Hiding and not Hiding
A. Maclaren, D. D. Psalm 119:11 Your word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against you. (with Psalm 40:10): — Those two texts seem to contradict, but really complete, each other. There is a "hiding," without which a Christian life is scarcely possible, and cannot be vigorous. There is a "not hiding," which is equally indispensable. The latter is the consequence of the former. Unless a man can say, "Thy Word have I hid in my heart," depend upon it, he will never say, "I have not hid Thy righteousness from the great congregation"; and, conversely, unless a man can declare that he has hid his deepest convictions, his deepest convictions will be very shallow. 1. THE DEEP, INWARD SECRET OF ALL NOBLE, AND ESPECIALLY OF ALL DEEP, REAL, CHRISTIAN LIFE. "Thy Word have I hid in my heart." This means, first, familiarity with your Bible. Do not let any notion that God speaks "at sundry times and in divers manners," not only in Scripture, but otherwise, in providences, and in the world, and in our own hearts, cause us to neglect, as this generation does neglect, the systematic, diligent, daily perusal of Holy Scripture. You cannot hide the Word of God in your heart if you neglect, as so many of us do, the most articulate utterance of that Word in that Book, which, whatever may be the theories about the way it came into being, is the Word of the living God. Then there is another way by which we hide the Word in our hearts. It is, to cultivate the habit of referring everything to God's will. There must also be loving submission to what we know to be God's will. Put the will of God into your heart, and it will be like a bit of camphor wrapped up in some fur garment; it will keep all the moths off. II. A NOT HIDING, WHICH INCREASES POSSESSION. "I have not hid Thy righteousness within my heart," etc. That life of which I have been speaking, the deep, secret life of communion with the will of God, will he hidden, but it will not be hidden. No man can smother up and bury his deepest convictions. If there be a bulb in the ground, and there be life in the bulb, the flower will force its way up through the earth when the spring days come. And every one of us, although unconsciously, declares the secret of our hidden lives by our conduct in the world. But there is more than that. No Christian man that has in his heart the Word and will of God but will know the impulse to impart it, and that in proportion as his own possession of Jesus Christ, who, as the embodiment of the will, is the Word of God — is deep and vital. (A. Maclaren, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee. WEB: I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.