Psalm 199 Daleth
Posted on Monday, December 10, 2007 at 11:30 AM by David Zavadil
Originally posted on Wednesday, February 08, 2006 at 1:48 PM by David Zavadil
25 ¶ <DALETH> My soul clings to the dust; give me life according to your word!
26 ¶ When I told of my ways, you answered me; teach me your statutes!
27 Make me understand the way of your precepts, and I will meditate on your wondrous works.
28 ¶ My soul melts away for sorrow; strengthen me according to your word!
29 Put false ways far from me and graciously teach me your law!
30 ¶ I have chosen the way of faithfulness; I set your rules before me.
31 I cling to your testimonies, O LORD; let me not be put to shame!
32 I will run in the way of your commandments when you enlarge my heart!
When you sin, how do you feel? Does it drive you crazy until you confess and repent or do you just move on, as everyone sins? The Psalmist provides a picture of how he deals with sin in his life, what it does to him internally and how he reacts. 25.My soul clings to the dust; give me life according to your word! The sin in his live is such that it knocks him to the ground. The picture he paints for us is of a man prostrated before God, confessing and even then not feeling he is low enough. If you have seen the movie "Luther," you may remember a scene where Luther is praying in his chamber and is laid out on the floor with his arms spread wide confessing his sinfulness to God. This is the picture the psalmist creates here. Bridges writes, "To have a soul cleaving to the dust, and not feel the trouble, is the black mark of the sinner, dead in sins - dead to God." The power of sin in our lives should continually remind us that we came from dust, created by God, but over taken by sin. Apart from our clinging to our creation and crying out to God for help, we can not overcome our sin. No matter how hard we try, how hard we pray or study, if God does not cleanse us, we will not find forgiveness. What a blessing we have in his promise, 1 John 1: 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We may, in our hearts, be led to cling to the dust over our sinfulness, but we can rest in the sure confidence that God will forgive, and this is according to His word!
26 ¶ When I told of my ways, you answered me; teach me your statutes! We find a simple picture of the believers walk with Christ. As we lay our hearts before the Throne of Grace, God works in us. To often we question, "Why do I need to confess my sins, God already knows?" That is true, God does know our sin. A better question, and the one addressed here, is, do we know our sin? I can tell you, the reason I fail to confess and repent of sin is not that God already knows, but that I am not convicted of it or know it. The psalmist finds and reveals to us the way to dialog with God, open ourselves up. Confess and talk to him. When we confess our sinfulness it let us know and God know that we realize what we have done. When we confess, he answers with forgiveness. It is only as we come before God in His righteousness that we can then begin to understand His Word. Forgiveness leads to illumination. As we confess our sin and come to the cross, the Scriptures are opened up for us, leading us closer to the throne.
27 Make me understand the way of your precepts, and I will meditate on your wondrous works. How often do you, like me, open the Scripture up and read only to find yourself saying, "What did I just read?" The sin we just spoke about can often lead to a lack of understanding. Blinded by our sinfulness, we find ourselves blinded to all of the things of God. As our hearts come under the caring hand of the Holy Spirit, we are taught. Joh 14:26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. What the Church needs most today are not smarter teachers and preachers, but men of God who go to God daily to find clarity to the teaching of Scripture A knowledge of Greek and Hebrew doesn't make my preaching deeper, it doesn't allow me to expound any deeper, it is only as my knowledge, via my walk with God, grows, that I begin to find a new deepness in my preaching and teaching. I am to seek God's guidance through the Holy Spirit to understand and interpret the Scriptures and then I am to meditate upon them. Dwell on these teachings until they become and integral part of my life. The wondrous works spoke of here are not necessarily miracles of God's mighty hand, but the wonders we find in Scripture. In your next quiet time, instead of just reading, ask God to show you His wonders in the passage you are reading. Write them down and meditate on them. How do they apply to your life? How do these wonders make God even more real in your life?
28 ¶ My soul melts away for sorrow; strengthen me according to your word! This verse brings to us a contrast of hearts. As our heart is is set on self and sin, we experience sorrow. I don't know about you, but in my life, when I focus on self, I am almost always led toward sorrow. Why? Because the sinner that I am, I always want what I want. Sorrow enters because I rarely get what I want. Sin only begets more sin, it never brings fulfillment. So where do we go for fulfillment? Where do we go for strength The psalmist points us back to the Word of God. He cries out, strengthen me according to your word! In the last verse I challenged you to look for God's wonders in the Scripture. In this verse I want to challenge you to seek those passages that provide strength to the weak of heart. Passages like, Ex 33:14 And he said, ‘‘My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.’’Mt 11:28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Our strength is found in God and the promises of God found in Scripture bring us assurance and hope.
29 Put false ways far from me and graciously teach me your law! Do you find yourself struggling with the same things over and over again? Are you like the addict that just needs one more hit and then they will quit? Our struggle with sin is often like that, it is addicting and difficult for us to over come. It is this power that the psalmist calls us to overcome by calling out to the only one who can help. For some of us, we will always have a weakness say for chocolate. It is not enough to say we won't eat any more, sometimes we need someone just to remove ever last crumb of it from our lives. We need God to remove those false ways from us. Sin over powers us, often keeping us from fighting back. We need to seek God and ask that He show his mercy to us by removing the temptations far from us. Ask God to remove those things that tend to tempt and then fill your mind with His Word. As we meditate on Scripture, we find we have less time to think of those things that taunt us daily.
30 ¶ I have chosen the way of faithfulness; I set your rules before me. 31 I cling to your testimonies, O LORD; let me not be put to shame! 32 I will run in the way of your commandments when you enlarge my heart! These next three verses highlight the paths set before us. One path is laden with lies and deception, the other with truth. As Paul writes, 1Cor 10:13 No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. We will all be tempted. We will all face a decision, walk the way of God or follow our temptations. Here we see the writer, dealing with the fine line between God's active work in our lives and our responsibility. He makes clear that we have a responsibility in this thing we call sanctification. We are to choose, cling and run.
First we are to chose the way of faithfulness. He is not talking about our salvation but our sanctification or holiness. Jesus said, Lu 9:23 And he said to all, ‘‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. Every morning as we arise, we have a choice to carry the cross or to leave it by the bed. To follow Christ and grow in our relationship or to watch our relationship stagnate on the vine. My friends, you will never draw nearer to Christ if you never choose to read the Word, let alone set His rules (Word) as your guide for life. You can not have it both ways. I believe in Christ, but I want to live my own way. No, you must chose the way of faithfulness and then set about to live according to God's Word. This concept teaches me that I must make the Word of God and integral part of my life, not just light reading for late in the evening.
Second, we must cling to that Word of God. The world bombards us with all sorts of messages. Even within the Church universal, we are being told that the Bible is a nice story but is not authoritative. The efforts to downplay the power of the Scripture is evident in everything from the evening news to the local school system. Yet, look where we are today. We have seen more advances by intelligentsia in the last hundred years than in all of history and still we have poverty, our kids struggle with drug and alcohol addictions, sexual addictions and people in general are no more happier than they were even fifty years ago. The Word of God promises fulfillment and satisfaction. It teaches they are found in the Great Shepherd, Jesus Christ. What a shame it would be if on that day we stand before God, He asks, "Why should I let you into my heaven?" and our only answer is, "uh, cause I didn't drink, I didn't swear, I didn't chew and I did not date any girls that do." The Word of God provides the teachings that will keep us from being shamed. As they point us to Christ, we find our confidence in Him.
Finally, we are to run in the way of His commandments. Paul writes of our walk being a race. 2Ti 4:7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Heb 12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. The life of a Christian isn't a one and done proposition. We don't simply pray and all is over, we must daily hit the track we call life and live as though we are His chosen people. Again the psalmist reminds us of where we will find the strength to run this race, we are to find it in Christ. As we run according to the Word, our hearts will be enlarged, we will be enabled to see and receive more and more of what Christ offers. We do not receive all of our understanding of Christ and our relationship upon conversion, as we grow, as we walk, more and more comes clear. We need to run our race in such a way as to draw nearer to the prize, "for which we have been called heavenward." We need to run to Christ, that we may run with Him.
Edited on: Thursday, December 13, 2007 11:07 AMPosted in Bible Study (RSS), Commentary (RSS), Fear of God (RSS)
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