NEHEMIAH 42, 44 AND 45 (FROM CAC'S NOTES)

NEHEMIAH 42, 44 AND 45 (FROM CAC’S NOTES)

Psalm 42: 1 - 11; Psalm 44:1 - 26; Psalm 45:1 - 17

Psalm 32 is the covenant — the favourableness of God to man as a Justifier, Reconciler, Deliverer and Recoverer. This is the basis of all divine instruction. It may be called the normal relations of the justified man who is taught of God under the instruction of the new covenant.

But when we come to the second book of Psalms the conditions are abnormal and we are tested by abnormal conditions. There is nothing more testing than to be deprived of privileges we have once enjoyed and to have no outward evidence that God is with us, so that adversaries can say, “Where is thy God?” To go with the festive multitude is very happy, but we have to be tested by the land of the Jordan, the Hermons, and mount Mizar. We have to learn to confide in God when things are not outwardly festive, when if we have not God Himself we shall get dried up. So that we find here an intense desire for God as meeting every disquietude of soul. Do we know Him enough to be quite sure that there are salvations in His countenance? And that we can learn ^[p. 312] Him, and have every thirst quenched in circumstances which test us to the last point of endurance? 2 Corinthians 3 and 4 give us new covenant ministry but what discipline comes on the vessel! Then the ministry of reconciliation carries with it the discipline of chapter 6. The man in Psalm 42 is not in the present good of what Paul had, but he is on the way to it. If we are convinced that it is there in God for us, let us go in for it.

Then in Psalm 44 it is not merely individual exercises but it is the people of God generally, no longer the triumphs of the apostle’s day, but given over to the adversary. Now what a testing this is, God unable to give public support to His people, so that they become a mocking and derision to those round about. Are we just prepared to be without any public recognition, but remembering the Lord and not dealing falsely with the covenant, not turning back nor having steps declined from His path? This psalm is quoted in Romans 8: 37, “We more than conquer through him that has loved us”.

We have to learn the instruction of Psalm 42 and Psalm 44, but the answer to these deep and searching exercises comes in Psalm 45. What an instruction this is — a song of the Beloved. There is not a word in the psalm that is self-centred: it is all Christ-centred. No thirst now — the heart welling forth.