I will never forget thy precepts:
For with them thou hast quickened me (Psa 119.93).
No small part of Christian piety consists of expressing holy resolutions to God with conscious dependence on his grace for the strength to keep them. As a young man freshly converted from mere nominal Christianity to a new and wonderful sense of God’s glory, Jonathan Edwards sat to draw up the first batch of his now famous 70 resolutions. These were his deeply felt spiritual aspirations founded upon the application of biblical principles to his life. Resolution lists were a common part of one’s devotional life in those days, but it is hard to imagine that many had as much God-given drive and discipline as Edwards in keeping them.
After a brief and humble preamble stating his need for God’s help in this, Edwards wrote, “Remember to read over these Resolutions once a week.” The evidence suggests that this was his regular practice until he died at 53 years old.
Two of the 70 resolutions are especially relevant to our biblical text. The 28th reads, “Resolved, to study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly, and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly perceive myself to grow in the knowledge of the same,” and the 61st, “Resolved, that I will not give way to that listlessness which I find unbends and relaxes my mind from being fully and fixedly set on religion, whatever excuse I may have for it.” By “listlessness” Edwards probably meant “inattention, heedlessness, indifference.” Clearly he anticipated there would be strong temptations to neglect regular Bible study because of a creeping spiritual malaise, and he was determined to resist it by the grace of God. Also, this was no empty devotional ritual for Edwards. He was not content merely to do his “Bible laps” each day (Dr. T. David Gordon’s phrase). He kept looking for “plain perceptions,” that is, clear evidences, that he was assimilating Scripture into his mind and life.
Genuine spirituality has always been essentially the same, because of God’s unchanging nature and man’s unchanging need. Thousands of years before Jonathan Edwards was born, the psalmist was thinking along basically the same lines.
SPIRITUAL REMEMBRANCE
As God entered into covenantal relations with his chosen people Israel, he warned them about the danger of forgetting his Word, and urged them to use a very practical mnemonic—tassels or fringes with a cord of blue on the corners of their garments. These were the spiritual equivalent of a tying string around the finger. “It shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the Lord, to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after” (Num 15.37-39). The whoredom mentioned here is figurative, since Israel was the Lord’s “wife,” although spiritual apostasy led to sexual immorality. Remembering Scripture to do it protected them.
Therefore the prophet expresses his strong purpose and intention never to forget or “neglect” (JPS) the Lord’s precepts, viz., his word (v. 16). The Hebrew verb could describe a limb that had become lame, crippled, or withered. In this context it means to “ignore, overlook, be unmindful, i.e., not remember information and so lose sight of its significance, implying no proper response or an improper response in some contexts.”
Forgetting is not simply a psychological act of having a thought pass from one’s consciousness, a temporary or permanent lapse of memory. . . . To forget God is to ignore his commandments (Deut 8.11). To forget God is to follow other gods (Deut 8.19); to forget God is to stand in fear of harm and danger, to live fretfully and timidly (Isa 51.13). To forget God is to challenge him (Psa 106.13). The Bible indicates that satiety [being full, glutted] is the major factor for forgetting God (Deut 8.12ff.; Hos 13.6 for example).
This is a remembering with eternal significance. In writing this first line of the psalm verse, the human author is purposing to fight against the onset of apostasy with all his being. He implies that the first neglect of Scripture is an early indicator of drifting from God.
JUSTIFIED REMEMBRANCE
This determined soul joins a reason to his resolution: God had used the precepts to quicken him (cf. vv. 25, 37, 40, 50, 88). As we argued before, in this exalted spiritual context the reference is probably more to spiritual life than physical, and so the meaning would be, “By thy precepts thou hast made me alive spiritually,” or simply, “revived me.” We must never forget or neglect Scripture because it an instrument by which the Lord brings to life those dead in sin, and restores/increases the spiritual health of saints. There is simply no substitute for regular intake of God’s Word written. It is food for the soul. Only the dead have absolutely no appetite for it, and by eating it the drooping believer receives new strength to press on.
How can the renewed soul consent to cast off that word, which at conversion was life from the dead, and the voice of the Redeemer summoning men from their spiritual graves, and which has cheered them in a thousand days of darkness? (Plumer).
Surely gratitude motivates the second line as well as utility. Scripture is a gift of God’s grace to his chosen people. While some who will never be saved also hear the Word of the Lord, only his elect receive it in the love of it, because God also grants them faith that makes it appealing to them, and effective. To find yourself truly believing biblical precepts and heartily willing to conform to them in heart and conduct is proof positive that divine grace has been lavished upon your unworthy soul! Would you fail to acknowledge that the riches in your hands were placed there by God, or that they require your eternal praises along with the rest of his redeemed people? Having been so privileged, you must be grateful, and this is a potent motivator for perpetual remembrance of his precious Word.
David’s testimony is also a reason why he would remember God’s precepts in their particulars. While he expresses himself generally, there were many specific statements in Scripture which had benefited him, for example by warning of judgment, directing into the path of wisdom, promising grace for the present, and assuring of ultimate salvation in the future. He could have called to mind many verses that were just what he needed at the time he came across them and since then.
The heart, truly touched with the powerful sweetness of truth, will help the memory to retain what is so relished. If divine truths made deeper impressions on our hearts, they would impress themselves with more force on our memories (Thomas Boston, Human Nature in its Fourfold State).
Some parachurch organizations are known for stressing the importance of Scripture memorization, and I confess an affinity to packets of Scripture verse cards, attractively produced and winsomely marketed, in slick little plastic cases. My aim in using these may have been sincere and spiritual. There is certainly nothing wrong with a disciplined approach like this in our quest to hide God’s Word in our heart.
Still, if we were to dig into Scripture as one finding buried treasure, determined to mine out the truth that lies beneath the surface, and to work these texts into our hearts by prayer and meditation, and then to work them out in our lives by practical application to our everyday challenges and situations, then memorization would happen almost automatically without trying to memorize per se. A verse on a card is ripped from its context and can easily be misinterpreted and used almost like a Chinese fortune from a cookie.
I testify to you that the evidences of my own spiritual regeneration came after a grudging resolve to read Scripture in a systematic way. A year later, I could hardly believe how dramatic were the changes in my soul and life! That was about 30 years ago, and the same Book has now revived me spiritually times without number. How could I ever go on without Scripture? In all candor, I would rather lose everything and everyone else in this world that is dear to me than to have the Bible permanently taken away. It is the life and salvation of every believer, the voice of our Lord that makes possible communion with our eternal, beloved Savior.
Abraham Lincoln is reputed to have said,
I believe the Bible is the best gift that God has ever given to man. All the good from the Savior of the world is communicated to us through this Book.
No one knows this better than the real Christian who has experienced the life-giving power of the Word. Therefore no one has a greater justification for obsession with these sacred texts, the message that comes from heaven to bless the ones God has chosen from eternity for everlasting happiness.
Would your actual practice of Bible intake convince a fair-minded onlooker that you believe and love it? The Lord help us in sober self-examination and reformation. Are you resolved like Jonathan Edwards? You can afford to forget many things you have heard in your life, but the Bible alone is the word worth remembering forever.
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