Well do keep your Bibles in hand and turn now please to the Old Testament scriptures and to Psalm 119. Psalm 119, you will remember, is a record of the psalmist’s engagement with God in His Word. It’s as though we are reading his personal, spiritual diary as he prays through God’s Word for Himself. The psalm is patterned according to the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet with each eight-verse stanza beginning with the same Hebrew letter until all the letters of the alphabet have been covered in order. That means this week we have come to the third stanza, identified by the Hebrew letter, “gimel,” which you can find in verses 17 through 24 of Psalm 119, page 512 if you’re using one of our church Bibles.
Now the first stanza that we looked at two weeks ago, three weeks ago, verses 1 through 8, focused on the good life, the blessed life that those who live according to the Word of God enjoy. And then the second stanza that we considered last week, verses 9 through 16, focused on the holy life, the pure life and the way we are to use the Word of God in order to keep our ways pure. But now in this third stanza, we are introduced to an additional component. Now the psalmist places the life of faith and obedience according to the Word of God into its necessary context in a hostile world.
If you’ll look at the stanza with me, you’ll notice that this portion of the psalm divides into two sections. The first, 17 through 20, the psalmist prays for the illumination of the Word of God. And there’s a note of special urgency and intensity about his prayer here, isn’t there? “My soul is consumed with longing for Your rules,” he says in verse 20. I like the way that the King James Version puts it – “My soul breaketh for the longing that it has for Your judgments.” Isn’t that an expressive way to put it? “My soul breaketh because I am longing so much for the help and guidance of Your Word.” This is an intense plea for divine light to shine upon his understanding of God’s holy Word. So first of all, a prayer for the illumination of the Word.
Then, verses 21 through 24, we see now why this prayer is so very intense. We have a hint of it in the beginning of this portion of the psalm, but here we see it much more clearly. He is now praying for preservation from the world. So a prayer for illumination on the Word, so urgent because he is praying for preservation from the world. The world in which he finds himself is hostile, it’s difficult, it’s painful, it is costly for him as he shapes his life according to Biblical principles. And so he asks to be preserved from the world.
And of course these two things are profoundly connected, aren’t they? How does God preserve us in a hostile world? He does it by illuminating His Word so that we are comforted and strengthened and guided and equipped and able to navigate whatever trials God in His providence may allow to come our way. God’s illumination serves our preservation. God’s illumination serves our preservation. We need the light of God shining upon holy Scripture to show us the way or we never will make it through. Charlie prayed about it early – that if God had not shown us His Word, we would have perished in the way. So do you see the two parts of our passage this morning? A prayer for illumination on God’s Word – 17 through 20 – and a prayer for preservation from the world – 21 through 24. While we’re talking about praying for illumination of course, before we read the Scriptures, let’s do that together now and ask for the Lord to give us His light. Let us pray.
Lord, Your Word indeed is a light to our feet and a lamp to our paths, but our understanding is darkened by sin. We twist and distort the truth to suit our preferences. We put our own agendas ahead of Yours. Forgive us and send that light of Your Spirit into our hearts and minds that we may see clearly, yes, what You would have us to do and to believe, but especially that we may see clearly the face of Your Son, our only Savior, in whom alone there is refuge and hope. For we ask this in His name, amen.
The one hundred and nineteenth psalm, at the seventeenth verse. This is the Word of Almighty God:
“Deal bountifully with your servant, that I may live and keep your word. Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law. I am a sojourner on the earth; hide not your commandments from me! My soul is consumed with longing for your rules at all times. You rebuke the insolent, accursed ones, who wander from your commandments. Take away from me scorn and contempt, for I have kept your testimonies. Even though princes sit plotting against me, your servant will meditate on your statutes. Your testimonies are my delight; they are my counselors.”
Amen, and we praise God that He has spoken in His holy, inerrant Word.
Illumination
Let’s look at verses 17 through 20 first of all. Here is a prayer for God’s illumination of the Word. Illumination of the Word. Verse 17 sets the scene. “Deal bountifully with your servant, that I may live and keep your word.” He’s living, rather, his living to keep the Word depends on God’s dealing bountifully with him. “Deal bountifully with your servant, that I may live and keep your word.” That tells us right away that he is in big trouble, doesn’t it? We don’t yet know – we are going to discover – but we don’t yet know what kind of trouble, but he’s in trouble. He wants God to work in order to save his life. “Deal bountifully with me that I may live.” By the way, isn’t it interesting to notice the purpose of life for the psalmist here. Do you see it? “Deal bountifully, save me, so that I can live and keep your word.” That’s what he thinks his life is for – keeping God’s Word, going God’s way, living for God’s glory. He wants to be able to continue to that, and for that, he knows he needs God to deal bountifully with him and to save his life. So he’s in a crisis; that much is clear.
And given that, what he says next might come as something of a surprise. I mean, if your life was threatened, is this what would come first to your mind? Verse 18, “Open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.” If I’m getting death threats, I’m praying, “Lord, take out the bad guys! Lord, get me out of this mess!” That’s not how the psalmist prays. Isn’t that interesting? He prays for God literally to take away the covering from his eyes so that he can behold wondrous things in God’s torah, in His law; that is, in His teaching in the Scriptures. He repeats the request, this time negatively, but he’s praying for the same thing again in verse 19. Do you see that in verse 19? “I am a sojourner” – that’s a temporary resident in a strange land; he lives in Babylon – “I am a sojourner on the earth; hide not your commandments from me.” This is a prayer for what we call illumination. “Open my eyes. Don’t hide Your commandments. Let me see. I want to see.”
And that’s a vital prayer, you know, that every Christian must learn to pray. Sin blinds our eyes and distorts our understanding. So for example, John the Baptist told his disciples, “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven,” John 3:27. The apostle Paul, in 2 Corinthians 2:14 says the same thing. “A natural person does not accept the things of the spirit of God, for they are folly to him and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” That is, they are discerned by the enabling and illuminating power of the Holy Spirit. We need the light of God to shine into our native darkness if we are ever to see the truth.
And even after becoming Christians, for as long as sin continues to fester in our hearts, even in our regenerated hearts, we will continue to need the light of God and the work of God’s Spirit giving us understanding. And that’s why, for example, in Ephesians 1:17, we find the apostle Paul praying for the Ephesian Christians that, “The God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened.” That’s what the psalmist wants here, urgently given this crisis he is facing with his life on the line, “Send me Your Spirit to open my eyes to see wondrous things in Your Word.” It’s a prayer we cannot afford, ever, to forget. Do you pray like this? Pray like this every single day. Don’t come to your Bible as if, with unaided reason alone, you can penetrate to the depth of its mysteries. Instead, come trembling before God and say, “This is the voice of God, and if ever I am to understand and profit from it, I need the help of God and the light of God.”
And don’t misunderstand the specifics of his prayer here. Look again at what he says. He wants to see wondrous things in the Scriptures. Do you see that language? “Open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.” What is he really praying for there? Well he’s not asking simply for wonderful insights into the Scriptures. Much less is he asking for God to make him feel wonderful by showing him something new or helpful in the Bible. That’s often what we want God to do for us as we turn to read the Scriptures, isn’t it? We either want to find something interesting and exciting or we want to be made to feel wonderful by our Bible reading. That’s actually not what the psalmist is praying for. This language of “wondrous things” is used in the Old Testament scriptures especially for God’s mighty work of rescue and salvation. Psalm 77 verses 12 and 13, “You are the God who works wonders. You have made known Your might among the peoples. You with Your arm redeemed Your people, the children of Jacob and Joseph.” When the psalmist prays that he wants to see “wondrous things” in the Word of God, he’s really asking the Lord to show him again His saving wonders by which with His arm He has redeemed His people. He is praying that God would so open the Scriptures to his understanding that the Gospel of grace would stand forth in all its glory and power with new clarity and capture his heart with new wonder and gratitude. I think we could legitimately paraphrase the prayer at this point very simply. Pray like this when you sit down next to read your Bible – “Lord, open my eyes and show me Jesus. Show me Jesus.” That’s really what he’s asking for.
And when you put it that way, I wonder if you are beginning to see the inner logic of this part of the prayer. Look at the text again. He is praying in effect like this – “I want to live and keep Your Word, so deal bountifully with me. But the bountiful way that I want you to deal with me isn’t by taking out the bad guys or even fixing the situation, but rather it is especially that You would work by the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Jesus Christ that the eyes of my heart, being enlightened, I might see more clearly than ever the wondrous work of Your salvation in the cross and the empty tomb and the glorious resurrection of my great God and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing will fortify me in my troubles, nor equip me to live according to Your Word, as much as seeing in the pages of Scripture more and more clearly the wounds that the suffering Savior Himself bore for me in His great love. Nothing will fortify me in my troubles, nor equip me to live according to Your Word as much as seeing in the pages of holy Scripture more and more clearly the wounds that my suffering Savior bore for me in His great love.” When your life is on the line, God never could deal with you more bountifully than to take you into His Word and show you afresh the wondrous thing that is the Gospel of His grace. Nothing will garrison your faith or strengthen your resolve to face whatever comes like a fresh sight of the nails in Jesus’ hands and feet, willingly endured in His love for you.
And if that’s how God works by His Word, if He can open our eyes and show us Jesus in such a way that we perceive anew the depth of His love for unworthy sinners like me, and therefore be helped to keep His Word and live for Him, even in my crisis, if that’s how God works, are you really surprised to find that the psalmist is so overcome with longing for more of that? He’s overcome with longing for more of that. Verse 20, “My soul is consumed with longing for your rules at all times. My soul breaketh for longing,” he says.
My wife told me the other day not to bring home a certain brand of chips anymore because every time we open the bag we can’t stop eating them and soon the whole bag is empty. We just can’t get enough. Those whose eyes God opens to see wondrous things out of His law want more. They want more. They can’t get enough. If you would pray the words of verse 18 faithfully, if you would cry to God and say, “Open my eyes and show me Jesus,” I’m confident He will begin to show you such things in the Scripture that you too will never get enough. Maybe one reason our Bibles are so little used is that we approach them with such low expectations for what God will do through them in our lives. But if God helping us, we begin to discover wondrous things in the face of Jesus Christ, on every page of God’s Book, then our appetite for more will never be satiated and we will be constantly in the Scriptures. There will be no part of God’s Word we’ll be content to leave unexplored, unmined for wondrous things. This is a prayer for illumination on the Word. Do you see that?
Preservation
Now look at verses 21 through 24 with me and notice in the second place a prayer for preservation from the world. Illumination on the Word. Preservation from the world. The original title that I gave to this message when I sketched out the whole sermon series through Psalm 119 was “Two Ways to Live.” And then in the past week as I was preparing to actually preach on this part of the psalm, I changed the title to “Illumination and Preservation,” which is, you can see now, structures the sermon and I think more faithfully reflects the teaching of the text. But by then, the bulletins had already gone to print and I couldn’t change it, so you’re stuck with “Two Ways to Live.” But actually my original reasons for calling it that still stand. As we’ve read the passage together maybe you noticed the very stark contrast between the psalmist’s attitude to God’s Word and the attitude of those who oppose him in verses 21 through 24 especially. Whereas the psalmist says he wants to live in order to keep the Word, he prays for God to illuminate his understanding of the Word, his soul is consumed with longing for God’s Word – that’s the psalmist. His opponents on the other hand, verse 21, “wander from God’s commandments.” They wander. “You rebuke the insolent, accursed ones, who wander from your commandments.”
Now that’s helpful in getting the picture of these people clear in our minds. We’re not to think, in this stanza at least, of the hostile Babylonian culture, Babylonian pagans, amongst whom the psalmist finds himself living as a sojourner, a temporary resident. No, rather it seems these are people who know the Bible; they are acquainted with the Scriptures. They are likely members of the covenant community. In our terms we would say they have made a profession of faith in Jesus and joined a church at some point in their lives. But they have now decided God’s Word is no longer relevant to them. I love the way that our paraphrase of the psalm that we sang together earlier puts it in verse 21. “You have rebuked those godless ones who think Your law not worth their time.” They think God’s Word isn’t worth their time anymore. They’ve wandered from God’s commandments.
And I want you to see two things about these people in particular. Look how the psalmist describes them. Notice first of all what wandering from the Word does to them, in verse 21, and then notice what those who wander from the Word do to others in verses 22 and 23. What wandering from the Word does to them, and then what those who wander from the Word do to others. What wandering from the Word does to them, first. In themselves, the psalmist says, they become insolent, arrogant, proud, haughty, self reliant and self congratulatory, insolent. And before God, they are accursed. Isn’t that stark language? You see it in verse 21? “You rebuke the insolent, accursed ones who wander from Your commandments.” They think they are sophisticated. They’ve outgrown the simplistic answers of the Bible. They know better.
I was reading about a young man who has become a viral YouTuber with millions of followers. He was raised an evangelical Christian and then later has since become an agnostic. And reflecting on the views of his childhood, he said, “I realized this isn’t normal. This is just a word place I grew up in.” Now that in the view of the psalmist is an arrogant dismissal of the Word of God. “It’s just this weird place that I grew up in. These are not normal beliefs, not normal people who follow them. I know better now. I know better now.” We never know better than God. We never know better than God. And we have to face the sad, hard fact that those who think they do actually stand under the curse of God. They think, these people think that the psalmist is their enemy. They do not realize, and we need to realize, that to reject God’s Word is to invite God’s enmity. It is to slap away the hand of His grace, extended out to welcome us in the Gospel of His Son. Which means of course that to wander from God’s Word, in the end, is not only arrogant, insolent; it is profoundly foolish. Why invite the enmity of God when He offers you His friendship? So be warned and see clearly what wandering from the Word will do to you.
Then notice what those who wander from the Word do to others. Verses 22 and 23. “Take away from me,” the psalmist prays, “Take away from me scorn and contempt, for I have kept your testimonies. Even though princes sit plotting against me, your servant will meditate on your statutes.” He endures scorn and contempt as he seeks to follow the Lord. These people are sneering at his faith and his commitment to order his life according to Biblical precepts. They hold him in contempt for his faithfulness to living God’s way. And he faces, what’s more, an active conspiracy of people in high places who aim to make his life very difficult indeed.
The word for “princes” there, do you see it, “The princes sit plotting against me,” he says – that word doesn’t necessarily refer to royalty; that’s how we typically use it. “The word ‘princes,’” writes Christopher Ashes, “an Old Testament general purpose word for powerful people, rather as we used to speak of captains of industry or you still sometimes hear people speak about oil barons or media moguls.” These are people of prestige and influence. They are in a position of power. And they are able, should they wish, to make life very difficult indeed for those they oppose. And some of you may have discovered, by painful personal experience, that very few people display more animus and vitriol toward Bible-believing Christians than those who once professed to be Christians themselves but who have now wandered from God’s commandments. Those who wander from the Word cannot stand to be around those who walk according to God’s ways.
And the psalmist faces this reality head on, doesn’t he, and he remains unwavering in his commitment to the truth of God. “They wander from God’s commandment,” he says. “They hurl scorn and contempt at me. The high and the mighty, they are plotting against me.” But look at verses 21 through 24 again. Even in that difficult context, he says, “I have kept Your testimonies. Your servant will meditate on Your statutes. Your testimonies are my delight; they are my counselors.” This is the same hard reality for which the Lord Jesus sought to prepare us in John 15:18 through 20. Do you remember what Jesus said? “If the world hates you, know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you are of the world, the world will love you as its own, but because you are not of the world, because I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you. ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.”
The experience of the psalmist here isn’t some sort of weird apparition, some weird deviation from the norm. This is the norm. This is the ordinary life of a disciple of Jesus Christ. The Master was despised and rejected of men, mocked, brutalized, condemned, crucified. And the servant is not greater than the Master. “If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you also.” Only those who wander from the Word know nothing of the hostility of the world, but those who live depending on divine illumination must learn to face down the hostility of the Word confident in the promise, the Scriptural promise of divine preservation. That’s why we need the light of God, always shining on the Word, giving us understanding, that we might see His promise. “I will never leave you. He who began a work in you will complete the work. Nothing can separate you from the love of God in Jesus Christ your Lord.” We need the light of God bringing His Word to remembrance and applying its truth faithfully to our hearts that we might persevere.
One last thing before we conclude. As we talk about the reality of suffering for the sake of the Gospel, the last four words of verse 24, I think, offer a great deal of practical wisdom to us. Look again at verse 24. Listen to the last four words. “Your testimonies are my delight; they are my counselors.” “They are my counselors.” “Your testimonies” – what God says about Himself, about His will, His purposes, His world – “Your testimonies, they are my counselors.” There are the elites of society, the princes, the influencers we might say, the culture shapers, and they think they’ve outgrown the Word of God; they know better. They’ve wandered from God’s commandments and they’re offering their counsel so very freely. We are bombarded with it everywhere, aren’t we? And you know what they are saying – “The Bible is bigoted and narrow. The Christian Gospel is the tool of misogyny and oppression. The ethics of God’s commandments are regressive and intolerant. We’ve moved on as society and you need to move on too. We all know better now.”
Whose counsel will you listen to? The psalmist says, “Lord, Your testimonies are my counselors amidst the den and roar of a mad world, spinning out of control, driven by the collective delusion that we can make up our own truth and invent our own morality and remake ourselves in our own monstrous image.” Amidst the clamor of all these competing voices, it remains the still small voice of the Lord speaking in holy Scripture alone that offers sanity and clarity and purpose. So he says, “Your testimonies, they are my counselors. I’m listening to You.” They never have and they never will guide you wrong. Make God’s testimonies your counselor. They will never guide you wrong.
Those who depend on the divine illumination of the Word find themselves preserved amidst the opposition of the world. May that be your great discovery too. Let us pray together.
Our God and Father, we bow and we praise You that Your testimonies are our counselors. Give us light that we may hear Your voice and love Your Word. O God, open our eyes indeed and show us Jesus, for we ask it in His name, amen.