Psalm 119:115

We continue making our way through this octave of Psalm 119 entitled Samech.

Psalms 119:115  Depart from me, ye evildoers: for I will keep the commandments of my God.

There are a couple of facts about this verse that causes it to stand out from the rest.  First, there are four verses in this psalm that are not a prayer.  They are the first three verses and this verse.  Second, this is the only verse in this psalm that mentions the word God.  When God is named in the other verses, He is called LORD.

The psalmist directly addresses the evildoers:  depart from me.  We cannot altogether escape mingling with evildoers in this world.  We deal with them on our jobs, in business, at school, at social events, and even in our families.  In order to avoid dealing with evildoers altogether, we would have to go out of the world.

1 Corinthians 5:9  I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators:

10  Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world.

Yet even though we have to deal with evildoers, we must at the same time maintain a separation from them so as not to be corrupted by their evildoing.

Proverbs 9:6  Forsake the foolish, and live; and go in the way of understanding.

Proverbs 13:20  He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.

2 Corinthians 6:17  Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you….

Ephesians 5:5  For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

6  Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.

7  Be not ye therefore partakers with them.

So the question is:  How do we bid evildoers depart whilst at the same time maintaining some dealings with them?  The answer lies in the psalmist’s reason for bidding evildoers to depart:  for I will keep the commandments of my God.  When it comes to our obedience to the commandments of our God, we must never allow any association with evildoers under any circumstances to interfere or lead us astray.  To put it bluntly in the language of the street, whenever anyone attempts to turn us from keeping the commandments of God, we are justified in telling them to “bug off.” 

In the matter of our membership and communion in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, we must bid evildoers depart.  As Peter said to Simon, an evildoer who had crept into the church;  “thou hast neither part not lot in this matter” (Acts 8:21).  Paul instructed the church of Corinth when they had an evildoer in their number to “put away from among yourselves that wicked person” (1Corinthians 5:13).  By standing with the church in its discipline we say to such persons in so many words:  “Depart from me, ye evildoers.”

Whenever anyone comes into your house attempting to bring an evil doctrine or practice into your home, then bid them get of your house. 

2 John 1:10  If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed:

11  For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.

So the bottom line is this:  Be stedfast and unmovable in your resolve to keep the commandments of God without any deviation to the right or to the left and that will provide you with the safeguard against injurious and unsuitable company with evildoers.  For it is the word of God that the Lord uses to sanctify us and set us apart from evildoers in this world.  Hear the prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ for us before He left this world: 

John 17:15  I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.

16  They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.

Please allow me to quote the excellent words of Charles Bridges on this verse:

“As great is the difference between the Christian and the world, as between heaven and hell─as between the sounds, ‘Come, ye blessed, and, ‘Depart,  ye cursed.’ (Matt. xxv.34, 41).  The difference, which at that solemn day will be made for eternity, must, therefore, be visibly made now.  They must depart from us, or we from God….Shall we not then walk on earth with those, with whom we hope to spend our eternity, that our removal hence may be a change of place only, not of company?”

Psalm 119:114

We come to the second verse in this octave of Psalm 119 entitled Samech.

Psalms 119:114  Thou art my hiding place and my shield: I hope in thy word.

Let us recall that this 119^th psalm is a series of prayers to God. In the prayer we consider today the psalmist acknowledges to God that He was his hiding place and shield. 

Today’s verse stresses the fact that the Lord was the psalmist’s defense and protection in danger.  This protection is contemplated from two angles. When one is in danger from enemies he has two options. He can flee the danger by seeking refuge in a hiding place. Or he can stand his ground and resist the enemy by wielding a shield. A shield provides one with protection from the weapons that the enemy would thrust or hurl at him. With a hiding place and a shield, one has a means of defense whether he runs away or stands his ground. So when the psalmist confesses the Lord to be my hiding place and my shield, he is confessing God as his defense whether he was fleeing danger or resisting danger.

When the adversary attacks us with persecution or temptation, it is sometimes wise to flee and just avoid the situation if at all possible (see 1Corinthians 6:18; 10:14). We find times in the life of David when Saul was pursuing him and he fled away (1Samuel 19:10-12; 21:10). When the Jews were laying wait for Paul in Damascus to kill him, Paul was let “down by the wall in a basket” and thus fled the danger (Acts 9:23-25; 2Corinthians 11:32-33). But even though David and Paul utilized means for escape from danger, it was God Who was protecting them. He was their real hiding place and that is why their enemies could not seize them before the time. Thus we find David writing:

Psalms 31:19  Oh how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee; which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men!

20  Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence from the pride of man: thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues.

Psalms 64:1  Hear my voice, O God, in my prayer: preserve my life from fear of the enemy.

2  Hide me from the secret counsel of the wicked; from the insurrection of the workers of iniquity:

3  Who whet their tongue like a sword, and bend their bows to shoot their arrows, even bitter words….

Psalms 143:9  Deliver me, O LORD, from mine enemies: I flee unto thee to hide me.

So, dear reader, when you feel the devil closing in on you with fierce accusations and temptations, then flee to God in prayer and you will find in Him a hiding place where you will know that you are safe from the power of the enemy. When you have the Lord for your hiding place it is amazing how many hurtful things cannot get to you. Let your enemies plot and say what they will, you remain safe when you live in the secret of God’s presence. In fact, you will be so safe that not even death itself can separate you from the secret of His presence since to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (2Corinthians 5:8). 

But sometimes the thing to do is to stand your ground and resist the attack of the enemy.  David did this when he went out to meet Goliath on the field of battle. Instead of running away from the giant, as the soldiers of Israel’s army had been doing, David went right up to him in the confidence that the Lord was his shield. Goliath was utterly powerless to inflict harm on someone armed with such a shield.

1 Samuel 17:45  Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied.

46  This day will the LORD deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee; and I will give the carcases of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.

47  And all this assembly shall know that the LORD saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is the LORD'S, and he will give you into our hands. 

When the apostle Paul was finally arrested and made a prisoner of Rome, he could no longer run away. But God intervened to be his shield and he was wonderfully defended so that he became a witness of Jesus Christ even in Caesar’s palace. Trace the Lord as Paul’s shield in his personal testimony:

Philippians 1:12  But I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel;

13  So that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace, and in all other places;

2 Timothy 4:16  At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me: I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge.

17  Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear: and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.

18  And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

In this prayer the psalmist also confessed to God what he was doing:  I hope in thy word.  And it is just such persons as hope in God’s word as have Him for a hiding place and a shield.  When our enemies accuse us with our sins and weaknesses thus trying to discourage us, the promises we read in Scripture of God’s merciful forgiveness and the help of His strengthening grace point us to a sure hiding place and shield from those stinging accusations. But that hiding place and shield will only be found if we hope in God’s word of promise. If you find yourself defenseless before your enemies, it may just be that you have placed your hope and expectation in the wrong place. Perhaps you are placing all your hope in the promises of man rather than in the promises of God. You are looking to someone or something else to defend you, to take up your cause rather than the Lord. Perhaps you are expecting your ultimate deliverance to come in this world, rather than in the next. I know from sad experience how naked and defenseless one can be when his hope is misplaced. Unfulfilled expectation can leave you feeling devastated with nothing to look forward to and wondering what it is all for. You need to get back to your Bible and discover there the One that has the power to defend you. Fix your hope upon God’s sure word of truth and you will find the hiding place and shield you so much need in this perilous world.

Proverbs 30:5 Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him.

I know I am stretching this out a little longer, but I am compelled to pass on to you the weighty words of William Grant on the subject of hope.

“Of all the ingredients that sweeten the cup of human life, there is none more rich or powerful than hope. Its absence embitters the sweetest lot; its presence alleviates the deepest woe. Surround me with all the joys which memory can awaken or possession bestow, ─without hope it is not enough. In the absence of hope there is sadness in past and present joys ─sadness in the thought that the past is past, and that the present is passing too. But though you strip me of all the joys the past or the present can confer, if the morrow shineth bright with hope, I am glad amid my woe.”

For those of us who hope in God’s word, we live “in hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began…” (Titus 1:2). Indeed, “the morrow shineth bright with hope” and here I find a place to hide and a shield to defend me.