Brief Remarks on Psalm 119:54-63
"Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage."
Happy indeed when the soul in truth can say so.
It is language uttered in the presence of God—breathed into His ear—the overflowing of a heart that loves, values, and delights in the sacred Word.
And what is that Word, we may ask, but the revelation of God Himself—the unfolding of His counsels concerning the Son of His love, and His ways with and counsels about the families of the redeemed, whose lips shall fill the wide earth and yet wider heavens by-and-by with His unending praise? The past, present, and future we find there unveiled so that we may know what has been, what is, and what shall be. There too are revealed those things which God has prepared for them that love Him—things which "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man."
Oh, think of that! Could you behold all the beautiful things the eye of man has ever seen from Adam's day to ours, listen to the most enchanting sounds that have ever charmed the human ear, and acquaint yourself with the grandest conceptions of the mind of man from Eden until now, all would be infinitely surpassed by the things which God hath prepared—things clothed with such moral beauty, grandeur, and perfection as renders them worthy of Him who has prepared them all.
And these things, mind you, are not held in reserve or kept secret, and intended as some sweet surprise when we reach the shores of eternity, but are made known now, and in words which the Holy Ghost has chosen. The Holy Spirit Himself is also given unto us that we might know the things which God has so freely made ours; for the natural man, with all the advantages of education and cultured intellect, understands them not; they are foolishness to him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Cor. 2:9, 14). In •these astonishing revelations then the "new man" in the saint of God delights. The beauty, depth, and fullness of them he increasingly learns; they are the joy and rejoicing of his heart; they become his songs in the house of his pilgrimage.
"I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies. I made haste, and delayed not to keep thy commandments." Here the ways pass under serious review; they are measured by the pure and perfect Word of the Lord, and the walk ordered and regulated by His testimonies. There is also readiness of heart to obey, not saying, as in Luke 9, "suffer me first" to do this or that, but, like Abraham, who, when told to offer up Isaac, rose up "early in the morning" to carry out the divine command. "I made haste, and delayed not to keep thy commandments." This is very beautiful; it shows a heart governed by the Word.
Oh that this admirable feature were more clearly seen in the saints of God! Alas! it is often hardly to be discerned at all. The will of God is known about certain matters, and yet slowness of step in carrying it out. The heart runs not with joyous alacrity along the path of obedience. Perhaps to obey involves the giving up of much to which one naturally clings, and the will being at work there is hesitancy and delay. How different from what we find here, and how unlike the Lord, who said, "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work." To Him indeed the path of obedience was a path of suffering and shame; yet He could say, "The Lord God hath opened Mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. I gave My back to the smiters, and My cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not My face from shame and spitting. For the Lord God will help Me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set My face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed." Isa. 1:5-7. He was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Verse 63: "I am a companion of all them that fear Thee, and of them that keep Thy precepts." Here is holy fellowship, as in 2 Tim. 2:22: "Flee... but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart." There can be no fellowship, according to God, where He is not feared, nor His precepts kept. It would be fellowship in irreverence and disobedience. How little is this thought of!