Take your Bibles, if you will, and turn to Psalm 119 again. Psalm 119. The title of the message today is “The Believer and His Bible.” The Believer and His Bible. I’m going to read a selection from the psalm. I’ve mentioned before that I’m not going to work verse by verse through the psalm.
It would take us so long. What I’m trying to do is take a big-picture view of the psalm and highlight some of its major teachings. Inevitably, I will miss some of them. This psalm takes up a number of themes with respect to the Scriptures. One prominent one that I don’t think I will get to is the believer’s suffering and how the Scriptures help the believer in times of suffering. It’s a big theme here in this psalm. We won’t be doing that, but we will be taking some of the larger themes and trying to highlight them. I’ll begin with verse one.
“Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord. Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with their whole heart, who also do no wrong, but walk in his ways. You have commanded your precepts to be kept diligently. Oh, that my ways might be steadfast in keeping with your statutes. Then I shall not be put to shame, having my eyes fixed on all your commandments. I will praise you with an upright heart when I learn your righteous rules. I will keep your statutes. Do not utterly forsake me. How can a young man keep his way pure by guarding it according to your word? With my whole heart, I seek you. Let me not wander from your commandments. I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
Blessed are you, O Lord. Teach me your statutes. With my lips, I declare all the rules of your mouth. In the way of your testimonies, I delight as much as in all riches. I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. I will delight in your statutes. I will not forget your word.” Now, if you would drop down to verse 97. “Oh, how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day. Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies for it is ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the aged, for I keep your precepts. I hold back my feet from every evil in order to keep your word. I do not turn aside from your rules, for you have taught me. How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth. Through your precepts I get understanding, therefore I hate every false way. Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
I have sworn an oath and confirmed it to keep your righteous rules. I’m severely afflicted. Give me life, O Lord, according to your word. Accept my freewill offerings of praise, O Lord, and teach me your rules. I hold my life in my hand continually, but I do not forget your law. The wicked have laid a snare for me, but I do not stray from your precepts. Your testimonies are my heritage forever, for they are the joy of my heart. I incline my heart to perform your statutes forever, to the end.”
Now, if you can remember last time, and most of you, I think, are already aware, that Psalm 119 is an acrostic psalm. That is to say, it follows the Hebrew alphabet. So verses one through eight, you’ll see in some of your Bibles it’s labeled Aleph; that’s the Hebrew letter. Each of the first eight verses begin with Aleph. And then verses nine, Beit, and each of the verses begin with Beit, and then so on through the Hebrew alphabet—176 verses, 22 stanzas, eight verses each. And so it works out in that way. And the theme throughout is in praise of Torah. That’s what we looked at last time. This is what we call today a Torah psalm because it extols the greatness and the value of God’s law given to us.
Here, the word Torah means “law.” It’s translated that way, but it also carries the connotations of just instruction. Given that it’s God’s law, it’s authoritative instruction, so it’s law, but it’s instruction. It even has the connotations sometime of a catechetical instruction. It’s authoritative instruction from God. And here in Psalm 119, it takes its broadest connotations to simply refer to God’s word as it has been given to us. To do that, he has employed, as we saw last time, various terminology for that: the law of the Lord, the testimonies, the statutes, the commandments, the word of the Lord, the precepts, the rules, and so on.
And throughout, the leading overall note of it all is the origin or the source of this instruction that comes to us. It is, verse one, the law of the Lord. This comes to us from Him. It is His Word. And then verses 2 through to the end—verses 2 through 176—we don’t have that expression, “the law of the Lord,” again, but rather we have the expression with the personal pronouns throughout the rest of the psalm. It’s His word, His precepts, His rules, His testimonies, or addressing God personally: Your rules, Your precepts, Your testimonies. But throughout, it’s emphasizing the origin of this major character of Scripture and that it comes to us from God. This is its essential characteristic. This is the uniqueness of Scripture apart from all other books. This is the Word of God to us. We saw that last time.
The Believer and His Bible
So one value of Psalm 119 is its affirmations about Scripture. As I mentioned last time, this is Scripture about Scripture. Here it tells us what Scripture is about. If you want to study what the Scriptures are about, at some point you have to give some lengthy attention to Psalm 119. And then we saw that because it is the word of the Lord—because it is His rules, His testimonies, His statutes, His word—then there are certain deductions we have to draw from that. And the psalmist does that.
It is authoritative. It is true. If it is God’s word, it is true. It is eternal. It is trustworthy. And we saw those various characteristics of God’s word as the psalmist lays them out for us. And all of that is what you would expect if, in fact, Scripture is the word of the Lord. If it comes to us from God, if this is His word, well, then its truthfulness is a given. Its authority is a given. Its trustworthiness is a given. All of this is a given if it is from the Lord. And that’s what the psalmist emphasizes over and again throughout the psalm.
So Psalm 119 is a psalm about Scripture. But I want to refine that a little bit more for this morning’s message. Psalm 119 is a psalm about Scripture, but it is more than that. Psalm 119 is a psalm about Scripture and the believer—or put it this way, the believer and his Bible. Or to make it more personal, you can approach this psalm saying, “This is a psalm about me and my Bible.” That’s the theme more narrowly that we find through the psalm. It is the believer’s relationship to the Bible, the believer’s attitude toward the Bible, the psalmist’s reception of the Scriptures.
And so for example, verse 16: “I will delight in your statutes.” Drop down to verse 97: “Oh, how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day.” Verse 102: “I do not turn aside from your rules.” Verse 109: “I do not forget your law.” Verse 111: “Your testimonies are the joy of my heart.” Verse 112: “I incline my heart to perform your statutes forever.”
So this is the psalmist thinking. He’s not simply extolling Scripture as such. He is extolling Scripture because of its value to him. What a treasure he has found in it and its value in his own experience. So Psalm 119 teaches us theology, teaches us doctrine for sure. But its focus is more personal than that. It is the benefit of Scripture to us in real life. And we’ll see that as we go through. And that’s the same with other Torah psalms like Psalm 19 as well. It’s not just in praise of Torah, but it is in praise of Torah because of its inestimable value to the believer. And that’s the tone then of Psalm 119 throughout. The Bible as it relates to me, my estimation of Scripture, my appreciation of Scripture, my commitment to Scripture—all of that is the attitude as we read through the psalmist here in 119.
Unlike so many of the other psalms—all of it is poetry, keep in mind, and poetry often is marked by subtle imagery and things like that—but unlike so many of the other psalms, Psalm 119 has very little, very few subtleties, almost no cryptic imagery of any kind, no subtle references to his circumstances. So you don’t have to look behind them and find what’s going on like you do with briefly stated poetry. We have very little of that. We have just straightforward personal affirmations of what Scripture is and what it means to me. The fifth-century theologian Augustine commented on Psalm 119, and this is only slightly exaggerated. He said that Psalm 119 seems not to need an expositor, only a reader and a listener. Straightforward, easy to understand.
The Value of Scripture
So we’ll survey some of that this morning. Psalm 119 then begins with expressions right out of the gate about the value of Scripture. Verse one: “Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord. Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with their whole heart.” That is the heart; it takes us to the very heart of Old Testament wisdom literature. Here is instruction from God for living. It is therefore inestimably valuable. You can never go wrong. This is the way of blessedness. Take this book, open it, read it, heed it, and you can’t go wrong. It’s the way of blessedness. It gives us sure guidance. It keeps us from messing up our life.
So for example, verse six: “Then I shall not be put to shame, having my eyes fixed on all your commandments.” What a marvelous prospect. Here’s a book; I can read it, and following it, I can be sure, confident, that I won’t have any regrets. What a marvelous thing. Verse 105: “Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” There’s some imagery. The idea is that of a road with potholes and dangers along the way. And the Scripture is like a lamp and a light. You’re traveling in the dark, but this shines a bright light on the path, tells you where to step and where not to step. It keeps you from misstep.
You might remember some years ago, those of you who were here, back I think it was 2020, we worked our way through the early chapters of Proverbs in our Sunday morning messages. The first nine chapters of Proverbs are lectures of the sage to his son about wisdom, and you find the same kind of instruction there that we find echoed here in Psalm 119. And you’ll remember that as the sage speaks to his son and exhorts him and tells him the value of wisdom. Wisdom will watch over you. It will guard you. It will keep you from misstep. It will be valuable. It’ll be like a winner’s wreath around your neck. It’ll be health to your bones. It’ll give you long life and long days and it’ll preserve you. And then he exhorts his son over and over again—only a fool would reject this great resource that you have.
God giving us His word, directing us how to live. And the thinking in all of that in Proverbs, and here in Psalm 119 as well, the thinking in all of that is that God the Creator has created this world. There are certain structures for living that must be followed if you want to live without regret. Now you can ignore and you can deny that God is Creator and you can deny that you must live according to His rules and His statutes. You can deny all that if you like. But if you don’t live according to what He has charted out for us to live successfully, you will live to regret it. There’s no changing the reality of it.
And so it exhorts us over and again: the value of Scripture and the folly of turning away from it. And so the psalmist here recognizes that value. And so he loves the Scriptures. He prizes, he treasures this above everything else. He delights in it. Verse 14, for example: “In the way of your testimonies, I delight as much as in all riches.” Verse 24: “Your testimonies are my delight. They are my counselors.” Verse 72: “The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces.” Verse 111: “Your testimonies are my heritage forever, for they are the joy of my heart. I incline my heart to perform your statutes forever to the end.” Verse 159: “Consider how I love your precepts.” Verse 162: “I rejoice at your word like one who finds great spoil.” What a find! What an amazing treasure! God has spoken! And God has instructed me how to live before Him so as to please Him. How do you measure the value of that? Well, he says it’s like one who finds great spoil.
Verse 97: “Oh, how I love your law.” Look at verse 98 and following. These are a cluster of verses here where he boasts—the psalmist boasts—of the advantages that he has because he has God’s word. Verse 98: “Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me.” Verse 99: “I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation.” He’s not saying my teachers don’t know anything. He’s not saying he can’t learn from his teachers. What he’s saying is my teachers may teach me many things, but because I have God’s word, I know how to live. Verse 100: “I understand more than the aged, for I keep your precepts.”
I’m sure you’ve heard the old saying: the way to be old and wise is first of all to be young and stupid. We have several sayings to that effect. We learn by our mistakes, or “live and learn.” “Well, I’m glad I got through that. I’m going to learn from that and not do that again.” The psalmist here says, from the very get-go, I have what it takes to live without regret. That’s the value of Scripture. It is not simply live and learn. It’s just the reverse: learn, hear, and live. Again, verse 103 stresses the value of Scripture: “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth.” Verses 104 and following, he stresses the advantages again that he has: “Through your precepts, I get understanding. Therefore, I hate every false way.” So Scripture has a way to shape the way we think. It shapes our appetites, our desires, our goals and ambitions. It shapes it in such a way that it determines the choices that we make, that we don’t take missteps. Verse 105 again, it’s a reliable guide for life: “It’s a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”
The psalmist here is not claiming to be personally brilliant. He is simply saying that he—yes, I do have an edge on others—but it is precisely because I have this priceless resource. God has spoken, and here I can hear from Him. I want to stress something here, point something out I think is valuable in the wisdom literature generally and here in Psalm 119 in particular. The Bible teaches us everywhere that the undergirding and overarching motive in everything we do ought to be to the glory of God, right? You knew that before I was going to say it. The overarching, the undergirding motive in all that we do is to live for the glory of God. It’s what A. W. Tozer called the sacrament of living. Living becomes a holy thing because we live unto the glory of God.
And the wisdom literature affirms all of that, but it adds another emphasis, particularly that is not as dominant in other parts of the Scripture. And that is, in living to the glory of God, there’s a personal advantage to you. And so it is not just right versus wrong. It’s wise versus foolish. You live for God and that’s what is right. But when you live according to God’s instruction, you are the better off for it as well. It’s rewarding. Here’s a way to live without regrets. Here’s a way to live with confidence. Live according to what God has said and you may be confident at every step; you’ll not be ashamed for it. Now this is a marvelous biblical theme. Conforming to God’s word is the path to successful living. It’s a marvelous thing to live without regrets. We all have regrets. And what’s particularly regretful is those regrets that we could have avoided. And that’s pretty much all.
And what he is telling us here is that to know God’s favor, to have success in living, read and heed. And this is the value of Scripture. I should stop for a second, talk to you children, listen up. You need to hear this. We all need this. Don’t think this is just for you, but this is particularly relevant for kids. The time will come, if it hasn’t already, that in your—I’m sorry—in your twisted heart, you will think that you know better. You’ve been brought up in a Christian home, you’ve heard the teaching of Scriptures, you’ve been brought up in church, you hear the teaching of Scriptures, and at some point, you’re going to think you know better how to chart your life to give you happiness. And you need to know this: this is precisely what the Bible calls a fool. A fool trusts in his own heart. What the psalmist offers us here is instruction to live without regrets. Understand, kids, that God is a more reliable guide for your life than you are. Don’t be—please don’t ever be like young adults that I have sat with. They’ve grown up in the church, Christian parents, they walk away from it because they think they know better. And now they sit sobbing with regret because they’ve messed their lives up. What the psalmist offers us here is direction for living. Here, live according to this, and you will not be ashamed.
Responses to the Value of Scripture
Now, once you see this value of Scripture, once you see that, man, here is a treasure that teaches me how to live without regrets, so that later I don’t look back and ask, “Why did I do that?” Once you see that value of Scripture, it affects certain responses. And we have that in this psalm as well.
The first one is the most obvious, I suppose, is that the psalmist devotes himself to learning it. Well, that makes sense if it’s that valuable and it has that much to offer for me. Well, then I’m going to give myself to learning it. Verse 97, for example: “Oh, how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day.” And you have that tone throughout Psalm 119. Here we have the psalmist giving his mind and his heart to absorbing as much as he can of Scripture. You get this picture of him pouring over every word of Scripture. He’s not really content—here’s someone who’s not really content with his 15-minute quiet time. But he spends long hours pouring over it, thinking through it. How does this apply to me? Now I may go from preaching to meddling here, but I suspect—I suspect that the psalmist sees more value in studying and learning God’s word than watching a football game, or many of the other mindless things that we do. The psalmist looks at this and says, “My life depends on this.” And so he considers every word thoughtfully. How does this apply to me? How can I live this out? I need to memorize this so it comes to mind when it is needed. So number one, he devotes himself to learning it.
Number two, it shapes how he prays. Look back at verse five: “Oh, that my ways may be steadfast in keeping your statutes. Then I shall not be put to shame, having my eyes fixed on all your commandments.” Verse 10: “With my whole heart I seek you. Let me not wander from your commandments.” Verse 12: “Blessed art you, O Lord, teach me your statutes.” Verse 18: “Open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.” Here are the prayers of a man who recognizes the value of Scripture. “God, give me an ever-increasing understanding and appreciation of your words so that by it my mind and my heart are shaped and my appetites are shaped and my choices are wise.” And so, recognizing the value of Scripture, he devotes himself to learning it. It shapes the way he prays.
There’s another: it instills a certain commitment on his part to keeping God’s law, to walking in conformity to it. So verse nine: “How can a young man keep his way pure?” Well, that’s easy. “By guarding it according to your word.” I don’t want to mess my life up. And so to keep from messing my life up, I want to cleanse my mind. I want to fortify my mind. I want to shape my values and my appetites. And so I will give myself to learning and to heeding God’s revealed word. Verse 11, we have it again: “I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” And again, you get this picture of the psalmist spending hours reading and listening to it read and memorizing Scripture. And he comes away from it, seeing the value of it, comes away from it saying, “This is sweeter than honey. This is more valuable than money. This is like finding a treasure. It’s like candy. It’s like armor that keeps me from getting hurt.” And so I rehearse it over and again in my mind so it becomes a part of me. Verse 15 is similar: “I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways.” Again, you see the psalmist here, hours in thinking and considering the implications of Scripture and how that applies to his own experience. Verse 16 again is his commitment: “I will delight in your statutes. I will not forget your word.” So God makes a commandment: “Here’s how you live.” The psalmist sees that and he sees, “That’s good for me.” And so he says, “I delight in your statutes.” Verse 106 again: “I’ve sworn an oath and confirmed it to keep your righteous rules.” Here’s a determined resolve to live according to what he finds in Scripture. Well, of course, it’s going to keep me from messing up my life.
Broad Reflections on the Psalm
Well, this is a big-picture overview then of some of the major highlights of the psalm. He sees the value of it, and so he devotes himself to learning it. He devotes himself to keeping it, and he prays accordingly. And he takes great delight in this wonderful treasure of having a word from God. Now, we scarcely need to ask at this point: how do we apply the psalm? Like Augustine said, all you need to do is read it and hear it, and it pretty much speaks for itself. Let me give just a few broad reflections on the psalm.
Number one, Psalm 119 reminds us of the value of Scripture. I’ve been emphasizing that throughout. As you know, in the seminary, my area of teaching is systematic theology. Systematic theology is basically: what does the Bible teach about X? Work your way through the Bible, and you gather all of its teachings, and now you group them together in a systematic way and you say, “What does the Bible teach about God?” And you go everywhere in the Bible to see what the Bible teaches about God. “What does the Bible teach about God as triune?” And you go everywhere in the Bible, and you gather it together, and this is what the Bible teaches about God as triune. And, “What does the Bible teach about Christ?” And, “What does the Bible teach about the Holy Spirit, and man, and sin, and salvation?” And you work your way through all of these categories. And then when you’re done, you work to see how they all relate to one another, and the subheadings and all of that.
You have one major heading, the doctrine of God—theology proper. Somewhere under that, you have the doctrine of divine revelation: God making Himself known. Under that, you have general revelation: God making Himself known in general ways. He creates us in His image so that we have an awareness of Him, awareness of our responsibility to Him. It’s augmented from the created order around us—general revelation. “The heavens declare the glory of God”—general revelation. Not a lot specific to it, but we can know a lot. And then another one there is God’s special revelation. Under special revelation, you have the doctrine of Scripture. And then under the doctrine of Scripture, you have a number of the attributes of Scripture. What does the Bible teach about the Bible? And so you have the inspiration of Scripture, and you have the inerrancy of Scripture, and the authority of Scripture, and you have the trustworthiness of Scripture, the sufficiency of Scripture.
One of my favorites is the perspicuity of Scripture. Perspicuity means the clarity of Scripture. And I’ve always thought that’s wonderful—that for the clarity of Scripture, we pick a word that nobody knows. Perspicuity of Scripture: the understandability in its message and teaching. One of them under there, though, is the necessity of Scripture. Very important topic. It doesn’t mean by that, that it’s necessary from God’s point of view, that He had to do this or was somehow obliged. It is the necessity of Scripture in this sense: that beyond this general awareness that we have of God from general revelation, we can know very little. Okay, I know from general revelation, because I’m created in God’s image and all, I can know that God is, and I can know that I’m obligated to God. Now, how do I do that? How can I know how to have fellowship with God? How can I know how to remedy this problem of sin when I already know I have violated God’s law? How can I know about Jesus? How can I know about redemption? How can I know how to live for God? Well, we can’t know any of that unless God speaks. That’s the necessity of Scripture.
And that, in Psalm 119, is what is emphasized over and over again. This is the value of Scripture. God the Creator has spoken. Here we hear from God Himself and here we learn how to please Him and how to live for Him. And we on this side of redemptive history ought in particular to be able to read Psalm 119 as Christians and read it in its fuller perspective. Why is Scripture so valuable? Why was it so necessary for us? And it is simply because here we learn of Jesus and here we learn of redemption from sin. Here we learn of Jesus who lived a perfect life. Here’s one who kept God’s law perfectly, who meditated on God’s law day and night, who lived up to its every direction in every dimension of his life. And he did that in setting an example for us, as Peter says, that we may follow in his steps. But what good is an example if we’re sinners? We learn in the Scriptures also that this one who lived perfectly offered himself in behalf of sinners, gave himself for our sin to buy us back to God. And we find in there as well that here is one who is promised in his new covenant blessings to transform our hearts, to write his law on our hearts so that we walk accordingly and learn how to live to please God and without regrets. And if the psalmist, writing under the old covenant, valued Scripture as much as he does here in Psalm 119, how much more should we, living on this side of Jesus? Sweeter than honey, better than money.
By extension of that one, Psalm 119 also reminds us of the joy of shaping our life according to Scripture. This is everywhere in the psalm. Virtually every verse, the psalmist expresses his desire to conform his life and his behavior to God’s word. He does it in expressed resolve, commitment. He does it in prayer: “Lord, teach me your statutes.” Recognition of its benefits. He pursues conformity through God’s direction. For the glory of God, yes, but also for his own good and for his own joy. Parents, your job is to bring up your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Here’s the book for that. That’s your job. Bring up your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. You’re missing it if you don’t direct your children in memorizing and learning God’s Word so that it filters their minds and shapes their attitudes and their hearts. This is why God gave you those children.
The psalm also then, as I’ve already mentioned, teaches us how to pray. It’s been a year or two ago now, I don’t know, one of our prayer group meetings, on Wednesday night, in our group, I had us turn to Psalm 119. And I think this was the night that we met at the Birkelbach’s house. And I had each of the people there take one of the stanzas of the psalm. So, you take verses one to eight, you take verses nine to 16, you take verses 17 and following, and so on. And now let’s look through that and tell the rest of us how you learn to pray from that stanza of Psalm 119. It’s a wonderful exercise. Verse five: “Oh, that my ways may be steadfast in keeping your statutes.” It’d be a great way to pray, wouldn’t it? “Lord, I’m tired of this living for you by fits and starts. Make my ways steadfast.” Verse 10: “With my whole heart I seek you. Let me not wander from your commandments.” That’s very simply, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Verse 12: “Teach me your statutes.” Again, verse 18: “Open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.” Increase and sharpen my understanding of Your word. Verse 164, toward the end, turns it all into praise: “Seven times a day, I praise you for your righteous rules.” How many times have we done that? You read the commandments of God and how to live and we say, “Lord, thank you for this. This is for my good.”
Since the beginning, Christians have been known as a people of the book. They’ve been known that way. Christians are not mystics. We’re not people who sit with our eyes closed, pretending to hear from God and get our revelation directly. Christians are people who recognize that they have a word from God. How do you measure the value of that? And so from the beginning, Christians have been known as a people of the book. They devote themselves to it. They read it, they read it. When they gather together, they read it and they hear it expounded from the beginning. That’s what they’ve done. Now there are unbelieving and yet professing Christians—unbelieving yet professing Christians—who sometimes misrepresent all of this as worshiping the Bible. “Oh, there’s those people that worship the Bible,” in a pejorative way. You need to recognize that for what it is. Don’t be intimidated by it. It’s a cover for their rejection of it. That’s all it is. What we do is we recognize that God has spoken and that is invaluable. And so we give ourselves to it knowing that if we follow this—if we believe what it teaches, if we obey what it commands, if we trust what it promises—we will never be let down.
As you know, the Lord called me in grace to faith in Christ when I was a young boy. I always had then this love for Scripture and it grew over the years. In junior high and high school years in particular, I just felt an insatiable thirst for it. Somewhere in those years, a few times I heard a poem recited that always stuck with me. A few years later, when I was dating Kim—I don’t forget what the occasion was—I gave her a Bible. One of those little Bibles with the flap that snaps over the top, a tiny print, and when you’re 19 you can read it. And I wrote on the inside of the cover that poem that I’d heard several times during my high school years:
This precious book I’d rather own,
And all the golden gems
That ever in monarchs’ coffers shone,
And all their diadems.
They were the sea of chrysalite,
And the earth a golden ball,
And diamonds all the stars of night.
This book were worth them all.
That’s the psalmist’s attitude here in Psalm 119. Here’s a treasure from God. Give yourself to it with confidence and with joy. Amen.