Day #153

Sermon - Audio
Psalm 119:89-176 - Audio - FForward
Psalm 119:89-176 - Reading

Daily Insights - Please Comment

Meditations on God’s Word [ 119:89–176 ]. A good analytic exercise is to note the following things: (1) the range of terms by which the law of God is named; (2) the superior qualities that the poet ascribes to God’s Word; (3) the range of exemplary responses and uses that the poet encourages in regard to God’s law; (4) the rewards that come from responding to God’s law in those ways; (5) the range of ways in which the poet relates to God by means of God’s Word or law; (6) the personal benefits that the poet claims to have received from God’s Word (so that the poem takes on the qualities of a personal testimony). In regard to the terms by which God’s Word is named, eight key synonyms appear in the original Hebrew text and are translated by such English words as law, word, rules, statutes, testimonies, commandments, precepts, and so forth. These eight synonyms appear 178 times in 176 verses and are present in some form in all but five verses. -ESVLB-

89-90 = His nature is unchanging, His Word is reliable/fixed, therefore, He is faithful.

91 = Thus says the LORD: If I have not established my covenant with day and night and the fixed order of heaven and earth," - Jeremiah 33:25 -

92-93 = Following God's law brought life to His people. It reminds me that God's original makeup for humanity was perfect. When we live outside of His ways, we feel incomplete and lack true life.

Q. Does God's Word bring you life and joy?

92-93 = Reading, Studying, and Meditating on God's Word is not a burdensome chore or something to "check-off," it should be a delight...something that brings joy.

96 = The things in this world are beautiful, but the Creator's wonder and beauty is behind all those things, as well as beyond our imagination. It's sad to see so many people worshiping creation rather than the Creator. -idea in Romans 1-

97 = The Psalmist's devotion to God and His word has built a love-relationship between him and God’s word.

Q. Do you love God's Word?

Spurgeon = “I beseech you to let your Bibles be everything to you. Carry this matchless treasure with you continually, and read it, and read it, and read it again and again. Turn to its pages by day and by night. Let its narratives mingle with your dreams; let its precepts color your lives; let its promises cheer your darkness, let its divine illumination make glad your life. As you love God, love this Book which is the Book of God, and the God of books, as it has rightly been called.”

98-100 = God's Word brings us wisdom beyond man's comprehension. We are able to discern, think, and process in a new way.

Q. Are you utilizing this wisdom for the world's benefit (jobs/relationships/etc)?

104 = "hate" or "oppose myself against" = The Psalmist opposes himself against the enemies of God's Word

105 = The Holy Spirit now guides us into all truth (John 16:13). There is the idea of perspicuity: meaning plain to the understanding especially because of clarity and precision of presentation. This is God's Word given through the Holy Spirit.

113 = "double-minded." Cf. 1 Kings 18:21; these are people who should be devoted to the Lord but who allow their loyalties to be divided. The strong terms hate and love refer not so much to irrational emotions as to deliberate rejection and adherence. -ESVSB-

Also...See James 1:8

Need to speed up a bit....

126 = time for the LORD to act. When God’s law has been broken by his own people and they seem to get away with it, it seems that God is inactive; this is a prayer that he would vindicate his own justice for the sake of his faithful. -ESVSB-

134 = The Psalmist didn't want just liberty for the sake of liberty. He wanted it so he could follow God's path in obedience.

136 = The Psalmist has anguish over those who don't follow after God's ways.

Q. Do you have any anguish over those who don't know God's Word or follow His ways?

Read Romans 9:1-3 (A Holy Anguish!)

141-142 = God gives us courage through His Word (think of Moses, David, and Paul)

143 = Spurgeon - “When we are most sorely afflicted, and cannot see the reason for the dispensation, we may fall back upon this most sure and certain fact, that God is righteous, and his dealings with us are righteous too. It should be our glory to sing this brave confession when all things around us appear to suggest the contrary. This is the richest adoration.”

155 = For they do not seek implies that the cause is not God’s stinginess but their refusal.

162 = Picture of how we should rejoice in the Word (1 Sam 30:16)

164 = Seven times a day. The number is probably a figure for “many times,” as seven is often used that way (e.g., Gen. 4:15). Cf. Paul’s “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17). -ESVSB-

169-170 = A request for not only understanding God's Word, but for deliverance to come through it. God's Word causes movement.

Read Romans 12:1-2

171-172 = Would people say that you offer praises to God through your words?

175-176 = all of us are like sheep as well, except now the great shepherd (Jesus) has called us to His flock: 1 Peter 2:25, We are hopeless without Jesus coming after us.

“I do not think that there could possibly be a more appropriate conclusion of such a Psalm as this, so full of the varied experience and the ever-changing frames and feelings even of a child of God, in the sunshine and the cloud, in the calm and in the storm, than this ever-clinging sense of his propensity to wander, and the expression of his utter inability to find his way back without the Lord’s guiding hand to restore him.” - Spurgeon-