All right, Psalm 119, stanza 21, verses 161 to 168. Reminds you that next week we will have John Blanchard here for chapel, and then the week after that will be our day of prayer and fasting. Princes persecute me without cause, but my heart stands in awe of your words. I rejoice at your word as one who finds great spoil. I hate false, I hate and despise falsehood, but I love your law. Seven times a day I praise you because of your righteous ordinances. Those who love your law have great peace and nothing causes them to stumble. I hope for your salvation oh lord and do your commandments my soul keeps your testimonies and i love them exceedingly i keep your precepts and your testimonies for all my ways are before you thus far god's holy word please be seated so why do you boys and girls obey your parents sometimes Because you don't want to get spanked, right? You know if you disobey that you're going to be punished. And that's just the reason. You don't want to obey, but you don't want to be spanked. Sometimes you obey because you love them and you want to please them, right? So mommy asked you to do something and I can make mommy happy. if I do that. But as you grow up, you're going to find that the great motivation in your life with your parents is that you love, honor, fear, and respect them. You have them in a very high place in your heart, in your affections, and your obedience comes out of that. And that's the highest kind of obedience. And that's the kind of obedience that God wants from us. Sometimes, just like children, aren't we? And we know that we obey for the basest reasons. And that's better than not obeying. To obey in order not to be chastised by the Lord is a low motive, but it's still a motive, and it's still obedience. But as we grow as Christians, we want to obey. There's a difference between knowing we ought to obey and wanting to obey. And that wanting to obey comes out of the fear of God. And the fear of God is what distinguishes rote Christian living, robotic Christian living, and heart Christian living. And as this psalm is quickly drawn to a close now, as the psalmist in the garment of a pilgrim has led us in this journey with its changes in vicissitudes and certain themes that have run straight through the psalms, and that theme of love of God's Word and of obedience in spite of danger and persecution, he particularly in this stanza focuses on the motivation. which is the fear of God. And this is the great motivation, should be, the Sheber Ha-Dazar, that the fear of God is the great motivation so that when the pilgrim fears God, he lives then aware of God's watchful eye with joy and love. And that produces some really important benefits in his life. So when the pilgrim lives in the true fear of God, he lives conscious of living his life before God with joy and love, and that brings some very important beneficial results in his life. So we'll consider three things. The response of the fear of God, some aspects of the fear of God, and some of the results of the fear of God. I say response of the fear of God because the psalmist puts it the fear of God in terms of a context of persecution. In verse 61, princes persecute me without cause. The psalmist has dealt a lot with the various aspects of this persecution that he has suffered, slander and lying and oppression. Back in verse 23, he actually said that princes were part of those who were behind the persecution. And here now, he's quite pointed. Princes persecute me without cause. Now, the princes should be those that protect us. They're those who would prosecute justice. And as Paul says, we pray for those in authority that we as Christians, a church, might have a quiet and peaceful existence. But so often in the history of the church and the experience of God's people, the princes become the persecutors. It's the grossest form of injustice. David experienced it in Saul and Saul's henchmen and foreign princes who would amass themselves against him. Of course, when we read these words, our minds ought to go to our Savior and the trials that he underwent in those last hours of his life. We're the princes of the church. gathered line and suborned and false witnesses. When the Roman governor, declaring repeatedly the innocence of Christ, condemns him to death. Surely these are the words of the Savior, aren't they? princes persecute me." Now, he alone can completely say without cause. He was innocent. His innocence was declared and they could find no witnesses in the Jewish court. Paul himself exonerates him. But even for God's people, when we say without cause, that we've not provoked this ill treatment, as Peter teaches us in his first epistle. Don't suffer because of sin. Suffer because of righteousness. Now, because Christ was persecuted without cause by princes, He also taught us that we can expect nothing different. Right? He says, if they hate me, they're going to hate you. And so don't expect that you're going to have this life that's a bed of roses. And yes, we go through periods when the princes have been the nursing fathers and mothers of the church. And we long for such days. And more now in the southern states, we still have a bit of that, but that's changing. When the governor of Georgia vetoes a law that protects Christians from having to hire homosexuals because the sports community and the Hollywood community threaten to take all their business out of Georgia, princes are beginning to persecute the church without cause. In fact, for great wickedness. And it's going to happen to us. It could happen to us individually. It could happen to us as a church. Now, when those times come, the temptation is to, as he did, to buckle under, to give in, to compromise. Personally, that is going to be the temptation, and see how the psalmist now guards himself. But my heart stands in awe of your words." This word, stand in awe, is the Hebrew word dread. He says, I live and dread of your words. Now, this dread is not a negative thing here. This dread is simply one of the words that's used for the fear of God. You see, if you fear God, you stand in dread of His word. You can't separate God from His Word. He says in Isaiah chapter 66, verse 2, "...My hand made all these things, thus all these things came into being. But to this one I will look, to him who is humble and contrite of spirit, who trembles at My Word." We tremble at the Word because it is the Word of God. If you fear God, you fear His Word. They're inseparable. That's why in Psalm 19, one of the synonyms that's used for the Word of God is, the fear of the Lord is clean. And so, the psalmist really says it's the fear of God that enables him to stand firm. And that fear of God reveals itself to him in the Word. And so the Word sets him on the right track. Because he fears God, which means he loves, honors, respects, longs to obey Him. Then the Word are like blinders on a horse. So the princes will persecute without cause. He is fenced in by the Word of God. He is single-minded because he fears God who comes to him in His Word. And he's protected. That's what our Savior says in Matthew 10, 28. Do not fear those who can destroy the body, but fear Him who can destroy the body and soul in hell forever. Calvin says these princes are but gnats and frogs, and in the end of the day, they cannot do us any harm. And thus, it's the fear of God that comes to us through the revelation of His Word that will enable us, by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, will enable us to stand firm in the midst of a causeless persecution. But the fear of God is a concept that is somewhat difficult for us. And so I think what the psalmist does here, he shows us three aspects of the fear of God, three ways that the fear of God will manifest itself in our lives. And the first way is in the very end of the stanza, for all my ways are before you. You see, we fear God because we recognize that we live our lives before Him. Paul puts those two things together in 2 Corinthians 5, because we live in God's presence and give an answer to Him on the Day of Judgment. Therefore, we fear. Solomon writes in Proverbs 15, verse 3, that the eyes of the Lord are searching everywhere. The eyes of the Lord are in every place, watching evil and good. What the prophet says to Asa, the eyes of the Lord to and fro throughout the land. Later, Solomon writes in 17.3, the refining pot is for silver and furnace for gold, but the Lord tests the heart. Just as fire tests the reality of a metal, if it's base or if it's genuine, the Lord who searches all things, He searches in order to test. He searches in order to prove. And see, it's a very important part of the fear of God for you and me to be constantly remembering that we live our lives in God's presence. When you boys and girls think that mama's not watching and so you're gonna snitch a cookie or you're gonna hit your sister or pinch your brother or snatch something that they were playing with, who sees you? God sees you. God always sees you. Always sees us. You're in front of that computer screen and nobody's in the house and you think, well, I'll just have a little sensual pleasure. Nobody will know. But God knows, you see. And He's the only one that really matters. He's the one to whom you're going to give an answer. How about our thought lives? Except from everybody, but ourselves. Where do you go in your thought life? Where does your mind dwell? God knows. It's very liberating and very restraining to recognize that we live our lives constantly in the presence of God. It will give us strength and boldness. It will give us the proper fear of God, knowing that we're going to give an answer to Him for every deed in the flesh, every thought. in the mind. So, to fear God is to live conscious of his searching eye, to live in his presence. Quorum Deo. Second, to fear God is to rejoice in this Word. You see, Thomas wants us to understand that to dread the Word isn't to be morbidly afraid of the Word. No, the fear of God also has joy. Just as we fear God, we rejoice in Him. So if you fear God, you rejoice in His word. So verse 162, I rejoice at your word. And this is the more narrow term for the promises. Now, you can see how this fits. Princes persecute without cause. But the pilgrim comes to the Word of God and finds promise after promise of God's presence and God's help and God's grace. God said, I will never leave you or forsake you. And there will be a day when all things shall be made right. And you've been there, and you know how the promises of God have sustained you in your various trials and difficulties. And that creates joy, right? joy in the God and in the Word of God that comforts you in such a remarkable manner. And look at the extent of the joy that the fear of God has within us. More, he says, than one who finds great spoil. In the days when you fought war and you got to plunder the people that you defeated, there was great joy in the plunder. I mean, you think how the Israelites built up their states. They first plundered the Egyptians when they left. And then where did they get their weapons when they were in the wilderness? Well, it seems to me they washed up on the shore after the Egyptians were destroyed. Now they had swords to fight the Amalekites, and they had shields and other kinds of weapons. And so, in the Bible, the idea of plunder is an idea of great joy and pleasure. Think of the four lepers. who go out and discover that the camp of the Assyrians has been vacated. They're going tent to tent. They're stuffing their mouths full of food and drinking the wine and gathering up riches that the Assyrians have been plundering all over the Middle East. And then their consciences smite them. They best go and tell the people in Samaria what they have discovered. Now our Savior puts it a bit differently in Matthew chapter 13. It's the same idea. And that is the man who discovers the treasure hidden in the field. unexpectedly, or the pearl of great price. He sells everything to have those things, because of the joy of that treasure. Now, of course, the greatest treasure of the Word of God is the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, and Christ coming to us in and through the Word. Do you think of that? Of that focus of promise? The Promised One, in whom all the promises of God are yes, and all fulfilled. then you have great joy, regardless of what's going on around you. Which leads us to a third thing here, and that is that fear has a great love and a great hate. It says, I hate and despise falsehood, but I love your law. Now switch it around in the order, because love and delight and joy are all together, and the psalmist interweaves them in Psalm 119. That we love that that brings us joy, and we delight in that which we love. And so now he focuses on this affection of love for the Word of God. And it's the Torah. It is all that God teaches in His Word. It's now the full revelation of God that comes in Scripture, which is truth. You know, you write in the previous stanza, verse 160, the sum of your word is truth. So if we love the Word, which is truth, complete truth, then love hates. Remember, we've already talked about this. The greater the love, the greater the hate. They're not contrary emotions. It's not one or the other. You hate that that works against which you love. And the greater you love, particularly that which is lovable, good, and honorable, the greater hatred you have. And so what the psalmist shows us is that the fear of God not only loves God and His Word and delights in it, but hates evil. Think how Job is described. He's a man who is a blameless, upright, fearing God, and turning away from evil. Earlier, a couple of times, the psalmist says, I hate all falsehood. Notice here, he heaps one term upon another. I hate and despise or abhor falsehood. Of course, in the narrow sense, he's talking about any type of deception or lie. From little white lies to awful slanderous lies. And that should mark us as well. May we be known as men and women of absolute integrity, and that we don't exaggerate, we're not slander, we don't gossip, we don't fib, we hold to the truth. Sometimes we can be silent, we don't, we speak the truth in love, but we don't deceive because it's contrary to God, whose truth, and to his word. But I also think falsehood here is to be taken in the broader sense of anything that opposes the truth of Scripture. Jesus says in John 8 that the devil is the father of all lies. He's a liar from the beginning. Yes, he lied to Adam and Eve in the garden. His temptations are all coded in lies. But everything he teaches is a lie. So that every sinful route, every error, every wrong conception, anything that is contrary to the Word of God is false. There's no in-between. It's either consistent with the Word of God, or it's falsehood. Now we've talked about the psalmist's zeal, and the fear of God has this zeal then, you see. It's not that we have to speak out against every sin when we see it. You know, you're going to go places and you're going to come across people. Where I was this last weekend, the pastor's preaching a lot about the Sabbath, but you've got elders and other people that are going out to eat and watching basketball games Sunday night. Well, it wasn't my place to be there and correct them. I did make one very brief application to the Lord's Day in respect to the resurrection on the Lord's Day morning, Easter. But it's not that we always are going to correct. In fact, we've had students in the past who always felt compelled and went to a church to correct. And that is not good for the student, the church, or the seminary. You know, you win a right to correct as well. Now, if it's a gross sin being done in your presence, that's also very different. But you think how long-suffering and patient the Savior was with the disciples. Leon Moore said they were the 12 most stupidest men in the face of the earth. Something about like that. They were slow. And how forbearing he was. And when you're pastors, you have to be forbearing. I remember as a young pastor, my conscience was ripped raw all the time. I wish I had understood this better. It's not your duty every time that something is going wrong to correct it. You pray about it. That's where the major correction is going to take place anyway. But you hate it. And you've got a zeal. You'll have to bridle yourself if you've got proper zeal. And then you will learn to speak when you have either the necessity or the right to speak. But you must not make peace with error in this day of toleration. No, we must be like our Savior. who upbraided the hypocritical leaders, who cleansed the temple at the beginning and end of his ministry, because he hated falsehood. And he loved, he loved the law of God. So as you think, what does it mean? Do I fear God? Well, think about these three things. There's other aspects as well, but think about these three things. I'm living my life conscious of His watchful eye. I'm rejoicing at the truth of His Word, particularly His promises, and Christ reveals Himself to me there. And I love truth and I hate all falsehood. Now be sure that, as I've said before, that we begin by hating the faults of our own hearts and our own sin. We should have triple reprobation for our sin, for every thought or act of reprobation. of the sin of those around us. So we'd be jealous of our hearts. Well, then what does this do, this fear of God, as the psalmist responds to the unjust persecution and with fear that has these three aspects? Well, he also shows us some things that happen when we fear God. Results. And first is exuberant worship. In verse 164, seven times a day I praise you because of your righteous ordinances. Plus word ordinance, you know, is also the word for God's acts of providence. It's His judgments. And I've tried this before in this psalm. I think that it is a name for the Word of God, but it's a particular name for the Word of God, as the Word of God explains what God does with the righteous and the wicked, and gives us the keys, the clues to providence. And so we don't separate the two. So the righteous revelation of God's acts are in the Word. We look then at those acts in the world, and they are righteous. Every one of God's providential acts are righteous. And so the psalmist is talking about unjust persecution. But that is a sinful act of men, but it is a righteous judgment of God. Because it's come from Him, as all things do. Not the sin. but God's purpose, and how that happened to us, and how He will use it in our lives. So the psalmist is meditating on God's providences as they are mediated and revealed through the Word, and he says, I can't stop praising God. The seven times a day is merely a figure of speech. Of course, this is where the Roman Catholics get their seven hours in monastic experience. And if those seven hours are done from the heart, I'm not one to condemn them. That's probably more praying than a lot of us do. But just to go through the rote, it doesn't satisfy this. No, it's a figure to talk about. This is a mark of my life. This is a persistent mindset. The psalmist said he went through the day full of praise and thanksgiving. At what? At the righteous providences of God. I recently re-read and read parts I had not read before of Flavel's Mystery of Providence, as well as a sermon by Thomas Boston on Providence. And both of those sermons focus on the fact that we need to do much more than we do of meditating on God's providences in our lives. Do you do that? Go back and think about how God converted you. I mean, Flavor goes back to these things of why God's promises are special for His people, you know, and what country you were born in, and what family you were born in, and the graces of God in your life. You go back and think about those things, the stories of old, how you met your wife and your husband, and the various experiences, and the difficult experience in your life, sorrows and hurts and sins. Trace out That's what we're going to do in heaven. A great occupation will be the stories. Southerners are going to love heaven because we're going to tell stories. It will all be true. Stories of the ways of God. If you meditate on God's righteous judgments in your life, you're going to praise Him, right? Yes, even the difficult things. Because you want to trace them out and find out, what's God doing for me here? And so when you fear God, you recognize life is lived before His eyes, and then all of the judgments mediated through His Word are righteous, you're going to worship. Now just as there's a very close relationship of private Bible reading and preaching. If you're going to profit from preaching, you must be in the Word. And then it flips about. If you profit from preaching, you'll be helpful in the Word. If you're living this life of daily praise and thanksgiving, looking for things, and just little prayers of, thank you Lord, or blessed be your holy name, as well as the more formal times, then, when you gather with God's people, your mind is full of these great acts of God. And you've been in the habit of praising God, privately and with your family, and now you can join with all of God's people. It will make that praise even better. So, exuberant praise. The second is peace of conscience. Verse 165, those who love your law have great peace, and nothing causes them to stumble. Of course, peace is wholeness and prosperity of life, and there is a wholeness that comes to us, but at the bottom, we can't be whole and prosperous if we're not at one with God, if our consciences aren't at peace, and there's nothing causing us to stumble. Nothing in our lives. We sin, we deal with it. People attack us, we rest in God. We have a good conscience. And a good conscience is the product, as you rest in Christ, of fearing God. As Paul says, therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God. Nothing causes us to stumble. Yes, even when harm, so to speak, comes our way, the evil's been removed. And no real evil can befall a child of God. Difficult circumstances can befall you. But just as the sting of death has been removed, the sting of evil has been removed. And so we have peace of conscience. Now with peace of conscience comes confidence. Verse 166a, I hope for your salvation, O Lord, O Jehovah. It's the word wait. It's that hope that comes out of faith. It's the biblical kind of hope. This is not, is God going to bring me salvation? But I know that God is going to bring me salvation. I know whom I have believed. I'm persuaded He'll keep it until that day. I trust my life to Him with perfect confidence regardless what comes. Whether it is persecution or death. That whole litany that Paul gives in Romans 8. Whether it's high things, or low things, or principalities, or powers, or things present, or things to come, whatever! Nothing can separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. That's the hope of salvation. Not a vain hope. Not a wishy hope. But a confidence. And this is, at the bottom line, the assurance of salvation. And there's an excellent discussion in Ryle, not Ryle, Bridges on this section, where he deals with this whole issue of why full assurance is not synonymous with saving faith. Little treasure just found there, it's about four and a half page footnote. But also, Bridges points out that our assurance is based upon our resting in Christ. The Spirit then bearing testimony to us with the promises. Now, we see here, we don't separate that from obedience, but we don't look to our obedience for our assurance. In a sense, obedience comes out of our assurance, but it is a way that we test that what we are confessing is true. And that leads to the fourth thing then, and that is a heart obedience. We kind of complete the circle now. We don't live like robots. We live Out of the fear of God, what does that mean? Well, I hope for your salvation, O Jehovah. I do your commandments. My soul keeps your testimonies. I love them exceedingly. I keep your precepts and your testimonies. He puts it in a covenant context. He addresses God as Jehovah. He speaks twice about the testimonies, which I think here refer primarily to the Word of God as a covenant revelation. And he says, not only does he do the commandments, but from the heart. From the heart. He obeys. And that's what the fear of God does for us. Yes, sometimes, as I've said, we will obey for base motives. But the true, delightful obedience comes from this fear of God. So it's a heartfelt obedience. It's a heart obedience. So regardless of what men see, we live before the watchful eye of God. And we say, it is for you, Father. I offer this to you. It is for your pleasure. And so, we see then that when the pilgrim fears God, he lives before Him with joy and love and brings these great results in his life of worship, of confidence and assurance and obedience. Of course, it's the Savior's voice that speaks here above all. This is the exact image of Christ. He did all of this for us. He who could say, in Psalm 40, I love Psalm 40 because Psalm 40 is what the Son of God was thinking when He took to Himself a human nature. Isn't it great? Psalms get us into the mind of the Savior, Psalm 22 from the cross, but here He says, as He takes this human nature to Himself, sacrifice and meal offering you've not desired, my ears you've opened, burnt offering, sin offering you've not required. Then I said, behold, I come In the scroll of the book it's written of me, I delight to do your will, O my God, for your law is within my heart." He did that for us in his act of impassive obedience that we might do it. He saved us that we might do it. The fear of God could only come from him through the rebirth of regeneration. But as He works in us by His Spirit then and gives us the pattern of His own life and the grace so that we don't need to live the Christian life like a person who paints by numbers and go through robotically in our acts of obedience. But to obey with an exuberance and to worship with an exuberance and to serve with an exuberance and live our lives in dependence upon Christ by the power of the Spirit for the glory of God. Father, we thank you as we sought you today to be merciful to us, meet with us and quicken us, so give us heart for these things, Lord. We will love you increasingly and fear you in the proper way more and more. We ask this for Christ's sake. Amen.