Psalms 119:29 Remove from me the way of lying: and grant me thy law graciously.
The righteous God hates lying and so does a righteous man.
Proverbs 6:16 These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:
17 A proud look, a lying tongue….
Proverbs 13:5 A righteous man hateth lying….
The foremost desire of a righteous man is to speak, to know, and to practice the truth. This desire gives rise to the prayer of today’s verse: Remove from me the way of lying.
Commenting on the way of lying, Charles Spurgeon wrote:
“This is the way of sin, error, idolatry, folly, self-righteousness, formalism, hypocrisy. David would not only be kept from that way, but have it kept from him; he cannot endure to have it near him, he would have it swept away from his sight. He desired to be right and upright, true and in the truth; but he feared that a measure of falsehood would cling to him unless the Lord took it away, and therefore he earnestly cried for its removal.”
The righteous man does not want to be deceived. He does not want the way, the course of his life to be influenced by lies. He has an honest and good heart that is open to receiving the truth of God’s word. He wants to know, to believe, and to practice only the truth. He does not want to lie; he does not want to be lied to; and he does not want to live a lie. He will pay whatever it costs him to have the truth and he will not sell it for any price.
Proverbs 23:23 Buy the truth, and sell it not….
You hear the petition of today’s verse echoed in these other prayers found in the Scriptures:
Psalms 120:2 Deliver my soul, O LORD, from lying lips, and from a deceitful tongue..
Proverbs 30:7 Two things have I required of thee; deny me them not before I die:
8 Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me….
Observe that vanity and lies are linked together. To live a lie is to live a life of vanity, a life that is of no value or profit in the eyes of God. If the worship you practice is not in truth, it is worthless. It does neither service nor honour to God.
John 4:23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
Is a characteristic of the wicked that they believe and love lies.
Proverbs 17:4 A wicked doer giveth heed to false lips….
Unregenerate men are deceived and enjoy being so.
Titus 3:3 For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.
The following passage describes those who will be deceived by the coming man of sin.
2 Thessalonians 2:10 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
12 That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
These wretched souls do not love the truth and, therefore, do not believe it. They would rather have their pleasure than have the truth, even if that pleasure is in something that is not right. When they look for a church, they look for the church that they can enjoy rather than the church that will teach them the truth.
In order to be delivered from the way of lying, the psalmist prays to God: grant me thy law graciously. God’s law is the truth and as such stands in contrast to the way of lying.
Psalms 119:142 …thy law is the truth.
The psalmist wanted God to grant him His law. He wanted God’s Bible, the true text of the Scriptures. And He wanted the true understanding of that law. The psalmist no doubt had a copy of the law, but he still prayed for God to grant the law to him. It is one thing to have a Bible and it is quite another thing to know and understand it. He did not merely want the law in his hand; he wanted it in his heart. With the true understanding of the law in his heart, he would be able to discern lies when confronted with them. By this means the way of lying would be removed from him. It is by knowing the truth that we can discern truth from falsehood. It is truth that chases away error.
But observe that the psalmist prays for God to grant him His law graciously. For God to let us have His law and to give us understanding of His law, is an act of pure grace. We are like Jacob who confessed: “I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast shewed unto they servant” (Genesis 32:10). When God grants us His law, He is not dealing with us according to what we deserve. He is rather bestowing upon us an unmerited favour. Let us thank God for this grant of His amazing grace.
I close with this observation: If you are in the way of lying, you are in the way of the devil, who “is a liar, and the father of it” (John 8:44); but if you are in the way of truth, you are in the way of the Lord Jesus Christ, Who is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). Whose way do you seek to be in?
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