381. Tuesday after Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity.
Psalm 42, 1-5. As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God? When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude; I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holyday. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? Hope thou in God; for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.
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True Christians have a deep and imperative longing to commune with God in their hearts. They cannot do without him; no substitute whatever will satisfy them. Their soul thirsts and pants after God himself, the living God. They must speak with him out of their heart daily, and satisfy themselves with his word; and when the church has its meeting with him they always find it necessary to be present. The thirsty man needs no command to drink. Instinct teaches the infant to find the mother’s breast. True Christians need no ordinances to compel them to go to church; but by reason of the temptations of the flesh and the devil, that is nevertheless a good commandment of the Lord which says: “Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy.” Even the devil knows that a diligent use of the word of God is more necessary than all things else; therefore he especially tempts us to neglect the word, and cannot endure to have us sit still and hear what Jesus speaks to us. For this reason the Lord introduces this particular commandment with his emphatic “Remember!” It is a precious command, which is in harmony with the inner law in every sanctified soul. He who can go on day after day without the word of God is surely dead, and his heart is more dark than that of a heathen; and he who does not care to attend divine service, and to partake of the Lord’s supper, has no part in the kingdom of heaven. When in the darkness of temptation the Lord is lost to sight by the believer, the soul is made to bend like a bulrush, or it becomes like a stormy sea. If he did not have the word, he would despair; the word keeps hope alive: “Hope thou in God; for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.” — I know not what is worse; either those terrible thoughts of unbelief, which deny God, and are like a “sword in my bones”; or the sense of fear before God as the just judge, the waves and billows of whose wrath go over the soul (verse 7). Yet the upright receive help forevermore. “The Lord will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life” (v. 9). He who panteth after him, as the hart after the water brooks, and who therefore eats the bread of tears all the day long, shall yet close his complaint at last with the song of hope in praise of his victory over the powers of darkness. “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God; for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.” Yet the word was and is the light and comfort, the shield and weapon of all saints.*
The word they still shall let abide,
Nor thanks be due them for it;
The Lord of hosts is by our side,
Grants us his gifts and Spirit;
And though they take our life,
Goods, honor — children, wife,
Yet, when their worst is done,
They still have nothing won:
The Kingdom ours remaineth.
[TLH 262, LSB 656, ELH 250; listen here]
* Here the head of the family says a short morning or evening prayer in his own words, and closes with the Lord’s Prayer and the Benediction. This is to be done every day. If the stanzas are not sung, they may be read in their proper place before the impromptu petition and the Lord’s Prayer.