Themes from the Psalm of Psalms
(Loving the God of Psalm 119)
Stanza 12
Lamed: Trusting in God’s word, works, and faithfulness to shield me from the wicked
89. Forever, O LORD, / Your word is settled in heaven.
90. Your faithfulness endures to all generations; / You established the earth and it abides.
91. They continue this day according to Your ordinances; / For all are Your servants.
92. Unless Your law had been my delight, / I would then have perished in my affliction.
93. I will never forget Your precepts, / For by them You have given me life.
94. I am Yours; save me, / For I have sought Your precepts.
95 The wicked wait for me to destroy me, / But I will consider Your testimonies.
96. I have seen the consummation of all perfection, / But Your commandment is exceedingly broad.
Our consideration of David’s Psalm of Psalms, Psalm 119, has brought us now to the twelfth stanza of eight verses. Each verse begins with the Hebrew letter Lamed, which has the sound of the English “L.” In Jewish tradition, the letter Lamed means both “teach” and “learn.” The way the letter is written combines two other Hebrew letters into one, one part reaching up toward heaven, and the other reaching downward to the earth. For, to the Jewish mind, true learning and wisdom must originate with God and then be brought down into the practical life of people here on earth. To TEACH, therefore, a person must first LEARN what God has to say.
In many of the previous stanzas of this psalm, King David has told us of his trust in the word of Yahweh, the covenant Lord of Israel, God’s chosen people. To the precepts and testimonies of God David has turned again and again in his troubles and his afflictions. Last time we looked at the King’s darkest time of struggle, a time of restless waiting in which he felt like “a wineskin in smoke,” hung out to dry and to become parched and cracked and brittle, even as the Lord seemed to have abandoned him for a time. But the tone of this stanza is very different. There is a renewed confidence in the word, and the works, and the FAITHFULNESS of Yahweh his God.
In the eleventh stanza, David cried out, “They persecute me wrongfully; help me!” And in this twelfth stanza he again cries out, but with the assurance that: “I am Yours, save me!” It’s like he has turned a corner and remembered not WHO he is, but WHOSE he is! Let’s walk through these eight verses now, and discover why David is so confident that he is one of God’s favored ones and can trust the Lord’s word, works and faithfulness to shield him from the wicked…
The letter Lamed is the first sound in the Hebrew words “forever,” and “ever,” and “never.” These are such all-encompassing words, and they season the thoughts of this stanza in a remarkable way. In the last stanza, David was wasting away spiritually, in a dismal time that FELT like forever! But here, in verse 89, he writes: “Forever, O LORD, Your word is settled in heaven.” Literally, “Your word STANDS FIRM in heaven.” We tend to think of “forever” in very limited terms. If someone in front of us in the grocery checkout is fumbling for their cash or credit card, we say that “they’re taking forever!”
But we believe in a divine Being who is literally ETERNAL, without limits, no beginning and no ending. We worship a God who made eternal decrees in words that can never be revoked or contradicted or overruled. Many rulers throughout history, like Pharaoh or Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon or Darius the Mede, would give pronouncements and claim that their laws could never be changed or altered. None of their laws are now in force, few are even remembered. But God’s words? They stand firm. There is no court of appeal beyond his seat of absolute authority. No one needed to advise Him before He spoke his word, and no one could ever challenge it once it left his holy mouth.
What a source of confidence to David and to us! With all the changes taking place in our laws, our governments, our culture and our lives, we have in our hands a book of divine truths that stands like a mighty mountain in the midst of the storm. No wonder that Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount: “Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock” (Matt. 7:24). Those who ignore or disobey the words of Christ are building their lives on the sands of mere human wisdom. They might succeed in this life from time to time, trying to drown out the truths of God’s eternal word. But in the end, the houses they have built will be washed away on the Day of Judgment. Those who trust in the testimony of God’s mouth WILL STAND FOREVER.
With His all-powerful word, David’s God brought the entire creation into being. And not for just a day! The miracle of the original creation would certainly have proven God’s power beyond any doubt. But isn’t it the FAITHFULNESS of the Lord that causes Him to MAINTAIN the creation’s existence “to all generations”? You and I take that faithful hand of Providence for granted way too often! We walk out on a beautiful fall day and take in a lung-full of air, enjoying the smell of the fallen leaves, beholding the vibrant color of the changing season, never imagining that if God ceased His exercise of sustaining power, everything would simply cease to be! We think it no great thing when we awake in the morning from sleep and begin a new 24-hour day, not even aware that every day we live on this planet is a gracious gift from the faithful heart of our Maker.
Natural man–that is, unregenerate, unsaved people–assume that things simply exist and go on existing by their own power, according to fixed physical laws. That if there IS a God, He simply wound up the universe like a gigantic clock, and is allowing it to run down after stepping out of the picture, leaving both it and humanity on their own. This is FAR FROM the image the Bible paints for us. The Bible tells us that “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together” (Col. 1:17); “He is the radiance of His glory…and upholds all things by the word of His power” (Heb. 1:3); “You open Your hand,” says the psalmist, “and satisfy the desire of every living thing” (Ps. 145:16); Paul reminded the thinkers of Athens: “For in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Verse 90 of Psalm 119 declares: “Your faithfulness endures to all generations; You established the earth, and it abides.” Or, literally, IT STANDS.
Verse 91 continues this thought: “They continue this day according to Your ordinances, For all are Your servants.” “They” refers to both “heaven” and “earth.” In other words, ALL the creation that God spoke into being by the sheer force of His word. Everything in heaven and earth were created, and are continually sustained, to be His servants–to serve His purposes. Job declared, when the Lord was testing and questioning him: “I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted” (Job 42:2). Even evil people, such as Joseph’s jealous brothers who sold him into slavery, were serving the good purposes of God (Gen. 50:20), as did Judas who betrayed the Son of God, even though his motive was to get 30 pieces of silver for himself! Every thing, every person, every good plan, every evil plan…Nothing exists or can ever happen outside of the sovereign purpose of our God!
Is this how we are living our lives, fellow believer? Or are we too often like Job, who wavered in his faith and began to ask God, “Lord why is this trial happening to me? I don’t deserve this treatment! I wish the day of my birth had never happened! You should have just let me die in my mother’s womb!” How reassuring it should be to us that God has unchangeably DECREED everything that is, and all that comes to pass in our lives. This is not mere FATALISM, or as Doris Day sang, “Qué Sera, Sera,” whatever will be, will be! Rather we should sing, “Whate’er our God ordains is right!” Isn’t this to be our ultimate shield against the wickedness of sinful UNBELIEF and UNBELIEVERS?
It was for King David. Knowing that God’s word, His works, and His faithfulness all STAND FOREVER, caused him to turn the corner from feeling like a forsaken “wineskin in the smoke,” to the realization that He belonged to a faithful, loving, sovereign Father in heaven. In stanza eleven, David’s soul was FAINTING for the Lord’s salvation. In stanza twelve, now, he is resting in the knowledge that: “I am Yours, save me!” (v. 94). Still, David gives credit where credit is due. Verses 92 and 93 tell us that it wasn’t his own willpower that brought him around that corner. “Unless Your LAW had been my delight, I would then have perished in my affliction. I will never forget Your PRECEPTS, For by them You have given me life!”
Yes, God is our Creator and Savior. Yes, He works all things for His good purposes toward those He loves. But it is in and through His LAW and His PRECEPTS that He reveals His love and His good purposes to us. His word is how we are truly connected to that heavenly wisdom and knowledge we must learn in order to obtain and enjoy not just life on this earth, but life everlasting! The letter Lamed is a visual picture of heaven connecting to earth for the purpose of teaching and learning. And the Lord Jesus Christ became the LIVING Word of God who was sent to bridge that gap after people had sinned and rebelled against their loving Creator. Jesus came to TEACH the saving wisdom of God, and then to provide salvation from the poisonous curse of sin that made us unable to LEARN of His love.
Until we have learned and taken delight in God’s word to us in Christ, we aren’t truly ready to LIVE! This word from the mouth of Almighty God is, at the same time, a source of TERROR to the sinner, and a source of DELIGHT to the saint. The instructions, or precepts, of the Lord not only prescribe to us the path to a life of peace and joy, they warn us of the terrible JUDGMENT that awaits the wicked, and reveal the Savior who came to bear that terrible punishment in the place of every sinner who will repent and believe into Christ. The universal DOOM of rebellious mankind can be turned to DELIGHT in the presence of a Holy God for all eternity!
King David, having the assurance of the coming Messiah who would defeat Satan forever, could depend upon the works, and the words, of his faithful God Yahweh to be an impenetrable SHIELD between him and his enemies. “I am Yours, save me!” he cries. But this is no longer a cry of a fainting soul who feels desperate and forlorn. It is the confident cry of one who has received the blessed assurance of life everlasting! Again and again we read in the books of 1 and 2 Samuel that David would inquire of the Lord before he’d take his mighty men into battle with the Philistines. He knew what it was to receive “precepts” or instructions, directly from the mouth of God! He knew that the battle’s outcome wasn’t in merely HUMAN hands, but as he testified when he faced and answered Goliath the Philistine warrior: “the battle is the LORD’s!”
“The wicked wait for me to destroy me, But I will consider [or, give attention to] Your testimonies.” Verse 95 tells us that David’s overall situation hasn’t really changed. He still has proud, wicked adversaries to face who have evil intentions, just waiting for a chance to ruin him. But this declaration actually makes light of them! David’s consideration, his focus of attention, isn’t on his enemies. His mind is focused on what GOD has to say, about them, about him, about the whole “ball of wax.” It sounds as if these enemies of his are just a minor annoyance, in view of God’s shielding power.
This trusting attitude of David can teach us a lot. We have enemies too, mainly spiritual enemies like a world system that hates or ignores its Creator. A crafty, murderous devil who seeks to deceive and devour all who stand in his way. A fleshly, deceitful heart within that resists the authority of God and His commandments. The TRUSTING Christian will be aware of his enemies, enough to resist them in the strength God provides. But for every look at the enemy, including the enemy within, our own flesh, we need to be taking at least TEN LOOKS at our Savior. Focus your attention on Christ and His word! With our eyes fixed on Jesus, our enemies will not alarm us, but will be seen as the defeated foes they truly are. By his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus removed the sting of death, sin and Satan forever.
David finishes this encouraging stanza by telling of another thing he’s seen: “I have seen the consum- mation of all perfection, But Your commandment is exceedingly broad.” The word “consummation” refers to the very END. The furthest extent of all the perfections we SEE in this world. The perfect sunsets, the perfect buildings, the perfect people, the perfect ideals, the perfect writings…but all of them have an END as well as a BEGINNING. Compared to our God and our God’s commandment: His word’s rulership over heaven and earth, even over eternity itself, how meager are the perfections of this world of mere SIGHT! When we reach the limit of earthly perfection, the perfection of God Himself is only just beginning! This is why we can trust Him to shield us from the wicked.
Father in heaven, teach us and help us to learn that “when we reach the end of our hoarded resources, our Father’s full giving has only begun!” Our enemies are as nothing when compared with Your almighty strength. May we always trust your words and your saving promises which stand forever.
Amen.
