12.14.2012 PSALM 119.126-8

taken from spurgeon's treasury of david. the focus is most all on the first verse but i added the last two of this group of eight verses for i received such a blessing from this simple thought:
if when 'it is time for the lord to work
i myself set myself to
Love His commandments above all else in life
esteem everything He says to be right and
hate everything He says is wrong
can it not be said that maybe it is possible
for a sinner to, in this way, assist God in some small way in His work..
to slip into His easy yoke and as we work together to learn more sweetly of Him?

126 it is time for Thee, Lord, to work:
for they have made void Thy law.
127therefore i love Thy commandments above gold;
yea, above fine gold.
128 therefore i esteem all Thy precepts concerning all things
to be right;
and i hate every false way.

david was a servant, and therefore,
it was always his time to work;
but being oppressed by a sight of man's ungodly behavior,
he feels that his master's hand is wanted,
and therefore He appeals to Him to work
against the working of evil.
men make void the law of God by denying it to be His law,
by promulgating commands and doctrines in opposition to it,
by setting up tradition in its place,
or by utterly disregarding and scorning the authority of the lawgiver.
then sin becomes fashionable,
and a holy walk is regarded as contemptible puritanism;
vice is styled pleasure,
and vanity bears the bell.
then the saints sigh for the presence and power of their God;
o for an hour of the King upon the throne and the rod of iron!
oh for another pentecost with all its wonders,
to reveal the energy of god to gainsayers,
and to make them see that there is a God in Israel!
man's extremity, whether of need or sin, is God's opportunity.
when the earth was without form and void,
the Spirit came and moved upon the face of the waters;
should He not come when society is returning to a like chaos?
when israel in egypt were reduced to the lowest point,
and it seemed that the covenant would be void,
then moses appeared and wrought mighty miracles;
so, too, when the church of god is trampled down,
and her message is derided,
we may expect to see the hand of the lord
stretched out for revival of religion,
the defense of the truth,
and the glorifying of the divine name.
the Lord can work either by judgments which hurl down the ramparts of the foe;
or by revivals which build up the walls of his own jerusalem.
how heartily may we pray to the Lord to raise up new evangelists,
to quicken those we already have,
to set His whole church on fire
and to bring the whole world to His feet.
God's work is ever honourable and glorious;
as for our work, it is as nothing apart from Him.                        spurgeon

v126 'it is time for Thee, Lord, to work'
was ever vessel more hopelessly becalmed in mid ocean?
or did crew ever cry with more frenzy for some favouring breeze
than those should cry who man the church of the living God?
if God work not,
it is certain there is nothing before the church
but the prospect of utter discomfiture and overthrow.
greater is the world than the church
if  God be not in her.
but if God be in her,
she shall not be moved.
may He help her and that right early!

when He arises to work we know not what may be the form and fashion of His operations.
He worketh according to the counsel of His own will;
and who knows but that when once he awakes,
and puts on His strength,
it may not be confined in its results to the
immediate and exclusive quickening of the spiritual life of the church.;
but may be associated with providential upheavals and convulsions
which will fill the heart of the world with astonishment and dismay.
His spiritual kingdom does not stand in isolation.
it has relations which closely involve it with the material universe,
and with human society and national life.
there have been times when God has worked,
and the signs of His presence have been seen,
in terrible shakings of the nations,
int the ploughing up from their foundations of hoary injustice,
in the smiting of grinding tyrannies,
and in the emancipation of peoples
whose life had been a long and hopeless moan.
there have been times, too, and many,
when He has worked through the elements of nature-
through blasting and mildew,
through floods and famine,
through locust, caterpillar and palmer worm;
through flagging commerce,
with its machinery rusting in the mill
and its ships rotting in the harbour.
all these things are His servants.
sometimes the sleep of the world and the church
is so profound that it can be broken only by agencies like
the wind,or fire, or earthquake,
which made the prophet shiver at the mouth of the cave
and without which the voice that followed,
so small and tender,
would have lost much of its melting and subduing power.
when society has become drugged with the circean cup of worldliness
and the voices that come from eternity are unheeded, if not unheard,
even terror has its merciful mission.
the frivolous and superficial hearts of men have to be made serious,
their idols have to be broken,
their nests have to be stoned
or tossed from the trees
where they have to be taught
that if this life be all,
it is but a phantom
and a mockery.
when the day of the Lord shall come,
in which He shall begin to work,
let us not marvel if it
'shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty,
and upon all the cedars of lebanon, that are high and lifted up,
and upon every high tower,
and upon every fenced wall,
and upon all the ships of tarshish,
and upon all pleasant pictures.
and the loftiness of man shall be bowed down,
and the haughtiness of men shall be made low;
and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.

but this working of God will also take other shapes.
will it not be seen in the inspiration of the church with faith in its own creed,
so far as that creed has the warrant of the divine