Psalm 119:52

The verse we take up today is sandwiched between two verses, both of which speak of things that stressed the psalmist. Verse 51 speaks of the stress of being had greatly in derision by the proud. Verse 53 speaks of the horror that took hold of him because of the wicked that forsake God’s law. The psalmist was stressed by what the wicked were doing to him and by what they were doing to God’s law. Now the verse we consider today shows us how the psalmist was comforted in the midst of this stress.

Psalms 119:52 I remembered thy judgments of old, O LORD; and have comforted myself.

The psalmist found comfort in remembering God’s judgments of old. First off, let’s understand that God’s judgments refer not only to his punishment of the wicked for their wickedness, but it also refers to God's rewarding of the righteous for their righteousness. When God either punishes or rewards, He is judging; this is an act of judgment by the Lord.

2 Chronicles 6:23 Then hear thou from heaven, and do, and judge thy servants, by requiting the wicked, by recompensing his way upon his own head; and by justifying the righteous, by giving him according to his righteousness.

The Bible is a book of history. It records the dealings of God with men from the beginning of time to the generation of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a period of about four thousand years. It also prophesies of how God will deal with men for the remainder of time until the end of the world and then into eternity. In the history recorded in the Bible we find example after example of God’s judgments. We see Him recompensing the way of the wicked in such events as the flood of Noah, the destruction of the Sodom and Gomorrah, the plagues of Egypt, the final overthrow of Pharaoh and his chariots in the Red Sea, the chastisement of David for his adultery, the captivity of Israel by the Assyrians, the fall of Judah to the Babylonians, and the subsequent fall of Babylon, to name a few. We also see the Lord rewarding the righteous in the translation of Enoch, the deliverance of Noah and his family through the flood, the raising up of Joseph to a position of power second only to Pharaoh, the provisions God made for virtuous Ruth, the protection of David from the pursuits of Saul, etc. It was from this history of God’s judgments that the psalmist drew his comfort in the midst of the persecution of the righteous and the abandonment of God’s law by the wicked.

The judgments of God show us that there is a limit to how far wicked men can go in their wickedness before God puts a stop to it. This is a comfort to a God-fearing man. I even derive comfort from knowing God judges His children for their wicked ways as He did David. That means that God puts a curb upon my own sin. If He did not to do so, I would destroy myself. Were not the Lord in the business of restraining wicked men by his judgments, they would long since have destroyed God’s word and His people from this earth to say nothing of destroying each other. For when men have no regard for the righteousness of God’s law, no one is safe.

In addition, the history of God’s judgments confirms the truth of these two verses:

Psalms 58:11 So that a man shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous: verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth.

Ephesians 6:8 Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free.

By remembering God’s judgments of old God’s servants are assured that in the end righteousness pays off though for the present they may be suffering on account of it. The remembrance of this is a great comfort. It encourages us to continue doing good.

One reason we can derive such comfort from remembering God’s judgments of old is that the Lord doesn’t change.

Malachi 3:6 For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.

Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.

He continues today to judge men as He did then. It is as we sometimes sing in church: “And the God that lived in the olden times is just the same today!” It is here we find comfort.

Remembering the judgments of old executed by our immutable God we may join the psalmist David in praying this prayer:

Psalms 7:8 The LORD shall judge the people: judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness, and according to mine integrity that is in me. 9 Oh let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end; but establish the just: for the righteous God trieth the hearts and reins.

Now the next thing I wish to point out in this verse is extremely important. Observe that the psalmist said that remembering God’s judgments of old, I…have comforted myself. To comfort oneself is to strengthen oneself, to encourage oneself. Now God gives His people ministers of the word of God and one of their jobs is to comfort His people.

1 Thessalonians 3:2 And sent Timotheus, our brother, and minister of God, and our fellowlabourer in the gospel of Christ, to establish you, and to comfort you concerning your faith:

And believers have a responsibility to comfort one another.

1 Thessalonians 4:18 Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

1 Thessalonians 5:11 Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.

It is a grand thing to have other people in our life who can comfort us. But we have a responsibility to remember what we have been taught so that in times of distress we can comfort ourselves. We need to be able to reach down into the storehouse of our own knowledge and find that which will impart strength and encourage us. You see, you can and ought to become your own therapist so that you are not so completely dependent on others to help you with your struggles!

To be able to comfort yourself is a sign of spiritual maturity. Make it your goal to be like David. When the wives and children of David and his men had been carried away captive by the Amalekites, and his men spake of stoning him, and David was “greatly distressed” – who wouldn’t be under those circumstances - it is written that David “encouraged himself in the LORD his God” (1Samuel 30:1-6). David was able to comfort himself. God grant us grace to remember His judgments of old that we may comfort ourselves in times of distress.

Psalm 119:51

We continue today with our meditations taken from the octave of Psalm 119 entitled Zain

Psalms 119:51 The proud have had me greatly in derision: yet have I not declined from thy law.

Derision is the action of deriding. So let’s define the word deride.

Deride – To laugh at in contempt or scorn; to laugh to scorn; to make sport of, mock.

The man of God writes in this psalm of the yearnings and experiences of God’s chosen and redeemed family, who keep His law. One of those experiences is to be the object of derision, to be laughed at in contempt, to be made fun of.

Note that the ones who hold them in contempt are called the proud. Anyone who would make fun of a person for fearing God has a very high opinion of himself; he is very full of himself. His expression of contempt for God’s servant is in reality an expression of contempt for God Himself and His holy law. No greater expression of arrogance can be imagined than to thus boldly mock the Almighty God of heaven and earth, Who holds in His hand the breath of every living thing. The Lord has but to nod and that arrogant fool would be reduced to nothingness. Yet he dares to defy the living God and mock His chosen ones with the very breath His Maker gives Him.

Not only do the proud have God’s servants in derision; they have had them greatly in derision.

Psalms 123:4 Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that are at ease, and with the contempt of the proud.

It is hard to imagine any passage more relevant to the age in which we live than the verse we consider today. Observe how much, yea, how greatly the media makes fun of Christianity and its followers. If a television show or a movie has a character that is a preacher, how many times is that preacher presented as a bungling idiot or a crook? Authoritative leaders who enforce righteousness are cast in a dim light. It is they who must be broken. They are the villain.

But over against all this derision, the psalmist states: yet have I not declined from thy law.

Decline – To turn aside, deviate. fig. To turn aside in conduct; esp. to swerve or fall away (from rectitude, duty, allegiance, instructions, etc.).

The psalmist did not let the scorn of the proud intimidate him into backing off from his devotion to God’s law and neither should we. As Matthew Henry pointed out, the psalmist was “jeered for his religion,” but he was not “jeered out of his religion.” He would bear the laughter; he would be the brunt of the joke; he would endure the embarrassment. Because, you see, in the end, it is God and His servants who will have the last laugh.

Psalms 2:4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. 5 Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure.

Luke 6:21 …Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh. 22 Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake. 23 Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets.

The day is coming when the derision of the proud aimed at the righteous will be forever silenced.

Jude 1:14 And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, 15 To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

But before we leave this meditation today, let us “consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself,” even our Lord Jesus Christ (Hebrews 12:3). Today’s verse speaks so plainly of Him. Whilst hanging on His cross bearing our reproach and sin, it was written of Him:

Luke 23:35 And the people stood beholding. And the rulers also with them derided him, saying, He saved others; let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God. 36 And the soldiers also mocked him, coming to him, and offering him vinegar, 37 And saying, If thou be the king of the Jews, save thyself.

He, too, was had greatly in derision by the proud who encircled His cross and poked fun at Him and His claims, and dared Him to come down from the cross. Yet, thank God, He did not decline from the law that required His suffering on that cross. Instead of coming down from the cross, He bore its curse to the death thus fulfilling the law and bringing in our everlasting salvation. Praise ye the Lord!

Psalm 119:50

Today we come to the second verse in the octave of Psalm 119 entitled Zain

Psalms 119:50 This is my comfort in my affliction: for thy word hath quickened me.

The verse begins with the demonstrative pronoun this. The pronoun this points to a person or thing that is present in space, time, or thought. It especially points to something that has just been mentioned, as is the case here. In the previous verse the psalmist mentioned the word of God to him, upon which God had caused him to hope. The word of God to me that gives me hope is indeed my comfort in my affliction.

Now just what is comfort?

Comfort - Strengthening; encouragement, incitement; aid, succour, support, countenance (appearance of favour).

The psalmist found in God’s word a source of strength, encouragement, and support when he was in affliction. Do you? Does your Bible truly help you cope with the hardships of life? Does it open to you a window of hope beyond what you are suffering? It should, because that is what it was written to do.

Romans 15:4 For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.

Consider some of the things you can expect from the Lord because He has promised them to you in His word. This is God’s word upon which He has caused you to hope. You can expect Him to supply all your need (Philippians 4:19). When you confess your sins to God, you can expect Him to forgive them and to cleanse you of them (1JO 1:9). As you go through life with its heap of troubles, the Lord has promised to help you, to strengthen you, and to always be there for you (Isaiah 41:10; 43:2; Hebrews 13:5-6). You can count on the Lord to never permit you to be tempted above your ability to bear (1Corinthians 10:13). You may confidently expect the Lord Jesus Christ to come back for you and to take you to His Father’s house where He has prepared a place for you (John 14:1-3). Are not all these things a comfort to you in your affliction?

The reason God’s word was a comfort to the psalmist was because it quickened him. Let’s look again at the definition of quicken.

Quicken – To give or restore life to; to make alive; to vivify or revive; to animate. To give, add, or restore vigour to (a person or thing); to stimulate, stir up, rouse, excite, inspire.

Afflictions have a way of draining us, of wearing us down. They can sap the life out of us. In such a state we need our vigour restored. We need stirring up. And that is what God’s word of hope does for us. Charles Spurgeon wrote: “Troubles which weigh us down when we are half dead become mere trifles when we are full of life.” When the word of God revives you and stirs you up, it strengthens you and helps you, that is, it comforts you. It makes your affliction more bearable. When this happens, then you can say from experience: This is my comfort in my affliction, for thy word hath quickened me.

And if the word of the Lord is not bringing you comfort, if it is not stirring you up, then you might well ask yourself if you are truly the Lord’s servant. For this verse and the one that precedes it are talking about God’s word to His servant. The benefits of quickening and comfort belong to those who submit to the Lord as His servants.

Let me conclude this meditation with a word of warning. When you are being stressed and drained by the afflictions of life, be very careful about what you turn to for comfort. The devil will be only too ready at those times to offer you sources of comfort that in the end will destroy you. Examples of such faulty sources of comfort would be alcohol or drug abuse, gluttony, gambling, overmuch pleasure, unhealthy relationships, fornication, or adultery, to name some. In all your afflictions, let your first recourse for support be to your God and His word. Wait patiently for Him. Never forget that it is “through patience and comfort of the Scriptures” that we have hope (Romans 15:4, cited above). The Lord will bring relief in due time.

Psalms 27:14 Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.

And when the good Lord has tried you in the furnace of affliction and exercised your patience, you will be the better for it. Let this prospect be your comfort in your affliction.

Job 23:10 But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.

Psalm 119:49

We are now ready to take up the next octave of Psalm 119 entitled Zain. The ai is pronounced like the ai in the word aisle. But before we get into this let me state something. Some have said that while they appreciate these meditations on Psalm 119, they prefer when I do blogs on different subjects. But if you look past the fact that Psalm 119 is prefixed to every meditation and pay careful attention to what I am writing, you should notice that many different topics are addressed in this psalm. The psalmist mentions a wide range of human experiences and emotions. It is obvious that the psalmist is processing all of his life with all its myriad of experiences through the word of God, which is precisely what we, who are servants of God, should do. There is a great example being set before us in this psalm. Sometimes I go back and read previous meditations I have written from this psalm and I am amazed at the breadth and depth of information I have already mined from it. So I ask you to look beyond the fact that we are dealing with the same psalm and consider the tremendous variety of information that can be gleaned from it. With that off my chest, let’s come to today’s verse.

Psalms 119:49 ZAIN. Remember the word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope.

When the psalmist asks the Lord to remember His word, there is no implication here that God ever forgets it. God is omniscient. He knows everything and, therefore, nothing ever slips His mind, most especially His own word. Rather, the psalmist is using a mode of expression very common in speech. We often tell someone to remember something or not to forget something. When we do this, we are simply bringing something before that person that they have said or that they are supposed to do. When we tell someone to remember something they said, we are also telling that person that we remember. The psalmist remembers what God has said and is pleading that before Him, which occurs often in the Bible. The most effective way to pray to God is to ask Him to do what He has promised to do. By so doing we are showing the Lord that we take His word very seriously and that we build our expectations upon it. This honours God in that it demonstrates our faith in His truthfulness to do what He promises and in His power to be able to bring it to pass.

I find the insights of Charles Spurgeon about this verse to be rich.

“This verse is the prayer of love fearing to be forgotten, of humility conscious of insignificance and anxious not to be overlooked, of penitence trembling lest the evil of sin should overshadow the promise, of eager desire longing for the blessing, and of holy confidence which feels that all that is wanted is comprehended in the word.”

Observe that the psalmist asked God to remember His word unto thy servant. The psalmist is referring to himself in the singular. He is applying the word of God to himself in particular. And that is the privilege of every servant of God. When you read the Bible, read it as though God is speaking to you in particular, because He is! Take the promises He has made to you and turn them back to Him in prayer. Prayers that are centered in God’s word are sure to be heard.

1 John 5:14 And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: 15 And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.

But just you remember that this word is a word to God’s servant. You have no place praying a prayer like this if you are in rebellion against God, if you are serving self, or mammon, or something other than the Lord. This is a servant’s prayer!

The psalmist described God’s word as a word upon which thou hast caused me to hope. The psalmist built his expectations upon what God said. Men may promise you many things and thereby raise your hopes. But men do not always follow through on what they promise, either because they cannot or they will not. We should all make it a priority to make good on our word to others. But sometimes things occur so that we cannot do as we promised. We mean well, but we just do not have the absolute control of all things that always permits us to follow through on our intentions. But God has no such problems. He has the power at His disposal to always fulfill His promises. His great works in creation and in the government of this universe, and His promises that He has fulfilled thus far give us good reason to hope in His word. Hence we can say to God that He has caused us to hope in His word. He has given us the reason to expect Him to do as He has said.

But this thing of God causing us to hope in His word goes a step further. If we hope in God’s word, we obviously believe it. We have faith in it; we trust it. Faith and hope work in tandem. You certainly would not find much hope in something you did not believe.

Jeremiah 17:7 Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is.

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

And if we have such faith, we have it because we are born of God, because God has brought us from spiritual death unto spiritual and eternal life so that we may hear, receive, and believe His word. And believing His word, we build out hope upon it.

1 John 5:1 Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him.

John 5:24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.

1 Peter 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead….

Without the work of God in giving us spiritual life in the new birth, we would neither hear nor receive His word. Thus we would have no cause to hope in His word.

John 8:47 He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.

1 Corinthians 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Thanks be to God for His saving grace that has caused us to hope in His word.

Psalm 119:48

We come today to the last verse in this octave entitled Vau. Recall that unlike the other octaves, every verse in this octave is connected by some word to the verse that precedes it. And such is the case with verse 48. By means of the word also it links up with verse 47.

Psalms 119:48 My hands also will I lift up unto thy commandments, which I have loved; and I will meditate in thy statutes.

Both verses 47 and 48 mention that the psalmist has loved God’s commandments. In verse 47 we saw that loving God’s commandments leads to delighting oneself in them. In verse 48 the psalmist brings forth something else that loving God’s commandments will also lead to. So both verses are talking about the effect in one’s life of loving God’s commandments.

My hands also will I lift up unto thy commandments. Think about this. Anytime you undertake to do any work with your hands, you lift up your hands unto the task, whether it be driving a vehicle, washing dishes, combing your hair, raking leaves, typing a document on your computer keyboard, reading a book, or repairing something. You can’t very well work with hands that are hanging down. By this expression of lifting up his hands unto God’s commandments the psalmist is telling us that he is going to apply himself to the task of keeping them.

Recall from our last meditation that the verb phrase I have loved is in the present perfect tense, meaning that the psalmist loved God’s commandments in the past and continued to love them in the present. Now the effect of loving God’s commandments is doing them. We pointed out last week the general principle that what you have loved up to now will determine what you will enjoy in the future. Now we can state another general principle from the verse we consider today: What you have loved up to now will determine what you will do in the future. The character of our lives is shaped by what we love. If we have loved God’s commandments we will lift up our hands to them. It will not be drudgery to execute the tasks God has assigned us in His commandments if we love them.

1 John 5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.

And I will meditate in thy statutes. This is something else that will flow out of having loved God’s commandments. Not only will he apply his hands to God’s commandments, but he will also apply his heart and mind to them, by meditating in them. He will consider them, study them, which is what it means to meditate in them. It is not enough just to hear and read God’s word. You need to think about what you hear or read. If you love it, you will think about it. And that brings us to a third general principle that we can add to the other two: What you have loved up to now will determine what you will think about in the future. We more readily think about the things we truly love.