Ephesians 5:19 Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; Joy in God opens a thousand gates at once. There are gates in the heart, gates in the mind, gates in the nerves and muscles of the body, and gates in the atmosphere, which may be either open to Heaven's tide of sweet influence, or shut against it. Unbelief and gloom shut the gates: hope and joy open them. But the gates are very secret, and when heaven is pouring itself in, whether upon souls in their closets, or upon congregations, no one suspects how, or by what channels, the tide has come. The joy in God, of a single soul in private, may let loose a blessing that shall run round the whole earth in its mission of comfort, and carry in its glance the break of day to numberless sad hearts. In the world, the Divine life finds prose enough; but in himself, every child of God is a new Divine poem and temple of psalmody. The understanding is not able always to appreciate the melody which is made unto the Lord, in the inmost chambers of the soul. The understanding misjudges it, and calls it groaning, because it has no ear to hear the purest music of the heart. "Blessed are they that mourn." God joys with singing, and rests in His love, over His mourners. In the "bitterest cry of His best beloved: "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" the Father hears the midnight singing in the morning to all broken hearts. (J. Pulsford.) Parallel Verses KJV: Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; |
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