Psalm 119:163 I hate and abhor lying: but your law do I love. By the term "lying" is specially meant "false faiths," deviations from, or misrepresentations of, the true religion, which is "the truth." Compare the antichrist of Christianity. I. FALSEHOOD IN RELIGION REGARDED AS SELF-SERVING. It is necessary to keep in mind that to the Israelite the very essence of falsehood was idolatry. Represent the unseen, spiritual Jehovah by any earthly form or figure, and to him the representation was a lie. No form or figure could represent all God, or anything about God perfectly. But it was falsehood in another way, for it did but hide the fact that the man who made the image was really worshipping himself, his own idea, and that was acting a lie. In whatever way man constructs his own religion, and creates his own deity, in thought and imagination he is not only false to revelation, but he is false to himself; for he deceives himself with the idea that he is worshipping God, when all the while he is only projecting himself outside himself, in order to worship himself. Both formal and mental idolatry are phases of idol-worship; and in them both man is false to himself and false to God. II. FALSEHOOD IN RELIGION REGARDED AS TIME-SERVING. The stronger man thinks for himself, and makes his own religion; the weaker man simply is carried along the current of his age, and does as his generation does. But he is false to the responsibility under which his manhood lies, lee he is bound to decide for himself whom or what he will serve. In the way of agreeing with what exists around him, common opinion and common worship, with the ease and comfort of life. Resisting the age for the sake of truth means disability. So the man is willing to be false. And timeserving in religion is really the same thing as worshipping self. However it is done, it is always being false to God to say we are worshipping him when we, in fact, only bow in the temple of self. - R.T. Parallel Verses KJV: I hate and abhor lying: but thy law do I love. |
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