Themes from the Psalm of Psalms

(Loving the God of Psalm 119)

Stanza Twenty

RESH: Pleading for redemption from the God of truth…and tender mercies

153 Consider my affliction and deliver me, / For I do not forget Your law.

154 Plead my cause and redeem me; / Revive me according to Your word.

155 Salvation is far from the wicked, / For they do not seek Your statutes.

156 Great are Your tender mercies, O Lord; / Revive me according to Your judgments.

157 Many are my persecutors and my enemies, / Yet I do not turn from Your testimonies.

158 I see the treacherous, and am disgusted, / Because they do not keep Your word.

159 Consider how I love Your precepts; / Revive me, O Lord, according to Your lovingkindness.

160 The entirety of Your word is truth, / And every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever.

King David could look back on many episodes of his life when treacherous, wicked persecutors and enemies tried to pursue, oppose, or even destroy him. And surely there were times when he was tempted to take revenge on these evil people.

Take the time when David and his band of outlaws protected the fields and flocks of Nabal the Calebite, then requested that Nabal furnish them with some fresh supplies in return. Nabal, whose very name means “a fool,” ridiculed David and his men and sent them away scornfully. In a rage, David told his men to strap on their swords and they went to take revenge on Nabal’s entire household. God used Nabal’s wise wife Abigail to plead with the future king NOT to take vengeance into his own hands, and David agreed. Later, God punished Nabal, who died from fright, and Abigail became David’s wife.

In this 20th stanza of the Psalm of Psalms, we encounter another situation where King David is beset with enemies. In the 19th stanza, he spoke of those who “draw near who follow after wickedness.” But he also wrote of his God, Yahweh, drawing near: “You near, O LORD, and all Your commandments are truth.” Well, in this stanza, everyone, it seems, has arrived and is standing there with David, both his loving God… and his bitter foes who mean to judge him guilty and afflict him and persecute him.

In the previous 8 verses, he CRIED OUT to the Lord as if He were far off and needed to be awakened. He was awake through the night watches hoping for God to respond. Now, in the 8 verses that each begin with the Hebrew letter RESH, David speaks to the Lord who is nearby, standing next to him like a defense attorney, the only one in the King’s corner, the only hope David has of deliverance!

This stanza is clearly broken into two-verse couplets, both verses following a similar theme. The first couplet, verses 153 & 154, echo one another as the plea of the one being wrongfully accused by the prosecution: “Consider my affliction and deliver me, / For I do not forget Your law. / Plead my cause and redeem me; / Revive me according to Your word.”

The case of the accused believer is to be based on the law…the word…of Yahweh. Some might suggest that an admitted sinner such as David should not plead the righteous law of God as his own defense. But even though the King sees himself as a law-breaker—far from perfect in his obedience, he also sees himself as living by the merciful love and the rock-solid promises of the Lord. King David was a believer in salvation by grace ALONE. “Blessed is the man to whom sin is not imputed,” Psalm 32:2. He knew that the promise of the coming Messiah was his assurance that the guilt of his own sin would be forgiven, for those sins would be imputed to another—One who would obey God perfectly!

“Deliver me…Redeem me…Revive me,” are David’s requests. He realizes that his cries have proved successful. His trust is in a trustworthy Advocate who is never deaf to those cries, One who always is considering our afflictions. Yahweh assured the deliverer Moses: “I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows” (Exodus 3:7). One who pleads the cause of those he loves, against the devil and his followers who preach lies and discouragement and seek to rob Christians of their hope in God’s promises.

Trusting in God to balance the scales of justice when evil folks are seeking to harm us: this is not always easy. David was encouraged by his men to take revenge on King Saul when they were hiding in the wilderness and Saul was hunting the future king to kill him. Twice it was that Saul was at David’s mercy, once in the cave relieving himself, and once asleep in his camp. Both times, David left the scales of justice in God’s hands. 1 Samuel 24:12— “Let the LORD judge between you and me, and let the LORD avenge me on you. But my hand shall not be against you.”

“Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, says the Lord” (Romans 12:19). We are commanded by our Master to pray for those who harm us, and do good to those who sin against us, in the hopes of our enemies one day turning to Christ. At one time, the Apostle Paul was a bitter enemy of the church, seeking to destroy it and approving when Jesus’ followers were executed. But even the murderous Saul of Tarsus was not beyond hope—beyond the saving power of the risen Christ and the Holy Spirit of God.

The second couplet, verses 155 & 156, tell two truths about God’s salvation that are linked together: “Salvation is far from the wicked, / For they do not seek Your statutes. / Great are Your tender mercies, O Lord; / Revive me according to Your judgments.” People who neglect the established rules of God are flirting with eternal destruction. God is “angry with the wicked every day” (Psalm 7:11). Divine wrath hangs over their heads like Damocles’ mythical sword. But this is true for even the most “righteous” of sinners, unless they come to trust in the “tender mercies” of the Lord. Salvation is far from all of us, until and unless God judges us graciously and extends His merciful hand.

The Hebrew word for “revive” is simply the word for LIFE. “LIFE me according to Your judgments” David is saying, and again, God’s salvation/new life is only available to you and me because His justice fell upon the person of His only begotten Son who died in our place, bearing the guilt of our sins. We think of “wickedness” as a trait of only the most extreme sinners. But the reason Jesus became a human being was that “salvation is far from” everyone descended from Adam, who wickedly disobeyed the Creator. Yet, now that Christ has come, salvation is close and available to all who “call upon the name of the Lord” (Romans 10:13).

Verses 157 & 158 go together, describing both the number and the character of David’s opponents. Like this ancient king, you and I face “many…persecutors and…enemies.” Paul told the Ephesian believers that our struggle is not against flesh and blood people, at least, not mainly. Yes, there have been people in government, in our jobs and schools, even in our churches and families, who have ridiculed and opposed our faith in Jesus Christ. But the power and influence behind those people is a spiritual force of wickedness: Satan and his host of demons with their evil ideas and their lies.

David shares the Lord’s own attitude toward the “treacherous” ones such as Judas Iscariot who perhaps have heard God’s word from the lips of Jesus…even seen the wonders he performs, and yet they “do not keep [His] word.” It is repugnant, disgusting, to the Lord for people to treat Him and His testimonies like they mean nothing! David refused to align himself with this majority. Rather, he determined not to “turn from Your testimonies.” No matter how many lined up in opposition to the truth of Yahweh, they couldn’t turn him from taking his stand for the One who IS the Truth.

“I see the treacherous,” he tells the Lord. God has given him the eyes required to discern the false from the true. How many people around us lack that kind of insight and are led astray by the deceptive ideas of this present world! Liberal churches that deny the deity and miracles of Christ…government and corporate movements that support evolution and trans-genderism…business people and relatives who are relying on their good works to make up for their sins and get them into heaven… All such people have been blinded, Paul writes, “by the god of this age”---Satan (2 Corinthians 4:4).

David ends this powerful stanza, this plea for redemption, by extolling the Source of light that allows him to see clearly and discern rightly.

“Consider how I love Your precepts; / Revive me, O Lord, according to Your lovingkindness. / The entirety of Your word is truth, / And every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever.”

Love, truth and righteousness. They all come together perfectly in the written and living Word of God. David’s plea in the courtroom of Yahweh, when faced with a multitude of treacherous accusers, is a request for the Judge to “consider” the psalmist’s LOVE of God’s precepts. David has heard them taught. He has read, memorized, perhaps even written down the instructions and revelations of God. They are his food and drink, they are his waking thoughts and they fill his mind in the watches of the night. They have come to characterize his daily walk. They are his means of defense against Satan.

But even these qualities in David are not what qualify him for LIFE. It is God’s “lovingkindness,” His unfailing love and covenant mercy, the psalmist depends on for renewal, revival, redemption. Salvation is of the Lord, not the result of even our finest and best acts of obedience. Our love for God and His precepts only become realities “because [God] first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Chosen from the foundation of the world, believers were beloved of God before creation even began. 

Both His truth and His righteous judgments are eternal, meaning that they have always been in the Father’s mind even before time began. We little creatures mean so much to this great God…and who can tell WHY that is? Our sins against this God of love are worthy of eternal torments—punishment beyond measure. And His perfect justice will be carried out to the letter of His law. His warnings and His curses are just as binding as His promises…

And yet, also before time began, the eternal Son of God was determined to pay the price for the sins of those the Father set His love upon. Mercy for a multitude of rebellious creatures entered into the plans of God in the form of a Roman cross and an empty tomb, with a triumphant Savior rising again, having paid the total price of our redemption.

Are you and I living by “the entirety of [God’s] word [which] is truth”? Have we been judged NOT GUILTY in the courtroom of heaven, because we have trusted in Jesus, the Way, the Truth, and the Life? If so, that righteous judgment can never be overturned by any higher court. For, “every one of [God’s] righteous judgments endures FOREVER!

Amen

Psalm 119 - QOPH

 

Themes from the Psalm of Psalms

(Loving the God of Psalm 119)

Stanza 19

 

QOPH: Crying out for God’s salvation, waking to dwell on His eternal truth

 

145  I cry out with my whole heart; / Hear me, O Lord! I will keep Your statutes.

146  I cry out to You; / Save me, and I will keep Your testimonies.

147  I rise before the dawning of the morning, / And cry for help; / I hope in Your word.

148  My eyes are awake through the night watches, / That I may meditate on Your word.

149  Hear my voice according to Your lovingkindness; / O Lord, revive me according to Your justice.

150  They draw near who follow after wickedness; / They are far from Your law.

151  You are near, O Lord, / And all Your commandments are truth.

152  Concerning Your testimonies, / I have known of old that You have founded them forever.

 

The emotional honesty of those God used to compose the Scriptures is always striking to me. If we truly know the Lord, part of that knowledge will be that we cannot hide even our inmost thoughts and desires from Him, nor does He want us to!

David, who most likely is the author of this Psalm of Psalms, expressed his delight and his praise in the perfect righteousness of God, as well as the perfect God of righteousness, in the previous stanza. He testified that, even when trouble and anguish overtook him, he took comfort and found delight in the commandments of Yahweh. Yet, in this next stanza, number 19, he finds himself in a situation where, as he’s done before, he is desperate for the Lord’s intervention–His salvation.

The Hebrew letter QOPH is the consonant “K” that begins each verse of stanza 19. It is the first sound in the Jewish word for “cry” and that is the exact mood of these eight verses. It is a cry from the heart of a righteous person for the salvation of God. The “trouble and anguish” David mentioned in stanza 18 are obviously still plaguing his mind, actually robbing the king of sleep! He asked the Lord, “Give me understanding, and I will live.” But in these lines, he seems desperate for his God to hear his voice. Yahweh, it seems to him, is far away and must be awakened in order to bring the psalmist help.

“I cry out with my whole heart; / Hear me, O Lord! I will keep Your statutes.” Many people come to doubt or deny the existence of God because they have met with anguish and tragedy in their lives. “If there were really a God,” they say, “he would not allow terrible things to happen in His world!” But these people forget that God created mankind for a purpose: to glorify their Creator and enjoy Him forever. Because we have rebelled against the Lord and against his righteous laws, our loving God has allowed pain and tragedy to show mankind what life would be like without God’s blessing!

David’s wholehearted cry is not simply a cry of pain and anguish; it is a call to the LORD his God. It is also coupled with a pledge to “keep Your statutes.” God hears our cry when we are desperate for Him, but is doubly eager to hear us when we are eager to OBEY His word. David isn’t trying to bargain with the Lord here saying, “If you’ll get me out of this mess, I’ll pay you back with my obedience.” Rather, he’s admitting that many of his troubles can be traced back to his own wrong choices. He’s confessing that he is fallible and not always careful to keep the rules God has firmly established.

Verse 146 almost mirrors the same thoughts as the previous verse: “I cry out to You; / Save me, and I will keep Your testimonies.” The heart cry of the king is repeated, and notice that his plea is for the Lord not only to HEAR him, but to SAVE him. And his promised response to God’s salvation is to keep—that is, to hold to, to treasure—His testimonies. We’ve mentioned before that our proper view of Scripture is to see ALL of it, every single word, as the Lord’s revelation of Himself to us. Only through the words of God given in the Bible can men and women be saved, freed from sin and death and hell.

So, what is to be our attitude when we “cry out” to the Lord? First, we must cry out humbly, not in an arrogant, demanding way that assumes we are worthy of His help and He is obligated to come to our aid. We should acknowledge that WE are part of our problem, and are willing to be instructed and changed. Second, we must cry out trustingly, understanding that true salvation is enjoyed only by those who cling faithfully to “every word that proceeds from the mouth of God,” as Jesus quoted to Satan when tempted in the wilderness. When God saves a person, He goes on to sanctify him through the truth of His word.

“I rise before the dawning of the morning, / And cry for help; / I hope in Your word.” The trouble and anguish the psalmist deals with is such a trial in his heart and mind, that he is unable to remain asleep. It is “help” he requires, not only for God to “hear” him and “save” him, but also to “help” him. Again, David writes a verse that parallels and mirrors the same thought in the following: “My eyes are awake through the night watches, / That I may meditate on Your word.” Let’s see the connection here between hoping in God’s word…and meditating on His word. When someone is in desperate need, we think of him or her as “beyond hope.” But the promises of God in His word are a never-ending source of hope.

One such hope-filled passage is Isaiah 41, a chapter filled with God’s reassurance to Israel that they would be delivered from the idolatrous nations that would take them captive. “Fear not,” the Lord tells them, “for I am with you; Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.” “For I, the LORD your God, will hold your right hand, Saying to you, ‘Fear not, I will help you.’ “‘Fear not, you worm Jacob, You men of Israel! I will help you,’ says the LORD And your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.” Like a family’s faithful protector, God strengthens and helps His own, those who “hope in” and “meditate on” His word.

“Hear my voice according to Your lovingkindness; / O Lord, revive me according to Your justice,” David continues. The word translated “lovingkindness” is the Hebrew word “chesed,” which is also rendered “covenant love” or “mercy” or “unfailing love.” This word speaks of the loyalty of Israel’s divine Ruler, the One who called them out of paganism and made them a special nation. 

God referred to Israel as “My firstborn son” to Pharaoh when He demanded him to “Let My people go!” He then brought them out of the misery of their Egyptian slavery, judging their enemies with His perfect justice when He did so. When God called Moses from the burning bush He assured him, “I have HEARD their cries because of their taskmasters.” God overruled the plans of Pharaoh and the Egyptians and delivered the children of Israel from bondage. And David is assured in his heart that the same loyal love of God is still his (and ours!) to trust in when we are facing injustice from the wicked.

“They draw near who follow after wickedness; / They are far from Your law,” reads verse 150. We see in this verse a clever contrast of DISTANCE, both distance from danger and distance from God’s law. The wicked of this world, as well as the wicked in the spiritual world, are never content just to move away from God’s commands themselves; they are always trying to attack the ones who seek to please the Lord. They approach those who follow Christ, not to encourage or learn from them, but to oppose and do battle against them. Christ’s disciples are not just learners; they are also called to be soldiers, prepared to stand up against the forces of wickedness in the heavenly places, in the power of the Lord.

But, we can praise Him that the evil ones aren’t the only ones who are drawing near, who are “on the move” in this spiritual battle. “You are near, O Lord, / And all Your commandments are truth” is the hope of David, and all those who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Hebrew doesn’t literally say that the Lord IS near. It actually reads, “You near, O LORD.” God, David testifies, is on the move, He is coming, He is approaching, bringing all the help David needs to put his enemies to flight. When the demons saw Jesus coming close to them, their response was to cry out in terror! With Him on our side, our faith can be a shield to “quench all the fiery darts of the evil one.”

Let’s take a minute to examine the second line of that verse: “And all Your commandments are truth.” Jesus prayed that the Father would “sanctify them by Thy truth; Thy word is truth” in His high-priestly prayer (John 17). Truth is the “belt” in the Christian soldier’s armor, girding our loins so that our limbs are ready for the fight. Jesus, our Master and Commander, has no intention of leaving us vulnerable for the “roaring lion”---Satan—to pick us off like little lost lambs! His truth, His word, truth that lasts forever, include His Ten Commandments, teaching us what pleases Him and receives His favor and blessing. It is also our “sword,” Paul tells us in Ephesians 6, the weapon with which we fight back and conquer the lies and deceptions of the enemy that seeks to drag lost sinners to hell with him!

Verse 152 concludes this 19th stanza: “Concerning Your testimonies, / I have known of old that You have founded them forever.” David was not a perfect man, nor a perfect king. Again and again we read in his psalms that he had to repent and confess his sins, finding grace from the Lord to revive him and cleanse him. He depended on the Lord to “search me and know my heart.” And his trust was based on a knowledge that Yahweh his God was the true, eternal God, who ordained all that came to pass even from the beginning. 

Who else can we fully trust, but the One God who founded the heavens and the earth? “In the beginning,” John wrote in his gospel, “was the Word.” Jesus Himself was, and is, the fullest expression of the Word of God—His testimonies that will never fail us. And this eternal God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, will never fail to hear his children when they cry out to Him!  

Amen.