Psalm 119:158

From the Pastor’s Study

Psalm 119:158

Dear Readers, somehow I overlooked submitting the meditation on this verse.  I jumped over it and submitted verse 159 instead.  Please forgive this oversight.

By means of this next verse of Psalm 119 we once again visit the emotions of the psalmist, emotions that take their rise from his deep love for the word of God.

Psalms 119:158  I beheld the transgressors, and was grieved; because they kept not thy word.

The transgressors are persons who transgress.  So just what does it mean to transgress? 

Transgress - To go beyond the bounds or limits prescribed by (a law, command, etc.); to break, violate, infringe, contravene, trespass against.

Transgressors are people who do not live within the boundaries imposed by God’s word.  But even without reference to a dictionary, we can know what transgressors are from today’s verse.  They are defined as those that kept not thy word.  Rather than keep God’s word they break it.    

In the psalmist’s time transgression was so flagrant, so out in the open, that he beheld the transgressors.  They overstepped the commandments of God’s law and made no attempt to hide it.  And beholding them doing thus he was grieved.  This makes us think of the times of Lot when he was living in Sodom.

2 Peter 2:7  And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:

8  (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)….

Isaiah 3:9  The shew of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves.

The prophet Habakkuk experienced grief as he beheld the transgressors of his day and wondered why the Lord left him to behold their transgressions.

Habakkuk 1:2  O LORD, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear! even cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save!

3  Why dost thou shew me iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance? for spoiling and violence are before me: and there are that raise up strife and contention.

4  Therefore the law is slacked, and judgment doth never go forth: for the wicked doth compass about the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceedeth.

Of course, the same can be said of our own times.  Everywhere we turn, whether it is to be informed of current events or to be entertained or even to work out at the gym, the transgressors are in our face.  You cannot sit in an airport or in a doctor’s office without a television screen in front of you that often displays the transgressors saying and doing those things that grieve you.  Do you like Habakkuk ever question why the Lord lets you behold so much iniquity, violence, and injustice?

    

Now it follows that the transgressors that kept not God’s law grieved the psalmist because he had such love and respect for that law and the God Who gave it.  In several verses in this psalm the psalmist expressed that he rejoiced and delighted in God’s law.  Commenting on verse 35 of this psalm I wrote: 

  “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.”  

 It can be said that you can tell a lot about a man’s character by observing the things that delight him.  But it can equally be said that you can tell a lot about a man’s character by the observing the things that grieve him.  Charles Bridges put it this way:

“Our joys and sorrows are the pulse of the soul.  A fellowship with the joys of angels over repenting sinners (Luke, xv. 10) will be accompanied with bitterness of godly sorrow over the hardness and impenitency of those, who keep not the word of God.”

If beholding transgressors causes you grief, then that shows your love of God’s commandments.  If you did not love and delight in God’s word so much, you would not be so grieved when you see it violated.  And delighting in God’s law as you do demonstrates that you have the same character as the holy apostle Paul, who said of himself:

Romans 7:22  For I delight in the law of God after the inward man….

How is that for assurance that you are a child of God?

Now Satan throws so much evil in our face to get us to become indifferent to it and ultimately to approve it.  On the other hand, God lets us behold it to try us and to steel our resolve against it.  The more evil there is to resist, the stronger we must be to resist it.  Let this never be said of us:   “And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold” (Matthew 24:12).  Rather let it be said of us:  I beheld the transgressors, and was grieved; because they kept not thy word.  May God grant us grace to maintain this holy grief.  For it is in such grief that we shall discover the blessing of God’s comforts, not the least of which is the assurance that we are His and He is ours forever.

Matthew 5:4  Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

Psalm 119:159

In today’s verse we come across the second time in this octave entitled Resh that the psalmist called upon the Lord to consider him.

Psalms 119:159  Consider how I love thy precepts: quicken me, O LORD, according to thy lovingkindness.

The psalmist had an intense love for God’s precepts.  And this says a lot about the psalmist when you remember that precepts are authoritative commands to do certain things; they are rules of conduct.  So this tells us that the psalmist loved being under God’s authority and delighted in being told by Him what to do and what not to do.  Oh, that all had such love and respect for God and His precepts! 

The psalmist asks his God to consider or take notice of how he loved His precepts.  Mind that he not only wanted the Lord to consider that he loved His precepts.  He wanted Him to take notice of how he loved the precepts, that is, the way and manner in which he loved them.  As we glance over this psalm we see that he loved the precepts above all other delights; God’s precepts were his joy; he frequently begged to understand the precepts; he resolved never to forget them; and he grieved when they were not kept.  He held to them in his afflictions and before his enemies, no matter how many or mighty those enemies were.  He would let nothing come between him and the Lord’s precepts.  In fact, he loved God’s precepts so much that he welcomed affliction if by that he could better learn them.  Now when you love God’s precepts like that, you may well ask the Lord to give that fact consideration.  As we beg God to overlook our transgressions in His lovingkindness and tender mercy, well might we equally beg Him not to overlook our righteousnesses in that same lovingkindness and tender mercy. Thanks be to God when we have something good about ourselves to confess to God instead of just something evil.

But as he asks the Lord for His consideration, he tacks on this request:  quicken me, O LORD, according to thy lovingkindness. This is the third time in this octave and the ninth time in the entire psalm that the psalmist prayed to the Lord to quicken him (see verses 25, 37, 40, 88, 107, 149, 154, 156, 159).  This will be the last time we meet with this petition in this particular psalm.  As I stated before when commenting on this request, the fact that it is made repeatedly indicates that the psalmist “repeatedly needed to be revived and stirred up.”  And he asked for this quickening to be according to God’s lovingkindness.  Observe that even though the psalmist could confess a love for God’s precepts that was to such an extent that he would have the Lord consider it, he does not advance that as the reason for the Lord to quicken him.  He rather pleads the lovingkindness of God.  “And,” wrote Charles Bridges, “what must be the loving-kindness of a God of infinite love!” Although the psalmist had such an ardent love for God’s precepts, he still felt something dragging him down, something that would dampen his zeal for the word of God.  His love for God’s word, no matter how great, still fell short of what it ought to be.  Therefore, he threw himself on the love of God for him rather than on his love for God and His precepts.  He would have His loving God grant him the particular kindness of quickening him.  And being thus quickened he could continue to zealously love God’s precepts.

Psalm 119:157

We continue working our way through the octave of Psalm 119 entitled Resh.

Psalms 119:157  Many are my persecutors and mine enemies; yet do I not decline from thy testimonies.

In the previous verse the psalmist stated that God’s tender mercies are great.  In today’s verse we see that he needed great and tender mercies from His God because, as he states, many are my persecutors and mine enemies.

Whenever a man sets out on a course of obedience to the commandments of God, he will make enemies.  And these enemies will persecute him precisely because he is doing the right thing.

Psalms 38:19  But mine enemies are lively, and they are strong: and they that hate me wrongfully are multiplied.

20  They also that render evil for good are mine adversaries; because I follow the thing that good is.

2 Timothy 3:12  Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.

This was the reason Cain killed Abel, thus starting the long train of persecution of the godly by the ungodly that will continue unto the end of the world.

1 John 3:11  For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.

12  Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous.

But not only will a godly person have enemies, but, as the verse above said, those enemies will be multiplied and that to the point that he will be able to say with the psalmist:  Many are my persecutors and mine enemies.

Psalms 3:1  <> LORD, how are they increased that trouble me! many are they that rise up against me.

2  Many there be which say of my soul, There is no help for him in God. Selah.

Psalms 25:19  Consider mine enemies; for they are many; and they hate me with cruel hatred.

Our Lord was certainly persecuted by many enemies.  In fact, so many were His enemies that He spoke in prophecy and said:

Psalms 118:10  All nations compassed me about: but in the name of the LORD will I destroy them.

And just as “all nations” opposed our Lord, so would they oppose and persecute His disciples as He told them in the Olivet Discourse.

Matthew 24:9  Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake.

There is an enmity between Satan and his seed, the wicked of this world, and the seed of the woman, Jesus Christ and His elect.

Genesis 3:15  And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

And when you consider that Satan is “the prince of this world” (John 14:30) and that “the whole world lieth in wickedness” (1John 5:19), it should come as no surprise that the godly have many persecutors and enemies.   

Satan and his cohorts have made it their aim to cause God’s people to decline or deviate from God’s testimonies.  Satan succeeded with our first parents and has continued to pursue his objective since then.  The devil has one of two methods that he employs.  He either tries to lure us from God’s testimonies by temptations to sin or to frighten us from them by persecution.   And many do indeed abandon God’s word when they are persecuted for it. 

Matthew 13:20  But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it;

21  Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended.

But such was not the case with the psalmist.  Although his persecutors and his enemies were many, he could say:  yet do I not decline from thy testimonies.  If our persecutors and enemies do not succeed in getting us to turn aside from God’s testimonies, then all their stratagems and attacks have failed and we have come off the victors in the conflict.  As Charles Spurgeon wrote:  “Faithfulness to the truth is (emphasis mine) victory over our enemies.”  Ponder those words carefully.  So long as you stay faithful to God’s word, you are on the winning side no matter how many are lined up against you.