Psalm 119:149 Hear my voice according to your loving kindness: O LORD, quicken me according to your judgment. The Revised Version has a marginal note which is suggestive, "Quicken me, O Lord, as thou art wont;" but this is given also in the Prayer-book Version, and for Per. 156. The point suggested is, that when a soul has received spiritual blessing from God, it can never be satisfied unless that blessing is renewed. Or, to put it in another way, the good man can heartily rejoice in the gracious past, but he cannot be satisfied with what has been, or with what he has had - he always wants the past to become the present. I. A MAN MAY SAVE SINGLE BLESSINGS FROM GOD. We are accustomed to think of "quickening" as a single Divine act, and to say, "Ye must be born from above." And if by quickening we mean the imparting of new life, that must be a single blessing. But a life existing may need quickening; and in that sense the blessing may be renewed. Life is full of single blessings from God, and these may unduly occupy our attention. They really are the only indications of the blessings that attend us every day in life. They are like the miracles of Jesus, which do but show what the Father God is doing for us, in healing and providing, every day. II. A MAN MAY HAVE CONTINUOUS BLESSINGS FROM GOD. If we may use language that properly applies only to man, we may say that God gets into the habit of blessing us with his daily quickenings. He blesses us as he is wont to do. There is a ground of confidence in this. God in the soul's life is like God in nature. He is in such a way of making his sun rise day by day, that we have come to depend on it. But there is a side of peril in this for us. God's regularity in blessing makes us either set up a claim, or miss the recognition of God's hand. He has sometimes to break the continuity in order to arouse our attention. III. A MAN MAY HAVE PRESENT BLESSINGS FROM GOD. That is, blessings recognized as present; the soul awake to observe that they are present, and so responding aright to them. When the soul wants more it is prepared to recognize God's quickening grace actually with it to-day. What God has done, and what God usually does, are not enough. The soul cannot rest unless it knows and feels what God is doing. - R.T. Parallel Verses KJV: Hear my voice according unto thy lovingkindness: O LORD, quicken me according to thy judgment.WEB: Hear my voice according to your loving kindness. Revive me, Yahweh, according to your ordinances. |
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