Psalm 119:38

Hë! Here I am, back again with another meditation from Psalm 119. Are you glad I’m back?

Psalms 119:38 Stablish thy word unto thy servant, who is devoted to thy fear.

In this prayer the psalmist identifies himself as God’s servant. Then he defines a servant of God as one who is devoted to the fear of God. To understand this, we need to define the word devote.

Devote – To appropriate by, or as if by, a vow; to set apart or dedicate solemnly or formally; to consecrate (to). To give up, addict, apply zealously or exclusively (to a pursuit, occupation, etc., or to a particular purpose).

Show me what a person is devoted to, what he dedicates his thoughts, time, resources, and energy to and I will show you what he serves. I will show you his character and the course of his life. Our devotions define us.

Now our psalmist was devoted to the fear of God. One who fears God hates evil.

Proverbs 8:13 The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.

The fear of the Lord is to hate evil in whatever form it occurs be it mental, emotional, physical, social, professional, religious, or whatever. A man that fears the Lord will endeavour to keep all the commandments of the Lord. He will not think of any commandment God has given as unnecessary or unimportant.

Deuteronomy 6:2 That thou mightest fear the LORD thy God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee, thou, and thy son, and thy son's son, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged.

The fear of God also expresses itself in the worship of God in His house.

Psalms 5:7 But as for me, I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy: and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple.

The institution of the local church is the house of God in the New Testament times (1 Timothy 3:15). That being the case, we can conclude from the verses we have considered so far that a person who is devoted to the fear of God will want to worship God in the right church in the right way, that is, according to the commandments of God.

Now the psalmist prays to the Lord: Stablish thy word unto thy servant.

Stablish – Establish (To render stable or firm.). To render indubitable (That cannot be doubted; perfectly certain or evident), support by proof or testimony.

When it comes to rendering God’s word stable, it cannot be more stable than it is because it proceeds from the God Who cannot lie. What God says will stand and that forever.

Psalms 119:152 Concerning thy testimonies, I have known of old that thou hast founded them for ever.

Psalms 119:160 Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever.

It is not that the psalmist is asking God to make His word itself more stable. It is that he wants his faith in that word to be more stable. He wants the word to be stablished to him.

When God made the promises of His covenant to King David, recorded in 2 Samuel 7:12-16, David responded in prayer with these words:

2 Samuel 7:25 And now, O LORD God, the word that thou hast spoken concerning thy servant, and concerning his house, establish it for ever, and do as thou hast said.

David already knew that what God had said was true. It was stable and firm as he acknowledged in the same prayer.

2 Samuel 7:28 And now, O Lord GOD, thou art that God, and thy words be true, and thou hast promised this goodness unto thy servant....

The fulfillment of the promises to David would only confirm that what God had promised was true and, therefore, worthy of trust.

When God fulfills a promise of His word to us, it establishes that word to us. It shows God’s word to be true and thus our faith is strengthened. That promise was true and stable before God fulfilled it. The fulfillment of it only confirms or stablishes the truth of it to us; it provides proof of its truth. Every fulfilled promise of God increases our faith in the fulfillment of other promises not yet fulfilled. For example, the evidence we have of the fulfilled word of God in the first coming of Christ stablishes God’s word to us so that we have confidence in the promise of the second coming of our Lord. Every answer to every prayer that we pray according to the will of God stablishes God’s word to us and encourages further prayers of faith.

1 John 5:14 And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us:
15 And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.

I am currently bringing a series of sermons on the book of Genesis. Seeing the remarkable agreement of the message of the Scriptures with the message of the creation stablishes the word of God to me. I realize all the more how true that Book is. This gives me yet more reason to place my confidence without reservation in every word of the Bible.

We who are servants of God devoted to His fear know altogether too well what it is to still be plagued at times with doubts of God and His word. Hence, we need to pray this prayer: Stablish thy word unto thy servant. Thanks be to God that He is merciful to our weakness and comes to our aid by giving us tokens that stablish His unshakeable word to our hearts that are too often shaken by doubts and fears. I close with the words of Alexander Raleigh, who well described our struggle:

“Is not this the very condition of many and many a one? ‘Stablished,’ yet moved; ‘devoted,’ yet uncertain; ‘serving’ God truly, yet looking and longing for clearer warrant, and higher sanction, and more inward grace, to make the service better; ‘believing,’ yet crying, sometimes, ‘with tears, Help though mine unbelief!’”

Psalm 119:37

Today’s meditation will be a bit longer than others. But the thoughts contained in the verse we consider are too important to be glossed over. So relax, read, and ponder what I say.

The prayer we find in this next verse of Psalm 119 not only numerically follows upon the preceding verse, but logically follows upon it as well.

Psalms 119:37 Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity; and quicken thou me in thy way.

Having prayed to God to deal with his heart in verse 36, the psalmist now prays to God to deal with his eyes. He asks the Lord to turn away his eyes from beholding vanity.

Behold – To hold or keep in view, to watch; to regard or contemplate with the eyes; to look upon, look at (implying active voluntary exercise of the faculty of vision).

When we behold something, we are not just seeing it. We are also directing our attention to what we are seeing. We are focusing on it. The prayers of verses 36-37 fit together because the heart will tend to bend in the direction of whatever the eyes are focused upon. When Eve contemplated the forbidden fruit with her eyes, she convinced herself to eat of it (Genesis 3:6). After it was found out that Achan had taken and hidden the spoils of Jericho, which God had forbidden, Achan gave forth this telling confession:

Joshua 7:20 And Achan answered Joshua, and said, Indeed I have sinned against the LORD God of Israel, and thus and thus have I done:
21 When I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight, then I coveted them, and took them; and, behold, they are hid in the earth in the midst of my tent, and the silver under it.

It was when Achan’s eyes beheld the spoils that his heart was inclined to covet them. Before committing adultery with Bathsheba, King David looked upon her as she was washing herself (2 Samuel 11:2). Beholding her with his eyes, his heart inclined to lust after her and the rest is history.

Now the psalmist prays that the Lord will turn away his eyes from beholding vanity. Vanity is that which is vain. So to understand vanity we need to define the word vain.

Vain – Devoid of real value, worth, or significance; idle, unprofitable, useless, worthless; of no effect, force, or power; fruitless, futile, unavailing.

The following verse defines vain things as things “which cannot profit nor deliver.”

1 Samuel 12:21: And turn ye not aside: for then should ye go after vain things, which cannot profit nor deliver; for they are vain.

False gods are vanities whether those gods be man-made objects, angels, devils, or men. However useful any creature may otherwise be to us, as a god it can neither profit nor deliver us. There is no substitute for the living God!

Jeremiah 10:14 Every man is brutish in his knowledge: every founder is confounded by the graven image: for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them.
15 They are vanity, and the work of errors: in the time of their visitation they shall perish.

When the people of Lystra tried to treat Paul and Barnabas like gods Paul registered this protest:

Acts 14:15 And saying, Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein…

Or consider another example of vanity. Compared to the living God and the eternal life He gives us by His grace, the longest life in this world with the most material wealth that can be had is vanity. This thought comes through clearly in the following passage:

Psalms 39:5 Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah.
6 Surely every man walketh in a vain shew: surely they are disquieted in vain: he heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them.

King Solomon, who could afford anything he wanted, looked at all he had acquired and judged it to all be vanity (Ecclesiastes 2:1-11). So many fix their eyes on the riches of this world and think that having them is living the good life. But their eyes are only beholding vanity. And beholding that vanity their hearts incline toward it and they covet it. The advertising industry capitalizes on this human weakness. And with screens portraying the vanities of this world constantly in our faces, how relevant does our verse become! If we would not have our hearts incline to covetousness, let us pray God to turn away our eyes from beholding vanity. When we see these vanities, let us pray to God to remind us not to behold them, not to regard them. Over against all that is brought before your eyes for you to covet, hear this simple yet profound warning of our Lord:

Luke 12:15 And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.

In this prayer the psalmist not only sought grace from God to control the direction his eyes, he also prayed for grace to stir him up in the word of God: Quicken thou me in thy way.

Quicken – To give or restore life to; to make alive; to vivify or revive; to animate. To give, add, or restore vigour to (a person or thing); to stimulate, stir up, rouse, excite, inspire.

Charles Spurgeon expanded on this prayer in these words:

“Give me so much life that dead vanity may have no power over me. Enable me to travel so swiftly in the road to heaven that I may not stop long enough within sight of vanity to be fascinated thereby. The prayer indicates our greatest need, - more life in our obedience. It shows the preserving power of increased life to keep us from the evils which are around us, and it, also, tells us where that increased life must come from, namely, from the Lord alone. Vitality is the cure of vanity (emphasis mine).”

This prayer explains how God turns our eyes away from beholding vanity. God does not reach down and turn our heads for us. What He does do is He stimulates us with something better. That is, He quickens us in His way. Charles Bridges captured the thought when he wrote:

“What will most effectually ‘turn my eyes from vanity?’ Not the seclusion of contemplative retirement – not the relinquishment of our lawful connexion with the world; but the transcendent beauty of Jesus unveiled to our eyes, and fixing our hearts. This will ‘turn our eyes from vanity’ in its most glittering forms.”

Learning about Jesus and following Him, Who is God’s way (John 14:6), should excite us. The more stirred up we are about the Lord Jesus Christ, the less the things of this world will capture our sights and seize our hearts. The apostle Paul was one whom God had quickened in His way.

Philippians 3:8 Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ….

Whenever you see the vanities of this world and remembering that they are but vanity you direct your attention to God’s way, the Lord is answering your prayer to turn away your eyes from beholding vanity. If you have experienced the words of this song, then you have experienced the answer to the prayer of today’s verse.

“Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face;
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace.”

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.