"In repentance and rest is your salvation;
in quietness and trust is your strength."
Turning back to the LORD from our folly and foibles, confessing and forsaking our all-too-familiar sins and choosing to rest in God is in itself salvation, the royal road to the relief of rescue. To put aside all the noise of our nervous laughter and the nonsense of our boasts - embracing instead the stillness of quiet and consciously, deliberately, placing our trust in our Saviour, we will discover and enter a strength not of our own making.
The appeal of the Holy One is winsome and full of a warmth that compels and draws. Such a tender, loving entreaty.
"But you would have none of it."
The tragedy in those words is unspeakable. Such is the distortion of sin in deforming our souls that words which freely offer life in place of festering decay are summarily dismissed.
We should not miss the significance of what this says, not simply of others but of ourselves, too. Under the influence of sin we are capable of self-destructive madness, choosing instead to forge our own escape route out of life's despairs, a road that only leads to intensified misery. The LORD lays bare the way of life and there are times we can barely bring ourselves to walk one step on it.
Sin doesn't only take us to the edge, it is intent on hurling us over. Who could deliver us from such a body of death?
The One who in the face of such blatant and wilful rejection declares,
"Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you;
therefore he will rise up to show you compassion.
For the LORD is a God of justice.
Blessed are all who wait for him!"
It isn't over.
There is hope beyond the rebellion, a rescue after the hurling aside of the overtures of grace. The one thing that ultimately matters, that truly counts, is his determination to bless. It is his stand against all our sin and its condemnation in the flesh of his Son, our Lord Jesus, that gives convulsive sinners lasting hope.
Are you a Christian who knows that your struggles with sin are not yet over? Who feels the agony of betraying the Lord who gave himself for you? Then pair that biblical realism with the sovereign goodness that will never fail you, the love that will not let you go.
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Depth of mercy! can there be
Mercy still reserved for me?
Can my God his wrath forbear?
Me, the chief of sinners spare?
I have long withstood His grace,
Long provoked Him to His face,
Would not hearken to His calls,
Grieved Him by a thousand falls.
Whence to me this waste of love?
Ask my Advocate above!
See the cause in Jesu's face,
Now before the throne of grace.
There for me the Saviour stands;
Shows His wounds and spreads His hands.
God is love; I know, I feel;
Jesus lives, and loves me still.
Jesus, answer from above:
Is not all Thy nature love?
Wilt Thou not the wrong forget?
Suffer me to kiss Thy feet?
If I rightly read Thy heart,
If Thou all compassion art,
Bow Thine ear, in mercy bow;
Pardon and accept me now.
(Charles Wesley, 1707-88)
