Crowded House | Psalm 119:16

 

Have you ever heard a kid say something funny?

You might have a few funny quotes from your kids or grandkids or nieces or nephews or even the proverbial Eddie Haskell from down the street.

Or maybe you forgot them.

You remember laughing really hard when they said it, but now you can’t remember what they said.

Have no fear, as with everything else, there’s an app for that.

The Little Hoots app promotes itself with this tag line:

Little Hoots

Your child’s story finally has a home. One home.

The app allows you to keep track of your child’s best quips and quotes in one place and also gives you resources to share them in creative ways with other people.

Here are a few recent quotes from Little Hoots. 

Annabelle (age 4)

When it gets cold outside my teeth start to chew by themselves.

Cam (age 4) and Kelsey (mom? sister?)

Cam: Oh no! I got gum in my forehead hair!

Kelsey: Those are called eyebrows.

Alex (age 6) and his dad

Alex: Right now, peanut better feels like glue in my mouth.

Dad: How do you know what glue in your mouth feels like?

Alex: Don’t ask. It tastes like salty water and sticky hands.

This one might be favorite…

Alex (age 3)

Putting on pants doesn’t make anything feel better.

Can’t you just hear that conversation?

“Mommy, I don’t feel good!”

“Ok, buddy, but we gotta go, so, finish putting your clothes on and you’ll feel better after you are dressed.”

A few seconds later:

“Nope, I got my hoodie and my pants on and I don’t feel any better!”

Kids say funny things. 

And sometimes we remember and sometimes we forget the funny things they say.

But if it’s the middle of the night and you are overwhelmed with the panic of a bad dream, you might need something more than the Little Hoots app. 

A funny quote from a kid might help a little bit, but if you are trying to wake up and crawl out of a dreadful nightmare as you sleep or a real-life nightmare in the middle of the day, you will need something with more punch.

But what?

And even if you have something with more punch, how can you make sure you will still remember it in the middle of the night?

Let’s find out.

Listen to Psalm 119, verse 16:

16 I shall delight in Your statutes;

What is a statute?

The word here for statute means an ordinance or a regulation.

In the city of Lawrence, Kansas, in cooperation with the University of Kansas, there are some good neighbor ordinances that have been set up to create and encourage neighborly habits among college students.

The ordinances cover the following main areas:

• Pets
• Bikes
• Trash
• Noise
• Roommates

One of the ordinances under the trash section is pretty classic:

City of Lawrence

It is illegal to keep your refrigerator, bike or TV on your front porch or lawn. While these things may not be trash, they still affect your neighborhood’s appearance.

Can you imagine the difficulty of getting a midnight snack if your refrigerator is on your front lawn?

City of Lawrence

Furniture may not be kept on your lawn. Small animals will quickly take up residence inside any furniture you leave outside.

In other words, those small animals will count as roommates under the roommate ordinance and drive up your rent rate.

Why did the city create those ordinances?

To help create and maintain a good sense of order.

Someone might say:

• “Order?”
• “Statutes and regulations?”
• “I don’t really like things like that.”
• “I like freedom.”
• “I don’t won’t my government telling me what to do.”
• “I want my fridge in the front yard.”
• “I like rats and raccoons living in my lawn furniture.”

Can a government or a school or a business or a church create too many unnecessary statutes and regulations?

Yes.

But the statutes of God are not like what we create.

This is how one lawmaker described the statutes of God.

• Perfect
• Sure
• Wise
• Right
• Pure
• Clean
• True
• Righteous
• They restore the soul
• They bring joy to the heart
• They last forever
• They are more valuable than gold
• They are sweeter than honey

And then King David, said this about the statutes of God:

Psalm 19:11

In keeping them there is great reward.

• Not an average reward
• Not a ho-hum reward
• Not a consolation prize

Embracing the statutes of the Lord brings GREAT reward!

What kind of great reward?

Psalm 16:11

In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.

• Wall to wall joy
• Jam-packed joy
• Ceaseless celebration
• Everlasting pleasure
• Complete and total satisfaction

Gross, who in their right mind would ever want any of that junk?

C.H. Spurgeon

…you shall not only have as much joy as you can hold, but that it shall keep on running…You shall be so full of joy that you could not be more happy! You shall have reached the very summit of eternal happiness!

C.H. Spurgeon

What indescribable bliss must this fullness of joy be! You know that when you are full of anything, you cannot put anything else in – so, where there is fullness of joy at God’s right hand, no sorrow will ever be able to enter.

C.H. Spurgeon

There will not be room for a single doubt there, or for a fear – no, not even for one sad memory! There will not be room for a wish – we shall be so full of joy that we shall have all that we could desire!

C.H. Spurgeon

Every faculty of our body glorified, and every power of our soul perfected, the life everlasting shall rush through us, and we shall be filled with it, sunk in it, as in an ocean of infinite satisfaction and eternal content!

When we say that the Bible is the Word of God and is full of the statutes of the Lord what we are saying is that the Bible is God’s way of letting us see and know the only path to great reward.

Again, though, what kind of great reward are we talking about?

John 3:16

For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son,

Why?

John 3:16

so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life.

The great reward of believing in Jesus is that:

• You will not perish!
• Death can only sting!
• Death and Hell will not capture you!

The great reward of believing in and trusting in and relying on and clinging to Jesus is that you will have abundant, everlasting life!

How?

Because Jesus gave up his life for you!

So, believing in Jesus as the unique Son of God and the Savior of the World means that as the song says:

Keith Getty and Stuart Townend

Death is dead!

Love has won!

Christ has conquered!

Christ is risen from the dead!

Believing in Jesus means that you belong to him which means that as another song says:

Keith Getty and Stuart Townend

No pow’r of hell,

No scheme of man,

Can ever pluck me from His hand

How do we know that is true?

Because Christ is risen from the dead!

• Christianity is not just Easter Sunday!
• Christianity is every Sunday!
• Christianity is every Tuesday!
• Christianity is every second of every day of every year!

Christianity is the only religion that comes with a guarantee!

We are not believing in silly, old, dead, outdated statutes. 

We are believing in the heavenly truths and the historical realities and the spiritual promises of the very statutes of God.

After Jesus was risen from the dead he appeared to a couple of folks on a road that led to a place called Emmaus.

And on the road that day Jesus told them that all of the writings of what is known as the Old Testament were the best and most fantastic super bowl commercial ever and it was all about him!

The message of the Old Testament which contains the statutes of God is all about the promise of Jesus.

So, is there any hope for the problem of sin?

Yes!

Where can we find that hope?

In the statutes of God!

Is there any hope for the problem of evil?

Yes!

Where can we find that hope?

In the statutes of God!

Is there any hope for the problems in your marriage?

Yes!

Where can we find that hope?

In the statutes of God!

• Is there any hope for the problems of parenting?
• Is there any hope for the problems of finances?
• Is there any hope for the problems of education?
• Is there any hope for the problems of government?
• Is there any hope for the problems of sickness?
• Is there any hope for the problems of depression?
• Is there any hope for the problems of nightmares?

Yes!

Where can we find that hope?

In the statutes of God!

Why is that hope in the statutes of God?

Because those statutes direct us to Jesus, the Christ!

So, when the psalmist wrote these words:

16 I shall delight in Your statutes;

He only had a glimpse that there was an ocean of infinite satisfaction and everlasting joy!

But that statute was pointing the way to Jesus who through his death and resurrection opened the floodgates to that infinite ocean of salvation and satisfaction and joy!

So, please know this:

With Jesus there is fullness of joy forever and ever and ever!

And without Jesus there is no joy and there is no pleasure.

Without Jesus, there is only misery and horror and terror and unhappiness and darkness and death and dread forever and ever and ever!

There are people in this church that have prayed this morning that if you have not truly repented and turned to Jesus that you would be compelled by the Spirit of God to surrender your whole life to him today. 

So, we plead with you to come to Jesus, believe and be saved!

Just one more quick comment if you are still thinking you don’t like statutes and ordinances and regulations.

One of our local hospitals has this in its career orientation guide.

LMC

Hand washing in between each patient contact is critical.

You may puff up with stubborn pride if a statute is pressed into your life by the government or the company or the school or the church. 

But I can guarantee you that you love a statute that demands your surgeon wash that breakfast burrito off his hands before he operates on your heart.

And yet how much greater is a statute that doesn’t just rescue your physical heart but rescues your spiritual heart – your very soul!   

Please don’t be stubborn. 

If the Lord is drawing your heart to him today, repent and turn to Jesus and start delighting yourself in the statutes of the Lord.

So, what does any of this stuff about the Bible and statutes have to do with bad dreams and nightmares?

Listen to what the Psalmist says next: 

16 I shall not forget Your word.

Nightmares vary from person to person, but the most common nightmares involve a number of different fears:

• Fear of being chased
• Fear of falling
• Fear of death
• Fear of not being able to find a restroom
• Fear of having your teeth fall out
• Fear of the world running out of applewood-smoked bacon.

That last one might just be my nightmare.

Our bad dreams and our nightmares are real experiences.

And sleep scientists have done and are doing a great deal of research to try and help folks who struggle with nightmares.

One of those helps is trying to find the cause of nightmares.

Again, we are all different, so there is no hard and fast rule and there are all kinds of things that might trigger a bad dream. 

Here are a few that researches have isolated:

• Late-night snacks
• Increased metabolism
• Reactions to medication
• Alcohol
• Lack of sleep
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Sleep disorders
• Other health issues

All of those things have a measure of impact on the body.

But we are not just robots with body parts. 

We have:

• Emotions
• Desires
• Intellect
• Attitudes

In ancient times the place where the emotions and desires and intellect and attitudes lived was simply called the heart.

Mark 7:21

“For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts…”

That makes your heart a pretty big deal. 

Your heart is who you are.

Those nightmare triggers we mentioned do impact our bodies.

But because everything about who we are emotionally and physiologically is connected to the heart that means that nightmares still run through our hearts.

So, what can we do?

Is there any hope?

Yes!

Heath Lambert (pastor and biblical counseler)

Since Jesus says that our thoughts spring from our hearts – even when we are asleep – one of the best things we can do to shape our heart is to inform it with the Word of God.

What should we do with the Word of God?

The psalmist just told us:

16 I shall not forget Your word.

A nightmare is a very real experience, but it is not real. 

It is crazy realistic and disturbing, but it is only a bad dream.

But the Bible is real…it is not a dream.

We have already noted that Jesus affirmed the Old Testament of the Bible as true and real.

He declared it to be a profound commercial for his arrival on earth and the work he accomplished on earth.

R.C. Sproul

One of the most astonishing things, of course, is that the Bible has literally thousands of testable historical prophecies, cases in which events were clearly foretold, and both the foretelling and the fulfillment are a matter of historical record.

R.C. Sproul

The very dimension of the sheer fulfillment of prophecy of the Old Testament Scriptures should be enough to convince anyone that we are dealing with a supernatural piece of literature.

So, that’s the Old Testament.

The New Testament is a biography about Jesus with heavy eyewitness accounts about his work and the church he created.

So, the Bible is not like a bad dream or a nightmare.

Those are not real, but the Bible is real.

The Bible is the divinely-inspired written truth of what God himself desired for us to know about:

• His character
• His ways
• His work
• His Son, Jesus

So, the psalmist is doing an amazingly kind thing for us when he tells us to not forget the statutes of God. 

He is giving us hope for our nightmares – the ones during the night and the ones during the day.

All of those nightmare triggers have a way of ganging up on us. 

They crowd your heart with:

• Fear
• Worry
• Stress
• Anger
• Apathy
• Arrogance

Our hearts can be a crowded house of emotions and desires before we go to bed. 

I love what Albert Barnes wrote about this verse:

Albert Barnes

I will not allow the world to crowd it out of my mind.

I will not allow the world to crowd out the statutes of the Lord.

Someone might say:

• “I don’t like reading.”
• “The Bible was written so long ago.”
• “I just have a hard time reading it.”
• “And even if I do read it, I can’t remember what I read.”
• “I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast this morning.”
• “There’s no way I could ever memorize a Bible verse.”

Bruce Hurt

Men will only guard what is valuable. There are not many guards posted at the local city dump, but there are armed guards and security measures at the bank or the expensive jewelry store, because of the great value in these places.

Because of what Jesus and Paul and Peter and the Psalmist and Augustine and Luther and Billy Graham and some of your parents and grandparents and many pastors have written and said, if you are a Christian, you must place a high value on the Bible.

And just because of the things that Jesus said and did, if you do not place a high value on the Bible, then at the very least the evidence of your salvation gets sketchy.

So, what happens if you delight in God’s statutes and make strategic effort to not forget his word?

And how can any of this help you with bad dreams?

Imagine you are about to go to bed and you read this:

Psalm 46:2

Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth should change And though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea;

Why would we not fear?

If global warming causes the earth to change to such a degree that the mountains slip into the heart of the sea, why should followers of Jesus Christ not fear?

The answer is in the verse right before that:

Psalm 46:1

God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble.

We will not go to bed with fear because our God is a very present help in trouble!

But what if you read that before you got to bed, and you still have a nightmare?

Nothing will have changed!

God is still a very present help in trouble!

But what if you don’t wake up?

What if you die in your sleep?

If you are in Christ, then nothing will have changed!

God is still a very present help in trouble!

• We should not fear!
• We should delight in God’s statutes!
• We should value His Word!
• We should do all we can to not forget his Word!

Why?

• No power of Hell!
• No scheme of man!
• No nightmare can ever pluck me from his hand!

Now I lay me down to sleep with that!

Dow Welsh | April 15, 2018

more |

Sermon scriptures NASB unless otherwise noted

Lots of help from many pastors and theologians

Significant weekly help from Bruce Hurt at http://www.preceptaustin.org/

and more |

https://biblicalcounseling.com/2017/03/fighting-fear-bad-dreams/

https://www.ligonier.org/blog/how-do-you-know-bible-true/

https://www.spurgeongems.org/vols49-51/chs2813.pdf

https://www.gettymusic.com/see-what-a-morning/

https://www.gettymusic.com/in-christ-alone/