Incline my heart unto thy testimonies,
And not to covetousness (Psa 119:36).
Whether you realize it or not, your heart is completely in God’s hands, so to speak, to do with as He pleases. This is true for everyone, whether they become objects of His mercy or His wrath, and yet this does not in the slightest destroy our moral responsibility.
This confession of God’s absolute sovereignty even over each person’s moral state and actions is implicit in the psalmist’s prayer. The recognition of God’s absolute sovereignty has the most practical implications for what we ask God for ourselves.
We should pray to be inclined toward God.
GOD INCLINES YOU TOWARD GOOD OR EVIL
The holy and inspired petition of our text means this: “[Lord,] incline my heart toward Your testimonies; and [do] not [incline my heart] toward covetousness.” Other translations use the words “turn” and “bend” for the verb, but these are substantially the same as “incline.”
As with almost all the verses of Psalm 119, and characteristic of Hebrew poetry in general, there is a conspicuous parallelism here. The clear belief of the psalmist is that the Lord had power to incline the psalmist’s heart toward God’s commandments (and thus, toward God Himself), and that God also had power to incline the psalmist’s heart toward covetousness (that is, toward idols; cf. Col 3.5). As the 1599 Geneva Bible notes explain, “By this [covetousness], meaning all other vices, because covetousness is the root of all evil.”
What will a sinner resist more than a sovereign God, especially as it becomes personal? I remember a poem that puts it bluntly:
When you say to men that “God is God”
They seem to see the truth and nod.
And when you say “He can do anything”
They will surely like that orthodox ring.
But when you say “HE chose,”
Their minds begin to close.
For they have learned by rote,
Mankind has the deciding vote.
It matters not what Scriptures say;
Modern man must have his sway.
“Let God be God but not over me!”
In every man Adam shouts his plea.
For in each man there speaks a voice,
“Thank you, please, I’ll make my own choice.
Let God be God and do what I say.
If He won’t, then I won’t play.
Then he boasts and appeals to reason,
“I chose God and I’m not teasin’.”
“Reason will answer,” men declare,
“We chose Him, that makes Him fair.”
On our way toward biblical views of divine sovereignty, many of us came first to acknowledge that when a sinner repents of his sins and believes the gospel, and afterward as that believer becomes increasingly holy and obedient to God’s commandments, the efficient cause of these blessed events is God Himself. Arminians and Pelagians deny this, but it is necessary to preserve the glory of God in His showing grace to whomever He pleases. If we were the ultimate or efficient cause of our own salvation, then we would deserve at least most of the glory for it, and this could never be.
What has been more difficult for many of us, and indeed, what countless sincere Christians continue to resist with, perhaps, the best of intentions, is the unavoidable corollary that God is also the ultimate or first cause even of men’s sins. To some this sounds like heresy, but it is only a full embrace of the biblical teaching of God’s absolute sovereignty over everyone and everything without exception.
Admittedly, few are willing to say, as I have, that God inclines men toward evil. Even John Gill, a strong Calvinist, comments,
Not that God inclines the heart to evil, as he does to good; but he may suffer the heart to be inclined, and may leave a man to the natural inclinations of his heart, and to the temptations of Satan, and the snares of the world, which may have great influence upon him; and this is what is here deprecated.
Gill seeks refuge in divine passivity—that is, that God only “suffers” or allows the heart to be inclined, without His actively making it so.
First, this is contrary to the plain statements of Scripture. For example, speaking of the Egyptians and their anti-Semitism, Psalm 105.25 says, “He turned their heart to hate his people, and to deal subtilly with his servants.” Compare also Prov 16.9; 20.24; 21.1; Jer 10.23.
Secondly, the “divine passivity defense” fails to vindicate God from being ultimately responsible (that is, the cause) for men’s sins, and that on the grounds of reason, because if God knew beforehand what results His allowance would precipitate, and yet if He did nothing to hinder those results, but freely and voluntarily “suffered” them to occur, how is this morally different from the alternative view that God is actively causing all things to occur, even men’s sins? Calvin deals decisively with this “divine passivity” error in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book I, chapter 18, which we strongly recommend.
All sins ever committed have been part of God’s plan from eternity, and are included in His good providence. The Westminster Larger Catechism defines God’s works of providence as “his most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures; ordering them, and all their actions, to His own glory” (#18). This faithful statement neither makes God the Author nor the chargeable cause of sin for at least three reasons.
First, the Scripture says, “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1.5), and the same truth appears throughout the Bible.
Second, God decreed that all things would come to pass according to the nature of “second causes,” so that His creatures act freely, that is, voluntarily, with no violence being done to the will of the creature. Therefore whatever sinfulness ensues proceeds only from men and angels and not from God.
Third, only God’s creatures are responsible to a Lawgiver, but God is free to do whatever He pleases, without being accountable to any. He is both the Source and Standard of infinite holiness; He certainly does not need to satisfy any of His creatures that His actions are good and just. This point is the most devastating to man’s pride. God is God and we are accountable to Him, and He is in no way whatsoever accountable to us for anything He is or has done! On Judgment Day, only we will be on trial, not God.
Therefore we should just accept by faith God’s testimony that He is sovereign over all His creatures and their actions, and that He remains infinitely righteous in all His being and actions, while some of His creatures commit the most heinous abominations.
We have strongly emphasized these truths because they are generally despised, and because they are so foundational to understanding and embracing this prayer for ourselves.
YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE TO INCLINE YOURSELF TOWARD GOOD, NOT EVIL
One of the most common protests against God’s absolute sovereignty, even over the moral actions of His creatures, is that it is somehow incompatible with man’s moral responsibility, but the Scripture asserts both without embarrassment and without any hint of some supposed inconsistency. For example, we are urged to do the very same thing for ourselves that we are urged to pray God would do for us in Joshua 24.23, “Now therefore put away, said he, the strange gods which are among you, and incline your heart unto the LORD God of Israel.” What is the relationship between God’s turning us and our turning? “Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned” (Lam 5.21).
PRAY THAT GOD WILL TURN OR INCLINE YOUR HEART TO HIM INSTEAD OF IDOLS
This is the conclusion of the matter. Unless God works and keeps working in your heart in a gracious way, rather than justly hardening you in your sins, you will certainly perish. Prayer is a means God has ordained for receiving His mercy. God is completely capable of saving You and keeping You saved, but He would be petitioned by you for this very thing to His glory. By pleading persistently that He would incline your heart toward Him, you show your utter dependence upon Him for the grace needed to do this, and your realization that apart from His grace, you will surely fail of ultimate salvation.
The gospel announces that such sincere prayers for mercy on the grounds of Jesus Christ and His atoning sacrifice will certainly be granted by the God who is propitious toward sinners! God delights to show His saving power toward the humble who call upon Him. Therefore this text encourages all hearers to exercise faith and own the plea that cannot fail of salvation. “Incline my heart unto thy testimonies, and not to covetousness.” The Lord help us all to believe and to seek Him. Amen.
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