2002-01-01
Good Morning Dear Ones,
One of the most remarkable things about God is His willingness to sustain the afflicted when the latter have been seeking Him out with humble, honest, and open hearts. This support for those in trouble comes from the word and through prayer. PS 119: 81-88 is not only a prayer for deliverance, but it also reveals the spiritual meaning of the eleventh Hebrew letter, kaf. “I am worn out, Lord, waiting for You to save me; I place my trust in Your word. My eyes are tired from watching for what You promised, while I ask, ‘When will You help me?’ I am as useless as a discarded wineskin; yet I have not forgotten Your commands. How much longer must I wait? When will You punish those who persecute me? Proud men, who do not obey Your law, have dug pits to trap me. Your commandments are all trustworthy; men persecute me with lies-help me! They have almost succeeded in killing me, but I have not neglected Your commands. Because of Your constant love be good to me, so that I may obey Your laws.”
When thinking about the physical and emotional condition of the Psalmist or anyone begging for deliverance from his trials and persecution, I am reminded of the Protevangelium, GN 3: 15. It is a citation that when inspected carefully for its content allows us to see God’s heart and His perspective. [God speaking to the serpent in the Garden of Eden after the original sin has been committed.] “I will make you and the woman hate each other; her offspring and yours will always be enemies. Her offspring will crush your head, and you will bite their heel.” If something bites our heel, we suffer pain and inconvenience, but we can live through it. Eventually, the heel can heal. If something crushes our head, we die. So, herein we see the announcement of the long, often uncomfortable struggle we will have with the forces of evil, but we also see the promise of eventual victory. The same issue is taken up in 2 COR 4: 8-9. “We are often troubled, but not crushed; sometimes in doubt, but never in despair; there are many enemies, but we are never without a friend; and though badly hurt at times, we are not destroyed.” The believer is afflicted but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed.
In ancient times, wine was stored in a wineskin (made from a part of animal). After awhile the wineskin would become darkened, parched, wizened, and unsightly. The metaphor of this is used in verse 83 to describe how the weary, persecuted believer feels under the onslaught of his troubles. Have you ever felt this way? I certainly have. By nature, I am an impatient person who wants a problem solved ASAP. That is not always in God’s plan. His wisdom leads Him to make me slowly but surely work my way through my problems to extract the maximum lesson value from them. The last 18 months of Peter’s and my lives are certainly testament to that. If we hadn’t gone through what we did during Pete’s job search, how would I have learned through personal experience that when one stays faithful in the face of adversity, God will not let him go to ruin? When I took Experiencing God, one of the points this most wonderful course made was that when God has a God-sized assignment for a person, He needs plenty of time to prepare the person to take it on. He wanted me ready to have my devotions ministry, coordinate the prayer chain, learn how to be a better emotional support for Peter, be a better teacher of the Word, learn that He administers justice in His own time and way, learn how to rely on Him, and not be so controlling. He wanted me to know that He was in charge, and that I could be assured that He would protect and provide for us, as long as we did our part and remained faithful to Him. Folks, God has a big job to do on me; He has a right to the time it takes Him to do it!
I am not ashamed of the fact that I often cite RO 12: 2, because it is such an important verse. “Do not conform yourselves to the standards of this world, but let God transform you inwardly by the renewal of your mind.” To what standard should we conform? To Jesus Christ! When we live “in Christ,” our Lord doesn’t remember our past sins. In fact when He looks upon us, He sees Jesus Christ! Amazing! With our human limitations, we can’t begin to understand the depth of the love our Abba has for us. If we did, we would never spend another day in our lives not trusting and obeying Him completely. Who are the villains of the piece in verse 85? They are the lawless, Godless people who refuse to conform to the paradigm set by Jesus Christ. The are the ones who dig pits to trap believers in their evil and who ridicule and persecute the faithful. They are the ones described in RO 1: 18-20, who suppress the truth and worship the created instead of the Creator. Yet, in the face of this persecution, our Psalmist reveals that he knows God’s commandments are trustworthy (86). He has not neglected God’s commands. He acknowledges God’s constant love and his willingness to be obedient (88).
Before finishing this discussion, I feel it is necessary to look at the worst case scenario, what if a believer is martyred? Our Lord is always just. He is not in the business of seeing us go down to ruin. That is made clear in the other day’s citation of JER 29: 11-13. We know that many people in both the OT and the NT suffered terribly as a result of the evil with which they were surrounded. Most of Christ’s very own disciples were martyred for their beliefs. Yet, God revealed to the apostle John while imprisoned in 96 AD on the Isle of Patmos what will happen to those martyred. REV 6: 9-11, “Then the Lamb broke open the fifth seal. I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been killed because they had proclaimed god’s word and had been faithful in their witnessing. They shouted in a loud voice, ‘Almighty Lord, holy and true! How long will it be until You judge the people on earth and punish them for killing us?’ Each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to rest a little while longer, until the complete number of their fellow servants and brothers were killed, as they had been.” What this means is that they will inherit the Kingdom and share Christ’s glory all in God’s perfect timing. God hears our prayers and will act in justice on them. Through Jesus Christ, He will deliver us from our anguish and suffering. We can rely on Him and on His perfect timing.
PRAYER: O Lord, Your crowning accomplishment is salvation for mankind through Jesus Christ. When we pray to You for deliverance from our suffering, persecution, and misery, You hear us. You opened Your heart in sacrificing Your Son on the cross for us to make a way for our salvation. What more can we ask of You? In our angst, we feel ugly, full of doubt, and abandoned. Yet, we are not. Often You choose to allow us to work through our trouble, so that we can be perfected in the process. You deserve from us our trust and obedience. We acknowledge that Your timing is perfect, even if it means that we must suffer pain waiting for it. Your word is there to ease our pain and help us to reach toward Your perspective on it. Even those who are martyred for expressing their faith in You have not been forgotten. Help us, Dear Lord, to see our suffering from Your view and to understand that when we endure in faith, our characters are being built, and You are giving us hope. We praise, adore, glorify, magnify, honor, and worship You. In Christ ‘s name, amen.
Tomorrow, we will look at the spiritual meaning of the twelfth Hebrew letter, lamed, as revealed in PS 119: 89-96. This remarkable Psalm is a spiritual treasure chest that has been sitting in our Bibles just waiting to be opened. Now, that we are examining it’s contents, we can’t help but see our loving Abba revealing Himself with compassion to us. I feel so blessed and hope you do too. Peter and I send you a warm embrace in Christ today.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn