THE REFORMED WITNESS HOUR"A Light Unto Our Path"Rev. Doug Kuiper(e-mail: Rev. Carl
Haak) |
Dear
Radio Friends,
We all know that life confronts
us with many decisions. Decisions about
marriage or career, perhaps. Even more,
decisions about issues of faith and morality. What
guides you in making your decisions? Is it
your feelings, or the popular opinion of the day, or what your parents taught you? Feelings and popular opinions are no reliable
guide for us in making our decisions. They
change. They have no substance and no basis
for forming a mature opinion. Even parents
could mislead us. We need something sure and
dependable, something that will guide us infallibly.
That something is holy Scripture, the Word of God.
When our parents, friends, or
teachers use Scripture as their guide and then give us advice on the basis of Scripture,
we know that we can follow their advice.
There was a young man who, by the inspiration of God, wrote
Psalm 119
.
He
makes it his personal confession that the Scriptures were his guide. We want to make this our confession, too. That young man says in
Psalm 119:105
,
“Thy
word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”
What does it mean that the
Scriptures are a light unto our path? Even
more, first of all, why is it necessary to have such a light? It is the idea of a pathway that helps us
understand the necessity. Then, think of a dark
pathway. If you walk through the forest at
night, you realize your need for a light that will guide you. For, in a forest at night, walking down a
pathway, you face dangers. First of all,
there is the danger of being disoriented, losing your sense of direction. Especially if a path is not familiar, that is a
danger. Without a landmark or a light to keep
us orientated, we will get lost.
Another danger in walking down a
path is that there might be an object in that path over which we stumble. A log may lie in the way. In the dark of night, without a light to guide us,
we cannot see the dangers ahead. So we use
lights to guide us in actual earthly life.
Now the psalmist uses that
reality and applies it to his spiritual walk, for it is his spiritual pathway that he
refers to when he says, “My feet … my path.”
Of course, no earthly flashlight will help us down a spiritual pathway. Nor is Scripture going to help us know what way to
go on a physical, earthly pathway. When the
psalmist speaks of his path in our text he is referring to his life from the viewpoint of
its being a spiritual pathway.
Life is like a pathway. It is like a pathway because it is laid out very
carefully and determined for us. All of the
events of life that we face are trials. And
our decisions are like walking down a pathway and encountering difficulties — coming
to crossroads at which we must make a decision whether to turn right or left or go
straight ahead.
Life is like a pathway,
especially our spiritual life, because it has also a destination. The destination of our spiritual life is the glory
of God in all that we do, and then that, in the way of glorifying Him, and by His grace,
we be brought to heaven. That is the desire
of the child of God — that he go to heaven, and that he glorify God in all his life.
But there is much darkness in
our life, and dangers lurk. There is
spiritual darkness because we walk this pathway in the midst of an evil, sinful world. All around us are threats to our faith and
morality. All around us the world, and Satan
using the world, tempts us to depart from the path of righteousness and to put off the
glory of God and to serve our own lusts. So
the danger is that we become disoriented spiritually as we walk throughout our life. Adam did that when he fell into sin. He knew, in the state of perfection, how to
glorify God. But having fallen into sin, he
became spiritually disoriented in this sense: he
lost the ability to serve and glorify God. A
danger would be, as we walk the spiritual pathway, that we stumble, that is, that we fall
into the pit of sin, that what God tells us not to do we do.
These dangers that we face are
not merely hypothetical dangers, and not even potential dangers, but they
are real dangers. As the child of God
goes through life trying to determine how he can best glorify God, he will face the
dangers of which we have spoken. Therefore it
is important that we have a light to guide us.
That light, which the psalmist
claims to use for his guidance, is the Word of God. “Thy
word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”
Thy word! The Word of God is the speech or the revelation of
God. The psalmist has in mind, however, that
Word, not as he heard it spoken, but even more as he had it written. He has in mind the law of God.
Psalm 119
is a psalm in which the idea of
God’s law is central. Different words
are used throughout the psalm to refer to God’s law:
Thy word, thy testimonies, thy ways, thy commandments, thy judgments, thy precepts,
thy statutes. But regardless of the word the
psalmist uses, he has in mind the law of God. And
he speaks of that Word of God (the law of God) as being the revelation of God to him
regarding truth. “Thy word is
truth.” It was Jesus who said that in
John 17
.
But the psalmist had an
understanding of that concept. The Word of
God was true and dependable.
It is that Word of God, now,
which is his guide along his dark pathway. The
question is: Why is it the Word of God, as
opposed to anything else, that will help us in these issues of faith and morality and any
other decision we have to make? It is because
God knows best. This is God’s word. God, the all-knowing and wise and perfect; God,
the God who has determined what is sin and what is righteousness; God, the God who is
sovereign over the enemy and, therefore, knows what lies ahead on our pathway and knows
the tactics that the enemy will use — God is best equipped to guide us. The Word of God, therefore, is a dependable and
trustworthy guide because God is a dependable and trustworthy God. He does not lie, but He speaks the truth. When He gives us direction on how to live, we
receive that direction with gratitude and live in accordance with it because we know He
alone can see ahead in the darkness of our spiritual life.
But then, if the Word of God is
to be our guiding light, we must say that nothing else will guide us and we will not turn
to anything else. How quickly, though, we
turn to the world’s ideas, to the advice columnists in the newspapers, to the
world’s wisdom, and try from them to learn how to succeed in life and how to make the
right decisions.
If we would take to heart that
the world itself is sinful, that the world is an essential aspect of the darkness of the
pathway on which we walk, then we would realize that the world and men, of themselves,
cannot provide us with our leadership. Men
are, of themselves, liars and more vain than vanity itself.
The Belgic Confession says, in Article 7, underscoring that very fact, that we
cannot depend on men to give us guidance. The
Word of God is sufficient. The Word of God
will surely guide us in all of our life. And
it will do so in a way that we can rely on. As
I said earlier, and I repeat again, this does not rule out that we might have to turn to
other human beings for advice. The psalmist
may have had to turn to his father or mother or to other members of the Christian faith
and community for advice. But what he
realized was this, that only when others brought him advice based on the Word of God was
that advice reliable and worthy of being followed.
Do you have troubles in your
marriage? Do you want to make your marriage
better? Do you have troubles raising your
children? Do you want to know how to be the
best parent that you can be? The Word of God
is a reliable guide there. Do you have
troubles fighting a certain sin in your life? Do
you find that so often you fail to stand up to temptation?
It is the Word of God which will serve you as a reliable and trustworthy light to
fight the temptations you face. Are there
questions you have about what career to go into or whom to date? The Word of God will not tell you specifically
what career to go into or whom to date. It
does not make our decisions for us. But
it will set down principles to guide us.
How does the Word of God
function, then, as a guide in our life? In
two different ways it does so. First of all,
it functions as a guide in our life because, in certain areas, it does give pointed and
specific direction regarding how we must live. The
law and the commands of God are specific. When
we think of the law of God, we have in mind the Ten Commandments, first of all — Thou
shalt have no other gods before Me; Thou shalt not bow down thyself to any graven image;
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; Remember the Sabbath day to keep
it holy; Honor thy father and thy mother; Thou shalt not kill; Thou shalt not commit
adultery; Thou shalt not steal; Thou shalt not bear false witness; Thou shalt not covet. Now, what makes that direction so pointed and
specific is the words “Thou shalt not!” God,
in His law, shows us very clearly what way we are not to go, what kind of decisions we may
not make in life. This is light and guidance. For what the law forbids us to do is what we want
to do by nature. The world advises us to
commit fornication. Advice columnists in the
newspapers will not tell us to “abstain from fornication.” But God says, “No!” The wise man, Solomon, by inspiration of God,
makes the same point. Having spoken in
Proverbs 6
of an adulterous woman who desires to seduce a man and to lead him astray from
the path of godliness and who will surely have her way unless that man seeks the law of
God for direction, Solomon reminds us in verses 23 and 24:
“For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of
instruction are the way of life: to keep thee
from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman.”
Because the law of God is so
clear, it must be followed. Think of a sailor
in charge of steering a ship, who sees a lighthouse telling him what way to use and
guiding him into the harbor, a very dangerous harbor to enter because of rocks all around
it. If that ship were to dash itself on the
rocks, there would be sure destruction. Think,
now, of the foolishness of that sailor if, seeing the lighthouse, he decides to ignore it. He will decide for himself what is the best way to
get the ship into the harbor — with the consequence that the ship is dashed into
pieces. So the child of God. When he has the law and the Word of God to tell
him very clearly what not to do and what to do, then he is foolish if he does not rely on
it but seeks his own way of finding guidance and seeks to follow his own feelings and his
own intuition. God gives us, in the Word of
God, specific direction in certain areas of life.
But then, the Word of God
functions as a guide in our life also by setting forth principles by which to govern our
life. As we said earlier, the Word of God
will not tell us what kind of work we should undertake or whom to take for our spouse. But the Word of God gives principles. We are to work.
Scripture makes that clear. It is good
to have a spouse. Scripture tells us that. In our work we must not work on the Lord’s
day. “Remember the Sabbath Day to keep
it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and do all
thy work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” The child of God, then, who wants to please God in
his work will not accept that job or position which requires him to work on Sunday, the
Lord’s day, in an area that is not one of absolute necessity for life.
The Scriptures give principles
on Christian stewardship: how should I spend
my money in this or that area of my life? Scripture
will not say, “You may buy this; you must not buy that,” in so many words. But when we know that God has given us our money
to use to the glory of His name; when we know that we must not spend that money on
anything that is contrary to the law of God; when we know also that the causes of His
kingdom require the support that we can give it by money and resources — then we have
some principles by which we can govern our life. Now,
because these principles are not spelled out in detail, the child of God must know his
Scripture carefully, thoroughly, and accurately to use these principles in his life. But if we study Scripture regularly, we will
become more adept at applying these principles to our life.
The more a person uses a map, the more he knows the various routes on the map and
the ones that best serve his purpose. The
more the child of God studies Scripture, the more he knows what Scripture requires of him
and how best to serve and glorify God in a way consistent with scriptural principles.
Therefore, there is in our text
an implied command, “Be guided by Scripture. Use
it as your light. Search it daily and find in
it the wisdom you need as a child of God.”
But our text does not consist of
a command so much as it consists of a confession: “Thy
word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” That is a confession of the child of God, and it
says something not only about the role Scripture plays in his life (it is his
guide), but it says something also about his view of Scripture itself. He understands Scripture to be very clearly the
Word of God: “Thy word.” Is that your view of holy Scripture — the
Word of God? Completely the Word of God? Without error the Word of God? The psalmist, in speaking of the place Scripture
plays in his life, says of Scripture by implication that it is a clear guide. It is a light.
Light is always clear. It will not
leave him in doubt. He says, by implication,
that it is a trustworthy guide — it will lead him to his destination. “I have sworn, and I will perform it, that I
will keep thy righteous judgments,” he says in verse 106. He will keep the law of God because he knows it
will bring him to the destination he seeks — the glory of God, and as regards
himself, his being brought to heaven.
Do you make the same confession,
then? Not only that Scripture does
guide you, but that Scripture is your only guide?
And do you make that same confession with a very high view of Scripture? Scripture as the Word of God will surely lead me
to my destination. We cannot make that
confession of ourselves. The old man of sin
in every one of us will never say, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet.” The old man of sin in us will despise the Word of
God. Therefore, to make this confession, we
need the grace of the Holy Spirit working in us to understand that what the psalmist
confesses is in fact truth. There is no more
reliable guide than the Word of God.
Dear radio listener, may you
find that to be true in your life!
Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank Thee
for giving us Thy Word, and we pray for the grace of the Spirit to understand it and to
use it rightly in our life in this coming week and until Thou dost take us to be with Thee
in glory. Bless us and forgive our sins in
Christ’s name, Amen.