Psalms 119:58

Psalms 119:58-61 says, “Psa 119:58 I intreated thy favour with my whole heart: be merciful unto me according to thy word. Psa 119:59 I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies. Psa 119:60 I made haste, and delayed not to keep thy commandments. Psa 119:61 The bands of the wicked have robbed me: but I have not forgotten thy law.”

Several important truths in regards to doing what is right are taught in these verses. The first important principle is found in the very phrase which says, I intreated thy favour with my whole heart. Jesus said in Mark 12:30, “Mar 12:30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.”

A person who doesn’t love God with all the heart is a person who loves something else in stead. Now First of all a lost person, a person who does not know Jesus Christ as their Savior does not really have any love for God in their heart. They might say they do but they don’t. Their lost in their ins. Their at enmity with God. Until you come to Christ for forgiveness of your sins it’s not possible to love God. We love Him because He first loved us. When we begin accepting His love through His son Jesus Christ then we begin to love God.

But there are many Christians who do not love God the way that they should. In other words they do not love God with all the heart.

Let’s look at two verses which describe a person who does not love God with the whole heart.

Matthew 6:24, “ Mat 6:24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”

James 1:8, “Jas 1:8 A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.”

A person who does not love God with all their heart is loving something else. And That means there serving another master. That means there a double minded man. It’s not a good situation to be in because there will be a conflict at some point. God will bring you to a cross roads in life where you have to choose between God and that other thing or person that you love. God wants all the heart, God demands all the heart. Why? Because He gives us all His heart.

God doesn’t want you loving something or someone more than Him. If you do it will provoke Him to jealousy. God is a jealous God. Following Christ is a high standard that standard includes loving God more than anything or anyone else. Don’t be a double minded man. Don’t be someone who tries to serve two masters. Doing such will tear you in two and destroy you.

One of the other important things talked about in these verses is the mercy of God. It speaks of mercy according to the word. If you want to understand the mercy of God the best way to come to understand God’s mercy is by studying the Bible.

There are so many people who do not understand God’s mercy. God is all powerful. But still in this world man has freedom, freedom of choice. Even though God is all powerful and involved in all circumstances of life that does not dimish the freedom of individual choice or free will. If a death happens, or a war happens people often want to blame God for being unjust. In fact many unbelievers would suggest that eternal torment in the lake of fire for one sins in just and un merciful of God.

But this attitude shows just how little people really understand sin. Sin is a terrible terrible thing. Sin causes great destruction and great suffering in peoples lives. Sin influences other people to sin. And not only this but sin great hurts God. God is Holy and God hates sin. Yet despite this God is merciful. If God wasn’t merciful God would just cast all men into hell forever. That would be just. After all all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. It is as if somehow people thing that accusing God of being unmerciful is going to dimish their own sinfulness or dimish how they deserve judgment for their sins.

But God is merciful and God’s mercy is directly connected to the keeping of His Word. The keeping of the word of God beings when a person first believes in Jesus Christ. O yes God is merciful because Jesus came and died on the cross for your sins and took the judgment of God upon Himself. That’s mercy, that’s great eternal everlasting mercy. So anyone that accuses God of being un merciful should think about Jesus and what Jesus has done for them at Calvary.

You see if you read God’s Word you will find that God has promised to be merciful to those who trust in Him, to those who seek mercy. So in other words those who get the mercy of God are those who ask God for His mercy. Its that simple. The same people who accuse God of being unmerciful also reject Jesus in their hearts. This is simply hypocrisy.

In these verses which talk about doing what is right it shows there is kind of a process too it 1. Self examination and a decision to turn to the Lord. 2. Doing so immediately not delaying or procrastinating. 3. Continuing in what is right despite outward circumstances. If you do these three things then you are probably a person who is determined to obey the Word of God.

A person who decides to do what is right, to follow the Word of God is going to start with a certain amount of self examination. And such a person will reach an honest conclusion that they are sinner and that they need Jesus to forgiven them of their sins. Now an honest person who reaches this conclusion will waste no time in repenting of their sins and accepting Jesus as their savior. They will not procrastinate. They will not put it off another day. But they will repent. And they will have some intention of dedicating their life to Jesus. That’s what these verses are describing.

Psalms 119:62 says, “Psa 119:62 At midnight I will rise to give thanks unto thee because of thy righteous judgments.”

At midnight most people are sleeping. If a person rises at midnight to pray to God, to mediate on the Word of God, to give thanks for the great things that God has done, then there is a person with dedication to God. There is a person who when other people are doing nothing but sleeping that person is awake and labouring in prayer. That’s a person that goes the extra mile for God.

There’s also another point to be made about these verses. It has to do with being spiritual awake at a time when others are spiritual asleep.

1 Thessalonians 5:5-9, “1Th 5:5 Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. 1Th 5:6 Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. 1Th 5:7 For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. 1Th 5:8 But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation. 1Th 5:9 For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Now in the context these verses are talking about the day of the Lord and the return of Christ and being aware of the times and seasons and being prepared for Christ’s return which can happen at any moment.

Life is a spiritual warfare and we should be vigilant day by day we shouldn’t be unaware of what is going on in the world around us. For example we should have discernment to see the enemy coming, to avoid the traps, to flee the temptations to stand firm in the faith to defend the gospel. People that are asleep spiritually don’t do these things and when circumstances and situations arise they are not prepared. They are caught off guard. And doing so can result in a person falling into temptation or failing in the faith amidst suffering.

1Th 5:6 Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. Psalms 119:62 says, “Psa 119:62 At midnight I will rise to give thanks unto thee because of thy righteous judgments.”

Psalms 119:63 says, “Psa 119:63 I am a companion of all them that fear thee, and of them that keep thy precepts.”

Who do you hang out with? Who are your friends? Who do you associate with? Who do you spent time around and who influences you? These are very important questions.

Psalms 1:1-2 says, “Psa 1:1 Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. Psa 1:2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.”

Don’t be friends with wicked people but be friends with those that love Jesus and love righteousness and love the Word of God and people who live a righteous life. That is what Psalms is talking about.

People influence other people. No matter how strong of a person you think you are spiritually other people will influence in some kind of way. Don’t let your guard down and don’t make the mistake of standing in the way of sinners. Don’t be friends with the ungodly of this world, care about them, pray for them, love them, preach the truth to them, treat them kindly, talk to them politely and respectfully, but don’t’ be friends with them. Two cannot walk together unless they are agreed. This is part of the principle of watching and not sleeping and of rising in the midnight hour and of going the extra mile in you service to God.

It may be a lonely road. It may be many people will hate you and persecute you and turn away from you if you live a righteousness life but you will never truly be alone if you know Jesus. God is everywhere and Jesus will always be there with you to fellowship you, to be your friend, to walk along beside you, and to carry you through the rough times of life.

Psalms 119:64-65, “Psa 119:64 The earth, O LORD, is full of thy mercy: teach me thy statutes. Psa 119:65 TETH. Thou hast dealt well with thy servant, O LORD, according unto thy word.”

If there is one thing you can count on, it’s the word of God to be true and reliable. If God said it and its written in the book, it happened, or it will happen, or it is happening.

These verses are talking about the mercy of God. The mercy of God was just mentioned in some of the previous verses. Now God is a God that gets angry, angry at sin. But thankfully God is also a merciful God. The earth in fact is full of the mercy of God. Mercy has to do with not getting what we deserve and getting what we don’t deserve. If we look out across creation we see a world filled with blessings and good things. There is sunshine and rain. There his harvest and plenty. Why even the wild animals God is taking care of them and feeding them. One of the lessons you can glean from looking at creation is how great the mercy of God is.

God loves to be kind. God is motivated by kindness in what He does. Of course if you don’t learn about the mercy of God through creation you certainly will learn about it through experience as you walk through this life, the sinner that you are, sinning so many horrible times in life as we all do because we are all weak and sinful and yet has God cast you into hell? No He has not you are live and your life is filled with opportunity, especially the opportunity to turn from your sins and turn to Jesus.

Titus 3:4-7 says, “Tit 3:4 But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, Tit 3:5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; Tit 3:6 Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; Tit 3:7 That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

The kindness of God and the mercy of God are best revealed in the gospel of Jesus Christ in the story of how God the Son came to this earth born of a virgin and for 33 years lived a sinless life, teaching people, healing people, loving people, and then like a little lamb He was led to the slaughter. He was betrayed by one of those He loved and delivered up to be crucified for the sins of the world; for your sins and mine. But when Jesus died that was not the end. Because Jesus rose from the grave defeating death both physical and spiritual death, the ultimate enemy of mankind.

O, how great is the mercy of God. Even though we are sinners and even though sin is a horrible thing which greatly hurts God and greatly offends God, God loves to be merciful. If we could truly understand just how God feels about sin and then think about the mercy of God we would realize how merciful God is indeed. And we can know how God feels about Jesus because Jesus came and died and the wrath of God was poured out onto Him.

We can have great glimpses of the wrath of God by reading the books of the prophets and seeing the judgments upon unrepentant Israel. We can also get a great glimpse of the wrath of God by reading the book of Revelation and studying the wrath of God which will one day be poured out upon the nations of this world.

What do you suppose makes God the most angry? Which sin? Why the sin of rejecting and of trampling on the blood of Jesus and blaspheming the Holy Spirit. How it must hurt the heart of God to but forth such a great eternal effort from everlasting past with plans of everlasting future into the life of a human being so carefully and tenderly and patiently trying to draw them to Jesus, to bring them to truth, only for that person to reject Jesus and reject His love and reject His mercy time and time again. It will hurt God more than we will ever know. To have love like that rejected none of us will ever experience such rejection.

But hopefully you will not reject the mercy of God. Hopefully you will seek the Lord with the whole heart and listen to the Word of God and believe the truth about Jesus and what He has done for you. The earth is full of the mercy of the Lord and God wants to be merciful unto you. He wants to forgive you of your sins and give you eternal life. Simply turn to Jesus. Simply pray to Him and ask Him into your heart.

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