Psalm 119:151

We closed our last meditation stating that “our next verse will show us that as the wicked draw nigh to us, they will encounter Someone else Who is near us.”  And so we read:

Psalms 119:151  Thou art near, O LORD; and all thy commandments are truth.

The Lord’s people are described as “a people near unto him” (Psalm 148:14). The Lord assures us that when we are with Him and seeking Him, He is with us, yea, “nigh (near) unto” us.

2 Chronicles 15:1  And the Spirit of God came upon Azariah the son of Oded:

2  And he went out to meet Asa, and said unto him, Hear ye me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin; The LORD is with you, while ye be with him; and if ye seek him, he will be found of you; but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you.

Psalms 145:18  The LORD is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth.

Therefore, anyone who draws nigh unto us to do us mischief, will have our God to contend with.  This is so much the case that we can even defy the enemy to come near to us in the assurance that our God will help us.    

Isaiah 50:8  He is near that justifieth me; who will contend with me? let us stand together: who is mine adversary? let him come near to me.

9  Behold, the Lord GOD will help me; who is he that shall condemn me? lo, they all shall wax old as a garment; the moth shall eat them up.

Paul echoed these words in this great passage:

Romans 8:33  Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth.

34  Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.

We may take great comfort in knowing that when trouble is near, God is also near, yea, “a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1).  When someone is “very present,” he is right there at hand in whatever you are going through.  So our chief concern should not be the drawing nigh of the wicked.  Rather, our chief concern should be that we are on the Lord’s side seeking Him and calling upon Him in truth; for if we are, He assures us He is right there with us.

Now the psalmist connects this assurance of the nearness of the Lord with the fact that all His commandments are truth.  Charles Spurgeon wrote:  “God neither commands a lie, nor lies in His commands.”  These commandments not only include everything God has commanded us to do, but also to the promises of His covenant which He has commanded.

Psalms 105:8  He hath remembered his covenant for ever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations.

No matter how nigh the enemy might have come to the psalmist, they could never come between him and his God.  And He had the truth of God’s commandments to assure him of that.  When the Lord commands deliverances for Jacob, their enemies are powerless against them. 

Psalms 44:4  Thou art my King, O God: command deliverances for Jacob.

5  Through thee will we push down our enemies: through thy name will we tread them under that rise up against us.

And so we find the author of Psalm 71 consoling himself that God had given commandment to save him.  And trusting the truth of that commandment of God he besought the Lord to be near him, or, as he expressed it, to be not far from him as the enemy approached him to take him.

Psalms 71:3  Be thou my strong habitation, whereunto I may continually resort: thou hast given commandment to save me; for thou art my rock and my fortress....

10  For mine enemies speak against me; and they that lay wait for my soul take counsel together,

11  Saying, God hath forsaken him: persecute and take him; for there is none to deliver him.

12  O God, be not far from me: O my God, make haste for my help.

Those who esteem all that God has commanded to be truth are those to whom He is near and whom He will defend when the wicked draw nigh unto them.  If you defend the Book, the Book will defend you!  Indeed, “his truth shall be thy shield and buckler” (Psalm 91:4).

Let it also be noted that all God’s commandments, plural, are truth, singular.  There is only one truth of God.  All the various commandments of God given in His word cohere together to form one body of truth.  Therefore, it is not correct to speak of the “truths” of the Bible.  There are not many truths.  There is only one truth and that it is the Lord Jesus Christ revealed in what Daniel 10:21 calls “the scripture of truth” (John 14:6; 5:39).

Psalm 119:150

We continue working our way through the octave of Psalm 119 entitled Koph and we find the psalmist being approached by those who are up to no good.

Psalms 119:150  They draw nigh that follow after mischief: they are far from thy law.

Let’s begin by defining mischief.

Mischief – Evil plight or condition.  Harm or evil considered as the work of an agent or due to a particular cause.

Those who follow after mischief strive to do evil.  For them evil is a goal to be attained.  The Scriptures call them “the wicked.”  Their pursuit of mischief is described in these passages:

Psalms 7:14 Behold, he travaileth with iniquity, and hath conceived mischief, and brought forth falsehood.

Psalms 36:4 He deviseth mischief upon his bed; he setteth himself in a way that is not good; he abhorreth not evil.

Proverbs 4:16  For they sleep not, except they have done mischief; and their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall.

17    For they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence.

Proverbs 6:14 Frowardness is in his heart, he deviseth mischief continually; he soweth discord.

It is plain from these passages that the wicked bring forth mischief like women conceive and bring forth children.  They conceive the idea in their hearts and bring it forth in their actions.  They travail with it like a woman travails in pain until she can give birth.  They hurt until they can perform the evil they purpose.  They are continually plotting mischief, even on their beds at night.  They cannot rest unless they have done evil.  Mischief is their meat and drink.  These people live to do something wrong.  Indeed, they follow after mischief.  In fact, they follow after mischief so intently that their feet are “swift in running to mischief” (Proverbs 6:18).  And being thus, they are obviously far from God’s law, which ever only leads men to do good.  They stay as far away from the Bible as they can.  They want nothing to do with being either commanded or convicted by it.  And the more these kinds of people are in command of our institutions of government, industry, finance, education, media, and entertainment the more mischief we are going to see pouring out of those institutions. 

Now the mischief they do is not just aimed at other wicked people.  No, they draw nigh to those who love God and His word.  They want to do harm to anyone that reproves them for what they are and what they do.  They will try to tempt the godly person to do as they.  If the godly person resists, they will persecute him.  Hence, they drew nigh to our Lord to take Him and destroy Him.  They hounded the apostles of Christ as they went about preaching the gospel.  They have pursued the followers of truth from the time of Cain and Abel, and will do so until the trump of God shall sound and forever remove His children from their reach.  Nowadays with the internet, those who follow after mischief can easily draw nigh.  They are only a click away, a fact which calls for ever greater vigilance on our part.  But our next verse will show us that as the wicked draw nigh to us, they will encounter Someone else Who is near us.

Psalm 119:149

In today’s verse of Psalm 119 we encounter the fourth specific reference made by the psalmist in this octave to his prayers.

Psalms 119:149  Hear my voice according unto thy lovingkindness: O LORD, quicken me according to thy judgment.

In this prayer the psalmist brings two requests before the Lord.  He asks the Lord to hear him and He asks the Lord to quicken him.

Let’s consider the first request:  Hear my voice.  Although we can pray in our hearts without uttering a sound, it is good to do as the psalmist and pray aloud with our voices.  This assists in focusing our thoughts on what we are praying.  If you are reading something and having trouble concentrating on it, you might try reading it aloud as this will help to capture your attention.  When I meditate, I often speak out loud what I am thinking.  I usually preach my sermons to myself before I preach them to the congregation.  A person might think me crazy for doing so, but it works for me.  At least I have Scripture for doing this when I pray.  If it works there, why not use this tool in meditation?

Now the psalmist pled with God to hear him according unto His lovingkindness.

Lovingkindness - Affectionate tenderness and consideration; kindness arising from a deep personal love, as the active love of God for his creatures.

If God’s hears us, it is because He deeply loves us.  And this love moved Him to action in that He gave His only begotten Son to take away our sins and iniquities. 

1 John 4:10  Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Without this removal of our sins, the Lord would not hear our prayers at all.

Isaiah 59:1  Behold, the LORD'S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:

2  But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.

Therefore, it is because of the His lovingkindness shown in the forgiveness of our sins that God hears us when we pray.  This explains why David pled the lovingkindness of God when He begged God to forgive him for the sins he committed in his adulterous affair with Bathsheba.

Psalms 51:1  (To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came unto him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.) Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.

When the Lord deals with us, we want Him to keep His lovingkindnesses in mind rather than our sins, especially the sins we committed in the folly and passion of youth which haunt us all.

Psalms 25:6  Remember, O LORD, thy tender mercies and thy lovingkindnesses; for they have been ever of old.

7  Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: according to thy mercy remember thou me for thy goodness' sake, O LORD.

If the Lord will but remember His lovingkindnesses instead of our sins, then we shall have an audience with Him when we pray.  And, oh, how we need that audience!

Then comes the second request:  O LORD, quicken me.  We have come across this request before in this psalm.  That it is repeated by the psalmist indicates that he repeatedly needed to be revived and stirred up.  And is not that the case with us?  We too easily become lax and lethargic in our spiritual life.  Bible reading and prayer become matters of routine rather than real communion with God.  Perhaps our mind wanders a lot in church and we just don’t get that much from the sermon.  If such is the case, we need to be quickened. And the extent to which the psalmist sensed he needed quickening is reflected in the expression O.  As we have noted before, the interjection O expresses emotion.  Just be thankful you do not become so lax that you are not even concerned about it.  That is dangerous!

Note that the psalmist begged the Lord to quicken him according to His judgment.  He left it with the Lord to judge, to decide when and by what means He would quicken him.  Sometimes instead of pumping us up, the Lord presses us down.  “The LORD…bringeth low, and lifteth up” (1Samuel 2:7).  In the Lord’s mysterious ways sometimes the way up is down.  But that turn downward may be just what we need to quicken us.  Some of our most fervent prayers arise from our most desperate circumstances.  We draw close to the Lord in such times because there is nowhere else to go and no other than can deliver us.  That prolonged illness, that crash of an investment, that failure of a business, that loss of a loved one, that prodigal son, or whatever other adversity we could name might be just the thing whereby the Lord quickens us.  It exercises our faith and brings out the best in us to the glory of God, and the conversion and edification of others.  It is ours to ask.  It is God’s to decide how He will answer because He is the Judge.  And His judgment is always just.