Our Lord Jesus Christ says in John chapter five to a group of very fervent students of the Torah and of the Old Testament, to them, he says, you do not have his word abiding in you because whom God sent him, you do not believe. You do not have his word abiding in you because whom God sent him, you do not believe. Do you hear the connection there between what's in your heart and what shows up in your faith, what shows up in what you believe? It's a direct connection that what occupies the central place of our hearts is a program, is a roadmap, is a blueprint for what we believe. And beyond that, what we hope in, beyond that, what We love what occupies that central place in our hearts. This was well known to the author of Psalm 119, whom we take to be David. And it is, in a sense, inconsequential who wrote the Psalm, but certain details and vocabulary lead us to believe that. But this is something that he knows very well. And for that reason, he shows us in the second stanza, the second section of Psalm 119, what he has deliberately chosen to occupy the central place in his heart. And if you'll turn your Bibles to Psalm 119 once again, we'll be looking primarily at the second stanza that in the original language begins with the Hebrew letter B. But we will look, we'll go ahead and listen to the first or look at the first stanza as well as we read God's word together. Psalm 119 and we'll go from verse one to verse 16. Blessed are the undefiled in the way who walk in the law of the Lord. Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with the whole heart. They also do no iniquity. They walk in his ways. You have commanded us to keep your precepts diligently. Oh, that my ways were directed to keep your statutes. Then I would be unashamed when I look into all your commandments. I will praise you with uprightness of heart when I learn your righteous judgments. I will keep your statutes. Oh, do not forsake me utterly. How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to your word. With my whole heart I have sought you. Oh, do not let me wander from your commandments. Your word. I have hid in my heart that I might not sin against you. Blessed are you, O Lord. Teach me your statutes. With my lips I will declare all the judgments of your mouth. I have rejoiced in the way of your testimonies as much as in all riches. I will meditate on your precepts and contemplate your ways. I will delight myself in your statutes. I will not forget your word. If we were to take a theme from the second stanza of Psalm 119, it would be the theme that we must wrap our hearts around the word of God, because whatever our hearts are wrapped around will directly dictate what our lives produce. Let me say that again. Whatever we wrap our hearts around will dictate the output of our lives. Maybe you remember that statement about the patriarch Jacob that when Joseph's brothers were explaining to Pharaoh why they could not bring Benjamin down to Egypt, One of Joseph's brothers says, because his life, his father's life, is all bound up with the boy. And if we take away Benjamin, our father will die. Why? Because our father's life, our father's heart, is all wrapped up around that boy. And I would suggest to you that your heart and my heart are wrapped around something as well. And it may be a complicated picture. It may be more than one thing. But what our hearts are wrapped around will determine the output of our lives. As we look in this second stanza and take heart, I'm not going to preach to the end of the psalm. It's just eight more verses, but they have this theme. And you know, it pays to know the psalms because long ago when the Marquis of Montrose was about to be executed, he was on the scaffold about to be hung. And they had a tradition in his country that the condemned man was allowed to choose one psalm to be heard or sung before his execution. And the Marquis of Montrose knew the Bible well enough to not choose Psalm 117. He chose Psalm 119 to be sung before he was executed. And wouldn't you know it, it took such a long time that by the time they got to the end of the psalm, the king had changed his mind and communicated a pardon. They didn't have to be hung. So you want to know this psalm. You want to choose your death psalm carefully. And if you're putting off your death, this is a good one to choose. It's very long. But, you know, some people have looked on this psalm and called it repetitive. They don't see the artistry of it. They think it's just a kind of a of a simple little ditty. But no less a scholar than Augustine said, when he wrote his commentary on the Psalms, Augustine waited until the end to do Psalm 119 because his comment was, it is too deep for me. It's beyond me. I have to wait on it. There's so much there, I have to wait on it. I'm going to put it till the end of my commentary. And even so, in this second stanza, there is a lot for us to consider. Look at verse 9 there again with me. How can a young man cleanse his way by taking heed according to your word? In other words, he's been talking about this perfect life, this life of putting one foot in front of the other in God's ways. And now he asks the question, how in the world can a young man cleanse his way? By what means? With what, he says. If you're reading the King James, he says that great Scrabble word, wherewithal. Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? What can do it? There are certain signs of the times that indicate that we live in the latter days. Israel becoming a nation again and being in its land is a strong indication, and other things in it as well. Daniel says that in those last days, knowledge shall increase. We certainly have seen an exponential growth in knowledge. That's encouraging because we think about Christ's return, but it's also sobering because 2 Timothy says, know this, in the last days, what kind of times? Perilous times will come for men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, blasphemers, proud boasters, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors. headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness and denying its power. And from such people turn away. We live in times like that or we live in times that look like Romans one in that culture or that that kind of person who has worshipped the creature rather than the creator. And so God gives him over and gives them over and gives them over again. And in those kind of times, how are you going to have a clean walk with God? You know, I thank God for a lot of simple pleasures, but when you're at camp, you thank God for showers. And you need them at camp early and often, especially in the piney woods of Louisiana. You just think about going outside and you start sweating. Well, you know, it's wonderful to be clean, but how much better it is to have a clean heart? How can a young man cleanse his way? It's been suggested in Spurgeon's commentary that David wrote this psalm over the course of his life. He wrote the early part near the beginning of his life. And you hear statements at the end that sound like he's writing as a much older man. And maybe it's for that reason that he says here, how can a young man cleanse his way? Or remember, Pastor Drake preached that Wednesday night series to us from the J.C. Rowell book, Thoughts for Young Men. And a pastor shared with us about how at the time of youth is when it's particularly possible to let things gain entrance to your heart that will defile the heart. How can a young man cleanse his way? And he answers his own question in the second half of verse 9, by keeping watch, and this is a military word, this is a sentry word, a guard word, by taking heed according to your word, by listening to what your word says, by keeping watch the way that your word tells me to. And then in verse 10, he says, with my whole heart, I have sought you. Now, is that something where we should just give him poetic license and say, well, yeah, yeah, yeah, with my whole heart? Do any of you ever have a twinge of conscience when you sing that hymn, I surrender all? Or maybe while you're singing that hymn, The Holy Spirit brings something to your attention as if to say, really? What about this? Do you surrender this? This is quite a statement. With my whole heart, I have sought you. You know who sets his seal that David is actually not speaking in hyperbole here, but there were times and maybe the bulk of his life when this was true? No less than God Himself, speaking through the prophet Samuel, says, I have sought a man after, what? My own heart. I'm looking for a king and I found David, the son of Jesse, who is a man after my own heart. And he says here, with my whole heart, I have sought you. Oh, let me not wander. Don't make me stray. Don't let me stray from your commandments. There are different words for sin in the Bible. And this idea of wandering is often translated as an idea of sinning unintentionally. And maybe you remember that line from Psalm 19, where David says, keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins, that is, sins that I do somewhat accidentally or passively or unintentionally. And so he says, I've sought you with everything that I know, everything that I can be. I've given you everything I can. But please, Lord, I need you to do what I cannot. I need you to hold me up. Or as he says in Psalm 63, my heart follows close after you. Your right hand upholds me. And so he says, Lord, I'm giving you my heart, but let me not wander from your commandments. And then he says this great verse that is probably quoted about memorizing scripture more than any other verse. Your word I have hid in my heart that I might not sin against you. Now let me just say, you are hiding somebody's word in your heart. I have no doubt about it. I know you're hiding words in your heart because if I stand with you long enough, or you stand with me long enough, those words come out. Or maybe if I look at the back of your car, some of the words that you've wrapped your heart around are etched on the bumper, on a sticker, or something that you are thinking about constantly, it can't help but come out in your conversation. We all have words that we set in the midst of our hearts. And really, that's what the word hide means, is to set something in the thick of something else. It's the word that she used of how Rahab took the spies and hid them amidst the stalks of wheat on the rooftop of her house. Or it's the word that's used of baby Moses, how when his parents saw that he was a beautiful child, they hid him. They took him in and concealed him in the midst of their house. And the psalmist says, your word I have put in the middle of my heart. I have hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you. Someone has said, and Spurgeon quotes this, your word, that's the best possession have I hidden in my heart. That's the best place that I might not sin against you. That's the best purpose. You see, whatever goes to your heart affects your whole being. Some of you have heard us tell the story about how right after Mary was born, there came a time where Faith couldn't put weight on her foot, I believe it was her right foot, because something had become very, very painful in her big toe. And we went to the doctor about three times, and finally the podiatrist pulled a syringe of brown fluid out of her big toe and said, that's a septic joint. And this is really serious because that infection, its next destination is the bone. And this is going to be a real problem. And so we need to do something right away. And we don't even have the technology here in Hannibal, Missouri to do anything about this. We've got to get that medicine to the heart. And so you know the procedure that peripherally, I can't even pronounce it, PICC line, peripherally inserted catheter or something or other, that takes the medicine from the arm to the heart. And you know no parent likes to be told that, yeah, we're going to cut a hole in her arm and insert a tube that'll go to her heart. But that's much better than the alternative. And that is that poison in the toe affecting the whole foot and the calf and the leg. And so when there's a drastic problem, you take up a drastic remedy and that medicine has to go to the heart because what comes from the heart affects the whole body. Do you think it's any different in the spiritual realm? Whatever you wrap your heart around will flow out to your whole body. And God says, I've looked for a man who's wrapped his heart around me, and I found one. You know, we can talk about the value of knowing God, the value of being saved, the benefits of having eternal life. And we think about many, many things that God does. Eye has not seen, nor has ear heard, neither has end in the heart of man the things that God has prepared for those who love Him. But in His plan, do you remember the story of Abraham where Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him for righteousness? And Abraham loved God and trusted God to the point that he was willing to give up his son, his son whom he loved. And what did God do with Abraham? God took him and made his seed that seed in through whom all the families of the earth would be blessed. What does the scripture say about David? Yeah, he had this career. He was a giant killer. He won military victories. But do you realize that on every continent this morning, people are worshiping David's descendant? and that the One who is the Savior of the world is also the Son of Man, the Son of God, and the Son of David, that the genealogy in Matthew chapter 1 is deliberately arranged as three sets of 14, because in the Hebrew numbering system, those three sets of 14 spell D-V-D-David? What's God prepared to do? Or I should say, what is God not prepared to do for someone who will give him his heart, who will give him her heart. God gives and gives and gives to his disciples. He said, you twelve who follow me will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And David says, I've hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. Now, in the verses that follow, the five verses that follow, we have something of a heart test. And have you noticed the bewildering alphabet soup of tests that we have for the heart? You've got the EKG, the EEG, the PET scan, the CAT scan, the ScanScan. You know, they say you need a PET scan. I know that's probably for cancer, but they do all these tests that have a bewildering array of names, and I want to say, it's not my cat who's sick. It's me. I don't need a CAT scan. They have all these tests, or my personal non-favorite, the catheterization. where they send a tube up into your heart, or they put in stents, or they hook up all those leads all over your body to figure out what's going on in your heart, because it's so vital. If you go to get life insurance, they're going to come for your blood. They want to know what's going on in your heart. And they're going to get it down to a science, what's there. Well, Psalm 119 verses 12 through 16 perform an arteriogram, an EKG, a stress echo, and a catheterization all in one to draw out what's going on in our hearts and what is really driving the action in our lives. Look at verse 12 with me. Blessed are you, O Lord, teach me your statutes. Now, that sounds like a kind of an unusual statement, but if you remember where blessed occurred last, it was in verses 1 and 2, where he says, happy is the man who is perfect, blameless, undefiled in the way. Happy is the man who keeps his testimonies. And now he turns it around and says, Lord, blessed or eternally happy. He uses the word Baruch here instead of Asherah. He uses a different word. Blessed are you, O Lord. In other words, you are the source of happiness. You are the one who has what I want. And so, Lord, would you teach me your statutes? Teach me your statutes. Many times our problem is and our approach with God is that we are not teachable. But realize that he says, teach me in this psalm about 10 times. And he says, teach me your statutes no less than seven times. If you'll keep your finger there in verse 11 and verse 12, look at verse 26. He says it again. I've declared my ways and you answered me. Teach me. Your statutes skip down to verse 64. The earth, oh, Lord, is full of your mercy. Teach me your statutes or look down to verse 68. But you are good. You are good and do good. Teach me your statutes or look down to verse 124. 124, deal with your servant according to your mercy. And, there it is again, teach me your statutes. Verse 135, make your face shine upon your servant and teach me your statutes. And then lastly in verse 171, my lips shall utter praise. Why? For you, there it is, teach me your Statutes. Now, statutes are those laws that are inscribed, and it comes from a word that means engraved. Those are those words of God that aren't going to change, those principles that don't ever change. God, I want to know your thoughts. Now, in case you wonder if this is just a philosophy of life for simpletons and know-nothings, this was very much like what Albert Einstein said at the end of his life. Near the end of his life, Albert Einstein said, with something of a different significance, I want to know God and his thoughts. All the rest is just details. He said that in response to a lifetime studying the physical world, where he was in company with Isaac Newton, who really was a Christian, who wrote a commentary on Daniel and Revelation, who in his spare time invented calculus. And Isaac Newton said, if to others I seem great, To myself, I seem like a small boy who has walked along the seashore and picked up a shiny shell and found one shell that was shinier than another, while all the time the whole ocean of truth lay undiscovered before me. Let me just say, that if the God of the Bible exists, if the creator of the universe is someone who can be known, if the one who made all things has made himself available to you, there is no greater foolishness than to wrap your heart around anything else. There's no greater waste of a life than to spend your life knowing some field of human study when the God of the universe says, know me, know my statutes. Maybe that's why he says ten times, teach me, teach me who you are, teach me your statutes. He continues with his heart test, with his battery of heart tests in verses 13. With my lips I have declared all, the judgments of your mouth. Do you hear what that says? My mouth, God, says what your mouth says. You heard about the guy who was questioned about his religious belief. And so, and maybe in our day it would be a senator. The senator asked him, what do you believe? And his response was, well, I believe what my church believes. What does your church believe? Well, my church believes what I believe. Well, what do you and your church believe? The same thing. So this man says, the psalmist says, with my lips, I have declared all the judgments of your mouth. That word declared is an accounting word or a word used of scribes keeping a record. And he basically is saying, God, with my lips, I have recited the record of what you've said. all the judgments of your mouth. I have recited that record. I have declared it. I've enumerated it. I've counted them out. I've given an accurate representation of what you have said. You know, at Scripture Memory, we have two young people who work for us, Dakota and Laura. And they came in single, but they're going out married, as they say about servants in the Old Testament economy. They did not know one another, but they came to work at Scripture Memory and fell in love and got married. And I knew it was serious when Laura changed her Bible quotations from New American Standard to King James. I knew it was serious because she was deeply committed to the New American Standard Translation, and Dakota is deeply committed to the King James Translation. And when at staff devotions one morning, she gave forth an utterance in King James language, I thought, she has adopted the speech of his mouth as her speech for the words of God. She has switched translations. Something major has shifted in her heart. Well, the psalmist says, with my lips, I have declared all the judgments of your mouth. I've gotten your words so that your words have become my words. When my dad was trying to teach me how to preach, and I could see him out there shaking his head just barely many of the times I was preaching, he always told me, and you'll tell me the same thing, that I talked too fast and didn't pause enough. And so every time I preached, it was always, please pause more, plus the other comments that would follow. But many times when he would give these instructions to me, he would talk to me about the necessity of using a lot of scripture when you preach. He said, because that way, even if you are really off, they'll still get something. That way, if you just are really out in left field, if you lay an egg on the pulpit, they'll still have something to take home. And you know, how true is that of our conversation with one another, of our communications of other kinds, of the kind of counseling we do with one another, of the kind of encouragement and exhortation that we give? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what men say, but what does God say about this issue? Yeah, I know the latest polls say this. I know the latest fashion says we have to pronounce the words this way, but what's that in Bible talk? What's that in God's speech? With my lips, I've declared the judgments of your mouth. The heart test continues in verse 14. I have rejoiced in the way of your testimonies, that pathway that's laid out for me in your word. Lord, I've rejoiced in that as much as in all riches. This word rejoiced is used in Isaiah 62, 5, as a bridegroom rejoices over the bride. We saw that joy at the wedding a week ago. that joy that the bridegroom has over the bride when she appears. I have rejoiced in the way of your testimonies as much as in all riches." What we rejoice over tells us a lot about what is in our hearts. Verse 15, I will meditate on your precepts and contemplate your ways. Now, the word contemplate is a word that has its root word, the word to look or to gaze. It's the word that's used of the look that Lot's wife gave to Sodom. when Sodom was destroyed. It's the word that she used of what the children of Israel were to do with the bronze serpent that was lifted up in the wilderness. They were to look at that. They were to contemplate that. They were to take that to heart. He says, I will meditate on your precepts and contemplate your ways. In other words, I'm going to fill my life and my meditation with these words. that tells us what's in our hearts. Verse 16, I will delight myself in your statutes. I will not forget your word. Now, when Pharaoh's butler had his dream interpreted by Joseph, we read that when Pharaoh's butler was restored to his position, he forgot Joseph. He didn't remember the promise he'd made that he would say something to Pharaoh on Joseph's behalf. Well, this is the same term here where he says, I will not forget your word. You know, when you watch the television show, The Price is Right, have you ever seen people rejoice when they get the right price on the car? They just about come unglued. They dance up and down, and they're about to have a spasm of some kind right there on national television. And that same kind of hard attitude is in this heart test that we get from this psalm. So the question that this psalm leaves us with is, what is it that I rejoice over as much as in all riches? You know, for most of us, we rejoice over or we wrap our hearts around something that is far too small. The Bible translator, J.B. Phillips, the English linguistic scholar who wrote, he paraphrased the New Testament. And it was just the New Testament that he paraphrased. It was intended as a translation, but he wrote in contemporary language the New Testament and provided it as a guide for devotion. And as he was writing this book, he wrote, beginning this translation or this paraphrase, he wrote a little book called Your God is Too Small. And he talked about all the defective views of God that people carry around in their hearts. Some people carry around this view of God as just kind of a benevolent old man or as a kind of a cosmic killjoy, the pale Galilean he called him. And all these wrong views of God where their God was too small. Well, when we wrap our lives around inferior things, our God is too small and we find out that those things aren't enough for our hearts. All the things on this earth that we wrap our lives around turned out to be not enough. There's this great line, and again, I don't endorse the theology of the book, But there's this great line in F. Scott Fitzgerald's book, The Great Gatsby, where he talks about the emotion that the Dutch sailors had when they sailed up their little toy boat, their little tiny ship, off Manhattan Island. And Fitzgerald says that when they saw that fresh green branch of the New World, they were face to face for perhaps the last time in history with something, and this is a big word, commensurate with man's capacity for wonder. They looked at the new world. They looked at Manhattan, which was just a big green island where New York City is today. And for perhaps the last time in history, they were face to face with something that was big enough to take up their whole imagination. Well, you know, how often Do we set our imagination on trivial, inferior things and we wrap our heart and our lives around things that fill our hearts and that fill our lives with trivia, with things that ultimately don't profit? What is it, the question comes to us, that we rejoice over as much as in all riches? The question comes to us from verse 15. I will meditate. I will chew on, think about, say to myself, your precepts. What is it that you go around saying to yourself all day long? Because what you put in the center of your heart will affect your whole body. You know, in 1940, the Nazi army was rolling over country after country, and they conquered different countries in different ways. Certain European countries learned that horse-mounted cavalry are no match for dive bombers and tanks. Other countries learned that you can't sit tight behind your bazillion-dollar wall while the tanks go around the end of that wall and outflank you and make your defensive preparations meaningless. When it came to the country of Norway, there was a very different strategy. Norway was naturally a fortress, possessed of mountains and harsh climate and easily defensible mountain passes. And when it came to Norway, the attack came in very different fashion. There was a Norwegian man, and even his name sounds bad. His name was Vidkun Quisling. You know what we call a Quisling now, or you know what Quisling is synonymous with now? Traitor. Because you see, Quisling in Oslo and the other major cities of Norway had secretly infiltrated the Norwegian military establishment. Quisling had paved the way for the invasion of wickedness, for the invasion of the Nazis, so that when the Germans attacked, Quisling and all his little Quislings opened the door and let the enemy right in. They had infiltrated the heart of Norway so that when the attack came, they were defenseless. You see, the same thing is happening in our hearts. The same kind of betrayal is happening in our hearts when we answer verse 15's question with, I spend all day meditating on these things. I've set this in the thicket of my heart. You know, he says in verse 11, your word I have hid in my heart. Did you ever wonder what passages of scripture David memorized? You know, I've met in recent days a couple of people who have it as their ambition to memorize the whole New Testament. And that's beyond me. I'm not one of those people. But I've known a man in Tennessee, and up in Pennsylvania, I met a 19-year-old who is on his way to memorizing the whole New Testament. I met a man in Atlanta who is three books away, and I spent time with another person in Pennsylvania who is two books away from knowing the whole New Testament. You know, as you spend time with these people, you think, wow, that's a lot of work. But I really don't think it's so much a factor of, wow, they've got great brains. I think it's a factor of they have decided to do what verse 15 says and meditate on God's precepts. Now, I'm not suggesting that that is within the reach of all of us here. It's probably quite an act of a gift of God to be able to do that. But they're saying none of God's word is dispensable to me. I want to have it all at my disposal. And so he says, I will meditate on your precepts and I will contemplate. I will gaze at your ways. And verse 16 is the last part of this test that asks us this question, what is it that we are delighting in? This word delight has the idea of something actually that we're so fond of that we actually play with it. We kind of keep it on our lap. It's the word that's used in Isaiah where it talks about how the child will play by the by the snake's den. It's the same word, this idea that there is this delight, this almost playful delight in what God has said. So as we look at this heart test and we have the question that comes to us, how can a young man cleanse his way? We can answer it the same way the psalmist did. We can cleanse our way, we can walk with God by keeping watch on our hearts according to God's word, by setting in our hearts God's word that we might not sin against him. And the result will be, the result will be that when we place that at the center of our lives, what will emerge from our lives is a love for God. Turn with me, please, back to Deuteronomy chapter 6. Most famous verse in Judaism, or the most famous passage, the passage they call the Shema, hero Israel. And there's a connection there that probably was in mind when this psalm was written, or this stanza of Psalm 119 was written. Deuteronomy 6, and pick it up there at verse 4, that in Hebrew says, Shema, hear, O Israel, hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. That's what you were made for, was for your heart to love God with all that you are. Look at the very next verse, verse six, and these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Take these words and put them in the very center place of your heart. Because that's what goes along. That's what is that's what produces and is produced by a love for God. And we'll end where we began. Jesus said, you do not have his word abiding in you because him whom God sent him, you do not believe. But on the flip side, if we love God's word, we will be taught to love God's son. And God will respond to us in that same way that he responded to David and to Abraham. And with David, we can say, I will delight myself in your statutes. I will not forget your word. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you that over and over again, we get warnings from your Word about the path that we're on. Over and over again, your Word makes us wiser than our enemies. Over and over again, your Word teaches us to number our days so that we may gain a heart of wisdom. But Lord, best of all, your Word points to your Son. And so, Father, I pray that, first of all, in all of our hearts, there would be that wisdom unto salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. And I pray that in our children's hearts from infancy, they would know the Holy Scriptures that are able to make them wise to salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. And so, Father, I pray that you would test our hearts with these statements of someone who had sought you with his whole heart. And I pray that at that center place would be a love for you and a love for your word. We pray these things in Jesus name and all God's people said, amen.