Exposition of Psalm
119
?
BETH
God’s
Word Brings Maturity
Ps.
119:9-16
Wherewithal
shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed
thereto according to thy word.
With
my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander
from thy commandments.
Thy
word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin
against thee.
Blessed
art thou, O LORD: teach me thy
statutes.
With
my lips have I declared all the judgments of thy
mouth.
I
have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies, as much as
in all riches.
I
will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy
ways.
I
will delight myself in thy statutes: I will not forget
thy word.
What does it mean to
be mature? Webster defines mature as, “Of or
relating to a condition of full development.” In the
physical sense, this speaks of “having completed natural
growth and development” or “having achieved a low but
stable growth rate” and “of, relating to, or being an
older adult.” When we apply this spiritually, then, to
be mature means that we have reached full development in
action and attitude, that we act like an adult not a
child, and that we are still growing at a stable rate.
In other words, we have reached the stage in our
spiritual life where our actions and attitudes are
governed not by the impulses of a child but by
the impetus of God through
His Word.
As we look at American
society, it is easy to see that it is far from mature,
both spiritually and socially. It is, in fact, perhaps
more immature than it has ever been in its entire
history. It is self-motivated and self-indulgent in the
extreme, just like children, and we have more things to
feed those impulses than ever before.
How, then, can we be
mature? The passage before us tells exactly how to be
mature. Perhaps the most significant feature of this
passage is that the psalmist mentions the young
man. While this counsel
certainly applies to young women, it is especially
applicable to young men. It is absolutely essential that
young men be mature because these are the ones who will
have leadership in the home and society. While women’s
liberation and egalitarianism do not like this truth,
Scripture makes it clear that God has ordained men to be
in leadership.
I. Purity of Life (v.
9)
Wherewithal
shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed
thereto according to thy word.
As it was in the first
stanza, how significant it is that this is again
mentioned first! How many parents there are who teach
their children that being “grown up” means knowing how
to work, deciding what you want to do in life, how to
manage money, and other things. While all that is
certainly important, the most imperative of all is
purity of life, to be untainted by immorality. In spite
of that essential quality, however, the majority of
parents miss it, often because their lives are not pure
either.
Why is this first? Because
youth is a time full of newfound drives and emotions,
but the problem is the lack of knowledge and experience
to handle them. It is in the Word of God alone that we
find absolutes for moral conduct. According to one
source, premarital sex among 18- to 20-year-olds is as
high as 65.6 percent among girls and 63.3 among boys.
Another reports that 63 percent of youth, aged 14 to 21,
are sexually active. Whatever the numbers are, there’s
no question that the majority thinking is that sex
before marriage is okay.
But Scripture repeatedly
says the exact opposite:
Flee fornication. Every sin that
a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth
fornication sinneth against his own body. (I Cor.
6:18)
Nevertheless, to avoid
fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let
every woman have her own husband. (I Cor.
7:2)
For this is the will of God, even
your sanctification, that ye should abstain from
fornication: That every one of you should know how to
possess his vessel in sanctification and honour; Not in
the lust of concupiscence [i.e., uncontrolled passion],
even as the Gentiles which know not God. (I Thes.
4:3-5)
In short, our life
is not to be ruled by passion but by
purity.
Our text, therefore,
says that a young man
should cleanse his
way. The Hebrew behind way is a
different word than the one used back in verses 1 and
5 (derek), but it is similar. Here we find
the word ‘orach, which literally referred to a path, highway, or
even a caravan when used in the plural. Figuratively, it
“describes the path of an individual or course of life
(Job 6:18)” or “the characteristics of a lifestyle, good
or evil (Ps.16:11).”[i] Especially
significant is that idea of a lifestyle. Every young
person needs to decide early what lifestyle they are
going to follow. The Hebrew behind cleanse
(zakah) means being pure or cleansed from sin, so
our lifestyle had better be a clean one. Isaiah used
this word, commanding God’s people, “Wash you, make you
clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine
eyes; cease to do evil” (Is. 1:16). Young’s Literal
Translation, therefore, renders our text, “With what
doth a young man purify his path?” The answer had better
be [God’s]
Word.
Daniel is a graphic
example of a godly young man, as he “purposed in his
heart that he would not defile himself with the portion
of the king’s meat, nor with the wine which he drank”
(Dan. 1:8). Please note that he “purposed” this, he
deliberated chose to be clean.
Perhaps the most vivid
example of all, however, was Joseph in Genesis 39:6-12.
Verse 6 tells us that Joseph was a handsome fellow and
became the steward of Potiphar’s house, who was the
captain o Pharaoh’s guard. Potiphar’s wife took a liking
to Joseph and tempted him to go to bed with here, but he
refused, even to the point of avoiding even being around
her. One day, with no one else around, she physically
grabbed him in temptation, and Joseph literally left his
outer robe behind as he ran from the house.
That is the
kind of purity God demands. The first of three
principles, therefore, that we would submit
is:
·
A sign of maturity is not being possessed by
passion but being controlled by
Christ.
If one cannot keep
his (or her) passions under control, he is headed down
the path of destruction. The only way to control those
passions is to live according to [God’s]
word.
II. Seeking the Right Things (v.
10)
With
my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander
from thy commandments.
We return here to a
principle first mentioned in the previous stanza. Let us
each ask ourselves: “When was the last time I did
something just because it was the right thing to do?” We
did it not because we might get caught, not because
someone told us not to, but just because it was right.
Doing right simply because it’s right is a sure sign
of maturity.
The Psalmist
declares: with my whole heart
have I sought thee. The Hebrew for sought
(darash) means “to seek, to
inquire of, to examine, to require.” As one Hebrew
authority writes, “Its most important theological
meaning involves studying or inquiring into the Law of
the Lord (Ezra 7:10) or inquiring of God (Gen. 25:22;
Ex. 18:15; Deut. 12:5; 1 Kings 22:5; 2 Kings
3:11).”[ii] Of special note is Ezra
7:10: “For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law
of the LORD, and to do it, and to teach in Israel
statutes and judgments.”
What, then, is the
most important thing any person (young or old) can do?
Many parents tell their young people that the most
important thing in life is seeking the right vocation or
even seeking the right person to marry. No. Vocation, in
fact, is relatively minor; it is not that big of a deal
to make a living. And while marrying the right person is
important, this too will become easy if we seek what’s
really important. And what is that? Above all else,
we must seek God and His will.
I once asked a young
man, “Where are you headed after your technical
training?” His answer reflects a common attitude:
“Wherever the money is.” We each must ask ourselves:
“What are my values? What’s really important to me?”
Maturity is evident when spiritual things are the
priority, when our whole
heart is set on seeking
the Lord, when every fiber of our being, all of our
strength, is set on seeking the Lord. If we may add to
our first principle:
·
A sign of maturity is not being possessed by
passion but being controlled by
Christ.
·
A sign of maturity is not being motivated by
the material, but seeking the
spiritual.
The Psalmist adds
something else; he prays, O let me not wander
from thy commandments. What a statement! As
Puritan Charles Bridges wrote, “When the soul is this
conscious of ‘following the Lord fully,’ there is a
peculiar dread of wandering” (emphasis in the
original). If we were on a path through a dense,
dangerous jungle, would we want to get off the path?
Certainly not, for leaving that path can easily bring us
destruction as we wander
without direction. Wander is
the Hebrew is sagah, a verb meaning to stray, to go astray, to err,
to deceive, to wander, to make a mistake, to reel. . . .
It is used frequently to describe a wandering or aimless
flock, both figuratively and literally (Ezek.
34:6).”[iii] Oh, how we must guard
ourselves against wandering, and it is God Himself, Who
must empower us not to wander. If we get off God’s path,
we can end up anywhere, and no destination is good. As
Spurgeon observed:
The man of God exerts himself,
but does not trust himself: his heart is in his walking
with God; but he knows that even his whole strength is
not enough to keep him right unless his King shall be
his keeper, and he who made the commands shall make him
constant in obeying them: hence the prayer, “O let me
not wander.”
Each one of us,
especially young people, had better start each day with
that prayer: O let me not wander
from thy commandments.
This leads us to a third principle that produces
maturity.
III. Involvement with the Word of God
(vs. 11-16)
Thy
word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin
against thee.
Blessed
art thou, O LORD: teach me thy statutes.
With
my lips have I declared all the judgments of thy mouth.
I
have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies, as much as
in all riches.
I
will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy
ways.
I
will delight myself in thy statutes: I will not forget
thy word.
Again, the world defines
maturity in various ways, but God says that a sure sign
of it is His Word. While this Psalm is saturated with
statements about God’s Word, this stanza contains a
somewhat unique concentration of such statements. These
verses outline no less than seven attitudes we should
have toward the Word of God. While they, of course,
apply to every Believer, they are especially challenging
to young people, for they will mold the rest of their
lives. As noted in our introduction, German commentator
Franz Deiltzsch wrote of Psalm 119, “Here we have set
forth in inexhaustible fullness what the word of God is
to a man and how a man is to behave himself in relation
to it.”[iv] That is particularly true
of the passage before us.
Memorize It
(v. 11)
Thy
word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin
against thee.
I love John MacArthur’s
comment that I once heard him make, “The more Scripture
I know the harder it is to sin, because if I start to do
something wrong I think of a half a dozen verses that
tell me I can’t do that.” What a practical statement!
The Hebrew word
translated hid
(tsaphan) means to hide, to keep secret. It’s used of
concealing something, often of great value, as that
precious picture of when the baby Moses was hidden (Ex.
2:2-3) and when Rahab hid the spies (Josh. 2:4). Used
figuratively, it speaks of “laying up in the heart,”
“putting back that which we value.” The Word of God is,
indeed, priceless, the most valuable thing we can own.
The Hebrew for
heart
(leb)
has a wide range of meanings. While it refers to the
physical organ, it much more often refers to one’s inner
self and nature, including the intellect, emotions, and
will, that is, the human personality. So where do hide
God’s Word? In our whole personality! The Word of God must govern all of us, our
entire being. We find this very picture, for example, in
Genesis 6:5, where “GOD saw that the wickedness of man
was great in the earth, and that every imagination of
the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”
Everything about man in that day was evil; not a single
thought, emotion, or choice was righteous.
Spurgeon well said
of the Psalmist: “He did not wear a text on his
heart as a charm, but he hid it in his
heart as a rule” (emphasis added). While many
today wear a cross around their neck, some kind of
religious symbol on a charm bracelet, a bumper sticker
on their car that says, “I love Jesus,” or other outward
symbolism, the psalmist says he hid God’s
word in
his heart, that is, his whole self.
This challenges us
to ask, “How much Scripture do I know? How much of it
have I committed to memory?” The things we commit to
memory will control our thoughts, values, and actions.
We, therefore, need to memorize Scripture. There have
been many methods offered to do this, but, frankly, I
shy away from such “programs” because they can either be
artificial or have the wrong motive behind them. I am
convinced that the best approach is simply to memorize
the Scripture that God lays on your heart, those verse
that make the greatest impact on your heart, that is, you whole self.
Learn It (v.
12)
Blessed
art thou, O LORD: teach me thy
statutes.
Spurgeon writes
here:
No sooner is the word in the
heart than a desire arises to mark and learn it. When
food is eaten, the next thing is to digest it; and when
the word is received into the soul the first prayer
is—Lord, teach me its
meaning.
Are you really a student
of the Word? This does not mean you have to own a
library of a thousand books, or know Hebrew and Greek,
or study systematic theology. But is the priority in
your life to grow in grace and knowledge (II Pet. 3:18)?
Puritan Charles Bridges encourages us with the contrast
between man’s teaching and God’s:
Man’s teaching puffeth up—God’s
teaching humbleth. May teaching may lead us into error
as well as into truth—God’s teaching is “the unction
from the Holy One, by which we know all things” (I John
2:20). Man’s teaching may make us more learned—God’s
teaching makes us more holy. It persuades as it
enlightens. It draws the heart, inclines the will, and
carries out the soul to
Christ.
This is especially vital
for young people. The habits and priorities formed now
will stick with them throughout their lives. The most
important life lesson they can learn now is to learn the
Word of God because it will give them the answers to all
the other life lessons to come.
Declare It
(v. 13)
With
my lips have I declared all the judgments of thy
mouth.
The Hebrew for
declared
is cephar, which is used here
to mean “to tell, declare, show forth.” It’s used, for
example in Psalm 78 for a father transmitting God’s
truth to his children so they will in-turn pass it on to
their children (cf. Deut. 6:1-7). It’s used many times
for every believer declaring the mighty deeds of God
(e.g., Ps. 73:28; Jer. 51:10).
The challenge to
each young person is: are you a witness for Christ?
Christ commissioned every Believer in Acts 1:8: “ye
shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come
upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in
Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto
the uttermost part of the earth.” There is no age
limit for declaring the truth.
Rejoice In
It (v. 14)
I
have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies, as much as
in all riches.
Here is a powerful
contrast. The world rejoices in material riches. As one
commentator illustrates, have you ever seen the
television game show The Price is
Right? The wild excitement of
people who win (or even get to “Come on down!” and play)
is astounding.[v] They act like squealing
children on Christmas morning. But we have been given
riches that cannot compare with such things, yet we take
them lightly and nonchalantly.
The psalmist declares that
the Word of God gives more cause for rejoicing than
material riches. It literally reads, “as over all
riches.” As mentioned in our introduction, many believe
that David penned this Psalm, and this verse provides
strong evidence for that view. David was a king with
incalculable wealth, but his rejoicing was in the wealth
of the Word. Mark it down, the more of God’s Word you
learn and know, the more you will rejoice in it. That is
a guarantee.
Meditate
Upon It (v. 15)
I
will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy
ways.
As Puritan Charles
Bridges rightly observes, “Our rejoicing in the
testimonies of God will naturally flow in an
habitual meditation in them”
(emphasis in the original).
Another marvelous
verse here is Psalm 19:14, “Let the words of my mouth,
and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy
sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.” What is
meditation? Many think it is some
empty-mindedness, where one sits cross-legged on the
floor, with their fingers making some odd shape, and
then contemplating the sound of one hand clapping. On
the contrary, the Hebrew is higgayon, which
refers to the murmur or dull sound of a harp and
therefore the subdued or soft playing of a musical
instrument. Does that not tell us what mediation is? We
can define it as quiet and concentrated
thought. We should often quietly
ponder the Word, concentrate on its precepts, turn it
over and over in our thoughts.
Spurgeon writes here, “As
the miser often returns to look upon his treasure, so
does the devout believer by frequent meditation turn
over the priceless wealth which he has discovered in the
book of the Lord.” In contrast to the miser who picks up
handfuls of gold coins and allows them to sift through
his fingers as he greedily gazes upon them, we handle
the priceless wealth of the Word and praise God for
it.
What a lack there is of
this today! Many churches are places of entertainment
and sheer noise. As the old expression goes, one can’t
even hear himself think. God, however, speaks in “a
still, small voice” (1 Kings 19:12), or literally, “a
sound of soft stillness,” so we must be still and
listen.
So vital is the Word of
God that Jeremiah wrote: “Thy words were found, and I
did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and
rejoicing of mine heart” (Jer. 15:16). Of this verse,
one writer comments:
Meditation is that exercise of
mind, whereby it recalls a known truth, as some kinds of
creatures do their food, to be ruminated upon, until the
nutritious parts are extracted, and fitted for the
purposes of life.[vi]
Here we see one feeding
upon the Word as though life depended upon it. Why?
Because it does! Oh, let us truly meditate and feed upon
the Word God.
Delight In
It (v. 16a)
I
will delight myself in thy
statutes:
Rightly so, for this
follows meditation. The more involved we are with the
Word, the more we will delight in it. We see this word many times in this Psalm
(note v. 35), but let us for now just meditate on a few
poetic lines:
As the bird delights in the
seed,
So do I upon Your Word feed.
As the bee delights in the
flower,
So do I long for the Word’s
power.
As the deer pants for the water
brook,
So do I at Your Word alone
look.
As the miser delights in his silver and
gold,
So do I desire only Your Word to
hold.
That leads us to a final
attitude.
Not forget
It (v. 16b)
I
will not forget thy word.
What a statement to
end this stanza! Note the progression of it. Surely when
we are memorizing, learning, declaring, rejoicing,
meditating, and delighting in the Word, we are not
likely to forget it.
It’s especially noteworthy that this stanza begins and
ends with a mental exercise. First we memorize,
and last we never forget.
If we might add to our
first two principles:
·
A sign of maturity is not being possessed by
passion but being controlled by
Christ.
·
A sign of maturity is not being motivated by
the material, but seeking the
spiritual.
·
A sign of maturity is not in wallowing in the
world, but in wanting the Word.
Yes,
the world defines maturity in various ways, but we will
know true maturity only by purity of life, seeking the
right things, and involvement with the Word of God.
[i] Baker and Carpenter,
#734.
[ii] Baker and Carpenter,
#1875.
[iii] Baker and Carpenter,
#7686.
[iv] Deiltzsch,
Biblical Commentary on Psalms, p. 243. Also Cited in Boice, p.
970.
[v] Suggested in Phillips, p.
273.
[vi] Bishop Horne. Cited in
Bridges.
