Worship XI Day 14 Qof & Resh: Digging Deeper
June 15, 2023
Discover the original intent of Scripture. Make good application to our everyday lives.
Become equipped to correctly handle the Word of Truth!
Psalm 119:145-160
145 I call with all my heart; answer me, Lord. I will obey your statutes. 146 I call to you; save me and I will keep your decrees. 147 I rise before dawn and cry out for help; I put my hope in your word. 148 I am awake through each watch of the night to meditate on your promise. 149 In keeping with your faithful love, hear my voice. Lord, give me life in keeping with your justice. 150 Those who pursue evil plans come near; they are far from your instruction. 151 You are near, Lord, and all your commands are true. 152 Long ago I learned from your decrees that You have established them forever.
ר Resh
153 Consider my affliction and rescue me, for I have not forgotten your instruction. 154 Champion my cause and redeem me; give me life as you promised. 155 Salvation is far from the wicked because they do not study your statutes. 156 Your compassions are many, Lord; give me life according to your judgments. 157 My persecutors and foes are many. I have not turned from your decrees. 158 I have seen the disloyal and feel disgust because they do not keep your word. 159 Consider how I love your precepts; Lord, give me life according to your faithful love. 160 The entirety of your word is truth, each of your righteous judgments endures forever.
The Original Intent
1) How often does the psalmist turn to God when he is overcome by fear or dread? (verses 145-148)
The short answer: Day and night! The wording in verses 147-148 reflects a “24/7” kind of communion with his Creator. Day and night are part of man’s normal experience, the psalmist being no exception. (Psalm 74:12-17)
A glorious grace of being God’s child is His constant presence, whether late at night, early morning hours, or anytime between. We often observe from biblical authors an awareness of God’s eternal, timeless nature from Genesis to Revelation.
Think with me about the song of the angels in Revelation 4:1-8. The psalmist lived in this knowledge of God’s nearness. He rose before dawn and cried out to the Lord, and through each watch of the night he rehearsed God’s promises. The motive of the psalmist is observed in verse 145. He called to the Lord with all his heart!
We may not fully understand the nearness of God to humanity (especially in the Old Testament), but Scripture clearly teaches the presence of God is central to His mission of redeeming us to Himself. (Psalm 139:1-18) God’s ultimate plan includes the Lord Himself dwelling with us. (John 1:14)
Since God includes Himself in the salvation story, people have always recognized the Lord being magnificently above, below, and around us always. (Joshua 2:10-11) But we must remember, God doesn’t connect to humanity because He needs something from us; He draws near out of the abundant goodness of who HE is. The psalmist understood something important: he had an ongoing relationship with his Creator because of God’s coming near!
The psalmist continually called out to God from his heart. Through the day and the night, he walked with God by obeying His word, putting hope in His word and meditating on His word.
The Everyday Application
1) How often does the psalmist turn to God when he is overcome by fear or dread? (verses 145-148)
The psalmist’s words remind us it is scarcely about the ‘when’ of prayer, rather the focus is fully upon the Who! Whenever we call out to God, He is actively present and fully engaged with us whether we feel like it or not. (Psalm 46:1) It’s not just about His presence, it’s about His essence. He IS Emmanuel, God with us.
When King Ahaz refuses to make a request of God, even after God tells him to do so, the prophet Isaiah tells him he is trying God’s patience. The prophet then makes a declaration familiar to many of us (we often recite it at Christmas). He tells Ahaz that a sign will indeed be given to demonstrate God’s presence among the people. (Isaiah 7:14)
God kept that promise as Jesus was born. John wrote to us about this miraculous sign when he shared how God had lived among humans to reveal just how near He has always been.
I can tell you from my own experience, God’s nearness is very real to me as I read His word and make my requests known to Him. I can’t prove it to you, but I do KNOW it for myself. Just like the psalmist, I have found assurance and comfort through obeying His Word, which has become increasingly more precious to me. (1 John 2:3-6)
There’s something about abiding in Christ through following His instruction that draws me near to Him as His faithful love keeps me close. Don’t believe me? Try for yourself; “Taste and see that the Lord is good!” (Psalm 34:8)
The Original Intent
2) What notable characteristics of God does the psalmist rehearse, especially in light of his present circumstances? (verses 149-152)
“Hear me … and give me … in keeping with Your love and Your justice.” (verse 149) The psalmist rehearses two characteristics of God appearing to be in opposition! Yet there’s refreshing insight in this verse that shines a bright spotlight on the God of the psalmist. Sister, let’s plunge our minds into the depth of the psalmist’s prayer made to a God of love and justice.
Most of us would consider justice to be an administration of deserved punishment for an offense, whereas mercy pardons and forgives the offender by overlooking the offense. In these two attributes of God, we are presented with the greatness of our God from seemingly incompatible characteristics.
The psalmist declares the sovereign goodness of God in both His mercy and His justice. As he was being pursued by his enemies, the psalmist needed to know God would supply both perfectly! (verse 150) It is this God whose presence is near the psalmist and whose love (verse 149) and law (verses 151-152) are forever.
I imagine the psalmist remembered the song of Moses (Deuteronomy 32:3-4) given to the people regarding the Lord and His justice. (verses 151-152) It’s important to identify how our God of justice is different from all other gods. In most religions, a deity who exhibits mercy would be forced to brush aside justice. In such a circumstance, the requirements of moral law would be disregarded. But through God’s plan of redemption we see His truly unique character.
Though God is right to judge His enemies, it turns out we are all on that list. (Romans 5:8) So God’s justice is met with His mercy at the cross. He forgives us and extends mercy because He declared it so on the merit of His Son. (1 John 1:5-9) His just wrath was poured out in full on Jesus, while He extends the offer of forgiveness and mercy to us! The psalmist clung to the God who is both just and merciful.
The Everyday Application
2) What notable characteristics of God does the psalmist rehearse, especially in light of his present circumstances? (verses 149-152)
Since the format of Psalm 119 is an alphabetic acrostic (the first letters of each line in Hebrew follow through the alphabet), a good takeaway for us is to note the character of our God even in the script of the psalm itself! He is a God of order, never random chaos.
There is purpose, intention, and such depth in Scriptures. Everything we read is to show us who the true character of the Author of Life. It is this God, the Creator, who sustains us amid the flood of fear and dread. (Colossians 1:16-17) The Word and its promises of God had become an anchor for the psalmist’s soul. It tethered his mind to the truth when lies of despair and disillusionment swirled about him. It enveloped him with inexplicable security when his future looked uncertain.
Friend, I can hardly grasp who I’d be if it were not for the Lord I’ve come to know from His Word. I would surely be found often riding the intense waves of doubt, despair, and discouragement. Maybe you find yourself there right now, unable to lift yourself from the overwhelming sense of darkness.
My dear Sister, with God there is hope! Go to His Word and plead for His presence to be real. Grip His word with your hands and lift it to your heart. Hold it close and pray for its words to grip your heart and make you whole. I believe you will find encouragement, peace, and satisfaction as you uncover His lovingkindness in its pages. (Precept Austin)
The Original Intent
3) What requests does the psalmist bring to the Lord? (verses 153-160)
The psalmist brings several requests to the Lord in these verses: Consider me, rescue me, champion me, redeem me, and give me. How can the psalmist be so bold to ask such things of the God of the universe? It is because he knows Him and he obeys Him. Not perfectly, of course, but performance is not the focal point, the intimacy and familiarity of relationship is the emphasis.
In verse 153, the psalmist uses the connecting word “for.” When we read that word, we must ask ourselves what was said before and make a clear connection for proper understanding. The psalmist wasn’t being arrogant with God, but truthful and transparent. I think he was possibly even reminding himself why he could make such a request.
To the best of his ability, the psalmist had been true to God’s laws. Did he remember what God had said to the children of Israel years before? (Deuteronomy 30:11-20) Had he seen the faithfulness of God amid the unfaithfulness of His people? Certainly, God’s people ebbed and flowed when it came to remembering God’s law. Mostly they ebbed. (Hosea 4:1-7)
But the psalmist had followed God wholeheartedly, and now he was sincerely asking God to keep His promises. The psalmist presents a case before God just as others in Scripture had done before him. Job defended himself to his friends, but it was aimed at the Lord. (Job 23:1-4, 10-12)
Whether or not he was completely in the right, Job used his obedience as a witness to his character. It doesn’t appear the psalmist was disrespecting God but was demonstrating the relationship he had with God as compared to those who didn’t. Those far from God had brought the distance on themselves through their active rebellion. (verse 155)
Unlike the psalmist, they had turned from His laws and had not been faithful to God nor kept His word. (verses 157-158, Psalm 1:1-6)
The Everyday Application
3) What requests does the psalmist bring to the Lord? (verses 153-160)
I read these words from the psalmist and I recognized immediately how often I pray weak-willed prayers. The psalmist wasn’t pleading his case on his own merit. He was pleading his case on the merit of God’s word!
If there’s anything we learn from the psalms, it’s how to pray honest prayers. Even bold ones! Friend, there is no request we can’t bring before our God.
Our confidence isn’t based on what we bring or don’t bring to the prayer; it’s solely based on the God to whom we pray. (Hebrews 4:16)
I don’t believe the psalmist was presenting his case before God as a condition of belief or obedience, but as confirmation that he had walked intimately with Him for the right reasons. He wasn’t reminding God, as much as he was rehearsing before God, what He knew to be true about God.
“In Job’s uttermost extremity he cried after the Lord. The longing desire of an afflicted child of God is once more to see his Father’s face. His first prayer is not, ‘Oh that I might be healed of the disease which now festers in every part of my body!’ nor even, ‘Oh that I might see my children restored from the jaws of the grave, and my property once more brought from the hand of the spoiler!’ but the first and uppermost cry is, ‘Oh that I knew where I might find HIM who is my God! That I might come even to His seat!’
God’s children run home when the storm comes on. It is the heaven-born instinct of a gracious soul to seek shelter from all ills beneath the wings of Jehovah. ‘He that hath made his refuge God,’ might serve as the title of a true believer.” (spurgeon.org)
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