November 16

This is my rest for ever; here will I dwell; for I have desired it. - Psalms 132:14.

THUS we read that God dwelleth in Zion. There he was in the temple which he had chosen for his habitation, the place where his honour dwelt, where he was accessible, where his oracles were deposited, where his servants ministered unto him, where his worship was celebrated, where he “clothed his priests with salvation,” and made his “saints shout aloud for joy,” and “satisfied his poor with bread.” Hence we read in the prophecies of Isaiah that the Jews were a people nigh unto him, while, on the other hand, the Gentiles are spoken of as being “far off,” “strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.”

We have succeeded to the Jews as to these means of grace and privileges, and have them in a much higher degree. He says to us as he did to Israel, “In all places where I record my name there will I come unto you, and there will I bless you.” And our Saviour says, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” He is therefore with us in his word, with us in his ministers, with us in the assembly of the saints; and his saints still find him in his palaces for a refuge; and we may hear his voice and see his “power and his glory” in the sanctuary. There we may taste that he is gracious; there we may sit under “his shadow with great delight and find his fruit sweet unto our taste.” “That his name is near,” says David, “his wondrous works declare.”

The effect shows agency, and agency evinces presence; and the effects which have taken place in the sanctuary and in the hearts of individuals show that God is there. The voice of a man could never reach the heart and turn the whole tide of the soul another way; but how often is this performed by God! A man enters the house of God prayerless, and begins to cry, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.” He enters carelessly, or from curiosity, or with a view perhaps of ridicule; but he is soon “known of all and judged of all,” and the “secrets of his heart are made manifest;” and if he does not fall down on the ground, he inwardly exclaims, “God is in the midst of them of a truth.”