¹

² Blessed are they who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart.

³ They do nothing wrong; they walk in his ways.

⁴ You have laid down precepts that are to be fully obeyed.

⁵ Oh, that my ways were steadfast in obeying your decrees!

⁶ Then I would not be put to shame when I consider all your commands.

⁷ I will praise you with an upright heart as I learn your righteous laws.

⁸ I will obey your decrees; do not utterly forsake me.

INTRODUCTION – Psalm 119 is unique.  It is the longest psalm, the longest chapter in the Bible, and is located in the middle of the Bible – like a “user manual” or operator instructions for the rest of the Scriptures.

It has 22 stanzas, one for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet, with eight verses in each stanza.  Each verse in a stanza begins with a word starting with the same letter of the alphabet.  The topic of the Psalm is “everything you could ever say about God’s Word.” Psalm 119 talks about seeking the fulfillment of promises, obeying the commands, memorizing passages, meditating on verses, and even asking God to speak through a verse (“consulting the Word”).  It sets forth the multifaceted ways that God’s Word should touch our lives, going beyond intellectual knowledge of what the words of the Bible say.

ALEPH: The first stanza sets forth the starting point for the individual’s interaction with God’s Word.  The main theme is that God’s revelation is absolute, something we must take very seriously. Notice the structure or development of truths within these first eight verses:

-       2 verses (vv. 1-2), which basically say, “God, those who fully obey you receive your constant blessing.” We receive God’s blessing on our lives (happiness, fulfillment) from obeying God’s Word faithfully, consistently, and completely.  It is a promise, but the promise is conditional, which is challenging for us. As Paul says, “Godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.”  (1 Timothy 4:8).

-       2 verses (vv. 3-4) declare a set of absolute truths.  First, those who truly follow everything God says live without keeping sin in their lives, and proceed through life (“walk”) on God’s path, following his will.  Second, God revealed His Word intending that we fully obey it (see Romans 7:12).  Unfortunately, many today treat God’s Word as mere options or “suggestions.”  When God reveals His will, He expects obedience.  Believers need to understand the seriousness of God’s Word at the outset of their walk with Christ.  The modern world teaches moral relativism – the idea that there is no absolute right or wrong.  The Word declares the opposite.  Jesus said we should “Be perfect, as our Father in Heaven is perfect.”  (Matthew 5:48).  He said that our righteousness must “exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees” (Matthew 5:20; see also Ephesians 1:4; Ephesians 5:3; 1 Peter 1:16; 2 Peter 3:11).  The most common word used for Christians in the New Testament epistles is “saints” or “holy ones” (see, e.g., 1 Corinthians 1:2; Colossians 1:2).

-       2 verses (vv. 5-6) verses express regret over not being perfect yet.  They say, “God, I want to obey you fully, but I am failing in some areas.” Any true Christian should find God’s Word challenging, because it sets forth a high, eternal standard.  We spend our entire lives on earth maturing and growing in sanctification or obedience.  It is normal for Christians to feel this way sometimes when they read the Bible.  When our reading of the Word makes us see our own inadequacies, it shows we have truly understood it (see James 1:23; Romans 3:20).

-       2 verses (7-8) show the proper response of the believer to the challenges in God’s Word.  “God, I want to learn and grow, please do not give up on me in the meantime.” The true Christian life is one of continual growth in faithfulness and consistency.  “For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.”  (2 Peter 1:5-7).

“Ways are blameless” – our testimony to others, the evidence everyone can see of the transformed life.

“Keep his statutes” – The practice of living a godly life of obedience – our internal spiritual experience.

“Seek him with all their heart” – God desires more than routine adherence to a set of rules (see Colossians 2:23; Hebrews 13:9).  The righteous are passionate for Him, they want to be in a close relationship with Him (“seek him”), and they are wholehearted in their obedience.  We should approach God’s Word with zeal.

 All true Christian believers know that the Bible is God’s Word.  Every believer knows that the Bible was verbally inspired by God (2 Timothy 3:16), and that it is relevant for our lives today.  The problem is that many Christians think of the Word only as something from the distant past.  True believers hold to the Bible, study it, teach from it, and base their lives around it.  Yet many do so as if the Bible were merely a document given long ago, like a Constitution of their religion.  There is another dimension to the Word of God.  It is alive and active.  God is still speaking through the Word today. 

We know that the Old Testament was complete by about 400 years before Christ, and the New Testament was complete by about 100 A.D.  It is complete, and nobody should add any new books to it (see Revelation 22:18).  Christians everywhere believe that God Himself wrote the Bible, using godly men as his agents.  “For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”  (2 Peter 1:21).  We know that the Bible is the ultimate standard for Christian doctrines, practices, and prophecies today.  We reject anything that contradicts the clear teaching of the Bible.  Nevertheless, the Bible is more than a benchmark.  It is a channel of communication with Eternity. 

The Bible is different from any other book, not only because God inspired its original writing, but because it is actually alive and active today.  The Holy Spirit can speak to us directly through the Word today.  Most believers have had experiences where they opened the Bible in a moment of need or crisis, and were stunned that they opened to a passage speaking directly to their situation.  Many new believers have the stunning experience of opening to the very page or passage that the preacher is using in a service, as if by accident.  The new Christian can feel the Lord’s intervention at that instant.  Many mature Christians have experienced the joy of reading a familiar passage – perhaps for the hundredth time – and suddenly seeing a deeper message in it, something that they never noticed before. 

Of course, people who do not believe that God speaks today will discourage this practice.  They teach against prophecy and spiritual gifts today, and they believe we have nothing more that God’s words from the past.  Their position is not logical, however, because the very Bible they hold up as the “final” revelation of God says that the Word is still “alive and active.”  God is still speaking to us when we open his Word.  

The Holy Spirit is the author of the Bible, and He knows where each verse is located, which page has which words. When we are in fellowship with the Holy Spirit, covered by the blood of Jesus, He can cause us to open the Bible to just the right page with the Words He wants to speak to us.  God speaks directly into our lives in this way. 

Most true Christians want to hear from God.  They want to learn how to know God’s will for their lives, especially when they face a decision involving uncertainty.  They want to know how to have God speak to us today.  The Bible as God’s Word from the past is a general revelation to all mankind.   Yet we all want God to speak to us directly, just as He did to all the people in the Bible.  The Bible presents us with countless examples of God speaking to his servants through the ages, from the beginning of the Bible to the end.  It is normal for people who believe in the Bible to want the same experience that God recounted for us hundreds of times in His Word. 

There are three main ways that God speaks to his servants today.  One way is through dreams.  Most of our dreams are not from God, of course – they are just from our minds, usually the things we have been worried about during the previous days.  Even so, most Christians have had some dreams where God spoke to them, or He showed them something that would happen and then they saw the fulfillment later, just as the dream foretold.  Some people have even converted because Jesus revealed himself to them in a dream.  This is also one of the main ways He spoke to people in the Bible.  The second main way that God speaks directly to us today is through a direct revelation from the Holy Spirit while we are awake.  This type of experience belonged to the prophets had in the Old Testament, but now it can happen to any true believer.  Sometimes this experience is visual, as when we see a vision while we are praying.  Other times, the Holy Spirit gives a revelation that is verbal, as when words come into our hearts while we are praying, interrupting our own thoughts.  Occasionally, we may even hear an audible voice speaking words while we are in fellowship with the Lord.  These direct revelations – the experience the prophets had – are the second way that God speaks to each individual.  

The third main way God speaks to us today is through the living and active Word – the Holy Spirit gives a verse or passage that speaks directly to our situation at that moment.  This can happen in a church service – as when the Lord tells the pastor to preach on a specific passage, and it happens to speak directly to one of the visitors present.  It can also happen when we are alone with the Lord, asking him to speak to us through His Word. 

The Bible itself indicates that there are three main ways God speaks to us individually.  In 1 Samuel 28:6, it describes a situation where Saul is desperate for a Word from the Lord after spending years in disobedience.  It says that God would no longer answer him through dreams (discussed above), prophets (the revelations through visions or words from the Holy Spirit), or the “Urim.”  The “Urim & Thummim” were stones that the High Priest kept in his breastplate (see Exodus 28:30; Leviticus 8:8; Numbers 27:21; Deuteronomy 33:8; Ezra 2:63; Nehemiah 7:65), a way of casting lots before the Lord.  Ancient Jewish tradition held that the “blessings” of the covenant from the last pages of Deuteronomy were inscribed on one, while the “curses” from the same book were inscribed on the second.  This was the means of seeking the Lord’s will for decisions in ancient Israel (Exodus 28:30), before they had the Bible in a book like we do today.  They used this method to ask God whether to enter a battle (Judges 20:9; 1 Samuel 14:18-19; 1 Samuel 23:2-6).  They used this method to determine the inheritance of each tribe and family of Israel (see Numbers 26:55-56; Numbers 33:54; Numbers 36:2; Joshua 18:6-19:51).  Even the duties of each of the priests and Levites in the Lord’s Temple came through this means (1 Chronicles 25:8-26:16; Nehemiah 10:34).  

The Apostles continued this practice in the New Testament (Acts 1:26).  The Bible says that God would speak though the supposedly “accidental” casting of these lots (see Proverbs 16:33). 

Today, we do not have a physical high priest with the Urim and Thummim, because now Jesus is our Great High Priest (Hebrews 2:7, Hebrews 3:1; Hebrews 4:14-15; Hebrews 8:1-3; Hebrews 9:11).  Jesus replaced the priests of the Old Testament, along with their special garments and the Urim & Thummim.  The Bible says that our High Priest, Jesus, is also The Word (John 1:1, Revelation 19:13).  Today our Great High Priest, Jesus, gives us answers and directions from eternity through the Word.  Now we have the Bible, so we use this instead of any other object for the casting of lots.  It is the perfect means for asking the Lord to speak.  Just as the Old Testament describes three ways that God spoke to individuals (dreams, prophetic words or visions, and the casting of the High Priest’s lots or Urim), so today God speaks to us in three ways.  He gives us dreams, He gives us prophetic words and visions, and He speaks to us when we pray and open the Word, trusting Him to speak to our situation.  

The Bible itself suggests this to us: “The opening of your Word (or unfolding of the scroll) gives LIGHT.”  (Psalm 119:130). Light is revelation from the Holy Spirit; Jesus said that He is the “Light.”  (See John 1:9; John 3:19; John 8:12; John 9:5). The Psalmist also said, “Open my eyes, that I may see wonderful things in your law.”  (Psalm 119:18, indicating that there is something beyond merely reading the Bible with our physical eyes – we need a miraculous intervention for God to give us his “message” for us).  

Returning to our opening verse, Hebrews 4:12, we see that the living and active Word is “sharper than a two-edged sword, dividing between soul and spirit.”  It is a two-edged sword because there are two dimensions: the physical words printed on the page (“Scriptures”), and the action of the Holy Spirit in bringing the Word to us as a revelation.  It separates soul and spirit because it helps us distinguish between what is really from the Holy Spirit and what is merely from man’s own soul (our imagination and emotions).  We all know that it is hard for Christians to distinguish between their own thoughts or feelings and the leading of the Holy Spirit inside our hearts.  We can ask God to speak through His Word to divide and distinguish between the two, to give us a verse confirming whether a supposed revelation is really from Him, or if it is merely from our imaginations.  Paul tells us to “test” the prophecies in the Body, and this is the best means for doing so (see 1 Thessalonians 5:21; 1 Corinthians 14:29).  

As with any other means of hearing from God, there is always a danger of people abusing this.  Carnal Christians constantly abuse the spiritual gifts, using them to show off, to manipulate others, or to distort God’s truth.  The Bible warns about false prophets many times.  Similarly, immature Christians sometimes try to use the living and active Word they way ungodly fortunetellers approach things, with self-interest, fleshly curiosity, or a desire to manipulate others in the church.  We must avoid such abuses.  We should never ask God to speak through the Word about something that is already clear, as when foolish people ask God for permission to sin.  We do not use the opening of the Bible to predict the future.  Remember that the Urim and Thummim were the “means of decision,” (Exodus 28:30).  The Lord used this method to reveal His will, not to foretell the future (instead, God foretells the future through dreams and visions).  When we pray and open the Word, we should ask the Lord for a decision – yes or no – not whether certain events will happen in the future.  That would be an abuse. 

God wants to speak to us.  He wants to tell us His will so we know how to please him, how to obey him.  He wants to speak to us through the living and active Word, to give us words that come from eternity and speak into our hearts.  It is one of the primary means of grace by which we open our lives to receive more of God’s blessings.