Turn with me to Psalm 119. I'm going to read, and I'll explain why in just a moment, from section 10, which is verses 65 through 72. You have dealt well with your servant, O Lord, according to your word. Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I believe your commandments. Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep your word. You are good and do good. Teach me your statutes. The proud have forged a lie against me, but I will keep your precepts with my whole heart. Their heart is as fat as grease. but I delight in your law. It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I may learn your statutes. The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of coins of gold and silver." As we come to Psalm 119, I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that Psalm 117 is both the shortest psalm and it is the shortest chapter in all of scripture. Just two psalms further, and Psalm 119 is both the longest psalm and the longest chapter in scripture. It goes, in its 26 sections, all the way over to 176 verses. Now, I'm going to do an introduction this week to Psalm 119, not a meditation on the whole thing. Normally, with 150 Psalms and 52 Sabbaths in a year, we go through everything but Psalm 119 in about a three-year cycle. Since I've been here, we've taken six months on Psalm 119. Half of 52 is 26, and there are 26 sections. 22 sections, all right. That's right. I'm going with Latin alphabet there. 22 sections here. And each one of them, children, maybe you have a Bible you can look at there. Each one starts out with the name of a Hebrew letter, and in many Bibles, the actual letter is there. So the first section is Aleph, then Beit, Gimel, Dalet, Hei, Vav, Zay, and so on. All the way till you get to the last letter, Tav. Now, why are these Hebrew letters there? And why are these names there? Well, it's because every eight verses is a little poem in and of itself. Each opening letter of each verse starts with that letter. So in these first eight verses, if you were to look at it in the Hebrew, and you know what? If you'd look at it, you would see it looks just like Hebrew, right? But you would see that little letter there, and you would find the first word, the first letter of the first word that we have translated there, blessed, starts with the letter Aleph. The same with verse 2. Same with verse 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Now, in verses 9 through 16, every single verse, the first letter of the first verse starts with a bit. And so on through the alphabet. It is really a mastery of poetry. Hebrew poetry, as I think I've explained before, doesn't use rhyme or meter. And for those of you who are younger kids, meter is the rhythm. So if you have a poem, you might think of, Mary had a little lamb whose fleas were white as snow. And everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go. Alright, so there it's got rhyme and it's got meter. Hebrew poetry didn't. What it did was take two lines and they would be related. So, blessed are the undefiled in the way who walk in the law of the Lord. There we have in the first verse there. They are in the way and they're walking in the way, so there's a tie together there. Now, there are different ways in Hebrew poetry how the two lines would be related, but they're always related together. So, this is a masterful work of Hebrew poetry, but it isn't merely that, it is the Word of God. If we look for a common theme, it is this. It is all about the blessing of the Word of God, the blessing to believers. And in it, as Jesus has said himself in Luke 24, verse 44, we see Jesus, who is himself, the Word become flesh. He is portrayed here. Now, if you read along with me in section Tet, verses 65 through 72, you will see that whoever the earthly poet was, the human poet, used a number of different synonyms there for God's word. Starting in verse 65, your word. In verse 66, your commandments. Verse 67, there's word again. 68, statutes. 69, precepts, 70, law, 71, statutes, I think again, and the law in verse 72. So there are 10 different, throughout this psalm, there are 10 different synonyms used. Now, what is the law? Well, when we think of God's word as law, it's something who comes from a lawgiver. His word comes to us from God's character as our king. Christ's character as God's mediatorial king. The testimony, well, where do we hear testimony? It's a statement that is supposed to be true. whether it be in court or unsolicited testimonials and ads. I use the Blanco Blanco Kiwi fruit trimmer and it works great. Felicia B. of Cywash Center, Idaho or something like that. All right, so a testimony then is a revelation of truth. You know, like in a courtroom scene where a witness gives testimony, and they're sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. A precept is something entrusted to someone. A statute is something which is written authoritatively. So that's another name. We even use those today for certain things that are determined by law. So how do we know how long a mile is? Well, it's established. It's called a statute mile. It was decreed that it's 5,280 feet. Commandments are directives from authority. Judgments are those things which show the difference between good and evil, right and wrong, true and false. Judgment is in line with wisdom, you see. It's called God's Word. It is something given by His revelation. His Word is that which made the heavens and the earth, as we see in Genesis 1. And it is also, as we see in John's Gospel 1, the same thing. And we see there that it's referring to Jesus Christ. I've spoken of this before, how the word written and the word become flesh and mediator have this similarity that they're fully God and fully man. Way is the pathway of holiness, and that also looks to Jesus. In John 14, verse six has said, and I've quoted this enough that if you didn't have it memorized before you started coming here, you surely do now, I'm the way, the truth and the life, no man cometh to the Father but by me." It is called God's truth and faithfulness in accord with God's unchanging, holy, and faithful nature. And it is also called righteousness because his word is in line with God's holiness, justice, and truth. Now you will find one of these different synonyms in every single verse of this psalm, except for two. Why the author didn't put them in, I don't know, except that's what the Holy Spirit wanted him to do. But if you have your Bible open, if you look to verse 122, you will read, be surety for your servant for good, do not let the proud oppress me. Well, nothing there about God's word. And down into the next section in verse 132, look upon me and be merciful to me as your custom is toward those who love your name. So we could almost say name there is used in that way because as we see our larger catechism exposition of the first Petition of the Lord's Prayer, hallowed be thy name. God's name is that which reveals him and his holy character. The same with the catechism's treatment of the third commandment. In any case, that's what this psalm is all about. And we will look over the next, oh, about six months through all of this, starting at Aleph and going all the way over to Toph. Well, I picked, instead of reading section Aleph, I picked for us to read verses 65 through 72 because it went along talking about pride and humility with what I'm going to be dealing with in the sermon from Luke. So let's sing that section that I read that is in our psalm books, Psalm 119i. I'll do a fuller treatment of this in weeks to come. Psalm 119i.