Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Righteousness of God and the Truth of His Word (Psalm 119:137–144) | Charles Spurgeon

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The Righteousness of God and the Truth of His Word (Psalm 119:137–144) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Imagine standing in a courtyard, bound and completely helpless.
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  Right. Just a horrific situation, yeah.
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  You are forced to watch as a usurper brings out your children
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  1 by 1 and he murders them right in front of your eyes.
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  It is the kind of nightmare most of us cannot even compute.
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  No, we cannot. Your entire lineage is wiped out
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  in a matter of minutes. The psychological agony of a
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  moment like that is, well, it is beyond words.
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  It is. If you were in that position,
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  you know what words would come out of your mouth.
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  I mean, for most of us it would be a scream of absolute rage.
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  Absolutely. It would be an accusation
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  against heaven. We would demand to know why a
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  good God would allow such a horrific, unjust reality to
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  unfold. Yes, that is the natural human
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  reflex. But there is a historical
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  account of a man who actually lived through that specific
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  nightmare, and the words that came out of his mouth completely
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  defy human logic. They really do.
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  Today we are looking at a terrifyingly perfect scale of
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  justice. Welcome to reform thinking.
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  Glad to be here. If you are listening to this
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  right now, you are stepping into a meticulous, uncompromising
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  examination of our source material.
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  We are doing a comprehensive deep dive into the source
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  material today. Specifically, we are looking at
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  Charles Spurgeon's The Treasury of David.
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  Which is just an incredible resource.
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  It really is. We are focusing our attention
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  entirely on Psalm 119 versus 137 through 144.
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  Our mission here is to extract the theological weight and the
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  practical application of these texts.
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  And we are keeping it strict to the text today.
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  Yes, both of us approach the Scripture from a Protestant
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  perspective, firmly adhering to the Westminster Confession of
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  Faith. We are going to look at what the
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  text actually says about the character of God, the Crucible
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  of affliction, and the nature of true spiritual life without
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  adding outside material to the mix.
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  Right, we are letting the text speak for itself.
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  So let us get straight to it. We are entering a section of the
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  Psalm that corresponds to the Hebrew letter Saudi.
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  I know there is a specific structural and conceptual weight
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  attached to that letter in the original language, right?
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  Yeah, that is spot on. That structural element sets the
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  tone for everything we're about to discuss in the design of this
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  acrostic Psalm. Every single verse in this
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  specific stanza begins with the letter Saudi, and the central
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  concept historically tied to that letter is purity and
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  righteousness. The text.
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  It does not ease us into this idea at all.
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  It. Just drops right in.
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  It really does. Verse 137 starts with the
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  definitive declaration. It says righteous art thou, O
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  Lord, and upright are thy judgments.
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  And then verse 138 follows up by stating that His testimonies are
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  commanded, righteous and very faithful from a Reform
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  perspective, holding to God's absolute sovereignty.
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  This is a massive theological anchor.
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  How so? Well, righteousness is not a
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  standard that God just, you know, decides to follow.
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  It is not an external rule book that He consults to make sure He
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  is doing the right thing. Oh I see he does not check a
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  manual. Right.
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  He is the law. His very essence is the
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  definition of what is right. So because of that, everything
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  that proceeds from him, his judgments, his decrees, his
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  providential dealings with humanity, all of it, is
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  inherently flawless. That is a staggering thought.
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  It is the Puritan commentator Thomas Mann and points out
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  something really heavy about this reality.
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  He notes that God is entirely impartial in his justice.
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  Impartial meaning what in this context?
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  Well, we often think of God grading on a curve, right?
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  Like letting certain things slide for the people he favors.
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  But Manton points out that God did not spare the angels who
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  rebelled in heaven. Right, they were cast out.
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  Well, yes, he cast them down without a second thought.
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  And even more arresting is the fact that God did not spare His
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  own Son when the sins of His people were imputed to Him on
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  the cross. That is a huge point in Reformed
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  theology. It is the wrath was poured out
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  fully and completely. So Manton argues that if God
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  acts with such terrifying impartiality toward the heavenly
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  host and toward Christ himself, believers should never expect
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  immunity from severe discipline when they stray.
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  Wow, that thought completely disrupts the modern casual
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  approach to faith. Oh, entirely.
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  We live in an era where people treat God like a cosmic Butler,
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  You know, like he just exists to make our lives comfortable.
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  Yeah, the vending machine. God.
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  Yes, but when we face severe trials or discipline, our human
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  reason acts like a faulty compass in the middle of a
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  violent storm. That is a great way to put it.
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  The magnetic interference of our pain and our pride causes the
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  needle to spin wildly. Our immediate instinct, guided
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  by that broken compass, is to conclude that God is unjust.
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  We immediately assume we are being treated unfairly.
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  Right. And we think we deserve better.
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  But faith requires us to stop looking at the spinning needle
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  of our emotions and calibrate to the true north of God's inherent
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  righteousness. We have to declare that He is
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  right, even when the storm is tearing our lives apart.
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  That is a very hard thing to do in practice.
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  It is, and I want to ask a difficult practical question
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  here. It is easy to say God is
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  righteous when you lose a promotion at work or, you know,
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  get a flat tire. Right.
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  Minor inconveniences, yeah. But how does a believer
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  practically process this when the suffering is catastrophic?
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  How does someone genuinely reconcile severe, agonizing
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  Providence with the idea of a loving, just God?
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  That is the defining question of the Christian experience, and it
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  brings us right back to the scenario you described at the
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  start of our conversation. The courtyard, yes.
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  The text mentions an anecdote regarding Emperor Maurice taken
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  from Edward Givens, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
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  OK, tell us about that. Emperor Maurice was deposed by a
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  usurper named Focus. He was taken captive and forced
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  to watch the execution of his five sons.
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  Unimaginable. As each fatal blow was struck,
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  eliminating his family and inflicting the most horrific
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  psychological pain imaginable, Emperor Maurice did not curse
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  God. What did he do?
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  He repeated the words of Psalm 119, verse 137.
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  He said, Righteous art thou, O Lord, and upright are thy
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  judgments. Just incredible.
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  That is not a natural human reaction that requires a
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  supernatural grace. To answer your question about
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  reconciling this severe Providence with a loving God,
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  the commentary points us to the wisdom of Thomas Brooks.
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  What does Brooks say? Brooks noted that the primary
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  concern of a believer under the afflicting hand of God should be
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  to clear the Lord of all injustice.
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  Clear the Lord of injustice. That is a fascinating phrase.
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  It is when tragedy strikes, the believer must assert that there
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  is not the slightest spot, stain or blemish of cruelty in what
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  God has ordained. The reconciliation happens when
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  we recognize that God never afflicts except an absolute
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  faithfulness to His covenant. He is always faithful.
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  Yes, His will is the rule of justice.
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  Therefore a gracious soul dares not cavil or question His
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  proceedings, because doing so would be accusing the Judge of
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  all the earth of acting wickedly.
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  I want to pause on that story of Emperor Maries for a second,
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  because the sheer weight of it is hard to process.
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  It is very heavy. If I'm sitting in traffic and
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  someone cuts me off, my immediate internal reaction is
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  often completely devoid of that kind of grace.
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  I think we could all relate to that.
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  I get defensive. I feel slated.
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  So to think of a man watching his children die and still
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  verbally affirming the absolute righteousness of God.
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  That exposes how incredibly shallow our typical reaction to
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  hardship really is. It really puts our daily
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  complaints into perspective. It does.
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  It shows a complete submission of the human ego to the divine
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  will. If a believer actually grasps
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  that level of divine justice, it has to change how they interact
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  with a society that completely ignores God.
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  It completely shifts your worldview.
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  Right. A world that treats God as an
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  afterthought must look entirely different to someone who
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  understands His terrifying purity.
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  That leads us directly to the emotional reaction described in
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  verse 139. Yes, the verse on Zeal, yeah.
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  It says, My zeal hath consumed me, because mine enemies have
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  forgotten thy words. We really need to define what
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  the psalmist means by zeal in this context.
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  Go ahead. The commentary describes it as a
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  high degree of love that vents itself in grieve and indignation
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  when the object of that love is mistreated.
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  So it is a protective response. Yes, it is a protective, fiery
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  response. You see people disregard the
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  creator of the universe breaking his laws without a second
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  thought, and it provokes A visceral reaction, the psalmist
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  says. He is consumed by it.
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  Like it eats him up inside. Exactly.
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  That is right. It physically and emotionally
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  exhausts him. The Puritan George Swenik
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  provides a fascinating framework for this reaction.
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  He uses a concept for medieval natural philosophy called Holy
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  Antiperastasis. OK, holy antiperastasis sounds
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  like a term that requires A theology degree to unpack.
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  It is a bit of a mouthful. It really is.
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  Can you break that down for someone who has no background in
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  medieval philosophy? What does that actually look
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  like in practice? It is a dense term, but the
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  concept is actually quite intuitive once you picture it.
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  The idea of anti parestasis was that a quality increases in
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  intensity when it is surrounded by its opposite.
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  Surrounded by its opposite, OK. Think of a campfire burning in
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  the middle of a snowy, freezing winter night.
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  Oh, I like that visual. Right.
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  The cold blasts of air do not put the fire out.
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  In certain conditions, the surrounding coldness actually
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  forces the heat to concentrate, making the fire flame higher and
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  burn hotter at its core. That makes perfect sense.
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  Swinnik applies this to the spiritual life.
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  He says that when a believer is surrounded by the freezing
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  coldness, apathy and hostility of the world, it should not
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  extinguish their love for God. It should do the opposite.
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  Yes, that surrounding cultural coldness should cause the
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  believer zeal to blaze with even greater intensity.
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  The apathy of the world acts as a catalyst.
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  Wow. Richard Greenham expands on this
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  by contrasting worldly obsessions with this godly zeal.
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  What does Greenham say? He points out that every person
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  is consumed by something. A drunkard is consumed by the
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  pursuit of dream. A heretic is consumed by the
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  spread of false doctrine. A worldly man is consumed by the
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  acquisition of wealth. Everyone has their fire.
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  Yes, but worldly zeal always leaves the person empty.
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  It results in a tormented conscience and a decaying body.
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  In stark contrast, the believer who is eaten up with godly zeal
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  receives a remarkable benefit. Which is.
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  Even as their outward man perishes from the exhaustion of
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  their devotion, their inward band is continually refreshed
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  and nourished unto everlasting life.
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  I really like that campfire analogy.
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  It makes me think of an immune system response in the human
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  body. Oh, that is a good comparison.
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  When a physical body is invaded by a pathogen, the immune system
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  does not just sit there passively, it raises the
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  internal temperature. Right, it fights back.
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  Yeah, it creates a fever to burn out the infection and protect
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  the vital organs. In the same way, the spiritual
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  body develops a burning zeal, a holy fever, when it is
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  surrounded by the infection of sin and the blatant
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  forgetfulness of God's Word. That is a very accurate way to
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  frame it. The believer is living in a sick
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  world and the ungodly environment sparks this internal
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  fire. But this brings up a huge issue
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  regarding human nature. What is that?
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  We are incredibly adept at masking our own flaws as
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  virtues. If I am arguing with someone
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  online about theology, or if I am upset with the culture around
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  me, it is very easy for me to label my anger as holy zeal.
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  Oh definitely. We do that all the time.
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  So how do we differentiate between self-righteous fleshly
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  anger, which is really just my own pride disguised as piety,
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  and genuine God honoring zeal? That distinction is vital
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  because fleshly anger destroys the soul, while true zeal
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  nourishes it. The commentary points out that
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  true zeal is fueled entirely by God's words, not by human ego.
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  So the source matters. Yes, you have to interrogate the
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  root of the anger. If your indignation is rooted in
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  the fact that you feel personally slighted, or your
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  political preferences are being ignored, or you're simply losing
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  an argument, that is the zeal of the flesh.
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  It is just about me in that case.
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  Yes, it is self-centered, but genuine zeal stems purely from
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  the fact that God's holy standard is being trampled.
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  You are mourning for the dishonor done to His name, not
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  your own. That is a very sobering test.
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  It is true zeal consumes self rather than elevating self, and
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  the text makes it clear that this godly zeal is fed
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  specifically by the Word of God. Because the psalmist says his
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  enemies have forgotten thy words, right?
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  The Scripture itself is the object of this intense devotion.
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  That brings us to verse 140 with the actual nature of these
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  Scriptures is laid bare. Let us look at that verse.
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  Verse 140 states Thy word is very pure, therefore thy servant
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  loveth it. The commentary describes the
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  word as truth distilled entirely free from any admixture of
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  error, vanity, or sin. I am curious how the
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  commentators illustrate that level of absolute purity.
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  We use the word pure all the time in modern language to
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  describe things like spring water or organic food.
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  Right. But we usually just mean it is
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  mostly clean, yeah. The text seems to be making a
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  much stronger claim about the Bible.
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  It's making an absolute claim. To illustrate this, the text
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  brings in a striking historical example.
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  The bore have experiment. The bore have experiment.
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  Tell me about that. Hermann Bore Have was a highly
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  influential chemist, and he conducted an experiment where he
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  placed a single ounce of pure gold into a glass furnace.
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  OK, pure gold in a furnace. He kept it there, subjected to
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  intense continuous heat for two solid months.
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  Two months. That is a long time for
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  experiment like. That it is.
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  At the end of those two months, he removed the gold and found
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  that it had not lost a single grain of its weight.
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  Wow, not a single grain. No, it was entirely fixed and
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  incorrupted. The commentators apply that
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  historical reality directly to the Scriptures.
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  The Word of God has been tried and purified in the furnace of
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  human skepticism, violent persecution, and historical
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  scrutiny for centuries. The heat has been on the Bible
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  for a long time. Yes, yet it is not lost a single
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  grain of its truth. It holds up under the fiercest
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  heat, and on top of that, the word is not just pure in its own
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  static nature, it acts as an act of purifying agent on the
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  believer. It changes us.
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  Right. A true child of God does not
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  want the Bible dragged down to accommodate their own imperfect,
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  sinful lifestyle. They want their character to be
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  raised to meet the holy standard of the Scripture.
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  That is a very different attitude than what we often see.
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  It is William Graham highlights the multifaceted magnificence of
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  this word by listing its various titles.
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  What are some of those titles? He calls it the Word of Christ
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  because He is its author and subject, the Word of the cross
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  because it reveals the luster of eternal mercy, the word of the
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  Kingdom because it promises an everlasting dominion of peace,
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  and the word of salvation because its design is the rescue
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  of perishing sinners. That bore have illustration is
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  fantastic. It pairs perfectly with how I
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  view the active nature of the text.
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  Think of the word of God as an industrial grade solvent.
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  A solvent. I like where this is going.
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  If you have an engine block that is completely covered in years
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  of baked on grease, applying a weak, watered down household
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  cleaner might make the surface look a little shiny for a
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  minute, but it leaves all the actual grime intact.
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  Right, does not do the real work.
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  You need an industrial solvent to aggressively attack the
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  grease and strip away the build up down to the bare metal.
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  God's Word does not just sit on a shelf looking pristine.
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  No, it is active. When it is applied to the human
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  heart by the Holy Spirit, it aggressively strips away the
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  baked on grime of our depravity, our self deception and our
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  hidden sins. That is a great analogy.
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  What stands out to me here is the specific sequence of the
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  psalmist's thought. He says Thy word is very pure,
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  therefore thy servant loveth it. The therefore is key.
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  Yeah, he does not say he loves it because it promises him an
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  easy life or because it guarantees him financial
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  success. He loves it specifically because
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  it is pure. Thomas Manton observed something
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  striking about that specific phrasing.
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  He argues that loving the word specifically for its purity is
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  actual evidence of partaking in the divine nature.
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  Really. How so?
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  Think about that for a moment. When we hate evil simply because
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  it is evil, and we love good simply because it is good,
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  without any secondary motives of reward or punishment, we're
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  demonstrating the very love and hatred that God himself
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  possesses. Oh I see we are mirroring his
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  character. Yes, it shows that the heart has
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  been regenerated. The natural man might love the
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  Bible for its historical poetry or because some of his moral
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  principles make society function better.
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  Sure, people respect the Bible as a cultural document.
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  Right, but only a believer regenerated by the Holy Spirit
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  loves the Scripture because it is unyieldingly holy.
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  However, living this uncompromising word in a fallen
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  world inevitably puts the believer at odds with their
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  surrounding culture. Because the culture hates that
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  purity. Yes, the world despises that
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  kind of purity. This friction leads directly to
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  a state of earthly insignificance and suffering,
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  which is what we see the psalmist experiencing in verses
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  141 and 143. Let us read those.
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  Verse 141 says I am small and despised, yet do not I forget
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  thy precepts. Then verse 143 adds, Trouble and
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  anguish have taken hold on me, yet Thy commandments are my
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  delights. That sounds like a contradiction
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  to the modern year. It really does.
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  We are often told that if you follow God, your life will
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  become larger, more respected and free from trouble.
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  Yet the psalmist says he is small, despised and gripped by
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  anguish. It is the opposite of the
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  prosperity gospel. Completely.
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  If God is completely sovereign and loves his people, why would
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  he intentionally orchestrate their lives so that they end up
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  despised and afflicted? It feels completely
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  counterintuitive. Thomas Manton addresses that
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  exact tension by outlining several reasons why God
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  intentionally brings his own people into these low despised
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  conditions. What are his reasons?
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  I want to focus on two of the most counterintuitive reasons he
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  gives. First, Manton says that
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  affliction cuts off the provisions of the flesh,
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  effectively starving the fuel for our lust.
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  Starving the fuel. He uses the phrase A rank Soil
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  breeds weeds. If a believer is constantly
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  surrounded by wealth, ease and cultural applause, that
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  environment acts like a heavy fertilizer for human pride,
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  laziness and self-sufficiency. So the comfort is actually
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  dangerous. Yes, it is very dangerous.
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  By stripping away those comforts and allowing the believer to
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  become small and despised, God is intentionally cutting off the
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  food supply to their most dangerous sins.
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  That makes a lot of sense. Second, Manton points out that
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  these afflicted conditions prove to the enemies of God that
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  believers are sincere. How does it prove sincerity?
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  Well, if every Christian was wealthy and immune to suffering,
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  the world would rightly assume that people only follow Christ
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  for carnal, selfish gain. Right, they would think it is
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  just a transaction. Exactly.
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  By allowing believers to suffer deeply and yet remain faithful,
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  God displays the supernatural reality of their faith to a
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  skeptical world. That concept of starving the
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  fuel for our lusts is uncomfortable, but it makes
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  perfect sense. We always want the rank soil,
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  but we never want to admit that we are growing weeds.
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  We never want to admit that. And the language the psalmist
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  uses to describe the suffering is incredibly aggressive.
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  He says trouble and anguish have taken hold on him.
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  This is not a passive sadness. This sounds like an active
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  attack. It is an active attack.
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  The phrase taken hold on me in the original Hebrew implies the
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  concept of finding someone. Like hunting them down.
• 19:24
  Yes, the commentator AR Fawcett likens this to fierce hunting
• 19:29
  dogs tracking down a wild beast that is trying to hide in the
• 19:32
  woods. That is a terrifying image.
• 19:34
  It is meant to be. You can try to run from trouble.
• 19:37
  You can try to hide behind your wealth, your status or your
• 19:40
  intellect. But trouble and anguish are sent
• 19:42
  out like bloodhounds, and they inevitably track the believer
• 19:45
  down. They sniff out your hiding
• 19:47
  places. So you cannot escape it.
• 19:49
  No, you cannot. Yet in the midst of being hunted
• 19:53
  by these hounds of sorrow, the believer experiences an enigma.
• 19:57
  They are troubled, yet they are delighted.
• 19:59
  Which makes no sense on paper, right?
• 20:01
  Thomas Aquinas offered a rule for evaluating human nature that
• 20:04
  applies perfectly here. He stated that a person's
• 20:07
  character is judged entirely by the object of their delight.
• 20:11
  So what we love defines who we are, yes?
• 20:14
  Good men delight and good things, and evil men delight and
• 20:17
  evil things. The fact that the afflicted
• 20:19
  believer, while being hunted by anguish, still finds their
• 20:23
  ultimate joy in the commandments of God proves the internal
• 20:26
  reality of their regeneration. Even when everything goes wrong.
• 20:30
  Yes, the external world is tearing them apart, but their
• 20:33
  internal delight remains fixed on the holy standard of the
• 20:36
  Scripture I. Picture that believer like a
• 20:38
  deep sea submarine a. Submarine.
• 20:40
  Yeah, if you look at the environment around a submarine
• 20:42
  at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, it is completely hostile
• 20:46
  to human life. Right, it is deadly.
• 20:48
  The external pressure is immense, thousands of pounds per
• 20:51
  square inch, and it is actively seeking to crush the hull and
• 20:55
  annihilate everything inside. That is the trouble and anguish
• 20:59
  pressing in from all sides. The hunting dogs have caught up
• 21:02
  to you. OK, I see the connection.
• 21:05
  But the submarine survives because of its internal
• 21:07
  structural integrity. It pushes back against the
• 21:10
  darkness and the crushing weight.
• 21:13
  For the believer, that internal structural integrity is the
• 21:17
  delight in God's commandments. That is a brilliant way to
• 21:20
  picture it. The external pressure is
• 21:21
  terrifying, but the internal pressure of the Holy Spirit and
• 21:25
  the joy of the Word sustains life.
• 21:27
  If we apply that to the average listener right now, it
• 21:30
  completely reframes how we view a bad medical diagnosis, a
• 21:33
  financial collapse or a broken relationship.
• 21:36
  It changes the entire paradigm. When those bloodhounds catch us,
• 21:39
  our modern reflex is to assume God has abandoned us.
• 21:43
  We think I must have done something wrong because I am
• 21:45
  suffering, but the text is saying the opposite.
• 21:47
  The suffering is the test. Yes, the Crucible of Affliction
• 21:51
  is the very arena where your internal structural integrity is
• 21:54
  proven. The pain is the testing ground
• 21:57
  of your delight. And that internal structural
• 22:00
  integrity can only hold up if the material it is built from is
• 22:04
  unbreakable. Right.
• 22:05
  It cannot be flimsy, no. Yeah, the believer's delight
• 22:08
  cannot be based on their own changing emotions or it would
• 22:11
  collapse under the pressure of the ocean floor.
• 22:13
  It has to be based on something immutable.
• 22:15
  Something that does not change. Yes, we see the foundation of
• 22:19
  that structural integrity declared in verse 142.
• 22:22
  It says Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and
• 22:25
  thy law is the truth. Everlasting.
• 22:27
  Here we see the assertion that God's mode of procedure toward
• 22:30
  humanity is completely unchanging.
• 22:33
  Manton provides a helpful contrast between human
• 22:36
  legislation and divine law using a simple phrase, he says.
• 22:39
  New Lords, new laws. New Lords, new laws.
• 22:42
  You see that every time there is an election cycle or a change in
• 22:45
  corporate management. You really do the.
• 22:46
  Rules change overnight based on whoever holds the gavel.
• 22:50
  How does Manton apply that to God's righteousness?
• 22:52
  In the realm of human government, decrees are
• 22:55
  constantly being repealed, amended or discarded based on
• 22:58
  cultural shifts, new leadership or changing political winds.
• 23:02
  Sure, it is always in flux. The privilege granted today can
• 23:06
  easily be revoked tomorrow. You can never truly rest your
• 23:10
  full weight on a human law because the next administration
• 23:13
  might overturn it. But God's righteousness holds
• 23:17
  forever. It is permanent.
• 23:18
  It is. This ties directly into the core
• 23:20
  of Westminster Confession theology regarding
• 23:22
  justification. The justification of the
• 23:25
  believer by Christ is a forensic, irrevocable act.
• 23:29
  Irrevocable, meaning it cannot be undone.
• 23:32
  Yes, when God declares A Sinner righteous based on the imputed
• 23:36
  righteousness of Christ, that verdict stands for eternity.
• 23:39
  It is an everlasting righteousness as the scripture
• 23:42
  says. I will remember their sin no
• 23:44
  more. That is a huge comfort.
• 23:46
  It is, and the text makes a vital distinction about the
• 23:49
  nature of the Bible itself. The psalmist does not say that
• 23:51
  God's law contains truth or that it is a truth among many
• 23:54
  options. What does he say?
• 23:56
  He says, Thy law is the truth. It is the chief truth
• 24:00
  superseding all human philosophy.
• 24:03
  It is the pure truth without any mixture of falsehood, and is the
• 24:07
  whole truth containing everything necessary for the
• 24:09
  salvation of those who yield to it.
• 24:11
  That idea of human philosophy versus divine truth makes me
• 24:15
  think of shifting sand dunes in a vast desert.
• 24:18
  Shifting sand dunes. Yeah, human cultural norms
• 24:22
  change shape with every wind of public opinion.
• 24:25
  What is considered absolute moral consensus in one decade is
• 24:28
  completely discarded and viewed as barbaric in the next.
• 24:31
  We see that happening all the time.
• 24:33
  If you build your identity and your life on those dunes, you
• 24:36
  will eventually find yourself sinking.
• 24:38
  But God's law is the bedrock beneath the earth's crust.
• 24:41
  It does not shift. It does not accommodate the
• 24:43
  wind. It stays steady.
• 24:44
  Yes, John Calvin made an assertion on this point, stating
• 24:47
  that all human precepts, no matter how attractive or refined
• 24:50
  they appear, are but a shadow that quickly vanishes away.
• 24:53
  There is nothing firm or solid at their bottom.
• 24:55
  That is classic Calvin. But this creates a massive
• 24:58
  tension for the listener. We know the law is the bedrock.
• 25:01
  We know Christ's justification is eternal, but our daily
• 25:06
  performance is a mess. Oh yes, the daily reality is
• 25:10
  very different. I look at my own life and I see
• 25:12
  inconsistency, failure, and sin. When my conscience is actively
• 25:16
  condemning me for my failures, how do I actually rest on the
• 25:20
  bedrock of God's everlasting righteousness instead of
• 25:23
  constantly staring at my own fleeting shadows?
• 25:25
  That is the perpetual daily struggle of the Christian life.
• 25:29
  The answer requires us to look entirely outside of ourselves.
• 25:33
  The believer must recognize the theological distinction between
• 25:36
  justification and sanctification.
• 25:38
  OK, let us break that. Down our standing before God.
• 25:40
  Our justification is not based on our daily performance.
• 25:43
  It is based solely on the finished work of Christ.
• 25:46
  Right. Our sanctification, which is our
• 25:48
  daily growth and holiness, will always be imperfect in this
• 25:51
  life. We will stumble, we will act
• 25:53
  selfishly. We will lack the holy zeal we
• 25:56
  discussed earlier. We fail all the time.
• 25:58
  We do, but our justification is a completed legal declaration
• 26:02
  made in the courtroom of heaven. When our conscience condemns us,
• 26:07
  we do not defend ourselves by pointing to our own meager
• 26:10
  improvements or our good intentions.
• 26:12
  Because those are just shadows, yes.
• 26:14
  We point to the everlasting righteousness of the Son of God,
• 26:17
  which has been legally credited to our account.
• 26:19
  We plead His perfection, not our own.
• 26:22
  That is the only way to find peace.
• 26:24
  It is recognizing the absolute perfection of this truth while
• 26:28
  simultaneously recognizing our own utter inability to grasp it
• 26:31
  purely by our own intellect, leads the psalmist to his final
• 26:35
  plea in verse 144. What is his plea?
• 26:37
  He cries out for the spiritual vitality required to apprehend
• 26:40
  these realities. Verse 144 reads, The
• 26:43
  righteousness of thy testimonies is everlasting.
• 26:45
  Give me understanding and I shall live.
• 26:47
  Give me understanding and I shall live.
• 26:49
  Yes, the commentary makes a stark claim here.
• 26:52
  It says to live without understanding the things of God
• 26:54
  is to be dead while living. Dead while living.
• 26:56
  We generally define life purely in biological terms.
• 26:59
  Right breathing and eating. Yeah, if you have respiration,
• 27:02
  brain activity and a beating heart, you are alive.
• 27:05
  The medical chart says you are functioning, but the psalmist is
• 27:08
  defining true life in a completely different category.
• 27:11
  He is looking past the biological.
• 27:13
  He is saying that biological life without spiritual
• 27:15
  understanding is not actual life.
• 27:18
  If you lack the understanding that connects you to the
• 27:20
  everlasting righteousness of God, then whatever you are doing
• 27:23
  right now, going to work, eating dinner, planning a vacation, you
• 27:27
  are not truly alive. That is a heavy realization.
• 27:30
  How do the commentators unpack this specific definition of
• 27:33
  life? Thomas Manton breaks this down
• 27:35
  by defining what he calls a threefold life.
• 27:38
  What is the first one? First, there is natural life.
• 27:40
  This is our temporal existence in the physical body.
• 27:43
  Interestingly, Manton knows that even this basic natural life is
• 27:47
  best preserved by obedience to God.
• 27:49
  Why is that? Because living a life of sin
• 27:52
  often exposes a person to physical danger, disease, and
• 27:55
  ruin. The reckless life physically
• 27:58
  destroys you faster. That is a very practical
• 28:01
  observation. It is Second, there is spiritual
• 28:04
  life in Reformed soteriology. This spiritual life is divided
• 28:09
  into the two concepts we just touched on, justification and
• 28:12
  sanctification. OK, remind us.
• 28:14
  Well, point out how that works here.
• 28:16
  By nature, apart from Christ, we are dead in law.
• 28:19
  We were like a prisoner sitting on death row waiting for
• 28:21
  execution. Justification cancels that
• 28:24
  sentence and legally grants us life.
• 28:26
  So that is the legal aspect of the spiritual life.
• 28:29
  Yes, and then sanctification is the inward quickening.
• 28:32
  It is the actual breathing of spiritual vitality into a soul
• 28:36
  that was dead in trespasses and sins.
• 28:38
  It is the heart starting to beat with holy desires.
• 28:41
  And the third life. 3rd There is eternal life, which is the life
• 28:44
  of glory in heaven, completely free from all sin and sorrow.
• 28:47
  OK, so natural, spiritual and eternal.
• 28:49
  Yes, John Calvin offers a very blunt assessment of a natural
• 28:52
  man who only possesses the first category of life.
• 28:55
  He says that men who lack heavenly wisdom and only seek
• 28:58
  earthly comfort are worse than beasts stuck in their bellies.
• 29:01
  Wow, worse than beasts? Because they fail to fulfill the
• 29:04
  specific reason for which they were created.
• 29:08
  Manton uses 2 Latin phrases to describe our present earthly
• 29:11
  existence apart from divine grace.
• 29:14
  He calls it Mores Vitalis, which translates to a living death,
• 29:18
  and Mortalis Vita, which means a dying life.
• 29:21
  A dying life. Yes, this temporal existence is
• 29:25
  constantly slipping away from us, like a shadow moving across
• 29:28
  a stream. We die as fast as we live.
• 29:31
  That concept of a living death, Moore's Vitalis, is haunting.
• 29:35
  It makes me think of a cut flower sitting in a vase of
• 29:38
  water on a kitchen counter. Oh, that is a striking image.
• 29:41
  To a casual observer walking through the room, the flower
• 29:43
  looks vibrant. It is colorful, its petals are
• 29:46
  bright, and it appears fully alive.
• 29:49
  But the objective reality is that the moment the shears snip
• 29:51
  the stem, severing the flower from its roots, system death
• 29:54
  became inevitable. The clock started ticking.
• 29:57
  It is drinking water, but it is just a matter of time before the
• 30:00
  petals wither, turn brown, and fall onto the counter.
• 30:03
  Our natural earthly existence without God is exactly like that
• 30:06
  cut flower. We look alive, but we are
• 30:09
  severed from the root. Yes, we might have a great
• 30:11
  career, we might look successful and healthy, but we are severed
• 30:15
  from the source of eternity. We are already dying.
• 30:20
  True understanding, the kind the psalmist is begging for in verse
• 30:23
  144, is the miracle of being grafted back into the root
• 30:27
  system. It reconnects us to the source.
• 30:29
  It is the infusion of the Holy Spirit that provides actual
• 30:33
  everlasting life rather than just a delayed death.
• 30:36
  But this brings up a massive practical hurdle for the
• 30:39
  listener. What is the hurdle?
• 30:40
  We can read the treasury of David, We can study Manton and
• 30:43
  Calvin. We can agree with the theology
• 30:45
  of justification. But how do we bridge the gap?
• 30:48
  Between the head and the heart. Yeah.
• 30:50
  How does a believer move from just intellectually knowing the
• 30:53
  text or actually possessing the spiritual understanding that
• 30:56
  produces this abundant eternal life?
• 30:58
  The bridge between intellectual ascent and spiritual vitality is
• 31:02
  the active, illuminating work of the Holy Spirit, which must be
• 31:05
  sought through desperate, persistent prayer.
• 31:07
  Through prayer. Yes, notice the posture of the
• 31:10
  psalmist in verse 144. He does not say I will study
• 31:13
  harder, I will read more commentaries and therefore I
• 31:16
  shall live. Right, he asks for it.
• 31:18
  He says give me understanding. It is a plea for unmerited
• 31:22
  grace. In Reformed theology, we
• 31:26
  recognize that the natural mind is darkened by sin.
• 31:29
  We can read the text, we can understand the original Hebrew
• 31:32
  grammar, and we can even articulate the doctrines of
• 31:34
  grace. Florida State.
• 31:36
  We can have all the right answers on a test.
• 31:38
  Absolutely. But until the Spirit of God
• 31:41
  actively removes the blindness from our eyes, the truth will
• 31:44
  remain abstract. It will not quicken our
• 31:47
  affections, it will not produce godly zeal, and it will not
• 31:50
  sustain us when the hounds of affliction track US down.
• 31:53
  So it has to be a supernatural work.
• 31:56
  It does. The practical application for
• 31:58
  the listener is that a believer must approach the Scriptures not
• 32:02
  as an academic textbook to be mastered, but as a throne of
• 32:05
  grace to be petitioned. We have to ask God to do the
• 32:08
  work. We most constantly ask God to
• 32:10
  take the truth from our heads and ignite it in our hearts.
• 32:13
  The study of theology must always terminate in prayer.
• 32:15
  We have covered an immense amount of ground today.
• 32:17
  We really have. We started by looking into the
• 32:20
  terrifyingly pure justice and inherent righteousness of God,
• 32:24
  recognizing that He is impartial even unto His own Son.
• 32:28
  We saw how confronting that reality and seeing the world's
• 32:31
  absolute apathy toward it should ignite A wholly consuming fever
• 32:35
  within us, a zeal that burns out our own selfishness rather than
• 32:39
  puffing up our pride. And we talked about the pure
• 32:41
  word. Yes, we examine the pure,
• 32:44
  unyielding nature of the word, tested like gold in Borhab's
• 32:47
  furnace acting as a solvent on our sin.
• 32:50
  We saw how clinging to that eternal truth provides the
• 32:53
  internal structural integrity of a submarine, allowing A believer
• 32:56
  to survive the fierce hunting dogs of trouble and anguish.
• 32:59
  The structural integrity is everything.
• 33:02
  And finally, we looked at the absolute necessity of divine
• 33:04
  understanding to escape the living death of mere biological
• 33:07
  existence. So to you, the listener, I ask a
• 33:10
  direct question. Which life are you investing
• 33:13
  your energy into right now? It is the most vital question.
• 33:16
  Are you pouring all your hope and anxiety into the fleeting
• 33:19
  shadow on the stream, or are you anchoring your mind to the
• 33:22
  eternal reality grounded in God's immovable righteousness?
• 33:26
  Consider that concept of Moore's Vitalis the Living Death.
• 33:29
  Yes, if all the earthly comforts you currently enjoy are just a
• 33:32
  patched up fabric hastily stitched together from the
• 33:35
  storehouses of nature, what happens when those supplies
• 33:38
  inevitable run out and the fabric tears?
• 33:41
  Because they will run out. The temporal world will fail
• 33:43
  you. The hunting dogs will find you.
• 33:46
  I leave you to ponder if you have truly bowed your head and
• 33:49
  asked the Almighty for the specific understanding that
• 33:51
  brings actual everlasting life. Keep thinking.