Two Journeys

Years before Jesus was born, Psalm 16 testifies very plainly to the bodily, physical resurrection of Jesus Christ from the grave. But it does more than that, it points ahead to eternal pleasures at the right hand of God. I love Verse 11: “You have made known to me the path of life, you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.” We're going to look at it today. We've had an extraordinary week, haven't we, as we've looked at election returns. I usually don't address these kinds of current events from here, but it's been remarkable. The fact of the matter is it points toward a hungering and a thirsting that some people have for power. I don't know why else anyone would go through such a wrenching procedure, but it really is an illusion to earthly power, isn't there?  It's really that whole ebb and flow of human history that has been after power, one empire rises up and then another one comes and takes its place, one after the other.

For example, the day that President Reagan was sworn into office, at that time, there was going to be a transfer of hostages in the hostage crisis in Iran. The hostages were being transferred that same day, and an aide to President Carter was keeping in touch with the process all morning long by phone. He took a break in the middle of one of those phone conversations to watch the actual swearing-in of the new president, President Reagan, then he returned to the phone call and continued to ask questions about the process, and at that moment, the person he was talking to said, "I'm sorry sir, you're no longer cleared for that information.” Just like that, and some people point to that as the power of the American political system, that there is such a neat clean transfer of power. There isn't anarchy, there are not people running in the streets and all that, but I think it also testifies to the fleetingness of temporal power. It's an illusion, it's here one day, and it's gone the next. Most of us aren't connected to that kind of power.

 I think more directly, we interact with this text on the issue of pleasure. We yearn for some kind of pleasures, and that's not wrong. We're wired for it, aren't we? If you look at a little girl eating an ice cream cone, she takes a lick and it melts in her mouth and it just goes down her throat and she takes another one. Little by little, the ice cream cone dwindles, and then it's gone. She feels happy, and she doesn't realize that she's just experienced the temporal nature of earthly pleasure. She'll have to eat another ice cream cone another time, that's the way it is. All pleasure on this earth is temporal. It's going to disappear, someday. I recently came back from vacation, so this is acute for me right now, gone for a little while, and on that vacation, I went with my son and daughter hiking up a beautiful mountain in the western part of the state. We were looking at the beautiful Smoky Mountains, and we climbed up and came to a clearing... You know what I'm talking about? One of those clearings where the valley just drops away and the foliage is there. We sat on this kind of rocky ledge and looked out over that, and I said, “Let's just be quiet for a moment, let's just be quiet and listen. We're so far from anything man-made, the only sounds we will hear are sounds that God's created.” We listened to the wind blowing deeply over that valley, you know what I'm trying to say, it's a deep sound and a powerful one, and we just soaked it in. Then after a little while, somebody said something, somebody else said something, we started conversing, we got up and we walked away. We went down in the car and it's been a descent ever since then. Here I am, from that mountaintop experience, but all of those mountaintop experiences are temporary. You can't hold on to them.  I actually feel when I’m there that I wish I had another sense to take it in, my five senses aren't enough. Have you ever felt that before? C. S. Lewis felt that in a writing called “Till We Have Faces.” It’s an amazing work, and it is picking up on the myth of Cupid and Psyche. At one point in his writing, he talks about Psyche, and Psyche is talking to her friend Orual. “When I was happiest is that for which I longed the most. It was on happy days when we were up there on the hills, the three of us, with the wind and the sunshine, you remember? The color and the smell looking across the grey mountain in the distance, and because it was so beautiful, it set me to longing. Always longing, somewhere else there must be more of it. Everything seemed to be saying, ‘Psyche, come,’ but I couldn't, not yet come, and I didn't know where I was to come to. It almost hurt me. I felt like a bird in a cage when the other birds of its kind are flying home, the sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing to reach the mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from.”

Now, where is that place? It's in the presence of God, He sent it and He puts you together to experience it, and not just for a moment, but for eternity. All of these temporary pleasures that you enjoy, that time takes from you one at a time, they all point to an eternal pleasure at the right hand of God.  King David wrote 3000 years ago, Psalm 16, “Keep me safe. Oh God, for in you, I take refuge.  I said to the Lord, you are my Lord, apart from you, I have no good thing. As for the saints who are in the land, they are the glorious ones. In whom is all my delight, the sorrows of those will increase, who run after other gods. I will not pour out their libations of blood or take their names on my lips, Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup, you have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places, surely I have a delightful inheritance. I will praise the Lord who counsels me. Even at night, my heart instructs me. I have set the Lord always before me, because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore, my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices. My body also will rest secure because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay. You have made known to me the path of life, you will fill me with joy in your presence with eternal pleasures at your right hand.”

As with all of these Messianic Psalms, we have to deal with the original context in which David wrote. David was a  Jewish king, who lived 3000 years ago, thousand years before Jesus Christ. He was a poet, he wrote of his relationship with God. He was also a prophet and the things he wrote, which are recorded and kept for us in Scripture are prophecy, and with all of these Messianic prophecies, there's an element that relates just to David and his immediate circumstance, and then some elements that cannot or do not relate to David, but are lifted up above that circumstance and point ahead to Jesus Christ. That's especially true here in this Psalm, as Peter and Paul will point out as we get along in our preaching this morning, there's a portion of Psalm 16 that cannot relate to King David, and that points to eternal pleasure at God's right hand.

In Verse 1, David speaks of his security. Realize that David was in a dangerous position, he was a king, and uneasy lies the head that wears the crown, there's always somebody that wants to grab the crown from you.  David had many enemies, we’ve talked about this before. Where was David going to find his security from his enemies? He says in verse 1, “Keep me safe, O God, for in you, I take refuge.” The picture here is of God as a strong fortress, a walled city, like Jerusalem itself up on a mountain, hard to attack, and anyone inside the walls of that fortress was safe. He comes to God and he says, “Keep me safe and protected, for I have taken refuge in you.” But he goes beyond that. David's security is God alone, but he goes beyond that and talks about his pleasures, his pleasures in life and the ultimate pleasure is God himself.  In verse 2, he says, “I said to the Lord, you are my Lord. Apart from you, I have no good thing.” Is that not true? Apart from God, we have nothing good. “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” What good thing do you have in your life that you didn't receive from God? David knew it. He said, “You are the Lord. You are my God, and apart from you, I have nothing good.”

It's a terrifying phrase, isn't it? “Apart from you,”  is really the picture of hell. We think about the lake of fire and the torment and all that, and it's terrifying enough, but the worst part of all is to be apart from God. Jesus says on Judgment Day, “Depart from me, you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels, depart from me, be away from me.” The source of everything good David said,  is God. “I don't want to be apart from you. Apart from you, I have nothing good. I want to be immersed in you, I want to be close to you.” What goodness comes to us apart from God. The psalmist in Psalm 73 said, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.” King David knew it well, but more than just fellowship with God in prayer and in his walking with God came a stream of gifts to David from God's bounty. God's generous gifts just flowing to him one after the other. In verse 3, he says,  “As for the saints who are in the land, they are the glorious ones, in whom is all my delight?” Is there anything quite as delightful on this earth as a good solid fellowship with other Christians? It's a pleasure, and it's going to be more and more of a pleasure, the more our surrounding culture becomes un- or even anti-Christian. We delight in fellowship with one another, there's a community of believers here and we share things at our heart, at our core.  David says, “The godly ones in the land, I delight in them, I enjoy them, I want to be with them. They're a gift from you, O Lord, they are the glorious ones in whom is all my delight.” That's a gift from God, so also is freedom from the sorrow of sin. In verse 4, he says,  “The sorrows of those will increase who run after other gods. I will not pour out their libations of blood or take their names on my lips.” David absolutely refuses fellowship with pagans who worship false Gods.He doesn't want any part of that, there is one and there is only one true God.

If you read on in the history of Israel, you saw all the syncretism, one king after another, would blend worship of Yahweh together with worship of Baal or Moloch other gods. David wanted no part of that because it brought sorrow. “The sorrows of those who run after other gods are going to increase, I don't want that sorrow. I want to follow You, O Lord, because in you is  joy. I want to be close to you.” Then he speaks of a pleasant earthly situation, verses 5 and 6,  “Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup, you have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places, surely I have a delightful inheritance.” I like to be in the presence of contented people, don't you? Have you ever been with somebody who's constantly grumbling and irritable about their earthly lot; it's difficult to be with. Let's turn the whole thing around. Have you ever been in the presence of somebody who's genuinely, deeply content with what God's given them?  I'd rather have contentedness than all the things I want. Wouldn't you?  Because all the things you want, come and you still want, and you want, and more and more, I'd rather have the gift of contentedness, David had that gift. He said, “I’m satisfied God with what you've given me.”  “Well, David, easy for you, look at you, you've got a palace of cedar and you've got a kingship and all that.” That doesn't guarantee happiness. He's contented because he sees these gifts as coming to him from God.  It wasn't just that the boundary lines fell in pleasant places, he knows they came from God. The lot was cast, but it's every decision came from God. The image here is of Joshua leading the people into the Promised Land, the whole land stretched out before them, but who will get what? That could have been quite a squabble. We're seeing squabbles now, but it's nothing compared to what it would have been there.  God said, “We're going to cast lots for it, this is the way it's going to be.” Each tribe got an allotted inheritance, and David said, “I’m satisfied with what you gave me God.”  I think about the American west when all that territory stretched out, you think about the Oklahoma Sooners. In that last land grab some of the land is better than others, some of it's fertile, rich soil, with a river running through it. But just to be content with what God's given you. David was content, and that too was from God. 

 Then he mentioned constant counsel and guidance. God never left David alone, he never felt like he was on his own. He had advice, he had wisdom. Verse 7, “I praise the Lord who counsels me, even at night, my heart instructs me.” Nowadays, some people will pay thousands of dollars a year for advice and counsel, but David got it straight from God. What a blessed life, constant pleasure in God's friendship, fellowship with other believers, freedom from the sorrow of sin and paganism, a delightful earthly lot, straight from God's hand, and constant wisdom and counsel even at night. Now, what could rob that?

There is something isn't there? It's called the grave, and that's the whole problem with earthly pleasures,  Death stands over all of them and mocks them. We've got to deal with this death problem, don't we? The second part of the Psalm, he's addressing that, “I set the Lord always before me because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken, therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices, my body also will rest secure because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay. You've made known to me the path of life, you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.”  What is he talking about there? He's talking about the threat of death and that because of the Lord, he's not afraid of the grave.

About 1000 years later or more, along came a burly fisherman, Peter who stood up on Pentecost and had a certain insight into this Psalm. Where in the world that a blue-collar worker like Peter get this insight into the Psalm? Could it be that Jesus showed it to him in that little 40-day seminar they had, where they went over the Psalms in detail? “Peter on Pentecost, when you get up there, preach on Psalm 16 and preach on my bodily resurrection because David didn't fulfill this. This wasn't fulfilled by David, it was waiting for me.  I have now fulfilled it.”  Peter stood up in Acts Chapter 2 and says, “Brothers, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day, but he was a prophet, and he knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne, seeing what was ahead, he spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to the grave, nor did his holy one see decay. God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact.” What is he getting at here? He's focusing on one word, the word “decay.” It’s a very strong word here in Hebrew. David says, “My flesh will not be abandoned.” It's the same word used for the sacrificial offerings. Basar is the Hebrew word “flesh.” “My flesh will not be abandoned to the grave”, it's very physical. “You're not going to let me see decay,” he says. This word decay literally means “pit” or “ditch” and refers to the grave, but at its root, it means “destruction.” “Destruction,” the same word is used in Jeremiah 13:7. God commanded Jeremiah to take a linen belt from around his waist and go near a river and dig a hole and stick that cloth belt into the bottom of that murky, muddy hole and then fill it back up, and then come back sometime later and take it back out. What did it look like? It was ruined, it was destroyed, it was decayed, it was rotted, and the word rotted in the NIV is the same word that we get here, “You will not abandon me to the process of rot or destruction in the grave.” 

This was a real issue. It's an issue for all of us. Remember when Jesus went to raise Lazarus from the dead, and he stands in front of that tomb and he says, "Roll away the stone.”  Remember what Martha said, "But lord, he's been there four days and there's bound to be a terrible odor." I don't want to get too graphic, but this is what's waiting for us, folks. Don't spend too much time on your body, it's heading to the grave, just like David's. 1 Kings 2: 1-2 says, “When the time drew near for David to die, he gave the charge to Solomon, his son, ‘I am about to go the way of all the earth.’” What does that mean? I'm about to go the way of all the earth. What happens in all the earth? What is common to all peoples everywhere? Many things, but this is one of them—death.

Then after that, destruction in the grave, it's common to everyone; we’re about to go the way of all the earth. “Well then, David, what are you talking about here? You will not let your Holy One see decay.” This brings us back to Peter. David’s not talking about himself died and was buried and his body rotted in the tomb,  but there was one to come, a Holy One to come who would not see decay. It was Jesus Christ, who triumphed over the grave, rose victorious on the third day. The apostle Paul sometime later made the same argument in Pisidian Antioch, Acts 13. This is his sermon, “We tell you the good news, what God promised our fathers, He has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus. As it is written in the second Psalm, ‘You are my son, today, I've become your father.’” Then it states the fact that God raised him from the dead never to decay,  “I will give you the holy and sure blessings promised to David.” So it is stated elsewhere, “You will not let your Holy One see decay. For when David had served God's purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep, he was buried with his fathers and his body decayed, but the one whom God raised from the dead did not see decay. Therefore, my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus, the forgiveness of sins is preached to you.” Isn't that beautiful? Because of one word in a thousand-year-old prophecy, the word “decay,” we have a sure and certain hope of triumph over the grave.

David decayed, but Jesus didn't. The prophecy came true in Christ. We have a historical faith. Things happen in history, and it matters whether they happen or whether they don’t. The apostle Paul said, “If Jesus is still in the grave, then your faith is worthless, it's as worthless as that linen belt in the bottom of that murky hole, worthless, if Jesus didn't rise from the dead, your faith is worthless.” But He did rise from the dead, and not only that, it was predicted a thousand years beforehand, so here we have the two greatest historical evidences of the truth of Christianity, fulfilled prophecy, and the empty tomb of Jesus Christ, and they come together in this one verse. We have a solid and secure hope for triumph over the grave, and it provides a basis, a foundation, for eternal pleasure at God's right hand. Modern scholarship tells you, there was no resurrection in the Old Testament, they never predicted it, the sheol, the grave. That is so wrong, so faulty. Isaiah 53 speaks of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, “It was the Lord's will to crush him and to cause him to suffer.”

 And though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, He will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hands. After the suffering of his soul, He will see the light of life and be satisfied. How much more plainly can you see it? “After the suffering of his soul, He will see the light of life and be satisfied. Because He poured out his life unto death and was numbered with the transgressors, for He bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors, the suffering servant died and rose again, and He did it all for us. Therefore the forgiveness of sins is preached to you.” [Isaiah] He was our substitute, and just as He took on our corruption and our sin and death, so also He gives us eternal life and his resurrection victory.  There are other prophecies in the Old Testament, you can look them up. Job 19 says, “I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end, he will stand upon the earth, and after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh, I will see God. I myself will see him with my own eyes. I am not another, how my heart yearns within me.” Don't listen to these Old Testament experts. The Old Testament preaches a resurrection. And not just for Jesus, but for you as well. 

What was Christ raised to?  It says in Psalm 16: 9-11, “Therefore, my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices, my body also will rest secure, because you will not abandon me to the grave nor will you let your Holy One see decay, you have made known to me the path of life, you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.” Let's focus on Jesus Christ, because this is speaking of Christ. Christ was not abandoned in the grave, nor did his body see decay, and then He was raised from the dead into eternal pleasures at his own heavenly father's right hand. You can't measure the amount of joy the Son has in the Father's presence. He yearned for it, He was hungry and thirsty for it. He was willing to take on a human body, and He was willing to experience, as a kind of a, separation from God on the cross under the wrath of God for us, but He yearned to be back in face-to-face fellowship with his heavenly father. In John 17, He says, “And now Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.” He knows that pleasure. He said the same thing later in  prayer, when He said, “I will remain in the world, no longer, but they, the disciples are still in the world, and I am coming to you.” Can you sense the, “I can't wait? I'm coming to you Father. I can't wait to be with you. I can't wait to see you, to be in your very presence.” Again in John 17:13, he says, “I am coming to you now.” Then as He's hanging on the cross, [Luke 23:46],  “Jesus called out with a loud voice, Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit,” and with that breathes his last, right into the presence of God, eternal pleasure at the right hand of God. But you know something, He already had that from eternity past. Why did He go through all that? What was the purpose of all that suffering, just to get back where He was before it was, because none of us would have experienced that eternal pleasure at his right hand, so the Psalm doesn't refer to David initially, but it comes back to refer to him in the end, doesn't it? Because Jesus suffered in David's place, David will have eternal pleasure at God's right hand, because Jesus suffered in your place, if you're a believer in Christ, you also will experience eternal pleasure at God's right hand. That's the whole point. That's what He came for. He already had that before He came to get it for you. John 14:19, “Because I live, you also will live. Because I ascend, you also will ascend because I have a resurrection body, you also will get one because I am seated at the right hand of God, you also will be seated there too, because I enjoy eternal pleasure at my father's right hand, you'll enjoy it too.  Forever and ever, that's why I came, to give it to you.” 1 Corinthians 15:20, “but Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.” What does that mean? The First fruits? The first one. But what does it imply? Second fruits and third fruits, and fourth and fifth, and more than anyone can count, a multitude greater than anyone could count, standing in the presence of God redeemed through the blood of the Lamb. 

But when will it happen? Are you hungry and thirsty for it today? Well, each in his own turn, it says 1 Corinthians 15:23, Christ, the first fruits, then when he comes, those who belong to him, you get your resurrection body when He comes, you have to wait until then. Waiting is the hardest part, isn't it?  But there is a path for you. There's a journey to be travelled.  Jesus said to his disciples, the night before He died and earned all this, “Do not let your hearts be troubled, trust in God. Trust also me. In my father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, I would have told you for I'm going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me, so that you also may be where I am.” You know the way to the place where I am going [verse 11], “You have made known to me the path of life.” Isn't that the same teaching? “You have made known to me the path of life.” [Psalm 16:11]. “You know the way to the place where I'm going, there's a journey. There's a path of life and you know it,” said Jesus to his disciples. Thomas said, “Lord, we don't know where you're going, so how can we know the way?”  Jesus say, “I am the way, and the truth and the life. No one gets the eternal pleasures of God at his right hand, except through me. That's the way you get it through me, but you will get it through me. I am the way. I am the way, the living way, into the very presence of God.”

 So it comes around to our eternal pleasure. Pleasure, that's kind of a dirty word, isn't it? We don't want pleasures. “Don't you mean joy? Isn't that what we mean, joy?” One of those cleaner, crisper, Christian words. Pleasure is kind of dirty. It's a little sullied, isn't it? But it says, pleasure, eternal pleasure, not just a little pleasure, but a lot of pleasure.  Pleasure forever. What are these pleasures? What do we get? C. S. Lewis in his sermon, “Weight of Glory”, lists five things you get. Number one, we shall be with Christ face-to-face. Number two, we shall be like Christ, transformed to be like him. Number three, we shall be, in some sense, glorious. Glorious. Remember how I told you that I wanted another sense to take it into myself when I'm looking at that valley, all that beauty, it's not enough just to see, it's not enough just to taste or to hear, I want more. We will be glorious, not just see glory, it will come into us, it will transform us like Moses' face, shining, radiantly. We shall be glorious. Number four, we shall in some sense, I'm quoting Lewis now, “be fed, feasted or entertained with heavenly pleasures.” There's all this feast language, you know, there's feast, the wedding feast, the banquet of the Lamb, there's this image of feasting in the presence of God, and then number five, we will have some sort of official position in the universe reigning with Christ at his right hand, this kind of thing.

 These are the five things. Now, what did you do to merit all that? Nothing, it's given to you as a gift of grace, just by simply believing and trusting in Christ, eternal pleasure at his right hand, Christ himself face-to-face, transformed to be like Christ, including his resurrection body, glorious, feasting in his presence and somehow in some manner reigning with him in an official position. You should say, I shouldn't want that, that's so mercenary. I shouldn't want something for myself, try to deny it. When you're cold, what do you do? Rectify the situation if you can, put on a sweater, etcetera, when you're hungry, you eat, you can't deny your yearning for pleasure. What I'm saying is channel it properly toward God and realize that every earthly pleasure you have is temporal, it will go away. Anything you can touch, including loved ones, people you love, your husband, your wife, your kids, the relationship as such as it is now is temporary, don't cling too tightly, but all of these temporary pleasures, ice cream flowing down the throat, the sound of the wind and the sight of the foliage. All of these temporary pleasures point ahead to an eternal pleasure at God's right hand. You're wired for it, and God has not designed you to be frustrated, but rather satisfied in Christ. Find your joy in him. Pascal writes about this. There was once in man a true happiness of which now remains to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present. But these are all inadequate because the infinite abyss can only be filled with an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, God himself. You're designed for pleasure, but it's not here, and while you're physical and you have five senses and they get filled up with good gifts from God, that's fine, but you must not live for them.

How do we apply the things that we've learned, first and foremost, glory and fulfilled prophecy, we've seen one after another, do you see the certainty of your faith? A thousand years before Jesus, the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, clearly written about in this. Rejoice that Jesus' resurrection victory was not for his own glory. He already had that, it was for you, that you may enjoy eternal pleasures at his right hand. Because I live, you also will live. Thirdly, about these earthly temporal pleasures, beware of them, they are so tempting, they pull your eyes off of that which is eternal onto those things that are temporal. Jesus said, “Do not store up treasure on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth and rust do not destroy. And where thieves do not break in and steal, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” 

Heavenly Father, you have given us many blessings, they fill our senses every day, blessings of beauty, delicious blessings, soothing ones, O Lord, and every one of them has come from you as a gift of your grace. O, heavenly Father, may we not live for them, may we look beyond them, O Lord, to the source, eternal pleasure at your right hand should be our goal and our yearning, O heavenly Father, thank you that you have conquered the enemy which would have taken all of this from us, death, the grave. O Jesus, thank you for your resurrection victory.  Father, I fear that there are some hearing me today who will not come to faith in Christ, who do not believe in you for salvation. O Lord, their eyes are filled with this world, their heart too. God, I pray that you would save them. That they would come off the sand onto solid rock, into a refuge, a strong tower, which will never be shaken, the promise of God, that whoever repents and trusts in Christ will have eternal life. And for all of us who already know you, O God, I pray that we would not set our hearts on things below, but rather on things above and live for them. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.

 Please, if you would, take your Bibles and open to Psalm 119. This is our third and at least for the time being, final look at this Psalm. This is a long Psalm, and there is so much in here that I probably could have kept preaching on it for another several months. What I would like you to do is study it for yourself. I have one simple goal this morning, and that's to inspire and to induce you to study the scriptures for yourself. I can't compete with you. I don't desire to. I have half an hour of your time.  I don't desire to compete with the things that God can do in your life, if you just give yourself to diligence study of Scripture every single day, that you would get up a little bit earlier, maybe even a lot earlier and open the Scripture for yourself.

This will probably be my most practical sermon to you.  I believe in establishing practice with theology, everything that the Scripture commands us to do, there's a theology behind it, a reason for it, but I'm going to just speak to your Bible study habits from an expert, and who could be more expert than a writer of a Psalm, like Psalm 119. This was a man who clearly saturated his mind in Scripture, and I want to learn from him how he studied the Bible, and that's our desire. The answer to my question is, there is one more expert, and that is the indwelling Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit inspired the Scripture. If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, He lives within you. One of the functions the Spirit has in your life is to illuminate, to open up the Scripture so that it's not a closed book for you anymore, so the text of Scripture just leap off the page and makes sense to you in a way they hadn't made sense before.

That's a beautiful thing when it happens. Powerful, and that's my desire. I want to whet your appetite. I want to talk to you about the habits of your heart. Robert Bellah, a sociologist wrote a book called Habits of the Heart. It was a best seller, I think in the ‘80s,  a sociological analysis of the United States. I have no interest in following the lines of his argumentation, but I found the title of his book intriguing, and that's all I did, I just lifted that title and I want to know, what are the habits of your heart? How are you with Scripture? What do you do with the Bible? How do you handle it? The fact is, when I began my sermon this morning, I asked you to open your Bibles to Psalm 119, many of you did that, and for those of you that are holding a Bible in your hand, I also want to help you to understand just what a gift that is.

For three quarters of the life of the church, most commonly lay people could not do what you're doing right now, namely to hold the Bible in your hands and to be able to look down and to read it and to understand it. Some of you have seen this book which I really enjoy, The Life Millennium, pictures and illustrations and stories of the 100 most important events and people of the past 1,000 years. For those of you that looked at this, do you remember what number one was? The number one most significant event in the past thousand years to the editors of “Life Magazine” was the printing of the Gutenberg Bible.  I'm trying to think what would motivate editors of “Life” to think this way. I think it's probably true, although there are other things that God has done that are just as mighty, and so there we could have an interesting debate, but this is very significant. They think it's significant because it's the beginning of the Modern Age, the expansion of the Information Age that is just pouring over us now like a deluge.

In the “USA Today” newspaper, it was talking about the fact that if all the information just being poured out now by various means, internet, satellite, television, all this, were consolidated to paper and put on floppy disks, how long will it be? Before floppy disks had gone the way of all flesh, but if they're all consigned to floppy disks and you stack them up, it would be 2 million miles high, one year of information. Are you keeping up with all that folks? Are you doing your reading? Are you studying? What a deluge of information. It could be that that's what they have in mind. They trace it back to when this printer, Johannes Gutenberg in 1455, invented a new system of movable type. He was not the first, the Koreans and Chinese had movable type, but he developed some techniques that were so advanced and so clear-thinking that, in effect in the West, printing wasn't changed again until the middle of the 19th century, not substantially.

So for four centuries, he charted the course for how printing was to be done. You would not have had a Bible five centuries ago. You would not have been able to turn in your Bibles to Psalm 119 and look down at it, because you couldn't have afforded a Bible. The Bible was written by hand, by scribes, by monks who would spend years and years on one copy of Scripture, therefore, the only person who would have a Bible would be somebody who could afford to pay for that labor. That would be a king, a prince, potentate, a noble, but not you and me. We would not have available to us a copy of the Scripture, furthermore, if you wanted to read the Bible, you'd go into a local church, for example,  a parish church in England, you would find the Bible chained to a podium, and it'll be a huge ponderous book. You would flip to the pages and you look down and guess what, you couldn't read, you're illiterate, but even if you could, I wonder if you'd be able to understand it.

That leads me to the third most significant event according to “Life”, number two is Columbus discovers the New World. Number three is Luther, Knox, Martin Luther. The contribution that Luther made to this is that when you look down at Psalm 119,  it's not written in Latin. How many of you can read Latin? Luther believed that every common person should have a copy of the Scripture in his or her own language, and said the simple plowman or the maid with a copy of Scripture is more powerful than all the ecumenical councils without it. That's what he taught. Because of these two great events, you have the ability to turn in your Bibles to Psalm 119 and look down.  My question is not so much, did you turn in your Bibles just now when I ask you to do it? Have you done it this week? That's what I'm asking. Did you turn in your Bible sometime this week? 

I'm not trying to do anything except just to motivate you and encourage you to do that. Jesus said, "Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God." How long will it take you to absorb all of this? It’s a long journey. George Müller felt it was going to take a long time. George Müller, he, of the 2,000 orphans that he cared for daily,  recorded 30-50,000 answers to specific prayer in his life. He kept a prayer journal, 30-50,000 specific answers to prayer. He said some of them that same day, many of them that same hour. You think surely a man like George Müller just kind of walks with Jesus, doesn't need the scriptures. He said the will of God has absolutely nothing to do with impressions on the mind, but everything to do with the word of God. All of his prayers came from text of Scripture that he would pray back to God, promises of God. He read through the Bible 200 times in his lifetime. You may not think much of that, not a great accomplishment.  How many of you have read through the Bible in one year? If you have, you realize you've got to keep a strong pace, you've got to keep going, three or four pages a day in my Bible, three or four pages a day. Then you're through once in one year, he read it over 200 times, that would be that he read through the Bible three or four times a year. So that'd be about 14-16 pages of reading of Scripture every day, just saturated his mind in Scripture, and here we are talking about him 100 some odd years later, the spiritual legacy was immense. What is our spiritual legacy going to be? I really think it's directly connected to how faithful you are to open the Bible and read. I really don't think we'll have much to offer of eternal benefit if we don't. Jesus said, "I am the vine, you are the branches. Apart from me, you can do nothing. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be given you."

 Do his words abide in you? That's what I want to talk to you about today. I want to give you specific practical hints on how to study the Bible, how to make the Bible's words live inside your heart in your life, and I'm getting them from Psalm 119. I'm not going to read through the whole Psalm, but I want to just read the first three verses to remind you what the purpose of the Psalm is. "Blessed are they whose ways are blameless who walk according to the law of the Lord. Blessed are they who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart. They do nothing wrong, they walk in his ways." Isn't that beautiful? Psalm 119 is given to bless you, it's given to be a blessing. It's only begun to bless my life, I've learned so much from studying this Psalm, there's so much in here, and now we're going to get really practical and see what the Psalmist says about how to study the word. He's the expert, and we're going to learn from him.

 Let's start with attitude. What attitude do we carry to our daily study of the Bible? What is our way of thinking? When I was trained as a missionary, I was given something called an entry posture diagram. What this means is that as you come into every cross-cultural interaction on the mission field, your entry posture makes the whole difference, it has to do with an attitude. If you come into that cross-cultural setting with an attitude of suspicion, fear, mistrust, and then they set before you, a meal that they've labored over for six hours, but it smells strange to you, will you eat it? They can see, they look in the face, they can tell, and so the attitude you bring to that meal makes all the difference in the eating of the meal, so it is with the study of Scripture. What does Psalm 119 teach us about our entry posture or attitude as we come? The first thing it says is that we need to have a seeking and a yearning heart when we come to Scripture, there needs to be a hunger.  I find the more I study Scripture the hungrier I get. It's when I get away from God and away from Scripture, I get not so hungry, I'm satisfied. This world starts to feel more comfortable to me, like this is my place, this is my world, but we need to bring a hunger to Scripture. We need to come and say, "Teach me, oh God, I'm hungry, I want something." Jesus said, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied." So there's a seeking and a yearning with all your heart. Look at verse 30, "I have chosen the way of truth, I have set my heart on your laws." You see the determination, the hunger, the mindset. Verse 45 says, "I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts." Verse 58, "I have sought your face with all my heart, be gracious to me according to your promise." I'm hungry for you. I want you. Verse 94, "Save me, for I am yours; I have sought out your precepts." Do you come to your Bible study time with a hungering-seeking heart? That's your entry posture. That's your attitude. We tend to be half-hearted creatures, don't we? Half-hearted, but we are to be whole-hearted in our study of the Word of God. 

The second entry posture or attitude that we should carry is one of awe, fear and trembling. We are about to hear the word of the living eternal God, He's going to speak to me now. He's going to say something to me. The same Word that created the universe, the same powerful God who's made all of these things is going to say something to me now. That's a fearful thing, isn't it? God is going to talk to me. aA a matter of fact,  the Israelites, when they were around the mountain, said, "Moses, Please tell God to stop talking because if He keeps talking we will die." God agreed, saying, “ That's a good thing. I'll speak through prophets from now on." That's exactly what it says. “What they've said is good, from now on, I will raise up a prophet like you to speak.” Who is the final word? Jesus Christ, but we can't handle God speaking directly, so He speaks through the written word and the indwelling spirit, but He's speaking nonetheless. So we come with a measure of awe. Now we have different ways of esteeming people, even in churches, we have different ways of esteeming, who is of high esteem and who is not so much. Who does God esteem though? That matters, doesn't it? “This is the one I esteem,” [Isaiah 66:2], "he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and who trembles at my word." That's the one God esteems. Is that you? Are you humble, contrite in spirit and trembling at God's word? Look at  Psalm 119:120, "My flesh trembles in fear of you, I stand in awe of your laws." Isn't that incredible? Verse 161, this is in a context of persecution, "Rulers persecute me without cause, but my heart tremble at your word." Do you see that? “I’m not afraid of them. I'm not afraid of the rulers, I'm afraid of your Word.” "Do not fear" said Jesus, “the one who kills the body, and after that can do nothing to you.I'll tell you who to fear, fear the one who after the destruction of body can throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.” The psalmist does tremble at God as Moses did. So when you come to the Scripture, come with a hungry yearning heart and come with a trembling heart, you're going to hear from God today. 

Thirdly, come with an obedient heart. Verse 34, "Give me understanding, and I will keep your law and obey it with all my heart." In other words, I'm coming with an attitude that I'm going to hear something I'm going to need to do, something's going to come to me and I'm going to have to obey it, and I want to obey it. Verse 145, "I call with all my heart, answer me, O Lord, and I will obey your decrees."  Spurgeon says, "If you come to Scripture holding on to darling sins... " isn't that strange? “Darling sins”,  “you will learn nothing from Scripture.” If you come with a disobedient heart, if there's something you're holding on to and you already know God hates it and wants it out of your life, and you have made no effort to put that sin to death, death actually, you've made a truce. The two of you have made a covenant together, you're going to continue on together,  then don't expect to hear anything from God when you open the Scripture. You've got to come willing to get rid of any and every sin in your life. I'm not talking about sinless perfection. We all stumble in many ways, said James, I'm not talking about that. “If anyone says he doesn't sin, he's a liar,” [1 John], that's not what I'm talking about. It’s your attitude toward the sin. We don't marry sin, there are no darling sins, every one of them, every last one of them must be put to death, and so we come with an obedient heart.

Fourthly, we come with an expectant heart, we come expecting to get something. If you come to a wealthy king or potentate and you know that he's lavish and generous, and you come into his presence, don't you expect that there  may be something for you too. God is generous, his resources are limitless, his wisdom cannot be measured. We  should come expecting to get something. Look at Verse 131, "I opened my mouth and pant, longing for your commands." I'm expecting to get something out of this time, this isn't going to be dry as dust, I'm looking forward to my Bible time, I'm expecting something out of this.

Fifth, be thankful. Verse 62 is a challenge. "At midnight, I rise to give you thanks for the Bible." My paraphrase for your righteous laws. Have any of you have done that this week? I haven't, truth be told, get up and set your alarm at midnight and get up and say, "God, thank you for the Bible." But that's what he does, he's just so thankful for the Scripture, he's just thankful we have a book like this, the Word of God written.

Summary, what is your entry posture? As you enter your time with God and his Word, do so with a whole heart, a hungry heart, a yearning heart, one which trembles with awe at the thought of hearing God speak, ready to obey anything He tells you to do no matter how difficult, one that's fully expects to hear him speak and one that is thankful in advance for what you're going to hear. That's your entry posture, attitude. 

What about actions and habits? Is there any practical advice in Psalm 119 about how to study the Bible? Yes, I think so. First of all, it's just the issue of habit. Verse 56 says, "This has been my practice." The implication is habit. "I obey your precepts." I've made a habit of this, some people have studied human nature.  I don't know if this is true or not, but I've seen similar things happen in my life that if you do something of a daily nature, every day for a month, it becomes a habit, good or bad. I'd like to harness that and use it for good. Why not do a 30-day experiment? For 30 days, do such and such with the Word, memorize a verse a day, something like that. For 30 days, meditate on something. For the 30 days, extend or double or triple your ordinary length of time in reading Scripture.

Secondly, in terms of action, prayer for instruction and insight from God. We've already talked about that, but it's so important, I want all of you to see yourselves as spiritual beggars before the Scripture. “Blessed are the spiritual beggars, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”  If God doesn’t give, you won't get it. I don't care if you read it the rest of your life, you’ll never get it. Repetition does not ensure understanding. Did you hear what I just said? Repetition does not ensure understanding. You can be sitting in church all your life and never get it. A prophecy of Isaiah, "Be ever hearing, but never understanding, be ever seeing, but never perceiving.” God gives understanding. Ask him for it. The psalmist does it so many times, I can't even count them. Verse 18, "Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law.” Pray that every time you open Scripture, "Open my eyes that I might understand or see wonderful things from your law." Verse 34, "Give me understanding and I will keep your law and obey it with all my heart." I could read one after the other. 

Recently I heard a speaker, Jim Elliff, and he was talking about a boy that he knew who was slightly retarded, but he loved the Bible, he just loved to read. He'd read a line of Scripture and he'd stop and get a strange look on his face and he'd scrunch his eyes up and say, "What does that mean, Lord?" He'd wait a minute, and then he'd read it out loud again and get that same look and say, "What does that mean, Lord?" Then he'd read it out loud again and say, "What does that mean, Lord?" Pause, and then his look would change, he said, "Oh, that's what that means, Lord."  I'm too intelligent, I don't need to do that. That's just pride.  You do need to do it. You'll never understand if you don't humbly come to God and ask him for it. Are you a spiritual beggar before the Scripture? Our God is generous with wisdom, very generous, especially over Scripture. 

Thirdly, reading and recounting. “With my lips, I recount all the laws that come from your mouth.” You read it and then you speak God's words after him. You read and  speak what He says again. What could be more blessed than having your mouth say words that God's mouth has already said. Like father, like son or daughter, He's like us, we want to imitate him, and the words He spoke, and we want to recount.

Number four, meditation. Again, there are many scriptures on this. Verse 15, "I meditate on your precepts, and consider your ways." Verse 23, "The rulers sit together and slander me, your servant will meditate on your decrees." I don't care what kind of earthly forces are arrayed against me, I just want to meditate on Scripture. What is meditation? We need to be really careful about this. People are really into meditation these days. A lot of it's coming from the East, the oriental type of disaffected or disconnected meditation, where you're trying to get away from linear thought, getting away from kind of projecting yourself out and all this. This is damaging and dangerous. When I'm thinking about meditation, I'm not thinking about that. I'm thinking of a historical grammatical kind of meditation. What do I mean by that? I mean, historical. What has God done in the past as revealed in Scripture. How has he revealed himself? What kind of God is he? Thinking about the history of Scripture, what God has done. Also grammatical like that boy, just going over it line by line and saying, "What does this mean?" and then looking at verbs and adjectives and connected phrases like "therefore" and "so that" so that we follow a train of thought. That's what meditation is. It's like a cow carefully chewing it over slowly word by word, thinking about it. You can't hurry it. You've got to go through it and understand.

And then memorization. Memorization is very important. I really think meditation  and memorization go very beautifully together. Some of you say, "Pastor, I know you talk so much about memorization."  I actually don't think I talk about it as much a Scripture does. How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word, Verse 11, "Your word, I have stored up or hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you. If you abide in me and my words abide in you." What is that but memorization? I don't know what else it could be. How do Christ’s words abide in us if we don't memorize them? They're printed on our hearts and our minds. Realize if the whole Gutenberg thing is true, you would not have had copies of your Scripture, and so if you wanted to meditate day and night, what would you have had to do? Have it memorized, unless you are king in ancient Judaism or a priest, other than that, you had to have it memorized.  Now, you may say, "I can't memorize."

 My missions professor told me a story about a man who determined that he was going to memorize John 3:16. I’ve asked a number of people,"Do you memorize Scripture?" "Yep, I know John 3:16." That's good, it's a start. It's better than not knowing John 3:16. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not on perish but have eternal life." This man worked every day for two and a half months and could not recite that verse without help from the Scripture, and he said, “What is the matter with him? I mean, that's a pretty simple word.” The missions professor said to me, "The amazing thing about him was not that he was that dense, it was that he didn't give up." Think about it, if you were trying to do something like that and after two and half months couldn't do it, do you think you'd have given up by then? I think I would have. He didn't give up. Finally, on the third month, he could do it. Then over the next seven years, God opened his mind to memorize almost 2000 Verses of Scripture.  God gave him a gift. You're saying can God can control my mind like that. Yes, he did it negatively to Nebuchadnezzar, he turned his mind into that of an animal. He can do the reverse thing with you, He can turn your mind into that of a Scripture memorizer. I've written a booklet on an approach to extended memorization of Scripture. This is available to anybody free of cost. This is just an approach... It's a humble title “An Approach to the Extended Memorization of Scripture.” This is just something I have found useful to me. 

Sixthly, all hours of the day. Just listen to these verses. Verse 55, "In the night, I remember your name, O Lord, and I keep your law." Verse 62, "At midnight, I rise to give you thanks for your righteous laws." Verse 147, "I rise before dawn and cry for help. I put my hope in your word." Verse 147-148, "My eyes stay open through the watches of the night that I may meditate on your promises. I rise before dawn, my eyes stay open through the watches of the night." Verse164, "Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous laws." The monks used to divide their days into segments, and they set them aside for prayer and meditation on Scripture. "Oh, we're too busy,” you say; then you're too busy. Daniel was the prime minister of the Babylonian kingdom. Three times a day, he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God as he had done before[Daniel 6].

 The third category, responses and commitments. We've looked at the entry posture, your attitude, we've looked at specific habits, practical habits. Thirdly, what about your response and commitment? Number one, searching your heart in your life by the Word. This is something that you must do. Look at Verse 26, "I recounted my ways, and you answered me. Teach me your decrees." What does it mean to recount your ways? What it means is you take the Scripture and lay it out, and you take your life and lay it out and compare the two. What do you think is going to happen when you do that? You're going to start seeing sin, and as you lay these things out, the sin starts to bubble to the surface and you start to say, "I don't want to do that anymore, I hate my sin, I want to turn away from it."

Look at Verse 59. "I have considered my ways and I've turned my steps to your statutes." I've considered my ways and I've turned now to your statutes; that's repentance, and the Scripture produces it in us. As we read, we say, "Oh, I'm not faithful here, I need to change." Look at 168. "I obey your precepts and your statutes, for all my ways are known to you."  “All my ways are known to you, you know it all, Lord.” Then the final verse of the Psalm 119:176, "I have strayed like a lost sheep, seek your servant for I have not forgotten your commands.” “Come and get me, Lord, I'm drifting, I'm wandering. Come and get me, bring me back." Scripture keeps you safe. Do you see it? Keeps you safe.

The second most important prayer you can pray is to pray for illumination, "Teach me, Lord," and pray that you may obey. Verse 5, “Oh, that my ways were steadfast in obeying your decrees.”  Verse 10, "I seek you with all my heart. Do not let me stray from your commands. Keep me from deceitful ways," Verse 29, "Be gracious to me through your law," Verse 35, "Direct me in the path of your commands, for there I find delight." One after the other. The psalmist says, "I see what I need to do. I see clearly the obedience I must give, now work it in me." Work in me. Hebrews 13:21,  “Work in me what is pleasing to you, O God." I think that's our responsibility to obey. Right? Well, it is, but God enables us to obey, it is not for a man to direct his steps[Proverbs]. Oh, that's humbling, but it's true. You try to turn over a new leaf, make a resolution. It will not work. But with the power of God, the resolution works. 

Thirdly, determine choosing. This is where the will kicks in. Verse 30, "I have chosen the way of truth, I have set my heart on your laws.” Verse 112, "My heart is set on keeping your decrees to the very end.” You choose to do what God wants you to do. 

Number four, promises and vows. Make promises to God and keep them.  The psalmist makes all kinds of promises and vows to the Lord, and not just this psalmist, but other psalmists as well. 

Scripture interprets Scripture. Look at Verse 57, "You are my portion, O Lord, I have promised to obey your words." And Verse 106, "I have taken an oath and confirmed it, that I will follow your righteous laws.” Those are two resolutions. Do you make resolutions?  New Years. That's too long. Make them every month. Every month, come to Scripture and say, "Alright, Lord, what do you want me to do this month? How can I grow this month? And with your help, by the power of the Spirit, I'm going to do these things." Then when you fail to keep your resolutions, confess it to God, it helps you realize how much you need a Savior. Come and make those resolutions again and be determined to follow him.  

Fifth and finally, worship and rejoicing. Finish by worshipping the God who has spoken to you. Do you realize that all of this is about producing spiritual worshippers, that's you and me? That's what this whole thing is about. That's what church is about, that's what the gospel is for; to promote eternal spiritual worship in you and me of God himself. The Word accomplishes that, that's the purpose of the Word, to produce worship in us eternally. Verse 48,  “I lift your hands to my command, to your commands, which I love, and I meditate on your decrees.” Verse 108, "Accept O Lord, the willing praise of my mouth, and teach me your laws." More than anything, remember, every command of God is good. I don't fear any word from God because He's good and his commands are good. Verse 68, "You are good, and you do what is good, teach me your decrees." Praise him and worship him for who He is and for what He's done. The Scripture is given that you may know God, that you may have life and have it abundantly. “Now this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”

 Please, please be diligent with Scripture this week. God has given you commands, read the Scriptures, obey them. Someday, you will stand before God and you will give an account for what you've just heard. You will not be able to say, "No one told me how to study the Bible." Study the Bible this week. Don't let Satan snatch the seed off that hardened path, but let it sink in to soften soil where it produces good fruit. Will you close with me in prayer? 

Heavenly Father, we thank you from our hearts for your goodness in giving us this Word. Thank you for Psalm 119 and its beauty and its perfection, Oh, Holy Spirit, moving us to study your Word that we may be faithful to do what's written there in. Father, for those that do not know you, oh Lord, I pray that today would be the day of salvation, that they would come to Christ, who is the living and eternal Word, and that they might have eternal life. And then, oh Lord, they will have a hunger and a thirst for your written word. For those of us who are already Christians, increase our hunger and thirst for your Word. And for those here who are dead toward your Word, who have no interest in Scripture, who are struggling with that, oh God, revive, renew them or convert them that they might know you. Through the blood of Christ, Oh God, make us hungry and thirsty for your Word, we pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches an expository sermon on Psalm 119. The main subject of the sermon is how God's law transforms our minds to be more Christ-like.

Open your scriptures, if you would, to Psalm 119. As we continue in our study in Psalms, there is a beautiful interweaving in scripture between the written word and the Living Word Jesus Christ, and that's what we've been looking at in our time in Psalms. The scripture was given, it says in 2 Timothy 3:15: “To make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” But not just for that purpose. But also, that the man of God might be thoroughly equipped for every good work to bring you on to completion, to guide you safely home to finish the journey. And so today we're going to look at how the Scripture is given to transform your life by renewing your mind and by transforming your mind. Psalm 119 has a great deal to say about this. Have you ever changed your mind? Has a day gone by when you didn't change your mind? It's not just for women who have the priority and prerogative to change their minds. I've changed my mind too, Christy will testify. 

We change our minds, but the question is, can you change your mind? I mean really just change the way you think about something, especially something important. Can that be done? Can you convert your own mind, so to speak? And throughout history, there have been those that have sought to use various techniques to change people's entire ways of thinking. In the 17th century in Spain, there was something called the Spanish Inquisition. Now, what techniques did they use to change people's minds? Physical torture. Well, I suppose it worked to some degree. If you beat on people enough, they might change their minds, but I don't think that's God's method, not at all. The Spanish Inquisition, therefore, became a symbol of that kind of persuasion by physical means. In 1778, a strange doctor named Franz Anton Mesmer from Austria appeared in Paris and started using strange techniques. He claimed to have something called animal magnetism, and if he touched you or touched something that you touched, you would be healed of various maladies. It became known as mesmerism or “to be mesmerized”. It was some kind of early form of hypnosis, and so your mind would be changed just by being near this person. 

He was eventually denounced as a quack and run out of town. But the word stuck in our vocabulary when we talk about somebody who's mesmerizing, or the ability to change somebody's mind by hypnosis. Then, during the Korean War, some of you remember a word known as brainwashing. The North Korean troops would capture some of our troops and seek to convert them to communism, and they were using techniques developed by Russian communists in the 1930s. They would isolate you in physically discomforting quarters, but not by using torture. They would keep you up all hours of the night, wake you up, and then bring you in for humiliating interrogation. And then at certain key points, they would suggest the right answers to you and then with a mixture of threat and encouragement, lead you to come to those convictions. This was brainwashing, and so American troops were trained on how to resist these techniques. 

And then every January, we have another form of persuasion called Super Bowl Commercials. These companies: Gillette, Coca-Cola, American Airlines, Lexus, Rolex, all kinds of companies invest millions of dollars in market research, and then with the best advertising companies try to get you to change your mind and buy their product. I don't know what it would take to get me to buy a Lexus, an awful lot more money I suppose, and a whole different way of looking at the world. But they think in 30 seconds they can do it, and market research has proven that they don't waste their money. I'm not sure if that's brainwashing, but they're going for your mind. They're going for your thinking and they're trying to persuade you to change. 

Now, as we bring up this whole issue, I want you to understand what a marvel and what an amazing thing the human brain is. It's an incredible thing that God has created and you carry it around with you all the time, at least most of the time. I've met some of you, and sometimes I wonder if you might have left it behind. Go home and get it and put it back in. But we have it with us, and it's an amazing thing that God has created the ability to think and to reason. And today, I want to talk to you about the transformation of your mind, but not in any of these ways like the Spanish Inquisition or brainwashing, but the transformation of your mind by the steady flow of Scripture through it. That's what I want to talk about today. Your mind could be a blank canvas in which God paints his most stunning masterpiece or lines on a score sheet in which he writes his most beautiful symphony. And because it can be that, and it has been that in many other lives, it is also a battleground where Satan wants to wage his fiercest battles over your soul. That is the nature of the mind, and we're going to talk about it today. 

In order to understand the mind and understand how all this fits in, we need to have an overview of what the Bible gives us in terms of the history of the human mind. The human mind and the brain were created by God, and we were created in Genesis 1 in the image and likeness of God. Now, when God created your mind, he put inside your brain 100 billion neurons or nerve cells. 100 billion! That's a big number. Now, how many neurons is that? Well suppose, for example, you went down to Latin America where the tropical Amazonian Rainforest is. If you were to fly around it in a helicopter or plane, it would take you days to get around the whole circumference of it. The number of trees in the Tropical Rainforest is the number of nerve cells you have in your brain. Not only that, but each of the nerve cells has these interconnections with other nerve cells creating a tangled network of interconnections, and each nerve cell has as many interconnections as there are leaves on an average tree. 

So, it's just countless. Absolutely countless is that mesh that God has put in your mind and your brain. It is in this so-called “jar of clay” (2 Cor. 4:7) that God has put the treasure of his glory. We won't always have it, and there will be a time when we will be separated from it, and we will continue in our relationship with God. But now God works through the mind. So much of our spirituality and so much of our life is affected by thinking processes. It's the center of our memory, our mood, our instinct, our will, our thought patterns, and our logic. It's a seed of individuality and personal history, and you train your brain with every experience you go through. That's why the decisions you make are so important, you're training your mind. And where water has flowed before, it will flow again. That's why you've got to fight sin every step of the way. But the battle is for the mind. Now, we were originally created in the image of God, and that means that we're able to think, to reason, to plan, to feel in the way that God does. 

The problem was that sin entered the world and twisted the mind and twisted the thinking process. Adam and Eve sinned in the garden and their thinking was twisted and their minds became dark, and it says so in Romans Chapter 1:21. We covered this when we went through Romans, it says, "For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile, and their foolish hearts were darkened." So, sin enters and takes that beautiful gift of God and twists it, and darkens the thinking process. And out of that darkened thinking, comes darkened living. That's the way it works. In Ephesians 4, Paul says this, "So I tell you this and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live." Now listen to the number of times that the thinking comes up in this passage, "That you must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking." That's one. "They are darkened in their understanding." That's two. "And separated from the life of God because of the ignorance." That's three. "That is in them due to the hardening of their hearts." That's four. "Having lost all sensitivity." That's five. "They have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity with a continual lust for more." 

That's where sin comes from. Five times he establishes the priority of the mind in a darkened life. And so, because of sin, our thinking is twisted. We don't think properly and we don't understand properly. As a result of that, our natural mind, it says in scripture, is hostile to God and ignorant of the things of God. In Romans 8:7, it says, "The sinful mind is hostile to God, it does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so." The natural mind will never follow Christ. We are hostile and we are at enmity against God. 1 Corinthians 2:14 says we can't understand spiritual things. "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually discerned." We can't understand spiritual truth unless God does something to change your mind. Alright, so that's the second step. First was the giving of the gift that we're created in the image of God. The second was the entrance of sin that twists the thinking and darkens the mind and the understanding. The third step is salvation: the regenerated mind. That word regeneration is such a rich word. It means new creation, a re-genesis of your mind, God creates your mind anew. 

2 Corinthians 5:17 talks about this: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old is gone. Behold, everything has become new." Isn't that beautiful? And it starts in the mind; He gives you a new way of thinking. Your conversion starts with the mind understanding who Jesus Christ is. You see Jesus in a way you never saw before, and that's the moment of salvation. Paul likens it to the original creation moment. In Genesis 1:3, God said, "Let there be light, and there was light." 2 Corinthians 4:6 says "For God who said, let light shine out of darkness, made his light shine in our hearts." (That's our minds) "To give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ." So, there are two knowledge (or mind) words there. That's how salvation occurs. He changes your mind so that you see Christ differently and you see him as glorious and attractive, and you want him. That's the moment of salvation. He saved you. Regeneration. 

And then at that moment He also, according to 1 Corinthians 2:16, gives you the mind of Christ. What a gift. You have the ability now in Christ to think the way Jesus does about everything. But you have to train your mind, and that's where the fourth step comes in, the renewed mind. You're given a new creation mind but now you need to renew your mind daily. Renew it. Renew it. Renew it. Romans 12:2 talks about this, "Be transformed by the renewing of your mind, then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is-- his good, pleasing and perfect will." Not only will you know what God's will is through this renewed mind, but you'll also actually be attracted to it. You'll love it and you'll want it. It's not just a matter of knowing the will of God, but approving it and saying, I want that for myself. The renewed mind. But it's a struggle, isn't it? Is your mind pure straight through and through?  

I was speaking at a college group recently and I said, “I think my mind is somewhat like seats in the Congress. There's a vote on everything. Are we going to go this way? Are we going to go that way? I'm pulled this way; I'm pulled that way.” Do you feel what I'm talking about? There's a pull toward that which is righteous, and then a pull toward that which is unrighteous, and the battlefield's in here, that's where it happens. So, there's a need for the constant renewing of the mind. Then the final step is the glorified mind. Jesus said in John 17:3, "Now this is eternal life, that they may know God, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent." That's eternal life; a deep intimate knowledge of God.  

1 Corinthians 13:9-12 talks about this and I love this verse: "For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child. I reasoned like a child, I thought like a child." See that in the thinking. "But when I became a man" I what? "I put childish ways behind me. Now, we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror, then we shall see face-to-face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." That's heaven, where you know God as fully as He knows you. A glorified mind. So, I've given you a full history of the human mind. It was given as a gift in the Garden of Eden to Adam and Eve. A sinless, pure, perfect mind. The gift was twisted through sin so that we have darkness in our understanding. God recreates the mind through the Gospel. We are then called to renew our minds daily through the Word of God and then, in the end, we will receive a glorified mind to know God as fully as we are known. Well, I want to move back and look at that fourth step, the renewing of the mind, and that's what Psalm 119 addresses. How do we renew our minds? How do we think more and more? We are called to be holy. 

Deuteronomy 7:6 says, "For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the Earth to be his people, his treasured possession." You are to be holy. You are to be special to God. It says so also in 1 Peter 2:9: "You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light." That's what you're meant to be; you're meant to be holy. And it says in 2 Corinthians 6:17: "Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord." Be different from the world. Different in the way they think. Different in the way that they value things and the decisions they make and what they live for. Be different. Come out from them and think differently. 

So how do I do it? How can I come out? Coming out means to be sanctified. How can I be sanctified? Jesus prayed this in John 17:17, he said, "Sanctify them by the truth, your word is truth." So, the Word of God and the truth of God sets you apart as different from the world as you take it in and imbibe it. Your mind is saturated by it and you just think differently. And as you think differently, you're going to live differently, and guess what? Your neighbors are going to start to notice. There's going be a difference. What is with him? What is with her? They don't talk like they used to. They don't walk like they used to. There's a change. You can't talk to them about anything. They have a whole different way of looking at things now. Now Psalm 119 directs itself toward your understanding, and all I did in preparing this sermon is look up the word “understanding” in Psalm 119 and draw the doctrine out of that word.  

So just look it up in a concordance. You want to follow the word “understanding” through the words in Psalm 119. And it's not just any understanding; you can understand physics, you can understand your job or a computer program, you can understand electronics, you can understand how to drive. I won't say anything about that, but it's good to understand how to drive. You can understand many things. I'm talking about a spiritual understanding. Now, how does that come about? Well, first look at verse 79 in Psalm 119. And you are going to want to follow along as best you can, so you can read them right off the page. Look at Psalm 119:79: "May those who fear you turn to me, those who understand your statutes." I'm defining what spiritual understanding is. In Hebrew poetry, there's a kind of an A and B structure. There's a first part of the verse and then the second part. They use what's known as parallelism. In other words, the first part and the second part are related and frequently the second part explains the first part. 

So, you could read this verse this way: "May those who fear you turn to me, that is, those kinds of people who understand your statutes." So just pull all the words out and say, "The fear of the Lord is understanding God's statutes” or vice versa. Do you see what I'm getting at? Understanding is fear of the Lord. Spiritual understanding is fear of the Lord. Now, what does it mean to fear the Lord? Proverbs 1:7 says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline." What it means is that you understand behind the black squiggles on the page that a person is speaking to you. Do you see what I'm getting at? Behind the markings on the page, a person is communicating with you, and He is to be worshipped and reverenced. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of spiritual understanding. God is speaking to me through these black marks on the page. It's not some Psalmist even who lived 1000 years before Christ. This is God who's talking to me. 

When that clicks in through faith, that's the beginning of everything- spiritual understanding and the fear of the Lord. This comes across a little bit in verse 102. It says, "I have not departed from your laws, for you yourself have taught me." You see the personal side says I don't want to disobey because it's you that I'm turning away from, God. You yourself have taught me and you're the one that I turn away from when I sin. I don't want to do that, and so I'm not going to turn away from your law. The beginning of understanding is seeing that there's a person behind this who is powerful, loving, awesome, and should be worshipped. 

The second aspect of understanding is insight, or we could also use the word illumination. Have you ever been reading in scripture or anything else and you say, "Oh, aha."? Something clicks. That's called insight. Now, you students should be getting it as you read your textbooks. Your professors are counting on it. Something clicks and you understand. Well, here we're talking that something's going to click about God or about your life or about some aspect of doctrine. Something clicks. You say, "Aha." Insight. That’s something I hadn't seen before. Psalm 119:105 says, "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path." So, there's light; we call that illumination. Something comes on that was dark before. You didn't see it before, but now you see it.  

Now look at verse 130, it says, "The unfolding of your words gives light, it gives understanding to the simple." And this is what I do every week in preaching; I seek to unfold texts in front of you and unfold them. I open them up into your mind so that you get insight, you understand something you didn't see before, and I follow the verses so that you can go home and do it yourself. You can try this in the safety of your own home, I would actually exhort you. That's my whole purpose. If you get nothing else out of the sermon other than go home and read the Bible, then you got it. That's the whole point of my sermon; go home and read the Bible for yourself. The unfolding of your words gives insight. You see things and so that's why I exhorted you to pray along with Verse 18, "Open my eyes, Lord, that I may see new things in your law." I want to see the insight, the illumination. Now it comes to a Christian by the indwelling Holy Spirit. That's why the Spirit is given to show you those neat things. Give Him a chance. Give Him a chance to do it. Read the scripture, and He'll start showing you some things. He’ll start showing you more and more. 

The third step is what we call knowledge, and from that, good judgment. Look at verse 66: "Teach me knowledge and good judgement, for I believe in your commands." There's really one step after the other. Knowledge is an accumulation of “aha” moments. You start to build them up, store them up, and you remember them. The human mind is an amazing thing. You start to say, "Oh yeah, I remember." And that clicks with this and that connects with this and you start to build the theology and you don't even know that's what you're doing. You never want your friends to know that you're a theologian. It's one of the last things you'd want to be in America today, but you really are one. It's starting to accumulate; you're building a database of knowledge about God. That's knowledge. 

And from that comes what we call good judgment; that we may be able to test and to approve God's good, holy, and perfect Word. Good judgment. You know what way to go. Alright, well, that is, understanding. The question is, where do you find it? That's what it is but where do you get it? Job talks about this whole thing in Job 28. A beautiful chapter. He describes this whole question: where do you find understanding and where does it come from? And this is what he says, "There is a mine for silver, and a place where gold is refined. Iron is taken from the earth and copper is smelted from ore. Man puts an end to the darkness; he searches the farthest recesses for ore in the blackest darkness. Far from where people dwell he cuts a shaft, in places forgotten by the foot of man; far from men he dangles and sways." He's talking about mining here. Miners that go down into the earth for precious metals. “The Earth from which food comes, is transformed from below as by fire; sapphires come from its rocks, and its dust contain nuggets of gold.” (Job 28:1-6).  

He tunnels through the rock, his eyes see all its treasures, he searches the sources and rivers and brings hidden things to light, but where can wisdom be found? Where does understanding dwell? Where do you find it? And Job's answer is very plain: you find it from God. God gives it. You're not going to find it in any other place. Look at verse 73, in Psalm 119: "Your Hands made me and formed me.” Look what it says, "Give me understanding." That's a prayer, isn't it? Give me understanding. It implies that God has it to give. You want understanding, you go to God and you get it from him. Give me understanding to learn your commands. Well, how does he give it? Well, He gives it through his word. Look at verse 104, I gain understanding from what? Your precepts. That's where it comes from. So, God gives it (step one), He gives it through his word- the precepts of God (step two). And then in verse 130 we already saw that the unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple. So as the word gets unfolded, we gain understanding. 

Thirdly, He gives it by opening your mind. Look at verse 18, which we referred to before. It's my favorite verse in the whole Psalm: "Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law.” He does it by opening your eyes. Now you say, "Wait a minute, how do I read without open eyes?" Well, your eyes are open and you may be seeing the black marks on the page, but have you ever read the Bible and that's all it was, black marks on a page? It doesn't do anything for you. It's hitting a wall. It's not probing deeply. And so, you need to stop and say, “God, I'm not getting it. Open my eyes, the eyes of my heart that I may understand what you're saying to me here, I want to get it.” It's not enough just to listen, is it? The Jews did that. They listened to the Word all the time and they didn't get it. 

Jesus said they have a hearing but never understanding, they have a seeing, but never perceiving because their hearts are calloused. Ask God to open your heart, to plough your heart like a newly ploughed field so that you can receive the seed of the Word. He must open your eyes and your minds, and He gives it in response to heartfelt prayer. Look Psalm 119 verse 169: "May my cry come before you, O Lord; give me understanding according to your word." Look at that, "May my cry come before you." What is that? That is prayer, but it's not just any kind of prayer. It's heartfelt prayer. You're going to God and saying, "O God, open the Word to me, I must understand it. I want to know you God. I want to know your Word, please show it to me." So, God gives understanding. He gives it through His Word, and He gives it through heartfelt prayer. Who does He give it to? He gives it to people who will obey it. Look at Psalm 119 verse 125: “I am your servant; Give me discernment that I may understand your statues.” He gives it to his servants. 

Now, what is a servant? Well, someone who obeys a master. He will give you the Word as you obey it, as you treat it precious. It's valuable to you and He'll give you more of it. He sees what you've done with the last insight and as you are obedient, He will give it to you. Alright, well, that's where it comes from. What comes out of it? If you understand, what do you get for it? Well, first thing you get is you get life itself, look at verse 144: "Your statutes are forever right. Give me understanding in order that I may live." Do you know that the Word of God actually protects your physical life? Do you understand how holy God is? Do you understand that God has been known to take the lives of people because of sin, even believers? In 1 Corinthians 11, there was a problem with the Lord's Supper. We're going to have the Lord's Supper next week and I would urge you to search your heart and your mind before you come to that table, because the Apostle Paul said, “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord.” (1 Cor. 11:27).  

Some among the Corinthian congregation had fallen asleep, and some had gotten sick. It's right there in 1 Corinthians 11. God deals seriously with sin, and so the Word of God protects you from that kind of discipline from God. So that you may be holy and so that you may turn away from worthless things and live a worthwhile life, protected from the judgment of God. Verse 37 says, "Turn my eyes away from worthless things." Brothers and sisters, are there worthless things around you? Do you feel it? There's more every year it seems, more worthless things all the time. Our culture is going down, folks, do you not see that? You've got to come out from it and be separate, says the lord. “Preserve my life according to your word”, verse 37. This is serious, folks. Preserve my life according to your Word, that I may live at all. 

That's what you get from understanding. It's not just physical life, you get eternal life. “Now, this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God in Jesus Christ” (John 17:3). You get physical life and eternal life from understanding. That's worthwhile. You also get heart transformation. Take your bulletin and look on the cover. See that little diagram, did you notice it when you came in? Alright, this is what I believe is a picture of spiritual maturity, and not only that, but how the journey is made. It works this way, knowledge, faith, character, actions. You know something, you understand something- that's knowledge, and you couple it with faith. To believe that it is God speaking it to you. It changes your character, or your heart, let's say. That has to do with what you love and what you hate, isn't it? The things you love. The things you're attracted to and want. The things you hate and don't want. It changes that around. You start to love what's good and hate what's wrong, and then out of that, you live your life. 

This is spiritual maturity. And by the way, spiritual maturity has nothing to do with chronological age. It has to do with, did you follow this cycle for your life? Did you take in the scripture? Did you listen to it as God was speaking? Did you put it into practice? That's how the maturity comes. Now, look at the verse above it "I gain understanding from your precepts; therefore I hate every wrong path." (Ps. 119:104). Now, look how it lines up. Is knowledge in that verse? Yes. I gain what? Understanding. Okay, is faith in there? Yes. What does he gain understanding from? From your precepts. Who's the you in the verse? God. He says you gave them to Me. That's faith. He believes God is speaking these precepts to him. Therefore, I hate- what part of him hates? His character, right? He hates, and what does he hate? Every wrong path. What is a path? In Jewish thinking a path is the way you live your life. It's your action patterns. It's all right there in Psalm 119 verse 104. 

Maturity comes from understanding, coupling it with faith, having it change your heart and change what you love and what you hate, and then having it change your life. Now finally, I want to show you three glorious cycles that are in Psalm 119. And these cycles, as they go around and around in your life will take you to maturity. They'll take you right to maturity. The first is the meditation and obedience cycle. Look at verse 99. By the way, verses 99 through 102 contains all these cycles: 99, 100, 101. That's where the cycles are. Alright, first of all, meditation and understanding: “I have more insight than all my teachers.” Why? Because “I meditate on your statutes.” (verse 99). Insight is understanding. Understanding comes from meditation; it comes from deep thinking. Not light quick thinking; not your three-minute quiet time. I mean you're working on it; you're thinking about it deeply and you're reasoning it through just like we're doing right now together with Psalm 119. You're thinking about it. Well, meditation, therefore, promotes understanding. 

Now, put your finger here, we're going to go back in a minute. Look back at verse 27. Verse 27 says, "Let me understand the teachings of your precepts then I will... " What? "Meditate on your wonders." That's strange. In the other verse, it was: let me meditate in order that I might...  What? Understand. But here it's reversed. Let me understand in order that I may what? Meditate. Well, how does that work? I'll explain it to you. Suppose a great uncle gave you an abandoned silver mine near Tucson and no silver had come out of it for 100 years, but you wanted to go see your new property and you went down there and sure enough, it looked about as abandoned as it can get. There's this old wooden sign, which probably you could sell as an artifact. They might give you $100 for it, but besides that there seems to be nothing but a hole in the ground. Well, let's say that you bring your friend and you get these helmets with their lights and you go down in it and you look around and sure enough, it's just dusty and all kinds of spider stuff. 

You’re cleaning it out and then as you're exploring around you see an area where there's some dirt that's fallen in. So, you dig in there a little bit and you go in and suddenly you see that the light is sparkling on the walls and you recognize that it’s silver. There's just a whole area in there that had never been explored. Would you not be motivated to go buy a pickaxe and get back down in the hole in the ground and get some silver for yourself? Suppose you go in there and find nothing, will you be motivated to go back in that dirty dusty hole with all those spider webs? No. Insight promotes meditation. You see how it works. When you find things out, you say, "Hey, that was kind of neat. I'm looking forward to my next quiet time. I'm really excited about this. I'm seeing some things I hadn't seen before. This is really kind of neat." 

It's kind of like a good business man who gets a profit out of his business and then does what with it? Reinvests it into the business again. That's how it works. That's cycle number one. Cycle number two. Understanding promotes obedience. Obedience promotes understanding. Alright, I just said understanding promotes obedience. Well, Jesus said, "If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them." (John 13:17). You see how there's a connection between understanding and as you understand God's will, it leads you toward obedience. Well, that makes sense. But amazingly, Psalm 119 also reverses it, look at verse 100, "I have more understanding than the elders, for I obey your precepts." That's very interesting. I understand because I what? Obey. How does that work? Well, it takes us back to the history of the mind. What does sin do to the mind? It darkens it. You begin to twist spiritual truth and you begin to fight it. But, if you have an open heart toward God and are willing to obey anything, guess what? You're going to start understanding more things from the scripture. You see the cycle. Understanding promotes obedience but obedience promotes understanding. 

Now, the final cycle is obedience promotes further obedience. Look at verse 101: "I have kept my feet from every evil path, so that I may... " What? "Obey your word." I have chosen not to sin in order that I may obey. The more you obey, the more you will obey. There's a cycle. That's the way it works. He who is faithful in little, will be faithful in more. He who is faithful in more will be faithful in much. But if you disobey or if you rebel, guess what? You're going to stop obeying. It's the way it works.  

Now, we've looked today at understanding and tried to understand understanding. I want to lay before you some very practical things, and next time we talk about Psalm 119, which is in two weeks, we're going to learn some practical hints on how to study the scriptures. But this is what I want to talk to you about. If you are a Christian, I want you to take these cycles and allow them to move you to spiritual maturity, to keep going around and around until you're mature. Alright, this is how it works: come to God every day humbling in prayer and say, "God, I want to understand your word." Say, verse 18, "Open my eyes to see new things in your Word." Secondly, at that time, say, "God, I will obey what you tell me. Whatever it is you tell me to do, I'm going to do it. I promise you that I'm going to obey it with your help." Then you read carefully and deeply. Stop and compare phrases like we've been doing in Psalm 119. Think about it. 

Don't just let it wash over you, but think about it, meditate on it. At the end, humbly pray again, "God, you've shown me some new things, thank you, now help me to obey the things you've shown me." And then go do it, do the things you promised to do. Obey, and then do it again the next day, do it for 10 years. And guess what, you'll be more like Jesus at the end of the 10 years than when you started. Now a final word to those who are not yet Christians, none of what I just said will work for you. None of it. Because the mind without the Holy Spirit cannot understand spiritual things. So therefore, I ask you to come to Christ, come to personal faith in Christ, give your life to Jesus, that you might have the indwelling Holy Spirit, and then you can grow into godliness and maturity. 

I want you to close with me in prayer. Heavenly Father, we do thank you for the things that we've seen today in your Word. We thank you for the brains you've given us Lord. They're complex and we don't even understand why we think and feel the way we think and feel, but we want to put our brains and our minds right before you and say, “God transform me by the renewing of my mind. O God, make me a diligent student of the scripture, that I might grow to be like you.” And for any guests who are here who do not know you, O Lord, I pray that they would come to know you as savior and Lord, that they put their trust in you, that they might understand spiritual truth. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen. 

Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Psalm 22. The main subject of the sermon is the glories that Christ's crucifixion effects.

Today we're going to concentrate on the second half of Psalm 22, namely verses 22 through 31.  But before we do, I want to tell you a little story that's been an encouragement to me, and it's a story of the Moravian missionaries. We have the Lovefeast every year, and that's a Moravian heritage and tradition, but even greater is their heritage and their tradition of mission work around the world.

In 1732, there were two Moravians that were the first Moravian missionaries from Herrnhut. They had heard the testimony of a slave named Anthony from the West Indies, and as they listen, they were moved in their spirit and they felt the Lord leading them to go to the West Indies as missionaries. As God worked this out, the congregation was reluctant at first to let them go, but ultimately, through the leadership of the Spirit, they embraced this mission, but they said, "You have to understand this. In order to go as missionary to the West Indies, to the slaves in the West Indies, you must become a slave yourself, it's the only way to reach him, because the people will never let them off the plantation, they work from dawn 'til dusk and then as soon as night comes they are forced to go to sleep so that they can work again the next day. If you want to have any impact on them whatsoever, you need to become a slave yourself.”  Through fasting and praying they thought, "Do I want to do this?"  God led them, and they did. As they were on the ship and the ship was pulling out of the harbor, there in Northern Germany and heading toward the West Indies, the two of them fell to their knees and they lifted up their hands in praise to the Lord, and said, "Oh Lamb, receive now the reward for your suffering."

 It's an incredible thing that they said, and their theology is deep. I think it was from the Book of Revelation when it said, "You are worthy oh Lamb, to receive the scroll, for you suffered and died, and by your blood, you have purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation." Those two Moravian missionaries are saying, "Get them, Lord." We're going to lay down our lives so that you can get the reward for your suffering, the thing that is coming to you, because you shed your blood and its people, the slaves in West Indies, receive the reward for your suffering.  

It got me to thinking, in 1 Peter Chapter 1, we have, though I didn't know it, a two-part outline of Psalm 22. In 1 Peter 1:10-11, Peter speaking of salvation says, "Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted," and here it is, "the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow." There it is, that's your two-part outline of Psalm 22. Peter's talking about Old Testament predictive prophecy, Psalm 22 is definitely included in that. The Spirit of Christ was in David when David wrote Psalm 22, and the Spirit of Christ in David a thousand years before Jesus was born was predicting his own sufferings, the crucifixion, which we saw so plainly last week. Verse 1 through 21 of Psalm 22 is the sufferings of Christ, and we saw it plainly, didn't we? We saw the crucifixion. Look at Psalm 22:12 and following. Remember verse 1, the great cry that Jesus gives us from the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Jesus cries out from the cross, not only crying from his own God-forsakeness as a sin-bearer for us, but also pointing to Psalm 22.  The crucifixion so plainly depicted here, verses 12-18 says, "Many bulls surround me; Strong bulls of Bashan encircle me. Roaring lions, tearing their prey, open wide their mouths against me. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax; it is melted away within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You lay me in the dust of death." Verse 16: “Dogs have surrounded me; A band of evil men has encircled me. They have pierced my hands and my feet." What can this be other than crucifixion? 

 Verse 17, "I can count all my bones, people stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them and cast lots from my clothing." This is the death of Jesus Christ in prophetic perspective, predicted a thousand years before it ever came about. As I was preparing for my sermon last week and practicing, and I do practice a sermon,  it  was about 43 or 44 minutes in practice and I said, "They're not going to wait until 12:30 to hear this whole thing, this is two sermons." The Lord convicted me and said, "You know, you've left me on the cross. You forgot, you've got the sufferings of Christ, but you don't have the glories that follow. I didn't die just to die." Hebrews Chapter 12, "Jesus, for the joy set before him, endured the cross despising its shame." Where is the joy in this sermon? We got the suffering, but no joy. Well, it had to come this week, the glories that would follow and it's all right there in verses 22-31. The sufferings of Christ, Verse 1-21, the glories that would follow, 22-31. Listen as I read it, "I will declare your name to my brothers. In the congregation, I will praise you. You who fear the Lord, praise him. All you descendants of Jacob honor him. Revere him, all you descendants of Israel, for he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one, he has not hidden his face from him, but he has listened into his cry for help. From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly. Before those who fear you, I will fulfill my vows. The poor will eat and be satisfied. They who seek the Lord will praise him. May your hearts live forever. All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will bow down before him for dominion belongs to the Lord and he rules over the nations. All the rich of the earth will feast and worship, all who go down to the dust will kneel before him, those who cannot keep themselves alive, posterity will serve him. Future generations will be told about the Lord, they will proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn. For he has done it." That's powerful.

There's a context here, of course. David was a king a thousand years before Jesus was born, a Jewish king, and the context for David was his own personal sufferings. Because he was a king he had many personal and political enemies who would have loved nothing better than to see David dead and his throne toppled. He had enemies and because of those enemies, he felt that any time his life could be forfeit, that he was surrounded by those who would kill him. But we know that David's sufferings, however great were nothing compared to the sufferings of his descendant, Jesus Christ and so at some point in Psalm 22 his prophetic language kicks in and it just gets to a higher level. There are things said that could not be true of David like “they have pierced my hands and feet,” and so he's really speaking of the sufferings of Christ. It's interesting because David in verse 25 and 26 says, "Before those who fear you, I will fulfill my vows. The poor will eat and be satisfied." It's very interesting, in that Jewish context, whenever you wanted to say thank you for something great to God, you'd go offer animal sacrifice. When the animal was killed, then there was meat, and for us who live in an age of refrigeration, eating meat is no big deal, but for them back then, the only time they ate was at a time of sacrifice.  So when you kill a bull, and I'm sure David would have offered something that great, you've got to have a lot of friends to come and share. You're going to have a feast. “Come and share with me and celebrate.” That's what's going on. David has been delivered and he's going to sacrifice a thank offering and invite all of his friends to come and sit and eat, and they're going to enjoy that time. The context here in the second half is a feast, a celebration of God's deliverance. It's feast language. 

There's also a context in redemptive history, as we've said, it's not just David's feast, it's not just David sufferings, that's a small dim shadow of what was coming with Jesus Christ. Christ's sufferings were complete and they were for us. David's deliverance was he wasn't assassinated or he wasn't toppled, his throne wasn't toppled. Where is Jesus' deliverance? Look at verse 19-21, he prays, "But you, Oh Lord, be not far off; Oh my strength, come quickly to help me. Deliver my life from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dogs. Rescue me from the mouth of the lion, save me from the horns of the wild oxen." This is a prayer for deliverance.  In the second half, he says, he has not despised or disdained the suffering. He has heard his cry, and he's answered.  David's cry was heard when he wasn't assassinated or his throne wasn't toppled. How was Jesus' cry answered? It couldn't be answered the way David's was. It says in Matthew 27, "He saved others, but himself, he cannot save." In order to save others, he must die. He must die, Jesus must die. Where is Jesus' deliverance? It's got to be the resurrection.  We'll get this in Psalm 16, “You didn't leave me in the grave, Father, you brought me up out of the grave.” It's the resurrection. Where does that happen in Psalm 22? Look down at verse 21 and verse 22. See the white space in between Verse 21 and 22, there's the resurrection. We'll get it more clearly in Psalm 16, but it definitely happens. We go from grieving to rejoicing, just that quickly. He's praying for deliverance and immediately he's saying, "In the presence of the congregation, and before the brothers, I will praise you." There's the resurrection. It immediately brings my mind to Jesus' suffering in his deliverance, when on the third day, he was raised from the day.  

What did he do after he's raised from the dead?  That evening, he went to see his brothers.  In verse 22, we get therefore the joyful declaration of the brothers. It's a spectacular image that we have here, Jesus bringing news of the victory to the brothers. Today, the Olympic coverage will end, some of you have spent many hours, I'm sure, watching the Olympics and what's the final event in the Olympics every year or every Olympics? Traditionally, the final event is the marathon.  You know that the marathon comes from the story about a Greek warrior who ran from the battlefield where the Greeks had just defeated the Persians, and he ran about 20 or some odd miles, blazing sun, full armor. He went to the people, the townspeople, and just as he was dying from the exhaustion, he said, "Rejoice, we conquer." That's the image I get on Sunday evening, that Easter Sunday morning or evening, when He comes through the walls and his brothers are there, and He says in effect, "Rejoice, I conquer and because I conquer, you will live." He's bringing the news of a victory through the walls. That's what it says in John 20:19-20, "On the evening of the first day of the week, when the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them." Right through the walls, and He said, "Peace be with you." They were overjoyed, and He showed them his hands in his side and  said, "Peace be with you, as the Father sent me, I'm sending you." That's how it happened. There's an announcement of the victory, and the cost of the victory, they pierced my hands and my feet. Look, here it is, the glories that follow, right through the door, through the walls, and He comes and announces, verse 22, "I will declare your name to my brothers in the congregation. I will praise you." The first audience of the good news are the brothers, Jesus' brothers. I totally reject liberal theology, which teaches the fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man. He is speaking, when He speaks to his brothers, to those who have believed in his name and received him. He's going to his disciples and of them it speaks in Hebrews Chapter 2,  "In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God through him and for him everything exists, should make the captain of their salvation."  Perfect through suffering, the consistency of scripture on this. Suffering first, then glory. In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting to make Christ suffer.

Do you see it? Suffering first, then the glory, but the glory isn't Christ. He had that before the foundation of the world, the glory is ours. He wins us glory through his blood. In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that Christ should suffer, and then it says, "Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family," so Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. How is it that we're ashamed of Christ? He's not ashamed of us. Now, which is more... Is there more cause for us? Is there more cause for us to be ashamed of Christ or him to be ashamed of us before his Heavenly Father, which, if you know yourself truly, you know the right answer. But Jesus isn't ashamed to call you brother and so He quotes as it says in Hebrews 2, “I will declare your  name to my brothers and sisters; in the presence of the congregation, I will sing your praises."  Jesus comes through the doors and sings the praise of God. Wouldn't you love to hear Jesus sing? Oh, what a song of victory appears to his brothers. It's not just everybody, it may not even be everybody in this room. I hope it is, but it says in John Chapter 1, "He came to that which was his own, [the Jews], but his own people did not receive him, yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God."  To those people who believe in his name and who receive him, they are children of God. Jesus also clarified this in Matthew 12, his mother and his brothers come for him, and somebody brings him word, “Your mother and brothers are here.” Jesus said, "Who are my mother? And who are my brothers?" Pointing to his disciples, He said, "Here is my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother." If you do the will of God, you're Christ's brother, Christ's sister, and to you, He brings his declaration, rejoice, I conquer, and because I live, you also live. He comes to declare the name of his Father. 

One more thing about brothers, as Jesus was raised from the dead, Mary Magdalene comes, she's crying, she's weeping and she sees Jesus, she knows it's him, and she falls at his feet, I believe and grabs hold of him, and says, "Now, look what happened? Last time I let go of you, you see, you got yourself killed, I'm never letting you go again. I'm holding on and I'm never letting you go again." She's holding on to Jesus, and Jesus says, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father." I think that's kinda interesting, “Do not hold on to me for I have not yet returned. When I return to the Father, and you come there, you can hold on to me as much as you want, but let me go because I've got some things to do.” Then he says, "But go instead to my brothers and tell them, I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." That's what he won by dying on the cross. That's what he got for us by the suffering of verses 1 through 21,He calls us brothers and sisters. It's not a small title to be called the brother of Jesus or sister of Jesus, adopted right into his family. In his message, He declares the name of the Lord, God is compassionate, his nature, all of His attributes. That's when He comes and brings the fruit of the resurrection victory. We've seen his mercy, we've seen his holiness and his wrath against sin, poured out on Jesus at the cross. We've seen his power and raising him from the dead. We've seen his love and his compassion, and that He does not despise or disdain the sufferings of the afflicted. 

Who are the afflicted? It isn't Jesus, not ultimately. His affliction was in our behalf. We're the afflicted ones. We are the ones who are afflicted, and what are we afflicted by? Death. It stands over us to mock us, doesn't it? We can't beat it. It's an undefeatable foe. We can't defeat it, so Jesus came to give us that victory. Hebrews 2:14-15 says, "Since the children have flesh and the blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death, he might destroy him who holds the power of death," [that is , the devil]“and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death." Do you fear death today? Are you afraid of it? Jesus can free you from fear of death through his resurrection victory. He comes to bring you that fruit, and that's what He gives. He comes to declare the name of the Lord. 

In verses 22-26, I'm including verse 22 because the brothers are Jewish, but we get another subdivision.  Remember the two major divisions of Psalm 22, Verse 1-21, the sufferings of Christ, Verses 22-31, the glories that would follow. The second half  of verse 22-31 breaks into two halves as well. Verse 22-26 is for the Jews. Look at verse 23, look what he says. He says, "You fear the Lord, praise Him. All you descendants of Jacob, honor him, revere Him. All you descendants of Israel." Do you see it in Verse 23? Who are these people? They are descendants of Jacob and Israel. What do you call them? Jews. We get this outline of the second half in Romans 1:16, “I’m not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God to the salvation of everyone who believes, first for the Jews, then for the Gentiles.” That's what we get, 22-26, first the Jews, 27-31, then the Gentiles, that's how it works.  He's coming to the Jews first. The brothers come first in verse 22, and they're Jewish, but then he gives a commanding invitation to his countrymen, it's not just an invitation, it's a commanding invitation. Come to the feast. Come to the feast. That's what he's saying.

Remember what I told you about David, the fulfillment of the vows, there's a feast involved here, verses 25 and 26, talk about that. "From you comes a theme of my praise in the great assembly before those who fear you, I will fulfill my vows. And the poor will eat and be satisfied." There's this feast language, and in the case of the Jews, it was an important part of Jesus ministry, the invitation to come to the feast. The wedding banquet is ready. Now come, come. Matthew 22:2-3 says, "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they wouldn't." They refused to come. The Jews wouldn't come. They wouldn't come to the feast. But there's a commanding invitation, and here it is, verse 23, "You who fear the Lord praise Him, you descendants of Jacob, honor Him, revere Him, all you descendants of Israel." Verse 25-26, "From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly before those who fear you, I will fulfill my vows." Verse 26, "The poor will eat and be satisfied." What are they going to eat? They who seek the Lord will praise him. It's a feast of praise is what it is. What's physical in the Old Testament, become spiritual in the New Testament. It's not beef we're going to eat at the wedding banquet of the Lamb, it’s praise. We're going to praise God.

It's a feast because of a number of things. It's a feast because of the lavish spread, the fact that there's lots of food. There's tremendous variety, you can't have a feast and it's all rice. There's got to be a variety and it's got to be beautiful, goblets and decanters and all that kind of thing. There was an Earl in England, Glouester, I think he was. In 1624, he gave a feast which costs  half of his inheritance. To give it, he felt that a feast should not just be delicious on the palate, but dazzling to the eye. He had silversmiths and goldsmiths coming in, jewelers and other things, working on the goblets, the silverware. He had experts in decoration and in confection doing these elaborate designs of desserts and all that kind of thing.  It's spreading it out. It was such an elaborate display that the guests invited were stunned and didn't eat.  They just didn't eat, it was overwhelming.  They stood there and looked so long that the food got cold, and then no one wanted to eat it. Don't do that with his feast. Come on and eat. That's  the invitation that goes out to the Jews, “come on and eat. Take part in the feast. Don't stand on the outside, take part.” It's a feast of worship. There are three commands: praise Him, glorify Him, stand in awe of Him [verse 23], and it's a feast which satisfies. The poor will eat and be satisfied. No other feast satisfies. Do you think earthly things satisfy? Do you think that Hollywood crowd, they've got everything anybody wants, are they satisfied? This satisfies, God satisfies.  He's offering a feast that will satisfy, and it's an eternal feast. Look at Verse 26,  it says,  “They who seek the Lord will praise him. May your hearts live forever." It's an eternal feast. It's never going to end. It's  an eternal feast, and He is inviting, nay, even commanding, the Jews to come. It's so tragic that so few of them are coming.

Now, in verse 27-31, he makes confident prediction about the Gentiles. Now tonight we're going to study in Acts 28. It's the end of the Book of Acts, and the Apostle Paul is there in Rome and he is speaking to the Jews, the Jews come to him, to the Jew first, and then to the Gentile. He invites the Jews, just three days after he arrived in Rome.  He invites the Jews to come and he lays before them the evidence from the Old Testament, I guarantee you he talked about Psalm 22, and I guarantee you that there was a division among the Jews. Some of them believed, many of them did not, and they started to leave and go away. After quoting that famous prophecy from Isaiah 6, "Be ever hearing but never understanding, be ever seeing but never perceiving, these people's heart has become calloused, they hardly see with their eyes, or hear with their ears, or turn, and I would heal them." Talking about the Jews and their hardness of heart, they just can't see their own prophecies. But then he says this in Acts 28:28, "Therefore, I want you to know that God's salvation has been sent to the Gentiles and they will listen." You all are gentiles, all of you who trust in Jesus, you have listened, haven't you? You have believed this message.

How did Paul know that they would listen? From personal experience? Yes, he was the apostle to the Gentiles, but he knew it from prophecy. Verses 27-31,  reveals the confident assurance that the predictions[the Gentiles] are going to come. Look what it says, 27 and following, "All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord. All the families of nations will bow down before Him, for dominion belongs to the Lord and He rules over the nations, all the rich of the earth will feast and they will worship, and all who go down to the dust will kneel before Him, those who cannot keep themselves alive. Posterity will serve Him. Future generations will be told about the Lord, they will proclaim His righteousness to a people yet unborn, for He has done it." You see these predictions, these are confident predictions one after the other. We live in a time now where we've seen them come to pass. They're not all finished  yet, but we've seen 2000 years of mission work. We've seen the advance  that future generations have been told about the Lord, they have come and they have worshipped. First Thessalonians Chapter 1 says, "They tell how you turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God." The Thessalonians obeyed this, they turned away from their idols and they turned to God and they worshipped, and they praised.

It's all coming true. God does not speak words idly. It's all coming true. Verses 27-31 do not refer to David. Not at all. Did all the ends of the earth come and honor David? No, nothing like it. This is prophetic scripture. It's not about David, it's about Jesus Christ. Now, what is the subject of this prediction? It’s the feast, isn't it?  As Jason and I were working on the outline, I said, "Now, is it a feast or is it a kingdom?" We have sometimes kingdom language and sometimes feast language, I didn't know which it was. It says in verse 27, "The families of nations are going to bow down before." That's kind of kingdom language. Verse 28, definitely kingdom language, "For dominion belongs to the Lord, and He rules over the nation." That's definitely a kingdom. But then in verse 29, "All the rich of the earth will feast." I guess it ends up being both.

After Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount, He came down off the mountain,  and a Roman centurion came to Him. The centurion had a problem, he had a servant that he loved, and his servant was sick and probably going to die, and he came to Jesus and said, "Lord, My servant is sick, please come and heal him, or please heal him." Jesus said, "I will go to him." The centurion said, "You don't need to come. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority with soldiers under me. I tell this one, 'Go' and he goes. And that one 'Come', and he comes. I say to my servant, 'Do this', and he does it." So this man came to Him, this Roman, this Gentile came to Him,  broken-hearted and humble and  said, "I don't deserve to have you come into my roof, and you're a King just give the word, you're a spiritual King. There's a kingdom here.  Jesus is amazed at his faith.  Matthew 8:10, "When Jesus heard this, He was astonished."  Why was He astonished? Jesus’ mission was to the Jew, first, and then the Gentile. He said, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel, later I will come to Gentiles." But now it's like the Father can't control Himself. We've got to have one Gentile convert now, who's ready for the feast.  Jesus is amazed, He says, "I haven't found anyone in Israel with such great faith." 

Then he says in  Matthew 8:11, "I tell you the truth, [or I say to you,] that many will come from the east and the west." That's the ends of the earth folks, that's Gentiles. "Many will come from the east and the west and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.” It's both. It's a feast in the kingdom.  They rejoice in having a king that rules over them. They're glad to bow down before that kind of a king. The King actually ends up being the feast. We feast on the king and his majesty and His glory. They're coming. Do you have your place? Is your place reserved at the feast? Is there a little name card with your name on it at that feast? You don't want to miss it.  Because the very next thing Jesus said in Matthew 8:12, "But the subjects of the Kingdom will be thrown outside into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." The alternatives are clear in scripture, no third place. You feast at the table with Jesus or you suffer in hell forever. Those are the two choices. Take your place at the feast. Don't miss it.  It's a feast in the kingdom, and the beauty is that it's a universal invitation. Look at it, there's no ethnic limitations here, Jew and Gentile alike are welcome. There's no geographical limitations here, the ends of the earth will come. There's no economic limitations, the poor will eat and be satisfied, the rich will feast and will worship. No economic limitations, no chronological limitation. Not just for one generation or two or three, this kingdom doesn't just last for a little while and go the way of all the Earth. This is an eternal kingdom, one generation will proclaim it to the next, like a relay race, one generation to the next to the next, and it's come on down to us now. The same message. No limitations, come to the feast, He's saying.

It's a feast of conversion. It says, "The ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord." You can't just come as you are, if you don't have your wedding clothes, you'll be thrown outside into the darkness. You need to have Jesus' righteousness on you, that's the wedding clothing you have to wear. If you don't have the wedding garment, you can't go in. You've got to have righteousness. We talked about that in Romans, "He'll clothe you with His righteousness." You've got to have it, but He's giving it to you freely. There's no cost, just be sure you've got your wedding clothes on to come. It says that the ends of the Earth are going to remember, that means they're going to think about God who created them, and they're going to turn to the Lord away from idols [verse 27]. They're going to worship before God. Deep submission and deep joyful satisfaction comes from this.

Why is all this going to happen? Why can I stand up and tell you that this is all guaranteed? It's definitely going to happen, because of God's sovereign power. Look at the connection between verses 27 and 28. It says, "All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord and all the families of the nations will bow down before Him for dominion belongs to the Lord." My wife and my kids and I went as missionaries to Japan. If we had been going in our own strength and in our own power and with our own persuasive skills,  and thought we are going to convince some Buddhist or Shinto Japanese to believe in Jesus, what do you think our success rate would have been? And what kind of pride would have been on my part to think because "I'm such a great persuader they're going to believe in Jesus." It was not in my name, I went. "For all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me, therefore, you go and make disciples. And they'll listen, because I say so." The connection between verses 27-28 is the sovereignty of God which guarantees the advance of the kingdom. They will turn and they will listen. What is the message, the Gospel message?  It's a righteousness that comes from God. Verse 30 and 31, "Posterity will serve Him, future generations will be told about the Lord.” What will they be told about the Lord? "They will proclaim His righteousness. But now a righteousness from God, apart from law has been made known to which the law and the prophets testified." Here it is, a righteousness that comes from God. If you think you're going to come into that wedding banquet with your own clothes, you will not be accepted. You will not be allowed. You must take on the clothes of Jesus Christ, the righteousness by faith. You've got to turn away from your own righteousness, turn away from your own filthy rags and take on Jesus wedding clothes, He will give them to you for free, and then you'll be admitted to the feast. 

As we look at Psalm 22, what application  do we get out of the second half? First of all, I just want you to marvel at God, just be amazed at this kind of God. This was written a thousand years before Christ. It reads like a New Testament book. It's so plain. Marvel at God's sovereign power and His foreknowledge. He knew it all ahead of time. All of it was laid out ahead of time. Secondly, I want to urge you to rejoice in God's lavish generosity. Be happy that this kind of feast is waiting for you. Be happy that if you're a Christian, your best things, all of them are yet to come. I don't care what kind of things you've experienced, or what kind of great life you've had up 'til now, if you're a Christian, the best things are all yet to come. Wait until you take your seat with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the kingdom of heaven at that feast. Just wait.   It's an  incredible feast, a lavish feast, complete forgiveness of all sins, a transformed heart that turns to God from idols, a deeply satisfying fear of the Lord, a feast of worship immersed in God's immediate face to face presence and an eternity to enjoy. “When we've been there 10,000 years bright, shining as a sun, we've no less days to sing God's praise than when we first begun.” Never ends. Rejoice in that kind of generosity and rejoice in the wideness of God's generosity, no limitations, ethnically, geographically, economically, chronologically. They're all just an open invitation to the ends of the earth. 

Thirdly, can I urge you, come and eat and be satisfied? Stop living for earthly things. Stop living for your stomach or your appetites. Live for God, let God and God alone be your feast today and the rest of the week. Next week, we'll talk about it again. Recharge your passion for God, let God be your feast.  Live for God, think about God, muse on Him. Think,  when is the next time I get to pray and read the scripture? When is the next time I get to do something at the command of my King? Jesus said, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and finish His work." That's what I love to eat. I don't care what I put in my stomach,  I care about doing something for God next. Feast on God and realize that someday your deepest longings are going to be satisfied in God and God alone. He's what you get in heaven, stop laboring for things that don't satisfy. Isaiah 55 talks about this feast, "Come all you who are thirsty come to the water, and you who have no money, come buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me and eat what is good and your soul will delight in the richest of fare." Don't labor for what doesn't satisfy. Don't spend your life in the things that don't matter. 

Fourthly, announce this to the ends of the earth. Posterity will serve Him. Future generations will be told about the Lord. Look at Verse 22, "I will declare." Who does the declaring, Jesus? Jesus started it. Verse 22, "I will declare." Verse 31, "They will proclaim." You see? "I will declare. They will proclaim. As the Father has sent Me, I am sending you." This is your message to go proclaim. Are you proclaiming it? Have you told anyone about Jesus' last week? Are you praying for missionaries who are doing that? Are you proclaiming it? Announce it. Go out into the highways and the byways, and compel them to come to this feast. It's a great feast. So go and tell them.

One final thing, I remember the two-part outline of the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. The same is true for you. Suffering first, then glory. Think back to the missionaries that went to the West Indies, what did they need to do to bring Christ to the slaves? Become slaves themselves. That's honorable, isn't it? It hurts, I'm sure. There was suffering involved. But it was worth it to them.  Are you willing to suffer to take this message to the ends of the earth? Are you willing to suffer to take it to your neighbor? Suffering, first thing comes the glory. 

Won't you close with me in prayer? Father, I thank You for the beauty and the perfection of Your prophetic word, a thousand years before Jesus was born, David saw it clearly though he probably didn't understand it all. I praise You, O Lord, that now looking back 2000 years ago, we can see it even more clearly. We have the word of the prophets made more certain. We thank You, O Lord, for that, and we praise You for this message. And I pray that we would feast on You today, that we would be sure that everyone that we know has a place at the wedding banquet. I pray for any here who have not reserved their place that they would by trusting in Christ alone be sure that there's their name, a little placard waiting for them a seat at the banquet. And Father, I pray for all of us who have already committed our lives to You, that we would take this message to the ends of the earth and be willing to suffer in doing it. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Speak in an interweaving way of the living word, the written word, and the Living Word Jesus Christ. This morning, we're going to look at perhaps one of the greatest and clearest prophecies of the Messiah in the Old Testament, Psalm 22. As Jesus was hanging on the cross, He cried out, "Eloi, Eloi lama sabachthani,” which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" This is a cry from the depths of one under the judgment of God, as we believe Jesus, bearing our sins, cried out of the forsakeness, the god-forsakenness of his status there on the cross. But I think he was doing more than just that. You see, Jesus lived a life totally dependent on and interwoven with the written word of God, His whole life had been laid out before He'd even been born, laid out in prophecies of scripture. His birthplace, for example, He was born in Bethlehem, according to Micah Chapter 5, Verse 2, his mother was to be a virgin, according to Isaiah 7:14, and she was. He was to grow up in Galilee according to Isaiah 9:1, He was to do miracles, according to Isaiah 35:4-6. He was to speak in parables according to Psalm 78:2. He was to be rejected by his own people, according to Psalm 118:22. He was even to be betrayed by one of his close friends who shared his own bread, for 30 pieces of silver, 30, not 29, not 31, but 30 pieces of silver, according to Psalm 41:9 and Zechariah 11:13.

But more than that, Jesus in his everyday life relied on the written word of God. When tempted by the devil, He answered three times with scripture, “It is written,” “It is written,”  “It is written.” The first time He laid it all out for us plainly. When He said, "Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God,” Jesus didn't just preach it, He lived it. Total dependence moment by moment on the written word of God. When some came to threaten his life in John chapter 10, they were ready to execute him for the things He had claimed. Jesus reached for Psalm 82:6, “I said, you are gods.” How many of us would have even known where Psalm 82 was, never mind what it said, never mind how it was applicable to this very situation? Jesus' mind was saturated with the Old Testament, for that's all that was available in his day, the written word of God.

Now, as Jesus was hanging on the cross, crying out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?", there were some around the cross who heard Him cry. Franco Zeffirelli in his masterpiece, “Jesus of Nazareth” picks up on this, the pathos of that moment, Jesus' enemies around the cross, they're looking up at him, and Jesus cries out, "Eli, Eli lama sabachthani." People say, "Oh listen, He's calling for Elijah." They didn't hear it right or something, or their minds were dark and they didn't hear it properly. Zeffirelli has one of his bitterest foes looking up and just gets a wistful look on his face, kind of puzzled, almost. He said, "No. No, He's not calling Elijah, He's quoting the scripture." Even here, even now, hanging on the cross, He's quoting Scripture, and he just shook his head in amazement because he considered Jesus to be an imposter, and yet He wouldn't let it go. Even on the cross, He's quoting Scripture.  

I believe that Jesus was crying out from the depths of a spiritual separation between him and God because of his role as our substitute.  But could it be that He was doing more than that, could it be that He was pointing our attention back to Psalm 22? I think perhaps so, for Psalm 22 gives perhaps the clearest depiction in all of the Old Testament about what was happening to Jesus right at that moment, namely crucifixion. Now, 100 years after Jesus, a Roman who came to personal faith in Christ, named Justin Martyr, started having dialogues with Jewish people and he wrote one of them down, it was entitled, “Dialogue with Trypho the Jew.” This is just 100 years after Christ, it’s four generations after Jesus. He points to Psalm 22, and specifically to Verse 16, which says, “They have pierced my hands and my feet.” What is this? This piercing of the hands and the feet. He said, "It was the prophetic spirit." That's what Justin Martyr called it, “the Holy Spirit.” The prophetic spirit in David, which was predicting Jesus' crucifixion, with these words, they have pierced my hands and my feet." Trypho the Jew wasn't buying it. He didn't believe in that. Justin Martyr turns up the heat a little bit in the dialogue, and he says, "You are indeed blind when you deny that the above mentioned psalm was spoken of Christ, for you fail to see that no one among your people who has ever been called King ever had his hands and his feet pierced while alive and died by this mystery that is the cross, except this Jesus only." A mere 100 years after Jesus, this clear testimony of the power of Psalm 22 to predict the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. 

The centerpiece of apostolic evangelism, the evangelism of the apostles, was Old Testament scripture. They were constantly going from place to place, proving from the scriptures, the Old Testament, that Jesus was the Christ. This came, I believe, from Jesus' 40-day seminar that He had with them after his resurrection. He spent 40 days with His apostles and He taught them everything that was in the scriptures concerning him. In Moses and in the Psalms and Prophets, and then the Writings as well, in every aspect of Old Testament scripture. There was Christ, there was Christ, there was Christ, a clear testimony to his life. Peter picked up on it, and in his first sermon after Pentecost, he stands up, actually, on the day of Pentecost, and preaches boldly and powerfully, fearlessly. Power of the spirit has come on him, he's not afraid of death anymore, why? Because he's seen the risen Lord, there is nothing they can do to shut him up. But not only does the Holy Spirit gave him power and courage in the face of death,  it also saturates his mind in Old Testament scripture. Peter quotes, Joel Chapter 2, Psalm 16, Psalm 1-10, and by my count, almost half of all the verses of that sermon were Old Testament quotations or allusions.

 Peter later wrote in 1 Peter 1, the Spirit of Christ was inside the prophets, like inside David, predicting the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. The Holy Spirit laid it all ahead of time, and he worked in a man like David to let us know. The apostle Paul picked up on this. At the beginning of Paul's ministry, Saul of Tarsus is breathing out threats and murder. He's on his way to Damascus.  A bright light flashes from the heaven, he falls to the ground, he is converted, he comes to faith in Christ, and not only did scales fall from his eyes when he was baptized, but also a veil from his heart. He refers to this veil in 2 Corinthians 3, when he says, "A veil covers their hearts." Whenever the Old Testament is read, the Jews he's referring to, but when anyone turns to Christ, the veil falls away, and suddenly the scriptures came alive, and he could see things he'd never seen before. It says that, once Saul began preaching in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God,  he grew more and more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Christ.

How do you think he did that? He said, “Let's open up and look. Let's look at the Torah. Let's look at the writings of Moses. Let's look at the writings of the wisdom literature, and let's look at Psalms, and you'll see it all there.” He baffled them, they'd never noticed these things before, and it was Saul, this convert, instantly showing them. At the end of his life, he did the same thing in Acts 28:23. From morning till evening, he explained and declared to them the kingdom of God, this was to the Jews, and tried to convince them about Jesus, from the law of Moses and from the prophets. He said, "Open your Bibles, let's look, let's read along, here it is." This was the centerpiece of apostolic evangelism —open your Bible and look. 

Many times in between the beginning of his Christian life on the road of Damascus and the end of his Christian life in Rome, he did the same thing.  In Thessalonica, he did the same thing, in Acts 17: 2-3. As his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue and on three Sabbath days, he reasoned with them from the scriptures, explaining and proving that Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. When he had the Scriptures open, what do you think he went to, to talk about the sufferings of Christ? Could it be Psalm 22? I think so.  Paul's own summary of his whole ministry comes in 1 Corinthians 15:3, “For what I received, I passed on to you as of first importance, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that He was buried and that He was raised from the dead on the third day according to scriptures.” The death according to scripture, the resurrection according to scripture. That's the way he preached, and my question to us, as 21st century, Christians, can you do that? Could you evangelize just from the Old Testament, could you prove and explain from the Old Testament scriptures, how Jesus is the Christ and the fulfillment of all of them? Perhaps now you can do Psalm 2, and Psalm 69 and after today, Psalm 22. Just wait until we get to Psalm 16, the resurrection Psalm. It's so powerful, and it's all been laid out here, incredible detail in the prophecies. 

 Just as Jesus was being arrested, Peter draws the sword, he's about to defend Jesus so that Jesus would not be arrested.  Jesus says, "Put your sword back in its place, for all who draw the sword will also die by the sword." And then He said, "You know, if I wanted to get out of this, I would call on my Father, and He will at once put in my defense, more than 12 legions of angels." But listen, what He says next, "But how then would the scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?" Not just that it must happen, but that it must happen this way. Everything had been laid out very carefully in advance, and this is going to become evident today as we look a little more carefully at Psalm 22. 

Beginning at verse 1, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning, oh my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer by night, and I'm not silent. Yet, you are enthroned as a holy one. You are the praise of Israel, in you, our fathers put their trust, they trusted and you delivered them. They cried to you and were saved. In you, they trusted, and were not disappointed, but I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by the people, all who see me, mock me, they hurl insults, shaking their heads, 'He trusts in the Lord, let the Lord rescue him, let Him deliver him, since he delights in Him.' Yet you, brought me out of the womb, you made me trust in you even at my mother's breast, from birth, I was cast upon you from my mother's womb, you have been my God, do not be far from me, for trouble is near, and there is no one to help. Many bulls surround me, strong bulls of Bashan encircle me, roaring lions tearing their prey, open their mouths wide against me, I am poured out like water and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax, it has melted away within me, my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You lay me in the dust of death. Dogs have surrounded me, a band of evil men has encircled me.  They have pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones, people stare and gloat over me, they divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing. But you, O Lord, be not far off. O my strength come quickly to help me, deliver my life from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dogs, rescue me from the mouth of the lions, save me from the horns of the wild oxen. I will declare your name to my brothers, in the congregation, I will praise you. You who fear the Lord, praise Him. All you descendants of Jacob honor him. Revere Him, all you descendants of Israel, for he has not despised or disdained the sufferings of his afflicted one, he has not hidden his face from him, but has listened to his cry for help. From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly. Before those who fear you, will I fulfill my vows. The poor will eat and be satisfied. They who seek the Lord will praise him. May your hearts live forever. All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will bow down before Him. For dominion belongs to the Lord and He rules over the nations. All the rich of the earth will feast and worship, all who go down to the dust will kneel before Him, those who cannot keep themselves alive. Posterity will serve him. Future generations will be told about the Lord, they will proclaim His righteousness to a people yet unborn, for He has done it."

Now, this is a Psalm of David, and David had his own context in writing it. The modern commentators have all different kinds of ideas about these kinds of psalms. I think it really depends on their own personal relationship with Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. I really believe that, because if they don't know the Lord, they tend to try to create a separation between David and Christ,  so they will say that David here is struggling with physical illness. He's sick, and as he's dealing with illness, he's using metaphorical language to talk about those struggles.  Well, there is some evidence. He says, "I am a worm and not a man." Verse 14, “poured out like water, my bones are out of the joint, heart-melting like wax.” Verse 15, “strength dried up, tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You lay in the dust of death.” Could be, except for some other verses that are in there as well. I really think that the issue here is, like many of David's lament psalms, whenever he's struggling, it's almost always his own sin or attacks from political and personal enemies, that tends to be what he grieves over, and I think in this case, it's the latter he's dealing with, political and personal enemies. "Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown," said Shakespeare, and as that crown is on your head, it weighs heavy, and there are people who want to take it from you and they're willing to plot against you.  David lived a whole life with enemies wanting to take his life, and so in verses 12 and 13, you get the sense of being surrounded by enemies, “many bulls surround me, strong bulls of Bashan encircle me, roaring lions tearing their prey, open their mouths wide against me.” Then  in verse 16, “dogs have surrounded me, a band of evil men has encircled me.” This doesn't line up too well with illness, really it's a personal attack from enemies, but the clincher is in verse 20, verse 19-21 says, "But you, O Lord, be not far off, O my strength come quickly to help me." Verse 20, “Deliver my life from the sword.” Well, there it is, he's threatened with the sword, his enemies are seeking to assassinate him, to kill him, and he's threatened by them. Verse 21, “Rescue me from the mouth of the lion, save me from the horns of wild oxen.” He's not suffering from physical illness, but he's afraid he's going to be killed by these adversaries. 

The psalm breaks up into two main sections, verse 1 through 21 is a cycle of lament and trust. Verse 22 through 31 is thanksgiving for deliverance, present and future. So there's the sad part and the happy part. Verse 1 through 21, the sad part, verse 22 through 31, the happy part, that's how it works. Now, in verse 1 through 21, the sad or difficult part, it's a cycle of lament and trust, he's going back and forth, he says, “I am this, but you are that, I am this, but you were that,” he's going back and forth. Any of you who have gone through afflictions, perhaps you've lost a loved one, perhaps you are ill, or perhaps there's some kind of persecutor, a difficulty in your life, you know how you move back and forth between the poles, don't you? Sometimes struggling and suffering with what's going on and other times, trusting in the Lord and praying for him to change the circumstances. Any of you who have suffered, you know what I'm talking about, and David does the same thing. First lament in verse 1, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Then in verse 3 through 5,  he turns to the Lord, the national savior of Israel. He remembers that His forefathers trusted in God and were rescued. Then he goes back to a second lament in verse 6 through 8, "I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by people." So in the first cycle of lament, he feels forsaken by God, in the second cycle of lament, verse 6 through 8, he feels forsaken by people and abandoned and rejected. Then he comes back to confidence in God, verse 9 through 11, where the first was a national confidence, now here's the personal confidence, as he said, I've trusted in you from my mother's breast, from when I was first, a little baby, I began to trust in you. So he's going over his own history, and sometimes that's helpful when you go through affliction, you forget who God is, your circumstances become so powerful that you forget that God never changes, and that the resources for facing your trial are unshakable, will never change, that's who God is.

The final lament, verse 12 through 18 is so clearly depicting crucifixion, that it's hard for me to even imagine what David was talking about. As Justin Martyr put it, “How are David's hands and feet pierced? What's going on there?”  I think there comes a point where the prophetic spirit, the Holy Spirit, just lifts David up above his immediate circumstances to speak words of prophecy about Christ. That's what's going on, I believe in 12 -18, he's encircled by attackers, and then he finishes up with a prayer for deliverance, 19 through 21. That's the sad part, a cycle of lament and trust back and forth, and then David moves to the happy part, just like that, from 21 to 22, there's no warning. All of a sudden, we're giving thanks and praise. It's almost like a resurrection. Could it be? Verse 22, he praises God. He says, "I will declare your name to my brothers in the congregation, I will praise you. You who fear the Lord, praise him, all you descendants of Jacob, honor him." So he's praising God. In verses 22 through 26, he's praising God for his present deliverance from his immediate situation, and then again, he lifts his eyes, the vision to an eternal kingdom. 27 through 31, the end of the Psalm; some things that are so rich that I can't share them with you today. I'm going to do it another time, the power of the worldwide advance of the kingdom of Christ, based on what he accomplished in the first half of Psalm 22. That's David's situation.

 Let's be done with David now and move on to Christ because there are some aspects of David's life that do not line up with Christ, some aspects of his situation that are not Christ. We need to focus on Jesus Christ, and Psalm 22 depicts the sufferings and the resurrection of Jesus Christ in powerful ways. Look over in Matthew 27, and what we're going to  do is we're going to compare the way that Matthew wrote the crucifixion account with Psalm 22, and you're going to see so clearly the fulfillments of Psalm 22 as to be beyond question. Matthew 27, 32- 50 but stay in Psalm 22, we're going to be moving back and forth so that you can see what it is. There's two real aspects here of the fulfillment. The first is that the whole scene and circumstances are set up by Psalm 22, and there's four different aspects of that. Then there's the crucifixion itself, the very mode and manner of Jesus' death focused in on Psalm 22 as well.Let's look at the first, the scene is set in the Gospels, right from Psalm 22, the first is in  Matthew 27:35, look at it. Matthew 27:35 says, “When they had crucified him, they divided up his clothes by casting lots.” What's so amazing about this, and this is the key to the whole thing of prophetic scripture: who was it that divided up Jesus' clothes by casting lots? It was the Roman soldiers. Wait a minute, that's a problem. Roman soldiers didn't know Psalm 22:18, how are they going to know to do this? They're probably born in some part of Italy, got on a boat and came to Palestine, the last place they wanted to be. There’s a centurion and a bunch of other soldiers, hot and bothered, another crucifixion to do, they don't want to be here. “This is the worst place, it's so hot, the food is terrible, and now we have to kill another one of these Jewish rebels. maybe I can get a garment out of it, maybe I can get a cloak or something for my trouble.” That's what he's thinking. But God's thoughts are so much higher above. The Roman doesn't know, Psalm 22:18, but God does, and this is the key to the whole thing, is that God is sovereign over human events. He saw over people who don't know him, even over the people who don't love him, God rules over all, so when they're rolling the dice and casting lots, they're fulfilling prophecy, even though they didn't know what they were doing, this is the key to it all. Our God is a sovereign God.

Now look at Verse 39, it says, "Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads." They're insulting Christ and they're shaking their heads. That's prophesied in Psalm 22:7. Look back. Keep your finger in both. "All who see me mock me, they hurl insults, shaking their heads." Do you see that? They're shaking their heads, even the head gestures of Jesus' enemies prophesied. What about the content of the mocking?  Look at verse 41-43, "In the same way, the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked Him. He saved others, they said, but he can't save himself. He's the king of Israel. Let him come down now from the cross, and we'll believe in him." Here it is, Matthew 27:43, "He trusts in God, let God rescue him now, if he wants him, for He said, I am the Son of God." 

Of course, the Jews, the chief priests, teachers of the law, they knew Psalm 22, but they sure weren't trying to quote scripture here. They opened up their hateful mouths, and insulting Jesus, they fulfilled prophecy to the letter. Look back at Psalm 22:8, "He trusts in the Lord, let the Lord rescue him, let Him deliver him since He delights in him." Their lines in the play had been scripted a thousand years ahead of time. King David wrote this a thousand years before Jesus fulfilled it, and it wasn't just Jesus fulfilling it, it was the Roman soldiers casting lots, it was the Jewish enemies casting insults, fulfilling scripture to the letter.

The whole scene is set in Psalm 22, but then comes the crucifixion itself. Now go back to Psalm 22, and let's look at verses 12-18. Crucifixion itself is depicted very plainly in verses 12-18, "Many bulls surround me, strong bulls of Bashan encircle me, roaring lions tearing their prey, open their mouths, wide against me, I am poured out like water, all my bones are out of joint, my heart has turned to wax, it has melted away within me, my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You lay me in the dust of death, dogs have surrounded me, a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet, I can count all my bones, people stare and gloat over me, they divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing." Can't you see Jesus' crucifixion, as you read those verses? Isn't it so plain? Let me pull out the elements for you, first, there's dehydration.  It says in Psalm 22: 14-15, “the tongue cleaves to the roof of his mouth.” Do you remember one of the seven things that Jesus said from the cross was, “I thirst.” The thirst of Christ, that fulfilled Psalm 69, because they gave him vinegar to drink, you see, the whole thing had been worked out, but  first comes the dehydration  which comes from the crucifixion. What about exposure? Just the exposure of your whole body up there in the cross, couldn't be more exposed. Verse 17, it says, "I can count all my bones." So there is Jesus, and he can see his whole body, it's just exposed and out in the open, and then there's disfigurement, not only can he count all his bones, but his bones, according to verse 14 are out of joint, there's a kind of a twisting of the arms and of the legs, disfigurement. Then there's the encirclement, we've talked about it, but the bulls and the wolves and the dogs, just surrounding, a sense that He is in the center and everyone's looking and staring and gloating. There's a crowd yelling, there's a center, and the center is the cross of Jesus Christ.

Then there's the piercing. Now, I'll tell you something, I have wrestled with this, “They have pierced my hands and my feet.” Like any good pastor, you want to go back, not to the NIV or the NASB or the KJV or any of these, but you want to go back to the Hebrew, the original writings. If you were to look back in the Hebrew writings, we have the manuscripts, of course, we don't have Psalm 22, the original.  God has seen fit that we don't have any original scriptures, we only have copies. Now, as you read the copy, it says something like this, "Dogs have surrounded me, a band of evil men has encircled me, like a lion, my hands and feet." Does that make sense to you? Like a lion, my hands and feet, doesn't make sense to me either. Now, the Greek is a little bit more interesting, translated 200 or 300 years before Jesus, the Greek translation says, “they have dug my hands and feet,” so that's like a piercing or a tunneling, and that's where it comes from. That's why I believe Justin Martyr talks about the piercing. But what of the Hebrew? I've wrestled with this. It also bothered me in the New Testament that this is never directly quoted, but yet I will say this, the piercing is clearly predicted.  Jesus would be pierced, not just from this Scripture, but also from two others, in Isaiah 53:5, it says, “He was pierced for our transgression.”  No problem with the text. Jesus would be pierced for our transgression, He would be crushed for our iniquity. Isaiah 53:5, “the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him and by His wounds we are healed.” So even if Justin Martyr's friend, Trypho the Jews said,”’It’s not in Psalm 22, there it is in Isaiah 53, you can't get away from it. “They've pierced my hands and my feet.” Then in Zechariah 12:10, it says, "I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication." Zechariah 12:10, "They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only child and grieve bitterly for Him as one grieves for a first-born son." John uses that as a fulfillment for the thrust of the spear or lance into Jesus' side. There's no question that Jesus would be pierced.  The Book of Revelation talks about it. Revelation 1:17 says, "Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of Him, so shall it be, amen." What is so amazing about all this? That Jesus would die on a cross, pierced, crucified. Okay, so I'm convinced. Psalm 22 teaches crucifixion, so what? Well,  crucifixion hadn't even been invented yet. It was invented about 500 years after David wrote this. There was nothing like this in Jewish culture. There was no piercing of hands and feet, they killed by stoning. What was David thinking? Well, I don't really care that much what David was thinking, I care what God was doing through David at that moment. I don't think David understood it. I think he wrote it and didn't fully understand what he was writing. But we understand because we're looking back at history now.

 In Psalm 22, Jesus while hanging on the cross, said, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” There it is. Well, what do we do with this information? What if David saw the crucifixion of Christ in advance? How does it affect my life? Number one, first of all, if you're a Christian, it is that you may know the certainty of the things you've been taught. It says in Luke 1:4, that's why he wrote Luke's Gospel, that you may know the certainty of the things you have taught. This is not something that God threw together at the last minute, the gospel, it's not something where he said, "Gee, I don't know what I'm going to do about sinners, I wouldn't mind having a few of them up here with me in Heaven. How are we going to get them up there. I don't know, well, why don't we kinda throw something together?" That is not God's way, but from eternity past, He has worked out this Gospel message. It says in Romans 1:2, that this is the gospel He promised beforehand through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures, it's been predicted, all of it, ahead of time.

Revelation 13:8 says that Jesus is the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. He died at the foundation of the world, not literally, but in the mind of God. He had it all worked out, and Jesus said that the scripture has said very plainly it would happen in this way, but there's a theological significance to it as well. It says in Galatians Chapter 3, that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us as it is written, “cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.” He had to be crucified in order to be hung on a tree, that you may know the certainty of the things you've been taught. But the second and more plain, is that you know that Jesus suffered in your place. When Jesus cried out, He said, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" There is a God-forsakenness that we face as sinners here in this life. We don't walk with God, we don't love him, we don't know him, we don't follow his ways. But how much worse is that god-forsakenness that's waiting everyone who dies in sin and goes to hell. Hell is a God-forsaken place. I have witnessed, and I tell you with tears and with grief at the jokes that non-Christians give over hell. “All my friends are going to be down there, and I'm going to be partying with them. No, you're not. It's a place of utter darkness. All the good things that God has lavished on you in this world, He will lavish none of them in hell. What good things? The sun comes up on the evil and the righteous, and He sends rain on the evil and the righteous, He gives you sunshine, He gives you rain, He gives you good food, He gives you good friends and clothes and comforts and entertainment and all kinds of things. None of that in hell. Now, for we, who are Christians, we know that, we don't want to go to hell. Jesus suffered hell for us. When He cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Martin Luther looked at that and  said, "You know, I feel forsaken because of my sins." But when he came to Psalm 22, he said, "Why did Jesus feel forsaken? What did he do? He was sinless and blameless, he was perfect in all his ways. Why did he feel forsaken?" It’s that exchange. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, including the god-forsakenness, so that we in Christ might become the righteousness of God. He suffered in our place, so that we don't have to suffer hell, we don't have to suffer forsakeness from God. Quite the opposite, Hebrews 13:5, “He has promised, I will never leave you, I will never forsake you.” Never, he's going to be with you forever. Because of what Jesus accomplished, He says, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" 

We say, “You will never leave me, you'll never forsake me, because of what Jesus accomplished.” Does that mean, we don't need to suffer? No, we still have some suffering, we don't drink Jesus' cup, but we drink drops from his cup. Jesus said to James and John, "You will indeed drink from my cup." He said, "If anyone's not willing to pick up this cross daily and follow me, he's not worthy to be my disciple." We have to be willing to suffer with Christ. Hebrews 13:12-13, “Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood, let us then go to him, outside the camp, bearing the disgrace He bore.” This is a problem for us, American Christians. We don't want to bear any disgrace, we want a comfortable easy life, and we don't want to bear any suffering because of the cross of Jesus Christ, but Hebrews says, “Go outside the camp, go and bear the insult and the disgrace that were poured on him because people hate God.” Go stand near the cross and you'll know what it's like, and the closer you get to the cross. The closer you get to Jesus, the more you'll know what this suffering is, and the more you will understand. “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me, for whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.” If you want to share in Jesus' reward, you have to share in his suffering. “Now, if we are children, then we are heirs,” Romans 8:17, “heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in His sufferings, in order that we may also share in His glory.” That's how it works. Some of his followers would be crucified, literally, crucified. Peter, tradition has it, was crucified upside down, in Rome. He didn't want to be crucified right side up because he said that he didn't want to be like his savior. He wasn't worthy of it. So he was crucified upside down, and Jesus prophesied this whole thing in Matthew 23:34, he said to the enemies, the Jewish enemies that were opposing him, he said, "Therefore I'm sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify, others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town." They would be crucified. When God brings you to your time of suffering, look to Jesus and realize he's already suffered in your place, you're not suffering for your sins, but you're suffering that others may hear the Gospel, you're suffering that others may come to personal faith in Christ. Go outside the city gate and bear the reproach that He bore.  

Now, the last one is so rich that we don't have time for it today, so I've decided that I would do this again in another sermon. In verses 22-31, there is a whole worldwide feast of celebration that comes out of this, and it's remarkable because it's broken up into Jew first and then Gentile. It's too hard to explain right now, but I'll tell you very plainly, in verse 22, Jesus says, He will declare His name, God's name to his brothers. Hebrews picks up on this, and it's so beautiful, because right after Jesus rose from the dead, He sees Mary Magdalene, right outside the tomb, and she's weeping, she's crying, she's looking at Jesus, doesn't know it's him, finally she understands that it's him. Remember what Jesus said? "Go and tell my brothers, go and tell my brothers, I'm going to my God and their God, to my Father and your Father." He speaks that way after his crucifixion, He is our brother and as a result of that, there is an extension of worldwide kingdom that is coming. Verses 27 through 31 say, “All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord. All the families of the nations will bow down before Him. For dominion belongs to the Lord and He rules over the nations, all the rich of the earth will feast and worship, all who go down to the dust will kneel before Him, those who cannot keep themselves alive, posterity will serve him, future generations will be told about the Lord, they will proclaim His righteousness to a people yet unborn, for He has done this.” We see the worldwide scope of the kingdom, all the peoples in the ends of the earth, all the families of nations, we see the deep repentance of the gospel, they will remember and turn to the Lord. We see the humbling before the King, they're going to bow down before Him, and they're going to honor Him, we see joyful, feasting and worship, all the rich of the earth will feast and worship. We see total inability, any other way, those who cannot keep themselves alive, we see this Gospel being preached through all history, it says, posterity, future generations and a people yet unborn will hear this message. A Gospel will be preached, it will be told about the Lord, they will proclaim His righteousness, since it's the preaching of the Gospel. It is a God-centered gospel, for He and He alone has done it. Psalm 22 is a clear depiction of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, Jesus died in our place, He died the death we deserve under the wrath and curse of God. If you have never come to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, if there's never been a time that you knew that Jesus was standing in your place, to be your savior, your sin bearer, won't you come to Christ today?

Prayer: Heavenly Father, we thank you for the beauty and the clarity of predictive prophecy, we thank you for Psalm 22, we thank you for how Jesus' crucifixion is laid out as plainly as ink on a page and we can read it. We thank you, O Lord, for the power that it has to give us certainty of the things we've been taught, and now I pray for those that have not yet given their lives to you, Lord, Father, that they would today be pierced in their heart, realize that they need a savior and come to personal faith in you, Father,  and for the rest of us, that we might be willing to take up our cross daily and follow you, we pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

 As we've been studying in Psalms, we've been looking specifically at those Psalms which speak to us of the written Word of God and its impact on us, the transforming power of the Word of God, the perfection of it, and also even speaking of those Psalms that point to the Living Word, Jesus Christ. We've seen a blending together of those. The written Word testifies to the Living Word, and through the Word, we have life through Jesus Christ. As we come to Psalm 119, we come to a 176-verse Psalm. Many of you who have been here and heard me preach are wondering how in the world we're going to get through this Psalm today. We are not going verse by verse through this Psalm. This is about 40% longer than the verses we studied in Romans, so that should tell you about how long that might take if we did it that way. I'm not saying there wouldn't be value to it, there's a tremendous value to all of Scripture, and I have found an incredible value in Psalm 119, a value I didn't understand.  But as I go on as a minister of Christ, and as I see where our culture and where our society is heading, I understand more and more the tremendous importance we should place on the written Word of God. 

When did the modern world begin, the world we live in now? As you look around and see the technology and the essence, the blending of cultures, the mobility, this is the modern world, and we have a feeling that our age is unlike any other age that has ever been. When did it begin? According to David Wells and his marvelous book, No Place For Truth: Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology?,  he says some have argued that the modern world in the West and Western culture began to take shape sometime between 1815 and 1830. In 1815, Andrew Jackson defeated the British at New Orleans and the British defeated the French at Waterloo, and that began perhaps a period of increased influence and domination of English-speaking people through the British Empire, and a blending or kind of a melting together of international culture. Another thinker about these things, Geoffrey Barraclough argues for a later period, perhaps between 1890 and 1900 when the modern world began. At that time the scientific revolution began transforming all aspects of life through advances in medicine, technology, communication, tremendous changes in that decade, and it's laid the groundwork for the 20th century.  David Bebbington has an interesting idea. He thinks that the modern world began, or it could be traced to an art exhibit in London. I'm not saying all these are right, I'm just saying they're interesting. At an art exhibit in London in 1910, the first time Post-Impressionist Modern Art was displayed publicly. You've seen the kind of paintings that I'm talking about, they make no sense, and it kind of symbolizes a 20th century which is kind of grappling with truth. But I think author Paul Johnson has his finger on something fascinating, and I think he may be right when he points to an obscure date, an obscure event as the beginning of a major aspect of our modern experience, and that is May 29th, 1919. What happened May 29th, 1919?  May 29th, 1919, some photos were taken of a solar eclipse on an island off the coast of West Africa and in Sobral in Brazil. The two photos confirms the truth of a new theory concerning the universe that had been concocted 14 years before that by Albert Einstein, the special Theory of Relativity. 

Before Einstein began thinking about the universe, everything seemed to make sense. Isaac Newton's universe was a universe of straight lines and right angles and forces, gravity and things that you could figure out, but they started to notice some aberrations in the way the planets moved, and Newton couldn't explain it. Along came Einstein to confuse us all. The problem with the photographs is that Einstein was right, the Theory of Relativity does accurately describe the motion of light and of great bodies through the space. When those photographs and the effects of that experiment were made public, Einstein became an immediate hero, a global hero. He was in demand as a speaker all over the world, his strange, wistful face, with that flyaway white hair, he became kind of a prophet for the modern age, an unwilling one, I can tell you that. He just wanted to be a scientist, but everyone kind of looked at him as the author of this idea of relativity. The principle of relativity is complex. Somebody summed it up saying in one simple statement, there is no such thing as absolute movement or motion. Well, I'm not a physicist, I'll have to take their word for it.  I know that Isaac Newton had it kind of straight lines, right angles, everything could make sense, but now that there's no absolute motion, how do you explain things? All of a sudden, space becomes curved, light doesn't travel in a straight line anymore, things don't make sense. To the common man, everything is up in the air. You used to be able to understand, you pushed on something and it moved. Things move through space at a certain velocity until something else came and told it differently, and now we've got relativity. Because people couldn't understand it, it kind of meta-morphed into relativism; the belief that everything's up in the air, not just the idea of physics, but everything, there are no absolutes. No absolutes of time and space, but no absolutes either of good and evil, no absolute knowledge. You can't know anything in and of itself, and no absolute values. There's no absolute truth, and in this way, relativity became relativism. You all know what I'm talking about, because we see it around us all the time.

The irony of all of this is, according to Paul Johnson, it started with an eclipse, with a bending of a light ray around the edge of the sun. How appropriate? For now, most people in America seem to believe that there are no absolutes and no lights. No straight lights. No truth with a capital T. What was God's first creation? God said, "Let there be light." It was his way of communicating about Himself, but now it's curving, it's blocked like an eclipse, and nothing is absolute and all is relative. Is that true? If that's true, we have no salvation. It's for this reason that we as Christians more than ever before need to cling to the written Word of God. God established His Word to last forever and ever, truth unchanging, a foundation on which you can build your life, a foundation on which you can look ahead to an otherwise uncertain future with confidence and with hope.

 Psalm 119 is written to exalt and to praise the written Word of God and its impact on our hearts. Look down in your Scripture to 130. This is the point at which I would ordinarily read through the Scriptures, I'm not going to do that right now. What I'm intending to do today is to pull out some of these verses and paint a picture that Psalm 119 gives us of the written Word. Look at verse 130, it says in the New International Version, "The unfolding of your words gives light." The unfolding, or the Hebrew says, “the opening or the entrance.” The unfolding of your words gives light, it gives understanding to the simple. I have one purpose today, and it's the same purpose I've had since I've been here preaching, I want to unfold God's words to you, that's all I ever do. I  want to unpack what is in here in the Scriptures. The unfolding of the Scripture gives light to the soul, and it doesn't bend and it doesn't arc, and it's not blocked, it comes directly right into your heart and it transforms you, it changes you. Psalm 119 is an extended praise for the written Word of God.

As you're looking down at verse 130,  you notice some strange squiggles on the page. They're Hebrew letters. Go back to the very first verse, verse 1. I wish we were all Hebrew scholars. You would be looking at the Hebrew right in front of you. If you had it, you'd see the beauty and the poetry of Psalm 119, for what it is, is 22 Hebrew letters, and each letter gets its moment in the sun, each letter gets eight verses of opportunity to speak. It starts with the first one, “aleph.” You see that little... It looks like an X right under the word Psalm 119. That's the first Hebrew letter. The second Hebrew letter is the next one, “beth.”  The Greek picked up on those names, we have alpha for aleph and beta for beth. You put those two together, you get a word that we say alphabet, that's where it comes from. This is a tribute to letters, the letters make up the Word of God, we read them that way. The first eight verses all begin with the same letter, aleph, and the second eight verses from verse 9-16, all begin with the same letter, beth, and so it goes through 22 letters.  The Psalmist is giving a tribute to the written Word of God through the writing. 

Where did the written Word of God originate? What was the start of it all? The start of it was a windswept Mount Sinai, and the first Scripture... I discovered this this morning. It says in Psalm 119:18, "Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law." I pray that all the time, and so should you. When you come to Scripture, you say, "God open my eyes. I don't want to miss something here. I want to see things I haven't seen before." Well, today I saw something. I believe the first Scriptures, the 10 commandments, written with the finger of God on the tablets of stone, and given to Moses, God started it. This is amazing. The perfection of the Word of God. Do you know what the first letter in the Ten Commandments is? Aleph. It's in the word, the Hebrew word, which means I. What's the first saying in the Ten Commandments? "I am the Lord." God's first written Word to us is, "I am the Lord." Isn't that the essence of Scripture, who God is? God is so perfect this way, His first letter is the letter A, and He speaks to us, "I am. I am the Lord." As you're reading through Psalm 119 or any Scripture, you're getting God. The whole point is to create in you a hunger and a thirst for God Himself, and it's hidden in the letters. 

The thing that's so beautiful about this whole approach is that whatever is inscribed in stone, we use that expression, well, it's not written in stone. Well, this was written in stone. What does it mean when we say things aren't written in stone? It means that they're changeable, right? They can be changed, but things that are written in stone, they can't be changed. Isn't that the nature of the Word? It cannot be changed. When God writes it down, it's there, it's perfect.  He wrote in letters, and the letters were put together and they make words, and the words were put together and they make sentences and paragraphs and thought units, and He begins to communicate to us this way. So much so that He picks up on this in the Book of Revelation, where He says, "I am the Alpha and the Omega.” I am the start and the finish. There's a linear communication of information coming through these letters, and it makes sense, it comes into us, it gives light to us.  Jesus said, "This is going to last forever." Matthew 5:18, "Until Heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the least stroke of a pen, jot and tittle," the little squiggles of Hebrew, "will by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished." And they haven't, they're still there. Dead Sea Scrolls proves it, 2,000 years of history. It's all still the same. God is protecting these letters.

Psalm 119 is an amazing tribute. Eight verses, eight verses, eight verses, letter after letter after letter. Eight more verses, eight more verses. Every single verse, except three, mention the written Word of God.  The Psalmist uses 10 different Hebrew words for the written Word of God. He speaks of the law, he speaks of the testimony, he speaks of God's way, he speaks of precepts and statutes and decrees and commandments, judgments, ordinances, and the Word. My purpose today is to unfold for you the beauty and the perfection of Psalm 119, not for its own sake, but so that you may see the beauty and perfection of the God who inspired it.

What is God's overall goal in Psalm 119?  He says it right at the beginning. Verses 1-3, explain God's purpose, not just for Psalm 119, but for all of the written Word. "Blessed are they whose ways are blameless, who walk according to the law of the Lord. Blessed are they who keep his statues and seek him with all their heart.” They do nothing wrong. They walk in his ways." That sums up what God is trying to accomplish here. He begins with the word “blessed.” The same word that began Psalm 1, "Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law, he meditates day and night. He's like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season. Whatever he does prospers." Blessedness coming from the Word. It is here again, no accident, there's no accidents in the written Word. Blessings come to the study of the Word, blessing.  God's overall goal, I believe, is a blessed or a happy content, right life of complete joyful obedience to Him. That's what He's accomplishing. The end is that we should seek Him with all of our heart. You see what He says in verse 2? "Who seek him with all their heart." It's that we're seeking the God behind these letters and words. The letters and words testify to us of a great God, a loving and majestic God who has sent His son to die for sinners. The Word speaks to us. We are to seek Him with all of our heart.

God's intention in giving us Scripture is laid out in Psalm 119, if you look at verse 4, it says, "You have laid down precepts that are to be fully obeyed." God demands and expects full obedience to His commands. In verse 152, it says, "Long ago, I learned from your statutes that you established them to last forever." God expects His commands to be fully obeyed, and He has established them for all human history. They're not worn out, they're not timeworn, they're not obsolete now that we're in the 21st century, but God established this law and this Word to last forever. Scripture needs no additions, no deletions, no corrections, no adjustments, no votes, no amendments, it is perfect and it is complete. Yet, as you read through, you see the word “law” again and again. We went through Romans, we know the law doesn't save.

Why is the psalmist rejoicing so much in the law? Why do we talk about the law? First of all, in many Scriptures, the word “law”  stands for the written Word as a whole, not just for the Ten Commandments or for the rules and regulations, but just for the written Word.  It is God's law, it comes from His mouth. But also understand salvation, salvation is more than just justification, it's more than just that you are declared not guilty and now you can go to heaven, and because you're secure in that, you can live anyway you want. No, salvation is bigger than that. It's a full-blooded salvation from sin, and when you are justified through faith in Christ, you come to faith in Christ, He then moves you and brings you back to the law, and says, "Do this. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, love your neighbor as yourself. Walk in my ways. There's a path through this world, and without me working in you, without my Holy Spirit, you can't walk it, but with me, you can." Look at verse 32.  In verse 32, he says, "I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free." That should be your life, if you're a Christian. “You have changed me from within, and now I run in the path of your commands. I don't go any which way that I choose, but I run along these tracks like a train runs along tracks. I run in the path of your commands for you have set my heart free.” Does that sound like the law is a burden to him? Is that the way the Psalmist feels? He says, "No, I delight in it." You get the picture almost of a child running down a country road on a summer day. I play, I run, I jump in the path of your commands. Why? For you have set my heart free. I'm a different man, I'm a different woman now, because you have set my heart free.

In the hands of some, the law was a terrible burden. Jesus talked about them, Scribes and the teachers of the law, those hypocrites. He says in Matthew 23:4, Jesus speaking of the teachers of the law and the Pharisees, "They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves won't lift a single finger to help." "But that's not the way I deal with the law," said Jesus. He said, "Come unto me all you who are weary and burdened, I'm going to take the burden off you and I'm going to put a new yoke, a whole new thing. Learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you'll find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Brothers and sisters, the commands of God are no burden, sin is the burden. All the burdens, and the troubles, and the struggles you face in your life are because of sin. The law sets you free from all that, and so I do run in the path of your commands, for there is true freedom and joy. 

 John picked up on this in 1 John 5:3, when he said, "This is love for God, to obey his commands." You want to show that you love God? Obey His commands, and His commands are not burdensome. The Psalmist picks up on this. Begin at verse 14. Let's go through and we'll see his attitude toward the Word. Verse 14 says, "I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches." He really enjoys this. Verse 35: "Direct me in the path of your commands for there I find delight." Verse 45, "I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts." Then just two verses below it in verse 47, "I delight in your commands because I love them." He loves the Word. Verse 54, "Your decrees are the theme of my song wherever I lodge. Everywhere I stay, anywhere I spend the night, I sing about God's Word." Verse 72, "The law from your mouth is more precious to me than thousands of pieces of silver and gold."  Verse 97, "Oh, how I love your law, I meditate on it all day long." And then verse 103, "How sweet are your words to my taste. Sweeter than honey to my mouth." Is that your view of the Bible? Do you feel that way about Scripture or is it boring to you? One thing I've noticed about Scripture, the more you read it, the more you love it, the less you read it, the less you love it. I actually find that true of all spiritual disciplines, it's true of prayer as well, evangelism, all of them, the more you do it, the easier it is, the more you delight in it. The less you do it... It's just like being in shape. I'm trying to get back in shape. I rode my bike yesterday, I've got a long way to go. Long way. But the more I do it, the easier it'll get. So it is with the study of the Word. I'm not asking that any of you stand up and give a testimony as to the state of your heart right now, not that any of you would do it, but look inward and say,  “What is my reaction or response to the Word of God? Do I enjoy it? Do I delight the way this Psalmist does? Is it like sweet honey in my mouth? Will I trade anything for the chance to sit down and read the Bible?” 

If the answer to those questions is no, then may I suggest that you repent and come back to the Scripture? This is the Word of God, and the Psalmist, delights in it because he's receiving straight from God the words he needs to live. God has given us the power by the Word and by the Spirit through prayer for a heart transformation.  I  want to begin by showing you the delight of the Psalmist in the Word and asking you to compare your own experience and heart desires next to that. If you come up short, then I suggest you have work to do on your soul. You can't change yourself, that's the whole point, the Word of God alone can change you. God has given us two powerful tools for heart transformation, the Word of God and prayer, and both of them are in Psalm 119. 

The first thing the Psalmist does in the Word is to describe it. He uses a number of adjectives: The word is good, it is ancient, it is righteous, it is trustworthy, it is eternal, it is unshakable, it is perfect, it is boundless, it is enlightening, it is wonderful, tested and true, it is right, and it is delightful. All of these are words the Psalmist uses to describe the precepts, the law, the testimony, the ways, etcetera. Picking out on one of them, he says, it's timeless. In verse 52, he says, "I remember your ancient laws, O LORD, and I find comfort in them." Or look at verse 89, 90 and 91. Verse 89 says,  "Your word, O LORD, is eternal. It stands firm in the heavens. Your faithfulness continues through all generations, you established the Earth, and it endures." Verse 91, "Your laws endure to this day, for all things serve you." The timelessness of Scripture. What about the perfection of Scripture? Verse 96, it says, "To all perfection, I see a limit. But your commands are boundless." He's testifying that the Word of God is perfect, boundless and eternal. The Scripture is effective, it makes a change in us, it produces that joy to run along the path of God's commands. So I didn't used to be that way. I didn't used to cry when I read Scripture because of the power of the Word, that wasn't me, but it's made a change in me, and the more I study, and meditate, and memorize, it becomes like a forest fire inside me. I really yearn to study the Word. My son says, "I think, Daddy, you like to study the Bible more than anything else." I think it's true. I delight in the Scripture, and the more you study, the more you will as well. The Scriptures are delightful.  

The Scripture comes to us in three different categories to make a change in our lives. God's commands, God's promises, and God's warnings. The start is the commands; the promises and the warnings are on the backside of the commands. This is how it works, God gives you a command, you have a choice. You can either obey or disobey. With the obedience comes promises, blessing, delights, good things down the path of obedience. With the warning comes the opposite curses, trouble, discipline, struggle toward disobedience. That's how it works. Commands, promises and warnings. And he talks about all of them. 

The commands of God give us a wise life. Verse 66, he says, "Teach me knowledge and good judgement, for I believe in your commands." Knowledge and good judgement comes from the commands of God. As we've already seen in verse 35, "Direct me in the path of your commands for there I find the light." God's commands changes us from within, gives us understanding, gives us insight, and produces delight. Then God gives us information about the future. “I know that you're either going to obey my commands or you're not going to obey. Let me tell you what your life will be like if you obey.” These are called promises. The Psalmist in Psalm 119 constantly rejoices in God's promises. Promises of salvation, for example, in verse 41, he says, "May your unfailing love come to me, O LORD, your salvation according to your promise." According to your promise. Promises also of God's grace, His love and His comfort. In verse 58, he says, "I have sought your face with all my heart, be gracious to me according to your promise." He is seeking God energetically. He's striving after God, he wants to know God more. He believes that God will respond, God will open up his face to him because He's promised to do so. The promises give him energy in his striving after God, because God always keeps His promises. But so also the warnings warn away from disobedience. Psalm 119 does not merely rejoice in blessings, but also fears God's curses on disobedience. Look at verse 118 through 120. It says, "You reject all who stray from your decrees, for their deceitfulness is in vain." In other words, if you live a life characterized by disobedience and wandering away from God's commands, God will reject you. “You reject all who live like that.” Verse 119, "All the wicked of the earth you discard like dross. Therefore, I love your statutes." Do you see that? The warning, he says, "I don't want to be discarded God, I love your Word. I love your Word.” That's how it works. Verse 120 is powerful. "My flesh trembles in fear of you, I stand in awe of your laws." You know what that reminds me of, Isaiah 66:2, "This is the one I esteem, he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and who trembles at my word." The Psalmist trembles at God's Word because it's coming right from the mouth of God. 

What is the goal of the Word? We're going to talk more about this the next time we look at Psalm 119. The goal is understanding that God is working through your mind to change the way you think. He does it by bringing understanding into your eyes. As you open up the Word and as you pray to God and open your heart, you begin to understand some things you didn't know before. Some things start to make sense and start to click and connect. As a result, you start to choose to live a different life. God's goal in giving us the written Word is to change our understanding. This is a whole study that we're going to look at next time that we study this, but understanding is the goal. He says in verse 73, "Your hands made me and formed me, give me understanding to learn your commands." Also verse 130, "The unfolding of your words gives light, it gives understanding to the simple." God's goal is understanding. What comes from understanding? A fruitful life, obedience, deeper understanding, there's a cycle here. The more you understand, the more you want to study, the more you study, the more you meditate, the more you meditate, the more you understand. That's how it works, there's a cycle. Fruitfulness and holiness comes from all this. God's goal is understanding. 

Now, the last aspect of Psalm 119 I want to look at with you is an amazing thing that I had also never noticed. Other than verse 1, verse 2 and verse 3, there is one other verse that is not addressed to God in prayer. Every other verse,  172 of them are addressed directly to God in prayer. Look  at verse 9 through 11. These are perhaps the most famous verses also with verse 105. "How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your Word." He's talking to God. Do you notice that? That's called a prayer. When you're talking to God, you're praying. "By living according to your word. I seek you with all my heart. Do not let me stray from your commands. I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you." You see, it's very personal. When he's reading Scripture, it's not just him and a book, it's him and the God of the book, there's a conversation going on. God speaks to him through his Word, he speaks God's Word back to Him. It's prayer over God's Word that transforms our hearts. In verse 105,  "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path." Whose Word? Your Word. God's Word. It is prayer over Scripture.

There are two key types of prayer, and we're going to look at this a little more next time. Number one, prayer to understand God's Word, and number two, prayer to obey. 16 times he prays each one. 16 times he prays to God that he might understand God's Word. Verse 12, "Praise be to you, O LORD. Teach me your decrees." The best of them all is verse 18, and I suggest every day that you begin your day with reading a Scripture, and you begin with Psalm 119:18, "Open my eyes, O LORD, that I may see wonderful things in your laws." He comes to God and says, "Give me understanding of your word, and if you do, I'll understand it." Secondly, the Psalmist prays for God to cause him to obey. In verse 5, he says, "Oh, that my ways were steadfast in obeying your commands." In Verse 10, he says, "I seek you with all my heart. Do not let me stray from your commands." Verse 29, he says, "Keep me from deceitful ways, be gracious to me through your law."

Verse 35, he says, "Direct me in the path of your commands, for there I find delight." Verse 36, he says, "Turn my heart toward your statutes and not towards selfish gain." Verse 37, "Turn my eyes away from worthless things, preserve my life according to your word." Verse 80, "May my heart be blameless toward your decrees that I may not be put to shame." Look at verse 133, "Direct my  footsteps according to your Word, let no sin rule over me." He's saying, "I can't even walk unless you direct me." 

This is how it works. You come to the Scripture, you pray to God and say, "Open it up for me, I don't understand unless you teach me. Holy Spirit, give light where there was none, or else it's just gonna be black marks on a page to me. It will not change me. Open my eyes that I may understand." Once I understand, I come back to God and I say, "God enable me, empower me to obey what I've learned." That's how it works. I can't even obey unless you work in me. Do you see how humbling this is? But it's a joyful humbling. It means that we're being transformed, we're coming to God for everything. Now, what have we seen so far today? Psalm 119 is an extended and complex poem, which exhausts the written Word of God. 22 letters each verse. Each letter gets eight verses of praise, eight chances to praise God for His written Word. Psalm 119 tells us of the perfect, the beautiful, the delightful nature of Scripture, and Psalm 119 is an extended prayer over Scripture. It teaches us the two basic tools, the two basic disciplines where your lives can change through the power of God, the written Word and prayer over the written Word, which produces understanding, which produces obedience. I'm going to finish up by telling you a simple thing, God does not want your obedience. He already has that, He's the King of kings and Lord of lords. Nobody can turn aside from His path or disobey Him. He rules over him, he rules over all nations already. God does not want your obedience, he wants your glad obedience, there's a difference. He wants you to delight in His commands, He wants you to be happy to do His will. That is the essence of salvation. We are saved from rebellion to come back and say, "On earth as it is in heaven, I want to do your will." 

Closing in prayer, “Father, we've just begun to understand Psalm 119. It is deep, it is interconnected, it is rich, and it teaches us much about your Word. Heavenly Father, I pray for your people that they may understand your Word. The purpose of Scripture is clear that they might be made wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Father, if they're any here who do not know you as Lord and Savior, I pray that they would seek you with all their heart and they might find salvation through the blood of Christ. And for all of us, O Lord, who have already made a commitment to you, I pray that we would not neglect your Word, but rather study it with all diligence, we pray in Jesus name. Amen.

Psalm 69 describes David’s suffering as a result of his consuming zeal for the house of God. Ultimately, however, this messianic Psalm is a foreshadowing of the suffering, persecution, and inevitable triumph of Jesus Christ.

And no, we're not going to do all 150 Psalms. We're picking and choosing, and you may wonder which ones, and we're not necessarily picking and choosing your favorites. Alright, I think all of you have a number of favorite Psalms, it could be that Psalm 69 is one of your favorites. Although I doubt it, maybe one you might have passed right over. But we are looking specifically at those Psalms which testify to us about the nature of Scripture, the written Word. In that case, we're looking at Psalms like Psalm 1, Psalm 19, and Psalm 119, which we'll begin looking at next week. And also, those scriptures, those Psalms, which testify to us about the nature of the Living Word, Jesus Christ. These are messianic Psalms: those Psalms which are quoted in the New Testament as referring to Jesus Christ, and so we come to Psalm 69.

And in so doing, it's a little surprising, because Psalm 69, other than the 22nd Psalm, which begins, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" is the most quoted Psalm in the New Testament. But yet as you read through it, you say, "I don't see Jesus here." And as a matter of fact, if it hadn't been for the New Testament writers, I might have missed this one entirely. The Jews around the time of Christ and before the time of Christ, did not identify Psalm 69 as a messianic Psalm. And so why is it a messianic Psalm? And how does that work? I hope that we can explain some of that today. But more than anything, I want to take one phrase out of this and lift it up for your meditation today, because it was ascribed to our Lord, Jesus Christ, and it's in verse nine, in which it says: "Zeal for your house has consumed me." Zeal for your house has consumed me. But what is zeal? Zeal is like a forest fire. Is that true? Out in the West, we've seen the devastating effects, almost seven million square miles devastated by forest fire. President Clinton released $1.6 billion in aid for the West as a result of that devastating forest fire. It's been burning all summer. I'm sure you've read about it, perhaps you've forgotten about it. But if you lived out in certain parts of Montana or other western states, it would be impossible to forget. It's going to be years before those areas recover.

Is that what zeal is like, a raging forest fire seemingly raging out of control? Well, that I would say is zeal without knowledge. There's a burning that burns everywhere and it burns anything in its path. The zeal so we think of a prophet speaking anything that could be said to anybody and nobody can stand in my way. But what is zeal like? Perhaps in order to understand it, you have to go back to the time of Jesus when He was perhaps sitting on a stool and weaving together a whip, John Chapter 2 tells the story. And He made a whip and it took Him... I don't know how long it takes to weave and make a whip, and then He got up and used that whip to clean the temple out, and it was ascribed to Him at that time, a line from Psalm 69, "Zeal for your house has consumed me." That is a picture of zeal, and if you want to understand the burning raging fire of zeal properly, you look to Jesus Christ. It is our desire today to understand Psalm 69 and its context and how it relates to Jesus Christ. How did it reveal itself in David's life? And how did it come over so frequently into the New Testament? And what is the unifying theme, the point of connection between the two? And that is our focus today.

Now, as we look at the Psalm, it's a long Psalm, a lengthy Psalm, and David speaks in it and partially foreshadows the zeal in the life of Jesus Christ. Look with me if you would, as we read it together, beginning at verse 1:

Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold. I have come into the deep waters; the floods engulf me. I am worn out calling for help; my throat is parched. My eyes fail, looking for my God. Those who hate me without reason outnumber the hairs of my head; many are my enemies without cause, those who would seek to destroy me. I am forced to restore what I did not steal. You know my folly, O God; my guilt is not hidden from you. May those who hope in you not be disgraced because of me, O Lord, the Lord Almighty; may those who seek you not be put to shame because of me, O God of Israel. For I endure scorn for your sake, and shame covers my face. I am a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my own mother's sons; for zeal for your house consumes me, and the insults of those who insult you fall on me. When I weep and fast, I must endure scorn; when I put on sackcloth, the people make sport of me. Those who sit at the gate mock me, and I am the song of the drunkards. But I pray to you, O Lord, in the time of your favor; in your great love, O God, answer me with your sure salvation. Rescue me from the mire, do not let me sink; deliver me from those who hate me, from the deep waters. Do not let the floodwaters engulf me or the depth swallow me up or the pit close its mouth over me. Answer me, O Lord, out of the goodness of your love; in your great mercy turn to me. Do not hide your face from your servant; answer me quickly, for I am in trouble. Come near and rescue me; redeem me because of my foes. You know how I am scorned, disgraced and shamed; all my enemies are before you. Scorn has broken my heart and left me helpless; I looked for sympathy, but there was none, for comforters, but I found none. They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst. May the table set before them become a snare; may it become retribution and a trap. May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see, and their backs be bent forever. Pour out your wrath on them; let your fierce anger overtake them. May their place be deserted; let there be no one to dwell in their tents. For they persecute those you wound and talk about the pain of those who hurt. Charge them with crime upon crime; do not let them share in your salvation. May they be blotted out from the book of life and not be listed with the righteous. I am in pain and distress; may your salvation, O God, protect me. I will praise God's name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving. This will please the Lord more than an ox, more than a bull with its horns and hooves. The poor will see and be glad- You who see God, may your hearts live! The Lord hears the needy and does not despise his captive people. Let heaven and earth praise Him, and the seas and all that move in them, for God will save Zion and rebuild the cities of Judah. Then people will settle there and possess it; the children of his servants will inherit it, and those who love his name will dwell there."

Now, as we look at David's partial foreshadowing, what I mean is that David's life, the experiences he had as king of Israel, foreshadowed the suffering and the ultimate triumph of Jesus, the Messiah. When you looked at David's life, you could see aspects of what would happen eventually to Jesus Christ. Now, the Jews before the time of Christ we're not expecting a Christ who would suffer at the hands of his enemies, and so they did not look to Psalm 69 as a messianic Psalm. It was, I believe, Jesus Christ in that 40-day seminar that he had with his apostles after he rose from the dead, that pointed them to this Psalm and said, "This is fulfilled in me." It's difficult for us though as we read because David confesses sin here, doesn't he? And as he looks through this, you say now, "What part is ascribed to David and what part comes over to Jesus?" It's complicated, but hopefully we can understand it. Now, if you look at the Psalm, it breaks up into three portions, verses 1 through 12 is David's despair in persecution, verses 13 through 28 is his desire for punishment, the punishment of his foes, and then verses 29 through 36 is a declaration of praise.

First, David's despair in persecution, verses 1 through 12. In verse four, it says that David had numerous foes. Look at it, it says, "Those who hate me without reason outnumber the hairs of my head." The sheer number of David's enemies bothered him. He had more enemies than he had hairs on his head, and not only that, but he was distressed. In verse four, in the NAS, it says, "Those who would destroy me are powerful." So, it wasn't just the number of his enemies, it was their power and their strength that bothered him. Now, David had many enemies, and most of his enemies came from his own people. There were those from his own people, his own nation of Israel, that sought to destroy him. King Saul was the first, of course. Saul was the king when David was anointed to be the king, and Saul was jealous of David and sought to pursue him and destroy him to take his life. And many Psalms that David wrote are responding to the terror and the fear he felt at being chased and hunted down like a dog, and there was a terror in that. You never knew if this would be your last day, if when you laid down to sleep, you would never wake up because of an enemy that's chasing you.

Now eventually God took Saul out of the way, he was killed in battle. And so, it came time for David to come into his rightful place of ruling, his rightful place of established king, as Messiah over Israel, but yet, Israel wouldn't give it to him. And so there came a two-year civil war, led by the Benjamites, the house of Benjamin. They wanted a descendant of Saul to rule after Saul, and they were jealous of David, and so for two years, there was a fight. But even after that was over and all of Israel was unified under one king, there were still enemies one after the other. Absalom, his own son, rebelled against him and almost succeeded in toppling him from his throne. Shimei, a Benjamite, stood by the road during that revolt and showered dirt and insults on David as he walked by. Sheba, a Benjamite, led a revolt against David after the revolt of Absalom. Cush, a Benjamite, is mentioned in Psalm 7. We don't know anything about him except that he hated David and wanted to fight against him. Then Doeg, an Edomite, mentioned in 1 Samuel 21. And then the Ziphites, one town, a whole town of people, wanted to hand David over to his enemies. He had one enemy after another.

And if you read through Psalms you see a listing, one after the other, of Psalms in which David is crying out to God for deliverance from his enemy. Psalm 17, Psalm 18, the whole Psalm is about David's prayer and God's deliverance from his enemies. Psalm 23 verse five, you know the 23rd Psalm, that was one of those favorites that you're hoping I'm going to preach on, which I'm not, maybe in the future. But what does it say? Psalm 23 verse five: “You prepare a table for me [where?] in the presence of my enemies. It never was far from David's mind; I think he felt that behind every bush or around every corner was an assassin waiting to take his life. And so, in verses one through four, David likens his opposition to his foes to sinking in the mire. "Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold. I have come into the deep waters; the floods engulf me." One of the commentators spoke about a mission trip he went on to Egypt and he was in the Nile River, and one of his boat helpers fell off into the muck along the side of the Nile and started to sink down into the mud, and would have perished there, had they not quickly extended some poles and ropes to pull him out. So that's the picture that David has, he's sinking down into the mud, and he's about to be extinguished by these foes.

Now, it says that he is hated without a cause, and I put a question mark next to that in your outline. How was David hated without a cause? It says in verse four, "Those who hate me without reason outnumber the hairs of my head; many are my enemies without cause." Now, I believe that this is referring to people within Israel. These are fellow Jews who should have acknowledged his right to rule. They should not have fought against him, but rather should have submitted to him because God had established and anointed him as king over Israel. This does not refer to the Philistines, they were his natural enemies, that wouldn't be “hated without a cause”, for he plundered and burned their villages. But it's talking about Israelites: Jewish people who opposed David as ruler and king. And so, he says in verse eight, "I am a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my own mother's sons." So, his own family was fighting against him, his own relatives opposed him. And this was brutally unjust, because God had anointed David as king over Israel, and they should have accepted and acknowledged.

Now, this does not mean that David was sinless. Oh no, far from it. Look at verse five and six: "You know my folly, O God, my guilt is not hidden from you." And then he says in verse six, interestingly, he says: "May those who hope in you not be disgraced because of me, O Lord, God Almighty." That is a great prayer to pray by the way. Do you know that we're a corporate body? Do you know that when you sin, you affect the whole body, like a disease? And look at verse six: "May those who hope in you not be ashamed because of me." Perhaps David was thinking about that shameful occasion with Bathsheba, in which he committed adultery and then had Bathsheba's husband killed to cover his tracks. “May they not be ashamed, the godly in the land, because of my life." So, David is acknowledging his sinfulness here. And he does it another place, Psalm 40 verse 12, he says: "My sins have overtaken me, and I cannot see. They are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart fails within me."

So, he's got enemies that outnumber the hairs of his head and sins that outnumber the hairs of his head. It wasn't just Bathsheba. Do you feel that way? Do you feel sometimes like your (I'm not speaking to bald people by the way) sins outnumber the hairs of your head? That's a grievous thing. But when you're enlightened, when the Lord can fix you, you can see your sin, and David saw his sinfulness. So you say, "Well, how can this be messianic? Jesus didn't sin." Well, this is the whole point of Old Testament interpretation, it’s difficult. Not every line in Psalm 69 refers equally to Christ, but David had the right to rule, and that's the point, as the anointed king over his people, and they had no right to fight against him, and so they were his enemies without cause.

And as a result, David faced public ridicule (vs. 10): "When I weep and fast, I must endure scorn." Do you know what scorn is? It's people making fun of you, people insulting you. Look what he says in verse 12, he says: "Those who sit at the gate mock me, and I am the song of drunkards." That would be akin to being the butt of three straight weeks of jokes by Jay Leno or David Letterman. One after the other. What shame, societal shame, as drunkards make up songs about your life! That's the way David felt. Now, what was the reason for this? It was David's Godly zeal. Verse nine: "Zeal for your house consumes me, and the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me." David was a righteous man, and he lived a godly life. And everyone who desires to live a godly life will be persecuted by sinners. And that's the way it was. They were jealous of him, and they fought against him.

Now realize, David would never have been king in Israel were it not for his zeal for the house of God. When did we first meet David in the Bible? What's the first thing he did? Well, he heard Goliath making some boastful claims against the armies of Israel, and what was it that moved inside him and said, "How can we let this uncircumcised Philistine curse God?" There was a passion inside, and he was willing to die for that passion, and he took the field as a young man against a seasoned warrior who took a stand against God. Zeal. Burning passion for the glory of God. He was willing to die that day, but he did not die. God spared his life, and that zeal continued the rest of his life, and that's what led him into trouble.

Now, in the second section, we see David's desire for punishment. The first is the despair and persecution. The second, desire for punishment. Now, David prays in verse 13 and following for deliverance, he says: "I pray to you, O Lord, in time of your favor; in your great love, O God, answer me with your sure salvation. Rescue me from the mire, do not let me sink; deliver me from those who hate me, from the deep waters." So, he prays for deliverance, but then he recounts the bitterness of their hatred. Verse 19 through 21, he says in verse 20, he says: "Scorn has broken my heart and left me helpless; I looked for sympathy, but there was none, for comforters, but I found none. They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst."

Now, gall was a certain kind of poison that created a terrible effect on your intestines. One and a half teaspoons are sufficient to kill you, and its bitterness is its most noticeable trait. It causes bitterness in the mouth and nausea, intestinally. He said, "That's what they put in my food, they hated me." So, there's a bitterness to this hatred, and he recounts that. And then in verses 22 through 28 he prays for vengeance: "Pour out your wrath on them" he says, "Let your fierce anger overtake them” and “Do not let them share in your salvation. May they be blotted out of the book of life and not be listed with the righteous." Now, this is puzzling to us, because Jesus, when he was nailed to the cross, what did he say? He said, "Father, forgive them, they don't know what they're doing." (Luke 23:34).

And so, a number of the commentators who go through this say, "Now how unlike Jesus is David here? He's praying for judgment on the enemies." Well, I think people who say that don't understand the difference between types of enemies. What the Romans were doing, they did in ignorance, they had no idea what they were doing. But Jesus said, "He who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.” (John 19:11) because they knew the Scriptures and turned their back willfully on the people of God. And so it is that Paul takes Psalm 69 and ascribes it to unbelieving Jews. And Peter takes Psalm 69 and ascribes it to unbelieving Judas. Judgment comes on those who reject The King, ultimately. And so, this is not unseemly, and it's no different than Psalm 110:1: "The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.’" Jesus quoted this.

Now, deliverance for a king against his enemies usually means what for the enemies? Death. He's not going to leave his enemies within his kingdom. It's like a wrestling match between a man and a cobra. Ultimately, one or the other is going to be dead. And so it is that David is actually very lenient on his enemies, like Saul for example, he had numerous opportunities to kill Saul, but never did it, just entrusted that situation to God, but ultimately judgement comes on those who resist and fight the Lord's anointed.

Now, the final section of the Psalm, verse 29-36, is a declaration of praise. Verse 31, he says: "I will praise God's name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving.” And verse 34: “Let heaven and earth praise him, the seas and all that move in them.” Now, this is David's regular pattern in the Psalms, he lays out his complaint and his problems, and then in the end, he praises God for his power in conquering those problems. Our God is a mighty God, and every lamenting Psalm should end with a statement of praise, for our God can conquer all your problems, all of them. He's powerful. Praise God in the midst of your struggles. Praise God in the midst of your grief. Praise God when surrounded by enemies, even before the deliverance comes. Praise him, for he can do all things, and he is mighty and powerful.

David's vision is ultimately prosperity, not just for himself, but for his people. He is king for his people, and he wants his people to reign in righteousness and prosperity. So, what is the summary of Psalm 69 from David's point of view? David was a godly anointed king, and he was suffering at the hands of those who rejected his anointing without cause. Those who fought against him and who plotted his ruin. And in this he has a picture of the future sufferings of Jesus Christ.

Now, as we look at Christ's perfect fulfillment, we ask the question, "Why is Psalm 69 the most quoted Psalm in the New Testament?" There are nine separate quotations or illusions. John cites verse 9, "Zeal for your house has consumed me." in reference to Jesus’ cleansing of the temple. Jesus Himself cited verse 4 in John 15:25, when he's talking about the Jews who rejected him, despite all of his miracles, despite all of his teachings, "They hated me without cause."

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, all four of them refer to the clear fulfillment of Christ refusing the gall that they put in his food at the base of the cross, but drinking the vinegar at his crucifixion: "They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst." (vs. 21). Peter quotes verse 25 in regard to Judas's betrayal of Christ and his abandoning of his position as an apostle in Acts 1:20. He says: "May his place be deserted; may there be no one to dwell in it," speaking of Judas. Paul quotes verses 22 and 23 in Romans 11:9-10, to explain why some Jews reject Jesus as Messiah: "May the table set before them become a snare; may it become retribution and a trap. May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see, and their backs be bent forever." It’s speaking about Jews and their unbelief. And again, Paul quotes verse 9 to explain why Christians should live for others and not seek to please themselves: "For even Christ did not seek to please Himself, as it is written: ‘the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.’" (Romans 15:3)

What a wide spread of illusions and quotations there is to Psalm 69. You want to know what the unifying theme is? “Zeal for your house has consumed me.” And this is how it works, if you look at that, turn with me to John chapter 2, and look at the account of this, and you'll understand. In John Chapter 2, Jesus clears the temple, he comes into Jerusalem, and this is the beginning of his ministry. Matthew, Mark, and Luke have also a cleansing at the end of his ministry, so it was a book end, a two-time cleansing, I believe. And so, he cleanses the temple at the beginning of his ministry. Beginning at verse 13, "When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover," [John 2:13] "Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords." This shows you that this was a premeditated attack on Jesus’ part, it was not an act of impetuous passion, but he sat down and wove together a whip.

So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, ‘Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!’ His disciples remembered that it was written: ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’ Then the Jews demanded of him, ‘What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.’ The Jews replied, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?’ But the temple had spoken of was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken." This is the account of Jesus cleansing the temple. You know what happened when he did that? I'll tell you what happened.

First of all, what is it he cleansed out of there? There were at the temple animals that you could buy for sacrifice. They were fit and approved by the approvers of sacrifices, and all of them worked for Annas, the high priest. You would bring your little lamb or your little sacrifice all the way from some farm out in Galilee, and you'd get there, and lo and behold what would happen? The inspector would look and find a blemish or flaw, something wrong. And you were rejected, your sacrifice was confiscated and you were left without a sacrifice. But we have some pre-approved sacrifices over here, worth three times, or they're charging three times what they're worth. So, what choice do you have? You go over there, and you want to buy the sacrifice, you want to buy the animal, and you reach in and you bring out your Galilean coins, and they say, “Those coins are no good here, you need temple currency.” "Well, where do I get temple currency?" "Over there at the money changers." You go over to the money changers and they're charging exorbitant fees for changing your money, and who's making out with this whole system? Annas, the high priest and all those high priests.

They were hugely wealthy, immensely wealthy. Making money on religion is not a new thing. It's not with the televangelist, it's been going on a long time. And Jesus saw this fire burn inside of him, because that's not what the temple was for, and it burned inside him, and he sat down and made that whip. It takes time for God to show his wrath. Our God has a wrath against sin, but it takes time to make the whip. The whip-making has been going on a long time. Now is the day of salvation, now is the time for repentance while the whip is still being made. But Jesus sat down and made that whip and then He cleaned that temple out. Now, what do you think Annas thought about this stunt? Well, it's like taking on the Mafia, and immediately I think he began to plot his death, and how much more when Jesus did it right before his crucifixion. He went in there and he cleansed the temple again, and it brought death on him.

Now, let's look again at the verse: “Zeal for your house has [what?] consumed me.” The word is strong, "Zeal for your house has literally eaten me up. I'm destroyed by zeal for God's house." Christ's zeal killed him. Do you see that? Literally put him to death because they conspired to kill him right after the double cleansing. It killed him. But we're thinking only earthly, let's move up to the spiritual realm. Jesus wanted a clean and pure temple. Now, the physical temple is not the issue. Jesus said, "Destroy this temple, and I'll rebuild it in three days." They thought he meant the physical temple. He would say later that the temple is going to be destroyed by the Romans, 70 AD. The stones are not the issue, the issue is the temple of God, the very thing that David was zealous for. He wanted to build a temple for God, but he was thinking physical, I'm sitting here in a cedar palace, I want to build a house for God.

God said, "I love your zeal for my house, and I'm going to build you a house David, in the name of your descendent, Jesus Christ." And Jesus was zealous for that house, and we are His house. Do you see that? It's not a physical building, we are the house of God, and Jesus has a zeal for us that we be what? Holy, and righteous, and blameless. And he was willing to die to bring it about. Do you see it? Zeal for the house of God killed Jesus. He was willing to die to shed his blood, that you be holy, and pure, and blameless. We are the house of God.

And now, I guess I want to ask you about your zeal. I want to ask you about your life. Do you understand anything of the zeal of Christ? Do you feel it inside you? Jesus had an incredible zeal, he had a zeal for the glory of God, and he was willing to die for that glory. He said, "And now my heart is troubled, [Thinking about his death] and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour?’ No, it was for this very purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!" (John 12:27-28). He had a zeal for the glory of God and was willing to die for it.

What about you? Do you have a zeal or passion for the glory and the reputation of God? Are you willing to live openly? Because if you are, you will need to suffer for him, you will need to be willing to suffer for the house of God. Because what's the second half of the verse? "Zeal for your house has consumed me, and the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me." If you want to have zeal for the house of God, you’ve got to be willing to put up with insults from the enemies of God. James and John came to Jesus and said, "Grant that we may sit at your right and your left in your kingdom. And Jesus said, are you able to drink the cup that I'm going to drink?" "Oh, we're able." Jesus said, "You will drink from my cup. You'll drink from the cup of suffering; you'll drink from the cup of persecution when the insults of those who insult you fall on you for the glory of God."

Christ also had a zeal for the holiness of his people. Can you imagine? Just close your eyes and imagine Jesus moving through the temple of your heart. Has he got a whip in his hand? Are there some things that need cleaning out? Are you willing to have the work done? In his zeal for your holiness, He will clean you out. Are you willing to say to Him, from your heart, "Do it Jesus, cleanse me from all my sin, cleanse my thoughts, cleanse my heart, cleanse my life, my secret habits. Everything, clean it out. Make me pure and holy. And not just me, but all the people of God." Do you have a zeal, a burning zeal for the people of God, that they be holy too?

And then finally, do you have a zeal for the building of God's house? Zeal for His house. Do you know that it's not the physical temple, but rather the spiritual one that's being built? Peter talks about it, he said: "As you come to him, the living Stone--rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him-- we also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God." (1 Peter 2:4).

We are a spiritual temple, and every one of you who believes in Jesus Christ, you are stones in the temple, but the temple is not finished yet. How do you know the temple is not finished yet? What's the greatest proof that the temple is not finished yet? The sun came up today! It's another day just like all the other days. That means the temple is not finished yet, because when the temple's finished, the world will end. Do you have a zeal for the completion of the building project? Are you willing to pour out your life for it? It's the only thing that matters, it's the only thing going on in history that matters eternally, is the glory of God and the building of his house. Do you have that kind of zeal? Or is your life a flat experience, not unlike those who don't know Jesus at all. There's a fire that comes in and it's not like that forest fire out in the west that crushes people and that burns and destroys, but rather it's in here for the glory of God. For the holiness of his church and for the building of His temple.

Won't you join me in prayer? Jesus, I don't know what to say to you other than thank you for being willing to suffer on the cross for my holiness. Zeal, your zeal, your burning fire that I be holy before you on Judgment Day, blameless and pure, drove you to the cross on my behalf, and you poured out your blood for me, and you took away God's punishment and took away his wrath and made me your child. Thank you, and now by your Holy Spirit, make me and make my brothers and sisters alive with zeal. Not a zeal without knowledge, but a zeal that drives us for your glory and for the holiness of your people and the building of your church.

Father, if there's any here who don't know you as Lord and savior, I pray that today they would give their lives to you, that they would come forward at the invitation, or that they would come and speak to me or someone and say, "I want to know Jesus." And that they would come to faith in Christ. And if there are any here who are living in sin, I pray that they would invite the Son of God with those blazing eyes and that whip to come in and purify them from within. And oh God, I pray, if there are any here who are living flat, zeal-less lives that they might be inflamed by the power of your spirit to live for the building of your kingdom. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.

I'd like to ask that you take your Bibles and look with me to Psalm 19. This morning, we're going to look at a majestic piece of scripture. As we continue in our series in the Psalms, we're looking at those Psalms, in particular, that deal with the written Word of God, and also those that deal with the living Word of God, Jesus Christ. And we're going to intersperse them, some of them dealing more directly with the written Word, and some are called messianic Psalms that deal more directly with Jesus Christ. And this morning, we're going to look at Psalm 19.

One of the things I liked to do when I was younger, and we'd like to continue doing if I have the time, is to go hiking and camp just below the tree line on a high mountain. I really like to do that. Now, I haven't cleared this yet, but my wife likes to camp in those campground areas. You know what I'm talking about, with those fixtures and all that. That's a different experience, but a good one. But I like to climb out just below the tree line on a high mountain and pitch a tent there. And then after the Sun has gone down, I did this when I was in college, did this frequently, just go out and just look up at the sky. Have you ever done that? Where it's clear and cold. And you can see stars you didn't know existed. Can you picture it? I didn't know what the Milky Way was until I got up on a mountain and looked up, and you see this white swathe of stars going across the sky, and in some places, it's so bright and so milky and white, you can't tell one star from another. And it's glorious. Isn't it? And the Heavens are speaking to us, aren’t they? They're communicating something. They're speaking to us. And if you know how to listen, you know what they're saying.

Now, modern scientists have invested billions and billions of dollars in the most advanced listening and looking devices that there are. There are readings recently near Socorro, New Mexico, from one of the very large array radio telescopes. It uses 27 huge dishes, and an adjustable movable antenna to get faint radio signals from the distant parts of the cosmos, and they put together pictures based on what they're hearing: the birth of stars, the collision of galaxies, even the existence of a suspected Black Hole at the center of the Milky Way, and they're listening all the time. And high atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii, at an elevation of almost 14,000 feet are the two most advanced looking telescopes in the world, Keck 1 and Keck 2, they're called. Constantly looking up, and each one has 36 honeycombed adjustable reflectors, computer-controlled state-of-the-art computers, just to resolve the most distance features of the universe.

And recently, I don't know if you've read in the newspaper, they have begun to detect in 20 different places, planets that are orbiting stars similar to our own Sun. And so once again, our unique place in the universe is challenged in the newspapers and magazines like National Geographic. National Geographic wrote about these planets, “as our image of the universe has exploded, humanity has lost the ancient conviction that its role must be all-important. We now know that our planet is an insignificant speck, circling an ordinary, relatively small star, far out on a spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy, which is an ordinary assembly of stars of only a few hundred billion in number, among at least 100 billion such galaxies.” Feel small now?

Continuing the quote, “And we're still the only intelligent life we know of anywhere, but now, humankind has taken a dramatic leap backward toward another possible demotion with the discovery of as many as 20 worlds detected in orbit around Sun-like stars outside our solar system.” Well, that whole quote is to give you a sense of insignificance, that you are insignificant. And it's funny that these scientists don't realize that the ancients had learned that lesson too. In Psalm 8, David put it this way, “When I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have created” (verse 3). What was David’s thought? “Boy, am I great!” Was that his thought? No. His thought was, “What is man, that you are mindful of him, the son of man, that you care for him” (verse 4).

So, the ancients got that message too. But there is a second message that the heavens are proclaiming, and that's what we're going to focus on today. It's a message that science twists and perverts and will not listen to. For the heavens are declaring the glory of God. And that is our focus today. How does God speak to us of His nature? How does he speak to us of His glory? And here we have in the Psalm beautifully, the three ways that God communicates to us. He speaks to us through creation, He speaks to us through the scripture, and he speaks to us through His Son, the redeemer, Jesus Christ.

I want you to have a sense when we get done with the scripture today, that our God is what he is, a majestic, immense, incredibly unmeasurably powerful, glorious God. And that this God is sufficient for any problem you face in your life, sufficient to take you out of sin, right into heaven, and sufficient to dazzle you with his being for the rest of eternity. That's who our God is. Let's look at Psalm 19: “The heavens declare the glory of God. The skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day, they pour forth speech. Night after night, they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. And the heavens, he has pitched a tent for the Sun, which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion, like a champion rejoicing to run his course, it rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other, and nothing is hidden from its heat. The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes. The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever. The ordinances of the Lord are sure and altogether righteous. They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold. They are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb. By them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward. Who can discern his errors? Forgive my hidden faults. Keep your servant also from willful sins. May they not rule over me. Then will I be blameless, and innocent of great transgression. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”

 We live amongst people who are groping in the dark, don't we? They're searching for something. They're searching for some spiritual reality in their lives. And to this, we can attribute the proliferation of cults and ways of thinking and philosophies that seemed to satisfy that spiritual need. But they wither and die as quickly as they spring up, some of them even lead to tragedy. We are groping in the dark. And yet in the midst of this darkness is the light of God's communication to us. God is speaking! He is speaking and He wants to be heard, and He is speaking to us through His Universe, through the creation. He's also speaking to us through scripture and through His son, Jesus Christ, most clearly.

Now, as we're groping in the dark trying to find our way spiritually, we will never find God that way. Never! God has ordained it that we not find God that way. For it says in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, “For since in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not know God. God was pleased to reveal Himself.” (verse 21). The point is it was wise for God to hide so that He must communicate about Himself to us or we will never know who He is. That was wise of God, and that's what He's done. And unless God speaks to us, we will never know who He is. We will be idolators, we will imagine him and make Him, perhaps even in our own image or after our own likeness. But God has spoken to us very clearly. And what's so beautiful about Psalm 19 is that all three are featured in one Psalm: creation first, then scripture, and then as a final word, Jesus Christ.

First, let's look at creation. God speaks naturally to glorify Himself. What's interesting about all three forms of communication is the priority of the Word, including creation. What comes first, the universe, or the word of power, which creates it? God says, “let there be” ... What? Light! The Word exists first, and then comes the reality. God says, “Let there be a Sun.” And there is a Sun. God says, “Let there be an Earth.” See, the Word comes first, and then the reality. The Word precedes all things, but God has created, as we learn in Genesis, this world, which one theologian called the theater of His glory. You all have seats in it. You look around and you see it every day with a majestic sunset or with the stars, the Sun and the Moon, which David extols. You see a theater of God's glory. So, creation is giving a speech every day. And what is the topic of that speech? It is the glory and the majesty of God. That's the topic. How great our God is.

Now, what's so tragic is that this form of communication is not heard clearly by the sinful heart. We talked about that in Romans. In Romans chapter 1, verse 20, it says, “For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” But they take that knowledge and they twist it, they do not receive it, but yet, it's there. Now, David could have focused on the intricacies of Biology and how the whole ecosystems fit together. He could have focused on geology and the stars, the rocks, and all the things that we have on the Earth or the oceans and their power, but instead, he focuses on the stars. He looks up and he focuses specifically on that star that we're closest to, the Sun. And as he looks, he sees the contours and the edges of God's glory. Not just God's glory, vaguely, but aspects of it.

What kind of glory is it? God is powerful. We see that in the Sun's constant heat. God is wise. We see that in the fact that the Sun is just the right distance from us, not too close, not too far, just perfect for life. God is immense, in that the Sun is just swallowed up by heaven, no matter how big it is, God is good, the sunlight comes through and just caresses the leaves and photosynthesis creates the possibility of your life and mind. God is good, and God is faithful. The sun constantly rises day after day. Day after day. You see aspects of the glory of God in physical creation. We also see it in the stars, and this communication is so powerful. It is first of all ample. Look at the words that David uses to describe here; in verse 1, it says, “The Heavens declare the glory of God.” What do you think of when you think of declare? It's a proclamation! The very next thing, it says, “The skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day, they pour forth speech.” You get the sense of a big picture and just speech is being poured out from the heavens. And then it says, “Night after night, they display knowledge.”

You get the sense that God is not in the business of hiding His glory, that God is in the business of displaying His glory. He wants you to know. He wants you to see his glory. Yes, God wants to be the foundation of your life, but how many of you discuss the foundation of your home? We have the most beautiful foundation. I want to tell you about it. Would you be interested in talking about the foundation? God is the whole house, and he displays his glory. Yes, let God be the foundation of your life. We'll talk about foundation later on, but let God also be the showy display, which is what he is. He does not hide his light under a bushel, but he shows and displays what he's like. The glory pours forth, he's not shy about it, and neither should we be in our communication, for we serve a majestic God. And we can go out in the name of that God and pour forth and display His glory as well.

Our God is not shy about who he is, but that the nations may know and the ends of the Earth may see he has displayed this. And what else does he say about this? The communication is constant. It happens all the time. The Sun rises and the Sun sets day after day. This communication comes. The communication is clear. It is non-verbal, it says there's no language where the speech isn't heard, so it's not a matter of this language or that language, but you can just look and see, and you know. The communication, therefore, is universal. In creation, therefore, God speaks universally for His own glory.

But now in verses 7 through 11, we look at a different form of communication, and this is scripture. Here where God spoke naturally to glorify Himself in creation, He speaks supernaturally in order to save us from our sins. Naturally, to glorify Himself in creation, supernaturally, to save us from our sins. Look at the titles of scripture, beginning in verse 7, we have the law of the Lord, and then again in verse 7, the statutes of the Lord. The precepts of the Lord, in verse 8. The commands of the lord, also in verse 8, and ultimately, the fear of the Lord, the judgments of the Lord. This is speaking of the written Word of God. The Bible, therefore, is God's spoken word, written. We believe in prophets. We believe that God has spoken to prophets. Prophets heard accurately the words of God and wrote them down. For all scripture is God-breathed. And as this Psalm and other places testify it is perfect, so God communicates to us.

Now, as we compare the two forms of communication, we've got: nature, the stars, the Moon, the Sun, mountains, rivers, ecosystems, all of this. It communicates clearly, but scripture communicates far more clearly, with actual, perfect clarity. The reason I say that is that some see the stars and what do they do with them? They worship them. They make idols to them. This has been part of the groping in the dark of humanity. We do not get the message properly, because we twist and suppress the truth in unrighteousness. And so, therefore, God must speak more clearly to us: a word that is more clear, and he speaks that in scripture. In order to understand the mind and the glory of God, you must read the scriptures and you must saturate your mind in them daily. “For man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4).

Now, the first thing that David talks about scripture is the perfection of scripture. Look at verses 7 through 9, the law of the Lord is what? It is perfect. The law of the Lord is perfect. There's nothing missing. There are no blemishes. It's totally complete and upright. It's absolutely flawless. Another Psalm, Psalm 12:6 puts it this way: “The words of the Lord are flawless. Purified seven times over like silver refined in a furnace of clay”. The psalmist David, in that case, Psalm 12, reaching for words, saying, I don't know anything that's like scripture- as pure and perfect as the scripture. Absolutely flawless. And so, we have here in verse 7, “The law of the Lord is perfect.”

And then it says “The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy.” This talks about the foundation I mentioned before. When you're building a house, you want something that's not going to move, don't you? You want a trustworthy foundation, something you can bank on that isn't going to be a fad. An intellectual, philosophical fad that was true when you were growing up, or true when you were in college, but it's not true anymore; you can't build your life on that. You need something that's going to stand the test of time; something that what David says is trustworthy. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy. They don't move.

When I was a student at MIT, I remember hearing day after day, the pounding of hydraulic hammers driving girders (supports) down into the muck that is the undersurface of Cambridge. And it's kind of like a landfill. It's muddy, and in order to build a solid foundation, they had to go as deep into the Earth as they plan to go above it. So, they had to pound and pound and pound until they could get a foundation that wouldn't move over the years. And that is a picture to me of the absolute trustworthiness of the scriptures. It's the very same thing that Jesus said in the sermon on the mount when He said “Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” (Matt 7:24). What's the image? The image is of permanence. It doesn't move, whereas the sand sifts away, and then the house falls when the testing comes.

And then it speaks of the total truthfulness of scripture in verse 8, “the precepts of the Lord are right”. The Hebrew means righteous. It means they tell the truth. Scripture speaks the truth to you. Scripture doesn't flatter you. You need a friend like scripture. You need a friend like the word of God, a counselor that's going to tell you the truth. When you go to a doctor and when you get an analysis of your condition, do you want him to flatter you? Would you like him to say “Well, basically, you're fine. Just need to get a little more vitamin C in your diet.”? Is that what you want? You want him to tell the truth. Scripture does not flatter you. The scripture tells you the truth. And the reason it does that is that it speaks with incredible clarity. The commandments of the Lord, it says; Are pure, enlightening the eyes.

Now, any of you who have been married you went through the whole process of buying a diamond. Do you remember the four Cs of diamonds? Do you remember what they are? I guess they added a fifth recently. Color, cut, carat, and what's the last one? Clarity. The fifth one is cost, right? This is important for some people; usually, people who are buying an engagement ring. They're concerned about that. But what of clarity? You know recently they've invented something called clarity-enhanced diamonds. Have you heard of these things? Clarity enhanced. Now, a clarity enhanced diamond is a natural diamond; however, it's been altered to improve the clarity. For example, if there was a break or a little fracture in the diamond structure, which broke the surface of the diamond, it's possible to fill that break with a glassy substance, which improves the clarity and the look of the diamond. It makes it catch the light and transmit it to your eye with more radiance, more brilliance, and increases the clarity.

Does scripture need that kind of help? Absolutely not. There's no flaw. It's perfectly clear. And so, the commandment of the Lord is pure, giving light to the eyes. When you read the scripture, light comes in. And you know, light is a metaphor for knowledge, for truth, for understanding. You're not in the dark anymore, which is where we started. And it ultimately results in the fear of the Lord. Verse 9, “The fear of the Lord is...” What does it say? Pure. It is clean. It's a clean life that's lived in the fear of the Lord. Well, that is the nature of scripture. We've been describing what scripture is like. Well, the Psalmist also gives us a sense of the impact of scripture; the power of scripture on an individual. Verses 7-9, also. Every one of these phrases has a direct impact on David. You see, “The law of the Lord is perfect.” What does it say? “Reviving the soul”.

Have you ever felt in need of revival? Personal revival? You feel saggy in your walk with Jesus Christ, you feel like you've got no energy? You've got to get back to the Word. The Word, the Word! It revives you. This is what gives revival. “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul.” The next thing it says, “The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple.” Do you need wisdom for your life? Do you need to know what to do? Go to scripture. Go to scripture. Making wise the simple. When David sees himself as simple or ignorant or un-tutored, he goes to the scripture. And it is, by the way, the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit to make you feel that way. To make you feel like you're simple and ignorant. You should feel that way because you are. And so am I. And we need to come to scripture and be instructed. So, the Holy Spirit humbles us and says, “Read this, and then you will learn and then you will grow.”

“The precepts of the Lord are right.” Giving what? Joy to the heart. There is a tremendous amount of joy in the life of scripture. “The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes.” We just talked about that. See how scripture has an impact? It doesn't leave you the way you were. And then finally, David discusses the preciousness and the pleasure of scripture. Verse 10, “the precepts of the Lord are more precious than gold. Yes, even than much fine gold. They are sweeter also than honey from the honeycomb.” Now, I don't own very much gold. As a matter of fact, I believe this is the only gold that I own. Very valuable to me, but not much gold here. Now, I don't know how much gold is worth, so I had to look it up. $275 a Troy ounce. Perhaps some of you investment-oriented people know that. What you didn't know perhaps is how much gold is available in the world? Do you know how much there is? Are you thinking of collecting it all?

Well, if so, you've got some competition, because other people are looking for it too. 33,000 tons is available in this world. So that makes a total of about $330 billion available in gold. And if you have $330 billion and you would like to invest in gold, that's what's available. And David says the scripture is worth more than that to me; the scripture is worth more than much fine gold to me. Could we connect it to something Jesus said: “what would it profit a man to gain the whole world” (Mark 8:36)? Not just gold, but all the platinum, all the diamonds, everything, the power, all of it. And yet what? Forfeit your soul. Your soul is worth more than anything you can find on the surface of this Earth. And so, the scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus is worth more than much fine gold. Also, it's pleasurable. It's sweeter than honey, the honey of a honeycomb.

So again, I looked up some information. Amazing what you can do on the internet these days. The value of honey. Do you know how many bee miles, how many miles of bee-flying it takes to make a pound of honey? Does anyone want to venture a guess? You'd be wrong. It's incredible. 55,000 miles per pound of honey. 55,000! One bee makes a 12th of an ounce of honey in its lifetime. So, to get a pound, you've got to have a lot of bees. They fly to over two million flowers to make a pound of honey. And for that reason, honey has always been valuable, even back to the ancients. The Egyptians used it for trade and even for currency. In Greece mead was an alcoholic drink made from mixing wine with honey, and it was called the nectar of the gods.

And what is the purpose of honey? Why did God create honey? Because our God is a pleasure God. He created a portion of your tongue to respond well to honey. And some of you may even use honey every day. I don't know, in your tea or something. It's sweet. It's pleasurable. It's delicious. And so is scripture to David. Is scripture delicious to you? I found that it tends to feed on itself. The more you read and meditate and learn, the better it gets. All the time. And therefore, if you can't relate to what David's saying here, I would urge you with all haste to get into the Word of God, because scripture is valuable and it is delicious.

Now, what is the purpose of scripture? Well, in Psalm 19, there are two-fold. To number one, warn of dangers, and number two, to produce reward. In verse 11, it says, “By them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.” There are two great things available in Psalm 19, great transgression and great reward. Scripture is designed to help you avoid great transgression and to receive great reward. That's what scripture is for. Now, in terms of dangers, the danger is sin, and even that gets broken into two categories. Do you see them? What are the two categories of sin in Psalm 19? There are hidden faults and willful transgression. Doesn't that about cover it? The things you didn't know were wrong but you did them anyway, and they were wrong. And those things you knew what you were doing. You knew and did it anyway. Those are the two categories.

Now, in terms of hidden faults, those things that are offensive to God, but you didn't know it. They're still offensive to God. And so, David says in verse 12, “Who can discern his errors? Forgive my hidden faults.” We all have blind spots, don't we? And it is scripture that enlightens us as to what those blind spots are. Also, the loving strokes of a brother or sister in Christ can help too, but especially if they use scripture to show us those blind spots. But then there's the second category in verse 13, “Keep your servant also from willful sins. May they not rule over me.”

Now, this is the real danger. When you willfully give yourself to a pattern of sin and start getting sucked into a lifestyle or a habit of sin, it feels like slavery, doesn't it? How will you be free? What can break the bondage of that addiction? The scripture and the power of God through the Holy Spirit using scripture is the only hope you have. It's a great transgression when you're in bondage to a pattern or cycle of sin and you can't get out. The scripture holds out a warning against that. So, the scripture warns against sins you don't know about and warns even more against sins you do, that you may not go in for great transgression. But it also produces great reward, verse 11: “Keeping them there is great reward”. I believe as you follow the precepts of scripture, step by step obeying God, you will produce many good works by faith. And God has already promised graciously to reward you for them. It says in 1 Corinthians 4:4, “at that time, each will receive his praise from God.” That's grace, folks. But it is scripture that enables you to produce those good deeds.\

Now, the final section of Psalm 19 is a human response, a prayer for the pleasure of God. Now, when God speaks to us, he speaks to elicit a response. He wants something back. He doesn't want to speak into emptiness and nothing results. When God speaks, there is light, there are worlds, there is conversion. Things happen when God speaks. His Word does not come back void or empty. And so, God has spoken to David, and David does what? He speaks back to God, and He does it in prayer. He says in verse 13, “Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me.” So that's a prayer for what? For his own holiness. He's praying to God and saying, God keep me from myself! Oh, God may I be free from sin! And then he prays in reference to his mouth and his heart. He says, “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight.”

David has gone right to the heart of the matter here. Why did God create the universe? For His own glory and for his own pleasure. For his own pleasure. I love what the King James says in Revelation 4:11: “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honor, and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they have been and are created.” You are created, every one of you, created in the image of God for the pleasure of God. And not only that, but you're redeemed. You're saved for the pleasure of God. Listen to this in Luke 12:32, “Fear not little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Our God is pleased not just to create us, but to redeem us, and therefore, God's pleasure should be our goal every day. 2 Corinthians 5:9 says, “We make it our goal whether at home, in the body, or away from it, to please God.” We want to please Him. Ephesians 5 says, “We should find out what pleases the Lord” (verse 10).

Now, David says, I want my words and the meditation of my heart to be pleasing to you, God. I want them to be pleasing. I want them to be an aroma offered up to you. I want you to be pleased with what I say. And Oh God, you are a God who searches hearts and knows minds. I want you to be pleased with what I think. Can you pray that kind of prayer? It's hard to control the mouth, isn't it? It says in James if anyone is able to control the tongue, he's a perfect man and able to bridle the whole body as well. If you can control what you say and you're never at fault in what you say, you're a perfect man or woman able to control all of the lusts and tendencies in the body. And so, David says, put a bridle over this thing, that I may never say anything except what is pleasing to you, O God. But where do the words come from? Out of the overflow of the what? The heart. The mouth speaks.

And so, he goes back one step back and says, May the meditations of my heart be pleasing to you as well. What's your thought life like? There is a God who searches your mind and your heart, and David knew it. And so, he presented to him every aspect of himself. You can't sanctify yourself. You can't make yourself better. What you can do is like a spiritual beggar, go to God and say, God, make me different, make me different, make my words different, make my thoughts different by your word, transform me. And that's exactly what David does as a humble man.

One last thing about pleasure. You know I've noticed in the Christian life, if God is pleased with me, I'll be pleased with life. If God is displeased with me, I will be miserable. Have you noticed that? And do you know why? Because you're one with Jesus Christ, and if he's grieved, he's not going to let you be happy. He's going to make you as miserable as he is until you come out of the sin. Our pleasure and God's pleasure are connected. And so, I pray this prayer, “Oh, God, may my life be pleasing to you. Then I will be filled with joy.” Joy. Now, I've told you that there are three forms of communication that God has given us. Remember what they are. Number one, creation. Number two is what? Scripture. What's the third form of communication? Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is God's final word to us. Isn't he? It's also David's final word in the Psalm.

Do you see that? Who is David's redeemer? What is a redeemer? It's somebody who buys you back from slavery. And who bought David back from slavery to sin? Well, his descendant from his own body, Jesus Christ. His greater Son, who took on a human body, who died on the cross to redeem us from our sin. He is our redeemer. And isn't it beautiful how all three forms of communication are right here in Psalm 19? But he ends with God's final word. And that is Jesus Christ. And I guess for application, I just want to ask you, God is speaking. Are you listening? Are you hearing what he's saying? Do you realize what kind of a glorious God you walk under every day when you look up at the stars? Do you realize how glorious he is? What kind of power there is available for your holiness and your salvation?

That same power at work in Jesus who raised Him from the dead is at work in you, if you're a Christian. I'm going to bring you all the way to Heaven. You realize that. Praise God for it. The power of God. Are you listening to what he's saying? Are you reading scripture daily, taking in, so that your hidden faults are revealed to you and you can confess them and repent? Are you speaking the scripture back to God through prayer? And more than anything, have you come to your redeemer Jesus Christ? He's your only hope. Your only salvation. Let's close in prayer.

Father, you have spoken to us. You have spoken to us in what your hands have made. You've spoken to us through the prophets, and now you have spoken to us the final word through your Son, Jesus Christ, who is the living Word. Father, I pray for all those here who do not know you as a redeemer, who do not know Jesus as Savior from sin, that they would even this day, not give sleep to their eyelids before they repent and come to you, for all those willful and hidden sins which your blood alone can atone for. And Father, for all of us who have come to you as redeemer, I pray that the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts may be pleasing to you. Oh God, our Lord, our rock, and our redeemer, we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Despite sinful humanity’s consistent rebellion against the establishment of Christ’s kingdom, our sovereign God remains entirely in control. Nothing can stop, slow, or hinder the advance and eventual total establishment of The Kingdom of Christ.

You have a little hint in my prayer where we're going today, but we're looking at Psalm 2. We're looking at the second Psalm, so turn your Bibles there if you would. Last week, we began a new series in Psalms and my purpose in this series is to help us to look at the value of the written Word. We’re looking at Psalms that talk about the value of the written Word to the individual believer like Psalm 1 and those Psalms which testify to the living Word, Jesus Christ. There are some prophetic Psalms which look ahead and give us a picture, perhaps as much as a thousand years in advance of who Jesus would be and what his purposes would be. Now, as we look at world history and the history of what's going on even today, we see tremendous strife and conflict. We can see the churning of the waves of the nations.

It's very interesting in Revelation when it says, "I looked and there was no longer any sea." The Book of Revelation said there's no longer any sea. Well, in the Book of Revelation in chapter 13 it's out of the sea that the beast comes. A churning sea. That is the nations, and they're like a churning sea, aren't they? Whipped up like a hurricane, there's all this foment and rebellion. Psalm 2 gives us a focal point to that rebellion. It gives us a focal point to the purposes of the nations as they churn and chafe. And that focal point is rebellion against the Lord and against His Christ as well as whatever else is going on in history for the past 2000 years. As the church has sought to advance the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it has been opposed every step of the way. And what's so beautiful is that Psalm 2 said it would happen; the opposition would happen.

But what's even more beautiful is that Psalm 2 gives us the remedy: the sovereign power of God and his determination to advance the Kingdom, and that is our theme today. Look with me to Psalm 2 as we read along together. Beginning at verse 1, it says: "Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Anointed one. “Let us break their chains,” they say, “and throw off their fetters”. The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them. Then he rebukes them in his anger and terrifies them in His wrath, saying, “I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill.” I will proclaim the decree of the Lord: He said to me, “You are my Son; today I have become your Father. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession. You will rule them with an iron scepter; you will dash them to pieces like pottery.” Therefore, you kings, be wise; be warned, you rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry and you be destroyed in your way, for His wrath can flare up in a moment. Blessed are all who take refuge in Him.”

Now, after Jesus was raised from the dead, He appeared to His disciples and spent with them 40 days. During that 40 days with his Apostles, He was giving them an intensive training in Scripture. It was a 40-day crash seminary course in the Old Testament and any of you who love the Word would love to have been there to hear it, wouldn't you? What better teacher than the incarnate Word of God? And so, it says in Luke 24:44-45: "He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms." Did you hear that? There are Psalms that are written about Jesus Christ. Then it says: "Then he opened their minds so that they might understand the Scriptures." That is a good prayer for a preacher: “Oh Lord, open their minds that they might understand the Scriptures.” There's a veil over our minds; we don't see their truth coming through until the Holy Spirit removes that veil in Christ. And so, He opened their minds.

It's an amazing thing to think of Jesus actually being able to open our minds, but he does. And he wanted them to understand the Scriptures in particular. And today we're going to focus on one of those: the second Psalm. Now, when we come to Psalms, we come to a difficult part of Old Testament Scripture to interpret. It is difficult because it is woven together in the everyday life of the Jews that wrote it, usually King David. Now, David was a messianic figure; he was a picture of Christ, and this is the beauty of the way that God has communicated to us. It says in Hebrews 1:1: "In the past, God spoke to His people through the prophets at many times and in various ways." Well, what are the various ways that God spoke to the people in the Old Testament? Well, he spoke to them verbally through predictive writings like Psalm 2. He also spoke to them in everyday life and through the events of life which he controlled to give a picture of what would come in the future. And some of the events of David's life give us a picture of the future reign of the Christ.

He was anointed with oil. He was anointed and the anointed one is the Messiah, the Christ. He was raised up to be King from humble origins, but he became King through much opposition and through much trouble and distress and many enemies and his reign was a difficult one. Until at last, he was finished with the work that God had him to do. Now, there are similarities between that and the reign of Christ, but there are differences as well. And so, as you read Psalms, it's difficult because some of the lines apply to Christ and some of them don't. They could be right closely together and woven together but there are some aspects of Psalms that have nothing to do with David, even though he wrote them. We get this. The analogy of Scripture teaches this and this is a foundational principle of interpreting Scripture. Scripture interprets Scripture. If you want to understand how to handle Psalms, then look at how the New Testament writers handle Psalms, and they found Christ there. They found Christ there.

Now, if you were to go to a university or a seminary class and didn’t fully understand that, you would be talking as you read through Psalm 2 about a coronation Psalm that was used in the history of Israel. When all the Davidic kings were raised up, they would read something like Psalm 2. The problem with that is it just goes too far: “Ask of me and I'll give you the nations for your inheritance, the ends of the earth for your possession.” It's a little ambitious for a small Palestinian king. The words lift us up above the immediate circumstance to point to something far greater. And so, Peter standing up on the day of Pentecost made it clear that there were some aspects of Psalms that did not relate to David's life, even though David wrote them. Like Psalm 16, in which David said “You will not let your Holy One see decay” (Ps. 16:10). Peter picked up on that and said David decayed. But there is one who didn't decay, and that is Jesus. He is the death conqueror and I stand here today to proclaim to you through the resurrection of Jesus Christ's triumph over the grave. You see how it works? It teaches us how to interpret Psalms. There are some aspects that are directly about David's life. But now, I'm going to take Psalm 2, and I'm going to just lift it up as a messianic Psalm because I believe from front to back it talks about Jesus Christ.

Now, what is the theme of Psalm 2? Basically, the theme is this: the sovereign God, the Creator of the ends of the Earth, has given the ends of the Earth to His Son, Jesus Christ. He's decreed that they belong to Jesus. He is going to advance that kingdom and there is not a power on Earth or in hell that can stop it. That is the message of Psalm 2. The application of Psalm 2 is: be wise, don't oppose it, don't stand in the way of that advance, but come and join. That's what Psalm 2 is. Now you understand Psalm 2.I like to break it apart into four parts. I see in verses 1-3, humanity's strident rebellion. In verses 4-6, God's serene reaction. In verses 7-9, God's sovereign decree, and then verses 10-12, the preacher's urgent application.

Let's look at the first in Verses 1-3, humanity's strident rebellion. What is the first word of this Psalm? Somebody tell me, what is it? “Why” That's a powerful word, isn't it? Why? As a minister, I hear people ask that question so often in times of suffering, don't they? And who is it they're asking? If they're not asking the preacher, who are they asking? God.

They're asking God. Why could you let this happen to me? Right? Well, God is asking us here the question why. Isn't that powerful? I look through the Scriptures, and I don't have time to tell you all the times that God asks human beings why, but it's a powerful study. Just look up the word and go through and see the number of times he does it. He did it to Cain. He does it... I mean, just... I don't have time, but it's just a beautiful study. But I picked out one in particular, Ezekiel 33:11, it says: "As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways!" And then he asks this, "Why will you die, O house of Israel?” Why? There is at the root of all sin, insanity, isn't there? I mean, there's this kind of an insanity in sin and in three senses, I think.

First of all, what good things you give up! Second of all, what terrible things you bring on yourself! And third, the absolute futility of the opposition, because you're fighting against God and you will lose. There's an insanity in the rebellion, and it comes out in the very first word, “Why”. Or how about this one from the lips of our Lord Jesus Christ to His disciples. Luke 6:46: "Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and don't obey what I command you?" Doesn’t that cut you? Just come right to the heart, why do you do that? And so, we have a picture of the insanity of rebellion right at the start. Rebellion is insane. And so, I'm just urging you as a preacher, lay down your weapons of rebellion, lay them down. You will not succeed. There's insanity to it.

Well, what about the extent of the rebellion? How widespread is it? You know, if there's a king who's ruling over a realm and there's some news of some civil war, he wants to know, well, what districts are affected by it? What's the extent of the rebellion? Well, what is the extent of this rebellion? It is worldwide. It is universal. This is not just something we find in one culture, like in the US or one area like Europe. It's a worldwide rebellion. It's found everywhere.

It says, “Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?” Now, a Jew reading that, what's he thinking? When he reads about nations and peoples, what's he thinking about? Gentiles. Oh, the Jews are the chosen people, right? But the ironic thing is, in Acts Chapter 4, the apostles applied it to the Jewish leaders who were rebelling against Christ. You see what I'm saying? They're behaving like Gentiles, not like God's people. It really extends to everybody, Jew and Gentile alike, in their revolt against Jesus Christ. It's worldwide in its extent: “For all have sinned and lack the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23). It's worldwide.

But what is its nature? Well, it says in verse 2: “The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Anointed one.” The first thing we see is pride. There's pride at the root of this rebellion. Human leaders, you know, pride and ambition run deep in these people. And when you think about kings of the Earth, don't just think about political leaders. It could be a CEO of a multi-national conglomerate. It could be anybody with a position of power and influence. The kings of the Earth, you know?

And there is pride in these rulers and they don't want anyone to tell them what to do. It runs to the core of the rebellion. There's also some rage involved in it: in verse 1, in the Septuagint (the Greek translation), and it's brought over into the New Testament as well. In Acts 4 when they quote this, it says, “why do the nations rage”? NIV has “conspired”, but the root word is the same. There is an enraged conspiracy here. There's an anger to it. There's a sense of riot and rebellion here. But where does the rage come from? I think that the pride and the anger come together. When pride is thwarted, what is the result? Anger, right? Look at yourself. Whenever you want something and don't get it, you get angry. And so, pride and anger go together, and I think it's demonic in this case. There's a kind of a satanic side, because it says in Revelation 12:12, speaking of the Devil: “Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with rage, because he knows his time is short.” So, I think that in their rage, they're behaving demonically. Pride and rage, what else?

There is meditation involved in this. There's an intellectual side to the rebellion. Now, last week in Psalm 1 we talked about meditation, didn't we? The godly blessed one doesn't take the counsel of the wicked, stand in the way of sinners, sit in the seat of mockers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law, he meditates day and night. Same Hebrew word over here. They are meditating on how to throw off the shackles of the Lord. They're thinking deeply on how they can do it. It's like a think tank. Do you know what a think tank is? You get all the skillful intellectuals together and they think hard on one topic. And what is the topic here? How to get God out of our lives. How to throw off his reign. So, they're thinking deeply on it. So, there's pride, there's rage, there's meditation, and then there is organization. There is an organization here. There's a conspiracy. “The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather”, what? “Together.” There's an organized revolt here.

Now, earlier when I was preaching through Genesis a year ago, we looked at Genesis 11. Remember the Tower of Babel? And there was this organization there, and they were building a tower to reach to Heaven. And remember what God said: "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing will be restrained from them." (Genesis 11:6). There's an incredible power in people working together for a common goal, good or evil, isn't there? And so, here we have a common goal: the throwing off of the reign of the Lord and of His Christ. And then finally, we see determination, pride, rage, meditation, cooperation, organization, and determination. They take their stand against the Lord. We get the picture like, Goliath, who for 40 days came and took his stand against the Lord's armies and blasphemed the God of Heaven. He took a stand. And so, they're determined. There's a battle of wills going on here. My will against yours.

Rebellion’s History

Is there any human being on Earth with a stronger will than God? Absolutely not. God's will is unshakable and unbreakable. But this is the nature of the rebellion. Now, if we were to take a long time under the tutelage of a church historian, we could go through the rebellion’s history, for it has characterized the last 2000 years. It wasn't just Pontius Pilate and the leaders of the Jews in Jerusalem; it went on from there to the Roman Empire as a whole. Roman emperors were opposing and fighting against the advance of Christianity. You know the stories about the Christians who were sacrificed in the Colosseum, and the Roman Emperors Nero, Decius, Valerian, and Diocletian one after the other, persecuting Christians. Now, understand the switch we've made here. Persecuting Christians is the same as persecuting Christ. Do you see that? Do you remember on the road to Damascus: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (Acts 9:4)? You see, if you touch my body, you touch the head. That's how it works.

So, persecuting Christians is the same as fulfilling Psalm 2, and that's what these did. And after the Roman Empire went Christian, so to speak, and began to send out missionaries to the barbarian tribes, what did the barbarian chieftain start to do? Persecute the missionaries. The same thing, and it's carried on throughout all of history. When I was in Japan, I learned about the Shoguns and their opposition to Christianity. They would make Christians step on a plate representing Christ, and they knew no true Christian would ever step on that. And so, if you wouldn't, they'd kill you. The rage, the plotting, the opposition to the advance of Christianity has carried on into the 20th century. Hitler sought to crush true Christianity. So did Joseph Stalin and so did Mao Tse-tung. They tried to crush it. Even in our country today, do you see it? It's not just martyrdom, it's just a matter of opposition. Like some of the Supreme Court cases we have these days about even mentioning God or praying. We see this. There's an opposition even in a free democracy like this. It runs deep. It's universal.

And then ultimately, we see rebellions futility. It's true what God said in one sense, in Genesis 11: “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing will be restrained from them.” But that's not a “nothing” with an absolute sense there. There is something they cannot do, and that is defeat God's purposes.

Look at the next section, verses 4-6, look at God's serene reaction: “The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them. Then he rebukes them in his anger and terrifies them in His wrath, saying, “I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill.” God's absolute serenity is founded on His absolute sovereignty. Do you see that? Peace comes from recognizing who runs the universe. I don't know what all you're going through. If we had time for testimony for about 15 hours, each of you could have about 25 minutes and tell us what you're going through.

The answer to your problems is the absolute loving sovereignty of God. Whatever it is, God is sovereign and powerful and he rules. And so, there is peace that comes from understanding it, but the peace starts with God himself. Is God a flustered, upset, out of sorts being? Absolutely not. Our God is in Heaven, he does what pleases him and he's at peace, and so there's a serene reaction. The Scripture says he sits, he laughs, he mocks, he speaks, he terrifies, he decrees. That's his response to the rebellion. But he does not get upset, or anxious, or worried, or out of sorts. Not at all.

 I love what Charles Spurgeon had to say here. He said: "Observe, dear friends, the wonderful contrast between the violent excitement of the enemies of the Lord, and the sublime serenity of God Himself. He is not disturbed though the heathen so furiously rage, and their kings and mighty one set themselves up in battle array. He smiles at them: he hath them in derision. You and I are often downcast and depressed, and our forebodings are dark and dismal, but God sits in his eternal peacefulness, and serenely overrules tumult and rebellion. The Lord reigneth, and his throne is not moved, nor his rest broken, whatever may be the noise and turmoil down below. Notice the sublimity of this divine calm. While the heathen and their princes are plotting and planning how to break his bands asunder, and cast his cords from them, he has already defeated their devices, and he says to them, “Yet I have set my King on my holy hill in Zion.” You will not have my Son to reign over you, but nevertheless he reigns. While you have been raging, I have crowned him.”

Isn't that powerful? The sovereign serenity of God in the midst of all the tumult of this rebellion. Isaiah 40:22-23 speaks to this as well: “He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in. He brings princes to not, and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing.”

While I was preparing this sermon, I thought about the rebellion of those who would shake their fist at God and say, "I will fight you every step of the way." And I think about God up in Heaven and he says over to Gabriel, “Did you hear that? I know it's hard to hear. It's a little dim. They said, I'm gonna fight you every step of the way.” [laughter] I'm glad you laughed. It's a laughter in concert with Heaven, do you see? It can't succeed. Our God is powerful, and He's not threatened by this revolt at all, not even a little. He actually makes fun of it, and you know, it's interesting how God's laughter and mocking is not meant to be crushing to the rebels, but actually to give them time to repent, because there's a time gap between the laughter and the mocking and the terrifying and the rage. You see what I'm saying? When the wrath comes, there's been a long time delay, for our God is a patient God. And so, what the people are supposed to do is see the laughter in the thwarting of the everyday events as they try to do things and it doesn't work out the way they want.

The Church just keeps getting bigger and bigger. And there's a humor side to it, almost. Like Voltaire, who vowed that within one generation, no Frenchman would be reading the Bible. And within one generation, the French Bible Society had bought Voltaire's house and were printing Bibles in his house. There's some humor there. But it's supposed to make you think, “Wait a minute, we can't fight God. We can't oppose him.” It should cause them to repent, because ultimately, he's going to speak a word of judgment, that's what Psalm 2 says.

The laughter doesn't go on forever. There comes a point of rage and wrath. He rebukes them in his anger and he terrifies them in His wrath. God speaks to them a word of judgment. Matthew 25:41: "Depart from me, you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." That's a terrifying word. Now, as I was driving along the highway here, I've seen bumper stickers. Have you seen them? No fear. No fear? I saw the North Carolina equivalent just a little while ago, “ain't skeered.” [laughter] Have you seen that one? Is that... Maybe that's not from North Carolina, I don't know, but I ain't skeered, okay?

Well, our God knows how to terrify. If you'd been at the foot of Mount Sinai, you'd have been shaking when you saw that cloud descend. Moses was, he said, "I'm trembling with fear." That was Moses, he was a godly man trembling with fear. God knows how to terrify, and there are some things to be afraid of in life, like dying and going to hell. That's worth being afraid of. God's sovereign power over princes is clear, because that same Isaiah 40 passage, in which he talks about them as grasshoppers, it says: “He brings the princes of the world and the rulers of the world to nothing when he merely blows on them and they wither.” He just speaks and they wither. Do you remember when Jesus was arrested and there were all those Roman soldiers there in battle array, and he said, "Who are you seeking?” And they said, “Jesus of Nazareth," and Jesus said, “I am” (Ego eimi, in the Greek). “I am.” And what happened to the Romans? They just fell down in front of him. They just fell down. All he said was “I am”. That's his name! And they fell down.

This revolt will not get far, let's put it that way, because all he does is speak. And in terms of no fear, well, I read about fear in the future, Revelation Chapter 6:15-17: “Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and every free man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb!” For the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?” That bumper sticker is gone now. They're looking for a place to hide.

And what's the root of all this? His decree. He decrees, he says, “Nevertheless, yet, I have established my king on Zion, my holy hill.” He's established it. He's spoken the decree. God rules his Universe by decree. And what is this decree? Verse 7-9: “I will proclaim the decree of the Lord: He said to me, “You are my Son; today I have become your Father.” Now, this verse is quoted in Hebrews in regard to Jesus Christ. Let the New Testament interpret the Old Testament.

This is not spoken to David. This is spoken to Jesus Christ. For he says in Hebrews 1:5: “to which of the angels did God ever say, ‘You are my Son; today I have become your father’ or, ‘today I have begotten you.’” Jesus Christ is the eternally begotten Son of God, the second person of the Trinity. Now, don't imagine that because it says, “today I have begotten you” that there was a time when the father did not beget the son, that there was a time when the father existed, but the son did not. That is not true. He has always existed. That's an old heresy, Arianism. It existed a long time ago, that Jesus was a created being, and that at some point, God spoke him into existence. It has recreated itself under 30 years ago, under Charles Taze Russell with the Jehovah's Witnesses. They'll go around and tell you that Jesus is God's first created being. But it's false. And so, the Creed, the ancient Creed says that He is eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, light from light. Eternally, but then why... What is the “today” here? It says, “today I've begotten you.”

Well, Paul answers this for us in Acts 13, as he's preaching, in Acts 13 it says, verse 32-33, "We tell you the good news: What God promised our fathers he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus. As it is written in the second Psalm: ‘You are my Son; today I have begotten you.’” So, he's linking it to the resurrection of Christ, so it really has to do with declaration of the Sonship to the world. And this is the foundation of the spread of the Son's kingdom, isn't it? The resurrection of Jesus Christ sets Him apart from every religious leader, and on the basis of that, we see the declaration of Jesus as the second person of the Trinity. It says in Romans 1:4: “who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.” You see, other than that, he's just a man who made some claims and died and rots in the grave. But he's not just a man, he's the second person of the trinity. And on the basis of that declaration of the Sonship of Jesus Christ, the gospel has been spreading for the last 2000 years. That's the basis of the advance, the resurrection of Christ.

And what is the extent of the reign of Christ? In verse 8, “Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession.” Who's speaking to whom there? Ask of me is imperative, the Father is speaking to the Son. Do you see that? The Father is speaking to the Son and He's saying, “Give me a prayer request, and I'll answer you. Don't make it a small one, make it a big one. Ask of me and I'll give you the nations as your inheritance. The ends of the earth, your possession.” Now that's big, it's big enough for the power of God, isn't it? Big enough for what the Son accomplished in dying on the cross. That's a big request. And so, Isaac Watts said so beautifully in a hymn we're about to sing, "Jesus shall reign where'er the sun doth his successive journeys run. His kingdom spread from shore to shore, till moon shall wax and wane no more." It's the foundation of the modern missionary movement, some left one shore and arrived at another in the name of Jesus Christ and said, “worship the Son”. That's how it works.

And what is the execution of the power? Verse 9, “You will rule them with an iron scepter; you will dash them to pieces like pottery.” You say, “you know, that doesn't sound like the Jesus I know.” Gentle Jesus, meek and mild. What is this ruling with a rod of iron? Well, this verse shows up in Revelation 19, when Jesus returns with that white charger and the armies of Heaven. You'll rule them with an iron scepter. The context in Psalm 2 is what? A friendly embracing of the Christ? No, the context is of pitted determined rebellion against the Christ. And so, if that's the state you're in when the Lord returns, you will be smashed. Isn't that what it says? “You'll dash them to pieces like pottery.”

Okay, so now we get to the application. The preacher's urgent application. Now, usually preachers have to come up with their own application, but I don't need to. The preacher does it for me here, the Psalmist, David, and he steps in and he says, “Can I give you a word of advice based on these truths?” Isn't that what application is? I want to speak to your life, and so, I will take my application from this application, and I divide it into two categories.

There are two types of people who need to hear Psalm 2. There are those who have believed already in Jesus Christ and those who have not yet believed, but are part of the rebellion, even now. Of that second category, namely unbelievers, I would give this word, and it comes right from verses 10-12, be warned and believe. Be warned and believe. Look what it says: “Therefore, you kings, be wise; be warned, you rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry and you be destroyed in your way, for His wrath can flare up in a moment. Blessed are all who take refuge in Him.” There are five imperatives here, be wise, be instructed or warned, serve or worship with fear, rejoice with trembling, and submit to or kiss the Son. Be wise. Put away the rebellion. Don't be foolish. Be wise. Now, where do you get this wisdom? 2 Timothy 3:15 says: “The Scriptures are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” The wisdom is right here in Psalm 2. Be wise, don't fight God, don't fight Jesus Christ, be wise.

Proverbs 22:3, the book of wisdom says: “A wise man sees danger and takes refuge, but the foolish keep going and suffer for it.” What is the refuge? Is there a refuge even in our passage here? Look at verse 12, blessed are all who what? Take refuge in Him. There is a refuge, His name is Jesus Christ. There is a day of wrath coming, but Jesus is the refuge. Be wise, be warned, serve the Lord, rejoice with trembling. Find your joy in Christ. Repent and lay down those weapons of rebellion and of disobedience. Be warned and believe. But what of the believers? Most of us I would say fancy ourselves believers in Jesus Christ. What to us? Alright, I'll speak this word, be bold, be bold. Do you see it? Do you feel a courage coming out of Psalm 2 here? Ask of me, and I'll give you the nations as your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession. Oh, but Lord, India has 900 million people. That's too big. Oh, I'm sorry, it's smaller than the ends of the Earth, and the nations as an inheritance. That's a smaller thing. It's a lesser thing. Isn't it?

So, we get on our knees and we get bold in our prayers, we start asking for bigger things like India. “God give Jesus Christ, India.” Do you see that? Be bold in your prayers, be worldwide in your prayers. Be bold when facing obstacles and persecution. Say, “Well, it was already prophesied, I knew it was coming.” Right here in Psalm 2, it's going to come. But we're going to triumph, we're going to be victorious. Be bold in the time of persecution and strife; be bold and courageous; be bold in outreach plans. Make big plans and carry them out by the power of God. Don't be a small weak Christian. Psalm 2 gives you the foundation for boldness in ministry in Jesus Christ. Reaching out big. Is it too big a thing that we could ask for Durham to glorify God, that we could ask to be used by God to lead many, many people here to Christ? Is that too big a thing for God? Oh, it's small, it's a subset of the other request. “Ask of me, and I'll give you the nations for your inheritance, the ends of the earth, your possession.”

To the unbeliever, I say: be warned and believe. If today you hear His voice, if you feel the pull of Jesus Christ today, come to faith in Christ, don't put it off. And why there's a warning here, do you see it? “Kiss the Son, lest He be angry and you be destroyed.” Look what it says, “in your way.” Do you understand what that means? In your way, while you're living your life… [snaps fingers] it's over! Do you understand that? That death hangs over us, and we never know when that day will be. Do you know who holds the day of your life and the day of your death? It's God your creator. He knows the day of your death. Be wise before it's too late and you be destroyed in your way. I didn't make this up, it's what it says. Suddenly it comes, a sudden illness, an accident, car accident, suddenly you grab your chest and it's over. Be wise before that day comes, rejoice in Christ. And to you who are believers, be bold for Jesus. Nothing is too small to attempt for Jesus Christ. Please close with me in prayer.

Heavenly Father, we're just in awe of who you are. We're in awe of Your decree that You have made in reference to your Son. And nothing will change that decree, and I praise You for it, because my salvation is included in it. Thank you so much, and not just me, but all who are called by Your name. O heavenly Father, I pray now for the unbeliever within the sound of my voice that they would not let the sun go down today without repenting and coming to faith in You, Lord Jesus. O and I pray for my believing brother and sister that they would be bold and no longer timid, but take risks in one sense, but there are no risks, but just for us, they seem like risks that we would step out and say something to a relative or a friend or to someone about Jesus Christ. Or to make a plan for a ministry that's new and bold. O God, give us this power, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Psalm 1 contrasts two different ways to live. One is the way of the righteous, leading to a delight in God’s Word, a hatred for evil, spiritual fruitfulness, and eternal treasure. The other is the way of the wicked leading ultimately to eternal condemnation.

Please, if you would, take your Bibles and open this morning to Psalms Chapter 1. Today we're going to begin, excuse me, a new series, looking at some of the Psalms. We are not preaching through the whole Book of Psalms, that's 150 messages for somebody who can do one Psalm per message, that would not be me, especially with Psalm 119. [chuckle] But there is glory in the Psalms, and my purpose in this series is to intersperse those Psalms that discuss the written Word of God and its power on our lives, like Psalm 1, with those Psalms which openly proclaim the Living Word, Jesus Christ, like Psalm 2, which we'll look at next week. We're going to intersperse those. Those that talk about the written Word of God: its purity, its perfection, its power. And those that talk about the Living Word; the fulfillment of all that was written in the Old Testament. And so, that's our purpose in this series in Psalms. There’re many other things we could do with Psalms, we could look at prayer, we could look at confession, duties and responsibilities, and worship, many things, and perhaps in the future we will, but that's what we're doing here. And we're going to begin in a good place, and that is with Psalm 1.

Now, I think some of the most amazing things that God ever created... And I love God's creation, I am amazed by what He's made, but some of the most amazing aspects of his creation will be forever hidden from our eyes. We can't see them. Perhaps they're so small, they're at the atomic level, we'll never be able to see those, but then there are others that are physically large enough, they’re at the right scale to see, but they're hidden below the surface. For example, the roots of trees. Have you ever walked through a beautiful forest and looked at all, especially in the fall, looked at all the leaves, the reds and orange and golds, and just the beauty and thought, "Boy, I wonder what the root system is like that supports all that?" Probably not. But below each of those trees, there is an elaborate and amazingly well constructed root system which enables that beauty, which comes into your eyes and causes you to praise God if you're a Christian, enables that beauty to exist. The root system.

Now, you may not say very much about the root system, you may not think it's very important, until you become a homeowner in North Carolina, [chuckle] and there are trees right near your house, and you're not quite sure how good the root system is on those trees. You may have driven by and seen the effect of previous hurricanes. Have you ever seen those trees that are toppled over, and you can see the root system of those trees that were felled by the last great hurricane, and seen how inadequate it was? As a matter of fact, recently in a coastal area in New England, there was a major hurricane and some experts in forestry went through and they noticed something. They noticed that the elms, the birches, the spruces, and the hemlocks fell, but the oaks and the hickories and the walnuts did not fall. But what was the difference between the two? It was the nature of their root system. The first category: the elms, the birches, the spruces, the hemlocks, spread out on the surface, they move out this way, so that when the soaking rain comes in and loosens the soil, they're vulnerable to a high wind.

But then the oaks, the hickories, the walnuts have something called a tap root, which may go down as far as 50 or 75 feet into the ground. As a matter of fact, there's been a... There was a tree discovered in England which went down 360 feet, that's a 36-storey building down through the rock! Now, as the roots go down, what is it they're seeking? They're seeking nutrients, and they're seeking water, for the life of the tree depends on the success of the root system. And a tree that size, a regular sized tree may have 14 million separate roots and 14 billion separate little root hairs and the hair is where it all happens. There's an elaborate filtering that goes on at the hair level, which takes in just the right chemicals, not too much of one or too little of another, just the right amount of water, and the water is needed, because a big fully grown oak tree, for example, 200,000 leaves it has, on a hot summer day will evaporate 900 gallons of water. 900 gallons of water! And each drop of water which evaporates must be replenished, and it's replenished by the root system.

Now, as I said, you may not think much about roots until the day of testing comes, and when the day of testing comes, then the roots become very important. There may be a tree that looks glorious from the surface up, tall and lofty, but then the day of testing comes and it falls, and great is the crash of that tree, because it has no roots. And Jesus talked about this, you remember in the parable, The Seed and the Soils. There are different kinds of responses to the Word of God, and there is a type of response which Jesus characterizes by the stony soil, and the seed falls into that top soil just at the top, and it doesn't go very deep, and the root system is not developed, and Jesus says, “when the sun comes up, the plants are scorched, and they wither because they have no root.” (Matthew 13:6). And he explained it: “these are those that hear the word and at once receive it with joy. But since there is no root, when persecution because of the word comes, they quickly fall away.” (Matthew 13:20-21). There is for all of us coming a time of testing.

Now, there are tests here on earth. We don't experience, for example, the test of persecution from our government or from our surrounding society, but there's no guarantee that that won't continue... That that will continue to be the case. We may be going very quickly away from being what's known as a Christian nation, and then you may be asked to choose between your material possessions or your job, or maybe even your family and your testimony of Jesus Christ. What will you do? Are you preparing yourself now for that day of testing? God is giving you time. He is graciously giving you day after day, week after week, to prepare you for that day of test. But then there's another test even greater coming called Judgment Day. Judgment Day. Now, as I said, you may not think much about roots, but today I want you to think about your root system. What is the nature of your root system? And Psalm 1 points to a glorious root system, a picture of a tree planted by streams of water, which is constantly ready to bear fruit for God. Let's look together at Psalm 1.

"Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in season, and whose leaf never withers. Whatever he does, he prospers. Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish." And so, we have here in Psalm 1 laid out before us two ways: the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked. The way of the righteous is discussed first, and it is a way of fruitful submission to God's Word. And what I'm saying to you is that guaranteed fruitfulness comes only from knowledge of, deep knowledge of, and submission to the Word of God. That's where fruitfulness comes from. And the way of the righteous begins as a blessed way, “blessed” it says, is the man. Isn't that a great word to begin the Book of Psalms?

It's just like the Sermon on the Mount, The beginning of Jesus’s teaching ministry in the New Testament. It starts with, “Blessed are the spiritual beggars.” (Matthew 5:3). Remember? It starts with the word “blessed.” The word “blessed” means deeply, richly, satisfyingly happy, because your relationship with God is right and healthy. That's what the word blessed means. And so therefore, God here, as Jesus was doing in the Sermon on the Mount, instructs you on how to be happy, how to be deeply, richly happy and satisfied. Have I got your attention? Are you interested in that? How much of what you do every day could be traced back to your own personal happiness? Some philosophers would say everything. Everything you do is traced back to some desire you have to be pleased with the outcome, pleased with the fruit, right? I don't think there's anything wrong with that. God is therefore instructing us here, how we may be blessed or how we may be happy. And so, what is set before us here is the simple choice that we get throughout all of Scripture, a choice between blessedness, or blessings, and curses.

Blessings on the one hand, curses on the other. It's the same choice that was laid before the Israelites before they entered the Promised Land. The Book of Deuteronomy. Moses said this day... In Deuteronomy 30:19: "This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses." Now, early in Deuteronomy, he described what that blessed life was like, what is that blessedness? And he describes it in physical ways. Deuteronomy 28:3-8: "You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country. The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock--the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed. You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out. The Lord will grant that the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before you. They will come at you from one direction but flee from you in seven. The Lord will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your hand to. The Lord your God will bless you in the land he is giving you."

Does that sound attractive? If we were to translate it into 21st century language, it's a comprehensive blessing on everything you do. But this is just physical blessing, how much more of the spiritual blessing that God promises is in Jesus Christ? Ephesians 1:3-4: "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ." So here we have a comprehensive physical blessing laid out for us in the law of Moses, and then in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, a comprehensive spiritual blessing. Is everything covered? Of course it is. God is ready to saturate you with blessings. And so, the way of the righteous is a way of blessedness, a way of blessing. But he doesn't stop there, does he? He goes on to begin to describe how we can know this blessedness, and it's interesting to us that he begins negatively. He begins by saying what the way of blessedness or the way of righteousness is not, or what it is not characterized by.

We are so positive these days. We don't want to ever talk about those things that are negative. We want to be very tolerant of everything and speak only positively all the time. The Word of God does not behave this way, not at all. And so, if you want to know what the way of righteousness is like, you look down at Psalm 1. "Blessed is the man who does not do certain things." Do you see? The negative side. And therefore, it is a way that hates evil. “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers” This does not characterize this blessed man. We cannot be neutral about evil. Do you understand that? We can't be neutral about things that are evil, we must hate them the way God does. We must reject them, we must stay away from them, we must be pure from them, if we want to know this kind of blessedness. We can't be neutral. We've got to be like Paul when he deals with issues like: "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? May it never be!" (Romans 6:1-2) We must say "May it never be!" as our response to evil.

"Absolutely not. I will not accept this." And so, we hate first of all, an ungodly lifestyle. “Blessed is the man who does not walk” it says. Walking in the Hebrew wisdom literature means a daily lifestyle. How do you live your daily life? How do you walk one step after another? Life is made up of days, and days are made up of hours, and hours are made up of minutes, and minutes are made up of moment-by-moment choices and decisions. Choices you make moment by moment. And so, you are to hate what is ungodly. Hate a walk that is unrighteous. You must hate it, and do everything you can to avoid it. And in order to do that, you have to hate ungodly counsel or advice. Have you noticed how thirsty America is in its popular culture for advice these days? Look at all the talk shows that are focused around solving problems, working things out, because the people have nowhere to go for advice. They've cut themselves off from the Scripture where all the godly advice is and they don't know how to live.

They come to problems and they don't know how to solve them. They open up their newspaper near the comics and read “Dear Abby” to get an answer to how to resolve marital struggles. We need godly counsel, don't we? We need good advice. And if you've got good friends in your life, the sweetness of the friendship is that they give you good solid advice. Proverbs 27:9 says: "Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the pleasantness of one's friend springs from his earnest counsel." Good solid advice. That's what the church is meant to be. That we are those that speak the words of God to one another and give good solid advice. But here in this verse there's nothing about good solid advice, there's ungodly or wicked advice. We don't walk in the counsel of the wicked. We don't spend time with them. We're not in their company and we don't hear their words. Wicked counsel leads to wicked actions. I know from 10 years of being in secular employment, all the kinds of advice given back and forth, and how much of it was ungodly and how much of it led to struggle and to strife and problems in families.

But the root of it is just hating fellowship with those who do not love the Lord. We don't want anything to do with them. We don't want to be in close relationship with them. Yes, of course, we live in this world and we have a witness to the world, we must. But this is talking about something else, it's talking about friendship with the world. It's talking about being in close relationships with those who do not love Jesus or His Word. There are three words used for those who reject the Word, reject the law of God, they're called “wicked.” It's the same word here used of the Sodomites that God destroyed, Sodom and Gomorrah. It also talks about “sinners”; that word usually means those who transgress the commands of God, and then the interesting word “mockers.” Mockers. You know, I find it interesting, the humor value of my faith to some people. They think it's funny, they really do. And I feel so sorry for them, because this is the spirit of mockery we see here. And there have been some great mockers, a lot of them are in the media.

And that was started earlier in the 20th century, I think by many, but I think in particular about this one man, H.L. Mencken. You've perhaps heard of H.L. Mencken. Very humorous writer. I mean, the things he writes are funny, but it's a spirit of mockery against God. Listen to what he says. He says: “The liberation of the human mind has never been furthered by dunderheads [stupid people]; it has been furthered by happy fellows who heaved dead cats into sanctuaries and then went roistering down the highways of the world, proving to all men that doubt, after all, was safe--that the god in the sanctuary was finite in his power and hence a fraud. One horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms. It is not only more effective; it is also vastly more intelligent.” These are words of mockery. Mockery. Well, somebody once said, “death yields orthodoxy.” Think about that. Death produces orthodoxy. I think H.L. Mencken is orthodox now. He has right doctrines and ideas about God because God has already said in Galatians 6:7, “do not be deceived.” It is impossible... Let's put it this way, it is impossible to mock God, you can't do it. The hole you dig is the one you'll fall into. But we as Christians want no fellowship with those kinds of people. We don't want to be with those who laugh at our faith. We want them to come to know Jesus Christ and escape the wrath to come, that's what we want. Now, God says a blessed life begins therefore with a commitment to hate evil in all its forms. There is therefore a negative side to blessedness. If we do not guard ourselves, evil will creep in and destroy who we are.

Alright, well then, what of the positive side? Oh, I've been eager to talk about this. Sweet is this verse. Look what it says, verse 2: “his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in season, and whose leaf never withers. Whatever he does, he prospers.” Oh, is that sweet! This is a way immersed in the Word of God, and the Psalmist here calls it a delight. His delight is in the law of his God. He loves to read the Bible. He just loves it.

Now yesterday, we were driving back from a family reunion of sorts. My wife's grandmother had her 90th birthday, and we had a bunch of folks together in Culpeper, Virginia, and we had a wonderful time. But one of the joys was on the way home, we stopped at Friendly's Ice Cream. Now, both Christi and I, we grew up on Friendly's Ice Cream, but there's a big gap between Culpeper, Virginia and Orlando, Florida. There's no Friendly's in there, and there's actually a sign in Virginia saying, "This is your last chance at Friendly’s Ice Cream until Orlando, Florida." So, we took the opportunity, got home a little bit later as a result, but my favorite flavor is chocolate almond chip. And what chocolate almond chip is, it’s almonds dipped in chocolate and then the chocolate coats it like a candy, and then it's in chocolate ice cream.

Now, how does somebody who delights in ice cream eat it? They lick the ice cream. They savor it. Or do they just take it down quickly for the nutritive value? We need to get the vitamins and the dairy products inside our system as quickly as possible. Is that how you eat ice cream? Then you're one of those type A people. [laughter] It's not the way we eat ice cream, we delight in ice cream, it's not a matter of the nutritive value, it isn't. It's got to do with the flavor. And for me, for that particular flavor, it also has to do with the joy of crunching those chocolate almonds. I really enjoy that. I like to lick the ice cream and the almonds into my mouth and then the ice cream melts and then I like to chew those chocolate-covered nuts. Now, why am I telling you so much about my ice cream eating habits? Because there's a parallel to how I also handle the Word of God. I do the same thing; I take it in and I savor it. And basically, you guys, every week you hear the results of the things that I've been doing on the Word of God. I just take over each phrase and I savor it, and I think about what this word means and what that word means.

It's a way immersed in God's word and his delight is in the law of the Lord, he really enjoys it. Now, this is a strange thing because we start hating the Word actually, or at least bored by it. It says in 1 Corinthians 2:14: "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually discerned." You sit down and read the Bible, and it makes no sense to you. It makes no sense at first, but then when you come to faith in Christ, the Spirit comes as a private tutor and he begins to teach you things and your eyes start to open, and you start to see things that are amazing and delicious to you, they are sweet. Psalm 119 is 176 verses on the Word of God. Incredible. And 10 times the Psalmist discusses the delight he has in the law of God; he really enjoys it.

For example, Psalm 119 verse 14: "I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches." Or verse 35: "Direct me in the path of your commands, for there I find delight." Or verse 47: "I delight in your commands, for I love them." Or verse 174: "I long for your salvation, O LORD, and your law is my delight." It's the very same thing that Jeremiah had said: "When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart's delight, for I bear your name, O LORD God Almighty." (Jeremiah 15:16). The Word of God is sweet, and it is rich, and it is delicious, and it is not to be eaten quickly, it is to be savored. And so therefore, the Psalmist here talks about meditation, "On his law he meditates day and night." The Hebrew word means to murmur or to mutter over something. It means to take the words and murmur over them so that you just understand. And you know what I think of? I go back to the original illustration of the oak tree with its tap root pushing down through the soil and searching for a deeper and deeper place where the water table is perhaps... Or where some nutrients are and for security, so that the tree below mirrors the tree above, and there's just strength and protection, the tap root going ever further down in. That's meditation.

Now, if you were a Jew back in those days, how would you meditate day and night on the law of the Lord? Well, you just reach to your night stand, you turn on the lights, if it's night time, you turn on the light, you take your copy of the Bible, and you open it up and read it. Is that true? Absolutely not. First of all, they didn't have lights, you didn't just turn it on, you had to have a little oil lamp. But even more of a problem was that they didn't have the Torah with them. That was in the synagogue. They didn't have the Torah with them. So how were they going to meditate day and night on the Word of God? Memorize it. Memorize it. That's what they did, they memorized it. And that way they would be reflecting over it all the time. Do you memorize the Word of God? Is your tap root going ever deeper? Are you going to stand in the day of trouble? Well, this one, he just delights in meditating on it. And this is not that kind of meditation like the Buddhists do, where they're trying to empty their mind all the time, saying meaningless phrases or thinking about meaningless questions like what's the sound of one hand clapping? The purpose of considering “what's the sound of one hand clapping?” is to empty your mind, right?

No, we are trying to fill our mind with concepts, ideas, the truth of God. That's Christian meditation. You're working over the phrases. And then finally, it's a way that practices what you learn. Verse 3, it says, "Whatever he does, he prospers.” James 1:22: "Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves; do what it says…The man who intently looks into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it--he will be blessed in what he does." If you want the blessing at the beginning of the Psalm, you have to do the things you meditate on. It's not just for intellectual advancement, it's so that you can change your life. So, it's a way of fruitfulness, finally. A way of fruitfulness. What does it liken us to? A tree planted by a river. Isn't it beautiful that you don't have to go through the world to try to find all of God's ideas and all the things he wants to say to you? All you do need to do is turn on the light, reach for the Bible, and open it up. Could it be easier?

You are like a tree right by a river that comes right to your door, if you'll just open it up and reflect on it. It comes right to your door! You're a tree planted right by a stream that brings to you everything you need for life and godliness. It's just coming right to you... And it's a permanent fruitfulness, you're rooted there, you're not moving, you're just there, and it's a patient fruitfulness. In verse 3, it says, "It yields its fruit in season." When the season comes, that's when the fruit comes, not right away. How long do you think it takes for that drop of water to get from 50, 60, 70 feet down below up to the leaf? Perhaps a long time. And the nutrients too. And then the cells do what they do, and then the light comes from the Sun, and then, and then, and then. It yields its fruit in season when the time comes.

So, the meditation you do today will bear fruit in your life seven years from now. Do you see how that works? And so, the fruitfulness that we enjoy today came from meditation we did maybe seven years ago or seven months ago. We're preparing all the time for fruitfulness, and it will come most certainly. And I love it, it says, "Its leaf never withers." When you think of something shriveling and withering, you think of it aging, but you know, you could be 80 or 100 years old and still bear good fruit for God, because your root system is so deeply rooted in the Word of God. How old was Moses when he left those sheep and came to lead the people of God? He was 80 years old; his leaf hadn't withered at all. Ready for fruitfulness all the time in season, out of season, always ready. And it says, "Whatever he does prospers." It's the pervasive fruitfulness, every area of your life touched.

Well, that's the way of righteousness. What about the way of the wicked? Well, the way of the wicked is fruitless rebellion against God's Word. Verse 4 says, it's a contrary way, it's the opposite way: "Not so the wicked" it says. All those good things I just talked about, not so in reference to the wicked. No fruitfulness, no permanence, no joy, no delight... And it all starts with their despising of the Word of God. They delight rather in worldly things, they delight in their own opinions, they delight in the opinions of the world, and the counsel of the wicked, that's what they delight in. And so, they live an entirely different kind of life. It's totally opposite of the blessed man and opposite results as well.

It's a way of fruitless impermanence. Verse 4 says: "They are like chaff that the wind blows away." Now, this doesn't mean much to us in our technological 21st century American culture, so I had to go overseas to learn what this meant.

I was in Pakistan and it was harvest time, and they were harvesting the... I think it was rye, I may be wrong about that. But they had packed out a threshing floor, it was just hard packed dirt, and they had this pile of all the things they had cut, and they just took a fork, a threshing fork, and just threw it up in the air and the wind came and just blew the chaff away, just blew it away. Well, what's the principle of threshing? Well, it's a matter of density. Do you see? It's a matter of weight. Alright, the way of the wicked is a way of lightness and impermanence, nothing is left after all those years, it's gone, it disappears. One or two generations later there's not a trace left. It's gone. Remember the Hebrew word for weight is “Kavod” which is also translated glory. If you have the glory of God in the center of your life, there is a weightiness to who you are, a weightiness to the things you do and they will last. But if you've exchanged the glory of God for an idol, there'll be no weightiness to you and you will be blown away like chaff.

And therefore, ultimately, this is a way of eternal condemnation. Look at verse 5: "Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous." The “Therefore” is there to show us there's a connection between the way that we live our life here in regard to the Word of God and what will happen on Judgement Day. There's a connection between the two. For those that rebel against the Word of God and throw it off as though it is a hard burden, there is eternal condemnation. They're not going to stand. Earlier in the Psalm, the righteous man did not stand in the way of the wicked, he didn't stand in that way. On judgment day, the wicked will not stand with the righteous, they will not survive. Isaiah 40:6-7 shows us the truth of this, "All men are like grass and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever." If you are like the righteous man who is taking in the Word of God all the time, you will stand forever.

 Now, finally, it talks about the way of the Lord. In verse 6, it says: "The Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish." God is actively involved in both ways, he watches over the way of the righteous, like a shepherd caring for you, or like perhaps a vine tender who tends the vine for maximum fruitfulness. He's watching over your life all the time to be sure that everything that happens is in conformity with that fruitfulness. But the wicked, he watches over to protect his righteous to keep them safe. And it says in the end, verse 6, "The way of the wicked will perish." Not just that the wicked will perish, but the way of the wicked will perish. There will come a day when there will be a new heaven and a new earth, and there will be no such thing as a way of the wicked. That whole way of living will be gone, entirely gone, and only the way of the righteous will remain.

Now, God has given a full provision that we may not perish. John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish. [There's that same word.] but have eternal life." Jesus Christ has given us as the Word, he has given us the way that we might have an eternally fruitful life.

Now, what application can we take from these things? Well, so many, I've already given you many. Don't walk with the wicked, don't take counsel with them, but be separate from them. But I want to talk to you specifically about practically how you handle the Bible every day... Jesus said: "Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is known by its fruit." (Matthew 12:33). And then he said, "Out of the fullness of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him." (Matthew 12:34-35)

You have a storage bin in you, it's called your mind. What are you storing up in that storage bin or room? Are you treasuring up the Word of God for future fruitfulness? Jesus said the same thing in Matthew 13. After all the parables, the difficult parables, he asked his disciples, "Have you understood all these things?" "Oh yes, Lord, we've understood them." said the disciples. And Jesus said, "Very well, therefore every teacher of the law who has been instructed about the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old." (Matthew 13:51-52). What are you storing up in your storeroom? Treasures for future fruitfulness? It's hard to say. Treasures or worthless things? Now you have about 10 days between now and the beginning of September. In that 10 days, I would like to urge you to choose a book in the Bible that you can get through in a month, one that you can read through in a month. Buy a notebook, spiral down notebook or any kind of binding you want, and get a pen, and read through a certain amount of scripture, maybe about 10 minutes of scripture, and while you're reading, write down observations, keywords, questions, things that pop in your mind while you read, just write them down with a pen.

At the end of that time, take the things you've written and pray through them and say, "God, give me the answer to this question, or God change my life in this way as a result of this, or God teach me what this keyword means to me." Maybe it's the word treasure or gold or silver, something like that. This is meditation, let your tap root push down through the soil until you find the water God has for you. Will you close with me in prayer... Father, we do thank you for the time we've had now to meditate together over Psalm 1. Father, I pray that my brothers and sisters in Christ here would be faithful to take this challenge that they might read through one book of the Bible, then come to know it better in September. Father, I pray for that. And whether they do or don't do that specific thing, oh God, I pray that each one of them would behave like trees planted by a stream of water yielding its fruit in season. Father, help us to bear the good fruit you have for us, for we pray in Jesus’s name. Amen.