As the Midnight Sky Flashes with Its Sparkling Lights

For Thy Word’s sake, and according to Thine own heart, hast thou wrought all this greatness, to make Thy servant know it.”  II Samuel  7:21

“So David spoke thankfully and adoringly, tracing to two matchless sources the unspeakable riches which God had lavished…

“For his Word’s sake God blesses me.  He has bound Himself to do so by all the great and precious promises which He has uttered in my hearing.  His book, from Genesis to Revelation, is studded with them, as the midnight sky gleams and flashes with its sparkling lights.  I heard once of a saint who set out to count the promises of the Bible; but having enumerated thirty-eight thousand, he abandoned the attempt in despair.  Indeed, it was a quixotic* enterprise.  For all the names of my Lord are implicit promises.  And so are the various doctrines of His truth.  And so are the mighty acts in the past history of His people.  And having spoken thus often and thus strongly, by diverse portions and in diverse manners, He will perform; He is not a man that He should lie, nor the Son of Man that He should repent.  His own faith keeping character ensures that He will fulfill His largest engagements.  What He has pledged Himself to give me in time and in eternity, He will bestow.

“And according to His own heart God blesses me.  I fancy that this new clause outruns and surpasses its predecessor, glorious although that is.  The language of the lips cannot unveil all that lies in the soul; the promises of my Lord do not explain and exhaust His thoughts of peace; God’s heart is fuller, profounder, tenderer, more mysterious, more ineffable, than God’s Word…But I must wait for the everlasting future if I would comprehend all that He has planned, and all that He has gained for my soul.  What king has wealth like mine?”

(*quixotic: exceedingly idealistic; unrealistic and impractical)

--taken from Alexander Smellie, In the Secret Place