At midnight I will rise to give thanks unto thee because of
​thy righteous judgments. Psa 119:62
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He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee
will not slumber. 
Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.
​ Psa 121:3-4

“At midnight I will rise to give thanks unto thee because of thy righteous judgments.” He was not afraid of the robbers; he rose, not to watch his house, but to praise his God. Midnight is the hour for burglars, and there were bands of them around David, but they did not occupy his thoughts; these were all up and away with the Lord his God. He thought not of thieves, but of thanks; not of what they would steal, but of what he would give to his God. A thankful heart is such a blessing that it drives out fear and makes room for praise. Thanksgiving turns night into day, and consecrates all hours to the worship of God. Every hour is canonical to a saint."  (Charles Spurgeon- Treasury of David)

​These nightly occupations will prepare us for the exercise of daily duties.
Nightly meditation will prepare us for daily obedience. The task learned overnight will be easily repeated on the following day.
Nightly remembrance of God will stimulate daily thoughts about Him.
Nightly thanksgiving will be a healthy preparation for the recognition of daily mercies. (Biblical Illustrator)

“Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither Slumber nor sleep.” The consoling truth must be repeated: it is too rich to be dismissed in a single line. It were well if we always imitated the sweet singer, and would dwell a little upon a choice doctrine, sucking the honey from it. What a glorious title is in the Hebrew - “The keeper of Israel,” and how delightful to think that no form of unconsciousness ever steals over him, neither the deep slumber nor the lighter sleep. He will never suffer the house to be broken up by the silent thief; he is ever on the watch, and speedily perceives every intruder.

This is a subject of wonder, a theme for attentive consideration, therefore the word “Behold” is set up as a waymark. Israel fell asleep, but his God was awake. Jacob had neither walls, nor curtains, nor body - guard around him; but the Lord was in that place though Jacob knew it not, and therefore the defenseless man was safe as in a castle. In after days he mentioned God under this enchanting name - “The God that led me all my life long”: perhaps David alludes to that passage in this expression. The word “keepeth” is also full of meaning: he keeps us as a rich man keeps his treasures, as a captain keeps a city with a garrison, as a royal guard keeps his monarch's head. If Psa_120:3 is in strict accuracy a prayer, this is the answer to it; it affirms the matter thus, “Lo, he shall not slumber nor sleep - the Keeper of Israel.” It may also be worthy of mention that in Psa_121:3 the Lord is spoken of as the personal keeper of one individual, and here of all those who are in his chosen nation, described as Israel, mercy to one saint is the pledge of blessing to them all. Happy are the pilgrims to whom this Psalm is a safe-conduct; they may journey all the way to the celestial city without fear.  (Charles Spurgeon-Treasury of David)

Summary:
Think of God’s eyes as never wearying of His people. Infinite patience!
2. God is never forgetful of His people for a single moment.
3. God is always ready to show Himself strong on behalf of those who trust Him.
4. God is never asleep in the sense that He ceases to consider us. You and I, in thinking of one thing, often forget another; but it is not so with God. He is so great that His center is everywhere, and His circumference is nowhere; and you, dear brother or sister, may be the very center of God’s thoughts, and so may I; and all His redeemed may at the same moment have His thoughts fixed upon each one of them. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; 
And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. 
And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. 
But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted,
and thou art tormented. Luk 16:23-25
Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him
​to my father's house: 
For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. 
Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets;
let them hear them. 
And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. 
 And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.  (Luk 16:27-31

The first doctrine to which I allude is that of prayer to saints.

​(1) I observe that the description of the resting-place of the blessed, as "Abraham’s bosom," is the adoption of a merely Jewish figure for the condition of the departed. To be taken to that place in which Abraham, the head and father of their race, was, and to remain in his society, was to the mind of a pious Jew the fulfilment of all his soul’s hopes; and the Lord, not desiring to raise the veil which hides the mysteries of the unseen world, adopted a description of the regions of the departed which at once explained itself to those whom He addressed, inasmuch as they were Jews.

(2) Even if we do look upon the prayer of the rich man to Abraham as an example of a prayer to a saint, still that prayer was not answered. Abraham, without saying whether he had or had not the power to grant the request, shows why it would be wrong that it should be granted. The five brethren were in the hands of the Judge of all the earth, who would assuredly do right; and therefore it would be useless for him to interfere in a matter which was in God’s own hands. This seems to point out the immorality of all prayers made to saints. For why are not the prayers made to God Himself? The conduct of Abraham seems to show that prayers to saints must either be unanswered and therefore vain, or else answered at the expense of interfering with the all-wise government of a just and jealous God.

The doctrine of purgatory. The rich man seems to me to be himself the best evidence we can have of the entire impossibility of changing the condition of those whose time of trial has terminated, and whose time of retribution has come; for those reasons which prevented the prayer offered to Abraham from being answered, though it is true that that prayer was one offered by a sinner in his torment, are quite as cogent when they are applied to prayers offered upon earth by the friends who have been left behind. The parable shows us, not only the futility of the prayers of the dead for their surviving friends, but also the emptiness of the prayers of surviving friends for the dead. There is a great gulf fixed; the saint cannot pass it to help the sinner, neither can the sinner pass it to claim the company of the saint. 
(Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons, 5th series, p. 276)

Many read this parable, and are staggered at finding that so little is said against the rich man. What was it by which he so grievously offended? and which caused his being cast into that fire which shall never be quenched? We can only say, from what we read in the parable, that there was in this rich man a complete unmindfulness of others—that he was swallowed up in himself. The sick beggar lay at his gate, where he could not have been wholly unobserved; but he took no notice, and ordered no relief. This was a grievous inhumanity. I do not mean that the rich man was a cruel and hard-hearted man, but he was thoroughly selfish and devoted to his own pleasures and enjoyments; he did not give even a passing thought to the necessitous and the suffering among his fellowmen. Surely we ought to gather a more startling lesson from this than had the rich man been charged with what the world regards as enormous crime.
​
II. Consider the rich man’s entreaty that Lazarus might be sent to warn his five brothers, lest by living the same life they should incur the same doom. It seems inconsistent with the thorough selfishness of Dives that we should suppose him at all actuated in making this request by compassion towards his brethren. Probably, as a selfish being still, he dreaded the coming spirits as those of ministers of vengeance who would overwhelm him with reproaches and execrations, as having encouraged them by his example in the broad way of ruin.

Dives would now remembers for eternity the opportunities, seized or neglected, with which God in the past. He had been given abilities to do good, but didn't. While he was alive, the opportunity to pray in earnest for family members was ignored, amusements and folly filled his time and what he spent his money on.
The problems with his prayer, now in this place of judgment was:
I. A good act at a wrong time.
II. A good prayer for a wrong purpose.
III. A good effort with no effect.

​Consider the reasons on which Abraham refused so earnest a petition. The parable put into the mouth of Abraham may be vindicated by the most cogent, yet simple, reasoning. The effect of a messenger threatening us with punishment unless we repent, depends chiefly on our assurance that it is actually a messenger from God. Now which is the stronger, the evidence which we have that the Bible is God’s Word, or that which we could be supposed to have that the grave has given up its tenant, and that the specter has spoken to us truth. The man who is not persuaded by Christ and the Apostles, might be expected to remain unpersuaded by the specter. It would give a solemnity, an awful unearthliness, to the ministry of the word if it were conducted by a visitant from the separate state; but the pleasures and business of this life would produce gradually the same effect as now, obliterating the impression made by the solemn discourse. If they hear not Christ and His Apostles, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.  (H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No., 1,496)

But this man, because he continueth ever,
hath an unchangeable priesthood. 
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. 
For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners,
and made higher than the heavens; 
Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's: for this he did once,
​when he offered up himself. Heb 7:24-27

The Apostle announces a great principle in the words, "The law made nothing perfect."
Heb 7:19  For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by the which we draw nigh unto God.

​There was not a single point in which the law reached the end, for the end of the law is Christ. The imperfection of the law appears in these three points especially--
(1) The forgiveness of sin;
(2) Access unto God was not perfected under the old dispensation;
​(3) They had not received the Holy Ghost as an indwelling spirit. The law made nothing perfect. For perfection is true, substantial, and eternal communion with God through a perfect mediation, and this perfect mediation we have obtained in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Look at the contrast between the priests of the Levitical dispensation and this priest according to the order of Melchisedek. They were many: He is only one. Their priesthood was successional—the Son followed the father: Christ has a priesthood which cannot be transferred, seeing that His life is indissoluble. They were sinful, but He is holy, pure, and spotless. They offered sacrifices in the earthly tabernacle: He presents Himself with His blood in the true sanctuary, which is high above all heavens, which is eternal. Christ, in virtue of His priesthood, can save completely (in a perfect, exhaustive, all-comprehensive manner) all who through Him come to God, because He ever liveth to intercede for them.

This peace or communion with God must combine three things:
(1) The mediation must go low enough. A ladder is of no use unless it comes down exactly to the point where I am.
(2) It must go high enough: it must bring me into the presence of God.
(3) It must go deep into our very hearts. As we are brought unto God, so must God be brought unto us, for the Christ that lives for us must also live in us.   ​(A. Saphir, Lectures on Hebrews, vol. i., p. 397)

Gross profanement and abandonment of our Christian privileges and duties has flowed directly from the superstitious error of making a broad and perpetual distinction between one part of Christ’s Church and another; of making Christian ministers priests, and putting them between God and the people, as if they were to be in some sort mediators between God and their brethren, so that He could not be approached but through their ministry. The profaneness has followed from the superstition according to a well-known fact in our moral nature, that if the notion be spread, that out of a given number of men some are required to be holier than the rest, you do not, by so doing, raise the standard of holiness for the few, but you lower it for the many.

​And, therefore, there is no truth more important, and more deeply practical, than that of Christ being our only Priest; that without any other mediator or intercessor or interpreter of God’s will, or dispenser of the seals of His love to us, we each of us, of whatever age, sex, or condition, are brought directly into the presence of God through the eternal priesthood of His Son Jesus: that God has no commands for any of His servants which are not addressed to us also; has no revelation of His will, no promise of blessings, in which every one of Christ’s redeemed has not an equal share. We all, being many, are one body, and Christ is our Head; we all, through no aid of any one particular person of our body, draw near through the blood of Christ to God. Where two or three are gathered together in Christ’s name there is all the fulness of a Christian church, for there, by His own promise, is Christ Himself in the midst of them.
(T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. iii., p. 86)
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Salvation to the Uttermost

Christ Jesus is able to save to the uttermost: for there is no degree of guilt from which He cannot save. It would be a hard question to decide which is the worst form of human guilt. But we owe it to the power and grace of Immanuel to repeat that broader than human transgression is the Divine atonement.

But not only can Jesus save to the uttermost extent of depravity,—He can save to the uttermost hour of existence. Both truths may be abused, and both will be abused, by the children of wrath, by those who because of abounding grace continue in sin. But still we must state them, and up to the last moment of life Jesus is able to save.

Jesus saves to the uttermost, because He saves down to the lowest limits of intelligence.

Jesus can save in the utmost pressure of temptation. He saves to the uttermost, for He ever intercedes; and but for the intercession faith would often fail. No sheep can be snatched from the bishop of souls; and interceding for the poor panic-stricken one who has ceased to pray for himself, the Savior brings him back rejoicing—saved to the uttermost.

And Jesus saves to the uttermost because, when human power can proceed no further, He completes the salvation. "Lord Jesus, into Thy hands I commend my spirit," has been the oft-repeated prayer of the dying Christian in clearer and more conscious hours. And "Father, I will that this one whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I am" had been the Mediator’s prayer for him not only before he came to die, but before he was born. Is not this the Savior whom we need? the mighty Advocate of whom alone it is said, "Him the Father heareth always," whose intercession has all the force of a fiat, and whose treasury contains all the fulness of God.
(J. Hamilton, Works, vol. vi., p. 242)​

​Isa 53:11  He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. 
Isa 53:12  Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

​But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. Mat 14:30

There are three conditions of soul: some think they are sinking and are not; some are sinking and do not know; some are sinking and do know it—know it truly and miserably.

​What kind of prayers does Jesus answer, and pay heed to? Do you need long winded phrases, using excellent speech? Does it always take hours on our knees, batting the powers of hell? There's a place for this, but, effective prayer is not a formula, it's born from the heart, and expressed by the soul in dialogue to God, in faith. It can be as simple as three simple words.
There's also situations we find ourselves in, when there is no time for long discourses- the need is immediate.
​
Let's take a look at this from the story of Peter's life.

​There are two sights in human life which fill the heart with profound sorrow. The first is that of a person who has sunk. When we see a face made loathsome by iniquity and think that once it was innocent and childlike; when we hear of somebody who bore an honored name, but is now in the depths of degradation, that is one of life's most piteous spectacles. It arrests even the worldly-minded who cherish no ideals for humanity; how much more must it sadden one who has anything of the vision of Christ Jesus. Men who are sunken—women who are sunken—are the heartbreak of the home and of the city. There is such infinite pathetic waste in a wasted, miserable life. But to the seeing eye and the perceiving heart, there is another spectacle which is not less tragic—it is that of the man who is beginning to sink. Beginnings are always mighty and momentous for every eye that has the power to see. Much of our knowledge and our power today springs from our modern study of beginnings. And in this text we have an instance, not of a man who has sunk into the depths, but of a man who is beginning to sink. Shall we look at him in that light for a little?

​The first thought to force itself upon me is that it was Peter's temperament which put him in this danger. He began to sink because he was Simon Peter. The other disciples were all safe. It never occurred to them to leave the vessel. They were men of sagacity and common sense and knew the difference between land and water. But Peter was reckless, headstrong and impetuous, acting on impulse. Peter followed the dictates of his heart, and never waited for his laggard reason. In a sense that was the glory of his character. It made him do what no one else would do. It gave him the charm of daring and enthusiasm of that unexpectedness which always fascinates. But those very qualities that in the hand of Christ were to go to the upbuilding of the Church, sometimes brought him to the verge of ruin. It was only Peter who would begin to walk, and it was only Peter who would begin to sink. He was led into peril on these stormy waters because of what was self-forgetful in him. And it may be there is someone who has not sunk yet, but is beginning to sink, because he has a temperament like that. Our perils do not always reach us through our worst. Our perils sometimes reach us through our best: through what is charming in us, delightful, and enthusiastic. And so like Peter we begin to do what the cold and calculating would never do, and then like Peter we begin to sink. That is why every man needs to be saved not only from his sin but from himself. That is why God, in His holy love to save us, gave us not a message but a Man. For our brightest social qualities may wreck us. A touch of genius may be our ruin. For all that is implied in that word temperament, we need the keeping of the Lord Jesus Christ.

​The next thing to arrest me here is that Peter began to sink in very familiar waters. I suppose if you had asked him if he knew them, he would have replied that he knew them, every inch. Some of us, who spend our summers by an ocean or a lake think we are very familiar with them. And if love be at the source of all true knowledge, then indeed it may be that we know them. But if you want a true and perfect knowledge, it is not to the summer visitor you look, but to the fisherman who was cradled by its shores. Now Simon Peter was a fisherman, and all his life had been spent beside that lake. He had played on its shores as a little child; he had known it in summer and in winter. And it was there, in these familiar scenes, amid what was habitual and customary, that he began to sink. There was another occasion when he began to sink, and that was in the High Priest's palace at Jerusalem. He was a stranger there—in unfamiliar scenes—among men and women who knew nothing of him. Here it was different. Here he was at home. He was among those who knew him and who loved him, and here he began to sink. It is a very sad and pitiable thing when a man begins to sink away from home, when he goes away into a distant land and forgets the God of his father and his mother. But the peril for each one of us is the peril of Peter on the lake of Galilee—that we begin to sink amid familiar waters. Beginning to sink in India is sad; beginning to sink at home is almost worse; forgetting the sanctuary and the bended knee, the purity and temperance and tenderness. And if there is anyone who is beginning to sink at home, amid those who love and pray, now is the time to cry as Peter cried, "Lord, save me, or I perish."

Another feature which I note is that Peter began to sink after loyal discipleship. He had known Christ and had loved and followed Him before this hour of peril on the lake. We all remember that great hour in history when Peter had been called to the discipleship. Then he had left all and followed Jesus; he had made the full surrender to the Lord. And from that hour he had companied with Jesus and seen His miracles and heard His words and enjoyed the infinite blessings of His friendship. No one would doubt the reality of that. That self-surrender was intensely real. And Peter loved his Lord and knew His power and was never happy except in His companionship. And it was after all that rich experience—that self-surrender and devoted service—that Peter on the lake began to sink. He was no raw and inexperienced youth. He was one who had heard the calling of the Master. He was no beginner in the higher life. He was a man who had done yeoman service. And the sad thing is that in every community there are men and women who begin to sink, not in their raw and inexperienced youth, but after years of discipleship and service. Sometimes it is the deceitfulness of riches which causes it. Sometimes it is growing absorption in business. Sometimes it is the constant subtle influence of one who is unspiritual in the home. Sometimes it is weariness in well doing and the dropping of the life to lower levels from secret clingings that no one knows but God. No one would say such lives were sunken lives. I am not speaking of moral wrecks and tragedies. I am speaking of men who are still of good repute, still kind at home, still diligent in business. And yet one feels they have begun to sink; they are not the men we remember in the morning; there is a different accent in their speech and a different atmosphere around their character. Men need to be awakened out of their security, as Peter was wakened on the sea of Galilee, to recall their past discipleship and to compare it with what they are now, and then to cry, as Simon Peter cried, "Lord, save me, or I perish."

Also to be noted is this fact, that Peter began to sink on a permitted path. When he began to sink he was no trespasser; he was going where Christ permitted him to go. Had our Lord cried to him across the water, Thou art a madman if thou tries to come; had He cried to him, Thou shalt not come—on the peril of thy life I bid thee halt; why then we should have understood it better—we should have said it served him right to sink for then he would have been disobeying Christ, and the wages of disobedience is death. The point which I want you to notice is that Simon Peter was not disobeying. Our Lord had not forbidden him to come. And so do I learn that on permitted paths—on ways that are sanctioned by the voice of heaven—it is possible now, as on the lake of Galilee, for men and women to begin to sink. There are ways that are forbidden to every child of man. God writes His flaming "No Thoroughfare" upon them. And just for the reason that this is a righteous universe, the man who sets foot on them begins to sink immediately. But the strange thing is that even when God says "Come," and opens up the way that we may walk in it, even there it is always possible to sink. That is true of the blessedness of home. It is true of all social and Christian service. And man may preach the everlasting Gospel, yet run the risk of being cast away. And therefore amid all our privileges and all the gifts which God has blessed us with, "Lord, save us, or we perish."

​Equally notable is this, too, that Peter began to sink when he began to fear. And the Scripture tells when he began to fear: it was when he took his eyes off his Lord. There is not a trace that the wind had grown more fierce while the disciple was walking on the water. It had been just as fierce and the waves had been just as boisterous when he had sprung from the gunwale of the boat. But then he had thought of nothing but the Master, had had eyes for nobody except the Master, and so long as that continued he was safe. Looking to Christ, he could go anywhere. The very sea was as a pavement to him. Looking away from Christ he was as other men, and the perils that surrounded him were terrible. And then he regretted the rashness of his venture and saw nothing around him but the seething waters, and so Peter began to be afraid and beginning to be afraid, began to sink. That is true of every kind of life. It is true especially of spiritual life. In the perilous calling of the spiritual life, to lose heart is to lose everything. And that is why the Lord is always saying to us, "My son, give me thine heart," for only in His keeping is it safe. It is a simple message—looking unto Jesus, and yet it is the message of salvation. To trust in Him and to keep the eye on Him is the one secret of all Christian victory. And when we have failed to do so in the stress of life, as all of us, like Simon Peter, fail, then there is nothing left but to cry with Peter, "Lord, save me, or I perish."

I think, too, we may reasonably infer that the other disciples knew nothing of all this. When Peter began to sink, they never noticed it. To begin with, all this happened about the time of daybreak. Then the waves were boisterous and in wild confusion, so that the feet of Peter often would be hidden. And if they failed to recognize their Lord when He walked in majesty upon the waters, they were not likely to see Peter clearly. When we see someone on the point of drowning, our first instinct is to give a cry. But we have no hint of anyone crying here, save the disciple himself in his distress. And so I gather from these converging hints that when Peter began to sink into the deeps, no one saw it except himself and Christ. There are some people just like Simon Peter. They have not sunk yet, they are not degraded; they are just beginning to sink. Yet no one at home knows anything about it; no one suspects it or has ever dreamed of it; no one would believe it for a moment. When a man has sunk, then there is no disguising. The story is written that he who runs may read. There is nothing hidden but it shall be revealed, whether of things in heaven or things in hell. But when a man is just beginning to sink it may be utterly different from that; it may be a secret between himself and God. His nearest and dearest may not dream of it; his mother and father may be in total ignorance. And he may come to church and engage in Christian service and take his place at the communion table. And we say of him, How well he is getting on—what a fine young fellow he is turning out to be. And all the time, unheard and unobserved, the man is crying, "Lord, save me, or I perish." It ought to make us very tenderhearted. It ought to make us always very prayerful. There are things happening among us which we never suspect, of which we never dream. For the heart knows its own bitterness and a stranger intermeddles not therewith; but there is One who is not a stranger and He knows.

I close by saying that when Peter began to sink, his Savior was not far away. Immediately He put out His hand and grasped him. How far Peter had walked upon the water the narrative of Scripture does not tell us. Shall we say fifty yards, or shall we say a hundred yards?—it matters not whether fifty or a hundred. If the nearest human hand was fifty yards away, the hand of Christ was not fifty yards away; immediately He put forth His hand and helped him. My brother, just beginning to sink, will you remember that Christ is at your side? All human help may seem very far away; remember that He is not very far away. He is near you now; near you where you sit. You need Him sorely and He is there for you. Cry out now, "Lord, save me, or I perish," and He will do it to the uttermost for you.
(Devotional Sermons)
​2Ti 4:16  At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me: I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge. 
2Ti 4:17  Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear: and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. 
2Ti 4:18  And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. 

A Psalm of David, Maschil. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.  When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.  For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the
​drought of summer. Selah. 
I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah. Psa 32:1-5

The forgiven soul is blessed, because the whole character and life are lifted to a higher plane. No man can pass from darkness to light, from alienation to reconciliation, without being marvellously transformed by the experience. His whole nature is changed. That is what we mean when we contrast the effect on the human soul of the gospel of grace with that produced by the preaching of mere morality and legality. Sinai thunders at us in vain, and the most eloquent exposition of the beauty of virtue is apt to leave a soul very much where it found it; but let a sinner come to believe that Christ died for him, that God so loved Him that He spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for the transgressor, and that in the fountain thus opened for sin and for uncleanness his sins have been washed away for ever, then that forgiven soul will become a living mass of gratitude, of love, of devotion to Him whose grace has saved him. Through all his subsequent life he will be a changed man. He will hate iniquity and love holiness. We cannot say that he will never sin again, but never again can he feel toward sin as he did in the days before he had drunk this wine of heaven. His character will be radically altered, and the life will answer, more or less truly, to the character.
​
You stand in some valley, and however brightly the sun may shine, there are shadows; you climb to the summit of some lofty hill, and it is all sunshine, and no shadows there. Even so, if you rest satisfied with forgiveness of sins merely, brightly as that exhibits God’s love, and wonderful as is the grace of it, your peace, and joy, and rest will be all imperfect. Come up into the heavenly places in Christ Jesus; get upon the high tableland of a really Christ-life; go on to the realization of all the “happinesses” which are linked on to forgiveness; be a little child, and take God at His word about them, without cavil or question; and then your whole life will be sunlit indeed. Difficulties and sorrows and temptations you may have, and they may multiply as you go on; but you will look down upon them, instead of being overshadowed by them: and you will see, what in the valley of a low life you cannot see, how God’s love lights them all up, and how in very truth they all work together for your good. (A. C. Price)

Happy is he whose sin is forgiven, because new relations are established between God and the soul. To have passed through this experience not only changes a man’s character, it puts him permanently on a new footing with God. The pardon comes to him as but one part of what we call the Divine scheme of salvation. Henceforth he does not think of the Almighty as his Judge, but rather as his Heavenly Father. He has been adopted into the family of the Most High, and he knows that all the privileges of adoption, in time and eternity, are secured to him. Christ has become to him as an elder Brother, who is preparing a place for him in that region of the blessed which is to be hereafter their common home.
​
This is a side of Christian truth which has not always received the attention it deserves—a neglect the more to be regretted that the doctrine furnishes the reply to the objection sometimes made, that “justification” presents our relations with God in salvation in too exclusively “legal” a light. It would do so if it stood alone; but it does not stand alone. Adoption, by certain writers, has been treated as part of justification—as the positive side of it, in acceptance. But this is not warranted. If it is wrong to merge, as many do, God’s character as Judge in that of Father, it is as wrong to merge His character as Father in that of Judge, and to overlook the fact that God’s relation to us is personal as well as judicial. God does not merely pardon the sinner by way of legal acquittal. There is the outflow of paternal tenderness, paternal forgiveness, paternal grace (cf. the Prodigal, Luk_15:20-24); and the soul that comes to Him is received by Him into a relation of sonship—not merely that forfeited sonship which was its destination by creation, but a relation of honour, nearness, and privilege, analogous to Christ’s own. “If children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ” (Rom_8:17).  (T. T. Lynch, The Rivulet, 202)
​
​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. 
Isa 61:10  I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels. 

I cried unto him with my mouth, and he was extolled with my tongue. 
If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me: But verily God
​hath heard me; he hath attended to the voice of my prayer. Psa 66:17-19

From the first day of my salvation in March of 1978, alone in my house that morning, God started my walk with Him by teaching me a very fundamental truth regarding prayer. He is right there, His presence is more real than my own. He is instant in prayer, and can change any situation in a moment. He uses every opportunity and every trial we go through, as an object lesson. If we truly desire to walk with Him, and know Him, He will teach us, and unveil Himself and His ways to us, in everyday circumstances.

He knows our frame, that we fall, and fail. He knows that the trials and attacks that come our way, are a constant warfare against the forces of evil in this world, and that we will face them daily. Jesus makes it clear, the devils plan is to kill, steal, and destroy and he'll use every means he has to bring you to ruin. God takes all this into account, and is very merciful to his saints, when they are under great pressure, and adversity. But, He doesn't condone our sin, He'll bring conviction and show us where we've allowed a sin to have a foothold in us, and the Holy Spirit will keep dealing with us, to bring us to repentance and be restored in fellowship with Christ.

One of the most obvious ways a Christian can know when He's out of the will of God, and in serious sin, is if you find your prayers aren't being answered. It's a fact that some prayers take years to see the answers, such as praying for the salvation of a wife/husband or family member, and many other issues that takes time for God to work through the circumstances.

But, if you find your prayer life becoming a thing you dread, when you have no desire to pray, and avoid doing so, and years go by, and your not seeing any of your prayers answered, you need to stop praying for anything else, and just focus on asking God to show you where you've gotten off into a ditch, into a serious sin, and ask Him for the help to get back in right standing with Him again. The story of King Saul is a good example of someone who allowed sin to take him over, and he lost the anointing of God, and his prayers were no longer answered. He ended up going to a witch of Endor to conjur up Samuel, but, it cost him his life. He was killed the next day in battle, as Samuel said he would be. See the story in first and second Samuel. Other references: Psa_6:9, Psa_34:6, Psa_116:1-2; Lam_3:55-56; Heb_5:7; 1Jn_3:20-22

There is no substitute for knowing the abiding presence of the Holy Ghost, and His guidence in my life. I cannot live without Him, and His covering in my life. When I know He is with me, there may be geat trials, adversity, attacks from various situations, but with Him present within, no weapon formed against me will prosper. This is a solid fact, and necessity in my life. I will never promise anybody that a close walk with God will make you rich, or give you a life of luxury. The false teachers and pastors who preach this are preaching another Jesus-not the one who died on the cross, and rose again. He has never failed to supply my needs, but not my lusts, or my greed. There's a big difference. 

I've also learned you can't make the mistake as we may at times, in thinking that when we are attacked from many directions and trials are almost overwhelming, that we are in some great sin. I've been in the midst of great adversity, and still seen God answer prayers in a such a way that it left me in awe of His power to intervene, and see situations change before my eyes. Many prayers have been answered for me, before I finished praying. What we need to remember is, God gives people the free will of their actions and choices, and we can get caught in the middle of circumstances that we had nothing to do with. That's a reason why it's important to make wise choices in the people we associate with, and keep company with.

I've learned that the closer you are to God, the more Satan will hate you, and will make you a target of constant attacks. People do not like to hear this, and it causes many to fall behind, and leave Jesus. Jesus said to the disciples "will you also go away"? This battle is real, and it's to the death.

I've learned that the vast majority of people have no desire to have a real ongoing relationship with God, the pagans don't believe He exists. He's more real than this entire realm of existance-He is the SOURCE of all life. The companionship, love, and fellowship with Him cannot be described, I can't seem to find the words that can manifest the truth of His glory. That's why I have little to say to this world, most have no desire, or faith to believe it. What they're eyes see, God's creation all around them, that shows only a glimpse of His greatness-they ignore, take for granted, and much of it is being destroyed by the day. Jesus said in his day is that all people wanted was to see signs and wonders, it's the same today. But even if they see a true sign from God, they don't believe it, it's a source of ridicule, and mocking, or they just yawn.

In my life, surrender is the key, and examining myself on a regular basis, to see if I need to do some sincere repenting, or correct something in my life, to maintain this walk with Christ, that I cherish. 

Satan knows I'm totally sold out to Christ, and over the years, I've lost everything that's meant anything to me in this world. I'd do it again. The mistakes I've made, and the thing's I've learned from them, would help me make some different decisions, but, not my love for Jesus. 

I'm coming to the finish line of my walk in this world, and do not intend to forsake Him now. God has blessed me with a long life, and seen me through many health problems, I don't have any serious disieases and am thankful for the goodness of God, and His blessings. But, the distant shore of heaven is closer in view, and I'm looking forward to a reunion with many loved ones, when God says it's time to leave this world behind.
Lorna Couillard

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 wilfully, cling to any evil way? Nothing hinders prayer like iniquity harboured 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 refusest 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 wilfully 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.
​
Psa_66:19
“But verily God hath heard me.” Sure sign this that the petitioner was no secret lover of sin, The answer to his prayer was a fresh assurance that his heart was sincere before the Lord. See how sure the Psalmist is that he has been heard; it is with him no hope, surmise, or fancy, but he seals it with a “verily.” Facts are blessed things when they reveal both God's heart as loving and our own heart as sincere. “He hath attended to the voice of my prayer.” He gave his mind to consider my cries, interpreted them, accepted them, and replied to them; and therein proved his grace and also my uprightness of heart. Love of sin is a plague spot, a condemning mark, a killing sign, but those Prayers, which evidently live and prevail with God, most clearly arise from a heart which is free from dalliance with evil. Let the reader see to it, that his inmost soul be rid of all alliance with inquiry, all toleration of secret lust, or hidden wrong.

​Consider the work of God: for who can make that straight, which he
​hath made crooked? Ecc 7:13

Consider the work of God,.... This is addressed to those who thought the former days better than the present, and were ready to quarrel with the providence of God, Ecc_7:10; and are therefore advised to consider the work of God; not the work of creation, but of providence; which is the effect of divine sovereignty, and is conducted and directed according to the counsel of his will, and is always wisely done to answer the best ends and purposes: everything is beautiful in its season; contemplate, adore, and admire the wisdom, power, and goodness of God, displayed therein; it is such as cannot be made better, nor otherwise than it is; for who can make that straight which he hath made crooked? or which seems to be so, irregular and disagreeable? No man can mend or make that better he finds fault with and complains of; nor can he alter the course of things, nor stay the hand, nor stop the providence of God: if it is his pleasure that public calamities should be in the world, or in such a part of it, as famine, pestilence, or the sword; or any affliction on families, and particular persons, or poverty and meanness in such and such individuals, there is no hindering it; whatever he has purposed and resolved, his providence effects, and there is no frustrating his designs; it signifies nothing for a creature to murmur and complain; it is best to submit to his will, for no alteration can be made but what he pleases. Some understand this of natural defects in human bodies, with which they are born, or which attend them, as blindness, lameness.

"consider the work of God, and his strength, who made the blind, the crooked, and the lame, to be wonders in the world; for who can make straight one of them but the Lord of the world, who made him crooked?''
​
Others, of spiritual defects in such who walk in crooked ways, and are hardened in them; who can correct them, and make them other ways, if God does not give them his grace to convert them, and soften their hard hearts? he hardens whom he will, and who hath resisted his will? Jarchi's paraphrase is,
"who can make straight after death what he has made crooked in life?''
(John Gill)

Often God seems to place His children in positions of profound difficulty, leading them into a wedge from which there is no escape; contriving a situation which no human judgment would have permitted, had it been previously consulted. The very cloud conducts them thither. You may be thus involved at this very hour.

It does seem perplexing and very serious to the last degree, but it is perfectly right. The issue will more than justify Him who has brought you hither. It is a platform for the display of His almighty grace and power.
​
He will not only deliver you; but in doing so, He will give you a lesson that you will never forget, and to which, in many a psalm and song, in after days, you will revert. You will never be able to thank God enough for having done just as He has. -- Anonymous

"We may wait till He explains,
Because we know that Jesus reigns."

It puzzles me; but, Lord, Thou understandest,
And wilt one day explain this crooked thing.
Meanwhile, I know that it has worked out Thy best--
Its very crookedness taught me to cling.

Thou hast fenced up my ways, made my paths crooked,
To keep my wand’ring eyes fixed on Thee;
To make me what I was not, humble, patient;
To draw my heart from earthly love to Thee.

So I will thank and praise Thee for this puzzle,
And trust where I cannot understand.
Rejoicing Thou dost hold me worth such testing,
I cling the closer to Thy guiding hand.
-- F.E.M.I.
​(Streams in the Desert)

Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye
may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man
availeth much. Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he
prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by
the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and
​the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. Jas 5:16-18

Beginning with the first verse, confessing our faults, is an important point, to have a heart and spirit clear of known sin, or any situation we may have to deal with another, if there's any dispute or misunderstandings. Sin and contention with other's can obstruct our walk with the Lord, and hinder our prayers from being answered. The best practice is to make sure we've examined ourselves honestly first, and spent time with God, and know we have made sure there's nothing between us and Him, before coming to Him in presenting prayer of intercession or any petitions.
If we develop a daily habit of going before the Lord, and asking Him to show us if we've done something that is sin, and are in need of repentance, or going to someone to make amends, this becomes part of abiding in Christ, in a constant pattern. However, it may be necessary to make sure we forgive our adversaries, and leave it to God. It's not always wise to attempt face to face encounters.
​John Wesley put it simply, and clear- "​Confess your faults - Whether ye are sick or in health. To one another - He does not say, to the elders: this may, or may not, be done; for it is nowhere commanded. We may confess them to any who can pray in faith: he will then know how to pray for us, and be more stirred up so to do. And pray one for another, that ye may be healed - Of all your spiritual diseases."

Let it be understood clearly that the prayer of which James here speaks is intercessory prayer—prayer for others. What is intercession? It is simply “a coming in between”; we know the word well in Roman political history as the tribune’s veto. The patricians propose some law that seems likely to injure the people; the tribune intercedes; he stands between the people and the threatened danger; and their rights are saved. Again, a great patrician general has become the object of the envy and ill-will of the populace: he is brought to trial: he is in danger of being banished from the country which he has saved. A Tiberius Gracchus intercedes, and Scipio Africanus is saved. In its widest sense it may be applied to every act in which one human being is able to come in between another and some evil that might befall him. We may extend it even more widely still to the whole principle of mediation, by which one man is used to convey blessings to another.

In what ways, then, can intercession be a great force for blessing? Lock suggests three ways.

It is a great force because it compels us to keep up a true ideal of what those for whom we pray may be. It makes us, in George MacDonald’s striking phrase, “think of them and God together.” If I pray for any one, that implies that I have faith in him, that I believe he may be better than he is. If I pray thoughtfully for any particular blessings for him, then I have considered what are the right blessings to ask for him; I must know what God means him to be; my imagination must picture to itself what his true self is, what it can develop into.

Intercession is again a great force, because it pledges us to do the best we can for those for whom we pray. We cannot, for very shame, ask God to help those whom we ourselves are refusing to help when that help lies within our power; the very fact of intercession reminds us of the truth of the dependence of man upon man; we ask God to bless those for whom we care, and again and again He reminds us that His blessings are given through men, and the answer to our prayer is that we are sent on His errand of mercy. Even more than this, the prayer returns into our own bosom; we cannot pray for any one, or for anybody for whom we care, without being driven back to look at our own lives. Do we pray for our parents? At once we feel that one of the greatest blessings that can happen to them is that we should be true sons to them. “A wise son maketh a glad father: but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother.”

Intercession is also a great force because it brings into action the power of God; just as the tribune’s veto obtained its force from the fact that it was not spoken by him on his own responsibility. It was strong because armed with the strength of law; it was strong, not with the strength of even a Tiberius Gracchus, but with the power of a sacrosanct authority; so our prayers are strong because they have the promise and the power of Christ behind them. Intercession makes God, God’s purposes, God’s plans, the centre of our thought. This is of the very essence of all prayer; this it is that lifts it above a mere calculated selfishness into an act of faith.

Great as is the admitted mystery of prayer, there can be little doubt that much of its secret lies wrapped in the co-operation of the Divine and human will. In prayer man is “a labourer together with” his God. We have had enough in our day of the shallow evangel of labour, man’s gospel preached to man; we have been told till we are weary of hearing it, that “he who works prays”; but let us lift up our hearts high enough to meet a fuller, deeper, richer truth; let us learn that “he who prays works,” works even with his God, is humble enough, is bold enough to help Him who upholds all things with the word of His power. (Dora Greenwell, Essays, 144)

​This effectual prayer of Elijah’s was a prayer of faith. He had for argument in prayer the unequivocal Divine promise, “I will send rain upon the earth.” Upon this promise his faith laid hold, and this weapon of promise he wielded valiantly in his audience with Deity. You can almost hear him pressing the promise as you read of him lying prone there on Mount Carmel. This is the prayer of faith, and so the effectual prayer—a prayer which takes God at His word, and then reverently but really holds Him to it. We do not need to stretch and strain in a spasmodic attempt at more faith. The ground for faith is the Divine word. That is something upon which we can lay hold. And the prayer of faith is simply this—that when we pray we fully believe that God will be true to all that He has promised. “If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you”. This effectual prayer of Elijah’s was a prayer out of a consecrated heart. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. James brings forth Elijah as a specimen of such a righteous man. One thing Elijah was intent on; to one thing all his powers were consecrated—the Divine service. He was a man given up to God, and so, in the highest sense, righteous. The test of his consecrated righteousness is his obedience. Mark Elijah’s exact obedience to the Divine commands in the whole Old Testament story. This effectual prayer of Elijah’s was specific prayer. It was for a definite thing. We pray too much generally, not enough specifically. This effectual prayer of Elijah’s was untiring prayer. Though the cloud did not immediately appear, he kept on praying. This effectual prayer of Elijah’s was expectant prayer. Notice in the story how many times he sent his servant. He was on the look-out for answer.— (Anon)

Elijah’s waiting on his Prayer.—James suggests an historical illustration of the power that lies in fervent and believing prayer. The Jews had a great admiration for the prophet Elijah, and were never tired of hearing of his doings. They lived in constant expectation of his reappearing as the precursor of Messiah. James finds in his story impressive illustration of the power of prayer; but we have no record of Elijah’s acts of prayer when he would have the rains kept away. His prayer for the rains to return is a part of the grandest day in his career. The witnessing fire of God had descended upon Elijah’s sacrifice; and at the sight a sudden shout had risen from the vast watching crowd, “Jehovah, He is the God! Jehovah, He is the God!” So intense was the excitement, and so absolute, for the moment, was the authority of the Jehovah-prophet, that only a word was needed to make that crowd seize the four hundred false prophets of discomfited Baal, hurry them down to the stream of the Kishon, and slay them there, that their bodies might be swept out to sea on the coming floods. But the day’s work was not then complete. The return of the rain showers upon the thirsty earth was virtually pledged in this return of the nation to Jehovah; and he who had prayed for the fire, and knew that he was praying according to the will of God, and had been graciously answered, must pray again for the rain, pray with the assurance that sending the rain was the will of God, and he must wait upon his prayer with the confident expectancy of hope. But the sight is a strange and a striking one. Elijah now goes away from the crowd and from the king, finds a sheltered spot under the crest of the hill, and there he might have been seen, crouching on the ground, his head bent upon his knees, and his cloak thrown over his head, as if to hide everything away that might disturb his intense supplications, absorbed in prayer until the youth sent to look out from the highest point could tell of a little cloud rising on the western edge of the sea. Then Elijah knew that the “effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”

Prayer availing in its Working.—“The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its working.” These familiar words are somewhat puzzling when careful thought is directed to them. To speak of effectual prayer that avails is an evident repetition, and unnecessary. If it is effectual, it does avail. And the combination “effectual fervent” is unusual. It seems to be two words, and to describe prayer as both effectual and fervent; but there is only one word in the original, and it neither means “effectual” nor “fervent,” nor both terms as combined. The word means “working,” and St. James speaks of the “working prayer of a righteous man” as “availing much.” The Revised Version gives a precise rendering of his meaning thus—“The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its working.” Then the appropriateness of the illustration from Elijah comes at once into view. Elijah’s prayer did something in its working. It held the rain off; it brought the rain back again. It will be seen that this working power of prayer is precisely what St. James is speaking about in these closing words of his epistle. “Is any afflicted? let him pray,” for prayer can work him both strength to bear, and wisdom to guide him through, his difficulties. “The prayer of faith” can work a blessing for the sick. It “shall save the sick.” Whatever may be the faults and failings spoiling Christian fellowship, “pray for one another,” for prayer can work wondrous healings of broken relations; the supplications even of one good man in a Church can avail much in its working. We may well be thankful to the Revisers for giving us so important and so suggestive a change. It brings before us quite a fresh view of prayer. We had hardly thought of it as, in its very nature, a thing that works. We know that it brings down to us Divine blessings. We know that it has a gracious influence upon the man who prays. But prayer as really an active force, as having in it an actual power of working—prayer as a kind of holy leaven, moving, influencing, wherever it goes—has hardly come into our thought. If it did, and could be worthily apprehended, it would give us a new joy in prayer, and the consciousness of possessing a tool, an instrument, a force, which we might more worthily use for God and for men. We might more constantly set prayer upon doing its work, its own precise, appropriate, and gracious work. (Preacher's Homelitical)

When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, LORD, will I seek. Psa 27:8
I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD
in the land of the living. Wait on the LORD: be of good courage,
and he shall strengthen thine heart:
​wait, I say, on the LORD. Psa 27:13-14
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Treasury of David

Psa_27:8
"In this verse we are taught that if we would have the Lord hear our voice, we must be careful to respond to his voice. The true heart should echo the will of God as the rocks among the Alps repeat in sweetest music the notes of the peasant's horn. Observe, that the command was in the plural, to all the saints, “Seek ye;” but the man of God turned it into the singular by a personal application, “Thy face, Lord, will I seek.” The voice of the Lord is very effectual where all other voices fail, “When thou saidst,” then my “heart,” my inmost nature was moved to an obedient reply. Note the promptness of the response - no sooner said than done; as soon as God said “seek,” the heart said, “I will seek.” Oh, for more of this holy readiness! Would to God that we were more plastic to the divine hand, more sensitive of the touch of God's Spirit."

Psa 27:13_
​"Faintness of heart is a common infirmity; even he who slew Goliath was subject to its attacks. Faith puts its bottle of cordial to the lip of the soul, and so prevents fainting. Hope is heaven's balm for present sorrow. In this land of the dying, it is our blessedness to be looking and longing for our fair portion in the land of the living, whence the goodness of God has banished the wickedness of man, and where holy spirits charm with their society those persecuted saints who were vilified and despised among men. We must believe to see, not see to believe; we must wait the appointed time, and stay our soul's hunger with foretastes of the Lord's eternal goodness which shall soon be our feast and our song."

Psa 27:14_
​“Wait on the Lord.” Wait at his door with prayer; wait at his foot with humility; wait at his table with service; wait at his window with expectancy. Suitors often win nothing but the cold shoulder from earthly patrons after long and obsequious waiting; he speeds best whose patron is in the skies. “Be of good courage.” A soldier's motto. Be it mine. Courage we shall need, and for the exercise of it we have as much reason as necessity, if we are soldiers of King Jesus. “And he shall strengthen thine heart.” He can lay the plaister right upon the weak place. Let the heart be strengthened, and the whole machine of humanity is filled with power; a strong heart makes a strong arm. What strength is this which God himself gives to the heart? Read the “Book of Martyrs,” and see its glorious deeds of prowess; go to God rather, and get such power thyself. “Wait, I say, on the Lord.” David, in the words “I say,” sets his own private seal to the word which, as an inspired man, he had been moved to write. It is his testimony as well as the command of God, and indeed he who writes these scanty notes has himself found it so sweet, so reviving, so profitable to draw near to God, that on his own account he also feels bound to write, “Wait, I say, on the Lord.”

Standing in Courage
The Christian's Attitude in Prayer

​What is the source of courage? It is waiting on the Lord. That is the truest and deepest source of courage. To believe that He is, and that He has made us for Himself; to love Him, and give ourselves up to Him, because He is holy and true and wise and good and brave beyond all human thought; to lean upon Him and trust Him and rest in Him, with confidence that He will never leave us nor forsake us: to work for Him, and suffer for His sake, and be faithful to His service—that is the way to learn courage. Without God what can we do? We are frail, weak, tempted, mortal. The burdens of life will crush us, the evils of sin will destroy us, the tempests of trouble will overwhelm us, the darkness of death will engulf us. But if we are joined to God, we can resist and endure and fight and conquer in His strength. This is what the Psalmist means in the text, “Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart.”

​Had we the strength!—Have we perhaps the strength,
Who have all else beside? Are we not men?
Is not the Universe our dwelling-place?
And therefore perfectly in truth for us
Is not the utmost wholly possible?…
O, with the baffled and the resolute
Vanguard of liberal humanity,--
O to so purge our lives of the mild hours,
Our hearts of humble longings and meek hopes,
Our minds of customs and credulities,
That we may find the days wholly fulfilled
And lightened of the Spirit—all the days
And all things and ourselves, rich and revealed
In the majestic meanings and the might
And passion and pure purpose of the soul
(G. C. Lodge, Poems and Dramas, ii. 137)

The LORD taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope
in his mercy. Psa 147:11
​Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved. Psa 55:22

It may be a child of God is reading these words who has had some great crushing sorrow, some bitter disappointment, some heart-breaking blow from a totally unexpected quarter. You are longing for your Master’s voice bidding you "Be of good cheer," but only silence and a sense of mystery and misery meet you -- "He answered her not a word."
God’s tender heart must often ache listening to all the sad, complaining cries which arise from our weak, impatient hearts, because we do not see that for our own sakes He answers not at all or otherwise than seems best to our tear-blinded, short-sighted eyes.
The silences of Jesus are as eloquent as His speech and may be a sign, not of His disapproval, but of His approval and of a deep purpose of blessing for you.
"Why art thou cast down, O?soul?" Thou shalt yet praise Him, yes, even for His silence. Listen to an old and beautiful story of how one Christian dreamed that she saw three others at prayer. As they knelt the Master drew near to them.
As He approached the first of the three, He bent over her in tenderness and grace, with smiles full of radiant love and spoke to her in accents of purest, sweetest music.
Leaving her, He came to the next, but only placed His hand upon her bowed bead, and gave her one look of loving approval.
The third woman He passed almost abruptly without stopping for a word or glance. The woman in her dream said to herself, "How greatly He must love the first one, to the second He gave His approval, but none of the special demonstrations of love He gave the first; and the third must have grieved Him deeply, for He gave her no word at all and not even a passing look.
"I wonder what she has done, and why He made so much difference between them?" As she tried to account for the action of her Lord, He Himself stood by her and said: "O woman! how wrongly hast thou interpreted Me. The first kneeling woman needs all the weight of My tenderness and care to keep her feet in My narrow way. She needs My love, thought and help every moment of the day. Without it she would fail and fall.
"The second has stronger faith and deeper love, and I can trust her to trust Me however things may go and whatever people do.
"The third, whom I seemed not to notice, and even to neglect, has faith and love of the finest quality, and her I am training by quick and drastic processes for the highest and holiest service.
"She knows Me so intimately, and trusts Me so utterly, that she is independent of words or looks or any outward intimation of My approval. She is not dismayed nor discouraged by any circumstances through which I arrange that she shall pass; she trusts Me when sense and reason and every finer instinct of the natural heart would rebel;-- because she knows that I am working in her for eternity, and that what I do, though she knows not the explanation now, she will understand hereafter.
"I am silent in My love because I love beyond the power of words to express, or of human hearts to understand, and also for your sakes that you may learn to love and trust Me in Spirit-taught, spontaneous response to My love, without the spur of anything outward to call it forth."
(Streams in the Desert)

He "will do marvels" if you will learn the mystery of His silence, and praise Him, for every time He withdraws His gifts that you may better know and love the Giver. --Anonymous

​“Thy burden,” or what thy God lays upon thee, lay thou it “upon the Lord.” His wisdom casts it on thee, it is thy wisdom to cast it on him. He cast thy lot for thee, cast thy lot on him. He gives thee thy portion of suffering, accept it with cheerful resignation, and then take it back to him by thine assured confidence. “He shall sustain thee.” Thy bread shall be given thee, thy waters shall be sure. Abundant nourishment shall fit thee to bear all thy labours and trials. As thy days so shall thy strength be. “He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.” He may move like the boughs of a tree in the tempest, but he shall never be moved like a tree torn up by the roots. He stands firm who stands in God. Many would destroy the saints, but God has not suffered it, and never will. Like pillars, the godly stand immovable, to the glory of the Great Architect."