The Key To A Happy Life Series

The Key to a Happy Life

Part 1

Sermon Series: A Word about the Word Psalm119

Date: January 26, 2003 AM Service

Place: Allendale Baptist

Text: Psalm 119:1-8

Introduction

I once heard of a story about a preacher who was to preach in view of a call at a church as the new pastor. As he toured the church that Sunday morning, he asked if he could visit with the young children’s class. He asked the teacher to step out so he might inquire whether the boys and girls were being taught the Word of God. He asked the class what he thought was a simple Bible question; “Who destroyed the walls or who made the walls of Jericho fall down?” A little boy named Johnny stood up and said “Preacher, I have done a lot of bad things but it wasn’t me”.

He was very disturbed and went to the teacher and told her what he had asked and the little boys response. The Sunday School teacher said; “preacher, I know that boys family and he is a good boy .If he said he didn’t make those walls fall down, I believe him.”

Not long after that he went to a Deacon’s meeting. He was very disturbed about the young boy and teacher’s answer and told the story to the Deacon body. One old Deacon stood up and said “Now preacher you need not be disturbed. This church is a giving church and I’m sure we have enough money in the building fund to rebuild those walls.”

Sad but I believe very true. Not just among those outside the church, but among those inside the church. Many of those professing to be born again, blood bought children of God, admit to not knowing the Scriptures. Sadly to say one survey I recently read over 70% of Baptist, Southern Baptist said they do not read their Bibles each day.

I guess if I were bold enough to say this out loud, which you know I am, many of us this morning had a difficult time finding our Bibles.

My desire as a Christian is to evangelize the sinner; to do this I must preach the Word of God. Romans 10:17 says; “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.”

My desire as Pastor of this church is to equip the saints. And I no better way than to impart the truth to you each week of God’s Word.

And I also desire to exalt the Savior the Lord Jesus Christ. I can think of no greater way than to digest God’s Word daily in my life and let Him live His life through me.

Thy Word is like a garden Lord, with flowers bright and fair; and everyone was seeks may pluck a lovely cluster there.

Thy Word is like a deep deep mine and jewels rich and rare are hidden in its mighty depths for every searcher there.

Thy Word is like a starry host a thousand rays of light are seen to guide the traveler, and make his pathway bright.

Thy Word is like an armory where soldiers may repair and find for life’s long battle day all needful weapons there.

Oh, may I love Thy precious Word; May I explore the mine;

May I its fragrant flowers glean; May light upon me shine.

Oh, may I find my armor there; Thy Word my trusty sword,

I’ll learn to fight with every foe the battle of the Lord.

Edwin Hodder, Sourcebook of Poetry

My hopes are for the next several weeks to study a book of the Scripture about the Word of God. Psalms 119 is a book about the Book. I have entitled these series of messages “A Word about the Word.”

My prayer is to challenge each of us to fall in love with God’s Word.

Psalm 119 is the longest of the psalms. With 176 verses it is the longest chapter in the Bible. As we study line by line verse by verse we will notice nearly every verse, all but 4 or 5 contains a synonym for the Word of God.

 The Word of God is spoken of as “His Testimonies”, “His ways”, “Your precepts”, “Your statutes”.

 So in essence this psalm is about Scripture, it is about the Bible.

 It has an interesting arrangement. Over verse 1, it says “Aleph”. Over verse 9. “Beth”, verse 17 “Gimel” and so on.

 These are letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Each section in Psalm 119 has a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

 It is significant because every verse in the section begins with the Hebrew letter of the alphabet which heads that section.

Some say that this Psalm was written in a similar time as we live today. It was a time of religious skepticism. They doubted whether there was a God. The people jumped from one religious fad to another. It was a time when profanity ran rampant. It was a wicked and sinful period.