Word
of God
But
he answering, said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread only,
but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
The
Gospel According to Matthew 4:4
Psalm
16:9, 11
Prefaced
& Edited by Doktor Riktor Von Zhades
9
Wherefore mine heart is glad, and my tongue rejoiceth: my flesh also
doth rest in hope. 11 Thou wilt show me the path of life: in thy
presence is the fullness of joy: and at thy right hand there are
pleasures forevermore.
Brethren:
Today’s
study will be taken from Matthew Henry’s* Commentary on the Bible.
“ Christ
being the Head of the body, the church, these verses may, for the
most part, be applied to all good Christians, who are guided and
animated by the Spirit of Christ; and, in singing them, when we have
first given glory to Christ, in whom, to our everlasting comfort,
they have had their accomplishment, we may then encourage and edify
ourselves and one another with them, and may hence learn [from
them].That it is our wisdom and duty to set the Lord always before
us, and to see him continually at our right hand, wherever we are, to
eye him as our chief good and highest end, our owner, ruler, and
judge, our gracious benefactor, our sure guide and strict observer;
and, while we do thus, we shall not be moved either from our duty or
from our comfort. Blessed Paul set the Lord before him, when, though
bonds and afflictions did await him, he could bravely say, None of
these things move me, (Reads Acts 20:24). That, if our eyes be ever
towards God, our hearts and tongues may ever rejoice in him; it is
our own fault if they do not. If the heart rejoice in God, out of the
abundance of that let the mouth speak, to his glory, and the
edification of others. (Read Psalm 22:25, 28:7, 109:30; Isaiah 25:1)
That dying Christians, as well as a dying Christ, may cheerfully put
off the body, in a believing expectation of a joyful resurrection: My
flesh also shall rest in hope. Our bodies have little rest in this
world, but in the grave they shall rest as in their beds. (Read
Isaiah 57:2) We have little to hope for from this life, but we shall
rest in hope of a better life; we may put off the body in that hope.
Death destroys the hope of man (Read Job 14:19), but not the hope of
a good Christian. (Read Proverbs 14:32) He has hope in his death,
living hopes in dying moments, hopes that the body shall not be left
for ever in the grave, but, though it see corruption for a time, it
shall, at the end of the time, be raised to immortality; Christ’s
resurrection is an earnest of ours if we be his. That those who live
piously with God in their eye may die comfortably with heaven in
their eye. In this world sorrow is our lot, but in heaven there is
joy. All our joys here are empty and defective, but in heaven there
is a fullness of joy. Our pleasures here are transient and momentary,
and such is the nature of them that it is not fit they should last
long; but those at God’s right hand are pleasures for evermore; for
they are the pleasures of immortal souls in the immediate vision and
fruition of an eternal God.”
*Matthew
Henry was a 17th Century Theologian
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