Psalm 119:65-72
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You have dealt well with Your servant, O Lord, according to Your word.
David here acknowledges God’s goodness, but he does so in light of how God has treated him.
Psalm 119 the entire chapter is devoted to God’s Word. Its goodness, its purity, its actions for us.
If you want to gain a new appreciation of God’s Word, read Psalm 119.
Here David says that God has dealt well with him.
But this isn’t some ungrounded claim. He grounds the goodness of God in the Word of God.
In other words, it is precisely because God has dealt with him according to His Word that he says God has been good to him.
That is David’s testimony, but this is the testimony of every believer as well.
God has dealt well with us. He has been good to us.
Even if we have faced difficulties, according to His Word, he has still be good.
Now this is key here. David does not say “You have dealt well with your servant because you have done everything I wanted for me in my life.”
That’s not what he says.
God’s goodness is not based his fulfillment of our felt needs.
What we feel we need.
That is not the basis of His goodness.
He is good because He does what He says He will do according to His word.
So in good times, in bad times.
In times of blessing, in times of discipline.
God is good.
But sometimes that is hard to see in our lives. We misperceive God’s dealings with us.
Look at the next verse-
Teach me good discernment and knowledge, For I believe in Your commandments.
David here believes in God’s commandments, and that then, leads him to desire that God would teach him discernment and knowledge.
The Word discernment here is interesting. It literally means to taste something.
What is meant here then is the ability to taste and spit out if necessary.
The word carries with it the meaning of To be able to determine between things.
Sometimes its determining between something right and wrong
Other times its determining between something that is right and something that seems right.
And other times, its determining between that which is good and best.
But regardless, our discernment as Christians is best whenever it is informed by God’s wisdom.
Many people will offer you their opinion. You and I have to be able to taste and discern whether or not it is godly or worldly.
Worldly wisdom is fleshly. What I mean by that is that it normally accords with the heart and desires of sinful man.
God wisdom accords with the heart and desire of a holy God.
Those two aren’t the same thing.
David desires that God would teach him good discernment.
Sometimes discernment means rightly evaluating you situations in light of what God is doing.
Its seeing God’s goodness even through the pain and at times his discipline.
Look at verse 67.
Before I was afflicted I went astray, But now I keep Your word.
So David here recognizes God’s action and work in his life of affliction.
This is David’s testimony.
I went astray. Now, we aren’t told the context of this- David could have been speaking of many times within his life.
The point is that David acknowledges that it was the discipline of God that brought him back.
He says- Before I was afflicted, this is what I did.
But the affliction and discipline of God brought him back.
And it brought him back to a specific place.
This past Sunday we spoke of the discipline of God.
That he disciplines those who he loves.
And He does do diligently.
This is the purpose.
That we would keep his word. That we would obey him.
Going back to verse 66 and then now into verse 67- David discerns God’s affliction of Him as a good thing.
You are good and do good; Teach me Your statutes.
David’s conclusion after his affliction.
Is that God is good and that he has done good to him.
This echoes verse 65
You have dealt well with Your servant, O Lord, according to Your word.
God does us good when he disciplines. It is not for abuse but for our good. There is a difference.
He is drawing us back.
We should look to His word and delight in His word regardless of what others say.
The arrogant have forged a lie against me; With all my heart I will observe Your precepts. Their heart is covered with fat, But I delight in Your law.
David here speaks of his focus on the Word despite the lies being spewed forth about him by those around him.
In verse 70, He speaks of His delight in God’s Word despite the worldly delights of those who oppose him.
They get fat- speaks of their worldly pleasure and indulgence in the pleasures of the world.
David’s delight on the other hand is God’s Law.
What God says do. That is David’s delight.
But he had to be taught that.
I see two things that we should note from this.
It is our natural tendency to want to be affirmed by the world around us. Everyone likes to be liked.
David says- regardless of what those around me say about me.
I observe your precepts.
It is our natural tendency to gorge ourselves in worldly fleshly desires.
David says, while others do that, I will delight in your law.
But again, David had to be taught that. More specifically, he had to be disciplined into that.
It is good for me that I was afflicted, That I may learn Your statutes.
It was the affliction that taught him the statutes of God.
Dennis King posted this on Facebook earlier this week- I thought it was a good quote especially after the sermon from Sunday.
"I am afraid that all the grace I have got out of my comfortable and easy times and happy hours might almost lie on a penny. But the good that I have received from my sorrows and pains and griefs is altogether incalculable. What do I not owe to the hammer and the anvil, the fire and the file? Affliction is the best bit of furniture in my house." Charles Spurgeon
In other words,
We don’t learn much during easy times. We learn best from difficult times.
“God’s commands are best read by eyes wet with tears.” Charles Spurgeon
The goal is that we be able to to say-
The law of Your mouth is better to me Than thousands of gold and silver pieces.
I love how he puts it here.
The Law of your mouth.
Whenever we read God’s Word, it is more than just words on a page.
From the same lips that spoke the earth and heavens into existence, he has spoken his word to us that we may know him.
Every time you open the Bible and read from it, God is speaking.
So many say they wish to hear from God, but they do so with closed Bibles.
If you want to hear from God, read what he has spoken.
When we do so, I’m convinced we will find it to be better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces.