Chapter viii - Conclusion
I have quoted at the head of the chapter those words of the Psalmist which lead us up the River to its Source. “For with Thee is the fountain of Life”; with Thee, Jehovah; with Thee, Jehovah-Christ, for “in Thee is Life”; “he that that Thee hath life.”
Let that verse just remind us of the duty and the blessing of continual remembrance of Him as our reason and our rest. There is such a thing as studying even the “possibilities of grace” more than Him who is “the God of all grace.”
It is because of what He is that His people are, even for a moment, what He would have them be. And one deep secret of the development in them of what He would have there, is the contemplation of Him.
Our life and walk, in a sense most practical, need be no intermittent stream of peace and of obedience. Why? Because He is no intermittent spring. Every winter, in modern Jerusalem, a remarkable phenomenon is observed. The channel of the Kedron, usually dry as the valley of dry bones, suddenly resounds with the music of waters. Whatever be the natural cause hidden in the geology of the ravine, for some for or five days the Kedron suddenly and abundantly springs and flows; or, to speak more exactly, it begins abundantly, shrinks somewhat on the second day, and ere long, failing day by day, it has retired into the dry rocks again. Strange and pathetic intermittency! True picture and parable of too many a Christian life and experience! But need it be? “For with Him is the fountain of Life”; “a spring shut up, a fountain sealed” (if we may borrow words of the Holy Song, though they are spoken directly not of Him but of His Bride); shut up, and sealed, as to all access outside of Him; but “a fountain opened,” not only for pardon, but for life and power, to all who are in Him.
Come then, let us come now and ever, to the waters. The eternal Rock is smitten, and is flowing; and where? In the desert, in the drought; to turn the sands into the oasis; to make “the wilderness and the solitary place glad” now.
It is written of the everlasting Canaan that “they shall thirst no more, for the Lamb shall shepherd them, and lead them to the living fountains of waters.” But it is also written of the pathway thither, that “they shall not thirst, for He that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall He guide them.” Let us ask Him to do it indeed. Then we “shall not be careful in the year of drought, nor cease from yielding fruit.”
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