Learning by Examples

“I am a companion of all them that fear you,

and of them that keep your precepts.”

Psalm 119:63

David became wise and good by keeping company with wise and good people.  But not only will we learn righteousness by spending time with those who are righteous, but we may also learn ungodliness by spending time with fools.  David’s Son, Solomon, said it this way: “He who walks with wise men shall be wise, but a companion of fools shall be destroyed” (Prov. 13:20).

They Do That, but I Do This

“Princes sat and spoke against me,

but your servant meditated on your statutes.”

Psalm 119:23

“The proud have had me greatly in derision,

yet have I not declined from your law.”

Psalm 119:51

“The bands of the wicked have robbed me,

but I have not forgotten your law.”

Psalm 119:61

Slander, ridicule, abuse.  The righteous cannot stop them from happening.  And to respond in kind to them is wrong.

The way to overcome evil is to continue to do good.

He Loved First

“I will run the way of your commandments, when you enlarge my heart.

Incline my heart toward your testimonies, and not to covetousness.”

Psalm 119:32, 36

These two verses show that David understood a fundamental spiritual truth: If you are obeying God’s commandments, and if you love His word instead of the world, it is not primarily the result of your own choice or effort.   Rather, it is the result of God doing something in your heart so that you would choose Him and His ways.  As the apostle John said, “We love Him because He first loved us” (1Jn. 4:19).  In effect, in these two verses from Psalm 119, David was praying that God would love him so that he, in turn, might love God.

A Most Horrible Thing

“Horror has taken hold of me because of the wicked that forsake your law.”

Psalm 119:53

When someone who belongs to God turns away from the truth God has given him, it is, as David said, a horrible thing.  The definition of “horror” is “an overwhelming and painful feeling caused by something frightfully shocking, terrifying, or revolting.”  This is how David felt whenever he saw an Israelite walk away from God’s law.

The truth that God gives us in Christ is infinitely holier than the law God gave to Israel.  And for a child of God in this covenant to forsake the truth God gives him is infinitely worse than an Israelite forsaking the law.  It is an unspeakable evil.  Every time I see it happen, “horror takes hold of me”.

They Don’t Know It, but You Do

“The proud have had me greatly in derision,

yet I have not declined from your law.”

Psalm 119:51

Jesus kept doing the will of God even when he was abused by wicked men.  Those proud men didn’t know that Jesus was their only hope of eternal life, but he knew it, and he loved them and endured their abuse so that he might save them.

We who are in Christ are the only light that is in the world, the only hope others have of seeing God’s righteousness in action.   The world does not know that, but we know it, and knowing it gives us the strength to love our enemies and to pray for those who hurt us, just as Jesus did.

Now, try to remember.  What was your reaction the last time someone said or did something to you that you didn’t like?

God’s Ministers

“Bless the LORD, all His hosts,

and you ministers of His, that do His pleasure.”

Psalm 103:21

“Do I seek to please men?  No!

If I were still pleasing men, I would not be a servant of Christ.”

Galatians 1:10

God’s true ministers are the ones who do what pleases Him.  Paul said it plainly: If he pleased men, he would be disqualified from being a servant of Christ.

I know ministers to whom Jesus has shown truth, but they will not tell that truth to their congregations for fear of displeasing them.  These weak brothers are not serving Christ; they are serving men.  They are hiding the light in order to please men; they are not “doing God’s pleasure”.

Paul once wrote, “It is required in a steward that he be found faithful” (1Cor. 4:2).  That is a true statement.  If God condescends to entrust a man with manna from heaven, that man is required, as a steward of the truth of Christ, to feed God’s people with it.  To feed God’s hungry children is the very reason God reveals truth, and for a man to feed them the truth is to do God’s pleasure, and by doing so, he proves himself to be a genuine minister of God.

Learning From the Law

“Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.”

Psalm 119:18

In the summer of 1975, the Lord Jesus spoke to me for the first time, to teach me.   The following year, and the two years after that, he spoke to me again.  (The truths he taught me I made into a book, “Spiritual Light”, which you can find at www.GoingtoJesus.com.)  Years later, I was thinking about those thrilling experiences and realized that every time Jesus spoke to me, I was studying the law of Moses in the Bible, and praying for understanding.

Jesus told his detractors, “If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me.  And if you don’t believe his writings, how will you believe my words?” (Jn. 5:46–47).  Take time to read Moses’ writings – and believe them!  And while you’re reading Moses’ words, pray, as I did, “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law!”  Jesus will answer your prayer, and he will “show you great, inaccessible things that you do not know” (Jer. 33:3).

“You Heard Me”

“I have declared my ways, and you heard me.”

Psalm 119:26

David was thrilled that when he confessed his sin, God heard him.  David had seen the terror and miserable end of King Saul, whose confession and pleas for help God would not hear: “And when Saul enquired of the LORD, the LORD answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets” (1Sam. 28:6).

Saul, desperate and alone, at the end, resorted to a witch for help, and he explained why: “I am sore distressed, for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me, and He answers me no more, neither by prophets, nor by dreams” (1Sam. 28:15).

May God give us the wisdom to “seek the LORD while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near” (Isa. 55:6).

Ask for Truth

“Remove from me the way of lying.  I have chosen the way of truth.”

Psalm 119:29a, 30a

When I was in high school, some students put on a play in which one character addressed the audience with this question: “What kind of liar are you?”  Everyone laughed, but the question was appropriate.  Living “in the flesh”, as Paul would say it, every one of us lies, to one degree or another.  This is why Paul said if we live in the flesh, we will die (Rom. 8:13).

David was humble enough and honest enough to admit that he was a liar, and to hate it.  And he was also wise enough to go to God with his problem, and to ask God to take the way of lies away from him.  David sincerely desired the way of truth instead, and asked God for it, and God gave it to him.

God will do the same for you.  He will set you free from every lie, whether your own or someone else’s, and fill you with the truth instead.  All you have to do is confess your need of His truth, and ask for it.

Cursed in Christ?

“You have rebuked the proud that are cursed,

who err from your commandments.”

Psalm 119:21

According to this scripture, those who walk contrary to God’s commandments are cursed.  But many Christian ministers teach that we all must walk contrary to God’s commandments, and sin every day!  Are they not teaching that we all, even those who are in Christ, are cursed?  Further, the apostle John said that those who commit sin are “of the devil” (1Jn. 3:8).  But if those who are in Christ must sin every day, then those who are in Christ are of the devil!

The saving grace of God “teaches us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, and righteously, and godly in this present world” (Tit. 2:12).  God’s children are not of the devil because they no longer live in sin.  Nor are they cursed, but blessed, for they are led by the Spirit and do not err from God’s commandments.

The Truly Alive and the Truly Dead

“The dead praise not the LORD, neither any that go down into silence.

But we will bless the LORD from this time forth and for evermore.”

Psalm 115:17–18

In these two verses, the psalmist redefines death as a spiritual condition instead of a physical one.  According to him, the dead are those who are silent, those who do not praise God.  But, he declares, the righteous will never stop praising God, forever.

If you are truly alive, your voice is heard in the congregation of God’s saints, offering God the sweet aroma of praise for His wonderful works and grace.  But beware.  The psalmist said that a believer’s silence in the midst of God’s congregation carries with it the stench of death.

The Wise Response to Slander

“Princes sat and spoke against me,

but your servant meditated in your statutes.”

Psalm 119:23

One of the great tests of faith comes when you are slandered.  You want to be there; you want to have a fair hearing; you want to reason together with the slanderer in the presence of an honest judge.  But slanderers do their work in the shades, away from open, honest dialog.  They put on a bold face, but they are cowards when it comes to openly facing those who know the truth.

When slander happens – and it happens to every godly soul – faith responds by focusing on the wonderful things of God.  What a relief God’s sweet thoughts are in times of trouble and sadness!

The dogs will bark, but what is that noise compared to the gentle voice of our Shepherd?  And Jesus keeps in perfect peace all those who have learned to keep their minds on him.

Not Ashamed

“Then shall I not be ashamed,

when I have respect unto all your commandments.”

Psalm 119:6

“Whoever keeps the whole law,

and yet stumbles in one thing, he is guilty of all.”

James 2:10

In the Bible, the word “ashamed” often means “disappointed”, as in Jeremiah 14:3–4, when God sent a famine on the land: “Their nobles sent their little ones to the waters.  They came to the pits, and found no water.  They returned with their vessels empty; they were ashamed. . . .  The ground is chapped, for there was no rain in the earth.  The plowmen were ashamed, they covered their heads.”

Those who believe in God’s Son have hope of being blessed at the end of this life; they have a sweet “harvest” to look forward to.  However, if while they live they disobey any of God’s commandments, they will be “ashamed” on the Day of Judgment.  

The psalmist said that he would not be ashamed if he obeyed all of God’s commandments, not most of them.  And James insisted that whoever broke one of God’s commandments was guilty of breaking them all.  Then, let us wait on Jesus to lead us; listening to him and following his holy Spirit, we will never sin.  That is the truth behind the wonderful promise of the Son of God through Isaiah: “They shall never be ashamed who wait for me.”

Fearless and Afraid

“The LORD is on my side; I will not fear!”

Psalm 118:6

“What time I am afraid, I will trust in you.”

Psalm 56:3

The book of Psalms is so true to life.  We all, like David, have had times of great confidence, when we joyfully proclaimed that we will not fear men.  And, like David, we all have had times when we were afraid.  Those times when we were afraid do not mean that our times of joyful faith were false, any more than David’s fearful times meant his faith in God was false.  Times of fear do not void our times of faith or make us hypocrites.  They are only times of trial, given to us by God to teach us patience and humility.

All of God’s children experience times of great faith.  Go ahead and rejoice in those times; you’re supposed to.  But stay sober.  You know that troubled times, designed by God, will come to try your faith and to increase it.  Don’t be ashamed when you are afraid.  Just do what David did: admit to yourself and to God how you feel, and keep trusting Him.  The trial will pass.  And you will rejoice in hope again.

No Resistance

“God is the LORD, who has shown us light.

Bind the sacrifice with cords, even to the horns of the altar.”

Psalm 118:27

If you have been called by God, you have been chosen to be offered as a gift, a “living sacrifice”, for His Son.  It is as contrary to our nature to be that kind of gift as it was for an animal in the Old Testament to be willing to be a sacrifice to God.  It had to be held down, or tied to the horns of the altar, in order for the death blow to be delivered.  Only after they were dead could they safely be untied.

Spiritually, until we die to our flesh, we have to be held down by rules.  But once we die, we offer no more resistance to the will of God.  We are at that point like a sacrificial ox after being slaughtered; we offer no more resistance to the priest’s work.  This complete submissiveness to our high priest, Jesus, is what Paul was talking about when he said, “I die daily.”

Doing No Iniquity

“Blessed are the undefiled in the way,

who walk in the law of the LORD.

Blessed are they that keep His testimonies,

and that seek Him with the whole heart.

They also do no iniquity: they walk in His ways.”

Psalm 119:1–3

Those who obey God do not sin.  God’s way is called the “perfect law of liberty” because obeying it makes us perfectly free from sin.  Walk in the law of the LORD; keep His testimonies; seek Him with your whole heart.  Doing these things, you will not – cannot – sin.

Not Given Over to Death

“The LORD has chastened me sore,

but He has not given me over to death.”

Psalm 118:18

When I came to visit my cancer-ridden mother in her hospital room, she asked me to read that scripture.  A family member told me that he heard my mother’s physician say that he had never seen a larger tumor in a patient’s lung and that he had never met a person with a sweeter spirit.  She would be dead in a couple of weeks, but the Lord had comforted her while she was reading Psalm 118 shortly before I arrived.  If she had ever been touched so deeply by a single verse, I don’t know it.  It felt as if she was clinging to that verse with all her heart and faith. 

She knew that she had displeased God and that the cancer was the “sore chastisement” with which God had now afflicted her, but when I came into her room, I could see that her spirit had been touched in a special way by Psalm 118:18.  She was feeling, deep in her soul, the great relief of knowing that her heavenly Father had not turned her over to death.  She may have been entertaining the idea that she would be healed, as God had once healed her brother of cancer when he was given no more than ninety days to live, but that was not what He was saying to her.  He was telling her that although her body would die, she herself would be saved and live with Him.

This is reminiscent of the situation in 1Corinthians 11:27–30.  In those verses, Paul says that some saints in Corinth were suffering sickness because of their disobedience.  Others had even died because of it.  However, Paul went on to say that God had sent those sicknesses and had taken some home to be with Him “so that they might not be condemned with the world.”  In other words, God “chastened them sore, but He did not give them over to death.”  That was the encouragement Jesus gave my mother in her last days on earth.  She was one of the many dear children of God who, though often chastised, just cannot seem to overcome a serious fault, and  so, for them to continue to live in this world would not be good.  In those cases, Paul revealed to us, their loving heavenly Father may choose to bless them by taking them home before their appointed time.

Beyond Heaven

“The LORD is high above all nations, and His glory above the heavens.”

Psalm 113:4

“The one who descended is the same one who ascended

far above all heavens so that he might fulfill all things.”

Ephesians 4:10

The heaven we know about is unworthy of God’s presence, and is unclean in His sight (Job 15:15).  God is so pure and so holy that He condescends to even look on things in heaven (Ps. 113:6).  The Bible repeatedly speaks of a holy place that is beyond heaven.  That is where God really is, and Jesus was exalted by God to sit at His right hand in that place.  Paul is the one who let us know that Jesus’ glory is much more than heavenly; it is so great that heaven itself is beneath him.

Telling the End from the Beginning

“All nations compassed me about,

but in the name of the LORD will I destroy them.

They compassed me about; yea, they compassed me about,

but in the name of the LORD, I will destroy them.

They compassed me about like bees; 

they are quenched as the fire of thorns.”

Psalm 118:10–12

“Then, when the thousand years come to an end, 

Satan will be released from his prison,

and he will go out to deceive the nations,

to gather them for the war.

And they came up and surrounded the camp of the saints

and the beloved city, but fire came down out of heaven

from God and devoured them.”

Revelation 20:7–9

Be patient.  God has already told us how it all will end.  He is in complete control, and His prophets have proclaimed from the beginning of the world how it all will end: “I am God. . . .  There is none like me, making the end known from the beginning, and from ancient time what has not yet happened” (Isa. 46:9–10).

Wanted: Alive Only

“The dead do not praise the LORD; nor do any that go down into silence.

But we will bless the LORD from this time forth and for evermore.”

Psalm 115:17–18

Notice, please, that the psalmist redefines death as a spiritual condition instead of a physical condition.  According to him, the dead are those among God’s people who are silent; that is, those in the Assembly of God who do not praise Him.  Next, the psalmist declares that the righteous will never stop praising God.   In other words, they are alive and will live forever.

If you are alive in God’s sight, then your voice is heard in the congregation of His saints, praising Him for His wonderful works and grace.  But silence in the praises of God is an open testimony to all, saying, “Help me!  I am dying!”

In the Old West of the 1800’s, posters of criminals were sometimes nailed to walls around town with the words: “Wanted!  Dead or Alive”.  But friend, God is better than that.  He only wants you alive.  He wants to hear your voice blend with all His saints, singing joyful praise and offering Him thanksgiving for all that He has done.  He is calling out to you, saying, “Forsake the foolish, and live!”