An older brother, Grady McKnight, asked a young man who occasionally preached, “When will you bring us another sermon?” The young man replied, “When I have something original to say.” Brother McKnight replied, “If it is original then it is not biblical. The preacher is never to bring an original message, but only to preach the old message in a fresh way.”
We have this foolish idea that something must be new to be relevant or useful or exciting. Here we have a psalm of 13 verses, five of which were borrowed from psalm 57, and eight of which were borrowed from psalm 60. What do we learn from this?
We learn that the old truths are still relevant. This psalm is telling us, “You do not have to reinvent the wheel all the time. Often an older statement of the matter can be reapplied very effectively.”
God is still saying, as he said through Jeremiah, “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.” But we are still saying as they said in Jeremiah’s time, “We will not walk in it” (Jer 6:16).
We must neither blindly accept tradition, nor blindly oppose it. Of the two, the blind opposition of tradition may be the most foolish, it is certainly the most self-centred. Those who follow tradition are at least not looking to themselves. While they would do better to learn from God than to learn from earlier generations, at least those who follow traditions are learning from someone. Those who embrace current fads as the measure of wisdom are trusting only in their own generation.
The song “And Can it Be” is very popular with teens and young adults these days. I hope that it is not just because they think it is a new song. The author, Charles Wesley, died in 1788. I am glad that the hymn was rediscovered by a new generation. And I hope that they will continue to rediscover old truths, and old expressions of truth, that will prove valuable today.
Steadfastness is one of those truths. We must strive to be steadfast. “My heart is steadfast, O God! I will sing and make melody with all my being!” (1) No human is perfectly consistent, but we ought to strive for faithful, steadfast, consistency.
Thus Paul exhorts the Corinthians, “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labour is not in vain” (1 Cor 15:58).
It is even more important that we trust in the steadfastness of our Lord. Trust in his steadfastness is the foundation of our steadfastness. As verse four says, “For your steadfast love is great above the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the clouds” (4). And Isaiah tells us, “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you” (Isa 26:3).
There are times when it will appear that God is not keeping his promises. In verse eleven the psalmist asks, “Have you not rejected us, O God? You do not go out, O God, with our armies” (11).
At times like that we must remember that the most remarkable instance of God appearing to fail one of his servants, was in truth his greatest moment of faithfulness.
Our modern love affair with the new and novel has a crippling effect on our ability to trust in the steadfastness of God, and to live steadfast lives ourselves. So, the borrowing of older material in the psalm, and the theme of the psalm, complement each other.
How are we doing? Could we be more steadfast? Could we be more steadfast if we concentrated on how steadfast our Lord has always been?