Psalm 119, stanza 13, mem, verses 97 to 104. O how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day. Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever mine. I have more insight than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the aged or the elders, because I have observed your precepts. I have restrained my feet from every evil way, but I may keep your word. I have not turned aside from your ordinances, for you yourself have taught me. How sweet are your words to my taste, yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth. From your precepts I get understanding. Therefore, I hate every false way." May the Lord bless to us this portion of His Word. Amen. Be seated. Well, if we were to ask our children why they eat, why do you eat, you would say, I eat because I'm hungry, or I eat because it tastes good. When you get your candy, you won't get your candy because you're hungry, you'll get your candy because it tastes good and you like it. But now if we ask your parents why you eat, they would say, well, children have to eat so they'll grow to be strong and healthy in body and in mind. And they can't just eat what tastes good, they have to learn to like to eat things that are good for them. Too much candy will not help a little boy grow up to be a big, strong boy. So, they have to learn to like good food, and we train them. And oftentimes, children can learn to like things that are good for them, even things like spinach and beets. But, you know, the same kind of questions can be asked of us with respect to our spiritual food. Now, if we're asked, why do we eat? Well, we might say, well, we know we ought to. You know, we're Christians, we should feed on the Word, we're going to be ministers, we surely need to know the Word of God. And that's true, but if the answer stops there, we're not going to profit from the Word of God. You see, if we are not eating in order to be nourished by God, and if in our eating we're not developing a relish, a taste for that which is really good, we're not going to profit. But there's another thing as well. When children eat, they don't have to be thinking in any way about the food in terms to make it effective in their body. They eat, it's going to do its thing as long as the child is healthy. and they're eating good food. It's a physical pattern that God has established. But that's not true. But I think we often live as if we think it's true. That if I just read the Bible, and I just attend sermons, well then, I'm going to profit spiritually. But no. The body digest and profits from food automatically by physical laws or habits that God's designed, but the soul must actively digest the truth of Scripture in order to profit from it. And I'm afraid there's such little profit today, perhaps in our own circles and surely in the average Christian life, from the Word of God, because we haven't really thought about how to profit from the Word, reading it, hearing it preached, even how to profit from the Word in the sacraments. Now, of course, we can't cover all of that today, but this Psalm is dealing with how to profit from the Word of God. Now, in Stanza 11, the psalmist, as we've said, kind of reaches the bottom of his sufferings. He's crying out. His strength has failed him. He's like a smoked piece of leather hanging over the hearth, and he's dried up, and it's kind of the nadir of his experience. But it's also he bottoms out, and there's a major term that takes place there. And so in the very next stanza, the one we looked at two weeks ago, he is estoling the Word of God. recognizing how God comes to him in his Word, and thus he ascribes to the Word the attributes of God, and he shows us that the very Word of God active in creation and providence is the Word of God active in Holy Scripture as the Spirit blesses it to us. So having turned his attention now to the Word of God, in this stanza, he addresses, all right, how do you use the Word of God? What profit is there for you in the Word of God? And here he shows us that we esteem the Word of God because it equips us with wisdom to live holy lives. We are to esteem the Word of God because it equips us with wisdom to live holy lives. I kind of give you the ABCs of profiting from the Bible. We must have an affection for the Word of God. We must look at the benefits of the Word of God, and then we see the consequences of God's wisdom that comes to us in the Word of God. We begin with an affection that we must have for the Word of God. This is the relish, the taste. And the psalmist begins in verse 97 with this exclamation, oh, and in the Hebrew it's a very clear word of exclamation, oh, how I love your law. He's amazed as he thinks about the Word of God. The word he uses here is the word that expresses God teaching us through Holy Scripture. and he loves it. He highly esteems the Word of God. He'll compare that esteem in verse 127, that he treasures it more than gold, yes, than much fine gold. He says, the Word of God is his treasure. the word of God is his delight now often in psalm 119 he has spoken about his delight in the word of God verse 16, 26, 77 but now here in verse 103 he expresses his delight in very graphic terms again keeping the idea of eating how sweet are your words and this is the word for promise promises to my palate sweeter than honey to my mouth." He loves the Word of God. He delights in it. He takes relish in it, because to him, it is sweet, glorious food. It's sweeter on his palate than even honey. He puts those two things together, you know, in Psalm 19, verse 10, where he says that it's sweeter than honey and finer than fine gold. And so, He's showing us the esteem that we should have for the Word of God. And if we have this love and affection, and we've already noted this in Psalm 119, if we have this love and affection for the Word of God, then we're going to meditate on it. And twice in this stanza, He talks about that. He says, your testimony is God's covenant law, is His meditation. But notice in verse 97, it is my meditation all the day. Now, we've said this before. What are the things that we daydream about? That we're in the car driving around. Things that we are thinking about. What are the things that we love? The things that we delight in are going to be the things that we think about. That's really the bottom line of what meditation is, you see. And so if you really, this is a test, if you really love the Word of God, and you take relish in the Word of God, then you're regularly going to be thinking about the truths of God's Word and the God, the triune God who reveals Himself to you in that Word. That's how this esteem will manifest itself in your life. Of course, we talk about esteeming the Word of God or having affection for it, delighting in it, we are reminded immediately of the necessity of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because apart from Christ and a new heart, you couldn't love the Word of God. It would be an irritant. It would constantly be crossing you in all of your desires and affections. It would be condemning you. And so only the person who has been redeemed by Christ, born again by the Holy Spirit, in union with the Lord Jesus Christ, only that person can say with the psalmist, Oh, how love I your Lord. So it becomes a very good test for each of you today. Do you love God's Word? Or is it an irritant in your life? Do you keep the commandments because you know you ought to? and that's better than not keeping them, or do you keep the commandments because they are lovely to you, because Christ is your Savior? So it becomes a test. Your love for God is manifested in your love for the Word, and that is only because of your union with the Lord Jesus Christ. But because of that union with Christ, then we do love God's Word, and just as a child, will learn to like spinach, broccoli, beets. I was a very strange boy, and I don't know why I like spinach, because all I ever got was canned spinach. I didn't know that spinach was on a leaf that you could put in a salad. I got canned spinach, but I like spinach, and because my last name was Piper, all the guys at school called me Popeye, and some of you will know who Popeye is. But other foods you have to develop a taste for. But, when you develop that taste, then they become desirable to you. So, we love God's Word, and we have a relish in it, but it's as we use the Word that our taste will change. Surely you've seen this, haven't you? Your taste for doctrine, your taste for experimental Christianity, your desire to know more, your desire to dwell in the Word. These things are growing in you as you grow. And so our affections for the Word of God grows. Well, I haven't given us the A of the ABCs. He goes on to show us the benefits of the Word of God, and he does so particularly here in verses 98 through 100, showing us that the Word of God makes us wise. He expresses the wisdom in three ways. In verse 98, your commandments make me wise. Verse 99, I have insight. And in verse 100, I understand. These are three terms that express for us the practical knowledge of Scripture and not the speculative knowledge of Scripture. The devil has speculative knowledge. He knows a lot of facts about the Bible and about God as James teaches us. But our knowledge is going to be profitable. Knowledge that comes to the child of God is the practical knowledge that is wisdom expressed here in three different terms. the wisdom that is mine, that teaches me to discern good from evil, how to make proper decisions, how to have insight into difficult personal and moral and ethical situations, to have that practical understanding of the Word of God spelled out in many wonderful ways in Proverbs, but one of my favorite brief explanations of biblical wisdom is Hebrews chapter 5 verse 14. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. And that word practice is the Greek word used for a gymnast. Now we watch a gymnast and they do remarkable things with their bodies. But those things don't come natural, do they? It's only through the repetition of training, training, training, that they do naturally that which would appear to us to be unnatural. And that's why He uses that word. You see, it's as we are properly using the Word of God, and here again we have the the parallel with food, solid food, the important deep things of the Word of God are for the mature, who because of practice, practicing what is in Scripture, they have their senses trained to discern good and evil. That's wisdom. To be growing, so just You remember the first time you did something difficult, like ride a bicycle, or handle a tennis racket, or swing a golf club, and it felt so strange and unnatural. It was only through that repetition. Well, so it is, as we wrestle with biblical decisions, ethical choices, early on they're much more difficult. But it's as our senses are trained in the wisdom of God's Word that we can become oftentimes second nature by the spirits working in us making these decisions. Now, he shows the extent of this wisdom by three comparisons. He says in the first place, the commandments make him wiser than his enemies. Now, if David wrote this, we know of many of David's enemies, of the traps and snares laid for him, how God often gave him special insight to escape those snares and traps, or you think even when he was tempted to kill Saul on two occasions, how it was biblical wisdom that was operative there that enabled him to submit to God's Word with respect to the Lord's anointed. But, of course, when we think about enemies, ensnares, and wisdom, we think about the Lord Jesus Christ. And you see His wisdom, in a sense, in two planes in the Gospel. So they have all these tricks to ensnare Him. and how he always wisely avoided the snare. But now his wisdom goes to another level because he took the very occasion then of the snare and his avoidance of it to teach us important biblical principles. So when they come to try to trick him on paying taxes, not only does he confound them, but in doing so he lays out a biblical principle that serves the church now in every age that we live until he returns. or they try to trick Him on the resurrection. Not only does He confound them with Scripture arguments, but He also lays out the principle of how to use good and necessary inference, and gives us a very important principle of biblical interpretation, and increases our hope as He reveals to us something of the glory of heaven. Now, that's the remarkable wisdom that the Savior had, more than His enemies. But we have enemies, too. We have flesh-and-blood enemies who will seek to undo us at different times in our lives. And when you are in a church, I can guarantee you this is going to happen. It's going to happen on the mission field. There's going to be people that are going to turn against you, and they're going to slander you. They're going to create traps to trick you up. And you're going to need the wisdom that can only come by the Holy Spirit through God's Scripture. but he does give that wisdom he promises to make us wiser than our enemies and of course our great enemies are satan and the demons the temptation and what he's saying here is that he will give us a wisdom to avoid the tempting snares of the devil and the demons. So it's a wisdom that will make us wiser than our enemies. And that's parts easier for us to grasp. The next two could be misinterpreted as boasting. He says that he has insight greater than his teachers. But this is not some young Turk who is boasting himself up in contrast to his teachers. No, he's simply saying that he's gone exactly where a teacher, a good teacher, wants you to go. When we teach you men, I'm sure that every one of us would agree, we want you not only to have the knowledge that we have, we want you to outstrip us in wisdom and holiness. Every generation. And you don't have to have a PhD in biblical studies or theology to be wise. And so, what he's showing us here is that God will give you the wisdom that comes, as we'll see, from His Word, and you can, at a younger age, grow in wisdom and be wiser than we are. Some of us, in a sense, started later than you did. That's a great promise, you see. And then, more understanding than the elders are the aged. We recognize that wisdom should, in a Christian or anybody, come with chronology, with age and maturity. And that's very encouraging. But what He's shown us again is that the young can be like Elihu. and have more wisdom than the three older men. He sat back and respectfully let them do their thing, but he was much wiser than they, because he'd been taught by the Spirit through the Scriptures. And so you don't have to wait on age, and oftentimes dealing with young people in our churches, I tell them, and you tell them, you know, you don't have to make the mistakes that we made. You don't have to walk down all the silly roads that we walked down. You don't have to wait until you're 50 and 60 and 70 to have wisdom. You can have it at 20. You can have it at 18 and 19, if you use the means that God has given to you. And of course, those means, as we see here then, He esteems the Word because it's the Word that produces in Him wisdom. So as He uses three words for wisdom and He makes these three comparisons, He uses also three terms for the Word of God. In verse 98, it's the commandments. the moral teachings of God's Word, of course, those are the things that make us wise and enable us to avoid the snares and traps of both physical enemies and of Satan. As our minds are shaped by the moral law of God, we're thinking God's thoughts after Him, and we will increasingly, again, have a shield, a second defense, so to speak, a spiritual intuition. Verse 99, he says that it's God's testimonies that make us have more insight in our teachers, and this is that covenant Word. We are in covenant with God. His Word is a covenant Word, and if we claim the promises of this Word and seek them, then He will give us this wisdom, because He's promised to do so. And then the third term, precepts, has to do with God's principles for life, and I think how to read God's general revelation, how to develop a worldview, and these are things that will give us more understanding than the elders, but notice it is the use of scriptures, not to Scripture, sitting there on your desk, or even read. Notice now how he focuses here on his use of Scripture. He says, "...your commandments make me wiser, for they're ever mine, your testimonies are my meditation." He had a personal ownership of the truths of God's Word. Is that how you think about the Bible? Is it something like an algebra book that has material here that is divorced from you? Or is it something that is becoming ingrained into you? Is that not what the Savior is talking about in John 15? Is it what, verse 7? That we abide in Him and His Word abides in us. What does it mean for the Bible to abide in us? It means we've taken as our own. We do that particularly by this meditation, this prayerful reflecting on, storing up, bringing back up the truths of God's Word. Bridges gives a delightful quotation from Luther about meditation. Pause at any verse of Scripture we choose, to shake, as it were, every bough of it, that if possible some fruit at least may drop down to us. Should this mote appear somewhat difficult at first, and no thought suggest itself immediately to the mind, capable of affording matter for a short ejaculation, yet persevere, try another, and another bough." In other words, you go to the Word, as you're reading it, you're looking for some rich fruit. And if one verse or paragraph doesn't yield itself to you, you go to another. If your soul really hungers, if your soul really hungers, the Spirit of God will not send you away empty. You shall at length find in one, and that perhaps a short verse in Scripture, such an abundance of delicious fruit that you will gladly seat yourself under its shade and abide there as under a tree laden with fruit. But you see, it is that because of the relish, the love, the esteem, there's a hunger. And you do not want to leave the table hungry. You want to go away from your Bible reading, you want to go away from that sermon, you want to go away from your preparations, having feasted on Christ through His Word, and been fed And we need each morning, as we are beginning our day in Scripture then, to take with us truths for the day. So here we get now, I can eat, and the body does its thing. But when I read the Word of God, I then must join with that prayer and meditation and reflection. And reflection during the day. And so you pick some truths out of your Bible reading, you pick some truths out of your Sunday sermon that you either yourself preached or somebody else has preached, and you deliberately are praying over them and thinking about them during the day. So this morning, as I was out and about, I was thinking about this last statement here. I hate every false way. I found it to be a powerful antidote to temptation. Just that simple phrase. God hates all sin. If I love God, I hate every false way. And so, as a temptation comes to the mind, I may say, but God hates that, I must hate it. I don't want a thing to do with it. And so, you pick your verses, and remember, it's because of union with Christ, the Spirit of Christ is in you, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1.30, so that you will have wisdom. You have your private tutor, the Holy Spirit, not only teaching you, and so he will say there, and we'll come back to this, you yourself have taught me, you've got your own tutor, not only to teach you, but because he's God, he is sovereignly weaving together what you're reading, what you're hearing in the sermon, and what's going to happen in your life today. It's remarkable tapestry. And so, as you're praying, asking the Spirit to give you things for the day, and then as you're living your life, you are going to, because of God's sovereign directions in your life, you're going to find great profit in the intersection. And it's that intersection, so often, of what you're learning and meditating on and what's happening, that really develops wisdom. And so it's this word is mine. I'm going to put it into me by prayer, meditation and memorization. I'm going to pull it up to meditate on it. And then the third or the other thing that we are to do is that we understand more than the age because it's very interesting because I have observed your precepts. Now here we see the necessity If we're going to profit from the Word and be wise, not only do we think about it and pray about it, we must practice it. And if we do not consciously practice what God is revealing to us in His Word, we will not grow in wisdom or understanding. The Savior basically says this in John chapter 7. In verse 17, if anyone is willing to do His, the Father's will, he will know of the teaching, of Christ's teaching, whether it's of God or whether I speak for myself. Very simple principle. If you want to do the will of God, you're going to understand the Scriptures increasingly better. If you approach the Word of God with no desire to practice what is there, and you live your day not trying to observe what is there, then you're not going to profit from Scripture. It's actually a tool of interpretation. If you're going to understand Scripture, you must live by the light that you have, because if you don't live by the light that you have, you're not going to get any more light. It's very true for us, then, as men who handle the Scriptures and seek to teach them to others. And so, We see that we love the Word of God because it equips us with this wisdom as we properly use it. He goes on then, having spoken of the affection and the benefits, the consequences then of this biblical wisdom. There's three things. In the first place there is mortification. Verse 101, I have restrained my feet from every evil way that I may keep your word." There are many evil ways that lie around us. What he's saying here is because of God's wisdom, I will be able to put up the guards against the evil ways in my heart, in my patterns, my actions, actively applying the cross of Christ to sinful desires, but wisely avoiding people and circumstances and situations that are going to cause me to fall into sin. Solomon really fleshes out the relationship of wisdom and restraining our feet in the very first chapter of Proverbs, beginning with verse 6. 2, verse 6, "'For the Lord gives wisdom. From His mouth comes knowledge and understanding. He stores up sound wisdom for the upright. He's a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice. He preserves the way of His godly ones. Then you will discern righteousness and justice. For wisdom will enter your heart, knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. Discretion will guard you, understanding will watch over you to deliver you from the way of evil. wisdom. God uses wisdom to deliver you from the way of evil, from the man who speaks perverse things, from those who leave the paths of uprightness to walk in ways of darkness, who delight in doing evil and rejoice in the perversity of evil, whose paths are crooked, who are devious in their ways, to deliver you from the strange woman, from the adulteress who flatters with her words." So you see how Solomon flesh is out. The little principle we find here in verse 101, ìI have restrained my feet from every evil way.î By Godís wisdom, and only by Godís wisdom, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, can we restrain our feet from every evil way. Mortification wisdom enables us to practice practical mortification. Second, wisdom enables us then to obey. He says in verse 102, I've not turned aside from your ordinances. In other words, he has persisted in his obedience. He says, I have wisdom because I've observed your precepts, in verse 100. Here in 102, I've not turned aside from your ordinances, the righteous ordinances of God that interpret life for us and lead us in the way that we should go. He says, have not turned aside from them. Why? Because you've taught me. How does he teach us? He teaches us through his word, making us wise. And so that wisdom enables us, on the one hand, to practice mortification. On the other hand, it gives us the grace and insight and understanding to walk in the way that we should go. That leads to the third consequence discussed in this stanza, and that is this growing hatred that I referred to in verse 104. From your precepts I get understanding. So here's, say it one more time, your precepts, your righteous word gives me understanding, but notice, therefore, therefore, I hate every false way. You see, when the palate relishes the sweet word of God, then the sinner or the pilgrim will hate every false way it will be like eating bitter herbs and unpalatable things and so that as wisdom grows in us our affections for God grow and our proper affections against sin in the world develop So we increasingly hate the way of sin. And what a wonderful guard that is to us. As I said today, as I've used that meditation, we hate it. The Bible teaches us what it costs God to save us from our sins, what it costs the Savior to deliver us, to be conformed to His image. And We should grow then in despising every false way. And the more we grow in godliness, the more we grow in wisdom, the more we will grow in hatred for sin. And that's what we want. Because again, it becomes an automatic guard, so to speak, another line of defense. If we hate what God hates, the temptation will not be nearly as enticing. So, we esteem the Word of God because it equips us with wisdom to live godly lives. I want to ask you, is this true of you today? Can you, in a good conscience, say with the psalmist, Oh, how love I your law. Do you approach the scripture in the morning with relish and joy to have time in the Word of God. And if for some reason in Providence that time is shortened or taken away from you, it's not that you're going to be unlucky that day, but you simply missed a very important time of communion and fellowship with the Triune God. Do you approach preaching with this attitude, O how love I your law, and take relish in the very ordinance of preaching. To approach the Lord's Supper, another expression of God's Word, with relish and delight and hunger, because it's God's Word that makes you wise. Let me just remind you, so you can further meditate on this, two very useful catechism instructions that sum up the sermon. First, a larger catechism, 157. It's all, everything I said is reviewed right here. The holy scriptures, how are they to be read? They are to be read with a high and reverent esteem. Oh how I love your law. With a firm persuasion that they are the very word of God. It is His law, the words of His mouth. And that He only can enable us to understand them. and so you have taught me, with desire to know, believe, and obey the will of God revealed in them, with diligence, attention to the matter and scope of them, with meditation, application, self-denial, and prayer. So it's all there, how we are to handle the Word. This is how our spiritual digestive system operates. And then 160, what is required of those who hear the Word preached? It's required of those who hear the Word preached that they attend upon it with diligence, preparation, and prayer, examine what they hear by the Scriptures, be careful hearers, receive the truth with faith, love, meekness, readiness of mind, as the Word of God, Meditate, confer of it, talk about it, hide it in their hearts, and bring forth the fruit of it in their lives. May God give you and me grace to use his word in this way that we will grow in wisdom. O Holy One, we thank you for your holy word. Wise one, we thank you for the word of light that brings us all wisdom. We pray that we shall love Your Word, relish it, cling to You through it, and profit from it. Make us, Lord, profitable readers and hearers of Your Word for our own edification, and particularly those of us who will be set aside by You to teach others, that we shall above all relish and delight in that which we teach and practice it. For Christ's sake, amen.