QUIETNESS AND ASSURANCE
Isaiah 57:20,21; Psalm 72:6-8; Isaiah 32:15-18
We read these verses in Isaiah 57 in our local reading recently. This illustration of the wicked being “like the troubled sea, which cannot rest, and whose waters cast up mire and dirt” has stayed with me since. It is a graphic picture of the waves of the sea which are tossing and turning continuously, a “troubled sea”. It is not a restful sea, and the consequence of that is this casting up of mire and dirt.
It was brought back into my mind by the preaching that we listened to yesterday, and how Satan seeks to work and to occupy our thoughts, and the consequence of that is that there is no rest and no peace, as the last verse of this chapter brings out: “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked”. I do not seek to dwell on that, but to draw attention by way of contrast to these other passages. In Psalm 72, what the psalmist brings out in type is that righteousness and peace flourish because of Christ. This psalm is for, or about, Solomon, as the heading and its footnote indicates. We can see how in its fulness, the psalm pertains to Christ in a time that is yet to come: “In his days shall the righteous flourish, and abundance of peace till the moon be no more”. That is the consequence of Christ coming to reign. And although its primary application is to a day that is yet to come, yet the believer can know something of this now as being occupied with that which is heavenly, as we had before us in the prayer meeting that we have just held.
Isaiah brings out a similar aspect in chapter 32. This great chapter again primarily refers to a day to come, but it speaks prophetically about the Holy Spirit as One being “poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness become a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest. And judgment shall inhabit the wilderness, and righteousness dwell in the fruitful field. And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance for ever”. So “the wicked are like the troubled sea, which cannot rest” – something that continues, and is entirely without God but which is subject to the tossing and turning of the adversary. Yet what we have brought out in the psalm and in this chapter of Isaiah is that, through the Lord Jesus and through the Holy Spirit, the believer has righteousness and peace which is established and endures.
This thought is very simple. Following up from those readings that we had in chapter 57, we can see how everything for the wicked is in this troubled state. But for the believer, there is the peace, the righteousness and the assurance that comes from the knowledge of the Saviour, our Lord Jesus, and by the enduring power of the Holy Spirit. May this simple thought encourage us, for the Lord’s name’s sake.
Word in a meeting for ministry, Sunbury
10 June 2019
Roland J. Flowerdew