I'm just going to read the first stanza of Psalm 119. Blessed are the undefiled in the way who walk in the law of the Lord. Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with the whole heart. They also do no iniquity. They walk in his ways. You have commanded us to keep your precepts diligently. Oh, that my ways were directed to keep your statutes. Then I would not be ashamed when I look into all your commandments. I will praise you with uprightness of heart when I learn your righteous judgments. I will keep your statutes. Oh, do not forsake me utterly. You may be seated. My sermon today is kind of a follow-on to one I gave a few weeks ago. It was on the law from Galatians chapter 3. And just as a brief review there, we saw that The law was given 430 years after the promise to Abraham, and that no man is justified by the law, but the just shall live by faith. That the law is not of faith, it was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come. That it was appointed through angels, and the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ. Today, I'd like to address the question, what should our attitude be towards the law? You know, we have law in general today is sort of bandied around and we often has negative connotations. And we think about the government and the passing of laws and all of all of that. And and so on our day, I think the laws tarnished in many ways and probably rightfully so many times from sorts of things that are past and done. In a way of illustration of that, I have a story here that says, suppose Noah were born in modern day. It might go something like this. The Lord spoke to Noah and said, in six months I'm going to make it rain until the whole earth is covered with water and all the evil people are destroyed. But I want to save a few good people and two of every kind of living thing on the planet. I'm ordering ordering you to build me an ark, said the Lord. And in a flash of lightning, he delivered the specifications for an ark. OK, said Noah, trembling in fear and fumbling with the blueprints. Six months and it starts to rain, thundered the Lord. You'd better have my art completed or learn how to swim for a very long time. And six months passed. The skies began to cloud up and rain began to fall. The Lord saw that Noah was sitting in his front yard, weeping, and there was no ark. Noah shouted to the Lord, Where is my ark? A lightning bolt crashed into the ground next to Noah for emphasis. Lord, please forgive me, begged Noah. I did my best, but there were big problems. First, I had to get a building permit for the ark construction project. and your plans didn't meet code. So I had to hire an engineer to redraw the plans. Then I got into a big fight over whether or not the ark needed a fire sprinkler system. My neighbors objected, claiming I was violating zoning by building the ark in my front yard. So I had to get a variance from the city planning commission. Then I had a big problem getting enough wood for the ark because there was a ban on cutting trees to save the spotted owl. Then the carpenters formed a union and went out on strike. I had to negotiate a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board before anyone would pick up a saw or hammer. Now we've got 16 carpenters going on the boat and still no owls. And I started gathering up the animals and got sued by an animal rights group. They objected to me taking only two of each kind. Just when I got the suit dismissed, EPA notified me that I couldn't complete the arc without filing an environmental impact statement on your proposed flood. Then the Army Corps of Engineers wanted a map of the proposed new floodplain. I sent them a globe. And the IRS, the tax authorities, has seized all my assets, claiming I'm trying to avoid paying taxes by leaving the country. And I just got a notice from the state about owing some kind of use tax. I really don't think I really don't think I can finish your art for at least another five years. Noah wailed. The sky began to clear, the sun began to shine, a rainbow arched across the sky. Noah looked up and smiled. You mean you're not going to destroy the earth? Noah asked, hopefully. Wrong, thundered the Lord. But being the Lord of the universe has its advantages. I fully intend to smite the earth. But with something far worse than a flood, something man invented himself. What's that? asked Noah. There was a long pause, and then the Lord spoke. Government. You know, sometimes that's how we view it, isn't it? All these laws and regulations and governments and especially with all the ads and the campaigning going on and everything. But you know, God is the author of the laws that we live by, the laws that our state ought to uphold. And so today I want to look at that. How should we view the law? And what does the Scripture teach about that? Psalm 119 is just an excellent example of this. In other words, it says that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. Of course, this includes Psalm 119. I'm sure that most of you know a little bit about Psalm 119. It's very long, twice as long as any other Psalm, 176 verses, not quite so obvious if you look at it in some detail, detail and spend some time going through it. It seems to have some slight kind of a chronological order to it. And a number of commentators have noted that it's likely a collection of material written over David's life and then organized into the psalm as we have it before us. Of course, the psalm is written, you can't hardly, if you look at it all and read through it, you see it's organized in a set of stanzas, 22 of them, that each stanza is associated with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. They're in order, alphabetical order. We'll talk a little more about this later. And when you read through Psalm 119, it's clearly about the law, but it doesn't just say the law. It has a number of other terms that are used to describe it on the handout. There are listed ten of them and we see there God's law, which is. For the obvious one, but it's spoken of as his way, his testimonies, his commandments, his precepts, his word, his judgments, his righteousness, his statutes, his truth. Various references made to the word describing it in various attributes of the word. Various commentators disagree somewhat on how many of these phrases there are and how many verses contain this. But I think Matthew Henry notes 10 of them as I've listed them here. He notes there's only one verse that does not contain one of these. Now, others. depending on how you group them. Some say there are nine of these or eight of these, and so they have different numbers of verses that don't contain one of these. But I like Matthew Hendry's here with ten and only one verse, and I'll come back to that towards the end of my sermon today. Just the casualist reading of Psalm 119 shows the great affection and affinity that David has for the law. holds it in the very highest esteem and maybe even more appropriately shows very high affection towards the law. For him, it's not a series of rules. It's not a set of. of commands that you have to somehow force yourself to obey. For him it is a delight. For him it is a pleasure. It is the very righteousness of God seen which he loves dearly. It is a tool to be used against enemies. It is the strength of his salvation. It is the security of his walk with God. It is many things that he holds in very high esteem, very high regard. As you look through Psalm 119, there's something there for every believer in every situation of life. So we see that it is not a treatise on the law. It is not an intellectual exercise about the law. It is, above all, a statement of love and adoration, of worship and praise, a statement of complete dependence upon God and His Word. I spent some time looking for material about the structure of the psalm, and I didn't find very much. You know, you find the acrostic nature, the fact that it's 22 stanzas. Each verse is each stanza related to one Hebrew letter. Not quite so obvious is that for each stanza is made of eight verses, and each of those verses starts with that Hebrew letter that is marked by. And it's been suggested that this was done to help aid in memorization, that David used this to teach his sons this psalm. And there may be some truth to that. I think it certainly helps a little bit. But when you look at it, so many of the verses are so similar and seem to be almost repeated numerous times throughout, it would be It's a challenge to memorize and to get that straight. In the Hebrew, since you know the alphabet and you would know then that every verse starts with that, that would be a great aid to remembering and to memorizing this song. Some commentators note that it appears to be almost a random collection of sayings about the song, about the word and about the law that, yes, they all start with the same verse, but they seem almost random. You look at some commentaries and they'll take a group of eight and they'll break it into two here and three here and not really see a great deal of connection between the eight verses that make up the stanza. But I don't think that's the case. And other commentators have noted as well that this is not really the case. In fact, the Hebrew letter that is introduction and labels the stanza, typically in Hebrew, the letter or the symbol, the glyph used to represent it, have a meaning of their own. Some commentators note that each stanza actually reflects and elaborates on the meaning of that particular Hebrew letter, which, again, would make it easier to understand, to memorize, and to remember if we were familiar with those Hebrew letters and their meanings and words associated with them. So we'll look at that. In fact, on the outline, I'm going to go through at least the topic of each of the stanzas, and as I go through, I'll try and point out what the Hebrew letter means or a little bit about its symbol, its connection to that particular block of verses. Now, overall kind of structure, as I looked at it, and this is the outline I've given you here on the handout is my outline. I could not find any commentator that provided an overall outline to Psalm 119. So this is this is my outline here entirely. So if you don't like it, you can blame me if you don't think it fits. You can blame me if you think I'm stretching it. Well, you can blame me for that, too. But but I think it as I went through it, what I did is I tried to look at each stanza and first to note that. To say, well, you know, the structure here does seem to be obvious and important. And each of these stanzas seems like really ought to be on a particular topic. And so I sought to figure out what the subject of that particular stanza was. And in doing so, it becomes very quick, quickly obvious that. that for many interpreters, they don't see connections within the verses. I'm going to go through a number of the stanzas in detail to point out why I believe these connections are there, how they relate to the Hebrew letter, and why other commentators see this at least structure within each and every stanza. On the larger scale, we'll see that There is at least some obvious sort of structure to the overall flow of it. Certainly the very first stanza will see functions as kind of a thesis topic, an introduction to the entire song. And the very last stanza presents a very clear, a very nice conclusion to the entire song. And then along the way, we'll look at the reasons I've divided it up as I have. So let's look at the word, at the psalm itself. So the first one, Aleph. Aleph, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Title that I have there is blessings flow from obedience. And the Hebrew letter Aleph means or looks like an ox. It looks like an ox head. And it's used often in words for a prefix for words that mean strong or mighty and also to learn. It speaks of mighty blessings of God. And I believe that's the overall theme of this entire song is the blessings of God's word to us. So the pilot with their blessings flow from obedience. And this really is the message of the song. And I think some commentators have had difficulty with this, partly because it has such a strong connection between, in our day, we would call it grace and works. There's such a strong connection here. And if you don't make that connection, you'll miss practically all the connections in this song. It is about the law and it's an obedience and blessings that come from it. So that's the beginning. If we look at the first verse there, blessed are the undefiled in the way. who walk in the law of the Lord. Unmistakable here, the blessings flow not from knowing the law, not from an intellectual exercise about the law, but from walking in the law of the Lord. The next verse kind of restates that, and indicates that those who keep commandments or testimonies are undefiled. Undefiled are those who keep testimonies, those who walk in the way. Seek Him with their whole heart. So here we have another aspect of that. What does walking in the Lord mean? Clearly the first part is about keeping the testimonies, and the second part is about seeking Him with our whole heart. So part of walking in the Lord is this seeking, seeking Him with our whole heart. Of course, this harkens back to Deuteronomy, and we'll look at that later. But that's what God desires, that we love Him with our whole heart. Verse 3 restates it again, and verse 4 notes that this is what God commands. Five, desires that we should be this way. Six, describes one of the blessings. Seven, declares I will be this way. And eight, David promises to be this way. All of these verses are connected with obedience to the law and then the blessings that flow from that. As I said, this is an introduction to the entire psalm. The second stanza, Obtaining God's Blessing, I think we're going to sing this one a little later, is about heeding God's word. And here the letter, you probably recognize this, Beth, is a prefix of words such as Bethel, Bethlehem. It is typically associated with the house, the house of God, the house of bread in these examples, a house being a place of protection for us, a place where we live. And so I would add to the title that I put there, Heeding God's Word, we might note this is about protection and security that follow from Heeding God's Word. Verse nine, how can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to your word. You know, as you young men and women here think about, you know, what is it that God desires of you? How do we go about pleasing him? And there are lots of answers to that, you know, learning the word, about obeying our parents, about coming to worship regularly and all those sorts of things. But here, the specific question is asked in this stanza, how can a young man cleanse his way? The answer, by taking heed according to your word. And the rest of this stanza is going to fill that out. What does that mean? Verse 10 speaks of seeking God with our whole heart. Again, this matter of the heart and this theme occurs over and over in this psalm. Seeking God with our whole heart, not wandering from his commandments. You know, running the race till the finish, as Paul says. This is how we cleanse the way. This is how we please God, we receive His blessings, is seeking Him with our whole heart. Verse 11, on that same theme, hiding the word in our hearts. at least in terms of memorization, of knowing that word, of thinking about it, but hiding the word in our hearts. And that has the benefit of keeping us from sin. As we see things, God's word comes to us, the Spirit quickens it to us, that we ought not to go this way, because God has said this is leading us astray. And so, the Word serves that function to guide us, to direct us to, in the midst of difficulty and trial, to hear God speaking and to know what we ought to do. Verse 12, praising God and learning His statutes. Not enough simply to know the Word, but to love it and to praise God for it. To learn His statutes and to be glad and rejoicing in them. It's an active thing, it's not simply passive. If we desire to cleanse our way before God, we must actively pursue Him, actively be engaged and involved in praising Him and learning His statutes. Verse 13, it goes beyond memorization and our own actions, but declaring God's judgments. This is getting to the very difficult things. How do we go about doing that? We walk into a difficult circumstance and we're tempted and so on. At some points, the thing to do is listen to that word that we've hid in our heart that says, we should not be doing this. And we should not engage in this. But sometimes it's appropriate, as it says here, to go beyond that, to declare God's judgments, to lead others out of the sin that is there and imminent. And so this is what pleases God. It pleases him not that we simply walk in the word, but that we rescue others from the sin that is imminent and danger in their own lives. Verse 14, again rejoicing in God's testimonies. And 15, meditating on God's precepts, contemplating His ways. So we memorize the Word, we learn the statutes, we keep them in our heart. But even to go beyond that, to meditate on them, to think about them, what do they mean? Is there a deeper meaning here that we have glossed over or missed? How does it connect to other things? What is the richness of it? I'm just continually impressed as I do the Sunday school class we've been going through in Joshua as we talk about that and various people contribute to that, you know, how deep The word is how many connections there are to be made and the richness that's there, even in stories such as the conquering of the people as they go into the land of Israel and they conquer Canaan. Just full of relationship, examples of Christ, of God's people, of his victory, of promises being fulfilled, reasons to praise him. to love Him, to rejoice in Him, to declare His greatness. So meditating on God's precepts, contemplating His ways, and finally, not just meditating, but delighting in God's statutes. not forgetting God's word. You know, as you read through this psalm, I think this is the thing that's so unmistakable, is David delighted in these matters. He delighted in God's law. And we'll see some of the reasons, other reasons for that as we go on. But for him, it was the word and the statutes and the judgments and the testimonies are simply a delight to behold. and to understand, to think about, to meditate upon, to study, to put into practice, to teach others. Next one, stanza here. You know, as I go through this, just note the Hebrew alphabet, you know, I'm not a Hebrew, don't know Hebrew. And but I did start taking Hebrew once upon a time many years ago. And and I don't remember much of it, but I'm sure that my pronunciations of the Hebrew letters come from that. time when I was taking it and and I was often commented on at the time that the man who was teaching the class was from the Deep South. And so if I have a southern accent to my Hebrew, those of you who might know us. So the next one is Gimel appealing to God. This is what I have for my outline and the symbol here. For Gimel is a camel that carries you as you travel. It's about a journey through life. And that we might add to my title there, appealing to God, to live life well. That we are traveling through life and we desire to live life well. And that God carries us through this life as we move in his word. I won't go through that one in detail. We'll go on to the next one. Verses 25 to 32, I entitled that one from dust to glory. The symbol here is a door. Might remind us that God's word is a door between two places, a door leading from sorrows, as we look through this, look through this particular one. You would see that David speaks of sorrows and he speaks of coming to God's word and rejoices of that, that he sees the word indeed as a door to life. The original character pictured a window And in this regard, it speaks of seeing or looking and beholding. And so we see our dependence upon God. You might subtitle that seeing him. It's about the psalm, this particular stanza is about observing righteousness, practicing righteousness very much like the two we've looked at in some detail already. The next one, Vav, we'll look at in detail here. My title is The Path to Salvation. Vav is a hook, or a nail, or a peg. Something you hang things on, is kind of the picture here. And we might think of that as we hang our confidence upon God. That salvation, we look to Him for that and hang our confidence upon Him. Verse 41, the opening verse for this stanza, Let your mercies come also to me, O Lord, your salvation according to your word. Again, very much like the first one, it's about mercies and about the word. speaking specifically of salvation this time. Verse 42, God's mercies to us is an answer to reproach. When others ridicule us or reproach us, we have confidence that God hears us, that God is our Savior, that one day He will take us to be with Him. That is the shield that enables us to defend and to ward off such reproaches. Verse 43, and the truth is our answer and our hope, and we depend upon God for its fullness. The truth. We believe and know that God is true, that his word is true, that truth is the anchor and foundation of our salvation. Verse 44, keeping God's law in the right spirit leads to salvation. Here, as it speaks of Again, the connection to salvation. Now, it's interesting we don't think of the word as related. I mean, the testimonies here in the context of the psalm is directly related to salvation. We saw in Galatians 3 that no man is saved through obedience to the law, yet David unquestionably connects this with salvation. I'd say he's closer to James in this, that faith without works is dead. He understands that genuine faith cannot but help work out in our lives in obeying and following God and his word, in turning from sin and seeking and upholding righteousness. And so David knows this experientially, he knows that God saves him from his enemies in his life. And so he attributes that to his relationship with God, to his loving of God's word, to his keeping God's law, to his focusing on it continually. So here the direct connection between the love of God and his word and salvation. 45 notes that salvation includes liberty founded in God's precepts. Contrary to so many people who think law is a restriction upon your life, and of course if you're interested in sinful and wrong activities, it is indeed a restriction on your life. But its real purpose is not to restrain us. Its real purpose is to provide a liberty that when God's law is upheld, we find within that the liberty to do right, to do good, to rejoice, to enjoy. We find protection and so on, things that make liberty useful and valuable. I've been reading a book, actually it's a science book, but it's set in the time of Of Louis the 14th and King George and a number of. times of that era, and there were major things fomenting there about the king and the law. And he notes in his book, he was a dissenter. The book is about Joseph Priestley. And he was a dissenter in the faith at that time, not adhering to the Catholic required religion of his day. And he notes that dissenter is nearly synonymous in his day with liberty, with desiring liberty, that the king puts all kinds of extra burdens on people. And what the libertarian or what the dissenters wanted was freedom to worship, freedom to engage in commerce, freedom to do all the things that we accept as common aspects of genuine liberty and freedom. And those only come about by good law. Forty six. We delight in sharing our salvation even before kings, David says. He delights in sharing it even before kings. How far, how deep in us is our salvation rooted? Are we okay with sharing it with our come to church and sharing on the good things of the Lord? When we get out with our friends, yeah, that's okay. When we get out among strangers, of course, we get more reticent. When we get out among enemies, it gets real iffy with how much we're going to share there. When we get among the great and powerful and wealthy, are we more concerned about our image and such things than about Christ and his word. And David says here, delights in sharing his salvation even before kings. So it is that God desires that our salvation sinks deeply into us and colors everything we are and everything about us and that when we are among others we are not respecter of persons in that regard but respecter of God and his word and desirous of sharing that with others no matter who and where and what the context. 47, again, we've seen this before, David takes delight in the commandments. 48, he loves them, he lifts them up, and he meditates on them regularly. This matter of lifting up we'll come back to a little later, but he definitely holds him in high regard, high esteem, and meditation occurs, this theme occurs over and over within this Psalm 119. The next one, Zion, my title there was God is our hope. The picture here of the letter, the glyph, this picture is a spear or arrow, speaking of a weapon. And so God here is our hope against our enemies, a weapon in times of trouble. And so another aspect, key aspect of the law and its uses and purposes. The next stanza, Heph. How are we to live? I entitled that one. The picture here is a hedge or fence, and it's associated meaning wise with terror and might be recognized here or noted that this is there's no terror for the wicked, that the law is a hedge or fence, that as we walk within it, we are protected. Hedged in by the word, if you will, fenced around by God and his angels. Next one, Teth, 65-72. I had from sinners to saints here. The picture is a symbol of a serpent or snake. Meaning is associated with mired. And one of the commentators noted that mired by Satan. So. We might say that from sinners to saints, we are set free from Satan and his power, is the theme of that particular stanza. Well those were all kind of under a heading that I had, obtaining God's blessings. So we had heeding God's word, appealing to God, from dust to glory, our dependence upon him, the path to salvation, God is our hope, how are we to live, from saints to sinners. These are about us looking to God and seeking his blessing. The next couple I categorized as who are we? And these deal a little more with us specifically. Yod, next one, verses 73 through 80, noted as we are God's creatures. The glyph here is a bent hand, and in the meaning in Hebrew and the use of it, It has to do with a person becoming conscious of something. So here the idea is that we become conscious of God, that we are creatures of God, and that we are fashioned by His hands. As we look through these verses, the opening verse of this stanza, your hands have made me and fashioned me. Give me understanding that I may learn your commandments. So we belong to Him, created in His image, fashioned for His purposes, molded to accomplish His will. Verse 74 speaks of the Word molding us into His image. Verse 75, God uses even our afflictions to fashion us. David sees God at work in the midst of trials and afflictions and is delighted that God uses them mold him and make him like our Lord. Verse 76, God comforts us because of his merciful kindness. He has made us and he knows our needs. He cares for us and comforts us. Verse 77, our life depends upon God's tender mercies and blessings in his law. We depend upon God for everything that we have. 78, the proud don't recognize God's handiwork, but we delight in Him. It separates us from the proud and the wicked that God has fashioned us to take note of Him, to delight in Him and His work. 79, those fashioned in God's image, knowing His testimonies, befriend one another. There are several places in this psalm where it talks about that those who love God's word will find David a friend. They will befriend him and he will befriend them. That there is a fellowship amongst God's people who seek and follow his word. Of course, we all experience this. And that particularly stands out if you know, you do some international travel or missions work and like this trip to Poland and like you see, you run across Christians in another culture, another place, another time. And there's just an immediate bond there. I never forget when we went to India and we were there and we we. with Sue Joy or to treat and Roy and we never knew anything we were going to be doing, but we entrusted our life totally into his care for two weeks. And that kind of a bond, I think, you know, is the sort of thing that it's talking about here that David recognizes and knows that that those who seek God and follow after him find an immediate bond in Christ. And verse 80, our purity depends upon God's work within us. It's not of our own doing, our own volition. It is a work of God. My point in picking some of these to go through them in a little more detail is just to note how all of the verses of this stanza relate to the particular topic at hand. Even though they seem repetitious and they're covered from other places, yet they do go together and emphasize a particular point. in the song. The next one, Cop 81 to 88, is a hollow portion of a cop's hand refers to being held or comforted and longing for comfort. Comfort is sort of the picture here. And so subtitle, I put longing for God's blessing there. Well, from who are we? One to who is God appropriate here. Now, this reads almost like a work of theology. If you were to take a systematic theology book and look at the flow of it, it's very much like I have it laid out here. Talks about who God is and man and his nature and the relationships to God and who God is and God's plan and purpose and so on. Who is God? Lamed, 89-96. Here, the original picture was an ox goad for correction. And it's meaning also is to learn or teach. And God is the author of our salvation. He teaches us all that we need to know about him and salvation and heaven and who he is, teaches us all things, the Alpha and Omega. And then a few on God's plan. The glyph here represents a rolling wave, water sort of thing, a place where people might go to meditate, to sit and watch and be calmed and meditate on whatever they desire. So here, the way to understanding is meditation on the word is kind of the theme of this particular stanza from 97-104. The next one, noon. The letter depicts a fish, but is the beginning letter of the word for light, and this particular psalm speaks of the word being a light to our path, and so on. So, it is a light to keep us from floundering, and as a subtitle for this section, we might note, A Path to Revival is a light to guide us, that the psalm, the stanza, speaks of. We'll look at this one in a little more detail. The wicked and the righteous is my subtitle here. The glyph is a prop, something that holds you up or sustains you, a prop. And so the subtitle, we might say that the word keeps us safe from the wicked. We are supported by God's word, by him in times of trouble and in dealings with the wicked. Verse 113, I hate the double minded, but I love your law. We're not to be double minded. And the answer to being double minded is God's word. In verse 114, it builds on that. The Lord shelters his children from the wicked. So, of course, there's this division between God's people and those who oppose God. And so here, this division in double-mindedness and then on to the division between God's children and the wicked. 115 speaks of the fact that we cannot have fellowship with evildoers, for they disdain God's commandments. This was a theme earlier. We talked about it, the fact that there's this bond immediately in Christ when we follow his word, when we love him. And so it is that those who disdain his commandments we do not find fellowship with and cannot fellowship with. When sixteen, God upholds his children and does not bring them to shame. And shame, of course, is something that happens. Our enemies and the wicked continually try to bring God's people to shame as a technique to oppose them. And here it says God upholds his children. He will not bring them to shame. Verse 117, when God upholds us, we are safe and we rejoice in keeping His statutes. So He is our strength and keeps us safe. Verse 118, obedience measures and divides the righteous from the wicked. This is the standard. If we were to measure obedience and right from wicked to righteous, we could put it on a scale and we could measure it by obedience to God's Word. That is the standard, the measuring standard. Verse 119, the wicked shall not, the wicked shall be destroyed. And 20, God is to be feared and reverenced. You can see here the connection of all of these, each of these to the subject of the particular stanza. And again, I just remind you that each of these verses starts with that same letter, psalmic here. It's noted. I will just Do some summary manner here. Justification was my title. The glyph represents the eye and picture here is looking for salvation. And he who looks for salvation will find the word is near and God is near. And he who seeks God with his whole heart will surely find him and be justified. There's a couple of stanzas more here that have to do with the glory of God. We'll look at one of those. Psalm 120 or pay one twenty nine to one thirty six. The glyph represents a mouth and pay means mouth. And so we might subtitle this. I have the glory of God and we might subtitle it. His word is glorious. Kind of the picture here is panting for the word, desiring the word is the theme of this stanza. Verse 129, the opening verse. Your testimonies are wonderful. Therefore, my soul keeps them. 130, God's word gives life and understanding to the simple. 131, David pants and longs for God's commandments. 132, David knows God is merciful to those who love him. 133, David desires that God lead him and purify him. 134, God is the Redeemer and His precepts glorious. 135, only God can mold us into His image. 136, all men owe God their total love. So it's about the power and glory of God and His Word. The next stanza, Sada, the glyph represents a fish hook and it has an alternative meaning name to the word that means righteous. So here my title was the glory of God, who might subtitle that his righteousness. Moving on, the next section I have is salvation. First one stands there, cough. We long for God's salvation. The glyph represents the rounded back of a skull or the rounded back of an axe. And the particular commentator I read about this noted that perhaps what's envisioned here is the rounded circle of the ear, because the standard tends to be about listen, cry to God, that God would listen to us. So. I title that we long for God's salvation and then subtitle might be hear our cries as the theme of what this song, this stanza is about. Resh, we're getting near the end here. Resh, verses 153 to 60, have mercy upon us. This particular Hebrew letter has three meanings. One is to head or to lead. The second is a poison plant. And the third is poverty. So the psalm I titled here, Have Mercy On Us, the stanza, might be noted as revived from affliction or led out of affliction. So and with your connection to poverty, we might subtitle it, Lead Us Out of Our Poverty. If we look at some of the details of it, 153 says, Consider my affliction and deliver me, for I do not forget your law. So here we see the sense of it, that we are in affliction, that we desire God to set us free, that the reason we can appeal to God is because we love and know his law, the grounds of our appeal. 154 emphasizes this, that God redeems us according to his word. 155. Keeping commandments is essential to salvation. Again, emphasizing that connection of the Word and our salvation and leading us from our affliction. 156. Salvation flows from God's tender mercies and His judgments. 157. Salvation faints not when faced with persecution. 158. There is no fellowship between the righteous and the wicked. One fifty nine loving God's precepts pleases him. Revival comes from God's loving kindness. One sixty. The word is true, righteous and eternal, leading us to salvation. The strong theme here of leading us out of affliction towards salvation. Shin or some now sin. The symbol here is a row of teeth, and it's also used as a root, recognized as a root for sharpening, the root of the word for sharpening. So, the idea here is being sharpened, so it speaks of overcoming evil, it speaks of being sharpened by God's word, we might know it as a subtitle, we might call it victory in the word. Well, that brings us to the last stanza of Psalm 119. As I said, the very first stanza sort of was the introduction to the entire psalm. And this stanza is a fitting conclusion. The word tau means a mark, a brand or a sign. And here David cries out, he cries out that he might be God's and belong to him. And there's a subtitle here, for here are cries we might note. The cry is to make us yours, that God would make us his, to mark us, to brand us, to clearly include us and identify us as his. As we look at the verses of this last stanza, 169 says, Let my cry come before you, O Lord, give me understanding according to your word. The cry out, the cry of David to give understanding. Why understanding? Because of all the things that have gone before here, all of the great blessings of the word that he has already identified. Verse 170, Deliverance through understanding. And the connection that understanding is not only an intellectual thing but involves experiencing the word, putting it into practice. So these are aspects of this cry to give us understanding. It's interesting too, I think in other places the word talks about give me understanding that I might obey your commands. Understanding is an important aid to obedience and so here it is that David cries out for understanding. 171, give praise as God teaches us his commandments. Understanding means engaging with them, being involved and praising him for them, praising God for them. 172, talk about the word for the commandments are righteous, again, engaging. We're to talk about the word if we desire God to mark us as his. In fact, talking about the word is a mark of his upon us. You very quickly become known as someone who talks about the word and marks you as belonging to him. 173, choosing to follow the law and the precepts. 174, the law gives us hope and the joy of salvation. 175, praising God is key to pleasing Him. 176, waiting upon God, remembering His commandments, and calling upon God to make us His. Well, those are various characteristics and attributes of Psalm 119, some of the details and the structure and the nature and the way it connects together. We might make some final notes here that this psalm is a very high level view of God's word. It's not an expository thing on a particular law, but it's about the law in general that that God desires it to be near and dear to our heart, and that it is not near and dear to the hearts of those who oppose Him, and to the evil, and that even double-minded, God desires that we not be double-minded about this. It doesn't deal with any specific laws, only general blessings and curses. It speaks in terms of evildoers versus those who love the word. It's not about breaking a commandment and receiving a judgment. It's about the larger picture of love and hate and evil. Some consider this psalm, in fact, especially from the third verse on, to be a prayer. And as you read it, it has that sort of intimacy, as you read it, of a nature of a prayer. The overall tone is of love and intimacy with the object of David's love, almost as if the word were a person. To consider verse 48, it says, My hands also I will lift up to your commandments, which I love, and I will meditate on your statutes. Some commentators note that this sounds almost like worshipping of the Word, of lifting up hands in prayer to the Word. And that is the sort of elevation that you see of the Word as you read this psalm. Now, is this meant to be a lifting up and a prayer towards the Word? I don't think so. No, but it does illustrate there is a deep connection here between God and His Word, and in David's mind, between the Word and his God. If we consider verse 132, the connection is a little clearer. I mentioned earlier there is perhaps only one verse that doesn't use one of those ten titles. Verse 132 is it. It says, Look upon me and be merciful to me as your custom is toward those who love your name. And here I would say he identifies God's name and the person of God with these other ten. Rightfully, I'd put that ten as an eleventh reflection upon all of this. But that, I think, is what David sees here. And when he lifts his hands, it's to God's name, it's to God himself, as very closely coupled and identified with his word. As noted earlier, David sees this very close connection. We might consider the New Covenant promise, Jeremiah 31. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts, and I will be their God and they shall be my people. Know how clearly this song pictures that for us. The word is something written in David's heart. It's not an external thing to him. It's not a set of rules. It's an intimate part of his life, a joy, a privilege, a glorious thing to him written in his heart. I think this is a clear example of what God intends, that we should meditate on his law word, that it should determine our standards of right and wrong, that it should define our relationships, that it should circumscribe our fellowship, that it should be our weapon. that it should be our comfort, that it should lead us to righteousness. This addresses the matters of security and so on that we're often so concerned about. You know, what will others think? How will I survive tomorrow? What's going to happen to me in the future? These things are all addressed and they're all meant to be answered here and for us not to just find answers, but to experience the certainty of that in our being. In short, we should love God's law of word. And it should not be primarily out of fear, but rather out of the love for goodness, truth, justice, and God himself. Consider John 1. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld his glory, the glory as the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. You know, David could have written this and put in there. If you just left out the part about becoming flesh, it fits perfectly with the rest of this psalm. It's about grace and truth and glory of the Father. And here with Jesus, He is that picture of that. He has become flesh. He has dwelt among us. And we beheld the glory of the Father. And David identifies that glory with the word, with the law, with the testimonies, with the judgments, with the statutes. He identifies that. with God himself, and so here fits perfectly in this connection. The connection between the written word, the living word, and Jesus, the word become flesh, further illustrates, I think, David's love for the word and why he loves it so. He sees that without knowing the details, he sees that and understands it. Jesus, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John 14, Jesus said unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes unto the Father, but by me. Again, David echoes these things that the truth, the light, the word itself is the way to the Father. In his understanding, he verbalizes that and writes it down perfectly. Does not Psalm 119 show us that this is how David sees the word. Psalm 119 is as much about Jesus as it is about the law. It is as much about how Jesus views the law as how David views the law. David viewed the law as wonderful and glorious and beautiful and loved it. And so Jesus is the living expression of that law. He didn't go around thinking about and quoting the laws particularly often to people, but at the same time he showed us the meaning and the deeper meanings of the law. We see him acting in judgment when the situation is called for. We see him acting in mercy and the kind of love and care and comfort that God desires for his people to know from their God. And so this psalm is a picture, I think, of all of that, a pre-incarnate picture of Jesus and his work and his word and his life. And so we see that when it comes to the inner recesses of our own hearts, God desires that he should be there. That when we look in, what do we find? When we are in our moments of affliction, what do we find? When we are in our moments of rejoicing, what do we find? Is it our Lord and His Word at the core of that? That's the picture that David paints. That's the picture that our Lord paints as He comes and reveals this to us. Well, we shall end there. Let us pray. Father, we do thank you for this psalm. We thank you for the picture of Jesus that we see in it. We thank you for the intimate expressions there, for the love that David has for you, for your word, for the righteousness, the truth, the justice, the comfort, all the things that are spoken of in this psalm. We ask, Father, that as we think about your word, As we think about laws and judgments and testimonies and history and all of that, as we meditate on it, Father, that you would help us to have that sort of affection that David had, that sort of intimate love of it that our Lord had as he walked and quoted it and spoke to others of you. We ask, Father, for that blessing that comes from knowing and obeying your word. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.