Psalm 16:7 – I will bless the Lord, who hath given me counsel: my reins also instruct me in the night seasons.
The Holy Ghost is a spirit of counsel, powerfully instructing and convincingly teaching how to act and walk, for He directs us to set right steps, and to walk with a right foot, and thereby prevents us of many a sin, by seasonable instruction set on upon our hearts with a strong hand. For instance, in the agony and conflict in the garden, when Jesus prayed, “Let this cup pass,” it was this good Spirit that counselled Him to die; and He blessed God for it: “I bless the Lord that hath given me counsel.” It was that counsel that in that case caused His heart to say, “Not my will, but thine.”
There is a common saying, “the pillow is the best counselor;” and there is much truth in the saying, especially if we have first committed ourselves in prayer to God, and taken a prayerful spirit with us to our bed. In the quiet of its silent hours, undisturbed by the passions, and unharassed by the conflicts of the world, we can commune with our own heart, and be instructed and guarded as to our future course even “in the night season.”
David especially seems to have made these seasons sources of great profit as well as delight. Sometimes he loved to meditate upon God, as he lay upon his bed; and it was no doubt as he meditated on the Lord’s goodness, that he was constrained, even at midnight, to arise and pray.
While, therefore, we acknowledge the pillow to be a good counselor, let us with David here acknowledge also that it is the Lord who gives the counsel, and sends the instruction in the night season.
