Brooks by the Traveller's Way: Chapter 8 - Lightening the Burden
By John Henry Jowett
"Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee. He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved."--Psalm lv. 22.
To whom is this gracious promise of sustenance made? Some people's burdens are intended to be burdensome; the very heaviness of their load is purposed to discharge a gracious ministry. The yoke of the unrighteous is purposed to be galling. It would be calamitous to ease their pain even by shifting the position of the burden. The load that presses upon their souls may bring them to their knees, and the endurance of pain may issue in the fellowship of prayer. The gracious promise of our text is spoken to the surrendered life. Immovableness shall be the characteristic of the righteous. It is the righteous who remains uncrushed beneath the heaviest load, and who, under the burden, is sustained by the strengthening influences of grace.
I. The Burden Bearers "the Righteous."
But who is the righteous? We can infer the nature of sources by the character of issues. We can discern the nature of the will from the tendency of the life. If we know the effects of living, we can infer its secret springs. Now the Word of God records many significant symptoms and effects and tendencies of the righteous life, and from the observation of these we may possibly interpret its primary character and source. Let us glance at two or three of these descriptive words.
(1) "The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life."
Here is a symptom of the righteous life. Its conversation is vitalising; the purport of its speech is constructive. The Scriptures dwell on this characteristic with very varied emphasis. "Let nothing proceed out of your mouth but what is edifying." Our speech is to aid in the rearing of a stately and exquisitely finished life. "The lips of the righteous feed many." Their speech is food. Their conversation nourishes the minds of those with whom they hold intercourse. Their words revive the better selves of their companions. "The tongue of the righteous is as choice silver." Nothing common or vulgar is permitted. Their speech is carefully selected. It is sincere and refined, and therefore refining. The whole round of their conversation is a gracious "fountain of life."
(2) "The labour of the righteous tendeth to life."
Then not only their speech but their labour is a minister to more abundant life. The manner of the man's labour, the way in which he earns his bread, quickens the common life. There is nothing poisonous about his business ways; nothing perverting or destructive. They are not murderous but vitalising, and tend to quicken and enrich the corporate life.
(3) "The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life."
All the varied issues of his life, all his accomplishments, the plentiful products of character and conduct, everything that emerges from his personality, minister to a more abundant life. All the fruit on his branches tend to sweeten and purify the common life.
Such are a few of the effects and symptoms of the righteous life. From such streams we can infer the spring. "With Thee is the fountain of life." The righteous is in profound fellowship with the Eternal. His will is united by steady, momentary surrender to the will of God. He lives and moves and has his being in the august contemplation of the Eternal. "The fear of the Lord is the fountain of life." The righteous is one who, by reverent fear and obedience, is in communion with the fountain, and the issues of his conduct and character minister to the vital enrichment and purification of the race.
II. The Burden: "Thy Burden."
hat is the burden which is weighing with painful intensity upon the heart of this troubled Psalmist? Let us look abroad over the disturbed surface of the psalm. What does he bemoan as the burden of his soul?
(1) He bemoans the loud unblushing aggressiveness of evil. He goes about the city, and the ostentation of evil fills his eyes and ears--"The voice of the enemy"; "The oppression of the wicked"; "They cast iniquity upon me"; "Violence and strife in the city"; "Iniquity and mischief also"; "Oppression and guile depart not from her streets." It is the burden of social evils which weighs upon the man's soul, as an intolerable and suffocating load. It weighs him down. "My heart is sore pained within me." "Horror hath overwhelmed me."
(2) He bemoans the unfaithfulness of the professor. The leaven of professed goodness is revealing itself to be bad. The salt is going wrong. "It was thou . . . my companion, my familiar friend . . . we walked in the House of the God with the throng." He is burdened by the presence of the unfaithful professor, who hath profaned his covenant. Such is the two-fold perversity which is crushing the Psalmist's soul; the burden of proud evil and the burden of false virtue. In the face of these he is almost seduced into flight. "Oh that I had wings like a dove, then would I fly away and be at rest."
