My Summer with Psalm 119 #26

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.

Sermon 33 (Psalm 119:31)

• If men would be constant, the next thing they must do is to practise that religion they choose, and live under the power of it. Holiness is a great means of constancy: 1 Tim. 3:9, Holding the mystery of faith in a pure conscience.’
• Those that have chosen the way of God, and begun to conform their practice thereunto, ought with all constancy to persevere therein.
• We have the same reasons to continue that we had to begin at first. There is the same loveliness in God’s ways; Christ is as sweet as ever; heaven is as good as ever. If there be any difference, there is more reason to continue than there was to begin. Why? Because we have more experience of the sweetness of Christ. You knew him heretofore only by report and hearsay; but now, when you have walked in the way of holiness, then you know him by experience; and if you have tasted, 1 Peter 2:2, then certainly you should not fall off afterwards. Upon trial Christ is sweeter; and the longer you have kept to conscience, heaven is nearer; and would a man miscarry and be discouraged when he is ready to put into the haven? Rom. 8:11, Your salvation is nearer than when you first believed.’
• If our hearts be upright with God, we will increase with zeal for his glory and love to his testimonies.
• A sin after knowledge and profession of the right way is greater than a sin of bare ignorance; therefore their condition is far more deplorable than the condition of other sinners, for no men sin with such malice as they do; they have had greater conviction than others, not only external representations of the doctrine of Christ, but some taste, and have made some closure with it in their own souls; they are more given over by God than others; and so there are none persecute and hate profession and strictness so much as they that are fallen from it; and they are more oppressed and entangled by Satan, as the jailor that hath recovered the prisoner which ran from him, loads him with irons. Therefore we had need betimes look to it, and continue and persevere in the practice of the ways of God, which we have owned and taken up upon experience.
• Use 1. Get grace, then look after perseverance. But what should we do to persevere? 
• First, Be fortified against what may shake you from without; beware of being led away by offences and scandals. Three things are wont to give offence, and exceedingly shake the faith of some, viz., errors, persecutions, scandals.
• Be not troubled when differences fall out about the truths of God, nor shaken in mind; the winds of error are let loose upon the floor of the church to sever the chaff from the solid grain: 1 Cor. 11:19, There must be heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest.’ Take heed of taking offence at errors.
• Lazy men would fain give laws to heaven, and teach God how to govern the affairs of the world; they would have all things clear and plain, that there should be no doubt about it. But the Lord in his wise providence saw it fit to permit these things, that they which are approved may be made manifest.’
• To excuse laziness, we pretend want of certainty. But God’s word is plain to one that will do his will, John 7:17, if we will use all the means God hath appointed, and unfeignedly and with an unbiassed heart come to search out the mind of God.
• Persecutions, they are an offence: Mat. 11:6, Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me.’ When the people of God are exposed to great troubles when they are in the world, they have but a mean outside. What! are these the favourites of heaven? It makes men take offence. Christians, what religion is it you are of? Is it not the Christian religion, whose great interest and work it is to draw you off from the concernments of the present world unto things to come? The whole drift and frame of the Christian religion is to draw men’s hearts off from earthly things, and to comfort and support them under the troubles, inconveniences, and molestations of the flesh; therefore for a Christian to hope an exemption from them, is to make the doctrine of the gospel as incongruous and useless as to talk of bladders and the art of swimming to a man that never goes to sea, nor intends to go off from the firm land.
• A great occasion to shake the faith of many is scandals, the evil practices of those that profess the name of God. Oh! when they run into disorder, especially into all manner of unrighteousness, and iniquity, and cruel things, and make no conscience of the duties of their relations as subjects, as children, and the like, it is a mighty offence; and we that have to do with persons and sinners of all sorts find it a very hard matter to keep them from atheism, such stumbling-blocks having been laid in their way.
• Scandal is far more dangerous than persecution. There are many that have been gained by the patience, courage, and constancy of the martyrs, but never any were gained by the scandalous falls of professors.
• Secondly, Be fortified within, by taking heed to the causes of apostasy, and falling off from the truth either in judgment or practice. What is there will make men apostates? A choice lightly made is lightly altered. When we do not resolve upon evidence, and have not taken up the ways of God upon clear light, we shall turn and wind to and fro as the posture of our interest is changed.
• If we have not a clear and full persuasion of the ways of God in our own minds, we shall never be constant.
• A sweet superficial taste may be lost, but a sound sense of the love of God in Christ will engage us to him.
• The more experience you have, and the deeper it is, the more you will be confirmed. The most of us content ourselves but in a superficial taste. When we hear of the doctrine of salvation by Christ, we are somewhat pleased and tickled with it; but this is not that which doth establish us, but a deep sense of God’s grace, or feeling the blood of Christ pacifying our consciences; this is that which establisheth our hearts, and settleth us against apostasy.
• If a man hath love to present things, if that be not subdued and purged out of his heart, he will never be stable, never upright with God.
• There is an itch of novelty, when men are weary of old truths, and only rejoice in things for a season, John 5:35. There are many that look for all their virtue and their experience from their notions in religion. Thus they run from doctrine to doctrine, from way to way, so remain unmodified.
• Thirdly, Take heed of the first decays, and look often into the state of your hearts. A man that never casts up his estate is undone insensibly; therefore look often into the state of your hearts, whether you increase in your affections to God, in the power of holiness, or whether you go backward. Evil is best stopped in the beginning.
• Fourthly, Often review your first grounds, and compare them with your after experiences, and what fresh tastes you had then of the love of God to your souls: Heb. 3:14, We are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end.’
• Use 2. If those that have chosen the way of God and begin to conform their practice ought with all constancy to persevere, then it reproveth—You should resolve upon all hazards; not take up religion for a walk, but for a journey. Not like going to sea for pleasure; if they see a storm coming, presently to shore again; but for a voyage to ride out all weathers.
• A man that doth not stick to God’s testimonies, that is not zealous and constant, will be put to shame before God and man, and made a scorn by them, and lie under great reproach; therefore, Lord, prevent this reproach.
• The fruit of sin is shame. Shame is a trouble of mind about such evils as tend to our infamy and disgrace. Loss of life is matter of fear; loss of goods is matter of grief and sorrow; but loss of name and credit is matter of shame; and therefore it is a trouble of mind that doth arise about such evils as tend to our infamy and disgrace. There are two things in sin, folly and filthiness, and both cause shame; it is an irrational act, and it hath a turpitude in it; therefore the fruit of sin is shame, and a fear of a just reproof. Shame is the striving of nature to hide the stain of our souls, by sending out the blood into the face for a covering; it labours most under this passion. And this shame accompanieth sin, not only when men are conscious of what we do, but it is a fear of a just reproof from God, nay, of a just reproof from themselves.
• Though, you should be solitary and alone with yourselves, yet there is an eye sees and an ear hears all that you do.
• When once we come out of our fears, and are possessed of the love of God, we think there needs not be such diligence as when we were doubtful, and kept in an. uncertain condition, and so carry the matter as if we were past all danger. Oh, no! sin many times breaks out of a sudden; and after the first labours of soul in regeneration and terrors of the law are gone, there is great danger of security, and secretly and silently things may run to waste in the soul.
• God’s children have been in most danger when to appearance there was least cause of fear. 
• Those that in a humble sense of their own weakness and fear of the mischief of being a blemish to religion, when they come to pray, they may be persuaded of God’s goodness, of whom they have such long experience, that he will not fail them at length.

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible