Nun - Psalm 119:105-112 Series

NUN

February 15, 2012

Oak Park Baptist Church – Wednesday Bible Study Series

Psalm 119:105-112 (ESV) – 14 of 22

Read ALL verses before beginning verse by verse teaching…

Nun – 14th letter of the Hebrew Alphabet

105Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path.

How many of you here tonight have ever tried to walk through your own house in the dark. It seems like it would be ok doesn’t it…after all you KNOW where things are, you know whether or not you cleaned up or not… you just know the lay of the land!

But what happens when we try to walk in the dark? Inevitably you stub your toe or bump your knee or step on something with your bare feet that you did not know was there…

I know I have hurt myself on SO many occasions walking by something that may have been just a bit out of place… thinking I had all the room in the world to make it and WHAM… it happened! I would bash my knee or stub my little toe or step on something that either hurt the bottom of my feet or worse, twisted my ankle!

We put ourselves through all this when all we had to do was turn on a light… because what happens when we turn on a light? I know this is going to sound overly simple, but when we turn on a light… WE CAN SEE. And when we can see… then our pathway is evident to us, we can know our direction and we can see any obstacles… but in the dark, it is all a guessing game!

Now put yourself in the spiritual realm with the same scenario… You know you need to move, you know something needs to be done, but you can’t see your way clear. You don’t know what direction to take and you don’t really know the lay of the land. You can begin to try on your own to ‘feel’ your way through with tentative and groping actions… but just what do you think is inevitable for those who take this route?

Do you think it is too harsh if I say that you will be stubbing your ‘spiritual’ toe? Or banging your ‘spiritual’ knee? Or twisting your ‘spiritual’ ankle? Or worse yet… falling into a spiritual pit where your vision is totally blocked and your spiritual direction comes to a halt and your walk in Christ is hurt!

Well this is the EXACT situation that the psalmist is addressing in these verses this evening…

The Revelation study Bible tells us that God’s revelation to us through His ‘lighting of our path’ provides insight that will guide us as His servants. When we trust in Him, He is NOT going to cause us to trip in the darkness of this world, but will light a path for us to follow...

Matt Henry says that the Word of God being compared to a light actually carries a 2 fold meaning – 1st it is a lamp to expose the sin in our lives, it does not allow us to keep the ‘dirty’ unnoticed but exposes sin and brings us to a place of confession and ultimately seeking forgiveness…God’s word is a light that reveals the evils of the world…

But the 2nd thing is that God’s word is lamp and a light for those seeking the WILL OF GOD. For those seeking to find the path God desires them to walk, the Word of God is the lamp that is needed… and dare I say required!

106I’ve promised it once, and I’ll promise it again: I will obey your righteous regulations.

Matthew Henry’s Commentary: leads the reader to the notion of what the psalmist was indicating… The psalmist had a religious upbringing and a religious mind. The keeping of God’s laws both revealed and brought about the wisdom of God to the one keeping God’s law.

Here we see the psalmist making a covenantal vow before God to be vigilant in his keeping of the law… of his seeking God’s wisdom in all he does… he is binding himself to his own promise… I will do this thing is what he is saying… I won’t go back even when it seems too hard…

Henry says that, “It is good for us to bind ourselves with a solemn oath to be religious. We must swear to the Lord as subjects swear allegiance to their sovereign, promising fealty, appealing to God concerning our sincerity in this promise, and owning ourselves liable to the curse of we do not perform it.”

So often we need to remind ourselves of what we have promised God that we would do… what we have VOWED before God to accomplish and remember that we have made this oath TO Him! When you make an oath to God, it is a solemn and serious thing!