let us turn to psalm 119 in the book of Psalms and let us read again verses 18 to 20 Psalm 119, verse 18. Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law. I am a stranger in the earth. Hide not thy commandments from me. My soul breaketh for the longing that it hath unto thy judgments at all times. Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law. If I were to give this sermon a title, it would be something like the Believer's Balm, or the balm for the soul of the believer, the balm that which heals, that which soothes, that which makes comfortable, that which gives rest and peace. We are not, of course, talking about a physical balm, but a spiritual balm, balm for the soul. Now, why should the believer need this balm? Well, one thing is sure, only the believer has this need. The unbeliever knows nothing of the needs and the yearnings and the longings that are so much part of being a believer, so many things like that, longings and yearnings and desires are so, as it were, packed into the believer by God's own work. He has created these things. He has made us to long and to thirst for himself and for his things. So, the believer needs this balm. He needs this soothing effect upon his soul. One of the main reasons stated in verse 19, I am a stranger in the earth. Hide not thy commandments from me. I am a stranger in the earth. Now, if the believer feels a stranger in the earth, then that is a good sign. It's not a bad sign. We must never be discouraged if we find ourselves more and more as if we didn't fit very well into the society round about us, if things were always just a little bit awkward between us and those who do not believe, and that we might find ourselves, to use the modern phrase, maladjusted. to the world in which we live. Tremendous emphasis today on teenagers, that they should be well-adjusted teenagers, and it is to me a great fear that even Christian families and Christian parents have imbibed that and absorbed that and That is, to a large extent, what they want for their children. Not so, it shouldn't be so at all. Because we should want them, we should desire for them that they would be certainly able to cope with life, but not to be what the world would call well-adjusted teenagers. It is something to be glad about, something to rejoice in, if we find ourselves maladjusted in this world. We find that no matter how hard we try, we cannot get things to dovetail the things of our lives, the things of our desires, and we cannot get them to dovetail, and when we find ourselves in company, very often we feel like a fish out of water. I am a stranger in the earth, the psalmist says. That is a sure sign of the work of God and that being a stranger doesn't get less with time, but it gets greater with time. The sense of maladjustment and the sense of being a misfit gets greater with time. This is the very opposite, indeed, of what happens with the unbeliever. And it is the very opposite of what the unbeliever wants for themselves and for their children. They want to be well-adjusted. They want themselves and their children to fit in well with the world round about. Let's just pick out one or two points from these verses. First of all, just a few more words about what we're talking about at the moment. The believer's alienation, the believer's strangership, the believer's increasing alienation, the great and right tendency for the believer to find themselves more and more strangers in the earth. One of the surest signs of conversion is that increasing alienation. As the process of God's work continues in sanctification, it must begin with conversion. Only a converted person can be sanctified. But that alienation which comes in strongly at conversion, it continues and increases throughout the work of sanctification which follows throughout that life. It confirms a true work of God. and it should be the norm for the believer. This doesn't mean that there is something wrong. If you feel this alienation, it doesn't mean that there is something wrong, that things have somewhere gone wrong for us along the line. The problem with us is that we are not very good at reading our experiences. and interpreting our experiences. That is a tremendously important thing in the Christian life, to be able to read our experiences, to interpret them, to translate them into their spiritual realities. So often we have an experience and we reach the wrong conclusions altogether. We misread it, we misinterpret it and the conclusion we reach is very often the opposite of what it should be. Something which should really lift us up and make us glad. Very often that experience throws us into depression. feel marginalised, we feel sidelined and we become depressed. We experience the alienation which we have been speaking about and it's not as if it flows off us like water off a duck's back, it doesn't. It is painful and it is hurtful. It is one thing we can never put aside why we're in this world, and that is human frailty. It is a fact. You read Isaiah chapter 40 there, and in the midst of all these things that God brings before us as things which we should be for our comfort, in the midst of them all, there is this human frailty. Flesh, all flesh is God's. and it is like the flower of grass. The wind blows upon it and it is gone. That is the weakness of the human constitution in this world. It is particularly evident in the believer. It is a natural instinct for us to want to be liked, to want to be popular, to want to be accepted. but that is not the path that God has appointed for us in this life. If we are true believers, that is not the pathway. If we find ourselves on that pathway, then we do have to ask ourselves the question, why am I on this pathway? Why am I so well-liked, so popular, why am I so well-adjusted and accepted? But if the path we find ourselves on is a path of alienation, increasing alienation, then let us rejoice that it is so, even in the face of much hurt. even in the face of many wounds, let us rejoice that that is the way it is with us. But God has provided a balm for this hurt. What Matthew Henley sometimes calls a place there for the wound. There are many wounds in the life of a Christian. many things which cause hurt, but God has provided a placer, as the man puts it, for many of these hurts. So then, what is the nature of God's balm for the soul who is feeling it hard, finding the way hard-feeling, hurt-feeling, alienated-feeling, a stranger-feeling, man-adjusted. What is the nature of God's power? Verse 18 Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law. wonderful thing about the psalmist is that he knows what the psalm is. Right through this whole psalm there is this almost incredible emphasis on the word of God. sometimes the references to his words, sometimes to his law, to his precepts, to his commandments. One way or another, there is a reference of that kind in almost every verse in this psalm. Perhaps one or two that we might find where there is no reference to these things. This brings before us that the psalmist knows what he needs. He knows the nature of the balm which God has provided for his soul. It is God's word, God's commandments, God's precepts, God's judgments, God's way, These are the things which come like a balm, like a healing balm upon the believer's soul. But it is more than just God's word. We all know this. We all know that so often we read the word and we get no healing from it. We read it and we get no peace, no joy. You see, it is more than God's Word. That is so clear here. It is God's Word opened up to us by His Holy Spirit. Open thou my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law. it goes beyond simple reading. Along with the reading there is a prayer, that there would be divine revelation, that there would be something supernatural, that there would be a miracle in the reading. Now, what we must notice here is the way that the word of God must be read. There are various approaches to the reading of God's word. It is very important for the believer that there should be some regularity about the reading of the word of God. And I have no doubt at all that it is good to read the word of God in large amounts at a time. reading a whole gospel at a time, if possible, things like that. But, when we are looking to find something for our souls, I think myself it is the more intense reading, reading a verse or two, reading them intensely, reading them with this prayer, Lord, open mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law. That is the psalmist's approach here as it comes to the Word of God. Open mine eyes. Yes, the Word is there, this is the Bible, this is God's inspired Word, and I am able to read it. But Lord, as I read it, work the miracle, open mine eyes, that I might behold wondrous things out of thy love, seeking the help of the Holy Spirit in order to open up the world to us." Now, the assumption here is that there are wondrous things in the Word of God, but in order to find them, in order to behold them, in order to see them and enjoy them and benefit from them, there has to be an opening of the eyes. There has to be a miraculous opening of our perception and our understanding of the world. Only God the Holy Spirit can do that for us. The Bible is a spiritual book. This spiritual book requires a spiritual mind and it requires spiritual help in order that we might understand it. How often we read a passage or a verse that we've read hundreds of times before, and suddenly we discover something, something which we can't understand how we passed over it before, but here it is before us, like a jewel, just something God has given to us. He has opened our eyes to reveal something wondrous out of his word. Even the most familiar passages, no matter how often we have read them, we find wondrous things being revealed to us every now and again. Now, it is as if this is an inexhaustible source, as if there is no end to it. There is no end to the wonders that are in this book if God will open our eyes to see them, to behold them, to behold them, to look upon them, and to admire them, stand by in wonder at the truth, and to be healed and to be soothed, to be comforted by the word of God. But, thirdly, sometimes God withholds this help. This is not an uncommon way for God to deal with his children. God does withdraw the sense of his presence from his own children for a season. We have that even in the confession of faith itself, in the chapter on providence, chapter He puts it very, very succinctly and very clearly that God, sometimes according to his own wisdom, that he withdraws the sense of his presence from his own children for a season. Notice two things about that. This happens to his own children, to true children. and it is for a season. It does so, as it goes on to say, in order to increase our desire and in order to cause us to seek to follow him more closely. So, there is this withdrawal of God's help. Now, one of the reasons why God does this is made very, very clear to us in the Song of Solomon that it is a withdrawal of his presence in order to increase desire. That's a strange way to do it. But, if you look through the Song of Solomon, you find that there are four or five major different ways in which God deals with his children. There is this in it, the withdrawal of his presence. The way he puts it is the knock at the door, and then there is the sloth, the laziness on the part of the believer, when the Lord knocks at the door, I have put off my coat, how can I put it on? And then the believer brussels herself and she goes to the door and the Lord is gone, he's away. Suddenly she realises how much she wants him. So she goes out and goes around the streets seeking to find him. If you see my beloved, tell him that I am sick with love. So by withdrawing himself, he increases his desire, increases our desire and our love for himself. This is something we have to recognise. As one preacher put it, when we say to ourselves, oh, I wish I had the desire that I once had, We are so foolish, he says, that we don't recognize that what we say there shows that the old desire is there and coming back, and coming back strongly. When we say, oh, I wish I had more desire, or I wish I had the desire I did have, that desire for desire is so much part of the Christian experience. So we have this strange prayer in verse 19, I am a stranger in the earth, hide not thy commandments from me. Not just that God withdraws himself from his presence, but the way that that is often manifest to the believer, hide not thy commandments from him. The believer comes to the word of God and they feel as if they are getting nothing from the reading, as if God is not revealing himself, God is not opening his word, God is not revealing the wonder He is hiding his commandments from the believer. Now he goes further in verse 20 where he says there, My soul breaketh for the longing that it hath unto thy judgments at all times. Now we have to realize the uniqueness of this whole psalm at this point. That is the massive exposition we have in this psalm of the importance of the word of God in the life of the believer, how important it is for the believer to be in the Word of God, to be enjoying the Word of God in all its facets. The law, the precepts, the will of God, the commandments of God, the judgements of God, all these things that are highlighted throughout the psalm, the various ways God manifests his will and reveals himself to his children. Sometimes God withholds his help, but he always does it in order that we might desire more, in order that we might love him more. And fourthly, what is the answer to this withdrawal? We hear about withdrawal symptoms today. So many people on all kinds of drugs and pills. I think the majority of the population must be on some kind of pills of some kind. then there is withdrawal when these pills are taken away. Now, what happens when the Lord withdraws himself? When we feel as if he has hidden himself, we read the word and we find that he is not letting us see the wondrous things we want to see. What is the answer to this withdrawal? Well, quite simply, we have to persevere with the prayer that we have before us here. Open, though mine eyes. There is no other key in it. There is no sort of mechanism, no strategy I'm not sure how many books are on the bookshelves today about how to read the word of God. The answer is simple. It must be read with a prayer. Open thou mine eyes. Just take a verse or two or three verses from where you've been reading and seek that God will open your eyes, cry to him, call to him, Lord, open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy love. This brings two things so beautifully together, prayer and the word of God, two main things, truly, in the Christian's life. They are brought together here as if they were married together. It's all of that question, isn't it? Should I pray first and then read the Bible after? Or should I read first and pray after when we're having our quiet time or our worship? The important thing brought before us here is that we do both together. Not saying that we shouldn't pray, apart from reading, I'm not saying that at all. But a reading must be prayerful. Must have the prayer all the time. Rising up to heaven, open thou mine eyes. Another thing that we must look for is an increase in our own desire. We never have the desire we want to have. We'll never have that as long as we are in this world. We sing a psalm like we read, like we did this morning, as the heart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. And we long to have that panting, to have so much thirst for the Word of God. But we'll never have the desire that we want to have. We will always be desiring more desire. But surely here is God's way. God will open His Word to us. will taste things and behold things which are wondrous, which make us astonished, which set us back on our heels with wonder and amazement, which makes us look and behold the beauty of the Word of God. That is what we must do, that is what we must seek to do. pray as we read the word so that we will taste and see and desire more. We get this sequence working in our lives. Surely God will yield, God will so work that his word will yield up to us the wondrous things. They are there. but we are dull by nature to find them and to see them. But here is the psalmist giving it to us here so clearly. Open thou mine eyes, work the miracle as I read, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law. Coming to God, say, I have need. I have need which I know that only thy word can supply. But I need thy word opened to me by thyself. I need thee to make it precious to me. I need thee to make it sweet to me. I need thee to make it something which enables me to cope in this life. is inadequate. I need the help of the Holy Spirit. Lord, send him to me. Send help from above. As I come to this world, open mine eyes, open my understanding, open my spiritual intelligence, that I might behold these wondrous things out of thy law. Let us pray. Gracious God, we pray for a wondrous opening up of our perception as we read Thy Word. We ask Thee, Lord, that Thou wouldst make this book so precious to us, that we would look on it as a book that we know is full of treasure, full of wondrous things, if only thou wilt heal these things to us, if only thou wilt open our eyes to see them. Grant it, Lord, for thy name's sake. Amen.