Psalm 119:87

In the foregoing two verses of this octave of Psalm 119 we have found the psalmist suffering persecution from the proud.  In the verse we consider today the psalmist continues to write about his persecutions.

Psalms 119:87  They had almost consumed me upon earth; but I forsook not thy precepts.

Again, the antecedent of the pronoun they in this verse is the proud mentioned in verse 85, the same ones who digged pits for the psalmist and who persecuted him wrongfully.  From today’s verse we learn that they almost gained their objective, which was to consume the psalmist.  They wanted his mouth shut and his testimony destroyed, even if it meant killing him outright.  But the Lord answered his prayer for help so the proud fell just short of their objective.

Psalms 94:17  Unless the LORD had been my help, my soul had almost dwelt in silence.

Psalms 118:13  Thou hast thrust sore at me that I might fall: but the LORD helped me.

How often has our experience paralleled that of the psalmist!  William S. Plumer said, “The lives of good men are full of narrow escapes.”  More than once we have been delivered from a situation or a temptation that could have destroyed us.  We were almost, but not altogether, consumed.  Asaph had such a narrow escape.  He wrote:

Psalms 73:2  But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped.

When your adversaries, including your adversary the devil, cannot gain their objective against you this is an indication that the Lord looks favourably upon you.

Psalms 41:11  By this I know that thou favourest me, because mine enemy doth not triumph over me.

Notice that the psalmist stated that the proud had almost consumed him upon earth.  What his enemies could do to him was confined to this earth.  Beyond that they had no power over him whatsoever, which reminds us of the words of our Lord.

Luke 12:4  And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do.

Although the psalmist was persecuted to the point of being almost consumed upon earth, yet his resolve to keep the Lord’s precepts remained constant:  but I forsook not thy precepts.  I do not think I can do better than cite Matthew Henry’s comments on these words:

“That which they aimed at was to frighten him from the ways of God, but they could not prevail; he would sooner forsake all that was dear to him in this world than forsake the word of God, would sooner lose his life than lose the comfort of doing his duty.”

May God grant us strength to maintain such a determination to be faithful to God’s precepts no matter what happens.

Psalm 119:86

In the foregoing two verses of this octave of Psalm 119 we have found the psalmist suffering persecution from the proud.  In the verse we consider today the psalmist continues to write about his persecutions.

Psalms 119:86  All thy commandments are faithful: they persecute me wrongfully; help thou me.

Of course, the antecedent to the pronoun they in this verse is the proud mentioned in the foregoing verse.  The proud were persecuting the psalmist wrongfully.  They had no just cause to do so.  This leads us straightly to our Lord and His disciples who were, and are, persecuted wrongfully.  Just prior to His death at the hands of His persecutors, our Lord said to His disciples:

John 15:20  Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.

21  But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me.

Anytime you are persecuted for Jesus’ sake, you are being persecuted wrongfully.  And the reason such persecutions are heaped upon you is that the persecutors do not know God, even though they may profess to know and serve Him.

John 16:2  They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.

3  And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me.

Now suffering wrongfully is nothing to be ashamed of.  It is rather thankworthy and a sign that you are a true follower of the Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 2:19  For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully.

1 Peter 4:16  Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf.

Although proud men treated the psalmist wrongfully, his faith in God’s commandments was unshaken:  All thy commandments are faithful.  Consider the definition of faithful.

Faithful – Firm in fidelity or allegiance to a person to whom one is bound by any tie; constant, loyal, true.

This definition of faithful applies both to persons and to things.  God is faithful.  Therefore, any commandment God gives us is faithful.  God’s commandments are constant and true.  You can rely on them to always lead you in the right direction.  They will never betray you.  And note that this was the psalmist’s estimation of all God’s commandments.  There was not a single commandment in his Bible that the psalmist considered doubtful or unnecessary.  I appreciate Charles Spurgeon’s comments on this point:

“He had no fault to find with God’s law, even though he had fallen into sad trouble through obedience to it.  Whatever the command might cost him it was worth it; he felt that God’s way might be rough, but it was right; it might make him enemies, but still it was his best friend.  He believed that in the end God’s command would turn out to his own profit, and that he should be no loser by obeying it....The fault lay with his persecutors, and neither with his God nor with himself.  He had done no injury to anyone, nor acted otherwise than according to truth and justice; therefore he confidently appeals to his God, and cries, ‘Help thou me.’” 

Under the weight of his afflictions, the psalmist called upon the Lord to help him.  There is no better remedy than this for coping with the distresses of life.

Help thou me is one of the simplest prayers you can pray.  Yet this simple prayer expresses our greatest need:  our need for the help of the Lord.

God can help us when no one else can.

Psalms 60:11  Give us help from trouble: for vain is the help of man.

Psalms 146:3  Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.

Considering that the Lord made the heavens and the earth, He certainly has the power to help us.

Psalms 121:1  I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. 

2   My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth.

Being one of God’s chosen children you may count on the Lord to help you since He has promised to do just that.

Isaiah 41:10  Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.

13 For I the LORD thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.

14 Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith the LORD, and thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.

Are you presently in trouble?  If so, the Lord is right there to help you, even in the midst of your trouble.

Psalms 46:1  God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

The help of the Lord is there.  All you need to do is to come to the throne of grace and ask for it.

Hebrews 4:16 Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.

But when you come before the Lord to ask for His help, you must believe that you will receive it.

James 1:6  But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.

7  For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.

And if you have trouble believing the Lord will help you as He promised, well, there is help for that problem too.  The following passage is an excerpt from an exchange between our Lord Jesus and the father of a boy possessed of the devil.

Mark 9:22  And ofttimes it hath cast him into the fire, and into the waters, to destroy him: but if thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us.

23  Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.

24  And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.

Our chief problem is not the lack of help from the Lord; it is rather our lack of faith.  But if you call upon the Lord for help trusting Him to help you as He has promised, you will be able to say with David:

Psalms 28:7 The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise him.

And do not think that you weary your God by continually asking for His help.  When you pray the simple prayer “Lord, help me,” you are actually worshipping the Lord.  He is honoured that you believe in His power and trust Him for His help.

Matthew 15:25 Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.

If you are in affliction, do not think you have to pray long, detailed, and eloquent prayers to gain the help of the Lord.  This simple prayer, “help thou me,” or “Lord, help me,” prayed in faith will secure for you the help of Almighty God, which is the help of nothing less than Omnipotence. 

This blog has been a longer one, but I wanted to expand on this simple prayer for help.  It is simple in its expression but profound beyond words in its implications. 

In conclusion, the psalmist was troubled by his persecutors.  But rather than live in the grip and torment of fearing what they might do to him, he rather lived in the confidence of the Lord’s help.

Hebrews 13:6  So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.

Psalm 119:85

We are working our way through the octave of Psalm 119 entitled Caph.  In this octave the psalmist is obviously experiencing prolonged stress with no relief in sight.  In the foregoing verse we saw that the source of this stress was persecution.  In today’s verse we find the psalmist’s persecutors identified as the proud.

Psalms 119:85  The proud have digged pits for me, which are not after thy law.

In previous verses, which we have already considered, we saw the psalmist being troubled by the proud.  Recall that the proud are those that are so full of themselves that they defy Almighty God and His servants.  They will reject and resist anyone that crosses their will. 

The proud had had him “greatly in derision” (verse 51).  They mocked him.  They had “forged a lie against” him (verse 69).  They invented falsehoods against him.  And he wrote:  “they dealt perversely with me without a cause” (verse 78).  They did not treat him right.  Now we find the proud digged pits for him.

The proud were obviously out to get the psalmist.  Something about his life exposed them in such a way that they had to rid themselves of him.  So they digged pits for him.  They deliberately, with malice aforethought, devised ways to trap the psalmist.  And they didn’t just dig one pit; they digged pits, plural.  They made numerous and varied attempts to trap him, first digging a pit here and then another there thinking he would surely stumble into one of them.  This reminds us of the attempts made by the scribes and Pharisees to entrap our Lord in His words so they could have some cause against Him.    

Luke 11:53  And as he said these things unto them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to urge him vehemently, and to provoke him to speak of many things:

54    Laying wait for him, and seeking to catch something out of his mouth, that they might accuse him.

The pits that the proud digged for the psalmist were not after thy law.  God’s law warns us against devising evil against our neighbour.

Proverbs 3:29  Devise not evil against thy neighbour, seeing he dwelleth securely by thee.

God’s law commands us to love our neighbour as ourselves rather than trying to destroy him.  So any such pit as the proud were digging was not after God’s law. 

But, alas, the proud who dig pits for the righteous will themselves fall into the pits they have dug.  So that we may say, when you set out to destroy someone else who has done you no wrong, you are really digging your own grave.

Psalms 57:6  They have prepared a net for my steps; my soul is bowed down: they have digged a pit before me, into the midst whereof they are fallen themselves. Selah.

Proverbs 26:27  Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein: and he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him.

In contrast to the pit-digging proud, let us rejoice with thanksgiving for our humble and lowly Saviour Who came into this world, not to dig a pit for us, but to deliver us from the pit.

Psalms 40:2  He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.

John 3:17  For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

Psalm 119:84

Have you ever encountered a stressful situation which seemed to drag on and on to the point that you wondered how long you were going to live with it?  In fact, you wondered how long you were going to live, period!  If so, you are in the company of the author of Psalm 119, for we find him wondering the same thing. 

Psalms 119:84  How many are the days of thy servant? when wilt thou execute judgment on them that persecute me?

As we have been noticing in this octave of Psalm 119, the psalmist was in a comfortless condition that was stretching out in front of him with no relief in sight.  From this passage we can deduce that prolonged persecution was the source of his stress.  As the persecution continued to wear him down, he became weary of life and, therefore, asked:  How many are the days of thy servant?  One’s life can become so distasteful that he begins to wish for it to end and to wonder how long it will be before it does.   

Job shared the sentiments of the psalmist as he too was the object of persecution, not only from the devil who was smiting him, but even from his friends.

Job 19:21  Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends; for the hand of God hath touched me.

22    Why do ye persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my flesh?

Job suffered prolonged misery and could find no relief during the day or during the night.  Therefore, he longed to die and end his days on this earth.

Job 7:1  Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? are not his days also like the days of an hireling?

2  As a servant earnestly desireth the shadow, and as an hireling looketh for the reward of his work:

3  So am I made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed to me.

4  When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise, and the night be gone? and I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day.

13  When I say, My bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaint;

14  Then thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions:

15  So that my soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than my life.

16  I loathe it; I would not live alway: let me alone; for my days are vanity.

Now the psalmist posed this question to his God:  when wilt thou execute judgment on them that persecute me?  That God will execute judgment on the persecutors of His people is a given.

Psalms 7:11  God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day.

12  If he turn not, he will whet his sword; he hath bent his bow, and made it ready.

13  He hath also prepared for him the instruments of death; he ordaineth his arrows against the persecutors.

When God will execute this judgment is the question.  Of course, God will ultimately execute judgment on our enemies at the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

2 Thessalonians 1:6  Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you;

7  And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels,

8  In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:

9  Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power…. 

However, history is replete with examples of the Lord executing judgment on the persecutors of His people during their lifetime on earth.  Consider the judgments executed on the Egyptians who refused to let Israel go.  Did not the Lord execute judgment on Saul who persecuted David?  And don’t forget the judgment executed on the Assyrians who besieged Jerusalem in the days of Hezekiah, when an angel of the Lord smote 185,000 Assyrians in a night.  These are to name but a few.  With such precedents before us, we are encouraged to ask the Lord when He will execute judgment on our enemies and bring our trouble to an end. 

So the limited time the psalmist had on this earth was running out and what days he had were being spent being mistreated by his enemies.  But the silver lining in this grey cloud is the fact that the psalmist did not avenge himself.  He could have reasoned that since his days on earth were numbered, he might as well take matters in his own hands and secure his own relief so that he might pass the rest of his days in ease.  Instead, he brought his concerns to God appealing to Him as the One Who could resolve them.  Charles Bridges sums it up beautifully:

“Your trial has done its appointed work, when it has brought you to him; and inclined you, after your blessed Master’s example, instead of taking the vengeance into your own hands, to commit yourself and your cause ‘to him that judgeth rightouesly’” (1Peter 2:23).  

 

Psalm 119:83

We are working our way through the octave of Psalm 119 entitled Caph.  Today’s verse connects with the previous verse by the word for.  In the previous verse the psalmist was in a low and dark condition of soul.  His eyes were failing for the comfort of God’s word wondering when it would come.  Now the psalmist gives a graphic description of himself in this comfortless state:

Psalms 119:83  For I am become like a bottle in the smoke; yet do I not forget thy statutes.

In Bible times animal skins were used to make bottles.  Therefore, such a bottle in the smoke would have been charred, dried, and shriveled up.  This is how the psalmist felt.  David experienced this same dismal frame of mind when he wrote:  “I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I am like a broken vessel” (PSA 31:12).  Or we hear the lament of the author of Psalm 102 pouring out a similar complaint: 

Psalms 102:3  For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as an hearth.

And it is not out of the question that his comfortless soul was affecting his body so that he appeared withered physically.

Proverbs 17:22  A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones. 

The prophet Job took on a charred aspect as he underwent his afflictions:

Job 30:30  My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with heat.

But even if you aren’t physically withered, if you are as I, you have times when you feel withered under the weight of stress with no comfort in sight.  Charles Spurgeon eloquently expressed this:

“Some of us know the inner meaning of this simile, for we, too, have felt dingy, mean, and worthless, only fit to be cast away.  Very black and hot has been the smoke which has enveloped us; it seemed to come not alone from the Egyptian furnace, but from the bottomless pit; and it had a clinging power which made the soot of it fasten upon us and blacken us with miserable thoughts.” 

Although the psalmist felt so utterly miserable, he still remembered his Bible:  yet do I not forget thy statutes.  No matter what condition the psalmist found himself in, he always referred it to the Scriptures.  He brought everything before the word of God.  It was indeed his court of appeal in every situation.  I cannot improve upon Matthew Henry’s comment on this point:

"We must in every condition, both prosperous and adverse, have the things of God in remembrance; and, if we be mindful of God’s statutes, we may pray and hope that he will be mindful of our sorrows, though for a time he seems to forget us.”