Would you turn to Psalm 119? Beginning in verse 25 of Psalm
119. My soul cleaveth unto the dust. Quicken thou me according to
thy word. I have declared my ways and thou
hurtest me. Teach me thy statutes. Make me
to understand the way of thy precepts. So shall I talk of
thy wondrous works. My soul melteth for heaviness. Strengthen thou me according
unto thy word. Remove from me the way of lying
and grant me thy law graciously. I have chosen the way of truth
Thy judgments have I laid before me. I have stuck unto thy testimonies,
O Lord. Put me not to shame. I will run the way of thy commandments
when thou shalt enlarge my heart. I'm so thankful for this passage
of scripture. Very, very special. I identify with it. Look how
it begins. My soul cleaveth unto the dust. It's stuck in the dirt and I
can't get out. I feel dead. Quicken thou me
according to thy word. I have declared my ways. I believe
that's the same thing as I've confessed my sins. I've declared
my ways. I've made them open by your grace. And thou heardest me. Teach me. Thy statutes. I need to be taught. I'm not going to understand them
except that you be my teacher. Teach me your statutes. Make me to understand the way
of thy precepts. I like the way he said the way
of your precepts. Not just your precepts, but the
way of your precepts. He made known his ways to Moses,
his acts. to the children of Israel. I
want to know his ways, don't you? The way of his precepts. And here's what will happen if
I know the way of his precepts, so shall I talk of thy wondrous
works. Somebody that knows the way of
his precepts, this is what they're gonna be talking about. His wondrous
works. And here he repeats himself,
my soul melteth for heaviness. Now he's talking about being
depressed. And he says this under the inspiration of God the Holy
Spirit. My soul melteth for heaviness. This is a sinful depression.
And really, you can't separate our depression from our sin.
You really can't do it. I realize there are many factors
that can be involved where you can have a chemical imbalance,
you can have horrible circumstances that is gonna trouble anybody,
traumatic things may have happened. It may be just dissatisfaction
with God's providence. It may be your sin, whatever,
you can't separate of depression and sin in whatever form, and
it's most real though. And God the Holy Spirit inspires
David to make this statement, my soul melteth for heaviness,
strengthen thou me according to thy word. Not only do I need
quickened, I need strengthened. In my heaviness, I need him to
strengthen me all according to his word, according to the Bible. Listen to this next statement.
Verse 29, remove from me the way of lying. Now, I have no
doubt he's not talking about remove from me from people telling
me lies. Remove from me the way of lying to myself. Remove that
from me. Somebody says, I don't do that.
Well, you're doing it now. You're doing it now. We all have a tendency
to lie to ourselves. And he says, remove that from
me. And then we have this. I love
this statement. Grant me thy law graciously. You know, that's not, there's
not another statement like that in all the scripture. Thy law,
grant me, give me your law graciously. What is that justification by
grace? Same thing. Grant me thy law graciously. I've chosen the way of truth by your grace. I've chosen the
way of truth. Thy judgments have I laid before
me. Now, he's talking about judgments. He's talking about the judgments
of the cross. That's all I have at all times, the judgments you
accomplished on Calvary's tree. I've laid those before me. I've stuck unto thy testimonies,
O Lord. What you've testified with regard
to yourself, I'm stuck to it. I love it. I don't want anything
else but thy testimonies. O Lord, put me not to shame. You know, another way of saying
that is let me be found in Christ. If I'm not found in Christ, I'm
put to shame. Put me not to shame, I will run. Look in verse 32. I will run
the way of thy commandments when thou shalt enlarge my heart.
You see, I've got this little constricted heart. I need it
to be enlarged by your grace. And when you enlarge my heart,
I'll run in the way of your commandments. Now I have no doubt that this
is a passage of scripture that every believer can personally
identify with very much. Very much. He begins, my soul
cleaveth to the dust. This is talking about depression.
My soul, you've been there. You know what it feels like.
I know what it feels like. Some more severely than others. I realize
that. There are different kinds of depression. You may have a
depression where you don't even know why you're depressed. That's
chemical. You can't separate from sin.
I'm not ever saying that, but your body chemistry can get so
messed up to where you couldn't even tell somebody what's wrong
with you, but you know something's wrong with you. You feel a despair. You feel a hopelessness. There's
the depression brought on by difficult circumstances, guilt,
feelings of inferiority. Now, don't mistake feelings of
inferiority for humility. It's not the same thing. Feelings
of inferiority, lack of discipline, no self-control, intemperance. Being a control freak. You know,
if you're a control freak, you're going to be depressed a lot because
really you can't control anything. Selfishness. A bad environment. No purpose. Having a victim mentality. There's so many things that come
on from this thing of depression, but it's sin. It's sin. When I'm depressed, things are
not going my way. I'm mad at the Lord. I'm disagreeing
with what's happening. It is sin. And that's what David
is saying. Do you feel this way all the
time? No, but I feel this way some of the time. My soul melteth
for heaviness, my soul cleaveth unto the dust. I love what the
Lord said to Adam, dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return. Isn't that so? What's the remedy? Quicken thou
me according to thy word. Now, really what's going on here
is more than depression. It's mourning over sin. Right? When it comes right down to it.
This is the second beatitude. Blessed are they who mourn over
sin. You hate your sin. And your sin's
depressing. And you mourn over your sin.
You know, only a believer mourns over their sin. Now, an unbeliever
can mourn over the consequence of sin, the trouble it gets them
in, the embarrassment it puts them through. but the only believer
actually mourns over their sin. It's what Paul meant when he
said, oh, wretched man that I am. He hated his sin. This wasn't
a cliche term with him. He hated his sin, his continual
sins, the sins that he committed over and over again. My soul cleaveth to the dust. Quicken thou me according to
thy word. Give me life according to thy
word. I love that scripture of his
own will. Begat he us, birthed he us, gave us life through the
word of truth. Quicken thou me according to
thy word. Verse 26. I've declared my ways. I've taken sides with you against
myself. Guilty as charged. I've declared, I've made known
my ways. I'm not, by your grace, I'm not trying to hide them.
I'm taking full responsibility for my sin. It's my fault. I
have declared my ways. God, be merciful to me, the sinner. I've declared my ways and thou
hurtest me. Let me say two things about the
Lord that I love. He's the God who speaks. He speaks. And he's the God who hears. Thou
heardest. Thou heardest. Think of this,
you have the ear of God. Through the Lord Jesus Christ,
God inclines his ear to you and hears you. Thou heardest me. He's the God who hears prayer. Somebody asked me recently, is
it okay to tell an unbeliever to pray? Well, the Lord did say,
men ought always to pray. Men ought always to pray and
not to faint. I'll tell anybody to call upon
the name of the Lord. Thou heardest me. Teach me thy statutes. If you do not teach me, I will
not understand. Teach me thy statutes. I've been taught by men and the
Lord uses men to teach us. But I tell you this, I want him
to be my teacher. I'm not saying apart from men.
I love that passage of scripture in Acts chapter 8 when Philip
said, do you understand what you're reading? And the Ethiopian
eunuch replied, how can I? Except some man should guide
me. But if it's only a man guide me, it's not going to do me any
good. I need the Lord to be my teacher. He says in verse 27,
make me to understand the way of thy precepts. The Lord said, I am the way. You know, when you understand,
when you realize he is the way, Not simply that he'll guide you
along the way or show you the way, but he himself is the way
to the Father. And if you're in him, you're
already there. Show me the way of thy precepts
and here's what will happen. If you do, so shall I talk of
thy wondrous works. Now here's the subject of our
preaching. Here's the subject of our conversation. His wondrous
works. I love to think about him saying,
light be, and all of a sudden there's light. The darkness flees. It can't prevent the light. God
who commanded the light to shine out of the darkness has shined
in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. I love to think of there being
a time when all there was was God. There wasn't any universe. There wasn't any space. There
were no sun, moon, or stars. He spaked the universe into existence.
What glory, what power. I love to think of his creative
power. Don't you love to think of his works of providence? You
know, we can't really see this right now, but everything is
good. Everything is good. He brings
good out of evil and he is the first cause behind everything. I don't care what it is. He's
in control of it. The Lord is cast into the lap,
what we would call luck, but the whole disposing thereof,
not just 99%, the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord. Oh, his works of providence.
You and I are too stupid to see this, but everything's good. Everything's perfect. Everything's
right, but nothing. It's all gonna be seen good at
the end. Do you believe that? His glorious works of providence
and most especially his work of salvation, taking a sinful
man like me and making it to where I have never sinned and
I stand before God perfect in his sight. Talk about wondrous
works. The wondrous works of Christ on Calvary's tree, that's
our subject matter. His wondrous works. Now he says again in verse 28, My soul melteth for heaviness. Now this is David, the man after
God's own heart speaking. My soul melteth for heaviness. And I'm thankful the Lord inspired
the psalmist to write this. Now I've already said, does this
mean we're like this all the time? No, but we're sure like
this some of the time. My soul melteth for heaviness,
and there are so many factors involved in this. Some people have such traumatic
circumstances, such horrible things that have happened to
them when they were young, the way they were raised. I don't
want to be indifferent about any of these things. Everybody's
got a story, and it's difficult. There's much difficulty in life. Life's hard, isn't it? Life's
hard. It's not easy. And David says,
my soul melteth for heaviness. And I know that what makes my
soul melt the most, my sin, my indifference to sin, my being
Sinning and not mourning the way I should. Not looking to
Christ as I ought. You cannot have sin and not have
heaviness. And this is what he's speaking
of. My soul melts for heaviness. You know, I think of our heaviness. Repeated sin. Disappointments in people. Disappointment
in yourself. Disillusionment over the way
things have not worked out the way you thought they would is
not as you thought it would be. And our soul melts for heaviness. Now, when your soul melts for
heaviness, what do you need? Strengthen me. Strengthen me. I'm so weak. You know, Paul did say, when
I'm weak, then am I strong. If you're weak, you know you
need the Lord to strengthen you, to strengthen your faith, to
strengthen your love to him, to strengthen your view of yourself,
that you see yourself as nothing but sin and Christ is all in
your salvation. Be strong in the grace that's
in Christ Jesus. Oh, I wanna be strong in grace,
don't you? Strong in my love of the grace of God, my need
of the grace of God, my preaching of the grace of God, my understanding
of the grace of God. Be strong, strengthen me according
to thy word. And then, remove from me, verse
29, remove from me The way of lying, lying to myself. You ever do that? If you say
no, you just, like I said, you just told a big lie. Uh, we lied
to ourself. And David is saying, remove that
from me. Blessed is he whose transgression
is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will not impute iniquity and in whose spirit, that's the
new man, there is no guile. There's no deceit. You're honest
before God. You know what Barnard, Ralph
Barnard used to say, honest people don't go to hell. Well, that's
true. That's true. If by the grace
of God, I'm honest before God about my sin and my need of grace,
that person doesn't go to hell. The scripture in Isaiah calls
every believer, children that will not lie. They're honest
before God. And David is saying, remove from
me this way of lying to myself and grant me thy law. This is
the only time a statement like this is made in the Bible, but
I love it. It's really what the whole Bible
is about. Although this particular statement is the only time it's
made, grant me thy law, perfect law keeping, perfection before
your law, having a holy, perfect standing before your law graciously. The only way I can have his law
is if he grants it to me graciously. It's the same thing as saying
being justified freely. freely, graciously, by his grace,
through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus. You know, if
you don't know the gospel, the Psalms don't make any sense.
If you don't know the gospel, you think, well, he's saying,
give me grace to keep your law. Well, that's really not what it means.
I mean, I want to keep his law. I don't. Grant me your law graciously. The only way I keep your law
is if you graciously grant me and give me your perfect law
keeping so I stand before you without sin. Grant me thy law
graciously. Verse 30, I have chosen the way of truth. Now what is the way of truth?
It's not hard to figure out, is it, the way of Christ? He
said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. Now, I realize
the only reason I've chosen this way is because he caused me to. I realize that. But this is the
only way I want to go, the way of truth. I want to be found
in Christ. That's all I want. I want to
be found in Christ, the way, the truth, and the life. And
I make this choice. Now, I know it's only by grace,
but I tell you what, what was Paul, isn't that the choice Paul
made when he said, oh, that I may win Christ and be found in him?
I don't want to have anything to do with my personal righteousness.
I want to be found in Christ. I've chosen the way of truth.
Paul did there. Me too. I just simply want to be found
in Christ, not having my own righteousness, which is of the
law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness,
which is of God by faith. I've chosen the way of truth.
Thy judgments have I laid before me. Now that's talking about
his judgments of the cross. How he can be just and justify
the ungodly. That's, by his grace, that's
all I want before me. His judgment, how he is a just
God and a savior. I love that passage of scripture.
He said, I'm a just God and a savior. He's made a way to save me in
a way that honors his justice through the judgments of the
cross. I've laid that before me. I don't
want anything else. Thy judgments have I laid before
me. I've stuck unto thy testimonies. Be not thou therefore ashamed
of the testimony of our Lord. This is 2 Timothy 1.8. Be not
thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of
me his prisoner, but be thou a partaker of the affliction
to the gospel according to the power of God, who hath saved
us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our
works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was
given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." I'm stuck there.
I like being stuck there. I don't want to be anywhere else.
My soul's stuck to thy testimonies. I don't want the testimony of
men. I want his testimonies. I've stuck into thy testimonies,
O Lord. Put me not to shame. Don't let
me be ashamed. He said to Timothy, Be not thou
therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord. Don't let me be
someone who's ashamed of the gospel. And even more than that,
don't let me be put to shame. Don't let me be exposed in what
I am in myself. Let me be found in Christ. Put me not to shame. Verse 32, I will run the way
of thy commandments when thou shalt enlarge my heart. Oh, that
heart you've given me, enlarge it. Make it bigger. Make it more receptive of your
truth. Make it to love you more. Make it to believe Christ more.
Enlarge my heart. The heart that you gave me, enlarge
it. And when you do that, I'll run
in the way of thy commandments. I won't just walk, I'll run when
you've enlarged my heart. You know, he realized that he
will not run in the way of his commandments except the Lord
enlarge his heart. So what's he do? Lord, enlarge
my heart. Kind of like the Shulamite woman
said in the Song of Solomon, that very first chapter. Draw us, draw me, draw me and
we will run after thee. Draw me and we will run after
thee. Enlarge my heart. Can you make
that prayer? I hope I'm making it right now.
Lord, enlarge my heart, and I'll run in the way of thy commandments.
I will run in the way of believing on thy son. I'll run in loving
one another as he gave us commandment. Now that's a glorious passage
of scripture, and I'm thankful to the Lord for this, and I pray
he continues to bless us, looking at Psalm 119.