Psalm 119:54

We continue today making our way through the octave of Psalm 119 entitled Zain. Up to now this octave has revealed the psalmist deriving hope and comfort from the Scriptures. Today we find that the Scriptures also provided music in his life.

Psalms 119:54 Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage.

The psalmist speaks of the house of my pilgrimage. A pilgrimage is a journey made by a pilgrim. So we need to know just what a pilgrim is.

Pilgrim – One who travels from place to place; a person on a journey; a wayfarer, a traveller; a wanderer; a sojourner.

It matters not where they reside in this world or how long they live there, God’s children are on a journey to another world. Whatever house they dwell in be it rented or owned, large or small, elaborate or simple is like an inn. It is just a place to stay over temporarily. It is a house of pilgrimage. This world provides us no lasting home. We are journeying toward a world to come, to a heavenly country.

Hebrews 11:13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. 14 For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. 15 And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. 16 But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.

1 Chronicles 29:15 For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding.

Our Saviour promised us a permanent dwelling in His Father’s house above.

John 14:2 In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

That word mansion has an interesting definition.

Mansion - The action of remaining, abiding, dwelling, or staying in a place. Also, permanence or continuance in a position or state. A place where one stays or dwells; a place of abode, an abiding-place.

A mansion is a permanent dwelling place, a place where we remain and from which we are not moved. No house we possess down here has this feature of permanence. Owning one’s own house has been called the American dream. Well, it turns out that that is all that it is. It is a dream that comes in a night and flees away in a night. We can better endure the loss of a house down here when we remember it was never ours to keep in the first place. Think of moving from one house to another as moving from one hotel room to another whilst you are on a trip.

The relief we often feel upon arriving to our temporary home after a long, exhausting trip is just a little foretaste of what we shall experience when we at last arrive to our everlasting house, from which we will never have a need or desire to leave again.

Now there was music to be heard in the house of the psalmist’s pilgrimage, music to cheer him on his journey homeward. And that music was drawn from the Holy Scriptures: thy statutes have been my songs. The musical compositions that have been derived from the Holy Scriptures are innumerable. For example, there is Handel’s Messiah in which passages taken from the A.V. 1611 are set to music. Jewish cantors can chant the psalms in Hebrew. There are other examples of verses of Scripture set to music. Then there are the hymns and spiritual songs whose content is derived from the history and teachings of the Scriptures. Although the words of these songs are not direct quotations from the Bible, they are nevertheless based in the Scriptures. These are the songs that direct our hearts away from this world to the world above, where our affections should be set.

Colossians 3:1 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. 2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.

Charles Bridges in his excellent commentary on Psalm 119 wrote this warning: “What reason have we then every moment to guard against the debasing, stupefying influence of the world, which makes us forget the proper character of a pilgrim!” Never let this world make you feel at home.

It is also telling that the psalmist found songs in God’s statutes, the laws He has given to us as our Sovereign Lord, laws we are to obey. For the psalmist, living under God’s authority was not a matter of complaint, but rather a matter of celebration in song. Linking today’s verse with the one that precedes it, Charles Spurgeon wrote: “Saints find horror in sin, and harmony in holiness.”

May I ask you, believer, are the songs of God’s statutes ever heard in the house of your pilgrimage?