care and keeping, and praying
that they will be with us and bless our souls tonight. Lord,
let it not be a barren time for our souls, but may it be a time
when we do spiritually glean, a glean of that true corn of
the gospel, that our souls may be strengthened, revived if necessary,
and encouraged, that we may press on in this world in which we
live at the present time. And Lord, we often think of that
word in Esther, for such a time as this. Lord, may we all know
and realise that we are walking upon the earth for that ordained
purpose of our God. And therefore help us to honour
Thee in all that we do and say, and to not be left to please
ourselves, but to seek to please our gracious God. And so, Lord,
come now and bless us, we pray, forgiving our every sin. We ask
it for Jesus' sake. Amen. Let us stand as we read our second
hymn, number 534. Hymn number 534. Mercy speaks
by Jesus' blood. Hear and sing, ye sons of God. Justice satisfied indeed. Christ has full atonement made. Jesus' blood speaks loud and
sweet. Here all deity can meet and without
a jarring voice welcome Zion to rejoice. Should the law against
her roar, Jesus' blood still speaks with power. All her debts
were cast on me, and she must and shall go free. Peace of conscience,
peace with God, we obtain through Jesus' blood. Jesus' blood speaks
solid rest. We believe and we are blessed. Hymn number 534. we may please Almighty God to
come and to bless us together this evening as we meditate in
His Holy Word. So let's turn to the first psalm,
and we'll read verses 2 and 3. But his delight is in the law
of the Lord, And in his law doth he meditate
day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted
by the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his season.
His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall
prosper. This is a very wonderful and
a very beautiful beginning to the Book of Psalms. And short as it is, it really
gives a picture of separation between those who are godly and
those who are ungodly. And therefore, it tells us in
the first place, Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel
of the ungodly. Those are the godly. Nor standeth in the way of sinners,
nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. So it describes what
they're like and then it describes what they desire to do. This is really very wonderful
because As I often say, there's many important buts in the Word
of God, and there is a very important but here. But his delight is
in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day
and night. And he shall be like a tree planted
by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his
season. His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth
shall prosper. So there we have a description
of a godly person. And then we're told the ungodly
are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind driveth
away. Therefore the ungodly shall not
stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. And then the Lord concludes,
For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way
of the ungodly shall perish. So surely how relevant and how
important it is for us to have the evidence that we are among
the godly. We don't want to be surely amongst
the ungodly. And so this statement is very
important to us. And we're told his delight is
in the law of the Lord and in his law doth he meditate day
and night. Now we should realize that here
in this psalm, the psalmist who in all probability was David.
He only had the first five books of the Bible. He only had Genesis,
Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. That was all that
was available to him. Those books, of course, were
written by Moses. While Moses was still alive on
the earth just before he was taken from this earth and just
before Israel went across Jordan into Canaan. So therefore he
is referring to those first five books. And yet you see in those
first five books he was able to delight. And he was able to
delight in the law of the Lord. And because he delighted in that,
he tells us, and in his law doth he meditate day and night. You see, this shows to us really
the wonderful reality of real religion. It's not something
which is just picked up and put down, something almost irrelevant,
just passing through some duty. It's because He really loved
those books. He really wanted to read those
books. He really wanted to meditate
upon them. And not just a little while.
He tells us this, that he may meditate in his law, that he
meditate day and night. It wasn't just perhaps when he
was free to do something. He says in the day and at night
time, Obviously he slept at night, but if he woke up at night, this
is what he delighted in. The Law of God. The Word of God. It's a wonderful example, and
it's a wonderful testimony for us. We might think, well, this
word meditate, that's what he's doing. It really means to ponder. It really means to think about. And we have so much, don't we?
When we think of the whole Bible, now we have not only those first
five books, we have the whole 66 books in the Bible to be able
to consider and to be able to meditate upon. And what a glorious
fullness there is in them, isn't there? I hope we can really,
really understand why David was able to say he delighted in this. It was no chore for him. It was no duty for him. It's
what he delighted in. And surely that shows the wonderful
work of God's Spirit in our hearts. If we pick up the Bible and we
open it and we read it and we delight in it because we realise
how important it is, and how relevant it is, and because God's
Word speaks to our hearts. You know, you read those few
verses in the 119th Psalm, and I'm sure I've told you that the
119th Psalm is separated into sections, really, with the Hebrew
alphabet. And in those sections, in every
section, it has Thy Word, the Word of God, Thy Word. It's not
the Word of man, it's God's Word, Thy Word. And the 119th Psalm
is really, really very wonderful and really very beautiful. And we read those verses from
97 to 104 because twice in that section, the word meditate is spoken of. First of all, in the 97th verse
we're told, Oh, how love I thy law, like this here, but he really
expounds it a bit more and he says this, it is my meditation
all the day. Well, we may think that's a bit
extravagant, David, all the day, but at least we have the understanding,
don't we? He so loved, we might say, his
Bible. He so loved it that he wanted
to meditate on it all the day. He didn't say, well, I read those
few verses and shut the book up and say, well, that's it.
That's me for the day. No, it was with him. Because although perhaps he wasn't
reading the Bible all the time, what he had read, he was pondering. What he had read, he was meditating
upon. It wasn't as though he just read
a bit and then shut the book up and went on his way and carried
on with his work and forgot about it. So if anybody had said, hey,
what did you read this morning? He wouldn't have said, oh, well,
I can't remember. No, here was a man of God, a
man of God taken up with the things of God, a man of God who
meditated upon the great and glorious truth of God. Hasn't
God given us a wonderful example for us today? In our age, we
cannot say, oh, I can't do that, I'm just too busy. You see, he
meditated on that. He meditated. And I may have
told you, and I can tell you again, I remember in my life,
one particular occasion, one particular day, I was so blessed
that I really meditated on God's word throughout the day. And yet I did all my work, and
as you know, I was an engineer, and there were calculations and
complex calculations to do. I just did them, not really realizing
what I was doing. God was with me. God blessed
me. Wonderful, isn't it? And believe
you me, we are the same God today. The same great and glorious God. How often we seem to belittle
God. And we say, I haven't got time
for this. I've got to get on with this and let's put first
things first. Because the condition of our
soul is the most important thing. Nothing else is as important
as our soul. And therefore we should truly
rejoice. in this wonderful favour and
wonderful blessing that God has given us His Word. And then the second word in the
119th Psalm that we read together was just a couple of verses later
in verse 99. And this is what it says, I have
more understanding than all my teachers for thy testimonies
are my meditation. That means that God had blessed
him with a right meditation on his word and had given him an
understanding. You see, that's very wonderful,
isn't it? You know, we have a great teacher, and our teacher is our
God. And our God does teach us. As
we read the word, we may say, oh, I can't understand this,
and I must read something a bit easier. Well, you know, what
you forget to do is to pray to God that He will give you an
understanding. And then as you have that understanding
given to you, you know what the result is? As our text. Delight in His law. But His delight is in the law
of the Lord and in His law that He meditate all the day. Now, how good it is to meditate. I suppose it's something which
is perhaps not done very much today. And yet, you know, it
is good sometimes just to sit quietly and to truly meditate
on the things of God. We can go right back, can't we?
We can go right back to Genesis. We can trace out God's wonderful
work of Salvation. We can think of the wonderful
prophecies which are given to us in the Old Testament. And
perhaps we might think, well, I don't really know much about
those. Well, you may not know much about those, but we can
search them out. And then when we come across
one, we can take it to our hearts and we can meditate on it and
see how it's been worked out in the life and death and resurrection
of our great and glorious Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. And what
does these understandings give to us? They give to us an establishment
in the truth of God's Word. We find that our soul is strengthened
to believe these great truths. And they're really good to us.
And they're precious to us. And we delight in them. We understand,
perhaps, then, what David said. Perhaps we never did. But now,
as the Holy Spirit gives us the understanding, we rejoice and
we delight in God's Word. What a wonderful blessing it
is. What a wonderful favour it is. He's shown us one thing. We can praise God and we can
bless God for it and we can meditate upon it and we won't want to
throw it away. We want to often think about
what God has done in our soul. The wonderful work, the wonderful
revelation of his spirit to us. Delight. But his delight is in
the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and
night. As I was considering this subject,
I came across a very apt and very able statement by Martin
Luther. I thought I might just read it
to you. Martin Luther, as you know, was was a monk and a man
that God wonderfully used way back, hundreds of years back
now, wonderfully used to really be the commencement of what we
term the Reformation. It's a wonderful period in the
history of our nation and this man Martin Luther He didn't have
lots of people to instruct him, but he had a wonderful instructor. And that instructor is still
alive today. And that, of course, is God himself. But anyway, I'll just read this
to you. This is what he said. To meditate as it is generally
understood signifies to discuss, to dispute, and its meaning is
always confined to a being employed in words as in Psalm 32 and verse
30. The mouth of the righteous shall
meditate wisdom. Hence, Augustine, you may remember
Augustine was a man who lived just a few centuries after the
Lord Jesus Christ. Hence, Augustine has in his translation,
chatter. And a beautiful metaphor it is,
as chattering is the employment of birds, so a continual conversing
in the law of the Lord, for talking is peculiar to man, oughts to
be the employment of man. But I cannot worthily and fully
set forth the gracious meaning and force of this word. For this
meditating consists first in an intent observing of the words
of the law." So just stop there. It means you and I read something
to focus on it. We haven't got to take with us
a chapter. We haven't got to take with us
a book. It can perhaps just be a couple of words. perhaps just
a short sentence, and to meditate upon that, as Luther says here,
consists first in an intent, observing of the words of the
law, and then in a comparing of the different scriptures.
You see what a mercy that is. We have the Bible, and of course
we have things called concordances, many helps to enable us to compare
scripture and scripture. Of course, Luther didn't have
that. But Luther was a great giant in the word of God. And he was able to read it, of
course, in the original languages of Hebrew and Greek. And he was therefore able to
remember, I read that there and I read that there, and then compare
them to meditate upon what it meant. Well, we know the great
blessing it was to Luther. And so there is a comparing of
the different scriptures, which is a certain delightful hunting. And he then brings the analogy
of his hunting, obviously, which is happening in his day, when
he says, nay, rather a playing with stags, that's deers in a
forest, where the Lord furnishes us with the stags. and opens
to us their secret covets, where they hid, et cetera. And what
he's really saying here is, there we have the Word of God. And
there we find suddenly wonderful truths hidden away. And we find
as we come across these, that compares with that scripture.
And that really fills me with delight. I see the glory of God's
Word and the fulfillment of it. and the application of it, and
the suitableness of it, because it describes my condition and
my soul, and I rejoice in it. Yes, where the Lord furnishes
us with the stakes and opens to us their secret coverts. And from this kind of employment
there comes forth at length a man well instructed in the law of
the Lord to speak unto the people. What a blessing it is, therefore,
if you and I are favoured to meditate in the Word of God and
to be strengthened in our souls, to realise how true it is and
how it all flows together. There's no schism in the Word
of God. People try and separate and break
it down and find this fault. My friends, there's no schism
in the Word of God. It all flows together. And the
more you and I are able to meditate upon it, the more we delight
in it. I'm sure we can understand what
Martin Luther said in that quotation. Well, he was a blessed, faithful
man of God. You see, you and I cannot expect
to be really blessed. Remember this psalm starts off
with those very words. Blessed is the man, a man like
this, a man who truly delights in the law of the Lord, and in
his law doth he meditate day and night. That's the testimony,
and that's the example that we have before us here in this Word. And you see, as I stop really
at the life and death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ in our
meditation, we can then go on, can't we, to believe that the
Lord Jesus has gone. He is now in glory. And what is He doing there? We're told He's seated on the
throne, on the right hand of God the Father. For what cause
to intercede for us to take our prayers as we pray to the Father
and intercede for us to His Father so that our prayers are accepted? There is so much to meditate
upon in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ as we compare it
with all the Old Testament, what we might term ceremonial law,
which was instituted in the day of Moses to direct the people
to God, to direct the people to the Lord Jesus Christ. Of
course, the Lord Jesus Christ wasn't named as the Lord Jesus
Christ, but there he was in the Old Testament. And we have one
very important word relative to that which proves it for us.
And that's the word of Jesus when he was on this earth. He
says these words, Abraham, one of the patriarchs, saw my day
and was glad. He believed the Messiah, the
Savior, would come. His faith was in the Savior. What a wonderful consideration
that is, and how, again, strengthening it is to think that all those
men we can read of in the New Testament, the 11th of Hebrews,
who walked by faith and by faith were able to do wonderful things. It was because they had that
great, glorious faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Today, we
need the same, don't we? We need faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ and we need to meditate upon what he's done and meditate
upon what he's doing and meditate also on what he will do. You
may say, what will he do? He's waiting to receive us unto
himself into glory. What a day that will be. What
a day that will be to think that our Saviour, the second person in the Trinity,
the Almighty God, has that great plan for all of His people to
receive them into glory. It's a wonderful thought, isn't
it? It's a very humbling thought, but it's a very important thought
And it's really worth meditating on, because as you and I are
on this earth, with many things perhaps to cast us down and to
distract us, we have a sinful heart, a sinful nature, which
often casts us down, and we wish we weren't so bad, and we wish
we were a lot better, we wish we were not so foolish, in so
many things. But what a mercy, Lord, it enables
us to meditate upon Him. What a glorious position. What
a wonderful position. What an amazing position. And
so says the psalmist here. But his delight. I think it's so important to
join this word delight with meditation. Because it's to meditate upon
glorious things. It tells us in his law. And that
of course we can recognize today as not just those first five
books in the Bible, we can recognize that the law of God refers really
to the whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. So we've got that
great volume. By the grace of God, you and
I are able to meditate upon, don't forget, as he says, day
and night. Now I just want to give one more
quotation on this meditation. And this is by a man who lived
in the 17th century, 1617, like many great men did. He tells
us this. It's a man called Nathaniel Rareview. Never heard of him until I came
across this. Meditation helps judgment, wisdom,
and faith to ponder discern and credit the things which reading
and hearing supply and furnish. It assists the memory to lock
up the jewels of divine truth in our sure treasury. It has
a digesting power and turns special truth into spiritual nourishment. And lastly, It helps the renewed
heart to grow upward and increase its power to know the things
which are freely given to us of God, condensed Just a condensed
statement is from Nathaniel Renew. So I'm sure we can bless God
for these quotations which men far able than me are able to
set before us. Well now, just very quickly,
the next verse. And he shall be like a tree planted
by the rivers of water that bringeth forth her fruit in his season.
His leaf shall also not wither whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. Now remember this is referring
to those who delight and meditate in the Word of God. They should
be like a tree planted and that means that you and I don't plant
ourselves. What it means is God has planted
us in a place where