Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Sum of Your Word Is Truth (Psalm 119:153–160) | Charles Spurgeon

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The Sum of Your Word Is Truth (Psalm 119:153–160) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to reformed thinking. Yeah, so glad to be here.
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  You know, usually when we talk about a medical diagnosis, there
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  is this expectation of precision, like it is like
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  engineering. Right, very cut and dry.
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  Yeah, exactly. Or, well, very binary.
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  You break your arm, the X-ray shows that jagged white line,
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  and the doctor just points and says, you know, there it is.
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  Bone A is no longer attached to bone B.
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  Broken or not broken? Right.
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  We like things to be visible, to be categorized, to be fixable
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  with a straightforward procedure.
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  But then you step into the world of intense personal affliction,
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  spiritual crisis, and suddenly that X-ray machine is just
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  useless. Yeah, it really is.
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  You are looking at a landscape that is murky and confusing.
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  So confusing. And you know, if you are
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  listening to this, you've probably been there.
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  You do not just want a cold diagnosis of your suffering.
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  You want an advocate. You want someone who sees the
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  whole picture and steps into the courtroom on your behalf.
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  So I am thrilled you're here with us today for this.
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  This deep dive is a dedicated time for us to sit down away
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  from all the noise and really look at a highly significant
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  text together. I am really looking forward to
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  this one. Me too.
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  We are looking at Charles Spurgeon's The Treasury of
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  David. Specifically, we are focusing on
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  Psalm 119, verses 153 through 160 such.
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  A weighty section of Scripture. It is what we have in this
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  section of the Psalm is a picture of a believer in great
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  distress pleading with God. And we're going to look at how
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  that believer relies on the truth of God's Word, right?
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  Our mission today is to analyze how the psalmist handles this
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  intense affliction. And we want to equip you, the
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  listener, with these theological truths for your own spiritual
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  life. Well, the vulnerability of the
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  psalmist here is it is what grabs my attention right away.
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  Yeah, because we are looking at a person who is entirely
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  stripped of self-reliance. He's in the middle of a massive
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  crisis, and his very first instinct in verse 153 is to
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  pray, consider mine affliction, and deliver me, for I do not
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  forget thy law. Consider mine affliction.
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  Yes, and if we look closely at that specific phrasing we see
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  something super revealing about the believers posture before
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  God. How so?
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  Well, the writer does not demand a hasty rescue.
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  Oh, right, He does not yell out, you know, Get Me Out of here
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  this very second. Instead, he asks God to consider
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  the affliction. That word implies a desire for
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  God to judge the proper method and time for the rescue.
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  That takes a lot of restraint. It does.
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  Spurgeon notes that the writer has a good case, though it is a
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  grievous 1, and he is ready to submit it to divine arbitration.
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  He lays his matters before the Supreme Court, feeling safe at
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  the throne. He is essentially crying out,
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  Look into my grief and see whether I do not need to.
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  Be delivered. You want a ruling?
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  Right from my sorrowful condition judges to the proper
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  method and time for my. That is, that is a very
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  different kind of prayer than the ones we normally pray in a
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  panic. Oh, absolutely.
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  I mean when I am in pain my prayer is usually just a reflex.
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  Just make it stop. Yes, Get Me Out of the fire.
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  Yeah, I am not asking for arbitration or a careful review
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  of the timeline. I just want out.
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  But this shows a real submission to God's wisdom it.
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  Really does. The psalmist wants a full
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  consideration of the sorrow and then deliverance, but he wants
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  the deliverance to come in a way that brings the most glory to
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  God and the most benefit to Himself.
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  And we also have to acknowledge the theological reality here,
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  which is that believers are never without some affliction.
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  Right, it is part of the deal. It is, William Calper notes,
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  that the church is like the burning Bush that is not
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  consumed. Oh that is a great image.
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  Yeah, every member bears a part of the cross of Christ.
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  There is never a time when the church is entirely free from
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  trouble, which is why we continually have need to pray
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  with David. Behold mine affliction.
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  That makes me think of an analogy based on the notes from
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  Otto Vermuleris. OK, let's hear it.
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  He says this prayer is like a sick patient who fully trusts
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  their physician. The patient does not doubt the
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  faithfulness and tenderness of the doctor at all.
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  Yet for all that, the patient asks the doctor to handle the
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  painful wound as gently as possible.
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  Oh. I like that, right?
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  If it is not against the doctor's overall plan for
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  healing, the patient asks for some mitigation of the pain so
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  they do not just utterly faint. That makes a lot of sense.
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  So how does this change our typical frantic prayers for
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  instant relief? Usually we just want the pain to
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  stop, no matter what the cost, right?
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  But this analogy suggests we should trust the physician's
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  method even while asking for a gentle hand.
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  It is a balance of trusting the process while being honest about
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  the agony. And this raises a really vital
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  question about how we view God's attention.
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  And it is a question hew to St. Victor answers with a very
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  detailed list of why God looks upon man.
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  OK, let's dig into that. Knowing these reasons really
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  alters the believers perspective on suffering entirely.
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  So first, God considers us to give light.
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  To give light. Yeah, think of the man blind
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  from birth in John Chapter 9. Jesus passed by and saw him
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  bringing literal and spiritual light to a super dark situation.
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  Wow. When God considers our
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  affliction, he often shines a light on things we could not see
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  before. Maybe a thin we were ignoring or
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  a new path we need to take. So the affliction itself is the
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  context for the illumination? Yes.
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  I mean, if everything were fine, we might never stop to look at
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  the light. We would just keep walking in
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  the dark. Precisely.
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  Was the second reason. Second, God looks upon man to
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  convert him. OK, Jesus saw Matthew sitting at
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  the receipt of custom and simply said, follow me.
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  That look brought conversion. So true affliction often strips
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  away our false idols and forces us to look at the one who is
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  looking at us. It gets our attention.
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  It does. Then third, He looks upon us to
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  restore us. Restore us.
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  Yeah, think about after Peter's denial, the Lord turned and
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  looked upon Peter. Just a look.
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  But that look broke Peter's heart and began his restoration.
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  The mechanics of that are just fascinating.
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  God does not use a megaphone to restore Peter.
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  He uses the look. And in our afflictions, we are
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  asking for that same restorative glance.
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  Yes, the fourth reason is to deliver him.
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  Right deliverance. God said in Exodus.
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  I have surely seen the affliction of my people which
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  are in Egypt. He takes inventory of the
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  suffering before he parts the sea.
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  He sees the whole board. And 5th to advance and reward
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  him. OK, Mary said.
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  God regarded the lowest state of his handmaiden, and Genesis
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  tells us the Lord had respect unto Abel and his offering.
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  So when the psalmist asks God to consider his affliction, he is
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  not just venting, He is inviting any or all of these five
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  actions. He is saying Bring your light,
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  your conversion, your restoration, your deliverance,
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  or your advancement right into my pain.
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  That reframes the entire concept of suffering, doesn't it?
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  It really does. We are not just asking God to
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  passively notice that we have a headache or a broken heart.
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  We are asking him to bring all of those specific active
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  interventions into our situation.
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  We're asking the Supreme Court to take up our case and rule on
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  it. And if God considers the
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  affliction, the next logical step is that the believer needs
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  God to actively step into the courtroom and start arguing on
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  their behalf. Spot on.
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  In verse 154, the psalmist says, plead my cause and deliver me.
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  Quicken me according to thy word.
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  Here we see the concept of God as advocate and Redeemer.
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  Yeah, when a believer is slandered, when they are
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  helpless and without a name or standing in society, God takes
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  up their case. He steps in.
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  He does. Alexander translates this phrase
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  as Strive my strife and redeem me.
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  Drive my strife. That is good.
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  It means God stands in our stead, bears our burden, fights
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  our fight, pays our price, and brings us out to liberty.
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  That is a massive theological comfort.
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  It ties directly into the Reformed view of Christ as the
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  mediator and advocate for poor sinners.
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  Barton Bouchier points out that calling upon God to plead our
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  cause sweetly brings to mind him who was indeed the advocate for
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  sinners. Jesus Christ the Righteous.
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  Yes, Who is the propitiation for our sins?
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  The Westminster Confession speaks very clearly about Christ
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  executing the office of a priest, offering himself as a
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  sacrifice to satisfy divine justice, to reconcile us to God,
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  and making continual intercession for us.
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  I just love how concrete this idea of God striving our strife
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  can become in real life. Do you have an example?
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  I do. There is a historical anecdote
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  about Doctor Edward Payson that illustrates this perfectly.
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  Oh, I know, Payson. Yeah, he was well known minister
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  in the early 19th century and he was falsely accused by a woman
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  he had traveled with on a Boston Packet boat months earlier.
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  Just a terrible situation. It was a nightmare.
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  The circumstances were arranged in such a way that it looked
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  totally impossible for him to escape the accusation.
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  He was cornered. Completely.
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  His reputation, his livelihood and his ministry were all on the
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  line. He was cut off from all human
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  resources, no way out. He had no alibi, no witnesses to
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  defend him. So he went to the throne of
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  grace. He prayed for God to plead his
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  'cause he handed the defense over to the Advocate.
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  And the outcome of that prayer is just a perfect demonstration
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  of God stepping into the courtroom.
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  It really is. What happened was that the woman
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  experienced a sudden, overwhelming compunction.
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  Out of nowhere, she was struck with extreme guilt.
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  She was essentially forced by her own conscience to confess
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  that the whole thing was a malicious slander.
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  She turned herself in. She went to the authorities and
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  cleared his name. God pleaded his cause and
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  cleared his name. Without Doctor Payson having to
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  strike a single blow or hire a single lawyer, The Advocate
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  handled it entirely. That is a vivid picture of
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  divine arbitration. God literally strobe his strife.
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  He did. But notice the second-half of
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  that verse. After asking God to plead his
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  cause and deliver him, the psalmist praise.
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  Quicken me according to thy word.
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  He asks for life. I have to ask about that
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  specific phrase because it shows up multiple times in this text.
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  Why quicken me? Yeah.
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  Why is spiritual life or quickening the central blessing
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  sought here rather than just physical safety?
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  It is a great question. I mean, if you are being
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  slandered or haunted down, wouldn't you just ask to be
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  physically saved and leave it at that?
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  You would think so, but to understand the mechanics of that
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  we have to look at the believers core desires.
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  John Stephen explains this brilliantly.
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  OK, he notes that a godly person makes spiritual gain of
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  everything. Everything, yes.
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  They seek their goodly pearls out of strange conditions, even
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  in distress. The highest good desired is a
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  blessed assimilation to God. A blessed assimilation.
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  Right deliverance from temporal evil and deliverance from
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  spiritual evil are both sought, but along with these, the man of
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  God takes up the prayer to be quickened.
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  Physical deliverance without spiritual quickening leaves a
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  person entirely hollow. So let me make sure I'm
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  tracking. If God gets you out of a tough
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  spot, if He clears your name or cures your illness, but your
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  soul remains dead and cold toward Him, you have missed the
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  highest good. That is the core issue.
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  The believer desires spiritual life above all things.
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  They want more grace, more faith, more courage, and more
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  strength to hold up their heads before their adversaries.
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  They need that vitality. Exactly.
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  Or I should say precisely they know that mere biological
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  survival is not the goal. The goal is vitality in their
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  relationship with God. If they survive the affliction,
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  but their faith is extinguished, the enemy has 1.
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  So Quicken Me is a plea for the lifeblood of faith to keep
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  pumping. That makes a lot of sense.
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  We do not just want to survive the shipwreck, we want to come
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  out of it with a stronger heart. But if this quickening, this
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  life infusion, is the ultimate goal for the believer, what
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  happens to the person who actively rejects the courtroom
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  altogether? What happens to the person who
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  does not want God to plead their cause?
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  The sources paint a drastically different picture of those who
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  reject God's law, and it is a chilling picture.
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  It is very sobering. In verse 155, the text says
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  salvation is far from the wicked, For they seek not thy
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  statues. Here we encounter the full
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  weight of the doctrine of total depravity.
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  We'll talk about that. This is a central tenet of
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  Reformed theology. Total depravity does not mean
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  that people are as evil as they could possibly be in every
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  single action. Right, it is not utter
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  depravity. Correct.
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  It means that the fall of man has corrupted every part of
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  human nature, the mind, the will and the affections.
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  Because of this, the natural man is entirely averse to God.
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  Averse to him. Yes.
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  The wicked are far from salvation because they willfully
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  avoid God's statutes willfully. The mechanics of this are
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  crucial. They do not endeavor to be
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  obedient because their baseline desires are hostile to God.
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  They seek themselves and they seek evil.
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  It is an act of avoidance. Charles Spurgeon writes that by
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  their perseverance and evil, they have almost put themselves
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  out of the pail of hope. They might talk big about being
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  saved, but every step they take in the path of evil removes them
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  further from the Kingdom of grace.
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  It is an issue of the will. Yeah, they are far from
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  salvation because they're walking in the opposite
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  direction and they enjoy the walk.
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  Yes, they do. Their hearts become like stone,
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  and William Gernell offers a severe warning regarding the
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  consequences of this state. Gernell is always so punchy.
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  Very He states that for the impenitent Sinner, every
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  attribute of God votes for their damnation.
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  Even Mercy will vote for their ruin.
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  OK, wait, I need you to break that down because on the
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  surface, saying that mercy votes for someone's ruin sounds like a
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  contradiction. How does the attribute of mercy
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  demand judgement? It works like this.
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  God is under an oath to destroy the unrepentant.
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  An oath Gurnell says that the almighty strength of God, which
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  is engaged for the believer salvation, is as deeply obliged
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  to bring the impenitent to their execution.
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  That is a heavy thought. God sworn His wrath against the
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  unbelieving Israelites that they should not enter into His rest,
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  and that oath concerns every unbeliever to the end of the
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  world. Mercy votes for their ruin
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  because mercy has offered a way of salvation through Christ, and
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  the wicked have trampled on it. Oh, I see.
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  When a person rejects the ultimate act of mercy, justice
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  must take its course and mercy will not intervene because it's
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  offer was despised. Colonel uses an analogy to make
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  this concrete, and it is a harsh image, but it clarifies the
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  logic perfectly. It is a memorable 1.
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  He says God is like a man who will wake at midnight to let in
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  a child that cries and knocks at his door.
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  The man will stumble out of bed in the dark, rush to the door
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  and do whatever it takes to comfort and bring his child
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  inside. He will endure the cold and the
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  inconvenience because of his familial bond.
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  Because it is his child, right? But that same man will not take
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  a fraction of those pains for a dog that lies howling at the
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  door. No, he won't.
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  A howling dog in the night gets ignored while the child gets the
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  father's full attention. It illustrates the difference in
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  standing. The believer has the standing of
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  an adopted child. Yes, the wicked have placed
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  themselves outside the family. Gurnal leaves us with a
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  terrifying question. How can a person sleep soundly
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  without any horror or amazement, knowing that the Almighty God is
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  under an oath against them? How do you sleep through that?
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  How can you rest when you're howling is ignored because you
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  have refused to be a child of the house?
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  When you realize the terrifying position of the person outside
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  the house, you naturally look at your own position inside the
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  house with a lot more scrutiny. You really do.
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  You start asking why am I inside?
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  I used to be howling outside too and the only reason I am inside
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  is because someone opened the door and brought me in.
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  Grace. This contrast makes the believer
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  turn back to God in sheer gratitude.
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  FW Faber gives us a beautiful definition of what salvation
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  actually is for the believer, contrasting heavily with the
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  state of the wicked. What does Faber say?
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  He says salvation is a rescue from an unimaginable shipwreck.
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  It is a rest in an unimaginable home.
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  He describes it as lying down forever in the bosom of God in
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  an endless rapture of insatiable contentment.
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  An endless rapture of insatiable contentment.
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  That phrase captures the eternal vitality we were just talking
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  about with the prayer Quicken me.
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  It really does. It is a state where you are
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  completely satisfied, yet constantly desiring more of God
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  and constantly having that desire fulfilled.
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  Knowing that this grace is the only thing that made us differ
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  from the wicked leads us right into the psalmist next thought.
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  In verse 156. Yes, verse 156 Great are thy
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  tender mercies. Oh, Lord, quicken me according
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  to thy judgments. Let us examine those two
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  adjectives, great and tender. William Cowper dissects these
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  beautifully. Calper is so good on this he.
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  Is God's mercies are great in number, they endure forever, and
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  they reach into the heavens. They are vast and infinite.
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  Immense. This brings immense comfort to
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  poor sinners whose sins are many and great.
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  No matter how large your sins are, God's mercies are larger.
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  Amen to that. But Infinity can be
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  intimidating. A massive ocean is great, but it
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  is not tender. It will crush you.
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  Oh, that is a fantastic point. Right, so the psalmist adds that
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  these mercies are tender mercies.
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  Copper says this means God is easy to be entreated.
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  He is slow to wrath, but ready to show mercy.
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  We are told in the book of James that the wisdom from above is
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  gentle and easy to be entreated. If God's grace makes His
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  children gentle, how much more gentle is God himself?
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  I want to focus on that phrase. Easy to be entreated.
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  Yeah, let's look at it. We often picture God as a
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  reluctant deity who sits with his arms crossed, demanding that
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  we grovel for hours before they act.
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  He grudgingly hands out a little bit of forgiveness.
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  Like a grumpy boss. Exactly.
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  Or yes, that is the feeling. But the theological reality
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  presented here is that he is predisposed to show mercy.
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  He is eager to forgive. His nature is tender toward the
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  cries of his children, just like the father waking up for the
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  crying child at midnight. That is an accurate picture of
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  his disposition. But then the psalmist prays,
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  Quicken me according to thy judgments.
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  Yeah, we have to reconcile the tender mercies with these
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  judgments. Why ask for judgments?
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  It seems counterintuitive. If God is tender, why ask him to
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  act according to his judgments, which implies severity?
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  This presents a theological nuance regarding how God wakes
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  us up. God uses severe strokes, His
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  judgements, to startle and arouse the believer out of
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  spiritual lethargy. Oh, I see.
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  Sometimes we get so comfortable and asleep in our routines that
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  we need a sharp awakening. We become complacent.
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  We fall asleep at the wheel. We do.
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  David wants every severe stroke to be sanctified to his benefit
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  just as much as every tender mercy.
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  A measure of awakening comes with the judgments of God.
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  God's discipline is actually an extension of His tender mercy
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  because He loves his children too much to let them sleep in a
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  burning building. He breaks the window to pull
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  this out right. That brings up attention though,
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  because in the very next verse, verse 157, the psalmist says
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  Many are my persecutors and mine enemies, yet do I not decline
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  from thy testimonies? Yeah, the enemies appear again.
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  How can a truly godly person have many enemies?
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  I mean, if you are living a righteous life, minding your own
• 19:25
  business, shouldn't you attract peace?
• 19:27
  Shouldn't people respect you? Human logic says yes, goodness
• 19:31
  should attract favor, but theologically it is inevitable
• 19:35
  that a truly godly person will face opposition.
• 19:37
  Inevitable. Yes, the disciple cannot be
• 19:40
  loved where his master is hated. The sources point out that the
• 19:43
  seed of the serpent always opposes the seed of the woman,
• 19:46
  tracing back to the promise in Genesis.
• 19:48
  Right, the old enmity. It is their very nature to be at
• 19:51
  odds. You can be the kindest person on
• 19:54
  earth, but the light in you will inevitably irritate the darkness
• 19:57
  in others. The darkness does not want to be
• 19:58
  exposed, therefore the godly will always face friction.
• 20:02
  The victory, however, is not in defeating all those enemies are
• 20:06
  making them like. You Not at all.
• 20:08
  The true victory is found in the second-half of that verse.
• 20:11
  Yet do I not decline from thy testimonies?
• 20:15
  The believer refuses to deviate from the truth.
• 20:17
  Some men are LED astray by just one enemy.
• 20:20
  Just one. They face a tiny bit of social
• 20:23
  pressure or opposition and they fold.
• 20:25
  They compromise their beliefs to keep the peace.
• 20:28
  But here is a St. who holds on his way in the teeth of many
• 20:31
  persecutors. Resilience.
• 20:33
  If enemies cannot cause the believer to fall into spiritual
• 20:35
  decline, then those enemies have completely failed.
• 20:39
  If they cannot make a sin, they have missed their mark entirely.
• 20:43
  Faithfulness to the truth is the actual victory over our
• 20:46
  adversaries. When you are surrounded by
• 20:48
  people who hate the truth, it provokes a very specific
• 20:51
  emotional reaction. It does.
• 20:52
  The believer does not just get annoyed.
• 20:55
  They experience a weighty, overwhelming sorrow.
• 20:59
  In verse 158 the psalmist says, I beheld the transgressors, and
• 21:04
  was grieved because they kept not thy word.
• 21:07
  This gets right to the heart of the believer's motivation.
• 21:10
  Let's talk about the grease. The psalmist's grief is not
• 21:12
  primarily about his own suffering.
• 21:15
  He's not saying I beheld the transgressors and was grieved
• 21:18
  because they were slandering me or hurting my career.
• 21:20
  It is not about him. Right.
• 21:22
  He is grieved because of the insult to God's Word.
• 21:26
  Charles Spurgeon notes that the psalmist was sick of them,
• 21:28
  disgusted with them, and could find no pleasure in their
• 21:31
  company no matter how witty or well dressed they were.
• 21:34
  The core issue is that they despise the teaching of the
• 21:37
  Lord. Richard Baxter takes this
• 21:39
  concept of grief and applies it directly to how we interact with
• 21:41
  our communities. Oh, Baxter is so convicting
• 21:44
  here. He really is.
• 21:45
  He asks how Christians can live next door to unregenerate
• 21:48
  neighbors and say absolutely nothing to them about their
• 21:51
  souls. He challenges us, asking if we
• 21:53
  have hearts of rock that cannot pity men in such a perilous
• 21:56
  state. Baxter's logic is piercing.
• 22:00
  He says if you do not believe the word of God and the danger
• 22:02
  of sinners, why are you a Christian yourself?
• 22:05
  A. Fair question.
• 22:06
  But if you do believe it, why do you not bestir yourself to help
• 22:09
  others? Do you not care who goes to hell
• 22:12
  as long as you are saved? It is a sharp critique of
• 22:16
  spiritual selfishness. Think about the mechanics of
• 22:18
  intervention in any other area of life.
• 22:20
  OK, imagine you are sitting in your living room and you look
• 22:25
  out the window and see your neighbor's house on fire.
• 22:28
  The flames are licking up the siding.
• 22:30
  Smoke is billowing out of the roof.
• 22:32
  You know they're asleep inside. What do you do?
• 22:35
  You. Run out there?
• 22:36
  You do not just close the blinds and go back to watching
• 22:39
  television. You run outside.
• 22:41
  You bang on the door. You break a window if you have
• 22:43
  to. Absolutely.
• 22:44
  You do whatever it takes to wake them up.
• 22:46
  You do not worry about being polite or interrupting their
• 22:48
  sleep. Why then are we so silent when
• 22:52
  we know their souls are facing an eternal fire?
• 22:55
  It is a massive disconnect. If we know the remedy for their
• 22:58
  disease and we withhold it, Baxter argues, we are guilty of
• 23:02
  their death. That is a heavy conviction and
• 23:04
  it demands action, but the action has to be rooted in the
• 23:08
  right emotion. Right.
• 23:09
  It cannot be just duty. Exactly.
• 23:11
  It cannot be rooted in a superiority complex.
• 23:15
  History gives us a striking example of how this verse, this
• 23:18
  holy grief, can actually be the tool God uses to reach someone.
• 23:22
  Oh, the Doddridge story. Yes, the account involving the
• 23:25
  minister Philip Doddridge and a military man named Colonel
• 23:28
  Gardner. Let's share that because it is
• 23:30
  so pertinent. Philip Doddridge was preaching A
• 23:33
  lecture based exactly on this verse.
• 23:36
  I beheld the transgressors and was grieved.
• 23:40
  He detailed the mixture of indignation and grief a good man
• 23:43
  feels when he sees people breaking the divine law.
• 23:46
  He talked about the compassion for the misery those offenders
• 23:48
  bring on themselves. He painted a picture of a broken
• 23:50
  heart. He painted a picture of a heart
• 23:52
  that is broken over the sins of others.
• 23:54
  Colonel Gardner was in the audience and he was so struck by
• 23:57
  this description it pierced him. It got past his armor.
• 24:00
  Afterwards, they sang a hymn that Dodrich had written to go
• 24:03
  along with the sermon, and Gardner actually memorized the
• 24:07
  hymn. He would repeat it with such
• 24:09
  emotion that it showed how much the words expressed his own
• 24:12
  soul. It broke through his defenses.
• 24:15
  That shows the efficacy of genuine weeping compassion.
• 24:19
  It is not a condescending judgement.
• 24:21
  It is a shared sorrow. Martin Luther had to learn this
• 24:24
  lesson about the world's disposition the hard way.
• 24:26
  Did he? Yeah.
• 24:28
  Luther originally thought that when the pure gospel was
• 24:30
  preached, everyone would just leap for joy to be freed from
• 24:34
  the heavy burdens of false religion and a troubled
• 24:36
  conscience. He thought it would be an easy
• 24:38
  sell. He thought the bishops and
• 24:39
  universities would joyfully receive the true doctrines once
• 24:43
  they were clearly explained. He assumed everyone was just
• 24:46
  waiting for the truth. He was lamentably deceived.
• 24:49
  He was. He found out, just like Moses
• 24:52
  and Jeremiah did, that the world is stubbornly wicked.
• 24:56
  People do not always leap for joy at the truth.
• 24:59
  Often they hate it because it exposes their deeds.
• 25:01
  The darkness hates the light. The discussion among the sources
• 25:04
  highlights the absolute necessity of maintaining this
• 25:07
  tender, grieving heart rather than becoming cynical.
• 25:11
  It's so easy to become. Incredibly easy to look at the
• 25:15
  world, see the constant rejection of God's word, and
• 25:18
  just grow hard, bitter and isolated.
• 25:20
  You retreat into your own bubble, right?
• 25:23
  But the psalmist remains grieved, which implies his heart
• 25:26
  remains soft. Maintaining that soft heart
• 25:29
  requires an anchor. This grief over the world's
• 25:32
  hatred of the law forces the psalmist to declare his
• 25:35
  uncontrasting affection for it. That brings us to verse 159.
• 25:39
  Right verse 159 he says, Consider how I love thy
• 25:42
  precepts. Quicken me, O Lord, according to
• 25:45
  thy loving kindness. Notice the boldness of that
• 25:48
  appeal. It is very bold.
• 25:50
  He is asking God to look directly at His love.
• 25:52
  Consider how I love thy precepts.
• 25:54
  Albert Barnes points out that a believer can have such a certain
• 25:57
  genuine attachment to God's law that they can appeal to it
• 26:00
  openly. Almost like a challenge.
• 26:02
  It is very similar to what Peter said to Jesus after the
• 26:04
  resurrection. Jesus asked Peter three times if
• 26:07
  he loved him, and Peter finally said, Lord, thou knowest all
• 26:11
  things. Thou knowest that I love thee.
• 26:14
  A man who truly loves God may make this appeal without
• 26:17
  impropriety. That takes a staggering amount
• 26:20
  of confidence. It does.
• 26:21
  I look at my own life and I know I fail constantly.
• 26:25
  I break the precepts I claim to love.
• 26:27
  My actions do not always align with my stated affections.
• 26:30
  We all feel that tension. So how can anyone boldly tell
• 26:34
  God to consider their love for His rules without sounding like
• 26:37
  a hypocrite? William Calper provides the
• 26:39
  comfort here, addressing that exact dilemma.
• 26:42
  OK, what does he say? He says the comfort of a
• 26:44
  Christian in this body of sin lies in the sincerity and
• 26:46
  fervency of their affections, even when their absolute
• 26:49
  perfection in actions is lacking.
• 26:51
  That is helpful. We fail many times in our
• 26:53
  obedience. We stumble, but the love in our
• 26:56
  affection remains. The very fact that you feel
• 26:58
  grief in your soul when you find a corrupt desire within yourself
• 27:02
  proves that you have an invincible love for the precepts
• 27:05
  of God. The grief is the proof.
• 27:06
  You hate your sin because you love God's law.
• 27:09
  If you did not love the law, your sin would not bother you at
• 27:12
  all. That is incredibly freeing.
• 27:15
  Our comfort is not in our flawless performance, but in the
• 27:19
  sincerity of our affection for God's ways, if the grief over
• 27:22
  our own failure is the proof of our love.
• 27:25
  Exactly. And this brings us to another
• 27:26
  prayer for quickening. Quicken me, O Lord, according to
• 27:30
  thy loving kindness. Let us track the progression of
• 27:32
  these prayers. Let's do that.
• 27:34
  First he prayed, quicken me according to thy word.
• 27:37
  He was relying on the bear promise, the legal contract, so
• 27:40
  to speak. Then he prayed, Quicken me
• 27:42
  according to thy judgments. He was asking for the severe
• 27:46
  strokes to wake him up from his slumber.
• 27:49
  But now he prays, Quicken me according to thy loving
• 27:52
  kindness. This is like bringing up the
• 27:54
  heaviest artillery in a conflict.
• 27:55
  It really. Is he is pleading God's very
• 27:57
  nature of love as the ultimate reason he must give the believer
• 28:02
  life? It is the final, most forceful
• 28:04
  argument. Because God is love, he will
• 28:07
  give us life. Because he is kind, He will
• 28:09
  kindle the heavenly flame within us again.
• 28:12
  He knows who he is talking to. He has been knocking at Mercy's
• 28:15
  gate with various arguments, and with this plea he strikes his
• 28:18
  heaviest blow. When David had fallen into great
• 28:22
  sin with Bathsheba, this was his Cle in Psalm 51.
• 28:26
  Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving
• 28:29
  kindness. He is back to the well.
• 28:31
  Now that he is in great trouble, in Psalm 1/19 he flies to the
• 28:35
  exact same reasoning. The loving kindness of God is
• 28:38
  the bedrock for both forgiveness of sin and deliverance from
• 28:41
  affliction. Knowing God's loving kindness is
• 28:44
  reliable leads us perfectly to the final realization of the
• 28:47
  text. The anchor for all of.
• 28:49
  It the absolute certainty of His word.
• 28:51
  I mean, everything we have discussed rests on whether or
• 28:54
  not the book we are reading is actually true.
• 28:55
  If it is not true, none of this matters.
• 28:58
  Verse 160 reads, Thy word is true from the beginning, and
• 29:02
  everyone of thy righteous judgments endureth forever.
• 29:05
  There are some fascinating translation nuances here that AR
• 29:08
  Faucet clarifies. What are the nuances?
• 29:10
  Literally, it can be read as the beginning of thy word is truth,
• 29:14
  or as some read it true from the head or true from top to bottom.
• 29:17
  True from top to bottom. The Scriptures are as true in
• 29:20
  Genesis as they are in Revelation.
• 29:22
  God's Word has been true from the first syllable that was
• 29:25
  spoken, true throughout the whole of history, and true to us
• 29:29
  from the instant we believed it. True from top to bottom.
• 29:31
  That leaves no room for error, no room for cultural redactions.
• 29:35
  None at all. And that brings up the massive
• 29:38
  theological weight of God's irreversible decisions.
• 29:41
  Irreversible. God has nothing to regret,
• 29:44
  nothing to retract, and nothing to amend in His Providence or
• 29:48
  His revelation. He does not need an errata
• 29:51
  section at the back of His book to correct mistakes from the 1st
• 29:54
  edition. You got it right the first time.
• 29:55
  Against the decisions of the Lord, no writ of error can be
• 29:59
  demanded. All of His judgments, decrees,
• 30:02
  and purposes are righteous, and they will outlive the stars.
• 30:05
  That is a staggering thought. The Westminster Confession
• 30:08
  asserts the infallible truth and divine authority of Scripture,
• 30:11
  noting that it's authority depends not upon the testimony
• 30:14
  of any man, but wholly upon God, who is truth itself.
• 30:18
  I want to introduce an analogy from Anthony Tuckey, A Puritan
• 30:22
  writer from the 1600s, that drives his home beautifully.
• 30:24
  Tuckey has some great imagery. He compares God's promises to an
• 30:28
  apothecary's cordial. Back then, a cordial was a
• 30:31
  medicinal drink meant to stimulate the heart.
• 30:34
  Like a strong tonic, yeah. If you have a bottle of physical
• 30:37
  medicine, it loses its strength over time.
• 30:40
  The spirits evaporate, the chemical compounds breakdown,
• 30:43
  and the potency fades. It has an expiration date.
• 30:47
  Medicine goes bad. It goes bad, but God's promise
• 30:50
  does not. Tukey asks.
• 30:53
  Hath a promise cheered thee, say 20-30 forty years ago.
• 30:57
  Taste it, but now afresh, and thou shalt find it as fresh and
• 31:00
  as full of refreshment as ever. That is beautiful.
• 31:03
  If a promise brought you to your knees in gratitude when you were
• 31:06
  20 years old, that exact same promise holds the exact same
• 31:09
  weight when you were 80. It maintains its potency because
• 31:13
  the God who made the promise does not change his immutability
• 31:16
  guarantees the freshness of the. Word The freshness never fades.
• 31:19
  In a world of fluid opinions, shifting cultural norms, and
• 31:23
  unpredictable enemies, which we discussed in the earlier verses,
• 31:26
  having a standard that what lives the stars provides an
• 31:29
  unshakable anchor for the soul. We need that anchor.
• 31:31
  We do. A promise God made to you in
• 31:34
  your youth was backed by His eternal character then, and it
• 31:38
  is backed by that same eternal character now.
• 31:40
  It stabilizes the believer. You do not have to wonder if God
• 31:43
  has changed his mind or if His word has expired.
• 31:46
  We have traced A remarkable progression in just 8 verses of
• 31:50
  Scripture. It is a lot of ground to cover.
• 31:52
  It is we started in the courtroom of affliction, where
• 31:55
  the believer is pleading with God to simply consider their
• 31:58
  pain, to bring His light and restoration, and to step in as
• 32:02
  their divine advocate. We looked at the terrifying
• 32:05
  reality of the wicked who are howling outside the door while
• 32:08
  the child is safe inside, ignoring the mercy that seals
• 32:11
  their ruin. A.
• 32:12
  Heavy reality. We examine how God uses both
• 32:15
  tender mercies and severe judgments to wake us up from
• 32:18
  spiritual lethargy. We saw the holy grief A believer
• 32:21
  feels when they see God's law broken.
• 32:23
  Not out of self righteousness. Right.
• 32:25
  Not out of self righteousness, but out of a genuine you and
• 32:27
  love for God's ways and a terror for the souls of their
• 32:30
  neighbors. And we ended by resting our full
• 32:33
  weight on the eternal certainty and loving kindness of God's
• 32:36
  Word. A word that is true from top to
• 32:38
  bottom and never loses its medicinal potency.
• 32:41
  It is a comprehensive view of the believers interior life and
• 32:45
  their reliance on divine intervention.
• 32:47
  But I want to leave you with a closing consideration, something
• 32:50
  to Mull over on your own as you go about your day.
• 32:53
  What is that? Throughout this single Psalm,
• 32:55
  the writer had to pray Quicken me 9 different times, 9 * 9
• 32:59
  times. He had to ask God for fresh
• 33:01
  spiritual life. If we look at the implications
• 33:04
  of that repetition, we must realize that spiritual vitality
• 33:08
  is not a one time achievement. It is an ongoing need.
• 33:11
  It leaks. We leak, the world drains us,
• 33:14
  our own sin drains us, and affliction drains us.
• 33:16
  So true. So ask yourself, are you relying
• 33:20
  on a past experience of grace? Are you trying to run on the
• 33:23
  fumes of something that happened five years ago, or a prayer you
• 33:26
  prayed when you were a teenager? We all do that sometimes.
• 33:28
  Or are you aggressively pleading with God for fresh quickening
• 33:32
  today, knowing that your spiritual survival depends
• 33:36
  entirely on His continuous daily intervention?
• 33:39
  That is a thought that should drive us straight to our knees.
• 33:42
  We are not just looking for a cold diagnosis of our condition.
• 33:45
  We are not just looking at a jagged white line on an X-ray
• 33:47
  and accepting our brokenness as the final word.
• 33:50
  Yeah, we are not. We are stepping into the
• 33:52
  courtroom asking our advocate for a fresh infusion of life,
• 33:56
  trusting that his loving kindness will always answer that
• 33:58
  plea yes. Thank you so much for joining us
• 34:00
  on this deep dive. May you find that fresh
• 34:03
  quickening today. Grace and peace to you.