Then here is the way to inherit that blessing—“Blessed is the man whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who exercises himself in His law day and night.” The Psalmist is not speaking of Moses’ Law, nor of any other law of forms and ceremonies. He says expressly “The law of the Lord”—that is, the law according to which the Lord has made him and all the world; and according to which the Lord rules him and all the world. The Psalms—you must remember—say very little about Moses’ law; and when they do, speak of it almost slightingly, as if to draw men’s minds away from it to a deeper, nobler, more eternal law. In one Psalm God asks, “Thinkest thou that I will eat bulls’ flesh, and drink the blood of goats?” And in another Psalm some one answers, “Sacrifice and burnt-offering thou wouldest not. Then said I, Lo I come, to do thy will, O God. Thy law is within my heart.” This is that true and eternal law of which Solomon speaks in his proverbs, as the Wisdom by which God made the heavens, and laid the foundation of the earth; and tells us that that Wisdom is a tree of life to all who can lay hold of her; that in her right hand is length of days, and in her left hand riches and honour; that her ways are ways of pleasantness; and all her paths are peace.
This is that law, of which the Prophet says—that God will put it into men’s hearts, and write it in their minds; and they shall be His people, and He will be their God. This is that law, which the inspired Philosopher—for a philosopher he was indeed—who wrote the 119th Psalm, continually prayed and strove to learn,
intreating the Lord to teach him His law, and make him remember His everlasting judgments. This is that law, which our Lord Jesus Christ perfectly fulfilled, because the law was His Father’s law, and therefore His own law, and therefore he perfectly comprehended the law, and perfectly loved the law; and said with His whole heart—I delight to do Thy will, O God.
The will of God. For in one word, this Law, which we have to learn, and by keeping which we shall be blessed, is nothing else than God’s Will. God’s Will about us. What God has willed and chosen we should be. What God has willed and chosen we should do. The greatest philosopher of the 18th century said that every rational being had to answer four questions—Where am I? What can I know? What must I do? Whither am I going? And he knew well that—as the Bible tells us throughout—the only way to get any answer to those four tremendous questions is—To delight in the law of the Lord; to struggle, think, pray, till we get some understanding of God’s will; of God’s will about ourselves and about the world; and so be blessed indeed.
But to do that, it is plain that we must heed the warning which the first verse of the Psalm gives us—“Blessed is the man that hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly.” For it is plain that a man will never learn God’s will if he takes counsel from ungodly men who care nothing for God’s will, and do not believe that God’s will governs the world. Neither must he, as the Psalm says, ‘stand in the way of sinners’—of profligate and dishonest
men who break God’s law. For if he follows their ways, and breaks God’s law himself, it is plain that he will learn little or nothing about God’s law, save in the way of bitter punishment. For let him but break God’s law a little too long, and then—as the 2nd Psalm says—‘God will rule him with a rod of iron, and break him in pieces like a potter’s vessel.’ But there is even more hope for him—for he may repent and amend—than if he sits in the seat of the scorners. The scorners; the sneering, the frivolous, the unearnest, the unbelieving, the envious, who laugh down what they call enthusiasm and romance; who delight in finding fault, and in blackening those who seem purer or nobler than themselves. These are the men who cannot by any possibility learn anything of the law of God; for they will not even look for it. They have cast away the likeness of rational men, and have taken upon themselves the likeness of the sneering accusing Satan, who asks in the book of Job—“Doth Job serve God for nought?” When the greatest poet of our days tried to picture his idea of a fiend tempting a man to his ruin, he gave his fiend just such a character as this; a very clever, courteous, agreeable man of the world, and yet a being who could not love any one, could not believe in any one; who mocked not only at man but at God and tempted and ruined man, not out of hatred to him, hardly out of envy; but in mere sport, as a cruel child may torment an insect;—in one word, a scorner. And so true was his conception felt to be, that men of that character are now often called by the very name which he gave to his Satan—Mephistopheles. Beware therefore of the scornful
spirit, as well as of the openly sinful or of the ungodly. If you wish to learn the law of the Lord, keep your souls pious, pure, reverent, and earnest; for it is only the pure in heart who shall see God; and only those who do God’s will as far as they know it, who will know concerning any doctrine whether it be true or false; in one word, whether it be of God.
And now bear in mind secondly, that this law is the law of the Lord. You cannot have a law without a lawgiver who makes the law, and also without a judge who enforces the law; and the lawgiver and the judge of the law of the Lord is the Lord Himself, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Remembering Him, and that He is King, we can understand the fervour of indignation and pity, with which the writer of the 2nd Psalm bursts out—“Why do the heathen rage, and why do the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth stand up, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against His Anointed—
“Let us break their bonds asunder and cast away their cords from us.”