FOUR PRECIOUS DISCOVERIES
In these verses, the psalmist under divine inspiration, learns four precious things from experience. Note carefully, he is looking back to past events of his life, memory can be “a fit handmaid for faith” when this is done.
A powerful testimony is his first discovery, “thou hast dealt well with thy servant, O Lord, according to thy Word.” This is foundational, a foundational truth to build faith upon. The psalmist has found a precious truth he knows to be true by experience, and he proceeds in the “walk of faith” in the “paths of righteousness” from there. However, he goes from the truth of the Word of God to his own experience, for it is first “according to the Word of God that he established this solid foundation to stand upon. Not merely on his experience, he cannot take his experience and isolate it from God’s Word and interpret it correctly. It is the Word of God that is “forever settled in Heaven” and which will “never pass away,” not his interpretation of his experience. We must interpret our spiritual experiences in the light of the Word of God, if we do not, error can and will surface. That is the reason for much sincere misdirected zeal.
The Word of God is our guide and guard, it is our straight edge, as some call a ruler, to help guide our interpretation of the truth, and fit our personal experience into it. We can say with the psalmist, “Thou hast dealt well with thy servant,” with ourselves in mind, for “Thou art good and doest good.” (verse 68)
As we look back upon our own lives and put them in the light of God’s Word, we conclude the same as David, God is good and has been good to us. We can also encourage our faith with this great truth when we know this to be true, both by God’s Word and our experience.
We can begin each day with this in mind and learn and grow in the things of God. What a difference this will make to our faith! We who are born from above do have faith, even if it is little faith at times, which is better than no faith, but great faith is to be commended much over little faith. In discovering this powerful testimony, he goes on to discover profitable teaching, purposeful testing and precious treasure in God’s eternal Word. Let us expect great things from a great God.
In His Wonderful Name,
Pastor Ed Bowen
