My Autumn with Psalm 119 #3

I will be continuing on in my study of Psalm 119 this autumn. I have spent months reading Thomas Manton's exposition of Psalm 119. In October I hope to cover the next eight verses of the Psalm.

³³ Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes;    and I will keep it to the end.
³⁴ Give me understanding, that I may keep your law    and observe it with my whole heart.³⁵ Lead me in the path of your commandments,    for I delight in it.³⁶ Incline my heart to your testimonies,    and not to selfish gain!³⁷ Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things;    and give me life in your ways.³⁸ Confirm to your servant your promise,    that you may be feared.³⁹ Turn away the reproach that I dread,    for your rules are good.⁴⁰ Behold, I long for your precepts;    in your righteousness give me life!

Sermon 38 (Psalm 119:34)

• Doct. That it is not enough to keep God’s law, but we must keep it with the whole heart. Here I shall show you— 1. That God requireth the heart. 2. The whole heart.
• First, God requireth the heart in his service. The heart is the Christian’s sacrifice, the fountain of good and evil, and therefore should be mainly looked after. Without this— 1. External profession is nothing. Most Christians have nothing for Christ but a good opinion or some outward profession.
• 2. External conformity is nothing worth. It is not enough that the life seem good, and many good actions be performed, unless the heart be purified; otherwise we do, with the Pharisees, wash the out side of the platter,’ Mat. 23:25, 26,
• 3. It is the heart wherein God dwelleth, not in the tongue, the brain, unless by common gifts; till he take possession of the heart all is as nothing: Eph. 3:17, He dwelleth in our hearts by faith.’
• The bodies of believers are temples of the Holy Ghost; yet the heart, will, and affections of man are the chief place of his habitation, wherein he resideth as in his strong citadel, and from whence he commandeth other faculties and members; and without his presence there he cannot have any habitation in us.
• 4. If Christ have it not, Satan will have it. The heart of man is not a waste; either God is there framing gracious operations, or the devil, who worketh in the children of disobedience,’ Eph. 2:2. Will you give them to God to be saved, or to the devil to be damned? Whose they are now they are for ever.
• 5. If you love any, you give them the heart; and you are wont to wish that there were windows in your bodies that they might see the sincerity of your hearts towards them. Surely if you have cause to love any, you have much more cause to love God.
• Secondly, The whole heart. Here I shall show you—(1.) What it is to keep the law with the whole heart. (2.) Why we must keep the law with our whole heart.
• 1. What it is to keep the law with the whole heart. It is taken legally or evangelically, as a man is bound, or as God will accept what is required in justice, or what is accepted in mercy.
• The law requireth exact conformity, without the least motion to the contrary, either in thought or desire, a full obedience to the law with all the powers of the whole man. This is in force still as to our rule, but not as to the condition of our acceptance with God. This, without any defect and imperfection, like man’s love to God in innocency, since the fall is nowhere found but in Christ Jesus, who alone is harmless and undefiled, and will never thus be fulfilled by us till we come to heaven; for here all is but in part, but. then that which is in part shall be done away. Then will there be light without darkness, knowledge without ignorance, faith without unbelief, hope without despair, love without defect and mixture of carnal inclinations, all good motions without distraction. Here is folly and confusion; here flesh lusteth against the spirit’ in the best, Gal. 5:17. They have a double principle, though not a double heart.
• In an evangelical sense, according to the moderation of the second covenant; and so God, out of his love and mercy in Christ Jesus, accepts of such a measure of love and obedience as answereth to the measure of sanctification received. When God sanctifieth a man he sanctifieth him as to all the parts and faculties of body and soul, enlighteneth the understanding with the knowledge of his will, inclineth the heart to obedience, circumciseth the affection, filleth us with the love of God himself and holy things. But being a voluntary agent, he doth not this as to perfection of degrees all at once, but successively, and by little and little.
• Therefore, as long as we are in the world there is somewhat of ignorance in the understanding, perversity in the will, fleshliness and impurity in the affections, flesh and spirit in every faculty, like water and wine in the same cup; but so as the gift of grace doth more and more prevail over the corruption of nature, light upon darkness, holiness upon sin, and heavenliness upon our inclinations to worldly vanities; as the sun upon the shadow of the night till it groweth into perfect day: Prov. 4:18, The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.’
• 2. Now, the reasons why we must keep the law with our whole heart are these following:— [1.] He that giveth a part only to God giveth nothing to God, for that part that is reserved will in time draw the whole after
• The whole man is God’s by every kind of right and title; and therefore, when he requireth the whole heart, he doth but require that which is his own. God gave us the whole by creation, preserveth the whole, redeemeth the whole, and promiseth to glorify the whole.
• Use 1. First, to reprove those that do not give God the heart in their service; secondly, not the whole heart.
• 2. It reproves those that do not give God the whole heart, for he requireth that, and surely all is too little for so great and so good a master. God will have the heart, so that no part of it be left to others, or for ourselves to dispose of as we will: the true mother would not have the child divided, 1 Kings 3:26. God will have all or nothing, he will not part stakes with Satan; but Satan, if he cannot have all, will be content with a part. 
• Use 2. To press you to give up the whole heart to God in a course of obedience.

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible