"Thou hast magnified Thy Word above all Thy I name " (Ps. 138:2) is an impressive and important utterance on the part of the psalmist, and lets us see the estimate he placed on the written Word. Well would it be for all professing Christians if that utterance got a firmer grip of our souls, led us to estimate it as he did. It would certainly cause us to treat it with much greater reverence, and save from the unholy handling and quoting which is, alas, so common in the present day. And at the very outset one can only say, May that profound reverence be vouchsafed to every one of us who owns and loves the name of Him who was the living Word, the blessed, holy and living expression of the mind of God here on earth.
We have a very remarkable passage of Scripture in this connection in Deut. 6:6-9:"And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thy heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thy hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates." Then we have added to this, in chap. 11:21, "That your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the earth."
Observe, the first thing is, "they shall be in thy heart." Everything else is useless if the Word is not in our hearts. " With the heart man believeth unto righteousness" (Rom. 10:10). In the heart man hides the Word, so as not to sin against God (Ps. 119:n). Upon the Word he feeds to sustain the new life given and promote spiritual growth (i Pet. 2:2). I need not enlarge upon these, the very elementary principles of the gospel.
(2) It affects his family-he teaches his children. A most important principle for today! Are there not multitudes of so-called Christian homes, and the parents themselves known Christians, and yet this is never done ? God commands them to do it. Is it said, "Oh, but that was law ? " Are we, then, to be less particular under grace ? Is it less needful, or necessary, to teach them the Word of the Lord today ? Beloved, such a reason has an unholy savor about it, which ill becomes those who are "called with a holy calling." Then it is sometimes urged, "Oh, but they go to Sunday-school! " Possibly they do. But have you troubled yourself sufficiently to find out -what they are taught there? or is that a salve to a conscience which shirks its own responsibility in the matter ? Not only must you teach them, but you must teach them diligently.
One can easily picture that Eastern home, and the youthful Timothy standing at his parent's knee,
learning "the Holy Scriptures." And what more delightful scene can be imagined than Christian parents surrounded by their children, teaching them the Word of God ? Not compelling them to learn what is hateful to them, and which the very compulsion makes more hateful still, but having their confidence and respect, and a gentle yet firm hold of them, and doing it in such a manner that the children find their joy and delight' in their lesson. Be assured that a young mind well stored with the Scriptures is a valuable possession when brought under the life-giving and controlling influence of the Holy Ghost. Alas that so few Christians do this, or are even exercised about it! They shuffle their own responsibility onto the shoulders of Sunday-school teachers, many of whom are not even converted themselves, and never make any attempt to teach them the Word of the Lord.
Again, it is to be feared that the only sign of Christianity some children see in their parents is, they go to the church, chapel, or meeting. They never pray with them as a family. It seems almost incredible that any real Christian parents have not what has been termed "family worship;" yet, alas, it is so. There are such. Is it not lamentable ! No reading of the Word and then bowing the knee together to seek the Lord's blessing on them as a family and on each individual; and to thank Him for family blessings and mercies received from His loving hands. No quiet, sober talk with each child as occasion may offer, and prayer with and for that particular child, and thus impressions made never to be obliterated, and seed sown to bear fruit in after days, if not then. Oh, beloved in the Lord, where is the practical Christianity when such things can be neglected by those redeemed by blood, and who profess to love the Lord ? No wonder Satan gets into such families! No wonder we see the assertion of will on the part of some who have marked out paths of their own in contrast to those the parents are walking in! The home is not walled or fenced round by prayer; hence the enemy can walk straight in, unmolested and unchallenged.
It is said, "Oh, but the parents pray privately!" Granted. But do the children see them, or hear them? How do they know their parents pray, in that case ? Where is the godly example ? Where, and when, do such parents teach their children diligently the Word of the Lord ? Rest assured, where prayer in the family is neglected, teaching the family is likewise neglected, and there is consequent family loss, and great danger of the family safety.
(3) It is to be the subject of conversation in the house, and in our walks abroad. A blessed subject, surely! Is it said, "But we cannot be everlastingly talking about the Scriptures" ? Quite true. But one fears you can be almost everlastingly talking about other things, to the complete neglect of the Scriptures. How often is the Word the subject of conversation at home or in our walks ? Just put it to your own heart, and ask yourself. Saints are not exercised about it through not reading it, and have no question to ask, or subject to talk about, when together; so the active and busy brain turns to what does occupy it as subject for conversation. How much is missed in this way!
(4) It was to be written in prominent and in public places-" upon the door posts of thy house, and
upon thy gates" (11:20). How striking to see it written on the door posts ! the place where the blood was sprinkled (Exod. 12:). The blood was sprinkled at the entrance of their houses in Egypt, to shelter them. Now the Word had to be written there to instruct them, and remind them, as they entered their houses, that they were the Lord's people; and as they came out, they were still His, and expected to act abroad as such, as well as in their homes. Moreover, it was to be seen in the place of judgment, "the gates," to remind them that there they were to "hear the cause between their brethren, and judge righteously between every man and his brother, and the stranger that is with him " (chap. 1:16, 17).
What holiness all this breathes! If all those instructions were carried out suitably to the mind of the great lawgiver, then it would certainly put the people amongst those happy ones mentioned in Prov. 8:34:" Blessed is the man that heareth Me, watching daily at My gates, waiting at the posts of My doors," Yea, might we not say, they would be as devoted servants, saying, as it were, "I love my master, my wife, and my children. I will not go out free." So you can nail my ear to the door post, in token that I will serve thee, and here, forever. See Ex. 21:2-6. To such a people, acting in such a way, their days would be "as the days of heaven upon the earth" (Deut. 11:21); and the prayer of the disciples, taught them by the Lord Himself when here upon earth, would have its fulfilment, in great measure at least-"Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."
(5) It affected the king as well as the subjects, and we read in Deut. 17:18, 20, "And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites:and it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life; that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them:that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand or to the left:to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children, in the midst of Israel." Long life, perfect happiness, and national greatness, lay wrapped up in the observance of the Word of the Lord then; nor has it ceased to be so to-day. God is ever true to His Word. "They that honor Me, I will honor; and they that despise Me, shall be lightly esteemed" (i Sam. 2:30); and true whether of a nation or an individual.
(6) It was to be read in the ears of all the people. "At the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the year of release, in the feast of tabernacles. When all Israel is come to appear before the Lord thy God in the place which He shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel, in their hearing. Gather the people together, men, and women, and children, and the stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the Lord your God, and observe to do all the words of this law; and that their children, which have not known anything, may hear, and learn to fear the Lord your God, as long as ye live in the land whither ye go over Jordan to possess it" (Deut. 31:10-13). We thus see that none had to be ignorant of it. Individually and collectively, it was to be ever before them; while their blessing lay in obedience to it.
The same principles are seen and taught in the pages of the New Testament, but space forbids my taking them up. May the precious and all-important Word of our God have a deeper place in all our hearts, and be seen manifesting itself in all our lives, both in public and in private, so that in the midst of declension and departure from God, on the part of a professing and privileged people we may have the blessed sense, through grace, of " the days of heaven upon the earth." And this can only be as we allow the "Word of Christ to dwell in us richly." The Lord grant it to us, each and all.
W. E.
New Zealand.