Psalm 119:97-104 Delighting in God’s Truth/ Hating Every False Way
“O how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day.” (V. 97) David, inspired by the Holy Spirit, loves God’s Word and truth because it reveals the Person of God Who loves him. So in saying he loves God’s law he is saying he loves God. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He (Jesus) was with God in the beginning.” (John 1:1-2) God’s Word was never meant to be read as a rule book but as a love letter and Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for that: “You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me! Yet you refuse to come to me to receive this life.” (John 5:39-40) Paul rejoiced in “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:2) after confessing his failure to keep the law in his own power (Rom. 7:14-25) and finding that in Christ, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, he was no longer condemned by the law and was empowered to obey the Lord he loved and longed to please. Likewise we must read God’s Word as a love letter coming from our God and Savior Who loves us perfectly and passionately (John 3:16) and think about Him as we “meditate on His Word (Jesus) all the day.”
“Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever mine (for [Your words] are ever before me). I have more insight than all my teachers, for Your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the aged, because I have observed Your precepts.” (Vv. 98-100) Knowing and obeying God’s Word makes us wiser than our enemies, our teachers, and our elders (implying that none of these know and obey God’s Word). Spiritual wisdom comes to us only through obedience to God’s Word (John 8:31-32) and spiritual wisdom is the wisest way to live life. The saying, “he is so heavenly minded that he is no earthly good” is the polar opposite of the way Jesus lived (John 5:19) and calls us to live. (Matt. 6:9-10; Col. 3:1-3) We are to live every day (Psalm 90:12) yes, even every moment in light of that Day – the day we stand before our Lord and give an account. I’ll never forget Mr. Coe, one of the folks I used to visit at the Tucker Nursing Home, and what he said to me after his wife died just a few days before my visit. I was offering my sympathy to him when he calmly replied: “Yes, she has gone for final exams.” He was both old and wise because he knew and had obviously walked with God for many years. Jesus tells us in the parable of the unrighteous steward to invest all He gives us into the eternal and not the temporal. “And [his] master praised the dishonest (unjust) manager for acting shrewdly and prudently; for the sons of this age are shrewder and more prudent and wiser in [relation to] their own generation [to their own age and kind] than are the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous mammon (deceitful riches, money, possessions), so that when it fails, they [those you have favored] may receive and welcome you into the everlasting habitations (dwellings).” (Luke 16:8-9) Here Jesus contrasts “worldly wise” people with “heavenly-minded” people who invest time and money to lead others to life everlasting. The benefits for obeying Jesus are truly “out of this world.” [“So the youth may outstrip the aged if he has a higher OQ (Obedience Quotient).” MacDonald, William ; Farstad, Arthur: Believer’s Bible Commentary : Old and New Testaments. Nashville : Thomas Nelson, 1997, c1995, S. Ps 119:1] It is not our IQ that matters to Jesus but our OQ.
“I have restrained my feet from every evil way, that I may keep Your word. I have not turned aside from Your ordinances, for You Yourself have taught me.” (Vv. 101-102) God, through His Word, teaches us both to have a hatred of sin (our own included) and a love for righteousness, doing what is right in God’s eyes because we love Him and know His will is good, pleasing and perfect. (Rom. 12:2) David did not look to the aged but he did look to the Ancient of Days (Daniel 7) and his ancient paths: “This is what the LORD says: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Jer. 6:16) As we hear the heated discussions over same-sex marriages, let’s pray that people will heed Dan Cathy’s courageous challenge to repent of redefining marriage from how God so clearly defined it from the very beginning (the ancient paths): “Haven’t you read,” he (Jesus) replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?” (Matt. 19:4-5) In the very first chapter of the very first book of the Bible (the ancient paths), God defined marriage as a man marrying a woman. “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply.” ” (Gen. 1:27-28) Only a man and woman can reproduce “after their kind” (humans begetting humans) and multiply. The Trinity is unity (One God) in diversity (three Persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit). The marriage relationship most clearly demonstrates the Trinity as seen in the “one flesh” (unity) relationship in the diversity of the male and female. Jesus says man and woman in marriage picture His love relationship as our Bridegroom with His bride, the church: “FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND SHALL BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.” (Eph. 5:31-32) All sins separate us from God and require Jesus’ atoning blood but some sins have far more adverse effects on the human level (society) than others. Same-sex relationships have more damaging consequences than other sins and thus receive God’s severe warnings. (Lev. 20:13; Rom. 1:26-28) [“Since reproduction requires a male and a female, society will always depend upon heterosexual marriage to provide the “seedbed” of future generations and it is also the seedbed of society. The eminent Harvard sociologist, Pitirim Sorokin, analyzed cultures spanning several thousand years on several continents, and found that virtually no society has ceased to regulate sexuality within marriage as defined as the union of a man and a woman, and survived. The Court described marriage as “creating the most important relation in life, as having more to do with the morals and civilization of a people than any other institution.”” See the Slippery Slope of Same-Sex ‘Marriage’ at http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=BC04C02]
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=BC04C02]
“How sweet are Your words to my taste! Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (V. 103) To eat the Word (“taste”) and speak the Word (“mouth”) to ourselves and others is a spiritual delicacy that the Lord calls us all to enjoy. “Your words were found and I ate them, and Your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart for I have been called by Your name (and so have we), O LORD God of hosts.” (Jer. 15:16) The Word is sweet to us because it reveals and leads us to fellowship with our sweet Lord. Yet note the contrasting distaste of God’s Word for unbelievers: “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Cor. 2:14) Sweeter than honey to David and a joy and a delight to Jeremiah and foolishness to the unbeliever. Yet if we fill up on the junk food of this world we will lose our hunger and delight in God’s Word: “He who is satiated [with sensual pleasures] loathes and treads underfoot a honeycomb, but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.” (Prov. 27:7) Let’s pray that we like David and Jeremiah, would crave the Word like babies crave milk (1 Peter 2:2-3) and have healthy souls that come from knowing, loving and obeying God’s Word: “My son, attend to my words; consent and submit to my sayings. Let them not depart from your sight; keep them in the center of your heart. For they are life to those who find them, healing and health to all their flesh.” (Prov. 4:20-22)
“From Your precepts I get understanding; Therefore I hate every false way.” (V. 104) [“It is well to be a good hater. And what is that? A hater of no living being, but a hater of “every false way.” The way of self will, of self righteousness, of worldliness, of pride, of unbelief, of hypocrisy, — these are all false ways, and therefore not only to be shunned, but to be abhorred.” http://www.ewordtoday.com/comments/spurgeon/psalm119exposition3.htm] The best way to know the false is to be thoroughly acquainted with the true – God’s Word is truth. Jesus prayed to the Father that we would be set apart from sin and unto righteousness through God’s truth: “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.”(John 17:17) Our hatred of the false way must always begin with ourselves for, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? “I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.” (Jer. 17:9-10) So we must regularly pray as David prayed in Psalm 139:23-24: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND APPLICATION
1. What is your main take away from the message and how can you apply it to your life?
2. “O how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day.” (V. 97) Why did David love God’s
Word so passionately and why should we?
3. “And [his] master praised the dishonest (unjust) manager for acting shrewdly and prudently; for the sons of this age are shrewder and more prudent and wiser in [relation to] their own generation [to their own age and kind] than are the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous mammon (deceitful riches, money, possessions), so that when it fails, they [those you have favored] may receive and welcome you into the everlasting habitations (dwellings).” (Luke 16:8-9) Jesus actually says here that unbelievers are smarter in the way they go after what the world offers (money, sex and power) than believers are in pursuing what God promises us for investing in His kingdom. Why do you think this is true?
4. “I have restrained my feet from every evil way, that I may keep Your word. I have not turned aside from Your ordinances, for You Yourself have taught me.” (Vv. 101-102) “This is what the LORD says: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Jer. 6:16) “Haven’t you read,” he (Jesus) replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?” (Matt. 19:4-5) The eminent Harvard sociologist, Pitirim Sorokin, analyzed cultures spanning several thousand years on several continents, and found that virtually no society has ceased to regulate sexuality within marriage as defined as the union of a man and a woman, and survived. How can we love the sinner and hate the sin of same-sex marriage which has now been endorsed by the President himself?
5. “How sweet are Your words to my taste! Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (V. 103) Let’s pray that we, like David and Jeremiah, would crave the Word like babies crave milk (1 Peter 2:2-3) and have healthy souls that come from knowing, loving and obeying God’s Word. What’s your hunger level for God’s Word and thus God Himself?
6. “From Your precepts I get understanding; Therefore I hate every false way.” (V. 104) “It is well to be a good hater. And what is that? A hater of no living being, but a hater of “every false way.” The way of self will, of self righteousness, of worldliness, of pride, of unbelief, of hypocrisy, — these are all false ways, and therefore not only to be shunned, but to be abhorred.” Spurgeon’s list of “false ways” has us looking inwardly and David’s prayer is the best way to do it; i.e., let the Lord examine us not examine ourselves. Psalm 139:23-24: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Why is this better than self-examination?