Psalm 119:89-96

Delight in God’s Word

Text: Psalm 119:89–96

Big Idea:
Because God is eternal, faithful, and sovereign, His Word is fixed and life-giving—and the believer’s proper response is delight, dependence, and trust in God through His Word, especially in affliction.

Key Themes & Movements

• God’s Word Is Eternal and Unchanging (vv. 89–91)

  • God’s Word is “settled in heaven”—fixed, perfect, and unalterable.

  • God Himself is faithful from generation to generation.

  • Creation endures by God’s ordinances; everything serves Him.

  • A high view of Scripture flows from a high view of God.

• The Word Personally Sustains the Believer (v. 92)

  • The psalmist pivots from God’s objective sovereignty to personal experience.

  • Without delight in God’s law, he would have perished in affliction.

  • Scripture is not merely true—it must be treasured.

• The Word Gives Life and Drives Us to Salvation (vv. 93–94)

  • Forgetting God’s Word leads to spiritual death.

  • God’s Word is the means by which God gives life.

  • The Word humbles us, revealing sin and driving us to cry, “Save me.”

  • Delight in Scripture is inseparable from dependence on God’s grace.

• The Word Anchors Us in Hostility and Opposition (v. 95)

  • When threatened by the wicked, the psalmist meditates on God’s testimonies.

  • Scripture reorients our responses in persecution and suffering.

• The Word Is Inexhaustibly Rich (v. 96)

  • All human perfection has limits; God’s commandment does not.

  • Scripture is broad, deep, and endlessly applicable.

  • God’s Word can never be exhausted, only continually rediscovered.

Pastoral Encouragements

• Delight in God’s Word ebbs and flows—but God remains faithful.

• Bible reading is not about performance or guilt, but joy and life.

• Use practical tools (plans, audio Bibles, routines), but don’t abandon the Word.

• Scripture leads us not merely to knowledge, but to God Himself.

Psalm 119:89–96

1. Biblical & Theological Focus

• Doctrine of Scripture: God’s Word is eternal, authoritative, sufficient, and life-giving.

• Doctrine of God: God is sovereign, faithful, and unchanging.

• Doctrine of Salvation: God’s Word exposes sin and drives us to grace in Christ.

2. Historical & Literary Context

• Psalm 119 is an acrostic poem structured around the Hebrew alphabet.

• Each section reflects meditation, discipline, and intentional devotion.

• This section (Lamed) emphasizes stability, faithfulness, and endurance.

• Written in poetic form to aid memory and reflection, not mere information.

3. Key Scripture Connections

• Isaiah 40:8 – “The word of our God stands forever.”

• Matthew 4:4 – Man lives by every word from God.

• Romans 10:17 – Faith comes by hearing the Word of Christ.

• Hebrews 4:12 – The Word as a living, piercing instrument.

• John 6:68 – “You have the words of eternal life.”

4. Practical Application

• Ask not only “Is God’s Word true?” but “Do I delight in it?”

• In affliction, resist turning inward—turn to Scripture.

• Let the Word restrain sinful impulses and guide godly decisions.

• Read Scripture with expectancy, humility, and prayer for delight.

5. Westminster Standards Connections

• Westminster Confession of Faith

  • WCF 1.2, 1.6 – Scripture is sufficient and authoritative.

  • WCF 5.1 – God upholds all things by His providence.

• Westminster Larger Catechism

  • WLC 3–5 – God’s Word reveals who God is and what He requires.

  • WLC 155 – The Word is made effectual for salvation by the Spirit.

• Westminster Shorter Catechism

  • WSC 1 – Our chief end: to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

  • WSC 89–90 – The Word is a means of grace, requiring diligent use.

Please open your Bibles with me to Psalm 119, the longest chapter in the Bible. However, I am not going to read or preach from all of it. We are just going to go through one small portion, verses 89 through 96.

Psalm 119. Beginning at verse 89, if you are using the New King James Pew Bibles, you can find that on page 547. Hear now God's perfect word.

Forever, O Lord, Your word is settled in heaven. Your faithfulness endures to all generations. You have established the earth, and it abides. They continue this day according to Your ordinances, for all are Your servants. Unless Your law had been my delight, I would then have perished in my affliction. I will never forget Your precepts, for by them You have given me life. I am Yours, save me, for I have sought Your precepts. The wicked wait for me to destroy me, but I will consider Your testimonies. I have seen the consummation of all perfection, but Your commandment is exceedingly broad.

Let us conclude this portion of the reading of God's word with a prayer.

Father, not one of Your words has failed. And we thank You for Your word this morning. Father, we come to You as people who desperately need You to turn our hearts and our minds with all of our strength towards You. Help us this morning to comprehend, to understand, and to live these words. We need Your Spirit to do that, and Father, I pray that Your Spirit would be with me to speak words of truth for the building up of Your saints. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

It is the last Lord's Day of the year, and as has been my tradition over the last six years, it is nothing more than my own made-up tradition. I am trying to encourage you, not to browbeat you, but to encourage you to delight in God's Word. And so, we come this morning to Psalm 119, verses 89 through 96. You will notice there is a little thing right above verse 89 in your physical Bibles or on your screens. You will see some weird little character there. It looks like a squiggly line that goes over and then a squiggly line down. That is a Hebrew letter for Lamed.

So the Hebrew alphabet includes Aleph, Bet, Gimel, Dalet, Hay, and many others. This is the letter Lamed, which is an L, like the L sound. Psalm 119 is a giant acrostic. So each section starts with every line and every verse starting with that letter. It is hard to see, and if you come to Chalk and Talk later, I will show you visually. The first letter of verse 89 would be Lamed, Le'olam. Then verse 90 starts with the L, the Lamed again. Verse 91 starts with the L, and verse 92 starts with the L. You get the idea, right? Then the next section, starting at verse 97, suddenly switches. It goes from all the verses starting with the L sound to all of them starting with the M, the Mem sound.

And so this is how the psalmist says he has written Psalm 119 from Aleph all the way to Tav. That is a full Hebrew alphabet. I cannot imagine how much time and work it would have taken to write an entire poem through the entire Hebrew alphabet with every single line. And it is interesting because it is all about one thing: God's Word. It is all about God and His Word.

And so when we come to the passage today, I do not have anything fancy for you. I am just going to bring what I hope is a faithful explanation of God's Word, but not just what God's Word is, or what the psalmist says it is, but what it shows us about God, and what the psalmist says about how it impacted him.

So look with me first at verses 89 through 91. "Forever, O Lord, your word is settled in heaven. Your faithfulness endures to all generations. You established the earth and it abides. They continue to this day according to your ordinances, for all are your servants."

This whole section is dominated by "you" and "your." Who is this talking about? This is all talking about God. This whole section is dominated by talking about God.

And so first we see in verse 89 that God's word is settled in heaven. "Forever, O Lord, your word is settled in heaven." Forever. To all eternity. God's Word is settled, it is fixed, it is not changing. The idea that the psalmist is getting here is not that there would never be more revelation or something like that. But his point is that once God says something, it is perfect and true and not changing. Because God does not change.

And as I was wrestling with this passage and praying about it, I was thinking, what else could we possibly say about that? On the other side, what document here on earth, not in heaven but here on earth, what word here on earth does not change? And even our own nation's constitution has built into it the idea that we can have amendments, because there may be things that need to be changed or added to, adjusted, right? Because we know that we are fallen people, and so there are things that we wrestle with that we may write, but it needs to be changed, but not so with God's word.

Forever, O Lord, He calls on God's covenant name there. Notice verse 89. It is all capitalized, "Lord," there. Capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. This is the tetragrammaton, the four-letter name for God. His covenant name, Yehovah. Our covenant God, Your word is settled in heaven. It does not depend on men. No one can steal it away and change it, but it is fixed in heaven.

God's Word is perfect. It does not need improvement, amendments, or corrections. It does not have an expiration date. God's Word is fixed and settled in heaven. There is a stability that comes with that. As we think about God's Word, there are many people who have a very low view of God's Word. But I want to encourage you that as you have a more exalted view of God, as He presents Himself in His Word, and then you read His Word, knowing that it is coming from Him, flowing out of His love for His people, and fixed within His divine character, it gives you stability in your life.

Because if you think that God is just constantly changing and His word is never fixed, you do not know how He is going to interact with you from day to day. But when we go to His word, we are able to go, we are able to see that no, no. His word is fixed. Because He is not like a shifting shadow constantly changing. So I want to encourage you to anchor yourself in God as you find Him in His word.

But then notice in verse 90, he continues to talk about God. The Lord, Your faithfulness endures to all generations. You establish the earth, and it abides. It is God who upholds everything we see. He is pointing out here in verse 90 that verse 89 and 90 work with each other, right? His words are settled in heaven, but in His faithfulness, it is true from generation to generation. It is actually interesting here that the New King James Version kind of smooths it out a little bit because it is two generations, and "generation to generation" is how the Hebrew goes literally. There has not been a generation that has passed that God has not proved Himself true and faithful. God's faithfulness extends across all generations. When He made promises to Abraham, He was faithful to Isaac. And when He made that promise to Abraham and Isaac, He was still faithful when it came to Jacob. And then hundreds of years later, He was still faithful to His true promises when Joseph came about, and then with David, and then Solomon, and from generation to generation to generation. Peter encourages us in his preaching that this is the promise for you and to your children, and to all those who are far off, because see, God is faithful from generation to generation.

And it is God who established the earth, and it abides. See, Jesus matters. Because it is the God who made the heavens and the earth, the seas and all that is in them. It is the God who upholds all things by the word of His power. It is that God who is faithful. So every morning you wake up and you see a sunrise, and every night when you see the sunset, you are able to know that it is God who has kept the earth spinning on its axis. He is the one who determines the seasons. He is the one who brings the clouds and brings the rain and the snow. He is the one who keeps and upholds everything. It is God who established it.

And so my question to you is, is this your view of God? Are you more like me sometimes? I am often just living my life, putting it on cruise control, and you are just skating. You are just trying to get the jobs done for the day. And you forget that every single thing that we get in this life, even the stability that comes with waking up this morning, is because God is faithful. God is the one who is sovereign over all the earth. Generations will come and generations will go, but our God is eternal and unchangeable. People will fail you. We are going to read about that in a few verses here. But God is always faithful, and He will never fail you. His mercies are new every morning. And it goes on.

This is a difficult verse for me, verse 91. I struggled with it because of grammatical issues, right? Verse 91 states, "They continue this day according to your ordinances, for they are your servants." I found this grammatically challenging because, first, it is poetry. Poetry often breaks grammatical rules. Have you ever read poetry before? Poets will take words and place them in unusual positions, and prepositions may not align as they should. You might ask, "Well, what is going on here? What is this even talking about?" What is "the day" in verse 91? What does "the day" refer to? It is a plural, indicating multiple things. I have spent probably a couple of hours reading commentaries and wrestling with this question: What is "the day"? What continues "this day"? It is everything on the earth. It encompasses all the seasons, everything that God has established, and everything that endures because He is faithful. "They continue this day." God's created order continues this day. But how or why does it continue? It continues according to God's ordinances or according to His judgments. God's judgments provide the foundation for the stability of the created order and of our lives. God is the One who makes decrees. God is the One who makes judgments. This is why we emphasize the word that took me a year to learn how to spell: sovereignty. Sovereignty simply means that God is the ruler of everything. He is the king and exercises dominion. He has a kingdom under Him, and He acts according to His plan.

However, notice this: If God is the One who judges and if He is the king, the last part of verse 91 states, "for all are your servants." The psalmist uses an absolute statement here. Everything serves You, God.

Have you ever read the end of the book of Job before? I must tell you, the book of Job is one of those books for which I am not sure I will ever actually preach through it because it is one of those books for which you must go through about three or four chapters at a time. This is because it was never meant to be read in a way where you sit down and try to analyze who is right with every single little sentence. It is really hard to work through. Sometimes you feel as though you are slogging through the text because it is like one friend is arguing with another friend, and he is defending himself. It is just back and forth. It is like, oh man, when will this argument end? Friends, please be quiet.

But then there is that conclusion of the book of Job, where God reveals to Job the majesty of His sovereignty over creation. "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding. Who has determined the measurements of the earth? What is the extent of it? You know, or who has stretched the measuring line over it? To what were its foundations fastened, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Or who shut in the sea with doors, when it burst forth and came out of the womb; when I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band; when I set My limit for it, and put bars and doors on it; when I said, 'This far you may come, but no farther, and here your proud waves must stop'? Have you ever in your life commanded the morning, and caused the dawn to know its place, that it might take hold of the ends of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it? It takes on the appearance of the clay under the seal; and they stand out like a garment. From the wicked their light is withheld, and the arm of pride is broken. Have you entered into the treasures of the snow, or have you seen the treasures of the hail, which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war? Where is the way where light dwells? And darkness, where is its place, that you may take it to its territory and that you may know the paths to its home? You know, or have you gone to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Or have you seen the gates of deep darkness? Have you understood the breadth of the earth? Tell Me, if you know all this. Where is the way to the dwelling of light? And darkness, where is its place, that you may take it to its territory and that you may know the paths to its home? You know, or have you gone to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Or have you seen the gates of deep darkness? Have you understood the breadth of the earth? Tell Me, if you know all this. Who has put wisdom in the inner parts, or who has given understanding to the mind? Who can count the clouds by wisdom? Or who can pour out the bottles of heaven, when the dust hardens into a mass, and the clods of earth stick together? Can you hunt for the prey for the lion, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions, when they crouch in their dens and lie in wait in their lairs? Who provides food for the raven, when its young ones cry to God and wander about for lack of food? Do you know the time when the mountain goats give birth? Or can you mark when the deer gives birth? Can you number the months of their pregnancy, or do you know the time when they will give birth? They bow themselves, they bring forth their young, they deliver their offspring. They are delivered of their young, and are delivered from their pain. Their young ones are vigorous and grow up in the open field; they depart and do not return to them. Who has sent out the wild donkey free, and who has loosed the bonds of the onager, whose home I have made the wilderness, and the barren land his dwelling? He scorns the tumult of the city; he does not hear the shouts of the driver. He looks for the mountains as his pasture, and searches for green things to eat. Will the wild ox be willing to serve you? Will he stand by your manger? Can you bind the wild ox in his furrow? Will he plow the valleys behind you? Will you trust him because his strength is great? Will he leave the work for you to finish, and plow the field for you? You have adorned yourself with beauty; you have spread out your wings like the eagle. Who has put wisdom in the inner parts, or who has given understanding to the mind? Who can count the clouds by wisdom? Or who can pour out the bottles of heaven, when the dust hardens into a mass, and the clods of earth stick together? Can you hunt for the prey for the lion, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions, when they crouch in their dens and lie in wait in their lairs? Who provides food for the raven, when its young ones cry to God and wander about for lack of food? Do you know the time when the mountain goats give birth? Or can you mark when the deer gives birth? Can you number the months of their pregnancy, or do you know the time when they will give birth? They bow themselves, they bring forth their young, they deliver their offspring. They are delivered of their young, and are delivered from their pain. Their young ones are vigorous and grow up in the open field; they depart and do not return to them. Who has sent out the wild donkey free, and who has loosed the bonds of the onager, whose home I have made the wilderness, and the barren land his dwelling? He scorns the tumult of the city; he does not hear the shouts of the driver. He looks for the mountains as his pasture, and searches for green things to eat. Will the wild ox be willing to serve you? Will he stand by your manger? Can you bind the wild ox in his furrow? Will he plow the valleys behind you? Will you trust him because his strength is great? Will he leave the work for you to finish, and plow the field for you? You have adorned yourself with beauty; you have spread out your wings like the eagle. Who has put wisdom in the inner parts, or who has given understanding to the mind? Who can count the clouds by wisdom? Or who can pour out the bottles of heaven, when the dust hardens into a mass, and the clods of earth stick together? Can you hunt for the prey for the lion, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions, when they crouch in their dens and lie in wait in their lairs? Who provides food for the raven, when its young ones cry to God and wander about for lack of food? Do you know the time when the mountain goats give birth? Or can you mark when the deer gives birth? Can you number the months of their pregnancy, or do you know the time when they will give birth? They bow themselves, they bring forth their young, they deliver their offspring. They are delivered of their young, and are delivered from their pain. Their young ones are vigorous and grow up in the open field; they depart and do not return to them. Who has sent out the wild donkey free, and who has loosed the bonds of the onager, whose home I have made the wilderness, and the barren land his dwelling? He scorns the tumult of the city; he does not hear the shouts of the driver. He looks for the mountains as his pasture, and searches for green things to eat. Will the wild ox be willing to serve you? Will he stand by your manger? Can you bind the wild ox in his furrow? Will he plow the valleys behind you? Will you trust him because his strength is great? Will he leave the work for you to finish, and plow the field for you? You have adorned yourself with beauty; you have spread out your wings like the eagle. Who has put wisdom in the inner parts, or who has given understanding to the mind? Who can count the clouds by wisdom? Or who can pour out the bottles of heaven, when the dust hardens into a mass, and the clods of earth stick together? Can you hunt for the prey for the lion, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions, when they crouch in their dens and lie in wait in their lairs? Who provides food for the raven, when its young ones cry to God and wander about for lack of food? Do you know the time when the mountain goats give birth? Or can you mark when the deer gives birth? Can you number the months of their pregnancy, or do you know the time when they will give birth? They bow themselves, they bring forth their young, they deliver their offspring. They are delivered of their young, and are delivered from their pain. Their young ones are vigorous and grow up in the open field; they depart and do not return to them. Who has sent out the wild donkey free, and who has loosed the bonds of the onager, whose home I have made the wilderness, and the barren land his dwelling? He scorns the tumult of the city; he does not hear the shouts of the driver. He looks for the mountains as his pasture, and searches for green things to eat. Will the wild ox be willing to serve you? Will he stand by your manger? Can you bind the wild ox in his furrow? Will he plow the valleys behind you? Will you trust him because his strength is great? Will he leave the work for you to finish, and plow the field for you? You have adorned yourself with beauty; you have spread out your wings like the eagle. Who has put wisdom in the inner parts, or who has given understanding to the mind? Who can count the clouds by wisdom? Or who can pour out the bottles of heaven, when the dust hardens into a mass, and the

The whole creation is subject to God's sovereignty. The wind and the waves obey Him. This is why the disciples were amazed when Jesus said to the wind and the waves, "Be still." And there was a great calm, and they said, "What kind of man is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him?"

But it also means that we are part of the creation, and all people also serve Him. Now you might scratch your head and wonder, what do I mean? How do all people serve Him? That does not make sense. You can say, "I understand that Christians are supposed to serve God, right? Because they are His people, and so on. But how in the world are non-Christians in any way possibly serving God?"

I would encourage you to go and read the book of Daniel. In the historical books, God calls Nebuchadnezzar his servant. Nebuchadnezzar does not have a whole lot of love for the Lord. He has a lot of love for himself. He made a giant statue of himself out of gold and told everybody to bow down and worship it. And yet God is using even Nebuchadnezzar according to his decrees, according to his judgments, according to his ordinances.

But there is going to come a day, that last great day, when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. The question is, how will you bow your knee? For all are God's servants. Will you bow your knee willingly to him? Will you come before him with reverence and awe and love? Because he is the great king of all the universe forever? And serve him with all of your heart? Or will it come on that last great day? When those who will bow will not be bowing because they want to, but because they are compelled to. Because something has pushed them down on their knees, kicked in the back of their kneecaps. Creation is not neutral, and neither are people. Are we serving Him out of a love for Him? This is the whole point here: that as we read through Psalm 119, verses 89 through 91, we see the psalmist who has a grand and high view of who God is. And he loves the Lord. And then something changes. He is very clear that God is eternal and his word stands forever. He is clear that God is faithful from generation to generation. He sustains his creation and that everything exists to serve him.

But then notice in verse 92, there is a switch. "Unless your law had been my delight, I would then have perished in my affliction. I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have given me life. I am yours, save me, for I have sought your precepts. The wicked wait for me to destroy me, but I will consider your testimonies. I have seen the consummation of all perfection, but your commandment is exceedingly broad." It switches from "all you yours" to "I, me, my." And there is a hinge that happens. The hinge is verse 92. This is the pivot point. "Unless your law had been my delight, I would then have perished in my affliction."

It is not good enough for anyone to be convinced that God's word is objectively true if it has no relevance for that person's heart and life. Let me say that in a different way. You can be convinced that God's Word is true. You may even believe that the stories of Jesus are accurate. But if it does not produce in you a delight in God and His Word, it is fruitless. God has not given us the Scriptures so that you could be puffed up with a whole bunch of Bible trivia knowledge and have a fun party trick to be able to say different memory verses to people. The point of the Scriptures is not for you to become this intellectual big egghead guide. No, no, the Scriptures are given for us to delight in them so that we may delight in God Himself.

Thank you, Jim, for reminding us of Jesus's words on the summary of the Ten Commandments. What do they summarily teach us? That we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. We delight in Him. We love Him because His word leads us to that. And so this is what He says, right? "Unless your law had been my delight," He cherishes it. This is why we sing Psalm 19. When he says it is his delight, this is the same picture in Psalm 19 that God's word is to him like honey and gold, yes, more than much fine gold.

People do a lot of things for money. People will give away large portions of their lives, invest numerous hours, deprive themselves of sleep, endure physical pain and discomfort because they want money. Why? For many people, it is because there is some delight behind it. Money allows them to obtain things they desire, or they simply desire the accumulation of money itself. I must admit, for me, this was a challenge, even as I was confessing to the Lord how much my delight in the Lord's Word ebbs and flows in my life. Because if we are honest, we do not always delight to the same degree as we would like to in His Word. There are times in our lives, perhaps you remember a time in your life, when God's word was more precious to you than any money you could possibly ever have. Right, where every word seemed to drip with sweet honey. Yet, there are other times when, for no apparent reason, you sit down and think, "I know I should read God's word, but I just do not want to. Why does my heart not want to? Why do I want to read the news, or watch TV, or go on social media, or do chores instead, when I know that these are the very words of life?"

I am not here to try to browbeat you or impose legalism on you by saying that you must read this perfect Bible plan all the time. What I am here to tell you today is that our hearts are fickle, and sometimes we do not delight in God's word as we ought to.

I am quite convinced that it is probably David who wrote Psalm 119. Perhaps it is not, but I believe it is. We know that there are times when he did not delight in God's word as he ought to have. I do not think it is about perfection here. But we can come to him with that honesty and we are able to cry out to him.

Sometimes we do not delight in His word as we ought, but notice there is a benefit to His word. "Unless Your law had been my delight, I would then have perished in my affliction." He looks back at his life and says, "If I had not loved Your law, if there had not been a light unto my path and a lamp unto my feet, I would have been in major trouble."

Especially for you children, I want to encourage you: there is a lot of pain in this life that can be avoided if you store up God's word in your heart. There are a lot of traps and a lot of things in this world, roads that you should not go down and attitudes that you should not have that will hurt you and damage you. God's word will help you.

We do not know exactly what David's affliction here is that he is talking about. "I would then have perished in my affliction." Maybe this is David, and he is talking about when he was fleeing from Saul. Or maybe this is David when his own son Absalom had risen up and was trying to take the kingdom and kill him. We do not know what his affliction was here.

But even I think about if this was David writing this passage, there are multiple times where David is very clear that the only, we see him doing things in his life and he is restrained at times in these periods of affliction because he is willing to submit to what God has said in the law. He does not want to murder.

And so even when he is being chased out by a guy literally throwing rocks at him, Absalom has come in and he is there. There is a coup. David has to flee. He is running for the hills. And this Benjamite starts throwing rocks at him, cursing him. And his men, they have swords on their sides. They are like, "Let us go kill him." "No, no, no. No, we are not going to do that, men. Why? Maybe the Lord has sent him. And we do not want to shed innocent blood."

He finds himself restrained. He finds himself restrained when he is in the cave or even in the camp with Saul. Saul is sleeping, and David and one of his men, one of his mighty men, go into the camp, and Saul is asleep. David could kill him right then and there and end it, but he does not. God's Word restrains him.

And I think as the psalmist is looking back at his life, we can think about this: I would then have perished in my affliction, if God's law had not been His delight. God's law is authoritative, but it is also life-giving and protective. We delight in God's Word, and as we delight in God's Word, it has practical, helpful benefits for us.

Psalm 119, verses 9 through 11, right? How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your word. I have hidden Your word in my heart that I might not sin against You. Confess to the Lord when you are not delighting in His law, but also know that His word does bring safety. Then look with me at verses 93 and 94 as he continues in this very personal section. I will never forget Your precepts, for by them You have given me life. I am Yours, save me, for I have sought Your precepts. Forgetting God's word, forgetting God's precepts, forgetting His decrees, it is a death sentence.

Again, I am just being very autobiographical this morning. Perhaps you do not like that, and that is fine; you can tell me later. But it seems that in my life, every time I start just thinking on automatic mode and God's Word is not the guiding light for how I am supposed to be living my life, there is just sin and chaos and mess. There is hurt and destruction. Sometimes even life is at peril.

I think about some of the things that were illegal when I was a youth, and I do not know why I am not dead. Why? I would not think about God's Word. I just wanted to do whatever I wanted to do. And so as I was engaged in some reckless behavior, being in places I should not have been, and going at speeds I should not have been going, and doing things that I should not have been doing, death comes when we do not want to follow the Lord's word.

And the psalmist promises the Lord, "I will never forget your precepts. But why? For by them you have given me life." I was a kid who sat in church. And we were the type of family that went to church multiple times a week. I mean, I think there was one week that I remember we were at church five days that week. There was this Bible study, and that Bible study, and Awanas, and church. And I resented it. There was so much church. And I did not want to read my Bible. I was not a Christian. I was not regenerate. I had memorized the Bible verses because I would get my parents' approval. I would memorize the stories and stuff like that because, well, that was kind of fun. But I did not want to read my Bible. I did not want to pick up God's Word. I did not have any delight in God's Word. I did not want to lead my life by God's Word. Because I did not have life. I had not been born again.

"I will never forget your precepts. For by them you have given me life." How are people given eternal life? They hear the word of God and they believe. And this is one of the amazing things. I love to see people when they are first Christians. Because God saves them, and they have these new hearts, and they become insatiable readers with a vociferous appetite. They want to read God's word. They want to read. They want to read. They want to read. They want to read. They want to read. They want to read. They want to read. Why? Because God saved their lives.

Do you have a moment in your life when you remember a time when God saved you? God's Word was a delight to you. He had saved your life, and you wanted to read His Word. Those days do not have to be over. I remember R.C. Sproul. On two different occasions, he talked about his conversion. When he was at Westminster College in Pennsylvania, he became a Christian. Within a few weeks, he read through the entire Bible. Obviously, he was a much smarter and faster reader than most of us, especially me. But he just read and read and read. Why? Because God had saved him.

But then he had this interview. It was so interesting. Before he died, I was watching this interview. He had oxygen tubes in his nose, and he was breathing heavily. The person asked him, "What do you regret about your life?" He said, "I wish that I hadn't lost my zeal for reading God's Word like I had when I was first a Christian and I was saved." He had never forgotten the Lord's precepts. Thank God that R.C. died with a good testimony. But are we forgetting his precepts? Are we zealous for his word? Do we desire to hear them and to live by them?

But then there is this interesting thing that happens in verses 93 to 94. "I will never forget your precepts. You have given me new life. But then notice at verse 94. I am yours. Save me." You see, this is one of the things that reading the Bible does. If you are reading the Bible filled with the Holy Spirit, you are not going to walk away self-righteous. He first roots his identity in God's ownership of him. "I am yours." I notice that he cries out from that, "Save me, Hoshua." This is where Jesus' name comes from.

Because as he reads God's precepts and hears God's law, here is a preview: we have approximately half a year to study the Ten Commandments. What is the commandment? What does it require? And what is forbidden? We will examine each of these questions. It will take three weeks to cover every single commandment in the Shorter Catechism. And here is another preview: at the very end, the question will be, can anyone perfectly keep the law of God? No. No, we cannot. And we need to be saved. Because the wages of sin is death, and the problem is that each one of us has transgressed God's word in thought, word, and deed. We are the ones who have failed.

God's word acts like a two-edged sword. In one way, as it enters, it cuts our hearts because it shows us the sinfulness of our lives and the depravity of our minds. It reveals how corrupt and corrosive our speech is. It shows us how often we are prone towards idolatry, being stiff-necked, and being filled with all sorts of evil desires and passions that are natural to us. But as a sharp two-edged sword, it also performs heart surgery, like a surgeon's scalpel. As it exits, it instructs us and heals us. The pain of conviction of sin makes us cry out like the psalmist here, "I am yours. You know who I am. You know the deep recesses of my heart, so God, save me. I need Jesus. I need your salvation. I need the death of your Son on the cross. And God, I cannot make you a liar because I have heard your word, and so I cannot say I am without sin. Wash me in the blood of your Son. I am yours, save me, for I have sought your precepts."

I am not going to hide it from you. This is my primary reason for any of you who are not in Christ to go pick up a Bible reading plan and read it. I want you to cry out, "Save me." I want you to be able to say, "I am yours, Lord." I am not going to hide. I do not have a false pretext or motive here. I want you to be saved. I want you to read God's word, know Him, and know who you are in Him. So do not be forgetful of God's Word. Do not starve your soul of His Word. Remember that it is what worked in you first to cry out, "Save me, Lord."

Notice verse 119:95. The wicked wait for me to destroy me, but I will consider your testimonies. This is counterintuitive stuff. This is unusual. In Psalm 119:95, the psalmist says, "There are people who are trying to destroy me, people who are trying to kill me. There are wicked people doing wicked things, trying to take my life. So you know what I am going to do? I am going to read my Bible. I am going to meditate on your word." I must tell you, that probably would not be most of our first reactions. Yet, that is exactly what we are called to do. He has given us the words of life. So when we find ourselves in places of affliction, when we find that there are people who are persecuting or assaulting us, where do we go? Do not go into your own heart. Do not go into your own mind. Do not go to your natural reactions. I am going to encourage you to meditate and go back to what God has told you.

I have told you these stories before, but I remember I was talking to a pastor overseas, and he had just been beaten up and thrown in jail. I was sad for him. We were talking on a video call, and my heart was just broken. I said, I am so sorry this happened. I cannot believe this. Are you okay? He could tell that I was really torn up over this. He just looked at me and said, Brian, Jesus said, 'If they hated him, they will also hate us.' Why are you surprised this happened?

See, as he was getting beaten up and as he was in the jail cell, he knew that it was not that he was going to revile against those who were reviling him or avenge himself against those who were trying to persecute him, but he could say, 'No, vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, I will repay.' Instead, he was able to pray for those who were persecuting him. In that affliction, he did not turn inward, but he remembered God's word.

The wicked may wait for us to destroy us, but will we remember his word? Lastly, the psalmist ends with verse 96: 'I have seen the consummation of all perfection, that your commandment is exceedingly broad.' The psalmist is saying he is seeing the endpoint of all things that are perfect. When he considers everything that he has seen in life, as he thinks about all the different philosophies and truths and books he has read and everything else, when he thinks about all the most beautiful things, he comes to this conclusion.

Your commandment is exceedingly broad. This means he has walked through the towns, he has seen the skyscrapers, he has walked through the fields, he has seen the corn, he has gone into the suburbs and he has seen all the matching houses and the developments, he has walked all these different places, he has gone to the mountains, but then as he is walking across the land, he comes to the ocean. It just keeps going, and going, and going, and going, and going. It has no end, and its depths cannot be plumbed. There is no exhausting it.

This is both the beauty and the frustration of reading God's Word. The frustrating part is that every time I read parts of the Bible again, I think, how did I not see that before? Am I that daft? Am I that dull that I have read this? I have read through the Bible dozens of times, and I have come to this point. How did I forget that? I did not know that was there. That is the frustrating part.

The amazing part is that you will never exhaust God's word. As you delight in His Word time and time again, as you plumb those depths, you will find that it is just more and more rewarding, deeper and broader than you ever imagined. It applies in different ways in your life, with different verses tying in from different parts of the Bible that you never anticipated or never saw. There are different covenant connections in the Old Testament that are fulfilled in the New Testament. You will never exhaust it. It is exceedingly broad. You get to go swim in the deep end. This is the blessing of God's word. God is faithful. God's truth stands. God is sovereign over His creation. And we get the blessing of reading His word. We get the blessing of having His word protect us, convict us, transform us, and encourage us.

So I am just going to end with some really practical, nuts-and-bolts-type things. I am going to say this, and it is like shooting myself in the foot. You do not have to use a Bible reading plan. Okay, I have said it. But there are a bunch of them on the back table.

Be honest about where you are in your walk with the Lord. If you want to challenge yourself and you want to read a lot this year, that is fine. But if you get to the place where you are trying to read, trying to read, trying to read, and you think, look, there are kids crying, and things are going on, and things break. I just do not have the time. Okay, do not give up on reading the Bible. Then pick a different plan or slow it down. Do something smaller.

If you are the type of person who has good intentions, you might say, "I'm going to do a Bible plan this year. I'm going to be more in my Bible." But you might have a forgetful mind, like a goldfish. You make that commitment today, but then in two days, you might think, "Whoa, that was a shiny object."

Set an alarm. Choose a fixed time. Do it in a specific place.

Perhaps you are the type of person who says, "I'm not good at reading. I just can't understand it." If so, listen to the Bible instead. A family this week sent me an email about these little devices. They are amazing. They don't have any internet connection; they are just preloaded. It's a little gray box. You press play, and it just plays the Bible.

We live in an amazing age. Or if you have an iPhone or some type of smart device, go to bible.com and press the audio Bible. Get a dramatized Bible. I have had fun doing that for the last two years. Just listen to the Bible. If you are doing chores, put on the Bible. If you are driving, put on the Bible. If you are getting ready for the day, put on the Bible. It is a helpful tool.

But the point is not to burden you. I am going to end this sermon with just this encouragement. The Lord is good. His mercies are new every morning. He has loved us so much that he gave us his own son, redeemed us at the price of his blood. He has given us his word. And we are so blessed; we have it in so many translations, and we have it in language that we can understand. I do not want you to be impoverished. So all I am doing this morning is leading you to water. But I cannot make you drink. I am not going to put a feeding tube down your nose. You have to choose whether or not you are going to read the Scriptures. And I pray the Holy Spirit will well up in your heart, not just a delight for intellectual knowledge about the Word, but that you might delight yourself in the Lord himself as you read his word.

Let us pray.

God, we thank You that You have saved us. We thank You that You have spoken to us like a heavenly Father. I do not know what language You normally speak, Lord, but thank You for speaking to us in a language we can understand, and in ways that we can comprehend, and yet with a depth that we could never exhaust. Lord, we pray that You would well up in our hearts such a desire, such a delight in Your word, because we delight in You. And that that cycle would continue, that we would delight in You more, and delight in Your word more, and that that would make us delight in You more, and that would make us want to read Your word more.

God, we pray that You would please help us. Lord, I pray for any of those in the room today who have tried plans and are wracked with guilt because they feel like they have just failed or something like that in the past and do not want to fail again. Lord, I pray that You would please help them. Help them not to get bogged down by performance or perfection, but Lord, I pray that they might, Lord, that they might read for joy. For that is our chief end, to glorify You and to enjoy You forever. God, please help us to delight in You and in Your word. We pray this in Jesus's name, amen.

• What does it mean that God’s Word is “settled in heaven”?

• How does God’s faithfulness across generations shape your trust today?

• Why is intellectual belief in Scripture insufficient without delight?

• How has God’s Word restrained or protected you in times of affliction?

• What practical obstacles hinder your delight in Scripture—and how can they be addressed?

• How does Scripture both convict and comfort you?

• What does it mean to say God’s commandment is “exceedingly broad”?

• Delight: A heartfelt joy rooted in love, not obligation.

• Ordinances: God’s sovereign decrees governing creation.

• Precepts: God’s revealed instructions for righteous living.

• Affliction: Suffering used by God to refine and preserve His people.

• Sovereignty: God’s absolute rule over all things.

• Means of Grace: The Word, sacraments, and prayer through which God nourishes faith.