Psalms 119:65

"You have dealt in sweetness with Your servant: according unto Your word;" or rather, "according unto Your utterance" [Psalm 119:65]. The Greek word χρηστότης has been variously rendered by our translators by the words "sweetness" and "goodness." But since sweetness may exist also in evil, since all unlawful and unclean things afford pleasure, and it may also exist in that carnal pleasure which is permitted; we ought to understand the word "sweetness," which the Greeks termed χρηστότης, of spiritual blessings: for on this account our translators have preferred to term it "goodness." I think therefore that nothing else is meant by the words, "You have dealt in sweetness with Your servant," than this, You have made me feel delight in that which is good. For when that which is good delights, it is a great gift of God. But when the good work which the law commands is done from a fear of punishment, not from a delight in righteousness, when God is dreaded, not loved; it is the act of a slave, not of a freeman.

The reliance on promises (Ps 119:49) is strengthened by experience of past dealings according with promises, and a prayer for guidance, encouraged by sanctified affliction.

In this ninth section the verses all begin with the letter Teth. They are the witness of experience, testifying to the goodness of God, the graciousness of his dealings, and the preciousness of his word. Especially the Psalmist proclaims the excellent uses of adversity, and the goodness of God in afflicting him. The sixty-fifth verse is the text of the entire octave. "Thou hast dealt well with thy servant, O Lord, according unto thy word." This is the summary of his life, and assuredly it is the sum of ours.

In this ninth section the verses all begin with the letter Teth. They are the witness of experience, testifying to the goodness of God, the graciousness of his dealings, and the preciousness of his word. Especially the Psalmist proclaims the excellent uses of adversity, and the goodness of God in afflicting him. The sixty-fifth verse is the text of the entire octave. "Thou hast dealt well with thy servant, O Lord, according unto thy word." This is the summary of his life, and assuredly it is the sum of ours. The Psalmist tells the Lord the verdict of his heart; he cannot be silent, he must speak his gratitude in the, presence of Jehovah, his God. From the universal goodness of God in nature, in Psa 119:64, it is an easy and pleasant step to a confession of the Lord's uniform goodness to ourselves personally. It is something that God has dealt at all with such insignificant and undeserving beings as we are, and it is far more that he has dealt well with us, and so well, so wondrously well. He hath done all things well: the rule has no exception. In providence and in grace, in giving prosperity and sending adversity, in everything Jehovah hath dealt well with us. It is dealing well on our part to tell the Lord that we feel that he hath dealt well with us; for praise of this kind is specially fitting and comely. This kindness of the Lord is, however, no chance matter: he promised to do so, and he has done it according to his word. It is very precious to see the word of the Lord fulfilled in our happy experience; it endears the Scripture to us, and makes us love the Lord of the Scripture. The book of providence tallies with the book of promise: what we read in the page of inspiration we meet with again in the leaves of our life story.

WHEN the Psalmist wrote these words, he was contemplating the goodness of God. In the verse preceding our text, the 64th, he sang, "The earth, O Jehovah, is full of Your mercy!" as if he could not walk abroad without seeing evidences of it, or look upward, or backward, or around him, without everywhere perceiving the Omnipresent goodness of the Most High. Whatever season of the year it is in which we take our walks abroad into the field of Nature, we ought to be in such a condition of mind and heart as to see proofs of the fullness of God's love everywhere around us, but especially, I think, it should be so in these summer months when the fields are ripening toward the harvest and we see how God is fulfilling His ancient Covenant, "While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease." How thankful we ought to be that the Lord thus remembers the earth and makes it bring forth the corn and everything else that is necessary to supply the needs of men! So let us bless God that the earth is still full of His mercy. Is our own life in the same condition, or are we strangers to the goodness of God? Is there mercy all around us, yet none for us? Well, let others answer these questions as they may, there are many here present who can reply most emphatically, "No, the earth is full of God's mercy and we can, each one of us, say to Him, 'You have dealt well with Your servant, O Lord.' Though You have had so many others of Your creatures to care for, You have not forgotten poor me. Though I am but the merest atom, dwelling in a world which is, itself, nothing more than a speck when compared with the innumerable worlds that throng Your universe, yet You have not failed to let Your mercy come to me, even to me." I have sometimes lighted upon a little flower right in the depths of the forest glades.