Let us turn again to God's Word
and turning to the Psalms, turning now to the 119th Psalm. Psalm 119 and I want to direct
you for a while to the words that we have here at verse 53.
Psalm 119 verse 53. Horror hath taken hold upon me. because of the wicked that forsake
thy law horror hath taken hold upon them because of the wicked
that forsake thy law this single sentence that forms this 53rd
verse and it's of course a part of what is the longest psalm
in the whole of the Psalter quite a remarkable psalm we've looked
at some of the verses on previous occasions and of course it's
built around the the letters of the Hebrew alphabet some 22
sections in all and it's an acrostic poem in the Hebrew and it's a
celebration really of the Word of God there's some reference
to Holy Scripture as I've said on other occasions, almost in
every verse. The only verses that don't have
any reference to scripture under different synonyms are verses
122 and 132. In every other verse you'll find
words like law, or precepts, or statutes, or judgments. There's
some reference under a different synonym in all those other verses
to the word of God and so what we have here really is a celebration
of the doctrine of Holy Scripture we're told in verse 89 forever
O Lord thy word is settled in heaven the 129th verse declares
thy testimonies are wonderful there is a wonder about the word
of God, that God has been pleased to reveal himself in this remarkable
fashion on the page of Holy Scripture. But when we come to Scripture,
it's not enough that we recognize the truth of it objectively,
we want to know something of the power and the authority of
it subjectively. We want to experience something
of the word of God in our own souls. The psalmist says here
in the 130th verse, the entrance of thy word giveth light, it
giveth understanding to the simple. How important it is that we don't
just have God's word as it were before us on the page of our
Bibles, but we want to know the reality of it in our very souls. into the language that we have
in that epistle of James, James 1.21, where there's the exhortation
to receive with meekness the engrafted word that is able to
save the soul. Why we need that word to be implanted,
engrafted in the very depths of our souls. Well, I want, as
I said, to concentrate tonight for a text on these words that
I read at verse 53. Horror hath taken hold upon me
because of the wicked that forsake thy law. The Psalmist's horror,
or more particularly, the theme I want to address is that of
the horror of sin. The horror of sin. And I want
us to consider the text in a reverse order. I want to begin with what
we have at the end of the verse before we come to the beginning
of the verse as it were. And when we consider the verse
in that order we see how here at the end he speaks of the wicked. The wicked that forsake thy law. And isn't man's sinful nature
manifested in that sense? Man doesn't want the Word of
God. Man rejects the Word of God,
will not submit to the authority of the Word of God. And we're
told by the Apostle John in his first general epistle, "...whosoever
committeth sin transgresseth also the law, for sin is the
transgression of the law." The forsaking of God's law, the breaking
of God's law, that's what transgression is and of course we're very much
reminded of how that was the case of old with the nation of
Israel with the people who were God's special people he was that
people that he had taken into covenant with himself and how
he sends his messengers the prophets on occasions to rebuke them and
to remind them of their many transgressions. We have the language,
for example, of Isaiah 59, 12 where the prophet says our transgressions
are multiplied before them and our sins testify against us for
our transgressions are with us and that's for our iniquities,
we know them. in transgressing and lying against the Lord, and
departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt,
conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood,
and judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off,
for truth is fallen in the streets, and equity cannot enter." That
was the state that they had fallen into as they had departed from
the Word of God. the wicked that forsake thy law."
Now, those words might be said to apply very much to our own
nation, that we believe that this was never really a Christian
nation, but it was a nation greatly favoured by Christianity. and much of its legislation was
rooted in God's holy words. But now, all we see in the state
is a sad departure from all the precepts that we find here in
the Bible. You know the various laws that
have been passed over the years. No more capital punishment in
this nation. but rather the murder of infants
in the womb with abortion and embryo research. and then divorce
increasingly made something that is so easy to obtain, no fault. Divorce is on the statute book
and now the very institution of marriage has been assaulted
with same-sex marriages and all that has come in over recent
years and now of course we also have the whole business of gender
identity. to say nothing of the widespread
desecration of the Lord's Day. And those words that we've just
read, there in Isaiah, are they not really applicable to the
nation of which we're a part? And we cannot say that we're
any better than others. We're part and parcel of a sinful
nation. Here again in this psalm, this
remarkable psalm, see how the psalmist cries out in the 126th
verse. He says, It is time for thee,
Lord, to work, for they have made void thy law. Or they have
made void the very law of God. And what are believers to do
then in such a diocese? Well, believers ought to be those
who would be much in prayer, where the People of God, we should
sigh, we should cry because of all the abominations done in
the land. But now we should also be ready to speak out and to
contend, to contend for the faith, contending for the truth of God's
Word. And we find interesting language time and again in the
books of the prophets. Look at the words that we find
there at the end of Jeremiah chapter 5. He says at verse 30,
a wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land. The
prophets prophesy falsely and the priests bear rule by their
means and my people love to have it so. And what will you do in
the end thereof? He is rebuking the prophets. And see when God's judgment begins,
it does begin at the house of God. We are culpable We who profess
the name of God we're not any better than others. What sad
departures there has been from the truth amongst so many of
the churches. What confusion reigns. Again
look at the language there in Jeremiah 23 and verse 14 as he
speaks of the prophets even in Jerusalem. He says, I have seen
also in the prophets of Jerusalem an horrible thing. They commit
adultery and walk in lies. They strengthen also the hands
of evildoers, that none doth return from his wickedness. They
are all of them unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants hereof as
Gomorrah. or horror hath taken hold upon
me, says the psalmist, because of the wicked that forsake thy
law. But it's personal really, it's
the experience of the psalmist himself and it should be personal
to us. Surely there are different elements
in the forsaking of God's law. There are sins of commission,
there are sins of omission. And then we see this time and
again in scripture when Daniel comes to make his great prayer
in the ninth chapter of his book when he has understood the significance
of the words of the prophet Jeremiah concerning the seventy years
in exile and recognizing the fact that that period is now
fast coming to an end, and he sets his face to seek the face
of God himself. And you're familiar, I'm sure,
with that great prayer. What does he say, amongst other
things? There in verse 9 he says, Yea,
all Israel have transgressed thy law, even by departing. Well, there are sins of departure. that we are guilty of committing,
passing over God's law, reckoning God's law a light and an insignificant
thing. Again, the Prophet Malachi rebukes
the people of Israel. You have not kept my ways, he
said. He said, but have been partial in my law. Not submitting to the totality
of the commandments of God, but being selective. And we can be
guilty of that. We can delight in certain portions
of Scripture and ignore other portions of Scripture. Oh, we
love the promises. What comfort we find in the promises.
But what of holy precepts? What of the call to separation
and sanctification of life? You have not kept my way, says
Malachi, but have been partial. And that word we're told in the
margin literally means lifted up the face against. set their
face against the law of God. That's the committing of sins. In the Lamentations Jeremiah
again acknowledges and confesses we have transgressed and have
rebelled. Oh, there's rebellion, there's transgression. What is
transgression? Well, the word that's used has
the idea of stepping over the mark deliberately, willfully,
going against the Word of God, doing that that is contrary to
the Word of God. Those are sins of commission. And it's interesting how David
uses such a variety of vocabulary as he makes his great confession
in that psalm that we read, the familiar words of Psalm 51. And
he uses this word transgression Have mercy upon me, O God, according
to Thy lovingkindness, according unto the multitude of Thy tender
mercies. Blot out my transgressions. Verse
3. I acknowledge my transgressions.
Verse 13. Then will I teach transgressors
Thy ways when God has restored Him. He was aware of what He
had done. He had acted contrary to the
commandments of God. He had willfully sinned in the matter of Bathsheba
and Uriah, he was an adulterer, he was a murderer. All that was
the willful transgression of God's holy law. But David, there
in the psalm, also speaks of sins of omission. Those sins
that he must have recognized that many times he had failed
to do. And that is the basic meaning of the word sin, which
is used so much, of course, as David makes his confessions in
the spirit of real repentance. He says at verse 2, cleanse me
from my sin. Verse 3, my sin is ever before
me. Verse 4, against thee, the only,
have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. Verse 5, behold,
I was shapen in iniquity and in sin. Did my mother conceive
me?" And this is another word, different to the word transgress.
Transgress might indicate a willful stepping over the mark, going outside the boundaries
that God has set in his laws. But omission is that falling
short, and that's the basic meaning of that verb that we have in
the Old Testament, the verb to sin. It means to miss the mark.
to not reach the standard that God has set. And what is that
standard? It's the glory of God and all
have sinned. Paul says, all have sinned and
come short of the glory of God. Or man made in God's image, created
after God's likeness, made to know God, made to enjoy God.
And our man has fallen short of that. His very chief end He
does not detain. We have sinned, says Daniel,
and have committed iniquity and have done wickedness. Or no wonder
he goes on to say, to us belongeth confusion of faith. To us belongeth
confusion of faith. We are those who are sinners. And this is what the psalmist
is so very mindful of here. He sees it as the mark of wickedness. horror hath taken hold upon them
because of the wicked that forsake thy law. But observe here also
something of the majesty of that law of God. It is very much God's
law, thy law, he says. It's God's. And all that comes
from God is good. What does God do in his law?
Does he not, in a sense, declare himself, reveal himself? Here
we see that he is holy and righteous and just and good. It was there at Mount Sinai in
the mountains of Horeb that God gave the commandments. It's interesting,
isn't it, that when Moses receives his call to deliver the children
of Israel in Exodus chapter 3 he's keeping the sheep of his father-in-law
and he goes to that side of the desert he says to the mountains
of God even to Horeb even to Horeb and it is there that God
comes and reveals himself when he sees the bush burning and
yet it's not consumed and he ventures forth and God speaks
that the ground is holy ground he must take his shoes from off
his feet and God declares himself as the great Jehovah the I am
that I am and what does God say to him having revealed himself
he says ye shall serve God upon this mountain there in Exodus
3.12, they shall serve God upon this mountain. And when he brings
the children of Israel eventually out of the land of Egypt, God
visits terrible judgments upon those Egyptians with the ten
plagues, but they come out having spoiled
the Egyptians and eventually they're brought again to those
mountains of Horeb, to Mount Sinai. And you know when some
40 years later, after the wilderness wanderings, before they enter
into the Promised Land, we have the repetition of those commandments,
that covenant that God had entered into with them at Mount Sinai. And there in Deuteronomy 5.2
it says, the Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb.
He made the covenant in Horeb, the very place where he had first
appeared unto Moses and called him. And what did God do in that
covenant that he made with them at Horeb? Well, he declares himself.
He declares himself, Exodus 20 verse 2, I am the Lord thy God
which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house
of bondage. That's the sort of preamble to
the commandments and in the first commandment thou shalt have no
other gods before me. God declares himself to them
and then God reveals himself and he is revealing himself in
his commandments. Well, that is the majesty of
the law. This law of God. This is not a good law. This is not a good law. We are told in Romans 7 and 12,
Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just
and good. There's no fault in the law.
The law is a good law, a holy law, a spiritual law. That's
what Paul also says there in Romans 7. The law is spiritual,
but I am carnal. Well, the fault is with the sinner.
God's law is a good law because it's a revelation of God himself
and God declares himself there and reveals himself in all his
holiness and righteousness but also in all his goodness but
there is no mercy in the law, is there? we might see the majesty
of God but we don't there see the mercy of God the law was
given by Moses But grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. And so, there is a use of the
law, there's a good use of the law. And again, Paul speaks of
that good use of the law in the first chapter of his first epistle
to Timothy. He says, We know that the law
is good if a man use it lawfully, knowing this, that the law is
not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless, and disobedient
for the ungodly and for sinners. Well, that is the ministration
of the law. It's to show the sinner what
he is, what things whoever the law says. It says to them who
are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all
the world become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of
the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law
is the knowledge of sin. There's the use of the law, the
good use of the law. Oh, it's made for the sinner,
to show the sinner what the sinner is. It's a ministration of condemnation. In fact, there in 2nd Corinthians
3, doesn't Paul contrast law and gospel and he says of the
Lord, it's the ministration of condemnation, it's the ministration
of death. And so, what is David saying
here in the psalm? Horror hath taken hold upon me
because of the wicked that forsake thy law. Horror has taken hold
upon you. In fact, later, in verse 96,
he says, I have seen an end of all perfection,
but thy commandment is exceeding broad. But you'll observe in
that verse that the conjunction but is in italics. In other words, it's been inserted
by the translators, it's not a translation. of any particular
Hebrew words. He literally says, I have seen
an end of all perfection. Thy commandment is exceeding
broad. And is there not a connection
between the two clauses in that verse? Our David's seen an end
of all perfection. He'd seen that in that God's
law was so exceeding broad. It would reach to every situation
of a man's life and remember how the children of Israel were
to have God's law as it were at their right hand before their
eyes at their gate post whatever they did wherever they went the
law of God was there and as a man examines himself in the light
of that law of God he sees what he is And David is brought really
to the utter end of himself. An end of all perfection. There's
no perfection in the flesh, no perfection in man who is a fallen
creature, a sinner, a rebel against God, guilty of sins of commission
and sins of omission. James says, in many things we
offend all. In many things. we offend all. Whosoever shall keep the whole
law and yet offend in one point he is guilty of all because the
law demands a perfect obedience to every one of its commandments
and if there is but one transgression of one commandment that's the
end of all perfection. For this is the law of God and
the majesty of the Lord of Gods. And David has been made so very
much aware of it. And so he says here in the text,
horror has taken hold upon me. What caused David's horror? What was it that made him utter
such words as we find at the beginning of this text? Well,
it's not really his own distress. It's not really his own distress.
He was certainly made to feel something of what he was. In another verse, verse 109,
he says, My soul is continually in my hand, yet do I not forget
thy law. Now, we're told that that expression,
my soul is continually in my hand, is a Hebraism, and it indicates
that his life is in the gravest of danger, the life being in
the hands, it's likely to be lost. And that's what David was brought
to feel. This is what the Lord does. He brings a man to the
end of himself. David certainly knew what it
was to feel the conviction of the Lord of God. It's killing
power. and that's what he felt of course
when the prophet Nathan dealt with him so faithfully over the
matter of his sins and points the finger and even touches his
conscience, David, thou art the man oh and David was made to
feel what he had done but then David also knew that where a
man gets his wounding there he also finds something of his healing. This is the wonder of the Word
of God. Look at the language that we
have in Deuteronomy 32, 39. God says, See now that I, even
I, am he, and there is no God with me. I kill, and I make alive. I wound, and I heal, neither
is there any that can deliver out of my hand. All God kills,
but God kills to make alive. And God wounds, but God wounds
to heal. It's not all negative, is it?
And David knew something of that gracious quickening and reviving
power of the Word of God. He says here at verse 50, This
is my comfort in my affliction, for thy Word hath quickened me.
Oh, he found that the word was a life-giving word, not just
a condemning word, not just a killing word. Again, later in verse 107,
he says, I am afflicted very much, quicken me, O LORD, according
unto thy word. He prays that he might know something
of those quickenings, those comfortings of the word of God. This is how
David comes into the Word of God, if David is the author of
this psalm, and many reckon it is a psalm of David, like so
many of the psalms. But David's horror is not really
because of any distress that he feels for himself. His distress, his horror, is
because God is being dishonored. Horror hath taken hold upon me
because of the wicked that forsake thy law. This is God-centered. This isn't David-centered. Again, look at the language that
we have later in the 158th verse. He says, I beheld the transgressors
and was grieved because they kept not thy word. It grieved
him, it filled him with horror to see men not keeping the word
of God. It was God's dishonor that was
at stake. And what does this word indicate? Well, the Puritan
Thomas Manton says that this word horror is a strong word
and suggests a storm, a tempest. And that's what David is feeling.
David knew great trouble of mind. David knew vehement emotions
within his own heart. That's what David feels. That's
what David feels when the Lord is dealing with him. But he doesn't
blame the law of God. I've already made some reference
to those words of Paul in Romans 7, where he speaks of what God's
law is, and makes it quite plain that that law is a good law,
a spiritual law. Nothing could go wrong with that
law of God according to what Paul is saying. Romans 7.12 Wherefore
the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. Was
then that which is good made dead unto me? God forbid! But sin, that it might appear
sin, working death in me by that which is good, that sin by the
commandment might become exceeding sinful. For we know that the
law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin." Well, what is
David saying? The fault, he says, is in himself,
his guilt, as a sinner, the filth of his sin. His great concern,
really, is always the honour of God, the glory of God. Again,
in that psalm that we read, his penitential psalm, when he comes
to make his confession and he had sinned so grievously he was
guilty of sin against Bathsheba as well as with her certainly
guilty of sin against Uriah who was her lawful husband but what
does he say against thee, thee only have I sinned and done this
evil in thy sight? all we see is a horror of sin,
why? because it's against that God who in the law is clearly
seen to be one who is a good God, a holy God, a righteous
God, a just God. He sees all of that and that's
what makes sin so horrible and so horrifies David in his
own soul as to use such strong language as we have here In the
text tonight, horror hath taken hold upon me. Why? Because of
the wicked that forsake thy law. O God, grant that we might be
of the same spirit as this man. He was a man after God's own
heart, remember. Or that we might know something
of David's experience then. Yes, he, in this army, celebrating
the word of God objectively, But he also feels something of
the power and the authority of that Word of God subjectively.
He knew what it was to receive it into his very soul. God grant that we might be those
who are the recipients of His Word. Amen. Now before we turn
to God again in prayer let us sing hymn number 44 The tune is Pemberton 389. Here, Lord, my soul convicted
stands of breaking all thy ten commands, and on me justly mightst
thou pour thy wrath in one eternal shower. But thanks to God it's
loud alarms have warned me of approaching harms. And now, O
Lord, my once I see, lost and undone, I come to thee. Number 44.