Delighting in God’s Law: An Introduction to Psalm 119

Psalm 119, the topic, the law as the governing principle of life, and this really amounts to an introduction to Psalm 119, but I'm just going to read the first five verses.

Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord. Blessed are those who keep

His testimonies, who seek Him with the whole heart. They also do no iniquity, they walk in His ways.

You have commanded us to keep your precepts diligently, oh, that my ways were directed to keep your statutes, and I'll just stop there.

Psalm 119 is called by scholars and expositors either a psalm of God's word, and this providentially fits with this morning's sermon excellently, or even better, because it's more specifically and fits the whole psalm, a psalm in praise of God's moral law, and we saw that in the opening verses.

How do you walk? How do you behave? The general theme of God's law is described in manifold ways, all focused on the scripture's directive nature as a manual for life, for a life of discipleship, sanctification, covenant faithfulness, and blessings.

The only path to blessings in life is to keep God's law faithfully, habitually.

The law as a guide to sanctification is noted in praise throughout the psalm through many synonyms and aspects, law, precept, commandment, statute, testimonies, judgment, righteousness, word.

Psalm 119 contains 176 verses, and the Mazarites believe that there is a direct reference to the law under one of its ten names in every verse but one.

Modern scholars will say two or three, but I more agree with the Mazarites after looking at it.

The character of the psalm is focused on meditations or manifold reflections on God's law, praises to God for his law, coupled with promises to learn, memorize, meditate on, and keep

God's law. There are manifold reflections on the nature, properties, wisdom, and effects of God's law that spring forth into praise, petition, for the ability to understand and obey it, and promises to faithfully observe it.

Here's what Charles Bridges writes. The psalm may be considered as the journal of one who is deeply taught in the things of God, long practiced in the life and work of faith, walk of faith.

It contains the anatomy of experimental religion, the interior liniments of the family of God.

It is given for the use of believers in all ages as an excellent touchstone of vital godliness.

Here's Jonathan Edwards in his book on religious affections. I know of no other part of holy scriptures where the nature and evidences of true and sincere godliness are so full and largely insisted on and delineated.

Philip Henry, Matthew Henry's father, taught that Christians should reflect on a small portion of the psalm every day.

Now before we turn to the text, which we're not going to get to today, there are a number of introductory matters to consider.

First, although the psalm does not tell us who wrote the psalm, the vast majority of older commentators believe it's

David. Some of the newer commentators believe it is post -exilic, possibly

Ezra. After reading it, we're not going to go into it, but I think it's David. Second, this is by far the longest psalm in the

Psalter, and for this reason and for didactic and worship purposes, it is what is called an acrostic psalm.

It is divided into 22 sections or stanzas, each beginning with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet in succession.

Aleph, Bath, Gimel, etc. Each section has eight verses.

This, of course, makes each section easier to digest and learn as well as to sing.

Third, the general purpose or theme of this psalm is stated in the first verse, which speaks of the great blessings of covenant faithfulness.

The covenant people were saved in order to serve God and be faithful unto him, and this is accomplished by living in the habitual obedience to God's law.

Israel is saved by God. They're brought out to the wilderness. They go to the foot of the mount, and God speaks the

Ten Commandments to them verbally. They actually hear God's voice, and they tremble. Verses 1 to 2, blessed are the undefiled in the way who walk in the law of the

Lord. Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with the whole heart. Now, keep in mind, and this is very important, that the

Bible teaches that the efficacy, the power, the ability for sanctification comes solely from Jesus Christ.

Book of Galatians, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ in me. And then

Romans chapter 6, after a very lengthy section on why we're not saved by the law, we're only saved by Christ and his atoning death,

Paul goes off on, well, he answers the Jewish objection, well, if you don't believe you're saved by the law, then you're going to go out and sin all you please.

And then he talks about union with Christ. When Christ died, you died. When Christ rose, you rose.

Christ, much greater effusion of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, we should have a greater obedience. No one, apart from union with Christ and faith, can faithfully obey

God's law in their own strength. The Sermon on the Mount, Christ defends the law against the

Pharisees. If you look at what he writes, what he says, it's all the moral law. They're avoiding the moral law by their human traditions, he's upholding the moral law.

He tells his disciples, unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

Anyone who wants to detract from my law at all shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven.

Christ exalted this law, the moral law. The Holy Spirit, which is bestowed by Christ, creates the will, desire, and ability to obey

God's law. That is why there are so many passages asking God to cause us to love his law and asking for the ability to obey it.

It is our standard for covenant faithfulness. But the

Holy Spirit, and I'm repeating what was said this morning, always uses the word of God as the standard of sanctification.

And because the law, the moral law, contains the central focus of God's ethical standard for life, frequently the law is our duty for living, is emphasized for covenantal obedience or personal godliness.

The Jews are given the law as the requirement to be covenantally faithful to God. The historical books tell us what happens when the law is forsaken and greatly praises judges and kings who require a return to God's holy law.

And the book of Proverbs teaches us how to apply the law to various situations in life. Ecclesiastes presents the absurdity and futility of life without faith and in service to Yahweh by keeping his law.

Ecclesiastes 12, 13 to 14, let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep his commandments for this is man's all.

For God will bring every work into judgment including every secret thing whether good or evil. The historical books and the prophets contain much crucial revelation about the coming of the

Messiah. And of course, the Messiah and his work of redemption is revealed in the law itself, the

Torah. But most of the prophetic books contain what is called covenant lawsuit preaching.

The people had violated the law. They turned to idols. They turned to other sources of revelation besides God's will, mysticism.

And God, through his prophets, demands repentance and a full return to the moral law of God.

Threatenings and promises of judgment accompany this preaching. And even in the prophets, even pagan nations are judged for idolatry, injustice, unlawful violence, and warfare.

We live in a God -created, God -controlled, personalistic universe where God's moral law is the ethical standard for life, culture, the family, civil government, the courts, business, the arts, etc.

Sola Scriptura, the law. So the sooner that professing Christians abandon antinomianism, mysticism, dispensationalism, and vague, useless, harmful concepts of natural law, the better.

You'll never find God appealing to natural law even once in the whole Bible for how we should live. The New Testament epistles assume the validity of the

Old Testament law as the ethical standard. And Paul's imperatives and the imperatives of Paul and the other apostles and evangelists are simply applications of Old Testament moral law.

That's all they are. There's no new ethic in the New Testament. Yeah, it talks about there's a new song and there's the law of Christ and we have a new this and a new that.

It doesn't mean new like a brand new car. It means new in the sense that Christ has come. We're in the new covenant.

We have a completed revelation. We have a greater fusion of the spirit, and that's why it's new in that sense, not new in the sense of content.

The only change in the whole New Testament from the Old Testament moral standard. There's only one.

In the Old Testament, if you married a pagan, you had to divorce her. In the New Testament, if you're married to a pagan already and you become a

Christian, you can't divorce her unless he or she leaves. That's called abandonment, and then you can get a divorce.

And Paul encourages them, let him go. Don't try to stop him. And then you're free.

And free really means free. You're free to remarry. Fourth, it is important to recognize how the inspired authors of scripture exalt the law of God and repeatedly point us to it as the rule of sanctification.

Due to the influence of dispensationalism, that 19th century heresy started by Charles Nelson Darby, the place of the

Old Testament moral law has been largely lost in our day. When sanctification is sought by the

Holy Spirit without reference to God's moral law, the result is irrationalism, mysticism, subjectivity, and legalism.

I knew a guy, he was a Reformed Baptist minister. He came out of the Arminian Baptist Church. He went to one of their meetings.

They don't have presbyteries, but they still have, they get together. And they debated whether men could wear colored shirts instead of white shirts for three hours.

Liberty is replaced with tyranny and oppression as churchmen implement their subjective ideas on the people.

As you look at the widespread syncretism among evangelicals and even some reformed churches all around us, we see the widespread failure of methods of sanctification without a strong commitment to God's moral law.

The whole moral law, not just the summary found in the Ten Commandments. Matthew 18 is based on sections of Leviticus.

The Old Testament moral law contains family law, personal law. Your neighbor's donkey falls in a ditch and it's suffering, it might die.

What does it tell you to do? Get it out of the ditch and take it to your neighbor. That's not the Ten Commandments. Does that mean we don't have to do that? Of course not.

Well, we recognize that no one is justified or saved by keeping the law. And that even the best

Christians fall short of God's perfect standard. Nevertheless, we must be fully committed to God's law as the way of life, the standard of justice, righteousness, and holiness.

We are to be holy, for God our Father is holy. The moral law reflects God's nature and character.

We are to walk in righteousness, because this is how we grow in godliness, and it shows our love to Christ, our spiritual bride.

Forsaking God's revealed moral law means forsaking God's direction and our covenant with Christ. And those who forsake

God's law lose wisdom and discretion. Those who seek to replace

God's revealed moral law with so -called natural law or spiritual impressions become relativistic, undependable, syncretistic, and tyrannical.

I've been debating natural law with people for 40 years. They all disagree with each other.

None of them have agreement, because natural law is not perspicuous. First of all, it's not clear. And secondly, nature is fallen, and we're fallen.

That's why God gave us the law. It's perspicuous, it's clear, it's easy to understand.

You disagree with the elders, you disagree with the neighbor, you go to God's law, you can straighten it out. Over time, they will suffer a spiritual paralysis.

God's law strictly held and obeyed is our bastion against humanism and relativism. God's law is our light that shows us how to think ethically, how to live the path of Christian love.

Proverbs 623, for the commandment is a lamp, and the law is light. And reproofs of instruction are the key of life.

Psalm 119, 105, 106, thy word is a lamp unto thy feet. And the law is light, and reproofs of instruction are the way of life.

Reproofs based on what? Based on God's moral law. Throughout the late 1800s, and throughout the whole 20th century and beyond, fundamentalist

Christians and evangelicals have been trained to hate and disrespect the Old Testament moral law.

The result is that most churches are saltless, antinomian, and weak since the

Middle Ages. They're the worst churches since the Middle Ages. Saltless, without the law, you don't have ethical direction.

So much of what churches do is a reflection of our pagan culture. Worship as a humanistic form of entertainment.

Feminism abounds. Men are lukewarm weaklings who let their wives call the shots. Unlawful divorce, adultery, fornication, pagan forms of dating are common.

And yes, the law does not save, the law does not save. Yes, the law is a condemning letter that shows us our guilt.

Yes, we are not under the law as a means of justification. Paul's very clear about that.

But the moral law, Paul says, is wholly just and good. It shows us our sin and guilt.

It drives us to the foot of the cross. It tells us how to love God and our fellow man. It teaches us

Christian ethics. How are we to think? How are we to speak? How are we to live as justified

Christians who are committed to following Jesus as faithful disciples? And these dispensationalists, yeah,

Paul condemns the law. When he's talking about justification, he says, what are you doing trying to be saved by law? That's impossible, you can't do that.

And then when he gets done dealing, and he switches to sanctification, in Romans, he quotes out of the

Old Testament law. He does so in Galatians. He does so repeatedly. Is there a contradiction?

No, we're not justified by the law. But the moral law is our direction for life after we are saved and we're justified.

Israel's delivered from Egypt, God gives them the moral law. A simple look at any nation, culture, or church that has abandoned

God's revealed, perspicuous, perfect, absolutely just moral law, proves our absolute dependence upon it.

Family life is greatly degraded. 50 % of marriages end in divorce. Homosexual perversion is not only legal, but it's praised.

Praised by our civil government, sanctioned by our civil government. Gross, disgusting perversion.

Millions of babies are murdered and thrown away as trash. We must learn to love and cherish

God's holy law, and faithfully learn it, meditate on it, teach it to our children, and conduct our lives by it.

For without it, our nation will come to chaos and judgment. And in a sense, we're already in the first stages of judgment.

Look at our debt, look at the murders of the babies. The moral law, in its totality, is in its sense our marriage duty to Christ.

To walk without law is to walk in darkness. It is to give in to human autonomy and the sinful flesh.

Note Solomon's words. This is Proverbs 1, 7 and 9. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

My son, hear the instruction of my father and forsake not the law, thy mother, for they shall be an ornament of grace unto the head and chains about thy neck.

The controlling principle of life, which crowns a man and enriches his days with wisdom, is the fear of the

Lord. And this fear is inseparable from the standard of love and reverence to God, which is the law.

Instruction in the law, or direction from God. Proverbs 28, 9, he that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be an abomination.

Proverbs 29, 18, where there is no vision, and that means divine revelation, the people perish.

But he that keepeth the law, happy is he. If a man desires

God's law, denies God's law or direction, which is the covenantal obligation of every

Christian, he has rejected the God -given stipulations for keeping and nurturing our continued relationship to God.

Therefore, he has denied himself any relationship to Christ, and even his prayer is an abomination in God's sight.

To pray to God as if everything is fine while trampling underfoot our covenantal or spiritual marital obligations to God is the height of rebellion and stupidity.

So the Bible, and this fits with this morning perfectly, the Bible exalts the law of God, the moral law of God, which is still obligatory.

Fifth, before we examine each section exegetically, we would greatly benefit by first examining the eight, modern commentators say eight, older ones say ten,

I have ten, or ten synonyms for God's law as a guide to life in the psalm. Number one, the word law,

Torah, is found 25 times. It is a chief term which is used in scripture.

It can be used in the broad sense for God's revelation, which directs man. The first five books of Moses are called

Torah, and if you have a Jewish edition, the Jewish Publication Society of the Old Testament scriptures,

Torah, the writings, the prophets. Therefore, the first five books of Moses are called the Torah, and the word

Torah can be used for the ten commandments, the whole law of God, or even a single commandment.

The word Torah tells us that God's word is not simply there as literature or for our curiosity, it must be believed and fully obeyed.

I like Rush Dooney's term, RJ Rush Dooney. He calls it God's law word. This word is found in Psalm 1, verse 2,

Psalm 19, 7, another Psalm about the law. After Psalm 119, it's not found again in the

Psalter. The focus of this word in this Psalm is on our duty to God.

It's directed toward the law as duty, as imperative, as how to live.

The law guides, directs, and instructs in the way of righteousness. It keeps us on the straight and narrow path of covenant faithfulness that leads to spiritual growth, peace, truth, and happiness.

It comes from the verb Yara, to point or project, to point out or project.

It is God's will revealed to man. It reveals God's righteous character and his authority as our sovereign creator.

Consequently, it applies to all men without exception, the moral law.

And it especially applies to the church as covenant stipulations. If you're created by God and everybody's created by God, God created everything, then the whole law applies to you.

But if you're a Christian, it applies to you not simply because God is your creator and sovereign, but because you have this special relationship with God as a bride to a husband.

Number two, the next word is testimonies, edat, which is used 23 times.

It is also found, of course, in Psalm 19, 7, and 25, 10. It is first used in Deuteronomy in 445 where Moses presents the law to the

Jews about to enter the promised land. Deuteronomy is the second law. He's basically restating the law.

They're renewing the covenant before they cross into the promised land. Now, this is the law which

Moses set before the children of Israel. These are the testimonies, statutes, and the judgments which

Moses spoke to the children of Israel after they came out of Egypt. Note that Moses uses a

Hebraistic triadic expression indicating that the terms are essentially synonymous even though the separate terms have different nuances as we will see.

Another passage to keep in mind is Isaiah 820, to the law and to the testimony. If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.

You notice, to the law and the testimony, he didn't add natural law. He didn't add the law of nations, which is supposedly based on natural law.

Sola Scriptura. The law expresses God's will for man's obedience, and the testimony focuses our attention on the law as something that must be believed and is the standard by which all thoughts, all opinions, all utterances and actions are judged.

The law as testimony bears witness to the fact that the law comes from God and is covenant law.

All believers receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. They agree to bow the knee to Jesus and submit fully to the

Redeemer's law word. Repentance involves forsaking human autonomy, self -law, and pagan law, and replacing it with God's law.

Thus, the law is something we covenant with Christ to obey, and this law will testify against us if we turn from it and habitually break it.

On the day of judgment, you will be judged in terms of God's law. The law is a confirmation of the covenant and a witness to this covenant.

Therefore, the law for the covenant people reveals covenant or spiritual marital duties toward the bridegroom and stands as a witness to this covenant.

Israel was told to place the book of the law right next to the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, your God, the place of Yahweh's special Shekinah presence.

Let me be there as a witness against you. Deuteronomy 31, 26. Remember, the moral law for us, for Christians, is not some impersonal law.

It's not some set of ethics floating about or things we look for in nature. It comes from God.

It's covenant law. It is treated in Scripture as a love commitment, a kind of marriage guide, a guidebook to nurture our love towards God.

We testify to our love to Christ by striving to keep his words. If you love me, keep my commandments.

If you love me, keep my commandments. If you reject God's law and create our own standard, we are compared in Scripture to adulterers.

And of course, in the days of Christ, when they rejected the Messiah, God divorced Israel and he took the kingdom from Israel and he gave it to a nation producing the fruits thereof, the

Christian church, which is multinational. Number three, the term precepts occurs 21 times.

The word precepts, pikud, comes from the word to appoint or mandate. It was used of officials who were to look closely at the situation and take the correct or proper action.

The word refers to particular instructions or commandments of the Lord. And the emphasis falls on even the details of the law.

The term emphasizes that the requirements of the law come from God and are imposed by sovereign authority.

Thus, they declare and direct our duty. We are to take note of even the smallest details of the law, as Jesus would say, every jot and tittle.

This morning, we heard about plenary inspiration. Even the words are inspired. And Jesus said, no, don't even mess with even a jot or a tittle, the smallest markings in the

Hebrew alphabet. The whole law, in exhaustive detail, is to have authority over and direct every aspect of our whole life.

And this word strongly rebukes those who disrespect and disregard the law.

It stands as a witness against all those who treat the law as a smorgasbord or something only for a former dispensation.

The scribes and the Pharisees had disregarded many of the laws by their human traditions. Whenever you bring in human traditions, whether it's garbage like Satan at Christmas, or uninspired hymns, what

God does command it eventually gets set aside, sad to say. He commands his disciples saying that their righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees.

By his shed blood, his suffering unto death, by his sinless life, Jesus enables us to love the law and habitually keep it.

We are not made sinless. That, of course, does not occur till we die. But we can be covenantally faithful and lead the happy, blessed life of serving the true and living

God through Christ. We're taught to confess our sins every single day. Obviously, we're far from perfect.

But there's a difference between somebody who's covenantally faithful and somebody who abandons the law and they're out there sinning like a maniac.

Number four, another important term is statutes. Hukim, the word is found 20 times.

This term comes from the verb to inscribe or engrave. The focus here is on the law as something revealed or written down or inscripturated.

The law comes from God and is transcendent and absolute. It is written down as a definite, prescribed, fixed, permanent, or perpetual obligation.

The modern charismatics and dispensationalist idea that the written law is abrogated so we can now be led by mystical, subjective, inner leadings of the

Holy Spirit is obviously a repudiation of this term. When Paul says walk by the spirit in Galatians, if you read the chapter, you read the context, he's talking about walking according to the word of God.

The Holy Spirit is God's gift that enables us to obey the word. One of the great things about God's law is that it is revealed in clear, propositional form for everyone to read, learn, and observe.

The idea that we should abandon written, inscripturated law for natural law, or so -called the law of pagan nations, is madness.

It is an insult to God's written law. It is irrational foolishness.

And I've looked at the law of nations. I looked at Rome, Assyria, Greece, Babylon.

Their laws were very unjust. If you were an official, you were treated one way.

If you were poor, you were treated like dirt. The laws were terrible. With written revealed perspicuous law where there is a disagreement, one can find unity by submitting to the clear text of scripture.

We don't have to debate things hour after hour after hour after hour. God has spoken.

The word of God is clear. It was because of man's fall into sin and the loss of true righteousness and holiness that men direly needed written revelation.

Now even before the fall, Adam was to walk and talk with God in the garden every single day. His thinking was to be never to be autonomous, but was always to be receptively reconstructive.

After the fall, when men are now sinful, foolish, stupid, and suffer under the noetic effects of sin, a revealed written law is needed now more than ever.

We need it. We must cherish this great privilege of a written, permanent moral standard.

The ten commandments in their original form, the first one that Moses smashed, was written in stone by the finger of the pre -incarnate son of God.

I would say that's pretty important. Number five, we also find the word commandments or miswot.

This word is used 22 times. The commandments are God's laws. They are

Yahweh's revealed will regarding our behavior that pleases God. The word emphasizes

God's authority to command. The fact that these commands are revealed by God tells us they are absolute, non -negotiable, and binding on all.

When you have things like California, they vote on sodomite marriage. Or the

Supreme Court sits around and they decide out of their own figment of their brains whether or not we're gonna allow transvestites and perverts to be legal.

No, God has given us a law, we have to submit to it, it's binding. They're not recommendations or suggestions, but divine imperatives.

They reveal what God requires, what we must do, what we must not do. The commandments are both a gift and a trust.

They are not a burdensome law of a slave, but the loving directions of a father. Because we are finite, sinful creatures, we need

God to show us what is good and what is bad, what brings a curse and what brings blessings.

Commands that are based on God's law and nature and character are called, by the

Puritans, the older theologians, moral natural laws. It's nothing to do with natural law. They're based on God's character.

These laws obviously can never change and are universal. They're binding on Jews and Gentiles. And they are perpetual because God's nature doesn't change.

God is always God. Laws that are universal and perpetual which are founded solely on God's authority are called moral positive laws.

It just simply means that God gives them and they're not based on his character. This would include laws such as laws on incest and the eating of blood.

And you say, well, that's just a moral positive law, but it's God bound that by authority. You read

Leviticus 18 and God judged the Canaanite nations, the pagan nations, the seven nations, because of incest.

That's one of the things that they were crushed for, incest. When God says it, everybody's got to obey it.

It ought to be clear by now that the focus of Psalm 119 is on the imperative, how to live, directive aspect of scripture.

Number six, the word judgment is used as well. The word judgment, mishpatim, which is found 23 times, comes from a verb which refers to governing, judging, or determining a proper just sentence.

Okay, God's law deals with justice. Because the word is often used in connection with the judicial sentences, some modern translators render it as ordinances.

The word is also used in the sense of a person's right to receive justice under God's law.

People talk about all today, human rights, human rights. Well, human rights, it simply means the rights that God gives us under his law.

We're free from the tyranny of men. We're free from the tyranny of idiotic pastors and bishops who don't know what they're doing, because God's law is our freedom.

Exodus 23, 6, you shall not pervert the judgment of your poor in his dispute. The words judgments emphasizes that the law comes from God and is absolutely just.

It is the standard by which our behavior and all judicial decisions are to be evaluated. And just a side note here, the lunacy of somebody as great as R .C.

Sproul, I watch his sermons, I read several of his books. He said, well, the Old Testament moral law, the judicial laws have all been abrogated, we have nothing to do with that.

And then he said, well, now if you wanted to implement them, it would be okay because they're all just.

Well, my question to you is, if they're just, are you gonna implement something better, that's something that is just?

Obviously not, but he's been influenced by dispensationalism, as most modern Presbyterians are.

They're called God's judgments because they are framed from infinite moral perfection and holiness, as well as infinite wisdom.

The law is the standard by which we must judge our own behavior and that of others. God's law proceeds from the creator and judge of all mankind,

Ecclesiastes 1214. For God shall bring every work into judgment and every secret thing.

The word emphasizes that the law is Yahweh's judicial decree. It not only tells us how our thoughts, words, and actions must be ordered, but it carries with it the idea that we are fully accountable before God for our behavior.

God expects us to serve and live out justice and righteousness. God sees everything.

God sees what you do when nobody's around. God sees what you do in private. God sees what you do in your family. Therefore, every moment of every day, you better be on your toes to obey the word of God, God's holy law.

The law intrinsically has a judicial aspect. Fairness, justice, equity comes from God and can only be determined by God.

The civil magistrate's role and church official's role is purely ministerial and not autonomous, not creative.

They are not determiners of justice. If you have an elder or a pastor and he's advocating something that he can't prove from scripture, you don't have to obey him.

He's sinning. If he gets mad at you because you won't celebrate the pagan, popish, false, sinful, wicked day of Christmas, that's all right.

God's on your side. The state and the church is to learn to apply

God's law, not create their own law. The role of the civil magistrate is to take

God's holy law, his just law, and simply apply it to different situations in life. This crucial term condemns all forms of Romanism and prelacy where church authorities have autonomous power.

It also strongly condemns the modern western idea that courts determine right or wrong and what is just. No, such thinking is radically unscriptural.

Courts are to strictly apply God's law to specific crimes. The command not to add or detract from God's law is universally binding on both church and state and family.

If God says homosexuals ought to be put to death if they're seen by witnesses and they're properly sentenced in a court, then that's exactly what we have to do.

This term also strongly condemns the very popular idea among modern, so -called conservative

Presbyterians, that we can learn important ethical lessons from the Old Testament moral law, but we must regard the penalties as only binding on Israel.

God's law says these penalties are just. God's law says these penalties are righteous.

We can't improve upon them. They just don't like the penalties. They think they're too harsh.

Such thinking, of course, is irrational and ludicrous. If the penalties come from God, they are God's judgments, then they are just and must be implemented.

The fact that God's word says that they are just and are far superior to anything the pagan nations have devised, and that's

Deuteronomy, I think, chapter four, ought to settle the matter once and for all. Number seven.

The psalm also reportedly refers to the word or words of God. The term word, debar, occurs 24 times between verses 9 and 169.

In Psalm 19 .3, the word is translated language for some reason in the King James and the New King James. It is set in poetic parallel to speech or voice, that is

God's speech or voice. The other term is Imrah, which is found 19 times and is found between verses 11 and 172.

These two words are never found in the same verse for some reason. These words are general terms which teach us that God's word or law proceeds from God's mind and is revealed by Yahweh to us.

Here's what Dixon says. The word signifieth God expounding his mind to us as if he were speaking directly to us.

Although the terms embrace scripture or God's revealed truth in any form, whether history, law, promise, prophecy, or didactic theology.

The focus in this psalm, I'm sorry, this is me, the quote's over. The focus in the psalm is on the direction for life and promise blessings for covenant faithfulness.

Paul tells us in 2 Timothy, this will sound familiar after this morning's sermon, verses 16 to 17, all scripture is given by inspiration.

Literally expired, breathed out by God, and is profitable for doctrine, reproof, for correction, instruction, and righteousness.

In order that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good word. We have the declaration of God's mind or will in propositional form.

It is clear or perspicuous, inerrant or infallible, totally rational, perfect, spiritual.

It is our sole authority for faith or doctrine and life, ethical direction. Any attempts by the heathen or by churchmen to take our thoughts or direction away from scripture or God's revealed law for human tradition, autonomous rationalism, natural law theory, or Romanistic concepts of church authority are satanic, evil, wicked, sinful, and exceptionally dangerous.

With Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Knox, and Booster, we take our scan squarely and solely on sacred scripture, sola scriptura.

You can take your natural law and you can do something with it.

Anyway, number eight, a term found 13 times in the psalm is way or way,

Derek. In a number of cases, it refers to the way one should walk or conduct his life.

526, 29, 59, 168, etc. As disciples or followers of Jesus Christ, we are to adopt an explicitly

Christian way of thinking, speaking, and acting. Every aspect of life is to be examined in the light of scripture.

We are to have a Christian world and life view. Anything that contradicts scripture on any topic, whether religion, science, business, the arts, geology, ethics, education, etc.,

is to be automatically and immediately rejected. If something does not agree with scripture, it is false, it is wrong, reject it.

We are to study and meditate on God's law's word so that we have a Christian, God -fearing lifestyle. Anything that contradicts or is a violation of scripture must be rejected, hated, despised, removed from our thinking, speaking, and acting.

For those of us raised as Satan's little heathen swine, like me, this will take great dedication, perseverance, consistency, and hard work.

Watch and pray that you do not enter into temptation. Study to show yourself approved. Pick up your cross daily to follow

Christ. Deny yourself. Put to death the old man that leads and the deeds of the flesh.

In many cases, the word way simply refers to scripture or God's law as a rule of conduct. The word of God is given to us as our guide to everything we must believe and how we are to live.

It is the way we are to walk or live so that we can be progressively sanctified and thus be safe, holy, happy, and blessed.

Paul says, Galatians 5 .16, walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

In Romans 6 .16 -18, the apostle said, do you not know that to whom you present yourself slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness?

But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered.

And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. Nine, another important term is truth or faithfulness.

Three times the word is found, it's emeth from a verb referring to stability.

The term means certainty, truth, trustworthiness, faithfulness, that which is right. Because the law comes from God, it is always right or righteous.

It is always trustworthy. It is always just. Because it is covenant law established by Yahweh.

It is always faithful. Our response to God's law word must always be faithfulness.

God wants sincere obedience from the heart. Even during times when we are tempted because of the flesh, we obey

God's law because it is true and because we want to show our loyalty, fidelity, and faithfulness to Christ.

You're a young Christian maybe. You're not used to the word of God. You're going to encounter things that you may not understand fully.

But whether you fully understand or whether it may go against what you want to do, you trust the word of God.

You believe the word of God. You submit to the word of God and do the right thing. And you will be blessed. And of course, your thinking, your intellect, all that other stuff will get in line eventually, simply obey.

Jay Adams is great on that, by the way. The word nabi is used for truth once in Psalm 119 .30.

The term is usually translated prophet. Here it is used to indicate that scripture is true because it is inspired or breathed out by God.

Jesus said, John 17, 17, sanctify them by truth. Your word is truth.

You want to be sanctified? You want to be holy? You want to be godly? Submit to the word of God. And then 10, and this is our last sub point.

The final term emphasized in the psalm is righteous or righteousness. It occurs 14 times. The word is zedek, or one of its forms.

It refers in scripture to the imputed righteousness of Christ, and it is also used of the personal righteousness of sanctification.

It can mean morally right, righteous, righteousness, just, justice, moral equity, and figuratively for the prosperity that comes from covenantal obedience.

In this psalm, the focus is on the righteousness of God's word or law. Paul says, the law is holy, just, and good,

Romans 7 .12. Why does he do that in Romans 7? Because he just got done slamming the law as a means of justification. So he doesn't want

Christians to get the idea that God doesn't like the law. God loves the law. It's his law. He gave us the law, but don't ever use it to try to be justified.

It is our guide for life. The revealed law is the standard of justice, equity, and righteousness. The law is agreeable to or conforms perfectly with Yahweh's righteous character.

The word of God teaches us how we can be right with God by faith in the imputed righteousness of Christ, and how we can live in a holy, pleasing, righteous manner before God.

Sanctification, we need the objective righteousness of Christ for regeneration and the efficacy to live in a righteous manner.

And we also need the righteousness of God's law as the standard of sanctification.

So how are we sanctified? Where do we get the efficacy, the power, the ability? Union with Christ.

Christ is our sanctification. We get the Holy Spirit because everything that Christ has achieved on our behalf.

But once we're saved, once we have the Holy Spirit, once we bow the knee to Christ, how are we to live? The law, the moral law, is now our standard of covenant faithfulness, our standard of sanctification.

Oh, how we should love that law, shouldn't we? Study it, memorize it, put it in your heart, learn it.

Let us pray. Father, we thank you for your law. Please stand. Sorry. Thank you for your law.

It is holy, righteous, just, and good. We fall short of it every day, Lord.

Fill us with your Holy Spirit and give us a strong, dedicated love to your law, that we would walk in it and obey it and submit to it.

And when we sin, and we all sin, forgive us when we sin, Lord. Bend our hearts to obey, cause us to repent, to die daily, to pick up our cross daily and follow your dear son.

Lord, we wanna be covenant keepers, we wanna obey you, we wanna be faithful. Help us by the power of your

Holy Spirit based on the efficacy of your law. Of the death and resurrection of your precious son, Jesus Christ. In his name we pray.