If Your law had not been my delight, then I would have perished in my affliction. Sermons
This verse Luther selected as the motto for his own Bible, which is now in the museum at Berlin. So long as affliction keeps in the sphere of a man's circumstances it is endurable. We make too much of human afflictions when we fix our attention on them, and miss estimating the ways in which men are affected by them. What affliction is to a man, what amount of strain it involves, depend on the man's emotional nature, the condition and character of his will and affections. We often observe that things are afflictions to one man which are no afflictions at all to another; and that the same afflictions affect men differently at different times. Here the psalmist recognizes that his afflictions would have altogether overwhelmed him, but for the condition of his heart, cheered as it was by the assurances and promises of the Divine Word. I. THE STRAIN OF AFFLICTION DEPENDS ON ITS RELATIVITY TO A MAN'S INWARD CONDITION. This can be shown by illustrating what affliction is to a man when he is in a normal condition of bodily, mental, and moral health. Then nothing seems to be overwhelming; there is an activity of endurance and resistance which prevents a man's "perishing in his affliction." But man is seldom, if ever, found in this normal state. We can conceive it; but it is seldom realized. Man is usually below it, and therefore affliction becomes such a strain. Sometimes below it through untrained natural disposition; through temporary states of bodily health; or through neglect of spiritual life. So man is unfitted, and affliction overwhelms. Man may be above the normal; and this he is by the infusion of Divine life through the Word. Then he is a nobler self. He has a consciousness of power which masters the strain. The power brings a joy and delight which put a man above himself. II. THE GRACE OF GOD BEARS RELATION TO A MAN'S INWARD CONDITION. Therefore in it is found both the relief and the sanctifying of affliction. God makes and keeps the heart right, fills it with the joy of his Word and promise, and then man becomes master of all circumstances. - R.T. Unless Thy law had been my delights, I should then have perished in mine affliction. Homilist. I. A DELIGHT IN GOD'S WORD YIELDS SUPPORT IN AFFLICTIONS (ver. 92). It is impossible to delight in God's Word, containing as it does rich promises, and the revelation of a glorious future, without having resignation, fortitude, hope, etc. II. A QUICKENING BY GOD'S WORD YIELDS IMPERISHABLE MEMORIES. 1. God's Word effects a moral quickening. It is the sunbeam, the rain, the resurrection trumpet. 2. The greatest event in the history of souls is moral quickening. It is a birth, a resurrection, etc. 3. The greatest event is always the most memorable. () I. WHAT THERE IS IN THE WORD OF GOD WHICH TENDS TO THE DELIGHT OF HIS PEOPLE IN DISTRESS. 1. The most comfortable discoveries.(1) That God stands in the most endearing relations to His people. He is their Shepherd, Father, Friend, God.(2) That the way was made for the settling of these endeared relations in which God stands to His people by the sufferings and death of His own Son.(3) That God is hereupon become the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, ready freely to give out all the blessings which Christ hath purchased at the dearest rate.(4) That a way of access is now open, whereby the children of God may come to Him, their Father, upon all occasions, in hope of obtaining mercy, and finding grace to help them in time of need.(5) That the Spirit of grace is come from heaven to take up His abode in the people of God, and to be their Guide thither.(6) That the eternal state of rewards is laid open to their faith. 2. The most comfortable promises, fitted to yield delight from their nature, their number, and their extent.(1) How sweet is the promise of the pardon of sin and acceptance with God when read with application.(2) All happiness is summed up in the promise of heaven at last, and so can't hut be big with the truest delight now.(3) The promise of God's presence by the way, that all things shall work together for His people's good. 3. The most comfortable are examples of God's compassion and grace in appearing for His people; as in the case of David, Job, and the three Hebrew worthies that were cast into the fiery furnace, and brought out unhurt. 4. The most comfortable provisions, and these suitable to the various characters which His saints are to bear, and the states they are in while they are in this world.(1) As they are pilgrims and strangers, its precepts and directions mark out their way; showing them the narrow path in which they are to walk; and its warnings and threatenings discover the snares they are to avoid, that they may be safe.(2) As probationers for eternity we are acquainted with our work, and where our strength lies for the doing it. II. THE PERSONS TO WHOSE DELIGHT IT ACTUALLY CONDUCES. They are the children of God, and none else. 1. They only are spiritually enlightened to discern the great and comfortable things contained in the Word of God. 2. They have the highest value for it. 3. They have their hearts and ways suited to it. III. HOW IS IT THAT IT DOES THIS? 1. As believed, considered, and applied by the saints. 2. As impressed and set home by the Spirit. IV. WHEN MAY A CHILD OF GOD FIND COMFORT FROM GOD'S WORD? 1. In the times of great and sore affliction which they fall into while they live. It acquaints them —(1) That these have been the lot of some of God's choicest favourites in their way to heaven.(2) That afflictions are consistent with God's special love to His people, and their covenant relation to Him.(3) That afflictions are not only consistent with the love of God, but often the instances of it (Hebrews 12:6, 7).(4) That though afflictions are deserved by sin, they are laid upon the people of God with a design to cure it (Isaiah 27:9).(5) That though for wise ends God brings them under the rod, He considers their frame, and remembers that they are but dust, and will not increase the trial, either as to degree, or continuance, beyond what He will enable them to bear.(6) That under times of affliction God has chosen to let out His love more freely to His people than at other seasons. And who would not be reconciled to the rod to know and taste more of His promise to the Church (Hosea 2:14)? 2. It is fitted to delight them when they are called to die; and to do this as teaching them —(1) That as dying God will be with them.(2) That immediately after death they shall be with Him. V. THE NATURE OF THE DELIGHT OR CONSOLATION DERIVED FROM THE WORD. 1. It is truly divine, and the consolation of God. It has the Word of God for its ground, and the Spirit of God for its author. 2. It is real and solid (Psalm 119:14, 54). 3. It is rational and justifiable. 4. It is holy. 5. It is sometimes vigorous and strong. 6. It is the foretaste of heaven, and is working upward to meet that fulness of joy which there is in God's presence.APPLICATION — 1. Is there so much in the Word of God to delight the soul? O what a dark disconsolate place would this earth be without it. 2. Get into the number of the children of God, who are the only ones prepared to take the comfort of His Word. 3. Under all your troubles run to the Word of God for relief; and in conversing with it, pray for the Spirit to enlighten your minds, sanctify your hearts, fit you to take comfort in it, and so to work in you the comfort He hath fitted you for. 4. And as ever you would have solid consolation —(1) Value and labour after grace and holiness as the ground of it. Be as earnest for grace as you are for comfort and peace.(2) Expect the comfort you need in God's way by humbling yourselves and turning to God in case of sin, and by attending His ordinances and the institutions of His house.(3) Wait for comfort in God's time, and presume not to prescribe to Him, but continue to pray and look up for it. () People Heth, Nun, PsalmistPlaces JerusalemTopics Affliction, Delight, Delights, Law, Perished, Troubles, UnlessOutline 1. This psalm contains various prayers, praises, and professions of obedience.
2. Aleph.
9. Beth
17. Gimel
25. Daleth
33. He
41. Waw
49. Zayin
57. Heth
65. Teth
73. Yodh
81. Kaph
89. Lamedh
97. Mem
105. Nun
113. Samekh
121. Ayin
129. Pe
137. Tsadhe
145. Qoph
153. Resh
161. Sin and Shin
169. Taw
Dictionary of Bible Themes Psalm 119:89-93 8315 orthodoxy, in OT Library Notes on the First Century:
Page 1. Line 1. An empty book is like an infant's soul.' Here Traherne may possibly have had in his mind a passage in Bishop Earle's "Microcosmography." In delineating the character of a child, Earle says: "His soul is yet a white paper unscribbled with observations of the world, wherewith at length it becomes a blurred note-book," Page 14. Line 25. The entrance of his words. This sentence is from Psalm cxix. 130. Page 15. Last line of Med. 21. "Insatiableness." This word in Traherne's time was often …
Thomas Traherne—Centuries of MeditationsLife Hid and not Hid
'Thy word have I hid in my heart.'--PSALM cxix. 11. 'I have not hid Thy righteousness in my heart.'--PSALM xl. 10. Then there are two kinds of hiding--one right and one wrong: one essential to the life of the Christian, one inconsistent with it. He is a shallow Christian who has no secret depths in his religion. He is a cowardly or a lazy one, at all events an unworthy one, who does not exhibit, to the utmost of his power, his religion. It is bad to have all the goods in the shop window; it is just …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture A Cleansed Way
Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to Thy word.'--PSALM cxix. 9. There are many questions about the future with which it is natural for you young people to occupy yourselves; but I am afraid that the most of you ask more anxiously 'How shall I make my way?' than 'How shall I cleanse it?' It is needful carefully to ponder the questions: 'How shall I get on in the world--be happy, fortunate?' and the like, and I suppose that that is the consideration …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture 'Time for Thee to Work'
'It is time for Thee, Lord, to work; for they have made void Thy Law. 127. Therefore I love Thy commandments above gold, yea, above fine gold. 128. Therefore I esteem all Thy precepts concerning all things to be right; and I hate every false way.' --PSALM cxix. 126-128. If much that we hear be true, a society to circulate Bibles is a most irrational and wasteful expenditure of energy and money. We cannot ignore the extent and severity of the opposition to the very idea of revelation, even if we would; …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture A Stranger in the Earth
'I am a stranger in the earth: hide not Thy commandments from me.... 64. The earth, O Lord, is full of Thy mercy: teach me Thy statutes.' --PSALM cxix. 19, 64. There is something very remarkable in the variety-in-monotony of this, the longest of the psalms. Though it be the longest it is in one sense the simplest, inasmuch as there is but one thought in it, beaten out into all manner of forms and based upon all various considerations. It reminds one of the great violinist who out of one string managed …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture May the Fourth a Healthy Palate
"How sweet are Thy words unto my taste." --PSALM cxix. 97-104. Some people like one thing, and some another. Some people appreciate the bitter olive; others feel it to be nauseous. Some delight in the sweetest grapes; others feel the sweetness to be sickly. It is all a matter of palate. Some people love the Word of the Lord; to others the reading of it is a dreary task. To some the Bible is like a vineyard; to others it is like a dry and tasteless meal. One takes the word of the Master, and it …
John Henry Jowett—My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year Inward Witness to the Truth of the Gospel.
"I have more understanding than my teachers, for Thy testimonies are my study; I am wiser than the aged, because I keep Thy commandments."--Psalm cxix. 99, 100. In these words the Psalmist declares, that in consequence of having obeyed God's commandments he had obtained more wisdom and understanding than those who had first enlightened his ignorance, and were once more enlightened than he. As if he said, "When I was a child, I was instructed in religious knowledge by kind and pious friends, who …
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII A Bottle in the Smoke
First, God's people have their trials--they get put in the smoke; secondly, God's people feel their trials--they "become like a bottle in the smoke;" thirdly, God's people do not forget God's statutes in their trials--"I am become like a bottle in the smoke; yet do I not forget thy statutes." I. GOD'S PEOPLE HAVE THEIR TRIALS. This is an old truth, as old as the everlasting hills, because trials were in the covenant, and certainly the covenant is as old as the eternal mountains. It was never designed …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 2: 1856 The Dryness of Preachers, and the Various Evils which Arise from their Failing to Teach Heart-Prayer --Exhortation to Pastors to Lead People Towards this Form Of
If all those who are working for the conquest of souls sought to win them by the heart, leading them first of all to prayer and to the inner life, they would see many and lasting conversions. But so long as they only address themselves to the outside, and instead of drawing people to Christ by occupying their hearts with Him, they only give them a thousand precepts for outward observances, they will see but little fruit, and that will not be lasting. When once the heart is won, other defects are …
Jeanne Marie Bouvières—A Short Method Of Prayer And Spiritual Torrents Of Deeper Matters, and God's Hidden Judgments which are not to be Inquired Into
"My Son, beware thou dispute not of high matters and of the hidden judgments of God; why this man is thus left, and that man is taken into so great favour; why also this man is so greatly afflicted, and that so highly exalted. These things pass all man's power of judging, neither may any reasoning or disputation have power to search out the divine judgments. When therefore the enemy suggesteth these things to thee, or when any curious people ask such questions, answer with that word of the Prophet, …
Thomas A Kempis—Imitation of Christ Seven-Fold Joy
"Seven times a day do I praise Thee because of Thy righteous judgments."--Ps. cxix. 164. Mechthild of Hellfde, 1277. tr., Emma Frances Bevan, 1899 I bring unto Thy grace a seven-fold praise, Thy wondrous love I bless-- I praise, remembering my sinful days, My worthlessness. I praise that I am waiting, Lord, for Thee, When, all my wanderings past, Thyself wilt bear me, and wilt welcome me To home at last. I praise Thee that for Thee I long and pine, For Thee I ever yearn; I praise Thee that such …
Frances Bevan—Hymns of Ter Steegen and Others (Second Series) And in Jeremiah He Thus Declares his Death and Descent into Hell...
And in Jeremiah He thus declares His death and descent into hell, saying: And the Lord the Holy One of Israel, remembered his dead, which aforetime fell asleep in the dust of the earth; and he went down unto them, to bring the tidings of his salvation, to deliver them. [255] In this place He also renders the cause of His death: for His descent into hell was the salvation of them that had passed away. And, again, concerning His cross Isaiah says thus: I have stretched out my hands all the day long …
Irenæus—The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching The Christian Described
HAPPINESS OF THE CHRISTIAN O HOW happy is he who is not only a visible, but also an invisible saint! He shall not be blotted out the book of God's eternal grace and mercy. DIGNITY OF THE CHRISTIAN There are a generation of men in the world, that count themselves men of the largest capacities, when yet the greatest of their desires lift themselves no higher than to things below. If they can with their net of craft and policy encompass a bulky lump of earth, Oh, what a treasure have they engrossed …
John Bunyan—The Riches of Bunyan Excursus on the Choir Offices of the Early Church.
Nothing is more marked in the lives of the early followers of Christ than the abiding sense which they had of the Divine Presence. Prayer was not to them an occasional exercise but an unceasing practice. If then the Psalmist sang in the old dispensation "Seven times a day do I praise thee" (Ps. cxix. 164), we may be quite certain that the Christians would never fall behind the Jewish example. We know that among the Jews there were the "Hours of Prayer," and nothing would be, à priori, more …
Philip Schaff—The Seven Ecumenical Councils The Daily Walk with Others (I. ).
When the watcher in the dark Turns his lenses to the skies, Suddenly the starry spark Grows a world upon his eyes: Be my life a lens, that I So my Lord may magnify We come from the secrecies of the young Clergyman's life, from his walk alone with God in prayer and over His Word, to the subject of his common daily intercourse. Let us think together of some of the duties, opportunities, risks, and safeguards of the ordinary day's experience. A WALK WITH GOD ALL DAY. A word presents itself to be …
Handley C. G. Moule—To My Younger Brethren The Talking Book
In order that we may be persuaded so to do, Solomon gives us three telling reasons. He says that God's law, by which I understand the whole run of Scripture, and, especially the gospel of Jesus Christ, will be a guide to us:--"When thou goest, it shall lead thee." It will be a guardian to us: "When thou sleepest"--when thou art defenceless and off thy guard--"it shall keep thee." And it shall also be a dear companion to us: "When thou awakest, it shall talk with thee." Any one of these three arguments …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 17: 1871 How to Read the Bible
I. That is the subject of our present discourse, or, at least the first point of it, that IN ORDER TO THE TRUE READING OF THE SCRIPTURES THERE MUST BE AN UNDERSTANDING OF THEM. I scarcely need to preface these remarks by saying that we must read the Scriptures. You know how necessary it is that we should be fed upon the truth of Holy Scripture. Need I suggest the question as to whether you do read your Bibles or not? I am afraid that this is a magazine reading age a newspaper reading age a periodical …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 25: 1879 The Obedience of Faith
"Is there a heart that will not bend To thy divine control? Descend, O sovereign love, descend, And melt that stubborn soul! " Surely, though we have had to mourn our disobedience with many tears and sighs, we now find joy in yielding ourselves as servants of the Lord: our deepest desire is to do the Lord's will in all things. Oh, for obedience! It has been supposed by many ill-instructed people that the doctrine of justification by faith is opposed to the teaching of good works, or obedience. There …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 37: 1891 Faith
HABAKKUK, ii. 4. "The just shall live by faith." This is those texts of which there are so many in the Bible, which, though they were spoken originally to one particular man, yet are meant for every man. These words were spoken to Habakkuk, a Jewish prophet, to check him for his impatience under God's hand; but they are just as true for every man that ever was and ever will be as they were for him. They are world-wide and world-old; they are the law by which all goodness, and strength, and safety, …
Charles Kingsley—Twenty-Five Village Sermons What the Truth Saith Inwardly Without Noise of Words
Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth.(1) I am Thy servant; O give me understanding that I may know Thy testimonies. Incline my heart unto the words of Thy mouth.(2) Let thy speech distil as the dew. The children of Israel spake in old time to Moses, Speak thou unto us and we will hear, but let not the Lord speak unto us lest we die.(3) Not thus, O Lord, not thus do I pray, but rather with Samuel the prophet, I beseech Thee humbly and earnestly, Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth. Let not Moses …
Thomas A Kempis—Imitation of Christ That the Body and Blood of Christ and the Holy Scriptures are Most Necessary to a Faithful Soul
The Voice of the Disciple O most sweet Lord Jesus, how great is the blessedness of the devout soul that feedeth with Thee in Thy banquet, where there is set before it no other food than Thyself its only Beloved, more to be desired than all the desires of the heart? And to me it would verily be sweet to pour forth my tears in Thy presence from the very bottom of my heart, and with the pious Magdalene to water Thy feet with my tears. But where is this devotion? Where the abundant flowing of holy …
Thomas A Kempis—Imitation of Christ Links Psalm 119:92 NIV
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