The Divine Way

WFL-24

030810AM

Transcription

Let’s open our Bibles to the 119th Psalm, and as you’re turning there, I was thinking fondly of my last year in seminary, early ’80s.

I was going to graduate the following May, and I had the opportunity to spend a summer in Los Angeles and for a seminary student, it was an unbelievable opportunity.

Every weekend I would go down and go to the QuickTrip store of California and pull out the paper and open it up to look in the church section. Because there was so much to learn in Southern California in the early ’80s, I would look down and you could go and run down to Costa Mesa and see Chuck Smith, where he had 5,000 supercharged excited Calvary Chapelites just sing in their hearts out as he preached.

Or you could just zip a little bit inland, and David Hawking had thousands at his church, or you went a little further south and Tim “Left Behind” LaHaye was a pastor of a huge church; two, in fact, he didn’t have just one, he had two. And you could go there and see, and if you cut up a little bit from LaHaye’s church, you’d go to Chuck Swindoll’s and he had three services and I remember packing in, and if I didn’t get enough, I’d go to two and take notes the second time.

And then if you wanted a real experience, you’d go up to the Crystal Palace where Robert Schuler was ministering. You never knew who he had on his show. He just had anybody that would show up with his services. And then you’d go from there and you could go up to where, actually I was staying up in the Valley and go to Grace Community Church and hear John MacArthur. But what a summer it was because, my last year seminary as I was studying God’s Word, it was so fascinating to hear these men teach God’s Word. In fact, that was the summer that Hal Lindsey was outselling the Bible almost with his latest prophetic book.

But you know that we turn to the 119th Psalm. We don’t have to look in the church section of the paper to find the greatest Bible teacher that we could go and visit this Sunday. Because the 119th Psalm is a reflection that the greatest Bible expository of all time has come to teach us.

And we sit at the feet of the greatest Teacher who has ever taught the Word of God. And of course, I’m speaking of the Author Himself because He has come to open the Word to us.

Because He, that’s the Lord Himself wrote a book within a book about all of the books by the Author of the Book, and that’s the a 119th Psalm. God Himself wrote one chapter, which is the size of, in fact it’s larger than all but three of Paul’s epistles, this little a 119th Psalm.

And this book about the Book is a beautiful summary. Of all the book, the Word of God, and that’s what we’re looking at this morning because God Himself has expounded on the wonders of His own Word. He did that by inspiring one unique man named Ezra. Ezra, under the inspiration of God’s Spirit, captured a sermon by God.

By the Lord God Almighty, on the book of Books. And Psalm 119 is a sermon about God’s Word. It’s a sermon. That extols and summarizes and explains the power and the purposes of God’s Word. And Psalm 119 is a call by the Lord Himself to each of us as He wants to unleash His Word in our lives today.

And so, as we open to this 119 Psalm, we open to the greatest commentary ever written on the Bible to a book within a book by the Author of all the books about that Book of books. The 119th Psalm we’re going to go through this morning. What for many of you is probably the most fascinating thing, and that is the different synonyms, the different expressions that God uses to describe His Word.

And there are by most counts, in fact I hauled out all of my Psalm commentaries. I think I have 60 Psalm commentaries, and I started categorizing how many synonyms they thought. And the majority says there’s 10. But the older you get the fact in the Elizabethan and the Puritan times, they have found 14 synonyms of the Word of God. So, we’ll see how far we get, but I’ll show you at least the 10 most well-known ones.

Look at verse one, and I’m going to just explain what I mean by this. In verse one, it says, blessed are the undefiled in the way. This is the first of the synonyms of the Word of God, and I’m going to explain ’em in depth, but this is the divine path, this Hebrew word, which is always translated in all four of the versions.

King James, New King James, New International, New American as Thou Way. And so, it occurs 13 times, and it speaks of the divine path. It speaks of life as following the divine guide through the journey of life. In fact, this Hebrew word speaks of God showing us the path of life. In fact, it hearkens to Psalm 16 where it says, thou show me the path of life. This is the way, the divine path.

I think about that every time, I go back to the early days when we were taking our family to caves. I had a fascination with caves at one time. We went to Mammoth Cave once, and I’ll never forget sitting 14 stories underground, 140 feet underground. And they made us all sit down in benches and then the guide reached behind one of the stalagmites or tights or whatever they are, and flicked a switch and it went dark, and it got real quiet.

And then there were nervous coughs. And people were going like this, and you could see people doing their watches trying to see, and finally the guide said, it’s pretty dark down here, isn’t it? He said, you’re 140 feet underground. He said, there are passages that you could fall hundreds of feet down. He says, you can’t get out of here without me. And he let us sit there for a while and then he reached back behind. I’m glad he knew where to reach and flicked those lights on. I’ll tell you what, everyone is looking for the exit and they were just right there ready to go because we realized that we couldn’t get out without him. Miles of caverns in that system, yeah.

The Scriptures tell us that there’s a divine pathway and we need a guide. And we see life through our Divine Guide’s description in this Book. And He is the one that wants to show us the divine path and be our Divine Guide and take us all the way through the journey of life. And that’s the first word.

The second one is in verse two, and we’ll study these, and I’ll show you where they are, but I just want to overview all of them for you. Verse two, he uses another word. And it says in verse two, blessed are those who keep his testimonies. The NIV calls ’em statutes. Sometimes, and by the way, what’s interesting is the way that the different versions try and handle these Hebrew words, and some of them use different words for the same word, and others use different words for, and they alternate and fluctuate but usually this is the word testimonies or statutes, but this is a little different Hebrew word.

He says, blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with a whole heart. They do no iniquity. This is the second synonym, and it speaks of God’s word as a divine witness. That’s the idea of testimonies. God is a divine witness, and he is testifying to the truth.

And what it says in verse two is, blessed are those who keep the testimony, the Word that God testifies as the truth about the matter. And so, this is speaking of God’s Word as the divine witness, God’s witnesses to the truth that is sure.

Now think about it. There’s only one person who really knows your future. Now, there are these 900 lines where you can get this occultic, witchcraft person that will tell you what they think your future is, or you can look in the paper under the horoscope of the occult and try and find that. Or you can just buy one of those fortune cookies and say, you will have a good day and give you the lottery numbers on it.

But I’m not talking about fakes and untruth. I’m saying there’s one Person that knows your future. There’s only one map that leads to the right direction and destination, and there’s only one witness that will always tell you the truth. And that’s the one that’s speaking here. And so, the 119th Psalm 14 times contains God’s testimony.

God says, I want to testify about your origin, where you came from. I’m the only one that knows ’cause I’m the only one that was there. I want to testify about your purpose because I know it, because I designed it for you. I designed you for a purpose and I am taking the witness stand. God says, and I want to testify as a divine witness to what your purpose in life is.

Are you interested? He asks, you know what’s so fascinating to me? We have the divine witness God Himself, speaking about our origin, our purpose, and our destiny. And yet sometimes we pay more attention to the non-divine witnesses about life and origin and purpose and destiny than we do about the one who will always tell the truth. The one who is perfect. The one who has written here and recorded in this Book, which is God’s Word. We should be number one, walking the divine path. That’s verse one. Number two, listening to the divine witness.

Look at verse four. Here’s the next word is introduced, and I’m just going to do these sequentially and show you one example of each of the 10 synonyms. The third one is in verse four. And verse four says this, you have commanded us to keep your precepts. There’s another synonym, the third synonym. This word occurs 21 times. It’s always translated in all four versions, precepts, and it speaks of the divine directions. This is telling someone where to go or how to do something. The directions, following the directions.

I remember fondly over the years, all the things I’ve tried to put together. It’s a little cheaper to buy a wagon. Not yet put together to buy a desk, not yet put together to buy a bicycle. You know how they, that’s not quite put together and you have to pay $15 or $20 more.

And I remember many times trying to put stuff together, but have you ever tried to put a bike or a wagon together without directions? How about a desk? How about a lawnmower? I remember I really got a deal once on a lawnmower. It wasn’t quite put together yet. It flew. I put the blade on the wrong side.

It was just amazing. It’s hard. But what about the directions for life? If you get a box, a mower, or a desk or something, and you open it up and there’s no directions, you go right back and you say, Hey, I’m not going to try this without the directions. But have you ever stopped to read the divine directions for life?

How about for marriage? How about for parenting? How about for work? How about for getting old and abounding and getting old? This book contains the divine directions. In fact, this Psalm 21 times says these are the divine directions I want you to follow for life. They’re right. They will cause you great rejoicing if you will pay attention to my divine directions.

God says, now remember, this is a book within a book by the author of all the books about those books. And so, it’s not just the divine directions are within the 119th Psalm. The divine directions for life, for every part of life, for every man, every woman, every child, every marriage, every family, every job situation, every decision in life, the divine directions are right here, and God, 21 times in this little chapter describes how He wants us to look on His directions and how He wants to lead us.

The fourth synonym is in verse six, and this, all these are talking about God’s word, but they’re talking about ’em a different way. The first word in verse one is a divine path that we should walk. The second synonym is the divine directions we should follow. The third, or the divine witness that we should listen to. The third one is the divine directions.

The fourth one is in verse six. And it says in verse six, then I would not be ashamed when I look into all of your commandments. Now, the other versions, New King James and King James say, commandments and other ones say commands, but it’s the same exact idea and word.

And these are the divine orders that we should obey. It’s a little different than the directions. When you have directions, you pull out of a box and it says, if you want to put it together, right? And it shows diagrams and all that. Commands are a little different. These are orders. And what I see here in the fourth synonym is we should be obeying the divine orders of our heavenly Captain.

They’re perfectly pure. There is no evil intent in those orders. When He says, I want you to do this, I want you to do that. We don’t have to wonder why is He doing that? Is He going to hurt me? Does He have some malicious intent? No. No. He says, no. Look at verse six, then I would not be ashamed when I look into Your commandments.

He says they are the divine orders. These are His decrees. It’s what He wants for us to do. And it’s a wonderful blessing to know that we’re obeying the divine orders of our heavenly Captain. And it’s so interesting, the Apostle Paul when he talked and gave his testimony, he said, I wasn’t disobedient.

The Lord spoke to him, ordered, told him what to do, and when he got to the end of his life, he says, I finished the course. I’ve kept the faith. He says, I have obeyed as much as I know possible what I was told to do, and I was one who followed the divine orders. I obeyed them of my heavenly Captain.

Verse 11 has the next synonym. The fifth one, as we’re tracking through that synonym is this. It says Your Word I have hidden in my heart. And this word, Hebrew word for translate into English word is 19 times in the 119th Psalm, and what it speaks of is the record.

It’s not talking about the words as in listening to someone’s conversation. It’s talking about the words as in the words that are written down. And so, this emphasis or this word is that we should be reading the divine word that contains the will of God. It’s when there’s a legal proceeding and a will is read, everyone is very interested. They can’t wait to see what that person has bequeathed because in their will they’ve said, this is what I want to happen, and they want to know how it affects them and whether or not they’re included in the will.

I’ll tell you the good news. You’re included in God’s will and this Book, His Word that you read, reveals His will. And if you think it would be wonderful to inherit something, over the next few years, there is a generational change and there is 12 to 14 trillion with a T dollars’ worth of assets being transferred over a 20-year period.

We’re almost in, the middle of that period, one of the greatest shifts of wealth ever to occur in the history of the world in America is going on right now. And so, a lot of people are quite interested in the will and what they are going to inherit. More than $12 to $14 to $20 trillion is the entire universe is reflected. The entire world that you live in, that you’re going to live till your last breath and then on into eternity is reflected.

And God says, My word contains My will do you know it? Do you know how it impacts you? And are you following it and yielding? You must cooperate. And so, what he says is in verse 11, He says, thy Word, which is the divine word by which I obtain the will of God.

I want to be reading, and I want to be reading so much that I understand it and I want to ask you to help me understand it as we’ll see in another word coming up. And then I want to not only understand it, I want to discern your will, and I want to. Know it in order to do it, and that’s what God said. He said, I want you to be reading My divine Word to obtain My will.

The next synonym is in verse 18. And verse 18 contains the sixth synonym or descriptive term that’s used to describe the Bible, which the hundred 19th Psalm describes 217 times. There are 217 references to the word of God in this little Psalm. And the 18th verse has for us this sixth word, and this is what it says in the 18th verse.

Open my eyes that I may see. Wondrous things from, and here it is your law. It’s always translated this Hebrew word law in all four of the main versions of the Bible. And this word is used in the 119th Psalm 25 times. And it speaks very interestingly of God’s Word is being the divine instructions from a teacher.

And I was thinking about it. If I told you that I was going to go off to school and study philosophy, you’d say, oh, great. But if I told you I was going to personally move into the home and live with Francis Schaeffer and he would be the teacher, that would be a whole different view of philosophy. If I told you I was going to go off and study scuba diving and oceanography, it would be great. But if I said, I’m personally going under the tutelage of Jacques Cousteau, I’m going to travel with him, that would be a whole different way of looking at it. If I said, Hey, I’m going to go off and study and learn a little bit about, how to study and teach the Bible, that’s great. But if I said, I’m going to personally be instructed by John MacArthur or one of the great teachers of God’s word of all time, that would be a different setup.

Now look. Look what he’s saying right here in this 18th verse. He says, open my eyes that I may see wondrous things from your law. He’s saying, you are the ultimate teacher. You are giving perfect instructions. I want to receive your divine instructions from you. You are the teacher, God. And this book is the lesson. And when I read it, I sit at the feet of the great Teacher, the Author Himself, and He instructs me. And that’s the attitude the 119 Psalm puts upon the student of God’s Word.

And so, you and I don’t have to wait once a year to go off to some great Bible conference somewhere. We don’t have to just count the days until we can go to some retreat center in the mountains. We can, as soon as we can get our eyes open and get the fog out of our head, we can sit down. And just like that across from us, the author of the book himself sits not tired, not impatient, not weary, totally longing to be our divine Instructor and to show us His Word. And that’s what this synonym speaks of.

We should be receiving the divine instructions. We should be looking on the Lord Himself as the ultimate Teacher, and what He teaches us should be Him giving us the perfect instructions. It works. It’s interesting how the Church is always trying to reinvent to do it a little better. We want to think of a new way of packaging this thing so we can get people, get ’em interested.

I look back over the centuries and there has been successively since the birth of the Church, there have been constant supernatural workings of God, where the Lord has gone into societies and transform them. Africa, the Congo, a sports player, the most famous one in England, moved there. His entire library consisted of his Bible. He moved to a hut and began every day preaching the word of God. He didn’t have any audio visuals. He didn’t have any big praise band deal. He didn’t have any kind of. Thing to attract the natives. He just would preach the Word. And before he died, 21 years later, tens of thousands of those people repented of witchcraft, drug use, gross licentious immorality, cannibalism, bestiality, every form of sin through the simple consecutive preaching of the Word of God.

And you know what he wrote in his diary? He did, he said, every morning I’m talking about my old friend, Charles T. Studd, who I can’t wait to meet in Heaven. He said every morning I’d sit at 3:30 AM with my Bible open, waiting for the divine teacher to give me instructions, and he would study until 6:00 AM go back to sleep until seven, get up at seven, and all the natives would be outside his hut, and he’d preach to them until he was out of strength.

What did he look on the Bible as? He looked on it as the divine instructions. He looked on God as the ultimate Teacher, giving the perfect instructions that restores and transforms, and that word is in the 18th verse, the word law, and it occurs 25 times.

Let’s go to the 20th verse. Here’s the seventh descriptive term for the Bible. Which is in the 20th verse, and this is what it says. My soul breaks with longings for your judgments at all times. Here’s another descriptive term, your judgments in verse 20. The NIV calls it laws. The NAS calls it ordinances, but this Hebrew word, no matter how they translate it, is used 23 times in the 119th Psalm and it speaks of God’s divine decisions, what God has decided about something.

If you are under authority, if you’re under someone’s authority, you go to them and say what have you decided what are you going do about this? If you’re involved in a financial transaction and you are subservient to someone else’s, will you say, okay, what have you decided? How do you want me to proceed? It’s your money. If someone is running a company, you say, what have you decided if you’re working for them?

God is one in control. The Bible contains his divine decisions. Now think about that. You and I are servants to the King of Kings, and if we want to be His good and faithful servants, we should regularly come to Him and say, what have you decided about that?

You’ve already thought about it. What have you decided about what I should invest my life with and who I should spend my life with, and how I should spend my strength and my time and my money and my mind. How do you want me to do that? What have you decided? See, that’s what this word decisions is, His divine decisions.

And so, what this judgments word in verse 20 speaks of is it’s how to build our life, how to be building our life upon the unchanging decrees of God. His divine decisions. They’re always true. By the way, if you’re at all involved in technology, if you don’t stay on the treadmill you’ll soon get off.

You have to constantly what? Upgrade? You have to have the newest version, the newest edition. In fact, even, the Tulsa World, you go out and there’s the Morning edition, the evening edition. I always wondered, does it say something different? Did I buy the right one? Should I buy both of ’em? I don’t want to miss anything. And that’s how life is. Every time you get something, there’s a newer edition, there’s a better, there’s an updated, there’s a revised, there’s an upgraded. And you know what this book is? It’s never upgraded. There’s never a newer version. There’s never a later edition that’s got a little more in it that you didn’t get.

God has already given His decisions on everything. And by the way, He doesn’t change them. Isn’t that neat? So, if you learn ’em young, you can have ’em throughout your whole life, and they were so valuable. They are always true. And they vindicate. It says they vindicate our lives. We should be building our lives upon the unchanging divine decisions that are always true. And that word is used 23 times in his Psalm.

And the eighth one is in verse 38. And by the way, verse 38, this is one of those that, the scholars talk about this one’s only used once and the least used of all, and it’s from the 119th Psalm where it talks about the Word of God is the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever.

But it says in the 38th verse, these words, establish Your Word to Your servant who is devoted to, and then it’s just the word fear. And so, the ancients felt that this was another synonym. And I would agree that this in light of the 19th Psalm speaks of the Word of God as the divine condition of fearing God.

If we look on His Word as the divine condition and we practice it, our life will be clean and enduring, and it’ll get us ready for the Bema Seat. You know what’s so interesting? I was always fascinated when I traveled to the Middle East and especially to Jerusalem and especially my favorite part of Jerusalem. The old city, Bonnie always has to say, honey, don’t buy more of that stuff, please. And I say, oh, honey, I love buying that stuff. And so, I’d just buy spices and just love the smell of that stuff.

And I remember I, last trip over there a couple years ago, I was just buying spices and everything. I threw ’em all in my suitcase. And you know how it is when you get home and unpack everybody’s suitcases. You don’t unpack everything. And I left one, I don’t remember why, but it left it under the bed, un unpacked. It was never unpacked. In fact, it wasn’t even opened. And that was in April or May of ’01. And I think I found it in about July.

I was sweeping. I went, what is under there? And I looked and there was a suitcase. I said, oh honey, I found a suitcase. Opened it up. You know my spices I bought, oh, worms were crawling through ’em. In fact, worms had even had changed into butterflies, had laid more eggs, and they made more worms. And it was just the grossest, all my spices and I threw ’em away and I said, honey, you were right, but why did it do that?

And she says they don’t do what they do in America. We have all these poisons, we put in everything, BHT, preservative, I think it’s just poison. So, no bugs and worms and eggs grow. And then they radiate them sometimes and they do, they heat ’em high heats, but over in the old city, they just put in the stuff right off the plant and put it in the package worms and all. And it decays.

Now look what it says here. If you live in the divine condition of fearing God, it makes your life clean and enduring. Nothing decays. You can work your whole life in the fear of God and everything you do fearing God. This Book tells us is going to last forever, and it won’t be ruined by worms and decay and burned up by the fire. So that’s another synonym the divine condition.

Look at verse 62. Here’s the next one. And this next one occurs 14 times, and this is the word righteous or righteousness. It’s always translated that way in all the versions and in verse 62, you can get a little flavor for it in the text at midnight, I will rise and give thanks to You because of Your righteous judgments. Now, those are two separate. We see them combined and the psalmist does that. Sometimes he just calls God’s Word, His righteousness. That’s His righteous revelation of how things should be. And other times he combines it with righteous judgments or righteous statutes or righteous testimony or whatever.

But this word righteousness speaks of God’s divine righteousness. And the word for righteousness speaks of balancing. It’s a very interesting Hebrew word. In fact, I’ve spent a whole week reading all the uses of these words and where they came from and how they’re used in other parts of the Bible.

And this is a fascinating word, which speaks of righteousness. And in the greatest sense, our sins are a debt or an offense to God and it cannot go unpunished. And so, God has to punish Christ to pay that debt. Now, when you talk to people and they say, I hope my good works outweigh my bad works, we should take advantage of that because they do have a good idea of what’s going on here. Sin is a weight, and the problem is that you can’t ever balance it and only one person can balance it, and that’s Jesus Christ who takes our sin upon Himself. But this speaks of God’s righteousness as something that, that balances our lives.

In other words, it tells us in the 62nd verse that we should give thanks because you are righteous or balancing judgments. What that talks about is when someone ruins something in your life, we feel we have to go and make it right. We have to hurt them back or we have to get even with them, or we have to make sure they get their just due.

And God says, My righteousness will balance all that out if you leave it to me. And that takes away a lot of our grief that we go through in life. God says, I will recompense, I will balance the scales, and we’ll study more of that.

Verse 64 has the next one, the 10th synonym of these beautiful pictures and descriptions of God’s Word. Verse 64 says The earth, the Lord is full of your mercy. Teach me, and here’s the next descriptive term for God’s Word, Your statutes. In verse 64, that word statutes in the NIV, its decrees. It occurs 22 times, and it speaks of what I like to call the divine plans or the specs.

Now, I grew up in a tool and die home. My dad had the most, in fact, he gave them to me. I have the most beautiful set of micrometers and calipers that are real, you know what I mean? That go down to the thousandth and the, I guess maybe the 10000th of an inch. And my father made. Dyes for, in fact, all Oldsmobile products. He made the dyes for the bumpers his team did for 46 years.

I remember it used to be hard to go on vacation ’cause my dad would be going, oh, I made that. I made that one. There goes one, I made that one. All these bumpers on the, when they used to be shiny and chrome, he’d point ’em out on all the different models. But you know what he learned real quick that if.

If when that huge press with tons and tons of pressure, that plate of metal was stuck in by the automated arm, and that stamp press would go like that. If it was even a 10th or a hundredth or a thousandth of an inch off from being total specs, that it would cause it to. Go out of kilter and pretty soon it would start stamping them crooked and they wouldn’t fit at the next point of the assembly line.

So, he had to grind those things exactly to the specifications, the plans, and what it says here in verse 64. The Earth, oh Lord, is full of mercy. Teach me your specifications for life. What are your plans? What is it that you plan for me to do in life? That’s what’s contained in this book. The divine specs, the plans, how it should be done.

God’s specs on my personal life, on my public life, on my private life, everything in my life. The specs are here, and that’s what this. 119 Psalm talks about 22 times God’s divine plans or specifications to build the ultimate life you want the ultimate life. You can build it one day, one step, one, obedient decision at a time. And God says you spend your life reading the specs.

We went on a tour of the huge new Asbury facility. It’s amazing. That thing is just unbelievably well built, but everyone wasn’t doing their own thing. One guy didn’t come and say, oh, I’m going to build this room. Let’s see. I’m going to just do it this way.

And someone else says I’m going to run my pipes this way. And someone else says, I’m going to run my pipes this way. You know what? They had a master plan and every one of them agreed to follow it. And that’s why all the pipes are connected, and all the wires are connected, and everything works. And people wonder why their life is just not working. It’s because they’re not following the plans, the specs. And that’s what God’s statutes are. The divine plans, the specs to build the ultimate life.

And here’s the last one. I love this one. And go to verse 65. You have dealt well with your servant, oh Lord, according to Your Word.

Now, a little bit earlier I talked to you about word. In fact, that was the fifth one. In verse 11, this is a completely different Hebrew word. This does not speak of the written revelation. This speaks of the voice. It’s a whole different, see, the Hebrew language, when we say word, we aren’t sure if it’s written or spoken. They could tell the difference by the word that’s used in the text.

And what he says here is. In 65th verse, he said, you’ve dealt well with me. Oh Lord, according to your word. What he’s saying is, I have been hearing your divine voice. You have walked me all through life. It reminds me, do you remember, we forget so quickly, but do you remember some of the stories about the World Trade Center? 9/11. Do you remember when they interviewed people and said, how did you get out of there? And I remember so clearly watching that all of us did. It was just so emotional and everything. And I remember one group saying I. We hit the exit doors and smoke was billowing up and it looked like fire.

But we heard a voice in the dark and in the smoke saying, follow me, come this way. And those firemen were faithfully guiding people down the steps. And the crowd was stampeding, and people were going up the steps. And that voice was saying, don’t go up, go down, follow me, go down. And I thought about.

That moment and it’s so much like, especially a lot of young people feel like life is that fire exit. It’s confusing and smoke and they don’t know which way to go, and the crowd’s going this way and there’s this voice saying, no, go this way. Let’s go this way. And what He’s saying in the 65th verse is that you can hear the divine voice that walks you all the way through life.

In fact, Isaiah 30:21 says that God promises that we will go through life, and we will hear his voice saying, this is the way, walking it. And you say, how do you get that? Do you wear an earpiece? Do you have to have a service contract? Can you have, no, we’re not talking about a cell phone.

We’re talking about this book. And in fact. 24 times this Hebrew word, the divine voice is used in his Psalm. And what it tells us is that God wants to write upon our hearts and record upon us His voice so that when we get into a situation, when we don’t know what to do, we cry out to Him and His Word comes into our minds and it is the voice of God reminding us of His revelation, what He has revealed. Of His plans, His specs, His judgements, His statutes, His testimonies. He has said, I know how to live life. I know your beginning. I know what you’re here for. I know where you’re headed, and I want to guide you through life. I don’t want you to ever be on your own. I don’t want you to ever wonder where you’re supposed to be. I will be the divine voice guiding you through all the stampede and smoke and danger of life, so you get to the right destination.

It’s most beautiful picture of what God wants because there’s a book within the books by the author of all the books that describes what God wants to do with this book in our lives. And 217 times with 11 different synonyms or descriptive terms, God tells us. Number one, I want you walking the divine path. Number two, I want you listening to my divine witness.

Number three. I want you following my divine directions for life. Number four, I want you obeying my divine orders on your captain. Number five, I want you to read the divine Word. It contains My will. Number six. I want you to receive the divine instructions. I’m the ultimate Teacher. And I give perfect instructions. Number seven, I want you to build your life on the unchanging decrees. They are My divine decisions about life, and they’re always true.

Number eight, I want you to be practicing the divine condition of fearing Me so that your life won’t burn away at the Judgment Seat. Number nine, I want you acting upon My divine righteousness. It will balance your life out. You know what? My heart is number 10. I want you using My divine plans. I want you to build to spec, and you can have the ultimate life, not just one that’s not out of joint.

You can have the ultimate life if you follow my specs. And number 11, I want you to hear my divine voice, and I’ll walk you all the way through life. And when you get the end of the life, you can dwell in my house forever. That’s what he offers to us.

Let’s bow before our great God and prayer and thank Him for His Word.

Oh Lord, You this morning, that forever, oh Lord, is settled in Heaven. Your word is not only Your divine plan and will for us, but it’s also Your voice written on our heart so we can hear You and truly live what we sing. And He walks with me, talks with me, and tells me I am His own. And Lord, that’s possible if we’ll let Your Word be written on our hearts.

I pray that you’d help us to look into this little book inside of a big Book that’s about every book of this Book of books by You, the Author, and help us to love Your Word, yield to Your Word. And Lord, for some who are with us this morning, they don’t even know what I’m talking about because they’ve never received the engrafted Word, which is able to save their souls.

And so, I pray that Your Spirit would convict and move and stir and draw, and that they would realize that faith comes by hearing the Word of God, but only if they will explain to themselves by agreeing with Your Word that they are sinful and lost and separate from You. And Lord, we always agree with Your invitation.

It’s always open that whosoever will come to, You’ll not cast out, but You must draw them. And I pray You might. And then draw us into Your Word this week. Let it change us because we want to live the ultimate life according to Your specs. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.

But this morning we welcome to our church this morning the greatest Bible Expositor of all.

We sit this morning at the feet of the greatest teacher who has ever taught God’s Word.

Who am I speaking of? The Author Himself, He has come this morning to open His Word to us.

He has expounded upon the wonders of His own Word by inspiring one unique man named Ezra to capture a sermon by the Lord God Almighty on the Book of Books – Psalm 119 is a sermon about God’s Word.

Psalm 119 is a Psalm or song written by God to summarize the power and purpose of His Word. Longer than all but three of Paul’s epistles – we have a book within a book, by the Author of the Book about the Book of Books!

Psalm 119 is a call by the Lord to each of us – to unleash His Word into our lives today.

As we open to the 119^th Psalm this morning, we open to the greatest commentary ever written on the Bible.

WAY: When His Word is filling our lives we are Walking the Divine Pathwith the Divine Guide, down the Journey of Life. (13x)

• Our family went to Mammoth Cave one year. It was beautiful, but at the end as they always do – they had us sit and then turned out the lights. Then the guide said, you are 140 feet underground. It is 14 stories of solid rock above you, there is no light for ¾ of a mile of winding, wet, dangerous passageways – do you need a guide? YES we all said. Do you see life that way? Without the divine guide of the Word, of Jesus walking us through life – it is even more hopeless than that cave.
• Psalm 119:1, 3, 5, 14 Blessed are the undefiled in the way, Who walk in the law of the Lord! 3 They also do no iniquity; They walk in His ways. 5 Oh, that my ways were directed To keep Your statutes! 14 I have rejoiced in the way of Your testimonies, As much as in all riches.