The Comfort of the Word

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Well, I'm very honored and excited to welcome our final speaker at this conference, and I want to share just a short introduction about him from my own experience with him.
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When I was going through the time where God was leading me through a broadening of my theology.
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I always hate it when people say they were converted to Calvinism.
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We were broadening of our theology, if you will.
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And I was introduced to something called the Founders Ministry, and they were the ones who were trying to bring back the foundations of the Southern Baptist Church.
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The founders of the Southern Baptist Church were very reformed, and there was a conference down in Clearwater, and it was hosted by Pastor Kreloff's church.
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And I had never heard of Steve at that time.
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In fact, most of the speakers, Roy Hargrave was the one I knew, and I went down to hear him speak, and Pastor Kreloff preached, and it's the one message that really, it showed me, and I don't want to embarrass him, but it showed me what, at that time, what expository preaching was supposed to look like.
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I'd never heard anyone break the word down quite as clearly, and he had a little book called Expository Preaching, and how many of you have ever heard me say, from the congregation, you've heard me say, all expository preaching is, is read the text, explain the text, apply the text.
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You've all heard me say that? Read the text, explain the text? He's the one who taught me that.
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That's in his book, and as simple as that is, it's the most profound thing, and it has been very encouraging in my ministry, and I've even used that little book to teach a class on preaching here at our church.
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So Steve has had a great influence here, one that he didn't even realize.
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So I'm thankful to have him here tonight, and excited to hear him bring an exposition of Psalm 119.
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I didn't know all that, and so I'm very honored and humbled by that, and I'm just honored and humbled to be here amongst all of you.
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Thank you for your kindness extended to myself, my wife, Michelle.
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We've so enjoyed your fellowship, and for those who prepared food for us and served us, thank you.
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That's a behind-the-scenes ministry, but we appreciate it, especially having gluten-free food for us.
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Thank you.
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You have loved us, and we've made new friends, and we are so privileged to be here.
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Well, several months ago, I believe I shocked my congregation when I announced to them that I was going to preach through Psalm 119, verse by verse.
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See, as our brother H.B.
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told us earlier, Psalm 119 contains 176 verses.
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It contains 315 lines.
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Just by somewhat of a perspective here, this Psalm alone is longer than 30 entire books of the Bible.
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In size, it is the equivalent of 22 Psalms of average length.
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No wonder it's been called the Mount Everest and Grand Canyon of the Bible.
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Over the centuries, evangelical Bible teachers have tried to somewhat express the massiveness, the unparalleled massiveness of this Psalm.
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They have tried to do justice to this giant amongst the Psalms.
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For example, it was Spurgeon.
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In his Treasury of David series, he devoted 349 pages to this one Psalm.
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Charles Bridges wrote 481 pages on Psalm 119.
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Listen to this.
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Thomas Manton, the Puritan, wrote three volumes on this one Psalm, with each volume consisting of 500 to 600 pages.
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But I want you to know, it isn't merely the size of Psalm 119 that is so impressive.
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It is the subject matter of these 176 verses that have made it a treasure for God's people over the years.
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As you know, Psalm 119 is about the written word of God.
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Scripture is the primary topic of this Psalm, with every single verse with very, very few exceptions speaking about the Bible.
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Using a number of synonyms, and I believe H.B.
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mentioned this this morning, words like law, word, commandment, statute, judgment, precepts, ordinances, testimony, way, and path, the writer makes sure that God's word dominates his Psalm and that it's the focal point, it's the central issue that makes up the substance of what he has to say.
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It's about the word of God.
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And the reason for this is because the word of God dominated his life.
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The word of God dominated the Psalmist's life.
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Notice the role that he says the word had in his life.
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I'm just going to pull out some verses by way of background.
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For example, verse 147, it's hardly imaginable that one would even say verse 147, but yes, verse 147, he says, I rise before dawn and cry for help.
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I wait for your word.
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So he's telling us before daylight, he's awake.
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He's awake and he's looking to the word of God.
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He's up.
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He's awake.
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He's looking for God's word.
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Verse 148, he says, my eyes anticipate the night watches that I may meditate on your word.
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So he tells us he's up before daylight, looks for the word.
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At night, he's meditating on the word of God.
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Verse 164, seven times a day, I praise you because of your righteous ordinances.
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So seven times a day, he praises God for his word.
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So this man is one who obviously loved the word of God and was passionate for it.
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It dominated his life.
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It ruled his life.
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The question is, who was he? Who was this man? Well, if you look above in your Bibles, the heading or the superscription that comes with Psalm 119, you'll see that there is no heading.
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There is no superscription, which means that we have not been told.
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We really have no clue as to who wrote this psalm and what time period during Israel's Old Testament history was this even written.
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Now, there's a lot of speculation on who wrote this psalm.
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There are a lot of men who are sure that David wrote it.
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Others would suggest other men, but only God knows the author of this psalm.
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And all that really matters is that he was inspired by God and what he wrote then was authoritative scripture breathed out by God.
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But I want you to know while we haven't been told the identity of this man, who he was, there are many things about him that he tells us in this psalm that tells us information that's pertinent.
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For one thing, whoever he is, he is a high-profile individual.
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We know that because he mentions that he is opposed by rulers.
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He speaks of princes.
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He speaks of kings.
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For example, in verse 23, even though princes sit and talk against me, your servant meditates on your statutes.
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So you have these princes, whoever they were, I think they were probably Babylonian princes, chieftains, but they sat around talking about him.
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It must have been important.
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Verse 46, he says, I will speak of your testimonies before kings and shall not be ashamed.
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So he had access to kings.
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He was somebody significant.
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Secondly, it may very well be that our writer is a young man because there are, as you know, a number of statements that seem to indicate that he might be young.
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For example, verse 9, how can a young man keep his way pure by keeping it according to his word, to your word? Verses 99 and 100, I have more insight, and we went over this earlier, I have more insight than all my teachers for your testimonies are my meditation.
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I understand more than the aged because I have observed your precepts.
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Now, there are many who are ready to conclude that he was a young man, but we have to keep this in mind.
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The fact that he speaks of a young man, speaks of his teachers, speaks of the aged, it doesn't necessarily prove that he was young.
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He might have been, but not necessarily.
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It's obvious that the author could not have been an old man when he wrote this psalm.
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Why do I say that? Because he says that he understands God's word more than those who are old, more than the aged, which means he doesn't put himself in that category.
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So he's not old.
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But it's very possible that he wrote Psalm 119 as a middle-aged, mature man who, upon looking back at his life, wanted to impress upon those who were still young the critical lesson that the only way that they could maintain their moral purity is by obedience to the word of God.
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And those teachers that he says he has more insight than, well, they may not be his present teachers.
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He doesn't say they're his current teachers.
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It's possible that he's referring to those rabbis who once taught him when he was their disciple, when he was a young man.
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Regardless of this man's physical age, we can see by what he writes that he is someone who has spiritual depth, mature, godly character.
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There's a certain breadth and wisdom about him because of his knowledge and experience with the word of God.
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And you know what, folks? That is highly significant because, listen closely, what has brought him to this point of spiritual maturity, this depth of character, this profound insight that he has, this experiential knowledge of the word of God, is that he has suffered so much.
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He suffered so much.
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See, his circumstances were absolutely horrendous.
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And it's precisely his terrible circumstances that convinced me several months ago that I needed to preach to my congregation each verse of this psalm.
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For the last several years, I have been preaching through the psalms.
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My original plan was only to preach the first 41 psalms, the psalms that are specifically attributed to David.
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There are five books of the psalms.
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The first one, all David's psalms.
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But then I decided I would add several other select psalms to the study because I felt they were so significant that to leave them out would be wrong because I'm only passing through this place once in my life.
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So I started preaching some other psalms.
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And then I was thinking about, how do I close this series? What do I do? What should I preach on? So I initially thought that I would end the series by doing a brief survey of Psalm 119, but certainly not the whole psalm.
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In fact, I remember saying to my son, no, I wouldn't dare do the whole psalm.
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I thought, you know, it's so long, and I feared that it might become just a wearisome and tedious study to my people.
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But I felt that way only because I assumed from my very limited understanding of Psalm 119 that it was simply about the Word of God in a general sense, sort of like an advanced course you might have in Bible college or seminary on bibliology, the study of the Bible.
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I thought it would be, you know, just factual information about certain features of Scripture.
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Now, I love teaching about those features of Scripture, that the Bible is inspired, that it is inerrant, that it is authoritative, that it is sufficient.
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But I felt that if I took up all 176 verses and spoke on just the sheer facts and features of Scripture, that just by repetition alone my congregation would grow bored and just tired of it.
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But then, then I discovered that Psalm 119 is not about the sheer facts of Scripture, nor is it merely a bunch of repetitive information on general stuff, general information, statements about the Bible.
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Here's where we're at.
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Psalm 119 is about this man, whoever he was, this author of the Psalm, who is struggling in his life.
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And how he deals with his struggles, note this, how he deals with them is by the Word of God.
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So what are his struggles? Well, as you read this Psalm, you see that he's being persecuted for his faith.
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He's being persecuted by those princes who have authority over him.
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He mentions them, and I told you, I lean to thinking that he is part of the Jewish exile.
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He's now in Babylon, and these are Gentile chieftains who ruled over the Jewish people during the time of Israel's captivity.
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He's being ridiculed.
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He's being taunted.
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He's being held in contempt for what he believes.
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He's being slanderously lied about.
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If you look, for example, at verse 22 and 23, take away my reproach and contempt from me, for I observe your testimonies.
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Even though princes sit and talk against me, your servant meditates on your statutes.
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If you look at verse 51, the arrogance utterly deride me, yet I do not turn aside from your law.
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If you look at verse 69, he says, the arrogance have forged a lie against me.
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With all my heart, I'll observe your precepts.
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So he's slandered, he's being held in contempt, he's being mocked, and it even looks like his persecutors were attempting to shame him into giving up his faith.
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Why do I say that? If you look at verses 36 and 37, interestingly, he says, incline my heart to your testimonies, not to dishonest gain.
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Turn away my eyes from looking at vanity, and revive me in your ways.
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Apparently, it appears that these persecutors of his are trying to lure him away from his faith in God.
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He's a Jew who believes in the God of Israel, he's a Jew who believes in the scriptures.
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It seems like they're trying to lure him away from his faith by tempting him with some opportunity to make some big money.
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He says he doesn't want to do dishonest gain.
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It would appear it involves some type of idolatry, which he deems as worthless and vain.
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In other words, he's being tempted to compromise his faith.
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And it tells us, he tells us about himself, he's struggling not only with outside forces, he's struggling within.
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Look at verse 5, his own personal obedience to God.
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All that my ways may be established to keep your statutes.
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He understands the wickedness of his heart.
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He's struggling like all of us.
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We can relate to a guy like this.
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In addition, he's struggling with the fear that he might be killed.
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Verse 17, deal bountifully with your servant that I may live and keep your word.
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He says not only here but several other places that it looks like these princes have dug pits for him and they want to kill him and throw him in it.
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So, his life is being threatened.
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And aside from all of this stuff going on, he tells us he is extremely down, he is disheartened.
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Verses 25 and then 28, my soul cleaves to the dust.
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Think about that.
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I'm on the ground.
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My soul cleaves to the dust.
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Revive me according to your word.
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He says in verse 28, my soul weeps because of grief.
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Strengthen me according to your word.
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So, this man is disheartened, he's down, he's in need of comfort.
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That's his situation, he's persecuted.
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He's tempted to abandon his faith in God.
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He's tempted to just walk away.
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He's fearful for his life.
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He's heartbroken, he's grief-stricken.
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But, watch this, because it is these dire circumstances that he found himself in that he does something about it.
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He does something that every believer in Christ must do if we're to endure those severe trials and troubles in life.
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And that is to know God's comfort in the midst of our struggles.
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And how do we know God's comfort? This man strengthens himself by turning to and meditating on and delighting in the word of God.
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I've been a pastor for a long time, over 35 years.
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I've lived long enough to know that God's people are always in need of comfort.
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Always in need of comfort because life can just be so very hard, so very painful.
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Much of the ministry of a pastor is devoted to helping his people get through the struggles of life.
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Life is tough.
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Everybody has heartaches.
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Everybody has griefs.
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Everybody has pain.
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There's the pain that comes simply because we are fallen creatures living in a fallen world.
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We have this in common with everyone.
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We understand the experience of sickness and ill health and grief that goes with losing a loved one to death.
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We know the pain of conflicts and heartaches and disappointments and stresses and pressures and all of that.
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And for believers in Christ, in addition to all the infirmities that come from being sinners in a fallen world, we also have something the world doesn't have.
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We have spiritual battles we face, don't we? And battles we sometimes lose with temptation and persecution and struggles with our own sin and God disciplining us in our lives.
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So life is tough.
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Well, life was very hard, very painful for the psalmist, for the writer here, but he knew that there was comfort for him in the word of God.
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So he specifically devotes an entire stanza.
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There's 22 stanzas in this psalm.
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One in particular is devoted to teaching us about the comfort that God has for his troubled children.
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When Keith told me what my assignment was in terms of topic and principle in preaching tonight, he said, we'd like you to speak on the precision and passion of the word of God.
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So I decided after thinking about it and praying about it, I would let the psalmist tonight teach us about precision and his passion for the word of God.
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Because with precision and passion, this man tells us that the only place in the world where we can ever find true and lasting comfort is in God's word.
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And that brings us to our study tonight, verses 49 through 56.
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He says this, remember the word to your servants in which you have made me hope.
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This is my comfort in my affliction that your word has revived me.
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The arrogance utterly deride me, yet I do not turn aside from your law.
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I've remembered your ordinance from of old, O Lord, and comfort myself.
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Burning indignation has seized me because of the wicked who forsake your law.
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Your statutes are my songs in the house of my pilgrimage.
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O Lord, I remember your name in the night and keep your law.
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This has become mine that I observe your precepts.
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Now, I just want you to notice from these verses that the psalmist testifies that it is the word of God that has been his comfort.
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He specifically says that during these very difficult times in life, God's word has comforted him.
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Two times he explicitly states that in these verses.
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Verses 49 and 50, which should be taken together, he states it, and then in verse 52.
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But you know what, even when he doesn't overtly, doesn't explicitly say that the scriptures have comforted him, he states it in other ways.
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For example, in verse 54, he says that he sings God's statutes, and I love this, in the house of my pilgrimage.
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Which implies that he does this to comfort himself during his earthly journey.
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In other words, as an alien, a non-citizen living in a foreign land, that's why I say I think he's in Babylon when he does this.
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Living in a foreign land, lonely, out of step with the citizens of that world.
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God's words, he tells us, have become the songs that fill his heart and comfort his soul.
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And then in verse 55, he says that during the night, when he finds that he just can't sleep, it's God's name.
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And I take it implied in, it's his word that comes to his mind, apparently bringing him comfort.
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So I take it that from beginning to end in this stanza, and this is the seventh one, that it is devoted to emphasizing one primary truth, a singular truth.
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That if you want comfort from your sufferings and in your sufferings, if you want consolation in your heart, if you want calmness for your troubled soul, you will find it in the word of God, and only in the word of God.
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Here's the way the psalmist presents this truth.
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He does it by telling us that the word of God meets his deepest needs and carries him through his greatest difficulties.
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Tonight, we have the privilege of sitting at the feet, this man's feet, and we want to learn from him.
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Not only that the word of God is sufficient to comfort us, which he tells us that, but watch this.
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He's going to tell us and reveal to us how it comforts us, how it works.
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Because in these verses, the psalmist explains that the word of God comforts us in three very specific ways.
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The first one is this, God's word comforts us by giving us hope, gives us hope.
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Verse 49, he says, remember the word to your servants in which you have made me hope.
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Now, the psalmist opens this section, this stanza, with a prayer request of the Lord.
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And by the way, it is the only prayer request in this entire stanza.
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What he's asking the Lord to do is to remember his word to him.
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The word, he says, that gives him hope.
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Now, let's stop here for a moment and consider something, because this statement raises a number of questions which have to be addressed if we're to understand what the psalmist meant by his prayer.
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First of all, it raises the question of why is he asking the Lord to remember his word? Has God forgotten his word? Does this mean that the Lord has failed to somehow recall something that he needs to be reminded of? Not at all, not at all, because you know this, and I'll just remind you that scripture makes it abundantly clear, God is omniscient, he knows everything.
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There's nothing he doesn't know, and he can't, therefore, he cannot forget anything.
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David told us this in Psalm 139, verses 1 through 4, O Lord, you've searched me and known me.
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You know when I sit down, when I rise up, you understand my thought from afar.
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You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and you are intimately acquainted with all my ways.
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Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it.
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The psalmist says that God knows all about us.
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Even before we speak, he knows what we're going to speak.
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Even before we live out those details, he knows it.
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So, in being omniscient, he's not capable of forgetting anything.
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So, why then does the writer of Psalm 119 ask God to remember his word, if forgetfulness isn't even possible with God? Listen closely.
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When the Bible speaks of God remembering something, it has to do with him paying attention to something, to working on behalf of someone, in the sense of doing what he said he would do, blessing them, doing good to them.
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For example, we read in Genesis, God remembered Noah.
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God remembered Noah and delivered him, meaning that God took note of Noah, and he blessed him by delivering from the flood, just as he said he would.
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We also read that God remembered Rachel, and God remembered Hannah by enabling them to conceive and to bear children.
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And there are many other statements in the Bible which speak of God remembering someone.
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So, when scripture speaks of God remembering, it's not the same thing as recalling.
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Not at all.
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It simply means that he's working on behalf of his people.
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He's fulfilling a promise he made to them, or he's taking note of them and blessing them.
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Now, in the case of the psalmist then, what he's asking God to remember is his word, meaning some specific promise in scripture that he knows applies to him.
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And he's now asking God to fulfill his word in his life.
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But that raises a second question, which we have to address.
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What specific biblical promise is the psalmist referring to? What's he asking the Lord to remember by fulfilling? What promise? Well, he doesn't tell us.
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He has this in mind, he has something in mind, but he doesn't tell us the specific promise of scripture that he has in mind.
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Which leads us to believe that he is referring in general to God's covenant promise made with the children of Israel, that he would be their God, they would be his people, and he would watch over them, that he would care for them, that he would provide for them, he would deliver them.
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Those are specific promises God made to Israel.
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And what the psalmist is asking God to do then is simply to remember this promise by fulfilling it in his life.
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See, this man is looking to God to do only what God said he would do, care for him, help him, sustain him.
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And that, he says, notice, if you look at the verse, he says, that gives me hope.
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That gives me hope.
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In other words, his hope is in anticipating that God will fulfill his word by coming to his aid to help him in what looked to him like a hopeless situation.
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Now, as we've already noted, this man's situation, it's desperate.
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It's terrible.
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We all have problems, but this guy had really, really serious problems.
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He tells us, and I'll say it again throughout this psalm, that he's taunted, mocked, scorned, held in contempt by his enemies for his faith.
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His life is in constant danger of being snuffed out.
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But in spite of how bad his circumstances are, he says, God's word gives him hope and confidence that the Lord will deliver him.
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And notice, he says, in giving him hope, it comforts him.
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This is his comfort.
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What the word says, verse 50, this is my comfort in my affliction.
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That your word has revived me.
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The psalmist tells the Lord, and he lets us really, we're listening in on his prayer, that the word of God comforts him in his affliction.
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Didn't deliver him at this point from his affliction, but comforts him in it.
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And this affliction being what? Being the terrible situation he found himself in.
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It comforts him, he says, by reviving him.
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And what does he mean by that? Simply means in his gloomy circumstances, the Lord has lifted his spirits.
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It's encouraging to him.
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It's renewed his mind.
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It's strengthened him.
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It's given him energy, excuse me, for his sagging soul.
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He's been down emotionally.
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He's been down even mentally.
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He told us before he was crushed to the ground.
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But the word has given him courage to go on.
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In other words, it's brought comfort to his dejected and beleaguered soul.
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Ladies and gentlemen, the word of God will do the same thing for you.
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The same thing for you.
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It will bring you comfort.
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It will renew your heart when you are down and going through a severe crisis.
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But it will only do this if you do what this man did.
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He trusted.
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He trusted the Lord to keep his promise to him.
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You see, in asking the Lord to remember his word, the psalmist is telling us he believes God.
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He was believing God.
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Believing that God was true to his word, that what he had promised he would do.
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He trusts him to fulfill his promise of deliverance to the children of Abraham, of which he was one.
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Now, we're not Israel, and therefore we don't look to the specific covenantal promises God made with Abraham and his physical descendants to be fulfilled in our lives.
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But there are many promises that God has given to us in the New Testament as church age believers, and we need to embrace those and believe them and be comforted by them, and it's these promises that if you count on them, they will bring great comfort to your heart, regardless of how bad your circumstances are.
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For example, I'm just gonna give you a few.
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God has given you the promise of his peace.
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Promise of his peace, even in the midst of turmoil.
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You don't have to be anxious, because Paul said in Philippians 4, 6, and 7, be anxious for nothing.
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But in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God, and the peace of God, he said, which surpasses all human comprehension will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
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I remember the first time I preached on this, there was a man in our church who came up to me after, he said, can you explain to me about this peace? And I said, no, because Paul said it surpasses all human comprehension.
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I have experienced it at times, but I can't explain it to you.
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That's a promise that God gives to us.
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Remember, Paul wrote this while he was in prison.
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God has also given us the promise of providing for our needs.
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And this promise, I might add, is actually conditioned upon us being generous with others.
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I never saw that until a few years ago.
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It's Philippians chapter 4, and I'll paraphrase the first part of this, starting in verse 15, where Paul says that you, you Philippians, you're the only ones who really cared about my own needs.
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Two times you sent me a gift when I was, I believe it says in Thessalonica, yeah.
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You sent a gift more than once.
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And these were the poor Macedonians he speaks of.
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The Philippians were in that region of Macedon.
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They were very, very poor, what we would say dirt poor.
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And yet they're very generous with Paul.
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And here's the promise that God gives to those who are generous with others.
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He says, and my God will supply all of your needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.
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Hey, if you're having financial problems, then just be generous and trust that the Lord is going to meet your needs.
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He's given you the promise that he will never abandon you under any circumstances.
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Sometimes we feel like God is not with us, but by faith we know that's not true.
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Hebrews 13, 5, make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have.
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For he himself has said, I'll never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you.
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And in the context of Hebrews, these Jewish people were undergoing intense persecution and having things confiscated from them.
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And so he said, remember, God will never leave you, never desert you.
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He's given you his promise that he'll provide a way to overcome any temptation that you face.
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You don't have to give in to temptation.
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You don't have to give in and sin.
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In 1 Corinthians 10, 13, no temptation has overtaken you, but such as is common to man.
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But God is what? Faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also.
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But you'll be able to endure it.
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And God has given you his promise that his grace, meaning his enablement, his strength, will be given to you when you're weak so that you can endure any pain, any difficulty that he might, by his sovereignty, send into your life.
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2 Corinthians 12, I'm not giving anything that you don't know.
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2 Corinthians 12, where Paul speaks about praying that the Lord would remove the thorn from his flesh, whatever that might be, but we know God's answer.
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He said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in what? Weakness, weakness.
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Paul said, I'm well content with weakness, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties for Christ's sake.
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For when I'm weak, then I am strong.
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So, you know what, this is just a sampling of his many promises to you.
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Church age believers, but like a trusting child, you have to believe your heavenly father, you have to appropriate these promises, and in doing so, you'll find great comfort, great hope.
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Because that's what his word does.
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That's what the psalmist said, the Lord comforts us by giving us hope.
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That's a sure confidence that God will do exactly what he said he will do.
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Now, how he'll do it, and when exactly he'll do it, we leave that up to him and his wisdom.
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As the psalmist moves on, he gives us a second way in which the word of God comforts us.
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It not only comforts us, he tells us by giving us hope.
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And by the way, hope is confidence, not, I hope it'll happen, but it's confidence, it will.
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But he comforts us by his word being time tested, time tested.
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Verse 51, the arrogance utterly deride me, yet I do not turn aside from your law.
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Now, notice in these verses, the psalmist tells us something of his affliction, which he just mentioned in the previous verse.
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And what he's doing about it, his affliction, he says, is that arrogant men deride him.
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Which means that his enemies, these men who are filled with pride, they're mocking him, they're making fun of him.
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They're making fun of his faith.
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And as I've suggested to you, it's very likely that the psalmist is one of the Jewish exiles.
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Now living in Babylon, and as such, he was subject to the constant tauntings, mocking, scorning of contemptuous pagan Babylonian men who belittled the Jews, belittled their God as defeated foes, gloated over their nation's conquest and their God's conquest of Israel.
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But in spite of these constant taunts and insults, the psalmist, notice he testifies that he refuses to turn from the law of God.
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In other words, he remains devoted to the scriptures, even as his enemies mock him for believing in them.
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And the way he comforts himself from all the pain that these mockings bring him, he says, is by remembering the word of God.
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Notice what he says in verse 52.
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I have remembered your ordinances from of old, O Lord, and comfort myself.
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Now I want you to look closely at this statement.
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I want you to take note of how he refers to the word of God.
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He calls it your ordinances of old.
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Why does he put it that way? That's an unusual way to put it.
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It's not something commonly found in the psalm.
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Why does he do it? Because he is emphasizing the longevity of the word of God.
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He's emphasizing that it's been around a long time, and during that time, it's been tested.
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It's been tried and tested and proven to be valid and effective.
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In other words, he's saying that the word of God has stood the test of time, because over the years, many individuals have trusted it.
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And they have proven the faithfulness of God in being true to his word.
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Folks, that's precisely what he's saying.
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See, the reason that the psalmist was able to comfort himself by the Bible is because he knew something of history, specifically the history of the Jewish people of Old Testament Israel, and how God had shown himself time and again to be faithful to the sons of Abraham.
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Spurgeon explained the psalmist's sentiments this way.
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He said, the argument is good and solid.
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He who has shown himself strong on behalf of his believing people is the immutable God, and therefore, we may expect deliverance at his hands.
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The grinning of the proud will not trouble us when we remember how the Lord dealt with their predecessors in bygone periods.
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He destroyed them at the deluge.
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He confounded them at Babel.
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He drowned them at the Red Sea.
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He drove them out of Canaan.
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He has in all ages bared his arm against the haughty and broken them as potter's vessels.
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Listen, if you want to experience the comfort of the Bible, then you must know the Bible.
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You must know the word, and you must more than know the facts of the Bible.
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You have to connect the dots of history, biblical history, to your own life.
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In other words, you have to apply the word in principle to your life so that when you read of God protecting and helping his people in the past, you apply this and you take comfort in knowing that the Lord has not changed.
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He'll protect you the same way.
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And pastors, it's our responsibility to help our people to know the word and to apply the word and to help them to connect the dots of biblical history to their own present day lives so that they might be encouraged.
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They might be comforted.
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Isn't this exactly what Paul was teaching in Romans 15, 4? When he said, whatever was written in earlier times, that's the Old Testament, was written for our instruction so that through perseverance and encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope.
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See, it's true the example of Old Testament men and women who learned by trusting the word of God to endure and persevere through all the terrible, difficult times that we have hope and we have comfort.
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What this is saying is if God's word was trustworthy for them, it is certainly trustworthy for us.
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But in addition to knowing the Bible, I encourage you to know something of church history, especially about the great men and women who have weathered the storms of adversity by trusting the word of God.
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In fact, by all of Mike's books.
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When I read about some of the saints of old, especially those men who stood firm for the word of God and especially the doctrines of grace against the opinions and culture of their day, and these men were strengthened by scripture.
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You know what, it not only comforts me, it inspires me.
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Not in the biblical sense of inspiration we learn today, but it inspires me to be true to the word of God regardless of the cost.
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So make it a point to read biographies.
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Yes, history, but biographies.
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Get to know some of the Lord's choice servants who have walked with him and proven the trustworthiness of scripture.
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Men like, and I'll just throw out some of my favorites, men like evangelist George Whitfield.
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You ought to read about this man, incredible, incredible.
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Pastors like Spurgeon and Dr.
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Martin Lloyd-Jones, preaching theologians like Luther and Calvin, missionaries like William Carey and Hudson Taylor.
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Get to know these men and let the Lord use his word to comfort you, because these men proved by the way they lived and the way they died that the Bible was true and could be trusted.
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Now so far, the psalmist has given us two ways.
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That the word of God comforts him.
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Number one, he tells us it comforts him by giving hope, giving hope.
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Secondly, it comforts by being time tested.
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In other words, it's tried, it's proven.
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But in the last few verses of the seventh stanza, the psalmist gives us a third and a final way that the word comforts us.
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It comforts us, he tells us, by its ongoing presence.
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It never leaves us.
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Verse 53, burning indignation has seized me because of the wicked who forsake your law.
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Now the psalmist tells us that burning indignation, he means by this, what we would call righteous anger, has grabbed hold of him because of how the wicked forsake God's word.
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In other words, he's consumed by this holy zeal for God's honor when he sees how the unsaved have turned away and they ignore God's word.
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And how must this have been magnified being in Babylon? He probably saw Jews who turned away from the word, certainly pagans who weren't even interested in it.
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These men, he says, have no regard for the word of God and it causes him to be angry, to be upset because of the way that God's word is just forsaken, disregarded by the unsaved all around him.
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I look at this verse and I say, oh, that I may know something of the same holy anger when I hear the Lord's name taken in vain.
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May we know something of this holy zeal, this righteous indignation, when we see God's word and his standards just disregarded and disdained.
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But in being consumed with such raging hot indignation, you know what? The psalmist needs some comfort.
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This hurts him.
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He needs comfort for the pain that he's feeling and seeing God's holy law just forsaken.
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And where does he find such comfort? Look at the text.
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He finds it in the word.
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Notice what he says in verse 54.
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Your statutes are my songs in the house of my pilgrimage.
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Here's what brings calmness to his burning hot soul.
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This is what comforts him when he is filled with holy anger towards those who defame and forsake the Lord.
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He says it's the word, his statutes, which he tells us they've become his songs.
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While he travels this lonely earthly pilgrimage, the word becomes his song.
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See, what he's telling us is that while it upsets him, when he sees the wicked forsaking God's word, it comforts him to know that the word will never forsake him.
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He knows the word will never forsake and abandon him, and the reason for this is because he says the statutes of the Lord, his word, they've become the songs that he sings so that the word is always with him.
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It's always comforting him, always encouraging him throughout his days on earth, which he calls the house of his pilgrimage.
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What he means by this, I said this earlier, the house of his pilgrimage, is that like a foreigner in a strange land that's not his own, he moves through this world, as we do, out of step with others because of his love for the Lord, his desire to obey the word.
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We go against the grain of our culture, but though he's out of step with others, he's comforted because God's word, he says, is always with him, and it's always with him because it comes to him in the form of songs that he sings as he journeys on.
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Listen, one of the great gifts that God has given us is music.
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There is something very, very special when a song gets in your heart and it sticks with you and you just can't get it out of your mind.
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In fact, even without trying, you find that you've memorized this song.
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If it's a good song, meaning if it has a biblical message, even if it's not the exact words of scripture, but a biblical message, it has the ability to comfort us, to encourage us, to emotionally lift us.
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I love singing the song and listening to it.
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I like the rendition that Sela, the music group, gives it, Be Still My Soul.
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I can't tell you how that song has encouraged me.
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It's wonderful.
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Well, that's what the psalmist is saying, that he had songs that were scripture, just scripture, and he's singing them.
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He's telling us that God's word comforts him as he sings the words of scripture throughout the day.
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In spite of his difficulties, as he travels through this sinful world, the music of scripture just lifts his heart and comforts him, because it is a constant presence in his life.
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Others may forsake the word, but the word will never forsake him.
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It's always with him as he sings it.
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So, you know what? I would encourage you by way of application to, we speak about memorizing scripture, which is the priority, but I would also encourage you to memorize great Christian music, great Christian songs, especially praise songs that are biblically based or made up just of scripture.
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What you'll find is that these songs will always be on your mind, always be on your mind and in your heart.
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They'll encourage you.
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They'll comfort you.
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The Lord will bring them to your mind.
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They'll lift your spirits.
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Do you remember the story from Acts chapter 16? It's a story of the time that Paul and Silas were thrown in jail in Philippi for preaching the gospel.
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Not only were they in jail, we read in Acts 16, their feet were fastened in stocks, which means that their legs were stretched far apart, causing severe cramping.
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Terrible.
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Well, certainly it was a very painful position they were in, and yet we read in Acts 16.25 that they started singing.
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It says, about midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God and the prisoners were listening to them.
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What a comfort it was to Paul and Silas to be able to sing songs of praise to God, no doubt, no doubt filled with scripture, even as they were enduring great pain.
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See, when you have a song of scripture in your heart, you can recall it anytime.
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I know we often speak about memorizing scripture, but this is one way to memorize it, a song of scripture.
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You recall it, and it'll be an ongoing comfort for you.
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In fact, the word's presence is so prevalent in this man's life, the psalmist's life, that even when he can't sleep at night, it's with him and he thinks about it.
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Notice verses 55 and 56, O Lord, I remember your name in the night, and I keep your law.
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This has become mine, that I observe your precepts.
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He tells us that at nighttime, presumably when he finds it hard to sleep, as some of us do from time to time, some more times than others, he remembers the name of the Lord.
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When he can't sleep, he remembers God's name, by which he means his character, of course.
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And we would assume that when he thinks of God's character, he thinks of God's word, because you can't separate the two.
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And that's why he adds that in thinking about God's name, he says he has a renewed commitment to keep God's word.
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And this, he says in verse 56, rather, has become his way of life, to observe the precepts of the word of God.
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Listen, the point that the psalmist is making is that the word of God comforts him by its constant presence in his life.
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It's with him, day and night, as he sings the word during the day, thinks about it during those lonely hours at night when sleep eludes him.
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And I want to tell you, it'll comfort you too.
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It'll comfort you too by its constant presence in your life, because it is the voice of God, the voice of truth, that is always available to you, to encourage you, by reminding you of who God is, and his many wonderful promises.
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So if you're going through a great trial, and if you're not going through a great trial now, you will, then let the word of God comfort you by giving you hope, by its time-tested proven effectiveness, and by its constant presence, never to leave you.
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But, for all of this to be accomplished in your life, you have to know it, by studying it, by reading it, by spending time in it, and by committing some of it to memory, so that you'll have it with you no matter where you are, and no matter how difficult life gets.
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Let's pray.
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Let's pray.
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Lord, we thank you for your word.
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Thank you for revealing yourself through your word.
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Thank you for this psalm, Lord, long though it may be, how wonderful it is.
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Thank you, Lord, for the experiences that this man went through.
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They were tough experiences, but we thank you that you inspired him to write about it.
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Lord, help us to be doers of the word, not hearers only.
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Help us to receive these truths, no matter what anyone here is going through, Lord, no matter how difficult it might be, I pray that they will be encouraged and comforted by what they heard tonight from your word.
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Lord, may we all receive these truths and put them into practice, and know even in the midst of the most severe difficulty in life that your word comforts us.
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May this be our experience.
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We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.