Psalms 119:139 My zeal hath consumed me, because mine enemies have forgotten thy words.
The psalmist’s zeal had consumed him. Zeal works like a consuming fire. So just what is zeal?
Zeal - In Biblical language, denoting ardent (burning) feeling or fervour (taking the form of love, wrath, ‘jealousy’, or righteous indignation).
It is common among all men to feel the burning of love or
wrath or jealously. And God’s servants
sometimes feel the burning of righteous indignation, which flows out of their
fervent love of God and His righteousness, and a jealousy for His glory. Such was the case with the psalmist. He so loved the words of God that his zeal had
consumed him; he was burned up with righteous indignation because those words
were forgotten by his enemies.
George Horne wrote when commenting on this verse: “‘Zeal’
is a high degree of love; and when the object of that love is ill treated,
it venteth itself in a mixture of grief and indignation, which are sufficient
to wear and ‘consume’ the heart.” One can see this from Solomon’s words
regarding love:
Song of Songs 8:6 Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.7 Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.
A love that strong breeds a consuming zeal.
Observe that the zeal of the psalmist did not consume him
because his enemies had forgotten him! How often does our wrath or jealously consume
us because we feel someone has slighted us?
This is because we love ourselves too much. But in the psalmist’s case, his zeal was
stirred because God’s words were slighted, even slighted to the point of being
forgotten.
Mine enemies have
forgotten thy words. And do these
words ever describe the age in which we live!
Not only is the Bible rejected, it is not even considered. It is a forgotten Book. And make no mistake about it; those who
forget it are our enemies as the psalmist said.
Just only this week the pope of Rome
stood before the United
States congress and said: “But there is another temptation which we
must especially guard against: the
simplistic reductionism which sees only good or evil; or, if you will, the
righteous and sinners.” What he calls
“simple reductionism” is precisely how the Bible sees things. The Scriptures are replete with things and
persons characterized as good or evil, righteous or sinners. The pope’s words remind me of what the prophet Ezekiel wrote about the apostate priests of his day.
Ezekiel 22:26 Her priests have violated my law, and have profaned mine holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they shewed difference between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.
The “simplistic reductionism” of the Bible reduces the pope’s speech to being simply
profane. That the
masses could look favourably on such a speech only underscores the fact that
they have forgotten God’s words! The
pope’s statement stirs my ire as well it should. Anyone who can be indifferent to such an
ignorant, asinine, downright anti-Scriptural statement as he made certainly does
not have much love for what God says in His word.
Let us ever strive against developing the lukewarm attitude
of the church of Laodicea. The Lord found their lack of zeal disgusting
to the point of wanting to vomit that church out of His mouth.
Revelation 3:16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
Of course, the greatest example of consuming zeal for God’s
words is found in the Lord Jesus Christ.
When He beheld how the moneychangers had
turned the house of God into a den of thieves, in righteous indignation He drove them out of the temple
with “a scourge of small cords” (John 2:13-16).
When His disciples saw this they recalled the words of Psalm 69:9 which
prophesied of Christ:
John 2:17 And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.
Those moneychangers had obviously forgotten the words of God
written in Isaiah 56:7 that God’s house is a house of prayer.
Mark 11:17 And he (Jesus) taught, saying unto them, Is it not written, My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer? but ye have made it a den of thieves.
So zealous was our Lord for God’s words that it resulted in
His being crucified by His enemies, who had forgotten them. In fact, His enemies had
forgotten God’s words to the point that they did not even realize they were
fulfilling them in crucifying Him.
Acts 13:27 For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him.
Once again we find testimony borne to Christ in Psalm 119
just as we said we would when we began these meditations.
But let’s turn the searchlight of truth onto ourselves. How about the altogether too many times that
we have forgotten God’s words? Do we
turn our zeal against ourselves in correcting this oversight? Are we as zealous against our own sins as we
are the sins of others? When the church of Corinth was confronted with their sin of
tolerating scandalous sin their congregation, they reacted with a zeal that was
nothing short of vehement, like the vehement flame of love that Solomon
described above. And thereby they cleared
themselves of their transgression.
2 Corinthians 7:11 For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge! In all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter.
If today’s meditation has convicted you of a lack of love
and zeal for God’s words, then I strongly urge you to heed the words of the
Lord Jesus Christ to the church
of Laodicea:
Revelation 3:19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.
No comments:
Post a Comment