Psalm 119 Devotional

Psalm 119 as the Word of God in Every Verse

All right, if you would, I want you to go back to Psalm 119 for a minute. I want to read a verse and then I want to kind of do something other than the verse. I hope it'll make sense. Let me ask you to turn to Psalm 119 and and look at verse 136.

Psalm 119, 136. We've kind of been continually going through it and and certainly my intention is to get us to the end of the psalm and then see what what takes place. But read this verse with me. Psalm 136.

Remember last week we thought about make your face shine upon your servant and teach me your statutes. And then it says rivers of water run down from my eyes because men don't keep your law. Rivers of water run down my eyes because men do not keep your law.

And as I began to think about some thoughts from the verse, I found myself drifting. I'm a great drifter. Sometimes I drift into some real dangerous water. But I found my mind drifting and as I started to drift, I said to myself, no, I've got to come back to the verse.

And then I said, well, wait a minute. If God teaches us by His Spirit, according to His Word, then perhaps I'm drifting into good territory rather than bad territory. Anyway, what I began to think about was the psalm in general.

Psalm 119, the whole psalm. And to that end, I want to say a few things to you and show you a couple of things with the hope that you might find as much joy in it that I found in drifting, as I said, on open waters.

So with that in mind, we'll come back to this verse immediately or specifically next week. But I started to think about the whole psalm, Psalm 119. And I started to think about how Psalm 119 has been termed the psalm of the Word of God, right?

It's just so full of the Word of God, and I began to think about that. And then I said to myself, well, you know what? I've got to prove that. I mean, I know it. I've read it. I've looked at it over the years.

I've heard other people talk about it. But I said I want to dive a little deeper, and I want to look at it a little more intensely. So I did write some stuff down on the board. Hopefully, I'll turn it the right way.

Yep. Okay. So here's what I did. I said I want to see if this is truly the psalm of the Word of God. So what I did was I read through the whole psalm again, and I began to pull out the terms that speak about the Word of God.

And so these are the ones that I came up. I came up with the words of law. You'll find law in Psalm 119. You'll find the Word in Psalm 119, precepts, judgments, testimonies, commandments, statutes, ordinances.

Well, then I said, well, that's great. And then I tried to dive a little deeper, and I said, okay, I want to see how many times in Psalm 119 these words are mentioned. Because these things are speaking about the very things that we just said, the precepts, the judgments, commandments, the law, the Word of God.

And so I did a study. You could prove my math at the end of the night. I'd be more than happy for you to do that. So I went back, and I want to kind of lay out some numbers to you. Hopefully, I told Brother Keith I might take an extra minute or two tonight, and he was gracious about it, as always.

So I looked up the word law, read through the whole psalm, 177 verses in Psalm 119, and what I found out was that the law is mentioned 26 times. Okay? And so then I went, and I looked, and I tried to find out how many times the Word is mentioned, God's Word, where it says God's Word in one shape or form or another, and I found that that was mentioned 42 times.

And then I went to the next one, to precepts, and I found that God's precepts are mentioned 21 times in the psalm. God's judgments are mentioned 19 times in the psalm. God's testimonies, 21. God's commandments, 22.

God's statutes, 24. And God's ordinances are spoken twice. Okay, how many verses are in Psalm 119? Anybody know? It's easy to find out, right? Just look. It's 176 verses, according to the way we break verses out in Psalm 119.

If you add all this up, and I believe my math is right, you will find that God's Word, in one way or another, in Psalm 119, is mentioned 177 times. Well, I'll tell you what, it confirmed to me that Psalm 119 is about the Word of God.

And in so many different ways, and again, we could do a deeper dive into breaking out the variableness or the differences between law and precepts and judgmental testimonies, and I don't want to take that time tonight.

But I did want to ask us to think about that Psalm 119 truly is the Word of God because in so many different ways, that's all it does is speak about the Word of God. That's over one time in every verse.

So I found that comforting, and it confirmed my understanding that this is truly an expression of the Word of God as it's laid out in the psalm. So that was the first thing I did. And then I said, wait a minute.

I've also been saying to us that in Psalm 119, it's not only a psalm on the Word of God, but it's the psalm that involves the experience of the writer to the Word of God. In other words, he speaks about the Word of God 177 times, and then I wanted to think about, well, in what way did it take hold of his heart?

And so I said, okay, I'm gonna read through the psalm again, and I'm gonna look for every time it speaks about the psalmist's heart. And so I did that the same way I did with the Word of God, and I came up with some numbers.

So let me write those down for you. The psalmist, as he speaks about the Word of God in the psalm, when it comes to his whole heart, six times he speaks about how the Word of God has worked in his whole heart.

That's a continual, that's a repetitive phrase in the psalm. And then when he talks about a brightness of heart, he talks about the fact that God's Word has worked in him a brightness of heart. He says that once.

Okay, and then he talks about how he has hidden God's Word in his heart, and again, he speaks about it once. Then he says, as far as rejoicing, he said that the Word of God has caused him in this psalm, he rejoices in his heart three times about it.

As far as delight, this one is more, he says that he, his heart delighted in the Word of God four times, his heart meditated on the Word of God four times. He also talks about how his heart was enlarged, and he also talked about how his heart observed the Word of God.

So if you add all these up, seven, eight, 11, 15, 19, 21 times. So 21 times the psalmist speaks about how his heart is moved by the Word of God. And so I want us to think about this, folks. I want us to think about this.

God's Word is given to us that we might come to know him, agree? Okay. So God's Word is used to bring salvation. What does Paul say? He says faith comes by hearing, hearing by the Word of God. Well, in this psalm, the Word of God is meant 177 times.

The reality is not only is the Word of God to be that which causes us to come by faith, but it also is used to sanctify us. Would you not agree? Matter of fact, Peter talks about that, right? Peter talks about how we should we should earnestly desire as newborn babes the pure milk of the Word.

So I thought about this. I thought about how this psalm, it truly is interconnected with these two things. In other words, and this goes to everyone, if you and I are going to read the Word of God only on an intellectual basis, almost only to gather facts, and we are not going to have it work in our hearts or apply it to our hearts, we're going to miss the forest because of the trees.

And so there's a definite correlation between the Word of God and the reception of our hearts, and that's where I think many times we miss the boat. Many of us could probably spit out more verses than most people in general.

How many of us have hidden God's Word in our hearts? How many of us truly rejoice over the Word of God? How many of us find delight in reading the Word of God? It's a big difference, right? It's a big difference between understanding what God says and having it impact our lives.

And again, these two are vitally connected, and I've been saying that to you every time we've been looking at the psalm, that it's more than just the psalmist speaking about the Word of God, but he's interacting with it, and it affects him, and I had to prove it to myself.

Because I wanted to make sure I wasn't saying something that wasn't true. So I wanted to draw attention to that, to the whole psalm. But before I finish, I also thought about something else. So I read the psalm again.

I really enjoyed reading it over and over and over, by the way, but I wanted to look at something else. I said, okay, so I'm thinking about the Word of God. I'm thinking how it works in my heart, how I meditate on it, how it causes me joy, how it causes me to feel upright in the sense of clean.

And then I said, well, what's the yield? What does that get me? Let's just say that I truly study the Word of God, and I truly try to apply it in my heart. What's the fruit that comes out of that? So here's what I did.

I went back, and I read the psalm again, and I wanted to see what was the result of it all. In other words, what does God promise if we do this, if we seek His Word, and if we apply our hearts, what do we get?

And again, I'm not trying to do math here. I'm just trying to draw our attention to it. So what I did is I read the psalm, and I'm just going to remind us of the things that come out of taking God's Word and applying it in our hearts.

And it says in the psalm, and let me just read to you the things that it promises or it gives us. It says that it allowed the psalmist to not be ashamed, that the psalmist was able to not be ashamed because of God's Word and how it worked in his heart.

It yielded him not to be ashamed. It also yielded to him that he would not wander. So in other words, we say one and one is two, right? The Word of God and applied heart will keep us from wandering. I found that to be another, if you will, fruit, gift, result of it.

It also says in the psalm, under the same principle of what I just mentioned, that it allowed the psalmist to see wondrous things. Now, I don't know about you folks, but I want to see wondrous things.

I want to see God's wondrous things. But you see, there's a discipline that's involved in this. You hear people so often say, well, all you got to do is ask God and you'll get it. And although that's true, friends, I don't think that's the total truth in a sense.

We really have to take a deep dive, both into the Word of God, into our own hearts, and one of the results is that God will show us wondrous things. Another statement that's made as a fruit of these things is that it allowed the psalmist to cling to God.

To cling to God, and that word cling means to cleave, to be glued together. It's the same word that's used in Genesis where it talks about the man and the woman becoming one flesh. So one of the ways for us to cling to God is to be able to to know his law, his word, his precepts, his judgments, and so on, and to apply our hearts, and to find delight in our hearts with it, to meditate on it, to study it, and that it will yield that to us that we will be able to cling to the Lord.

It also says that it'll enable us to run the course. Now, if you think about that, we all have a course to run. And again, so many people in this world today are running the course not even knowing where they're running to.

So we're going to finish this race and run the course. One of the greatest ways to do that is to know the word of God, to apply it to our heart, and it will bring us to that point where we could do that very thing.

It also says that it allows them to walk. It allows him to walk. How's our walk? If our walk is not right, and we know it, could it be that we have not taken God's word and applied it in our heart, and then we don't have a walk that is what the scriptures say our walk should be?

Why not? Perhaps this is the reason. So that he allowed it, it allowed him to walk. Here's another thing that it said. It said that it allowed him to have an answer to those who reproached him. It allowed him to have an answer to those to approach him.

One of the reasons why we stumble when we seek to talk to people about the gospel, about truth, and about the Bible, and I'm going to say it as simply as I can because I'm talking to myself, is we simply don't know it.

We don't know the answers to give. And yet that's the very thing that we're taught is to study to show ourselves a proven to God workman that needs not be ashamed, what? Rightly divining the word of truth, that we might be able to minister to others.

And that's what Paul says to Timothy. He says meditate on these things, give yourselves wholly to them, and your own prophet will show and others will see it. But the psalmist says it allowed him to have an answer to those who reproached him.

He said that it allowed him to walk at liberty. To walk at liberty. To be free within even the boundaries of this life in this world. It said that he was able to find comfort. Now as I'm reading through this list, I would think you would all agree with me that these are good things.

These are not bad things. These are things, is there anybody who would not like to have those very things? To be able to walk, to have an answer to those that reproach you, to walk at liberty, to find comfort, to see wondrous things, to not be ashamed.

He said, and this was probably the one that stuck out in my mind, is that it brought him delight. And so not only did he have the light in his heart, but he found the light in life. You know, it doesn't matter what we go through, right?

If God be with us, who could be against us? If God be for us, who could be against us? If we walk with Jesus, how could we not be experiencing delight? He said that it allowed him to taste things better than honey.

He said, your word is to me and my heart better than honey. Sweeter than honey. He said that it was worth more than the treasures of the world. He said it was worth more than all the silver and all the gold.

Just think about that. Think of how many people there are today, right now, that are trying to find delight in silver and gold and the things of this world. And yet God's word applied to our heart gives it to us to be able to find great treasure.

And of course, as we would remember, I'm sure many of us, the psalmist found that the word of God and his heart applied to it, his experience with it, was a lamp unto his feet and a light unto his path.

Isn't that great? That we're not walking in darkness, that we're able to walk in the light, that we're able to comprehend what so many cannot comprehend. He said also this, he said it allowed him to find a hiding place.

It allowed him to find a hiding place and I know all of us need a hiding place. We all need that place where we can go to and find peace, rest, security, comfort, delight, instruction, peace, all of it.

Well, guess where it's to be found, friends? It's to be found with the word of God which speaks of the true word of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, an application of using it in our heart and that's the yield.

That's the fruit that comes out of it. So let me ask you to think about this and then I'm going to turn it over to Brother Keith. Are we willing to labor for the very things that God promises us or do we just think that God owes that to us?

You know what it says in the Proverbs and I say it again to myself, but it says laziness casts one into a deep sleep and the idle person will suffer hunger. Laziness casts into a deep sleep and the idle soul shall suffer hunger.

Now, we know that from a physical standpoint, but also if a man don't work, he ought not to eat. I think some people in our government need to read that passage a little bit. But nevertheless, what about the spiritual application of it all?

What about the things that matter much more than food and clothing and shelter? Because there are things that matter more than food and clothing and shelter. Either that or the Lord Jesus Christ was wrong when he said that life is more than raiment.

When he said, what shall the profit of man be gained in the whole world and lose his own soul? What shall he give in exchange for his soul? So I'm asking us to think about that. I'm asking us to take this, these thoughts, whether you think they've been profitable to you.

I found great delight in it. It's been very instructive to me in my own thinking of how I need to press on. And that I need to be disciplined. I need to be diligent. I need to be willing to, if you will, even as the apostle says, to lay aside every weight everything else.

It doesn't mean I'm going to go live in a tower and read the word of God. I can go on my study for six hours until my wife yells at me to come and do something. But it does mean that God's word and my heart are going to try to sync together.

And that I truly desire that God will allow me not to be ashamed and to see wondrous things and to run the course and to walk and to find comfort and delight and to taste things better than honey and to find riches greater than all the riches of the world.