Dear Friends,
Anything that has to do with the Word of God should find a ready place in our hearts and minds and this is certainly true of David’s “Great Psalm.” Psalm 119. It is especially true, perhaps, with regards to the second part of the psalm. Verses 9 to 16. Its great theme is the practical outworking of the Word of God in our lives: the Word of God, not simply in our mouths, or our minds, or, indeed, even our “hearts,” but in our “hands” and in all our actions. And that is an issue that, surely, ever needs to be before us, and revived amongst us.
“Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?” That is the question that David poses right at the outset of the psalm. What follows on from that is the undeniable testimony that it is God’s truth – if that truth is working in us as it ought to do – that then governs our lives and is to direct our lives according to its dictates. “Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?” Answer? “By taking heed thereto according to thy word.”
Thy word have I hid in mine heart,” says the psalmist again, in the 11th verse of the psalm; and for this purpose – “that I might not sin against thee.” “I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies,” he says again, in verse 14: and as the old Puritan, Thomas Manton, observes, David not only rejoices in God’s testimonies, God’s scriptures – but in the way of God’s scriptures - in the “way of thy testimonies.” “His delight was not in speculation, or talk,” he says, “but, in obedience and practice; in the way of thy testimonies.”
In other words, the word of God is productive, and meant to be productive, in our lives and in the lives of our churches; but, sad to say, there seems to be a ready acceptance of the notice – even among evangelical and reformed churches – that we can safely stop short of the actual implementing of God’s Word in our midst so long as it is retained in “sound” and in “form.”
For example: some time ago we were told of an evangelical minister in one of our State Churches who really “lashed out” against some of his “Elders.” The minister pronounced from the pulpit that he had heard better language during his days in the army barracks than he heard from some of his “Elders.” Quite a statement; and it sent the “evangelical wing” of that particular church home rejoicing that they had such an outspoken preacher. What should have happened, of course, was that the said minister should have taken those men called “Elders” by the seat of the trousers and thrown them out of the oversight of Christ’s church.
It is a fair observation that people will generally tolerate the most outspoken ministry from a pulpit so long as it doesn’t actually get down to “floor level” and demands to be applied as well as applauded. But such and attitude is contrary to the total purpose of God’s word given to us.
The Word of God is the Church’s only rule of faith and practice. It is given to us not only to bring us to faith, but to keep us in the faith. We live in a day when it might be reasonably demonstrated that a good many professed evangelical churches could exist quite independently from the Bible! Oh, the Bible is required in some ways, and for some things; it is required in order to have the public reading of the Scriptures, it is required to provide some suitable “text” for the preacher to base a sermon on, it is required to create the general tone that the church is “Biblical” and “holds to the truth,” it is required for the bolstering of some dearly-held traditional viewpoint or position. But when it comes to attempting to actually understand, or implement, or apply the Biblical principles of conduct in our churches, in so many cases, these seem to be either simply ignored or openly disregarded.
Well, none of that is in keeping with the thrust of the 119th Psalm, nor with that vital second part of the psalm made mention of. How it would become us all to read it, and re-read it, again and again. To return to it and never rest from it until we know more and more of the psalmist’s resolve, to not only know the Word of the Lord, but to do it: “I will meditate in thy precepts and have respect unto thy ways.”