Charles Spurgeon Collection: Spurgeon - C.H. - The Golden Alphabet: 01 Exposition of Psalm 119:1-8

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Charles Spurgeon Collection: Spurgeon - C.H. - The Golden Alphabet: 01 Exposition of Psalm 119:1-8



TOPIC: Spurgeon - C.H. - The Golden Alphabet (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 01 Exposition of Psalm 119:1-8

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Exposition of Psa_119:1-8

by Charles Spurgeon



1. Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of

the LORD.

2. Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek

him with the whole heart.

3. They also do no iniquity: they walk in his ways.

4. Thou hast commanded us to keep thy precepts diligently.

5. O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes!

6. Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all

thy commandments.

7. I will praise thee with uprightness of heart, when I shall

have learned thy righteous judgments.

8. I will keep thy statutes: O forsake me not utterly.

These first eight verses are taken up with a contemplation of the

blessedness which comes through keeping the statutes of the Lord. The

subject is treated in a devout manner rather than in a didactic style. Heart-

fellowship with God is enjoyed through a love of that word which is God’s

way of communing with the soul by his Holy Spirit. Prayer and praise and

all sorts of devotional acts and feelings gleam through these verses like

beams of sunlight through an olive grove. You are not only instructed, but

influenced to holy emotion, and helped to express the same.

Lovers of God’s Holy Word are blessed, because they are preserved from

defilement: (verse 1), because they are made practically holy (verses 2 and

3), and are led to follow after God sincerely and intensely (verse 2). It is

made clear that holy walking must be desirable, because God commands it

(verse 4); therefore the pious soul prays for it: (verse 5), and feels that its

comfort and courage must depend upon obtaining it (verse 6). In the

prospect of answered prayer, yea, while the prayer is being answered, the

heart is full of thankfulness (verse 7), and is fixed in solemn resolve not to

miss the blessing if the Lord will give enabling grace (verse 8).

The changes are rung upon the words “way”— “undefiled in the way,”

“walk in his ways,” “O that my ways were directed”: “keep”— “keep

his testimonies,” “keep thy precepts diligently,” “directed to keep,” “I

will keep”: and “walk”— “walk in the law,” “walk in his ways.” Yet

there is no tautology; nor is the same thought repeated, though to the

careless reader it may seem so.

The change from statements about others and about the Lord to more

personal dealing with God begins in the fourth verse, and becomes more

clear as we advance, till in the later verses the communion becomes most

intense and soul moving. “I will praise thee. I will keep thy statutes. O

forsake me not utterly.” O that every reader may feel the glow of personal

devotion while studying this first section of the psalm!

1. “Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the

Lord.”

“Blessed.” The Psalmist is so enraptured with the law of the Lord, that he

regards it as his highest ideal of blessedness to be conformed to it. He has

gazed on the beauties of the perfect law; and, as if this verse were the sum

and outcome of all his emotions, he exclaims, “Blessed is the man whose

life is the practical transcript of the will of God.” True religion is not cold

and dry; it has its exclamations and raptures. We not only judge the

keeping of God’s law to be a wise and proper thing, but we are warmly

enamoured of its holiness, and cry out in adoring wonder, “Blessed are

the undefiled!” meaning thereby, that we eagerly desire to become such

ourselves. We wish for no greater happiness than to be perfectly holy. It

may be that the writer labored under a sense of his own faultiness, and

therefore envied the blessedness of those whose walk had been more pure

and clean; indeed, the very contemplation of the perfect law of the Lord

upon which he now entered was quite enough to make him bemoan his

own imperfections, and sigh for the blessedness of an undefiled walk.

True religion is always practical, for it does not permit us to delight

ourselves in a perfect rule without exciting in us a longing to be conformed

to that rule in our daily conduct. A blessing belongs to those who hear and

read and understand the word of the Lord: yet is it a far greater blessing; to

be actually obedient to it, and to carry out in our walk and conversation

what we learn in our searching of the Scriptures. Purity in our way and

walk is the truest blessedness.

This first verse is not only a preface to the whole psalm, but it may also be

regarded as the text upon which the rest is a discourse. It is similar to the

benediction of the first psalm, which is set in the forefront of the entire

book: there is a likeness between this 119th Psalm and the Psalter, and this

is one point of it, that it begins with a benediction. In this, too, we see

some foreshadowings of the Son of David, who began his great sermon as

David began his great psalm. It is well to open our mouth with blessings.

When we cannot bestow them, we can show the way of obtaining them,

and even if we do not yet possess them ourselves, it may be profitable to

contemplate them, that our desires may be excited, and our souls moved to

seek after them. Lord, if I am not yet so blessed as to be among the

undefiled in thy way, yet I will think much of the happiness which these

enjoy, and set it before me as my life’s ambition.

As David thus begins his psalm, so should young men begin their lives, so

should new converts commence their profession, so should all Christians

begin every day. Settle it in your hearts as a first postulate and sure rule of

practical science, that holiness is happiness, and that it is our wisdom first

to seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Well begun is half done.

To start with a true idea of blessedness is beyond measure important. Man

began with being blessed in his innocence, and if our fallen race is ever to

be blessed again, it must find blessedness where it lost it at the beginning,

namely, in conformity to the command of the Lord.

“The undefiled in the way.” They are in the way, the right way, the way,

of the Lord, and they keep that way, walking with holy carefulness, and

washing their feet daily, lest they be defiled by contact with the world.

They enjoy great blessedness in their own souls; indeed, they have a

foretaste of heaven, where the blessedness lieth much in being absolutely

undefiled; and could they continue utterly and altogether without

defilement, doubtless they would have the days of heaven upon earth.

Outward evil would little hurt us if we were entirely rid of the evil of sin,

an attainment which, with the best of us, lies still in the region of desire,

and is not yet fully reached, though we have so clear a view of it that we

see it to be blessedness itself; and therefore we eagerly press towards it.

He whose life is in a gospel sense undefiled, is blessed, because he could

never have reached this point if a thousand blessings had not already been

bestowed on him. By nature we are defiled and out of the way, and we

must therefore have been washed in the atoning blood to remove

defilement, and we must have been converted by the power of the Holy

Ghost, or we should not have been turned into the way of peace, nor be

undefiled in it. Nor is this all; for the continual power of grace is needed to

keep a believer in the right way, and to preserve him from pollution. All the

blessings of the covenant must have been in a measure poured, upon those

who from day to day have been enabled to perfect holiness in the fear of

the Lord. Their way is the evidence of their being the blessed of the Lord.

David speaks of a high degree of blessedness; for some are in the way, and

are true servants of God; but they are as yet faulty in many ways, and bring

defilement upon themselves. Others who walk in the light more fully, and

maintain closer communion with God, are enabled to keep themselves

unspotted from the world; and these enjoy far more peace and joy than

their less watchful brethren. Doubtless, the more complete our

sanctification the more intense our blessedness. Christ is our way, and we

are not only alive in Christ, but we are to live in Christ: the sorrow is, that

we bespatter his holy way with our selfishness, self-exaltation, willfulness,

and carnality, and so we miss a great measure of the blessedness which is in

him as our way. A believer who errs is still saved, but the joy of his

salvation is; not experienced by him; he is rescued, but not enriched;

greatly borne with, but not greatly blessed.

How easily may defilement come upon us even in our holy things, yea,

even in the way! We may even come from public or private worship with

defilement upon the conscience gathered when we were on our knees.

There was no floor to the tabernacle but the desert sand, and hence the

priests at the altar were under frequent necessity to wash their feet, and by

the kind foresight of their God the laver stood ready for their cleansing,

even as for us our Lord Jesus still stands ready to wash our feet, that we

may be clean every whit. Thus our text sets forth the blessedness of the

apostles in the upper room when Jesus had said of them, “Ye are clean.”

What blessedness awaits those who follow the Lamb whithersoever he

goeth, and are preserved from the evil which is in the world through lust I

These shall be the envy of all mankind “in that day.” Though now they

despise them as precise fanatics and Puritans, the most prosperous of

sinners shall then wish that they could change places with them. O my soul,

seek thou thy blessedness in following hard after thy Lord, who was holy,

harmless, undefiled; for there hast thou found peace hitherto, and there wilt

thou find it for ever.

“Who walk in the law of the Lord.” In them is found habitual holiness.

Their walk, their common everyday lift:, is obedience unto the Lord. They

live by rule, that rule the command of the Lord God. Whether they eat or

drink, or whatsoever they do, they do all in the name of their great Master

and Exemplar. To them religion is nothing out of the way, it is their

everyday walk; it moulds their common actions as well as their special

devotions. This ensures blessedness. He who walks in God’s law walks in

God’s company, and he must be blessed; he has God’s smile, God’s

strength, God’s secret with him, and how can he be otherwise than

blessed?

The holy life is a walk, a steady progress, a quiet advance, a lasting

continuance. Enoch walked with God. Good men always long to be better,

and hence they go forward. Good men are never idle, and hence they do

not lie down or loiter, but they are still walking onward to their desired

end. They are not hurried, and worried, and flurried, and so they keep the

even tenor of their way, walking steadily towards heaven; and they are not

in perplexity as to how to conduct themselves, for they have a perfect rule,

which they are happy to walk by. The law of the Lord is not irksome to

them; its commandments are not grievous, and its restrictions are not

slavish in their esteem. It does not appear to them to be an impossible law,

theoretically admirable, but practically absurd; but they walk by it and in it.

They do not consult it now and then as a sort of rectifier of their

wanderings, but they use it as a chart for their daily sailing, a map of the

road for their life-journey. Nor do they ever regret that they have entered

upon the path of obedience, else they would leave it, and that without

difficulty, for a thousand temptations offer them opportunity to return;

their continued walk in the law of the Lord is their best testimony to the

blessedness of such a condition of life. Yes, they are blessed even now. The

Psalmist himself bore witness to the fact: he had tried and proved it, and

wrote it down as a fact which defied all denial. Here it stands in the

forefront of David’s magnum opus, written on the topmost line of his

greatest Psalm —“BLESSED ARE THEY WHO WALK IN THE LAW

OF THE LORD.” Rough may be the way, stern the rule, hard the discipline

— all these we know, and more — but a thousand heaped-up blessednesses

are still found in godly living, for which we bless the Lord.

We have in this verse blessed persons who enjoy five blessed things: A

blessed way, blessed purity, a blessed law, given by a blessed Lord, and a

blessed walk therein; to which we may add the blessed testimony of the

Holy Ghost given in this very passage that they are in very deed the blessed

of the Lord.

The blessedness which is thus set before us we must aim at, but we must

not think to obtain it without earnest effort. David has a great deal to say

about it; his discourse in this Psalm is long and solemn, and it is a hint to us

that the way of perfect obedience is not learned in a day; there must be

precept upon precept, line upon line, and after efforts long enough to be

compared with the 176 verses of this Psalm, we may still have to cry, “I

have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek thy servant; for I do not forget thy

commandments.”

It must, however, be our plan to keep the word of the Lord much upon our

minds; for this discourse upon blessedness has for its pole-star the

testimony of the Lord, and only by daily communion with the Lord by his

word can we hope to learn his way, to be purged from defilement, and to

be made to walk in his statutes. We set out upon this exposition with

blessedness before us; we see the way to it, and we know where the law of

it is to be found: let us pray that as we pursue our meditation we may grow

into the habit and walk of obedience, and so feel the blessedness of which

we read.

2. “Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the

whole heart.”

“Blessed are they that keep his testimonies.” What! A second blessing?

Yes, they are doubly blessed whose outward life is supported by an inward

zeal for God’s glory. In the first verse we had an undefiled way, and it was

taken for granted that the purity in the way was not mere surface work, but

was attended by the inward truth and life which comes of divine grace.

Here that which was implied is expressed. Blessedness is ascribed to those

who treasure up the testimonies of the Lord; in which is implied that they

search the Scriptures, that they come to an understanding of them, that

they love them, and then that they continue the practice of them. We must

first get a thing before we can keep it. In order to keep it wel1 we must get

a :firm grip of it: we cannot keep in the heart that which we have not

heartily embraced by the affections. God’s word is his witness or testimony

to grand and important truths which concern himself and our relation to

him: this we should desire to know; knowing it, we should believe it;

believing it, we should love it; and loving it, we should hold it fast against

all comers. There is a doctrinal keeping of the word when we are ready to

die for its defense, and a practical keeping of it when we actually live under

its power. Revealed truth is precious as diamonds, and should be kept or

treasured up in the memory and in the heart as jewels in a casket, or as the

law was kept in the ark; this, however, is not enough; for it is meant for

practical use, and therefore it must be kept or followed, as men keep to a

path, or to a line of business. If we keep God’s testimonies they will keep

us; they will keep us right in opinion, comfortable in spirit, holy in

conversation, and hopeful in expectation. If they were ever worth having,

and no thoughtful person will question that, then they are worth keeping;

their designed effect does not come through a temporary seizure of them,

but by a persevering keeping of them: “in keeping of them there is great

reward.”

We are bound to keep with all care the word of God, because it is his

testimonies, He gave them to us, but they are still his own. We are to keep

them as a watchman guards his master’s house, as a steward husbands his

lord’s goods, as a shepherd keeps his employer’s flock. We shall have to

give an account, for we are put in trust with the gospel, and woe to us if

we be found unfaithful. We cannot fight a good fight, nor finish our course,

unless we keep the faith! To this end the Lord must keep us: only those

who are kept by the power of God unto salvation will ever be able to keep

his testimonies. What a blessedness is therefore evidenced and testified by a

careful belief in God’s word, and a continual obedience thereunto God

has blessed them, is blessing them, and will bless them for ever. That

blessedness which David saw in others he realized for himself, for in verse

168 he says, “I have kept thy precepts and thy testimonies,” and in verses

54 to 56 he traces his joyful songs and happy memories to this same

keeping of the law, and he confesses, “This I had because I kept thy

precepts.” Doctrines which we teach to others we should experience for

ourselves.

“And that seek Him with the’ whole heart.” Those who keep the Lord’s

testimonies are sure to seek after himself. If his word is precious, we may

be sure that he himself is still more so. Personal dealing with a personal

God is the longing of all those who have allowed the word of the Lord to

have its full effect upon them. If we once really know the power of the

gospel, we must seek the God of the gospel. “O that I knew where I might

find HIM,” will be our wholehearted cry. See the growth which these

sentences indicate first, in the way, then walking in it, then finding and

keeping the treasure of truth, and, to crown all, seeking after the Lord of

the way himself. Note also, that the further a soul advances in grace the

more spiritual and divine are its longings: an outward walk does not

content the gracious soul, nor even the treasured testimonies; it reaches out

in due time after God himself, and when it in a measure finds him, still

yearns for more of him, and seeks him still.

Seeking after God signifies a desire to commune with him more closely, to

follow him more fully, to enter into more perfect union with his mind and

will, to promote his glory, and to realize completely all that he is to holy

hearts. The blessed man has God already, and for this reason he seeks him.

This may seem a contradiction: it is only a paradox.

God is not truly sought by the cold researches of the brain: we must seek

him with the heart. Love reveals itself to love: God manifests his heart to

the heart of his people. It is in vain that we endeavor to comprehend him

by reason; we must apprehend him by affection. But the heart must not be

divided with many objects if the Lord is to be sought by us. God is one,

and we shall not know him till our heart is one. A broken heart need not be

distressed at this, for no heart is so whole in its seekings after God as a

heart which is broken, whereof every fragment sighs and cries after the

great Father’s face. It is the divided heart which the doctrine of the text

censures, and, strange to say, in scriptural phraseology, a heart may be

divided and not broken, and it may be broken but not divided; and yet

again it may be broken and be whole, and it never can be whole until it is

broken. When our whole heart seeks the holy God in Christ Jesus it has

come to him of whom it is written, “As many as touched him were made

perfectly whole.”

That which the Psalmist admires in this verse he claims in the tenth, where

he says, “With my whole heart have I sought thee.” It is well when

admiration of a virtue leads to the attainment of it. Those who do not

believe in the blessedness of seeking the Lord will not be likely to arouse

their hearts to the pursuit; but he who calls another blessed because of the

grace which he sees in him is on the way to gaining the same grace for

himself.

If those who seek the Lord are blessed, what shall be said of those who

actually dwell with him and know that he is theirs?

“To those who fall, how kind thou art!

How good to those who seek!

But what to those who find? Ah! this

Nor tongue nor pen can show:

The love of Jesus — what it is,

None but his loved ones know.”

3. “They also do no iniquity: they walk in his ways.”

“They also do no iniquity.” Blessed indeed would those men be of whom

this could be asserted without reserve and without explanation: we shall

have reached the region of pure blessedness when we altogether cease

from sin. Those who follow the word of God do no iniquity; the rule is

perfect, and if it be constantly followed no fault will arise. Life, to the

outward observer, at any rate, lies much in doing, and he who in his doings

never swerves from equity, both towards God and man, has hit upon the

way of perfection, and we may be sure that his heart is right. See how a

whole heart leads to the avoidance of evil; for the Psalmist says, “That

seek him with the whole heart. They also do no iniquity.” We fear that no

man can claim to be absolutely without sin; and yet we trust there are many

who do not designedly, willfully, knowingly, and continuously do anything

that is wicked, ungodly, or unjust. Grace keeps the life righteous as to act

even when the Christian has to bemoan the transgressions of the heart.

Judged as men should be judged by their fellows, according to such just

rules as men make for men, the true people of God do no iniquity: they are

honest, upright, and chaste, and touching justice and morality they are

blameless. Therefore are they happy.

“They walk in his ways.” They attend not only to the great main highway

of the law, but to the smaller paths of the particular precepts. As they will

perpetrate no sin of commission, so do they labor to be free from every sin

of omission. It is not enough to them to be blameless, they wish also to be

actively righteous. A hermit may escape into solitude that he may do no

iniquity, but a saint lives in society that he may serve his God by walking in

his ways. We must be positively as well as negatively right: we shall not

long keep the second unless we attend to the first; for men will be walking

one way or another, and if they do not follow the path of God’s law they

will soon do iniquity. The surest way to abstain from evil is to be fully

occupied in doing good. This verse describes believers as they exist among

us: although they have their faults and infirmities, yet they hate evil, and

will not permit themselves to do it; they love the ways of truth, right and

true: godliness, and habitually they walk therein. They do not claim to be

absolutely perfect except in their desires, and there they are pure indeed;

for they pant to be kept from all sin, and to be led into all holiness. Could

they but always walk according to the desire of their renewed hearts, they

would follow the Lord Jesus in every thought, and word, and deed of life:

yea, their whole being would be incarnate holiness.

4. “Thou hast commanded us to keep thy precepts diligently.” So that

when we have done all, we are unprofitable servants, we have done only

that which it was our duty to have done, seeing we have our Lord’s

command for it. God’s precepts require careful obedience: there is no

keeping them by accident. Some give to God a careless service, a sort of

hit-or-miss obedience; but the Lord has not commanded such service, nor

will he accept it. His law demands the love of all our heart, soul, mind, and

strength; and a careless religion has none of these. We are also called to

zealous obedience. We are to keep the precepts abundantly: the vessels of

obedience should be filled to the brim, and the command carried out to the

full of its meaning. As a man diligent in business arouses himself to do as

much trade as he can, so must we be eager to serve the Lord as much as

possible. Nor must we spare pains to do so, for a diligent obedience will

also be laborious and self-denying. Those who are diligent in business rise

up early and sit up late, and deny themselves much of comfort and repose.

They are not soon tired, or, if they are, they persevere even with aching

brow and weary eye. So should we serve the Lord. Such a Master deserves

diligent servants; such service he demands, and will be content with

nothing less. How seldom do men render it and hence many through their

negligence miss the double blessing spoken of in this psalm.

Some are diligent in superstition and will worship; be it ours to be diligent

in keeping God’s precepts. It is of no use travelling fast if we are not in the

right road. Men have been diligent in a losing business, and the more they

have traded the more they have lost: this is bad enough in commerce, we

cannot afford to have it so in our religion.

God has not commanded us to be diligent in making precepts, but in

keeping them. Some bind yokes upon their own necks, and make bonds

and rules for others: but the wise course is to be satisfied with the rules of

holy Scripture, and to strive to keep them all, in all places, towards all men,

and in all respects. If we do not this, we may become eminent in our own

religion, but we shall not have kept the command of God, nor shall we be

accepted of him.

The Psalmist began with the third person: “Blessed are the undefiled.” He

is now coming near home, and has already reached the first person plural,

according to our version: “Thou hast commanded us.” We shall soon hear

him crying out personally and for himself: “O that my ways were

directed!” As the heart glows with love to holiness, we long to have a

personal interest in it. The word of God is a heart-affecting book, and

when we begin to sing its praises it soon comes home to us, and sets us

praying to be ourselves conformed to its teachings. Would not the reader

do well to pause here, and by devout meditation impress his own heart

with the divine authority of the Scriptures, that so he may devote himself

personally to the careful, prayerful, constant, punctual, and cheerful

keeping of the precepts of the Lords?

5. “O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes!” Divine commands

should direct us in the subject of our prayers. We cannot of ourselves keep

God’s statutes as he would have them kept, and yet we long to do so: what

resort have we but prayer? We must ask the Lord to work our works in us,

or we shall never work out his commandments. This verse is a sigh of

regret because the Psalmist feels that he has not kept the precepts

diligently, it is a cry of weakness appealing for help to one who can aid, it

is a request of bewilderment from one who has lost his way and would fain

be directed in it, and it is a petition of faith from one who loves God and

trusts in him for grace.

Our ways are by nature opposed to the way of God, and must be turned by

the Lord’s direction in another direction from that which they originally

take, or they will lead us down to destruction. God can direct the mind and

will without violating our free agency, and he will do so in answer to

prayer; in fact, he has begun the work already in those who are heartily

praying after the fashion of this verse. It is for present holiness that the

desire arises in the heart: oh, that it were so now with me! But future

persevering holiness is also meant; for he longs for grace to keep

henceforth and for ever the statutes of the Lord.

The sigh of the text is really a prayer, though it does not exactly take that

form. Desires and longings are of the essence of supplication, and it little

matters what shape they take. “Oh, that’” is as acceptable a prayer as

“Our Father.”

One would hardly have expected a prayer for direction; rather should we

have looked for a petition for enabling. Can we not direct ourselves? What

if we cannot row, we can steer. The Psalmist herein confesses that even for

the smallest part of his duty he felt unable without grace. He longed for the

Lord to influence his will, as well as to strengthen his hands. We want a

rod to point out the way as much as a staff to support us in it.

The longing of the text is prompted by admiration of the blessedness of

holiness, by a contemplation of the righteous man’s beauty of character,

and by a reverent awe of the command of God. It is a personal application

to the writer’s own case of the truths which he had been considering. “0

that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes!” It were well if all who

hear the word would copy this example and turn all that they hear into

prayer. We should have more keepers of the statutes if we had more who

sigh and cry after the grace which alone can keep them from wandering.

6. “Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all thy

commandments.”

“Then shall I not be ashamed.” He had known shame, and here he

rejoices in the prospect of being freed from it. Sin brings shame, and when

sin is gone, the reason for being ashamed is banished. What a deliverance

this is; for to some men death is preferable to shame! “When I have

respect unto all thy commandments.” When he respects God he shall

respect himself and be respected. Whenever we err we prepare ourselves

for confusion of face and sinking of heart: if no one else is ashamed of me,

I shall be ashamed of myself if I do iniquity. Our first parents never knew

shame till they made the acquaintance of the old serpent, and it never left

them till their gracious God had covered them with sacrificial skins.

Disobedience made them naked and ashamed. We, ourselves, will always

have cause, for shame till every sin is vanquished, and every duty is

observed. When we pay a continual and universal respect to the will of the

Lord, then we shall be able to look ourselves in the face in the looking-

glass of the law, and we shall not blush at the sight of men or devils,

however eager their malice may be to lay somewhat to our charge.

Many suffer from excessive diffidence, and this verse suggests a cure. An

abiding sense of duty will make us bold, we shall be afraid to be afraid. No

shame in the presence of man will hinder us when the fear of God has taken

full possession of our minds. When we are on the king’s highway by

daylight, and are engaged upon royal business, we need ask no man’s

leave. It would be a dishonor to a king to be ashamed of his livery and his

service; no such shame should ever crimson the cheek of a Christian, nor

will it if he has due reverence for the Lord his God. There is nothing to be

ashamed of in a holy life: a man may be ashamed of his pride, ashamed of

his wealth, ashamed of his own children; but he will never be ashamed of

having in all things regarded the will of the Lord his God.

It is worthy of remark that David promises himself no immunity from

shame till he has carefully paid homage to all the precepts. Mind that word

“all,” and leave not one command out of your respect. Partial obedience

still leaves us liable to be called to account for those commands which we

have neglected. A man may have a thousand virtues, and yet a single failing

may cover him with shame.

To a poor sinner who is buried in despair, it may seem a very unlikely thing

that he should ever be delivered from shame. He blushes, and is

confounded, and feels that he can never lift up his face again. Let him read

these words: “Then shall I not be ashamed.” David is not dreaming, nor

picturing an impossible case. Be assured, dear friend, that the Holy Spirit

cart renew in you the image of God, so that you shall yet look up without

fear. O for sanctification, to direct us in God’s way; for then shall we have

boldness both towards God and his people, and shall no more crimson with

confusion.

Dr. Watts turns this passage into admirable rhyme: let us sing with him —

“Then shall my heart have inward joy,

And keep my face from shames

When all thy statutes I obey,

And honor all thy name.”

7. “I will praise thee with uprightness of heart, when I shall have learned

thy righteous judgments.”

“I will praise thee.” From prayer to praise is never a long or a difficult

journey. Be sure that he who prays for holiness will one day praise for

happiness. Shame having vanished, silence is broken, and the formerly

silent man declares, “I will praise thee.” He cannot but promise praise

while he seeks sanctification. Mark how well he knows upon what head to

set the crown. “I will praise thee.” He would himself be praiseworthy, but

he counts God alone worthy of praise. By the sorrow and shame of sin he

measures his obligations to the Lord, who would teach Him the: art of

living so that he should clean escape from his former misery.

“With uprightness of heart.” His heart would be upright if the Lord

would teach him, and then it would praise its teacher. There is such a thing

as false and reigned praise, and this the Lord abhors; but there is no music

like that which comes from a pure soul which standeth in its integrity.