8/10/2019 e. Psalm 119.33-40.pdf

1/7

PSALM 119:33-40 H

If you wanted a title for this mornings study it would simply be, Ending

Well. The psalmist prays v.33 Teach me, O LORD, the way of thy

statutes; and I shall keep it unto the end.

A good beginning ought to lead to a good ending but we see in Scripture

with the examples of Lot, Samson, King Saul and Demas that this is not

always the case. Many begin well but their lives end in spiritual tragedy.

The psalmist wanted to end well, but in order to end well he needed to

live well.

We could divide this section into five divisions:

1.

Learning (vv.33-34). Teach me, O LORD, the way of thy statutes;and I shall keep it unto the end. 34 Give me understanding, and I shallkeep thy law; yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart

2. Obeying(v.35a). Make me to go in the path of thy commandments

3.

Delighting(vv.35b-37). for therein do I delight. 36 Incline my heartunto thy testimonies, and not to covetousness. 37 Turn away mine eyesfrom beholding vanity; and quicken thou me in thy way

4. Fearing (vv.38-39). Stablish thy word unto thy servant, who is

devoted to thy fear. 39 Turn away my reproach which I fear: for thy

judgments are good5.

Longing(v.40). Behold, I have longed after thy precepts: quicken mein thy righteousness

However, the way I would like us to look at it this morning is as a sincere

prayer from the heart of the believer, and we shall especially consider the

words in verse 37, quicken thou me in thy way.

Do you need to be quickened? Do you feel you need to be livened up?Some people believe you come to church to be livened up in your faith; it

is the singing of the hymns or the preachers ability to excite you that

quickens you. In other words, its someone elses responsibility to liven

you up. What does the psalmist teach us?

It is an important word, - it is a cry from his heart and he uses it nine

times throughout the psalm:

v.25 quicken thou me according to thy word.

v.37 quicken thou me in thy way.

v.40 quicken me in thy righteousness.

v.88 Quicken me after thy lovingkindness.

8/10/2019 e. Psalm 119.33-40.pdf

2/7

2 v.107 quicken me, O LORD, according unto thy word.

v.149 O LORD, quicken me according to thy judgment.

v.154 quicken me according to thy word.

v.156 quicken me according to thy judgments.

v.159 quicken me, O LORD, according to thy lovingkindness. And, in fact, he uses it two more times:

v.50 This is my comfort in my affliction: for thy word hath quickened me.

v.93 I will never forget thy precepts: for with them thou hast quickened me.

With all the emphasis that he puts on this word it becomes very clear

there must be an intimate connection between quickeningand the Word of

God. And it is true, the more the Word of God directs your life the

more your living for Christ is in evidence. The more precious the study ofGods Word, the more bearing it has on the way you live for Christ.

THE BELIEVERS NEED

Do you feel the sincerity when the psalmist prayed, quicken thou me in

thy way? There is urgency here, he longs to have a closer walk with God.

As he looks around him, - even to the places where the Name of God

ought to be revered and reverenced, - he sees only emptiness and

pretence, - people pretending about their relationship with God.

But the psalmist wants nothing of pretence, he longs to maintain a

realrelationship with God. I trust each one of us here who knows the

Lord Jesus wants nothing of pretence.

Pretence and sham are what ruins churches, - people putting up to be

something they and everybody else knows they are not. The psalmist is

against that, 37 Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity; and quicken thou

me in thy way.

Oh, but we all know how easy it is to become sluggish and tired in

our service for the Lord. It is as if we are prone to becoming worn out; we

know all too well our spiritual limits and it seems as if running the race,

- as Paul puts it in I Cor. 9:24, - takes so much out of us.

By the way, this isnt the same quickening Paul talks about in Eph 2:1,

And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins , - no dead

man ever prayed to be quickened; a real prayer for spiritual quickening

can only come from those inside whom the Holy Spirit already abides.

The psalmist prays for a closer walk with God. You look into His

Word and you see the face of Moses shining when He was inconversation with Jehovah. Or you see young Samuel, - called only as a

boy, - speaking with the Lord.

8/10/2019 e. Psalm 119.33-40.pdf

3/7

3 Or you read the language of the Song of Solomon, 2:4 He brought me

to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love. These were men

who knew the Lord and walked with Him.

Youll find the Buddhists climbing a rugged mountain barefooted or

the Hindus walking on hot coals all you and Ineed to do is come toGods Word and study it; the hymnwriter wrote, Im feasting on the

manna from a bountiful supply, For I am dwelling in Beulah Land.

Quicken thou me in thy way.

Do you study Gods Word to win arguments? Do you study the Word

to prove your brother or sister wrong? Do you study the Word to show

off how much you know? Well, its good and obedient to Scripture to

study the Word and to be ready always to give an answer to every man that

asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you (I Pet. 3:15). But the primarypurpose of Gods Word is so that you would grow in the faith, Ps. 119:11Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee. 12 Blessed

art thou, O LORD: teach me thy statutes. 105 Thy word is a lamp unto my

feet, and a light unto my path.

When you feel down, read about men like Elijah, - exhausted in his

efforts for the Name of God, I Kgs. 19:4 he requested for himself that he

might die; and said, It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life . The Lord

wakened him as he lay under the juniper tree and gave him food to eatand drink; What doest thou here, Elijah? And Elijah spoke from a broken

heart, v.14 I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: because thechildren of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slainthy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to

take it away. Lord, its all going wrong!

Do you remember what the Lord told him? V.15 Go, return on thy way

to the wilderness of Damascus. Imagine the Lord sent His servant into

the wilderness, why? In the wilderness he would be alone with God, -

no Ahab, no Jezebel, no spiritually adulterous children of Israel justhim and God ... quicken thou me in thy way.

I take you to another place where a Man is lying on the ground as

they pierce His hands and feet and nail Him to a cross; they lift up that

cross and our Saviour cries in deepest agony as they dropped it into the

socket in the ground. That Man died for you, He said, Jn. 10:10, I am come

that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. That

spiritual life is only in Him, it is only His to give.

8/10/2019 e. Psalm 119.33-40.pdf

4/7

4 Believer, you have allowed something to creep in and it is affecting

your walk with God look again and consider what He has done to save

you how precious you are to Him. Look into His Word and pray,

quicken thou me in thy way. (Lord, the problem is not with You, its with me.)

You have taken your eye off the Lord, - you know you have, -Christian, Is. 45:22 Look unto me, and be ye saved, for I am God, and there

is none else. Yes, Lord, v.25 quicken thou me according to thy word.

You feel you are strong? Perhaps you are stronger than many

others but are you as earnest in the faith as you could be? as Christ

saved you to be? Are you as vigorous for God as He wants you to be?

You might be doing more than others for Christ but then just think

while God might have given them two talents, He has given you five

to be responsible for.

Look at Paul and the miles and the work He did for Christ.

Look at the faithfulness of men like David Livingstone as he

travelled through many parts of Africa to win the lost for Christ and

women like Mary Slessor.

But Im so busy, - I have a hundred and one things to do, - aye,

but what takes priority? Whotakes priority? Does Gods presence in the

meetings? in the prayer meeting with your brother and sister in Christ?

Remember you are not your own, you belong to God, you arebought with the price of His Sons blood. You are a servant of our Lord

and Master, Jesus Christ. Some day He will call you to account for your

service and faithfulness.

Youll not be able to make any excuses and isnt it so beautiful

that the psalmist wasnt trying to make excuses; he wanted God to answer

this sincere prayer that came from his heart, quicken thou me in thy way.

Lord, I want to be more alive for You The Believers Need.

THE BELIEVERS LORD

Yes, we need to emphasise this point. One of the things that saddens

me is to hear some Christians put the weight of burden upon someone

else in order for them to be closer to God.

Or we need to be doing this and we need to be doing that. Yes, I

agree wholeheartedly we need to be active for the Lord, - the Lord

doesnt bless idleness but I dont agree we need to be active just for

the look of it.

8/10/2019 e. Psalm 119.33-40.pdf

5/7

5 A certain evangelistic program is all the rage, - read its literature

and it will tell you how successful it is and you can send off and get all

the material you need and it will work! There is almost the same

guarantee on it that you would receive with the latest toothpaste or

washing-up liquid!

What we need is a certain pastor, - hes well-known; if we get him

hell do the work of building our church up. He will change the place!

But true blessing is not the pastors to give, true blessing comes only

from the Lord; all a pastor can do is to seek to lead the people over whom

he has responsibility to the One Who can provide the blessing. If you

only trust in the blessing a personcan bring it will soon dry up and

become barren.

But you see, the psalmist wasnt looking in any other direction forquickening but in the direction of the Lord.

I find it so encouraging that in Revival times God used people hardly

anyone had ever heard tell of. He uses ordinary people with an

extraordinary longing for His Name and none of us ever received

spiritual life from any other source but from God.

The first time I went to a certain church, I was called over by one of

the women to sit beside her; with a sharpness and hardness in her voice,

she told me how the church is going further and further downhill and isfacing closure and what the church needed was meto come and be its

pastor. Not because of what she said, but I did become its pastor and we

did see some encouraging times and we even saw some measure of

growth, - spiritual as well as numerical. When I left, two warring factions

entered the membership (they wouldnt join while the previous secretary

and myself were there); in just over a year after I left there were three

fall-outs in that church culminating in the church closing. I dont believe

it had to close, - I simply believe its people gave up. The spirituality ofa church does not totally depend upon who the pastor is; the spirituality

of the church depends upon the walk of its people with their God.

We have a great God; He has only one family. That family is

precious to Him. He died to purchase His family.

When the psalmist prayed, quicken thou me in thy way, he wasnt

addressing some high priest or even a faithful prophet he was speaking

to a personal God, His Heavenly Father.

8/10/2019 e. Psalm 119.33-40.pdf

6/7

6 Some people think if I come to the Lords Table thatwill quicken

me but no, the elements are a symbol of Christs body and blood, -

there is nothing magical in them it is not the outward that needs to be

touched, but the inward and the heart can only be made right by the

working of the Holy Spirit.

It is Christ in your life that changes you continually for God, - it is

the Holy Spirit working. I believe the Holy Spirit at this moment can

come upon the coldest heart and make it flame and blaze in a way that

brings glory unto God.

We have been considering Moses standing before the bush in the

wilderness; it was not the dryness of the desert and the heat of the sun

that set it alight but the presence of God, - He kept it burning.

Spurgeon told his congregation, My ministry cannot quicken you,but the Lord can. He told his people to pray, quicken thou me in thy way.

Do you notice here that the psalmist does not tell God how to do His

work, - he was leaving it up to God as to how he would be quickened. He

didnt pray Quicken thou me in myway, but he prayed quicken thou me

in thyway.

God sometimes uses different ways to fulfil His purposes and we

depend upon Him because His ways are always the best. The supreme

way that He uses is His Word but sometimes it might be reading abiography of a faithful servant, or a hymn or a testimony; however it

happens God is at the source of it when we make sure to pray, quicken

thou me in thyway.

Yes, God can use different ways to quicken, - He might choose to

use your witness in front of your brother or sister who needs encouraging.

Each born-again believer is part of the family of God and we all have

a responsibility towards each other, - I have a responsibility to you, you

have a responsibility to me and we both are responsible to the Lord.

Sometimes He uses a gentle approach to quicken us, sometimes it

might be a hard and rough approach but, at the end of the day, what

matters is that He doesquicken us.

I dont want to be cold-hearted towards the Lord, I dont want to be

lifeless and lukewarm howeverGod chooses to awaken and quicken

His people out of their sleep is for His glory and our good.

He took Elijah off to a desert, - there is nothing wrong with a desert,

if that is where God takes you. He brought Saul of Tarsus to the desertand taught him there and that is where the Lord Jesus spent time as

well.

8/10/2019 e. Psalm 119.33-40.pdf

7/7

7

Conclusion Quicken thou me in thy way. It is a prayer inspired of the Lord. It is to

His glory and it is only to Him we can pray it.

Each of us here this morning needs to come before Him again with iton our lips and in our hearts.

When you come to His Word He teaches you, - you find out more

about Him and what He expects of His people. Stay away from His Word

and you will miss out!

And what you learn in His Word you need to be obedient to, Ps. 40:8 I

delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart . And the

more the Lord sees you obeying His Word, the more He will share with

you.

Remember too that it doesnt work to have one eye on the world and

the other on the Word, - that is double-mindedness, and God doesnt

bless double-minded people (James 1:5-8).

Look at how the psalmist closes this section, 119:40 Behold, I have

longed after thy precepts: quicken me in thy righteousness. To have such a

longing for Gods Word is a mark of a true believer; look back at v.20 My

soul breaketh for the longing that it hath unto thy judgments at all times. V. 131

tells us that he even panted for Gods Word, I opened my mouth, andpanted: for I longed for thy commandments. He longedto hear Gods Word.

It wasnt the playing of the harps and the timbrels and the musical

instruments of the temple he longed to hear his longing was satisfied

by the living Word of God that quickened him.

V.33 Teach me, O LORD, the way of thy statutes; and I shall keep it unto

the end. Ending Well!May the Lord bless to each of us our study ofHis Word today.