Psalm 119 VII: The Meaning of True Liberty

Welcome to the Whole Council Podcast. I'm Jon Snyder and we're looking again at Psalm 119. We've been here for some weeks and one of the reasons is that Psalm 119 is the most significant statement in Scripture on the Word of God itself.

We have the fullest description of God's Word. We have the fullest description of the impact of God's Word. We have the fullest description of the responses of the believer to God's Word. And in this chapter, we have the fullest description of the pleading of the believer in prayer to God, responding to God in light of this Word.

And really that's the unique thing about the chapter. While we have 176 verses that deal with the Word of God, the focus of the chapter is really not the Word of God, but the God behind His Word. And there is that constant response.

172 of the 176 verses are prayers, direct statements to God because He has given us this book. Well, today we're looking again at this wonderful chapter which describes the graciousness of God, in particular seen in the fact that in this great chapter on the law of God, the commands of God, the statutes and the precepts of God, that God opens the chapter not with statements about wrath for lawbreakers or God's rights as the King, but He opens the chapter by describing the happiness, the enviably complete and happy life of the man or woman or young person who by grace walks the path of obedience.

And that really is a startling thing because this chapter is written only for lawbreakers. Well, we're going to look at verse 45 today and verse 44, so let me read those to you. Verse 44, So I will keep your law continually forever and ever and I will walk at liberty for I seek your precepts.

This is one of my favorite passages in the entire chapter, particularly verse 45, I will walk at liberty for I seek your precepts. So we have a bold statement, a statement that perhaps at first reading seems a bit confusing.

And then we have a very clear reason, I will walk at liberty or in the Hebrew, I will walk in a wide open place. Why? Because I seek, I pursue, I yearn for your law, your precepts. Well, we want to look at this theme today, but let's start off by talking about the idea of freedom or liberty.

Spurgeon says that liberty next to life is dearest to all brave men. And I think we can see historically that that's pretty true. It is kind of a universal reality that for us, liberty or freedom is precious.

If you think about the history of humanity, we can think about nations that sent their armies to war that risked the lives of their young men, of their sons and their dads and their husbands for the sake of freedom or liberty.

We can think of how men have even volunteered for these wars and have voluntarily laid down their lives on a field of battle because of the love of liberty, the preciousness of freedom. But what we're talking about in this passage is not just the preciousness of a physical freedom, a freedom from tyranny or enslavement, but it is a spiritual freedom which is so much more precious, longer lasting.

I want us to talk a little bit about this today because if we don't understand the nature of spiritual freedom or spiritual liberty, then this passage may not make sense to us. So let's make sure that we understand it in its context.

Well, first, it is a strange but bitter reality that every one of us ought to be somewhat aware of to whatever degree that our eyes are open to spiritual reality. But the reality is this, that every one of us was born a slave.

Every one of us was born imprisoned, so to speak. Every one of us was born under the boot of another authority and this authority was a horrible authority. Augustine in his book, His Confessions, he writes this, I am bound not with another man's iron, but with my own iron will.

I gave my will to my enemy and he made a chain and bound me with it. So there's the picture of all of us, that there is an internal prison, not external. There are bars in our soul. There are invisible chains and yet they are as real as any physical prison.

Christ speaks of salvation through Him as being something that includes freedom or a freeing from this imprisonment. In John 8, verse 31 and 32 and then again in verse 36, let me read you what Christ says.

Jesus was saying to the Jews who had believed Him, if you continue in my word, then you are truly disciples of mine and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

So there's the implication without the Lord Jesus Christ and the word of Christ or the truth about Christ, you remain imprisoned. But if the realities of Christ, and we're not just talking about an emotional experience, you know, we're not just talking about a kind of a flash in the pan moment where we say that we want to commit ourselves to Christ.

We're talking about the word of God in the hands of Christ, the Spirit of Christ penetrating a life. And those words moving in a sense from merely being on a page to the objective truths which by the Spirit are subjectively experienced.

I am alive in Christ. Now the Spirit has birthed me by the seed of the word of God. I have been washed with this regeneration and now I am alive to Him. And as I live in the realities of Christ, I am daily experiencing in a day-to-day way the freedom that Christ gives.

But it's not just religion and it's not just religious words, you know, under the umbrella of Christianity that really free a person. Because there are many people who say religious things and Christ's name is attached to it.

But because these are not really the truths of Christ, applied to the life by Christ, these words don't free us. Listen to what Peter says about false teachers, 2 Peter chapter 2 and verse 19. He describes these teachers as promising people freedom.

So much like Christ, promising freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption. For by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved. So it's not just religious truth and it's not just truth under the name of Christ, you know, with a bit of Jesus mixed in.

But it is the reality, the great objective truths of Christ's redemptive work brought to bear on a life that really free us. Let me back up a little and read to you a passage from Psalm 4 because in the Hebrew language there's a very clear metaphor for spiritual enslavement and spiritual freedom or, you know, being lost and hopeless apart from Christ and the great rescue through Christ.

This is what Psalm 4 says, you God, you have relieved me in my distress. Very simple statement. But the English is a bit bland here and, you know, we don't always have to be able to translate from the original languages to get the meaning.

But this is one of those passages where if you have a good commentary, it will point out that the English is kind of a bit flat. There's a lot of topography here. There's a, there's a lot of, you know, texture to these words.

Let me give you kind of a more literal reading. You God, you have opened up. Relieved is the idea of opening up a wide place. You have opened up a wide place for me in my distress. But the word distress is the Hebrew word for a restricted place.

In other words, sin is pictured as a distress. Sin is pictured as something that is a cramped, restrained, tight place. I'm in a tight spot. And salvation is pictured as a wide open, as a free place. Just kind of simply think of this.

Sin offers us so much. And a lot of times sin is offering us everything it offers us under the label of freedom, under the kind of deceptive hope that if I am willing to throw off God's restrictions, I'll really be free.

So we follow sin. And it's like a, it's like a little kid following someone into a cave. And at first, it seems, you know, quite magical. And, you know, you're going to go exploring every place. But as you continue to follow this person that is continuing to say to you that there's more, there's always more, just another step further, you find that he's leading you into a very tight spot.

And, you know, you get a little nervous, but the things that are being offered to you just seem so irresistible that you're willing to risk it. And you push in a little more, and then you find yourself getting stuck.

But instead of pulling out, you're tempted to go a little further. And you're told, no, no, it's tight here. Press in a little more. You know, don't turn back now. Don't go halfway. Give yourself to it.

And apart from the work of God, we do, we just push and push and push, chasing self-gratification, self-rule, pride, and unbelief, all that the world offers me. And I find myself, therefore, trapped, you know, caught.

What is salvation? Salvation is like Christ coming and breaking through this rock wall and saying to us, trust me, follow me. And he lends us his hand, and he brings us out of this place. But instead of leading us, you know, through the small, you know, winding path of the cave, he brings us out into this wide open land.

You know, I always think of a Switzerland, this wide open place. And he says to us, you may walk with me everywhere. And that's just the beginning of the adventure of knowing God. What is salvation? Salvation is God bringing the sinner out of this tight place into freedom.

Or as Psalm 118, verse 5 says, from my distress, from my tight place, I called upon the Lord and the Lord answered me and set me in a large place, put me in a wide open place. Really, that verse could be written over every true conversion.

Now, Spurgeon said this about the freedom that Christ's spirit brings. He said, the spirit of holiness is a free spirit. He sets men and women at liberty and enables them to resist every effort to bring them back under oppression.

Now, that's the basic statement. I will walk in this wide open place. And then the reason, because I seek God's precepts. But that raises a couple of legitimate questions. And I want us to try to answer those.

We're going to try to answer those partly now and the rest next week. So here's our question. If this is a Psalm celebrating the rule of God through his word, his precepts, statutes, judgments, commands and laws.

If it's celebrating the law and precepts of an all authoritative king whose rule through this word reaches more deeply than any earthly potentates rule ever reached, more than any monarch could claim.

It rules your thoughts. It rules your attitudes. It rules your desires. It rules your plans. It rules your ambitions. It rules your memory. It rules your imagination. It goes deep. It goes wide. Every area of the life is affected.

Every relationship, every day, every event, every place on the planet. And there is no exception. This is for every person that God has created. Whether you claim to be a Christian or not, doesn't matter.

Because you are created by this being, this being has a right to rule us. And he has given us his law and his word. And if we are ignorant of it, we are not free from its obligation. So how can we celebrate the specific commands of this being that rule us inwardly, outwardly, you know, every moment of every day without exception?

How can we look at that complete and absolute rule, which becomes so very specific in his word and say, wow, I will walk at perfect freedom and in perfect liberty. I will walk in a wide open place because I seek his laws, his precepts.

It's, it seems strange, especially in light of the verse that precedes it, verse 44. So I will keep your law continually forever and ever. So in light of what that says, in light of what the New Testament teaches us, I mean, how many times do we read in the New Testament that Christ rescuing us brings us from an old master to a new master, Romans 6.

An old rule or dominion into a new kingdom, a new dominion that we once were ruled by, but now we are ruled by. How can we look at the New Testament and its constant repetition of the description of a Christian as a bond servant or a bond slave, a voluntary slave of a new master and say that Psalm 119 verse 45 is real, that it's more than just, you know, religious kind of hopeful thinking.

Are we really set in a wide open place when we seek God's precepts? Well, I think that when we come to a passage like this, we're tempted to say, no, I'm not free. I think it would be more accurate to say I'm moving from a bad master to a good master, or I'm moving from a harsh imprisonment to a little more, a more bearable imprisonment.

But that's not what the psalmist says. I think a good thing to do when we come to a passage where it seems a bit confusing to us, where what we read doesn't seem to match with other portions of the Bible, or where what we read doesn't match with our genuine biblical Christian experience.

Now, it may disagree with your experience because you're not walking with the Lord. So I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about when we are walking with the Lord, do we see the realities of Scripture?

Do we see them reflected in our experience? Not perfectly, but truly, genuinely. Well, when we come to a passage that we don't understand because of that, it's always good to ask ourselves, is the Bible full of well-meaning statements that aren't actually accurate?

They're just meant to kind of encourage me. And that's why I don't see that it matching life or the other parts of the Bible, or perhaps have I got a wrong perspective on the And I need to back up and kind of be more careful to get the right biblical definition of words so that when I read a passage, I can understand how it fits with every other biblical passage, and I can understand how I'm to expect that it would affect me as I follow Christ.

Well, let's think of some just normal definitions of liberty or freedom. And I'm talking about, you know, the kind of definition you would get if you looked in a Webster's dictionary. And we'll see that this is not what the psalmist is speaking of.

Well, two aspects of the definition of liberty in a normal dictionary would be these. Number one, the state of being free within society, free from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on your way of life, behavior, or political views.

So that's pretty simple. That's what we think of when we think of liberty. I am in a society where nobody is telling me all the time what to do, and I have a certain amount of liberty or freedom. Synonyms for this, we could say, I am independent, free, autonomous, sovereign.

I am self-governing, self-ruling, self-determining. That's one idea of freedom, and that is not the biblical picture. Let me give you another basic definition of freedom that doesn't fit the scripture, and that is the power or the ability to act just as you please.

So that often is the other idea that we have when we come to freedom. It's not just that I am in a society that is not, you know, ruling over me with an iron fist, but I am free because I'm able to do what I want to do today.

I have the right to do it, and I have the ability to do it. So the synonyms, again, we are independent. We have license. We have self-determination, free will, latitude. We have options, choices, volition.

We are not compelled, not coerced, not confined. We have leeway, margin, scope. One writer even said elbow room. I'm free to do what I want to do. Nobody's determining my life for me. I have the ability to do just as I please, when I please, how I please.

So that is an idea of freedom, but that's not the biblical idea. Let me just say that both of those definitions of the English word freedom or liberty, both of those are things that have never existed with any being except our triune God.

Every created being is in some way limited in those areas. Every created being is dependent upon someone greater than them. They are needy, so they're not self-sufficient, self-sustaining, self-determining, and they were created for a purpose, and so it's not as if you enter this life kind of with a blank slate to do what you want to do with it.

You enter this life with a predetermined slate in the sense of you were created for a purpose, you were created for Him, and He has already laid before me in His Word an explanation of what life is all about, and if I'm to really live in a way that I was created to live, I have to take that seriously.

So there is no creature, no angel, no man, nothing that's created has that type of absolute freedom that the Webster's Dictionary is speaking of, and yet there is a real, a genuine spiritual freedom that Christ provides in connection with His Word, in connection with His rule that is so infinitely superior to the Webster's definition of freedom that anyone who sees it would choose it, and we will talk about true biblical spiritual freedom next week.