I'd like for you tonight to turn in
the Psalms, 119th Psalm, and consider some of
the truth and the blessing that flows to
us through the Word of God.
As you well know, these 176 verses are
devoted to the mention of the value of
the Word of God.
It is described, and the blessing that comes
through reading it, meditating upon it.
The Word is so important.
Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the Word
of God.
So perhaps we'll just read, divide it up
into eight-verse sections, and perhaps we'll just
read the first 16 verses.
Blessed are the undefiled in the way who
walk in the law of the Lord.
Blessed are they that keep his testimonies than
that seek him with the whole heart.
They also do no iniquity, they walk in
his ways.
Thou hast commanded us to keep thy precepts
diligently.
O that my ways were directed to keep
thy statutes!
Then shall I not be ashamed when I
see thee, O God, when I see thee,
O God, when I see thee, O God,
when I see thee, O God, when I
see thee, O God, when I see thee,
O God, when I see thee, O God,
when I see thee, O God, when I
see thee, O God, when I see thee,
O God, when I see thee, O God,
when I see thee, O God, when I
see thee, O God, when I see thee,
O God, when I see thee, O God,
when I see thee, O God, when I
see thee, O God, when I see thee,
When I have respect unto all thy commandments,
I will praise thee with uprightness of heart
when I shall have learned thy righteous judgments.
I will keep thy statutes, O forsake me
not utterly, for withal shall a young man
cleanse his way by taking heed thereto according
to thy word.
With my whole heart have I sought Thee,
O let me not wander from Thy commandments.
Thy word have I hid in my heart,
that I might not sin against Thee.
Blessed art Thou, O Lord, teach me Thy
statutes, witheth my lips have I declared all
the judgments of my mouth.
I have rejoiced in the way of Thy
testimonies as much as in all riches.
I will meditate in Thy precepts and have
respect unto Thy ways.
I will delight myself in Thy statutes.
I will not forget Thy word.
And shall we look to the Lord again
in a word of prayer.
For our gracious, loving Heavenly Father, we thank
Thee for another day of the sovereign grace
of God.
We are so thankful that the word of
God has gone out with free course this
day.
Thank Thee for the power of the word,
and we pray that the Spirit of God
has been able today to search hearts.
We are thinking of all of those in
the world today that are still lost and
they haven't sensed or known the touch of
God upon their lives.
They have not tasted of the goodness of
the Lord.
They have not entered into the joy of
Thy great salvation.
O our God, may the word of God,
be it upon the printed page or over
all the news media that is available through
the preaching, the personal witness of believers to
those that need the Savior.
Grant, we pray Thee, Lord, thy blessing.
We remember so many of our own here
that are not able to get out this
evening.
We think of Les Dobie, and we do
remember Johnny Lou Guthrie, and we think of
Robert Gianetta, and Ruth Pittman, and a host
of others that come to mind, Lord.
These dear ones, we pray Thee, comfort them
with special thoughts of Thyself, and bless them,
and grant them that great, wonderful peace that
can fill the heart and soul in trusting
Thee.
In the name of the Lord Jesus, we
ask this, amen.
This is the longest of the psalms, 176
verses, as I mentioned.
Many people have read this psalm, and they
have declared it to be a real source
of blessing.
I think the constant reminder as you read
through this psalm, whether the word is referred
to as precepts, or statutes, or commandments, the
word, we are reminded of the value of
God's word.
And I sometimes, and I trust that all
of us have this experience, have you ever
taken the word of God up and opened
it, and you are anticipating what God will
say to you?
Because we do hear the voice of God
as we read the word of God.
He speaks to us.
The Spirit of God is able to seal
home to our hearts the value of what
He has to say to us.
The Spirit of God helps us to understand.
Some of these sayings are deep.
They have deep significance, and they have meaning
that is of such great value to us.
And so we read the word of God,
we meditate upon the word of God.
That little word, selah, that has been introduced
into the pages of Scripture and many of
the psalms you read, just simply means to
stop and to meditate and give some special
thought to what has been said.
So this is described as being a holy
alphabet.
Out of these sections, there are 22 sections,
22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet, it is
called the holy alphabet.
Some have said to read one section of
this 119th psalm.
Each day has been the goal in their
life, and they attest strongly to the value
of reading this psalm and the emphasis that
is placed upon the word of God.
There can be a lot of good, positive
results coming from reading the word of God.
And this one starts out with, Blessed are
the undefiled in the way who walk in
the law of the Lord.
It sounds like Psalm 1.
You know, men are defiled because of sin,
and there is a strong reminder of just
how defiling sin can be.
You look at an individual that has sunk
so low, all restraint over that life has
just been cast aside, and you look at
it and you say, What in the world
could have happened in this life to reduce
this individual to such a level of living
in the world that we live today?
I think it would be safe to say,
just right over sin, sin has a way
of producing the kind of depravity that you
witness in a human life and remind you
of the seriousness, remind each one of us
of the seriousness of sin.
Look what it caused in the garden.
And sin is a result of disobedience to
the mind and the word of the living
God.
We can only be happy if we really
do what He tells us to do.
So the defiling effect of sin upon a
human life, to be happy, to remain undefiled,
lead us not into temptation, but deliver us
from the power of the evil one who
would seduce us and draw us away and
have us place no real value upon what
God has said.
We can enjoy that blessedness of obeying the
word of God.
Delight thyself in the Lord, and he will
give you the desires of your heart.
You know, there are so many precious promises
found in God's word.
Delight thyself in the Lord and what he
has said.
We normally, when you think of an individual,
you may think of what they look like,
and a lot of times you think about
what he thinks about life, and you think
about words that he has said.
We were talking about the prayer life of
different individuals, our Lord, not knowing exactly what
his voice sounds like.
But when people are gathered together and there
is a prayer meeting, you learn to identify
people by their words, what they say.
And so often I have heard people say,
I love to hear that person pray, just
love to hear that person pray.
The words that come forth out of that
heart and soul, they are indeed a blessing
to me, and certainly the word of God
is such a rich source of blessing for
each one of us.
It's like the Sermon on the Mount, blessed,
it's a benediction.
This psalm is like the Sermon on the
Mount.
It begins with a benediction, the act of
blessing.
When you think about your first encounter with
the word of God, I tried to recall
in my own memory the first time that
I ever read the Bible, and I was
well on in life, thirty years old, and
I read the Bible, the word of God.
I don't know if someone else had told
me this, made me aware of this, but
I was aware this is God's word.
And it stopped me, it sobered me up.
It caused something to happen in my soul
that was very special, because I began to
attach such deep meaning to what I was
reading.
If this is what God is saying, this
is God's word, I want to listen very
carefully.
Sometimes when people talk, you don't pay much
attention to what they're saying.
I have a lady that sometimes when she's
talking, I may be reading something, and she
says, don't read that and listen to me.
I tell her I can do both at
the same time, because she doesn't say very
much, and she just goes on and on
and on talking.
It's not that way with God's word.
You need an undivided mind.
You need your attention focused upon this.
I'm reading this word, and Lord, this is
such a blessing to me.
And you know, anything that comes forth from
God for you and me, that's a real
blessing.
We want to get all of it we
can.
Blessed are they that keep his testimonies and
that seek him with a whole heart.
And this is mentioned twice over in this
same passage, where there's a reminder that God
loves wholeheartedness.
Can you tell when someone is taking what
you say or what you're engaged in in
a rather flippant or lighthearted manner?
A lot of times you don't appreciate that,
because it may be something that is of
real value to you, and you want them
to take it just as seriously as you
do.
And certainly reading and meditation upon the word
of God, happy are they that keep his
testimonies.
Obedient children are happy children.
Maybe that was why I was so unhappy
as a child.
Maybe we look back and we think, man,
if I had obeyed and did all that
my parents required of me and asked me
to do, I would have been a happy
child.
The world today seems to be filled with
children that are not too happy.
Disturbed children.
All kinds of things have developed in life.
It's given vent to the rise of medicine,
psychiatrists and psychologists and sociologists and all these
people that are making a big business out
of dealing with people that are having problems.
They're unhappy.
They're not happy with themselves nor anything else
that seems to revolve around them.
But happy are they that keep his testimonies
and that seek him with a whole heart.
One thing to be reminded of, the Lord
knows all about this, and he doesn't want
me looking at television and listening to the
radio and a host of other things when
I am supposed to be devoting myself to
have him speak to me from the word.
I don't think I possess that kind of
intelligence in that as powerful and as deep
and searching as the word of God is
that I can be involved in other things.
You may be able to listen to two
or three different things, people talking and so
forth, and not miss anything because there's not
the same meaning and the value attached to
what they're saying that should be attached to
the word of God.
That whole heart that loves the word.
One time while I was in business, there
was an inspector, a government inspector that was
there, and he was a wonderful Christian gentleman.
He was living up in New York State,
and he was an inspector for a large
meatpacking corporation there, and he didn't have a
whole lot of this world's goods, and he
had to ride daily back and forth on
the subway to his job.
He always carried the word of God with
him.
He had gone through the Schofield Bible study
course, and he was a serious student of
the word of God.
One day, a man sitting beside him said,
Why is it that you always carry that
Bible with you?
He recognized it as a Bible, and he
said, You seem to devote all the time
you're here on the train riding to work
or wherever you go, reading that Bible.
Sometimes your eyes are closed, and you seem
to be in deep thought.
His response to him was, I love it.
I love the word of God, and I
do believe he did.
He was a godly man, and when he
spoke and when he acted, I could tell
that the word of God had had a
great impact upon his life.
That was a good testimony with his whole
heart and his whole life.
It had such a sanctifying effect upon him,
and the word of God does that.
It's the cure for so many things that
would brighten up your life and my life.
That sanctifying effect, that setting apart us as
individuals that belong to God, and we value
what he has to say to us, can
be a great deterrent to sin making inroads
into our lives.
That's so important, too.
We want to keep these testimonies.
They are perfect.
That word is ideal.
You say, I was reading the scriptures this
morning, and the Lord brought to my attention
something that I needed, I sorely needed, that
thought, that truth for my life.
It met a need in my life, how
important all of this is.
You know, when I read the 23rd Psalm,
and he put our feet upon the pathway
of righteousness for his namesake, he clearly identifies
that reason why we should be walking upon
that pathway of righteousness.
Walking not in this world, walking not among
those that sometimes their very presence can be
such a defiling, have a defiling effect upon
you, or how important it is to know
that God puts great value upon how we
handle and accept the word of God.
And obedience to it keeps coming back to
me as I read this.
You could read and read and read and
study the word of God and still not
obey it.
People read a lot of things.
I know people that, I know a man
that's been in prison, and he told me,
he said, I never had any interest in
law or anything like that until I was
incarcerated.
And I began to read the law.
I wanted to know what the law said.
He said, I was amazed how many times
I'd broken the law.
They didn't catch me for half of what
I had broken.
I broke a lot of them.
Maybe I broke all of them.
But indeed, to read this word, these facts,
and to be reminded that it is important
to obey what we read.
You expect, if you're a parent, you expect
your child to obey what you say, don't
you?
I know you do.
And you are terribly disappointed when they don't.
I know that some people have told me
all my dad or my mother had to
do was look at me.
Just one look.
I knew what they meant.
They didn't have to say anything.
But indeed, to be directed and controlled in
such a way that you value the instructions
that come from that person.
Well, God is speaking to us through his
word.
Isn't it tragic that we don't read it,
take it seriously and obey what he asks
us to do?
So often we discover that we have been
disobedient.
And I trust that when that happens, we
will be driven to our knees and say,
Lord, forgive me.
I am confessing that I have taken the
reading of the word.
And what I know, what I know in
my heart is true.
And I've disobeyed you.
You know, that's not easy to say.
But it's so important for each one of
us to keep that in mind.
You know, God would have his people to
obey what he has to say.
He works in them to do his will.
And you know, you read the life and
you read what happened in the life of
the Lord Jesus Christ and you can't help
but focus upon the fact that he said,
my will is to do the will of
him that sent me.
Isn't it wonderful to know that there was
someone that walked this earthly pathway?
He never deviated one time from doing the
will of God.
He obeyed perfectly everything that was designed for
him.
Wednesday night we were talking about God has
a plan for our lives.
And so often we submit to the Lord,
well, Lord, here's my plan.
My plan.
Oh, to recognize that sovereignly God wants to
control our lives, what we're doing.
Our plans should be according to his will.
This is all important for you and me
as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.
True obedience.
Not just the casual kind.
I'll pick and choose what I want to
believe.
You've heard that.
No, it has to be something that's absolute.
I have resolved that reading the Word of
God, having the Spirit of God so jealously
guarding over you and me as a believer,
and he does that, beloved.
The Spirit of God jealously guards over us.
We belong to God and he knows it.
We're sealed with the Spirit of God.
We're divine property.
We're not our own.
We were purchased with a price.
He wants us to obey and do the
will of God and not say, well, I'll
obey in this area.
I'm doing this much, after all.
I'm not as bad as someone else.
And begin to compare ourselves with others, which
is so tragic.
No, I want to be truly obedient to
what God asked me to do.
What a testimony for God that that Word
would impact me and I would count it
as being of such value and importance.
I must obey the Word of God.
I can't be happy.
I can't rejoice in my soul knowing that
I'm walking not along the pathway of righteousness
and extolling and glorifying God in my life,
and I'm a disobedient child of God.
Well, that's what it means when we don't
do what he asked us to do.
And that, indeed, is tragic.
I delight in your statutes.
You know, some people that I've talked to,
they think that those that are Christians, if
you are bold and you're a witness for
the Lord and that you say, He meets
my every need, I'm happy in the Lord,
I accept His will for my life.
They think you just have maybe about half
of your mind.
You're a little bit funny.
I said this morning that peculiar people, I'll
tell you, it's time for God's people to
get peculiar and let people identify you as
being different.
Let people identify you as being someone that
is loyal and true to the God that
has saved us, done something for us that
we could not do for ourselves.
He's the only one that could do it.
Aren't we so thankful that He had a
divine plan that He put into place for
saving the world?
He has a divine plan for coming and
catching His people away, carrying us to our
eternal home.
This world is not my home.
The old song says, I'm just passing through.
Isn't it wonderful to know that there's a
prepared place for a prepared people, the people
of God.
Oh, how merciful, how good our God is
to us.
How He values.
How He values the value we place upon
the Word of God.
You'd have to put it this way.
Do I really value what God says?
Is it important?
You know, I've mentioned people, and people do
a lot of talking, and sometimes you don't
put a lot of value upon what they
say.
He doesn't know what he's talking about.
I have to say this because I thought
it while I was sitting on the bench,
but when the roll is called up yonder,
I'll be there.
But in the 2nd verse of that hymn,
that guy said, I think his name is
Dark, was it?
What is it, Dark?
He said, On that bright and cloudless morning.
How did he know that on a bright
and cloudless morning that the rapture will take
place and God will come and get us?
Nobody knows when.
But he introduced those words, you see.
Maybe that's what he believed, and it made
good words for that hymn.
But we don't know whether it will be
a bright and cloudless morning or not.
God knows.
I know to be caught away and to
be introduced personally to Him, face-to-face
with the Lord Jesus Christ, that's going to
be a reality, and that's going to be
wonderful.
True obedience.
Not pick and choose what I want to
do, what appeals to me.
And you know, if you're not loyal to
this Word, I'll tell you something, beloved brother
and sister in Christ, other people know whether
you take it seriously or not.
The world we live in today, and you've
heard this so often, I've never met an
unsaved person yet that couldn't tell a Christian
how to live.
So often they know or seem to know
what we're supposed to be doing.
They know when we're disloyal and we don't
obey the Word of God.
They seem to know.
They detect that we're not wholeheartedly in love
with the Word of God, as my dear
friend was.
Love the Word of God.
Able to witness and to be able to
present the truth of the Word as something
that you truly mean in your heart and
soul.
Not just words, know that what you are
presenting, when you point a person to the
salvation that God has provided, you are able
to say, I have experienced this.
Experientially, I know that this is true.
He can truly change your whole life.
He can bring into your life a whole
new dimension of living.
I know it's true.
I have experienced it.
And He lives within my heart.
You know, that's the pure, unadulterated grace of
God working in your heart and my heart.
I will praise thee with uprightness of heart,
entertaining in our hearts and souls things that
indeed are not promoting the kind of holiness
within our own soul.
You know, God's, the worship of God, it
stems so often from what we know about
the Word of God.
God is spirit.
We must worship Him in spirit and according
to the truth.
And people, because sometimes they can't, they can't
accept the reality of that truth, they will
produce an image or they'll produce something that
they learn to identify with.
Identify with the Word of God.
You don't need an idol.
Perhaps idolatry springs forth from all of this.
I must have some reality about what I
say I believe.
The reality is, thus saith the Word of
God.
That's all important.
Worship and obedience, they have to be linked
together.
And it's based upon our knowledge of the
Word of God.
And it should be a product in each
one of our lives, something that it produces.
And I know that prayer does play an
important part.
When you are devoted to examining a truth
in the Word of God, stay close to
the Lord and remind Him that He promised
that the Spirit of God that indwells us
will give us enlightenment.
You say, but I've got all of those
books laying there, and I'm making constant reference
to what somebody else said.
You know, sometimes you realize, close them all
up.
Push them all aside and say, Lord, speak
to me.
Lord, speak to me.
This is your Word.
And the Spirit of God can teach me
anything in this book that I'm willing to
devote myself to.
And with the right attitude of heart and
mind, I can be blessed by having you
provide enlightenment.
You know, in this psalm, I will keep
thy statutes, O forsake me not.
You know, that's a good resolve.
Can you imagine what it would be like
for someone to come and say, you know,
I found something in the Word of God
that no one else had ever discovered?
What is it?
It's a passage of Scripture that's been hidden,
but it says that the Lord will forsake
us.
He will forsake us.
He will leave us.
Where in the world did you find it?
Oh, it was hidden.
It was hidden.
I'm so thankful that I can say, I
will never leave thee nor forsake thee.
How many times some dear, poor saint that
was indeed going through circumstances that were so
trying, and they just grabbed hold, I will
never leave you nor forsake you.
The truth of God's Word, I believe it.
I will never, never, never leave you nor
forsake you.
And that's comforting, and we like the thought
of that.
And we get down to some verses that
young people down through the ages, when they
go to youth rallies and so forth, Wherewithal
shall a young man cleanse his way, By
taking heed thereto according to thy word.
You know, it starts out with a question,
and it's a weighty question, I think.
Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?
I think God does a satisfactory answer to
that question.
And let every young person, old person, and
all in between be reminded that with the
grace in our hearts, we learn that indeed
according to the Word of God.
What has God said?
How can cleansing come?
Nothing but the blood of our Lord Jesus
Christ can cleanse us from that defilement that
touches our lives.
That's the Word of God.
Again, with my whole heart have I sought
thee, O let me not wander from thy
commandments.
Can you imagine if David or someone else,
one of the persons that penned these words
in the Psalms, and that was the desire
of his heart.
I don't want to wander away from the
truth of the Word of God, but you
know, and I know, and sometimes we know
it in a very personal way, I have
wandered away from the Word.
Not reading the Word like I used to.
Not a part of my daily living.
I don't have those private times anymore when
I draw aside and take the Word of
God and with that kind of expectancy we've
been talking about, I want to hear you
speak to me, Lord, through the Word.
The reality of all that God wants the
Word to mean to us, its impact upon
us, how important it is.
It is important.
So important.
By word have I hid in my heart
that I might sin against thee.
I doubt if there's a person in this
room tonight, as a believer, and you've been
saved any length of time, that you cannot
look back in your life and had this
come to your mind, if it had not
been for the Word of God coming to
my mind, I would have done something that
would have been shameful and harmful to me.
I believe that every one of us has
had that experience.
It was the Word of God reminding me
of what a dreadful thing sin is, what
a dreadful thing it would be for me
to disobey the Word and dishonor God in
defying Him by an act of disobedience to
something that is so clearly taught in the
Word of God.
Walking in a manner that is well pleasing
to Him because we belong to Him, and
He delights in hearing you and hearing me,
and I say that indeed.
But for the grace of God and what
the Word that was thrown away in my
mind, that's why it's so valuable to memorize
the Word of God, have it there.
The Lord Jesus Christ reminded the devil when
he sought to tempt and test him, it
is written, it is written, and I trust
that every one of us, when we are
brought face to face, when there are opportunities
to engage in things and to think things
and to do things that are dishonoring to
the Lord, it's written, it's written.
And it's written that I should not engage
in that activity.
You know, if you want blanket coverage, be
not conformed to the ways of this world.
Man, this world is reaching out.
The tentacles are like some giant octopus, and
the allurement of the world and the pleasures
of sin, they are so great.
But we found a source of joy and
peace and satisfaction for the soul, you can't
find it anywhere else, because the pleasures of
sin are just for a season, it doesn't
last very long.
Blessed art thou, O Lord, teach me thy
statutes, O Lord.
Prayer and praise, that's a part of my
life.
I will lift up my voice to God,
and I'll praise and worship Him.
And I delight to engage in that activity,
not for a show, but because I know
He loves me and I love Him.
I love Him, and I do appreciate all
that He has done for me.
With my lips have I declared all the
judgments of thy mouth.
You know, we have an opportunity.
Let the redeemed of the Lord, let them
speak forth boldly with authority.
What authority?
The Word of God.
Man, you want to be saved?
Yes, I want to be saved.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you'll
be saved.
You know, one time we went on a
little evangelistic get-together in which a lot
of thoughts were being exchanged.
Brother Jim Redling had launched out into a
ministry of evangelization.
He loved to preach the gospel, and he
said, You know, brethren, there's something I've learned
that I didn't use to do this, but
if someone wanted to be saved, I tried
to give him the whole Bible at one
time.
He said, I sometimes start in Genesis and
just go on and on.
And finally, an older brother one time heard
me, and he drew me aside sometime later,
and he reminded me, The man just wants
to be saved, Jim.
Tell him how to be saved.
He said, Give me a verse.
He that hath the Son hath life.
He that hath not the Son hath not
life.
He said, That's all.
That's all he needs.
He needs Jesus Christ, the Son of God
as his Savior.
Isn't it simple?
I don't have to be a theologian.
I don't have to be someone that has
memorized every portion of the Word of God.
If God saved your soul, you know how
you got saved.
You know a verse of Scripture, perhaps.
Romans 10 and 9 is a favorite verse
of mine.
And you may say John 3.16. You
may say some other verse, but rejoice in
having the opportunity of sharing with someone else
this life-giving Word.
I will meditate in thy precepts and have
respect unto thy ways.
I will delight myself in thy statutes.
Child of God, learn to have a wonderful
experience in having your soul filled with joy
like you never had before by reading the
Word of God and meditating upon it and
saying, Lord, I'm your child.
What do you want me to know that
I don't know?
Is there something here that I need to
be enlightened to?
Help me, Lord.
Help me.
You're my heavenly Father.
I search your Word.
I want that truth to come into my
mind and heart so that I can obey
it and follow your will for my life.
What the heart delights in, listen to this,
what the heart delights in, memory retains.
You believe that?
Some pleasurable experience, some experience in your life,
maybe it's your love for someone else, maybe
it's something very special, but you delight in
that and you retain that.
Maybe you keep some love letters that someone
wrote you.
You like to still read them, little things
like that.
It's in your memory and you want to
keep it there, don't you?
You don't want to forget it.
That woman doesn't want me to forget I
love her and I tell her I love
her and she still likes to hear that.
Don't you think God likes to hear us
say, Lord, I love you?
Now love your Word.
It's meant so much to me.
It's to help me to grow spiritually.
I'm more mature now than I was the
day I was saved, and God knows we're
supposed to grow in grace and knowledge of
the Lord Jesus Christ, all according to the
Word.
Delight thyself in the Lord and he will
give you the desires of your heart.
Our Heavenly Father, we thank thee for the
psalms.
Thank thee for this, the Word of God.
Mage one of us solemnly in our own
hearts and souls now, Lord, in that very
private manner in which we sometimes dedicate ourselves
afresh.
We dedicate ourselves to a more careful walk
with thee.
We are approving our love and our appreciation
for your presence with us as we read
the Word of God, as we hear your
voice speak to us.
Bless us to the end that our lives
will be enriched to the point that joy,
peace, worship and praise shall be ascribed to
you and the Lord and Savior of our
souls, Jesus Christ.
In his name we pray, amen.