Psalm 119:93

In verse 16 of Psalm 119 the psalmist had stated:  “I will not forget thy word.”  In the verse we consider today, taken from the octave entitled Lamed, we find the psalmist resolving again not to forget his Bible. 

Psalms 119:93 I will never forget thy precepts: for with them thou hast quickened me.

In this verse the psalmist said he would never forget the Lord’s precepts.

Never – At no time, on no occasion.

The psalmist was determined that there would never be a time or an occasion in which he would forget the precepts of Scripture.  The Lord’s precepts are His rules for our conduct.  The psalmist always consulted with those precepts to see what they had to say about whatever he encountered in life.  His Bible was indeed the manual by which he lived.    

As we noted before when we considered verse 16, the will plays a major role in remembering something.  I will never forget.  You tend to remember the things you want to remember.  If you will to remember something, you will focus your attention on it and make greater effort not to forget it.  So much of our forgetting arises not from a lack of ability to remember, but from a lack of will to remember.    

The reason the psalmist determined never to forget God’s precepts was that with them thou hast quickened me.  Let us consider again the definition of quicken. 

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.

Now some erroneously use this verse to teach that the Scriptures are the means God uses to give everlasting life to sinners.  However, if one hears and believes the word of God he is already in possession of everlasting life as the following verse makes quite clear. 

John 5:24  Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath (not “will have) everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed (not “will pass”) from death unto life.

Therefore, the precepts are not the instrument to give us everlasting life, but they are the instrument the Lord uses to nourish that life and to stir it up.

1 Peter 2:2  As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby….

Acts 2:40  And with many other words did he testify and exhort (to urge by stimulating words to conduct regarded as laudable), saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation.

Acts 20:32  And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.

In the psalmist’s experience, the precepts of Scripture had revived him when he was worn down.  They roused him to action when he needed a boost.  We do indeed have a tendency to remember those things that stimulate us, that restore our vigour when it is depleted.  As I write these words you can probably recall someone or something that lifted your spirit when you were down.  This was what the precepts had done for the psalmist and would continue to do for him.  Hence, he resolved he would never forget them.  If you would stay the course in running the Christian’s race, if you would keep up the good fight of faith, if you would maintain your zeal in the cause of Christ, then make it a point to never forget the precepts of the Lord for with them He quickens you.

Tomorrow will mark the beginning of the year 2014.  Let me take this opportunity to wish all of my readers who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and in truth a most blessed new year.

Psalm 119:92

The author of Psalm 119 had some very close calls in his troubles.  He would have been completely overwhelmed by them had it not been for the role His Bible played in his life.  It is to this that today’s verse speaks.

Psalms 119:92  Unless thy law had been my delights, I should then have perished in mine affliction.

In order to understand what it means to perish in an affliction, we need to define the word perish.

Perish – To come to a violent, sudden, or untimely end; to suffer destruction; to lose its life, cease to exist; be cut off.

The psalmist’s affliction was to such a degree of intensity that if he had not had some relief it would have destroyed him.  But mark this outstanding thought:  What prevented the psalmist from perishing in his affliction was not the cessation of the affliction, but rather the delights he had in God’s law! 

Delight – Pleasure, joy, or gratification felt in a high degree.

He found things in God’s law that brought him a high degree of pleasure.  In fact, they brought such a high degree of pleasure as to offset the high degree of his affliction.

Observe that the law of God had been the psalmist’s delights, plural.  He found multiple things in His Bible that caused him joy.  And indeed, there are many things contained in God’s written word to bring joy to His afflicted children.  Just think of the some of the things you have read in the Scriptures that have delighted your soul, things that have sent a wave of relief over you when you have been troubled.  Have any of these blogs ever brought you joy in the midst of your troubles and thus helped you to bear them?  If so, then you get the idea.  It is amazing how much more we can bear when we enjoy studying the Bible and hearing it preached.

Now we know that the psalmist was a holy man of God whom God loved, and who possessed God’s gift of eternal life.  Therefore, no affliction could cause him to perish eternally.   Just to know this brings delight.

John 3:16  For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

The knowledge of our eternal salvation gained from God’s word is a chief delight.  It brings great joy to realize that our sins are forgiven, that all our afflictions in this world are only temporary and in the end will yield to a life of unending pleasure at the right hand of God.

Romans 5:10  For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.

11  And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.

Romans 5:2  By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Psalms 16:11  Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.

Couple with this the many delightful promises of the Lord to be with us in our afflictions, to help and strengthen us, and to supply all our need.  Then there are all the wonderful attributes and works of God revealed in His law that rejoice the soul.  The justice and purity of God’s commandments delight the hearts of those who are right with Him.  And there are all the Biblical accounts of the triumphs of God and His people over their enemies that are sources of pleasure as well as encouragement.  All of these delights are a sure remedy against perishing in affliction.  As a minister of the Lord Jesus Christ I find delight in a passage like the following:

2 Timothy 4:17  Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear: and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.

18  And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

But be advised that the law of God will bring you no delight if you doubt it.  The delight, the joy comes in believing the God's law. 

Romans 15:13  Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.

So if you are finding no delight in the word of God, take stock of your faith and beg God to increase it.

Luke 17:5  And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith.

Psalm 119:91

We continue working our way through the octave of Psalm 119 entitled Lamed.  The verse we take up today is another of the four verses of this psalm in which none of the ten words occur that are used in it to refer to the Scriptures.  Nevertheless, the verse coheres with the overall theme of Psalm 119 extolling the written word of God.

Psalms 119:91  They continue this day according to thine ordinances: for all are thy servants.

In order to understand this verse we first need to determine the antecedents of the third person plural pronoun they, which is the first word of the verse.  The antecedents to this pronoun are the words heaven in verse 89 and earth in verse 90.  Heaven and earth continue this day according to God’s ordinances.

When we dealt with verse 89, we wrote of the word heaven as it refers to God’s abode, where the risen Saviour, the holy angels, and the departed saints reside.  However, the word heaven also refers to the firmament that God made on the second day.

Genesis 1:8  And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. 

This heaven includes outer space, where the sun, moon, and stars are located, and the earth’s atmosphere, where the birds fly.

Genesis 1:14  And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

15  And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

16  And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

Genesis 1:20  And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

With this information before us, we can begin to delve into today’s verse.  The heaven, or the firmament, and the earth continue this day according to thine ordinances.  God’s ordinances are His orders, His decrees as to how things are to be done, how things are to function.  The heaven and the earth function even to this day according to ordinances that God has appointed for them.  These ordinances are mentioned in the following passages:

Jeremiah 31:35  Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The LORD of hosts is his name:

36  If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever.

Jeremiah 33:25  Thus saith the LORD; If my covenant be not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth;

26  Then will I cast away the seed of Jacob, and David my servant, so that I will not take any of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for I will cause their captivity to return, and have mercy on them.

It is owing to the ordinances of God that we have day and night, that we have the four seasons, and that the raging sea can only go so far.  These things all function as they do because God has given them a decree that they obey.

Genesis 8:22  While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.

Job 38:8  Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb?

9  When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddlingband for it,

10  And brake up for it my decreed place, and set bars and doors,

11  And said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed?

So heaven and earth obey the ordinances God has given them.  They do so for all are thy servants.  Sun, moon, stars, skies, seas, yea, all nature are the servants of God fulfilling His decrees.  When you consider the regular motions of the sun, the moon, the earth, and the planets in space according to God’s word which ordered them, you see that God’s word is indeed settled in heaven.  And because heaven and earth obey these ordinances of their Maker, man can go about his activities with some degree of predictability.  He can rise in the morning, sow his fields, anticipate the harvest, schedule his activities, and retire at night.  Imagine the chaos that would occur if the heaven and the earth did not obey God’s ordinances.  We would not know when it might be day or night.  We could never be sure how to dress for the day since the weather would be so erratic.  Harvests would be unpredictable or not at all.  The waters might overwhelm the entire earth once again.  Thank God heaven and earth serve their Maker as He has appointed.  And because they serve their Maker so faithfully, man is provided for.

“Say not, my soul, ‘From whence

Can God relieve my care?’

Remember, that Omnipotence

Has servants everywhere.”  Thomas T. Lynch    

And notice in the above passages from Jeremiah how God draws an analogy between the constancy of the ordinances of heaven and earth and His promise to preserve His people.  Any promise we read in our Bible is as stedfast as those ordinances.  Therefore, the thought of today’s verse regarding the constancy of the ordinances of heaven and earth extends out to the constancy of every word of God.  That is why I say that this verse coheres with the overall theme of Psalm 119 extolling the written word of God. 

It is also interesting that the word ordinances is another word the Lord uses to refer to the commandments of His written word.  The same God that has decreed how the heaven and earth should behave has also decreed how we should behave (2Chronicles 33:8; 1Corinthians 11:2).

But how nature shames sinful man who defies the ordinances God has given him to obey!  James Neil commenting on this verse wrote the following words:

“Wilful man may dare to defy his Maker, and set at nought his wise and merciful commands; but not so all nature besides.  Well, indeed, is it for us that his other works have not erred after the pattern of our rebellion; that seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, with all their accompanying provision, have not ceased!  To the precepts imposed upon vegetation when first called into being on creation’s third day, it still yields implicit submission, and the tenderest plant will die rather than transgress.  What an awful contrast to this is the conduct of man, God’s noblest work, endowed with reason and a never-dying soul, yet too often ruining his health, wasting and destroying his mental power, defiling his immortal spirit, and, in a word, madly endeavouring to frustrate every purpose for which he was framed.”

I would like to close with a quote from Charles Spurgeon drawing from the thoughts of the first three verses of this octave:  “By that word which is settled may we be settled; by that voice which establishes the earth may we be established; and by that command which all created things obey may we be made the servants of the Lord God Almighty.”  To which I add, “May God grant it in Jesus’ name.  Amen.”

Psalm 119:90

For today’s meditation we take up the second verse of the octave of Psalm 119 entitled Lamed. 

Psalms 119:90  Thy faithfulness is unto all generations: thou hast established the earth, and it abideth.

In the introduction to this work we noted the ten different words in this psalm that are used to refer to the Scriptures:  law, commandment(s), word(s), way(s), judgment(s), precepts, statutes, testimony or testimonies, righteousness, and truth.  One or more of these words occur in every verse of this psalm with the exception of today’s verse, the verse that follows, verse 122, and verse 132.  Although these four verses do not use any of the ten words the rest of the verses use to refer to the Scriptures, nevertheless they agree with the theme of the psalm extolling the written word of God, as I purpose to demonstrate. 

In today’s verse the psalmist acknowledges to God His faithfulness.  Now faithfulness is the quality of being faithful, which we will define.

Faithful -  1. Of persons, their actions, etc.: Full of or characterized by faith; believing.  2. Firm in fidelity or allegiance to a person to whom one is bound by any tie; constant, loyal, true.  3. True to one’s word or professed belief; abiding by a covenant or promise, stedfast. 

All three of these definitions come together in the faithfulness of God.  God is full of faith in Himself.  When He promises, He knows He can deliver on that promise.  God is true to His promises and abides by any covenant He makes without any possibility of failure on His part.  Man may promise and have every intention of standing by his promise, but man has limited power.  Therefore, circumstances, infirmity, or death can interfere with his being able to fulfill his promise.  Such is never the case with Almighty God.  And it is this attribute of faithfulness that undergirds God’s word.  We may trust anything God says because God is ever faithful to His word.  Hence, the Scripture itself and its sayings are described as being faithful. 

Psalms 119:138  Thy testimonies that thou hast commanded are righteous and very faithful.

Titus 1:9  Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.

1 Timothy 1:15  This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.

Revelation 21:5  And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.

The psalmist then fetches an example of God’s faithfulness from the creation:  thou hast established the earth, and it abideth.  When God created this earth, He established it.  That is, He rendered it stable and firm.  He built permanence into this earth.  Therefore, it abideth, which means it remains, it continues.  God created this earth by His word and He maintains it by His word so that it abideth.

2 Peter 3:5  For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:

6  Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:

7  But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

Hebrews 1:3  Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high….

 

The faithfulness of God in preserving the earth extends to all generations.  Generations come and go, but the earth abides.  Every generation of men that shall ever be will have had this earth under their feet while they live.

Ecclesiastes 1:4  One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.

Now the verse just cited states that “the earth abideth for ever.”   Yet the apostle Peter teaches us that this present earth will be dissolved by fire, as we saw above.  But Peter adds to this fact that there will be a new heavens and a new earth.

2 Peter 3:13  Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.

So there will still be an earth.  It will be a renewed earth, but an earth nonetheless.  So God’s purpose in establishing this earth will not be undone.  The earth abideth and will ever abide.

The earth abides because God has said it will abide and God is faithful to His word.  Now the fact that the earth abideth is recorded in God’s written word which is forever settled in heaven, endures forever, and cannot fail.  Therefore, today’s verse most definitely aligns with the rest of the verses in this psalm in extolling the written word of God.  God’s word stands throughout all generations because God’s faithfulness is unto all generations.

In conclusion, consider the fact that you stand on the same earth God created in the beginning.  This is a testimony to God’s faithfulness.  And know that just as God is faithful to preserve this earth so that it abideth, so God is faithful to every promise He has made to you in His word.  May this thought impart assurance and calm to your soul amidst the changing scenes of life.

Lamentations 3:22  It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.

23  They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.

Psalm 119:89

I wish to thank each of you that took the time to encourage me to continue making my way through this lengthy Psalm 119.  When I began this task, I wrote:  “I am setting out on what looms before me as a gargantuan task.”  Reflecting on all the time and work that has gone into this project and realizing I am only halfway, it still “looms before me as a gargantuan task.”  But with the help of Almighty God supported by the prayers of the righteous, I am resolved to forge ahead

We now come to the octave entitled by the Hebrew letter Lamed.  The pronunciation of lamed is divided into two syllables, lä – mĕd.  Were it one syllable, I could make a lamed attempt at a joke, but it would be forced.  Hence, I forbear.  The verse we consider today brings us to the heart and height of this psalm being situated as it is in the very center of the psalm.

Psalms 119:89  ¶LAMED. For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven.

In my introduction to this series of meditations I wrote: 

“The author of this psalm records a variety of experiences, emotions, and frames of mind in which he found himself….In this psalm we find the author experiencing the full range of human emotions….And yet the psalmist processes all of these experiences through the word of God.  It is obvious from the psalm that the author’s relationship with God was grounded in and experienced through the word of God.” 

The psalmist related everything to his Bible, the very word of the living God.  And from today’s verse, lying at the heart of Psalm 119, we find that he related his life to something that is constant, stable, unchanging, and, therefore, forever reliable. 

Relating this verse to the previous octave Charles Spurgeon wrote:

“After tossing about on a sea of trouble the Psalmist here leaps to shore and stands upon a rock.  Jehovah’s word is not fickle nor uncertain; it is settled, determined, fixed, sure, immoveable….settled in heaven, where nothing can reach it.  In the former section David’s soul fainted, but here the good man looks out of self and perceives that the Lord fainteth not, neither is weary, neither is there any failure in his word.”

Much in our lives may be unsettled, but God’s word is for ever settled.  Our thoughts about the word of God may be unsettled, but the word itself is not.  It is for ever…settled.  God’s word is unshaken by anything that transpires in this world or in our hearts.  Nothing we think or wish or do ever alters one thing God has said.  Once God says it, it is settled for ever.  And being settled in heaven God’s word is beyond the reach of being overturned by anything on this earth.  In the days of Jeremiah Jehudi thought to destroy the word of God spoken by Jeremiah by burning its pages in the hearth.  But being forever settled in heaven, God simply delivered it again to Jeremiah and it was rewritten (Jeremiah 36:23, 27-28).  To mount an attack on the Scriptures is to mount an attack on heaven itself.  But futile is the attempt to overthrow something that is for ever…settled in heaven.

Men like to think of their decrees and laws as unalterable.  Consider the boast of the Medes and the Persians:

Daniel 6:8  Now, O king, establish the decree, and sign the writing, that it be not changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not.   

Yet those decrees are long since passed away.  Governments are ever changing and their policies are ever changing no matter how fixed they think them to be.  But the decrees of God’s word are settled forever.

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

Isaiah 40:8  The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.

So you have a firm, unshakeable foundation upon which to build your faith and hope.  May God Whose word is forever settled in heaven settle the hearts of you who trust in that word.