Sermon Tone Analysis

Psalm 119:17-21

Deal bountifully with Your servant,

That I may live and keep Your word

Open my eyes, that I may behold

Wonderful things from Your law.

I am a stranger in the earth;

Do not hide Your commandments from me.

My soul is crushed with longing

After Your ordinances at all times.

You rebuke the arrogant, the cursed

Who wander from Your commandments.

It is a rare occurrence that Scripture speaks about itself, but as Christian people, those who have have been called by the grace of God to believe and follow His Word, it is best that we listen up whenever it does.

After all, what better authority is there to explain what this collection we call the Bible really is, and what we should do with it, than the Bible itself?

The preeminent example of such an occurrence is Psalm 119 and, using a short passage from this astonishing Psalm, I will attempt to help all of us understand the goal and importance of learning such a thing as how to study the Bible.

To do this, we must discover what Scripture says about itself, which will determine the motivation and end goal for this class, which I am tremendously excited about.

Psalm 119 is one of the most impressively written Psalms, as well as the longest chapter in the Bible.

It’s an acrostic poem with 22 stanzas, which means that every line of each eight-line stanza begins with successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

Verses 17-21 appears under (geemel), the third stanza.

“The psalmist uses 10 different words for the Law or Word of God, every verse except verses 90, 122 and 132 mentioning at least one of these terms, law (i.e., instruction or revelation), testimonies (or precepts), ways, precepts (or orders), statutes (or decrees), commandments, judgments (or ordinances), word, path, word (the last “word” meaning promise or utterance, as in v. 11).”

(1.

Ps. 119 study note: The Ryrie Study Bible, ed.

Charles Ryrie, pg.

941) This author was more than likely a young Levite writing around the time of the Babylonian captivity, so this psalm is his expression to God about his dependence on Scripture during a time of exile and oppression under a government who pushed hard to force the Jews into apostasy.

The author is leading us through his experience, showing us how he has responded to these events, and his main focus in his desperation is the Word of God.

The passage (vs.

17-21) written on the first page is from the updated New American Standard Bible, and below I have offered an alternative translation in an attempt to shed some more light on the tone with which the psalmist is addressing God.

Deal beneficently toward Your servant,

That I might live and thereby keep Your Word

Uncover my eyes, that I might gaze upon,

Miraculous things from Your Law

I am a sojourner in the land,

Do not conceal from me Your commandments

My soul wastes away yearning

For Your decrees at all times

You rebuke the presumptuous, the accursed

Who stray from Your commandments

If for some reason I had a desire to communicate with an ant, what would I have to do?

I suppose I could learn an ant language and get really close to the ground, whispering so as not to speak too loudly and scare off the ant or shake its tiny antennae...

I could attempt to genetically mutate the ant so that he could perhaps grow ears and learn English... but the best way for me to accomplish this insane task is for me to become an ant.2

This is precisely what God has done for us.

The Son, the Word, the manifestation of the will of God the Father, became flesh and dwelled among men so that we might know the Word of God and be saved.

But before this occurred some 2000 years ago, God’s Word was still known.

God always spoke and communicated with mankind on a level they could understand.

The single greatest known event is that not only did an all-knowing, omnipotent, self-secure God create people...He communicated Himself and His desires for them, and He did it in a way they could understand.

Before Adam and Even sinned and mankind fell into the toilet of existence before God, they lived in perfection...yet they were still miniscule; they were still totally insignificant in comparison with God.

Why did they deserve to have God’s Word revealed to them?

They didn’t in any way whatsoever.

They didn’t even deserve to exist.

It did not matter that they were without sin; it’s not a difference of degree...Adam and Eve were not less of something than God was; they were something entirely different than God.

Namely, they were not Him.

He is God and they were not, therefore they were undeserving of anything from God.

With this passage I’m first going to look at what I believe to be the two essential, fundamental principles for studying the Bible.

After covering these two vital principles in verses 17 and 18 we’ll move on to study three lessons from the rest of the passage.

Those three lessons answer three questions: 1) Why is it necessary to understand the Scriptures? 2) How deep is our need for the Scriptures? 3) What is the danger of rejecting the Scriptures?

-Vs.

17: Deal bountifully with Your servant, that I might live and keep Your word.

Now, I’ve already partially covered the first principle, that nobody deserves to study the Bible to begin with, and this is what the psalmist is demonstrating in verse 17 when he says “Deal bountifully toward Your servant.”

This phrase carries a sense of urgency, the reason for which is explained in verse 23 when he says “princes sit and talk against me,” probably referring to government officials conspiring against him because of his faith and ethnicity.

As I said earlier, the author is leading us through his experience showing us how he has responded to these events, and his main focus in the midst of his desperation is the Word of God.

“Deal beneficently toward Your servant...” Why? “That I might live and keep Your Word.”

Earlier I mentioned that Adam and Eve didn’t even deserve their own lives, but by God’s grace they were allowed to have life, even after their rebellion against Him.

The psalmist is recognizing this principle here in verse 17.

Simply put, to live is to have received the grace of God, so the author is asking God to extend him grace in order that he might live.

But he doesn’t stop there.

He goes on to explain the reason for wanting to live... “That [he] might live and keep [God’s] Word.”

Here the psalmist gives us a glimpse into his view of the purpose of life: to keep the Word of God.

In essence, he’s saying, “Oh, Lord, be generous to me and show me grace in order that I might live...in order that I might keep Your Word.”

For this man, life is not merely living, but living to keep God’s Word.

This word “keep” is interesting; the related noun is a “watchman,” so the author is viewing himself as a keeper or guardian of something of ultimate value with which He desires and rejoices to be entrusted with.

This goes to show that there is more to “keeping” the Law than obedience.

Keeping the Law means obedience, but also involves reverence, honor, and protecting it from being perverted or misunderstood.

It is fascinating to think that in a difficult time of oppression and persecution this man viewed the whole purpose of his life as keeping the Word of God.

Now, as important as it is to point out this exemplary perspective, it is equally important, if not more so, to point out that while the author views keeping God’s Word as the purpose of life, he views keeping God’s Word as something he does not deserve to do.

So this is the first necessary principle to understand about studying the Bible: We don’t deserve to study it!

The mere fact that God left us His Word is an unspeakable display of grace, especially considering that we are no longer living in a perfect state.

After all, what reason did God have to keep Adam and Eve around after they fell in the garden?

What reason did God have to not just wipe them off the face of the earth and have Himself a “do-over?”

The reason was His pleasure...the incomprehensible, arbitrary will of God, the God who has mercy on whom He has mercy and loves whomever He chooses to love.

Throughout the Old Testament the word that is used to describe God’s reason to getting involved in people’s lives is “pleased.”

God was “pleased” to do it.

God kept people around because it pleased Him to do so.

That’s all!

We have the Bible simply because God is pleased to have us know Him.

Studying the Bible is a miraculous privilege!

The Christian should in some way rejoice, whether internally or externally, at the idea that God is actually pleased to have us read and understand His Word.

-Vs.

18: Open my eyes, that I may behold; Wonderful things from Your law.

As we look at verse 18 we’re going to see the second important principle for studying the Bible, which is founded in the statement, “Uncover my eyes.”

We’ve already established what the first principle for beginning Bible study is that we do not deserve to read the Bible, but by the incredible grace of God we have the privilege of doing so, and now verse 18 presents to us the second principle, which is that we cannot understand the Bible apart from God revealing it to us.

Here the psalmist addresses God with a request (actually, an imperative verb) that He uncover his eyes.

The psalmist is essentially crying out in desperation for sight.

Two questions immediately emerge: Why is he crying out, and why are his eyes covered.

The answer to the first question is simple: he is crying out for God to uncover his eyes because he cannot do so himself.

The psalmist is recognizing his dependence on God and is crying out to Him out of that dependence.

As for the second question, there are two reasons his eyes are covered: The first reason is that he is not God.

God exists outside of His creation, so just like the impossibility of a man communicating to an ant without some superhuman or supernatural intervention unknown to science to enable that communication, so we cannot understand the things of God without God’s supernatural intervention, born out of His desiring those things to be revealed to us.

The second reason his eyes are covered is that he is sinful.

Sin brings about a severed fellowship with God, which causes spiritual blindness, an inability to see and understand spiritual truth.

In Matthew 16 and 1 Corinthians 2 we are told that spiritual things are spiritually discerned, and since no man born blind can cause himself to have sight by his own volition, no person can understand spiritual truth without God first uncovering his eyes.

It is God who does the uncovering, not us.

God is the mover, and we are the passive recipient of the action.