Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1969
“Remember the Word unto Your servant upon which You have caused me to hope.” Psalm 119:49.
THE 119th Psalm is a very wonderful composition. Its expressions are many as the waves, but its testimony is one as the sea. It deals all along with the same subject and it consists, as you observe, of a vast number of verses, some of which are very similar to others. And yet throughout the 176 stanzas, the same thought is not repeated—there is always a shade of difference even when the color of the thought appears to be the same. Some have said that in it there is an absence of variety, but that is merely the observation of those who have not studied it. I have weighed each word and looked at each syllable with lengthened meditation—and I bear witness that this sacred song has no tautology in it, but is charmingly varied from beginning to end! Its variety is that of a kaleidoscope—from a few objects, a boundless variation is produced. In the kaleidoscope you look once and there is a strangely beautiful form. You shift the glass a very little and another shape, equally delicate and beautiful, is before your eyes. So it is here. What you see is the same and yet never the same—it is the same Truth of God, but it is always placed in a new light, put in a new connection, or in some way or other invested with freshness!
I do not believe that any other subject but a heavenly one would have allowed of such a Psalm being written upon it, for the things of this world are soon spun out. Neither could such a handling have been given to the subject by any mind less than Divine—Inspiration, alone, can account for the fullness and freshness of this Psalm.
The best compositions of men are soon exhausted. They are cisterns and not springing fountains. You enjoy them very much at the first acquaintance and you think you could hear them a hundred times over, but you could not—you soon find them wearisome. Very speedily a man eats too much honey. Even children, at last, are cloyed with sweets. All human books grow stale after a time—but with the Word of God the desire to know increases and the more you know of it the less you think you know! The Book grows upon you. As you dive into its depths, you have a growing perception of the infinity which remains unexplored. You are still sighing to know more of that which it is your bliss to know.
This wonderful Psalm, from its great length, helps us to wonder at the immensity of Scripture. From its keeping to one subject it helps us to adore the unity of Scripture, for it is but one. Yet, from the many turns it gives to the same thought, it helps you to see the variety of Scripture. How manifold are the words and thoughts of God! In His Word, just as in creation, the wonders of His skill are manifold, indeed.
I very greatly admire in this Psalm the singular amalgam that we have of testimony, of prayer and of praise. In one verse the Psalmist bears witness. In a second verse he praises. In a third verse he prays. It is an incense made up of many spices, but they are wonderfully compounded and worked together so as to form one perfect sweetness. You would not like to have one-third of the Psalm composed of prayer—marked up to the 60th verse, for instance, and then another part made up exclusively of praise and yet a third portion of unmixed testimony. It is best to have all these Divinely-sweet ingredients intermixed and worked into a sacred unity, as you have them in this thrice-hallowed Psalm. My text is a prayer, but there is testimony in it and there is a measure of praise in it, too. In this single text there is the same mixing up of sweet perfumes as there is in the whole Psalm! May God give us Grace to be in such a state of heart that we may enter into the prayer of the text! Wherein it bears grateful testimony, may we be able to join in that testimony! Wherein it praises God, may we also extol Him with all our hearts!
There are only two things that I can attempt to speak about at this time. I cannot bring forth from so rich a casket all its treasures. The first is, the prayer—“Remember the Word unto Your servant, upon which You have caused me to
hope.” And, secondly, the plea of the prayer. It is a three-fold plea, as I think—it is Your word, I am Your servant and You have caused me to hope in it. Come, Holy Spirit and bless our meditation!
I. First, then, THE PRAYER. David prays, “Remember the Word unto Your servant.”
“Remember.” That prayer is spoken after the manner of men, for God cannot forget. It would be a very low conception of His Omniscience if we imagined that anything passed away from His knowledge. We see things as they come one after the other in a procession, but God is in a position from which He sees all at once. A man traveling through England sees a portion at a time, but he that looks at a map sees the whole country present before him then and there. God sees everything as now. Nothing is past, nothing is future to Him. He sees things that are not as though they were and the things that shall be as though they had been! God does not forget and, therefore, the text speaks only in a certain restricted sense and must be understood after the manner of men. Beloved, after what other manner could we speak? God has not taught us to speak after the manner of God! How could we? We are not Divine. There is a language above which Paul heard, of which he said that it was not lawful for a man to utter. Men must speak after the manner of men—and each sort of a man must speak after his own manner.