Psalm 119:96 I have seen an end of all perfection: but your commandment is exceeding broad. I. THE SORROWFUL CONFESSION — "I have seen an end of all perfection." 1. There are severe limits to human knowledge. The wisest tell us their path leads to a point at which there is "no thoroughfare." They encounter "the Unknowable." All they know is, that there is more to be known. 2. There are severe limits to human enjoyment. The most attractive programme of pleasure palls. The gay monarch offers a fabulous sum for a "new pleasure." Restless pleasure-seekers outpace even the devil's ingenuity, for even he cannot make the programme hold out. 3. There are severe limits to human examples of excellence. We select our hero, and he enjoys our brief worship. But we find a flaw, and the homage fails. You need only know a man well enough to detect his weakness. A modern celebrity was asked if he believed in perfection: said he, " No! I have seen too many perfect people." II. THE JOYFUL REJOINDER — "But Thy commandment is exceeding broad." 1. The "commandment" broadens beyond the limits of human knowledge. It reveals God — His counsels — eternity and its destinies. It presents us with a science of the unseen, and a redemption to which there is no human analogy. 2. The "commandment" is exceeding broad in the extent of the enjoyment it unfolds. It presents an infinite range of delights to man's restless soul. It unseals infinite sources of pleasure. It teaches us to "joy in God." It introduces a new, subtler, more refined and inexhaustible quality of happiness. We have Christ's "joy fulfilled in" ourselves. We "enter into the joy of our Lord." It ushers us into that Presence for ever, where there is "fulness of joy." 3. It is "exceeding broad" in its provision for human attainment — its ideal. The Old Testament standard reaches the infinite word godly. The New Testament sets before us the example of Him in whom "dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" (Colossians 2:9). Man's soul can never be satisfied without a definite aim; yet at the same time an infinite aim. Here the conditions meet — "The stature of a man in Christ Jesus." Application — And this "commandment" is nigh thee! — now! (Walter Hawkins.) Parallel Verses KJV: I have seen an end of all perfection: but thy commandment is exceeding broad.WEB: I have seen a limit to all perfection, but your commands are boundless. MEM |
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