Psalms for Beginners. This is lesson number
five and the title of this lesson is Word Psalms. Mentioned so far in our study that
most psalms can be categorized into nine different types.
Now you can find other, one offs if you wish, one particular psalm
that talks about one particular topic, but most of them are grouped
in nine major groups. Wisdom Psalms. Nature Psalms.
Word Psalms. Penitential. Worship. Suffering. Psalms of assurance. Praise and royal psalms. So far in our
series we've looked at wisdom psalms and we've
said that wisdom psalms seek to define the character of
a good man or a life or actions in given situations.
What ought a person to do? What is the character
of a good man? Who is, who can approach the Lord
in worship? So those are wisdom psalms. Last time we talked about nature psalms
which comment on the greatness of God as it is revealed through
the completed act of creation and God's continued activity in it.
And that's very important. Not just the fact that God
created everything that is a subject of praise that we
have in nature psalms, but when you study and look
at nature psalms, what you see is that the writers are also glorifying
and honoring God for His continued involvement within
His creation, not just spiritual involvement in the sense of
sending Jesus for our salvation, but His physical activity within the creation and
nowhere in the Bible is this idea brought out more than
in the nature psalms. So tonight we're going to look at a third
category and these are psalms dealing exclusively with God's word
itself. So those would be word psalms, word psalms.
These are psalms that praise God for his special
revelation to us which is His word. Not only the word is given to us
but what the word actually reveals to us. A device used repeatedly aside
from parallelism in these types of psalms are the use of
synonyms for the word of God. All kinds of different
words referring to the Word of God. That is the
major device used in word type psalms. Now last
week we studied how David combined two songs into one. Two
types of psalms into one psalm. Half of it was a nature psalm, the
second half was a word psalm and that would be Psalm 19. In
verses 1 to 6, David praises God for His wisdom in
creating a world which gives testimony to His power and His
greatness and putting this great creation in the hands
of man, the frailest within the creation, the
smallest, frailest creature that He has created, He's put the creation, the
responsibility for it, if you wish into his hands. A
vast thing like the heavens reveals God's
vastness and a small thing like man, made in His
image, reveals His character. And that the great big thing is put
into subjection to the small also not only shows
His wisdom but it shows that His wisdom is not like our wisdom and we
learn that lesson over and over don't we? My way of fixing this problem
is this way and then when you wait a bit and you see how God fixes it,
you realize His ways really are not our ways. OK? In verses 17... So we said that in Psalm 19 the
first six verses, they're a nature psalm declaring God's wisdom and
power, so on and so forth. In verses 7 to 14 in Psalm
19, David continues to praise God for the way God reveals
Himself and glorifies Himself, but this time he demonstrates how God does
this through the giving of His Word. So verses 1 to 6, how
great He is, how wise He is through the creation; verses
seven to 14 how great and wise He is through the giving of His
Word. This part of the psalm is divided into two further
parts. You have the description, purpose, and value of God's word,
verses seven to 11 and we'll read that in a moment. And then the second part
of that section is a prayer of petition verses 12 to 14. So
I've got a kind of a diagram here because it is a very
complex, a very complex construction for this particular
part of the psalm. So let's look at three things in
verses seven to 14. You have descriptions of God's
word. You have value being described and you also
have the purpose of His word. And so the description of His word the complexity of it, the greatness of it. He talks about that. He also
gives a value to it and the purpose for it. So let's first
read the first couple of verses. "The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul;
The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.
The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart;
The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.
The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; The judgments of the Lord are true;
they are righteous altogether.' So there you have a couple of verses. The
author here, if you haven't noticed, uses six synonyms to describe
the word of God. So let's take a look at these.
First of all he says the law. So what is the law? Well, the commandments
and the ceremonies given by Moses in the Pentateuch, the law
in verse 7. Then he mentions the testimony. The
testimony are the things that the word has spoken about. The testimony that the word has given about who God is.
The testimony that the word has given about what salvation is
and how it is obtained. The testimony in the word that talks
about relationships between people, relationships between God
and man. The testimony. Another word he uses in verse 8,
the precepts. Those are rules or guidelines that are
contained in the word. For example, the guidelines for the priests, how
they were to do their work. Those are precepts. In verse 8,
another word for God's word, the commandments of the Lord.
These are general principles that encompass everyone, not just the priests
or a certain group of people. The commandments encompass everyone and
if violated they affect everyone. "Thou shalt not steal." That wasn't just for the
Levites. That wasn't even just for the Jews. That's for everybody. The commandments. Another
interesting synonym that he uses is the fear. So this one needs a little more
explanation. When he says the fear that is the thing
that God's word produces which is said to be the same
thing as the word itself. That's another device called metonymy. Metonymy. I'll give you an
example in English. We owe our loyalty to the
crown, if you are an Englishman. Well is your loyalty to the crown? I mean
the thing, to the the metal thing with the diamonds in it? Well no. You mean my
loyalty is to the wearer of the crown, the king, the queen. Metonymy. Well here the thing that God's word
produces fear, awe, is said to be the same thing as the
word itself. So the fear of the Lord, the thing that it
produces, is used for the word itself. They're interchangeable in
this. So the awe, the reverence, the religion that is actually
produced by the word. All of this compressed into a single word using the
device of metonymy, the word fear. And then he uses the word judgment's
or ordinances some of your Bibles may have the word ordinances. This
is the sum total of His word. The summary conclusions of what His
word teaches, the ordinances. So here in verses 7 to 9 you had descriptions of God's Word
using various synonyms: law, testimony, precepts, commandments,
fear, judgments. All of these things describe God's word. In the same verses the author also gives a value to God's word, so let's read it
over again this time paying attention to the value that he gives
to God's word. So in verse 7, "The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul;
The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.
The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes, The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever;
The judgments of the Lord are true; they are righteous altogether.
They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold;
Sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb." So the author here
describes the value or the character of God's word and its
preciousness for the one who accepts it. So let's go back to our
chart. And let's take a look in verse 7. So we had a description of the law right?
Well what value does it give to it? Is perfect. Means it is complete.
It is lacking it nothing. It is exactly what God intended
it to be. The law of Moses, what David was referring
to, did everything that it was supposed to do. Perfect. Next. The testimony of the Lord is
sure. There is another value judgment meaning
dependable, accomplishing what God wants. God's word
never fails. It is sure. Next. In verse 8, the precepts. What
does he say about the precepts? They are right and this word in
the Hebrew comes from the Hebrew word straight or
well. The idea is that the word of God is pleasing
because of its rightness, it's soundness, like a bell or sometimes your motor or some people have an ear
for things, "Oh that thing is off. I can hear it rattling." Some people who
really know mechanics they can tell their motor is not operating, it's not sound, it's
not operating the way it should. Here in the same way the author's saying God's
word is sound. It operates exactly as it should. In verse 8 again when he talks about
God's word as commandments, he says the commandments are pure. The
value pure, no impurity, no mixture of falsehood
and truth together. No synergistic. God's
word is not synergistic, it doesn't bring in a whole bunch of
different religions if you wish, as is the case with many other Eastern
religions especially, the more gods you have the more... the history, the
more mystics you have, the better it is like a stew. Let's all bring it on in.
One of the problems with missionaries in India for a time was they were
baptizing thousands. Well yeah sure, because from their point of view,
"Jesus, He's God? Sure, let's go. Let's just make sure. Let's make
sure we got all the gods we need." God's word doesn't produce
that kind of religion. That's the point.
His word is pure. In verse 9, the fear of the Lord is
what? Clean. No ugliness, no contamination and no
deterioration of it. Then he gives two values
here. In verse 9 the judgments he says are
both true and righteous. True, the epitome of truth.
The word of God has been tested, it is straight. There's no
no falseness in God's word. And it is
righteous without sin. It is totally acceptable. Now you're noticing,
there's some overlap here, obviously, he's using synonyms
so there is a certain amount of overlapping in the
qualities that he's assigning to the word. He goes on in verse
10, he says God's word is precious meaning more valuable
than any material thing. And he talks about gold, better
than fine gold, at the time the most precious commodity at that time was
gold. There isn't anything more valuable per ounce if you wish than gold. And so he's saying more precious, not
just than gold, more precious than fine gold, gold that has been treated
and has been refined more precious than that. And also he says in
verse 10, pleasing, more delightful than anything that can be
consumed and he uses honey as an example, and honey was a rare
thing in those days. Not everybody had honey. The kings had honey, they're the ones that ate the honey. It was an expensive commodity. Sweetness,
today everything is sweet. Right? Medicine is sweet.
Everything has sweet in it, but in those days something sweet wasn't part
of the culture like it is our culture. So something sweet was something
rare, honey was something rare. It stays with you. It
changes you for good. So, in the few verses we've looked
at the author has talked about God's Word, he's used
several synonyms for His word and then he's given a description of the word, of
God's word, using different synonyms, then he's assigned a
value to each of these concepts here. Perfect. Sure. Right. He's
going to do one other thing, again in the the same verses. He is also going to talk
about the purpose, what the word accomplishes. Let's go back
once again. Read the same verses but this time focus on the
purpose, what he says the purpose is. So, "The law of the Lord is perfect,"
description, right? Value. "The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the sole;" purpose. "The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.
The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the Lord is pure,
enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; The judgments of the Lord are true;
they are righteous altogether.
They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold;
Sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them Your servant is warned;
In keeping them there is great reward." So he gives the practical benefits derived from knowing
and obeying God's word. So let's go back over these in our chart.
"The law is perfect," then what does it do? "It restores the soul."
The word accomplishes what it sets out to do in
that it converts the soul, the person who knows and obeys
God's word is changed, restored into the image of God. "The testimony of the Lord is sure, and makes the simple wise." In
other words, gives wisdom. So God's word is dependable, even
the naive and simple can have confidence that it will give them the
wisdom and the insight that they need to navigate in this
world, and of course to find heaven, to go to heaven. Verse 8. "The
precepts are right." And what do they do? "They
make the heart rejoice." The word has the ability to
cheer and encourage because it offers what? Well, it offers
assurance, it offers comfort. If I doubt my salvation and
I'm thinking, "I'm not a good guy and I've failed here and I'm not doing as well
as I can and I wonder if my sins are forgiven." I don't debate with myself, I go back to the
word. Wait a minute, the word said that if I believed and I was baptized, the word said
that if I repented and I was baptized as well, Acts 2:38, my sins are forgiven. He
didn't say some of them were forgiven, all of them are forgiven,
that hasn't changed. I draw comfort from that idea when
I'm not sure of that particular thing. If people are close to
death and they've been faithful, but they have
a moment of hesitation, what a wonderful verse Romans chapter one is, "There is
now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Those words
are very... when you're 16 years old and full of health and vigor, those words don't mean
a lot to you. You may have to remember them for a test, but if you're
eighty nine years old, if you're 92 years old and
you're very ill and you're close to death those words are
extremely encouraging. "There is now therefore no condemnation
for those who are in Christ Jesus." "The precepts are right.
They rejoice the heart." In verse 8, the commandments are pure.
And what do they do? They enlighten man's eyes, man's impure mind is purified and thus brought to
understanding through the pure word of God. Verse 9, the fear
of the Lord he said is clean and what does it do? Provides assurance,
again like I say, there's overlap. Not only the word but what we learn
from it has permanence, whatever we know and are assured of in the
Bible will always be. I remember when I was a
kid where we lived, the lady, it was a boarding house,
and the lady who owned it, her favorite saint was
Saint Philomena and every year (she was Catholic obviously) and
every year she would buy a calendar with St. Philomena and all the
pictures of St. Philomena on it and they would go around and raise money for the church that was called Saint Philomena
in her neighborhood. So and her day, every day of the calendar you had one day and I forget when
it was in June or something, it was Saint Philomena day. That day was St.
Philomena and so she was all about saint... her patron saint. That's what I was looking
for. Saint Philomena was her patron saint. And somewhere around the
1960's, the Catholic Church did some house cleaning
because after all there's only 365 days in a year, but
there are lot more saints than that and so some saints were
de-sainted, were no longer saints anymore. Whoa, she was not a happy person. I mean they changed
the name of her parish and the calendars didn't come around any
more. Now they had all these new fangled saints that didn't speak French.
Little did she know that Saint Philomena probably didn't speak French either,
but you know what I'm saying? It was like, I'm not making fun of her.
What a disappointment. Her religion much of it was tied up
in this fascination with this devotion to this particular
historical character who is a saint and she prayed to the saint and please, she would offer her prayers to that saint who would then bring them to
Jesus. You know how it works. Back in those days in Catholic
practice and it was like her whole spiritual life was
destroyed because the thing she counted on her whole life just got...They had a meeting in Rome and that was it, "see ya saint
Philomena." Now if you're wondering what's the point here, the point here is that what
we learn from the word will always be, Jesus
Christ is the Son of God in 2017 and in 3002, Jesus Christ will still be the son of God. And in the year 4000 and 16
there will still be no condemnation for those
who are in Christ. You see what I'm saying? Once we learn
something, we understand it from the scripture, we may deepen our
knowledge of it, but it's not going to change, we have
that assurance. The writer says in
verses 10 and 11, the word provides protection. The word provides protection from spiritual death as
well as physical dangers by warning of the destructiveness and the
repercussions of certain actions, certain sin. And then in verse 11, the word provides encouragement. The word
warns but it also promises and describes the rewards awaiting
those who believe and obey what it says. So the author reveals the
greatness of God by describing the word in its various forms
using synonyms. The law, the testimony, the precepts
on and so forth and then he describes the value and the
characteristics of it and what it accomplishes in man's life,
all in just a few verses here, and what I see here
is the potential for teaching in just a few verses. I
could take up a whole hour just describing these three
or four verses in one single psalm. Then in
verses 12 to 14, as I said before, the author makes a
prayer of petition. So in the final three verses he asks God
to help him make a proper response to the word. So he describes the word and its value
and its purpose and then he asks God to help him in his response to the word. Verse 12, "Who
can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden
faults." Verse 12. Here he asked God to forgive or to clear
him from hidden faults. At first he acknowledges that because he is
human he's not always able to know how he is sinning, how he goes against God's
word. Have you ever realized that a lot of times sometimes for a long period in
your life you're doing or saying or thinking something which is against God's
word, which is a sin, but you're completely innocent in the sense that
you don't know it's a sin and then all of a sudden you discover that it's a
sin. "Oh boy. Oh I didn't know that was...I better not be doing that." So
he's saying to God, Please, acquit me of these things that are hidden even
from myself." That's the reason why it's not good to boast. Not good to boast. So at first he acknowledges that because he is human
he is not always able to know how he is sinning. So he prays that God forgive him of
sins that he makes that he is not aware of. Only the believer can pray this prayer because he is under the state of grace. It's so futile to try to save ourselves through perfect
behavior because even if you know ten bad things about yourself that somehow
through self-will or practice or whatever you manage to overcome, I guarantee you there will
be some stuff that you don't even know about. So this is an interesting prayer
that he makes but it's also a good prayer for us to make as well. You know Lord, I don't know all the dumb
stuff that I'm doing. I don't understand sometimes the things that I don't know. He
doesn't even know what he doesn't know.
Have you ever heard people say that about someone?
He's not aware of what he's not aware of. He doesn't know what he
doesn't know. That's a bad place to be. So this author is speaking this
idea a long time before it became popular in our culture
to say this thing. In verse 13 he says, "Also
keep back Your servant from presumptuous sins; Let them not rule over
me; Then I will be blameless, And I shall be acquitted of great
transgression." So he asks God to restrain him from
committing presumptuous sins. These are sins that he
commits knowingly either because of rebellion, selfishness, passion,
weakness but not because of ignorance. So the first thing he says,
"Please forgive me for my ignorance, forgive me for the sins that I
make that I don't know about" and then he says, "And please help
me restrain me from making sins that I do." I do know something is wrong
sometimes and I just can't help it, I do it anyways. Help me with those. That's
presumptuous, when you know that it's wrong and you go ahead
and do it anyways. That's presumptuousness. The Lord doesn't stop us from these, but
through His word and our conscience and the Holy Spirit, and the church, He
can alert us to the danger. He warned Cain, didn't he? He said to Cain, "Hey, you better be careful.
Sin is at the door. You need to master it." He knew Cain had a murderous rage going
on in his heart and He warned him of it. He could have
stopped him right? He could have broken both of Cain's legs so h e couldn't move around for a couple of months or years and maybe cool down. No, He did not deny him the
exercise of his free will, even if that exercise of free
will caused harm because there is a judgment to come. So here David asks God to help
him not be a slave to the desire or weakness of sinning
openly against Him. Here's a guy who's got confidence, I want to tell you,
I want to have this guy's confidence. He knew the danger of these and the need
to be freed from any enslavement to these kinds of sins. Notice the synonymous
parallelism in verse 13. Also keep back your servant from
presumptuous sin. Let that not rule over me, then I
will be blameless and I will be acquitted of great... being blameless
and acquitted of transgressions same thing, synonymous parallelism. One more verse. Verse 14 he says, "Let the words of my
mouth and the meditation of my heart Be aceptable in your sight,
O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer." He prays that God accept the
psalm that he is writing. He prays that this offering be acceptable to him.
He begins with the quality and purpose of God's word
and how precious and productive they are to him. Now he ends by
asking that his own words be acceptable to God. Again
a beautiful balance of Ideas. He begins
with God's words to him. God's word is pure. God's word is this and
that, and then he ends with his words to God. I hope my words, God, coming up
to You will be acceptable. Beautiful. He ends with the
declaration that God is two things a rock. Dependable, solid, indestructible strength and redeemer, in the Old Testament, this idea of the
avenger of blood, the kinsman redeemer. No police force in those days. If someone was
killed in your family, murdered in your family, someone in your family would go look for
the person who killed him and would take revenge and throughout Israel
there were cities of refuge where someone who killed someone,
perhaps accidentally, would run to, not to hide, but to take
protection so that if the avenger would come, as a family member coming to
exact justice, if he would come to the city, the city fathers would have a
trial more or less, bring evidence and work things out and usually what would happen is the
person who is guilty of the killing, whether accidentally or on
purpose, he would be judged and executed, but anyways,
he would have to stay there in that city of refuge, he would
have to stay in the city. He was safe so long as he stayed in the city, but
if he left the city he could be killed justly, but he
would to stay in the city until the death of the current high
priest. When the high priest died, then that would automatically free him,
parole him if you wish, and he could return to his home. Very interesting. So one who
takes revenge on the enemy. It meaning here the redeemer. God is my redeemer. God
is the one who takes the revenge on my enemies. He's the one that cares for my
family and so on and so forth. Ultimately God is our avenger. He redeems us.
What does it say in Romans 12? "Vengeance is mine saith
the Lord, I will repay." We need to say that. The reason that
you pray for your enemy is because God has said to you,
"Vengeance is mine says the Lord, I will repay." I pray for my enemies
and I say, "God please have mercy on him." Alright. Psalm 119 is the
longest psalm in the book of Psalms and the longest chapter in
the Bible. This psalm is an acrostic, and if you remember what an
acrostic is, where every line or so begins with the subsequent letter in the Hebrew
alphabet, that's an acrostic. I mean not in any alphabet, you have
English acrostics and whatever. Interesting, the psalm is an acrostic where the first letter of every eighth verse in this psalm has a
different letter of the Hebrew alphabet so that's 22
times eight equals 176 verses. So if it was in English, the
first verse would start with the letter A, a word with the letter A and then the
eighth verse would start with the letter B and the sixteenth verse with the
letter C and so on and so forth. OK. Now in Psalm 119 there's
no progression of thought or coherence but rather a general
theme throughout and that is praise for God's Word. The psalm uses
ten different words as synonyms for the word. Five of
which are found in Psalm 19 that we just looked at. I'll just
list these for you. The word law, testimonies (those we saw), ways, statutes, commandments, ordinances,
word, precepts, promises, and judgments. There is a
synonym for the word in almost every single verse. Imagine a hundred and seventy
six verses, in every verse there is a synonym
for the word of God. In Verse 105 of this
Psalm, probably the best known and probably summarizes
well the theme of this entire psalm. "Your word is a lamp to my feet
A light to my path." A lot of posters with that in people's bedrooms. "Your word
is a lamp to my feet. A light to my path." So word psalms are meditations
and expressions of praise and appreciation for the value
and the character of God's word revealed to man
and I picked two. Psalm 19 because it's so unusual
and Psalm 119 because of its length and beauty.
Alright, so that's word psalms. Surely we could find more things
to say and more word psalms, but as I said we're just picking one or two
out of each category to give you an idea, a flavor of what these are like.
