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.
Also, these three pairs lead from one to the next, like this: A-B, B-C, C-D, so that the first member is, by extension, tied to the last in an unbroken chain of spiritual realities. Finally, we should observe that these elements form a cycle of Christian experience, because we should always be moving along this line, just as one climbs a spiral staircase and finds himself, again and again, at the same azimuth around the center, but each time, more and more elevated than before. So God calls us to ascend ever higher in our fellowship with Him on the well-worn path of all the saints, a path which leads to heaven.
These themes are not new in Psa 119, but we should linger upon them with a view toward self-examination, repentance, and aspirations after more intimate communion with Christ.
True prayer leads to whole-heartedly obeying God’s Word.
PRAYER AND SPIRITUAL UNDERSTANDING
Throughout Psalm 119, the human author addresses God directly, and this is the form of that distinct class of language called prayer. Here the psalmist’s earnest words take the form of a petition to the Lord who can grant every request according to His wisdom and power. What is the object of the godly man’s desire in this petition? “Give me understanding”—one word in the original which means teach, instruct, i.e., cause knowledge and wisdom to be imparted. The psalmist implicitly acknowledges his natural ignorance in things spiritual and his need of divine instruction. Only a fool is self-taught in spiritual things, and those who put all their trust in any human teachers (like adherents to the “magisterium” of Rome) are naïve. Apart from God’s blessing, no human means can bequeath us such a treasure! We are all utterly dependent upon God to grant us what cannot be found by searching (Job 11.7-8; 1 Cor 1.5; 2.9-10).
To His own glory, God has ordained that prayer is necessary to grow in spiritual understanding. It is not enough to read the Bible, devour books of devotion and theology, attend preaching, and engage in holy conference with spiritually-minded friends, if we leave off prayer. The Lord is more ready to give than you are to receive, but He would have you ask Him directly for the wisdom you need. Are you too proud to beg of Him? “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (Jas 4.6). See how plainly He puts the matter in Prov 2.3; Jer 33.3; and Dan 2.14-23. If you will not pray, you must remain in your ignorance and sins and guilt, because prayer and spiritual understanding are always found together.
SPIRITUAL UNDERSTANDING AND OBEDIENCE TO GOD’S WORD
“Give me understanding, and I shall keep thy law,” that is, the Word of God which is Scripture. The psalmist is not making a vow as a matter of thanks for the answer to his prayer. Rather, he is confessing what is bound to happen when God has answered his prayer. We would strengthen the connection in your mind—not only bound to happen, but the absolutely certain consequence of an increase in spiritual understanding, as helium invariably hoists a balloon.
Spiritual understanding is throughout Scripture seen to be a very practical thing with blessed life-transforming effects. Really knowing God, His ways, and His revealed will floods the mind with light, the heart with zeal, and the will with determination to please so glorious a Master and to fulfill the joyful responsibilities. The enlightened Christian knows it is a privilege and a blessing to serve God. To be His beloved charged with waiting upon Him is not only right, but also a most precious gift of grace, and the way to profound and everlasting happiness, while the alternative—disobedience—is a way of darkness, misery, and destruction.
They are self-deceived who think they have much spiritual understanding while they continue to gratify their own lusts without regard to God’s revealed will in Scripture. “Faith without works is dead” (Jas 2.20).
Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing (Jas 1.21-25 ESV).
Noteworthy knowledge of God’s Word linked with a practical implementation of it in one’s life is clearly associated here with salvation. Only the one who perseveres in obedience has the promise of being blessed.
REAL OBEDIENCE AND WHOLE-HEARTED OBEDIENCE
The last pair of spiritual realities is stated more subtly here: “I shall keep thy law; yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart.” Even today, the idiom of one’s whole heart conveys the sense well. The psalmist is going far beyond the externalism of behavior modification which even hypocrites offer to God. In this last phrase, too, the godly man is not promising something to God as a return for the favor of answered prayer, but rather stating the inevitability of these consequences when God has answered the prayer. “Lord, please give me understanding, because when You do, I know that the result will be my obedience to Your commandments, even an obedience that is sincere, ardent, minute and comprehensive,” etc.
Sinners are far too quick to pat themselves on the back for even the slightest conformity to God’s moral law. It may be unintentional, or done from false motives, or very imperfect in many respects, but they are apt to point to it with pride and plead their justification on those grounds. Saints, on the other hand, are prone to recognize the great blemishes even of their best service to God, and then to stand amazed that He could graciously accept it from their hands.
The only real obedience to God, the only kind He commends in the Bible and will praise on Judgment Day, is whole-hearted obedience. Saul discovered this to his humiliation and frustration in the matter of the campaign against the Amalekites. The Lord commanded Saul to slay them utterly, leaving nothing that breathes, even among their women, children, and animals (1 Sam 15). But as the first and a well-established king of Israel, Saul had become, if we may put it bluntly, too big for his britches. Saul felt he had authority to modify the divine command to suit his own judgment and wishes, even though it had come from God Almighty! Therefore Saul only killed most of the Amalekites, but spared their king, Agag, and the best of the sheep and of the oxen, ostensibly to sacrifice to the Lord!
The godly prophet Samuel was God’s agent to pronounce this unacceptable. When he confronted Saul, the king said to him, “Blessed be thou of the Lord: I have performed the commandment of the Lord” (15.13). Though a great host of Amalekites had been slain in response to the divine orders, yet Samuel asked the embarrassing question, “What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears?” (15.14). Saul proceeded to offer his lame excuses for disobedience in these particulars, and Samuel rejected them all. Hear the dialogue and see your own perversity in Saul (read carefully 1 Sam 15.17-23).
Partial obedience is disobedience. That is the way God sees it. So that we may not hide from this with the excuse that no one obeys God whole-heartedly, there are many biblical statements to the contrary. In fact, this was to be the outstanding trait of Saul’s successor, David, the man after God’s own heart (1 Kgs 9.4; 11.4; 14.8, etc.).
A spiritually-sensitive soul will be nearly crushed by the responsibility of persevering, comprehensive, whole-hearted obedience to God. This is such a lofty standard that we are not able to bring ourselves to it.
This is just where God wants us, for this poor and humble spirit is one that will greedily take hold of this model prayer. “Give me understanding, and I shall keep thy law; yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart,” that is, to say
“Lord, by nature I am like Saul. I fail to yield myself completely to You, and to embrace Your commandments exactly as You have given them. I do make excuses for my partial obedience and rebellion against You. I too am far too easily pleased with a little behavior modification, while my heart is far from You. Lord, have mercy! Lord, teach me! Lord, change my heart so that I will be Your faithful servant all my days. Only if you hear and answer my prayer can I have any hope that this blessedness will ever be mine.”
If by faith you will begin and keep praying this way, you certainly will have the answer your heart desires. You will find yourself, by God’s gracious enabling, continuing to take one step after another in the way of sanctification, and enjoy an ever-increasing nearness to heavenly glory. May the Lord work in us all both to will and to do of His good pleasure. Amen.
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