it. If there was such a Person, such a Head of man, such a Son of God, as they said was denoted by this event, God would show that there was; if not, there was no gospel.

It is God who giveth us the victory. We are in as much danger of fancying that He is not the God of Life, but of death that is bent on our destruction, as the Jews or Greeks were. And next, it is most needful to remember that this victory is a gift. Therefore give up thy life to God, that He may use it as He knows best. Let Him have thy vigor, to turn it against the foes of thy country and of men. Let Him have thy feebleness, that His fatherly love and sympathy, and the obedience that He wrought out in Christ by suffering, may shine forth in thee. Be sure that He has most various methods of manifesting the power of His Son’s resurrection here; but that, if thou trusts  in Him, and dost not faint, the end will be the same; all shall share alike in the victory.

​It is a victory. Immortality is not natural if by natural is meant that which would befall us supposing we were not voluntary spiritual beings. It belongs to us only as voluntary spiritual beings. If we surrender that condition, we surrender our immortality, we take up our position as mortal. But we cannot surrender it; we feel and know that we cannot, even when we are trying most to do it, even when we are stooping to the deepest ignominy. And therefore let us not for a moment cease to connect resurrection with faith, with hope; therefore with conflict. We cannot, if we connect Christ’s resurrection with ours, if we judge of ours by His. He set His face as a flint, His garments were the garments of One who trod the wine-fat. It was an agony, though it was the agony of submission. His sweat was as drops of blood, though the issue was, "Father, not My will, but Thine be done." Therefore God gave Him the victory, the perfect victory of spirit and soul and body.  (F. D. Maurice, Sermons, vol. iii., p. 299)

God's Conquerors
 What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us,
​who can be against us? 
 He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all,
how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Rom 8:31-32

​This is the close of the Apostle’s argument. He has shown that believers are dear to God because they are in Christ; that their every need has been anticipated and provided for; that their guilt has been canceled and provision made for their holy and victorious character; that the Holy Spirit is in them and with them forever; that sin is under their feet and heaven over their heads-what, then, have they to fear?
​
Paul then goes on to show that the love of God is unaffected by even the most extreme changes of our condition-neither death, nor life, as Paul speaks in Rom_8:38-39.
​
Rom 8:38  For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 
Rom 8:39  Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 
​
​That it is undiverted from us by any other order of beings, whether angels, principalities, or powers. That it is universally present throughout creation. And finally, that this love is in Christ Jesus our Lord. But in order to know and experience this love, we must be united to the Lord Jesus by a living faith. Then we shall be more than conquerors, that is, we shall not only be victorious, but shall get spoil out of the very things that have hurt us.
(F.B. Meyer)

Conclusion:
Along with these devotions and scriptures, a lengthy study could be done using the words of Jesus when he taught the disciples on prayer, and the importance of faith. In my years of walking with the Lord, I've learned many lessons, and still do, each day. A few I'll add here:
Mat 13:57  And they were offended in him. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house. 
Mat 13:58  And he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief. 
​
Mat 17:17  Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me. 
Mat 17:18  And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour. 
Mat 17:19  Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? 
Mat 17:20  And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. 
Mat 17:21  Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.
​
Some of the most important lessons in prayer comes from faith, and trust in Jesus to do what He's said He will do. My level of answered prayer hinges a great deal on whether I believe He is who He says He is, and if I believe He will do for me what He has promised-my level of trust and faith is what opens the door for me to see answers to prayer for myself, and others.
When we are praying for other's we are dealing with another level and realm of prayer that has a lot to do with the other persons free will, and whether they have any desire to know Jesus, or follow Him. When people reject Him, and dishonor Him, we will not see any answers on their behalf, until they have a change of heart. That's the only prayer we can take to the Lord, until this changes. A good example of this, is the conversion of Saul on the road to Damascus-and the encounter with Jesus that took him to the  ground. When he arose, he now was Paul, the Apostle, who would face a lifetime of obstacles, adversity, and suffering, but also win the salvation of many souls for Christ, and the Kingdom of God.
This is part of the warfare we wage in prayer-that's for another time. I'll finish this with one of my favorite verses of scripture-and one I use a lot in times of prayer, and in intercession:
Heb 11:6  But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. 
Lorna Couillard

These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven,
​and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son,
that thy Son also may glorify thee: 
As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he
should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. 
And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God,
and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. 
I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished
the work which thou gavest me to do. Joh 17:1-4

“Father, the hour is come.” The hour; the hour of all hours the most important. What hour like that in interest, what hour so big with momentous issues on all the past, and on all the future! That was the central hour of all time’s hours. The confluence of the two eternities was at that time-point. That hour was the keystone of time’s huge arch, that arch which rests on the one side, and the other on eternity. Many hours in the world’s history are marked and memorable. The hour of the birth or death, the crisis-hour of one of the world’s great ones, a thinker, worker, statesman, or warrior; the hour which gave birth to and introduced some mighty revolution, which proved to be the birth or death hour of a nation, altering the destiny of millions of our race for weal or for woe, is important and to be marked; but what hour like this! an hour which had its bearing on the whole universe, and whose transactions were to effect eternally God and man, angels and devils. It was for this hour that the great clock of Time was set in motion at first. It was for this hour that the world was created and upheld; for this hour Heaven’s justice waited; in it sin was made an end of, and transgression was finished; in it the law of God was magnified, and made honorable; holiness was vindicated; the devil and his work virtually destroyed; death slain, and God’s chosen people saved with an everlasting salvation. The hour is come. The time was numbered to an hour. The betrayer had gone forth on his fell errand; the machinery of death was prepared, and the Victim was ready to bleed and die on the altar. And He it is who reminds the Father that the hour is come. It is Isaac that tells Abraham that it is time he should be laid on the wood and the knife be upraised. The Lamb of God says, It is time He should die, to take away the sin of the world. The hour is come: how solemn and how applicable are the words! This hour was long in coming, but it has come at last. The eye of many a priest and prophet, king and peasant, of the olden time, had been strained in looking earnestly across the intervening ages towards that hour; but, one by one, the eye of these men grew dim with age and closed in death, and still it came not.
(T. Alexander, M. A.)

"Consider what were the purposes of God which by the death of our Lord were answered, and which without it, as far as we can see, could not have been answered so that God was thereby glorified.

​And first, I think, we must feel that hereby a mark was set upon the devil’s work, sin, which no other conceivable procedure could have set upon it. Its hatefulness to God; its exceeding atrocity; the fearfulness of being tempted to commit it; was hereby made intelligible to all—that nothing less than this agonizing torture inflicted on the Son of God could expiate it.

The next important purpose answered by the sufferings of our blessed Master, and the manifest carrying out of God’s will thereby, is their eminent adaptation to establish a spiritual kingdom as wholly distinct from a carnal one. His kingdom was manifestly not of this world. Pilate marveled that it could be called a kingdom at all, not comprehending the power of holy example, of hearty doctrine, of humble patience. Yet herein was our Father glorified, and hereby were won such glorious triumphs as worldly policy, or force of arms, or outward wealth and influence could never have achieved. For these do but for a while affect the present interests of mankind; whereas the patient endurance, the cheerful alacrity of our blessed Lord unto every good work, His humility, His meekness, His constancy, His love, His gentleness, His unexampled self-denial on all occasions, have left behind them solid and everlasting memorials—have in all ages of the world been the stay of sufferers, the comfort of mourners, the strength of them that wrestled with temptation, the hope of downcast, afflicted souls; and not only so, but have sanctified all the instrumentalities wherewith the purposes of this world are carried out.

Consider how entirely Christ, by His life and death, has shut out all shams and pretenses to religion,—has made it impossible for insincerity and worldliness to indulge in the flattering hope of entering in through the door whose posts and lintels are all sprinkled with blood. What is this blood, and what does it signify? It is the blood of the Lamb that was slain, of the only begotten Son of God, Who gave His life for our lives, due to God for sin."  (Bishop Thorold, Penny Pulpit, No. 410, new series)

Note: As Jesus lays down this earthly life, and presents his finished work here to the Father, he begins to take up His mantle of High Priest and our Intercessor-and maintains that work even now-before the Father, for every child of God. He prays for us every day, this should be a great source of blessing, and assurance, that His eye is upon you, every moment. You are never out of His care.

Jesus Compared to Melchizedek-
​Heb 7:21  (For those priests were made without an oath; but this with an oath by him that said unto him, The Lord sware and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec:) 
Heb 7:22  By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament. 
Heb 7:23  And they truly were many priests, because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death: 
Heb 7:24  But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. 
Heb 7:25  Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. 
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"I Have Finished the Work Thou Gave Me"
"I do not think that here in this text our Lord intended to refer to the final and completing act—the blood-shedding which was remission. I believe He reviewed His life—the subjection, the pain, the obedience learned by the things He suffered, the teaching and the trial, the subjection to indignities, to time and space, to cold and hunger, to devils and to men—in the light of all these visionary recollections, He said: "I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do." This saying of our Lord—it is a very arrow of light gleaming across the burdened valley of our being—"I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do." In this specialty, which was the Savior’s triumph, lies the ground also of the Christian’s consolation—specialty, I say, for God sets the work, God hems the work around with difficulties. We succeed, it is because He has aided us; we fail, it is because He would teach us; and thus often failure becomes the footstool of the highest success. It is an illustrious thought, and it is the bright, red light along the horizon of life, that every one has his appointed field. "Thou shalt choose our inheritance for us."

Sorrow is work. Was not His sorrow work? Sorrow is the rain which descends down to the very roots of our being. Sorrow has an influence on the heart like that of the atmospheric action on the hard rocks and hills: it loosens, it softens, it disintegrates, it levels, and from the mold it makes the flowers and the fruits of the heart, as the flowers and fruits of earth spread their bloom.

Temptation is work. Man does not see the victory or the triumph; but God does.

Faith is work. But this is our work in relation to God, and sympathy is work—our work in relation to man.

Think how Divine is work—in its lowest as well as in its highest form—to make something. Not one is forgotten before God. The fisherman going forth to the rivers, the ploughboy to the fields, the dairyman to the farmyard, the artisan to the shop, much-enduring man to toil. How Divine, how godlike is work—to draw the silken thread of Spirit through the hard needle of difficulty.  (E. Paxton Hood, Sermons, p. 306)

I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou
​hast given me; for they are thine. 
And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them. 
And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou
hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. Joh 17:9-11

​​“They are Thine”​

"He had created them, selected them out of the many thousands of Israel, to be trained by His Son. The preparation they received under the minister of Jesus was altogether of God; and the variety of their dispositions, qualifying them for varied service and duty, was due to His wisdom and power. It is one thing to be God’s creatures, made originally in His image; it is much higher and grander to be God’s men, created anew in Christ Jesus.

“I pray for them.” The word pray here is a word which Christ Jesus alone uses in relation to His prayers. The Savior never uses the word ordinarily used to express prayers by man, but one which has the sense of authority in it, and which therefore it is not proper for us to use. How much, then, is involved in this announcement! Frequently in the course of social intercourse we say to a friend in difficulty or affliction, when we feel that our poor thoughts, counsels, or help can be of little or no avail, “I will pray for you.” Does that not include the highest thought, and the most effective aid that we can reach? What magnitude and depth of meaning, then, must there be in our Savior’s words, “I pray for you”! The Lord who prayed for these disciples intercedes for His people now. There is not a single day of our life, however full of duty, difficulty, or darkness, in which we may not derive encouragement and comfort from this gracious word of Christ."
(Biblical Illustrator)

​In Christ’s own oratory we hear Him pray. But how wonderful! There is a tone of expectant faith in this marvelous prayer of assured trust, as if He knew that He was asking what was in His Father’s heart and thought. The Lord speaks as if He had already passed through death, and were pleading before the throne. He is glad to have authority only that He may use it to give life.
The Father’s gift to Jesus consisted in the men who followed Him, the word He spoke, the works He did, the name He bore. How careful the Good Shepherd was of those who had been given to Him! He prayed for them, He kept them, He entrusted them as His dying legacy to His Father’s care. Though He did not pray directly for the world, He was doing His best for it, in concentrating all His solicitude on those who were to be the messengers of His gospel.
In Joh_17:10 we are reminded of Luk_15:31.
Luk 15:31  And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. 
The very words which the father said to the elder brother are here appropriated by our Lord; and we are taught that we have the privilege of entering on the same inheritance of grace and power as our Lord had. He won for us, unworthy though we are, the privilege of saying, All thine are mine. If only we believed this, and lived as children in our Father’s house, how different life would become.  ​(F.B. Meyer)

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God,
that he may exalt you in due time: 
Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you. 1Pe 5:6-7
The Divine Care-bearer

"Nothing can be more beautifully true to the real meaning and intention of this passage than this translation. It conveys exactly what St. Peter means it to convey. Its rhythm is perfect. But we must be upon our guard that we do not run into a confusion of thought from the repetition of the word "care." "Care" can never be to God what it is to us. To a Being infinite in power, love, and leisure, "care" can never attach in its inferior "and baser sense. The very reason why we should "cast" our "care" is that God cannot be made unhappy or weary by it. The fact is that, in the original of this verse, the word "care" is not repeated. It is quite a different expression which is applied to God from the one which is used concerning us. We may write it, "Casting all your anxiety upon God, for to God all that concerns you is dear." Nevertheless our version is admirable, and infinitely better than any other. It exactly carries the thought and the comfort which God meant it to do, "Casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you."
​
"Care" is a word which is used both in a good and bad sense in the Bible. "Care chokes the word." Yet we are to "have care one to another." Quite literally, the word used for "care," in the beginning of my text, is the same which Christ employs when He says, "Take no thought for the morrow": and it is, "Do not split your mind; do not have a divided heart." "Cast all your corroding thought upon Him, for He careth for you." It is a delightful thing to do—to "cast care." It leaves life so light! But never think it is an easy thing. Here again the word God uses, both in the Greek and in the English, is very discriminating, for to throw, to hurl, to "cast," is not easy. It involves a great effort. Every one who has tried it has found it so. It is a very rare thing, and a very difficult thing, to do what we have to do, and then have no "care" about it. No words can say how blessed a thing it is when it is done. But it is no light thing to do. We do not lay these things; we "cast" them.

You must begin with the fundamental truth that Christ is both "the Sin-bearer" and "the Care-bearer" of His people. I do not mean that these two things are really different. Sin is the heaviest of all "cares." Nobody who has ever felt its burden will question that. But, strange as it may appear, it is often more difficult to "cast" our "cares" than it is our sins, else why are so many Christians so burdened with daily life and depressed with so many anxieties? Why is it that men who are sure of their salvation yet are not sure of their constant provision? The fact is that in some respects it is a higher religion to trust God and leave all with God about temporal things than it is about spiritual things. We may easily deceive ourselves about our spiritual faith, and think we trust when we do not, because the subject is far away out of sight; but temporal things are visible, and real, and close; and we can scarcely make a mistake whether we trust God about them or not. They are daily tests of faith. And many fail here who think that their spiritual faith is strong. Yet could that be the case? Can we really believe in a God of grace when we do not rest in a God of providence?

But now the important question is, What shall we do that we may "cast"? How shall we fulfil this kind and hard command?
(1) Realize, and take a large estimate of, the God of your life and of your providence. See His hand in everything. Feel His eye always upon you, and believe in His fondness for you. Never think of this world as being ruled by general, universal laws. It is. But think of what is as true, and much better for us to think of, though we may not be able to see the reconciliation between the two: that there is a particular and special providence in every little thing, and that God overrules everything for His own; that you are a center round which the universe of providence circles.
(2) When you say your prayers, pray about the small things—the things which are upon your mind at the moment. Pray about the things, whatever they be, concerning which at that time you are most interested. Do not pray vague prayers, the prayers that will suit everybody, but your own personal prayer, just as much about your worldly trial as about your heavenly one. (3) Live in the day: in the day’s duties; in the day’s trials; the day’s strength; the day’s joys. Live inside the day. "The morning and the evening"; "the evening and the morning"; and tomorrow heaven. 
(J. Vaughan, Sermons, 13th series, p. 197)

Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever
I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway,
even unto the end of the world. Amen. Mat 28:20

"​Do not look forward to the changes and chances of this life in fear. Rather look at them with full hope that, as they arise, God, whose you are, will deliver you out of them. He has kept you hitherto; do you but hold fast to His dear hand, and He will lead you safely through all things; and when you cannot stand, He will bear you in His arms.
Do not look forward to what may happen tomorrow. The same everlasting Father who cares for you today will take care of you tomorrow, and every day. Either He will shield you from suffering, or He will give you unfailing strength to bear it. Be at peace, then, put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginations. -- Frances do Sales
"The Lord is my shepherd."
Not was, not may be, nor will be. "The Lord is my shepherd," is on Sunday, is on Monday, and is through every day of the week; is in February, is in December, and every month of the year; is at home, and is in China; is in peace, and, is in war; in abundance, and in penury." -- (J. Hudson Taylor)

​HE will silently plan for thee,
Object thou of omniscient care;
God Himself undertakes to be
Thy Pilot through each subtle snare.

He WILL silently plan for thee,
So certainly, He cannot fail!
Rest on the faithfulness of God,
In Him thou surely shalt prevail.

He will SILENTLY plan for thee
Some wonderful surprise of love.
Eye hath not seen, nor ear hath heard,
But it is kept for thee above.

He will silently PLAN for thee,
His purposes shall all unfold;
The tangled skein shall shine at last,
A masterpiece of skill untold.

He will silently plan FOR THEE,
Happy child of a Father’s care,
As though no other claimed His love,
But thou alone to Him wert dear.
E. Mary Grimes
Whatever our faith says God is, He will be.

"These words follow others of great significance: “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: casting all your anxiety upon him, because he careth for you.” The two verses taken together state this truth, that anxiety carries with it a division of faith between God and self—a lack of faith in God, proportioned to the amount of care which we refuse to cast on Him; an excess of self-confidence, proportioned to the amount which we insist on bearing ourselves. If we refuse to let God carry for us what He desires and offers to carry, pride is at the bottom of the refusal. Therefore, the Apostle says, “Humble yourselves under God’s mighty hand. Confess the weakness of your hand. Do not try to carry the anxiety with your weak hand. Cast it all on Him. Believe that He cares for you, and be humbly willing that He should care for you.”
​(Great Texts)

Where there's vanity, humility has no room to be present. Every aspect of vanity, is to glorify ones self, there's no room for the Spirit of God, to reveal to us our frailness, our mistakes, our sins, and our need for a Savior. Vanity won't allow us to be honest with ourselves, or with God. We have no ability to see ourselves as God sees us. We are blinded by our own high opinions of ourselves, and won't allow God to shed light on us, to reveal the habits and sins we've allowed to become imbedded in us, and we don't realize our conduct reveals ourselves to other's. Vanity blinds us, and ultimately destroys us, unless we come to the place where we allow God to show us what is really in us, and shows us we need to ask Him to forgive us our pride and sin, and ask Him to change us, because we cannot change ourselves. When we can be this honest with Him, then He can begin to do something for us, and our circumstances. If our outward situation doesn't, our souls and spirits will-and we will conquer and overcome, no matter what the circumstances.

"​Vanity, or love of display, is one of the most contemptible and pernicious passions that can take possession of the human mind. Its roots are in self-ignorance-its fruits are affectation and falsehood. Vanity is a kind of mental intoxication, in which the pauper fancies himself a prince, and exhibits himself in aspects disgusting to all observers." (D. Thomas, D. D.)

“One very hot summer’s day I was driving along a dusty road, when I overtook a woman with a heavy basket on her arm. I did not want to feel like the priest in the story that Jesus told, who ‘passed by on the other side,’ so I offered her a ride. She gladly accepted it, but as she rode still carried the heavy basket on her arm. ‘My good woman,’ I said as kindly as I could, ‘your basket would ride just as well in the bottom of the trap, and you would be much more comfortable.’ ‘Ah, so it would, sir, thank you; I never thought of that,’ she said, as she put her burden down. ‘That is very much like what I often do,’ I remarked after a little while. ‘Like you do, sir?’ and the woman looked up inquiringly. ‘Yes; I, too, often carry heavy burdens when there is no need for it.’ She waited for my explanation. ‘The Lord Jesus has taken me up into His chariot, and I rejoice to ride in it, but very often I carry a great burden of care on my back that would ride just as well if I put it down, for the Lord would carry me and my cares too.’ ‘Yes, bless the Lord!’ said she, with a joy that told that she had found the cure for care. ‘It is true, sir, when He takes us up in His chariot, He taken cares and all.’ Here is the cure for your cares, for all the little daily worries and the burdens of anxiety that oppress you-the Lord careth for you.” (M. Guy Pearse)
​
Mat 6:33  But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. 
Mat 6:34  Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
​Mat 11:28  Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 
Mat 11:29  Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 
Mat 11:30  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. 

To the chief Musician, to Jeduthun, A Psalm of David.
Truly my soul waiteth upon God: from him
​cometh my salvation. Psa 61:1

​We have here two corresponding clauses, each, beginning a section of the Psalm. The difference is that the one expresses the Psalmist’s patient stillness of submission, and the other is his self-encouragement to that very attitude and disposition which he has just professed to be his.
Notice:--

​His whole being is one great stillness, broken by no clamorous passions, by no loud-voiced desires, by no remonstrating reluctance. His silence is a silence of the will. The plain meaning of this phrase is resignation; and resignation is just a silent will. Such a silent will is a strong will.

The true secret of strength lies in submission. We must keep our hearts silent too. He cannot say, "My soul is silent unto God," whose whole being is buzzing with vanities and noisy with the din of the market-place. There must be the silence of the mind, as well as of the heart and will. We must cultivate the habit of detaching our thoughts from earth and keeping our minds still before God, that He may pour His light into them.

This man’s profession of utter resignation is perhaps too high for us; but we can make his self-exhortation our own. The silence of the soul before God is no mere passiveness. It requires intense energy of all our being to keep all our being still and waiting upon Him. So put all your strength into the task, and be sure that your soul is never so intensely alive as when in deepest abnegation it waits hushed before God.
(A. Maclaren, Weekday Evening Addresses, p. 151.)

“Truly,” or verily, or only". The last is probably the most prominent sense here. That faith alone is true which rests on God alone, that confidence which relies but partly on the Lord is vain confidence. If we Englished the word by our word “verily,” as some do, we should have here a striking reminder of our blessed Lord's frequent use of that adverb. “My soul waiteth upon God.” My inmost self draws near in reverent obedience to God. I am no hypocrite or mere posture maker. To wait upon God, and for God, is the habitual position of faith; to wait on him truly is sincerity; to wait on him only is spiritual chastity. The original is, “only to God is my soul silence.” The presence of God alone could awe his heart into quietude, submission, rest, and acquiescence; but when that was felt, not a rebellious word or thought broke the peaceful silence. The proverb that speech is silver but silence is gold, is more than true in this ease. No eloquence in the world is half so full of meaning as the patient silence of a child of God. It is an eminent work of grace to bring down the will and subdue the affections to such a degree, that the whole mind lies before the Lord like the sea beneath the wind, ready to be moved by every breath of his mouth, but free from all inward and self-caused emotion, as also from all power to be moved by anything other than the divine will. We should be wax to the Lord, but adamant to every other force. “From him cometh my salvation.” The good man will, therefore, in patience possess his soul till deliverance comes: faith can hear the footsteps of coming salvation because she has learned to be silent. Our salvation in no measure or degree comes to us from any inferior source; let us, therefore, look alone to the true fountain, and avoid the detestable crime of ascribing to the creature what belongs alone to the Creator. If to wait on God be worship, to wait on the creature is idolatry; if to wait on God alone be true faith, to associate an arm of flesh with him is audacious unbelief. (Charles Spurgeon-Treasury of David)

“My soul is silence unto God.” That forcible form of expression describes the completeness of the psalmist’s unmurmuring submission and quiet faith. His whole being is one of great stillness, broken by no clamorous passions; by no loud-voiced desires; by no remonstrating reluctance. That silence is first a silence of the will. Bridle impatience till God speaks. Take care of running before you are sent. Keep your will in equipoise till God’s hand gives the impulse and direction. We must keep our hearts silent too. The sweet voices of pleading affections, the loud cry of desires and instincts that roar for their food like beasts of prey, the querulous complaints of disappointed hopes, the groans and sobs of black-robed sorrows, the loud hubbub and Babel, like the noise of a great city, that every man carries within, must be stifled and coerced into silence. We have to take the animal in us by the throat, and sternly say, Lie down there and be quiet. We have to silence tastes and inclinations. There must be the silence of the mind, as well as of the heart and will. We must not have our thoughts ever occupied with other things, but must cultivate the habit of detaching them from earth, and keeping our minds still before God, that He may pour His light into them. Alas! how far from this is our daily life! Who among us dares to take these words as the expression of our own experience? Is not the troubled sea which cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt, a truer emblem of our restless, labouring souls than the calm lake? Put your own selves by the side of this psalmist, and honestly measure the contrast. It is like the difference between some crowded market-place all full of noisy traffickers, ringing with shouts, blazing in sunshine, and the interior of the quiet cathedral that looks down on it all, where are coolness and subdued light, and silence and solitude. This man’s profession of utter resignation is perhaps too high for us; but we can make his self-exhortation our own. “My soul! wait thou only upon God.” Perfect as he ventures to declare his silence towards God, he yet feels that he has to stir himself up to the effort which is needed to preserve it in its purity. Just because he can say, “My soul waits,” therefore he bids his soul wait. That vigorous effort is expressed here by the very form of the phrase. The same word which began tim first clause begins the second also. As in the former it represented for us, with an emphatic “Truly,” the struggle through which the psalmist had reached the height of his blessed experience, so here it represents in like manner the earnestness of the self-exhortation which he addresses to himself. He calls forth all his powers to the conflict, which is needed even by the man who has attained to that height of communion, if he would remain where he has climbed. And for us who shrink from taking these former words upon our lips, how much greater the need to use our most strenuous efforts to quiet our souls. If the summit reached can only be held by earnest endeavor, how much more is needed to struggle up from the valleys below. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Comparative verses:
Exo 34:27  And the LORD said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel. 
Exo 34:28  And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments. 
​Luk 5:16  And he withdrew himself into the wilderness, and prayed. 
Luk 6:12  And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God. 
See also: ​ Mat_14:23; Mar_1:35-36, Mar_6:46; Joh_6:15

To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came unto him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba. Have mercy upon me,
O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude
of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. 
Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. 
For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. 
Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight:
that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear
​when thou judgest. Psa 51:1-4
+++++++
Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. 
Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. 
Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me. 
Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit. 
Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners
​shall be converted unto thee. Psa 9-13

The cry of contrition. Like a perfect master of medicine, unfolding in his clinical teaching, feature after feature Of the special ease under treatment till the very hereditary taint is manifest, David searches out this worst sickness; like the stern, skillful prosecutor summing up the damning evidence against a criminal, David lays bare fact after fact of his unmitigated guilt; like a faithful, solemn judge according just recompense to the evildoer, David pronounces on himself the penalty of God’s righteous law.
The cry for cleansing. This cry for cleansing is twofold—cleanse the record, cleanse myself. Two faces are bent over the proofs of his sin—God’s and David’s. From each gazer these sins must be hidden—from the one that there may be no condemnation, from the other that there may be full consolation. Cleanse me, wash me, make me whiter than snow. What orderliness, what Spirit-taught wisdom in this prayer! A polluted stream may be run off, but a poisoned spring must be cured. The wells of Marsh and the springs of Jericho call for their Maker’s hand. So does my heart. What a terrible but fruitful view of sin!
The cry of consecration. These new powers shall not be wasted. The new heart and the new spirit long for work. This fresh and unstinted grace to David fills his soul with thankfulness, and thankfulness embodies itself in toil for God and man. Praise is not wanting. But works surpass words. Grace from God always produces giving to God. Labor is as love, and love is as forgiveness. Where there is no condemnation there should be full consecration. (J. S. Macintosh, D. D.)

​David, in the opening of this Psalm, appeals for mercy. No penitent man ever approached God on the side of His justice. The Pharisee, indeed, appeals to righteousness; but the publican appeals for mercy.

"Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin." Mark the thoroughness of this desire. Not only must sin be blotted out, but the sinner himself must be. washed and cleansed. There must be not merely a change of state, but a change of nature. David’s words all come, as it were, from the center of his being. There is no trifling with the surface here.

"For I acknowledge my transgressions." Confession is a necessary basis of forgiveness. Confession is in reality a multitudinous act; it is many acts in one; it is a convergence of right judgment, right feeling, and right action.

In the third verse the Psalmist uses an extraordinary expression,
"My sin is ever before me." The point to be noted here is the distinct personal relation which every man sustains to his own sin. It is emphatically and exclusively his own.

"Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned," The idea is that all sin is against  God. Whoever sins against man sins against God. Then how sacred are all human relations. Every blow struck against humanity is a blow struck against God.

Up to the twelfth verse the Psalmist confines his intercessions to subjects which relate immediately to his own spiritual condition; but in ver. 13 he includes others with himself: "Then will I teach transgressors Thy ways." Mark the connection between true personal holiness and true worldwide benevolence.

​This is the secret of all evangelistic movement. The work begins in personal consecration. Ver. 17 shows that all sacrifice is worthless which is not vitalized by the moral element.
Psa 51:7  Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. ​
(Parker, Wednesday Evenings at Cavendish Chapel, p. 1.)

Taking Responsibility for Our Own Sins
“Cleanse me from my sin”

The following teachings, from many bible scholars from days gone by-you will not hear of in many churches today. This is why many of them are in the poor state of deadness and apostasy they are in. If these principles and doctrines of repentance were preached, and practiced-we'd see a nation and churches living in godliness, and peace. Selah

​​Consider--
The need you have to offer this prayer.
1. You cannot cleanse yourselves from sin. The guilt of your sin you cannot blot out. The pollution of your sin you are equally unable to take away. 2. You cannot live happily without you are cleansed from sin. Surely, as the shadow follows the substance, sorrow follows sin, and joy holiness.
3. You cannot die peacefully unless you are cleansed from sin. “The sting of death is sin.”
4. You cannot be acquitted at the Divine tribunal except you are cleansed from sin. “We must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ”.
5. You cannot be admitted into heaven without you are cleansed from your sin. “Without holiness no man shall see the Lord.” “There shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth,”.
6. You cannot escape hell unless you are cleansed from your sin. There is no world between heaven and hell. “The wicked shall be turned into hell,”

The requisites you must possess to present this prayer successfully.
1. You must be alive to your sin. Men must be convinced of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment, before they will be anxious to be saved. Where guilt is not felt, pardon will not be desired.
2. You must see that your sin has been committed against God. Every evil deed perpetrated is done against the Almighty. This David felt.
3. You must take the blame of your sin to yourselves. The common practice is to attribute it to the tempter. Adam laid it on his wife, and Eve cast it on the serpent. Like them we seek to exculpate ourselves. But there must be the impression that we are utterly inexcusable.
4. You must be desirous to part with your sin. Unwilling as men are to forsake their vicious course, they would fain be quit of its dire consequences. But he who will have his sin must have its evils. The cause must be removed before its effects can.
5. You must be sorry for your sin. There is a fitness between contrition and pardon; but there is none between impenitence and remission. The penitent are in a proper state to be forgiven; the impenitent are not.
6. You must have faith in the cleansing efficacy of Christ’s blood. Requisite as are the foregoing to your being in a proper condition to ask or to have the blessings spoken of, they cannot, if relied on, secure it, as there is not the slightest merit in them. The only merit on the ground of which we can be redeemed from all iniquity is in Christ, and in Him alone. For Him to be your redemption you must have faith in His blood.

In conclusion, have you prevailingly urged this petition?—(JOHN SMITH Abridged from “The Congregational Pulpit.”)
​
Note: Does living under the grace of the New Testament, excuse sin?
​​Rom 8:4  That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 
Rom 8:5  For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. 
Rom 8:6  For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 
Rom 8:7  Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. 
Rom 8:8  So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. 
Rom 8:9  But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. 
Rom 8:10  And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 
Rom 8:11  But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. 
​+++++++++++
​Gal 5:16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. 
Gal 5:17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. 
Gal 5:18  But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. 
Gal 5:19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, 
Gal 5:20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, 
Gal 5:21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. 

The Psalmist felt that his heart was Defiled—that it was not in his power to cleanse it—he therefore prayed that God would perform the work renew a right spirit within me.” These words refer to the temper of the mind. The Psalmist knew that his was wrong; and, consequently prayed that God would renew a right spirit within him. “If any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of His.” “Cast me not away from Thy presence.” In the presence of God is “fulness of joy:” therefore, to be cast away from His presence is to be deprived of happiness. “Take not Thy holy spirit from me.” The Spirit of God “helpeth our infirmities:” therefore, to be deprived of the Spirit is to be deprived of help. The Holy Spirit is our Comforter: therefore, to be deprived of the Spirit is to be deprived of comfort. “Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation.” The knowledge of salvation produces joy,—this joy the Psalmist had experienced,—it was not his portion when he uttered these words,—he therefore desired its restoration. “Uphold me with Thy free spirit.” Having experienced the sad consequences of falling into sin, the Psalmist here prays that when restored he might be upheld, and prevented from falling again.

​Notice the predicated results of a gracious answer; or the connection between piety and usefulness. “Then will I teach transgressors Thy way; and sinners shall be converted unto Thee.” He that enjoys the blessings of salvation, can speak on religious subjects with more feeling, and, consequently, with more effect than others. This may remind Christians, and especially Christian ministers, that eminent piety is exceedingly desirable, not only on their own account, but also that they may be qualified for extensive usefulness.  (“The Young Minister’s Companion”)

Charles Haddon Spurgeon-Treasury of David
Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be
​converted unto thee. Psa 51:13

​“Then will I teach transgressors thy ways.” It was his fixed resolve to be a teacher of others; and assuredly none instruct others so well as those who have been experimentally taught of God themselves. Reclaimed poachers make the best gamekeepers. Huntingdon's degree of S.S., or Sinner Saved, is more needful for a soul-winning evangelist than either M.A or D.D. The pardoned sinner's matter will be good, for he has been taught in the school of experience, and his manner will be telling, for he will speak sympathetically, as one who has felt what he declares. The audience the Psalmist would choose is memorable - he would instruct transgressors like himself; others might despise them, but, “a fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind.” If unworthy to edify saints, he would creep in along with the sinners, and humbly tell them of divine love. The mercy of God to one is an illustration of his usual procedure, so that our own case helps us to understand his “ways,” or his general modes of action: perhaps, too, David under that term refers to the preceptive part of the word of God, which, having broken, and having suffered thereby, he felt that he could vindicate and urge upon the reverence of other offenders. “And sinners shall be converted unto thee.” My fall shall be the restoration of others. Thou wilt bless my pathetic testimony to the recovery of many who, like myself, have turned aside unto crooked ways. Doubtless this Psalm and the whole story of David, have produced for many ages the most salutary results in the conversion of transgressors, and so evil has been overruled for good."

​Cross reference: ​Isa 1:18  Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. 

I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy: for thou hast considered
​my trouble; thou hast known my soul in adversities; 
And hast not shut me up into the hand of the enemy: thou hast set
my feet in a large room. Psa 31:7-8

Regardless of how many friends you may feel you have, no matter how prosperous, or beautiful you may be, the day will come when you will face adversities that you'll find you will have to face alone, and with God alone.
Even well meaning, and sincere relationships disappear after long sessions of storms and troubles, that they have no answers for, and they become weary of even being in your presence, because your still in the storm, and they desire to move on, and they will. You will face your troubles on your own, and if you have no relationship with the God of heaven, the world will become a barren wasteland. But for those who've found Him, and His reality, love, strength and ability to carry them-run to Him for every need, and every care. They've found in God, they have a refuge from every storm, and every trial.

​These verses are invaluable, and in them you can begin to learn the power and strength that God provides for those who come to Him, and pour out their hearts to Him. They'll find as those in the Psalms have found, He is the answer to their every need, and, He answers prayer. As you seek Him in your storms, He will also give guidance on things you may need to change, or stop doing-this is for your good, and for your health, both physically, and spiritually. Obedience is better than sacrifice, it opens the door to greater understanding, and relationship with the Lord, and a door of bringing you into a realm of deeper relationship with Him, who created you. When you trust Him, you begin to realize why He created you, and what His hearts desire is for you-and it's always good.

In the Palms we learn how to dialogue with God, and be real, to put away pretense, and come to Him and pour our hearts out to Him, bringing our needs to Him as a Father. This is the way He desires a relationship with us, and when we make this a pattern of our lives, we find ourselves talking to Him in this fashion-all through the day, and in every time of need.​

Walking through the day this way, every answered prayer will become fuel for your faith, and cause you to get to the place-you'll not want to do anything until you've gone to Him first for His guidance. God will become your best friend. Jesus says "I will never leave you, nor forsake you". When everyone else leaves, He stays.

We need to realize, the Lord corrects us to prosper us, and bring us into a right relationship with Him, not to destroy us. The lusts and sins of the flesh are all tools of the devil, to twist this truth, and deceive people. The conditions of the world today, clearly show this.

May the Lord enlarge your heart and spirit to glean some of His love, and draw you to desire a real and intimate relationship with Him-this is His desire for you.
​Lorna Couillard

One great comfort of assurance in this verse is that such knowledge is always very thorough. When someone has known us in adversities, then he has known us as we really are.

There is a sonnet by Blanco White, familiar to all the lovers of the beautiful, in which he develops the thought that but for the night, we should never know the stars. And so there is a very real sense in which we may say we never know a life till we have seen it in the darkness of adversity. When the sun is warm and all the leaves are green, you can scarcely see the cottage in the forest. But when the storm of winter sweeps the leaves away, then at last you see it as it is. It may be stronger than you ever thought, or it may be more battered and decayed, but always the winter shows it as it is.
​
Indeed, the revealing power of adversity strips the summer covering away. It shows us not in the setting of our circumstance, but as we are in naked reality. And therefore one who has known us in adversities, and been at our side in sorrow and calamity, knows us with an intimacy that probably nothing else can ever give. That is why the knowledge of a doctor is often more searching than that of any friend. That is why the knowledge of a wife often reaches to an unrivalled intimacy, for she has known her husband not only when all was well with him and when the sun was shining on his head, but when his heart was wary and his body sick and all his hopes seemed crumbled into dust.

Hidden Burdens
It was a great comfort to the psalmist also that the Lord had pierced through every disguise. That is why he uses the word soul: "Thou hast known my soul in adversities." To the Hebrew, more simply than to us, that word "soul" just meant the real self. There was nothing theological about it. It was a common word in common use. And what the psalmist deeply felt was this: the knowledge of God had pierced through all disguises and known him in the secret of his being.

There are few things more beautiful in life than the way in which men and women hide their sorrows. On the street and in the shops there is a quiet heroism as great as any on the battlefield. You may meet a person in frequent conversation, yet all the time and unknown to you, some sorrow may be lying at his heart. How often a mother, when she is worn and ill, struggles bravely to hide it from her family. How often a husband, deep in business difficulties, struggles to keep it hidden from those at home. How often a minister, called from a scene of death which may mean for him the end of a friendship, has to go to a marriage and be happy there as if there were not a sorrow in the world. Talk of the disguises of hypocrisy! They are nothing to the disguises of the brave—those cheerful looks, that quiet and patient work, when the heart within is heavy as a stone. That Spartan youth who kept a smiling face while the fox was gnawing away at him has his fellows in every community.

But Thou hast known my soul in adversity. That was the joy and comfort of the psalmist. There was one eye that pierced through all concealment, and that was the eye of an all-pitying God. Others had known his outward behavior for in trials there are many eyes upon us. Others had heard his words and seen his actions and wondered at the courage in his bearing. But only God had read the secret story and seen how utterly desolate he was and known how often, in spite of all appearances, he had been plunged into profound despair.

There is a point where human knowledge ceases and beyond which human sympathy is powerless. It pierces deep if it is genuine, but there are depths to which it cannot pierce. And it was just there, in the region of his soul, that the psalmist felt that there was One who knew him and would never leave him nor forsake him. He felt it in the sustainment he received. He felt it in the strength that was bestowed upon him. He felt it in the peace that rested on him, a peace such as the world could never give. And so when the sun shone on him again, as sooner or later it does on all of us, he took his pen and wrote in gratitude, "Thou hast known my soul in adversities."

The Condescension of God's Love
There was one other comfort for the psalmist at which our text hints unobscurely. He had been awakened through the knowledge that he speaks of to the infinite condescension of God's love.

A well-known German religious writer who has brought comfort to multitudes of mourners tells us how once he had a visit from a friend who was in great distress. This friend had once been a very wealthy man, and now he had fallen upon evil days, and that very morning one of his old companions had passed him without recognition on the street. Then Gotthold, for such was the writer's name, took him by the hand and, pointing upward, said, "Thou hast known my soul in adversities."

It is one of the sayings of the moralist that the world courts prosperity and shuns adversity. There are rats in every circle of society who all hasten to leave the sinking ship. But what the psalmist had awakened to was this: the eternal God, who was his refuge, had known him and acknowledged him and talked with him when his fortunes were at their very blackest. Nothing but love could explain the condescension. He had found in God a friend who was unfailing. "If I ascend into heaven thou art there; if I make my bed in hell thou art there." So was the world made ready for the Savior who, when other helpers fail and comforts flee, never deserts us, never is ashamed of us, never leaves us to face the worst alone.

​“And hast not shut me up into the hand of the enemy.” To be shut up in one's hand is to be delivered over absolutely to his power; now, the believer is not in the hand of death or the devil, much less is he in the power of man. The enemy may get a temporary advantage over us, but we are like men in prison with the door open; God will not let us be shut up, he always provides a way of escape. “Thou hast set my feet in a large room.” Blessed be God for liberty: civil liberty is valuable, religious liberty is precious, spiritual liberty is priceless. In all troubles we may praise God if these are left. Many saints have had their greatest enlargements of soul when their affairs have been in the greatest straits. Their souls have been in a large room when their bodies have been lying in Bonner's coalhole, or in some other narrow dungeon. Grace has been equal to every emergency; and more than this, it has made the emergency an opportunity for displaying itself.   (Charles Spurgeon-Treasury of David)

Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud:
​and he shall hear my voice. Psa 55:17
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Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God:
for unto thee will I pray. 
My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning
will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up. Psa 5:2-3
​FRIENDS MAY FORSAKE, BUT GOD ABIDETH​

The streets and open spaces of the city were filled with conspirators. Violence, strife, deceit, and oppression trampled the virtuous and helpless under foot. The treachery of Ahithophel was worse than all. How different the hot anger of David from our Lord’s treatment of Judas, when He washed Judas’ feet, expostulated with him in the garden, and bade him pause to think to what he had come! Blessed is the soul that retires from the hubbub of the street-as David, Daniel, and all devout Israelites were wont to do-three times a day. Compare Psa_55:17 with Dan_6:10 and Act_10:9. He will cover our heads in the day of battle and redeem our souls in peace, if only we will trust Him.
As the R.V. marginal rendering of Psa_55:22 suggests, thy burden is that which God has given thee to carry. It did not come by chance nor from the evil intent of men. He cast it on thee; cast it back on Him. We cannot do our work so long as we stoop beneath the exhausting waste of anxiety and care. Hand all over to thy Father’s care. Let no burdens break the Sabbath-keeping of thy heart! Neh_13:19.  (F.B. Meyer)

Psa 55:17
​“Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray.” Often, but none too often. Seasons of great need call for frequent seasons of devotion. The three periods chosen are most fitting; to begin, continue, and end the day with God is supreme wisdom. Where time has naturally set up a boundary, there let us set up an altar-stone. The Psalmist means that he will always pray; he will run a line of prayer right along the day and track the sun with his petitions. Day and night he saw his enemies busy (Psa_55:10), and therefore he would meet their activity by continuous prayer. “And cry aloud.” He would give a tongue to his complaint; he would be very earnest in his pleas with heaven. Some cry aloud who never say a word. It is the bell of the heart that rings loudest in heaven. Some read it, “I will muse and murmur;” deep heart-thoughts should be attended with inarticulate but vehement utterances of grief. Blessed be God, moaning is translatable in heaven. A father's heart reads a child's heart. “And he shall hear my voice.” He is confident that he will prevail; he makes no question that he would be heard, he speaks as if already he were answered. When our window is opened towards heaven, the windows of heaven are open to us. Have but a pleading heart and God will have a plenteous hand.

​Psa 5:2 
Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray.
“The voice of my cry.” In another Psalm we find the expression, “The voice of my weeping.” Weeping has a voice - a melting, plaintive tone, an ear-piercing shrillness, which reaches the very heart of God: and crying hath a voice - a soul-moving eloquence; coming from our heart it reaches God's heart, Ah! my brothers and sisters, sometimes we cannot put our prayers into words: they are nothing but a cry: but the Lord can comprehend the meaning, for he hears a voice in our cry. To a loving father his children's cries are music, and they have a magic influence which his heart cannot resist. “My King and my God.” Observe carefully these little pronouns, “my King, and my God.” They are the pith and marrow of the plea. Here is a grand argument why God should answer prayer - because he is our King and our God. We are not aliens to him: he is the King of our country. Kings are expected to hear the appeals of their own people. We are not strangers to him; we are his worshippers, and he is our God: ours by covenant, by promise, by oath, by blood.
“For unto thee will I pray.” Here David expresses his declaration that he will seek to God, and to God alone. God is to be the only object of worship: the only resource of our soul in times of need. Leave broken cisterns to the godless, and let the godly drink from the Divine fountain alone.
​“Unto thee will I pray.” He makes a resolution, that as long as he lived he would pray. He would never cease to supplicate, even though the answer should not come.

Taking this Psalm as an example of personal waiting upon God, what may we learn of personal worship?
Mark:
(1) the directness, (2) the earnestness, (3) the intelligence, of the speech.

The Psalmist shows intelligence- by his conception of the character of God, and by his view of the character and deserts of the wicked.

If this is the kind of prayer which the Lord will hear, then let us gladly learn that one man will be heard; that every man will be heard in his own way; that no man who loves wickedness will be heard; that those who are heard and answered should be enthusiastic in their joy.

Psa 66:18  If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me: 
Psa 66:19  But verily God hath heard me; he hath attended to the voice of my prayer. 
Psa 66:20  Blessed be God, which hath not turned away my prayer, nor his mercy from me. 
​
Regarding this as an acceptable prayer, we may correct some modern notions of worship; for example:
(1) that we may not tell God what He already knows; (2) that we may not make a speech to God; (3) that in prayer we should be continually asking for something.

​Our worship should distinctly express our personality of sin, trouble, and necessity; then it will be always new, vigorous, and profitable.
(Parker, The Ark of God, p. 130)

And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as
​John also taught his disciples. 
​​And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. Luk 11:1-2

"Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples - The Jewish masters used to give their followers some short form of prayer, as a peculiar badge of their relation to them. This it is probable John the Baptist had done. And in this sense it seems to be that the disciples now asked Jesus, to teach them to pray. Accordingly he here repeats that form, which he had before given them in his sermon on the mount, and likewise enlarges on the same head, though still speaking the same things in substance. And this prayer uttered from the heart, and in its true and full meaning, is indeed the badge of a real Christian: for is not he such whose first and most ardent desire is the glory of God, and the happiness of man by the coming of his kingdom? Who asks for no more of this world than his daily bread, longing meantime for the bread that came down from heaven? And whose only desires for himself are forgiveness of sins, (as he heartily forgives others,) and sanctification."  (John Wesley)
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How is God’s will done in heaven?
​(1) God’s will is in heaven done willingly or heartily; that is, His servants there obey Him and do His will, not because they are commanded to do this and that, and dare not disobey, but because they do not wish to disobey; it is their happiness to do God’s will, it is because they do it that they are happy, and they would grieve if they might not do it.
(2) Again, God’s will is done in heaven completely, perfectly; whatever is done is His will throughout, with no mixture of the will of any other; unlike earth, where the very best of things have generally, perhaps always, some mixture of evil.
(3) Once more, the doing of the will of God in heaven is not only willing and complete, but it is universal; there is no division between those who serve God and those who serve Him not, because all serve Him.

​The prayer, "Thy will be done," implies a complete surrender of self to the will of God, a desire to do the will of God, and that the will of God may be done whatever it may cost ourselves; a desire that the honor of God and not self may be the rule of action of all men, ourselves included; that the idols which now are worshipped and which are all in some way images of the great world idol, Self, may be utterly abolished, and that in place of them one God only may be worshipped, and that all (ourselves among them) may think nothing good and great but what tends to His glory, nothing contemptible and mean but what opposes His will, and is displeasing in His sight.

If we really desire to do God’s will He will enable us to do it. There is no situation in life in which we may not do His will; in the ordinary path of life, in that life of labor to which God has appointed us all, there are abundant opportunities of putting in practice this rule, of doing God’s will and not our own, except so far as our own agrees with His, and though it may be difficult to expel all selfish feelings and all rebellious wishes, yet constant efforts will be blessed, and we shall "grow in grace."
(Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons, p. 73)

The parallelism in these two sentences is very striking. A kingdom is the rule of a will. A living, active will creates a kingdom. If God’s will were fully done His kingdom would have come. What is the kingdom of God which we thus desire to be established? No form of political arrangement. It is universal and all comprehensive, as a kingdom of moral beings; the Father’s great family, explained in the very suggestive passage, “the kingdom of God is righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.”
​
Thy will be done - This petition is properly added to the preceding; for when the kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy, in the Holy Spirit, is established in the heart, there is then an ample provision made for the fulfillment of the Divine will.
​
The will of God is infinitely good, wise, and holy; to have it fulfilled in and among men, is to have infinite goodness, wisdom, and holiness diffused throughout the universe; and earth made the counterpart of heaven.
As it is in heaven - The Jews maintained, that they were the angels of God upon earth, as these pure spirits were angels of God in heaven; hence they said, “As the angels sanctify the Divine name in heaven, so the Israelites sanctify the Divine name, upon earth.” See Schoettgen.

Observe,
1st. The salvation of the soul is the result of two wills conjoined: the will of God, and the will of man. If God will not the salvation of man, he cannot be saved: If, man will not the salvation God has prepared for him, he cannot be delivered from his sins.

2dly. This petition certainly points out a deliverance from all sin; for nothing that is unholy can consist with the Divine will, and if this be fulfilled in man, surely sin shall be banished from his soul.

3dly. This is farther evident from these words, as it is in heaven; i.e. as the angels do it: viz. with all zeal, diligence, love, delight, and perseverance.

4thly. Does not the petition plainly imply, we may live without sinning against God? Surely the holy angels never mingle iniquity with their loving obedience; and as our Lord teaches us to pray, that we do his will here as they do it in heaven, can it be thought he would put a petition in our mouths, the fulfillment of which was impossible?

5thly. This certainly destroys the assertion: “There is no such state of purification, to be attained here, in which it may be said, the soul is redeemed from sinful passions and desires;” for it is on Earth that we are commanded to pray that this will, which is our sanctification, may be done.
6thly. Our souls can never be truly happy, till our Wills be entirely subjected to, and become one with, the will of God.

7thly. How can any person offer this petition to his Maker, who thinks of nothing less than the performance of the will of God, and of nothing more than doing his own?
​
Some see the mystery of the Trinity in the three preceding petitions. The first being, addressed to the Father, as the source of all holiness. The second, to the Son, who establishes the kingdom of God upon earth. The third, to the Holy Spirit, who by his energy works in men to will and to perform.
​
To offer these three petitions with success at the throne of God, three graces, essential to our salvation, must be brought into exercise; and, indeed, the petitions themselves necessarily suppose them.

Faith, Our Father - for he that cometh to God, must believe that he is.
Hope, Thy kingdom come - For this grace has for its object good things to come.
Love, Thy will be done - For love is the incentive to and principle of all obedience to God, and beneficence to man.
​(Adam Clarke)

Christ Our High Priest Teaches Intercession
Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.​ Heb 2:17

In the opening verses of the Lord's prayer-Jesus begins to teach the disciples effective intercession, by first coming to the Throne of God in the correct manner, with reverence, and respect to their Creator, and Heavenly Father.

He openly proclaims God as His Father, and His words relays to the disciples-that they are to refer to God as their Father also. This is very important, because he is making it clear to them, that their relationship to God is on the same level as Jesus himself, making us co-heirs with Christ and able to come boldly to the Throne of Grace, for help in the time of need, and for all our petitions to Him, for others.

His words are powerful in relaying to us what our relationship to God truly is, that we are to take that position with honor, and authority, but first with honor and respect to the God who created us, and the only true God who can answer the petitions we bring to Him. 

Within these few words, Jesus binds Himself to God the Father, and to the disciples, making the relationship between each of them inseparable. Though unspoken, the truth of this is woven within the words, and each time this prayer is spoken, the Holy Spirit does the work of binding the truths of them into the spirits of those who speak it. When He opened the prayer with "Our Father"-He was including all of us who are His, who have made Him our Lord and Savior, our Great High Priest, and our Intercessor. He has included us in that same realm of intercession, and calling.

Jesus prayers have life-and brings life into the one who repeats them-but the key is, this takes place for those who pray them in faith, and from the heart. Jesus words have power, and they accomplish their purpose, for those who are truly born of God, and realize the truth of His authority.
Lorna Couillard

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"The first truth which is brought before us in these verses is, that Jesus, who is not ashamed to call Himself brother, and us His brethren, is one with us. We who are sanctified by Him, and He who sanctifies, are of one. Christ is He who sanctifies. The source and power of sanctification are in Jesus the Son of God, our Savior. He is the foundation, source, method, and channel of our sanctification. The Holy Ghost, the Comforter, is sent by Christ to glorify Him, and to reveal and appropriate to us His salvation. We are conformed to the image of Christ by the Spirit, as coming from Christ in His glorified humanity. II. Jesus, by His experience, by His sufferings, and, above all, by His death, has become a merciful and faithful High Priest. We are now on earth, in the flesh, sin around and within us. How can the Holy God look on us, and grant us blessings? How can there be communion between heaven and earth? Jesus is ascended, and having put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, presents us to the Father, and we are holy and unblameable before Him, and Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are able to send down the fulness of blessings, of grace and strength; to have communion with us, notwithstanding all our sin and defilement. Christ is a merciful High Priest, not merely full of pity, compassion, and grace, but full of sympathy. He is most lovingly and earnestly anxious that we should always obtain the victory, and suffer no injury; for having gone through all the conflict Himself, without a single moment’s wavering or surrender, He wishes us to be found continually in Him, and to conquer continually. He is faithful in bringing down to us all the gifts of God; all the counsel, will, and blessings of the Most High; faithful in taking up to God all our need and trial; all our petitions, fears, and tears; all our sufferings, and all our works.
(A. Saphir, Expository Lectures on the Hebrews, vol. i., p. 142)

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​Our Intercessor.—Just as we have our Savior as our Intercessor in heaven, so we, in our prayers on earth, take the words of our Intercessor to help us.—Cyprian.
“Our Father, who art in heaven.”—This implies (1) that we have access to God, and (2) that we may rely on Him with full and unshaken confidence.
“Our Father.”—Not “My Father.” The plural reminds us (1) of our brotherhood in Christ, and (2) of the duty of common prayer. God is our Father (1) because He is our Creator and Sustainer, and (2) because we are His adopted children by faith in Jesus (Gal_3:26).
A Personal God.—This phrase is a denial of Atheism, Pantheism, and Deism, for it recognises a God, a Personal God, who is our Father through Christ.
“Hallowed be Thy name.”—Cf. Mal_1:6. A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master; if, then, I be a father, where is Mine honour? and if I be a master, where is My fear?
General Character of the Prayer.—The prayer is that the existence of God may be believed, His attributes and perfections adored and imitated, His supremacy acknowledged, and His providence owned and trusted in.—Bloomfield.
Fulfilment of this Petition.—We can fulfil this prayer (1) by joining with our brethren in the public worship of God; (2) by reverence of demeanour in the house of God; (3) by refraining from sinful and profane talk; and (4) by reverencing everything belonging to God—His word, His day, His sacraments, His ministers, and His people.
“Thy kingdom come.”—1. God’s spiritual rule over the souls of men. 2. The extension of His Church, as of His visible kingdom. 3. His heavenly kingdom, which is to come after the resurrection, and to endure for ever.
“Thy will be done.”
(Adam Clarke)
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The verses below give a clear overview of where we stand in Christ, if we are born again, and saved by the blood of Jesus Christ. These are very important verses to study, and let them penetrate your soul and your spirit-it will increase your faith, your authority in prayer, and your love for the Lord Jesus, and the Father. 

Isa 61:6  But ye shall be named the Priests of the LORD: men shall call you the Ministers of our God: ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory shall ye boast yourselves. 

Rom 8:17  And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. 

1Pe 2:5  Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. 

1Pe 2:9  But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: 

1Co 3:16  Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? 
1Co 3:17  If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are. 

Eph 1:3  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: 
​
Eph 1:20  Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, 
Eph 1:21  Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: 
Eph 1:22  And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, 

Now-take note of where the word of God tells us we are, even now, in Christ Jesus:

Eph 2:6  And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: 
Eph 2:7  That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

Rev 1:6  And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. 

Rev 5:10  And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth. 

Rev 20:6  Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years. 

Rev 21:7  He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. 

But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the
thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me
that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old,
​from everlasting. Mic 5:2
Christ-​His birth as the Son of Man

He was born in obscurity. As a protest to the ages against the popular and influential opinion that human dignity consists in birth and ancestral distinctions.
He was born according to Divine plan. “Out of thee shall He come forth unto Me.” Who? Jehovah. The fact of His birth, the scene of His birth, the object of His birth, were all according to a Divine plan.
“He shall come forth unto Me.”
(1) According to My will.
(2) To do My will.

He was born to an empire. “To be Ruler in Israel.” He is the Prince of Peace on whose shoulder the government is laid. He is a Ruler. Not a temporal ruler, temporal rule is but a shadow. He is to rule thought, intelligence, soul. He is the greatest king who governs mind; and no one has obtained such a government over mind as He who, eighteen centuries ago, “came forth out of Bethlehem Ephratah.” His kingdom is increasing every day.
His history as the Son of God. “Whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting,” or, as Delitzsch says, “Whose goings forth are from olden time, from the days of eternity.” (Homilist)

Prayer and prophecy are inter-twined, and cannot be separated. There are numerous methods and unique techniques used by prophets in the bible, and among his servants in every generation-that are learned over time, that are for specific purposes. Some of them are spoken of in this portion of devotional commentary.

"One great use of prophecy is to give authority and weight to the doctrines delivered by the prophet. In order that the evidence arising from prophecy may be perfectly convincing, it seems necessary that the meaning of the prediction should be somewhat obscure at first; otherwise the friends and followers of the prophet might perhaps find means to bring about a fulfilment of it; or his opposers might, in some cases, prevent its accomplishment. It must, however, be sufficiently precise to verify the event when it comes to pass. However obscure and mysterious, a prophet’s words could not fail to be striking and interesting. The text provides an excellent specimen of prophetic methods. Suppose you had never heard of any event which could be regarded as a fulfilment of Micah’s prediction, in what light would it appear to you? However perplexing, there is one thing you would understand. A town is distinctly referred to. There the Person foretold by Micah was born seven hundred years later.
​
I. The human birth of Jesus. It is a human birth that is foretold. The place where David was born was to be the birthplace of a second David, the Savior of the world. Observe how singularly the prediction was fulfilled, without the least suspicion of human contrivance, merely by God’s secret overruling providence.

II. The eternal Godhead of Christ. “Whose goings forth have been from everlasting.” To those who first heard this language, how strange it would appear! Something more than human is here described. Words like these are never applied to any creature; but to God the Creator they are frequently applied. The language of Micah gives the twofold character of the Messiah."

III. His mediatorial dignity. He is--
1. Our Ruler.
2. Our Restorer.
3. Our Shepherd.
His administration of all these offices shall one day be universal.
(J. Jowett)

​Bethlehem cannot account for Jesus. Do mangers bring forth Messiahs? Things bring forth after their kind. It is true that genius often arises from lowliest station, and the great human powers seem to make way for themselves through narrowest surroundings.

1. Consider the meaning of this fact, that from the lowliest of peasants sprang the soul that has swayed the mightiest intellects of the world. The moving powers of the eighteen centuries have been themselves moved by Jesus Christ.
2. That out of the most materialistic of religions came the most spiritual of teachers. Judaism clung with almost ferocious tenacity to external signs and symbols.
3. That out of the narrowest of races came the most universal of teachers. The characteristic of Judaism, ancient and modern, is its refusal to recognize the universal element in religion or in humanity.
4. That out of an age which exalted power as supreme, came One who exalted love as supreme in God and in man. The symbol of Rome was the rapacious, unwearied eagle. Military virtues were supreme. The Jews wanted a conquering general as Messiah. Out of such environment and atmosphere came One who exalted the feminine virtues, and proclaimed that the meek should inherit the earth. And as Bethlehem could not produce Christ, it could not confine Christ. (W. H. P. Faunce)

This passage has always been regarded as one of the clearest and most striking of the ancient prophecies of the Messiah. The gradations in the revelations of Christ have always awakened the attention of Bible readers. First, we have the old word in Eden from the lips of the Lord God to the serpent about his seed and the seed of Eve: “It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” Out of which dim Messianic germ grows the whole wonderful mediatorial history, its conflicts, its alterations, its reversals, and its eternal triumph in the endless overthrow of its great adversary. Then, about 1600 years later, the Shemitic division of the human race is indicated as the favoured one, rather than Japhet or Ham. By and by Abraham was selected from the sons of Shem to be the head of the Hebrew race, from whom the Redeemer should come. Two hundred years later Jacob, on his dying bed, points out the particular tribe of Israel from whom the Shiloh or Prince of Peace shall be born. No further revelation was then made for about seven hundred years, when the house of David, of the tribe of Judah, was declared to be the favoured family, and about three hundred years after that, in the days of Hezekiah, the prophet Micah reveals the place where Messiah shall be born. This was all that was known for the next seven hundred years, but every intelligent Jew knew that the coming Messiah was to be the Son of David, and was to be born in Bethlehem of Judah. “Thou Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah.” So unimportant was Bethlehem in the old times, that Joshua in his enumeration of the cities and villages of Judah gives it no mention: Rehoboam made it a sort of outlying fortress to Jerusalem, and the Philistines at one time had a garrison there, the place being a strong natural position. But it never grew to size, or became of any national importance, except for its associations. Although the birthplace of David, the great king, yet it never rose above the grade of an obscure Jewish village. In the list of Judean villages which Nehemiah gives after the Captivity it is not named, and in the New Testament, after the birth of Jesus and in that connection, its name never once occurs. So little was Bethlehem Ephratah. And it did not seem destined to any more commanding place in history when, in later times, a plain-looking couple drew near the village, a young wife and her husband, travelling on foot, because very poor, although both of the lineage of David. For not only was Bethlehem little, but the exceeding low condition to which the family of the great king had sunk appears from the fact that Joseph and Mary, who could trace their pedigree up to David through a long line of kings, were thus poor, and received no sort of recognition in the crowded village. But Bethlehem Ephratah was now to be immortalized indeed. Athens, Ephesus, Alexandria, Rome, all were extant, some of them at the very pinnacle of their glory, but the glory of Bethlehem was henceforth to surpass them all.
You will mark here the words “unto Me.” The birth of Christ was an event whose relations were chiefly Godward. Christ’s coming to the earth is inconceivably the greatest of all events to us; but, after all, God the Father, and the eternal glory of the Godhead, are concerned in it in a way we cannot now fully understand, but of which the Scriptures give us distinct intimations. It would be quite in accordance with the choice of little Bethlehem as the birth place of the Divine Lord, and the passing by of the great places of the world, if God should have chosen our small earth, this little globe, to be the scene of the wondrous Incarnation, passing by those far mightier worlds in space whose magnitude dwarfs into insignificance this minute planet; here, in a world whose absence would hardly be missed from the vast system, to enact scenes of unparalleled importance to all worlds, illustrating all the principles of the Divine government and the most precious attributes of the Divine Nature. The word “Ruler” is suggestive. The usual Old Testament idea of Christ is that of the head of a kingdom or dynasty. The representations of Isaiah, chapter 53, and of the prophet Zechariah, are exceptions to the general Old Testament thought of the Messiah. Elsewhere it, is the Shiloh or Prince, the King in Zion, the son of David enthroned—He upon whose shoulders has been laid the government, who is to reign over the house of Jacob forever, and to whose kingdom there is to be no end. The connection of these last words with the former words of the prophecy are wonderfully instructive; “He shall come forth out of thee, little Bethlehem,” and the words, “He whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.” Have they not great suggestions of the nature of the coming Messiah?

Does the Old Testament know nothing of the mystery and the miracle of the Savior’s birth, of the human and the divine, of the advent in time and the glory with the Father before the make the outgoings of the morning and evening to rejoice.” It is used to denote that which proceeds out from any one, as speech or language. Deu_8:3, “By every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God doth man live.” Thus it comes to have the meaning of origin, descent, an outgoing of existence, which is its import in our text The old divines declare it to be a proof text of the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Second Person of the Trinity. Without feeling called on to adopt that phrase, yet I fully agree with one of them who says, “We have here Christ’s existence from eternity; the phrase, ‘His goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting,’ is so signal a description of Christ’s eternal generation, or His going forth as the Son of God begotten of the Father before all worlds, that this prophecy must belong only to Him, and could never, be verified of any other.” We embrace the mysterious truth of Christ’s humanity and divinity as herein declared; one of the clearest prophecies of this sublime foundation doctrine of the Scriptures which they anywhere contain. With what greatness does this invest the birth of the Babe of Bethlehem! If He had indeed come to little Bethlehem, whose goings forth were from everlasting, then all the miracles He performed were the simplest outstretching of His hand; the obedience to Him of demons, of nature, of death, were mere matters of course; the attendant angels, the awaiting legions ready at His call, were but the renewed services of cherubim and seraphim who had of old listened to His commands standing round His heavenly throne. There is not time even to glance at the triumphs which this birth in Bethlehem has already won. How it has given the era to all human history, guided the life of nations, subjected the intellects of the greatest of men, molded the sentiments of civilized society, yea, made true society a possibility; rescued women and the family from degradation, uplifted the poor, guarded the rights of the weak; won the deep, unquenchable love of millions upon millions of true human hearts; stood by the martyr’s rack, walked with him in the furnace; put the arms of support beneath dying pillows, and uplifted to the eternal hills the successive generations of the believing children of God. All these things have been done through that birth in Bethlehem Ephratah. There can be no greater things in kind, but there are yet to be greater in the extent of the victory.
(R. Aikman, D. D.)