The Ordinances of God: The Night Watches

Psa 63:6; 130:6; 42:8

By John MacDuff

A wilderness is your place of sojourn. But Immanuel has provided wells in this 'Baca' — this valley of weeping; for the refreshment of His pilgrims! In merciful adaptation to their weakness and needs, He has furnished means and instrumentality to keep alive the flame that would otherwise languish and decay. These are the golden pipes which convey living water to the soul, fed by Christ Himself from the great cistern of His own grace.

Reader! Do you love the ordinances of God's appointment? Is the Sabbath to you a holy and welcome season? Do you gladly respond to the summons, "Go you up into the house of the Lord"? Have you felt that it is there, "He commands the blessing, even life for evermore"? Or, holier ground still; do you rejoice, as the solemn season comes round, to covenant afresh with your adorable Redeemer at His own Sacred Feast; to record anew your unalterable attachment to Him as your Lord and Master, and commemorate His dying, ever-living love? See that it is not be the reverse of all this. Do the hours of the Sabbath, once a delight, "day of all the week the best" — hang heavily upon you? Is prayer now less a privilege than it was? Is the closet less habitually frequented? Is the fire burning with a sicklier glow on the domestic altar? Have the services of the sanctuary become more matter for the head than for the heart? Be assured these are lamentable symptoms of declension — tokens of a backward and downward state. "You did run well — who hindered you?"

Return speedily to the deserted closet! crucify quickly the deadening sin. Have you not thought of it, over and over, at a communion season? Why allow it again to have dominion over you, robbing you of all your joy — extracting all relish from ordinances — impeding grace — grieving the Spirit? Lose no time in seeking restoration of lost filial nearness. "Restore unto me the joy of Your salvation."

The lost Bride, in the Canticles, found her Lord beside the "Shepherds' tents." You may sometimes have long to wait at the 'Gospel Bethesdas' (one of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years), without any visible blessing; but, be assured, the Angel of the Covenant will, in due time, come down, and show that He "is good to those who wait for Him — to the soul that seeks Him." Wait, then, on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart!

Seek to value ordinances, but do not overvalue them. Put not ordinances in the place of the God of ordinances. They are at best but the pole upon which to suspend the brazen serpent; the scaffolding by which to get up beside the Chief cornerstone. "Hold me up, and I shall be safe!" It is not "the altar of God," but "God Himself" who is "the exceeding joy" of His people. And thus, even if wasting health and pining sickness should deprive me of outward ordinances, I may look upwards to that God who, though He "loves the gates of Zion," does not forget "the dwellings of Jacob," and say — "I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety." Psalm 4:8