International Sunday School Lesson for October 10, 2010

 

Rules for Life

By

Jed Greenough

Psalm 19:7-14

The law of the LORD is perfect,
       reviving the soul.
       The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy,
       making wise the simple.

 The precepts of the LORD are right,
       giving joy to the heart.
       The commands of the LORD are radiant,
       giving light to the eyes.

 The fear of the LORD is pure,
       enduring forever.
       The ordinances of the LORD are sure
       and altogether righteous.

  They are more precious than gold,
       than much pure gold;
       they are sweeter than honey,
       than honey from the comb.

  By them is your servant warned;
       in keeping them there is great reward.

  Who can discern his errors?
       Forgive my hidden faults.

  Keep your servant also from willful sins;
       may they not rule over me.
       Then will I be blameless,
       innocent of great transgression.

  May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
       be pleasing in your sight,
       O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

At the time that this was written King David was ruler of Israel and ultimately responsible for the people and that they followed the “law of the Lord”.  Like water in a lake that freezes from the top down so will a people follow their leader. 

When Israel had a leader such as David, they knew that in him they had someone as I said in my blog http://workofthegospel.blogspot.com/ that was a man after God’s heart.

And when Israel didn’t have leaders like that they “forsook the LORD, the God of “their “fathers, and did not walk in the way of the LORD” and leaders such as this “did evil in the eyes of the LORD.”

Now although “the law of the LORD as referred to here has been “nailed to the cross” the example of the law of the LORD is perfect for us and His word still is perfect for us today, so let’s examine each of these verses from today’s International Sunday School Lesson.

I personally love to study a passage of scripture and the way I come to know it best is by reading it all the way through the first time and then contemplating, even listening if you will, what it is that God would have me hear.  Sometimes that will mean researching where perhaps the scripture has been used elsewhere in the Bible other times it might just bring to my mind another verse, other times the search finds me peeling away layer after layer and that particular one we will have to forsake or we will have a book and not a posting!

In the first verse we cannot help but think about the 23^rd Psalm that we all know so well because just as the 23^rd Psalm reads He restores our soul so does the law of the Lord revive our soul.  Since Jesus is called the Word and I in reading today’s psalm consider the “law of the Lord” to be interchangeable with the word, these two verses are in harmony and even Christmas or Easter only Christians when they need a reviving or a restoring of their soul they seek it from God’s Word.

As I look at the second half of verse 7, I am reminded of how my wife and I like to say we have been married for 52 years.  I think that we have been saying that since around our 10^th anniversary, but like some people who have really been married for 52 years might do, we tend to repeat things.  One of those things was how these ordinances make perfect sense today with all we know about healthy and helpful living, rules that if followed even the simple would benefit from if they just followed them.

Some good examples of this can be found by perusing Leviticus to see how they were instructed to deal with infectious skin diseases or perhaps what constituted unlawful sexual relations. 

A man thought wise could have an affair with his brother’s wife and enter a life of folly and a simple man could see from God’s statutes to be faithful and keep two people happy all their lives.

Verse 8 follows well combining God’s precepts with rightness and joy obviously whether it be faithfulness or treating a neighbor well gives us stability and not angst, we have joy and not sorrow.

And who cannot read, “The commands of the LORD are radiant, giving light to the eyes.”, and not think of Psalm 119:105 “Your word is a lamp to my feet and light for my path.”?

Verse 9 is a hard one for many people today and for me one of the easiest.  I draw strength from having a fear of the LORD and I read a verse such as this and I wouldn’t even pause and consider it if I wasn’t writing about it because a fear of the LORD is as much a part of me as breathing.  Why do people today give this a negative connotation?

My own gut feeling is that it is because they want God on their terms and not His.  To me they are just going through the motions and are fools if they think they are drawing near to God for I firmly believe Proverb 9:10a that “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom…”

You just found out something about me with that one, I am blunt and I don’t think we have the time to be anything else!

The second half of verse 9 goes with verse 10 and sometimes there isn’t much to say when you look at a verse.  Sometimes all you can do is say, “yes” or “I agree” and to these true words I would only add that as uncertain as our own thoughts or man’s ordinances are, God’s words can be trusted to be sure, for as we know from the scriptures no man is righteous but God is and that is why we can treasure His ordinances.

Verse 11 instantly brought one thing to mind and that is that this is one way to sum up the entirety of God’s word the servant Adam was warned in the very beginning and we as servants are warned throughout but in keeping His ordinances we see the great reward of spending eternity with Him.

Verse 12 and 13 really got to me and I pray that I will not forget them and it also my prayer that you don’t either.  They point out to me that I can be aware of my sins that are obvious to me but I can have other sins that I am either ignorant of or I have “put on” so often they are like a comfortable sweater I grab every evening of winter but to God sin is sin and it should be our sincere desire to be aware that this types of sin exists and can rule over us just like David.

Finally we conclude with the words of verse 14, words that I have underlined in my Bible on some previous study, “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my redeemer.”  On this verse I will not comment but just ask that you underline them in your Bible as well.

For Discussion:

1. Can you give me an example of how God or His word may have revived or restored you?
2. Do you think someone could red the verses of this psalm and disagree with what we read there?
3. Discuss fear of the LORD
4. Discuss how god’s laws, precepts, word is perfect, right, radiant etc.
5. In verse 7 it says the statutes of the LORD make the wise simple, how?  Read and discuss 1 Corinthians 1:18-2:16
6. Consider verses 12-13 with regard to your own life.  How after doing so can you discuss in a way that might help the class?
7. Ask the class if the words of their mouth and the meditations of their hearts 24/7 are pleasing to God and what impact that might have on their relationship with God.

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 Biblica. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.