Well now do please take your Bibles in hand and turn with me in them, once again, to Psalm 119 as we continue to work our way through the psalm, one stanza at a time, here on Sunday mornings. We’ve come today to verses 129 through 136. You can find them on page 515 if you are using one of our church Bibles.
You will remember if you have been with us, in the past few sections that we have considered the psalmist has been dealing with opponents, with people who oppress him, people who have turned aside from the law of the Lord. But in this stanza, the focus shifts back to the psalmist’s relationship with God by His holy Word. We’ve said before that Psalm 119 reads almost as though we were looking over the psalmist’s shoulder as he catalogs in his personal diary the ways in which God has dealt with him by the holy Scriptures. Psalm 119 as a whole is an intimate record of the longings of the psalmist’s heart that God would deepen His work in his life through the Scriptures.
And that’s especially the case in the verses before us in this stanza this morning. This stanza, if you look at it, is constructed around four couplets of two verses each. The first and last couplets, verses 129 and 130 and 135 and 136, the first and last couplets both talk about the light that God causes to shine upon us through the Scriptures. So verse 130, “The unfolding of Your words gives light.” Verse 135, “Make Your face shine upon Your servant and teach me Your statutes.” The Word of God makes the light of God’s face shine into our lives. In the first couplet, 129 and 130, because of the light of God’s shining Word penetrating the darkness of his life, the psalmist expresses his commitment to personal obedience to God’s Law. And in the last couplet, 135 and 136, because of the light of God’s Word shining into his life, the psalmist expresses his compassion towards others around him who disobey God’s Law. So commitment first, because of the light of God’s Word, and compassion at the end of the stanza, again, because of the light of God’s Word. And in the middle, in the second and third couplets, the psalmist prays for more. Having received so much already from the Scriptures, the Bible having already done great things in his life, he longs for more. And so he prays first for spiritual provision. He wants more of the Word and more of its work in his life, in verse 131 and 132. And then he prays for spiritual protection. He wants God to deliver him from sin, both his own sin and the sin of others, in 133 and 134.
Now put all of that together and here’s the outline of the stanza. Do you see it? We can sum it up in four words that reflect the structure of the stanza. First, commitment, 129 and 130. Provision, 131 and 132. Protection, 133 and 134. And compassion, 135 and 136. So commitment, provision, protection and compassion. That’s where we’re going. Before we look at each of those, let’s bow our heads as we pray together.
Blessed Lord who has caused all holy Scripture to be written for our learning, grant that we may hear them, read, mark and learn Your Word, and inwardly digest it that by patience and comfort of Your holy Word we may embrace and ever hold fast to the blessed hope of everlasting life which You have given us in our Savior, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, amen.
Psalm 119 at verse 129. This is the Word of God:
“Your testimonies are wonderful; therefore my soul keeps them. The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple. I open my mouth and pant, because I long for your commandments. Turn to me and be gracious to me, as is your way with those who love your name. Keep steady my steps according to your promise, and let no iniquity get dominion over me. Redeem me from man’s oppression, that I may keep your precepts. Make your face shine upon your servant, and teach me your statutes. My eyes shed streams of tears, because people do not keep your law.”
Amen, and we praise God that He has spoken in His holy Word.
Let’s look at the first couplet together, 129 and 130, where we learn about the psalmist’s commitment. The psalmist’s commitment. He starts, you’ll notice, by telling us something about the Bible. Verse 129, “Your testimonies are wonderful.” I was reading this past week about two men from Canada who, for a joke, filled a Ziplock bag with fresh air and put it up for sale on eBay for 99 Canadian cents. When it sold, they tried another, and by now the media got hold of the story and the second bag sold – wait for it – for $168. A bag of fresh air! Soon they quit their jobs and began a business selling canisters of untreated fresh air from Banff, Canada to customers all over the world. People will spend money on just about anything it turns out.
But the psalmist knows that committing himself to the Word of God isn’t like being sold a can of fresh air, all nicely packaged perhaps but with nothing particularly special inside. No, he says, “Your testimonies are wonderful. They are wonderful.” Now typically we use the word “wonderful” subjectively, don’t we, as a way to describe something surprising and amazing and exciting. It’s generally positive – “It’s wonderful!” It’s a thing that makes us feel wonder. That’s what we mean. That’s not exactly what the Hebrew expression translated here as “wonderful” is really getting at. Actually, the psalmist is saying the testimonies of God, the holy Scriptures, the Bible, the testimonies of God are filled with, marked objectively as themselves being great wonders. A “wonder” in the Hebrew Bible is really a synonym, another name for something supernatural. So the Old Testament scholar, Alec Motyer, paraphrases verse 129 as “Your testimonies are out of this world.” That is, this is a divine book and it is attended by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is full of wonder, and because that is its nature, because that’s what Your testimonies are, “therefore,” he says, “my soul keeps them. I am committed to life on Your terms, Lord, because of the supernatural character and compelling power of Your holy Word.”
The Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 1 paragraph 4, makes that point beautifully when it says, “The authority of the holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed and obeyed, depends not upon the testimony of any man or church but wholly upon God who is truth itself, the author thereof. And therefore, it is to be received because it is the Word of God.” The character of the Bible as the Word of God. It is out of this world. It is a wonder. It is supernatural in its character and origin. It is the Word of God, and because it is, it is intrinsically compelling and authoritative and it leads the psalmist and it ought to lead us to a life that bows reverently under that authority and is committed to its truth.
In verse 130, if you’ll look down there please, verse 130 fills out the picture of the work of the wonderful Word of God in our lives. Verse 130, “The unfolding of Your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple.” Because the Bible is the Word of God, when it is unfolded it gives light. It imparts understanding even to the simple. Now here is a proof text if ever there was one for expositional preaching. At First Presbyterian Church we are not about storytelling. We are not about therapy. We are not about pep talks or motivational speeches. We don’t do Ted Talks in the pulpit. We are about Psalm 119 verse 130. That’s our focus; that’s our priority. We aim to unfold God’s words. That’s our whole project. That’s our commitment. We explain the Bible verse by verse, chapter by chapter, book by book because for this reason – “The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple.”
The psalmist knows what many of us have come to experience for ourselves after years of sitting under the faithful exposition of the Word of God. As the light of heaven shines into our lives from the pages of God’s book, laying bare the secrets of our hearts, instructing us in the way that we should go, showing us the beauty of God’s grace, the wonder of His love for sinners in the Lord Jesus Christ, haven’t we found ourselves saying to God, “Your testimonies are wonderful, therefore my soul keeps them.” God has been dealing with us in a sermon. We came perhaps half-asleep and then somewhere along the way as the Word is preached He penetrates the fog and speaks to us and arrests us and grips us and humbles us and teaches us and the secrets of our hearts are laid bare and we say, “O God, Your testimonies are wonderful, therefore my soul keeps them.” Commitment. Commitment. Do you see it? That’s the first thing the psalm teaches us, this stanza teaches us.
Secondly, look down at verse 131 and 132, the next couplet, where the psalmist moves from meditating on what God has done by His Word in his life already to praying for more. This language here, doesn’t it put you in mind of a newly hatched chick in a bird’s nest, constantly chirping for the parent to fly back and feed them, opening wide their mouths to be fed. Do you see that picture in verse 131? “I hope my mouth and pant because I long for Your commandments. Turn to me and be gracious to me as is Your way with those who love Your name.” He starts the stanza with commitment and now he prays for spiritual provision. He wants God to feed him, to feed him by His Word because he is hungry for more. He is hungry for more. He can’t get enough.
Now let me ask you, brothers and sisters in Christ, to assess your own heart honestly in the light of the teaching of God’s Word in these verses. Is the preaching of the Word a chore to me, a thing I endure, a thing to be gotten out of the way so that I can spend the rest of the Lord’s Day as if it were really my own day? Or can I say with the psalmist, “I open my mouth and pant because I long for Your commandments. I want more, not less. I set aside other interests, all other employments, all other recreations so that I can consecrate the Sabbath Day to God and sit under the Word of the Lord unencumbered and without distraction. The Word is wonderful to me. It pours light into my darkness. It gives me understanding. The more I get the more I want. I can’t get enough!” You know how to awaken your appetite, don’t you? You sometimes come to the dinner table, you don’t feel hungry until that first bite of your favorite meal and then suddenly your appetite is awakened. That’s what’s happening in the psalmist’s life. As he consumes the Word it awakens his appetite for more. “I want more!”
Is that you, I wonder, or have you been glutting your appetite for what really satisfies with the junkfood of worldly leisure and sinful indulgence? It is a mark of spiritual health that you create space in your life to get more of the Word and it is a sure sign of spiritual decline when we pile up reasons to justify our neglect of it. We have a deacon election coming up. Let me suggest this as a useful criteria as you make your choice and cast your vote. “Does this candidate for holy office, the office of deacon, does he pant and long for the Word of God in his life? Is he present, morning and evening, on the Lord’s Day looking for more? Will he, by his own example of Biblical study and engagement with the Scriptures and his own diligent attendance at the means of grace, will he foster by his example a culture among us where the great characteristic of our whole fellowship more and more would be a growing hunger for the Word of God?” That’s the kind of spiritual leaders that we really need. The psalmist wants more. He is hungry for spiritual provision. What about you? Could that be said of you?
Then look down with me please at the third couplet, verses 133 and 134. Commitment, then provision, now protection. In verse 133, he wants protection from sin in himself. Do you see that? He knows that his steps falter. He knows that he is and we are prone to wander, Lord we feel it, prone to leave the God we love. And so he prays – do you see his prayer – “Keep steady my steps according to Your promise and let no iniquity get dominion over me.” What a great prayer to make our own. Pray every day, “Keep steady my steps, Lord, today. Keep steady my steps and let no iniquity get dominion over me.”
Let me highlight three things to notice about this prayer very quickly before we move on. First of all, it teaches us to pray for divine preservation. Do you see that? “Keep steady my steps.” The strength to keep my steps steady does not come at the end of a math problem, a theological equation. If I can just get the math right in my head, everything will work out just fine. No, it is the work of God by His grace, by the power of His Spirit through His Word, over time in my life. That’s how it will happen. “Keep steady my steps.” We are called to walk the path, the path of Christian obedience, but we are weak, aren’t we? I am. Our knees buckle under the burdens that we carry, the terrain that we’re called to traverse. It’s difficult and we often stumble and trip. The ground is slippery and we slide back sometimes. Sin in our own hearts makes the path of Christian obedience just hard, doesn’t it? But God, the psalmist knows God has grace for you on that difficult journey. Grace to keep your steps steady so that you do not fall. And so pray for preservation. “O God, today, give grace and keep my steps steady. One foot in front of the other, plodding on in that long obedience in the same direction.” It teaches us to pray for preservation.
Secondly, it teaches us to be comprehensive in dealing with sin. “Let no iniquity get dominion over me.” Try killing sin one sin at a time. You will find it a futile exercise. Trying to kill only one sin without seeking to put all sin to death, that’s actually a species of self-deception. Try killing your greed while excusing your pride. Try to put away laziness while indulging self-righteousness. It just won’t work; it won’t work. We must pray to be hostile to all sin and to every sin in our own hearts. Pray for a conscience that is awakened to the sinfulness of sin so that you never excuse it or minimize it. You don’t sign a truce with sin in your life in some area or another. And when you do find sin in your heart, when God by His Word says, “Thou art the man, this is you! Look here, do you see this still festering in your redeemed heart?” – when you see it, pray for grace to repent, to confess, to own it, to turn from it, to put it to death, to invite others in, to bring accountability and support as you seek to live in new obedience. Pray with the psalmist, “Let no iniquity get dominion over me.”
A prayer for perseverance. A prayer that is comprehensive in its scope. Thirdly, this verse teaches us to pray the promise of God for our sanctification. Do you see that? “Keep steady my steps according to your promise and let no iniquity get dominion over me.” The Scriptures promise that God would preserve us and that sin would not gain the mastery over us. The words of the promise of Romans 6:14, they weren’t known to the psalmist when he wrote these verses in Psalm 119 where God, through Paul, promises us that sin will have no dominion over us. But do you see how Paul’s language there is almost directly lifted from Psalm 119:133. The prayer of the psalm mirrors the promise of the epistle to the Romans. He is praying the promise of God and we should do the same. It’s a promise that will strengthen faith and comfort your heart when, as you struggle with your sin every day, you find it to be a persistent, perennial weed. You chop its head off and it springs right back up again. It’s hard to root out sin. And we get defeated and discouraged, don’t we? Remember the promise of God – sin will have no dominion over you, “for you are not under law but under grace.”
It used to be, before you were a Christian, sin was in charge, sin was your master. You were enslaved to sin. But now you have become a Christian, the shackles of sins dominion have been broken by the Lord Jesus Christ. Now you can say, “Long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature’s night. Thine eye diffused a quickening ray, I woke, the dungeon flamed with light. My chains fell off, my heart was free! I rose, went forth, and followed Thee!” Praise the Lord, that’s what’s happened to me if I am a believer in Jesus. Remind your heart, plead the promise before the throne, “Father, You said sin will have no dominion over me because Jesus has obeyed for me and died for me and reigns for me and prays at Your right hand for me. He is Lord in my heart. And however strong sin may seem in my life still, you’ve said it cannot now ever again regain dominion. But Lord, I have to confess, sometimes it doesn’t feel like that. It doesn’t feel that way. So would You work today this great reality into every part of my life. Shatter sin’s grip. Make the lordship of Christ fully known. Sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under law but under grace. But O God, would You show that to be true in me in my life this day?”
The psalmist is praying from protection from sin in himself, but then in verse 134, notice he prays for protection from sin in other people. Do you see that in the text? Verse 134, “Redeem me from man’s oppression that I may keep your precepts.” You see my problem, your problem isn’t just our wicked hearts. Our problem is we live in a wicked world. It’s not just the sin within me; it’s also the sin all around me. Did you notice how the psalmist’s ability to keep God’s precepts is connected to God delivering him from his oppressors? He knows that the hateful behavior of others toward him often incites his own wicked heart to depart from obedience. “Redeem me from man’s oppression so that I may keep Your precepts.” If he hopes for deliverance from the evil inclinations of his own heart, he must not ignore the influence of a sinful world all around him.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once put it like this. “The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” And the psalmist, I think, would agree completely. He’s well acquainted with the toxic effects of interpersonal sin. All too often he knows the hated hate, the oppressed oppress, the abusers abuse, and round and round the cycle goes. And haven’t you seen that in your own lives and experience? And so the psalmist deals with the wickedness of his own heart but he knows if he is really to be faithful to God he needs the Lord to protect him and deliver him also from the wickedness of others.
So yes, pray for protection from sin’s dominion within you, but also pray fully aware of the ways our hearts justify our sin by playing the victim card. Isn’t that true? “If she hadn’t been so mean to me I wouldn’t have responded in the way that I did, so it’s really her fault.” “If he hadn’t disappointed me so badly, I’d never have taken out my frustration on him.” O God, protect me, not only from myself but from the cycle of sin in others that incites sin in me.
Commitment. Provision. Protection. And then finally look at the fourth couplet, verse 135 and 136. The psalmist expresses compassion. We said earlier that 135 mirrors 130, so they sort of bookend the stanza. One-thirty is about the light of God’s Word shining into his life. The parallel verse now here in 135 tells us the light that shines from the Word is actually God’s face shining upon us. “Make your face shine upon your servant and teach me your statutes.” Isn’t that beautiful? The statutes of God, the Bible, the holy Scriptures are the means by which the face of God shines into our lives. The psalmist of course is echoing the language of the Aaronic blessing we used earlier in the baptismal service. Do you remember how it goes? “The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you His peace.” It’s the central blessing; these are the central blessings of God’s covenant with His people. The face of God turned toward them in fellowship and tenderness and intimacy and love.
And that reminds us, by the way, that everything he has been praying for here is personal. He’s not asking God to dole out abstract blobs of spiritual stuff. You know, a parcel of holiness and commitment; a dash of protection from sin, a morsel of spiritual provision over there. He’s not looking for a transaction where God will provide him with the bits and pieces that he needs. He understands anything that he needs in the Christian life to live a life of faithfulness to God is all bound up with personal, intimate communion and fellowship with Him for one’s self. It’s about a relationship, not a transaction, do you see. The face of God smiling upon us, welcoming us in, inviting us to draw near – that’s actually what we get in the Christian Gospel. That’s what we get.
Of course we know, don’t we, the smile of God that shines upon us, His face turned toward us, comes to us, it’s ours, at terrible cost. Not a cost that we bear, but a cost the Lord Jesus bore. Some of you will remember Dr. Derek Thomas, a beloved former pastor here, often describing what happened at the cross by using these words from the Aaronic benediction. “Because of the Gospel,” Derek would say, “God can say to every one of us, ‘The Lord bless you and keep you, and make His face shine upon you and be gracious unto you, and lift up His countenance upon you and give you His peace.’ Those are the blessings that are yours in Christ, but in order to say that to you, to give you those privileges and blessings, at the cross the Father was required to say to His only begotten Son, ‘The Lord crush You and push You away, the frown of God’s holiness fall down upon You and give You hell.’” That’s what was happening at the cross.
What is it we sometimes sing? “How deep the Father’s love for us, how vast beyond all measure, that He should give His only Son to make a wretch His treasure. How great the pain of searing loss, the Father turns His face away, as wounds which mar the chosen one bring many sons to glory.” That’s what is cost to have the smile of God shine upon us – the Father turning His face away from His Son. And because He did that, we can be sure, if you’re a believer today, you can be sure He will always have His face turned toward you in welcome and love. He will never turn His face from you, believer in Jesus. He will never abandon you to the forsakenness of hell, to which He gave up His own Son. Jesus bore the Father’s displeasure due my sin, your sin, so that now we walk, we walk today and forever in the warm sunshine of His smile.
And so when the psalmist asks here that God would shine His face upon him, he’s not really asking that God would cheer up, you know, and turn suddenly from a frown to a smile. God’s smile is irrevocably fixed upon all of His people because of the work of Jesus Christ. He is asking, rather, that the light of God’s face might penetrate the fog of his own sin-clouded mind and heart more and more completely and thoroughly so that he can live day by day in the confidence of the Father’s love. The shining face of the Father’s love is turned toward you because of the cross. How we need to pray with the psalmist to see it and enjoy it and live in the assurance of its bright sunshine more and more each day.
And now given all that, the very last verse of this stanza might seem a bit like an anti-climax, don’t you think? Look at the last verse for a moment. Instead of finishing on the high note of God’s shining face, instead we get a snapshot of the psalmist’s face. What does it look like? Well, he says, “My eyes shed streams of tears.” We can picture him with the tracks of his tears running down his face. Why are you so sad? The point of the Father’s love shines on you. Why are you so sad? Look at his answer. “My eyes shed streams of tears because people do not keep law.” He’s heartbroken, not now because of the remaining sin he sees in himself but because of the disobedience of people all around him.
He reminds me here of the apostle Paul. Do you remember what the apostle Paul says in the opening verses of Romans chapter 9 when he thinks about his unconverted countrymen? “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ, for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. They don’t believe in Jesus and it’s killing me; it’s breaking my heart.” The light of the Word that makes God’s face shine upon the psalmist, it leads certainly to personal holiness, commitment to life God’s way and a longing for more, provision from God’s Word to nourish it and protection from sin in himself and in others. All of that is true. But do you see here at the end that is also leads to deep compassion for the lost. He has them on his heart.
So listen, those who live in the light of God’s smile through faith in Jesus have hearts that break in compassion for those still toiling in the darkness of sin and spiritual ignorance. It is a mark that the Word is really doing its work in our lives that we grow not just in holiness and love for God but in compassion for the unconverted. An indifferent shrug when it comes to the plight of the unrepentant all around us, the perishing all over this city, an indifferent shrug is a telltale sign that the smile of God’s face has been at best shrouded by the clouds of unrepentant sin in our lives. Or it may in fact be an indicator that we do not yet know His smile for ourselves at all.
So loved ones, remember Jesus who cried out in abandonment at Calvary, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” plunged into the darkness of the divine curse, the Father turning His face away, that you might be welcomed into the warm sunshine of the Father’s smile. Trust in Him. Commit to life His way, revealed in His Word. Pray for the divine provision of more that your soul might be nourished. Pray for daily protection from sin and then learn with the psalmist to weep, from a heart that beats with compassion, for all still living in darkness. That is the teaching of this stanza – commitment, provision, protection and compassion. May the Lord write it all on our hearts. Let us pray.O God, keep straight our steps that no iniquity might have dominion over us. Deliver us from man’s oppression that we might obey Your precepts. And break our hearts that our eyes may weep over the plight of those who know nothing of Your smile. For we ask it in Jesus’ name, amen.