My Summer with Psalm 119 #6

As a few of you know, I love, love, LOVE Psalm 119. I thought it would be great to spend a summer focusing on that psalm and what others have had to say about it. I'll begin with Thomas Manton's Exposition of Psalm 119. It may take all summer to read all 158 sermons. But they're so GOOD, so RICH, I think it will be worth it.

The sixth sermon is on Psalm 119:5.

• Note, that it is the use and duty of the people of God to turn precepts into prayers.
• What God hath required at our hands, that we may desire at his hands.
• Why doth God require what we cannot perform by our own strength? He doth it—(1.) To keep up his right; (2.) To convince us of our impotency, and that upon a trial; without his grace we cannot do his work; (3.) That the creature may express his readiness to obey; (4.) To bring us to lie at his feet for grace.
• The precept cometh from God to drive us to God; his sovereignty maketh way for his grace. He calleth upon us for obedience, that we may call upon him for help.
• He giveth us a law, that he may afterwards give us a heart. God’s end is to bring us upon our knees. 
• When we are full of self, there is no room for grace. 
• Cold, raw wishes are unuseful and fruitless; we must work as well as wish.
• The scriptures are sufficient to make us wise; but without the light of the Spirit, how do we grope at noonday!
• One great end of God’s Spirit is to put us in remembrance, to revive truths upon us in their season. A ship, though never so well rigged, needs a pilot; we need a good guide to put us in mind of our duty.
• A man is to choose God for a guide, as well as to take him for a lord; to ask his counsel as well as submit to his commandments. 

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible