Living a Blessed Life

As you know Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible…176 verses, longer than 30 other books in the Bible, and it is absolutely devoted to God and to the Word God has given us. Make no mistake…Psalm 119 is devoted to God first, His name shows up in every verse. It is also devoted to how we can know Him through His Word.

The Psalm uses 10 different words to describe the Word of God…seven of them are found in the first 8 verses…law, testimonies, ways, precepts, statutes, commandments, and rules. You’ll find the most common in verse 9, the word, and it also speaks of promises and judgments.

This Psalm will lead you to God’s Word, but most of all it will lead you to God Himself. It can literally save your life. Boice tells the story of a Bishop who was sentenced to death…he was on the scaffolds and as was customary in that day, they asked him to pick a Psalm to be sung…he picked this one and before they were two thirds of the way through it his pardon arrived!

Henry Martyn was a great missionary who memorized this psalm,

William Wilberforce who was instrumental in abolishing slavery once wrote, “Walked today from the Hyde Park Corner, repeating the 119th Psalm in great comfort,

and David Livingstone recited it by memory at the age of 9! It would do us all a great benefit to hide these words in our hearts so that we will not sin against God.

I have no plans on walking through the entire Psalm, but I would like to look at a few of the stanzas for the next few weeks. It is an acrostic psalm and it is an amazing piece of literature…the first 8 verses start with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the second 8 verses begin with the second letter, and it continues like that for all 22 verses of the Hebrew alphabet. We are not told the author, but there many guesses—David, Hezekiah, Jeremiah, Ezra, Nehemiah, and even Daniel…if I were to guess I would go with Ezra simply because it does seem to be a psalm written after the Babylonian destruction of the Temple and because he was such a student of the Word of God, but ultimately, we can just say the Holy Spirit gave it to us through the pen of a man who knew God and who knew His Word.

This morning I simply want to point out one thing and then we will spend the week looking at verses 1-8. Psalm 119 is a detailed exposition of Psalm 1:1-2,

“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.”

This entire Psalm explains those two verses! So, let’s start tomorrow with the Blameless Man, “Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the LORD! Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, who seek Him with their whole heart, who also do no wrong, but walk in His ways.”