I open my mouth and pant, longing for Your commandments. Sermons
I. THESE WORDS DECLARE A FACT. 1. In the psalmist's own experience. He had found God's testimonies wonderful. They had lifted him up from the depths of sorrow to blessed calm, confidence, and delight in God. Not that his outward circumstances appear to have been much changed, but the mood of his mind about them, and the thoughts of his heart, had greatly changed. 2. And this was because of the light-giving power of God's Word. (Ver. 130.) Light reveals what was hidden before - truths that had remained in obscurity, and which had great bearing on his condition, he could now see. His mind had been illuminated, and he was as in a new world. And light cheers and gladdens the heart. By means of the Word of God such light had come to him, and with such power, that he could only exclaim, "Thy testimonies are wonderful." 3. And the like experience has been reproduced in all men like-minded to the psalmist. Wonderful is the book of Holy Scripture, for its age, preservation, interest, adaptation to all, for its inspiration, for its spread, for its blessed and ever-increasing power, for the revelation of God given in it, and for many more and personal reasons beside. II. THEY REVEAL THE INFLUENCE AND EFFECT THEY EVER HAVE. 1. They explain the tenacity with which the soul clings to God's Word. (Ver. 129.) Of course, the soul which has had such experience of its power will "keep them." Do we fling gold away? Neither will such soul the testimonies of God. 2. They produce deep humility. Ver. 139 is a plea for mercy. The psalmist knew that he needed that. These wonderful testimonies had made that clear to him, as they ever do. But as one of the company of them that loved God's Name, he pleads for the mercy he needs. 3. Made him long for complete rectitude in God's sight. (Ver. 133.) He would have his every step, not merely his general walk, ordered in God's Word, and he would that no iniquity should have, etc. This is a constant result of such a realization of the power of God's Word. Nothing less than complete obedience win serve. 4. Gives renewed force to his prayers .for grace to obey. Hence he prays (1) that man's oppression may cease (ver. 134). How often such oppression does hinder the keeping of God's precepts! Not entirely, but largely. How many would openly serve God, but are cruelly forbidden or held back by fear! God's people have to hide away; they cannot do the things that they would. Also he prays (2) that God's face may shine upon him; for that is like the warm shining of the sun upon the plant-world, causing it to spring and grow as otherwise it could not. 5. Made him deeply grieve over men's sin. (Ver. 136.) We do not grieve over what we do not value. If, therefore, we do not value the grace of God, we shall not, etc. III. THE CONDITION OF REALIZING ALL THIS. Fervent desire (ver. 131). - S.C.
I opened my mouth, and panted, for I longed for Thy commandments. Here we have David desiring, praying, pleading, and setting forth very clearly what he pants after. May you and I have the same burning desires; and at the same time may we clearly know what we are panting for, so that we may the more intelligently pursue it, and thus go the nearer way to obtain it!I. LONGING ARDENTLY AFTER HOLINESS (ver. 131). 1. The man of God longeth after the Lord's commandments. Many religious people long after the promises, and they do well; but they must not forget to have an equal longing for the commandments. 2. The psalmist, having told us what he longed for, shows the strength of those desires; for he had been so eager in his pursuit of holiness that he had test his breath. Are you ready to faint? Underneath are the everlasting arms. 3. See how resolved he was. Even though you open your mouth and pant with weariness, yet keep your face set like a flint towards holiness, and let your case be that of one who is "faint, yet pursuing." 4. Note that the follower after holiness seeks renewed strength. Why does he open his mouth and pant? Is it not to get more air, to fill his lungs again, to cool his blood, and to be ready to renew his running? 5. He was dissatisfied with his attainments. His opened mouth and panting heart betoken desires which are not as yet fulfilled. 6. Yet, let no tinge of discouragement mingle with your dissatisfaction: this man is hopeful of better things. He opens his mouth because he looks for something to fill it; he pants because he believes in water-brooks which will relieve his thirst. II. PLEADING FERVENTLY FOR THE HOLINESS HE DESIRED (ver. 132). 1. He believes in God's power to bless him, and hence he turns to Him, and cries, "Look Thou upon me." Great sinners may be grateful for a look, for it is more than they deserve. Great saints may rejoice in a look; for it means much when the eye which looks is the eye of Omnipotent Love. 2. He appeals to mercy. 3. He pleads as one who loves God. 4. He employs the grand plea of use and wont. 5. He joyfully accepts God's method. We kiss the rod, because the Father who uses it designs to kiss us. We assent to the processes of grace that we may enjoy the results of grace. It may so happen that if God sanctifies you, He may have to grind you very small: cheerfully yield yourself to the mill. If this is the way in which He deals with those that love His Name, do not desire any different treatment. III. ENLARGING INTELLIGENTLY UPON THE FAVOUR HE SEEKS (ver. 133). 1. Now, let us see how the psalmist puts it. His cry is for holiness, and he describes it as being ruled by the Word of God. "Order my steps in Thy Word." The different sects have differing ideas of holiness, but the reality of holiness is only one. It is this — "Order my steps in Thy Word." 2. He would have holiness in every step of his life. 3. He would have every step ordered. We can never attain to the right proportion of the virtues unless the Lord Himself arranges them in order for us, Do not tell me it is easy to be holy; you want not only the different graces, but all these in order due and measure fit. O Lord, help us! Order our steps. 4. He would have every step full of God: he would have each one ordered of the Lord. He would receive his strength, his motives, his guiding influences direct from the Lord. 5. He would be wholly delivered from the tyranny of sin. "Let not any iniquity," etc. I fear that many professors have never understood this prayer. One man is a splendid man for a prayer-meeting, a fine man for a Bible-class; but at home he is a tyrant to his wife and children. Is not this a great evil under the sun? Another man is stern and honest, and he inveighs with all his might against every form of evil, but he is hard even to cruelty with all who are in his power. One is generous and fervent, but he likes a sly drop; another is good-natured and pleasant, but he puts it on in his bills at times, and his customers do not find the goods quite of the quality they pay for. Beware of pet sins. If you let a golden god rule you, you will perish as well as if you let a mud god rule you. Be this your constant cry — "Let not any iniquity have dominion over me." ( C. H. Spurgeon.) I. THE INSUFFICIENCY OF CREATED THINGS TO SUPPLY THE WANTS OF THE SOUL. Let the soul be set to the survey of any created good, and however enamoured of that good, its decision will be that its limits are discernible; and in making this decision its own capacities, unconsciously, it may be, but not the less surely, will enlarge so as to be greater than the good, and thus make hopeless the attempt at filling them therewith. The soul, in fact, grows with what it receives; and unless the horizon of a good be like the natural horizon, which recedes as fast as you approach, the soul will quickly pass the boundary line, and present again a void which craves to be filled. But this can be affirmed of no good save the Almighty Himself. God is that alone perfection of which I can see no end; with all others, the higher I ascend the more conscious am I that the horizon has a shore, however distant, and with the greater elasticity does my spirit spread itself, so as to embrace the expanse of wonders; but with God, the loftier my point of survey, the firmer my persuasion that the ocean is without a shore. II. THE POWER THERE IS IN GOD'S COMMANDMENTS OF FILLING OUR CAPACITY FOR ENJOYMENT. We suppose that, had it been left with ourselves to draw the comparison, we should not have represented this man, who was exhausted by a fruitless search after happiness, as longing after the commandments of God. We should have been inclined to fix on the favour of God, or on the joys which He communicates to His people, rather than, with David in our text, on His commandments, as affording that material of satisfaction which is so vainly sought in any earthly good. But let the matter be carefully examined, and we shall find that it is strictly for the commandment that the wearied soul ought to long. The whole law of God is summed up in one commandment, the commandment of love; but in what does man's happiness lie, if not in obedience to this commandment? We deny the possibility of satisfaction of soul, so long as there is nothing of reunion with God. The human soul has been torn away from God, and all that restlessness which it manifests, until again linked into friendship, is an irrepressible evidence of the disruption. In its ceaseless but unavailing endeavours to find a resting-place in finite good, there is an ever-powerful testimony that it has fatally wandered from its home; its fruitless searchings after happiness in the creature are the melancholy evidences of alienation from the Creator. Indeed, fraught as the soul is with the consciousness of immortality — a consciousness which, however for awhile overborne by the tumult of passion, starts up frequently in every man, and forces itself on his attention, it is not possible that there should be aught but disquietude, so long as there is no sense of being at peace with the Almighty, And thus, even if you consider not the peculiar nature of God's commandments, there would be enough in the fact that they are God's commandments, and therefore to be obeyed, if we would not be everlastingly and unutterably wretched, to certify us that in God's commandments must happiness be sought, and that therefore those commandments must be longed for by any one who has exhausted himself in a search after good. But we must go beyond this. We must give heed to the fact that the commandments are summed up in love. Think of a man who knew nothing of envy, who was altogether free from jealousy, nay, who had not only purged himself from these corroding passions, but who had so identified the interests of others with his own, that he felt what befell them as befalling himself; and this would be the man who would obey the command, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." And can you imagine a happier individual? Can you ever take the measure of his happiness? But the love of man is not all which the commandments require; they require love of God; and this makes them adequate to our every capacity; for it is certain, first of all, that ere I can love God I must know myself reconciled to God. In loving God we throw from us the burden which, if unmoved, must press us down everlastingly into the depths of wretchedness; and we take hold of immortality, as purchased for us. and prepared, and reserved. We turn this earth, from a scene of jarring passions and petty rivalries, into one broad stage upon which to labour for the extension of the kingdom of Christ. We concentrate our affections on objects whose contemplation enlarges the soul, whilst their boundaries are unapproached by the mightiest expansion. If I love God I shall be continually travelling on His perfections, and continually discerning that I am as far off as ever from their limits. I shall be continually stretching the soul, that it may enclose what is Divine, and continually finding that what is Divine is too vast to be thus circumscribed. And therefore the command that I love God, oh l it is a command that I develop the immortality of the soul; that I employ my desires till they are as broad as my duration; that I prove myself too capacious for creation. Earth, and moon, and sun, and stars! He who made you all can alone occupy that spirit which, with this narrow framework of flesh as its centre, spreads its circumference wheresoever ye travel in your glorious wanderings. And if such be God's commandments, we may well set these commandments in contrast with every good from which those who are yet strangers to God would gather their happiness; and I can no longer wonder that a man worn out by the pursuit of earthly things, so that he exclaimed, "I opened my mouth, and punted," should turn to the law of the Most High as alone adequate to his capacities, and break into the utterance, "I longed for Thy commandments, O Lord." (H. Melvill, B. D.) People Heth, Nun, PsalmistPlaces JerusalemTopics Commandments, Commands, Desire, Longed, Longing, Mouth, Open, Opened, Pant, Panted, Teachings, Waiting, Wide, YeaOutline 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 119:131 5792 appetite 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 Meditations Life Hid and not Hid A Cleansed Way 'Time for Thee to Work' A Stranger in the Earth May the Fourth a Healthy Palate Inward Witness to the Truth of the Gospel. A Bottle in the Smoke 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 Of Deeper Matters, and God's Hidden Judgments which are not to be Inquired Into Seven-Fold Joy And in Jeremiah He Thus Declares his Death and Descent into Hell... The Christian Described Excursus on the Choir Offices of the Early Church. The Daily Walk with Others (I. ). The Talking Book How to Read the Bible The Obedience of Faith Faith What the Truth Saith Inwardly Without Noise of Words That the Body and Blood of Christ and the Holy Scriptures are Most Necessary to a Faithful Soul Links Psalm 119:131 NIVPsalm 119:131 NLT Psalm 119:131 ESV Psalm 119:131 NASB Psalm 119:131 KJV Psalm 119:131 Bible Apps Psalm 119:131 Parallel Psalm 119:131 Biblia Paralela Psalm 119:131 Chinese Bible Psalm 119:131 French Bible Psalm 119:131 German Bible Psalm 119:131 Commentaries Bible Hub |
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