You and the Word

You and the Word
Psalm 119 Summary
January 21, 2024

When I was a child, at Christmas my maternal grandparents always had a candy gift bag for each of the grandchildren.  But there was a requirement for receiving that gift:  you had to quote a Bible verse from memory.  We shared Christmas with them in my sixth grade year and I don’t remember what I quoted to get my bag, but I remember what I was tempted to quote:  Jn. 11:35 — “Jesus wept.”  I don’t think that would have been considered acceptable. 

But I wasn’t the first person to attempt to use the Bible in that kind of inappropriate way.  In his classic work The Treasury of David, Charles Spurgeon tells the story of one George Wishart, a Bishop of Edinburgh in the seventeenth century.  Wishart was the biographer of the Marquis of Montrose and he had been sentenced to die by hanging like his benefactor.  However, at the time, a condemned prisoner was allowed to choose a song to sing right before he was to be hung.  Guess what psalm he chose?  It wasn’t Ps. 117 which has two verses and five lines.  Nope.  He chose Psalm 119.  And it was good he did, because 2/3 of the verses were sung when a pardon arrived to spare his life.  I guess you might say he was saved by a long song. 

While it was good news for Wishart (side note:  Spurgeon notes that he was more well known for his shrewdness than his sanctity), that’s not what God intended with this song.  This psalm, like all Scripture, reveals the character of God.  And most specifically, it reveals the character of God’s revelation, the Bible.  For about 15 years, we have been slowly making our way through this psalm, examining 1-2 stanzas each year.  Last week we finished the final stanza; this morning we want to take one final look at this psalm in its totality.  As a stimulant to feed ourselves on this Word this year, what can we learn from this great psalm?

The Bible is God’s all-sufficient revelation to rightly guide the child of God in every circumstance.

That statement has several important emphases:

• The Bible is from God; it is His revelation and it has His authority. It tell us about Him and tells us what He calls us to do in order to follow Him (and it compels us to obey Him).
• The Bible is sufficient for all people and all situations. There never has been and never will be a scenario in your life when the Bible won’t have an answer for you.  (The answer may not be easy to believe or do and there may be times when it feels harsh, but every answer is exactly what we need and comes from God’s goodness:  “You are good and do good; teach me Your statutes” (v. 68).
• The Bible is supremely for the child of God. The Bible reveals the way of salvation for the unbeliever, but ultimately, the unbeliever cannot obey and do what God says (and he doesn’t want to obey; 1 Cor. 2:14ff).  This book is the guide for God’s followers. 

As we summarize this prized word about God’s Word, the psalmist answers three primary questions about the Word of God:

1. What is the Word of God?
2. What Does the Word of God Do?
3. How Do We Respond to the Word of God?

Download the rest of this sermon on Psalm 119.

The audio will be posted on the GBC website by Tuesday.