Psalm 119:49-64

Psalm 119, Day 4. You may recall three days ago that my intro to Psalm 119 included seven or eight synonyms for “the Law”. Those synonyms that I listed were “testimonies”, “ways”, “precepts”, “statutes”, “commands” / “commandments, “judgments”, “decrees”, and “word”. Six of those synonyms are straightforward substitutes, with no modifiers needed. Two however – ways and word – are awkward synonyms without a helping article or pronoun. A good “helper” for both of those synonyms is “My”, as in “My ways” and “My word”. We are fairly familiar with “My word” when we see it in either the first person (So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void…, Isaiah 55:11) or the second person (Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path…, Psalm 119:105).

Which brings me to “My ways”… This phrase is, I believe, my favorite synonym for “the Law” (notwithstanding John’s comment yesterday about “comfortable translations”). To me “the Law” and precepts and testimonies and other synonyms can indeed sound rigid if we don’t dig deeper into the loving meaning that the Lord had for us – again, thanks to John for initiating that discussion yesterday. But “My ways” brings me immediately into God’s heart. What are “His ways”? Everything that is good and wonderful and righteous and holy and…whatever descriptors you want to add. I find that I can more easily seek “His ways” than “His decrees”. I know it’s just semantic, but if I want to remember what Psalm 119 is all about, I want to remember it as reflections on “God’s ways”, not on His Law. It’s a warmer feeling!

Psalm 119:33-48

Psalm 119, Day 3. I typically read our day’s verses in the NASB first, then in the ESV. Today I had different reactions from one verse in the two translations. First, in the NASB, Establish Your word to Your servant, as that which produces reverence for You. (v. 38) Then in the ESV: Confirm to Your servant Your promise, that You may be feared. I found a major difference in my mind between God’s word “producing reverence” for the Lord as compared to fearing Him. The “fear” of which the Old Testament speaks is not something scary, as we typically think of fear, but rather is that holy reverence, that acknowledgement by us as to Who God is and why we worship Him. So the two translations are saying the same thing, but the word “reverence” catches my eye (and my heart!) while the word “fear” creates a pause in me that demands more reflection. Which is better? I like “reverence”!

Psalm 119:17-32

Psalm 119, Day 2. I noted yesterday that each of the 22 stanzas in this Psalm highlights a particular letter in the Hebrew alphabet. Today’s letter for verses 17-24 is “Gimel”; each of these eight verses begins with the letter “Gimel” in the Hebrew alphabet. For verses 25-32 the beginning letter for each of the verses is “Daleth”.

Scripture can open our eyes, even when we read it wrong: Take away from me scorn and contempt for I have kept Your testimonies. Even though princes sit plotting against me, Your servant will meditate on Your statutes. (vv. 22-23) Here the psalmist appears to have enemies, even enemies in high places, yet his focus remains on the Lord and His statutes. But when I quickly read this verse, the first seven words spoke to me: Take away from me scorn and contempt… I have known for some time that I have a problem with being judgmental – evaluating people from my perspective and not seeing them as God sees them, not knowing where they’re coming from or what the issues are in their lives. Mostly I’m not at a “scorn and contempt” level, but little sin or big sin, it’s still sin!

Verse 26a also spoke to me on my first read through today’s verses. Now it also seems to reply directly to what I wrote immediately above: When I told of my ways, You answered me… If I read “my ways” as that “scorn and contempt” sin in my life, then that verse speaks directly to confession. Acknowledging our wrongs before the Lord is the beginning of our repentance. His answer then, is His forgiveness and His offer of healing and new life. “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9)

Psalm 119:1-16

Psalm 119, today and the next ten days after. Psalm 119 is an alphabetic acrostic, 176 verses long – obviously the longest Psalm in the Psalter. There are 22 eight-verse stanzas. Each stanza and each verse in each stanza begin with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet – 22 different letters for each of the 22 stanzas. We will be reading 16 verses each day for 11 days. I could have made it 22 days, eight verses each day, but eleven days on Psalm 119 seemed long enough.

My Study Bible was very helpful this morning. In essence, the entire Psalm 119 is about the Law – God’s word to His people. But my Study Bible pointed out that the author uses seven (I counted eight) other synonyms for “law” throughout, with at least six of these synonyms in each 8-verse stanza. Those synonyms are “testimonies”, “ways”, “precepts”, “statutes”, “commands” / “commandments, “judgments”, “decrees”, and “word”.

Two verses stand out today. How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. (v. 9) I recall hearing this verse quoted quite a bit when I was young in the Lord and connected with campus Christian groups. It seems to be a good verse for the young men around me! The second verse: I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. (v. 11) Credit to John here for his Bible memory focus and his encouragement to the rest of us to memorize Scripture!

Psalm 118:15-29

More deliverance. A number of verses for comment today.

First, very common for Avanza folks: This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. (v. 24) This is one of Carol’s gathering songs for our Avanza kids. They all know it (2^nd grade and beyond); they stand up and clap their way through it. I can’t read the verse without singing it!

The second verse is one close to me: The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This is the LORD’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. (vv. 22-23, NASB) During the spring before I went on to graduate school I saw a void in the market in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. No one was building poured-wall basements in an area where block basements were too porous to the high-water level in the area. No one, that is, except a contractor named Jesse James, an appropriate name for someone who did shoddy work! I had experience in this work through my family connections, so I found a partner who had cash available from his father and we started “Cornerstone Construction”. These verses, especially v. 22 were our “cornerstone” verses. I vividly remember praying them as we sat in a car before we went in to get a commercial loan; we did not get the loan, but we did get our first customer – the banker who was financing a new development south of town. Glory!!

Finally, a verse familiar to all of us: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD! (v. 26a) This verse was sung by the “Hosanna” crowd upon Jesus’ Palm Sunday entry into Jerusalem. Clearly the crowds people knew their Scriptures! This verse is cited in all four Gospels (Mt. 21:9; Mk. 11:9; Lk. 13:35; Jn. 12:13). Surprising to me, Jesus also spoke this verse in the context of His longer speeches in both Matthew 23:39 and Luke 13:35. If only we knew our Scriptures as well as the Jewish peoples back then…!!

Psalm 118:1-14

This is the last of the praise psalms that we began with Psalm 111. The psalmist in today’s reading offers praise and thanksgiving for Israel’s victory over her enemies. But which set of victories? Was it their deliverance from Egypt and from their enemies as they did battle in the Wilderness? Or was it King David defeating the neighboring nations – or perhaps his internal enemies (Saul’s or Absalom’s supporters)? Or was it the post-Exile victories over those nations and people who interfered with the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the Temple? It could be any one of those, or even of other kings (e.g., Hezekiah) and their battles with the neighboring nations. We don’t know. It hardly matters to us thousands of years later which history we need to recall. What we see from the writer is praise and deliverance from those difficulties.

The LORD is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me? (v. 6) That last sentence in this verse is one of my favorite lines of Scripture. However, for me it’s hard to relate to enemies around me. I think of my M.A. advisor who twice was not supportive of my proposed Thesis topics, but who then (truly) went blind the night before I was going to ask him to read my Thesis that he had never approved. (A different faculty member was assigned to me, and he approved and signed off.) I think of faculty who voted against my tenure at Texas A&M – a major blow for which I sought psychiatric help for the only time in my career. A few years later one person apologized to me for his wrong vote – that one person whose negative vote had hurt the most and for whom I had sought counseling. I think of my colleagues at EKU who denied me promotion (and $$!) for two or three years running. But then I was granted a Fulbright Scholarship, and how could they possibly deny me again? That’s about as far as I can go in thinking about worldly enemies. And truly, What can man do to me? The Lord was at work in each of those situations, and I was delivered from each of those difficulties – never in short order, but always eventually.

Sorry for this long recounting, but just as I suggested a few days back that each of you begin to document miracles in your life, I would today suggest that you look back to those most major difficulties that you have encountered and ask how the Lord has brought you through them. Then begin to make a second list of those deliverances. It is truly important for us to regularly look back at how God has been at work in our lives. We need those “strength points” when we run into new adversities. The LORD is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?

Psalms 116-117

Yes, two psalms today – but the second, Psalm 117 is only two verses long and fits nicely at the end of Psalm 116. Psalm 117 is not only the shortest psalm, it is also the shortest chapter in the entire Bible.

In today’s Psalm 116 the psalmist is concerned with death, specifically his own. See especially verses 3, 6, 8, and 15 as “death” verses woven into the text. Furthermore the deliverance prayer and the payment of vows (vv. 4, 14, 18) sound something like a “foxhole conversion”, as in “Lord, if you will deliver me from this battle, I will _____________.” (Frankly, I made my own promise to God during Catholic Mass while at our little base camp church my last week in Vietnam. Mine was more confession than deliverance, but that’s another story.) While the psalmist has a “death” focus interspersed in the psalm throughout, most of the remaining verses focus on praise and thanksgiving.

Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his godly ones. (v. 15, NASB; the ESV has “saints” instead of “godly ones”) I have often thought of this verse when someone I loved and knew well died. I can even put a face to this verse, a lady from our first ever RTB at St. Andrew’s back in 2009. When she died, I remember thinking how joyful the Lord must have been to receive her. So whenever I happen upon this verse I think of that lady. What a marvelous godly person, a beautiful saint!

Psalm 115

Today’s psalm is not one with a full, inclusive theme; instead it scatter-shoots a bit. It’s a praise psalm, so many of the verses focus on praising the Lord. But other groups of verses look at idol worship and idol makers (vv. 4-8) and our trusting in the Lord and being blessed by Him (vv. 9-15).

Two verses stuck out for me. First, Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?” (v. 2) This verse troubled me for today’s world. I could easily imagine the world asking that question of the Christians they see. Much of the Christian world sends a very wrong message, from pedophile ministers to far right evangelicals to far left ECO-worshipers. There is a “silent majority” of committed Christians who are not being heard, most likely because they (we) are not speaking up. We need to be who we are!

The second verse was verse 16, The heavens are the LORD’s heavens, but the earth he has given to the children of man. Even as we need to speak to the people in the world around us, we also need to “speak” to our earth. It’s our responsibility, our stewardship. Maybe those “ECO-worshipers” are not so far off?

Psalm 114

God’s deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt. We all know of the parting of the Red Sea, a favorite Sunday School story for children, Israel’s passing through and Pharaoh’s armies’ drowning. That event is referenced in verse 3: The sea looked and fled… That is, the Red Sea event is referenced in the first half of verse 3; the second half is less well known to us: …Jordan turned back. That event is the subject of Joshua 3-4, especially Joshua 3:13 (God speaking of the future event) and Joshua 3:15-16 (the actual event). Here Israel has spent 40 years in the wilderness and is now ready to occupy the Promised Land. Even as the Lord had opened up the Red Sea for His people, He now stops the waters of the Jordan River and opens the way for His people to cross over.

Have you seen miracles in your life? Yes, we can all say that the Lord is “working in our lives”, but can you say that a major positive outcome came about for you that was completely unexpected? Have you taken the time to seriously consider the possibility of the Lord truly working miracles in your life? I have. I have seen six events in my life that I fully believe are miracles. That doesn’t include another eleven times when I feel like the Holy Spirit spoke into my life. Nor does it include another nine “coincidences” in my life, times where I wondered if the Lord had set up that event. Yes, for me, six miracles. I’ve kept a list! Ask me anytime. I’m not bragging; I’m simply informing. And I challenge each and every one of you to look back on your life and begin to document where you saw the Lord working things out for you in those completely unexpected ways. Do it. Start that list. You will be blessed!

Psalm 113

This is the third in our series of eight “Hallelujah” psalms. Today’s psalm is just that: praise! The first six verses are all praise, while the last three verses speak of what the Lord has done, and His actions are praiseworthy. So yes, praise!

One pair of verses struck me: Who is like the LORD our God, Who is seated on high, Who looks far down on the heavens and the earth? (vv. 5-6) These verses follow immediately upon the psalmist’s glorification of the Lord in verse 4: The LORD is high above all nations, and His glory above the heavens! So, having exalted the Lord in His high position, the psalmist now acknowledges that the Lord is humble enough to interact with His creation. (Is it possible/reasonable to ascribe humility to the Lord? I’ve never imagined that.) My bottom line is this: God is high above all that He has created, and even in the height of His glory, He has love so strong for His creation that He “lowers” Himself to care for us so completely. In fact, the greatest demonstration of His love for us was sending Jesus to live within and among us. How can we not return His love when we consider the magnitude of His love for us? How can we not…??!!