The Bible Study Hour

Dr. James Boice: What's our first reaction when we find ourselves sinking in our troubles or surrounded by our enemies? If we're like the psalmist, we cry out to God with an urgent petition, a request to a God who's proven himself faithful in all of our past adversity.

Dr. James Boice: Welcome to The Bible Study Hour, a radio and Internet broadcast with Dr. James Boice, preparing you to think and act biblically.

Dr. James Boice: The power of prayer in the life of a believer is immeasurable. And while we're always able to call out to God in our distress, the power of consistent and regular prayer in our lives cannot be underestimated, because it fixes the direction of our minds.

Dr. James Boice: Join Dr. James Boice as he explores the faith of the psalmist who looks to God for deliverance, and the power of consistent prayer in the life of a believer.

Dr. James Boice: We're coming toward the end of Psalm 119 that we've been studying for quite a while. We're looking at the 19th stanza today. There are only three more to go. And so as we come toward the end, it's not a surprise to find the psalmist talking about his enemies once again.

Dr. James Boice: He's been mentioning throughout the psalm, but here he begins to focus on them in a fresh way. He says in verse 146, "I call out to you, save me." And verse 147, "I rise before dawn and cry for help." And if we say, "Well, what does he need deliverance from?" He explains it in verse 150. "Those who devise wicked schemes are near."

Dr. James Boice: And you ask the question, here he is surrounded by enemies. He's mentioned them before. He's very aware of them now. What is to be done? Well, we know the answer for that. It's not difficult at all. The writer turns to God in prayer with an open Bible before him, as it were. Because that's what he's doing in this Psalm.

Dr. James Boice: And when he does that, he realizes that though his enemies are near, God is also near. That's what he talks about in the next verse, Psalm 119, verse 151. And that makes all the difference. Derek Kidner summarizes the thrust of the Psalm at this point in one sentence. He says the threat is not glossed over, but it is put in perspective by a bigger fact.

Dr. James Boice: So we start with this matter of the enemies, and yet I have to say that this stanza is really not about enemies, it's about prayer. Because as we study it, we find great insights into the way this man prayed, how he became strong by laying all these things before God and doing it in the context of the word of God, which he was studying.

Dr. James Boice: Charles Haddon Spurgeon is wonderful on outlines and at this point in his study, he comes up with an eight-point outline, one point for each verse of the Psalm. And it all has to do with prayer. For example, how David prayed, what he prayed for, when he prayed, how long he prayed, what he pleaded, what happened, how he was rescued, and what was his witness to the whole affair.

Dr. James Boice: Well, in Spurgeon's day, people were used to listening to eight-point sermons. We're only half as good. So I only have four points, but they're going to follow the progression of this Psalm, taking two verses at a time, and I think you're going to find that there's much to be learned about prayer from this stanza.

Dr. James Boice: Now the first thing we need to learn is that prayer should be deeply earnest. The psalmist's prayers were earnest, and that's why he was driven to God's word. In fact, he was driven to the Bible so much that it becomes evident in almost every verse in this section.

Dr. James Boice: Remember when we were studying earlier sections, I pointed out there are some when there really are no petitions. He's just reflecting on the beauty of God's word. He has one good thing after another to say about it, but that isn't the case here. Here he's praying. And so you find him again and again and again beseeching God for help.

Dr. James Boice: Now in the Hebrew text, especially, but it's also evident in the English, the petitions "answer me" and "save me" are short staccato utterances. That is, they're urgent utterances. This isn't to say that there's not a place in prayer for well thought out, reasoned and beautifully expressed petitions.

Dr. James Boice: Most of the Psalms are very carefully thought out. That's why they're such beautiful poetry. But that isn't the thing we do when we really are in trouble. And the psalmist is in trouble here. And so, out of the urgency of the moment, fervent prayers arise.

Dr. James Boice: Now, we can think of several examples of that from the Old Testament, and one is the one that came up indirectly as a result of our scripture reading this morning. We think of Peter, when he was out on the Sea of Galilee with the other disciples, and Jesus came walking to them on the water.

Dr. James Boice: There'd been a storm, the weather was rough, the boat was pitching about, the disciples were undoubtedly afraid because in an earlier incident they had been in the time when Jesus was in the boat. He was asleep in the back, they were afraid, they thought they were going to perish. They woke him up. He chastised them for their lack of faith.

Dr. James Boice: And then he spoke to the elements and the waves died down and the wind was still. And we're told they were in awe. They said, "What manner of man is this?" Well, I think Peter must have had that earlier incident in mind because here they're out on the water, the boat is pitching around, Jesus comes walking to them over the water.

Dr. James Boice: Peter, you know, for all his failures, did have a memory. And I think he remembered how Jesus rebuked them for their lack of faith. And so he said to Jesus, "Now, if if you want me to, you could ask me to come and I could come walking over the water to you." And I suppose he thought he was just expressing a great deal of faith.

Dr. James Boice: And I don't find in the Bible a record of how he actually reacted when Jesus said, "Come." But I think that's where the rubber met the road for Peter, or I guess it would be more accurate to say where the soles of his feet met the water. At any rate, Jesus said, "Come." And then he was on the spot, you see.

Dr. James Boice: But to Peter's credit, he did it. He got out of the boat on that stormy sea, and he began to actually walk to Jesus across the water, sustained, of course, by the miraculous power of our Lord. But Peter's like us, you know, we start out well, we have faith, but it's only a little bit of faith, or it wavers, and pretty soon he was looking around at the waves.

Dr. James Boice: And he was thinking, "This is about the dumbest thing I ever did. How can I ever stay on top of the water in a storm like this, not to mention any other time?" And he began to sink, and it was at that moment that this desperate prayer came out. He said, "Lord, save me."

Dr. James Boice: He did not reflect in theological language upon the greatness of the sovereignty of Almighty God, who has created the heavens and the earth and sustains us by his almighty power. He didn't have time for that kind of a prayer. He was sinking. And so he called out, "Lord, save me." And Jesus did.

Dr. James Boice: Now that's the kind of earnest prayer you have in the opening verses of this Psalm. "I call," says the psalmist, "with all my heart." Verse 146, "I call out to you, save me. And I will keep your statutes." Well, I mentioned several examples. Let me give you another one.

Dr. James Boice: It comes from the book of James. James has a lot to say about prayer, scattered throughout the book and the early chapters and so on. But when you get to the end, James brings in the example of Elijah. He says the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. The new King James Version says the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.

Dr. James Boice: And so he gives an example of that, and he says Elijah is one such man. Now he points out that Elijah was just like us. He wasn't some great hero of the faith in the sense that he's above us and achieved something that you and I would never achieve. He pointed out that he was weak as we are.

Dr. James Boice: And if we need examples of that, we just have to remember that when Jezebel threatened to kill him, he was afraid, terrified. He ran away and hid in the wilderness. I think that's what most of us would do if somebody said they were going to kill us and we had an opportunity to get away, we'd go and hide. Elijah was just like us.

Dr. James Boice: But James says that he prayed at the instruction of God that there would be no rain for the space of three years, and he did, and there was no rain. And at the end of that time, God told him to pray again that the rain would come. And he prayed and it came.

Dr. James Boice: And we know the story from the Old Testament how it happened. Elijah went up to Mount Carmel where he had a great view out over the Mediterranean Sea, and we're told that he sat down, put his head between his knees in an attitude of prayer, and he sent the young man, the servant that was with him ahead to look out over the ocean, the Mediterranean and see what he could see.

Dr. James Boice: And the boy came back and said, "I don't see anything but a broad expanse of blue sky." And Elijah went on praying. He sent him again. He did it seven times. Every time he came back, he said, "I don't see anything but blue sky." I think he was praying urgently, effectually, and fervently.

Dr. James Boice: And at any rate, the last time the young boy came back, he said, "I see a little cloud out there on the horizon emerging from the sea." And Elijah said, "That's it." And so he got himself together. He told that he sent the boy ahead to tell Ahab the king to get going in his chariot before the rain overtook him. And he gathered his robes around him and he ran ahead and he outdistanced the chariot.

Dr. James Boice: You see, that's effectual fervent prayer, and that's what the psalmist is doing. It's commended to us. Now this isn't to say that you and I are to pray for any stupid thing that may come into our minds and then assume because we've thought of it that God has to do it. That isn't what it's talking about at all.

Dr. James Boice: You see, even Elijah had been told that the rain was going to come, but God works through means. Prayer is a means, and so we are to pray effectually to the ends that God has previously determined, and to do it effectively and fervently. And when we do, expect his blessing.

Dr. James Boice: If you want an example of something you could pray for at the very end of James 5, he gives an example. He says, "If you can't think of anything else to pray for, pray for sinners." Because he said, "Whoever turns a sinner away from the error of his way will save him from death and cover a multitude of sins."

Dr. James Boice: Prayer, biblical prayer must be fervent. Now, secondly, when Paul was writing to the Thessalonians and he got to the end of his first letter, where he begins, as he does in most of his letters, to deal with application and practical matters of Christian living, he begins to speak about prayer.

Dr. James Boice: And what he says about prayer is this. He says, "Pray continually," or, as you might also translate the phrase, "Pray at all times." Now, the author of Psalm 119 seems to have learned this lesson, too. Because the next two verses in this eight-verse stanza speak of regular prayer times.

Dr. James Boice: He says that he prayed before sunrise and even prayed through the watches of the night. "I rise before dawn and cry for help. I have put my hope in your word. My eyes stay open through the watches of the night that I may meditate on your promises." Verses 147 and 148.

Dr. James Boice: During the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology when R.C. Sproul was here, he got into a point in one of his messages where he was talking about devotions. And he says, "Where in the Bible does it say you should have devotions?" Now I know what he was getting at. What he wanted to say is all of our life should be characterized by devotion to God, that there's not special times for devotions as separated from other times in which we're not devoted.

Dr. James Boice: But he made the mistake of turning around to me. I was sitting back there where Phil Ryken is sitting and he said, "Where in the Bible does it say that?" I said, "Psalm 119, verses 147 and 148." And he didn't acknowledge me. He turned around and went right on preaching, but is that not true? Is that not what it says?

Dr. James Boice: Now, I understand the point. I even want to make it myself. When Paul told the Thessalonians to pray continually, he didn't mean that they were to do nothing but pray. It meant that their lives were to be characterized in general by a prayerful attitude. They were to wait upon the Lord in a consistent manner. All of that is absolutely true, but there is still something to be said for regular prayer times.

Dr. James Boice: Because these fix the direction of our minds and the direction of our lives. And these things are commended to us in the Bible. The psalmist says he prayed before dawn, that is, he got up early, morning devotions, and he also prayed through the watches of the night.

Dr. James Boice: Now some people sleep very well, and I suppose it would be difficult to pray through the watches of the night. The monks, you know, had certain times for prayer, they would wake up during the night, sort of in a kind of legalistic way of carrying this out. I don't suppose that's something that everybody has to do, but many of us as we get older don't sleep so well at night.

Dr. James Boice: Well, everybody who doesn't sleep so well at night, please hold your hand, be half of the congregation, right? Now, may I suggest that if you're awake at night, instead of counting sheep, count the promises? Because that's what the author of this Psalm and the other biblical writers had learned to do, meditate on the scriptures.

Dr. James Boice: Now, let me say something about meditation because that word actually occurs in verse 148. It's mentioned other times in the Psalms. We just haven't talked about it very much before this. The psalmist says that the reason he awoke and prayed during the watches of the night is so he might meditate on your promises.

Dr. James Boice: What is biblical meditation? Well, it's not merely reading the Bible and then praying about it a little bit. And it's even more than memorizing certain portions of it. It's actually internalizing the Bible's teachings to such an extent that the truths discovered in the Bible become part of how we think and what we are, so we think differently and act differently as a result as we go about our daily business.

Dr. James Boice: That's what God demanded of Joshua. Remember Joshua, the soldier, not a prophet, not a king, not one of the priests, just a soldier, a common man. But here's what he told him as he was about to enter the promised land, "Be strong and very courageous, be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you. Do not turn from it to the right or to the left that you may be successful wherever you go. Do not let this book of the law depart from your mouth. Meditate on it day and night, so that you will be careful to do everything that's written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful."

Dr. James Boice: One person who knows a lot about biblical meditation and has written a bit about it is Ron Jensen, who was a former president of the School of Theology of the International Christian Graduate University out in Southern California. He wrote on the subject some years ago. The International Council on Biblical Inerrancy published what he wrote, and he tells a little bit of his own personal story in that book.

Dr. James Boice: He describes how when he was still in grade school, he had developed a business. He was quite an entrepreneur. He made a lot of money. The only problem was, it was a pornography business. He's in grade school now. He used to buy explicit sexual material and then he would store it in the basement of his house, I suppose where his parents couldn't see it, and then he would sell it to his friends at a profit.

Dr. James Boice: Well, he got converted at a relatively young age in his high school years, and it completely changed his life. He had a whole new direction. He dropped the business. He began to enter into church activities and all, but he said he still had a problem, and that is it was his thought life that bothered him. He had been feeding on the sexual material, and although he had stopped trafficking in it, he just couldn't get it out of his mind.

Dr. James Boice: It had become a part of him. He described what happened in this way. Maybe you've heard people say something like this. "When you sow a thought, you reap an action. When you sow that action, you reap a habit. When you sow that habit, you reap a character. When you sow a character, you reap a destiny." At any rate, that's what he had done. He'd been sowing lustful thoughts and now he couldn't escape it.

Dr. James Boice: Well, he says in this book that what delivered him was learning how to meditate on the Bible, that is, to develop a pattern, a discipline of biblical meditation. In other words, he learned how to be transformed by the renewing of his mind, which is what Paul says in the 12th chapter of Romans.

Dr. James Boice: Now, it involved thinking what the passage was about, internalizing it, imagining what it would mean for him in specific acts of conduct, actually visualizing what it would be to obey that passage. And he says he even worked on singing specific verses to whatever tune seemed to fit them because singing the verses helped to fit them and fix them in his mind.

Dr. James Boice: And he found that he really was transformed that way and he really was delivered. His conclusion is this: biblical meditation is hard work, but the reward is worth it, a consistent, victorious Christian life. Well, the author of the Psalm is obviously trying to do this, too.

Dr. James Boice: Now, thirdly, the psalmist teaches that prayer is best when it is biblical. That is, when it accompanies Bible study and when it flows from Bible study naturally. In other words, in a sense, prayer becomes repeating God's very words, commands and promises back to him.

Dr. James Boice: You know, when you're listening to someone speak, if you have a different point of view and you're trying to understand their argument, one of the things you're taught to do is learn to repeat the other man's argument back to him in other words, but in such a way that he can say, "Yes, that's exactly what I intended."

Dr. James Boice: Well, there's something to that in Bible study, being able to repeat the words of God back so they actually become part of ourselves. This is what the psalmist is saying. Look, he's saying that he wants God to hear him in accordance with his love, that is, his love revealed in scriptures. He studied it, and again in verse 149, "according to your laws."

Dr. James Boice: What distresses him about the wicked, who have chosen another pattern of life, is that they are far from your law. Verse 150. So he wanted to meditate on the Bible and pray biblically. In his commentary on Ephesians, Harry Ironside, who was a great Bible teacher of an earlier generation, tells about something that happened when he was a young man.

Dr. James Boice: He met a man whose name was Andrew Fraser. The man was dying of tuberculosis. Many people did in those days. He could barely speak above a whisper because his lungs were almost consumed by the disease. But this man Fraser said to the young Ironside, "Young man, you're trying to preach Christ, are you not?"

Dr. James Boice: And Ironside replied, "Yes, I am." Well, he said, "Let's sit down a little and let's talk about the word of God." So Ironside records how this man opened the Bible, and until his strength was gone, he began to explain one passage after the other to Ironside that moved him to such an extent because it was so deep and so spiritual that the tears began to run down his cheeks.

Dr. James Boice: And finally, he said to Fraser, "Where did you get these things? Can you tell me where I can find a book where I can get them? Did you get them in a seminary or a college?" And here was this man's answer, "My dear young man, I learned these things on my knees on the mud floor of a little sod cottage in the north of Ireland.

Dr. James Boice: There with my open Bible before me, I used to kneel for hours at a time and ask the Spirit of God to reveal Christ to my soul and to open the word to my heart. He taught me more on my knees on that mud floor than I could ever have learned in all the seminaries or colleges in the world."

Dr. James Boice: And that's the secret, you see. I'm not disparaging education. I've received a good bit of it and I've profited from it. I'm glad for every bit of education I have. I commend it to others, get all the education you have. I also believe in a learned clergy. That's part of the tradition in the denomination of which we're a part.

Dr. James Boice: We have men who are trained to expound the word, that is, to do it accurately, that understand the language and all of that. You see, but true as that may be, that does not mean that the secrets of God's word are locked up from those who don't have a college or seminary education. Jesus said to those of his day, "The Bible is given to point you to me." That's what God gave the Bible for.

Dr. James Boice: And he said to the Pharisees, "The trouble with you is you won't allow it to point you to me. And as a result, you really don't understand the Bible at all." What we need to do is spend time prayerfully with the Bible if we would come to know Jesus.

Dr. James Boice: Well, the fourth thing is this: prayer must be in faith. That is, it must be believing. It must be earnest, yes. It must be part of a consistent way of life, true. It must be biblical, based on Bible study, but it also must be in faith. Now, earlier I mentioned the book of James, and I pointed out that James says a lot of things about prayer in that relatively short book.

Dr. James Boice: We were looking at the last chapter, but if you go back to the first chapter, he talks about the necessity for faith. He's talking there about wisdom. And he's saying, "If you lack wisdom, you should ask God." But then he adds this, "But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not think that he will receive anything from the Lord. He's double-minded, unstable in all he does."

Dr. James Boice: Well, I read that and I say, "Yes, but suppose we do doubt?" Because we do. And suppose we're unstable? And we are. What do we do then? The answer is you ask God to help you not to be so unstable. You ask God to strengthen your faith even when you doubt.

Dr. James Boice: You remember the story of the man who came to Jesus to ask help for his demon-possessed son. He wanted Jesus to cast out the demon, and he said, "If you can do anything, please take pity on me and help me." And Jesus replied, I suppose actually with a smile on his face, somewhat wistfully, "If you can?" The man said to Jesus, the Son of God, "If you can do anything?" He said, "If you can?"

Dr. James Boice: And then he said, "Everything is possible for him who believes." And the man understood, of course, that the problem wasn't with Jesus, it was with himself. So the man replied, "I do believe, help me overcome my unbelief." And Jesus healed his son. God does that.

Dr. James Boice: We come with our weakness, and in Jesus we find strength. We come with our unbelief, and in Jesus we find faith. We come doubting, and in Jesus we find a single-mindedness that's able to set us on the right path and bring blessing. But how does that happen? How is that kind of faith cultivated?

Dr. James Boice: The answer is clear from the passage. It's cultivated by studying the Bible, by learning what God is like, by finding out who Jesus is. Because that's the only place we can find out what God is like and who Jesus is. So it's as we study the Bible that our faith is made strong because our faith is then in him.

Dr. James Boice: The psalmist did this. He tells us that when he studied the Bible prayerfully, day and night, what he learned specifically is that although his enemies were near, God is also near. That's what we saw at the very beginning. This tells us that it is the presence of God perceived in Bible study that frees us from our fears and makes us strong in faith.

Dr. James Boice: And then the last line sums it all up. It's what Spurgeon called his testimony. The last line says about God's statutes, "You establish them to last forever." And that means that the person who builds on them will also be established and will last forever, too.

Dr. James Boice: Now we sing about it in a great hymn, and it's "How Firm a Foundation." It goes like this. "How firm a foundation, you saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in his excellent word. What more can he say than to you he hath said, to you who for refuge to Jesus have fled. Fear not, I am with you, oh be not dismayed, for I am your God and will still give you aid. I'll strengthen you, help you and cause you to stand upheld by my righteous omnipotent hand.

Dr. James Boice: And again, the soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose, I will not, I will not desert to his foes. That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, I will never, no, never, no, never forsake." You see, nothing is more certain than our security in Jesus Christ. If we really are in Christ, because Jesus was ordained by God to be our savior from the for the foundation of the world.

Dr. James Boice: In time, he was sent actually to achieve our redemption by his death upon the cross. Then he was raised from the dead. He lives now to make intercession for us in heaven forevermore. But we need to learn that. And we need to have our minds fixed firmly on Christ and what he has accomplished on our behalf. The only way that will ever happen, the only way God's people will ever be strong and be unshaken by enemies or by life's many trials is by prayerful Bible study.

Dr. James Boice: We must be people of the book. So the question is this, do we value it? God has given us a great treasure in this book. Do we really value it? Great preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon said on one occasion, "Bubbles may please children, but men prize those things which are solid and substantial with a foundation and a bottom to them, which will bear the test of the ages."

Dr. James Boice: And all God's people should say, Amen. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you that you have given us a foundation in your word, a foundation upon which we can build. We will not be swept away by the torrents of this life. A foundation which is eternal, a salvation which is based upon your very character. We confess our weakness, our trembling, our uncertainty.

Dr. James Boice: But we needn't be as uncertain or weak or trembling as we are. So our Father, teach us what it really is to grow strong as we meditate on your word and hide it in our hearts for Jesus' sake. Amen.

Dr. James Boice: Thank you for listening to this message from The Bible Study Hour, a listener-supported ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. The Alliance is a coalition of pastors, scholars, and churchmen who hold to the historic creeds and confessions of the Reformed faith, and who proclaim biblical doctrine in order to foster a Reformed awakening in today's church.

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