Sermon Bible Commentary
Psalms 119:111
I. Consider, first, the claim asserted by David: that God's testimonies are his heritage for ever. The term "testimonies" denotes all those revelations of His own nature, attributes, and will which God has been pleased to make of Himself. They are facts which we know not by the light of reason, but by God's witness, facts not which man demonstrates, but which God testifies. Speaking as a Jew, David declares, with feelings of thanksgiving and triumph, that he from his birth has had a rightful possession of God's revelations. In examining into the cause of David's thankfulness, we are brought to the broad subject of ancestral religion. If we had not received our religion as a heritage, we might never have enjoyed it at all. Those who have inherited their religion and walk in righteousness have nothing to regret, but all to be thankful for, in their present position. Those who have inherited their religion and walk unrighteously in all likelihood, if they had not inherited it, would never have believed. Which of us is certain that if we had met Christ face to face in the valleys of Judah, we should not have despised Him?
II. The Jewish king claims God's testimonies as his inheritance not for the brief period of his mortal life, but for ever, as though implying that they would hereafter form the source of his joy and triumph. The world and the works that are therein shall pass away, but in the midst of the universal wreck one thing shall remain: the word of God. The testimony of the Most High has been the heritage of the elect, and that shall endure. Inheritors of Christ's faith, let us walk worthy of our portion; inheriting it from the saints of old, let us keep it undefiled, using it while we live for our own salvation, and labouring to hand it down unmutilated to the generation to come.
Bishop Woodford, Occasional Sermons,vol. i., p. 15.
References: Psalms 119:111. J. Vaughan, Children's Sermons,6th series, p. 94; M. R. Vincent, Gates into the Psalm Country,p. 231; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons,p. 199.