Psalm 119 Devotional

Let's go back to Psalm 119 for just a few minutes before Brother Keith comes and if you were here last week you remember we looked at one verse and I asked you to think about it that we were going to split it because I thought it was much too much even in this one verse to take even but a few minutes and look at so go back if you will to Psalm 119 and verse 133 and hopefully if you were here last week or if you heard some of the words that you might remember but let me read this verse again and as I said to you the first part we looked at last week and tonight look at the second part.

So Psalm 119 verse 133 and tonight I'm reading out of the ESV and it says keep steady my steps according to your promise and let no iniquity get dominion over me.

Keep steady my steps according to your promise and let no iniquity get dominion over me.

So if you remember last week I dealt with the first part where the psalmist has this if you will great desire and again I will continually remind us that this psalm as well as all the psalms particularly Psalm 119 is just so full of desire and we need to understand it's the experience of the psalmist as he writes and I said to you that he desired to please God and that's why he has this request if you will that God would keep steady his steps and not only does he have this desire but in order for that desire to be fulfilled he asked God to direct his steps.

In other words to take God's own word and bring it to him in such a way that it will direct his life and those two things kind of go together if you think about it.

In other words if we desire to please God well what's the methodology for pleasing God? What does Jesus say? If you love me you'll keep my commandments.

So if we truly desire to please God then we should truly desire that God would take his word and perfect it in our life so that we would walk according to it.

And I also said to you before we deal with the second part of this I also made mention I want to make mention of it again that I said that the psalmist is continually praying for himself and that some might think well that's a rather selfish thing to do.

Why should I spend so much time praying for myself? And I said to you and I'll say it to you again and I want us to think about it more and more that I believe that praying for ourselves is one of the most unselfish things we can do.

If our desire is to glorify God and if our desire is to walk in his steps then praying for ourself will just really in that way make us more useful to that end of pleasing God.

So that prayer is really prayer for self is not unself it's not selfish I think it's rather unselfish as long as again things from years ago if you remember there was a song that was sung and oh Lord give me a Mercedes Benz and Janis Joplin in a way I'm way off track right now but anyway my point stands that really we ought to be we ought to covet prayer for ourselves that we might be useful to the end of glorifying God.

Okay so now I want us to just think just for a moment about what he says in the second half and if you will my way of thinking the first half was positive and he says he makes that statement about his desire and being directed by God's steps and then the second half where he says and he has the reasoning behind it so that no iniquity would take hold of me so that no iniquity would have and as I read the New King James it says no iniquity would have dominion over me and I want us to just think about that for a minute because I think that that's something that many times could be confusing to some that the psalmist would even mention the fact that he didn't want sin to have dominion over him because the reality is as we have that clear teaching in the New Testament there would be a great issue involved if it were possible if it were possible that a true child of God could be under the dominion of sin right and yet that's the word that's used and translated there so let me read to you just a quick comment of someone who made some comments about that thought about let not iniquity have dominion over me and he says this he said let not any iniquity have dominion over me I had rather be a prisoner to man all my life than be a bondage to sin one day he says not let not this and that man rule over me but let not sin have dominion over me well said there is hope in such a man's condition as long as it is so so what he's saying he's saying he's saying it's better to be under the dominion of everything else than to be captured under the dominion of sin and so we all hopefully are familiar with the great teaching of the apostle Paul in Romans 6 where he says that we ought not let sin reign in our mortal bodies and that we have we've been delivered if you will and Paul in Romans 6 what does he say he says sin shall not have dominion over you so again there are many people who can get very confused in the sense of is it possible to be under the dominion of sin or is it is the psalmist wrong is Paul wrong what's the deal and the deal is simply this the truth is simply this and I'll set it to be forth to you this way and I hope you would agree that the true child of God cannot be under the dominion of sin in the same way as someone who does not know the Savior right and there's qualifications to that because anyone who then says that they do not sin what would we say we call him a liar right and so the epistles of John he deals with that issue but what John lays out especially in his first epistle is that we cannot have this habitual practice of sin there cannot be a continual enjoyment there cannot be a pleasure that we derive from it as we did once before when we were under the dominion of it so as we look at the psalmist they don't want us to think well this must be Old Testament theology and then when Paul comes in the New Testament it's New Testament theology I don't believe that to be true of course we can enter into a whole big conversation about being possessed by the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament versus the New Testament we don't have the time for that right now but I also wanted to stress this to you to think about in his reasons I want to give you six reasons why very quickly why we can't be under the dominion of sin and that when the psalmist says let not iniquity have dominion over me or rule over me it's born out of this great desire to please God it's born out of this great desire to be conformed into the very person that God wants him to be so just think about this real quick very familiar teaching from the New Testament as well as from the Old Testament but think about this number one reason why not necessarily the number one reason but one of the reasons why a true child of God cannot be under the dominion of sin is because he's born again he has life life that did not exist before and so from that very standpoint even in the physical realm once someone is born physically into this world they're alive they're alive when before they were not so we can't possibly be under the dominion of sin the habitual capture of sin the chains of sin the tyranny of sin because we've been born again and certainly Jesus deals with that with Nicodemus number two the reality is we are alive from the dead how could how could in that sense how could death have any more dominion over us since we are no longer dead but we are alive again a very clear example vivid demonstration of the truth that that we are not what we were before we are no longer dead but as Lazarus was raised from the grave so we have been raised and we've been given newness of life and now our desire is not necessarily that we would think of it in terms of I can't do this and I can't do that but it's I don't desire that's why he's again he so desires to be taken over by God's word that he might please God and he might not be captured even for a moment and that's what the quote was that the person like I quoted from said he'd rather be under the dominion of man for his whole life than under the capture of sin for one day now I'm not sure that we are at that point where we could really say that when you think about it okay very quickly the third reason why is is that we cannot truly be captured by sin because we are no longer in darkness we are we are in the light see we've been born again we've been made alive from the dead and now we're in the light we're of the day that's what we are taught we're of the day and not of the night and once you've been delivered from the darkness you're delivered from the darkness you're delivered from the power of the prince of this world so so real solid reasons why you and I need to consider this that we've been delivered from darkness into light and again we're of the day and if you follow through in the epistles that you'll see that thought in the New Testament being of the day and not of the night those that walk in the night are in darkness and they don't know where they're going here's another one to think about we've been translated in that we've been translated from where from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light and there's so much imagery and there's so much teaching that could be that could support that because that's really what happened right we were bound in chains we were slaves to sin we were if you will in the slave market of the evil one and we've been redeemed and purchased from that slave market and translated out of that slave market and now we are in the kingdom of his son again it's not possible for us now again fallen to sin absolutely be overcome by sin at times absolutely and even as we have those examples and David certainly would be a great example of that with his sin with Bathsheba as well as many others and let me just end it with this here's to me one of the clearest and most comforting truths of all is that what was the very promise of God in sending his son that he would take out the heart of stone and put in a new heart a heart of flesh so you see again does it mean that we can't stumble we will stumble all you got to do is look at your own life for about half a second and you realize that look at the life of Peter look at the life of the disciples but we've been we've been given new hearts it cannot it cannot be that that we could ever be captured by by sin again so that's why I say to you as you read the Psalms and you read Psalm 119 as you read the expressions enter in if you will spend time with the verses don't don't just don't do it devotionally this might try I might try to be giving you a devotion but I don't mean it for you just to just to say well we had a devotion take your time with it read the Psalms take them apart let it let it work on you let it work in you let it work in your life and I'll leave you with this you remember what what the psalmist said in Psalm 139 he says this he says search me oh God search me oh God know my heart try me know my anxieties see if there is any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting again oh God direct my steps guide my path be a light unto my feet a lamp in my life that I might follow your steps that I might not sin against you there is no greater it ought not to be any greater desire on our part than that and to put away sin in our own life so may God help us.