...'i have been all the longer over this portion of my task because i have been bewildered in the expanse of the 119th psalm..
this marvelous poem seemed to me a great sea of holy teaching, moving, in its many verses, wave upon wave; altogether without an island of special and remarkable statement to break it up. i confess i hesitated to launch upon it. other psalms have been mere lakes, but this is the main ocean. it is a continent of sacred thought, every inch of which is fertile as the garden of the Lord: it is an amazing level of abundance, a mighty stretch of harvest-fields. i have now crossed the great plain for myself, but not without persevering and, i will add, pleasurable, toil. several great authors have traversed this region and left their tracks behind them and so far the journey has been all the easier for me; but yet to me and to my helpers it has been no mean feat of patient authorship and research. this great psalm is a book in itself: instead of being one among many psalms, it is worthy to be set forth by itself as a poem of surpassing excellence. those who have never studied it may pronounce it commonplace, and complain of its repetitions; but to the thoughtful student it is like the great deep, full, so as never to be measured; and varied, so as never to weary the eye. its depth is as great as its length; it is mystery, not set forth as mystery, but concealed beneath the simplest statements; my i say that it is experience allowed to prattle, to preach, to praise, and to pray like a child-prophet in his own father's house?..
above all, i trust that the Holy Spirit has been with me in writing and compiling these volumes, and therefore i expect that He will bless them both to the conversion of the unrenewed and to the edification of believers.
the writing of this book has been a means of grace to my own heart; i have enjoyed for myself what i have prepared for my readers. the book of psalms has been a royal banquet to me and in feasting upon its contents i have seemed to eat angels' food. it is no wonder that old writers should call it,-
the school of patience
the soul's soliloquies
the little bible
the anatomy of conscience
the rose garden the pearl island and the like.
it is the paradise of devotion,
the Holy Land of poesy
(lit. creation; poem, body of poems)
the heart of scripture,
the map of experience,
and the tongue of the saints.
it is the spokesman of feelings which else had found no utterance.
does it not say just what we wished to say?
are not its prayers and praises exactly such as our hearts delight in?
no man needs better company than the psalms;
therein he may read and commune with friends human and divine;
friends who know the heart of man toward God, and the heart of God towards man;
friends who perfectly sympathize with us and our sorrows,
friends who never betray or forsake.
oh to be shut up in a cave with david, with no other occupation but to hear hims sin, and to sing with him!
well might a christian monarch lay aside his crown for such enjoyment,
and a believing pauper find a crown in such felicity.
it is to be feared that the psalms are by no means so prized as in earlier ages of the church.
time was when the psalms were not only rehearsed in all the churches from day to day,
but they were so universally sung that the common people knew them, even if they did not know the letters
in which they were written.
time was when bishops would ordain no man to the ministry unless he
knew 'david' from end to end, and
could repeat each psalm correctly;
even councils of the church have decreed that none should hold ecclesiastical office unless they knew the whole psalter by heart.
other practices of those ages had better be forgotten, but to this memory accords an honourable record.
then, as jerome tells us,
the labourer, while he held the plough, sand hallelujah;
the tired reaper refreshed himself with the psalms, and
the vinedresser, while trimming the vines with his curved hook, sang something of david.
he tells us that in his part of the world,
psalms were the christian's ballads;
could they have had better?
they were the love songs of the people of God;
could any others be so pure and heavenly?
these sacred hymns express all modes of holy feeling;
they are fit both for childhood and old age:
they furnish maxims for the entrance of life, and
serve as watchwords at the gates of death.
the battle of life,
the repose of the sabbath,
the ward of the hospital,
the guest-chamber of the mansion,
the church,
the oratory(a place of prayer as a small chapel or a room for devotions), yea
even heaven itself
may be entered with psalms.
..when i reach (note: commentating on) the last psalm, it is my firm conviction that i shall find no truer closing words for myself than those of bishop horne..here to quote ..them as ..my own...
"and now, could the author flatter himself that anyone would take half the pleasure in reading the following exposition which he hath taken in writing it, he would not fear the loss of his labor. the employment detached him from
the bustle and hurry of life,
the din of politics, and
the noise of folly (note: tv and all her media children)
vanity and vexation flew for a season,
care and disquietude came not near his dwelling.
he arose fresh as the morning to his task;
the silence of the night invited him to pursue it; and
he can truly say, that food and rest were not preferred before it.
every psalm improved infinitely upon his acquaintance with it, and
no one gave him uneasiness but the last;
for then he grieved that his work was done.
happier hours than those which have been spent on these meditations on the songs of zion he never expects to see in this world.
very pleasantly did they pass, and
they moved smoothly and swiftly along; for when thus engaged, he counted no time.
the meditations are gone,
but have left a relish and a fragrance upon the mind,
and the remembrance of them is sweet".
reader, i am thine to serve, for Christ's sake, charles haddon spurgeon'
(note: i used to read the bible through many times,
as it has now appeared to me..for the learning of facts.
after my wife divorced me i spent the next five years in the psalms.
i now, i am hopeful, had become-at last-a sheep found of God in His grace through His blessed Son,
the Lord Jesus Christ...
i now, by His blessed Holy Spirit,
began to allow Him to pass His words through me
rather than ME go through His words.
instead of ME gathering..mentally,
it became HIM speaking..spirit to spirit.
i have not read the bible through in the last decade or so
since He has come to ...hopefully, savingly..know me..
since He has been, in His still small voice, helping me to come to know a bit of Him..
the believers where i worship God have begun a plan of reading the bible through in a year according to plan.
although not following their plan, this induced me to seek to do the same.
looking back now, i find that on 8.15.2011 i recorded the first date at the head of exodus 23.
at the start i was endeavouring to read 3 chapters a day and 5 on sunday and was most days doing something like this. so it was probably sometime, maybe, in june, 2011 i started.
i find 2.6.2012 noted at the start of job 38. so it was approximately six months ago that i fell into the psalms...
and have reached the beginning of psalm 119.
when i entered the psalms i began to slow down rather rapidly..
looking up words that cried out for greater light at first.
but this was soon replaced, or i should say supplemented by reading spurgeon's treasury of david commentaries on words, phrases or verses that i hungered to understand,
ultimately, for the purpose of knowing God better,
for the growing desire to live to, for and in Him
moment by moment.
as the psalms went by, more and more slowly, i,
bit by bit..
began to move toward reading
more and more
of the treasury
on each psalm.
my times of daily meditation and study have lengthened.
(note: this is not the only thing i do. often verses..at times concretely connected with nubs of everyday real life..at times, seemingly, unconnected... in other parts of the bible will come as luminous messengers that bid me do what david sought in psalm 27.4- '..that i may dwell in the house of the Lord, to behold the beauty of the Lord (i am inquiring that He bring whatever this is into my life in Him..) and to INQUIRE in His temple..inquire not to know, but to become and then to live...)
my times
of talking to the Lord
of sitting before Him...listening
have increased
immeasureably
in richness and intimacy
with Him.
at this point i am being brought,
bit by bit,
into the beginnings of bishop horne and charles haddon spurgeon and innumerable saints before, concurrent with and still-to-come children of God's trystings
(appointments to meet at a certain time and place, especially ones made somewhat secretly by lovers)
that lead to a lifelong commitment to live as one with/for/in Him who is the only True Lover of a man's soul..
who is Life itself.)
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