Lesson 3: Loving His Will
"Oh how I love Your law…Your commandment is exceedingly broad" (Psalm 119:96-97).
 
The devotional books are all occupied with the same theme. Songs find their keynote in the kinghood and throne of God. When the song is of human experience at its best, it is of the joy and peace to be found in the law of God. When the music becomes a dirge, it is because God has been forgotten. "When I kept silent, my bones wasted away" (Psalm 32:3). "The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God’" (Psalm 14:1). Or, they are all part and parcel of the aspiration of man. "Teach me to do Your will" (Psalm 143:10). "Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation" (Psalm 38:22).
 
The prophetic books have the same significance. The burden that oppressed these men, until they delivered themselves in words of flaming fire, was a burden of Divine judgment and government. Nations that had forgotten God were called back to allegiance. Nations persisting in their waywardness were told of their doom. The constant cry of the prophets was, "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord” (Isaiah 55:7). These men spoke as the oracles of God, without fear or faltering, and their message was always "Thus says the Lord;” and the secret of their daring and devotion the fact that each could say, "The Lord, before Whom I stand…" (2 Kings 5:16).
 

We may take another method of considering the message of the Old Testament and we will arrive at the same result. Set before your eyes all the hosts of the men of all the centuries. Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah, and others are named. What makes the difference between these and their fellows? In every case the measure of their superiority is the measure of their understanding of, and obedience to, the Will of God.
 
Abel is so because he lived a life God-centered rather than self-centered pleasures. Enoch's distinction is revealed in his biography, "Enoch walked with God" (Genesis 5:24). Noah, though living in the most appalling corruption, believed God, and was rescued in the works of obedience that grew out of his faith. Abraham became the father of the faithful because he went out, not knowing where he was going, confident alone in the wisdom and rightness of the word of God. Moses, having learned to wait for the guidance of God, gave the world a code of ethics which remains the foundation of morality to this day, because it was first written with the finger of God. David's memory is revered more for his harp than his crown, and that he sang of the law of his God. Elijah still stands because he was the messenger of law to a corrupt age. These were all great, because they dwelled in the Will of God; and the things that stain each, were of the nature of disobedience or wandering from the Divinely-marked pathway.
 
Thus, from the song of new-born earth to the fiery warning of Malachi, the Old Testament brings us face to face with the supreme subject.
 
Question: What makes us different from our peers?
Let's reflect on, even memorize: "Oh how I love Your law…Your commandment is exceedingly broad" – Psalm 119:96-97.