This is a very hard thing to believe. We are to prove that the Bible is a better thing than heaps of money taken by themselves. The Bible can give you better things than money can ever buy, and the Bible can give you some things that money will not buy at all.
I. Money can buy fine clothes, but the Bible can tell you where you will get better, and get them for nothing. Many a bad man wears a fine coat, just as many a ragged coat covers a glorious soul. The Bible, by telling you where to get your souls adorned by Christ's righteousness and the grace of the Spirit, has a power of adorning the body too. The clothing which Christ gives is better immeasurably than all the fine clothing that all the gold in the world could buy.
II. Money can buy fine houses, but the Bible can tell you where to get a better house for nothing. If you want to know what kind of a house it is, read the account of the new Jerusalem. There you will find your own proper mansion, and nobody will turn you out.
III. Money can buy fine lands, but the Bible tells you where you can get better. For every human being that trusts in the Lord Jesus Christ there is an estate in the heavenly Canaan; there is a lot in the land for him, as was said to Daniel, "at the end of days."
IV. Money can buy friends. Rich people have fine friends; but when the money goes, their friendship cools. Christ is a Friend that will stick closer than a brother.
V. The things which money cannot buy, but which the Bible gives, are: (1) pardon of sin; (2) peace with God; (3) holiness; (4) a happy death.
J. Edmond, Christian World Pulpit,vol. i., p. 312.
I. This glowing expression of David's love toward God does not stand alone. It is not a solitary, nor even a rare, revelation of his thoughts. Psalm after psalm flows forth in the same strong strain of love; his heart continually overflows; he cannot but give vent to what he feels; he seems constrained to free or ease himself of his thoughts; he is urged by the spirit within him to frequent utterance; and whenever he speaks, he seems to search for the strongest expressions, the strongest figures and forms of speech, to represent what he feels within.
II. In regarding David's state of feeling toward God, this sustained and constant warmth of love which he continually reveals, the sort of holy rapture with which he speaks continually of heavenly tilings, we feel that it is in this very point of devout warmth, of religious zeal, we fail to resemble or to approach him. He hurries us beyond our pace; it is difficult to us to praise, to lift up the voice with thanksgiving. There is the want of any strong emotion among us about heavenly things.
III. Some may be greatly sorrowing over their want of zeal and longing to catch David's spirit. Let such patiently persevere in all acts of Christian service, in all Christian duties, in all prayer and supplication, in all faithful use of the means of grace, and the stream will at last break forth in the desert, and the dry heart will blossom as a rose.
J. Armstrong, Parochial Sermons,p. 104.
References: Psalms 119:72. H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, The Children's Bread,p. 11; W. A. Essery, Christian World Pulpit,vol. iv., p. 212.Psalms 119:73. S. Gregory, Ibid.,vol. xxix., p. 252.