Latest / Reformed Thinking / Great Peace Have Those Who Love Your Law (Psalm 119:161–168) | Charles Spurgeon

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Great Peace Have Those Who Love Your Law (Psalm 119:161–168) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

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Usually when we think about the rules of a house, we tend to
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think of them as the things you have to do to avoid getting
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kicked out. Right, the basic requirements.
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Yeah, you wipe your feet, you know, you do not break the
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windows and you pay the rent on time.
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And as long as you do those things, the landlord lets you
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stay. It is a purely transactional
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relationship. You do the minimum required to
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keep a roof over your head. Yes, precisely.
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But imagine if someone handed you the deed to a magnificent
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estate and it is completely free and clear, paid for in full by
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someone else. That changes the dynamic
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completely. It really does.
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Suddenly the rules of that house take on a completely different
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feeling. You actually want to fix the
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windows and you want to tend the garden.
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You want to sweep the floors because it is your home now.
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Yeah, you are not working to keep it.
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You are working because it is already yours.
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Well, welcome to reform thinking.
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I am so glad to have you with us for this deep dive.
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We have a really fascinating topic today.
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We do. Today we are looking at an
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ancient text written by a guy who had the weight of the entire
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government coming down on his head.
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And his reaction was well, it was to write poetry about how
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much he loved the rules. Which is such a counterintuitive
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response to pressure. It is wild.
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So we are taking a detailed look at Psalm 119, specifically
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verses 161 through 168. We are utilizing Charles
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Spurgeon classic commentary, The Treasury of David, to figure out
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how that mindset actually works. That is a brilliant resource to
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use for this. I agree.
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Our goal is to extract the practical theology contained in
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these 8 verses. We are looking closely at how a
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justified Sinner lives under God's grace and God's law.
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That house analogy used to open is a brilliant way to frame our
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discussion because the historical context really
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provides the key to understanding the sheer tension
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in these verses. Yeah, tension is the right word
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for. It the psalmist is writing from
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a place of intense opposition. He is facing persecution not
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from common criminals, but from the elites of his society, the
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Princess and the rulers. People who actually hold all the
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cards. Spot on.
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Yet in the middle of this intense pressure, he finds his
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total comfort and his entire rule of life in the Word of God.
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Which brings us to the theological framework.
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Right as Protestant Christians who adhere to the Westminster
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Confession, analyzing this specific text offers you a
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perfect view into what theologians call the third use
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of the law. That is a term we throw around a
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lot in reformed circles, but maybe we should define it for
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those listening. Let us do that.
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To give you some quick background, the first use of the
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moral law is like a mirror. It shows us our sin and drives
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us to Christ for salvation. Because we look at it and
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realize we cannot keep it perfectly.
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Yes, it exposes our flaws. Then the second use is civil.
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It restrains evil in society through the threat of
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punishment. Like speed limits and laws
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against. Theft, precisely.
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But the third use is specifically for the justified
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believer. The moral law acts as a guide
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for living a life pleasing to God.
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So it is a map for the home. You already to use the earlier
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analogy. Yes, rather than a checklist or
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a means of earning your justification, the believer
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looks at the law not with dread, but with immense gratitude.
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OK. Let's unpack this by jumping
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right into the first verse of our section, which is verse 161.
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Was here. The text says, Princess, have
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persecuted me without a cause, but my heart standeth in awe of
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thy word. That is a heavy statement.
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It really is. We are immediately confronted
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with the unique sting of being persecuted by those in
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authority. These are Princess people who
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are quite literally appointed by God to protect the innocent and
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uphold justice. And Spurgeon points out a
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crucial detail there. He notes that this persecution
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was without a cause. Right.
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The psalmist did not broken their laws.
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He not incited rebellion. He was just living faithfully.
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He was a model citizen, essentially.
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Yeah, but the positional weight of the attackers is what really
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stands out to me. To put it in modern terms, it
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feels like being targeted maliciously by the CEO of your
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company rather than appear. That is a really helpful way to
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visualize it. I mean if a Co worker spreads A
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rumor about you, it is frustrating but you can brush it
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off or go to HR. But if the CEO uses all their
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positional weight, their budget, and their corporate resources to
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crush your career, well, the attack feels insurmountable.
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And deeply unnatural, too. Very unnatural.
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The very structure designed to provide you with a livelihood is
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actively trying to destroy you. The CEO analogy captures the
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relational and structural betrayal perfectly.
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When we look at John Calvin's commentary on this verse, he
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brings up a similar point. What does Calvin say about it?
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He notes that the psalmist had to encounter the grandy's of the
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chosen people. These were men whom God had
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placed in honorable stations so they might be the pillars of the
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church in the stage. Oh wow, so when the very pillars
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turn against you, the whole structure feels like it is
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collapsing on top of you. Yes, it is a terrifying
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disorientation. Augustine takes this historical
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perspective even further. He draws a Direct Line from the
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psalmist experience to the early Christians living under the
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Roman Empire. That makes total sense.
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They faced a very similar structural oppression.
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They absolutely did. Augustine asks.
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A series of rhetorical questions about how early believers
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interacted with the kings of the Earth.
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He asks did Christ forbid paying taxes?
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No, of course not. Right.
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Christ paid tribute from the mouth of a fish and commanded
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his followers to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's.
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Augustine then asks, Did John the Baptist tell soldiers to
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desert the King's army? No, he told him to do violence
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to no man and just be content with their wages.
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Exactly. I mean perfectly stated.
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Augustine points out that the Church even prayed for the kings
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and emperors. The early Christians were model
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citizens, yielding every rightful due to the government.
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So they were not subversives or anarchists at all.
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Not in the slightest. Yet the kings of the earth still
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persecuted them without a cause, throwing them to lions and
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burning them at the stake. That continuity throughout
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history is wild to think about. The early church was doing
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everything right, just like the psalmist, yet the heavy
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machinery, the state was turned against them entirely.
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It is a sobering reality. It really is.
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But what catches my eye next is the psalmist's psychological
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response. He does not say Princess
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persecuted me. Therefore, I organized a massive
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counter protest. Right.
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He does not go into full political rebellion mode.
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No, and he also does not say Princess persecuted me,
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therefore I fell into a deep depression, he says.
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But my heart standeth in awe of thy word.
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He essentially overrides a paralyzing fear of other people
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by introducing a massive, transcendent awe of God.
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That is the pivotal psychological shift of the text,
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is it not? It absolutely is.
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The Puritan writer William Gernold gives us some striking
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imagery to explain this mechanism of counter irritation.
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Counter irritation. That sounds intriguing.
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What is his imagery? Well, Grinnell says that if you
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happen to burn your finger, the historical remedy was to hold it
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up to a fire. Wait, really?
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Hold a burn to a fire. Yeah, that was the thought back
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then. The idea was that the greater
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heat of the fire actually draws out the pain of the lesser burn.
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OK, so how does he apply that to the spiritual realm?
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He argues that when your thoughts are scorched and your
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heart is scared by the fire of man's wrath, you must hold your
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part up to the heat of God's justice and the reality of His
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Word. Oh, that is brilliant.
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The. Fear of what man can do to you
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completely evaporates when placed next to the awe of the
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living God. I see.
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Because if you think about it, practically the absolute worst
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an earthly emperor or corrupt CEO can do is threaten your
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physical freedom or your livelihood.
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Right, they can only touch the temporal things.
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But God holds eternity in His hands.
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However, we do have to clarify the nature of this fear because
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the word awe can easily be misunderstood by modern readers.
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That is a very valid point to raise.
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Thomas Manton, another great Puritan thinker, provides
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crucial insight here. Manton says this awe is not a
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slavish fear. Slavish fear, meaning like a
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cowering terror, Yeah. It is not the terror of a
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prisoner waiting for the executioner to drop the axe.
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That kind of fear makes you want to run away from God.
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Which is the opposite of what the Psalmist is doing.
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Spot on. Instead, Manton says, it is a
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tender reverence. It is a filial fear, which is
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the appropriate loving respect that adopted children feel
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toward a perfectly Holy Father who knows their every thought.
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I really appreciate that distinction between slavish fear
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and filial fear. It is like the difference
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between a child who was terrified of an abusive parent
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and a child who deeply respects a loving parent and just
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genuinely does not want to break their heart.
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That is a perfect way to summarize.
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It and that distinction makes total sense of the text.
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It actually explains the massive emotional jump we see next.
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The emotional jump into verse 162.
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Yes, because if you just reverse 161 you see a guy trembling
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under the threat of a king. But then verse 162 says, I
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rejoiceth thy word as one that findeth great spoil.
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We move from trembling awe under the pressure of Princess
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straight into this triumphant, victorious joy.
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Right. And I'm struggling to connect
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the dots here. We just went from a guy bracing
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for impact to a guy acting like he won the lottery.
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It is a massive emotional whiplash.
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How does that psychological transition actually happen?
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What's fascinating here is how joy so often follows a severe
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struggle. John Cotton, writing on this
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verse, explains that a Christian approaches the word of God like
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a soldier dividing spoil after a great battle.
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OK, try to picture ancient warfare for a second.
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It was brutal. A soldier fights all day,
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swinging a sword, taking hits, exhausted, bleeding and fighting
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for his life. But when the battle is won and
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he walks into the enemy camp together, the gold, the silver
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and the provisions, there is a massive rush of adrenaline and
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joy. The reward is directly
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proportional to the struggle, yes.
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Cotton says the believer has a constant warfare with their own
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corruptions, the fleshly desires that fight against the soul.
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So reading the word is not a passive activity.
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Not at all. When they come to the
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scriptures, they are looking to make themselves a gainer.
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They are pulling a valuable booty out of every commandment
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and promise. Charles Bridges adds to this,
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does he not? He does.
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Bridges notes that the natural human heart is incredibly
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reluctant to read scripture. Let's be honest, human nature is
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lazy. Very true.
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Overcoming that natural indolence, unbelief, and
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wandering attention is an actual spiritual battle.
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Just getting yourself to focus on reading an ancient text
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instead of wandering off to look at your phone is half the
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battle. It really is.
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We are so distracted. So when the believer wrestles
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through that internal resistance and finally grasps the truth,
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the insight gained is the spoil. It is a hard won victory over
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the self. I see the value in that
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perspective and I definitely relate to the struggle of
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focusing, but I have to push back slightly on behalf of the
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listener. Oh, please do.
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Does finding truth always have to be a bloody, exhausting
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battle with our own flesh? Spurgeon himself offers an
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alternative analogy in his commentary that feels a bit
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different. What is his alternative take?
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He suggests that sometimes the believers like a plowman who is
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just walking through a field, doing his daily work, minding
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his own business, and unexpectedly strikes a hidden
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chest of gold with his plow. I love that imagery.
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Right. In that scenario, it is a
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sudden, unearned discovery of grace.
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You are just reading your Bible on a Tuesday morning, not
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necessarily engaged in a massive theological wrestling match, and
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a promise leaps off the page and changes your entire week.
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You make an excellent point, and both realities absolutely exist
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in the Christian life. They're not mutually exclusive.
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No, they're not. Sometimes we do wrestle for
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years to understand a specific Reformed doctrine, something
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weighty like election or limited atonement.
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Let us pause for those who might not be familiar with the
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terminology. Good idea.
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Election is the doctrine that God sovereignly chooses those
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whom he will save, and limited atonement is the idea that
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Christ's death was specifically intended to secure the salvation
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of his chosen people, rather than just making salvation a
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theoretical possibility for everyone.
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Right, These are massive universe altering concepts a
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believer might read, pray and struggle with the text that seem
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contradictory to their modern sensibilities for a long time.
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And it can be a painful wrestling match.
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But when the doctrine finally clicks into place in their mind
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and they see the sheer grace behind it, well, it is a hard
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one. Spoil They feel like they have
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conquered a mountain. It brings an immense sense of
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relief and joy. It does, but other times, as you
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mentioned, we stumble upon a promise in the Psalms or the
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Gospels that perfectly meets our exact emotional or physical
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needs for that very day. We did not fight for it, God
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just soverely placed the treasure in our path.
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Yes, whether we come by the truth as weary warriors dividing
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the plunder or as surprised finders of a hidden chest, the
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heavenly treasure is equally precious to us.
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But that joy you just mentioned, the joy of finding the treasure,
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it creates A friction, does it not?
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Friction in what sense? Because once you fall over
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something so pure, you instantly develop a severe allergy to
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anything fake. Which perfectly explains why the
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psalmist suddenly starts talking about hatred in verse 163.
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Yes, the turn toward hatred. The text says I hate in the poor
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lying, but thy law do I love. He expresses a double hatred for
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falsehood. Whether that falsehood is in
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doctrine, in speech, or in life, he absolutely detests it.
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While simultaneously expressing an intense affection for God's
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law. Here's where it gets really
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interesting for me. I want to talk about the sheer
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intensity of those words. Hate and abhor.
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They are very strong words. Very strong.
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In modern culture, hatred is considered universally toxic.
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We are constantly told to eradicate hate from our hearts
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entirely. We want to be tolerant of
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everything. So it seems almost jarring to
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hear a holy man declare his hatred so passionately.
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It does. How should a listener understand
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this righteous hatred without falling into bitterness?
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It is jarring to modern years, I agree, but Abraham Wright's
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commentary provides a necessary framework for understanding it.
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How does he frame it? Wright explains that a natural,
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unregenerate man, someone whose heart has not been changed by
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God, can be angry at the consequences of his sin.
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OK, angry at the consequences, not the sin itself.
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Right. For instance, think of a thief.
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A thief can be furious that he was caught by the police and
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sent to prison. He genuinely hates the
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punishment, the loss of his freedom and the shame.
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But he does not truly hate the sin of theft itself.
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No, if he knew he could steal $1,000,000 tomorrow with 0
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consequences, he would do it again in a heartbeat.
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That is a very clarifying distinction.
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Only a heart that genuinely loves God's law can actually
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abhor falsehood for its own sake, because lying sets us
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furthest from God, who is the greatest good and the source of
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all truth. The regenerated believer hates
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lying as the greatest evil. You cannot separate the two
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emotions. Isaac Barrow also points out
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that lying is a crime that tends toward the dissolution of
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society. It is the root of slander,
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covetousness, and the murder of a neighbor's reputation.
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So the psalmist hates it because he sees its true destructive
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nature. Yes, he sees what it actually
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does to the world. That clarifies it perfectly,
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Yeah. You cannot truly love health
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without hating the disease that destroys it.
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That is a great way to put it. If you love your child, you
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naturally hate the cancer that threatens their life.
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Barton Bouchier has a thought on this that really struck me
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regarding human habits. What did Bouchier say?
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He says you cannot simply leave a void in the heart.
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You can warn someone against the dangers of lying forever.
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You can give them all the sociological statistics on how
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dishonesty ruins relationships, destroys marriages, and tanks
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careers. But stats are not enough to
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change a heart. No, unless their heart is filled
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with a genuine love for God's truth, The first strong
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temptation, you know, the first moment where a lie will save
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their reputation or make them money, will cause him to fall.
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The love of the law is the only security against a relapse into
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sin. Love and hate are two sides of
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the same coin in our sanctification.
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If you do not have the affection for the truth, your hatred for
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the lie will eventually crumble under pressure because willpower
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alone is never enough. That is a critical observation
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regarding human nature. Moralism tries to empty the
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heart of bad behaviors without filling it with a superior love,
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and it always fails. You have to replace the love of
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the lie with a greater affection.
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And that greater affection, the love of the law spoken of in
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verse 163, overflows into the vocal praise seen in verse 164.
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Let us read verse 164. The psalmist declares 7 times a
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day, Do I praise thee because of thy righteous judgments?
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He is engaged in frequent habitual praise for God's
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decrees and God's Providence. Even amidst the persecution from
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the Princess and the lies swirling around him in the
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culture, his heart keeps erupting into Thanksgiving.
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Look, I'm going to play devil's advocate for the busy person
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listening to this right now. Go for it.
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If you are listening to this on your commute, dropping kids off
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at school, managing A-Team at the office, and trying to keep
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your household running well, hearing pray 7 times a day
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sounds like a guilt trip waiting to happen.
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It does sound demanding if you read it literally.
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It sounds suspiciously like a rigid monastic schedule.
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Is this a legalistic requirement we are supposed to be tracking
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in our daily planners or setting smartphone alarms for?
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I firmly deny the legalistic interpretation of this verse,
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and so do the reformers and Puritans.
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OK, good. That is a relief.
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William Gernell addresses this directly.
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He points out that this is not about Roman Catholic canonical
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hours or setting an alarm to fulfill still a religious quota.
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So what does the 7 mean? In Hebrew literature, the number
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7 frequently represents perfection, completion, and
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frequency. It indicates an indefinite,
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constant turning of the mind toward heaven.
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So it is an attitude of continuous Thanksgiving.
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As Gernol says, the holy heart takes the hints of every
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Providence to carry it to heaven on an errand of prayer and
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praise. So it is less about a stopwatch
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and more about a reflex. A reflex is a perfect word for
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it. If you're sitting in brutal
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traffic, your reflex is not to curse the other drivers, it is
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to use that quiet moment to praise God, right?
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Whenever the psalmist sees the oppressive Princess, his reflex
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is not despair, it is to look up and praise the righteousness of
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God. Whenever he hears the abounding
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lies in the culture, his reflex is to bless God for the absolute
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truth of His Word. It is a reflex of grace, not a
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burden of law. And that constant posture of
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praise leads directly to the internal state described in
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verse 165. Which says Great peace, have
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they which love thy law, and nothing shall offend them.
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Here we have the promise of complete internal stability and
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the removal of stumbling blocks. If we connect this to the bigger
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picture. Oh, absolutely.
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If we connect this to the bigger picture, we have to look at the
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Hebrew word for peace used here, which is Shalom.
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Shalom is such a massive concept.
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It is, Thomas Leblanc's notes explain, and that Shalom does
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not just mean the absence of conflict.
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It is not just a ceasefire. What does it encompass?
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It means wholeness, perfection, prosperity, healthfulness, and
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safety. It is the completion and
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consummation of every good thing.
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It is total human flourishing. The Puritan Oliver Haywood as a
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crucial theological distinction here too.
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What is Haywood's angle on it? He says an exact life will not
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make a conscience quiet. What he means is that your good
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behavior does not earn your salvation.
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Right, because that would be works righteousness, yeah.
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Only the blood of Christ justifying the Sinner can make a
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conscience quiet before a holy God.
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But Heywood argues, an exact life will keep a conscience
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quiet. So walking according to the
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rules of the gospel preserves the peace that Christ purchased.
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Yes, I think of this great peace like the shock absorbers on a
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heavy duty off road vehicle. I like this, keep going.
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The potholes, the rocks, the persecutions and the stumbling
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blocks are all still physically in the road, the vehicles
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hitting them at 60 miles an hour.
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The circumstances have not changed.
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Right. But because the suspension
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system is so perfectly tuned, the internal cabin remains
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completely stable. You feel the terrain, but you
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are not violently thrown around by.
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It the believer still faces the malicious Princess and the
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cultural lies, but the Shalom absorbs the destructive impact.
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The shock absorber analogy is a great way to visualize it.
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Robert Murray Machane is a beautiful reflection on this
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reality as well. What does Machane say?
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He notes how the secular world looks at the believer keeping
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God's law, like honoring the Sabbath, for example, and views
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it as absolute slavery. The world thinks you cannot
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work, you cannot seek worldly entertainment on this day.
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You are trapped by archaic rules.
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Exactly. I mean spot on.
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The world sees it as a burden, but the believer who has been
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freed by Christ sees that exact same law as the ultimate freedom
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is the source of a quiet mind. The law is no longer a chain, it
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is a protective wall that keeps the chaos of the world out so
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the soul can actually rest. When you love the law, nothing
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shall offend you, meaning nothing will cause you to
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stumble into ultimate ruin. But that peace and security do
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not lead to laziness, they lead to confident action, which we
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see in verses 166 and 167. Let us read those.
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Lord, I have hoped for thy salvation and done thy
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commandments. My soul hath kept thy
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testimonies, and I love them exceedingly.
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We see this beautiful pairing of relying entirely on grace while
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rigorously pursuing obedience. So what does this all mean for
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our daily walk? How do we balance hoping for
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salvation with the act of doing of commandments?
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It is a delicate balance to strike.
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It is if I am a listener trying to apply this, how do I prevent
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myself from slipping back into a subtle form of works
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righteousness where I start thinking my doing is the basis
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for my hoping? To answer that, we lean heavily
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on established reformed categories.
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Nathaniel Vincent clarifies this dynamic brilliantly.
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How does Vincent break it down? He says that hope without
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obedience is mere presumption. If you claim to hope in God's
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salvation, but your life is characterized by unrepentant
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lawlessness, your hope is an illusion.
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You are presuming upon grace. That is a stark warning.
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On the flip side, obedience without hope is formalism.
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If you are grinding out good works without a joyful reliance
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on Christ's finished work, you are just going through the
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motions to check a religious box.
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You are acting like a Pharisee. Essentially, yes.
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Faith establishes the law as a rule of life.
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Thomas Watson give a severe warning about this balance.
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He says reading without practice will be but a torch to light men
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to hell. Wow, that is a punch to the gut.
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We are not called to be walking encyclopedias of theology, we
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are called to be walking Bibles. The text specifically says in
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verse 167 that the soul keeps the testimonies.
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It's not just outward behavioral conformity to impress the
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neighbors of church. It is internal exceeding
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affection. Thomas Shepard called it a
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heavenly circle, which I find incredibly helpful for
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understanding the psychology of sanctification.
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A heavenly circle. How's that work?
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Yeah. We keep the commandments because
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we love them, and we love them because we keep them.
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Cool, I see. The more we walk in the ways of
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God, the more we see their beauty and how they align with
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the design of the universe, which increases our affection,
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which fuels for their obedience. It is an upward spiral of grace.
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Yes, and this brings us to the final verse in our section,
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verse 168, which gives us the grand motivation for all this
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love, peace and obedience. The psalmist says I have kept
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thy precepts and thy testimonies, for all my ways are
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before thee. He is keeping both the practical
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teachings, the precepts, and the doctrinal teachings, the
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testimonies. And the driving force behind it
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all is his constant awareness of God's omniscience.
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This is the doctrine of Coram deo, living before the face of
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God. This raises an important
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question for everyone listening Do you view God's omniscience,
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the fact that he sees your every thought, motive and action, as a
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comfort or a terror? That is a very revealing
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diagnostic question. William Struther made an
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observation on this in 1633. He noted that for the wicked,
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God's all seeing eye is a terrifying thought.
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It is something they actively trying to suppress and ignore.
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They do not want to believe there is a judge deserving their
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secret sins. But for the godly, God's
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omniscience is a source of immense joy.
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Even if earthly Princess lie about you, even if the world
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misunderstands your motives, God sees the absolute truth.
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You do not have to frantically defend your reputation because
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the only audience that matters already knows the facts.
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It is like driving a car with a dash Cam that is continuously
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live streaming your driving to someone you respect highly, like
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a beloved father or a mentor. Right, it changes your behavior
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entirely, but not at a sheer terror of getting a ticket for a
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traffic cop. It changes your behavior.
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Out of a desire to act honorably and make them proud, you drive
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carefully because you value their gaze.
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William Gernell shares a famous anecdote about Alexander the
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Great's Generals that illustrates this perfectly.
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Yes, Gernell recounts that when Alexander's generals would meet
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in counsel, they had a habit of becoming unruly and
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argumentative. They would bicker over strategy
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and power. So how do they fix it?
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To solve this, they began setting Alexander's empty chair
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at the head of the table during their meetings.
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Just the visual reminder of their King's authority, even
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though he was not physically sitting there, kept them in good
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order. Christians live with an
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infinitely greater reality. We do not have an empty chair
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representing a dead earthly king.
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The living God is actually present, seeing every single
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step, every hidden motive, and every whispered word.
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Living under that gaze is what produces the uprightness the
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psalmist demonstrates. Before we wrap up, I know you
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wanted to share a striking paradox found at the very end of
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Spurgeon's commentary on this section.
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I do. It perfectly encapsulates the
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tension of the justified Sinner living under grace that we have
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been talking about this whole time.
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Tell us about the paradox. At the end of verse 168, the
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psalmist makes this bold declaration.
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I have kept thy precepts. It sounds like a claim of
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absolute perfection. It really does.
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But if you turn the page and read just a few verses later in
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verse 176, which is the final verse of the entire 119th Psalm,
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this same man confesses, I have gone astray like a lost sheep.
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How can a believer hold both of these truths at once?
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How can you sincerely say, I have kept thy precepts, and I am
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a lost sheep in the same breath? I invite you to sit with that
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tension this week. It is the reality of a sincere,
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law loving heart that strives for holiness, yet still
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desperately needs the daily restoring hand of the Good
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Shepherd. Both statements are entirely
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sincere, and both are accurate in the life of a growing
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Christian. That is a phenomenal thought to
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end on. It brings us right back to the
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beginning analogy. The law of God is the set of
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rules for the house you have already been given.
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By grace, you strive to keep the house clean because we love the
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Master who gave you the deed. But when you inevitably track
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mud onto the floor like a wandering sheep, you know the
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Master will not cast you out into the cold.
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A beautiful son. I encourage you to take these 8
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verses from Spurgeon's Treasury of David and meditate on them as
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you go about your week. Apply this reformed perspective
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to the practical realities of your daily walk.
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Thank you for joining us on Reformed Thinking and we will
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catch you on the next deep dive.