Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vols. 13–63

Psalm 119:129. Your testimonies are wonderful: therefore does my soul keep them. It is very wonderful that God should speak to us at all, but still more marvelous that He should write to us such a book as this Bible. The Book itself is full of wonders and one of those wonders is that it reveals Him whose name is "Wonderful." Observe that the Psalmist, having said to the Lord, "Your testimonies are wonderful," does not add, "Therefore do I sit down and wonder at them." No, his appreciation was practical, let ours be the same—"Your testimonies are wonderful: therefore does my soul keep them."

130. The entrance of Your Words gives light. Those who are most ignorant and have least confidence in their own abilities will, nevertheless, become very wise if they study God's Word.

130-131. It gives understanding to the simple. I opened my mouth, and panted: for I longed for Your commandments. What a wonderful verse that is! The Psalmist cannot describe his longing for God's commandments except by going to the brute creation for a suitable metaphor! He had probably seen the hunted stag stand still and pant to get its breath, all the while longing for the water brooks. So he says, "I opened my mouth, and panted." "I could not put my prayer into words, so I panted. My heart, my breath, my lungs, my very soul panted, for I longed for Your commandments."

132. Look upon me—That is all the Psalmist needs and all that we need, too. If a look from us to God will save us, what must a look from God to us do for us? "Look upon me"—

132-134. And be merciful to me, as You used to do to those that love Your name. Order my steps in Your Word: and let not any iniquity have dominion over me. Deliver me from the oppression of man: so will I keep Your precepts. Some of you, perhaps, may hardly be able to do as you would if you were perfectly free to act, for you are, to a certain extent, under the government and power of ungodly persons. Well, here is a prayer for you to present to the Lord. "Deliver me from the oppression of man: so will I keep Your precepts."

135. Make Your face to shine upon Your servant. That is the best sunshine for us! Let us but have the light of God's Countenance and nothing can put us out of countenance! If the Lord will smile, men may frown as much as they please. So we pray with the Psalmist, "Make Your face to shine upon Your servant."

135-136. And teach me Your statues. Rivers of waters run down my eyes because they keep not Your Law. The Psalmist felt for others as well as for himself. It was not enough for him to be holy—he would have others to be the same. Sin in other men brought sorrow to his heart. "Rivers of waters run down my eyes, because theykeep not Your Law."

137. Righteous are You, O LORD, and upright are Your judgments. After having wept over the sin of men, the Psalmist turns with sweet calmness of spirit to the goodness of God.

138. Your testimonies that You have commanded are righteous and very faithful. "Very faithful." You who have tried and proven God's promises must have found them so—not only faithful, but very faithful, faithful to the letter, faithful to the moment. God seems rather to exceed His promise than ever to fall short of it.

139-140. My zeal has consumed me, because my enemies have forgotten Your Words. Your Word is very pure.— Just now the Psalmist said, "Your testimonies are very faithful. Now he says, "Your Word is very pure." There is no adulteration in this blessed Book—it is the pure Truth of God. You cannot add to it or take from it without making it imperfect! "Your Word is very pure."—

140. Therefore Your servant loves it. It is only a pure heart that loves the pure Word of the Lord! So, if you love the Word of God because of its purity, it is an argument that your heart has been renewed by Grace!

141.I am small and despised: yet I do not forget Your precepts. In verse 139, the Psalmist complained that his enemies had forgotten God's Words. He does not complain of the fault in others and then fall into it, himself, but he says, "Yet I do not forget Your percepts." There are some people who seem to think that it does not much matter what they do. If they were persons of influence, they think that they would be very careful of their example. "But," says one, "I am only a feeble woman—a poor mother with a few children." "Oh," exclaims another, "I am only a child as yet, I cannot influence others!" "Oh," cries a third, "I am simply an ordinary working man, nobody notices me." Listen to what the Psalmist says, "I am small and despised: yet I do not forget Your precepts. I do not make an excuse out of my littleness, that I may be careless in my living." Take that message home, dear Friends, and learn its lesson, for it applies to many of you!

142. Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness—What a wonderful sentence! Just now, the Psalmist said, "Your testimonies that You have commanded are righteousness." (See the marginal reading of verse 138). Now he advances another step and says, "Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness."

142. And Your Law is the truth. That is what I believe this Book of God is—" the truth." I know of nothing Infallible but the Bible. Every man must have a fixed point somewhere—some believe in an infallible pope, and some in an infallible church, but I believe in an Infallible Book, expounded by the Infallible Spirit who is ready to guide us into all truth—"Your Law is the truth."

143. Trouble and anguish have taken hold on me: yet Your commandments are my delight. What a curious mixture this verse describes! Here is a man full of trouble and anguish, and yet full of delight at the same time! Little do they understand human nature and especially gracious human nature, who cannot comprehend this paradox. There are many seemingly contradictions in the Christian life and this is one of them. "Trouble and anguish have taken hold of me"—as dogs lay hold of their prey—"yet Your commandments are my delights." The Apostle Paul pictured another such a case as this when he wrote, "We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed. We are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed." And he also described the Christian paradox, "As unknown, and yet well known, as dying and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things." May we all understand these paradoxes in our own experiences!

144. The righteousness of Your testimonies is everlasting: give me understanding, and I shall live. Now let us read what the Lord Jesus said to those who professed to reverence the Scripture, but who really made it void by their traditions.

Matthew 15:1. Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying.—They had taken a journey to come and attack Him. Perhaps they had been sent as a deputation to try to thwart the Savior. What a vexation of spirit it must have been to His pure and holy mind to come into conflict with these triflers, these self-righteous, self-confident men! Why did they some to Christ? To plead with Him for the poor people who were perishing for lack of knowledge, or to ask Him how souls could be saved and how God could be glorified? Oh, no! They came to ask the Savior about a very different subject—

2. Why do Your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders?For they wash not their hands when they eat bread. Would you have thought that full-grown men could have made it a matter of business to come from Jerusalem down into the country to talk to Christ about the fact that His disciples did not always wash their hands before they ate their breakfasts? Yet we have men, nowadays, who make a great point of what is to be done with the so-called "consecrated" bread that is left, and who are much concerned about what kind of a dress a "priest" ought to wear when he is engaged in the performance of certain duties! How sad is it that such trifles as these should occupy the minds of immortal beings while men are dying and God is dishonored!

3. But Hie answered and said to them, Why do you, also, transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?He answered their question by asking another, in which he drew the contrast between transgressing the tradition of the elders and transgressing the commandment of God!

4-6. For God commanded, saying, Honor your father andmother: and, He that curses father or mother, let him die the death. But you say, Whoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatever you might be profited by me; and honors not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have you made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition. Whatever might be said about regarding the tradition of men, God's commandment must be regarded! That stands first and, therefore, our Lord demanded of these scribes and Pharisee an answer to His charge that they had overridden and overlaid a commandment of God by a tradition of their own. If a father and mother, in great need, said to their son, "Help us, for we need bread," and he answered, "I cannot give you anything, for all I have is dedicated to God," the Rabbis taught that he might be exempted from relieving his parents, although they also said that the next day he might undo the dedication of his property and employ it exactly as he pleased. He might use the fact that he had said, "That shekel is for God," as a reason for not giving it to his father who was in need—and then, the very next day—he might take that shekel and spend it exactly as he chose. So God's commandment to honor, and love, and aid our parents was set aside by their tradition.

7-9. You hypocrites! Well did Elijah prophesy of you, saying, This people draws near to Me with their mouth, and honors Me with their lips; but their heart is far from Me. But in vain do they worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. Our Lord never flattered anybody! See how honestly and in what plain terms He addressed these scribes and Pharisees! Yet these were the great teachers of His day and thought themselves the bright light of the age, the very leaders of the people in all that was good! But Christ addressed them as, "You hypocrites," and gave them a text of Scripture which clearly applied to them. They had all manner of outward forms of worship. They talked very much about the Bible—they studied every Word of it and even counted the letters in every chapter—but they had no regard to the real meaning of God's Word! And their heart was not right with the Lord. The Savior patiently talked with them, but He also sternly rebuked them and denounced them as hypocrites.

10. And He called the multitude. As much as if He had said to the scribes and Pharisees, "I cannot waste My time arguing with you. I am going to talk to these poor people who are perishing and I shall have more hope of doing good among the multitude than among you, though you consider yourselves the aristocracy of the church."

10, 11. And said to them, Hear, and understand: not that which goes into the mouth defiles a man; but that which comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man. This was not very clear at first, it needed to be thought over and well considered. The Savior dropped it into the popular mind, like a seed, and left it to grow and develop in due season.

12. Then came His disciples, and said to him, Do You know that the Pharisees were offended, after they heard this saying? The wonder was that they were not offended before! It certainly was not a matter of concern to Christ whether they were offended or not—He would not tone down the Truth of God in order to please them.

13. But He answered and said, Every plant which My heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up. Every teacher whom God has not sent will find his teaching contradicted by Christ. The Truth of God is like a spade—it turns up the soil for that life to grow in it which should grow—and it is also the means of killing the weeds. "Every plant which My heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up." May we all be plants of His right-hand planting! Amen.