Treasuring the Supremacy of God’s Word

Psalm 119:97, O how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day.

As a church we are committed to a high view of God. He is the eternal God from everlasting to everlasting as we saw last week in Psalm 90:2. He is self-existing, infinite, eternal, and unchanging. He rules the universe and human history according to His own plan and is sovereign over all time, all people, all circumstances in your life, and particularly over the souls of men.

We are also committed to a high view of Scripture. And no portion of Scripture so elevates the place of God’s Word like Psalm 119. Of the 176 verses in this Psalm, almost everyone refers to Scripture. Martin Luther prized Psalm 119 so highly he said he wouldn’t take the whole world in exchange for one leaf of it. I’ve titled this message “Treasuring the Supremacy of God’s Word.” That word “supremacy” means total dominion, highest power or authority. We easily apply that to God’s Word and especially Psalm 119. Spurgeon in his Treasury of David described it as a “continent of sacred thought, every inch of which is fertile as the garden of the Lord.” It stands as a towering giant among the Psalms.

William Wilberforce, the British parliamentarian who fought the slave trade in the early 1800s in England, memorized the whole Psalm, reciting it aloud during his walks home from Parliament. Missionary David Livingstone won a Bible in Sunday School for repeating it by heart when he was nine years old.

We don’t know who wrote it, but it has King David all over it. There are 176 verses in this Psalm and every verse except four describes God’s Word. They refer to Scripture eight ways: Law, testimonies, precepts, statutes, commandments, judgments, words, and ordinances. Psalm 119 is a thoughtfully and artfully composed acrostic Psalm. There are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet; this Psalm is divided into 22 sections, each section following that alphabet. So the first section is aleph, second beth, third gimmel, and so on. If you want to learn the Hebrew alphabet, just turn to Psalm 119 in your Bible. You’ll see the divisions. Not only that but each section has eight verses and each verse begins with the Hebrew letter of that section. We’re going to study section “Mem” today, verses 97-104, so the first letter in each succeeding verse begins with the letter “mem.”

SEVEN ARROWS FOR YOUR BIBLE QUIVER

Before we go to our section this morning I want to offer up seven verses from Psalm 119 as possible memory verses for you. We need ammunition to fight the spiritual warfare raging in our world and to fight the sin in our flesh. They are seven sharp arrows for your Bible quiver.

Psalm 119:9, How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to Your word.
Psalm 119:10, With all my heart I have sought you; Do not let me wander from your commandments.
Psalm 119:11, Your word I have treasured in my heart, That I may not sin against You.
Psalm 119:18, Open my eyes, that I may behold Wonderful things from Your law.
Psalm 119:97, O how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day.
Psalm 119:105, Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.
Psalm 119:130, The unfolding of Your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.

We are committed to a high view of Scripture, which means we hold to the sufficiency and supremacy of God’s Word over all of life. Paul said in 2 Timothy 3:16 the Bible is God-breathed and therefore the Bible is without error, infallible, authoritative and sufficient for life, and supreme over our lives. God says in Jeremiah 23:29, “Is not my word like fire and like a hammer that shatters a rock?” Let’s zero in on verses 97-104 this morning, the section “Mem.”

GOD’S WORD IS THE SUPREME COMMITMENT OF OUR HEARTS

Psalm 119:97, O how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day.

Notice the author didn’t just say, “I love Your law.” He said, “O how I love your Law!” There’s passion in that little phrase, “O how!” It’s the prize and treasure of my heart. Clearly one of the healthiest marks of a child of God is this love for the Bible. Nothing else will do. “The B I B L E, yes that’s the book for me, I stand all alone on the Word of God, the B I B L E.” Your love for your Bible reflects your love for your Savior. We don’t worship a book but we love the book that tells us all about our Savior, whom we do worship. We love the law of God since it is God’s revelation. We love God’s law and Jesus Christ came as the perfect law keeper for us. The law does condemn us but we love it because it drives us to Christ. He kept the law perfectly for us and that perfect righteousness is imputed to every person who submits to Christ as Lord and Savior. Jesus Himself loved the Word supremely, above all earthly things or people. When a lady cried out “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts at which You nursed,” Jesus corrected, her with, “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the Word of God and obey it!” (Luke 11:28).

Why do we love it? We don’t naturally love God’s law. God gives us a love for His Word when He gives us a new heart to believe in Christ. Paul thanked God for the Thessalonian believers.

1 Thessalonians 2:13, For this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe.

This is what happens when you come to Christ. Some fifty years ago the Bible became a new book to me. A gentleman came to visit us with a big black Bible and took us down the Romans Road and showed us how to be saved. Then a godly lady, Mrs. Moses, had her son Tom come to our hippy farmhouse and taught us brand new spiritual fledglings the Word of God. I believe he taught us Romans. We were amazed as we learned about salvation by grace alone through faith alone and not by works. We grew up in a religion of works – you never knew if you were good enough. Now we rejoiced in a salvation by grace alone. We invited our hippy friends to join our study but somehow they weren’t as excited about the Bible as we were. When God gives you a new heart, He gives you a heart to love and learn His precious Word.

Verse 97 says if you love God’s law, you’ll ponder what you read there. You’ll meditate on it “all the day!” This is exactly what God told Joshua to do with His Word.

Joshua 1:8, This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.

You may know that cows and sheep have four compartments in their stomach, the rumen, reticulum, omasum, and abomasum. As they swallow their food, they move partially digested food from their stomachs back up to their throats and then to these different compartments, chewing their cud all day long. That’s a picture of meditation. To change the picture. Let’s say you fall in love with a beautiful young lady, so sweet, kind, encouraging. You begin to make plans for marriage but as a soldier you are suddenly called to the front lines. There you are miles apart, but then letters come from her hand, fragrant with perfume, full of love and affection. You would read and reread and smell and treasure them as often as you could. Her beauty radiated through her written letters. Oh, how you loved those letters. You’d think about them all the day. That’s what David says about God’s law, “It is my meditation all the day.” His truth informs us, refreshes us, and nourishes us spiritually.

As believers we see the loveliness of Jesus Christ in the Word. From creation through Old Testament history and Psalms and Proverbs and Prophets into the gospels and epistles right down to the great book of Revelation. It’s all about the beauty and glory of Jesus Christ, our loving Shepherd, Savior, and King.

GOD’S WORD IS SUPREME OVER ALL HUMAN WISDOM

Psalm 119:98, Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies, For they are ever mine. [99] I have more insight than all my teachers, For Your testimonies are my meditation. [100] I understand more than the aged, Because I have observed Your precepts.

Wiser than your enemies, more insight than all your teachers, and more understanding than the old guys. David, or whoever wrote this, isn’t boasting. He simply means young man who invest their hearts, time, and lives in learning and applying God’s Word will have more wisdom and understanding than any natural wisdom his enemies, teachers, or elders have. Notice, they are Your commandments, Your testimonies, Your precepts, not man’s. Think about the foolish stuff God’s enemies believe. Things like godless evolution, millions of years, man from apes, many genders, you can trans-gender, men in women’s sports, can’t define a woman, abortion is women’s health care. The current Massachusetts’ governor rules you can kill babies up until they’re ready to be born. God’s enemies say you can buy your way to heaven. And if you’re not good enough for heaven, you can go to purgatory, and so much more.

You have the treasure of wisdom in your Bible. We’re thankful for teachers, if they are teaching us the truth of God. But you must have great discernment with our educational system. When you know God’s Word, it means you understand the basic truths of life from beginning to end, maybe more than your professors. You know you can’t get something from nothing – God had to create it. You know you can’t get life from non-life – God had to create it. You know you can’t get higher forms from lower forms – God created them according to their kinds. You know you can’t get man from apes – God had to create man. You know marriage is between a man and a woman – the only way to being fruitful and multiplying. You certainly know men can’t have babies. And you know man is different than woman. Peter tells us woman is the weaker vessel (1 Peter 3:7). Very few women can dunk a basketball through a ten-foot-high rim.

God’s Word is supreme over all human wisdom. F. B Meyer wrote. “The study of God’s Word by a loving heart gives to simple and unlearned people an understanding which no college learning can impart.” Martyn Lloyd-Jones earned his medical doctorate from the University of London at age 23, and served as an assistant to the royal physician, Dr. Horder. But then he entered the gospel ministry but never got a degree in biblical studies. He saturated his heart with the Word of God and while given much giftedness from his heavenly Father, he was spiritually wiser and had more insight into the Word of God than most of his contemporary preachers in Wales and London.

We treasure God for the supremacy of His Word. Notice in verses 98-100, “I have made them mine.” I have observed them. I meditate or ponder them. We’re glad for teachers to teach us but we need the Spirit of God to grasp and apply truth to our lives. Even aged people are often foolish. The smartest aged atheist is still a fool. To have God’s Word in your heart gives you a maturity that can’t be produced by natural wisdom. What a joy to see our young people investing themselves in opportunities to study and apply God’s Word. Let’s pray for them.

GOD’S WORD IS SUPREMELY POWERFUL TO FIGHT TEMPTATION

Psalm 119:101, I have restrained my feet from every evil way, That I may keep Your word. [102] I have not turned aside from Your ordinances, For You Yourself have taught me.

You have both sides here. You restrain or hold back from every evil way and you have not turned aside from God’s Word. It is God’s work of grace that truly holds us back from sin and temptation. And yet that is what your love for God’s Word will do for you. First John 2:14 says, “I have written to you young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.”

The Psalmist isn’t teaching perfectionism but the truth that God’s people, empowered by God’s Spirit and directed by God’s Word, can live in victory over sin. You must keep your sword drawn and stay on the alert. God’s sufficient and supreme words assure us we can gain victory over sinful habits. In 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 Paul lists some of the sinful lifestyles of the Corinthians and then says, “You’ve been changed.” God can change anyone by the power of the Spirit and counsel of His Word. Can homosexuals become straight? Yes. Fornicators pure? Yes. Drunkards sober? Yes. Revilers blessers? Thieves givers? Adulterers faithful? Idolators lovers of God alone? Yes, yes, yes.

Notice the end of verse 102 – YOU YOURSELF HAVE TAUGHT ME! Wow! You come into the classroom and look at the professor’s desk and God is sitting near you ready to teach you! Every new believer enters God’s Institute for Eternal Studies, and you get personal tutoring. When you open your Bible, ask God to teach you. God teaches you truth straight out of the Bible. You are gripped by His grace and truth and learn how to please Him. The reason we obey is because God Himself has taught us straight from His Word.

GOD’S WORD IS SUPREMELY SWEET TO OUR INNER SPIRITS

Psalm 119:103, How sweet are Your words to my taste! Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth!

We saw this back in Psalm 19 and David is still finding God’s words sweet. Is this your experience? Not bitter, hard, oppressive, or even boring words, but sweet, desirable, healthy, spiritually-growing words. Jeremiah testified, “Your words were found, and I ate them, and your word was to me the joy and delight of my soul.” (Jeremiah 15:16). God’s words are living and powerful and sweet. James Montgomery Boice said, “If you can’t find anything beautiful or sweet in these verses, your taste buds are terribly dulled and your eyes horribly glazed by the tawdry glitz of our culture.”

Did you find that great truth of God choosing you before the foundation of the world sweet to your taste? You may have found them a bit tough to chew on at first, but as you fed your heart on God’s sovereignty, total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, preservation of the saints, justification by faith alone, salvation by grace alone, redemption through Christ alone, then the great truths of God’s six-day creation and Christ’s millennial kingdom in Zechariah and Revelation, these all became sweet to your taste.

GOD’S WORD GIVES US SUPREME DISCERNMENT

Psalm 119:104, From Your precepts I get understanding; Therefore I hate every false way.

Oh how we love God’s Word to guide us through the devil’s jungle. Without the Word we’d be lost in the fog and darkness of Satan’s deceptions. “The unfolding of Your Word gives light” (Psalm 119:130). Wherever you don’t have the Word going out in full force you have deception. Religion is deception. Just because it’s clothed in grand words and great cathedrals and smoke and incense, fog and lights, doesn’t make it true. Even when it is labeled with all kinds of degrees and titles doesn’t make it reliable. There are tons of false ways, and as people who love God’s Word and the God of that Word, we hate the false ideologies. The source of every false way is Satan. He is the father of lies and rules his empire by deception. We hate the damning false ways but not the poor souls caught up in the false systems. We’re not haters except for the godless ideologies and false religions. We feel a certain pity for those led astray or enamored by them.

SO WHAT?

Let us recognize the importance of highly valuing and treasuring the supremacy of God’s awesome Word. All of Psalm 119 is worthy of your prayerful meditation. Love, learn, and live the Word of God supremely. And realize there’s only one key that opens this book for your heart – the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember those two fellows on the Emmaus Road, “Did not our hearts burn within us as He explained the Scriptures to us” (Luke 24:32). In 1917 Haldor Lillenas wrote this tribute to the Bible.

The Bible stands like a rock undaunted
’Mid the raging storms of time;
Its pages burn with the truth eternal,
And they glow with a light sublime

Refrain:
The Bible stands though the hills may tumble,
It will firmly stand when the earth shall crumble;
I will plant my feet on its firm foundation,
For the Bible stands.