Charles Spurgeon on Psalm 119:105 - Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.

We are walkers through the city of this world, and we are often called to go out into its darkness; let us never venture there without the light giving word, lest we slip with our feet. Each man should use the word of God personally, practically, and habitually, that he may see his way and see what lies in it. When darkness settles down upon all around me, the word of the Lord, like a flaming torch, reveals my way. Having no fixed lamps in eastern towns, in old time each passenger carried a lantern with him that he might not fall into the open sewer, or stumble over the heaps of ordure which defiled the road. This is a true picture of our path through this dark world: we should not know the way, or how to walk in it, if Scripture, like a blazing flambeau, did not reveal it. One of the most practical benefits of Holy Writ is guidance in the acts of daily life: it is not sent to astound us with its brilliance, but to guide us by its instruction. It is true the head needs illumination, but even more the feet need direction, else head and feet may both fall into a ditch. Happy is the man who personally appropriates God’s word, and practically uses it as his comfort and counsellor, — a lamp to his own feet.

Are you using God’s Word personally, practically, and habitually?

I firmly believe that most of the problems individuals, churches, and nations experience is ultimately due to or conditioned by a lack of or incorrect knowledge of God.  As I mentioned in a sermon last week (located here) , knowledge must be obtained first before understanding and wisdom can be exercised.

I further mentioned that knowledge comes by a love for and meditation in God’s Word. 

Psalm 119:97  O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day. 

Knowledge, properly conditioned by biblical understanding and wisdom, helps to develop a comprehensive and accurate view of God, and when believers have this kind of view of God, it is reflected in what they practice.

Here is a quote from George Grant that furthers this idea.

Self-Worship and Modernity’s Mess - by George Grant

We are prone to think of God–when we think of Him at all–as wonderful. We are less likely to see Him as willful. Certainly He is both, but the overwhelming emphasis of Scripture is upon the will rather than the wonder. It is upon the exercise of God’s prerogative rather than the expiation of our pleasure. The difference is probably a matter of slights rather than slanders. Nevertheless, it is a difference that makes for rather dramatic consequences.

Thus, to some of us God is little more than a cosmic vending machine in the sky, designed to dispense our every want and whim. To others of us He is a grandfatherly sage who lives to patiently offer us certain therapeutic benefits and baubles from His largess. To still others He is a kind of Santa figure–jolly, unflappable, and determined to bestow goodies upon incognizant masses. Invariably though, we moderns tend to see God in terms of ourselves–in terms of our wants, our needs, our preferences, and our desires. We have apparently, as Voltaire accused, “made God in our own image.”

But, according to psychologist Paul Vitz, such a conception is not knowledge of God at all, but a form of “self-worship.” According to J.C. Ryle, it is “the cruelest of all delusions” because “by it men think they have come to a knowledge God when in fact they have done nothing of the sort.” Thus, Joseph Aulen has argued that “the vast proportion of modern Christians have a vastly mistaken knowledge of the person and work of the Almighty.”

Thus, according to D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “because men do not know God or the nature of God–particularly those who claim to be Christians–all of the problems of life and culture are amplified even more.” Andrew Murray asserts that it is due to the fact that Christians do not “properly entertain a knowledge of God” that “societies fall into such disarray as we have in the modern world.” And A.W. Tozer has said that “a lack of a true knowledge of God’s attributes and character” is the “root of the indecisiveness, imbalance, and ineffectiveness” of the contemporary church.”

…and in His law doth he meditate day and night.

And he shall be like a tree, planted by the rivers of waters, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
 

Matthew Henry on the Psalms…

The psalms are the language of the believer’s heart, whether mourning for sin, thirsting after God, or rejoicing in Him. Whether burdened with affliction, struggling with temptation, or triumphing in the hope or enjoyment of deliverance; whether admiring the Divine perfections, thanking God for his mercies, mediating on his truths, or delighting in his service; they form a Divinely appointed standard of experience, by which we may judge ourselves.

Here’s a section from Psalm 119 on which to meditate, about the beauty and comfort of God’s Word.

49  Remember the word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope.
50  This is my comfort in my affliction: for thy word hath quickened me.
51  The proud have had me greatly in derision: yet have I not declined from thy law.
52  I remembered thy judgments of old, O LORD; and have comforted myself.
53  Horror hath taken hold upon me because of the wicked that forsake thy law.
54  Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage.
55  I have remembered thy name, O LORD, in the night, and have kept thy law.
56  This I had, because I kept thy precepts.