Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2487
“Order my steps in Your Word: and let not any iniquity have dominion over me.” Psalm 119:133.
NOTICE, in the previous verse, how the Psalmist expresses his longing desire to be treated as one of the Lord’s family—“Look upon me, and be merciful to me, as You used to do to those that love Your name.” We, also, dear Friends, wish to be treated as God treats all the rest of His children. I am sure that every humble Believer will be quite content with that arrangement. There was a time when you would have been willing that He should make you one of His hired servants, but you have seen the mistake of such a desire as that and now your prayer is, “Deal with me, O Lord, as one of Your children; treat me according to Your custom with Your redeemed! I do not ask anything different from the lot of the rest of the heirs of Heaven. If they are poor, I would be poor with them. If they suffer reproach, I would be reproached with them. If they carry a cross, I would carry a cross, too. Whatever is the appointed portion of the Lord’s children, I am prepared to share and share alike with them. If You chasten them, I hope to have Your chastening. If You smile upon them, I shall delight to be smiled upon as You are known to smile on them.” Brothers and Sisters, we feel a sweet kind of communism in the Church of God—we, none of us, desire to have anything more than this common lot of the redeemed family.
It seems to me that my text may suit all of us who are in this assembly. I am sure that it suits me. I have prayed it before I have preached from it and I desire to be praying it while I am preaching concerning it. I commend it to those who are just beginning the Divine Life and I suggest it as equally appropriate to those who may have wandered somewhat out of the way of holiness. Yes, and I suggest it to those who are venerable and full of wisdom. I suggest it even to my elders, to the beloved fathers in our Israel, that this is a prayer which may last all of us right up to the gates of Heaven! “Order my steps in Your Word: and let not any iniquity have dominion over me.” You, too, who are just beginning to seek the Savior, should be told that this is the kind of spirit to which you will have to come—and if the Lord brings you to be His own, this is the kind of prayer that you will pray. And if you cannot pray it and will not pray it, you will bear witness against yourselves that you are notthe children of God. I am sure that I am not too severe when I say that.
I. As the Holy Spirit shall enable me, I want to bring out four things in this text which are well worthy of your earnest consideration. The first is the COMPLETE SUBSERVIENCE to the will of God of the man who thus prayed, “Order my steps in Your Word: and let not any iniquity have dominion over me.”
You see, he begins his prayer with the word, “order.” He is a man who wishes to be under orders. He is willing to obey the Lord’s commands and he is anxious to receive them and to be made to carry them out. Now this is notthe way of the world—worldlings say, “Who is the Lord, that we should obey His voice? We are our own masters! Who is Lord over us?” Free thinking and free living—these are the desires of ungodly men. But when the Grace of God has renewed the heart, the soul finds its true freedom in obedience to Christ’s commands, and its best thinking while sitting at the feet of Jesus to observe His gracious Words.
“Order my steps in Your Word.” Beloved, once we lived without any order or plan, or method, but the Grace of God makes us method-ists in the highest possible sense. It makes us live according to God’s method—and our prayer is that we may never be disorderly, but that in all things, just as the universe is arranged by God, and all the stars keep their appointed courses, so we may be made to take our proper places, and may be kept in them—joyfully obedient to the will of the Most High! It is one of the marks of the Grace of God when we ask God to order us and willingly put ourselves under His command.
Moreover, the Psalmist prayed, “Order my steps in Your Word.” He was perfectly satisfied with God’s Revelation. He had not so much of it as we have but there was room enough in it for all his steps. “Order my steps in Your Word.” He needed no greater liberty than the Bible gave him, no wider range than he found in the commands of the Most High. His prayer was like that verse we sang just now—
“Make me to walk in Your commands, ‘Tis a delightful road. Nor let my head, or heart, or hands, Offend against my God.”
Are you satisfied, dear Hearer, to keep within the compass of the Divine command? If so, take it as an evidence that God has changed your heart! But oh, my dear Hearer, if you live outside of that Book. If you never get inside it at all. If you never care what it says, what it promises, what it commands—then take it as certain that you do notknow the Lord! Let us, each one, at this moment breathe this prayer to God, “Order my steps in Your Word. Make me to live as a man who is under authority—one who finds directions for his living in the Law of his God, and who makes it his desire and his delight to be conformed thereto.”