Loving the Law of the Lord

Loving the Law of the Lord

(No. 3090)

A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, APRIL 30, 1908.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, MAY
10, 1874.

"O how I love Your Law! It is my meditation all the day. You, through
Your commandments, have made me wiser than my enemies: for they are
ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers: for Your
testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients
because I keep Your precepts." Psalm 119:97-100.

DAVID had a very small Bible, but he thought it a very precious one.
Our Bible is quite a large library compared with the one that David
had, yet he read and re-read it and exulted greatly in the treasure
which he found in it. I have sometimes heard people say that they
wished they had fuller records of the life of Christ. And when they
find John writing that he supposed that even the world itself could not
have contained all the books which might have been written about the
Savior, they ask, "Why have we not more of the interesting incidents of
His career preserved?" Some of these very people do not read what
ispreserved and they seem to forget that the Bible is exactly the right
size–most portable and most useful and that if we had a larger one,
some people might then have said–"It is too large a Book for us ever
to read it through and to have it at our fingertips." Let us be
thankful that the Bible is so large that there is abundance of fresh
reading for every day of the year, and let us prize it as David prized
his much smaller portion.

David was one of those who helped to enlarge the Bible. The Spirit of
God rested upon him in so large a degree that he has given us, in the
Book of Psalms, a most precious part of Sacred Writ. Yet he did not
despise the rest of the written Word that he possessed and it is
notable that those saints who had most of the Spirit of God were always
those who most highly valued the Scriptures. When Peter, filled with
the Spirit, stood up with the eleven, on the day of Pentecost, his
sermon consisted mainly of quotations from the Old Testament. The Holy
Spirit even quotes from writings which He Inspired in order to show the
value which all of us should attach to the written Word. Certain
persons have said that they did not need what was written, for they had
the Spirit within them to teach them all they needed to know. But such
talk as that is not according to the Spirit of Christ. Neither is it
according to the mind of the Inspired Psalmist, for although God spoke
by him, yet he greatly valued that which God had spoken by others and
he searched the Scriptures which he possessed with much avidity and
intense delight. Beloved, if the man who was Inspired by the Spirit of
God thought so much of the Word of the Lord, how highly ought we to
value it, we who will never be inspired writers, and who cannot stand
on the same platform with David in that respect! Our conscience ought
to commend to us the Infallible Truth which God has presented for our
use in the Sacred Scriptures.

Being desirous to press upon you, Beloved, a sense of the value of Holy
Scripture, I want you to learn from our text, first, David's love for
the Word. Secondly, howhe showed it And, thirdly, what benefit came to
him from it

First, then, let us consider DAVID'S LOVE FOR THE WORD. He has tried to
express the inexpressible by saying, "O how I love Your Law!" He cannot
tell the Lord how much he loves it. He had good reason for loving God's
Law–his love was a reasonable one. Love is sometimes blind, but in
this case, David loved with his eyes open and loved with good reason.
We ought to love all that God gives to us, and especially all His
blessed teaching. If you do not love the Bible, you certainly do not
love the God who gave it to us–but if you do love God, I am certain
that no other book in all the world will be comparable, in your mind,
to God's own Book. Where God's handwriting is most plainly to be seen,
there God's servants will at once turn their eyes. When God speaks, it
is the delight of our ears to hear what He says.

Further, David loved the Law of the Lord, because being God's Word, it
was solid Truth In other books, there is some truth and some error.
Apart from the Bible, the best book that was ever written in this world
has mistakes in it. It is not possible for fallible men to write
Infallible books. Somehow or other, we either say more than is true or
less than is true. The most skillful writer does not always keep along
that hairline of truth which is more difficult to tread than a razor's
edge. But Scripture never errs. Here is the gold bullion without a
single particle of alloy. Here is the Living Water leaping from the
Rock and there is no defilement in it. David truly wrote, "The words of
the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth,
purified seven times." Such is the Truth of God as we find it in
Scripture. Now, a man of truth naturally loves the Book of Truth, and
finding it to be so pure he cries, "O how I love Your Law!"

In addition to this being God's Book and being, therefore pure, David
no doubt loved it, because of the majestic goodness, the sublime Grace
of its Revelation. What has the Bible taught us? Some terrible things,
certainly, for it has revealed the wrath to come. But glorious things,
too, for it has revealed the great Substitute who took our sins upon
Himself and put that wrath away for all who trust Him. How wondrous is
the Revelation of God in Christ Jesus! Well might the Prophets long for
it and kings desire to see it. You have it in this blessed Book of God.
You have far more of the Revelation than David had, for though he could
see Christ in the types of the Old Testament, you can see Him much more
clearly in the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament. How much,
then, you ought to love that Word which so plainly shows you the way of
salvation through the atoning Sacrifice of God's only-begotten and
well-beloved Son! Clasp the Bible to your bosom, repentant, pardoned
Sinner, and say to the Lord, "O how I love Your Law, for through this
Word my chains have been broken and I have been set free forever!"

David also had good cause to love that Law of the Lord because it had
been his comfort so often in the time of his sorrow. And many of us can
say the same. How often have I, in times of frightful depression of
spirit, reached down my Bible and within a few minutes have been able
to leap for joy of soul and sing in the conscious realization of the
comforting Presence of my God! Get but the one text suitable to the
occasion, applied to the heart with power by the Holy Spirit, and it
will not matter where you are–you will be sure to be glad. You might
lie in a dungeon, as Paul and Silas did, scarred with the scourge, but
you would sing as they did and make your fellow prisoners hear you. If
you could but get the right text applied to your soul by the Holy
Spirit, it would be precious to your soul in your times of deepest
distress and would be like a star lighting up your darkest night!

I might thus go on for a long while, showing you that David had good
reason to love the Law of the Lord, but you probably believe that as
much as I do, so I will content myself by reminding you that he loved
it all He says, "O how I love Your Law!" He means not only some of it,
but all of it. Dear Friend, if there is any text of Scripture that has
a quarrel with you, you had better submit to it at once! If you are not
in full agreement with the Word of God, you are wrong and it is not!
There are some passages of Scripture which certain Brothers and Sisters
do not care to read, as they do not suit the views that they hold.
There are some commentaries that seem to have been written on the
principle of twisting the text into the shape that the commentator
approved. And I am afraid we have all had a share in attempts to make
the Word of God say what we think it ought to have said according to
our system of divinity. That will not do, Brothers and Sisters! We must
give up trying to mend the Scripture and say to the Lord, "O how I love
Your Law! I love it too well to wish to alter a single letter of it."

One Brother does not like the Doctrine of Election. Another likes the
Doctrine of Divine Sovereignty, but he does not like the Doctrine of
Human Responsibility and he cannot endure exhortations to sinners to
repent and believe the Gospel. Well, Brothers, it does not matter what
you like, or what you do not like! If the Doctrines are in the Word of
God, you had better make up your mind to like them, for they will not
be taken away to please you! You cannot bend the Bible to your
mind–how much better it would be for you to bend your mind to the
Bible and to say, "O how I love Your Law–the Doctrines of it, the
precepts of it, the promises of it, the ordinances it enjoins upon me,
the warnings it sets before me, the exhortations it gives me!" Love the
whole Bible from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation and
be prepared even to die rather than to give up half a verse of it!

Further, David loved it always. I find that we might read his
declaration in the past tense and yet give the sense of the
original–"O how I have loved your Law!" He is a saint who loves God's
Word always. We have heard of some who read their Bibles on Sunday, but
put them away in a drawer with a sprig of lavender all the week. That
was not David's plan–he could say, "O how I love Your Law! It is my
meditation all the day." And no doubt he meant every day of the

week. We must love God's Word when we are at business and act upon it
there. And love it in our families and act upon it there. To love the
Bible in the study as a book to start into is a good thing, but it is
not a good thing if it ends there–we must love the Word so as to live
upon it wherever we may be. In any company, if it is right for you to
be there, you will feel, "I am not afraid to take God's Word with me
here, for I am now doing what is in accordance with it." I have heard
that "the Golden Rule" once went to a place where men were gathered
together to make money–I think it was the Stock Exchange–and they
called the manager and locked it up, for they said, "'Do unto others as
you would that they should do unto you,' is a rule that will never do
here." But the Christian does not find it so–he can transact his
business and keep his Bible near his heart all the time. When the Bible
and the ledger fall out, it is a bad business. Oh, that we might love
God's Book all the day and make it the guide of our ordinary business
transactions!

David not only loved God's Law always, but he was not ashamed to say
that he loved it–"O how I love Your Law!" Young man, were you not
afraid, the other night, to confess that you were a Christian when your
companions began chaffing you about your religion? I hear that they
read a paper that was very critical and sarcastic and that one of them
turned round to you and said, "I think you are one of that sort." And
you blushed a good deal at the accusation. Well, blush now to think
that you blushed then, for there was nothing to blush about! Ashamed of
being a Christian? Be ashamed of ever having been ashamed! David said,
"O how I love Your Law!" He cared not who heard him and if our hearts
are right with God, we shall not be ashamed to stand up, even if we are
alone, and confess Christ! Minorities have generally been in the right,
and the multitude usually runs to do evil. Voxpopuli is not often vox
Dei–it is more frequently the voice of the devil than the voice of
God! That man is worthy of being called a man who dares to do right
whatever others may do or say. "O how I love Your Law!" said David, to
let all men know that he was in love with the Law of the Lord to the
best conceivable extent!

II. But now, secondly, HOW DID HE SHOW HIS LOVE? He says, "It is my
meditation all the day."

Perhaps some thoughtless person says, "I suppose that David had nothing
to do but sit down and read his Bible." He had to be fighting
Philistines and ruling a kingdom! And with so much to do that his hands
were kept fully occupied, someone asks, "How, then, did he meditate all
the day?" Well, those who are the most busy are often the very men who
do the most meditation, for idleness and meditation are not generally
very close companions. An idle man usually has idle thoughts, but the
busy man, when he is able to think, thinks busy thoughts that are worth
thinking. Now, if we love God's Word as David did, we shall mediate
upon it all the day as he did. How are we to do that?

It is an admirable plan to fix your thoughts upon some text of
Scripture before you leave your bedroom in the morning–it will sweeten
your meditation all the day. Always look God in the face before you see
the face of anyone else. Lock up your heart in the morning and hand the
key to God and keep the worldout of your heart. Take a text and lay it
on your tongue like a wafer made with honey and let it melt in your
mouth all day. If you do this, and meditate upon it, you will be
surprised to notice how the various events of life will help to open up
that text. If that particular text does not seem suitable to some
special occasion, steal away into a quiet place and get another
one–only let your soul be so full of the Word of God that at all the
intervals and spaces when you can think upon it, the Word of God
dwelling in you richly may come welling up into your mind and make your
meditation to be sweet and profitable!

I am afraid there are not many Christian who meditate upon the Word
nowadays. Meditation seems to have gone out of fashion. But if you do
not meditate upon what you read, you might as well read some ordinary
book for all the good your reading will do you. It is no use to hurry
through your reading of the Scriptures like a man riding through a
field of ripe corn–it is no use trying to reap a good harvest in that
fashion. To get the goodness out of the Scriptures, you must meditate
upon them and so digest them, just as you have seen the cattle lie down
to chew the cud after eating. To get the nourishment out of a text,
turn it over and over in your mind, ruminate upon it, pull it to pieces
word by word. It is a good thing, sometimes, not to be able to read
fast, so that, like Mrs. Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom, one has to spell a
text out letter by letter–L e t, let–n o t, not–y o u r, your–h e a
r t, heart–let not your heart–b e, be–t r o u b l e d troubled. That
is the way to suck the sweetness out of the text! A text of Scripture
is often like an apple tree with abundance of ripe fruit on it and we
are underneath the tree. Give it a shake, Brothers and Sisters–shake
it till the ripe fruit drops down!

David proved his love to the Law of the Lord by meditating upon it.
Perhaps you think that would be very dull work, but I am sure it was
not, nor will you think it so if I tell you what it was upon which he
meditated. The Word of

God was a letter from his Father–and if ever your father has been away
in a far country, you know how you have prized a letter from him! Good
wife, if your husband has gone for a long sea voyage and he has written
home to you, how many times you have read his letter! Did I not see it,
the other day, almost worn to pieces because you have carried it in
your pocket ever since you received it? Nobody else knows how precious
it is to you because nobody else is as nearly related to the writer as
you are.

The Bible also contains the portrait of our truest and best Friend. I
have seen you look at a photograph, the likeness of your dear mother
who is in Heaven, or of a dear child, or of someone still dearer, for
you like to look at that face. And one reason why we love to read the
Bible and meditate upon it, is that it contains such a lifelike
portrait of Christ. The Bible is also the charter of the Christian's
liberty. He was once a slave, but he is now free through the blessed
Emancipator who is revealed in this Book. The Bible is the title-deed
to our heavenly inheritance. The Bible is our patent of nobility, for
here we read that we are made kings and priests unto God! The Bible is
our chart by which we steer safely across the watery wastes of life.
The Bible is our checkbook. We come to it and take out the promises
upon the Bank of Heaven–we fill them up and present them before God in
prayer–and we have what we will of Him when we ask in the name of
Jesus! The Bible is to us the telescope through which we look forward
to the celestial city where we are journeying!

I might keep on thus, by the hour together, singing the praises of this
blessed Book, but I have, surely, given you reasons enough for our
making it the theme of our meditation all the day. I wonder how many of
us do this? If I were to say, "Hands up, everyone who has a Bible,"
everybody's hands here would go up. I suppose that nobody here is
without a Bible. But if I were to ask, "How many here, constantly, as a
habit and a delight, meditate upon the Scriptures?"–I wonder what
answers I would receive? Well, I will not ask you that question, but
let everybody ask it of himself and judge himself concerning it in the
sight of God.

III. Thirdly, we have to enquire, WHAT BENEFIT CAME TO DAVID THROUGH
LOVING THE LAW OF THE

LORD? He was such a Bible reader and Bible lover that he gained some
benefit from it–what was that benefit? He tells us that he grew wiser
than three different sorts of people. First, he was made wiser than his
enemies. Secondly, he had more understanding than all his teachers.
And, thirdly, he understood more than the ancients. These are three of
the blessings which meditation upon the Bible will give to us!

First, we shall be wiser than our enemies. God had taught David the
meaning of the Scriptures and, by his daily meditation upon them, he
had become wiser than his enemies. Some of you young Christians have to
live from day to day among those who would like to pick holes in your
coat if they could. They are watching you to try to bring an accusation
against you–and they are very subtle and crafty–how shall you be able
to guard yourselves against them? This is the best way. Get the Bible
worked into your soul and act according to its teachings–and then your
enemies will not be able to bring a true accusation against you! Or if
they do, they will be like the men who watched Daniel who could find
nothing to bring against him except his religion. If you want to baffle
all those who would bring a charge against you, do not trouble about
them in the least. Care only to walk according to God's Word, for so
you will defeat them!

In addition to trying to bring accusations against you, they will also
seek to lay traps for you. Many a young man has had a hard time of it
through the traps that have been laid for him. All sorts of schemes and
plots have been devised to try to draw him aside from the right path.
But the craftiest man in the world will not be able to overthrow the
man who simply follows the directions given to him in the Word of God!
Keep to that course and you will win in the long run. Although I do not
like our common proverb, "Honesty is the best policy," yet there is a
measure of truth in it–that even as a matter of policy, to do right is
the best plan. I have often seen very cunning men quite puzzled by a
simple-minded, straightforward, honest Christian.

David says that he was able to defeat all his enemies because God's
Word was always with him and he followed the directions that he found
there. And, dear Friends, whether you are young or old, if you love the
Law of the Lord, put your trust in Jesus and then obey the teachings of
your Divine Master, you will certainly be able to defeat all the
subtlety and all the malice of Hell! You may, like Joseph, be put in
prison without being guilty of the crime laid to your charge, but it
will be the straightest way to a Throne! You may be persecuted for
righteousness sake, but if it came to the very worst and you were to be
a martyr for the Truth of God, that would be the straightest way to
Heaven! Therefore be just

and fear not. Obey your God. Let the dogs of Hell howl at you as they
may–you shall be more than conqueror at the last!

Next, David had more understanding than all his teachers. He went into
the schools as well as into the camp and after his mental battles with
the leaders there, he says, "I have more understanding than all my
teachers: for Your testimonies are my meditation." I do not think he
means that he had more understanding than the wise, good, pious
teachers, but that he had more understanding than those who vainly set
up to be leaders. There are still some of that kind left to plague
us–the dry-as-dust teachers who would gladly teach us the letters of
the Word, but ignore its true spirit. If there were any teachers in
David's days like the Jewish Rabbis who have left us the Talmud, the
Mishna and the Gemara, he might well say that he knew more than they
did! They knew so much that they muddled everything. They went down so
deep that they stirred up the mud at the bottom and then neither they
nor anybody else could see! David meditated upon the Law of the Lord
and, therefore, he knew a great deal more than those learned Rabbis
knew.

But surely I may use the text with reference to skeptical learned men.
Every now and then there is a great eruption– a volcano bursts up just
under the foundations of the temple of the Truth of God as if it were
going to blow it all up– and the lava of skepticism begins running
down our streets as if everything were about to be destroyed! At one
time, it is a bishop who has been figuring on a slate and found out
that Genesis is wrong. At another time we are told to give up some
other portion of Scripture as being incorrect. Well, what do we say to
all this? Why, that we have more understanding than all these skeptical
teachers if we meditate in God's statutes! We may not know how to
answer all their questions, but we know how to ask them questions which
they cannot answer! We may not be able to confute them in argument, but
we shall still believe the Law of the Lord! Many a poor Christian has
been baffled by some clever infidel, but he has said to himself, "If
that gentleman had tried to prove that I do not exist, I daresay he
could have proved it in the same fashion as he has proved this point,
which I could not answer, but I know what I do know–and I do know that
Christ is a precious Savior. And as I have read of Him in His Word, so
have I found it in my own experience. The Word of the Lord and my
experience tally, so I am satisfied." If you come straight from
searching the Scriptures, you need not mind who attacks you–the
Scriptures will be like a coat of mail to repel all the darts of those
who assail you–and you shall be able to stand up against those who are
far more learned than you are. It is well if you can cope with all the
arguments of the skeptic and meet him and master him on his own
ground–but the most of believing men and women are not able to do so.
If you cannot argue thus, be content if you are like Cowper's poor
woman who knows no more than that the Bible is true, for you may, like
David, still be more than a match for the skeptic and understand more
than all your teachers because you meditate upon God's statutes.

Last of all, David says that he had more understanding than the
ancients because he kept God's precepts. Oh, those ancients–they have
a great deal to answer for! Some people seem to think that if anything
is ancient, it must be right. If you look (I hope you will not care to
do so) into some of our parish churches, you must say that no human
being could see any difference between them and the Roman Catholic
places. If you do go in, ask the Ritualistic "priest" why he wears all
that finery, why he burns stuff that has such a nasty smell–and what
he means by all the mummeries and incantations that are such a mystery
to you. He says, "This is what the ancient Church did." It he could
quote the really ancient Church of the New Testament, you might agree
with him–but he refers you to St. Honorius, St. Veronica, or some
other ancients, either real or legendary. Does this "priest" succeed in
getting people to believe in his ancient nonsense? Yes, he gets his
conversation among those silly women and sillier men who read novels,
but never read their Bibles! But they never do and never will pervert a
true Bible reader and Bible lover! If they ever do get hold of a
nominal Baptist, they make a great boast of it because we are so
accustomed to go to the Bible for everything we teach, and to test
everything by the Bible! I have known a Romanist say, "I can't make any
headway with you. You don't believe in any traditions, not even in
infant baptism! You will have a Bible proof for everything, or else you
will not accept it." Yes, and if all professing Christians would but
keep to that principle, Romanism and Ritualism would make far less
headway than they do! We say, with Isaiah, "To the Law and to the
testimony: if they speak not according to this Word, it is because
there is no light in them." Give us a Bible-reading, Bible-loving
people, and all the "priests" in the world, with all their finery, will
never make any headway! An open Bible is death to their follies and
lies if there are but people with open eyes to read it! The worst of it
is that although we have the open Bible, we have not as many Bible
readers and Bible lovers as we wish to see. May the Lord graciously
increase the number the whole world over!

There is another kind of ancients that we have to guard against–very
old sinners. There are old sinners who will say to you young men and
young women who have lately been converted, "Ah, we have seen a good
many people just as earnest as you are now, but you will soon grow as
cold as they did." Some of them will shake their heads and say, "We
know you religious people, you are all a set of hypocrites." A wicked
old sinner will tell you that when you are as old as he is, you won't
be led astray in this way, yet he is himself going to Hell as fast as
he can! He says, "Don't you, young man, imagine that you know
everything. I have had more experience than you have had and I know a
thing or two that is worth knowing." I used to have an old man of that
kind in my congregation at Waterbeach–a man pretty near 70 years of
age whose whole life had been one of wickedness and sin. He came to the
place where I preached on purpose to pick up young men to lead them
astray if he could. He was nothing better than a walking beer-barrel
and his mouth poured out little but filth. I had some sharp brushes
with him and I could not help feeling a holy indignation against him
whenever I saw him. There are some such old sinners still about. Beware
of them! Their hoary hairs are no crown of glory to them, but a crown
of shame! A hoary head, where there is no Divine Grace, is worse than a
fool's cap–and there is no fool in the world like an old fool, and no
other fool that can equal a gray-headed sinner who has for 70 years
rejected Christ and, in spite of a thousand warnings and invitations,
has deliberately made his own damnation sure! Take no notice of him, I
pray you. If it is an old woman who has lived in the ways of sin and
tries to allure you to evil, O young man, flee from her–young woman,
escape from her at all costs! There are none whom Satan uses so much as
he does these ancients, because they can balk so glibly and look so
sweetly at you and all the while they are deceiving you and trying to
ruin your immortal soul! If you cling to the Bible, they can do nothing
with you. When there is a great parade of age and authority, yet the
advice given is backed up by experience that is vicious, turn at once
to your Bibles and say to the old man, or to the old woman,
respectfully, yet firmly, "That is what you say, but thisis what God
says"–and then turn to your God and say with David, "I understand more
than the ancients because I keep Your precepts."

To sum up all, the heart must be right with God and it can only be so
as the result of simple faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And when the
heart is right and you are saved, I beseech you to let your Bibles be
everything to you. Carry this matchless treasure with you continually.
And read it, and read it, and read it again and again! Turn to its
pages by day and by night. Let its narratives mingle with your dreams!
Let its precepts color your lives! Let its promises cheer your
darkness, let its Divine illumination make glad your life! As you love
God, love this Book which is the Book of God and the God of books, as
it has rightly been called. And may God make this Book to be your
comfort when you pass through the valley of death-shade. And may you in
Heaven have forever to praise Him who revealed Himself to you through
the pages of this blessed Book! Amen and amen.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM 119:113-128.

Verse 113. I hate vain thoughts: but I love Your Law. Presumptuous
thoughts, erroneous thoughts, wicked thoughts, foolish thoughts–all
three David hated. A good man ought to be a good hater as well as a
good lover. What should he hate? He should hate vain thoughts. What
should he love? He should love the Law of the Lord. If we do not hate
sin in the very egg, we shall not be likely to hate it in its fuller
development. The very thought of sin must be detestable to us and if we
do not think of evil, we shall not speak evil, nor do evil. We ought to
begin with David at the beginning, and say, "I hate vain thoughts." Yet
negative religion is not sufficient, so we should go on to the positive
form–"'I love Your Law' and I love it so much that I wish I could
always keep it, never transgress it and never forget it."

114. You are my hiding place and my shield: I hope in Your Word. "You
are my protection against every kind of danger." David had been
accustomed to hide in the caves of the mountains, but now he says that
he hid himself in his God. When he did not hide, but stood out bravely
against the ranks of his foes, then God was his shield to cover him in
the day of battle.

115. Depart from me, you evil-doers: for I will keep the commandments
of my God. If, by your evil example, you would keep me from serving my
God, I will make you keep yourselves from me so that I may neither see
nor follow your ill example–"Depart from me, you evil-doers: for I
will keep the commandments of my God." David puts his foot down

firmly and says, "I will keep the commandments of my God." It is a
grand thing to be able to speak of "my God." Another man's God would be
of little use to me, but when He is my own God, my God in Covenant
relationship, then I may well say, "I will keep the commandments of my
God."

116. Uphold me according unto Your Word, that I may live. "Lord, I
cannot even live unless You uphold me according to Your promises." The
Christian is so dependent upon God that he owes his life and the
continuance of it to upholding Grace.

116. And let me not be ashamed of my hope. "If Your promises could fail
me, then I would have cause to be ashamed of my hope. Therefore, O
Lord, let me never at any time have the shadow of a doubt concerning
the truthfulness of Your promises, lest I should begin to be ashamed of
my hope!"

117-118. Hold me up, and I shall be safe: and I will have respect unto
Your statutes continually. You have trodden down all them that err from
Your statutes: for their deceit is falsehood. "They are like salt that
has lost its savor, which is neither fit for the land nor yet for the
dunghill, but men cast it out and tread it under their feet. And this
is what You do with ungodly men, especially with those 'that err from
Your statutes.' Then tread them beneath Your feet, 'for their deceit is
falsehood.' They try to make it look like truth, but it is falsehood
all the while." How much of deceit there is in this world which men
gloss and varnish so that the thing looks right enough though all the
while it is deception and a sham! May God keep us from all the
trickeries and falsehoods and errors of the age!

119. You put away all the wicked of the earth like dross. "As the dross
is thrown away when the useful metal has been extracted from it, so, O
Lord, when You have taken all Your saints out of the world You will put
the wicked of the earth away like dross."

119. Therefore I love Your testimonies. What? Does David love God's
testimonies because they are thus severe? Yes, for it is the mark of a
true Believer that he does not kick against the severities of his God.
Worldlings can rejoice in the god of this age who is said to be nothing
but effeminate benevolence, but the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and
of Jacob is the God of Justice who will by no means spare iniquity! And
for that very reason a true Believer says with David, "I love Your
testimonies."

120. My flesh trembles for fear of You; and I am afraid of Your
judgments. This is the man who truly loves God and this is the kind of
fear that perfect love does not cast out. Though we love God supremely,
we become for that very reason God-fearing men, and dread to do
anything that would cause Him anger or sorrow.

121. I have done judgment and justice: leave me not to my oppressors.
When a man is conscious of doing right, he has a good ground of appeal
to God. If, when it was in your power, you did not oppress others, you
may plead with God that He will not let others oppress you. If it has
been your habit to act with judgment and justice towards others, you
may expect that God will defend you against all your oppressors.

122. 123. Be surety for Your servant for good: let not the proud
oppress me. My eyes fail for Your salvation. "I have looked for it so
long, I have longed for it so eagerly that my eyes seem to grow
inflamed with watching–a film seems to come over them so that I cannot
see out of them–'My eyes fail for Your salvation.'"

123. And for the Word of Your righteousness."I look for no salvation
except in the way revealed in Your Word. And I do not wish You to do an
unrighteous thing even to save me from my oppressors."

124. Deal with Your servant according to Your mercy. He dares not ask
to be dealt with by God on any other ground than that of mercy. Though
he is innocent of that which the ungodly laid to his charge, he is not
innocent before God and, therefore, he pleads for mercy. He
acknowledges that God is his Lord and Master and that he is God's
servant. And as a man should deal mercifully with his servant, he
pleads that God will so deal with him–"Deal with Your servant
according unto Your mercy."

124. And teach me Your statutes. He had kept God's statutes so far as
the eyes of men could see but, before God, he takes a humbler position
and begs to be taught what he is to do. He asks to be instructed, like
a child, in the statutes of his God.

125. I am Your servant. This is the third time in four verses that
David mentions this relationship. He seems proud of being God's
servant. Though he were but as a menial, yet would he glory in it–"I
am Your servant."

125. Give me understanding, that I may know Your testimonies. "Lord, do
not merely teach me, but give me understanding." That is what our
teachers cannot do. They may put the truth before us so plainly that we
ought to understand it, but they cannot give us understanding.

126. It is time for You, LORD, to work: for they have made void Your
Law. And surely this is an age in which this prayer is very suitable.
On all hands we see God's Law ridiculed, or denied, or travestied, or
else hidden under tradition or under the dicta of so-called scientific
men, or in some way or other "made void." Oh, that God's right hand of
Grace might be stretched out to do some miracle of mercy in the land at
this very time!

127. Therefore I love Your commandments above gold; yes, above pure
gold. "Therefore"–because the wicked tasted God's Law and made it
void–David loved it all the more! It is a live fish that swims against
the stream, it is a live man of God who can say, "They have made void
Your Law, therefore I love Your commandments above gold; yes, above
fine gold."

128. Therefore I esteem all Your precepts concerning all things to be
right. "Ungodly men think they are wrong. That is an additional proof
to me that they are right." When a certain old philosopher had been
praised by a bad man, he asked, "What have I done amiss that he should
speak well of me?" And there are some men's mouths out of which the
praise of Christ or the praise of the Scriptures would be to God's
dishonor. They tell me that So-and-So spoke blasphemously against
Christ, but why should he not do so? It is natural for him to be a
blasphemer. When serpents hiss, do they not act according to their
nature? I do not read that Christ stopped men's mouths when they
blasphemed Him, but I do know that when the demons bore witness to Him,
He silenced them, for He liked not to be praised by diabolical mouths!
Let ungodly men say what they may–we know the value of their speeches
and we are not troubled by them.

128. And I hate every false way. Again David mentions his hatred of all
falseness. Some men are such "chips in the porridge" that they neither
love nor hate, but the Believer is a man or woman who has both loves
and aversions. He loves the truth and, therefore, he hates every false
way.