Psalms 119:129

Psalms 119:129

I. Consider, first, how the wonderfulness of God's word is calculated to produce the observance of it. The human mind is possessed of certain faculties, and subject to certain sensations. Amidst these sensations very prominent is that feeling of surprise which overtakes us at the sight of what is unexpected, or exceeds all our conceptions, or extends beyond the grasp of our understanding. This is the faculty of wonder. We have many instances before us of wonder acting upon the soul and constraining it to obey. The mind is more moved by the words of one whom we have not seen, and whom we image to ourselves vaguely, often untruly, than by one of whom we feel that we know all about him. And we can easily transfer our argument to the instance of God and revelation. If God were a being whom we felt we could measure, if there was nothing to baffle our deepest inquiries, nothing to awe, to prostrate, to overwhelm, we might not indeed have to meet the jest of the scoffer or the sneer of the infidel; but neither, on the other hand, should we find spirits rapt away from earth and earthly things and loving to build their homes in the word of the Lord. The wonderfulness of the law constitutes its bondage over the spirit.

II. From the above doctrine flow several important practical lessons. (1) It it be true that wonder is closely connected with reverence, that, in short, the marvellous exerts in religion, as in other things, a great power over the soul of man, then we shall cease to be surprised that the Almighty has not spoken more clearly. (2) The statutes which are to be kept must be not a theory of reason, but of wonder; they must afford food for the imagination as well as exercise for the understanding. (3) There is also an application of the text to the subject of public worship. You must have in your religious ceremonial also something which will appeal to the imagination as well as to the reason, otherwise you will soon have coldness and indifference.

Bishop Woodford, Occasional Sermons,vol. i., p. 258.

Reference: Psalms 119:129. G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons,p. 200.