The Righteous One looking up to the God of grace from amid a world lying in wickedness

From Genesis to Revelation there is the flowing of the “river of thy pleasures.” There the saints of all ages have drunk of the eternal waters, and their soul thirst met. 

It springs up at the dawn of creation, for “a river went out of Eden to water the garden.” ‘Eden’ means ‘delight’ or ‘pleasure.’ We trace its unceasing flow into the psalms, for “there is a river the streams thereof make glad the city of God.” Then Ezekiel speaks of it in gospel and graphic terms, as a “river that I could not pass over,” and its source was from under the threshold of the temple. Comes the New Testament, and our Lord declares that anyone believing in Him, then out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. Finally, John, in his Revelation, saw “a river of water of life clear as crystal proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.” 

This living water carrying God’s pleasure, sustains the church of all ages, and has its risings in Christ Himself.

Pastor Jeff O’ Neil

Recommended Tune: Ballerma, London New (v 5-12)

Psalm 36

¹The wicked man’s transgression
Within my heart thus says,
Undoubtedly the fear of God
Is not before his eyes.

²Because himself he flattereth
In his own blinded eye,
Until the hatefulness be found
Of his iniquity.

³Words from his mouth proceeding are,
Fraud and iniquity:
He to be wise, and to do good,
Hath left off utterly.

⁴He mischief, lying on his bed,
Most cunningly doth plot:
He sets himself in ways not good,
Ill he abhorreth not.

⁵Thy mercy, LORD, is in the heav’ns;
Thy truth doth reach the clouds:
⁶Thy justice is like mountains great;
Thy judgments deep as floods:

LORD, thou preservest man and beast.
⁷How precious is thy grace!
Therefore in shadow of thy wings
Men’s sons their trust shall place.

⁸They with the fatness of thy house
Shall be well satisfied;
From rivers of thy pleasures thou
Wilt drink to them provide.

⁹Because of life the fountain pure
Remains alone with thee;
And in that purest light of thine
We clearly light shall see.

¹⁰Thy lovingkindness unto them
Continue that thee know;
And still on men upright in heart
Thy righteousness bestow.

¹¹Let not the foot of cruel pride
Come, and against me stand;
And let me not removed be,
Lord, by the wicked’s hand.

¹²There fallen are they, and ruin’d,
That work iniquities:
Cast down they are, and never shall
Be able to arise.