Latest / Reformed Thinking / Revive Me According to Your Word (Psalm 119:25–32) | Charles Spurgeon

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Revive Me According to Your Word (Psalm 119:25–32) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reform Thanking. I am your host, and today's deep
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dive actually begins with a little bit of a thought
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experiment. Oh, I love those.
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Let's hear it. So think about medical
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diagnostics for a second. When you break your arm, the
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whole process is well, it's incredibly clean.
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Right. Very straightforward, yeah.
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You go to the hospital, the technician takes an X-ray and a
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jagged white line shows up on the black film.
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You can literally see the problem.
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Precisely. The doctor points at the screen
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and says you know there is the fracture, it is totally binary,
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the bone is either broken or it is intact.
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Then there is a strange sort of comfort in that visual
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certainty, isn't there? There really is.
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I mean, we like our problems to be visible, categorized, and
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neatly defined. That way we can, you know, apply
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a precise mechanical fix to them.
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That desire for visual confirmation is just such a very
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human trait. We want a clear schematic for
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everything that goes wrong in our lives.
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Oh 100% like with a car. Right, like a car.
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If your engine stalls, a mechanic can just plug a
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computer into the dashboard and read the error codes.
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And then the problem is localized and fixed.
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Spot on. But the moment you step away
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from orthopedics or mechanics and you step into the realm of
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the human soul, that entire diagnostic framework just
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completely falls apart. It really does.
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The soul does not photograph well, unfortunately.
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No, it does not. When we deal with spiritual
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depression or moral failure, or just the sudden absence of joy,
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there are no error codes flashing on a screen.
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Yeah, you are dealing with a totally invisible landscape.
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Which makes diagnosing the root cause incredibly frustrating for
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anyone trying to fix themselves through sheer willpower.
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And that specific frustration is the starting point for our
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analysis today. It is a great place to start.
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So we are opening up Charles Spurgeon's massive multi volume
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commentary on the Psalms, the one called the Treasury of
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David. An absolute classic and reformed
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circles. Definitely.
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Specifically, we are looking at Psalm 119, verses 25 through 32.
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Right, the fourth section, the Akinary corresponding to the
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Hebrew letter Dalith. Correct.
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And when Spurgeon introduces this section, he points out a
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very specific, almost heavy mood that just saturates the text.
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He does. He notes that these 8 verses
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sing of severe depression. But they do so wrapped in this
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spirit of intense devotion and fierce determination and and
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just absolute dependence on God. It is a fascinating mix of
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emotions. It is, but hey, before we get
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moving into the actual text, we need to establish a ground rule
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for our conversation today. OK, lay it on me.
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Given the massive theological weight of this material, we have
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agreed to a strict constraint check.
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We must allow each other to finish our complete thoughts
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without any interruptions. That sounds like a very wise
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plan. Yeah, I just think no cutting
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each other off mid sentence today.
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I am in complete agreement with that constraint.
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These theological concepts require significant breathing
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room to fully articulate. They really do.
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If we're going to accurately trace the mechanics of how grace
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operates in a depressed soul, rushing the explanation will
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only do you, the listener, a massive disservice.
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I totally agree. So I will gladly let you finish
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your thoughts and I appreciate receiving the same courtesy as
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we work through this material. Accent.
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OK, so to set the stage for you, the listener, we need to
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establish the theological framework operating behind these
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verses. Which is so crucial.
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It is if you look at this text through the lens of historical
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Protestant Christianity, specifically leaning into
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Reformed theology and the Westminster Confession of Faith.
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These 8 verses are just a brilliant raw illustration of
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human inability. They really show that a believer
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is entirely dependent on God's grace for any forward motion in
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their spiritual life. Right.
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We're looking at the doctrine of sanctification, the process of
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becoming holy. And we are not looking at it as
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some self improvement project where you pull yourself up by
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your bootstraps. No, not at all.
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It is a sovereign operation of God from the first breath to the
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final step. That is the core of it.
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And we are tracking a stunning narrative arc today.
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In verse 25, we find a man who is literally face down in the
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dirt, just paralyzed by spiritual leather.
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Totally stuffed. But by the time we reach verse
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32, this exact same man is sprinting forward in joyful
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obedience. It is an incredible shift.
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So our mission today is to trace how a person goes from a state
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of total paralysis to a full Sprint entirely through the
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intervention of God's Word. I am ready to jump in.
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Awesome. Let's look at the opening scene,
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the grip of the dust and the melting soul.
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Verse 25 begins with this very visceral cry.
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My soul cleaveth unto the dust. Quicken thou me according to thy
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word. And then verse 28 adds, My soul
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melteth for heaviness. Strengthen thou me according
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into thy word. Those are heavy words.
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Extremely heavy. When I was reading Thomas
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Leblanc's commentary in the notes Spurgeon provided, a
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specific biological metaphor caught my eye.
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Oh, the sea creature one. Yes, exactly.
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LeBlanc compares the depressed soul to apolypus, right?
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For those unfamiliar, Apolypus in this context refers to a sea
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creature, like a limpet or a sea anemone.
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You know those things that glue themselves fast to the rocks in
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a tide, right? And they just lock on.
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Yeah, when the waves crash over it, it does not move.
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When you try to pry it off with your hands, it only clamps down
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harder. It fights against you.
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LeBlanc says the human soul cleaves to the earth just like
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that sea creature. It attaches itself to worldly
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things. He calls those things bird, lime
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and glue. That is a great visual.
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It is right, and it becomes incredibly difficult to tear the
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soul away from the dirt once it has fastened itself there.
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That image of the polypus is a striking depiction of human
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nature under distress. It really paints a picture.
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And Albert Barnes expands on this concept in his notes.
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He focuses heavily on the original Hebrew word used for
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cleavith. Oh, OK, what is the word?
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The word is debac and it carries the literal meaning of being
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glued, soldered, or securely fastened.
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Soldered. Wow.
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That implies heat and metal that is permanent.
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Right. Barnes clarifies that the
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psalmist is not describing a temporary rest or brief moment
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of fatigue. It is not just taking a nap, no.
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The soul is fiercely adhering to low base, groveling things.
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The affections of the heart have become soldered to the earth.
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That is such a vivid way to describe depression or spiritual
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deadness. It really is.
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The writer is expressing A continuous, agonizing tendency
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to cling to the dirt, feeling as though his very life force is
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being absorbed by the mold of the grave.
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And this psychological reality takes a massive physical toll,
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which we see in verse 28 where he says my soul melteth.
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Yes, Thomas Manton points out that the original language here
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suggests a wasting away. Like losing physical weight.
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Sort of. He compares it to an unctuous or
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fatty substance slowly dripping over a flame.
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Oh wow. The sheer heaviness of his grief
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is exhausting both his physical stamina and his spiritual
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vitality. He is literally dissolving into
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tears, just entirely spent. Hearing you describe that level
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of physical and emotional exhaustion brings a specific
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analogy to my mind, and I want to push on this point a little
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bit. Go for it.
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When a person is intensely depressed today, experiencing
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the kind of wasting away you just described, their very first
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instinct is to ask for comfort. Naturally, that makes total
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sense. Right.
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They go to a doctor, a therapist or a friend, and the underlying
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plea is basically, you know, please make this pain stop.
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I just want relief. They want to reprieve from the
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heaviness, but the psalmist does not ask for comfort in verse 25,
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he asks for life. He says Quicken thou me.
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Which literally means make me alive.
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To me, asking for comfort when your soul is melting feels like
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treating a lethal infection with a mild painkiller.
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That is a brilliant way to freeze it.
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The painkiller might numb the symptom for an hour, but the
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bacteria is still actively shutting down your organs.
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The root cause is untouched, right?
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Asking for life, on the other hand, is like demanding the
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heavy duty antibiotic that cures the underlying disease.
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It is a totally different approach.
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So my question is, why does the psalmist bypass the natural
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human desire for comfort and immediately ask for life?
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You hit the nail on the head with that medical analogy.
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To understand why he asks for life rather than mere comfort,
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we have to look at how Charles Spurgeon addresses this specific
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phrasing. OK, what does Spurgeon say?
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Spurgeon writes more Life is the cure for all our ailments.
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More life that is interesting. If we connect this back to the
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reformed view of human nature, we must recognize that our core
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problem is not that we are simply sad, misunderstood or
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lacking serotonin. Right, it is much deeper than
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biology or circumstances. From a theological standpoint,
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our core problem is that we are prone to spiritual deadness.
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We are weighed down by the flesh which is made of dust, and our
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natural inclination post fall is to return to that dust.
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So we are just magnetically drawn back to the dirt.
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Precisely therefore, true revival is never just an
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emotional uplift. A temporary painkiller will not
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solve spiritual mortality. Right, because dead people do
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not need painkillers. Spot on.
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True revival requires a direct infusion of spiritual life.
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Spurgeon notes that a casual observer might think David
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should ask for comfort or upraising, but David possessed
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the wisdom to know that real comfort only flows out of
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increased vitality. That makes a lot of sense.
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When a person is physically weak and bent over toward the ground,
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the solution is not to just prop them up with crutches.
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The solution is to increase their internal stamina to put
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more life into their system. Because if you just prop them
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up, they are still sick. Right.
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Once the internal life is restored, the spirit revives and
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the body naturally becomes erect.
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So the premise here is that trying to manually pry yourself
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off the rock, or trying to shake off the dust through your own
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willpower is completely impossible unless a new external
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source of life is injected into your system first.
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Precisely, and the mechanism the psalmist relies upon for this
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injection of life is vital to understand.
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You mean the second-half of his plea?
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Yes, notice he says. Quicken thou me according to thy
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word. He did not ask for a feeling.
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No, he's not looking for a vague, mystical experience in
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the woods. He is not hoping for a random
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surge of positive energy. He is grounding it in Scripture.
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He is making a direct legal appeal to the revealed promises
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of God. John Sheffield notes in the
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commentary that the Word of God is the immortal seed by which a
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person is begotten again. It is the active agent.
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It is the hammer that breaks the rock and softens the heart.
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The psalmist rests his entire hope of resuscitation on what
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God has already spoken. Because God's words actually do
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things. Well I mean that is spot on.
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He knows that the Creator who first formed a man from the dust
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and breathed life into his nostrils, is the only one who
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can breathe life into a soul that is actively returning to
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the dust. That connection back to Genesis
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is brilliant. The solution to this severe
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spiritual paralysis is not a new morning routine or a self help
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regimen. It is a desperate appeal to the
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Creator to perform a second act of creation within the soul.
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That sets up a really fascinating progression.
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How so? Well, once a person recognizes
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this state of total inability, you know, the realization that
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they cannot unglue themselves from the dirt and they must beg
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for external life, the very next logical step is to lay their
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entire reality bare before the physician.
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Yes. Which brings us to verse 26.
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Right. This brings us right into verse
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26, and the phrasing here is incredibly specific.
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The text says I have declared my ways and thou hurtest me.
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Teach me thy statutes. Declared my ways.
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I want to zero in on that phrase.
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In the context of the Hebrew, this implies A comprehensive,
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unvarnished confession all laying it all.
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Out there, yeah. It means taking a full inventory
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of your actions, your secret motives, your failures, and
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lying them out in the open. Holding nothing back.
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But I have to push back on the logic of this verse a bit, or at
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least challenge how it aligns with human nature and the nature
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of God. OK, I am listening.
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Human instinct runs entirely contrary to the idea of a
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voluntary audit. Our primary reflex when we fail
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is to hide. That is very true.
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We see this all the way back in the opening chapters of Genesis.
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The moment Adam and Eve realized their ways were sinful, they did
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not run to God and declare their ways.
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They sewed fig leaves together and hid in the bushes.
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They tried to cover it up. And thousands of years later,
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you and I still do the exact same thing.
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We try to present a sanitized, highly edited version of
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ourselves to God and to the world.
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We really do. We curate our image constantly.
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So here's my challenge. If God is omniscient, if he
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already knows every single thought of my head and every
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mistake I've ever made, why does he require me to vocalize it?
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That is a very common question. If he already knows I am glued
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to the dust, isn't declaring my ways redundant?
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Why is the vocalization of my failures the necessary
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prerequisite for him teaching me his statutes?
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That is a highly perceptive challenge, and it cuts to the
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core of how the creator relates to his creatures.
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I would love to hear how the commentators handle.
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It To answer why an omniscient God requires vocalized
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declaration, we should look at a brilliant analogy provided by
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Paul Bain. In the source material.
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Bain compares our relationship with God to a sick patient
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visiting a physician or a client consulting their legal counsel.
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More medical analysis. Imagine you go to a doctor with
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a severe, potentially permanent illness, but out of shame you
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lie about your symptoms, you hide the fact that you have been
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drinking heavily, or you minimize the pain you are
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experiencing. Right.
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You downplay it so you do not look bad.
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The doctor might have access to your blood test results and
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suspect what is wrong, but if you actively conceal your
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condition, the doctor cannot properly treat you.
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Because you are fighting the diagnosis.
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But precisely similarly, if you hire a lawyer to defend you in a
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massive lawsuit, but you hide key pieces of incriminating
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evidence from them, they cannot build an effective defense.
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That makes total sense. God delights in the humble
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transparency of a vocalized confession because it signals
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the breaking of our pride. Oh, so the confession is not for
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God's information, it is for our posture.
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Yes, Bane points out a fascinating contrast here.
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If we were to lay all our wants, our humiliating weaknesses, and
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our invincible evils before a human being, we would likely
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lose their respect and their favor.
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People judge us for our messes. Human beings judge us harshly,
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but doing this with God actually wins His favor.
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He teaches the humble specifically because the humble
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scholar, having admitted their total ignorance and failure,
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will give their master all the honor for whatever they learn.
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So the vocalization is not to inform God of something he does
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not know. The vocalization is the
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mechanism that shatters our self-reliance.
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Correct, and Thomas Manton provides of a masterful
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breakdown of what it actually means to declare our ways in
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practice. How does he break it down?
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Manton divides this declaration into 3 distinct theological
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acts. OK, what is the first one?
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First, he says, it is an act of faith and dependence.
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By declaring our business, our daily undertakings and our plans
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to God, we are actively committing them to the direction
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of His Providence. We are consulting with him
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rather than acting autonomously. Right second, Manton calls it an
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act of holy friendship. Early friendship.
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I like that phrase. This occurs when we share our
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sorrows, our anxieties and our dangers with God, coming to Him,
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much like 1 friend comes to another, hoping for pity, relief
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and a sympathetic ear. That is a very intimate way to
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view prayer. It is.
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And 3rd, it is an act of spiritual contrition.
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In biblical terminology, our ways very often refer to our
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temptations, our corruptions, and our actual sins.
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So confessing the really dark stuff.
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Yes, declaring them in this context means confessing our
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sins with a genuine brokenness of heart.
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Wow. When we engage in these three
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specific acts, dependence, friendship, and contrition, we
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are systematically emptying ourselves of our own perceived
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self-sufficiency. We create a vacuum within the
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soul. And nature abhors a vacuum.
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It does, and it is only in that emptied space that God imparts
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His statutes. As Matthew Henry notes regarding
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this verse, David is essentially asking for a customized duty.
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A customized duty? What does that mean?
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Having laid his entire mess on the table, David is saying now,
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Lord, tell me my duty, let me know what that would just have
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me to do as the case stands right now.
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So declaring our ways out loud naturally generates a massive
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aversion to false ways. It naturally follows yes.
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Think about it practically. If you have just spent agonizing
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time laying all your worst sins, your secret habits, and your
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shameful failures on the table before a holy God, the absolute
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last thing you want to do is pick those habits right back up.
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You are disgusted by them at that point.
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This intense desire for purity sets up the sharp contrast in
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the next couple of verses between falsehood and truth.
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Let us analyze verse 29 and verse 30.
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OK, read them for us. Verse 29 says, remove from me
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the way of lying and grant me Thy law graciously.
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And then verse 30 acts as the pivot point.
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I have chosen the way of truth. Thy judgments have I laid before
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me. The transition from lying to
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truth. The specific phrasing in verse
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29 grab my attention immediately.
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The text says remove from me the way of lying rather than saying
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remove me from the way of lying. That preposition makes a huge
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difference. To me that prepositional
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difference changes the entire theology of temptation.
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If the prayer was removed me from the way of lying, it would
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be comparable to saying, Lord I live in a terrible neighborhood
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surrounded by bad influences. Please help me pack my bags and
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move to a safer town. It treats the sin as a purely
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external environmental hazard, right?
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You just need to change your zip code to get holy.
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Which we know is not true. But praying removed from me the
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way of lying flips the script entirely.
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It is the terrifying realization that the ultimate danger is not
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outside your house. It is a deadly disease living
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inside your own chest. It is a cancer in the soul.
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The lie is internal. The false motives, the constant
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self deceit, the hypocrisy, the urge to spin the truth to
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protect our egos, those things are native to the human heart.
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We are not asking God to change our surroundings, we are asking
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Him to extract a tumor. That analysis of the internal
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nature of the lie aligns Florida State with the commentary
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provided by Thomas LeBlanc and John Calvin.
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Oh, Calvin has some thoughts on this.
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Very much so. But first, LeBlanc is very
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explicit on this point. He states that the way of
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iniquity is fundamentally within US.
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It is built in. Following the doctrine of
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original sin, He knows that we are born children of wrath and
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our innate uncontrolled passions run naturally toward the lie.
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We do not need to be taught how to deceive.
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It is our default operating system.
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You do not have to teach a toddler to lie, they just figure
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it out. Spot on, but John Calvin's
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analysis of this verse provides a massive, sobering historical
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context that we must consider. What context is that?
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Calvin points out that we are reading the words of David, and
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David's life featured some of the most catastrophic moral
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failures recorded in ancient history.
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Calvin specifically directs her attention to David's horrific
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sin with Bathsheba and the subsequent premeditated murder
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of her husband, Uriah the Hittite.
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That is a brutally dark chapter. Think about the mechanics of
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that historical event. David committed adultery, and
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when Mashiba became pregnant, David did not immediately
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confess. Instead, he fell into a complex
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calculated tissue of equivocation.
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The cover up is always worse. He brought Uriah back from the
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front lines, tried to get him to go home and sleep with his wife
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to cover up the paternity, and when Uriah honor prevented him
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from doing so, David wrote a letter.
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A death warrant? Basically yes.
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He commanded his generals to abandon Uriah in the thickest
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part of the battle so he would be slaughtered.
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David used the enemy army as his own personal assassination
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squad. Chilling when you lay it out
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like that. Calvin uses this horrifying
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sequence of events to illustrate how easily and how deeply even a
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mature believer can fall into self deceit.
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Because David was not a novice. Not at all.
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He had a great beginning. He was recognized as a prophet,
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he possessed immense spiritual knowledge, and he had
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experienced profound intimacy with God.
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Yet he fell mightily. It shows nobody is immune.
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Calvin argues that this history teaches us never to fall into
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foolish arrogancy. We cannot look at our past good
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deeds or our current theological knowledge and assume the devil
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can win no more victories over us.
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We drop our guard and we are done.
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Calvin asserts that unless we are continually held up by God's
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mighty and strong hand, our own corrupt nature will inevitably
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lead us astray. The way of lying is an internal
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corruption that requires constant divine extraction.
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It is. Genuinely terrifying to realize
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that a man with David's unparalleled spiritual resume,
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The man who killed Goliath, who wrote the 23rd Psalm, who was
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called man after God's own heart, could orchestrate A
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calculated murder purely to protect his own reputation.
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It proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that no human being can
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ever operate on spiritual autopilot.
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But you can never reach a level of maturity where you stop
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needing grace. Never.
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You have to wake up every single day and beg God to grant you His
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law graciously, as the text says, because your default
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setting is self deception. That is the daily reality of the
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Christian life. And that realization brings us
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to a massive theological friction point in verse 30.
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OK, where is the friction? After begging God to remove the
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internal lie, David boldly declares, I have chosen the way
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of truth. Now I want to press into the
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mechanics of this choice. Based on everything we just
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discussed regarding human inability, total depravity, and
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the native internal corruption of the human heart, how can
21:52
David possibly claim to choose the truth?
21:53
That is $1,000,000 question. If the lie is the default
21:57
operating system and we are completely dead in the dust,
22:01
where does the capacity to make a holy choice originate?
22:04
How do we reconcile man's deadness with man's choice?
22:08
You have just articulated the central tension of reformed
22:11
soteriology. How does a dead will choose
22:13
life? Exactly.
22:14
I mean, it seems like a contradiction.
22:16
William Calper's commentary in our source material addresses
22:19
this apparent paradox beautifully.
22:22
He relies heavily on the doctrine of unconditional
22:24
election. OK, unpack that for us.
22:26
Calper asserts that the only reason David has the capacity to
22:29
say I have chosen the way of truth in time is because God
22:32
made a prior sovereign choice in eternity Pass.
22:35
Oh, so God goes first. Always.
22:38
Cowper writes that the choice David makes actually proceeds
22:41
from that divine election whereby the Lord before all time
22:45
made choice of David. The formula is straightforward
22:49
but heavy. We choose God solely because He
22:52
first chose. Us, if he did not move first, we
22:55
would just stay in the dust forever.
22:56
If the Creator had not unilaterally chosen us to be His
23:00
people, we could never in our corrupt state, have chosen Him
23:03
to be our God. So the human choice is real, but
23:06
it is a reaction. Yes.
23:08
So the physical, historical act of a believer choosing the way
23:12
of truth, deliberately deciding to follow God's commands,
23:15
actively rejecting the internal lie, and intentionally laying
23:18
God's judgments before them is the undeniable, visible fruit of
23:22
an invisible divine election. Is the evidence of the invisible
23:25
work. It is the empirical evidence
23:27
that sovereign grace has already been actively working in the
23:30
soul. The choice the believer makes is
23:31
entirely real. It is deliberate, it involves
23:34
the human will, and it requires effort.
23:36
But that will has been radically renewed.
23:38
It's a new operating system. Thomas Watson adds a highly
23:41
practical layer to this concept, noting that true religion is
23:45
never a matter of chance, it is a matter of deliberate choice.
23:49
We have to make a conscious decision.
23:51
Watson says we must sit down rationally, reckon the cost and
23:56
resolve to own Christ even when the swords and staves are up,
23:59
meaning even under the threat of persecution or death.
24:03
That is a heavy commitment. But the reformed framework
24:06
insists that the fuel required to make that radical resolution
24:09
is supplied entirely by the grace we just discussed.
24:12
The engine of human choice only runs on the fuel of divine
24:15
election. So if we take this heavy
24:17
theology and apply it to how you and I live our daily lives, what
24:21
does it look like? That is the practical
24:23
application. It means that if we were going
24:25
to actively choose the truth, we must thoroughly understand what
24:28
that truth actually is. You cannot choose to follow a
24:31
map you do not comprehend. That is a great point.
24:34
And that logical necessity brings us to the prerequisite
24:36
for holy speech, which is the absolute focus of verse 27.
24:40
The psalmist writes, Make me to understand the way of thy
24:42
precepts, So shall I talk of thy wondrous works.
24:46
Make me to understand. I want to take this ancient
24:48
verse and lay it directly over our modern culture for a moment.
24:53
We currently live in an era where millions of people
24:57
frequently and loudly talk about things they do not comprehend.
25:01
Oh, that is painfully true. The Internet has given everyone
25:04
a global microphone. Everyone is expected to have a
25:07
fully formed opinion on every complex geopolitical event,
25:11
theological debate or cultural crisis the moment it happens.
25:15
The pressure to speak is immense.
25:17
The sheer speed at which we are culturally pressure to talk
25:20
leaves absolutely zero time for the slow, agonizing work of
25:24
understanding. Are we as a society and even as
25:27
the church, far too eager to talk before we ever pause to ask
25:30
God to make us understand? It is a pervasive cultural
25:33
sickness, and you are absolutely right to point out that it is
25:36
entirely antithetical to the biblical pattern outlined in
25:39
verse 27 it. Seems like we have it completely
25:41
backwards. We do.
25:42
Spurgeon is incredibly sharp, almost caustic, on this specific
25:45
point. He forcefully asserts that talk
25:48
without intelligence is mere talk, idle talk.
25:50
He does not mince words. He makes a fascinating
25:53
observation about human psychology, noting that half the
25:56
wonder in the world is born out of sheer ignorance.
25:59
Ignorance. How so?
26:00
People marvel at things simply because they do not understand
26:04
how they work, like a child marveling at a magic trick.
26:08
Oh, right, because they do not see the sleight of hand.
26:11
But Spurgeon argues that holy wonder is the child of
26:14
understanding. When a person truly comprehends
26:17
the intricate, majestic way of the divine precepts, they
26:21
completely lose the desire to talk about their own trivial
26:24
accomplishments, and they naturally begin to extol the
26:27
works of the Lord. The focus shifts entirely off of
26:30
themselves. The sequence laid out in this
26:32
text is rigid and non negotiable.
26:34
First, there must be a divine enlightenment of the mind.
26:38
The pleas make me to understand. We cannot just figure it out on
26:41
our. Own we cannot gain the spiritual
26:43
insight from a university, a podcast, or a book.
26:46
It must come directly from the Lord's hands.
26:48
Natural blindness, as Thomas Manton describes it, is an
26:51
obstinate disease that refuses to yield to human logic.
26:54
It requires a divine cure. A little hearsay knowledge or
26:58
scanning a headline is entirely insufficient for holy speech.
27:01
I want to pause in that phrase you used.
27:03
Holy Wonder is the child of understanding.
27:06
It is a beautiful thought. That flips normal definition of
27:09
wonder on its head. We typically think of wonder as
27:12
the feeling we get when we are totally confused when something
27:15
is mysterious or shrouded in fog.
27:17
Right, the mystical approach to wonder.
27:20
But Spurgeon is saying that true biblical wonder occurs when the
27:24
fog clears. You do not marvel at God because
27:27
he's a confusing blur. You marvel at God because you
27:30
see the terrifying, beautiful precision of His decrees, His
27:34
Providence and His justice. The clearer the understanding,
27:38
the heavier the wonder. Spot on.
27:40
And Manton observes that when this true grace takes root in an
27:43
enlightened mind, it becomes highly commutative.
27:46
It wants to share itself. He likens grace to fire.
27:49
You cannot easily conceal a fire.
27:51
It naturally spreads, it gives off heat, and it illuminates its
27:53
surroundings. Ire is a great analogy.
27:55
When the human heart is heavily affected by a genuine
27:58
understanding of God's wondrous works, specifically His works of
28:02
creation, His intricate acts of Providence, and the massive
28:06
accomplishment of redemption, the tongue simply cannot hold it
28:09
in. It just bubbles over.
28:11
Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
28:14
But Manton highlights a strict 3 step operational order that we
28:18
must adhere to. OK, what are the three steps?
28:20
Step one Divine enlightenment of the mind through.
28:24
Prayer asking God for sight. Step 2.
28:27
Rigorous meditation. This involves laying the
28:30
judgments before us, studying them intensely, and
28:33
internalizing their implications.
28:34
That takes a lot of time and quietness step.
28:36
Three, communicate for the edification of others.
28:39
If we skip step one and Step 2, our talk is empty, vain and
28:43
potentially destructive. Which is what social media
28:45
essentially encourages us to do. Skip steps 1 and 2.
28:48
It certainly does, but if we patiently follow the pattern
28:51
allowing God to forge understanding in the quiet
28:54
places first, our words become incredibly valuable.
28:58
As Spurgeon vividly puts it, words spoken from true
29:01
understanding become like pearls which adorn the ears of them
29:05
that hear. All right, so taking all of this
29:08
in, the pleading for life, the unvarnished confession, the
29:11
internal extraction of the lie, the slow pursuit of
29:14
understanding, we realize that this is not a weekend retreat.
29:17
Not at all. It is a long.
29:19
Haul This process of learning, meditating and speaking is a
29:22
grinding, lifelong pursuit. It requires an immense amount of
29:26
perseverance. Which is hard when you're
29:28
exhausted. Which provides the perfect
29:29
transition into our final section today?
29:32
Sticking and running or the dynamics of grace?
29:35
We're looking at the final 2 verses of our section, verses 31
29:38
and 32. Let.
29:39
Us hear them. Verse 31 says, I have stuck unto
29:41
thy testimonies, O Lord, put me not to shame.
29:44
And verse 32 is a grand climax of the entire ochtenary.
29:47
I will run the way of Thy commandments when thou shalt
29:50
enlarge my heart. What a beautiful resolution.
29:52
Reading verse 32 immediately brings the image of a massive
29:55
sailboat to my mind. A.
29:57
Sailboat. Tell me more.
29:58
Imagine you have built the finest sailboat in the harbor.
30:02
You have polished the wood. You have the best rigging and
30:05
you hoist the sails as high as they can go.
30:07
OK, I am picturing it. Hoisting the sails represents
30:10
our human desire to obey God. You can have all the right
30:14
intentions, you can have the theology perfectly mapped out in
30:17
your head, but unless the wind actually blows, unless the
30:20
invisible breath of nature fills those canvas sails, that
30:23
beautiful boat goes absolutely nowhere.
30:25
It just sits dead in the water. You were just bobbing on the
30:28
water, entirely stagnant. In the theology of this text,
30:32
God enlarging the human heart is the wind.
30:34
That analogy of the sailboat perfectly captures the Reformed
30:37
doctrine of grace and human effort.
30:39
The desire to run the hoisting of the sails is present in the
30:43
believer, but the actual capacity to move forward
30:46
requires A decisive divine intervention.
30:49
The wind has to blow. Let us analyze this specific
30:52
physiological metaphor of the enlarged heart.
30:55
Commentators Henry Melville and Thomas Manton provide deep
30:58
insights into what we might call the Physiology of the fallen
31:02
soul. The Physiology of the soul.
31:04
That is an interesting concept. They explain that the human
31:06
heart physically and spiritually contracted at the fall of man.
31:10
The introduction of sin and selfishness caused the soul to
31:13
shrink inward. Like it cramped up.
31:16
It became narrow, tight, and completely unequal to containing
31:19
great, generous or holy thoughts.
31:22
It became a bondage heart, severely limited in its
31:25
capacity. It turned in on itself.
31:27
It drew all its affections away from the expansive glory of God
31:30
and focused them entirely on the tiny, pathetic idol of the self.
31:34
Therefore, for a human being to run in the way of God's massive
31:37
commandments, God must perform a radical spiritual surgery.
31:42
He must dilate, stretch and widen the heart.
31:45
When you use the phrase spiritual surgery, it implies
31:48
something very specific about the state of the patient.
31:50
What does it imply to you? A patient undergoing open heart
31:52
surgery is completely anesthetized.
31:55
They're entirely passive on the operating table.
31:58
They do not assist the surgeon with the scalpel.
32:00
Are we saying the believer is entirely passive in this process
32:04
of having their heart enlarged? In the initial moment of
32:06
regeneration, yes, the patient is entirely passive.
32:09
This is the core of the Reformed doctrine of effectual calling.
32:12
God is the sole actor in that moment.
32:14
God acts first upon the dead heart.
32:16
He replaces the heart of stone with the heart of flesh.
32:19
He changes it, unites its fragmented desires, and
32:22
forcefully enlarges its capacity to receive His love.
32:25
So he forces the sails open and brings the wind.
32:28
However, the immediate result of this sovereign internal surgery
32:31
is highly active. Once the heart is enlarged, the
32:35
immediate fruit is the cheerful, ready and swift motion of the
32:38
feet. Notice the text says I will run.
32:41
It is a Sprint. It does not say I will be
32:43
dragged. It is not a forced March where
32:46
God is pulling a reluctant prisoner by a chain.
32:48
As Spurgeon accurately notes, grace is not an overwhelming
32:51
physical force which compels unwilling minds to move contrary
32:54
to their desires. That is a crucial distinction.
32:57
It is not coercion. Rather, grace changes the desire
33:01
itself. It is the spontaneous leaping
33:04
forward of a mind which has finally been set free from its
33:07
chains. When the heart is surgically
33:09
enlarged by God, the man becomes, as Melville states, all
33:12
heart. All heart, I love that.
33:14
Every faculty of the mind, every muscle of the body, and every
33:18
affection of the soul is brought into joyful subjection to God.
33:22
This results in a firm, resolute and unflinching obedience.
33:26
The Scottish theologian Robert Layton has a quote regarding
33:29
this specific progression of grace that I think it's just
33:32
breathtaking. Oh, Leighton is wonderful.
33:33
What is the quote? He writes If thou do but creep,
33:37
creep on desire to be unable to go, if thou goest but yet
33:41
haltingly desire to run. That is so encouraging for those
33:44
who feel slow. It perfectly captures this
33:46
relentless, agonizing yearning for a swifter spiritual pace, a
33:50
deeper level of obedience. And if we pull the camera all
33:53
the way back and look at the 8 verses we just covered, the
33:56
contrast is staggering. From beginning to end.
33:59
Look at where we started in verse 25.
34:02
We had a man whose soul was glued to the dirt, unable to
34:06
lift his own head. The polyp is on the rock.
34:08
By verse 28, he was melting away, physically exhausted by
34:12
the heavyweight of his own sin and depression.
34:14
He was completely paralyzed. But now in verse 32, this exact
34:18
same man is sprinting down the road of God's commandments.
34:22
It is a stunning reversal. His heart is dilated and wide
34:26
open, his feet are moving swiftly, his sails are full of
34:28
wind. It is a total miraculous
34:31
reversal of his initial. Condition.
34:33
It is a total reversal, and the most critical take away for
34:35
anyone studying this text is accurately identifying the cause
34:39
of that reversal. Right.
34:40
Who gets the credit? From the lowest suffocating
34:42
depths of depression to the highest windswept peaks of
34:45
zealous obedience, the believer must attribute every single
34:48
ounce of progress to the free favor and sovereign grace of
34:52
God. The theology here leaves no room
34:54
for human boasting. None at all.
34:56
We contributed nothing but the dust.
34:57
The man lying face down in the dust could not stand up on his
35:01
own strength. The man infected with the
35:03
internal disease of lying could not extract the tour and choose
35:07
truth on his own. The man who was ignorant could
35:10
not generate holy understanding. And the man who desperately
35:13
wanted to run could not move a single muscle in his feet until
35:16
God surgically enlarged his heart every single step of the
35:20
way. The operative phrases are
35:22
according to Thy word. Teach me, make me, and enlarge
35:27
my heart. It is all God's action.
35:29
The entire octonery is 1 sustained desperate cry of
35:33
absolute dependence on the Creator.
35:35
So to bring all of this weighty theology directly down to the
35:38
ground for you, the listener, we have traced A remarkable path
35:42
today. We really have.
35:43
We started by acknowledging the uncomfortable reality of our own
35:46
spiritual deadness, that native gravitational pull that makes us
35:50
cleave to the dust when life gets hard.
35:52
The total inability. We saw the absolute necessity of
35:55
auditing our souls out loud, confessing our ways to God
35:58
without hiding behind fig leaves or rationalizations.
36:01
Laying it all out for the physician.
36:03
We recognize the terrifying truth that the lie is an
36:06
internal disease, not an external circumstance, and we
36:10
saw our desperate need for God to surgically remove it so we
36:13
can actively choose His truth. Choosing it because he chose us.
36:17
We learned the hard lesson that true holy wonder must precede
36:22
our speech, forcing us to slow down and understand before we
36:26
open our mouths. And finally, we saw that even
36:29
with the best intentions, we must wait on the wind of God's
36:32
Spirit to enlarge our contracted hearts so we can finally run.
36:35
It is a complete theological picture of grace.
36:39
I want to challenge you to heavily evaluate your own
36:41
spiritual pace right now. Think about your life this week.
36:44
It is a good time for a self audit.
36:46
If you feel like your soul is violently cleaving to the dust,
36:49
if you feel glued to a state of heaviness and you cannot seem to
36:52
pry yourself off the rock, the solution is not to try and
36:55
Sprint on your own strength. You will only exhaust yourself.
36:57
You cannot manufacture the wind. Your willpower is not enough.
37:01
The biblical solution is to stop striving, lay there in the dust,
37:05
and aggressively pray for the Great Physician to quicken you
37:08
according to his written promises.
37:10
If I may add one final thought to that challenge, something for
37:13
you to ponder long after this audio finishes, please do.
37:17
If running in God's commandments absolutely requires Him to
37:20
enlarge our hearts first, how should that theological reality
37:24
change the way we view our moments of complete spiritual
37:27
standstill? That is a heavy question.
37:29
When we are depressed we tend to fall into a cycle of intense,
37:33
guilt driven self-reliance. We beat ourselves up for not
37:36
running fast enough, but could it be that our seasons in the
37:40
dust are actually God's precise method of preparation?
37:43
Breaking us down to build us back up.
37:45
Could it be that He allows the X-ray machine of our own self
37:47
righteousness to breakdown entirely, leaving us helpless in
37:50
those Muddy Waters for a highly specific reason?
37:53
To shatter our pride. Perhaps He leaves us glued to
37:56
the rock just long enough to force us to realize that we
37:59
cannot take a single, solitary step toward holiness without His
38:03
breath filling our lungs. The dust, it turns out, is where
38:06
the surgery happens. That reframes everything about
38:08
how we view those brutal low moments in our lives.
38:11
It changes the dust from a place of final defeat into a place of
38:14
divine preparation. Keep seeking truth, everyone,
38:17
and wait on the wind. Thank you for joining us for
38:20
this deep dive into the Treasury of David.
38:22
We will see you next time.