Thank you, David. Thank you,
Mike. I talked to Marvin this morning.
He called me. He said that everything was going
good. He said they were going to finish their work tomorrow
and said to pass along his best wishes to everyone here. I want
you to take your Bibles and turn with me to the Book of Psalms,
Chapter 119. The Book of Psalms, Chapter 119.
Psalms 119 is a very unusual psalm. It has 176 verses. twice as much as any chapter
in the Bible. And the whole psalm is concerning
the magnifying of God's Word. The whole psalm, all 176 verses. And I encourage you, when you
get time to sit down and read it. Charles Spurgeon said of
this psalm, he said, we would do well Every one of us would memorize
it. I doubt that I could do that.
But he was emphasizing the importance of this song. Now this 176 verses
is not by accident. It is deliberate. There's a purpose
in it. It's an exact number for a reason. And that reason being is the
Hebrew alphabet. And I'm just, right now, I'm
just gonna give you some preliminary information to the message. The
Hebrew alphabet contains 22 letters. 22 letters. If you divide 22 letters into
the 176 verses, you get eight. Now look at your Bibles, look
at chapter, look at the first verse in Psalm 119. You see it
says, even in my inexpensive Bible here, it says Aleph, A-L-E-P-H,
that's the first part. It's got eight verses. Look at
verse nine, it says Beth. It has eight verses. And this
chapter is divided into 22 stanzas of eight verses each. That is
deliberate. And in those stanzas, for instance,
in the first one, Aleph, those first eight verses in the Hebrew
language begins with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The next eight verses, nine through
16, each verse begins with the second
letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Now we don't see it in our text
because of translation, but if you went back to the Hebrew,
you'd see all 22 stanzas beginning with one letter representing
that letter of the Hebrew alphabet in alphabetical order. Now we might ask why, why would
David, why would the Holy Spirit prompt David to write it that
way? And we can probably speculate, the scripture doesn't tell us
that, but obviously it is to draw our attention to the importance
of what's being said. That is the magnifying of God's
word. That's the only reason I can
think of, to draw us to it. make us wanna read this. Why
is it written this way? It's telling us something. But
I'm not gonna read verses one through eight because it's almost
a repeat in the next eight. I'm gonna begin with verse nine. So let's read verse nine. And the psalmist David, prompted
by the Holy Spirit, wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his
way. Undoubtedly, David wrote this when he was a young man. And he asked the question, how
can I cleanse my way? By taking heed thereto according
to thy word. Cleansing of our way. Cleansing
of our way. That is the effect of salvation. Salvation doesn't come, brothers
and sisters, when we die only. The scripture says today is the
day of salvation. Scripture says we have been delivered
from this present evil world. How does a young man cleanse
his way? going to take heed. He's talking
here about a believer. No unbeliever is interested in
cleansing his way. We know that. Let alone heeding
the word of God. That's impossible. So he's talking
about a believer here. A believer who was born with
an ungodly nature. We were all born with an ungodly
nature, with an enmity The Word of God, Scripture tells it. So what are we going to do with
that nature? How is that nature to be controlled? You look at
the places like Philadelphia and Los Angeles and Chicago and
all these places, you see the effects of an uncontrolled human
nature. women running wild. But how does
a believer control that in himself? Has he not been given a new heart?
Does the Holy Spirit not dwell within us? The scripture says
he does. What does the Holy Spirit produce? It produces a love for
God and a love for righteousness. Scripture said, blessed are they
that hunger and thirst after righteousness You want to know
whether you believe or whether you're a believer or not? Answer
the question. Do I hunger and thirst after
righteousness? Now as to our soul and the controlling
of this nature, listen to what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9,
7. He says, but I keep under my
body and bring it into subjection. That word subjection, it means
slave driver. Slave driver, who is he? It's
a man, he has a whip in his hand. He's gonna force that slave to
do what he wants him to do. Continuing on, he says, but I
keep under my body and bring it unto subjection, lest that
by any means When I have preached to others, I myself should be
a castaway, a reject. What does he mean? There's a work. This perfecting
of the saints here on this earth and righteous living is part
of salvation. Like I said before, today, right
now, is the day of salvation. But we also know that we can't
attain that within ourselves. We don't have the ability. We're
dead in this old man, this old nature is dead. It can't be reformed.
But the Holy Spirit of God has been given to the believer. And
greater is he that is in you the scripture says, than he that
is in the world. We must give full, full recognition
to that living a godly life, heeding God's word is a work
of the Holy Spirit. Without it, it's just mere works.
It's outwardness going in. When actually the truth is, it
comes from the heart out. That's the method, that's God's
method of saving people. Now the second part of this,
wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way by taking heed
thereto according to thy word. Now that word, heed, means to
protect or attend to, or attend to cleansing our way. That's what it refers to, by
taking Heed. Heed to what? Heed to cleansing
our way. We have a desire. We hunger and
thirst after righteousness. That's what the scripture says.
That's what the Lord Jesus Christ himself said. Psalm 138 too says,
I will worship toward thy holy temple. This is David speaking. And praise thy name for thy loving
kindness and for thy truth. Now listen to this, for thou
hast magnified thy word above all thy name. Think about that. No matter how much we hold reverence
for the Lord's name, and we do, we do, and we should, but here,
The scripture teaches us that we should hold reverence, a higher
reverence, for what he tells us in his words. Thou has magnified
thy word above all, all thy name. In Psalm 119, 105, he says, thy
word is a lamp unto my feet and a
light unto my path. I walk, I walk. And imagine how many of you have,
and we've all done this, try to walk on a dark path at night. In the pitch black of night trying
to find your way down a path you can't see. So it is that
this life, this life is a dark world. And this old nature, this
old nature, it can't overcome the spirit. So what's it try
to do? It tries to compromise. Well, I don't think, you know,
I don't think that's, doing that's wrong. That's a reasoning of
the old nature. It compromises, it wants to compromise. So we've got to look to God's
word. The word for us covers every aspect of our life. There's nothing in the word that's not covered in our daily
life and covered by our lives. So, In giving heed to the word,
what do we look for? Well, he's about to tell us in
the remaining seven verses of this text. In verse 10, he says
we give heed to the commandments. In verse 12, he says we give
heed to his statutes. In verse 13, he says we give
heed to his judgments. In verse 14, he says we give
heed to his testimonies. And again, I like to look at
these this morning for just a few minutes. Look at these things
that he's just mentioned, the commandments, the statues, the
judgment, testimonies, and precepts. Now back in verse 10, let's look
at verse 10 again. He says, with my whole heart
have I sought thee. Oh, let me not wander from thy
commandments. What are his commandments? What
are the commandments of God? Well, it's the divine rule of
shalls and shall nots, and the scripture's full of them. Thou
shalt, thou shalt not. When Moses was on Mount Sinai
to get God's law, there were two tables. One, the first table,
was man's duty and responsibility to God. The second table contained
man's duty and responsibility to his fellow man. And so we tend to think when
we talk about commands, we think about the Ten Commandments. Well,
we can't keep the Ten Commandments. They were given to show us that
we're sinners, that's it. You're not gonna become righteous
by the Ten Commandments. But God's commandments go far
beyond that. The Lord Jesus Christ's commandments
go far beyond that. In John 14, 15, listen to what
he says. If you love me, keep my commandments,
if you love me. What comes first? The love of
Christ, the love for Christ. And because of that love that
the Holy Spirit has implanted in our hearts, we want to learn
of his word. We should want to learn of his
word. If you love me, keep my commandments.
John 15, 14, it says the Lord, and this is our Lord Jesus Christ
again speaking, ye are my friends if you do whatsoever I command. But the commandments, so we see,
the commandments are all encompassing. Let me give you an example. You
go out here in your backyard and you dig a hole, a sizable
hole that if anybody should fall into it, they might be hurt.
So what do we do? We dig it, we're gonna leave
it overnight or whatever. We put something up around it
so people We'll bump into that or see that in the dark, you
know, before they fall into the hole. Well, where did that come
from? That come from Mount Sinai when
Moses received the law. How many people know that? How
many people believe that? That was one of the commandments
that God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai. And he said, if you dig
a hole, and more than likely back then, he was talking about
whales, because everyone's talking about here in the book of Genesis
about them digging whales, Isaac digging whales, digging a big
hole. And God, in the commandments
on Mount Sinai said, if you dig a hole, you're to protect it,
lest A man or a beast fall into it, and if he falls into it,
then you're liable, you're responsible. You must reimburse that person
for their loss. And that's what we have today.
If somebody falls in a hole in your backyard, you can better
believe you're gonna wind up reimbursing. So you see, the
word of God is all-encompassing. I encourage you to go back in
the book of Exodus and read all the things that God has to say
beyond just the 10 Commandments. He gives instructions for our
daily lives throughout. But then along comes the Lord
Jesus Christ himself. And when he started preaching,
right after he chose his 12 disciples, He took them up into the mount
and taught them the law. Now these were Jews. These 12
were Jews. They knew the law. They knew the letter of the law.
We can read in Acts that Peter actually confesses that. They
knew the letter of the law, but they didn't know the spirituality. of the law. For instance, he
said, you know, it says in the Old Testament, an eye for an
eye and a tooth for a tooth. That's what God said. The God
of all equity. God is a God of equity, justice,
equal. An eye for an eye and a tooth
for a tooth. But the Lord Jesus Christ says,
You've heard that, that the law says an eye for an eye and a
tooth for tooth, but he says, I tell you, resist not evil. If a man sues you at the law
for your coat, give him your cloak also. He smites you across
the cheek, turn lame, smite you on the other cheek. So his word, Like I said, we
must understand it is all-encompassing for our daily lives, the very
things we do. But what are we prone to do,
naturally speaking? We want to compromise. We say
things like, well, I don't think this is wrong. Really? What's the scripture say? You're
giving your opinion? That's just an opinion. I don't
think, beware of that. Beware of that statement of yourselves
and me, or anybody saying, I don't think. What does the scripture,
what does God's words say? And here's the sum of everything
I'm talking about right here. It's found in Hebrews 4.12. For
the word of God is quick. and powerful, and sharper than
any two-edged sword, that's pretty sharp, piercing even to the dividing
asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and
is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. In other words, God's word splits
hairs, absolutely. Right down to the very, very
least thing we do, God's word splits hairs. In verse 11, let's go on to verse
11. He says, thy word have I hid
in my heart. There's again the word, Thy word,
like I said, this whole psalm is about God's word. And it's
important, very important, because again, God has magnified it above
his name. Thy word have I hid in my heart
that I might not sin against thee. That word hid means to
hoard it or to reserve it, keep it there. But here's the question. How can I hide it if I don't
know it? That's a question for all of
us. Do I read the word? Do I heed the word? Verse 12 says, blessed art thou, O Lord, teach
me thy statutes. We just got through talking about
commandments, what are the statutes? Well, the real definition of
statutes, it's a written law. Mark down a written law or decree
by one with authority. We have statutes in our state. We have statutes in our counties.
We have written laws. We have the commandments. The
commandments are statutes. And these things that we're talking
about, they're so closely related that we've got to really look
at them and study them carefully to see the subtle differences
in them. You know, you can hear a commandment,
somebody can command you to do something, but unless it's written
in a law, it's not binding. The
Ten Commandments was written down that we might obey them. Can we keep them? No. By the laws and knowledge of
sin. But again, we have a total number of commandments. The Lord
taught on the Sermon on the Mount, he taught those disciples the
spirituality of the law. They didn't understand it. Certainly
the Pharisees didn't understand it. The Lord condemned them because
they were looking at the letter, not the Spirit. Only by the Spirit
of God can we know what God's laws are meant for. And they're meant for our good.
They are meant for our good. And we gotta be careful that
we don't make excuses for ourselves, and we're all prone to do this.
Well, you know, I'm a sinner, I'm gonna sin. No, a believer says I'm a sinner,
Lord help me, teach me, teach me your words. That's what David
does here in Psalm 119. Here's a commandment, listen
to this commandment. Genesis 319, in the sweat of
thy face shalt thou eat bread. "'Til thou return unto the ground,
"'for out of it thou wast taken. "'For thus thou art, and to thus
thou shalt return.'" That's a commandment. It's not written in the Ten Commandments,
but nonetheless, it's a commandment. You see, the law of God is all,
all-encompassing. It directs us. Lamp unto my feet,
that's what he said. It's a lamp, the word is a lamp
unto our feet. Verse 13 says, with my lips have
I declared all the judgments of thy mouth. Here he's telling
us to heed the judgments of God. The definition of the word judgments
is the right to make And that's the key word, the right to make
considered decisions. Wisdom, wisdom. A judge sits
on a bench, he listens to all the testimony. If the judge himself
is going to make the decision, he listens to all that testimony
and he makes a considered decision. And that's God. God does not just arbitrarily
do things for no reason. All things are done according
to wisdom. Sometimes I think about the creation
of this earth and this universe, and you look at these bodies.
David said, I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. You look at
the intricacy of this body, how it works together. That's judgment. God did it in
wisdom. Here's a judgment, Ezekiel 18,
four, the soul that sinneth, it shall die. That's a judgment
of God. Psalm 105, seven says he is the
Lord, our God. His judgments are in all the
earth. And we see this daily. We see
this daily throughout the world. We see God's judgment. Things
aren't not happening by accident. This train wreck they had up
there in Ohio, that was the judgment of God.
What for? Only he knows his reasoning.
We have all these storms that come. This destroys things, that's
judgment. But also there's good judgment.
There is good judgment. David says in Psalm 119, my flesh
trembleth for fear of thee, and I am afraid of thy judgments. A believer afraid of God's judgments? Why? Why would a believer be
afraid of God's judgments? Well, Galatians 6, 7, answers
that question for us. Here's what it says. Be not deceived,
God. Now remember, he's writing to
the Galatians, he's writing to church, he's not writing to unbelievers.
He's writing to the church. Be not deceived, God is not mocked. For whatsoever a man soweth,
that shall he also reap. He makes no distinction there
between the lost and the saved. We don't read that. He's talking to believers. And
we see that in the scriptures. I think as I was reading this,
I got to thinking about old Moses. There's a man that the scripture
says he talked with God as you and I might talk one with another.
40 years he led those people that God called them stiff-necked.
You can imagine what he put up with with those people for 40
years in the wilderness leading them. But what did he do? In one instant, when God told
him to speak to the rock to get water out of it, what did he
do? In his anger against these stiff-necked people, he smote
it. And because of that one judgment,
God says you're not gonna go in to the land of Canaan. One
thing, 40 years, he walked with God, talked with God, and yet
for one act of rebellion, he reaped what he sowed. And so certainly, in the afflictions
of our life. Every time something comes our
way, we do well to weigh our actions. Think about it. And of course, we can go with
David. Look at David. He took another man's wife, had
a man killed. David, the Lord told him, he
says, David, the sword is never gonna depart from your house,
and also I'm gonna raise up one of your own that's gonna fight
against you. And what did he do? He raised
up his very son Absalom that sought to kill him. David reaped
what he sowed. Verse 14, I have rejoiced in the way of
thy testimonies as much as in all riches. We are to heed the
testimonies of God. Testimonies, of course, are given
by a witness. When a man goes to court and
he's a witness, he's given a testimony. He has to have seen something
or heard something in order to give that testimony. Now this word we have, is God's testimony. But there's also, in this word,
we read of many different testimonies. Now, as to this old nature, every
man born into this world has been given a conscience by God
to know right and wrong. That's not a testimony. That's
inherent in every one of us. a conscience that tells us. But
yet there are testimonies in scripture that we don't know
naturally. The greatest testimony in all
of scripture is that the Lord Jesus Christ came to save sinners. That is the testimony of God. His testimony is that we are
sinners. Sinners. He says in Psalms 14
and 53, he looked down upon the sons of men and he said, there
were none good. There's none that doeth good,
no not one. They've all gone astray. We've
all gone astray. That's a testimony of God. But I love what he says upon
the birth of the Lord Jesus. The heavenly host, when the Lord
was born, and the shepherds were out in the field, they heard
the song, glory to God in the highest. And I love this, and
on earth, peace, goodwill toward men. That's a testimony of God. And what was that, that Christ
came in this world to save sinners, Paul says, of who I am chief. And every believer, we all believe
that we're the worst of sinners. I look back at my life, and I'm ashamed of what I've
done, what I've sinned. And oftentimes I think, well,
move over, Paul, you're not the worst of sinners anymore, because
I am. And every believer feels that.
He sees that sin within him. But that's the testimony of God,
that Christ Jesus, our Lord, came to seek and to save sinners. And his testimony is, God's testimony
is that he is going to save sinners. He's going to save those that
have been chosen before the world ever began. Verse 15. He says, I will meditate in thy
precepts and have respect into thy ways. Here again, he tells us to heed
his precepts. Now, what's a precept? Well,
the definition is it's a general rule meant to regulate behavior
or thought. It's a general rule. Is it a
command? You could say it is. You see
all these things that he's talking about, yet he's breaking them
out. All of them are closely related. Because what he's talking
is about the total word of God. God is unity, God is one, and
all his word is one. But yet these subtle differences
in the word, we are to give heed to. Again, precepts, a general
rule meant to regulate behavior or thought. Matthew 5.39 says
this, but I say unto you that ye resist not evil. I told you
this a little bit ago, you resist not evil. But whosoever shall
smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. Is
that a command? Yes, it is. Is it a precept? Yes, it is. It's meant to control
behavior, is it not? It's to direct us. It's to direct
us according, the scripture says, according to his word. James
4.7 says, submit yourselves therefore to God. Now here's the precept,
resist the devil. Resist the devil and he will
flee from you. That also is a general rule meant
to regulate our behavior. Resisting, resisting. How are we gonna do that in ourselves? No, we don't have the strength
to do that. Listen, brothers and sisters, what we're talking
about here this morning is not accomplished by this old nature,
by our free will. Oh no, this is done by the Holy
Spirit and it's gonna take prayer because this is a very strong
inclination in all of us to this thing called sin. And only the
Holy Spirit can do that. Only the Holy Spirit can give
us the strength to overcome this old nature. Ephesians 6.11 says
this, Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to
stand against the walls of the devil. That's a precept. Put
on the whole armor. Talks about the shield of faith,
the helmet, the breastplate of salvation. First John 2, 15. Here's a good
precept. meant, again, to regulate behavior. Love not the world, nor, or neither,
things that are in the world. Now it's easy, we can say, well,
we don't love the world, we don't take part in it, but how about
the things? What things is that, is he talking
about? How do we know what things? Well,
I don't think this is wrong to have this or do that. Well, what's
the scripture say? These things that are in the
world, we're gonna have to go to the book. We're gonna have
to go to God's word. We're gonna have to read it.
We're gonna have to study it in order to know those things.
I've told people, God just doesn't crack your head open and pour
all the word into it. It takes study. God, The scripture
says, the Lord says himself, he said, when the comforter shall
come, he'll guide you in all things, for he'll take of mine
and show it unto you. Well, what is mine? That's what
is recorded in the scriptures. And then in verse 16, he says,
I will delight myself in thy statues. Again, we've read what
those statues are. I will not forget thy word. Joshua 1, 8 says this, this book of the law,
the word. Remember at the time of Christ
when he wrote all these things, only thing that he had, only
thing that the believers had was the Old Testament. That was
God's word. People say, well, that's a law,
that's passed. No, no, no, no, no, no. The Old
Testament was just a precursor to the New. The Old Testament,
really, the Old Testament tells us more about godly living than
the New Testament. It lists all these things. That's
what we're reading about. We're not reading about the New
Testament here. He's talking about what's written in the Old
Testament, the precepts, the commandments, all these things
given for this very reason right here. Here's what Joshua 1.8
says. This book of the law, in other
words, God's word, shall not depart out of thy mouth, but
thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe
to do according to all that is written therein. For then thou
shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good
success." Has that changed? Has that changed for our generation,
Fred? No, no. We wonder sometimes,
why is this happening to me? Well, We'd be better off to look
at our lives in the way we walk, our walk. We're put here, we're
put here on this earth right now, not to serve ourselves,
but to serve the living God. He saved us, and as I said before,
today, right now, is a day of salvation, not after we die, Psalm 119, 105. The word is a lamp unto my feet
and a light unto my path. Again, the world's a dark path. The believer's walking path must
be according to God's direction, God's word. Otherwise, brothers
and sisters, where do we go? If we don't want to heed God's
word, which most of the world does not, where do we go? The
old nature? No. Our own reasoning? Our opinions? Again, I say this, beware of
the devil's trap by saying, I don't think this is wrong or I don't
think that's wrong. What do the scriptures say? In every little
facet of our life, Every instance, we should always be mindful of
what the scripture says. Opinions mean nothing. Your opinion, my opinion, is
worth nothing if it's not according to the truth. But if it's according
to truth, then it's not my opinion. Galatians 6, 8. For he that soweth
through the flesh shall reap corruption. But he that soweth
to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. Heeding to God's word is a spiritual work. A spiritual
work by the third person of the Trinity. A person. Just like Christ is
a person, God the Father is a person, the Holy Spirit is a person,
yet they're one. Explain that, Neil. I can't.
I can't. But it's a spiritual work. It
has to be a spiritual work. And we ought to be on our knees
constantly praying that God would give us a right heart to follow
him, to love him, to love his word. In closing, let me say this,
brothers and sisters, there's nothing in the circumstances
of our lives that has not been addressed in these scriptures. The importance of heeding God's
word cannot be overemphasized. Again, I would recommend you
go through and read this Psalm 119, all 176 verses, and see
what David has to say. These words that we read here, commandments, the statues, the
judgments, the precepts, you'll find those all through the Psalm
119. Very, very important. And so, in ending this, you've
heard preachers say, now listen carefully, you've heard preachers
say, there's no such thing as a prayerless Christian. To that we can add, there's no
such thing as a readerless Christian. And certainly there's no such
thing as a heedless Christian. And with that, I'll close. I
pray that Lord would bless that to our hearts and that he might
be glorified in exalting his holy word. Amen.