Psalm 119:104

Today’s meditation brings us to the last verse of the octave of Psalm 119 entitled Mem.

Psalms 119:104  Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way.

In verse 99 the psalmist stated that he had “more understanding than all” his teachers.  In verse 100 he said he understood “more than the ancients.”  In today’s verse he tells us where he got that understanding.  He got it through God’s precepts.

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). 

Simply stated, understanding is the ability to “get it.”  How often do we say when we understand something, “I got it.”  What a blessing it is to get it!  For example, equipped with the understanding imparted through God’s precepts believers can understand how the worlds were made. 

Hebrews 11:3  Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

Now this verse says that we understand “through faith.”  That stands to reason since you will not gain understanding from your Bible if you do not believe it.  Think of how many educated people do not understand how the world came to be.  They just don’t get it.  But if you are a Bible believer, you get it!  Through the Scriptures you can understand not only how the world began, but you also understand how it will end.  Through the Scriptures you can understand such things as why there is pain, cruelty, and death in the world; what happens to people when they die; how sinners are saved, what hell is like; and what heaven is like. 

Believers are commanded to understand the will of God.

Ephesians 5:17  Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.

Since they are commanded to understand God’s will, it stands to reason that they can do so.  But how do they come to understand God’s will?  Today’s verse from Psalm 119 answers that question.  They gain understanding of the will of the Lord from the Lord’s precepts as laid down in His written word.  By means of those precepts we can understand God’s will as it pertains to the things He wills to do Himself, things such as the eternal salvation of His people, the resurrection of the dead, the eternal judgment of the world, and the bringing in of a new heavens and a new earth.  Then we can also understand God’s will as it pertains to those things He wills that we should do, those things that are our duty to do.

Ecclesiastes 12:13  Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.

Those things that God has specifically commanded us in His word to do or not to do are clearly His will for us.  Then there are those situations that we face where the Scriptures have not spelled out in so many words what we should do. But the Scriptures give us general principles to apply in such situations. The Lord has given us liberty in many things so that we may do what we want as long as we use that liberty according to Biblical principles (Romans14:14-15, 20-23; 1Corinthians 10:23). God does not have an exact blueprint for us to follow for making decisions in those areas where there is no law telling us what to do or not to do. But as long as our decisions are within the framework of Biblical principles, any decision we make is acceptable to God. We are safe so long as we keep ourselves within the commandments of God and do not step over the lines they draw.  So if you want to understand what the will of the Lord is, betake yourself to reading your Bible and attentively hearing it taught.

Now the understanding the psalmist gained through God’s precepts had this effect:  therefore I hate every false way.  That’s every way that is not the right way.  This lines up with the definition of the fear of the Lord given in this verse:

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.

All true religion can be summed up in that single expression “the fear of the Lord.”  It is interesting that true religion is defined by hate.  True religion consists of hating “the evil way,” yea, of hating every false way, as today’s verse puts it.  You can tell a lot about a person not only from what he loves, but also from what he hates. 

Note the definition of hate.

Hate - To hold in very strong dislike; to detest; to bear malice to.

Hate is a very strong emotion.  The believer that possesses the understanding imparted by God’s precepts and that possesses true religion, does not have a casual, nonchalant attitude toward evil.  He bears a “very strong dislike” to it.  He detests it.  He hates every false way.  He hates evil in whatever form it occurs be it mental, emotional, verbal, physical, social, professional, political, or religious.  He hates evil wherever it occurs whether in society, in media, in government, in religion, or even in himself.  And if someone does not hate every false way, that is a sure sign that he does not get it!  He has not yet attained unto the understanding that can only be had though thy precepts. 

This brings us to the conclusion of this octave.  I shall take a short break.  But, God willing, I will be back with more.  Yes, mem, I promise I’ll be back, if God permit.

Psalm 119:103

The child of God has two natures, a physical nature and a spiritual nature.  The physical nature has the fives senses of sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste.  The same may be said of the spiritual nature as today’s meditation confirms.

Psalms 119:103  How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!

The psalmist speaks of his spiritual sense of taste.  The physical sense of taste cannot taste words of Scripture as it tastes bites of food.  The child of God who possesses this spiritual sense of taste finds a sweetness in the Scriptures that exceeds the sweetness of honey.  Hence, the psalmist describes God’s words as sweeter than honey to my mouth!  The word how in this verse is an exclamation expressing the degree to which he found God’s words to be sweet.  They were so sweet that they were sweeter than honey of which there is nothing sweeter to the natural taste, for “what is sweeter than honey?” (Judges 14:18).

Now every word of God can be sweet to the taste of a child of God.  Of course, God’s promises of eternal life, heaven, grace, mercy, forgiveness, restoration, strength, and help are sweet.  The prophecies of Scripture are indescribably sweet as they confirm our faith in God and His word.  They signal to believers that they have indeed chosen the right path for their life.  The commandments of God are sweet since they provide us with the guidance we need to handle the various situations of life.  If the commandments are obeyed we discover their sweetness in that they enhance the quality of our lives both for ourselves and for others.  But the curses of God’s word are also sweet.  Those curses show us a God that is faithful to keep His word.  If the Lord were to forego a curse He has threatened, then He might just as easily forego a blessing He has promised.  It is sweet to know that the Lord will do all that He has spoken.  Such a God is worthy of our fear and trust.  It is especially sweet when God’s words show us that those curses were borne for us by our Lord Jesus Christ so that we may be free from them.  And it is sweet to know that those curses will be heaped upon our enemies so that the evil they devise against us will meet with a certain end.  Any and every part of the Holy Scriptures is a honeycomb dripping with sweetness if we understand it in the light of the Lord Jesus Christ.

But observe!  It is the tasted words of God that are sweet.  You don’t taste food unless you ingest it in your mouth.  Neither will you taste the words of God unless you ingest them by reading them, studying them, and hearing them taught.  Furthermore, we discover the sweetness of honey by experiencing it for ourselves as we taste it and eat it.  So it is with God’s word.  As we experience it through learning it and obeying it, we find its sweetness.  As the old saying goes, “the proof is in the pudding.”  And experiencing the sweetness of God’s words, we can no more be persuaded that they are not sweet than we could be convinced that honey is bitter. 

Lastly, this verse gives you a gauge for measuring your spiritual health.  If you do not find the words of Scripture to be sweet, then you are spiritually weak.  Perhaps you are ingesting too much of the sweets of this world and too little of the sweets of God’s word.  If you find the words of Scripture sweeter than the sweetest this world has to offer, then you are spiritually strong.  The more you taste the sweetness of God’s words, the more you will want to taste them.  Go ahead!  Indulge this sweetness to your heart’s content.  Let yourself become addicted to it.  Of natural honey it is written:  “It is not good to eat much honey” (Proverbs 25:27).  Too many natural sweets will jeopardize your health, but not so with the words of God.  God’s words are very health itself.

Proverbs 4:20  My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings.

21  Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart.

22  For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh.

Considering the drag this world and our carnal natures are to our spiritual pursuits, I am not too worried that any of us will overindulge when it comes to the words of God.

Psalm 119:102

We continue working our way through the octave of Psalm 119 entitled Mem.  Remember?

Psalms 119:102  I have not departed from thy judgments: for thou hast taught me.

The thought of this verse dovetails perfectly with the thought of the preceding verse:  “I have refrained my feet from every evil way.”  The psalmist avoided every thing evil by never departing from God’s judgments.  Constant attention to God’s word is the means for refraining from every evil way.  It all boils down to this:  Get away from the Book and your feet will wander in the wrong direction.

Let’s define what it means to depart from. 

To depart from:  to leave, abandon; to cease to follow, observe, or practice.

The psalmist was constant in his obedience to God.  He had laid the judgments of God’s word before him to be his guide and counsel (Psalm 119:30), and he had not abandoned that course.  One of our greatest struggles is to remain constant since our fallen nature is so fickle and prone to go astray.

Isaiah 53:6  All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

It was Shakespeare who wrote:  “O heaven! were man but constant, he were perfect:  that one error fills him with faults; makes him run through all th’ sins:  Inconstancy falls off ere it begins.”  How sadly true this is.

The psalmist attributed his adherence to God’s judgments to this fact:  for thou hast taught me.  He gave the Lord the credit for his constant obedience.  If a man is truly obedient to God’s word, the cause of that obedience must be traced back to the saving grace of God.  God by His grace gives His chosen people a new heart and a new spirit thus enabling them to keep His commandments and to keep them continually.  This is an inward instruction that the Lord gives to His people.

Ezekiel 11:19  And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh:

20  That they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.

Jeremiah 32:39  And I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me for ever, for the good of them, and of their children after them:

40  And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me.

Titus 2:11  ¶For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,

12  Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world….

Ephesians 4:20  But ye have not so learned Christ;

21  If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus:

22  That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;

23  And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;

24  And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

An unsaved sinner may keep some of the commandments of God now and then for self-serving purposes, like the scribes and Pharisees who did all their works “for to be seen of men” (Matthew 23:5).  But this is not a sincere obedience that comes from a heart renewed and taught by God’s grace.  This is not an obedience that is constant to do all that the Lord has commanded.

Now if the Lord has taught us by grace in our hearts, then we can hear, understand, and profit from the outward teaching of the word of God. Without this inward instruction of the Holy Spirit the outward teaching of the word of God will never produce genuine faith and obedience. A natural man devoid of a spiritual capacity cannot receive the spiritual things of God's word.  

1 Corinthians 2:14  But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

So the Lord must teach us first by His grace. Then we are ready to be taught by the men He sends to preach His word to us.  Being taught by God we can answer the call of the preached word to keep the judgments of the Lord always and to never depart from them.

In addition, we have pointed out in previous meditations that human teachers of God’s word are but instruments through which the Lord teaches us.  If we receive their message as a lesson being taught us by the Lord Himself, then we will be far more prone to heed it than if we receive it as a mere lecture by a man.  Thomas Manton said it well: 

“David was taught by his ordinary teachers, and he did reverence them; but that he profited by them he ascribes unto God.  Paul may plant, and Apollos water; God must give the increase.”    

Psalm 119:101

I am now ready to take in hand the next verse in the octave of Psalm 119 entitled Mem.

Psalms 119:101  I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I might keep thy word.

That the psalmist refrained his feet from every evil way suggests that he was speaking about the direction or way he chose to go in his life, since we proceed in this or that direction with our feet.  In order to avoid choosing the wrong direction, he refrained his feet. 

Refrain – To hold back, restrain (a person or thing) from something, esp. some act or course of action.

The idea of having to hold back or restrain a person from something suggests that the person has an urge or desire toward that something. Hence, it takes willpower to stay away from it. The psalmist maintained a strict self-control over his thoughts, words, desires, passions, and actions so that he stayed away from every evil way, whether that way was a way of thinking, a way of speaking, a way of feeling, a way of acting, a way of reacting, or even a way of worshipping. Any form of worship that is not according to God’s revealed will in His word is evil. Witness Cain who brought an offering to the Lord that was not according to His will. God pronounced that incorrect mode of worship as sin and evil. 

Genesis 4:5  But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.

6  And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?

7  If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door.

1 John 3:12  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.

The reason the psalmist refrained his feet from every evil way was that I might keep thy word. He restrained himself from things he desired to do just so he could be obedient to the Scriptures. He did not stay away from those things just to be healthy, or to be admired for his self-discipline, or even to gain an additional reward. He did it simply to be obedient. For the man who loves the Lord, keeping God’s word is his top priority and is itself a reward.  If you truly want to keep the word of God, that itself becomes a powerful incentive to refrain from everything evil. 

But to keep the word of God, one must refrain his feet from every evil way. No sin, no matter how small it may seem to be, can be tolerated.  The least evil if allowed to remain unchecked will eventually spread and corrupt everything else.  As the Scripture hath said:

Galatians 5:9  A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.

King Josiah is an excellent example of someone who refrained his feet from every evil way that he might keep the word of God

2 Kings 23:24  Moreover the workers with familiar spirits, and the wizards, and the images, and the idols, and all the abominations that were spied in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, did Josiah put away, that he might perform the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the LORD.

Hezekiah cleansed his kingdom of idols for the express purpose of being able to “perform the words of the law which were written in the book.”  That is exactly what today’s verse is all about.

On the other hand, we read of the people that moved into Israel after the Israelites had been taken captive by the Assyrians.  These new settlers tried to mingle the fear of the Lord with their service to pagan gods.  It did not work.  Their fear of God was only in word.  It was empty lip service. They had no real fear of God at all.  They just served other gods and called themselves fearing the Lord, much as many people do today who say they are Christians but do not truly follow Christ.

2 Kings 17:33  They feared the LORD, and served their own gods, after the manner of the nations whom they carried away from thence.

34  Unto this day they do after the former manners: they fear not the LORD, neither do they after their statutes, or after their ordinances, or after the law and commandment which the LORD commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel….

You cannot serve sin and the Lord together.  You serve one or the other.  It is an either/or proposition.  You cannot serve both.

Romans 6:16  Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?

Matthew 6:24  No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

You can’t love the world and love the Lord at the same time.

1 John 2:15  Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

16  For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

Therefore, if you would serve the Lord by keeping His word – and that is the only way you can serve Him – then you must be able to say with the psalmist, I have refrained my feet from every evil way. 

Psalm 119:100

The word of God had given the psalmist the edge over his enemies and over all his teachers.  In today’s verse we see that it also gave him the edge over the ancients.

Psalms 119:100  I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts.

That word ancients is a plural noun and refers to old folks.

Ancient – sb. An old or aged man; a patriarch.

The Hebrew word translated ancients is zaqen and is also rendered elders, aged, and old men.  So the psalmist was speaking of men who were older than he.  Nevertheless, he understood more than they.  The same was true of Elihu, the author of the book of Job.  Speaking of Job’s three friends, all of whom were older than he, Elihu wrote:

Job 32:4  Now Elihu had waited till Job had spoken, because they were elder than he.

5  When Elihu saw that there was no answer in the mouth of these three men, then his wrath was kindled.

6  And Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite answered and said, I am young, and ye are very old; wherefore I was afraid, and durst not shew you mine opinion.

7  I said, Days should speak, and multitude of years should teach wisdom.

8  But there is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding.

9  Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgment.

10  Therefore I said, Hearken to me; I also will shew mine opinion.

As a rule, older people should have more understanding than young people.  They have had more years to learn, more experience to draw from.  Yet there are times when young people know more than their elders so that their elders would do well to listen to them.  I for one understand how Elihu felt.  I remember how hard it was for me to take issue with my revered grandfather on a point of doctrine on which he was clearly wrong.  Thank God he never fell out with me over it. In fact, I preached that doctrine in his presence one time and he publicly commended me.

If there is ever a choice between the understanding of years and the understanding of the Scriptures, always choose that of the Scriptures.  Matthew Henry’s comment on this verse is insightful:  “In short, the written word is a surer guide to heaven than all the doctors and fathers, the teachers and ancients, of the church; and the sacred writings kept, and kept to, will teach us more wisdom than all their writings.”

Now the way the psalmist came by this advanced understanding was by having the word of God ever with him, by meditating upon it, and by keeping it.  If you want to increase your understanding, you need the source of it, which is your Bible (the Authorized Version of 1611); you need to bestow focused thought upon your Bible, which is meditation; and you need to keep its precepts.  Our Lord put it this way:

John 7:17  If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.

The more you do the will of God, the more knowledge and understanding you will have.  Years and years of reading and study will not yield the understanding that simple obedience will.  The Lord is far more honoured by practical wisdom applied daily than a head full of speculative knowledge.    

With a Bible that is studied, believed, and obeyed, young people do not have to wait for years of experience to gain understanding.  The book of Proverbs is written for the instruction of  “the young man” (Proverbs 1:1, 4).  If a young man will apply the teachings of that single book to his life, he will save himself from a lot of the misery that can come when one learns by experience.  Experience can be a slow and painful teacher.  Benjamin Franklin wrote:  “Experience keeps a dear school, yet fools will learn in no other.”  Thomas Manton pointed out that “our experience reaches to but a few things; but the word of God reacheth to all cases that concern true happiness.” 

Now if a man has spent many years studying the Scriptures and applying what he has learned to life by keeping its precepts, such a man is a valuable resource and his understanding a thing to be sought out.  For the rule is: “Days should speak, and multitude of years should teach wisdom.”

Proverbs 16:31  The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of righteousness.   

With today’s verse we have cleared 100 verses of this psalm.  We have just 76 to go.  Let me pause at this point and raise an “Ebenezer, saying, Hitherto hath the LORD helped us” (1Samuel 7:12).