How sweet are Your words to my taste--sweeter than honey in my mouth! Sermons
I have refrained my feet from every evil way. The point here is that the man resolutely dealt with himself; and, being absolutely purposed to obey, he persisted in removing out of the way whatever, in his disposition, inclination, habit, or circumstances, tended to hinder him in his obedience. How much goes along with obedience! How much is involved in it! "Refrained my feet" is a figure. The man recognizes the constant disposition to step over the line, or into the tempting side-walk, and he has again and again, by an effort of will, to pull his feet back, to hold them tight. Compare the figure of setting a watch on the door of the lips. "I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress." I. THE HINDRANCES TO OBEDIENCE MAY BE EXTERNAL TO A MAN. 1. They may lie in a man's friendships. There are associations of life which a man can arrange for himself, and he can secure that these shall be helpful. But there are associations in life which are made for a man, and these may be hindering to his purposed obedience. Illust.: Joseph, Daniel. 2. They may lie in a man's circumstances. The straitened man is put upon guileful and self-trusting schemes to improve his circumstances, and is thus hindered from obedience. The well-to-do man is in danger of being self-reliant and over-confident, and so made indifferent to obedience. Virtue is man's triumph over external hindrances. Innocence only becomes virtue through its struggle with hindrance and evil. II. THE HINDRANCES TO OBEDIENCE MAY BE IN THE MAN HIMSELF. These hindrances are in the mind of the psalmist. He found something wrong with his own feet. They did not stand firm; they inclined to slide; they seemed to have a bias outward; if he was not careful, of themselves they carried him over the line. In this way he represented that carnal, self-seeking tendency with which the good man has continually to deal. He may will to obey; but he will find self-interest ever ready to resist good resolve. The hindrances that are in the man himself are never wholly mastered while a man lives, so that he can feet safe. Indeed, to "feel safe" is to be in the gravest peril. Through a long life, if a man really means to live for God and obey, he will find that he must always be at work at his own hindrances, "refraining his feet from evil ways." - R.T. How sweet are Thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth! I like this way of describing the reception of God's Word as a matter of eating, for a man cannot eat God's Word without living. There is a reality about the faith which eats; there is a something there most sure, which contains the elements of salvation, for tasting is a spiritual sense which implies nearness. This idea of tasting God's Word contains the thought of receptiveness. A man may hear a thing and, as we say, it goes in at one ear and out at the other; but that which a man gets into his mouth till he tastes it, and it is sweet to his palate, well, he has received that. Tasting is also a personal matter. There is no possibility of my eating for you. I. I call your attention to AN EXCLAMATION. The text contains two notes of exclamation or admiration. It is evidently the utterance of one who is somewhat surprised, one who has a thought which he cannot adequately express. The thought is also one which gives much delight to the writer, for he exclaims, "How sweet," etc. 1. It is a matter of wonder to many to find the Gospel so sweet when the soul first tastes it. 2. This may also be the exclamation of a soul cheered by still tasting the Gospel. 3. I reckon that this language of exclamation and admiration will also come from the most advanced saint, increasing in knowledge of the Gospel, the believer who has studied the Word of God most earnestly, and who has had the deepest experience in it. Other books are soon done with, but the Bible is never fully understood. II. Take the text as A STATEMENT, a cool statement of matters of fact. He never speaks more than the truth even when he is most emphatic, so that I am sure that David means to tell us here that God's words were sweet to him. 1. They were unutterably sweet: "How sweet!" but he does not tell us how sweet they were. There is no describing the flavours of a royal banquet, there is no picturing to a man who has not the sense of smell the fragrance of a delicious perfume; and you must personally know the sweetness of the Word of God, for to us it is positively unutterable. 2. This much, however, the psalmist does utter: he tells us that God's words are surpassingly sweet, for, says he, "They are sweeter than honey." 3. He also says that all God's words are thus unutterably sweet to him. 4. And at all times. III. A REPETITION. "How sweet are Thy words unto my taste!" Well, that is all right, David; we understand you. "Yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!" Is not that saying the same thing twice over? Yes, and intentionally so, because God's Word is sweet to His people in many ways, and many times over. 1. As I have already said to you, it is very sweet in its reception. When we first take it into our heart, and feed upon it, it is very precious; but, spiritually, men are something like ruminating animals, they have the power of feeding again, and again, and again, on that which they have once received. 2. But do you not think that the repetition in the text means something else, namely, that while, first of all, Christ's Word is very sweet to cur taste, there is another sweetness when we get it into our mouth, not so much for our own eating, as speaking of it to others? There is great sweetness about the declaration of God's words. 3. There is a very special sweetness about preaching Christ, in the public proclamation of His Word. () I. Honey is EXCEEDINGLY SWEET to the taste ( Judges 14:18). II. Honey, if it be added or put into other things that are bitter, will TAKE AWAY IN A GREAT MEASURE THEIR BITTERNESS. So when the soul is under affliction, temptation, persecution, for Christ's sake, if God be pleased to add some of the sweet promises of the Word — how wonderfully is the bitter abated. III. But notwithstanding that honey is so sweet and pleasant, yet THERE ARE SOME MEN WHO DO NOT CARE FOR IT. Sinners are so glutted with the filthy trash of this world that they loathe the honeycomb. IV. Naturalists affirm that honey is of A HEALING NATURE, and serves for a great number of uses. V. Honey is also of a PURIFYING EFFICACY. () People Heth, Nun, PsalmistPlaces JerusalemTopics Honey, Mouth, Palate, Promises, Saying, Sayings, Sweet, Sweeter, Taste, Truly, Yea, YesOutline 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 119:103 1690 word of God
4404 food
5167 mouth
5187 taste
5548 speech, divine Psalm 119:97-104 8236 doctrine, purpose Psalm 119:100-106 8454 obedience, to God Psalm 119:103-105 5815 confusion 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 119:103 NIV
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