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Well, good evening. Welcome to
West Houston Bible Church. Report from Dr. Dean is that
his vitals are good, he looks good, but he has pain, as is
to be expected at this point, and he asked for prayer for his
pain management, and that he's going to be able to handle that. They're getting
him up and starting to do rehab, things that he's got to do to
get back in shape. So he's going to be in ICU probably
the rest of this week. So he just asked that we continue
to pray for him and pray for Pam while she's taking care of
all the things that she needs to take care of with Robbie in
ICU. We've come tonight to study the
Word of God. What a marvelous treasure we
have. We can each have his own copy and his own language. And
that is a blessing. And we take it for granted, but
there are billions of people in this world who have never
seen a Bible. And yet we might have 20 or 30
or even more Bibles in our homes. But it's of no value if we don't
study it. So we've come tonight to learn
more about God and His plan and His purpose and His provision
for us. So as we Come to our study. Let's prepare ourselves.
Make sure that there is no sin in your life that would hinder
the teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit. Making sure that all sins have
been confessed to the Father so that you can be cleansed and
so that we can appropriate God's Word. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we come to you
with thankful hearts. Surely you are a God of mercy. We thank you for the surgery
that Robbie was able to have, for the technology, for the skill
that you give to the doctors, and we thank you that he was
able to have this procedure done. We thank you that the doctors
were pleased with the results and that Robbie is on the recovery
road. We do pray that you'll give him some alleviation of the pain
that he's suffering. Pray that he might be able to
handle that without too much difficulty and that it wouldn't
hinder him from doing the rehab and the other things that he
needs to recover and to get back with us. I give thanks that we have freedom
to assemble to study your word together. And we know that you
have provided this word. You've preserved it. You've given
it to us for a reason. So I pray that we might learn
to appreciate this treasure that we have. And I pray that tonight
as we look into your word together that your spirit will open to
us understanding that we might be motivated in our own spiritual
lives as we come to realize your purpose and plan for us. We would ask these things in
Jesus' name. Amen. We continue with our study of
Psalm 119 and now we have come up to the hate file and this
is found in verses 57 through 64. So in the lower left we have the
original form of this letter and then over the centuries it
was modified until it came to the final form that we see today
and that's on the right. The original pictograph was that
of a wall The meaning of this word hate is outside, or to divide,
or half of something. And it has the sound of a K with
an H after it. Velar fricative for those of
you who are linguistically apprised. And this is where we get our
letter H. Let's read the file, the hate
file. so that we know where we're going
tonight. You are my portion, O Lord. I have said that I would
keep your words. I entreated your favor with my
whole heart. Be merciful to me according to
your word. I thought about my ways and turned
my feet to your testimonies. I made haste and did not delay
to keep your commandments. The cords of the wicked have
bound me, but I have not forgotten your law. At midnight I will
rise to give thanks to you because of your righteous judgments.
I'm a companion of all who fear you and of those who keep your
precepts. The earth, O Lord, is full of
your mercy. Teach me your statutes." So what
do we have in these eight verses? The psalmist declares that he'll
keep the Lord's commandments faithfully and enthusiastically
as he prays for gracious intervention in his life-threatening situation,
acknowledging that everything he has is in the Lord and everything
in the world is under God's care. So that would just be a summary
statement of what we find in this section. So if you were
going to outline it, here's a very simple outline. One, verse 57,
all he has is from the Lord, therefore he promises to keep
his word. And then in verses 58 to 60,
he seeks God with his whole heart and he asks for his mercy. And then the wicked have beset
him, but he remembers God's judgments and praises Him. And then In
the last two verses, in fellowship with believers who fear the Lord,
he desires to know more of the word of the Lord because the
earth is full of the Lord's loving kindness. Now the key statement
is found in verse 57 when he says, the Lord is my portion. And he's saying God is everything.
And everything else in this file, it just adds support to this
declaration And we go along and we get more and more evidence
that prove his assertion to be true. So, first of all, believers
must make a commitment to obey God's Word because everything
that we have comes from God. So in this stanza, the psalmist's
appreciation of the Lord gives us the frame, the framework.
In verse 57, he talks about the Lord as his portion. And then
in verse 64, he mentions God's loyal love. And so everything
in between is going to fit into that framework. So he starts
out and he says, you are my portion, O Lord. I've said that I would
keep your words. Now the word portion, it means
a share, a part. Sometimes it means a territory.
The word was commonly used for parceling out shares of land.
This was seen in the distribution of the land among the twelve
tribes of Israel when they entered into the promised land. Each
tribe got a portion. Except for the tribe of Levi,
they did not receive a portion of land, but rather the Lord
himself was to be their portion. But this word was used for the
dividing up of the land. But it can be used for the division
of anything. It was used for the division
of food, for the division of clothing, or the spoils of war. They get divided up among the
victors. And so he says, you're my portion. Well, what does that mean to
us? Well, it conveys the idea of
an intimacy, a personal relationship. It's an expression of trust and
devotion that's found throughout the Psalms. Numerous Psalms use
this word and they say that the Lord is our portion. Now if you're going to say that,
there has to be a recognition of your temporal and your eternal
relationship to God. Everything that I have comes
from God. Everything. There is nothing
that I have that does not come to me courtesy of the grace of
God. He is my portion. So there are
people who think that they are self-made men. No, they are not. It is He that has made us and
not we ourselves. God is the one who has created
us. He is the one who has provided
us the ability to think, the ability to do anything. That
all comes from God. Also like it in Deuteronomy chapter
8 where it says that even our ability to make money is a gift
from the Lord. Did you ever read that? He didn't give me that gift. But when we say that the Lord
is my portion we recognize it's God who is the source of all
that we have. And this is true not only for
this life but also with regard to what we have in the future. So we have an eternal inheritance
and this also is our portion. And so as we orient to God's
provision and we recognize this all comes from God and this is
going to create in us a sense of gratitude so that we praise
the Lord for what he has done for his mercy and his wonderful
works to the children of men. And so he says, you are my portion,
O Lord. He recognizes this, and now he
has a sense of intimacy with God as he comes to truly understand
what he has in his relationship with the Lord. So this is something
that every believer should acknowledge, but many do not. They just do
not appreciate how much God has given to us in His grace. So
he said, you are my portion, O Lord. I have said I would keep
your words. The word keep, it's a word we've
seen already several times up to this point. It means to guard,
to keep, to observe, to pay attention to. To keep the word of God means
I'm going to have to be careful about how I think and how I live
and that is going to I mean, I guard his word, but I also
keep it by obedience. So if the Lord is your portion,
it calls for a firm resolve to obey the Lord's word. And so
he says, I have said that I would keep your words. Now, this could
be translated, I promise to keep. It's a resolve to obey, and this
is the appropriate response to the provision of God. When I
come to understand what God has given me in grace, my response
should be, I'm going to keep your word. I think that each
one of us, at some point, we need to come to that point where
we say, I'm going to please God. That's going to be the goal of
my life. That's going to be my aim, that
I want to please God. Do it perfectly, but I think
still we come to that point where we make that commitment. We make that decision. This is
where I'm going. As for others, I don't know what
course they may take, but as for me and my house, we will
serve the Lord. So I think we need to come to
that point when we make this commitment. And so if we're going
to do that, we have to be occupied with the Word of God And to be
occupied with God's Word is to be occupied with the Lord Himself.
So it's not merely a matter of learning, it's not an academic
pursuit, but it's learning and doing. Why do we learn the Word
of God? So that we can fulfill His purpose, so that we can bring
Him glory. And so we need to keep the words. Now, how do we do that? Really,
what's involved with keeping God's Word? We're going to see
it throughout this psalm, where he is going to expand on this
idea of keeping the Word. So, keeping the Word is something
that is going to be expressed by our conduct, by our actions. And so we will see, keeping God's
Word, it's going to be expressed in prayer. If you're going to
keep God's Word, you have to be involved in prayer. Keeping
God's Word is expressed in choices. We have to make choices every
day. Am I going to please God in this, or am I going to satisfy
my own lust pattern? We make choices, and we keep
God's Word by making choices based upon the Word. We keep
God's Word by obedience. God has given us his commandments,
he has given us his judgments, and we keep God's Word as we
obey. We keep God's Word as an expression
of faithfulness. When we are faithful, when we
don't turn away from the Word of God, the plan of God, then
we keep God's Word. There's keeping God's Word as
expressed in praise. If I'm going to keep the Word
of God, I need to know what does it mean to praise God. And it's
not simply a matter of getting up and waving your hands and
saying, praise God, praise God, hallelujah. That's not what the
praise is as we will see. And then keeping God's Word is
expressed in your companions. Who do you spend time with? And
so if I'm going to keep God's Word, I also have to keep good
company. And then keeping God's Word We
do it because the whole earth is full of God's loyal love. And that becomes motivation.
All right, so we start out now keeping God's word expressed
in prayer. This is verse 58. He said, I
entreated your favor with my whole heart. Be merciful to me
according to your word. It's a very interesting expression. I entreated your favor." But
the word favor is the Hebrew word for face. And it's a word
that always occurs in the plural, although we don't talk about
somebody's faces as a rule, unless of course they have more than
one. But anyway, the word is always found in the plural. But
it's the face that identifies the person. and it's the face
that reflects an attitude. And I just had a good time going
through the Old Testament and looking at how the word face
is used. It talks about a hard face. It's
indicative of defiance or impudence or someone who is ruthless. He
has a hard face. And then we have a shamed face. Well, we can understand that.
That points to defeat, frustration, humiliation. But those who trust in the Lord,
their faces were not ashamed. A flaming face. Ah, interesting. This is one that's convulsed
by terror. And so here's somebody who is
greatly afraid, Isaiah 13 says that they have
a flaming face. Then there's an evil face. This
is a face that's marked by distress and anxiety. We have a fallen face that stems
from very strong anger or displeasure. Remember God rejected the offering
that was brought by Cain? And God said to him, why has
your face fallen? If you do good, won't it be lifted
up? So his face had fallen because
now he is angry. He's angry at God. Now we also have an expression
found numerous times to make a person's face sweet. That means to conciliate somebody
or to seek his favor. So in 2 Kings 13, Ford says he
pleaded with the Lord, but literally translated is he made sweet the
Lord's face. So you can go from a hard face
to a sweet face. There's a shining face that indicates
pleasure, indicates satisfaction that results in bestowing blessings. So we find this in a familiar
passage, the Aaronic Blessing in Numbers 6. The Lord bless
you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine
on you and be gracious to you. There you see the blessing is
God's face shining. Verse 26, the Lord lift up his
countenance upon you. And the word countenance, same
word, face, but for some reason they didn't want to have The
word face in two verses in a row. So they translated it countenance,
but it's the same word. So the Lord make his face shine
on you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance
upon you and give you peace. And we will see coming up later
in Psalm 119, in Psalm, in verse 135, it says, make your face
shine upon your servant and teach me your statutes. What does that
mean, make your face shine on your servant? God's gonna be
happy. You know when somebody looks
at you and they are really pleased with you, they're pleased with
what you have done, and you can see that shining face. You know
what that is. Well, that's what we're asking
from God. We want God to make his face
shine on us. So he said, I entreated your
favor or your face with my whole heart. The word entreat means
to mollify, to appease, to entreat the favor of. And so it has the
idea of making the face sweet or pleasant, meaning to appeal
favorably to the Lord in prayer. In Exodus 32, 11, this word entreat,
it's used for the urgent appeal to God to show a favor to show
mercy. Moses came down from the Mount
where he had gotten the Ten Commandments and then here you have these
people who have gotten involved in idolatry. God said, you shall
have no other gods before me. You shall not make any graven
image. And in less than six weeks here
they are with a different God and they have made a graven image,
they have that golden calf, and Moses now prays. It says he pleaded
with the Lord his God. Literally it says he entreated
the face of the Lord his God. In Malachi 1.9, but now entreat
God's favor that he may be gracious to us. literally translated,
entreat the face of God that he may be gracious to us. So we have a figure here, figure
of speech, when it comes to entreating the face, which is saying, God,
I want you to look. I want you to look on us and
I want you to do it with grace. And so it becomes a prayer now
to God to show his mercy, to show his grace. And so the purpose
of entreating the Lord's favor is to appeal for grace, for safety,
for success, and prosperity. You can find all of these facets
of entreating the Lord's faith face in the Old Testament. So he said, I entreated your
favor with my whole heart. So it's a prayer for God to be
gracious and to intervene in his life. God, I'm asking you
to do something here. Now when he says, I have treated
you with my whole heart, there's no false flattery here. The people that have a close
personal relationship with the Lord, they may make their appeal
on the basis of God's love and compassion for them because they
understand what it is. A lot of people, it's You know,
they forget all about God until they get into trouble and then
they say, oh God, help and do it now. But that's not what he's doing
here. He's going to put things in their
right order. He's going to have the right
priority. And on this basis, he's going to make his appeal
to God. And he says, I've done this with my whole heart. Now
you can't, you can't con God. you God look at all I've done
for you or you Lord what you know that I'm really sincere
about this and look look at all that I've done in the past and
so on that basis I want you to show me grace well that's not
grace and that's not how it works we will never earn or deserve
anything from God sometimes it bothers me when when people start
talking about, well, I need the Lord's grace, so I guess I better
start reading my Bible more. Is that how you get grace? You
see, you've got it backward. Well, you know, I really need
God's blessing. I guess I should start going
to Bible class. I need God's blessing, so I ought
to start doing some spiritual things. God knows what you are. And when he says here, I've done
this with my whole heart, he's making an honest statement. He
recognizes he's been committed to the Lord. And he's got the
right priorities in that he has set the Word of God first. So,
I entreated your favor with my whole heart. It's urgent, it's
sincere, and it's a prayer for God to be gracious according
to his promises. And not simply because he says,
hey, I gave everything. But it's that he wants God's
grace to act on his behalf and to fulfill the promises that
God has made. So the reason for this urgent
appeal that he makes here, it's going to be seen in verse 61,
where again you have the arrogant oppressors who are trying to
shut him up or shut him down. So because of what he's going
to say in verse 61, We can say this is a prayer for God to rescue
him from the wicked who want to destroy him. And that's going
to be the content of his prayer. I entreated your favor with my
whole heart. So it's a sincere and it's a
very earnest prayer. Be merciful to me according to
your word. The word merciful, a beautiful
Hebrew word, hanan. from which we get the name Hannah
and dozens of other names. There are some 50 names found
in the Bible that have this word as its root. So the word means to be gracious
or to deal with in grace. And three times in this psalm
we find this prayer, be merciful to me. And it's found in other
psalms as well. It's a prayer If we look at the
context in which it is offered, be merciful. I'm lonely. Here I am. I'm all alone. I don't
have any support. I don't have people who can come
alongside and shore me up. Be merciful to me. He's asking
for God's grace during a time when he feels all alone. Or in a time of distress, We
need God's mercy. Bad things happen. Sometimes
horrible things. And we may be in trouble in different
realms. And we can pray for God's mercy.
Be merciful to me in my distress. Or in Psalm 51, David prays for
God to be merciful because of his sin. He knows that he deserves
judgment. He knows he deserves extreme
discipline. He knows what horrible sin he
has committed, and he had nowhere to go except to the Lord. And
so he says, be merciful to me. And so he's going to confess
his sins, acknowledge his transgression, but he recognizes that God's
dealing with him. He needs mercy, and so he prays
for mercy after his sin. He asked for this, mercy according
to your word. Now this tells us why the prayer
is justified, how it's delineated, how it's motivated. It always
has to be in accordance with the word. You can't live any
way you want to live and then expect God to be merciful to
you. You go out and you violate God's laws and then you pray
for God to be merciful. So if you appeal to God's grace
according to his word, then you need to understand that it may
be God is going to discipline you in grace too. But if we're
going to seek God's grace according to his word, we need to know
how has God shown grace to others in the word. You see, we have
this word of God, and so much of it is narrative, and it tells
us History, it tells us how God has dealt with his people in
the past. And as we read these accounts,
we can see God has kept his word. God has been faithful. God has
shown his grace. And so if I'm going to ask God
to show me grace, I need to understand what has he done so that I can
pray, show me grace according to your word. All right, we keep God's word.
through our choices. This we see in verse 59. So he
said, I thought about my ways and turned my feet to your testimonies.
So he begins with a time of self-examination here. I thought. The word thought,
it means to use the mind to think or thinking in the sense of planning. This is the word that's found
in Genesis chapter 50 verse 20. You all know that verse, don't
you? you should memorize that verse because that's Romans 828
in the Old Testament. Okay, here is where you have
Joseph and he is talking with his brothers and he's finally
been reconciled with his brothers and of course they are very sad
about what they had done to him but he said, you meant it for
evil. And it's the same word. And the
idea is that there was planning involved in this. They planned
to do this. You meant it for evil. God meant
it for good. The word is also used for making
a judgment. You look at a situation and you
make an evaluation. So in Isaiah 53, Talks about
Israel looked at their Messiah. He was despised and we did not
esteem Him. They didn't... They made a judgment. They looked at it and said, no,
that can't be the Messiah. So this word is sometimes used
for running thoughts through the mind, for meditating. Malachi
speaks highly about those who feared the Lord and thought about
His name. It's translated, Meditate, in
Malachi 3.16. Then those who feared the Lord
spoke to one another, and the Lord listened and heard them. So a book of remembrance was
written before Him for those who fear the Lord and who meditate
on His name. You want your book, your life
to be written in God's book of remembrance? Those who fear the
Lord. Okay. Got a record of that. Gonna make note of that. So there's going to be reward
which will be based upon this. So the psalmist now, he's going
to think about his ways, his lifestyle. And I think that we
need to practice self-evaluation, but we need to do it according
to the Word of God. Now, there are all sorts of self-evaluation
tests. You can take them on the Internet.
You can find them in bookstores. And it's all human viewpoint,
worldly philosophy, based upon people trying to analyze the
human race. But you understand that the entire
human race is abnormal. We're all corrupt. And so for
them to say now this is normal, well what they're saying is this
is typical behavior of a sinner, of somebody that's evil. But sometimes they also say the
problem that we have is low self-esteem. And what you need to do is to
lift your own self-esteem and your self-talk. You ought to
be telling yourself how good you are, how great you are, how
wonderful you are. And the Bible says that our problem
is we think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think. Now this
doesn't mean that we're all worthless. We are not. We all have value
because we're all created in the image of God. But we need to evaluate ourselves
according to a divine standard and not a human standard. So
you can take a look at yourself and you know in the book of James
in chapter 1 he talks about looking into the mirror. The mirror of
the Word of God. You look into a physical mirror
you see a reflection of your physical face. And so you can
see something you like or something you don't like, but you look
at your own face and it's just a reflection of what's on the
outside. But when you look into the Bible, that's a mirror of
the soul, and there you can see what you really like. And so
then you can make a correct evaluation. So if you look into the Word
of God and are able to see yourself in it, then you can make good
choices. And so the psalmist made two
choices. He chose to evaluate himself.
He's thinking about it. And he's measuring himself according
to the standard of God's Word. And then he chooses to change. You see, our goal is to bring
our thinking and our actions into conformity to God's standards. That's what this Christian life
is all about. It's adjustment to the standard of God. We are
to be conformed to the image of God's Son. So this psalmist,
that's what he's doing. He's thinking about his ways
and he's making evaluations according to the Word. And so he said,
I thought about it and I turned my feet to your
testimonies. This word turns, found hundreds
and hundreds of times in the Old Testament. And it's talking
about making changes so that you come to the Word of God,
making changes to align yourself with God's policies. Sometimes
this word is translated repent, but it's to return, to turn or
to return. So his careful consideration
of his lifestyle, he turns his feet to the Word of the Lord.
Now the word feet here, it's a metaphor, for the believer's
walk, his way of life. Here's a commitment to live in
obedience to the Word of God. I turn my feet to your testimonies. The word testimonies used 23
times in this psalm. We've seen it before. It refers
to God's testimonies, that is, what God has said or what he
said he will do, and especially in the Mosaic Covenant. And so
to obey his testimonies indicates loyalty to the terms of the covenant
made between the Lord and Israel. God said, you do these things,
you're going to be blessed. You do these other things, you're
going to be cursed. You get to choose. You can choose
life. You can choose death. You can
choose blessing. You can choose cursing. And you say, well, who
would choose death and cursing? Well, we do it every day. Every
time we turn away from the Word of God, when we disobey, we are
Choosing the way of cursing. But God's testimonies, this is
what God has testified to that He will do. Then we have keeping
God's words expressed in obedience. I made haste. It did not delay
to keep your commandments. So I made haste. It means to
hurry up. To hasten. Conveys the idea of
speed. And often in the Psalms we find
someone who is pleading urgently, hasten to help me, hasten to
me. Psalm 71, 12, Oh God, do not
be far from me. Oh my God, make haste to help
me. Hurry up God, I'm in trouble.
That's it, make haste. I want help and I want it now. And how often we make an urgent
prayer. We want God to make haste, but
notice here he's saying, I made haste. I did not delay to keep
your commandments. So he's going to hurry up and
keep God's commandments. He's not going to delay. As I was reading this today,
I thought of an old song that I haven't heard it in years and
years, probably since I was a teenager. And I don't know if any of you
have ever heard this, and I'm not going to sing it, but here
are the first and third stanzas. I'm resolved no longer to linger,
charmed by the world's delight. Things that are higher, things
that are nobler, these have allured my sight. I will hasten to Him. hasten so glad and free, Jesus,
greatest, highest, I will come to thee. I'm resolved and who
will go with me? Come, friends, without delay,
taught by the Bible, led by the Spirit, we'll walk the heavenly
way." And that's what the psalmist is talking about. I'm not going
to delay. I'm going to do it now. I'll
hasten to Him. I'm not gonna delay. So his eagerness
to keep God's commands corresponds to his urgent prayer for God
to fulfill His promises. There's something really hollow
about people pleading for God to fulfill the promises in His
Word when they themselves have little interest in keeping His
Word. God, I want you to keep your
word. I'm not gonna do it, but I want you to. And oftentimes We're in no hurry
to do the Word of God. But the psalmist says, I am in
a hurry to do it. I'm not going to delay. I'm not
going to put it off. Oh, well, I'm going to do that
someday. Yeah, I know I should start doing that. Or I know I
should stop doing that. But, well, yeah, pretty soon. No, we don't delay. We make haste to keep the Word
of God. The word delay, it means to linger,
to delay, the idea of walking slowly along, no hurry to go
anywhere, nowhere to go, nothing to do when I get there, so I'm
just going to amble along and smell the roses along the way,
you know, without purpose. There are those who say they'll
begin to live God's way someday. We must do so today while it
is still called today. Psalm 96 and also in Hebrews
chapter 3. Do it today while it's still
called today because the time will come when there is nothing
more. And oftentimes people look back
over their shoulders and they have the regrets. I should have. I should have done different.
I should have done more. And they have great regrets.
So don't delay. Don't linger. Do it while it's
still called today. Then we have keeping God's Word
expressed in faithfulness in verse 61. The cords of the wicked
have bound me, but I've not forgotten your law. And so now we learn
something about the crisis of the psalmist. He said, the cords
of the wicked have bound him. And the wicked are no doubt the
arrogant scorners that he has referenced earlier. So the cords
of the wicked have bound me. The word cords, interesting word.
The basic meaning is for a rope or a cord. For example, Rahab,
when she is going to deliver the spies who had been hiding
in her house. She lowered them from her window
with a rope. That's this word. In other words,
in other cases, this word is translated as a band or a group,
sometimes a company. And so in 1 Samuel 10 and verses
5 and 10, it talks about a band of prophets or a group of prophets. And there are some who want to
apply that meaning here in Psalm 119.61. And so it says the cords
of the wicked and they wanted bands of wicked men. It's possible,
but I think we have a better understanding here if we talk
about cords in the sense of a snare or something that ties us up.
Because we find this word is used as a symbol for captivity
or subjection. It's used for the snares set
by the wicked, the traps that they might lay to get a believer
in one way or another, either to exploit you in the material
realm or to seduce you in one way or another, or to take you
captive. In Proverbs 5.22, we find this
word used for the enslavement of sin. His own iniquities entrap
the wicked man and he is caught in the cords of sin. So the cords of the wicked can
describe a trap. They want to capture him. They
want to keep him from his godly lifestyle. They don't like what
he's doing. They don't like his testimony.
But the psalmist remains focused on the Word of God And so he
has hostility, but it's not going to disturb his concentration
on fulfilling the Word of God, and that is hard to do. People
make us angry, people hurt us, people take advantage of us,
people in some way damage us. And it is hard to remember why
we are here, because we want to get even. You pull my hair,
I'm going to pull your hair harder. And that's how we think. But
that is not the way of God. We've got to keep our focus on
the Word of God. Why am I here? I am not here
to gratify myself. I am not here to simply make
my own way. I am here to please God. And so we have to ask the question,
how can I please God in this situation? And this takes work. But you do it a little at a time,
and a little at a time, and you can grow stronger as you do this. So he says, I have not forgotten
your law. It means he's going to continue
to act on the word that he already knows. You take in the word,
don't forget it, which means you need to use it in time of
trouble. There's going to be a test, and
you're going to have to remember what you have already learned.
Because if you fail the test and you let your own sin nature
take over, then you see that's forgetting the Word. It's not
that it's gone from your memory, it's just that you haven't applied
it. But how often we forget the Word of God when people hurt
us or when we become angry. I've not forgotten your law."
The word to forget means to forget or to ignore. Sometimes it's
used as the antonym of remember, as in Deuteronomy 9-7, remember,
never forget. So you see in juxtaposition here,
remember, never forget how you provoked Yahweh your God in the
wilderness. And forget may also be used as
a synonym of rejection. to indicate that God will not
bless or that He will bring discipline. What happens if we forget the
law of God? See, the psalmist says, I will
not forget your word. I'm not going to forget it, which
means I'm going to use it. But what happens if we forget
the law of God or if we ignore the law of God? Hosea 13.6 My people are destroyed for lack
of knowledge. And God says, because you've
rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being priest
for me. Because you have forgotten the
law of your God, I also will forget your children. Now He's
not saying that this is something that's going to be erased from
His memory. Just as we have previously seen,
the word remember is not something just something you call to mind,
but it is something that you call to mind and then act on.
It means to remember and do something. And here we have forgetting.
It's saying, I'm not going to do something. I'm going to withhold
certain blessings. And so the psalmist will not
forget the Word, the Law of God, or We can put this in a positive
statement. Remember, I've told you when
you find a negative statement, state it in a positive way and
you'll be able to get the true significance here. So, I won't
forget it means I'll remember it. I will do it. I will not
forget the law. Then we have keeping God's Word
as expressed in praise. In verse 62, at midnight I will
rise to give thanks to you because of your righteous judgments."
Now, midnight doesn't mean 12 o'clock. It means that darkest
hour of the night. And he says, so it's that darkest
time, the darkest hour of the night, I will rise and give thanks. Now, this word give thanks, very
interesting. It's the word that means to confess
or to praise And often it's translated, give thanks, which is probably
not going to convey to us the real significance of the word. The word is used for confession
of sins. David, after his great sin with
Bathsheba and Uriah, in Psalm 32.5, he says, I acknowledged
my sin to you. That's the word confess. and my iniquity I have not hidden. I said I will confess." Same
word again. I will confess my transgressions
to the Lord and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. So that's
this word here where it's translated give thanks. So the word means
primarily to confess something. It was used to express one's
public proclamation or declaration. That's a confession. It's a public
declaration. And here, when we confess something
about God, we're talking about God's attributes, about His works. And so the concept has the idea,
praise God, because I'm going to tell of His wonderful works. Who is God? His marvelous perfections. And so praise What is praise? It's a confession or a declaration
of who God is and what He does. Now, it's often translated to
thank in our English versions, but this is really not the proper
rendering of the word. In the Old Testament, it's interesting
that there is no word that just means to thank. They don't have
that word. Our concept of thank, thank you,
they don't have it in the Old Testament. And we have it in
the New Testament, not in the Old Testament. And for them,
it was a declaration. It's a confession. It's an acknowledgment,
verbally. Here's my God. This is what my
God is like. This is what my God has done.
And when you do that, you see, you acknowledge who God is, what
God has done, and that is going to then lead into our concept
of giving thanks. So the best rendering of the
term is confession because we confess or declare his attributes,
works, and we find this over and over again in the Psalms
and elsewhere as in 1 Chronicles 29-13. Now therefore our God
we thank you and we praise you. when it says we thank you, we
confess you, we acknowledge you, we talk about your glories. So this is one of the key words
for praise. So he says we're going to praise
you because of your righteous judgments. Judgments comes from
the word to judge, to determine, to regulate something. God's
judgments Show the rules by which our deeds and words should be
regulated. You're going to evaluate yourself.
You need to have rules. And these are God's judgments.
And because God has given us His judgments, now we can discern
what is right and wrong and make decisions accordingly. How do
you know something's right? You say, that's just common knowledge. or everyone knows. No, they don't. It's what God has said. He is
the one who has set up the rules, and we think we're smarter than
God because we want to change the rules. God has given us His
judgments. Do you praise God for His righteous
judgments? We probably haven't thought about
that, that God has given us these rules, but we need to praise
God because He's told us what to do. We need to praise God
because he has set the boundaries. So we have these guardrails.
That's God's judgments. And we need to operate within
them. And he's praising God that God
has told him how to think, how to live, how to act, how to speak. So he praises God for these.
Then we have keeping God's words expressed in companions. He says,
I'm a companion of all who fear you and of those who keep your
precepts. So his loyalty to the Lord also
finds expression in his association with other believers who are
his companions, all who fear the Lord, meaning those who keep
God's commandments. The fear of the Lord is something
that we learn. And it becomes an obedience to
the Word of God because we have learned who He is and we have
reverence and respect for who God is, but also for His judgments. And so the tie that binds faithful
believers together is a commitment to keep God's commands. Not just
is somebody a believer, but do they fear the Lord? Do they really
have respect for God and His Word? What are their standards? Is it the Word of God? And so
here is a criterion for the selection of friends. He was a friend to
those who had a respect for God, those who were desiring to know
and to live by God's words. And so we have to remember 1
Corinthians 15.33, which says, bad company corrupts good behavior. Bad company here refers to those
who have a perverted view of Scripture. and its attitude toward
the Word of God that should be the criterion in selecting your
companions. My father-in-law liked poetry. Most of it was doggerel, but
he had a lot of poems that he had memorized, and he had a poem
about companions, and it went like this. It was early last
December, as near as I remember. I was walking down the streets
in tipsy pride. No one was eye-disturbing as
I lay down by the curbing. And a pig came up and lay down
by my side. As I lay there in the gutter,
thinking thoughts I shall not utter, a lady passing by was
heard to say, you can tell a man who boozes by the company he
chooses. And the pig got up and slowly
walked away." Our companions need to be people
who have a regard for the Word of God. That
needs to be a standard. I mean, we meet a lot of people.
We may do things with many people, but our friends need to be those
who have that fear of the Lord and regard for God's Word. And then in the last verse of
this file, keeping God's Word because the whole earth is full
of God's loyal love. The earth, O Lord, is full of
your mercy. Teach me your statutes. So the
first half of the verse describes our rich resources in God. The
second half recognizes our need to tap into those riches. So he declares that the earth
is full of God's loyal love. The word mercy here is chesed,
God's loyal love. And God has love in which he is going to keep his
word. You see, love is a decision that
we make. that we are going to provide
for others, what is good for them, what is in their best interest. And we need God's standards to
be able to determine what is in the best interest of others.
I may think I know what you need, but that may not be according
to the Word of God, so I have to have that standard again.
But this word means loyal love. It means God has promised to
do certain things that will bless, that will benefit, And God's
going to keep that because He's loyal to the word that He has
given. Now this says that the whole
world benefits from the Lord's loving care. And if the whole
world benefits, then how much more His children? God causes
it to rain on the just and the unjust alike. And that is a statement
of God's grace. God provides even for the unbeliever.
You look at unbelievers out there, does God take care of them? Yes. And the whole earth is full of
God's loyal love. And we can see this in many respects. But we, as His children, we can
expect much more than the most. Because the Lord is our portion. He's our everything. Everything
we have is because of Him. And because of that, we know
that we have God's loyal love. And then he says, teach me your
statutes. I think this is one of the greatest prayers that
anybody can ever pray. Teach me. It's submission to
God. It's a recognition of His right
to rule over us. It's a recognition of God's mercy
to us, His loyal love, His benefit, His grace. I realize these things
and I say, teach me. Teach me what it is. Teach me
what you have done so that I can appreciate you more, love you
more. I want to grow in this area. So he wants to know more and
more about God's revelation. He wants to know more And he's
going to be able to see how God is fulfilling his word. The more
we know about God, the more we recognize God's work in our lives
and God's work in the world. And then, teach me so that I
can obey your word. And this is why he's prompted
to offer up this prayer. He wants to be taught more so
that he can glorify God to a greater extent. So what's the message
and application of this file? This emphasizes the Lord's portion
and loyal love. We have the urgent prayer for
grace in the light of difficulties. People are coming against Him,
trying to shut Him down. But we see His commitment to
live in obedience to God's Word. And so while we are praying for
God to deliver us from danger by His grace, we need to demonstrate
our faithfulness by acknowledging His loving care and renewing
our resolve to obey his word. So scripture warns us that the
world will hate those who believe in the Lord. They will try to
destroy their faith with false teaching, with persecution. But
believers know that the Lord has made provision. God has promised
us many wonderful things for this life as well as the one
to come. And it's because of this hope
that we persevere in our commitment to do the will of God and keep
His commandments. So we must first decide to be
obedient to the Word of God and then we can rightly pray for
God's deliverance. Don't turn this upside down and
say, hey God, answer this prayer and then I promise I'll do this. Do people do that? So don't bargain
with God. If you get me out of this jam,
I will serve you. You need to focus on pleasing
God no matter the circumstances. So I want to play you just a
very short clip from a movie made, I don't know, 40 years
ago. It's a guy bargaining with God. Okay, and it just sort of
illustrates what people do when they have the whole thing turned
upside down, when they don't put God and His Word first, but
they say, hey God, give me what I want, and then I'll do what
you want. So I'll see if this will play. I can never make it. Help me,
Lord. Please. I promise not to try
and kill myself anymore. Save me and I swear I'll be a
better father. I'll be a better man. I'll be
a better everything. All I ask is, make me a better
swimmer. Oh God, I can't do this to Julie. We can't do this to Julie. Oh God, let me live and I promise
to obey every one of the Ten Commandments. I shall not kill. I shall not commit adultery.
I shall not. I'll learn the Ten Commandments
and then I'll obey every one of them. Just get me back to
the beach. I'll be honest in business. I
promise not to sell lakeside lots unless there's a lake around. I want to see another sunrise.
I want to see another sunset. It was a mistake, God. I never
really wanted to kill myself. I just wanted to get your attention. Help me make it. I'll give you
50% of everything I make. 50%, God. I want to point out
that nobody gives 50%. I'm talking gross, God. I think I'm gonna make it! You won't regret this, Lord!
I'll obey every commandment! I'll see my parents more often!
No more cheating business! Once I get rid of those nine
acres in the desert. And I'm gonna start donating
that 10% right away! I know I said 50%, Lord! But 10% to start! If you don't
want your 10%, then don't take it! I know it was you that saved
me, but it was also you that made me sick! Are we like that? All the time. We need to say, God, I'm going
to obey your word even if you don't give me what I want. I'm going to put your word first.
I'm going to obey. And we're going to praise God that
he has given us this word. And then when we do that, the
father will be pleased with his children and the father will
be glorified So let's not turn things upside down. Let's look
at this Kate file and see how he has the right priorities. We're going to keep his word.
Let's pray. Father in heaven, I give thanks that we have this
file in Psalm 119 and it has so much to say to us and it speaks
to who we are. and how we ought to be. I pray
that we might evaluate ourselves and that the standard will be
your word and that we'll be honest with ourselves and be willing to make those
changes that are necessary to bring our lives into conformity
with the perfect standard that you have established and that
you've revealed to us. So I pray that this word might ring in our ears. We'll
be reminded that we need to live according to this word. Again,
Father, we pray for Pastor Dean that you're going to lift him
up. I pray that you're going to give
him peace of mind. I pray that he might have a good
night's sleep tonight. I pray that you'll alleviate
the pain. And I pray that he's gonna be strong enough to do
the rehab so that he can recover and return to serving you in
this place. I pray now for your mercy that
you'll protect us as we go to our homes and give us grace that
we can come back again to once again fellowship with you through
the word. We ask these things in Jesus'
name, amen.
10 - Jim Myers - Psalm 119 - Heth File
Series Guest Speakers
The video that Mr. Myers references around the 1:04:23 mark is available here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzqbqDW9z6E
| Sermon ID | 103024416254043 |
| Duration | 1:07:11 |
| Date | |
| Category | Bible Study |
| Bible Text | Psalm 119:57-64 |
| Language | English |
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