Psalm 119:172

We come to the next verse of this last octave of Psalm 119 entitled Tau.

Psalms 119:172  My tongue shall speak of thy word: for all thy commandments are righteousness.

The psalmist was not only going to learn his Bible, he was not only going to obey the commandments of his Bible, he was going to talk about it: my tongue shall speak of thy word. And in talking about God’s word, he would be saying the right thing for all thy commandments are righteousness. If you are ever unsure of what is the right thing to say about something, then say what the Bible has to say about it, and you will be saying the right thing for you will be speaking righteousness.

All God’s commandments are righteousness. They are not only righteous, as the psalmist stated in Psalms 119:138, they are righteousness itself. And this is true of all the Scriptures in everything they say. When you hold a King James Bible in your hand, which is the preserved word of God in the English language, you are holding righteousness itself. It is not to be tampered with, altered, or taken lightly. It is to be heeded and reverenced with godly fear.

The very fact that the psalmist would speak of God’s word shows that the word of God was dwelling in him abundantly as our Lord Jesus said: “For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” (Matthew 12:34). When the word of God is dwelling in us richly, it will manifest itself in the things that come out of our mouth as this verse makes plain:

Colossians 3:16  Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

Or consider this instruction taken from the book of Proverbs:

Proverbs 22:17  Bow down thine ear, and hear the words of the wise, and apply thine heart unto my knowledge.

18  For it is a pleasant thing if thou keep them within thee; they shall withal be fitted in thy lips.

If you get the word of God “within” you, it will be “fitted in thy lips,” that is, you will be able to speak it forth. And it is a sign of spiritual growth when you not only know the truth, but when you are “speaking the truth in love.”

Ephesians 4:15  But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ….

If we are the Christians we should be, our tongue will be “as choice silver” (Proverbs 10:20); it will be “health” (Proverbs 12:18); our lips will “feed many” (Proverbs 10:21) and will “disperse knowledge” (Proverbs 15:7). Don’t you want your mouth to be a source of rich, healing, nourishing instruction to others rather than a fountain of destructive foolishness and non-sense? Well, if you get into your Bible and let it get into you, that will help! We would all be so much better off is we spoke more often of the words of God and less of the words of men. Alas, too many can expound extensively on what they hear in the news; read online or in a novel; or see on YouTube or in a movie; but grow strangely silent when the subject of the teaching of the Scriptures comes up.

When you are speaking of the Holy Scriptures, you have an inexhaustible subject for discussion. Charles Spurgeon said of the Scriptures: “the tale is for ever telling, yet untold.” How true! I have been preaching the story for going over 46 years and yet I feel I am but skimming the surface of all there is to tell.