I am small, and of no reputation. It is pointed out that these words are very suitable to the struggling Israel of the Return, which was so much despised by the surrounding kingdoms, and had to keep up such a prolonged struggle with the Eastern powers. But we may take it as a remarkable revelation of one of the weaknesses of human nature. Precisely what men never can do wisely and worthily is "estimate themselves," appraise their own moral condition. Imperfection or exaggeration attaches to all self-estimates.
I. THE SELF-ESTIMATES OF THE WORLDLY MAN. Except with the hypocrisy of a Pecksniff, or a Uriah Heep, the worldly man never talks like our text. If he feels small, he never tells anybody what he feels. He makes the most of himself, and is only too ready to see a strength and goodness which are not really there. But it is, perhaps, truer to say that a Complete self-estimate a man never makes, because he does not take into consideration his moral and spiritual condition. And a man is, first of all, a moral being. And also because he has no adequate standard by which to judge himself. He can but make himself a law, judge himself by himself; and he cannot possibly reach any wise or worthy conclusions in that way. "Could an emmet pry into itself, it might marvel at its own anatomy. But let it look on eagles to discern how mean a thing it is" (Tapper).
II. THE SELF-ESTIMATES OF THE GODLY MAN. There is always grave danger of his erring on the side of undue depreciation. The good man is usually half afraid of his goodness. His religious life begins with a deep sense of sin and helplessness. He regards himself as a monument of grace. He wants to keep up absolute dependence on God, and so he is gravely afraid of every form of self-confidence. He dare not "think of himself more highly than he ought to think," and so his thinking is incomplete, exaggerated on one side. And there is a further danger associated with particular sections of religious professions. It is assumed that God is honored and pleased by man's self-abasement, and even self-debasement; and men think it is pious to "write bitter things against themselves." But God always wants truth and sincerity. And it is neither truth nor sincerity to say that we are "small, and of no reputation," when, in fact, we are not. - R.T.
I am small and despised: yet do not I forget Thy precepts.
I wish to speak of our own separate lives. To the most wearied of you all, I would teach that there is hope. I would say, in spite of every trial which God's disguised mercy may send you, in spite of every humiliation which man's undisguised malice may inflict upon you, Respect yourselves! Value at its true estimate the soul which God has given to you; believe in the splendour of its possibilities and the glory of its immortality. "He," says
Milton, "who holds himself in reverence and due esteem both for the dignity of God's image upon him and for the price of his redemption, which he thinks to be possibly marked upon his forehead, accounts himself a fit person to do the noblest and godliest deeds, and much better worth than to deject and defile with such debasement and pollution as sin, is himself so highly ransomed and ennobled to new friendship and filial relationship with God; nor can he fear so much the offence and reproach of others as he dreads and would blush at the reflection of his own severe and modest eye upon himself, if it should see him doing or imagining that which is sinful, were it even in the deepest secrecy." Thus, then, should we view our personal lives in that inherent grandeur which man can neither bestow upon them nor diminish. And we need thus to feel the sanctity of our beings. Do I net interpret the thoughts of many of you aright when I say that they are very often weighed down by depression and discontent. I ask whether many of you are not secretly saying in your hearts, "Oh that I had a higher position, a wider influence, a larger scope"? "What boots it for me," some of you will say, "to come day after day through the weary streets to the dingy office, to copy and east up accounts till I am grey-headed and cast aside, or retire upon some miserable pension?" Or, "Why am I a humble tradesman, harassed by incessant anxiety about my business?" Or, "Why is no higher lot assigned to me in life than that of standing behind a counter to weigh sugar or measure ribbons?" Or, "Why am I a poor, lonely woman who has apparently missed many of the natural ends of life, whom there are none to praise and very few to love?" And so, more or less, all but a few of us have a lot in life, as has been described, all the harder to bear because in the pathos of it everything is below the level of tragedy, except the passionate egotism of the sufferer. Ah! how many of these discontented murmurs rise from false notions and exaggerated claims; how many of them would vanish if, having food and raiment, we would be therewith content! Our complaints and miseries rise in no small measure from our failure to grasp the real meaning, and to understand the universal experience of life; they rise because, dropping the substance we grasp at the shadow; they rise because we take for solid realities the bubbles which burst at a touch. A child crying because it cannot have the moon is not more foolish and ignorant than we are when we suffer ourselves to be unhappy because wealth, and rank, and success, and power come to others and not to us. Keep God's commandments, and you, small and of no reputation as you may be, are much greater, and bettor, and happier than another who has all earthly gifts, and does not make his moral being his primo cars, as heaven is greater and better than earth. You sigh for riches; the Book in which you profess to believe pours silent contempt on gold. You wish for rank; the man who has the longest ancestry has no longer ancestry than yourselves. He and you are descended alike from the gardener of the lost Eden. You wish for genius, but he who increaseth knowledge very often increaseth sorrow. It is one of the most elementary lessons in life to know that these little earthly distinctions dwindle into absolute insignificance compared with real things, as time dwindles into nothing when compared to eternity. The world may, perhaps, hold you to be commonplace and insignificant people; but the world needs these hardly less than its gifted ones. It would be a woeful thing for the human race if all that is insignificant and all the commonplace were to be thrust to "stand there" or "sit there," under others' footstools, for the commonplace and the insignificant are the vast majority. Ninety-nine out of every hundred of us are in this sense, in the sense of the world, altogether commonplace and insignificant. Is it not the masses and the million who make mankind? What else have been the countless generations who lie under the miles of gravestones and ever extend-hag pavements of tombs and sepulchres? How many of all those who lie in the catacombs or in the cemetery, in the marble monument or mountain cave, have left even the shadow of a name? Our lot, then, is nothing exceptional, nothing to complain of, nothing to be depressed at. It is just the common, the all-but-universal lot. It has nothing to do with the essential meaning of life.
()
People
Heth,
Nun,
PsalmistPlaces
JerusalemTopics
Account, Despised, Forget, Forgotten, Lowly, Mind, Orders, Precepts, YetOutline
1. This psalm contains various prayers, praises, and professions of obedience.2. Aleph.9. Beth17. Gimel25. Daleth33. He41. Waw49. Zayin57. Heth65. Teth73. Yodh81. Kaph89. Lamedh97. Mem105. Nun113. Samekh121. Ayin129. Pe137. Tsadhe145. Qoph153. Resh161. Sin and Shin169. TawDictionary of Bible Themes
Psalm 119:141 5888 inferiority
Psalm 119:137-144
8370 zeal
Psalm 119:141-142
1150 God, truth of
Library
Notes on the First Century:
Page 1. Line 1. An empty book is like an infant's soul.' Here Traherne may possibly have had in his mind a passage in Bishop Earle's "Microcosmography." In delineating the character of a child, Earle says: "His soul is yet a white paper unscribbled with observations of the world, wherewith at length it becomes a blurred note-book," Page 14. Line 25. The entrance of his words. This sentence is from Psalm cxix. 130. Page 15. Last line of Med. 21. "Insatiableness." This word in Traherne's time was often …
Thomas Traherne—Centuries of MeditationsLife Hid and not Hid
'Thy word have I hid in my heart.'--PSALM cxix. 11. 'I have not hid Thy righteousness in my heart.'--PSALM xl. 10. Then there are two kinds of hiding--one right and one wrong: one essential to the life of the Christian, one inconsistent with it. He is a shallow Christian who has no secret depths in his religion. He is a cowardly or a lazy one, at all events an unworthy one, who does not exhibit, to the utmost of his power, his religion. It is bad to have all the goods in the shop window; it is just …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture
A Cleansed Way
Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to Thy word.'--PSALM cxix. 9. There are many questions about the future with which it is natural for you young people to occupy yourselves; but I am afraid that the most of you ask more anxiously 'How shall I make my way?' than 'How shall I cleanse it?' It is needful carefully to ponder the questions: 'How shall I get on in the world--be happy, fortunate?' and the like, and I suppose that that is the consideration …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture
'Time for Thee to Work'
'It is time for Thee, Lord, to work; for they have made void Thy Law. 127. Therefore I love Thy commandments above gold, yea, above fine gold. 128. Therefore I esteem all Thy precepts concerning all things to be right; and I hate every false way.' --PSALM cxix. 126-128. If much that we hear be true, a society to circulate Bibles is a most irrational and wasteful expenditure of energy and money. We cannot ignore the extent and severity of the opposition to the very idea of revelation, even if we would; …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture
A Stranger in the Earth
'I am a stranger in the earth: hide not Thy commandments from me.... 64. The earth, O Lord, is full of Thy mercy: teach me Thy statutes.' --PSALM cxix. 19, 64. There is something very remarkable in the variety-in-monotony of this, the longest of the psalms. Though it be the longest it is in one sense the simplest, inasmuch as there is but one thought in it, beaten out into all manner of forms and based upon all various considerations. It reminds one of the great violinist who out of one string managed …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture
May the Fourth a Healthy Palate
"How sweet are Thy words unto my taste." --PSALM cxix. 97-104. Some people like one thing, and some another. Some people appreciate the bitter olive; others feel it to be nauseous. Some delight in the sweetest grapes; others feel the sweetness to be sickly. It is all a matter of palate. Some people love the Word of the Lord; to others the reading of it is a dreary task. To some the Bible is like a vineyard; to others it is like a dry and tasteless meal. One takes the word of the Master, and it …
John Henry Jowett—My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year
Inward Witness to the Truth of the Gospel.
"I have more understanding than my teachers, for Thy testimonies are my study; I am wiser than the aged, because I keep Thy commandments."--Psalm cxix. 99, 100. In these words the Psalmist declares, that in consequence of having obeyed God's commandments he had obtained more wisdom and understanding than those who had first enlightened his ignorance, and were once more enlightened than he. As if he said, "When I was a child, I was instructed in religious knowledge by kind and pious friends, who …
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII
A Bottle in the Smoke
First, God's people have their trials--they get put in the smoke; secondly, God's people feel their trials--they "become like a bottle in the smoke;" thirdly, God's people do not forget God's statutes in their trials--"I am become like a bottle in the smoke; yet do I not forget thy statutes." I. GOD'S PEOPLE HAVE THEIR TRIALS. This is an old truth, as old as the everlasting hills, because trials were in the covenant, and certainly the covenant is as old as the eternal mountains. It was never designed …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 2: 1856
The Dryness of Preachers, and the Various Evils which Arise from their Failing to Teach Heart-Prayer --Exhortation to Pastors to Lead People Towards this Form Of
If all those who are working for the conquest of souls sought to win them by the heart, leading them first of all to prayer and to the inner life, they would see many and lasting conversions. But so long as they only address themselves to the outside, and instead of drawing people to Christ by occupying their hearts with Him, they only give them a thousand precepts for outward observances, they will see but little fruit, and that will not be lasting. When once the heart is won, other defects are …
Jeanne Marie Bouvières—A Short Method Of Prayer And Spiritual Torrents
Of Deeper Matters, and God's Hidden Judgments which are not to be Inquired Into
"My Son, beware thou dispute not of high matters and of the hidden judgments of God; why this man is thus left, and that man is taken into so great favour; why also this man is so greatly afflicted, and that so highly exalted. These things pass all man's power of judging, neither may any reasoning or disputation have power to search out the divine judgments. When therefore the enemy suggesteth these things to thee, or when any curious people ask such questions, answer with that word of the Prophet, …
Thomas A Kempis—Imitation of Christ
Seven-Fold Joy
"Seven times a day do I praise Thee because of Thy righteous judgments."--Ps. cxix. 164. Mechthild of Hellfde, 1277. tr., Emma Frances Bevan, 1899 I bring unto Thy grace a seven-fold praise, Thy wondrous love I bless-- I praise, remembering my sinful days, My worthlessness. I praise that I am waiting, Lord, for Thee, When, all my wanderings past, Thyself wilt bear me, and wilt welcome me To home at last. I praise Thee that for Thee I long and pine, For Thee I ever yearn; I praise Thee that such …
Frances Bevan—Hymns of Ter Steegen and Others (Second Series)
And in Jeremiah He Thus Declares his Death and Descent into Hell...
And in Jeremiah He thus declares His death and descent into hell, saying: And the Lord the Holy One of Israel, remembered his dead, which aforetime fell asleep in the dust of the earth; and he went down unto them, to bring the tidings of his salvation, to deliver them. [255] In this place He also renders the cause of His death: for His descent into hell was the salvation of them that had passed away. And, again, concerning His cross Isaiah says thus: I have stretched out my hands all the day long …
Irenæus—The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching
The Christian Described
HAPPINESS OF THE CHRISTIAN O HOW happy is he who is not only a visible, but also an invisible saint! He shall not be blotted out the book of God's eternal grace and mercy. DIGNITY OF THE CHRISTIAN There are a generation of men in the world, that count themselves men of the largest capacities, when yet the greatest of their desires lift themselves no higher than to things below. If they can with their net of craft and policy encompass a bulky lump of earth, Oh, what a treasure have they engrossed …
John Bunyan—The Riches of Bunyan
Excursus on the Choir Offices of the Early Church.
Nothing is more marked in the lives of the early followers of Christ than the abiding sense which they had of the Divine Presence. Prayer was not to them an occasional exercise but an unceasing practice. If then the Psalmist sang in the old dispensation "Seven times a day do I praise thee" (Ps. cxix. 164), we may be quite certain that the Christians would never fall behind the Jewish example. We know that among the Jews there were the "Hours of Prayer," and nothing would be, à priori, more …
Philip Schaff—The Seven Ecumenical Councils
The Daily Walk with Others (I. ).
When the watcher in the dark Turns his lenses to the skies, Suddenly the starry spark Grows a world upon his eyes: Be my life a lens, that I So my Lord may magnify We come from the secrecies of the young Clergyman's life, from his walk alone with God in prayer and over His Word, to the subject of his common daily intercourse. Let us think together of some of the duties, opportunities, risks, and safeguards of the ordinary day's experience. A WALK WITH GOD ALL DAY. A word presents itself to be …
Handley C. G. Moule—To My Younger Brethren
The Talking Book
In order that we may be persuaded so to do, Solomon gives us three telling reasons. He says that God's law, by which I understand the whole run of Scripture, and, especially the gospel of Jesus Christ, will be a guide to us:--"When thou goest, it shall lead thee." It will be a guardian to us: "When thou sleepest"--when thou art defenceless and off thy guard--"it shall keep thee." And it shall also be a dear companion to us: "When thou awakest, it shall talk with thee." Any one of these three arguments …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 17: 1871
How to Read the Bible
I. That is the subject of our present discourse, or, at least the first point of it, that IN ORDER TO THE TRUE READING OF THE SCRIPTURES THERE MUST BE AN UNDERSTANDING OF THEM. I scarcely need to preface these remarks by saying that we must read the Scriptures. You know how necessary it is that we should be fed upon the truth of Holy Scripture. Need I suggest the question as to whether you do read your Bibles or not? I am afraid that this is a magazine reading age a newspaper reading age a periodical …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 25: 1879
The Obedience of Faith
"Is there a heart that will not bend To thy divine control? Descend, O sovereign love, descend, And melt that stubborn soul! " Surely, though we have had to mourn our disobedience with many tears and sighs, we now find joy in yielding ourselves as servants of the Lord: our deepest desire is to do the Lord's will in all things. Oh, for obedience! It has been supposed by many ill-instructed people that the doctrine of justification by faith is opposed to the teaching of good works, or obedience. There …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 37: 1891
Faith
HABAKKUK, ii. 4. "The just shall live by faith." This is those texts of which there are so many in the Bible, which, though they were spoken originally to one particular man, yet are meant for every man. These words were spoken to Habakkuk, a Jewish prophet, to check him for his impatience under God's hand; but they are just as true for every man that ever was and ever will be as they were for him. They are world-wide and world-old; they are the law by which all goodness, and strength, and safety, …
Charles Kingsley—Twenty-Five Village Sermons
What the Truth Saith Inwardly Without Noise of Words
Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth.(1) I am Thy servant; O give me understanding that I may know Thy testimonies. Incline my heart unto the words of Thy mouth.(2) Let thy speech distil as the dew. The children of Israel spake in old time to Moses, Speak thou unto us and we will hear, but let not the Lord speak unto us lest we die.(3) Not thus, O Lord, not thus do I pray, but rather with Samuel the prophet, I beseech Thee humbly and earnestly, Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth. Let not Moses …
Thomas A Kempis—Imitation of Christ
That the Body and Blood of Christ and the Holy Scriptures are Most Necessary to a Faithful Soul
The Voice of the Disciple O most sweet Lord Jesus, how great is the blessedness of the devout soul that feedeth with Thee in Thy banquet, where there is set before it no other food than Thyself its only Beloved, more to be desired than all the desires of the heart? And to me it would verily be sweet to pour forth my tears in Thy presence from the very bottom of my heart, and with the pious Magdalene to water Thy feet with my tears. But where is this devotion? Where the abundant flowing of holy …
Thomas A Kempis—Imitation of Christ
Links
Psalm 119:141 NIVPsalm 119:141 NLTPsalm 119:141 ESVPsalm 119:141 NASBPsalm 119:141 KJV
Psalm 119:141 Bible AppsPsalm 119:141 ParallelPsalm 119:141 Biblia ParalelaPsalm 119:141 Chinese BiblePsalm 119:141 French BiblePsalm 119:141 German Bible
Psalm 119:141 Commentaries
Bible Hub
