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Reading Psalm 119 where the Scriptures express joy for the law of God, and how it shows us the way the Lord wants us to go. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!
Oh, how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day. Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. Two very popular verses in Psalm 119, when we understand the text.
This is when we understand the text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the word. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, we feature New Testament study, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and our Q and A on Friday.
Now here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.
Thank you, Becky. We've been in Psalm 119, and we're about halfway through the Psalm now. So picking up at the letter Mem, this is verses 97 through 104. Oh, how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day.
Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the aged, for I keep your precepts.
I hold back my feet from every evil way, in order to keep your word. I do not turn aside from your rules, for you have taught me. How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth. Through your precepts, I get understanding.
Therefore, I hate every false way. That's an interesting way that we conclude the section of this particular portion of Psalm 119. We begin with how I love your law, and we end with, therefore, I hate every false way.
And then everything else that falls in between there. So, starting with really a verse that is thematic to Psalm 119. When we started our study of this psalm, I mentioned to you that this is a love song to God for his law.
And verse 97 really kind of encapsulates that. Oh, how I love your law. I love your law. It is my meditation all the day. Meditating on and loving the law of God. That's not very common, especially among modern day evangelicalism, for a Christian to say that they love the law of God.
But indeed, we should. Too many of us are kind of stuck in Romans 6, where it says, well, I'm under grace. I'm no longer under the law, I'm under grace. That means you won't be judged by the law. But it does not mean we don't love the law.
It doesn't mean the law no longer applies to us. How do we know what we are to do that is pleasing in the sight of God? If we don't look into his law, which is a revelation of the righteousness of God and his will for us.
How do we live in a righteous way? We do so according to his law. Jesus saying to his disciples in John 14, 15, you will show me that you love me when you obey my commandments. In 1 John, it says that sin is lawlessness.
So how do we keep ourselves from lawlessness? By knowing what the law is and doing according to what God says. So we love God's law because it is a revelation of who he is and his character. And we desire to keep his law because we want to please our God.
God who has saved us, who has sent his son to die for our sins, who has risen again from the grave so that whoever believes in him, we will have everlasting life. How do we know the mind of God? We know it according to his word, looking into his law, how to please him, walking according to his statutes.
We love his law because we love God. And so hence this statement in verse 97, how I love your law, it is my meditation all the day. And it should be for us as Christians. It was no different to the Old Testament faithful a thousand years before the cross as it should be to us 2000 years after the cross.
We are still walking in the righteousness of God according to his word, those who love God. Now where it says that his law is my meditation all the day, consider that at the time that this was written, people just didn't have scrolls sitting around in their living rooms or near to the dining room table.
So whenever we all sat down to eat, dad grabs the scroll and rolls it and reads the word of God. That's not the way the word of God was communicated to the people. In Old Testament Israel, like in the camps, it was communicated to the people on the Sabbath.
It was a time to hear the word of God proclaimed and to meditate on his word. Then it was proclaimed in the synagogues when you had the building of Israel, the establishment of their cities in the promised land that God had given to them.
Of course, you would have the reading of the word of God in the temple when it was constructed and people would commit these words to memory. They would memorize them. You've probably heard it said about Jewish history that a boy would have the entire Torah or the first five books of the Old Testament, the law.
He would have the entire Torah memorized by the time he was 13 years old. That's more Bible than you have memorized. That's more Bible than I have memorized. So they would commit those things to memory and then they would meditate on them, trying to understand what they said, how these words apply, how I live them out in my everyday life.
This is meditating on the word of God. More forced into that position of meditating when you don't have a scroll anytime that you just wanna unroll it and read it. So you're certainly put in the position of having to meditate upon it a little more often when you want to think about the word of God or hear it proclaimed.
And so that was definitely a more applicable instruction in Psalm 119 than we probably find the application for it today. Our meditating on the word of God would be, pull out your Bible, open it up and read it, right?
So here, how I love your law, it is my meditation all the day. And remember that earlier in Psalm 119, we had read your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. I will hide God's words in my heart that I may not sin against you.
So this is meditation. It is memorizing God's word for the purpose of meditating on it and applying it and living according to it. So I love your law, it is my meditation all the day. That our very thoughts would be governed by the word of God that we commit ourselves to and study.
Verse 98, your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies for it is ever with me. The word of God that is ever with us. If you apply yourself to it, if you apply it to your heart, it will always be with you, it will always be near you.
No one can ever take the word of God from you though they clear your shelves of all your Bibles, you still have God's word near to you because it is the words that have been written on your heart that you studied and memorized.
That's why it's so important for us to do more than just read it, but apply these words to our minds that we may remember it and live by it. Verse 99, I have more understanding than all my teachers for your testimonies are my meditation.
God's word teaches us constantly even when we don't have teachers there to give us more depth than we probably recognize about the word. You are perfectly capable of reading God's word and studying it and applying it.
It's great to have teachers and we need those teachers. Ephesians 4 .11 says those teachers are a blessing to the church. Your pastor is a blessing to your church, a God-given blessing to you to build up the saints for the work of ministry as it goes on to say in verse 12.
So there's definitely a need for teachers and the New Testament even tells us over and over again to submit to the authority of those teachers. God has appointed them to the positions that they have to lead and to guide you for your benefit, for your good to build you up.
Do not make this difficult for him for that would be of no advantage to you. It says such in Hebrews chapter 13 verses seven and 17. So you're gonna have teachers that you must listen to, follow their instruction, but God's word is perfectly instructing you as you go your way, even when there's not a teacher with you to guide you in that.
Submit yourself to the Holy Spirit, ask him to give you wisdom as it says in James 1 verse five, whoever lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all generously without reproach. I have more understanding than all my teachers.
That's God's word. If you have God's word, if you are applying it to your life, written on your heart, memorized in your mind, you already have more understanding than any of your teachers have. It is God's word that is that understanding for your testimonies are my meditation.
Verse 100, I understand more than the aged for I keep your precepts. Now the literal rendering of that word is elders. I understand more than the elders, but it's not talking about the elders in a church.
It's talking about those who are seasoned, experienced, those that you tend to look up to in a community because they've been through more life. They can guide you in experience more than you have understanding of because you haven't experienced those things.
And yet the person who commits to themselves an understanding of the word of God says, I understand more than the age for I keep your precepts. The most seasoned experienced individual cannot give you the wisdom and knowledge that you can glean from God's word.
Verse 101, I hold back my feet from every evil way. In order to keep your word, how do we keep God's word? By obeying what it says. And when I obey what God has said in his law, according to his commandments, according to his precepts, I am kept from every evil way.
I am held back from going in the direction of the wicked. Verse 102, I do not turn aside from your rules for you have taught me. What God teaches us is greater than any instruction that we receive in this world.
So it is God who guides us in our understanding. Yes, you're gonna have teachers, Sunday school teachers, pastors, mentors, listening online like this, listening to a teacher explain to you the word of God, such great Bible teaching programs that are out there.
So yes, you're going to have teachers, but ultimately your understanding of the word of God is gonna come from the Holy Spirit who illumines this to you. The Holy Spirit is gonna work through those teachers who help guide you in this, but it's all according to God's word.
God is the one who ultimately teaches us. The Apostle Paul talks about this with the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 3, where he says that I planted and Apollos watered, but God provides the growth. So there are going to be people that God uses to preach the word, plant the seed, build up the church, according to the preaching of the word of God.
That's growing the church up in love. It is growing one another in sanctification. And as Jesus prayed in John 17, 17, it is by the word of God that we are sanctified, grown in holiness. So God uses people to do this, but ultimately as Paul highlights there, God is the one who provides the growth.
So God is the one who teaches us even through the teachers we are given. God is the one who teaches. Therefore I do not turn aside from your rules. I walk in righteousness for you have taught me. How sweet are your words to my mouth, to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth.
You know, in Ezekiel and then again in Revelation, Ezekiel eats a scroll and it is both sweet and bitter to him. John does the same thing in the book of Revelation. He eats a scroll and it's bitter to his taste.
And it's also sweet to his taste. And the reason for that is because the scroll has written on it, both salvation and judgment. So the salvation is sweet, the judgment tastes bitter because there are gonna be souls who are gonna be saved, but there are also souls that are gonna be destroyed by the judgment of God.
Here, the psalmist is meditating upon the salvation of God. That's what we had in the sections previous you had in Psalm 119, 89, forever, oh Lord, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens. I am yours, save me for I have sought your precepts.
And before that in Kauf verse 81, my soul longs for your salvation, I hope in your word. So what the psalmist is meditating upon is the salvation of God. Therefore it's just nothing but sweet. How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth.
And for the Christian, that's gonna be the case. We have nothing to fear of the judgment of God for it is in Christ that we are saved from God's judgment. And we are given a share in the heavenly kingdom of which we have been made heirs with Christ.
So your words are sweet to my taste since they are my salvation, sweeter than honey to my mouth. Through your precepts, I get understanding. Therefore I hate every false way. And again, that's the way we end.
We started with, I love your law. We end with, I hate every false way. Hate is not the opposite of love. For in order to properly love, you must also hate. I love good, therefore I hate evil. I love children, therefore I hate child abuse.
I hate abortion. I love my wife, therefore I hate adultery. And I'm not gonna go in any kind of direction that would be cheating on my wife, that would compromise our marriage vows because I went against my commitment to love her and no other.
So I'm gonna hate every false way. I'm gonna love those things that are good according to what God has said in his word. Next section is noon. This is verses 105 to 112. Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
I have sworn an oath and confirmed it to keep your righteous rules. I am severely afflicted. Give me life, oh Lord, according to your word. Accept my freewill offerings of praise, oh Lord, and teach me your rules.
I hold my life in my hand continually, but I do not forget your law. The wicked have laid a snare for me, but I do not stray from your precepts. Your testimonies are my heritage forever, for they are the joy of my heart.
I incline my heart to perform your statutes forever to the end. This is a very popular verse, verse 105, that you've probably memorized from the time you were a kid. You heard me quote it once already.
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. Your words guide me. I am guided by the word of God. I know the way that I should go. I know God's will for my life because I read about it in your word.
I have sworn an oath and confirmed it to keep your righteous rules. I talked about a vow just a moment ago. The oath that we commit to God when we commit ourselves to following Christ is to keep his righteous rules.
The righteousness that we have is a righteousness that has been given to us by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. But if we have that righteousness, we desire to walk in a righteous way. And what does that righteousness look like?
We read about it in the word of God. Verse 107, I am severely afflicted. Give me life, O Lord, according to your word. It is God's word that gives us life. Romans 10, 17, faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.
And this faith is a saving faith for it is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ who has risen from the dead and gives us life. Verse 108, this is the only place you see free will talked about, by the way, is in regards to free will offerings.
Accept my free will offerings of praise, O Lord, and teach me your rules. So one of the things that's being emphasized here is I'm going above and beyond even what you have required of me. I'm giving all of myself and as much as I can give in my free will offerings.
I'm doing what God has asked of me. And more than that, I give him all of myself. Teach me your rules. I hold my life in my hand continually, but I do not forget your law. That is a very autobiographical verse for me.
For this was me in my young 20s taking my life in my hand continually, but it was the precepts that my parents taught me according to God's word that kept me from going into worse sin than I could have been falling into.
It kept me on a right way, though I may not have understood that it was God's word that was guiding me, but it was because these things had been instilled in me at a young age. I knew this is wrong. This is the right way to go.
A lot of times I didn't go the right way, but I was always convicted of the wrong way because of what had been taught to me according to the word of God, which way was right. I knew when I went wrong because I knew what was right.
So though I go aside, I don't forget your law. The wicked have laid a snare for me, but I do not stray from your precepts. We're saved from the snares of the wicked by the word of God. Your testimonies are my heritage forever for they are the joy of my heart.
And this was like the second to last verse in the previous section. How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth. Your testimonies are my heritage forever for they are the joy of my heart.
I incline my heart to perform your statutes forever to the end. And this Psalm ends just like it began. Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. I incline my heart to perform your statutes forever to the end.
These words of God are leading us to eternal life. So keep them close to your heart, dear Christian. Obey them to the end. Amen.
This has been When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabriel Hughes. For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books, and more, visit our website at www .utt .com. If you'd like to submit a question to this broadcast or just send us a comment, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com and let your friends know about our ministry.
Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in the study of God's word when we understand the text.