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Psalm 119:89-96
Amen. We're going to be tonight in Psalm 119. You can be turning there. I will start, though, from a passage in Isaiah chapter 9. I don't have like a prepared statement or anything. There's a few comments I want to make.
Like on one hand, on one hand, this is the Lord's Day, and they can have all the political stuff and fights that they want. Today's the Lord's Day. We're going to preach Christ. On the other hand, this is the nation that God has blessed us with.
This is where we live. The Word of God has things to say. From Isaiah 9, verse 13, it says, the people did not turn to him who struck them, nor inquire of the Lord of hosts. I just have a couple of thoughts to mention.
The Lord, time and again, struck the people of Israel. Struck them with providential blows. Struck them with what some would call misfortune, but we know that it came from God's hand. And yet, they did not turn to God.
And I think about our country, and I think about the things that we've been through as a country in the last 20 years, but even you could just say in the last four or five years, the Lord has brought very many providential happenings in our life that should have caused our country to turn to Christ.
And instead, we don't want to, and that's true, by the way, and we don't want to take sides on issues because, you know, we don't want to alienate people or whatever. I think it goes back further than this, but I could even just take the last four, five, six years.
Honestly, the last eight to ten years, maybe. I think that more pastors need to unashamedly be able to say from the pulpit even that everything that the Democratic Party stands for promotes the demise of our country.
Particularly, you think about 2020. They tried to lock down our nation. They tried to lock down churches. They tried to make people feel bad for not wearing masks. They pushed all of these things. You think the rampant push, the Obergefell decision in 2015?
Hey, don't worry about it. Homosexuality, it's only, leave us alone. It doesn't hurt anybody else. And now today, if companies in the month of June don't put up a rainbow flag, they're castigated, right?
They're ridiculed. You think about LGBTQ abortion issues. You think about just the riots in 2020. Cities literally burning to the ground. Liberal media saying things like, oh, it's mostly peaceful protest and stuff like that.
You think, how long are we going to sit and we're going to try to play the middle and say, put things out like this. Hey, you know, we don't need a donkey or an elephant. We need the king or whatever.
Well, that's absolutely true, right, on a surface. But I just want to be unequivocal, and I hope I'm not overstepping my bounds, and I don't think I'm saying anything that Pastor Jacob wouldn't say. But there's not a moral, we've got to stop pretending that there's a moral equivalency between the two parties today.
What I mean by moral equivalency is like, they're both equally bad. That's not true. That's not true. And we can't hold that position. And we have to say no more. Enough's enough. If you want to be affiliated or associated with the Democratic Party, you show yourself, you show yourself outside the will of God as revealed in the scriptures.
Now, I'll say very clearly and very strongly, I am registered as a Republican. I vote in those primaries. But here's the deal. If you think that I'm trying to say from this pulpit that the Republican Party is the answer to our nation, and I'm trying to tell you that the Republican Party is the righteous example that we need to be part of, I'm not saying that.
In fact, I'm saying very clearly, the Republican Party needs to repent. I cannot believe, we ought to be abhorred that they would say that the only thing that they're against now is late-term abortion.
That's wicked. It's absolutely wicked. And to see them compromise their own on LGBTQ issues, here's the issue. Do you understand that the Republican Party today is pretty much the Democratic Party from 30 years ago?
And we should, we should not be okay with that. And we should call our representatives and those in the Republican Party, and we should hold them accountable, and we should call them to repentance and say, we don't want these things.
We want to return to the foundations, the moral fabric that made up this country. And we understand that when this country began, there was a common acceptance that God is the one in charge. When our country wrote the Declaration of Independence, when our representatives wrote the Declaration of Independence, they said things like this, that all men are created equal.
Created, right? Equal. And endowed by their, what? Creator, with certain unenaliable rights. Among these, of course, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I'm not saying everything our country believed and did and has done is infallible and perfect, much that we can repent of.
But our country today has taken a horrible moral downgrade in the last couple of decades. And honestly, brothers and sisters, we've got to be more vocal. We've got to stand up. And because we have the answer, you understand when I say be vocal, you know what I'm saying?
I'm not talking about rioting in the street or shaking our fists. I'm We need to hold our leaders accountable. And we need to tell them that God is going to judge the nation's unrighteousness, and he's going to do it according to this standard.
And so it's time for the people of God in this country to actually be the people of God. Stop riding the fence. Stop halting between two opinions. God is God, and we must serve him. Now, as we come to our text tonight, I believe this leads in just in this way.
The sermon title tonight is Scripture is Boundless and Beautiful. What is our hope in times like these? Our hope is the Word of God and the promises contained therein, the precepts contained therein. The Bible is our hope.
You understand, when we hold up the Bible, so you say like, how can you say that the Democratic Party is abjectly evil? How can you say that? Because I have a standard, right? Morality is not what popularity says it is.
Morality is what God dictates that it is. And so we have a standard. We have the Word of God. Scripture is boundless and beautiful. It's not my desire tonight to unnecessarily ruffle feathers, but the reality is, and I know I'm fairly safe in this pulpit to say these things, but the reality is I think for too long we've played around with nuance and compromise, and we've been afraid to say the hard things and look at where it has gotten us as a country, and look at where churches are today because of these sort of things.
So I'm resolved, brothers and sisters, to stand upon the Word of God and to let it fly. Whatever it says, that's what we're going to do. Psalm 119 verse 89, would you stand with me as we consider that Scripture is boundless and beautiful.
What great hope we have in this text. Forever, O Lord, your Word is firmly fixed in the heavens. Your faithfulness endures to all generations. You have established the earth and it stands fast. By your appointment they stand this day.
For all things are your servants. If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction. I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have given me life. I am yours. Save me, for I've sought your precepts.
The wicked lie and wait to destroy me, but I consider your testimonies. I have seen a limit to all perfection, but your commandment is exceedingly broad. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your Word, and we pray that you would bless us tonight.
Help us, help us, Lord, not to be married to some sort of political system, but help us to be unashamedly bound to the Scriptures, and let us stand fast, and let us preach, and stand upon it, declare your truth to the nations.
We pray, God, that you would bring this country to repentance, we pray, God, that you would cause us to seek Christ, that you would send revival, that we'd stop playing games, that we'd stop riding the fence, that we'd stand for truth, and we pray it all in Jesus' name.
Amen. You may be seated. Okay, the first point tonight. Scripture is boundless and beautiful. The first encouragement tonight is this, God's Word is limitless. That is, without limit, God's Word is limitless.
Verse 89, forever, O Lord, your Word is firmly fixed in the heavens. Verse 90, your faithfulness endures to all generations. You have established the earth, and it stands fast. Verse 96, I've seen a limit to all perfection, but your commandment is exceedingly broad.
In other words, your commandment doesn't have a limit. So God's Word is limitless. First, it's limitless because it endures forever. Verse 89, forever, forever. In our text, it's a common word in Hebrew.
It's used in Genesis 21 when God is called the everlasting God. The same word here in our text is translated not everlasting, but forever. But the point is, God's Word has no limits in time. It endures forever.
Matthew 24, 35, Jesus says, heaven and earth may pass away, but my words will not pass away. Political platforms change. The promises of men fail. The Word of God endures forever. Long after Mount Everest is ground down into a grain of sand, long after the rings of Saturn have dissipated, the Word of God continues on and on and on forever.
It endures forever. Secondly, it endures forever. We're still under the first point. God's Word is limitless. It extols God's faithfulness. Verse 90 says, your faithfulness endures to all generations.
Not only does God's Word endure forever, but it's enduring forever reminds us of the faithfulness of God and that the faithfulness of God endures forever. God is faithful. In every moment, in every time period, we can trust in a faithful God.
We should never, ever, ever, ever, no matter what happens at a political rally. That was a tragic issue that happened yesterday. But we should never lose our hope in God. Because God is faithful. He's faithful to His promises.
He's faithful to His people. His faithfulness is perpetual. That is, it never ends. All things are His servants, verse 91. All things are His servants, but to all mankind is God, but God's, but He's faithful particularly to His people.
Those who cry out to Him are His in a special way, by His grace. Next, the Word of God is limitless because it establishes its own firm foundation. Again, verse 89, forever, O Lord, Your Word, now listen to this imagery, the wording and the imagery, Your Word is firmly fixed in the heavens.
Christian, what is your highest authority, the world says? My highest authority is the Word of God. Why is the Word of God your highest authority? Because the Word of God tells me it's my highest authority.
Aha! That's circular reasoning. That's circular logic. Therefore, your argument fails. Now, let me push back on that. What is your highest authority? Well, my highest authority is logic and reason. Why is logic and reason your highest authority?
Because logic and reason tell me so. Well, that's a circular argument. You understand that any kind of appeal to a highest authority will have as a measure a circular reasoning, but the problem is that's not a problem for the Christian.
It's okay. We believe the Bible is the highest authority that we have because the Bible tells us this, and it is the Word of God, and so the text says that the Word of God is firmly fixed in the heavens.
God will not compromise His Word. Now, the idea here is twofold. First, the Word is firmly fixed, so it stands firm. It cannot be moved, and then this is illustrated by the fact, think about the imagery, it's firmly fixed, not in a hole in the ground, right?
Your Word is firmly fixed in a ten-foot well. No, your Word is firmly fixed in the heavens, and the idea is the heavens are above us. They are over us. We, as it were, stand under the firmly fixed Word of God, and I would add this, both His Word in terms of His precepts, His commands, we stand under that, and then His Word in terms of His decree.
So, let me tell you, it doesn't matter what men say is right or wrong. God's Word is firmly fixed. It does not matter to you if someone says it's okay for a man to be a woman, it's okay for a woman to have a homosexual relationship, it's okay to murder, abate, it's okay to destroy a clump of cells, right?
It doesn't matter what they say because God's Word is firmly fixed. God's moral principles are forever. They don't change. It doesn't matter if men plead ignorance. I didn't know I wasn't supposed to do that.
It doesn't matter. Try that next time you're speeding through town. I didn't know what the speed limit was, right? Ignorance is no excuse for breaking the law. The Word of God is firmly fixed, and it doesn't matter, secondarily, what Satan tries to do, what fallen men try to do.
God's decree comes to pass. His plan prevails. Why? It is firmly fixed in the heavens. So, this should be forever, O Lord, Your Word is firmly fixed in the heavens. This should be a great encouragement to the church.
And let me warn you tonight, it's a reminder that you better not give ground on the Word of God. You must fear God more than man. It's easy. Sometimes that's easy. You're like, well, those people don't think like me.
Anyway, I'll fear God more than you. But sometimes you have issues, like we talked about in the Republican Party. People say, yeah, well, come on, we've got to, it's politically expedient to throw babies under the bus.
It's politically expedient. If we want to win the election, then we have to embrace at least some abortion. No, friends, we not only must stand and repudiate the evils of the Democratic Party, but we also must stand and say, look, that's evil too.
And you must repent. The Word of God is firmly fixed. A church that compromises on the Word of God says that Psalm 119, 89 is false. And we should tremble as such a wicked disposition. The Word of God is firmly fixed.
Let me say this too. If the Word of God is firmly fixed and you pray for me and you pray for Pastor Jacob in this, but if the Word of God is firmly fixed, then why don't we have more firmly fixed spines in the pulpit?
If the Word of God is firmly fixed, then the spines of the men of God must be firmly fixed. Why? Because we preach truth. Pray for us. These are days perhaps that it's difficult to pastor and perhaps it was easier, maybe 30, 40, 50 years ago.
Today, I'm not saying for sure it was, I'm just saying things to think about and we covet your prayers. Another application I might make here is if the Word of God is firmly fixed forever, what more motivation do you need to read through the whole Bible, right?
Read through the Bible. Every word of God proves true. Every word of God is firmly fixed. He's given us not just the New Testament, not just Psalms and Proverbs. He's given us his whole revealed word, Genesis to Revelation.
Read it. And then lastly, in this point, let me just mention that it does enable our fullness. Again, verse 96, it's kind of difficult to translate. I've seen a limit to all perfection, but your commandment is exceedingly broad.
Okay, but listen, think about this. The first part's kind of easy. I've seen a limit to all perfection. All the beautiful things in life have their limits. Children, health, money, popularity only can take a person so far.
But God's Word? So the psalmist is saying it like this. All these things that you think are important sometimes and you think they're going to satisfy you and you're like, if my family, if I get the family right, if all my family would just be home for Christmas or whatever, or if my children will behave, or if I can make this amount of money, or if I can get this kind of truck, or if we can vote this person in as president, if we can just get that, things will be better.
Well, there's sometimes some truth in there, but you need to remember there's a limit to those things. But the point is, the Word of God is limitless. It enables our fullness. Okay, secondly, so first the Word of God is limitless.
Secondly, God's Word is life-giving. It's limitless and it's life-giving. It's life-giving in the sense that it produces creation. Verse 90 says, your faithfulness endures to all generation. You have established the earth.
You have established the earth and it stands fast. How was the earth established? It was established by God's Word. God spoke and the universe came into existence. God made something out of nothing. God brought order out of chaos.
God's Word produces creation. But listen to this, not only does it produce creation, it preserves creation. Verse 91, by your appointment they stand fast. For all things are your servants. So listen very carefully, without God's appointment, the heavens and the earth today do not stand.
God has not wound up the universe and now is watching things unfold. Rather, God is ruling and governing His creation as we speak. He has established rules and order and laws about how things work. This is why tomorrow morning when you wake up, two plus two will equal four.
The atheist wants to say in one breath there is no God, but in the other breath he wants to say two plus two will always equal four. How is that possible? The only way that two plus two always equals four is because we live in a logical and ordered universe, which is not possible without a logical and ordered God standing behind all of it.
So if you run into an atheist, they have no guarantee. If you say, is tomorrow two plus two going to equal four? They have no guarantee. But we know the reason there is order and consistency to the universe is because God has created it, and He's ruling it, and He's governing it.
And He's King. He's King because look what the text says, all things are your servants. The word can be translated slaves. All things are the servants of God. To be very clear here, God has not merely established laws and then watches the universe obey His laws.
Rather, He has established the laws of the universe and actively upholds them, actively involves Himself in His creation. He guides every atom, every molecule, every raindrop to its pre-appointed purpose.
It was amazing yesterday, and I've seen some things today about it. It was quite amazing yesterday that a bullet, we were maybe a quarter inch away from absolute pandemonium and chaos in this country.
You understand that if that bullet goes a quarter inch, maybe even less than that, in a direction closer to Donald Trump, that he dies yesterday. That's how close things were. Now here's what you need to understand.
God can supernaturally do things. He does that. That happens in the world today. But the better way to think about that bullet is to think about before the foundation of the world, God decreed that that would happen in that way, and that bullet hit exactly where its pre-appointed plan was supposed to hit.
That bullet, even in the death, this is difficult for us to grasp, but even in the death of the man yesterday, I don't know which bullet hit the man in the crowd, very tragic situation, very sad, but you need to understand this morning or this evening that all things are God's servants.
All things are God's servants. And that bullet went exactly where it was supposed to go because God is in complete control of this universe. Every molecule, every dust particle, every raindrop, God ordains and is in control of.
And you say, yeah, but what about that death? How do we comfort that family? Well, one way that we would comfort that family is to say, hey, listen, this didn't catch God off guard. God is in control of this.
And guess what? There is no such thing as meaningless suffering. We heard that in this morning's sermon. There's no such thing as meaningless suffering. I don't have all the answers for how things unfolded the way that they did, but I do know this.
The Bible very clearly says that all things are under the controlling hand of God. Where else do you want them to be? Like, I don't understand the pushback on that, on the sovereignty of God. People push back on that.
Well, you're just making every day like, where else do you want the world? Whose hands do you want the world in? You want it in your hands? You'll mess it up. Do you want it in Satan's hands? Well, that would be terrible.
How do we know that tomorrow things would not just catch God off guard? No, all things are in the hands of a sovereign God. But this God is faithful, good, holy, righteous. Don't buck up against the sovereignty of God, embrace it and praise God for it.
God is in control and we give him the praise. Now, the word of God produces creation and it preserves creation. But the word of God also produces recreation. That is, I'm talking about regeneration. In verse 93, the psalmist says, I will never forget your precepts for by them you have given me life.
The word of God brings about our regeneration. The word of God points us this way. Let me summarize it this way. The word of God reveals the law to us that we've offended a holy God and we deserve his judgment.
And the word of God brings about life through the gospel, telling us what Jesus has done. Jesus was always obedient to the law. Jesus, truly God and truly man, born of the Virgin Mary. Jesus fulfilled all righteousness for his people and then he was punished on the cross for our transgressions.
He bore our burden to Calvary. He bore our sins in his body on the tree. The father bruised the son, crushed the son in the place of his people. He died, was buried, he rose again. It's this message. This is the life-giving message that we have.
And this is the message that we have to take. At the end of the day, you have to remember something very, very important. Very important. You, it's obvious which candidate needs to be president of our country.
But you need to be very careful of thinking that if Donald Trump is elected president in November, that our country, all our problems have gone away. That's not true. We are a lost nation. We have wickedness in the streets.
We have rebellion in the hearts of people. And even if Donald Trump is elected, things that the battle is not over, the battle in many ways is beginning all over again. And what solution is there for our nation?
Here it is. The word of God. The gospel of Christ. Stop. We need to have churches that are not afraid to take the gospel to the streets. This is what we've done for years. We've got to make people like us.
And if we make people like us, maybe one day they'll venture into the church. And if they venture into the church, they're not going to hear hard preaching. But maybe over the course of time, at some point, they'll be convinced we'll woo them to Jesus and they'll try him out.
And at some point, they'll become a Christian. Well, what has happened in the church the last hundred years with that kind of strategy? We've compromised. We've been weak. We've been foolish. Friends, we must take the gospel to the streets because it's by the gospel that God regenerates hearts.
We must preach Christ. I'll also mention this. The word of God preserves recreation. It preserves. It creates. It produces creation. It preserves creation. It produces recreation. It preserves recreation.
Verse 92, if your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction. I'm skipping over a lot of things. I know I've taken a lot of extra time and we're taking the Lord's Supper tonight, but listen to me.
You need to know that in your deepest, darkest times, the word of God is what sustains his people. And it keeps us. Okay, finally, let me just mention this. God's word is lovely. God's word is limitless.
God's word is life-giving. God's word is lovely. Verse 92, if your law had not been my delight. Verse 93, I will never forget your precepts. Verse 94, I am yours. Save me for I have sought your precepts.
What is the believer's response to the word of God? Look, there are so many days that I like the end of the day. I asked my kids, Hey, have y 'all read the Bible personally? Have you read the Bible? No.
Well, like what were you doing today? Well, I had to play this. I had to mow. I had to go to like guys, that's not the response. Like we want the word of God. We want the word of God. The believer's heart is we want the word of God.
I've gotten in trouble before for saying that believers should in the West, particularly should be reading the Bible every single day, every day. Why? You have time. You have time. Most days that you don't read the Bible, it's not because of something that happened.
It's because of lack of priority. Right now, obviously there are probably, if you're in a coma, like I didn't read the Bible, am I a Christian? I understand there's providential hindrances. Things come up.
Pastors should be reading the Bible every day. If we're not reading the Bible every day, we shouldn't be standing in this pulpit. Why? We love the Bible. This is not being legalistic, right? This is preaching the reality of a person's heart when it comes to the word of God.
We love the Bible. We savor it. It's boundless and it's beautiful. It's lovely. We want the word of God. It's our delight. We seek it. This is the boundlessness and beauty of the scriptures. I've been all over the place tonight.
Forgive me for that, but I hope that you've gotten some encouragement from this passage. Now we're fixing to go into the Lord's Supper, and I will pray for us. I remind you tonight of the wonderful gospel that the word of God gives us.
There are some in here, children. I know there are some children. Perhaps there is among the adults. Do you know Christ? The word of God promises not just good things, but also, it also promises punishment for those who reject Christ.
As we prepare to take the Lord's Supper, consider your own heart. Consider the gospel, the good news of what God has done for us in Christ. Repent and believe it, and let us hold fast to the beauty and boundless scripture.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We pray as we enter now into this time of worship by partaking of the Lord's Supper, that you would be with us, encourage us, strengthen us.
