“NOTHING DOTH STUMBLE THEM”
I was thinking of this allusion, “Nothing doth stumble them”. It would appeal to us as the days outwardly get more difficult, which, as we have been prophetically warned, is to mark the end of this dispensation. Most of us would have to say we have stumbled enough, and within ourselves there is no assurance, apart from the Spirit, that we can be maintained in life until the Lord comes. I would like to stimulate our desire in that direction. The Lord is maintaining His testimony in those that love Him. Thank God we are numbered amongst the thousands that love God. Psalm 119, as we have been reminded recently, is really the climax of the Psalms; the rest is a kind of appendix.
This is a wonderful psalm, of which we have read one verse, “Great peace have they that love thy law”. As we read through the psalm it is “Thy law”, “Thy judgments”, “Thy precepts”. I think we could read Jesus into this psalm. It is the Word, you see; it is the whole alphabet. “In the beginning was the Word”. The revealed mind of God was there in God manifest in flesh, in the Person of the Son. This psalm, coming at the end, is the culmination of the experiences of the Psalms, and it does not have a title or say who wrote it. We need our own psalms, dear brethren, as the fruit of our experience with God and His faithfulness to us. What a blessed result, “Christ is everything and in all”, Col 3: 11. How searching that is, as to whether He is governing every facet of my life.
This psalm would cover everything, whatever the trial or suffering this psalm would bring in a precept, or a judgment, or a law, or a word, that would give direction and impulse and peace. That, beloved brethren, is more than the doctrine—it is the Person of Jesus. We come to, “They that confide in Jehovah”. Here it says, where we read, “Great peace have they that love thy law”. Oh to have that kind of peace! “My peace”, the Lord says, “I leave with you”. What peace He had; unbroken confidence and communion with the Father. We may say, ‘Can I have that?’ He says, ‘I am leaving that peace with you’. So we want to be restful amidst circumstances that are not easy and maybe they will not get any easier—having an inward sense of peace that is not disturbed whatever the circumstances may be, so that it says, “nothing doth stumble them”. How precious that is!
Jude says, “But to him that is able to keep you without stumbling ...”. We have tried it long enough to attempt to get through on our own, only to find how miserably we failed. The Lord wants us to trust Him and to trust the Spirit—to trust God. Someone has said, ‘It is perhaps one of the most difficult lessons to learn to trust the Lord’. Most of us would have to confess we so often try everything else first. I would exhort, take it first to the Lord in prayer. There is assurance here that “nothing doth stumble them”. Oh to be steeped in the appreciation of the moral glories of Jesus; that is what we have had over these recent days, and the Spirit’s work is to form the saints in those features morally; not displayed yet; that will be in the city coming down, having the glory of God. Oh the substantiality of that vessel! involving every believer, every lover with his own peculiar impress of Christ giving glory to that vessel. Now we are in the time of formation and how important it is in our histories to arrive at a psalm as the conclusion and result of our experiences, where “Christ is everything, and in all”. So the succeeding psalms are the appendix; they are the ‘going up’ psalms—the Songs of degrees—we are going up:
Yon heaven is our home.
Our hold on earth should be getting less, dear brethren, less and less, until there is hardly anything holding us. But “They that confide in Jehovah are as mount Zion”. That is where our stability lies, and “the mountains round about her” would be principles that govern the assembly, the house of God. Therein lies stability. Let us not be affected, or tainted, by the spirit, or the things, of the world. There is no stability in this poor world, so rapidly heading for its doom, as is only too apparent; but as to those who love Zion, “they that confide in Jehovah are as mount Zion, which cannot be moved; it abideth for ever”. Then it says, “Jehovah is round about his people”. Oh, beloved brethren, what a comfort to be together like this now, to know that He is near to us, “about his people”, that is. His affections are surrounding us as we are together. He is “about his people”. He cares about us, “from henceforth and for evermore”.
Now I just want to touch on verse 3, “the sceptre of wickedness shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous; lest the righteous put forth their hands unto iniquity”. Now I find this very searching, for we need to care for one another. I do not know that I can quite explain what is in my mind, but the Spirit of God is here. We need to be careful that we do not by our influence put persons into a situation that is too much for them. I can understand, perhaps, during the forty days, John might draw near to Peter and say, ‘Peter, that was my fault; I led you where you were not able for it’, I do not know how you feel, dear brethren, but this searches me, whether in certain things we may have put persons in a situation that was too much for them; ‘lest the righteous put forth their hands unto iniquity’. It does not condone the iniquity, but certain actions have put persons in what we might say naturally were impossible positions. I just want to leave that for us to think about. What we need is the stability of Zion, and to be governed by the truth so that no one ‘stumbles’; and the final word is that we do not want to stumble anyone else. May the Lord help us. Amen.
MOTUEKA NZ
14th March 1989
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