Psalms 119:96

Psalms 119:96

The text describes the difference between everything that is of man and everything that is of God. The one has limits, has an end; the other is exceeding broad.

I. "I see that all things come to an end, but Thy word endureth for ever in heaven." What an impression is forced upon us, by the progress of life, of the poverty of man and all that belongs to him in point of duration! It is not only as observers that we feel this. How fleeting are our own possessions, our own treasures, our own topics of absorbing interest. "I see that all things come to an end," not least human wishes, human aims, and human ambitions. How comforting, then, how satisfying, ought it to be to us to know of just one thing which will not thus fail and terminate. "Thy commandment, Thy word, endureth for ever in heaven." The march of centuries affects not that. That is still right which God commanded; that is still wrong which God has forbidden: that is still true which God has revealed; that is still false which God has contradicted.

II. "I have seen an end of all perfection." That which has been said of human life may be said also of human character. Human excellence, human goodness, have a bound, and a narrow one; if you sound it, you reach the bottom; if you measure it, you can take its compass: there is an end of all human perfection, as there is an end of all human duration. We turn with relief to that character, that mind, that word, "exceeding broad," in which there has been no risk of reaching the end, of sounding the depth, or exhausting the fulness.

III. The breadth of God's word, in contrast with the narrowness of human doctrine, is a topic full of interest. How does the Bible comprehend and gather into one all the good parts of all the human systems of theology that were ever framed! The revelation of God as made by Himself is exceeding broad, and the largest of minds and hearts can find room for themselves within it.

C. J. Vaughan, Lessons of Life and Godliness, p. 239.

References: Psalms 119:96 . Bishop King, Contemporary Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 149; C. Pritchard, Good Words, 1875, p. 843; H. Thompson, Concionalia: Outlines of Sermons for Parochial Use, 1st series, vol. i., p. 341.Psalms 119:97 . Clergyman's Magazine, vol. i., p. 17.