“Thou crownest the year with thy goodness; and thy paths drop fatness.” (Psalm 65:11)
At year’s end, a Christian should stop to count his blessings. If he does this fairly and fully, no matter what his problems may have been during the year, he will have to confess that God, as always, has crowned the year with goodness.
The coronation figure is frequently used in Scripture to speak of God’s blessings in the Christian life. For example: “Bless the LORD . . . Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies” (Psalm 103:2, 4). Even our testings and trials are always in the context of God’s grace and love. Christ Himself wore a crown of thorns so that we may be crowned with mercy and salvation.
Consider also Psalm 5:12: “For thou, LORD, wilt bless the righteous; with favor wilt thou compass him as with a shield.” The word “compass” is the same Hebrew word as “crown,” with the basic meaning “encircle.” Other jewels in the believer’s year-end crown are God’s grace and glory. “[Wisdom] shall give to thine head an ornament of grace: a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee” (Proverbs 4:9).
Then there is the wonderful testimony that “thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor” (Psalm 8:5). Finally, the believer’s crown is none other than the Lord Himself: “In that day shall the LORD of hosts be for a crown of glory, and for a diadem of beauty, unto the residue of his people” (Isaiah 28:5).
Most Christians have an abundance of material blessings for which to thank the Lord. Even if they have none of these, however, God has crowned the year with goodness and favor, with lovingkindness and tender mercies, with grace and glory and honor and, best of all, with His own presence. “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits” (Psalm 103:2). HMM
“Yet now hear, O Jacob, My servant; and Israel, whom I have chosen: thus says the Lord that made you, and formed you from the womb, which will help you: Fear not, O Jacob, My servant; and you, Jesurun, whom I have chosen.
For I will pour water upon him who is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour My Spirit upon your seed, and My blessing upon your offspring: and they shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the water courses. One shall say, I am the Lord’s; and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob; and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord, and surname himself by the name of Israel.”
Isaiah 44:1-5.
Brothers and Sisters, reach down for your biographies; turn over your diaries; go back with me a little while to that spot where you first knew the Savior, then march on along the way by which the Lord has led you, till you reach the day and hour which found you in the House of God, listening to His promise.
We were once the servants of sin, and the slaves of our own passions, but He who made us free has now taken us into His family and taught us obedience to His will. We can say with David, “I am Your servant; I am Your servant, and the son of Your handmaid: You have loosed my bonds.”
We do not serve our Master perfectly, but we would if we could. There are some of His Commandments which we forget, but there are none which we would despise. We do, through infirmity, turn aside unto crooked ways, but we find no comfort in them. Our meat and our drink is to do the will of Him who sent us, and our prayer is— “Make me to walk in Your commands, It is a delightful road. Nor let my head, nor heart, nor hands, Offend against my God.”
Ah, my Savior is no fickle lover. He does not feel enchanted for a while with some gleams of beauty from His Church’s eyes, and then afterwards cast her off because of her unfaithfulness.
Well then, here is His promise of what He will do, “I will help you.”
You cannot pray this morning; you cannot wrestle as you desire—“I will help you.” You feel unable to overcome sin—“I will help you.” You are engaged in service too heavy for you—“I will help you.” Whether it is to suffer, to sacrifice, to labor, or to endure, take this comfort—“I will help you.” I love this promise! It is a very short one, but it is all the longer in meaning because it is short in expression. You may avail yourself of it in all cases. The promise turns every way, and blesses in every form. It is like a weapon which may be used for 50 purposes—it will be to you, if you will, a sword, and you may beat it into a plowshare; or it will prove a shield, a spear, a chariot, and I know not what besides. You cannot find any possible position into which the child of God can be brought in which this promise will fail to bless him!
O my Brothers and Sisters, when the Holy Spirit visits a man, what a difference it makes in him!
I know a preacher, once as dull and dead a man as ever misused a pulpit; under his slumbering ministrations there were few conversions, and the congregation grew thinner and thinner, good men sighed in secret, and the enemy said, “Aha, so would we have it!”
The revival came—the Holy Spirit worked gloriously, the preacher felt the Divine Fire and suddenly woke up to energy and zeal. The man appeared to be transformed; his tongue seemed touched with fire; elaborate and written discourses were laid aside, and he began to talk out of his own glowing heart to the hearts of others! He preached as he had never done before; the place filled; the dry bones were stirred, and quickening began! They who knew him once so elegant, correct, passionless, dignified, cold, lifeless, and unprofitable, asked in amazement, “Is Saul also among the Prophets?” The Spirit of God is a great wonder-worker!
You will notice certain Church members; they have never been good for much; we have had their names on the roll, and that is all—suddenly the Spirit of God has come upon them, and they have been honored among us for their zeal and usefulness! We have seen them here and there and everywhere diligent in the service of God, and foremost in all sorts of Christian labor, though before you could hardly get them to stir an inch.
I would that the quickening Spirit would come down upon me and upon you—upon every one of us in abundance—to create us valiant men for Truth and mighty for the Lord!
O for some of the ancient valor of Apostolic times, that, like good Knights of the Cross we would dash forward against the foe, and with irresistible courage deal heavy blows against the adversary of souls and his vast host! We may do this; we have only to plead the promise! God will be inquired of, but the promise stands true, “I will pour water upon him who is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground.” Do not lose the blessing through remissness, but ask and you shall receive.
Brothers and Sisters, pray for me; for I need more Grace, and in return I will plead the Lord’s words on your behalf.
As a very great comfort to His mourning people, the Lord now promises A BLESSING UPON THEIR CHILDREN. You will observe, dear Friends, that they must get the blessing for themselves first, for the third verse has it—“I
will pour water upon him who is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground”—that is first; and then afterwards—“I will pour My Spirit upon your seed.”
We must not expect to see our children blessed unless we ourselves grow in Grace. It is often the inconsistency of parents which is the obstacle—the outward obstacle to the conversion of their children.
No doubt there have been multitudes of children of professing parents who have been damned instrumentally by the ungodliness and inconsistency of their parents at home.
The parents, let us hope, were Christians—but there has been so much of apparent inconsistency about them, that the ruin of their children has been the consequence. It is a notorious fact that some of the worst of men have been the children of godly parents.
Do pray, dear Friends, for your children, that God will pour His Spirit upon them; and as to the rest, you may depend that all the fruits will come in due time.
Tell the child that he is dead in trespasses and sins, let there be no doubt about his natural condition, and let this always be your prayer,“Almighty Grace, renew his heart; turn him from darkness to Light, and make him Yours!”
Then you have in the promise in the third place, the plenty of Grace which God gives. He says, “I will pour My Spirit upon your seed”—not a little of it—but they shall have abundance. You ought not, in the case of children, to look merely for life—you will find vigorous life! You may not expect a little surface-knowledge only, but you may expect to find in them a depth of knowledge in the things of God, for so God’s promise has it, “I will pour My Spirit upon your seed.”
For my part I am more and more persuaded that the study of a good
Scriptural Catechism is of infinite value to our children,
The promise upon which I have preached this morning needs to be pleaded before God, for God does not fulfill such promises as these without our bringing them before Him in earnest fervent prayer.
Some of us, in looking back, can speak of a godly father and a godly grandfather; we can look for generations back, till as far as we can trace a line—Divine Grace has run in our family. O that the line may continue for years to come, till as long as generations are born, there shall be one of our kith and kin to carry the standard, and sound the trumpet, and fight for the Lord of Israel!
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“Wake, parents of Israel! O hasten to plead
For the Spirit of Grace to descend!
The Word has gone forth, and the faithful have need
Of your prayers the great cause to defend.
From the youth of our country shall armies arise,
The Gospel of peace to proclaim;
Over the land and the seas, the glad message that flies,
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son,that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish,but have everlastinglife.” (Jn. 3:16) We all know the joy a gift can bring. Children sometimes make gift lists (one of our sons once helpfully divided his list into “reasonable” and “unreasonable”) in the hopes of things to come. As we grow, our idea of the perfect gift grows with us. At some point, however, we discover a joy greater than receiving. As the Lord Himself said:“It is more blessed to give than to receive.” (Acts 20:35b) At first glance, this seems counter-intuitive.Surely receiving is to be preferred! Yet, we see the truth of the Lord’s words everywhere we look.
There are those who come into a local church with the singular desire to receive. They avoid any kind of regular commitment or service. They choose only those meetings or events which suit them. One might think—on a natural level—that they would be the happiest people in the assembly since they constantly receive and never have to give. But quite the opposite is true. They are usually among the first (and most frequent) to criticize, complain,and take offense.
If you want to find those who truly enjoy the assembly, you’ll have to look somewhere else: to those who give. What about in the family? Again, our age has no shortage of spouses whose primary goal in marriage is to be on the receiving end. Sacrifice for their wife or husband isn’t high on their priority list. They can (and do!) list the ways their spouse should change in order to accommodate them. Requests, demands, hints, bargains, strategies—all designed to get their own way. And yet, no matter how much they “get,” few people are more miserable.
Furthermore, the child who gets everything he wants; the child who has discovered that he can bend his parents (or his friends) to his will, provided he makes a big enough fuss—is he a happy child? Is he a blessed child? There’s a reason we call such children “spoiled.” Unless this spirit of receiving is quenched when he is young, he is in for a bleak, lonely, frustrating life.
No, the Lord Jesus was, as always, perfectly right when He told us that giving was the path to blessing and happiness. We understand this as soon as we love someone. Don’t get me wrong—I’m deeply grateful for the various works of fine art that my children have made for me over the years—treasures that will never grace the Louvre. But my real joy is to give to them. Not necessarily in the terms of the possessions that our society is obsessed with. There are far more important gifts to give. But seeing their faces light up is a far greater present than anything that comes in wrapping paper. It truly is more blessed to give than to receive. But is even giving the greatest good? Let us take one step higher.
Above gifts, beyond giving, there is the great, incomparable Giver. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” (Jas. 1:17) Nobody has ever given like He has. Think of the recipients of His gift: we give to those we love; He gave to His enemies. Or the extent of His giving: His giving never ends—He showers us with “grace upon grace” (Jn. 1:16).But eclipsing all, there is the cost of His gift—a gift that outweighs heaven and earth: His only begotten Son. A gift to fill our hearts with joy and blessing for all eternity. “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!” (2 Cor। 9:15) FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK by James Martin
God’s blessings are often unrecognized. Many people miss out on life’s greatest blessings and never realize it. Why? Because God often sends blessings in disguise and only eyes of faith can see them.
