All of Psalm 119 is a prayer, except for probably two verses. But it's the kind of prayer that's just sort of just naturally breathed out to God. There's something that's wonderful. There's so many petitions and But most of them are just the kind of petitions and exclamations that fit the tone of the psalm as a whole. When we get to the kof stanza, there is something that changes. You become really aware that the psalmist is praying. And it reminds us that there are different kinds of prayers, aren't there? We don't always pray the same, do we? Sometimes our prayers can be like simple recitations of kind of the same things every day. You could do that formally or liturgically. Let's say the Lord's Prayer. Absolutely nothing wrong with saying the Lord's Prayer every day, especially if you think about those petitions and then pray those petitions to your Father. Jesus taught us to pray that way. So that formal recitation day by day could be a very good thing. Or our recitations could be a sign of prayerless prayer, saying the same things over and over. the same petitions in the same way. It's really nothing more than just prayerless prayer, going through the motions. Some prayer, though, is not like that at all. And in fact, hopefully, most of our prayer is not like that. I think we all have the tendency to fall into that, don't you? I remember feeling very, very convicted. When the weather's usually nice, I'll go walking through the parking lot in the afternoons and I'll pray. And one particular afternoon, I was pretty convicted that when I prayed for Ariel, Ashley, Zach, and Alex, I said virtually the same thing every single day. Now, it's not that the petitions change, but I was saying the same thing without thinking about what I was saying. Another kind of prayer, though, is the kind of prayer that is the disciplined prayer of a regular prayer life. To be honest with you, this is one of the areas that I've struggled with for most of my Christian life, is the idea of a disciplined, regular prayer life. I was somewhat astounded at the beginning of the year when I was at a pastor's conference and I heard Francis Chan say that his experience over the years has been that prayer has been the easiest discipline and reading his Bible has been the most difficult discipline. And for me, just the exact opposite of that is true. Read my Bible every day, just a part of daily life. The struggle is that time of disciplined prayer, a regular prayer life. But then there are times where outside of the regular prayer times, there is this urgent earnest, panicked prayer. It's the kind of prayer that isn't planned. You don't actually say at noon, I'm going to go and have this kind of prayer. This is the kind of prayer you don't plan. This is the kind of prayer that just kind of explodes. something inside of you, you can't help it. You have to pray and you have to pray now. That kind of urgent, earnest prayer and disciplined prayer are not unrelated. In fact, Spurgeon makes this comment and tells us, he who has been with God in the closet will find God with him in the furnace. It is actually the spontaneous, urgent, earnest kind of crying out to God that runs best on the tracks of a regular disciplined prayer life. In other words, those regular disciplined prayers form the tracks that allow us to have that spontaneity with God. That spontaneity and that earnestness and that urgency find a place in this particular stanza in Psalm 119. In fact, this is another example of why I think Psalm 119 must have been written over a somewhat long extended period of time because the different stanzas have different moods to them. This one is significant turmoil. George Zemeck puts it like this, he says, the mood of relative tranquility of the last few stanzas is displaced by one of significant turmoil. Within Kof, the first six verses are saturated with pleas and complaints. You know, there's a difference between a plea and a petition. Petition is a request. A plea is where there is something that is urgent, that is driving you, and this must be, this is the issue of the hour, and it must be answered, and it must be answered now. And so in the first two verses, 145 and 146, we see the psalmist say, basically the same thing twice. That's what the little superscripted numbers are for you in your notes. Notice A1, B2, C3, D1, D2, E2, F3. He's basically saying the exact same thing in two different ways, and they're not all that different. He begins with, I cried with all my heart. Now, Some translations say, I called with all my heart, and that's because the word that starts with a koth could mean to call. But here, the idea is not just I called in the simple sense of I prayed, but it's I cried, I uttered loud sounds, I pleaded. That's the idea. And then he tells us, with all my heart." When he says, with all my heart, that, by the way, is not just simply a phrase that deals with the emotional aspect of our being. That is a phrase that encompasses the totality of our being. With all my heart is not just I did it and felt earnest about it. It is with all my heart, everything that I am, body and soul, mind and heart. You can think of it this way. With everything that I am, tears, sobs, sighs, hands, eyes, knees. Everything about me is engaged in this. Isn't it interesting? that when we cry out to God in times of earnest urgency, we become very uninhibited physically. We may weep. We may extend our hands. We may fall on our face. we may get on our knees. In other words, there's something in the physical realm that is correlating to what's going on on the inside. Now, the psalmist has used this expression, with all my heart, in verse 2, verse 10, 34, 58, and 69. He is a wholehearted follower of God, and everything he does, in a sense, he does with his whole heart. But here he is, I cried out with all my heart. I was absolutely, utterly engaged in prayer. There's a sense in which if you've ever experienced this kind of prayer, You forget yourself. You lose yourself. Because there's one issue before you. And you don't care who hears you crying. You don't care who sees you flat on the floor. There's one issue that matters. And here's what the psalmist prays. Answer me, Yahweh. Now, obviously, there seems to be a level of temerity in this. I cried out with everything that I am, answer me. There's actually a boldness in this imperative. And the idea is there's a specific recipient of the request, that is God, Yahweh, regarding a specific issue desiring a specific response. In other words, this particular thing that is in front of the psalmist is so consuming that he actually boldly, with an imperative of entreaty, says, answer me, Yahweh. Spurgeon makes the observation, he says, his whole soul pleaded with God, his entire affections, his united desires all went out towards the living God. There may not, there may be no beauty of elocution about such prayers. There may be no length of expression or depth of doctrine or accuracy of diction, but if the whole heart be in them, they will find their way to the heart of God. The prayers may not be polite, they may not be polished, they may not have the proper words, but if they are gushing out, exploding out of the heart, Spurgeon says they will most definitely find their way to the heart of God. And then he says something that he's already said, I don't even know how many times. He says, answer me so that I can observe your statutes. Again, there is, for him, for the psalmist, there is never ever some sort of disconnected relationship between prayer and obedience. For him, for God to actually answer and to hear, he knows, in turn obligates him to do what his heart's desire is to do, which is to walk in obedience. I find it actually fascinating. He knows ultimately that God will hear him, but he also knows that it is the absolute height of hypocrisy to demand that God hear him, and yet he not be willing to hear, i.e., obey God. I wonder how many times our prayers are marbled through with the kind of hypocrisy that says, God, I want you to hear me. I want you to answer my request, but I'm not all that interested in hearing you and obeying you. By the way, you know in the Old Testament to hear God is the same thing as to obey God. And so for him, he's just, you answer me, God, and you do it because I want to obey you. I want to walk in your ways. Then he says, I cried out to you. By the way, this is an intensified form. It's a little more urgent. It's put in the past tense. I cried out to you, and this is the actual content of what he cried out. Deliver me. Save me. rescue me. It's the specific request desiring a specific response on God's part. The psalmist is not ambiguous about this request. It's not just like, God, bless me and all the missionaries of the world in Jesus' name, amen. It's specific. And when you actually are crying out to God with all your heart, there's something that is pointed and specific that's driving you to that. This is not just general time of prayer requests. Deliver me so that I can keep your decrees. says exactly the same thing as he said in the last line of the previous verse, so that I can keep your decrease. So the psalmist does not entertain for one minute, does not have any idea that somehow God could intervene and save without him not in turn living in grateful obedience. To him, those two things go together. If God's going to intervene and God's going to answer And God's going to do what he said he's going to do. This is going to result in me living in grateful obedience to the God who hears my prayers. Now, you might think that that's a no brainer, but I would just remind you of the words of James. In James, chapter four and verse three, you ask and do not receive because you ask with wrong motives so that you may spend it on your pleasures. Sometimes when we cry out to God, it's nothing more than the expression of our own sinful hearts, wanting nothing more than to get something our way so that we can be carnally satisfied. I'll tell an unflattering story on myself. I was probably about 20 years old, and Ariel and I were just newly married and had about as much sense as, you know, two rocks. And we thought, we had this plan that If we could get a loan, then all of our financial struggles would be over and everything would be smooth sailing through the rest of school, right? So me, of course, being the financial wizard and mathematical genius that I am, not, I had it on paper. This thing looked really, really good. And So we went to our bank, Wells Fargo, and applied for a loan. And, of course, Ariel just thought that, you know, she thought I was in college. I was smart. So she went along with the plan. And so we submitted the loan papers. And I mean, why wouldn't a bank give a 20-year-old college student making $7 an hour a loan? I mean, it seemed just obvious to me. So I'm praying. earnestly. I mean, praying earnestly. My God, please, your loan officer's heart are like channels of water in your hand. You can turn them however you want. God, this is so important. Do you know how important it is that you give us this money? Ariel calls me. I was working at Michelin tire and I go get the call and I'm all excited, all ready to praise the Lord. And she said, they're not going to give us 25 cents. I was so mad. I was mad. I was upset. I went back to the trailer that I was unloading. And I remember taking my fist, and this was also a reflection of my stupidity. These are metal containers. And I went and punched that metal container as hard as I could and had trouble unloading tires for the rest of the night. And I was like, God, why didn't you answer my prayer? I was earnest. You ever felt like that? And what came to me was you asked and you didn't receive because you asked with wrong motives to spend it on your lusts. Sometimes earnest prayer is completely disassociated from a life of obedience. and submission to God. So we need to be careful. Not all earnest prayer and urgent prayer is godly prayer. It is prayer that is directly connected with the desire to live a life of obedience to God. And that's what the psalmist says. In verses 147 and 148, he does exactly the same thing. He repeats himself, but notice his beautiful language. I rise before dawn and cry for help. I wait for your words. My eyes anticipate the night watches that I may meditate on your word. He is so serious about this. That he says, I get up before the sun gets up so I can cry to you for help. Now, I will tell you, as a person that thinks that alarm clocks are from the devil, I get up early, but I've never found the compulsion to get up earlier just to simply pray. But you know, when your heart's burdened, You find that you're convinced that there's something more important than sleep. When your heart's burdened and you have trouble sleeping, it seems quite normal to get up before the sun to cry out to God. And so the psalmist says, I am so utterly, completely determined to get your ear. That's what this is about, you know. I am so absolutely determined to have an audience with you that I'm getting up before the sun rises in order to seek your face. It reminds us of Mark chapter one in verse 45, where the Lord Jesus arose while it was still dark to go and pray. And so he gets up early and then he says in the second part of 147, he says, I wait for your words. The most versions actually have, I hope in your words. And we've already seen this connection between why sometimes it's wait and why sometimes it's hope. The idea is, is that he's waiting. That is, he cannot make anything happen. He can't force God to answer prayer. And he can't manipulate the circumstances to get the outcome that he wants, and so he's willing to wait. But in waiting, he is confident that God is going to answer him in his time. And thus hope is sometimes used because hope in scripture is confident expectation. And so if you're waiting, you're expecting. If you're hoping, you're confident. And so here's the idea. I have confidence that it's going to come. So I get up early to cry out to you and I have hope in your words. In other words, see that connection between prayer and the word of God. If you turn over a few psalms to Psalm 130, you see this expressed so beautifully in one of my favorite psalms. Psalm 130 verses 5 and 6. Notice how waiting and hoping are woven together. I wait for the Lord. My soul does wait, and in his word do I hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than the watchman for the morning, indeed more than the watchman for the morning. In verse 48, what he says, 148, he says, my eyes anticipate the night watches. The ESV, I think, captures this pretty well. My eyes are awake before the watches of the night. In other words, what he's saying is, is I am reducing my sleep in order to spend time in prayer and in meditation. John Goldengay makes the interesting observation. He says, the psalmist is even keener than a sentry is supposed to be about going on watch. And he resembles a sentry arriving early for duty. My eyes anticipate the night watches. Why? That I may meditate on your word. For the psalmist, the idea of crying out to God and actually meditating on the word are absolutely joined together. In fact, we could put it this way, it is meditation on the word that motivates and sustains us crying out to God. And so the psalmist in Psalm 1 meditates on the Word of God day and night, right? So there's this continual turning over the Word of God in his mind. And it is interesting to me that when we are in that mode of urgent, earnest, spontaneous prayer, we can either be just in the pure panic mode and the only thing that comes out is, help me. Okay, that's okay. That's a legitimate prayer. Right? Help me. But if you're meditating on the Word, that heart cry is usually expressed with the Word. So I've told you this story a hundred times, but during an incredibly dark period of my own Christian life, walking to school, up Hawthorne Boulevard to Western Seminary. I was crying out to God. I'd be praying. I'd be weeping. I mean, I was just consumed. And what came out over and over and over again is what I'd been meditating on. You're good and you do good. And so meditation on the word actually fuels and forms that crying out. And so if you want to know why the psalmist can be, in a sense, so emotionally engaged and charged, and yet express it in poetry. That's strange to you. Emotionally charged. and express it in poetry. You know, Jeremiah does that. He's devastated. The holy city, Jerusalem, has been destroyed. The temple has been destroyed. The people of God have been either exiled or killed. And he is so grieved, he puts it in terms of wormwood and gall, and my soul is bowed down within me. And you know what he does? Writes an alphabetic acrostic poem known as Lamentations. Emotional engagement and poetry. How does that happen? If you're saturated with the word, and I'm not saying you have to write a poem, but what I'm saying is, is that when your heart is absolutely so burdened that you're just pouring yourself out, how you pour yourself out is going to reflect what you've been putting in. Spurgeon says, he who is diligent in prayer, will never be destitute of hope. Observe that as the early bird gets the worm, so the early prayer is soon refreshed with hope." And then verse 149, notice how he does this. This is the according to's of crying to God. He says, the first part, he says, hear my voice, and then notice this, according to your loving kindness, and then the second petition, Revive me, Yahweh, according to your ordinances." And so, he's praying, and he now blurts out two more petitions, and Spurgeon points out, he takes the free grace way. He doesn't say, hear my voice, because I'm a really good Christian. Hear my voice, because I read my Bible. Hear my voice, because I put something in the offering plate. It's hear my voice according to your Chesed, according to your covenant loyal love. There's an urgency. Once again, it's an imperative of entreaty. Hear my voice, but it's based completely on God's grace. Hear my voice according to your grace, according to your covenant love." In other words, there's no merit here. He's simply appealing to the grace of God. He is then going to say, revive me, give me life, that's the same as rescue me, deliver me, according to your ordinances. And so, again, there is an urgent request, a petition, and what is it based on? It's based on God's word. In other words, God, you've said you would 149 actually gives us a great aspect to pleading prayer. The Puritans used to talk about suing God. Doesn't that sound just audacious? Suing God. What they meant was you have a case and it's filled with arguments. And the arguments are simply God's own words. They would say something like this, you sue God using his own words. It's like praying with with Pastor Asheel Blaze, which has just got to be the closest thing to heaven on earth. You could imagine that Pastor Blaze in his own way would say this phrase in his prayers over and over again. Oh, God, have you not said? Oh God, have you not said that you would do this? Have you not promised you would do that? And that's exactly what the psalmist is doing. He's saying, you have to answer me, answer me, answer me according to your grace. That's what you do. You're a God of grace. All I'm doing is asking you to be who you are for me. God, revive me according to your words. You've promised. Answer me. Do what you've said you were going to do. I think God delights when we pray his word right back to him with boldness. Doesn't the writer to the Hebrews actually tell us that we are to come to the throne of grace? How? Cowering. Doubting. Should I be here? Right. So therefore, come with timidity to the throne of grace. Right. See, you know, we're we're Nathan and I were talking before service, we're people of of of reactions, aren't we? And and normally we're people of overreaction. So we go over to other sides. And so so We hear the flippancy with which God is addressed today. And so what we're going to do is we're going to make sure that we always address God with reverence and awe, which is right and good. But then what that means is that all the boldness is just sucked right out of our prayers because we're afraid that for a second we might be irreverent. Actually, to take God at His word, to go boldly to the throne of grace with promises in your hand is as reverent as it gets. Because you're saying, you're trustworthy, you're reliable, I believe you. False humility and false piety won't get you anywhere with God. You can't do that with a being who knows everything. 150 to 152, he says, those who follow after wickedness draw near. They're far from your law. You notice almost every single stanza, he mentions these people, doesn't he? These people were a real pain to him. The wicked are near. Now, the imagery is a little more vivid than just, I'm near Nick Wilhelm. That's just like a proximity statement, okay? I'm nearer to Nick Wilhelm, but If I ran as fast as I could, jumped over the front row and tackled Nick Wilhelm, that's the picture here. You'd probably have to call an ambulance and they'd have to take me out because I wouldn't be able to move afterwards, but that would be the idea. Rushing upon with hostility. That's the idea. It's not just they're near, like they're my neighbor. The idea is they're rushing on me with a hostile purpose. They're closing in. He describes them, they're far from your law. That which should restrain moral and decent people has no place in their life. That which should give people a sense of morality and civility That which teaches how to relate to God and treat your neighbor has absolutely does not even appear on their radar. In other words. They're dangerous. They're dangerous. You know, one of the things about about church life that's always, at least in my opinion. always hopeful when we deal with issues within the body is that you can kind of pull back and you can say, OK. I can see where this person is not doing right at this particular point, but you know what? I know they know Christ, I know they love the Lord, and I think that if they can see it clearly in the Word, they will respond. In other words, we've got an in with them. There's a moral compass that's tuned in to the Word of God, and I know where their priorities lie. For the psalmist, it's as if these people have no moral compass. There's no appealing to them on the basis of right. And they're rushing upon me. To persecute me. Look at verse 151. You are near. Oh Lord. You have to actually just. You want to give a big amen. The wicked are near. So they're so far from your law and they're so close to me. But Yahweh is close to. As near and as threatening as the enemy is, God is nearer and God is stronger. By the way, when it says God is near. It's not rushing upon us with hostile intent. When it says God is near, it means that he's near to save. Many are the afflictions of the Lord is near to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Did you hear that? The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. In biblical language, for God to be near is for God to be right there at your elbow, ready to save you. ready to act. The Lord is near to all who call upon him, to all who call upon him in truth. The psalmist could say in Psalm 73, the nearness of my God is my good. And so no matter how close the enemy is, no matter how near the wicked are, God is closer. God is stronger. And he's right there to save me, to help me, to rescue me. I love Derek Kidner's comment. He says the threat is not glossed over. It's just put in perspective by the bigger fact. The bigger fact. So I almost called tonight's lesson was just the bigger fact. Think about that. You got something going on in your life that's making you really uncomfortable right now. You got trials right now. You got an area where you really feel like you're suffering right now. You got an area where you feel like there's there's no way out. Look at the bigger fact. Those things may be facts. But they're not the big fact. The bigger fact is that God is near. And he hasn't forgotten you. He's near the brokenhearted. He's near those who call upon his name. He's near those to whom the wicked are near. That's the big fact. You know, most of our Christian life is really nothing more than preaching the big fact to ourself. We, you know, we get all caught up in all of the facts. But there's a bigger fact. And then the psalmist says his word is true and established. All your commandments are true. I think that why he says this for this very specific reason, the wicked are near. but they're far from your law. So the people that are threatening me are detached from truth. I'm here, I'm locked in, I'm standing on the truth, and I know God is near, and so I actually have, in a sense, the double protection, because I've got the nearness of my God, who is stronger and closer, but I'm also standing on truth. I've got truth on my side. All your commandments are true. I'm dedicated to walking in those commandments. They shape and govern and direct my life. And I know these people over here, that's not what govern and directs their life. And so you know what? At the end of the day, one of us is going to be right and one of us is going to be wrong. One of us is going to be on the side of righteousness. One of us will be on the side of wickedness. And it will be me that's on the side of truth and on the side of God, because your commandments are True. You ever just feel just utterly dejected by seeing what's going on all around us? John Piper, by the way, has just an absolutely wonderful blog that he did on June 30th, taking a text from Psalm 119. My eyes pour rivers of water because they don't keep your law. And he talks about the big calamity and the big calamity. It's not just tolerance of the sin of homosexuality, but the celebration of the sin of homosexuality, the celebration And the thing is, is that the culture is compelling us not just be tolerant, but if you don't celebrate with us, it's because you're a bigot. If you don't celebrate with us, it's because you're a fundamentalist. If you don't celebrate, so there's this pressure. And if ever there was a time where men called good evil and evil good, it's in our day, right? And so here we are living in a cultural current that is moving swifter and swifter in the absolute wrong direction. And Christians are capitulating all the time because we want to sound what big hearted. We want to, we want to sound generous and charitable. We want to sound nice. By the way, over the next few years, we're going to see state after state after state after state legalize what's called gay marriage. All right? That's a given. It's a given. It doesn't mean that you don't try to stop it, but I will tell you, the current is so strong that that is the issue of the day. It is the issue on our college campuses. It's the issue that's before the courts. It's the issue that is in our so-called family values. That is the issue today. And it's just going to gain more and more and more traction. And so the question is, as Things gain more and more ground. By the way, you want to know how how entrenched this is? Wheaton College, the bastion of evangelical education for the last 50 years, has a gigantic. Organization. Of gay students and alumni. Little Wheaton, one. Thousands of names. Okay, so we're not making this up. Okay, so what in the world gives you the strength to stand when the wicked are near? He said, I know that God is closer, God is stronger, and his word is true. There may be nobody else around me who believes it's true, but I know it's true and I'm not moving. And at the end of the day, it will be proven true. Notice what he says. He says, long. Have I known from your testimonies that you have established them forever? Now, the New American Standard says something like, of old I have known from your testimonies that you've established them forever, and it makes him sound like he's an old person, but that's not the point. The idea is I have long reflected on this, and it is that long reflection that has instilled in me the old Ness of your truth. That doesn't sound very compelling today. Because we want things that sound new, not old. Right? Biblical writers and the Saints didn't have the idea that new means improved. By the way, there's only, biblically, there's only one example where I can think where new means improved, and that's with the new covenant, all right? But the idea of new truth is better, or new ideas are better. Remember Jeremiah 6.16, ask for the old paths. Right? Ask for the old paths. Do you realize how utterly and completely outdated this crowd is here tonight? If you believe that marriage should only be between a man and a woman, you're outdated. If you think the husband should be the head of the house, you're outdated. If you think a wife should be in submission to her husband, you're outdated. If you think children should obey their parents without question, you're outdated. If you think that there are actually role distinctions based on gender, you're outdated. If you think that leadership in the church should be male, you're outdated. If you think that you should still spank your kids, you're outdated. If you think God speaks through a book, you're outdated. If you think you should set one day apart in the week for worship and fellowship, you're outdated. And so, you know what I say? Blessed outdatedness. Blessed outdatedness. Notice, this is what I've learned from your testimonies. You've founded them forever. Spurgeon says we're satisfied with the truth, which is as old as the hills and as fixed as the mountains. God's truth unchanged and unchanging. And so again, remember how this fits in here. He is pouring his heart out to God, crying out to God with everything that he is whole sold, crying out, waking up early, keeping his post, meditating on the word. Surrounded by evil. And the way he ends. is with confidence. God is near. His word is sure. It's forever established in the heavens. So when the troubling facts harass your soul, money, marriage, job, kids, politics, country, morality, you name it. When the troubling facts harass your soul, meditate on the Word of God. Cry out to God. and get the perspective of the bigger fact. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that you are near and you never leave us nor forsake us and your truth is always true. And we pray that we would be the kind of people who know what it is to earnestly plead with You. We pray that we would be the kind of people who don't just go through the motions, but who have our hearts engaged with the living God. We pray, Father, that we would be men and women of Your Word, And we ask, Lord, that no matter what is unleashed against us, we would be able to say, I know your commandments are true. Father, we ask that you would keep us focused on the bigger fact. Father, remind us that you alone are God. There is no one else. In Christ's name we pray, amen.