Psalms 119:27

Finally he adds, "Intimate to me the way of Your righteousness" [Psalm 119:27]; or, as some copies have it, "instruct me;" which is expressed more closely from the Greek, "Make me to understand the way of Your righteousnesses; so shall I be exercised in Your wondrous things." These higher commandments, which he desires to understand by edification, he calls the wondrous things of God. There are then some righteousnesses of God so wondrous, that human weakness may be believed incapable of fulfilling them by those who have not tried.

Make me to understand the way of thy precepts,....

Submitting ourselves in depression to God, He will revive us by His promises, and lead us to declare His mercy to others.

"Make me to understand the way of thy precepts." Give me a deep insight into the practical meaning of thy word; let me get a clear idea of the tone and tenor of thy law. Blind obedience has but small beauty; God would have us follow him with our eyes open. To obey the letter of the word is all that the ignorant can hope for; if we wish to keep God's precepts in their spirit we must come to an understanding of them, and that can be gained nowhere but at the Lord's hands. Our understanding needs enlightenment and direction: he who made our understanding must also make us understand. The last sentence was, "teach me thy statutes," and the words, "make me to understand," are an instructive enlargement and exposition of that sentence: we need to be so taught that we understand what we learn. It is to be noted that the Psalmist is not anxious to understand the prophecies, but the precepts, and he is not concerned about the subtleties of the law, but the commonplaces and everyday rules of it, which are described as "the way of thy precepts." "So shall I talk of thy wondrous works." It is ill talking of what we do not understand. We must be taught of God till we understand, and then we may hope to communicate our knowledge to others with a hope of profiting them. Talk without intelligence is mere talk, and idle talk; but the words of the instructed are as pearls which adorn the ears of them that hear. When our heart has been opened to understand, our lips should be opened to impart knowledge; and we may hope to be taught ourselves when we feel in our hearts a willingness to teach the way of the Lord to those among whom we dwell. "Thy wondrous works." Remark that the clearest understanding does not cause us to cease from wondering at the ways and works of God.

WHEN we seek any good thing from God, we ought, also, to consider how we may use it for His Glory. It is right that desires for good things should flow from good motives. When the heart is not only gracious but grateful, it will turn to God with doable purpose, desiring the mercy and desiring to use it to His praise. The Grace of God, which brings salvation, marvelously whets the appetite for good things—it does more, it provokes an intense anxiety to glorify God's name in the world—even before it has imparted the ability to do any good thing. Vehement passion and abject helplessness meeting together and struggling in the breast, often lead to despondency, but they ought far rather to stimulate prayer. As soon as we are saved by Grace we are eager after supplies for our soul's needs. "As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the Word, that you may grow thereby." This is the first stage of spiritual childhood, like the infant who cries for the bottle and takes its little fill and feasts, all to itself and all for itself. There follows on this another yearning, a desire for fellowship with the saints, although we feel too weak and too foolish to enter into such good company as we take the older disciples to be, or even to talk to them. But I will tell you what we can do. We may all venture to ask the Lord to instruct us and make us understand His ways, so that our conversation may be welcome to His people—and so He will! "Therefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as, also, you do." This is the second stage of development. Then comes a third grade and come, it surely will, if you follow on to know the Lord. "Then will I teach transgressors Your ways; and sinners shall be converted unto You." Speak, my Brothers and Sisters, on this wise—"You have told me, O my God, to earnestly covet the best gifts.