Psalm 119:54

We continue today making our way through the octave of Psalm 119 entitled Zain. Up to now this octave has revealed the psalmist deriving hope and comfort from the Scriptures. Today we find that the Scriptures also provided music in his life.

Psalms 119:54 Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage.

The psalmist speaks of the house of my pilgrimage. A pilgrimage is a journey made by a pilgrim. So we need to know just what a pilgrim is.

Pilgrim – One who travels from place to place; a person on a journey; a wayfarer, a traveller; a wanderer; a sojourner.

It matters not where they reside in this world or how long they live there, God’s children are on a journey to another world. Whatever house they dwell in be it rented or owned, large or small, elaborate or simple is like an inn. It is just a place to stay over temporarily. It is a house of pilgrimage. This world provides us no lasting home. We are journeying toward a world to come, to a heavenly country.

Hebrews 11:13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. 14 For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. 15 And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. 16 But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.

1 Chronicles 29:15 For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding.

Our Saviour promised us a permanent dwelling in His Father’s house above.

John 14:2 In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

That word mansion has an interesting definition.

Mansion - The action of remaining, abiding, dwelling, or staying in a place. Also, permanence or continuance in a position or state. A place where one stays or dwells; a place of abode, an abiding-place.

A mansion is a permanent dwelling place, a place where we remain and from which we are not moved. No house we possess down here has this feature of permanence. Owning one’s own house has been called the American dream. Well, it turns out that that is all that it is. It is a dream that comes in a night and flees away in a night. We can better endure the loss of a house down here when we remember it was never ours to keep in the first place. Think of moving from one house to another as moving from one hotel room to another whilst you are on a trip.

The relief we often feel upon arriving to our temporary home after a long, exhausting trip is just a little foretaste of what we shall experience when we at last arrive to our everlasting house, from which we will never have a need or desire to leave again.

Now there was music to be heard in the house of the psalmist’s pilgrimage, music to cheer him on his journey homeward. And that music was drawn from the Holy Scriptures: thy statutes have been my songs. The musical compositions that have been derived from the Holy Scriptures are innumerable. For example, there is Handel’s Messiah in which passages taken from the A.V. 1611 are set to music. Jewish cantors can chant the psalms in Hebrew. There are other examples of verses of Scripture set to music. Then there are the hymns and spiritual songs whose content is derived from the history and teachings of the Scriptures. Although the words of these songs are not direct quotations from the Bible, they are nevertheless based in the Scriptures. These are the songs that direct our hearts away from this world to the world above, where our affections should be set.

Colossians 3:1 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. 2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.

Charles Bridges in his excellent commentary on Psalm 119 wrote this warning: “What reason have we then every moment to guard against the debasing, stupefying influence of the world, which makes us forget the proper character of a pilgrim!” Never let this world make you feel at home.

It is also telling that the psalmist found songs in God’s statutes, the laws He has given to us as our Sovereign Lord, laws we are to obey. For the psalmist, living under God’s authority was not a matter of complaint, but rather a matter of celebration in song. Linking today’s verse with the one that precedes it, Charles Spurgeon wrote: “Saints find horror in sin, and harmony in holiness.”

May I ask you, believer, are the songs of God’s statutes ever heard in the house of your pilgrimage?

Psalm 119:53

Psalm 119 addresses a wide range of emotions both pleasant and painful. The verse we consider today brings before us one of the most painful human emotions, the emotion of horror.

Psalms 119:53 Horror hath taken hold upon me because of the wicked that forsake thy law.

We begin by defining the word horror.

Horror – A painful emotion compounded of loathing and fear; a shuddering with terror and repugnance; strong aversion mingled with dread; the feeling excited by something shocking or frightful.

The psalmist is in a state of shock. He has been confronted with something he loathes, something he dreads, something he does not want to accept. This thing has taken hold of him. He cannot escape its painful reality. Think of the most shocking news you have ever heard. Recall how you felt, how you wished it were no so, and you will have some insight into the emotion of the psalmist expressed in this verse.

But look at what caused this horror. Horror took hold of the psalmist because of the wicked that forsake thy law. His horror did not just arise from some frightening thing that happened to him or to his loved ones, as is often the case with our experiences of horror. Rather, his horror arose from what the wicked were doing to God’s law! The psalmist so deeply loved and revered God’s law, that it horrified him to see wicked men forsake it.

Now just what is it to forsake the law?

Forsake – To deny, renounce, or repudiate allegiance to. To refuse respect or obedience to (a command, duty, etc.); to disregard. Also, to neglect (to do something). To break off from, renounce (a belief, doctrine).

To forsake the law is to deny it, to renounce it; it is to refuse to respect or obey it. Forsaking the law of God is what wicked people do. That is why they are wicked. When we look about us in the world, we see the Bible denied everywhere. We see its commandments ridiculed and flagrantly disobeyed. In Jeremiah’s day the religious leaders and the people alike were involved in scandalous behaviour. The sight of this horrified that holy man of God.

Jeremiah 23:14 I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem an horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies: they strengthen also the hands of evildoers, that none doth return from his wickedness: they are all of them unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah.

Our nation today has also become “as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah.” It is common today to see the sin of sodomy presented in television programs and movies as an acceptable thing. As Jermiah said, it is “an horrible thing”!

But you don’t just see the forsaking of God’s law in the secular world, you see in the world of professing Christendom. You see professing Christians tossing aside the pure text of the Scriptures as preserved in the Authorized Version of 1611 for a corrupt text, thus forsaking the law of God. These corrupt texts water down verses that speak sharply against certain sins. Organizations claiming to be churches of the Lord Jesus Christ routinely disregard the New Testament order of worship, ministry, and discipline substituting rites and programs that are neither commanded nor exemplified in Scripture. The church is made to conform to the will of the people rather than the people being made to conform to the will of God. This is a horrible thing!

Jeremiah 5:30 A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land; 31 The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?

The danger in this day of mass media is that we are being exposed to so much forsaking of the law, that we are becoming calloused and indifferent to it. We no longer feel horror at such wholesale forsaking of God's law. Our ability to feel horror at what we see is being worn down by overmuch exposure. To be indifferent rather than horrified at the forsaking of the law of God is a sign of spiritual decay and will lead to further decay if not corrected. Alexander Pope expressed it well in this short poem:

Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,

As, to be hated, needs but to be seen;

Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,

We first endure, then pity, then embrace.

The lesson here is that we need less exposure to sinful media and more exposure to things that are pure, holy, and good so that we maintain our ability to be horrified when God’s law is forsaken. For the more horrified we are at the wicked forsaking God’s law, the less chance there will be that we will forsake it ourselves, because the thought of doing so will horrify us!