Psalm 119:36

As we are moving through the octave of Psalm 119 entitled Hë, we come to a verse that strikes at the root of all sin, that being the sin of covetousness.

Psalms 119:36 Incline my heart unto thy testimonies, and not to covetousness.

Having resolved that he will consistently and wholeheartedly keep the law of God, the psalmist seeks help from God to keep this resolve. He prays to the Lord, Incline my heart unto thy testimonies.

Incline – To bend (the mind, heart, will, etc.) towards some course or action; to give a mental leaning or tendency to (a person); to dispose.

Although God does not force our will to keep His commandments, He does incline our wills in that direction, if we ask Him. He brings gracious influences to bear that bend our hearts to do what He commands. When the Lord gives us assurance that our sins are forgiven, when the Lord gives us information that helps us cope with life, when He gives us peace in the midst of our tribulations, when He gives us comfort and encouragement from His word and from others, when He answers our prayers, when He opens the riches of His word to us, or when He shows us the glories of our Saviour Jesus Christ and thereby rejoices our souls, all of these things bend our hearts and wills to keep His commandments. It is like the clear shining of the sun that causes plants to bend toward its light. So God’s gracious influences incline our hearts unto His testimonies. Indeed, “we love him, because he first loved us” (1John 4:19).

According to this verse our hearts can be inclined in one of two different directions. They can be inclined unto God’s testimonies or inclined unto covetousness. Before getting into this, let’s define covetousness.

Covetousness – Inordinate and culpable desire of possessing that which belongs to another or to which one has no right.

To covet is the same as to lust or to desire, as the following two verses establish.

Romans 7:7 …I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.

Deuteronomy 5:21 Neither shalt thou desire thy neighbour's wife, neither shalt thou covet thy neighbour's house, his field, or his manservant, or his maidservant, his ox, or his ass, or any thing that is thy neighbour's.

Covetousness is lusting after or desiring something forbidden by the law of God.

Now observe that covetousness is placed in contrast to God’s testimonies, plural. Commenting on this, Richard Capel wrote:

“He saith not, this or that testimony, but (as including all the laws of God) he saith, 'testimonies'; to show us that covetousness draws us away, not from some only, but from all God’s commandments.”

This point is confirmed by the words of the apostle Paul as he speaks of the evils that arise from covetousness.

1 Timothy 6:9 But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.
10 For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

Every sin has an element of covetousness or lust in it. Paul warns us against obeying sin “in the lusts thereof” (Romans 6:12). You see, every sin contains a lust. We sin because we desire, we covet something that God’s testimonies forbid.

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.

The extreme danger of this sin may be concluded from how much of the teaching and example of our Lord Jesus Christ was directed against it. Charles Bridges said it well:

“There is probably no principle so opposed to the Lord’s testimonies. It casts out the principle of obedience, since the love of God cannot co-exist with the love of the world (1John 2:15); and the very desire to serve Mammon is a proof of unfaithfulness to God (Matthew 6:24).

As I have taught my congregation in the past, in order to resist sin one must deal with it at the level of the lust. Resist the desire to sin, and you will resist the sin itself. Kill the covetousness and you will have killed sin at its root. An effective way to attack covetousness is to pray for God to incline, to bend your heart in the direction of His testimonies and away from covetousness. And mean it when you pray it!!!

Psalm 119:35

We now come to the third verse of this octave of Psalm 119 entitled Hë.

Psalms 119:35 Make me to go in the path of thy commandments; for therein do I delight.

The thought expressed in this verse follows logically upon the thought expressed in the first two verses of this octave. In the first two verses the psalmist begged the Lord to teach him and give him understanding of His law. In asking the Lord to give him this knowledge of His word, he resolved before God to conform his life to that knowledge. Now he is asking the Lord to give him the strength to keep that resolution. It is one thing to know what to do and another thing to be able to do it.

To go in the path of God’s commandments is to follow the direction of those commandments, to let them lead you wherever they will take you, just as when you follow the direction of a path in the woods. Knowing that God is perfectly good, you may be sure that the path of His commandments will always lead you to very best places you can be in your life.

When he says to the Lord make me to go in the path of thy commandments, he is asking God to enable him to obey His commandments. When God makes us to go in His way, He does not lead us like a puppet on a string. We have to do the going. We are responsible to obey. We obey the Lord actively, not passively. God makes us to go in the path of His commandments by enabling us, by giving us the strength to keep His commandments.

Psalms 68:35 …the God of Israel is he that giveth strength and power unto his people. Blessed be God.

The following passage clearly shows how this mechanism works.

Philippians 2:12 Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

Observe that we work out our own salvation. But before we can work it out, God must first work it in. He does this by enabling us to will and to do of His good pleasure. But once He enables us to will and to do, we must ourselves will and do the good pleasure. And we can only do this if God gives us the ability to do it. This prayer for the Lord to make me to go in the path of obedience is a prayer for the Lord to strengthen us. Strength by definition is the power or ability to do something. How many times do we ask the Lord for strength and rightly so? For without His strength, we are powerless to go in the path of His commandments.

John 15:5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

But with His strength, we can pursue that path all the way, wherever it takes us.

Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

Now the psalmist advances this reason for the Lord to make him to go in the path of His commandments: for therein do I delight. The person who finds his greatest pleasure in obeying the Lord is the person who will most earnestly pray for the Lord to strengthen him to obey. 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. Is health your greatest delight? Then that will be the foremost thing you ask God for. Is being able to come and go as you please your greatest delight? Then you will always be praying for relief from whatever is keeping you from doing that. Is money your greatest delight? Then your prayers will in some way or another mostly revolve around that. “Give me a job, Lord.” “Let this deal go through, Lord.” And on and on we could go. I am not saying these prayers are necessarily wrong. But should they be the foremost desire of your heart? If the greatest delight of your life is pleasing the Lord, then asking God to enable you to do that will be your foremost request. And, interestingly enough, a lot of other good things will come with the answer to that prayer.

Matthew 6:31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

Psalm 119:34

Hë! Are you ready to take up the next verse in this series of meditations on Psalm 119?

Psalms 119:34 Give me understanding, and I shall keep thy law; yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart.

This verse bears on the same theme as the preceding verse. In both verses the psalmist is calling upon the Lord for instruction. He rightly asks God for understanding since understanding comes from Him.

Proverbs 2:6 For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding.

Now just what is understanding?

Understanding - Power or ability to understand (to comprehend; to apprehend the meaning or import of; to grasp the idea of). Signification, meaning, sense.

It is not enough to merely acquire information. Just accumulating a bunch of facts only clogs the brain. For information to benefit us, we need to understand it. We need to be able to make sense of the information we gain, to know what it means and how it fits with everything else. It is a fact that we learn things better when we understand them. This holds true when we come to the Bible, God’s law. In order to profit from the word of God, we need to be able to understand it, to see how it all fits together. Those of us who are Bible students know how rewarding it is to read something in the Bible, perhaps for years, and then one day we finally understand it. When this happens we might say, “I finally got it!” Or when something falls into place in our understanding we say, “It clicked.”

Now the ultimate answer to this prayer for understanding is found in the Lord Jesus Christ as the following verse makes clear:

1 John 5:20 And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.

The revelation of God through His Son is the linchpin that connects everything together so that it makes sense. Only those who know Jesus Christ can really make sense out of the Bible they read and out of the world in which they live. This reminds me of a story I heard. A lady was reading her Bible and another lady upon seeing this told her that she thought the Bible was hard to understand. To this the Bible reader replied, “It helps to know the Author.” How true!

As in the previous verse, the psalmist attaches a resolve to his request. If God will give him understanding, the psalmist resolves: “I will keep thy law.” When God gives us understanding of His law, that understanding brings with it a strong motivation to obey that law. Thomas Manton put it this way:

“It is such instruction as giveth strength, that exciteth the sluggish will, and breaketh the force of corrupt inclinations; it removeth the darkness which corruption and sin have brought upon the mind, and maketh us pliable and ready to obey….”

This same point can be seen in Paul’s prayer for the Colossians.

Colossians 1:9 For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;
10 That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;
11 Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness….

As result of being filled with spiritual understanding, one can walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing because he understands how to please God. One can be fruitful in every good work when he understands what is a good work actually is. And being filled with spiritual understanding he will realize greater strength to serve the Lord and endure hardship. The more we understand God and His will, the more we will want to pattern our lives according to His will. That is why it is so important to continually pray to God for understanding, and to seek understanding by studying our Bibles and attending to the teaching of God’s word. The more we understand, the more obedient we will want to be and be able to be.

On the other hand, the less we understand of God and His law, the more prone we will be to err. In every sin there is an element of ignorance, something that is not understood. This was the case regarding those who crucified the Son of God.

1 Corinthians 2:7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:
8 Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

Even if a person knows that what he is doing is a sin, he does not fully understand the consequences of what he is doing, else he would not do it.

Now upon being given understanding, the psalmist will not only keep God’s law, he affirms, yea, I will observe it with my whole heart. Taken together with the preceding verse we see that the psalmist resolves to take the instruction the Lord gives him and use it to obey Him consistently and wholeheartedly. He will give his service to God his all, all the time. As we have observed before in studying this psalm, God considers it pretence or feigning if you are not serving Him with your whole heart.

Jeremiah 3:10 And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah hath not turned unto me with her whole heart, but feignedly, saith the LORD.

The Lord will tolerate no rivals with Him in our hearts. Love for anyone or anything else must never be allowed to compete with our love for God and obedience to His law. No part of your heart must be withheld. Charles Bridges said it well: “That which is now willfully withheld, will gradually draw away the rest in apostasy from him.” To which I reply, “Amen.” It’s wholehearted or nothing. It’s all the way or not at all.