Psalm 31

31       Lamentation / Thanksgiving (individual)

            My Strength and Courage Is in God

            24 Be strong and let your heart take courage,

            All you who hope in the LORD.

·         Great honor is brought to God by the trust which his people repose in him in the darkest hours.

·         [T]he evil [the righteous] receive here is all the evil that shall ever befall them.

·         God was self-moved to undertake man’s salvation. His glorious name makes it certain the top-stone shall be laid in glory.

·         Dr McLaren of Scotland dying said: “I am gathering together all my sermons and all my prayers, all my good deeds and all my evil deeds, and am throwing them overboard, determined to swim to glory on the plank of free grace.”

·         The worst sting of any trial is sin. This gives our griefs their dreadful poignancy. “The conscience of sin joined with trouble is a load above a burden, and able to break a man’s strength more than any trouble.” (Dickson) The reason is that sin is the bitterest and most accursed thing, the most venomous and deadly poison, the most killing and horrible evil in the universe.

·         God withholds nothing from those, who withhold nothing from him.