KAPH
January 25, 2012
Oak Park Baptist Church – Wednesday Bible Study Series
Psalm 119:81-88 (ESV) – 11 of 22
Kaph – 11th letter of the Hebrew alphabet…
81My soul longs for your salvation; I hope in your word.
The word the psalmist uses here that is translated as ‘longs’ is also translated as ‘languishes’ in some translations. The Hebrew verb is kaw-law which is a verb of completion. It means to accomplish, to end, to finish, to be complete, or to be accomplished…
The psalmist is saying that he ‘longs’ for God’s deliverance and salvation and that it would be completed and accomplished in his life. But we can also see a sense of desire in the words of the psalmist that God is his hope… that God is his answer to the things of life! Look what the psalmist says in the 2nd part of this verse… “I hope in Your word…”
The verb the psalmist uses here is the Hebrew verb yaw-chal' which means to hope in… but it also can be translated as “I wait for OR I wait upon Your word!” This reveals that the psalmist not only has a desire for God’s plan to be completed in his life, but that he has an ardent expectancy about him that believes fully that God will complete his plan!
In Hebrews, faith is described like this: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” What a great picture we now can get from the pen of the psalmist… He had faith in God through His Word… His salvation was coming and he longed and yearned for its completion, but he had NO doubts in its coming.
82My eyes long for your promise; I ask, “When will you comfort me?”
The ESV translates this as ‘my eyes long for…’ but the NASB translates it a slightly different way. It reads, ‘…my eyes fail with longing…’ But when we look at the Hebrew verb it is the same verb that is used in v.81 for ‘longing’ the Hebrew verb Kaw-saw which is a longing for completion and accomplishment. Here reflects the psalmist desire to see the promise of God delivered… for him to experience and revel in the COMPLETED promise of God, that is his salvation!
Then the psalmist goes on to ask what may seem like an odd question, but it really isn’t… when he writes: “…when will You comfort me?” How many of us find ourselves asking the very same question of God?
We KNOW what the psalmist knew… we know and believe in our salvation and that eventually all of God’s promise is going to be delivered and we are going to experience it…but we find ourselves mired in self doubt and the troubles of this world distract us and cause us to lament over the fact that God is not moving fast enough for us… and although we believe in God’s timing, we cry out to Him… OH GOD HOW LONG must I endure this life… this world… how long must I wait!
Have you ever wondered why we are so impatient when it comes to the things of God? I believe it has a lot to do with control! Control is something none of us want to give up… and when things are out of our control, we get bent out of shape and we find ourselves thinking HOW LONG AM I GOING TO HAVE TO ENDURE THIS… let me give you an example!
When you go to the DMV to renew your DL or register your car… what happens? Well it seems to me that you are made to feel like cattle in that place… you are herded into a room where those behind the desk have the power to separate the ‘herd’ one by one…
You are given a number and there seems to be absolutely no rhyme or reason to their system and you sit there thinking… HOW LONG! HOW LONG WILL THIS LAST… have you ever been there? I have… what about in your spiritual walk… things are OUT OF YOUR CONTROL and you cry out to God.. .HOW LONG… well that is where the psalmist is here in v.82
He sees the promise of God and knows its coming but his heart is crying out HOW LONG LORD!
83For I have become like a wineskin in the smoke, yet I have not forgotten your statutes.
Here the psalmist is reflecting on how hard life can be and how we can allow the circumstances of life to embattle us and make us bitter and hard. The phrase the psalmist uses here is a phrase all Bedouin travelers and desert dwellers would know about and those of the Israel of would be familiar with…
A wineskin was just that… a container made of animal skin. For it to be useful it had to be pliable and soft, but most skins were hung in the tents and there were fires in those tents at nights or by the tents at night and the skin would be subjected to the harsh smoke day after day… the smoke would cause the skin to become hard and NOT pliable, and ultimately USELESS to the traveler who would then throw it out…
Here the psalmist is saying he feels old, dry and hard and that his usefulness may be at its end… but even if life treats him in this way, the promise of God and the faith the psalmist has in that promise holds fast as he says, “…I have NOT forgotten your statutes…”
So often life roughs us up and even though we know that God has promised to be there with us and that eventually He will deliver us… we allow the circumstances of life to pound us down and all the smoke of this world to harden us to the point that we may lose our usefulness. But God is good and His promises are there… and like the Psalmist we must NEVER forget the statutes of God! Amen??
84How long must your servant endure? When will you judge those who persecute me?
Once again the psalmist hits on this theme of ‘how long’… Here it is a cry of helplessness, a cry of one who feels the weight crashing in upon him. How long must I ENDURE this Lord?? This life is hard and those against me are hard and I am at my end… when are YOU going to step in!
I know that we have ALL had this in our lives. It could be a situation where you had actual people enemies closing in on you OR it could be a life situation where a health crisis was bearing down on you or your family… a death in the family was wreaking havoc in your life… a job situation was causing some uneasiness or uncertainty… and you cried out TO God… HOW LONG LORD?
We all want God to act in our timing, and deliver us from ANY trouble or pain or discomfort, but God knows and understands what we need. James writes that when trouble comes our way we should count it as JOY! That’s right… he said JOY!
We should be thankful for the hard times because they help us to grow and develop as believers as well as giving us a greater appreciation of when things are good… Without pain and suffering, joy and peace would be mundane and meaningless! We cannot experience joy unless we have experienced pain!
Please don’t misunderstand what I am saying here… there is NOTHING wrong with the psalmist’s words here. It is FINE for us to cry out to God and to seek His intervention into our lives! But what I am attempting to say here is that our comfort is not as important to God as our obedience and our submission to Him.
When we cry out to God for deliverance from our suffering… we also need to assess our lives and see if there is an area we need to get right with God! Are we in full submission to Him? Is our hearts in tune with His desire? Here the psalmist cries out with the very human cry of HELP ME I’M in trouble… cryin out to God for help!
85The insolent have dug pitfalls for me; they do not live according to your law.
In this verse we see the psalmist revealing his troubles with those around him… not unlike our troubles and the situations of our own lives! Pitfalls are part of life, they seem to be all around us! AND even when we are on our best lookout… we can fall into them! There are pitfalls that are caused by the situations and circumstances of life and then there are attacks from people who desire you to fall…
The psalmist was enduring just such an attack, and because of these attacks he was convinced that they could NOT be in tune with the Law of God. And that is a true statement… if you are in tune with the Law of God, you are NOT going to attack people and seek their destruction or to tear them down as the enemies of the psalmist are doing.
‘live according to Your Law’ is a phrase that reveals an overall attitude of those opposing the psalmist. Their focus is NOT on pleasing God but on self satisfaction OR self justification. When we don’t live according to the Law of God we make it up as we go along and because of our sinful nature we will twist things to our own good…even at the expense of others! So these people believed they were doing good despite of what they were doing to the psalmist.
We must examine ourselves daily and realize that our choices and actions affect so much more than just who we are… or our lives! We must seek to exalt God and lift others up in all of our actions!
86All your commandments are sure; they persecute me with falsehood; help me!
How many of you have ever been accused of saying or doing something and you knew the charges being brought against you were false… how did you feel? Well that is just what the psalmist is expressing here in this verse…
Persecuted with falsehood is an age old tactic by the enemy… He can even persecute you with the truth of your past, but that truth is changed in Christ Jesus! We find ourselves being persecuted by lies and falsehoods all the time!
Lies by our enemies and falsehoods by the Evil one who will lie to us and tell us God cannot use us or that God does not love us because of our sinful heart and sinful past… but IN CHRIST Jesus we are forgiven and made new and God’s forgiveness knows NO bounds!
The psalmist proclaims a steadfast fact here in this verse when he says, “…all your commandments are sure…” meaning God’s word and promise of deliverance and forgiveness are a SURE thing. We do NOT need to succumb to the lies of the Enemy or the falsehoods of those around us!
In John 14:6 Jesus said, “I am the way the TRUTH and the life…” Jesus’ commandments are SURE and true and He will NOT fail in the deliverance of His promises!
87They have almost made an end of me on earth, but I have not forsaken your precepts.
Here in v.87 we can see a resemblance of v.83… like the wineskin being affected by the smoke and becoming useless… the Psalmist confesses that he is worn out by the oppression he is experiencing but notice what the psalmist says here… “…they have ALMOST…” here the psalmist reveals that although there were plans of destruction… he was delivered!
God is going to deliver us when we need him… this is His promise to us. The world will try to crush us, our Enemy will try to destroy us, but God’s law… His promise is sure and we know that even though we have ALMOST been undone by these things… God is going to deliver and we will NOT be shaken!
88In your steadfast love give me life, that I may keep the testimonies of your mouth.
Steadfast love is a love that endures… a love that lasts… a love that LOVES in spite of circumstances or situations! The Greek word for this love is AGAPE… God loves us with a love that endures ALL things and loves us in spite of our broken and sinful nature.
Here the psalmist proclaims his plea to God… GIVE ME LIFE in your love, with the love that endures all things, I pray you give me LIFE! We seek that love and that life as well.
In Christ Jesus we have the ultimate expression of steadfast love… God sent His Son to submit and surrender to a plan to die on the Cross for my sin… for your sin… God’s love wrapped itself in flesh and in Jesus Christ has provided a way for reconciliation with God.
I am like the psalmist in his cry in this verse… God fill me and overwhelm me with the love you have for me… the love that has endured all my rebellion and ignorance… the love that has reached out to me even when I rejected that love… even when I was an enemy of that love…
God your love is a love that goes FAR beyond what we can even truly know… but reveal it to me says the psalmist… WHY? so that he can live his life to be a witness for you. That He may KEEP God’s testimonies in his mouth… speak of God and God’s law to see others come to know God.
Are you seeking that steadfast love that is promised here? IF so you will have to rely on God’s intervening and loving hand… wait on the Lord and He is going to meet you where you are and deliver you just as he delivered others who were obedient to Him!
God’s word is a word of promise… but that promise is not always fleshed out in plain and simple terms. But the ONE thing we CAN rely upon is that God’s promise, whether complex or simple… it is the promise of the Almighty and we must surrender to that promise! That promise is filled with more love that we can ever know…
How are you doing today in waiting on the promise of God? Do you wait and know God is going to deliver? OR are you like so many of us, and you cry out for God to deliver you… HOW LONG?
May be your cry… but until you are willing and able to serve Him without placing limitations on Him… God’s love will be a foreign concept. I pray we all can come to know God’s love as intimately as the psalmist did…. PRAY!!
