Know It and Keep It

We're in Psalm 119, verses 97 to 104.

Psalms 119:97–104

It's the main...

Psalm 119, 97 to 104.

Oh, how I love your law.

It is my meditation all the day.

Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies,

for it is ever with me.

I have more understanding than all my teachers,

for your testimonies are my meditation.

I understand more than the aged,

for I keep your precepts.

I hold back my feet from every evil way

in order to keep your word.

I do not turn aside from your rules,

for you have taught me.

How sweet are your words to my taste,

sweeter than honey to my mouth.

Through your precepts, I get understanding.

Therefore, I hate every false way.

About 92%, they say, of Americans own at least one Bible.

And they say that the average household has three Bibles.

That's pretty crazy, huh?

However, as George Gallup,

he's the famous pollster,

the Gallup polls are named after.

He's probably the leading pollster on religion in the country.

And the way he puts it is,

we revere the Bible as a country,

but we don't read it.

We revere the Bible, we don't read it.

And one of his surveys shows that

fewer than half of the Americans

can name the first book of the Bible,

which I'm confident all of you can do.

Only a third know who preached the Sermon on the Mount.

Many of the people named Billy Graham

as the person who preached the Sermon on the Mount.

And the quarter of the Americans who were surveyed

don't even know what is celebrated on Easter,

that they don't believe that that's the celebration

of Jesus' resurrection from the dead.

So biblical literacy has steadily declined,

even while the percentage of people

who are college educated has been going up steadily, right?

It's tripled, really, actually, since 1935.

But I agree with what Teddy Roosevelt,

26th president of the country, said.

He said this,

a thorough knowledge of the Bible

is worth more than a college education.

And Roosevelt was not a slouch academically.

He went to Harvard for undergrad,

went to Columbia for law school.

Even during his presidential campaigns,

he dedicated about three hours or more

to reading and learning about a wide range of topics,

including history and ornithology, of all things.

And yet he believed, despite all of that,

that a thorough knowledge of the Bible

is worth more than a college education.

And I think that squares with the teaching

of Psalm 119, 97 to 104.

I think the main point of this psalm

is that as students in the school of God,

we are to know God's word and keep it.

And so first, it talks about,

in the first four verses, knowing God's word.

And then in the second half,

it talks about keeping God's word.

And so let's talk about knowing God's word first.

The psalmist begins with an admiration of God's law

in verse 97.

Oh, how I love your law.

It is my meditation all the day.

I mean, I think this is a common human phenomenon.

We think about the things we love.

That's what our minds gravitate toward

when we're kind of just, I guess,

letting our minds drift.

And likewise, the psalmist meditate on God's law

all the day, it says,

because he loved God's law.

And so we all believe the scriptures,

but do we all love the scriptures?

Because that's where we find the mind of God, right?

We hear the voice of God.

There's a fourth century Christian bishop

from Milan named Ambrose,

and he put it this way.

He says,

as in paradise,

in the Garden of Eden,

as in paradise,

God walks in the holy scriptures seeking man.

Do we see scripture that way?

That God is there to speak to us through it,

and he is speaking us from it.

And we love God's word because of that

and think about it all the day.

And the psalmist tells us

why he loves God's word so much

in verses 98 to verse 100.

Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies,

for it is ever with me.

I have more understanding than all my teachers,

for your testimonies are my meditation.

I understand more than the aged,

for I keep your precepts.

Three comparative sentences

that talk about why he loves God's word so much.

It's because God's word makes him wiser than his enemies,

gives him more understanding than all his teachers,

and makes him understand even more than the aged.

It sounds a little bit arrogant

if you just read that maybe out of context,

but it's not arrogance in himself

as much as he's boasting in God's word,

the virtues of merits of God's word.

And of course, it's assuming that the enemies

and the teachers and the aged that are mentioned here

do not know or keep God's word,

like the psalmist is doing.

Because if they were,

obviously they would be wise also.

Because scripture contains the wisdom of God,

who is wiser than all the teachers and elders of this world.

Knowing and keeping God's word

makes us wiser than them all.

And this refers to more than,

and I think that's the knowledge that matters

more than any other kind of knowledge.

And it's referring to much more

than just theoretical knowledge.

Notice it says in verse 100,

I understand more than the aged,

for because I keep your precepts.

In the way people usually talk about scriptures,

we wouldn't expect the word keep

to appear there in that sentence.

You would more likely to read something like,

I understand more than the aged,

for I study your precepts.

Right?

But instead it says,

I understand more than the aged,

for I keep your precepts.

And it's keeping God's word

that has led him to an increased understanding

of God and his word.

So there is a kind of a practical

and experiential aspect

to understanding God's word.

Just as, you know,

mastering music theory

doesn't by itself make you

an accomplished musician.

Right?

And just like, you know,

studying the mechanics

of shooting a basketball,

which I've done many times

through YouTube,

does not make me

a good basketball player.

Merely knowing the content

of God's word likewise

doesn't make us understand it.

It doesn't,

there's a kind of understanding

that only comes through practice.

Right?

Just like you don't quite understand

what it means to walk by faith,

not by sight.

Right?

Until you do it.

Until you walk by faith.

Until you,

in spite of what you see,

live by faith.

As it says in 2 Corinthians 5, 7.

And so it says in John 13, 17,

if you know these things,

blessed are you if you do them.

So as students in the school of God,

we are to know God's word

and keep it.

And from there,

the psalmist pivots

using verse 100

to speak about keeping God's word

in verses 101 to 104.

And it says there,

I hold back my feet

from every evil way

in order to keep your word.

I do not turn aside from your rules,

for you have taught me.

The psalmist keeps away

from every evil way

in order to keep God's word.

Because God's word contains

no evil,

no falsity,

in order to keep it,

we must hold back our feet

from every evil way.

And it says that he does not

turn aside from the rules

God has taught him.

So he doesn't stray

to the left or to the right.

He stays right on the path

of God's rules.

And then he continues

in verse 103,

how sweet are your words

to my taste,

sweeter than honey

to my mouth.

Honey, I mean,

we just had a whole bunch

of candy for Halloween.

Nowadays,

there's a lot of things

that are sweeter.

When you think of something sweet,

you don't necessarily

think of honey, right?

But back in the day,

honey was a rare commodity.

You can't just walk

into a grocery store

and get honey for cheap

because people hadn't discovered

yet how to crystallize sugar, right?

That didn't happen

until the fourth century.

So honey was a coveted

and rare sweetener

that can be added

to all kinds of food and drinks.

And so now,

even though nowadays

we can imagine

a lot of things

we might rather have

than honey,

back then honey was like,

that's the sweet stuff, right?

That's what you want,

like, you know,

to add to your food.

And the psalmist is saying,

using that as an analogy,

saying that God's word

tastes sweeter than honey.

And it's such an intimate metaphor,

right?

Tasting something,

taste and see that the Lord is good,

Psalm 34.

It's more intimate

and personal

than like any of our other

sensory perceptions.

It's like,

not like seeing

or touching

or even smelling, right?

Those are all things

that are external to us, right?

Yet tasting,

it involves ingesting.

It becomes a part of you, right?

It's,

and that's how intimately

the psalmist is acquainted

with God's word.

He knows the sweet taste

of scripture.

And I think that's the key

to keeping God's word.

In his book,

Desiring God,

John Piper,

writes about it this way.

He says,

I know of no other way

to triumph over sin long term

than to gain a distaste for it

because of a superior satisfaction

in God.

Right?

We develop a distaste for sin

by savoring the sweet taste

of God's word,

by knowing it

and keeping it.

And then verse 104

concludes this stanza

by bringing it full circle.

It began in verse 97

with the declaration,

Oh, how I love your law.

And then it ends

with the declaration,

I hate every false way.

So if you love

the way of God's law,

you hate every other way

that contradicts it, right?

As students in the school of God,

we are to know

God's word and keep it.

And when we devote our lives

to knowing and keeping

God's word,

cover to cover,

without fail,

it brings us to Jesus.

It brings us to Jesus Christ

because He is the incarnate Word

to whom the inscripturated Word,

the written Word,

bears witness.

And it says in 1 Corinthians 1,

18 to 24,

For the word of the cross

is folly to those

who are perishing,

but to us who are being saved,

it is the power of God.

For it is written,

I will destroy the wisdom

of the wise,

and the discernment

of the discerning

I will thwart.

Where is the one

who is wise?

Where is the scribe?

Where is the debater

of this age?

Has not God made foolish

the wisdom of the world?

For since in the wisdom of God

the world did not know God

through wisdom,

it pleased God

through the folly

of what we preach

to save those who believe.

For Jews demand signs

and Greeks seek wisdom,

but we preach Christ crucified,

a stumbling block to Jews

and folly to Gentiles,

but to those who are called,

both Jews and Greeks,

Christ the power of God

and the wisdom of God.

For the foolishness of God

is wiser than men,

and the weakness of God

is stronger than men.

This really echoes

the spirit of this stanza

of Psalm 119.

The word of Christ

stumps the wise

and the discerning

of this world.

It makes us wiser

than our enemies,

even though they might see it

as foolishness.

It makes us,

the gospel of Jesus Christ,

the word of Christ,

makes us wiser

than our enemies,

more learned

than our teachers,

and more understanding

than even the aged.

Because it's the wisdom

that no man could have imagined

or foreseen,

that the Son of God

would become

the Son of Man

to make sons of men

like the sons of God.

That the Holy One

would die for sinful ones

to make them saints,

holy,

and set apart for God.

In the person and work

of Jesus Christ

and His life,

death,

and resurrection,

we see the fulfillment

of this psalm.

And it's as we believe

in the word of Christ,

in the gospel,

and live in accordance

with it,

that we taste

the sweetness of God

and develop a distaste

for the bitterness of sin.