Thou art my portion, O LORD:
I have said that I would keep thy words (Psa 119.57).
Living the Christian life should never be thought of as merely keeping a set of righteous rules. Rather, it is a loving communion with God through Jesus Christ expressed in loyalty to Him and His revealed will. In John’s gospel Jesus said,
If ye love me, keep my commandments (14.15).
He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me (14.21).
If a man love me, he will keep my words (14.23).
This I had,
Because I kept thy precepts (Psa 119.56).
When God’s law in Scripture is the standard, obedience is intimately bound together with blessing and blessedness. This may be one of the most important spiritual lessons we can ever learn. To believe this is the kind of faith that leads to ultimate salvation; to doubt it opens the door to sin and judgment.
Recall our original test in the Garden of Eden. The primeval liar and murderer (John 8.44) spread a net for the feet of our first parents by denying that misery would follow from transgressing God’s law, and by insisting that greater blessing could be enjoyed through disobedience than obedience.
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My hands also will I lift up unto thy commandments, which I have loved;
And I will meditate in thy statutes (Psa. 119.48).
Real faith, the saving kind, engages the whole person. This is the only kind of religion God requires and approves. “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment” (Mark 12.30). This fourfold elaboration of our being as humans is not meant to be a kind of spiritual dissection into our constituent parts, but rather it is an idiomatic way, especially in the ancient Hebrew manner of expressing things, of describing true religion. The repetition of nouns—heart, soul, mind, and strength—dramatically intensifies the basic meaning. This commandment confronts us with the fact that with God, it is all or nothing. You either love Him supremely or not at all in His estimation. Genuine Christian faith in anyone is like tea steeped in a cup of just-boiled water.
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And I will delight myself in thy commandments,
Which I have loved (Psa 119.47).
By “saints” we mean nothing more or less than real Christians, sincere and real and persevering followers of Jesus Christ (John 8.31), such as have new hearts by the grace of regeneration or being born again (Tit 3.5; 2 Cor 5.17). Church members are presumed to be “saints by calling” (1 Cor 1.1-2), which implies that church membership should be limited to those with a credible profession of evangelical faith—historically, a characteristic doctrine of Baptists. Everyone in this world is either a saint or a sinner, and only saints should be admitted and retained as local church members.
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I will speak of thy testimonies also before kings,
And will not be ashamed (Psa 119.46).
The Christian life is a pursuit of thinking and acting in accordance with reality, the way things really are, as revealed and interpreted by Scripture. This is walking by faith, not by sight, because the reality often differs from what can be known by our senses alone. By definition, a real, acting faith is the difference between a believer and an unbeliever. A believer is sensible enough to know that his own wits are not as trustworthy as the biblical doctrine, and so though doing things God’s way feels like “going out on a limb,” it is really climbing down off the limb to stand on terra firma, the solid ground of truth.
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Make me to go in the path of thy commandments; For therein do I delight (Psa 119:35).
Immediately I would credit A. W. Pink for the striking title of our meditation1, which brings our attention to the fact that
Even true saints need compelling grace.
AN EVIDENCE OF SAINTHOOD
Let us consider the second line first, “For therein do I delight,” that is, not just “thy commandments,” but “the path of thy commandments,” that godly pattern of life which they recommend.
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Give me understanding, and I shall keep thy law;
Yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart (Psa 119:34).
We are making good progress in grasping the message of the Bible when we learn to recognize things that are always found together, and then cease trying to divide them. For example, God’s covenant and His faithfulness, type and fulfillment, are just a couple of instances of what could begin an inexhaustible list. In our text, the psalmist links three couples which we must never divorce in our own minds. Attempts at this have been the ruin of countless souls, and will ruin many more if the Lord prolongs exercising His patience toward sinners.
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Teach me, O LORD, the way of thy statutes;
And I shall keep it unto the end (Psa 119.33).
The well-known maxim, “all’s well that ends well,” has a counterpart in Scripture. “Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof” (Eccl 7.8). This truism will be most wonderfully seen in the spiritual realm when the end of God’s saving work in countless sinners will emerge for the public and everlasting praise of His grace and power.
Cheer up, then, poor Christian. “Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof.” See that creeping worm, how contemptible its appearance! It is the beginning of a thing. Mark that insect with gorgeous wings, playing in the sunbeams, sipping at the flower bells, full of happiness and life; that is the end thereof. That caterpillar is yourself, until you are wrapped up in the chrysalis of death; but when Christ shall appear you shall be like Him, for you shall see Him as He is (1 John 3:2). Be content to be like him, a worm and no man, that like Him you may be satisfied when you wake up in His likeness.
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I will run the way of thy commandments,
When thou shalt enlarge my heart (Psa 119.32).
Grace is God’s favor toward the undeserving through Christ. We need grace to be converted. Christians are those who have “believed through grace” (Acts 18.27).
‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed!
Remove from me the way of lying: And grant me thy law graciously (Psa 119.29).
Everyone lies, or so it seems. Surely we all suffer strong temptations to lie, and sometimes we cave. However, just as with all other sins, there are two kinds of people in this. Some are slaves to lying and never really repent. Both deliberately and without thinking much about it, they use lies in their daily lives because they believe it is easier and will bring them more happiness. They are at peace with deceit, even defending it as right and necessary under certain circumstances. The other kind of people are oriented toward truth. They hate lying even while struggling against this sin in their own lives. One of the main weapons in their arsenal against lying is prayer. By the way, the first group is lost (Rev 21.8) and only real Christians are in the second.
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