Psalm 119:16

We now come to the last verse of this second section of Psalm 119 entitled Beth.

Psalms 119:16 I will delight myself in thy statutes: I will not forget thy word.

We note again the expression “I will.” The psalmist resolves that he will delight himself in God’s statutes and will not forget His word. He will do these two things because he wants to do them and, therefore, he intends to do them. It is a fact that most people do what they want to do most of the time. If you really want to do something, you will generally find a way to do it. Most of our negligence does not arise from a lack of opportunity, but from a lack of will!

Now let’s focus on what it is to delight oneself in God’s statutes.

Delight – To be highly pleased, take great pleasure, rejoice in or to do (anything).

The psalmist is determined to take great pleasure in God’s statutes and to rejoice in them. It is interesting to note that in verse 15 he wrote: “I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies.” Now he states that he “will delight in God’s statutes.” The verb tense of have rejoiced is the present perfect tense. The present perfect tense sets forth action that took place in the past. The verb phrase will delight is in the future tense. The enjoyment the psalmist had in God’s statutes in the past was an enjoyment he would have in the future. Commenting on this verse Charles Spurgeon wrote:

“We may not promise for the future if we have altogether failed in the past; but where grace has enabled us to accomplish something, we may hopefully expect that it will enable us to do more.”

We noted in our last blog that the psalmist said he would meditate in God’s words after he had said that he had rejoiced in them. We pointed out at that time that you will devote more thought to those things that you enjoy. Now notice that after having determined to meditate in God’s precepts, the psalmist further determines to rejoice in them. Just as delight leads to meditation, meditation leads to further delight. You see, once you get into God’s word and it gets into you, you will enjoy it more and more. The joy you have had in it will provoke you to enjoy it more. Habits, be they good or bad, reinforce themselves because habits bring us some kind of pleasure or satisfaction. The more you indulge your habit the more you want to indulge it. The same holds true for the habit of meditating in God’s statutes. The more you do it, the more pleasure it brings you and the more you will want to do it.

That delight and meditation work in tandem may be seen from the very first psalm that describes the blessed man:

Psalms 1:1 Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

It is also interesting to note how the psalmist applies his will to his emotion. Delight is an emotion. In this case the psalmist is going to subject his emotion to the direction of his will. Sadly, too many subject their wills to their emotions. They do what they feel like doing. Rather, we should subject our emotions to our wills. The emotion may resist at first, but eventually it will give way if you want it to. And that is the key. You have to be willing to delight in God’s statutes. If you want to enjoy the Bible, you will enjoy the Bible. The delight will come with the willingness.

Next, the psalmist resolved to remember God’s word: “I will not forget thy word.” This verse gives us two things that are helpful in remembering something. The first thing is the will: “I will not forget.” You will more likely forget something if you make no effort to remember it. And sometimes that is the wisest thing to do. We can’t remember everything. One of the keys to having a good memory is being able to sort out what needs to be remembered from what is just as well forgotten. A memory uncluttered with useless information will have more capacity for remembering what is necessary and useful. And God’s word is that one thing most necessary and useful for us to remember. Now if you are going to remember God’s word, you must want to remember it. The will must be involved. And if you really want to remember God’s word, you will focus your attention and effort upon it in order to remember it.

The second thing helpful in remembering something is the emotion. The psalmist said he would delight himself in God’s statutes and not forget His word. We generally have no problem remembering things that bring us pleasure. In his excellent book More Than Meets the Eyes, Dr. Richard A Swenson had this to say about memory: “The amount of effort we put into learning is not necessarily the most important thing. It turns out that meaning is as important to memory as intention.” Following up on this statement, I wrote this in a former blog on the subject of memory:

“You remember those things that mean the most to you. Do you have any trouble remembering the family and friends you love most? Or the experiences you most enjoyed? You can be assured that remembering my grandchildren is quite easy. Why? Because they mean so much to me! They are very much in my affections and thoughts. My wife and I speak often of them. Or turn it around. If someone forgets something that you expect them to remember, then how do you sometimes interpret their forgetfulness? Don’t you sometimes feel that you must not mean that much to them? Otherwise, they would have remembered. It appears we all understand the importance of meaning to memory…. Can you remember what you read in a novel, but not what you read in your Bible? Can you remember the content of a stirring political speech, but not the content of a stirring sermon? Do you remember when your favourite television show is on, but yet you sometimes forget when it’s communion Sunday? You will remember those things and events that your heart is most set upon because of how much they mean to you. You do not have any trouble remembering things that brought you great pleasure, do you? Things that bring you great pleasure mean a lot to you. If you delight in something, the odds are greater that you will remember it….The psalmist resolves that he will not forget God’s word. For him, memory was a matter of the will: “I will not forget.” But connected with his resolve was His delight in God’s word. The more you take pleasure in learning and obeying God’s word, the more you are going to remember it. For things that highly please you are more meaningful to you.”

If you really enjoy God’s word and you want to remember it, you will!

Now there are several other verses in this psalm that speak of delight in God’s word. But do not fear that we shall be saying the same things when we get to those verses. The subject of delight is a great one with broad application. The other verses dealing with this subject will bear this out. In connection with this, consider this comment on Psalm 119 from Charles Spurgeon’s book entitled The Treasury of David:

“Something in the position of each verse affects it meaning, so that even where its words are almost identical with those of another the sense is delightfully varied. If we do not see an infinite variety of fine shades of thought in this psalm we may conclude that we are colour-blind; if we do not hear many sweet harmonies, we may judge our ears to be dull of hearing, but we may not suspect the Spirit of God of monotony.”

To which I add a hearty “Amen.”

This will be the last blog that I shall write until after I return in the middle of May from my evangelistic trip to the Far East. So for now, I leave you with these meditations from Beth. I did not want to leave Beth hanging before I departed for Asia. God has blessed me with the closure that I desired. If the Lord will, we will take up with Gimel when I return and am recovered from the trip. May God bless these meditations to His glory and the good of your souls.