Psalm 4:4 Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart on your bed, and be still. Selah. Words like awe, fear, trembling appear to be almost obsolete now. Our speech finds its emphasis in such words as happiness, joy, peace, comfort. The Psalmist throws us back to quite a different plane. This man had a vision of the great White Throne. He had been contemplating the terrors of the Lord. His levity is changed into trembling; his indifference is broken up in awe. Why is there so little awe in our religious lives today? Is it because we have lost the Face of God? We gather up all the gracious promises. We lift them out of their context. Promises gathered in their relationship to warnings will tend to our good. We see the same tendency in our choice of hymns. We do not like the hymns in which the whirlwind sweeps and drives. We prefer the hymns that are just filled with honey. Many of us have lost the severities of the New Testament. It is because these terrors are left out in our religious conceptions, and in our preaching, that the frivolity of men is gratified and coddled by illegitimate sweetness. We must re-proclaim the elements of severity which minister to a bracing holiness. Men do not feel the power of the gospel when in Christ they discern nothing to fear. Thomas Boston said that the net of the gospel needed to be weighted with the leads of the terrors of the law, or it would lightly float on the surface and no fish be caught. We must steadily keep in view the sterner patches of the New Testament teaching. We must contemplate the whiteness of the Eternal, and stand in awe, "and put your trust in the. Lord." How graciously the passage closes . The. awe and the trembling converge m fruitful trust! The discovery of the holy Sovereignty, the discovery of personal defilement, the discovery of a Redeemer, are consummated in the discovery of rest. When I have found my "righteousness" my part is now to trust. The awe, the purity of the holy Sovereignty will become mine. Trust keeps open the line of communication between the soul and God. Along that line convoys of blessedness are brought into the heart; manifold gifts of grace for the weak and defenceless spirit. When I trust I keep open the "highway of the Lord," and along that road there come to me from the Eternal my bread, my water, my instructions, my powers of defence. "I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me." I can work out my own salvation with fear and trembling." (J. H. Jowett, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah.WEB: Stand in awe, and don't sin. Search your own heart on your bed, and be still. Selah. |
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