Sermon Central
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An Ode To The Word Of God
Contributed by Christopher Holdsworth on Apr 18, 2020 (message contributor)
Summary: This section has been called an inverted dirge, beginning with celebration, but ending in tears. This shows just how totally the Psalmist is engaged with his subject. In truth, it is a celebration of the Word of God, and of the God of the Word.
AN ODE TO THE WORD OF GOD.
Psalm 119:129. Reason to keep God’s “testimonies”? Because they are wonderful. Indeed, the Word of God is a ‘wonderful’ thing, full as it is of an extraordinary supernatural wonder! The Psalmist engages not just his “soul” but his whole man to the keeping of God’s Word. It is in the keeping of His “testimonies” (or ‘decrees’) that we discover them to be “wonderful”.
Psalm 119:130. The “entrance” or ‘unfolding’ of His “words” gives light. Thus God’s words impart understanding even to the simple (cf. Psalm 19:7-8). Without this in-breaking of the Word of God into our lives we are left ‘dead in trespasses and sins’ (cf. Ephesians 2:1). God is the source of this light (cf. 1 John 1:5), and light is come into the world in the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ (John 8:12; 2 Corinthians 4:6). How wonderful it is to have the Lord as my light (cf. Psalm 27:1). How terrible, though, to refuse the light and to go on dwelling in darkness (cf. John 3:19)!
Psalm 119:131. To “pant” after God is to “long” for His “commandments” (cf. Psalm 42:1). It is to ‘hunger and thirst after (His) righteousness’ (cf. Matthew 5:6). When we lack water, we hunt for it: because without water, we die. What a terrible thing, then, to be caught in a famine of the words of God (cf. Amos 8:11-12)!
Psalm 119:132. Petition for favour. “As you do” or ‘as your custom is’ = “As your law is” (Hebrew). Thereby all eight words for “law” are used in this eight-verse section. God has graciously bound Himself by His own “law” - or literally “laws” - to be gracious (merciful) to those who love His name. ‘All things work together for good’ - for who? - ‘for those who love God’ (cf. Romans 8:28).
Psalm 119:133. “Order my steps” suggests a willingness, a readiness, to go God’s way. It is a petition for the support of God’s “word” against the threat of iniquity’s dominion. (My earliest attempts at poetry were kept in a handwritten book entitled, ‘Going My Own Way’. The title of my second handwritten book of poems reflected the change that being born-again had brought into my life: ‘Going His Way’! Neither of these books is extant.)
Psalm 119:134. Petition for deliverance (cf. Matthew 6:13), so that we can keep His “precepts”. We are saved from sin, death, the devil; from man and from ourselves. But what are we saved unto? We are saved unto ‘good works which God has before ordained that we should walk in them’ (cf. Ephesians 2:10).
Psalm 119:135. Petition for benediction (cf. Numbers 6:24-26; Psalm 67:1). It is the shining of God’s face that brings us the light of the Word and the light of the Spirit to understand and apply the Word. Bless us with a teachable heart so that we may learn Your “statutes”, and live lives of love and praise to You, and of obedience to Your Word.
Psalm 119:136. When God’s “law” is not kept, it brings tears to the eyes of His people. This is not self-righteousness, for we have also mourned over our own sins (cf. Matthew 5:4). Lot ‘vexed his righteous soul’ with the unlawful deeds of Sodom and Gomorrah (cf. 2 Peter 2:8). In like manner, Jesus wept over Jerusalem (cf. Luke 19:41-44).
In this section we began with the wonder of God’s Word (Psalm 119:129), but we ended with the horror of people refusing God’s Word (Psalm 119:136).
May we ever be of those who love the Word of God, keep it, obey it, and rejoice in it. And may we ever celebrate the God of the Word, who has loved us by the sending of His Son (cf. John 3:16). And may His Spirit give us grace to persevere, in all love, in the life which He has set before us in His Word, and which He has settled in our hearts.
Amen.
