Psalms 147:15

His Word runneth very swiftly.

The swiftly-running Word

A word is the expression of the mind, the manifestation of the man. “peak,” said the old philosopher, “that I may see thee.” More of a man is seen in his words than in anything else belonging to him. You may look into his face and be mistaken; you may visit his house and not discern him; you may scan his business and misunderstand him; but if you hear his daily conversation you shall soon know him. And this is so with the Lord our God. If you wish to know God you must know His Word. That Word takes several forms. At first it came forth as a fiat: “Let it be,” and it was. Then as a command, giving statutes to men. Then as teaching, promise, threatening. But chief of all is the Word, of whom it is said, “In the beginning was the Word.” Now, by that Word God most of all speaks out His heart. But to all forms of God’s Word the truth of the text applies.

I. The lessons it teaches.

1. That the Divine Word still works. All things continue by virtue of it. Else had they long since ceased to be.

2. And with the same degree of force His Word “runneth,” that is to say, it keeps its ancient pace.

3. But silently.

4. Effectually. Nought can set it aside.

5. And all this in the realm of grace as well as nature.

II. Some particular instances of it. Creation; providence; mercy. But especially is this seen in Christ, the eternal Word. How diligent He was. See this truth, again, in the matters of grace. Conviction of sin; regeneration; justification. And so the individual heart can be speedily revived and quickened, and Churches likewise.

III. What should we learn from all this?

1. The seeking sinner can be saved now.

2. The Word can overtake those who run away from it. Sheep never run so fast after the shepherd as away from him.

3. The Lord can at once give us light and peace. “I have a great trouble,” say you; “and if I do not get help by Monday night I do not know what will become of me.” Well, God can deliver you by Monday night, for His Word runneth very swiftly. He can cause your dry rod to bud and blossom and bear fruit in an hour. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The Word of God

We may take the Word of God to mean any expression of the will of God. Such an expression may be the text of a language or the execution of an act. It is the mind of God coming into form, within our apprehension and beyond it. There are two kinds of testimony by which the Deity is revealed to us. There is a message from God which is brought to us very swiftly from afar, and proclaimed in a speech without words; and there is a witness also nearer home, delivered in the same silence within the human heart and addressed to the human consciousness. They are both described in this psalm (verses 3, 4). Here is a witness speaking to us of God; and here is God His own witness speaking within the human soul. Let us speak of this second testimony, God’s witness of Himself.

I. In the teachings of men. We acknowledge with thankfulness that God has selected channels for the conveyance of His mind to men, outside the acknowledged authorities of Christian truth. God draws near to the prayer of a heathen, and permits Himself to be touched by the eager apprehension of the seeker. There are times when the God nature within man moves him to seek a power above himself. In those terrible conflicts, common to most men, where passion and judgment contend for the mastery, there are certain perturbations of thought and feeling which are inexplicable on any other supposition than the nearness of a great Presence; and men feel after it if, haply, they may find it. Some of the finest compositions in the literature of the classical world describe these searchings after God. The attitude of the mind in this warfare is to the last degree pathetic. There is within it a feeling that it has a right to that which it cannot find, and it wanders through a wilderness of anxious conjecture, crying out in the desert, “Where is the way, and the truth, and the life?” This partial revelation, even when not supplemented by Christian truths has in every age accomplished a great mission. And we cannot praise too generously those noble students of life who have taken the rudiments of this law and framed systems of morality for the conduct of men and the government of states.

II. God’s witness of Himself in the person and revelation of Christ. Every preceding revelation, in whatever form presented and wherever found, points to Jesus Christ. Whatever men were prompted to inquire after in respect of their origin, in respect of the limitations of their knowledge, in respect of the destiny of their intellectual powers, in respect of the design of their creation, is answered in Christ either in exact terms or in affirmative events. The feeling of men after God is expressed in two ways: by thinkers in abstract reasonings and speculations, and by the common people in embodying their hopes and fears in the imageries of worship. Both these forms of search touchingly represent a common humanity. The philosopher cannot rest in abstract ideas; the idolater can find no satisfaction in the incarnations of his own passions. They start from remote points; they meet together in the region of despair. They are both men, and there are depths of want in each of them which neither science nor superstition can reach. But in the person and teaching of Christ both these typical forms of search are anticipated and satisfied. Here is a revelation from the lips of the great Teacher Himself in which the most subtle and exacting demands of metaphysical thought are met, and the sublimest ideal of the imagination is surpassed, “God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” A kindred revelation is the answer to the cry of the peoples of the earth. The problems of human suffering and sorrow which from the first have perplexed and defied the wisdom of the wise are not only unravelled in the light of Christ’s doctrine, but their very springs are explored, and exhausted in the consummation of His work; and the death to which they lead is a new birth of life from which they are shut out. It is the love of God in its aspect of pity and sympathy for the sufferings of men which is destined to conquer the world. This new attribute of tenderness, new outside Christianity, invests the Christ of the Gospel with a strange power, which Buddha never possessed, to attract and charm the races of the East. Here is the distinction between him and the Man of Sorrows. Christ is not for Himself, but for us. It is this contrast which is just now awakening the curiosity of the educated and stimulating the hope of the masses in India. This unselfish love, which is the master-spirit of the Gospel, is the regenerating force of personal and national life. Every nation has its special need, some want made conspicuous by the ruling condition of the people. It may be truth, it may be righteousness where truth is known, it may be freedom, it may be a pure and strong family life, it may be the reign of kindness, but whatever it be, in personal or national demand, a Gospel of universal love meets the condition equally of every people. I want no other evidence of the divinity of its mission. This Gospel is God’s witness of Himself. It is the Word of God, and the Christ of these Scriptures is its central light, a light that brings within our sight and interprets the remotest past, and its illimitable ray pierces the unfolding destinies of the future. The scope of the transit of this Word is all time, and it runs very swiftly from age to age. But we must not interpret swiftness to mean merely or chiefly the rate of apparent transit, or the distance popularly covered between two periods. We must bring into the account the obstacles removed, the revolutions accomplished, the victories achieved. And these in their nature do not admit of exact calculation. Many of them belong to a sphere of which we have no present knowledge. When in making our estimate of the progress attained we have arrived at a certain figure, we have the right to extend the record and bring in unseen results. In this sense of transit God’s Word always runs swiftly because His Word is His Will. It goes straight to its object. There can be no resistance even to check it, for the opposition it meets is made the instrument of its advancement. But there is another element of meaning in the idea of swiftness as applied to the movement of the Word of God. It is running to reach an end: the goal it is destined to win is the accomplishment of a purpose, which I have no hesitation in saying has been the dreaming prophecy of all times, of all history, and of all races. The purpose is not to make the Word a mere literary factor in the education of mankind, but a spiritual power to change the nations--first to give individual man a new soul, then to rebuild the fallen structure of family life, then to change the aims and policy of governments, to make a new earth wherein shall dwell righteousness. The progress of this advancing change was never so rapid as it is this day. The world has been prepared for it by a series of unprecedented occurrences, under the influence of which change is inevitable and becomes not a temporary innovation, but a tide of deep and irresistible current. Take this example, which has been furnished within the period of my public life--the nations fifty years ago and the nations to-day. Then--how well I remember it! throughout the great non-Christian world there was rest--the rest of immemorial usage, the rest of torpor, the rest of insensibility. India was asleep, and China and Japan. There had been in the mind of these vast empires an almost unbroken slumber for ages. Now, thank God! there is unrest; instead of that fatal peace, a sword, not the military weapon, but the dividing edge of truth, the unrest of awakened intelligence, the unrest of a disturbed faith, and that is unrest; of doubt, of suspicion, of uncertainty; the unrest of an eager search for new foundations of belief, and for new principles of society and of life. If I ask which of the active forces of thought and change has had most influence in bringing this about, the educationist will point to the achievements of science, and the amazing triumphs of modern education, the statesman will attribute it to the political knowledge which has quickened and informed the public opinion of nations, resulting in the displacement of effete institutions, and in broader, more enlightened, and more enterprising methods of government. Without disputing the contributions of these immense agencies, and omitting for the present the pervasive influence and activities of the great Churches, I wilt venture to place beyond any single institution, both in the range of its power and in the ever-expanding effects of its operations, the British and Foreign Bible Society. Nothing is easier than to point out that these newly Christianized peoples are living far below the religion of the Bible which has made them what they are. I am afraid that we are in the same condemnation. But there is the standard to rebuke them; and to live under its rebuke is to have a constant incentive to recover what they have lost. Use it or misuse it, believe it or reject it, attach it to myth, parable, or picture, the indestructible power is there, a savour of life or a savour of death. When we consider that the Bible Society is the angel of the, Churches, in going before them to lodge this Word in the languages of the earth and make straight the missionary’s path to the intelligence of the nations, we are bound, as the disciples of Jesus, whose Gospel it is the province of the Word to reveal, to sanctify this glorious institution by our prayers, to strengthen it by our co-operation, and to support it by our gifts. (E. E. Jenkins, LL. D.)