Sermon Tone Analysis

| Bible study (West Wickham.

England.) |

| *Arise into Thy Rest* |

| *Arise, O Lord, into thy rest; thou, and the ark of thy strength.

\\ Psalm 132:8 \\ \\ \\ \\ *"LORD, remember David, and all his afflictions:" Ps 132:1 \\ \\ So, with deeply touching feeling, does this beautiful song begin.

"A man after God's own heart.."

This was the description of David given by the Lord years before he was born.

We know this because the words appear in Samuel's reproof of Saul in 1Samuel 13:14, because of his foolishness in running before the Lord, lacking, as he was, in faith.

That incident, we are told at the outset of the chapter in verse 1, occurred just two years into Saul's reign.

Paul tells us that Saul reigned 40 years (Acts 13:21.), and in 2 Sam 5:4, we read, "David was thirty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years."

So we see that David was not yet born when Saul showed his unworthiness and drew forth the reproof from the Lord through Samuel, including this description.. (1 Sam 13:14) "But now thy kingdom shall not continue: the LORD hath sought him a man after his own heart, and the LORD hath commanded him to be captain over his people, because thou hast not kept that which the LORD commanded thee."

\\ \\ The wonder of divine foreknowledge had brought melody into David's life as he sang in Psalm 132, verse 16, "Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them."

These are wonderful words to the David class of this age, the members of the Lord's Anointed, His Christ.

Everything that David sang in Psalm 139 was a confession based upon deep experience with his God.

In verse 1, how intimately the Lord had known his every thought, and (verse 2) anticipated his responses before every circumstance.

"O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me.

(2) Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off."

Verse 5 tells that David came to realise that every step of his way was beset by the Lord Whose hand was there in each experience.

"Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me."

The nearness of the Lord became the central theme in David's life.

Wherever he was, in the heights, in the depths, the Lord was always there, green pastures, still waters, dark valleys.. "Thou art with me.." \\ \\ That wonderful mind of God, those precious overrulings, how great was the sum of them.

These are the words of the Holy Spirit's prompting.

They speak both of David in the flesh and of the greater David that he was used to foreshadow, Jesus, and the Church His Body.

Here once more the Lord describes beforehand the experiences and testimonies of the saints during this Gospel age.. "It is written.." they were marked out beforehand "in the volume of the book."

"when as yet there were none of them.." Another book has since been written.. a book of remembrance, written throughout the age, of those who fear His Name.

So the request to remember David is a very touching one, as if the Lord Who has known all things from the beginning, and had beset before and behind each saint of God, and written each one in His memory, as if He COULD forget!

What man remembers, how can God forget!

He is not unrighteous to forget.

Though a mother forget, yet will I not forget..

In reality, however, this remarkable plea is not a jogging of the Lord's memory so much as a clear statement of the relationship between the desire of David and the desire of Jehovah.

It is a plea for a response already promised of the Lord.

Therefore it is the claiming of a promise.

\\ \\ It is the claiming of a promise with great desire!

This is a song about two vows, both pledged in love.

(verses 2 & 11.) Ps 132:2, "How he sware unto the LORD, and vowed unto the mighty God of Jacob;" & 11, "The LORD hath sworn in truth unto David; he will not turn from it; Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne."

The vow of David comprises the desires and endeavours of saints.

The vow of the Lord reveals something wonderful about our God.

These two vows form two sides of a bond, the most remarkable bond of all ages, a bond between the Lord and His people.

\\ \\ We do not know exactly when this song was written, nor for what occasion, but we can have no doubt whatever what the Spirit is saying to our hearts through these words.

Solomon uttered what might be regarded as an echo of this psalm at the time of the dedication of the Temple.

The psalm may not have been written then, but what Solomon said on that occasion certainly repeats the burden of the song. 2 Chr 6:41-42, "Now therefore arise, O LORD God, into thy resting place, thou, and the ark of thy strength: let thy priests, O LORD God, be clothed with salvation, and let thy saints rejoice in goodness.

O LORD God, turn not away the face of thine anointed: remember the mercies of David thy servant."

That event foreshadowed the very special time in which we, of all the Lord's people, are privileged to live.

The saints, the David class of this age, have all but finished their course.

The Lord is, even now, making up His jewels.

With what depth of satisfaction did He cause to be written.. "They shall be Mine.."!

What great yearning lies behind those words!

\\ \\ What is it about these people of God that make them to Him such a peculiar treasure?

We find, perhaps, a clue in those words, "LORD, remember David, and all his afflictions:" The afflictions of the saints throughout the age have been many.

Some of these we may glimpse in snatches of church history preserved for us, and what the historian misses the Lord remembers.

In a special sense has the death of His saints been precious in His sight.

For each thus proved faithful unto death He has a crown of life, but the death that mattered was that which took place long before that last breath, when the heart became dead to all else than that single desire represented here in David's longing, to "find a place for the Lord."

While it was true that many things David was called to suffer were because of the Lord's claim when He took him from the sheepfold, there is also a special sense in which David's afflictions were self-afflictions, the self-afflicting of his own soul, that is, the earnestness of the intense longing to build a beautiful and worthy and holy temple for his God.

David vowed a vow, he made a solemn promise to his God which revealed that utter singleness of heart.

Ps 132:3-5, "Surely I will not come into the tabernacle of my house, nor go up into my bed; I will not give sleep to mine eyes, or slumber to mine eyelids, Until I find out a place for the LORD, an habitation (worthy) for the mighty God of Jacob."

\\ \\ "Habitation" here is plural, denoting a worthy dwelling place, for this is a Hebrew language device to add quality or majesty.

Between the cherubim wings above the ark was that depicting the Lord's shekinah, the presence of a great and holy God, but the ark was clothed only with a tent, a flimsy structure of temporary fabric, and David longed to provide for it a more permanent abode truly worthy of his God.

The ark had remained for years at Shiloh, in the area of Ephraim which some scriptures imply was called Ephratah, and this may be the reference in verse 6. "Lo, we heard of it at Ephratah: we found it in the fields of the wood."

The fields of Jearim, or of Kiriath-Jearim, the city of the wood, was the place in particular referred to in the account.

Here the ark was to be found in the early days of David.

\\ \\ It is curious to note that during the period of David's life the ark never resided in the Tabernacle in its appointed place, the Most Holy.

Eli's sons had taken the ark to boost the morale of the Israelites, who were not doing well in fighting off the Philistines, but the Israelites were defeated, and the ark was taken by the enemy.

Seven months later the Philistines were glad to get rid of it, for it brought a two-fold plague upon the Philistines, the details of which we will not go into, save to say that the Lord smote them where it hurt!

Oh! what a wonderful moment when the reapers of the Bethshemesh fields looked up from their labours and saw the approach of that ark drawn on a cart by milking cows who, under divine compulsion, and directly against nature, had left their crying calves to bear their precious load back into the territory of the Lord's people.

The ark was returned from the land of the enemy, and the Philistines who had followed afar off to see what would happen, watched in great awe this sign of God's power.

Both in wonder and delight was this sign parallelled by the raising of Jesus from the dead, the land of the enemy, to triumph over principalities and powers, making of them an open show.

\\ \\ After a brief respite at that place the ark was taken to Kiriath-jearim, where it remained for at least 70 years, until David had taken Jerusalem and sought to convey the ark to Zion as its permanent abode.

The road from Kiriath-jearim towards Jerusalem leads constantly upwards as the mountains become higher, and this makes for steep and rugged ascent travelling eastward towards the sunrise and Mount Zion.

The first attempt to bring it to its permanent abode met with failure.

It was not the Lord's way.

It was, in fact, the way of the Philistines, for the ark was again placed upon a new cart, a man-made construction, with oxen to pull it along.

This was a movement not of the Lord, but of the world and of Satan, and it would end in disaster.

As the jolting of the cart threatened to off-load the precious contents, a human hand reached out to steady the ark of God, and Uzzah became a son of destruction.

Oh how wary we are of human ways and human hands in the things of God.

\\ \\ Papacy was such a movement, based upon the way of the Philistine with many human hands trying to control the things of God.

Other similar examples were to follow.

Why were such things allowed?

If for o other reason it certainly brings home to the Lord's people the unspeakable privilege of that holy walk with God that was later depicted in the proper care of the Levites who, clothed in linen and in harmony with divine direction, bore the precious weight of God's glory upon their shoulders, treating with deep respect and awe this wonderful symbol of that holy presence.

"Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord."

We who are perhaps the third generation in the Harvest Truth movement, it is not enough that our parents walked with God.

The father of Uzzah for years had tended that ark and had known the blessing of the divine presence and favour, but that did not save his son.

The walk with God is a holy walk as testified by saints of each generation.

To us belongs the inestimable privilege of learning to live with the glory of God, a consuming fire of all unworthy, an overshadowing of the glory-cloud that envelopes and works its wondrous task within the heart of saint.

\\ \\ Remember David, and the way he afflicted his soul!

It is our earnest vow, our chief concern above all other things of life, more than natural comfort or rest of body, to FIND OUT A PLACE WORTHY OF THE LORD.

It is a life-time desire and work, yet what sense of immediacy it gives to set this as my goal TODAY.

"Surely I will not come into the tabernacle of my house, nor go up into my bed; I will not give sleep to mine eyes, or slumber to mine eyelids, until I find out a place for the LORD.." Oh what priceless privilege it is to know the Lord, and to walk, to dwell, with that One Who inhabits Eternity, and Whose Name is Holy.

Is MY heart a place WORTHY for such a Being?

Can it EVER be?

The Lord has provided the means of grace whereby the man of God may be "Thoroughly furnished.." furnished right through, in ways totally acceptable to the Lord of Glory.

It is the Lord Himself Who beautifies His Sanctuary, but it is the fear of the Lord, that deepest reverential state of heart, that opens to Him the door.

There are states and conditions even of the humblest human heart in which HE is exalted, in which He is given the highest place, given the honour and glory due to such a Being, and there He is happy to place His Name.

\\ \\ David was a man after God's Own heart.

In his walk with God for years he had been laying up the materials of the permanent abode.

In 1 Chr 22:5, we read David's words.. "the house that is to be builded for the LORD must be exceeding magnifical (magnificent), of fame and of glory throughout all countries: I will therefore NOW make preparation for it.

So David prepared abundantly before his death." 1 Chr 29:2.. "I have prepared with all my might for the house of my God.." 1 Chr 28:11-12, tells us that the holy Spirit filled David's mind with the pattern of the things holy to God, "Then David gave to Solomon his son the pattern of the porch, and of the houses thereof, and of the treasuries thereof, and of the upper chambers thereof, and of the inner parlours thereof, and of the place of the mercy seat, And the pattern of all that he had by the spirit, of the courts of the house of the LORD, and of all the chambers round about, of the treasuries of the house of God, and of the treasuries of the dedicated things:" In accordance with this pattern David prepared the materials.. (1 Chr 29:2,) "Now I have prepared with all my might for the house of my God the gold for things to be made of gold, and the silver for things of silver, and the brass for things of brass, the iron for things of iron, and wood for things of wood; onyx stones, and stones to be set, glistering stones, and of divers colours, and all manner of precious stones, and marble stones in abundance."

The zeal of David was the motivation for the most thorough endeavour, (vse 3) "because I have set my affection to the house of my God." \\ \\ When Jesus encourages us to seek first the Kingdom of Heaven, and to lay up treasures in heaven as our heart's preoccupation and delight, he speaks to the David class of this age.

This is "the building of God, an house not made with human hands, eternal in the heavens.." of which Paul speaks (2Cor.

5:1.)

David was given a pattern of what was to be after his death, after the earthly house of David's tabernacle was dissolved, and in that ancient Temple of God itself lies a pattern of the greater and more perfect dwelling place of God.

We search the accounts of that Temple of Solomon, that noble edifice which was the answer to all David's desires.