Psalm 119 III: Into the Psalmist’s Prayer Closet

Welcome to the Whole Council Podcast. I'm John Snyder and we are returning again to that unique chapter, Psalm 119. It is the fullest description of the Word of God, but it is given to us in a particularly beneficial way.

It describes it in a sense by allowing us to go into the prayer closet of the writer because of the 176 verses that speak about the Word of God, 172 of them are direct responses to God from the believer with that book in front of them.

So really it is the the union of God giving us His Word, illuminating it by His Spirit, the believer there humble before the book, and the heart is turned toward the Father. I want us to look at this again because it is such a beneficial chapter.

I feel like every time I return to it, I feel like a little kid in a candy shop, or maybe I think of my children when they were younger, and we would occasionally get to go to Toys R Us, and it was just like a kid's fantasy.

It's like this gigantic warehouse full of things they want, and if you ever gave them a limit, you can have ten dollars. Then it was all day, no, no, wait, wait, wait, no, I want this, and then the next hour, no, let me put this up and let me get this instead.

But what I feel in coming to Psalm 119, as if some very rich person has walked me as a kid into a Toys R Us and said to me, you can have as much as you can grab, and you can come back as many times as you want.

Or like a poor man who finds out that because of some economic hurdles in his family, he's going to lose his home, and he has to go home and tell his wife and children they're going to have to move, and he doesn't know what he's going to do, and they don't know where the next meal will come from.

But a very rich man finds him at the bank, walks him into the vault, and says, this is my money, and you can have as much as you need. Psalm 119 is like that to the believer. It's just this wonderful, lavish supply from God through His Word, and it changes every day how I read this book.

So let's jump into it. In verses 1, 2, and 3, we saw that the introduction to the book, the entrance into the entire chapter, is through three verses which speak of the happiness that God offers to every person who, by His grace, walks the path of obedience.

Let me read those to you again. How blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord. How blessed are those who observe His testimonies, who seek after Him with all their heart.

They also do no unrighteousness, they walk in His ways. Now that may sound, when you read quickly over it, as if it's describing a person who is sinlessly perfect, but it is not. And I do want to stop and recommend again a commentator for this chapter, and that is Charles Bridges, about the same time as Charles Spurgeon.

He was an Anglican minister, and he has only written a couple of books, one on the Proverbs, and one on the Psalms, Psalm 119. If he's written other books, I don't know them. But this book on Psalm 119 by Charles Bridges is the gold standard.

Bridges points out that we're not looking at a sinlessly perfect person, but a person who truly yearns to walk on that path of obedience, and by the grace of God, day by day, is enabled in some measure, even if we feel that we're stumbling, to stay on that path.

There is a blamelessness, or the Hebrew word, an integrity. The Word of God integrates, or connects, every area of His life. There is a desire to put my feet on the path of obedience, in a very practical way, but also the heart that seeks for God.

Such a wonderful picture of balance. Now that's verses 1, 2, and 3, but last week we also mentioned verse 4, and this is the beginning of a transition, a turning point in the psalm, and there is not going to be another turning point like this.

Once we hit verse 4 and 5, the rest of the psalm follows on that path. And I take verse 4 and 5 together as the turning point. Let me remind you about verse 4. He says, you have ordained your precepts, he's speaking to God, that we should keep them diligently.

So the turning point is seen in the difference of pronouns. Instead of looking out a window at a group of people who are wonderfully, enviably happy, because they are walking on the path that the King has made, and they enjoy His friendship on that path.

So you're looking out the window, and it's distant. How happy are those people who walk that path? They keep His commands. Verse 4 and 5, we have the transition from the distant observation and admiration to a very up-close, personal embrace.

And I said last time we talked that without this, you really can't be a Christian. There is no way to be a follower of Christ. There is no way to say, I am born again by that mighty work of God, that mysterious work of the Spirit, opening my eyes, changing the heart, and freeing my will.

You cannot make that claim validly without that great transition that is seen in verse 4 and 5. In verse 4, the man looks out the window, the woman looks out the window, and sees this path, and then they look up.

And they, in their heart, they come close to God, and they say, you, God, you. You have ordained or commanded these precepts, that we, that I, and my fellow man, should keep them diligently. You remember we talked last week about the unalterable moral law, that because it is an expression of God's moral perfection, unlike the other aspects of the law, the ceremonial or civil, it cannot be adjusted at all.

Think of it this way. When you're talking about the moral perfection of deity, of the timeless, eternal, infinite being, how do you describe that to people who live in a very limited, you know, physical existence like earth?

And I think of the moral law, it's as if all the moral perfections of our God, God calls that light, that glory, to shine through a prism, like a crystal prism, and you know how it breaks the light into different bands of color.

So, it's as if the moral law is that prism, and God shines His light through that, and we see, in ways that we can comprehend, what it's like to live in a way that pleases this God. There, we have the Ten Commandments, we have the other aspects of the moral law that give detail to the Ten Commandments.

It is impossible to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, who lived to do the will of His Father, if we do not also love that same moral law that He loved. Now, that brings us to verse 5, and that's where we want to, we'll just start that this week, and we'll finish it next week.

But, look at the other side of that turning point. Verse 5, O that my ways may be established to keep your statutes. Let's just take the first two words in the New American Standard, O that. It's the kind of phrase that we often find in the Bible, where the writer is laying out fact, after fact, after fact, about the perfections of God's character, and the wonder, the amazement of His ways.

And then, it's as if, in the midst of writing, the heart jumps ahead of the mind, and it jumps ahead of the pen, and the heart leaps up, and from the heart comes this cry, O that. Spurgeon says, about this verse, in the New Testament, Christ teaches us to pray in this way, Matthew chapter 6, Our Father, and then the rest of the prayer.

But Spurgeon, speaking on this, says, there is, in these two words, there is an appropriate opening to a prayer, just as appropriate as Our Father. It's O that. So, let me stop and ask you to think through a couple of tests, and maybe this will help us to be honest with ourselves, because that's often difficult in religion.

So, here's the first test. Do you understand that verse 5 makes absolutely no sense to any child of Adam since the fall? If you don't understand verses 1, 2, and 3, how could you look at the perfect moral law of God, the perfectly straight path, which you stumble on, and drift back and forth on, even as a Christian?

How could you look at that, and your heart cry out, O that my ways were established to keep this law, O that my entire life were devoted, you know, sinlessly to this path. How could you yearn for that, if it were not for what we see of the intentions of God in the first three verses?

So, again, it's as if we're in a room, and we're looking out at a window, and the path is there of obedience, and the people that are walking on it are enviably happy. They are complete and satisfied.

And then Christ comes and opens the door to the little room that we've been in, looking through a window. He opens the door, and He calls us to walk that same path. When we remember that it is a path that God has designed, not only to show His moral perfections, but to provide His people with the happiest of lives, when that astonishing aspect of grace, that purest form of gift, is seen, when the law is seen in its right light, and not as some ladder I'm climbing, or a burden I'm carrying in order to earn God's love, or to pay Him back.

Then, verse 5, naturally erupts from the heart. Christ throws open the door, and we say to Him, O that my life could be on that path. Now, that's one of the tests. Do you understand how significant it is that verses 1, 2, and 3 are the only entrance way to every other verse in the chapter?

So, verse 5 only makes sense if you start with verse 1, 2, and 3, and the grace of God. A second test, I think it's always helpful when we're reading through the Scriptures, and we're following along with the argument of the author.

And as the author then seems to have to interrupt himself, and just burst out in praise to God, I find that it's helpful to ask myself, am I arriving at the same place the author is arriving at? Because I believe the same things that he's talking about.

And by God's work in my heart, I am in complete agreement with those, and I, too, want to say those things. Now, I may not be able to say them as beautifully, and my heart's expression is not the Word of God.

It's not inspired by the Holy Spirit in that way. But I know that my heart is right. I know that my mind is in agreement with these Scriptural statements. If at the end of the statements, I have arrived at the same place that the biblical writer arrives at.

So, think of Romans chapters 1 through 11. All these statements about our need, God's provision, the fullness of that, the union with Christ, just wave after wave of statement and explanation regarding redemption.

And then at the end of chapter 11, before Paul switches gears and really focuses on the practical giving up of ourselves daily as a living sacrifice, as an obedient follower of the King, in chapter 12, at the end of chapter 11, Paul stops, and it's as if he, too, it's as if his heart runs ahead of his pen, and he calls all humanity to see the glory that belongs to God.

And there's this wonderful doxological or praising statement there. So, look at verse 1, 2, 3, and 4 in your Bible, in Psalm 119, and ask yourself, if I had a Bible that only had four verses, and verse 5 was actually blank in my translation, and it was just some, you know, a series of blank lines, and you could fill it in with what you would write, would you write something close to what the writer wrote?

Verses 1, 2, and 3, the most enviable life is the life that is walked near the King, under the authority of the King, for love of the King. Verse 4, the King Himself has commanded or ordained this path of happiness for us.

Verse 5, what do you want to say next? Well, again, we wouldn't be so perfect, would we, as the writer, but perhaps we would say, my heart would say something like that. My heart is already there. Oh, God, oh, that my life were more perfectly established to walk that path.

Two good tests. Do you understand that verse 5 only makes sense in light of verses 1, 2, and 3, and is your heart already there when you read verse 5? Now, before we end this week, and I'm trying to keep our weeks shorter, like I mentioned, let me just call your attention back to the, oh, that.

Oh, that. What does it mean? Well, there are a number of suggestions, and really, I think we can have them all in our experience as believers. One is the expression of the deepest desire. Oh, God, oh, I desire for my life to be established, my feet to be firmly set on the path of obedience to your commands.

The longing of a believer from gratitude. But second, there is perhaps a sense of regret or contrition, brokenheartedness, so this could be a confession. You look at the perfect path, you look at the happiness of the people, you realize that your king, the king that saved you, has ordained this or commanded this for you as well, and how kind it is, how authoritative it is, and you look at the king, and you look at your feet, and you're not on the path, and you say to him, oh, God, forgive me.

Oh, that my feet were back on that path. But also, there is a sense, I think, of dependence. He looks at the path, he looks at his own stumbling ways, prone to wonder, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love, prone to leave the path I love, and there is then this expression of our need of humility, of dependence.

Oh, God, I am asking you now. At the beginning of this psalm, I'm pleading with you. Oh, work in me so that my life might be established on the path of obedience. We will look at the second half of verse 5 next week.