Msg #2602 Fixing Your Countenance

Msg #2602 Fixing Your Countenance

What The Bible Says

Good Samaritan’s Penny Pulpit by Pastor Ed Rice

Your countenance shows on your face. Noah Webster says it literally means “The external appearance of the contents of a body. Practically, the system of features, or the whole form of the face.” God devotes a whole Psalm for fixing your countenance, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? Why art thou disquieted in me?” (Psalm.42:5a). The prelude covers a profound thirst for God, bitter tears night and day, a pouring out of the soul, and remembering “the voice of joy and praise in the house of God.” It’s a powerful lead up to the question, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul?” and sets a staging area for the soul instructing answer. “Hope thou in God!” AND “Praise him for the help of his countenance!”

This is “maschil” giving instruction, and five “how-to” helps follow: 1) David first recalls three times and places God stepped in providentially (vr.6); and 2) the couple times David was completely overwhelmed (vr.7). 3) He remembers God’s loving kindness, his song in the night, and his own prayer “unto the God of my life” (vr.8). Then 4) David shows the perfect blunt honesty we can have in our prayer (vr.9) and 5) the reality of his enemies, and the brazen question they asked, (which is likewise the question of his tears in vrs3) “Where is thy God?” (vr.10). In verse 11 the soul instruction is rehearsed and enhanced: in vrs5 we “praise him for the help of his countenance”; in vrs11 we praise him “who is the health of my countenance, and my God.” These 11 verses can fix your countenance, not so you put on a game-face, but so you’ll be right on the inside and your “external appearance will be the contents of the body.” That’s profound.

An Essay for week #2 Jan 11, 2026
Msg in audio at www.GSBaptistChurch.com/audio/gs260111.mp3
A Systematic Theology www.GSBaptistChurch.com/theology
Israel Tour Journal www.GSBaptistChurch.com/israel22
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