Psalm 119:1-20
Blessed are they whose
ways are blameless, who walk according to the law of the LORD. Blessed are they who keep his statutes and
seek him with all their heart. They do
nothing wrong; they walk in his ways.
You have laid down precepts that are to be fully obeyed. Oh, that my ways were steadfast in obeying
your decrees! Then I would not be put to
shame when I consider all your commands.
I will praise you with an upright heart as I learn your righteous
laws. I will obey your decrees; do not
utterly forsake me. How can a young man
keep his way pure? By living according to your word. I seek you with all my heart; do not let me
stray from your commands. I have hidden
your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. Praise be to you, O LORD; teach me your
decrees. With my lips I recount all the laws that come from your mouth. I rejoice in following your statutes as one
rejoices in great riches. I meditate on
your precepts and consider your ways. I
delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word. Do good to your servant, and I will live; I
will obey your word. Open my eyes that I
may see wonderful things in your law. I
am a stranger on earth; do not hide your commands from me. My soul is consumed with longing for your
laws at all times.
When I was in seminary,
studying to become a minister, I would preach in any church that would offer an
invitation. Sometimes these were very
large congregations in which the pastor was on vacation, but most of the time
they were small country churches with few members.
Bethia Presbyterian Church
was in either McCormick or Abbeville County South Carolina. I was never really sure. It was way back in the woods and hard to
find. The town where the church was
located had died out years before. The
church only had worship four times a year – that was the only way the
congregation could keep the presbytery from closing the church. And the congregation – all seven members of
them – felt it was important to keep the church open because of the
cemetery. The church had a large
cemetery dating back to the Revolution, and that’s where granddaddy and great
grandma were buried. So no body wanted
to close this seven member church.
My wife and I drove up to the
church – it looked like an old barn.
Service was to start at 11 am, and at 11:01, I was in a state of panic,
because I knew I’d made a mistake and that this was not the Bethia Presbyterian
Church. Those were the days before cell
phones, and I didn’t know what to do.
Then at 11:02 a station wagon drove into the parking lot and out came
what would turn out to be half the congregation. One of the men walked up to a rock, picked it
up, and got the key to the front door.
We went inside. It was freezing cold – it was the middle of
December. People began putting wood into
the wood stoves and lighting the fires.
I went to one of the men and
introduced myself as the preacher for the day.
He was not that interested in me, but he was more interested in my wife. “Does your wife play the piano,” he asked.
I said she did and he said,
“Good. Well have music today.”
By this time my wife had
learned to always carry music with us when we went to these churches.
Another car drove up to the
church and while we waited for them to come in, I went to the pulpit to get a
feel of it. It was one of those big
pulpits with a big, big Pulpit Bible.
When I thought no one was
looking, I took a deep breath and blew onto the Bible. A cloud of dust filled the air.
It looked like no one had
used that Bible in years.
Bibles gather dust. Not just in country churches that only meet
four times a year, in our own homes we fail to open the Bible.
Psalm 119 is a long passage,
and we read just a brief portion of it a few moments ago.
Verse 16 says, “I will not
neglect your word.” But let’s be
honest. We often neglect the Word of
God.
Now why is that? We know we should read and study the Word of
God, but we also know this does not always happen in our daily living.
But our spiritual lives are
often like our physical lives.
In the same way that we know
we are supposed to read and study the Bible, we also know we are supposed to
eat right, get plenty of exercise, get our annual flu shot, and floss our
teeth.
We have lots of good reasons
not to do the things we are supposed to do.
And when it comes to reading
the Bible, we have lots of reasons to put it off until later – or never.
Reason number 1: The Bible is too big!
How
many times have we heard that or thought that?
One
reason we don’t read the Bible is because we are intimidated by it. It’s such a big, big book. How could anyone ever hope to read through
it?
We
think of it as being like War and Peace.
Now that is a big book – 1,462 pages!
(place a copy of War and Peace on
the pulpit)
And
admittedly, lots of people do not read War and Peace because it is such a big
book.
But
is the Bible really such a large book that we ought to be afraid of opening it
up?
(Place a copy of the Bible next to
the War and Peace copy – do this with a couple of other best sellers)
You
know, the Bible is not such an overwhelming large book. It is sort of average size. Why then should we be afraid of opening it
up?
In
Psalm 119, the author speaks several times of having delight in God’s
law or God’s word. In fact, it is
mentioned seven times in this Psalm
“Your
word is my delight.” (verse 24)
“I
delight in your instruction.” (verse 47)
“I
delight in your law” (verse 70).
We
should not be afraid of the Bible, or intimidated by it. We should delight in it. We should savor it. We should study it and memorize it and carry
the word with us throughout our lives.
Our
Old Testament lesson says, “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might
not sin against you.” (verse 11)
We
need to immerse ourselves in the Word of God.
Not be afraid of it.
Another reason
many people do not read the Bible is because they believe that the Bible is too
confusing. They are afraid they won’t be
able to understand it.
If you want
confusing, read a college algebra book.
If you want
confusing, read some of those IRS instruction books.
If you want
confusing there are plenty of books that we have to read, but that are
difficult to read, and yet we read them anyway.
But is the Bible really
that confusing?
Nehemiah
9:31: “The Lord is a gracious and
merciful God.”
Is that
complicated? It may be amazing, awesome
and inspiring, but confusing?
John’s first
letter: “This is the message you heard
from the beginning: We should love one another.”
Difficult to do
sometimes, but is that difficult to understand?
Exodus 20:15:
"You shall not steal.”
That’s a lot
easier to understand than the tax code!
OK, I grant you
that there are things in the Bible that I don’t understand, but by and large,
I’m able to grasp most of it.
But when I come
to parts I don’t understand, that doesn’t mean I turn my back on the whole Word
of God.
I don’t always
understand my wife! But I don’t leave
her.
I usually don’t
understand my son. But I don’t reject
him.
St. Paul wrote in his first letter to the
Corinthians (1 Cor 14:33), “God is not the author of confusion…”
It
is not a good excuse to say, “I don’t read the Bible because I don’t understand
it.”
If
you find parts of it confusing, then just start with what you can understand.
Another reason for not reading and studying the Bible…
The Bible is not relevant to my life.
Years ago when my father died, my son and I rented a
truck and drove from Miami, where we were living at the time, and took a trip
to Greenville, SC, where my father had lived.
We went there to pick up some of the things that were willed to us, and
we decided to take the long way home, and to drive through some of the small
towns I’d lived in years ago. My son
wanted to see some of these places.
I
didn’t have a map, so as we were leaving, I took an old atlas from the
bookshelf. I knew it was going to be
thrown away anyway, so I thought I’d take it and use the maps in the atlas to
help find our way. Again, this was in
the old days before everyone had a GPS system in the car.
We
visited some of the smaller towns and we were then ready to get back on the
Interstate and hurry back to Miami.
I
opened the Atlas.
The
maps dated back to 1960, and there was not a single Interstate on the maps –
they hadn’t been built at that time!
A
lot of people look at the Bible that way.
Things have changed. We live in a
world so different from when the Bible was written – how could it possibly be
relevant? It’s like looking at an out of
date atlas.
After
all, we have the Hubble Space Telescope taking pictures of incredibly distant
objects, we’ve sent rovers on Mars, we are discovering new planets in other
solar systems every few weeks.
I
am an amateur astronomer, and I love to see these pictures from Hubble, and every
time I see one, I am reminded of how relevant the Bible is, and I think of how
God’s Word says, “The heavens declare the Glory of God.” (Psalm 19:1)
We
live in an age of fear about Weapons of Mass Destruction. And yet we read in the Bible prophecies that
describe weapons much like we have today.
In Zechariah, (Zech 14:12), the author talks of war in which people’s
flesh will be consumed while they are still standing – which sounds much like a
nuclear attack. In Revelation chapter 9,
the prophet sees what looks like a star falling from the sky, and what he sees
next is rising smoke that reaches high into the sky, and survivors who are in
such pain that they long for death.
We
live in an age of terrorists who attack the innocent.
And
in the Bible we read, (Ezek 7:25) “When
terror comes, they will seek peace, but there will be none.”
We
live in an age of anxiety and stress – and in the Bible we read (1 Pet
5:7), “Cast all your anxiety on him
because he cares for you.”
The
Bible is always relevant to our lives.
Here is
another reason people don’t read the Bible -- The Bible is full of
contradictions.
Whenever anyone
tells me this, they usually put it this way:
“Everyone knows… the Bible is full of contradictions.”
To which I always
respond, “Oh really. I didn’t know
this. What are some of these
contradictions.”
That’s when the
fun part begins. Because they can’t name
a single one.
Now, we have to
admit that there are parts of the Bible that are poetic. They weren’t meant to be taken literally.
When Jesus
preached, he often used parables, and not many scholars believe those stories
were literally true – they were stories Jesus told to illustrate a spiritual
truth.
Sometimes the
Bible is referring to a different time and a different place.
In Isaiah chapter
2, the people are told, “Beat your swords into plowshares…”
But in Joel
chapter 3, the people are told just the opposite – “Beat your plowshares into
swords.”
Contradiction? No.
Simply a different word for a different time and place. In one place, the people are told to prepare
for war, but in the other, the people are told to prepare for peace.
Ecclesiastes
says, “there is a time of war, and there is a time of peace.” (Ecclesiastes
3:8)
There is a unity
in the Bible. It is not the
contradictory literature that some people expect to find.
We read only a
small portion of Psalm 119 today, but further in this passage, in verse 89, it
says, that the Word of God “is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens.”
In verse 160, it
says that all of God’s words are true.
If we are going
to be followers of Christ, if we are going to be His disciples, if we are going
to commit our lives to God, then we have to listen for the Word of God.
Do you read the
Bible like you should?
If not, what’s
your excuse?
And do you really
think your excuse would be acceptable to God?
Copyright Maynard
Pittendreigh, 2013
All Rights
Reserved