TEXT: Psalm 119:17-24
READING: Psalm 40:1-17
SUBJ: The believing desire to see and experience the wonders of the Law of God
AIM: That we might experience all the same intense longing as the Psalmist and that we might realize the assurance that he derived from it.
INTR:
1. Consider that the commands of the Lord are to be desired: Psalms 19:10 More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.
2. With the believer, the keeping (treasuring) and the delight (enjoyment of the beauty) in the commandment cannot be a matter of mere routine.
3. With those things in which there is delight, there is never enough.
THESIS: The obstacles of this present world serve to increase the longing for identity with the precepts of God’s Word. – Proverbs 25:11 A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.
I. Asking for a greater vision (vv. 17-18)
1. The psalmist expresses great desire and great expectations – “deal bountifully.”
1) To pray without expectation is to pray without faith
2) It is dishonoring to God to ask little: “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” Romans 8:32
2. Who it is that asks? “Thy servant” with a proper purpose.
1) There is grace to be found for every need and
2) The connection to life and the Word.
3. We who are blind by nature have need of special vision to see the wonders of spiritual things.
1) We can never learn or see too much of His glory and
2) “Indeed those who have been best and longest taught, are always the most ready to “sit at the feet of Jesus (Luke 10.39) as if they had everything to learn.”
4. To see wondrous things (the sublime, the wisdom, the power and the application.) This is certainly not as the world sees the things of God.
5. Note that these things are revealed unto babes.
II. The need for greater vision (vv. 19-20)
1. It is essential that we see ourselves as strangers because then our need is characterized. (How to live in a strange culture)
2. Therefore, we find him wanting to know more. The thought of hiding here is seen in the context of wanting to see more than he was seeing then. In essence he is saying to the Lord don’t hold anything back – I need it all.
1) May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. (Ephesians 3:18-19)
2) He would not only see the Law, but the spirituality of the Law within.
3. In verse 20 we see something that is lacking in many – intensity in longing. Consider Job and others that have expressed the need to appear. Here then is the question of how much we desire the things of the Lord.
III. The hope and realization of a greater vision (vv. 21-24)
1. See verse 21. Consider that we have the record of many such as Pharaoh and Saul who were rebuked by the Lord.
2. V. 22. Reproach and contempt were sure to come. The record of such toward the servants of God is long. It would seem that the psalmist desire was that these things not overburden him. After all Christ bore the reproach of His people. --The reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me.
3. Question: do we fear being held in contempt by society?
4. “I have kept thy testimonies…” This is the evidence of separation unto the commandment. – Add gospel promises to that which to which we cling.
5. The reproach comes from places that ought to know better, but more evidence is realized in meditation.
6. The true nature of obedience is delight and the function of the testimonies is that they are counselors.
