Psalm 119:158

From the Pastor’s Study

Psalm 119:158

Dear Readers, somehow I overlooked submitting the meditation on this verse.  I jumped over it and submitted verse 159 instead.  Please forgive this oversight.

By means of this next verse of Psalm 119 we once again visit the emotions of the psalmist, emotions that take their rise from his deep love for the word of God.

Psalms 119:158  I beheld the transgressors, and was grieved; because they kept not thy word.

The transgressors are persons who transgress.  So just what does it mean to transgress? 

Transgress - To go beyond the bounds or limits prescribed by (a law, command, etc.); to break, violate, infringe, contravene, trespass against.

Transgressors are people who do not live within the boundaries imposed by God’s word.  But even without reference to a dictionary, we can know what transgressors are from today’s verse.  They are defined as those that kept not thy word.  Rather than keep God’s word they break it.    

In the psalmist’s time transgression was so flagrant, so out in the open, that he beheld the transgressors.  They overstepped the commandments of God’s law and made no attempt to hide it.  And beholding them doing thus he was grieved.  This makes us think of the times of Lot when he was living in Sodom.

2 Peter 2:7  And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:

8  (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)….

Isaiah 3:9  The shew of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves.

The prophet Habakkuk experienced grief as he beheld the transgressors of his day and wondered why the Lord left him to behold their transgressions.

Habakkuk 1:2  O LORD, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear! even cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save!

3  Why dost thou shew me iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance? for spoiling and violence are before me: and there are that raise up strife and contention.

4  Therefore the law is slacked, and judgment doth never go forth: for the wicked doth compass about the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceedeth.

Of course, the same can be said of our own times.  Everywhere we turn, whether it is to be informed of current events or to be entertained or even to work out at the gym, the transgressors are in our face.  You cannot sit in an airport or in a doctor’s office without a television screen in front of you that often displays the transgressors saying and doing those things that grieve you.  Do you like Habakkuk ever question why the Lord lets you behold so much iniquity, violence, and injustice?

    

Now it follows that the transgressors that kept not God’s law grieved the psalmist because he had such love and respect for that law and the God Who gave it.  In several verses in this psalm the psalmist expressed that he rejoiced and delighted in God’s law.  Commenting on verse 35 of this psalm I wrote: 

  “Our delights determine what we most seek after.  So examine those things that you most enjoy, those things that turn your crank, as we say.  And upon finding those things, you will also find what shapes your desires and prayers.”  

 It can be said that you can tell a lot about a man’s character by observing the things that delight him.  But it can equally be said that you can tell a lot about a man’s character by the observing the things that grieve him.  Charles Bridges put it this way:

“Our joys and sorrows are the pulse of the soul.  A fellowship with the joys of angels over repenting sinners (Luke, xv. 10) will be accompanied with bitterness of godly sorrow over the hardness and impenitency of those, who keep not the word of God.”

If beholding transgressors causes you grief, then that shows your love of God’s commandments.  If you did not love and delight in God’s word so much, you would not be so grieved when you see it violated.  And delighting in God’s law as you do demonstrates that you have the same character as the holy apostle Paul, who said of himself:

Romans 7:22  For I delight in the law of God after the inward man….

How is that for assurance that you are a child of God?

Now Satan throws so much evil in our face to get us to become indifferent to it and ultimately to approve it.  On the other hand, God lets us behold it to try us and to steel our resolve against it.  The more evil there is to resist, the stronger we must be to resist it.  Let this never be said of us:   “And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold” (Matthew 24:12).  Rather let it be said of us:  I beheld the transgressors, and was grieved; because they kept not thy word.  May God grant us grace to maintain this holy grief.  For it is in such grief that we shall discover the blessing of God’s comforts, not the least of which is the assurance that we are His and He is ours forever.

Matthew 5:4  Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.