My Summer with Psalm 119 #27

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 35 (Psalm 119:32)

• God only can enlarge the heart. We are sluggish, and loath to stir a foot in the ways of obedience, therefore God must enlarge.
• From first to last God doth all in the work of grace; he gives the habit and act. He plants graces in the heart, knowledge, faith, love, and delight; and then excites and quickens them to act. The habit of grace is called the seed of God,’ 1 John 3:9; there it begins.
• Before we can fly we must get wings, we must have grace before we can run the way of God’s commandments; and then quickening of the habits, the exciting of the soul to action; the deed as well as the will, Phil. 2:13; it is from God, the first inclination and actual accomplishment; he giveth to will, that is, the first inclination: 1 Kings 8:58, That he may incline our hearts unto him, to walk in all his ways,’ &c. And then the deed, the outward expression of our obedience, it is still from God: Acts 4:29, the apostle goes to God for that, Grant unto thy servants that, with all boldness, they may speak thy word;’
• 1. It is your duty to engage and consent to give up yourselves to God’s service whatever comes of it:
• As this is your duty, so, whether you resolve or no, you are already obliged by God’s command. This actual resolution of entering into covenant with God is only required as a means to strengthen us. Natural relations enforce duty without consent; a father is a father whether a child will own him in the quality of that relation, yea or nay. God’s right is valid whether you will consent or not. Actual consent or purpose in your heart doth not give God greater right, but makes duty more implicit and active upon your own hearts. We cannot make the bonds of duty stronger, for God’s authority is greater than ours, but we have a deeper sense when we own God’s authority by our own engagement. 
• Make it, then keep it in God’s strength. Make it, but remember, your security lieth in God’s promises, not in your own. It is your duty to engage to God; but as to the event, you cannot say you can go through with it, unless the Lord put in with his grace.
• Good purposes are the root of good works, and without the root there is no fruit to be expected. A true and inward purpose will not let us be idle, but still urging and soliciting us to that which is good, then we make a business of religion; whereas otherwise we make but a sport and recreation, that is, mind it only by the by.
• Empty promises signify nothing unless they are the result of the heart’s determination.
• When you have weighty reasons and considerations to bear you up, you are more likely to hold. Sit down and count the charges; if you resolve for God, see what it is like to cost you, and consider where it is likely to fail, what difficulties you are most likely to meet withal, what lusts are most apt to break your purpose.
• Resolution is for the weighty things of Christianity, or cleaving to God in a course of obedience, not for some by-matters. Resolve on the most necessary work.
• Again, this resolution is propounded universally, indefinitely, in the way of God’s commandments,’ whatever shall appear to be the will of God. When our consent is bounded with reservations, we do not come up to the mind of God, and that will bring you but half way to heaven. He that is half holy, half religious, will be but half saved.
• There is an end for which man was appointed, and that was to seek after true happiness. All desire to be happy by an inclination of nature, for hereunto were we appointed by God.
• This true happiness lieth in the enjoyment of God; that is the great end of reasonable creatures, angels and men, actively to glorify God, and to enjoy him: other creatures were made to glorify him objectively, but not to enjoy him.
• We never come to ourselves till we consider the end why we were born and why God sent us into the world. Whence am I? why do I live here? To delight myself in the creature, to wallow in pleasures, or to look after communion with God? We live but as beasts, not as men, till we return and remember our creator, in the enjoyment of whom is our only happiness.
• There should be a decree in our souls for God; God is my scope, Christ my way; I must take him; I will go about this work, walk in this way, that I may at length enjoy him.
• Christ is running to you to snatch you out of the fire, and will you not run towards him?

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible