Psalm 119:6

Before you read this meditation make sure you have reread the meditation from last week on Psalm 119:5, as that one is of prime importance. And now we turn to our verse for this week.

Psalms 119:6 Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all thy commandments.

I shall not define the word ashamed as I think all of my readers know altogether too well what that word means. The way to avoid being ashamed is to have respect unto all of God’s commandments. To have respect unto God’s commandments is to have regard to them, to give them attention and consideration, to have them in view. To avoid shame, our attention and consideration must be given to all of God’s commandments. We should keep all of them before us to inform our decisions and to direct our course. To not have respect to so much as one of God’s commandments, to consider any commandment as unimportant or unnecessary, is to open the door to shame. To be sure, some commandments are weightier than others, but none are to be disrespected as the following passages make expressly clear.

Deuteronomy 4:2 Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.

Matthew 5:19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 23:23 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.

James 2:10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.

You only have to break one commandment of the law to be a lawbreaker.

The following excellent comments of Charles Bridges on this verse are well worth quoting. These comments are taken from his book entitled Psalm 119.

“The Lord expects our obedience to be not only ‘diligent,’ but universal. Willing to dispense with the least of the commandments, proves that we have yet to learn the spirit of acceptable obedience. (Matt. v.19.) Grace is given and suited for all, no less than for one of them, ‘that we might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing.” (Col. 1.10.) One lust ‘regarded in the heart’ is sufficient to keep possession for the tyrant, however others may be restrained.”

Who are we to think that any commandment of God is unimportant or unworthy of our careful observance? To disregard or slight anything God commanded is to put your opinion against His wisdom. The commandment you are not respecting may be a little one in relation to others, but the contempt you are showing for God’s authority is huge! You may be sure that God does not take kindly to that and He will put you to shame for it. Maybe you don’t feel it today, but you will! Our first parents became ashamed after they broke the one commandment to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Saul bore the shame of losing his kingdom because he disobeyed a single commandment of God to utterly destroy all the Amalekites and their possessions (1 Samuel 15). Moses suffered the shame of not being allowed to enter the promised land because he disobeyed a single commandment regarding the rock (Numbers 20:7-13). God told him to speak to the rock and he smote it instead. Having respect unto all God’s commandment appears to be extremely important.

Yet how many think that because they keep many or even most of the commandments of God, it is no big deal if they overlook a few. The man who faithfully attends church every Sunday and gives, and yet fails to teach his children the way of the Lord will be ashamed. The same goes for the man who gives every appearance of being a devout Christian and yet does not love and cherish his wife as he ought. What of the person who professes faith in Christ who has never been properly baptized and is not a member of a true New Testament local church? Or how about the person who continues to celebrate Christmas thus violating the clear commandment to not observe pagan rites unto the Lord God (Deuteronomy 12:29-31)? Is washing of the saints’ feet something that we can take or leave with no consequence when the Saviour plainly commanded it in John 13:13-16? No amount of faithful obedience to most of the commandments will excuse disobedience to even one of the commandments.

Once we disregard one commandment, what is to keep us from disregarding others when they interfere with our agenda? Scripture clearly teaches that one act of disobedience will lead to another. As Paul put it in Romans 6:19 when speaking of the Romans before their conversion: “Ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity.” One iniquity will eventuate in another and so goes the downward spiral into a life of shame.

The way to reverse this downward spiral is to have respect unto all of God’s commandments. Give diligence to do anything and everything that God requires of you, no matter how small it may be. By this means you shall live an honourable life that will be a shining testimony before this evil world. Our goal should be to keep all the commandments of God so that we need never be shamed by a rebuke from God for disregarding any of them.

Philippians 2:14 Do all things without murmurings and disputings:
15 That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world.

Psalm 119:5

Today we continue this series of meditations on Psalm 119 by considering verse 5. This is a meditation that I suggest you read more than once and ponder very carefully.

Psalms 119:5 O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes!

In this verse the psalmist expresses a desire to God. We know that it was expressed to God from the second person singular possessive pronoun thy in “thy statutes.” We noted in the last meditation that we use pronouns in the second person when we are talking to someone. The Psalmist is saying to God that he desires that his ways were directed to keep God’s statutes.

Let us next consider the definition of the word direct so that we may know precisely what the psalmist desired.

Direct – To cause (a thing or person) to move or point straight to or towards a place; to aim (a missile); to make straight (a course or way) to any point; to turn (the eyes, attention, mind) straight to an object, (a person or thing) to an aim, purpose, etc.

The psalmist longed that his ways would be aimed straightly at keeping God’s statutes without any diversion or misdirection. He wanted his ways, the train of his thoughts and desires, his actions, and the events of his life to be directed to keep God’s statutes. And as we saw from the definition of the word keep used in verse two, to keep God’s statutes means to pay attention to them, to dutifully believe and practice them.

That the psalmist earnestly desired this can be seen from that simple one-letter interjection o at the beginning of the verse. So back to the dictionary we go for the definition of this word. I’ll be done with the grammar and definitions in a minute. So just hang with me and I’ll get cranking into how this all fits together.

O – In other connexions, or without construction, expressing, according to intonation, various emotions, as appeal, entreaty, surprise, pain, lament, etc.

The psalmist’s desire to have his ways directed to keep God’s statutes was so strong that it stirred his emotions. It is, therefore, quite fitting that this sentence ends with an exclamation point further stressing the emotion of the writer. Since the psalmist is addressing this desire to God, we discern an earnest appeal in the word o. We can also detect a grief that his ways were not more directed to keeping God’s statutes. These are emotions we would all do well to cultivate.

Anyone who sincerely tries to keep God’s statutes can relate to the longing of this verse. Try as we may, there are a thousand things pulling us in all kinds of directions away from keeping God’s statutes. First of all, there is the pull of our own fleshly lusts warring against the soul.

Romans 7:23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

1 Peter 2:11 Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;

You become keenly aware of the pull of your fleshly lusts when you discover God’s statutes aiming directly at the correction of some of your greatest weaknesses, weaknesses such as pride, anger, envy, hatred, evil sexual desires, evil surmisings, gluttony, slothfulness, covetousness, and backbiting, to name a few. In fact, the more you try to keep God’s statutes the more you will experience resistance against it. In his excellent work Mere Christianity C.S. Lewis wrote:

“No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all…you find out the strength of the wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down.”

I could not have said it better. It stands to reason that the adversary has to put up his toughest fight against those who mount the toughest resistance.

And then there is the pull of a thousand distractions all vying to so occupy our minds and emotions that the focus on keeping God’s commandments gets shoved aside. There is the glut of media sounding everywhere calling for our attention: news clips; advertisements; campaign ads from more candidates than we can keep up with; scores of television channels to choose from; preachers and televangelists of all kinds; a barrage of movies released to the public for consumption; the internet with its offer and allure of endless information; email; facebook, twitter, and the like; two or three telephones ringing; athletes, teams, and events in more kinds of sports than you can count at all levels from elementary school through college to the professional level; entertainments galore; a vast myriad of ideas on how to stay healthy, and how to best manage your money, your time, and your relationships; not to mention well-intentioned friends who insist that you have to read this book, see this movie, hear this speaker, etc. All these are so many siren sounds beckoning for your attention. And add to all of this the cares of daily life that must be attended to. If you are a person who finds most everything fascinating and interesting, you do have your work cut out for you to come through this maze and still keep your focus where it belongs. Those with fewer and more focused interests will find it easier to sort through this pile and disregard a lot of these distractions. But even they will have to work at maintaining balance in the limited things they allow themselves to become involved with. So that in the end we must all cry: “O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes!”

What might we want and expect from God in response to this longing expressed to Him? First of all, we pray that He so order the events of our lives that we not be tempted above our ability to resist. We want Him to close doors to opportunities that would too much distract us from keeping His statutes. Secondly, we earnestly desire that He would give us strength to resist the evil lusts of our flesh that we might keep His statutes. Third, we pray that God would give us good judgment so as to weigh the cost in time and energy of every thing that beckons for our attention. Never forget, every interest you choose to pursue comes with a price and if the payment of that price takes away time and energy better spent on those things most important to God, then you had best let that opportunity pass you by. Never forget this commandment given through our beloved apostle Paul:

Ephesians 5:16 Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

To redeem the time you are going to have to make the choice to let some things go that you might otherwise like to pursue. You are just going to have to settle for going through this world without experiencing everything it has to offer. And that is no great loss when you consider what our Lord Jesus Christ said:

Matthew 16:26 For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

Bishop Fulten J. Sheen wrote the following about the son of Confucius that fits so well what I am talking about:

“The son of Confucius once said to him: ‘I apply myself with diligence to every kind of study, neglect nothing that could render me clever and brilliant; but I do not advance.’ ‘Omit some of your pursuits,’ replied Confucius, ‘and you will get on better.’”

How true! Try to do everything and you won’t be that good at anything.

Speaking for myself personally, I am a very curious person. There are so many things I would like to learn and learn well, but I know that if I devote time to all of that, I will suffer loss in that one thing most needful for me to know as a man of God, and that is God’s statutes. And as time fast passes by me and age eats away at my mental and physical energy leaving me with less than I had before, how much more must I weigh the cost of everything that beckons for that time and energy. So I just have to choose to remain ignorant and inexperienced about a lot of things so as to be more directed toward and more focused on what I need to know and to do in order to be the best that I can be at what God calls me to be. God grant me wisdom to never lose sight of this and strength to apply that wisdom in every choice that I must make. But, oh, the powerful allurement of so many other things coupled together with my own personal weaknesses forces this lamentable cry from my heart: “O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes!” Is it thus with you, dear reader?

Psalm 119:4

We have noted that the first three verses of Psalm 119 are statements regarding the effect of the scriptures on the lives of those who obey them. We have seen that the way to avoid committing iniquity and to attain true happiness is to simply do what the Bible says and to do it wholeheartedly. Now we come to verse 4 which begins a long series of prayers. With the exception of verse 115, the rest of the Psalm consists of prayers.

Psalms 119:4 Thou hast commanded us to keep thy precepts diligently.

Since the verse opens with the second person singular pronoun thou, we know that the psalmist is addressing God. We use second person pronouns when we are talking to someone. I say that this verse is a prayer, because we usually say we are praying when we are talking to God. We have already examined the dictionary definition of prayer and found that prayer consists of requests and thanksgivings to God. Now the verse we are considering is of itself neither a request for something nor a thanksgiving for something. It is rather an acknowledgement to God of how God wants us to keep His precepts. In fact, we do not hit upon a request until we get to verse 8. Up to the point of making this request, the Psalmist is acknowledging facts, facts about God and about himself. If you examine other prayers in the Bible, you will find this kind of thing. The person praying not only makes requests, but intersperses those requests with confessions of faith, confessions of sin, and descriptions of circumstances. To sum this up, we can say that prayer is a conversation with God in which we not only ask Him for things and thank Him for things, but in which we also just tell Him things, things about Himself and things about ourselves and others. If you think about it, it is much like talking to a friend. In fact, it is talking to a Friend, the best Friend any of us have or ever could have!

According to the verse we are considering, God not only commands us to keep His precepts, which He most certainly does in numerous places in the Bible, but God commands us to keep them diligently. God commanded Israel to keep the commandments of His law diligently.

Deuteronomy 6:17 Ye shall diligently keep the commandments of the LORD your God, and his testimonies, and his statutes, which he hath commanded thee.

Deuteronomy 28:1 And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth:

To keep the precepts diligently is to keep them with diligence. Now you know what comes next. Let’s define diligence.

Diligence – Constant and earnest effort to accomplish what is undertaken; persistent application and endeavour; industry, assiduity (constant and close attention to the business in hand, perseverance).

If we are keeping God’s commandments diligently, we are paying close attention to keeping them, we are making an earnest effort to keep them, and we are keeping them constantly. God is very displeased with a lazy, lackadaisical, indifferent attitude toward what He commands in His word. Religion is serious business with God. And if we know what is good for us, it had better be serious business with us as well. The religion of God deserves our best efforts.

Furthermore, the obedience that pleases God is an obedience that is consistent. It is not enough to occasionally do what God says. We must stay focused on doing what God says and we must continue to do it. Do you ever hear a sermon that convicts you of something amiss in your life and you really focus on making it right for a day or two only then to return to your old habits? That is not keeping the precepts diligently. For example, suppose you hear a sermon on the importance of training up your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Proverbs 22:6; Ephesians 6:4). You become convicted that you have been negligent and so for a few days you read the Bible with your children, pray with them, and really step up the discipline. Then after a few days the conviction dies down and you fall back to letting the computer and the television take over while the Bible sits on the shelf waiting to be picked up for church on Sunday. After all, we do want to look pious for church, don’t we? Is this keeping God’s commandments diligently? Hardly!

We miss so much when we do not keep God’s commandments diligently. Recall that when we studied Psalm 119:2 we saw that keeping God’s commandments is essential to seeking the Lord. With this in mind note these words:

Hebrews 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

God rewards those who diligently seek Him, that is, who diligently keep His precepts. Keeping God’s precepts as He commands will enrich your life. No matter how much you achieve of power, status, or fortune in this world through your diligent efforts, if you are not diligent in keeping God’s precepts, YOU ARE A LOSER!

Psalm 119:1-3: Jesus Christ the Blessed

I had intended to launch into Psalm 119:4 for this week’s meditation. But on Sunday morning the thought occurred to me of how Psalm 119:1-3 is such a perfect description of the Lord Jesus Christ. When I introduced this series of meditations, I wrote this concerning the verses of Psalm 119: “And as I pore over them, I shall keep an eye out to behold the Lord Jesus Christ as He is certain to show Himself here as in all the other Scriptures.” So before passing beyond the first three verses of this psalm, let us see Christ in them.

Psalms 119:1 ALEPH. Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the LORD.
2 Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart.
3 They also do no iniquity: they walk in his ways.

As we have seen, these three verses describe a blessed or happy man. The verses speak in the plural and so refer to any man that wholeheartedly patterns His life according to the word of God. And, thanks be to God, He has made provision through the blood and righteousness of His Son Jesus Christ that even sinners can attain unto this blessedness.

But the most perfect, the absolutely untarnished example of the blessed man as described in these verses is our Lord Jesus Christ. First, He was undefiled in the way.

Hebrews 7:26 For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens;

It should go without saying that walking in God’s law and keeping His testimonies pleases Him. Jesus Christ of all men walked in the law of the Lord and kept His testimonies. His entire life was spent in perfect obedience to the law of God. Thus He pleased God. Speaking of Himself He said:

John 8:29 And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him.

And the Lord Jesus sought God His Father with His whole heart.

John 7:18 He that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory: but he that seeketh his glory that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him.

Christ did not seek His own glory. He did not pursue His own self-interest. His whole life was about doing the will of God and glorifying God. In fact, doing the will of God was the thing that sustained Him. It was His very meat. It was what energized Him and kept Him going.

John 4:34 Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.

And since our Lord flawlessly walked in God’s law, kept His testimonies, and sought Him with the whole heart, He is the only man of Whom it could be said in the fullest sense of the word that He did “no iniquity.” He is the only man in all of history of Whom words like this could be written:

1 Peter 2:22 Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth:

Hebrews 4:15 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.

2 Corinthians 5:21 For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

Therefore, our Lord Jesus Christ fits the description of a blessed man given in these first three verses of Psalm 119. He of all men is most supremely blessed. Well, then, might we join in chorus with those who exclaimed His praises when He entered into Jerusalem “riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass”:

Mark 11:9 And they that went before, and they that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna; Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.

Psalm 119:3

We come today to third verse of Psalm 119, in which the Psalmist further describes those who walk in the law of the Lord, that keep His testimonies, and that seek Him with the whole heart.

Psalms 119:3 They also do no iniquity: they walk in his ways.

The first three verses of this Psalm remind us of the definition of sin given by the apostle John.

1 John 3:4 Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.

If one does what the law says, he commits no sin, he does no iniquity. If one transgresses the law he goes beyond the bounds it sets and thus breaks the law, that is, he sins and does iniquity.

Now we are straightly commanded not to sin.

Psalms 4:4 Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah.

1 John 2:1 My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not.

The way to keep from sinning is to walk in the law of the Lord, to keep His testimonies, and to seek Him with the whole heart. If you would avoid sin, simply do what the Bible says and that wholeheartedly. This also explains what it means to “walk in the Spirit” as Paul commanded us in this verse:

Galatians 5:16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.

If we are not fulfilling the lust of the flesh, we are not sinning since sin proceeds from the lust of the flesh.

James 1:14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

Now the question might arise, just how does one “walk in the Spirit”? These first three verses of Psalm 119 answer that question. To walk in the Spirit is to walk in the law of the Lord, to keep His testimonies, and to seek Him with the whole heart. This makes sense when you remember that the Scriptures are given to us by the Holy Spirit of God.

2 Peter 1:20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

Because the law comes from the Spirit of God, Paul could describe it in Romans 7:14 as spiritual.

Romans 7:14 For we know that the law is spiritual.

Therefore, our Psalm has opened up showing us how to walk in the Spirit, how to be spiritual believers. This Psalm describes those who live in the Spirit and walk in the Spirit (Galatians 5:25). The experiences of this Psalm are intensely spiritual. The spiritual believers are those who “walk in His ways.”

Examine your ways. Do they agree with God’s ways? If not, then you are doing iniquity. If such is the case with you then there is this commandment from the law of the Lord that you need to keep:

Isaiah 55:6 Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:
7 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

In turning to God from your sin and in confessing your sin to God, God will forgive and cleanse you of that sin. You have His word of promise on that.

1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Now if you are cleansed from all unrighteousness, then you have no unrighteousness. Your unrighteousness is gone. That is, God sees you as one of those who “do no iniquity.” You are one of those described Psalm 119:3 and in this comforting verse:

Jeremiah 50:20 In those days, and in that time, saith the LORD, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found: for I will pardon them whom I reserve.

Because God has pardoned you, you have no iniquity! Thanks be to God that through His pardoning mercy and the cleansing blood of our Lord Jesus Christ we can experience the blessedness, the happiness of those who walk in the law of the Lord, that keep His testimonies, that seek Him with the whole heart, and that do no iniquity.