SAMEKH
February 29, 2012
Oak Park Baptist Church – Wed Bible Study Series
Psalm 119:113-120 (ESV) – 15 of 22
Samekh – 15th letter of the Hebrew Alphabet
Read/show ALL verses b4 verse by verse teaching…
[show verse]
113
I hate the double-minded, but I love your law.
Here we find the psalmist speaking in what I would call reverse logic, as he reveals what He loves about God by revealing what he hates about humanity. [show highlighted verse here]
The psalmist proclaims that he hates those who are double minded! Do you know what double minded means? And NO it does not mean you have twice the brain power!
Double minded can be loosely translated as wishy washy or riding the fence… not taking a stand… [show verse with definitions here]
Being double minded is when one allows the circumstances and situations of life and the world to influence and change their decisions! These are people with NO conviction to stand upon.
James put it like this in James 1:6-8 [on screen now]
[show verse]
6…for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
The Revelation Bible study commentary puts it this way: The psalmist here is a man of a single mind; he loves God and His law!
Meaning that his focus is ON God and is concentrated on his walk with God, therefore, he is stable! Unlike the double-minded man… whose life is tossed about by the circumstances and driven by the situations of life!
How often do we find ourselves ‘double-minded’ in our lives? We make decisions based solely on the outside circumstances and what we fail to do is seek out counsel in the Word of God!
We have to make decisions and sometimes the circumstances of life will force our hand, but when we are grounded in the counsel of God’s word our decisions will be focused on pleasing Him and not the world!
In this verse we see the focus of the psalmist’s life, it is on serving God and constantly seeking after His word and His guidance in life.
The verbs used here are strong emotive verbs that are very descriptive in nature and they reveal the psalmists passion FOR serving God but also his passion AGAINST those who do not!
How zealous are we for our Lord? How angry does it make us when we see the Lord being put on the shelf by others!
I want you to understand that this anger I speak of here is not an anger that strikes out at the individual, but a righteous anger that hates sin and hates the Enemy who brings temptation and who hates the broken and sinful world we have to live in…
This ‘righteous anger’ that should be burning within us should a great motivating factor in us sharing the LOVE of Christ to the world… by sharing Christ we punch the Enemy in the face, we slap him around, we damage his plans and purpose!
By sharing Christ and His love, we bring others to know the Word of God in Jesus Christ and they begin to live in accordance to His Word!
We should seek to be stable in our walk, single minded and focused on God’s purposes! We must avoid any hint of being unstable, and we can do this by immersing ourselves INTO God’s word! But the psalmist continues…
[show verse]
114You are my hiding place and my shield; I hope in your word.
Now when we read this verse we can see that the psalmist had a wonderful grasp on his understanding of God and God’s promise of protection for His children. Look again at what the psalmist says, “You are my hiding-place and my shield...” [show highlighted verse here]
Matthew Henry’s Commentary on Psalms tells us that when David was being pursued by King Saul that he often took shelter in close places! When he was in war he guarded himself with his shield.
Spiritually, God was both of these things to him! God was David’s hiding-place that would protect him from danger…BUT God was also David’s shield of protection to preserve him in danger!
This is what David clung to when on the run from Saul… it was God’s protection and preservation that he clung to… the protection of his life from death and the preservation of his soul from sin.
God is the strength and shield to those who trust in Him, He is their help and shield, their sun and shield, their shield and great reward, and here in this passage the psalmist proclaims that God is also his hiding-place and shield.
But there is another aspect we can see here that Matthew Henry brings out and that is the psalmist’s confidence in God. He truly trusts in the protection of His Savior! So it is easy for him, under the divine protection to proclaim: “I hope in thy word” [show 2nd highlighted verse here]
How often do we cry out in loneliness… believing we have no one to help us! Although we KNOW God has said He will never leave nor forsake us… when troubles come…when the enemy attacks, we feel alone and scared and vulnerable!
Why is that? Because WHEN we are ‘in Christ’ we DO have that shield and protector there for us! When we place all our faith and trust in Him… He will not disappoint us!
[show verse]
115Depart from me, you evildoers, that I may keep the commandments of my God.
What do you think the psalmist is saying here? [wait for a response…] Here he is speaking about focus once again! Jesus told the parable of the sower, and one of his ‘illustrations’ of the seed being sown was the seed being thrown into an area of weeds and thorns…
Jesus said that the seed quickly takes root but when it comes up it is quickly choked out by the weeds and thorns… and spiritually speaking Jesus says that is the way it happens when the cares and circumstances of our lives become MORE of a focus than God’s Word!
This is what the Psalmist is getting at when he says, “Depart from me you evil doers…” [show highlighted verse here]
This is not the psalmist thinking he is better than these people OR that he cannot associate with those outside of God’s plan and purpose… this is about focus!
How many times do we need to simply GET away and clear our heads so that we can focus on what is truly important! Now by “get away” I don’t necessarily mean a vacation, but just a quiet place to collect our thoughts and pray! Here the psalmist wants that quiet place… to focus on God!
He goes on to say, “…that I may keep the commandments of my God…” [show 2nd highlighted verse here]
In other words this was so the psalmist would be able to be what God desired him to be… to be obedient and not distracted!
Do you often find yourself very distracted in this life? I believe if we heeded the counsel of God’s word and if we would simply go away to a quiet place and focus on God and His word… our way would be clear and we would see the path God has chosen for us… but to do this, we have to remove ALL the distractions from our presence.
What are the distractions in YOUR life today? Are they keeping you from obeying the commandments of your God? Today you should seek to remove ALL these distractions and focus on Him…
Matthew Henry says this about this verse. The believer who is resolved to keep the commandments of God must have no society with evil-doers; for bad company is a great hindrance to a holy life.
We must not choose wicked people for our companions, nor be intimate with them; we must not do as they do nor do as they would have us do…
[show verse]Ps. 1:1…
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers…
[show verse]Eph. 5:11…
11 Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.
Although we are called to go ‘into’ the world…and to go ‘into’ the world we must associate and seek out the sinner to share the love of Christ with them, but that is NOT what the psalmist is saying here…and although Evil must be exposed, it can be done in love and in respect!
Matthew Henry says here that the believer who is resolved to keep the commandments of God must have no society with evil-doers; for bad company is a great hindrance to a holy life. This is true when it comes to marriage and intimate relationships… our contact with non-believers must be social at most.
Now for those who have been saved and their spouse is not, this does NOT mean you leave them! Scripture addresses that situation as well and it is all about portraying the love of Christ!
However, when we start a relationship with a non-believer, it should be FIRST and foremost to see them come to know Christ!
All our interaction with them should be about seeing them come to salvation! We can socialize with them, but we must guard our lives from the evil of this world…
We need to look at the next 2 verses together to get a picture of what the psalmist is saying…
[show verses]
116Uphold me according to your promise, that I may live, and let me not be put to shame in my hope! 117Hold me up, that I may be safe and have regard for your statutes continually!
When we read these 2 verses we can see a theme… Henry say here that the psalmist is praying for God’s sustaining grace… and he does so 2 times!
[show highlighted verses here]
Look at what he says “Uphold me” and again, “Hold me up!”
Henry tells us that the psalmist sees himself as FULLY UNable to go on in his duty by his own strength! The psalmist fear that he will fall into sin unless he was HELD UP by divine grace!
Thus his cry for that grace to uphold him in his integrity… this is because our INTEGRITY is not of our own doing but it is found in the strength of God!
Someone turn to Ps. 41:12 [show verse on screen] and read it for us…But you have upheld me because of my integrity, and set me in your presence forever.
So to keep him from falling and to keep him from tiring, and to keep him from turning aside to evil… OR be weary of doing good… the psalmist cries out for God’s strong hand to hold him up!
We must understand that we can only stand as long as God is there to hold us up… when we rely on our own power, we are going to FALL!
Henry also points out that the psalmist pleads earnestly for this grace from God. First, he pleads the promise of God and his dependence upon that promise, and his expectation from that promise!
[show next highlighted verse here]
He says, “Uphold me, according to thy word…”
What Henry is saying is that those that hope in God’s Word can be confident that God’s word will not fail them! And thus their hope will not bring them shame.
Another aspect of this cry is that the psalmist is pleading for the grace of God to be upon him, and that it would be a great advantage for him! This was the psalmist declaring that he could not live without the grace of God!
This was his confession that without the grace of God he would fall into sin, into death, into hell if God did not hold him up!
However, if God will support him, he will live! With God’s intervention the spiritual life of the psalmist shall be maintained.
In other words, the psalmist is saying…[show next highlighted verse here] Hold me up, and I shall be safe… Here the psalmist understands that God can and will keep him out of danger and out of the fear of danger.
But as the psalmist recognized this… we too must recognize and realize is that in our weakness, His strength is revealed and He is our only holy security! Our deliverance is grounded and depends completely upon divine supports.
Finally, Henry writes that he sees the psalmist pleading for resolve to proceed in his duty: [show v.116 here]
“Hold me up, and then I will have respect unto thy statutes continually and never turn my eyes or feet aside from them.”
The psalmist recognizes that IF God is going to step in and hold us up, that we must, in His strength, be obedient and go forth in our duty with diligence and pleasure.
We have to be like the psalmist and understand that God has promised to hold us up, but we must put forth effort and take initiative in the service to God and that we can only do these things IN His strength…
The next 3 verses can be handled as one passage, so let’s look again at v.118-120 [read verses again]
[show verses here]
118You spurn all who go astray from your statutes, for their cunning is in vain. 119All the wicked of the earth you discard like dross, therefore I love your testimonies. 120My flesh trembles for fear of you, and I am afraid of your judgments.
God loves us, but God is not going to put up with rejection and outright rebellion! If you turn away from God, you risk not ever knowing Him. Because of Christ we know He loves us all, but there is a point when your rebellion turns him away. [show 1st highlited verse here]
We don’t often speak of rejection by God, and it is subject I believe many evangelicals today shun, because they don’t believe God will shun them or reject them! However, Scripture is filled with passages about God warning those who are rejecting Him!
Those warnings speak of His rejection and punishment upon those who reject Him… but I want to point out that repentance is ALWAYS an option, but repentance as we have said is NOT a one-time action, but it is a lifelong attitude of the heart!
Matthew Henry speaks to these verses by saying that here we see the psalmist speaking of God’s judgment on wicked people. [show 2nd highlited verse here]
The ‘wicked’ are those who wander from God’s law! They are those that take use their own standard of measurement and will not allow God to reign over them.
These people the psalmist is writing about are the people that mind earthly things, lay up their treasures in the earth, live in pleasure on the earth, and are strangers and enemies to heaven and heavenly things.
The psalmist is proclaiming here that God will deal with all the wicked at a time to determined by God Himself, and their error will prove a fatal one. The psalmist wants all who read this to neither fear these people NOR envy them.
Henry goes onto say that God puts away all the wicked like dross. What is dross? Well it is the stuff that has to be burned away by fire when smelting or curing precious metals such as gold or silver. It can only be separated by intense heat and fire.
The psalmist is declaring that wicked people are as dross in God’s economy… and although they may be mingled in with the good metal in the ore, and seem to be of the same substance with it… they MUST be separated from it.
So ultimately the wicked are worthless in the sight of God. They are the scum and refuse of the earth, and no more to be compared with the righteous than dross with fine gold. There is a day coming which will judge…
But why? Why does God choose to do this? Well Henry says that the reasons for these harsh judgments is because these wicked people err from God’s statutes!
These are the people who will not submit to the commands of the Word, and these are the people whom shall feel the curses of not submitting to God!
This is because they deceive themselves by setting up false rules, in opposition to God’s statutes, which they resist and flee away from…
The psalmist saw the flaws of these who rejected God and took notice of them and learned FROM their rejection! The wicked who have and will fall…taught the psalmist and he increased in his service to God.
He increased 1st from his growing love for the Law of God. 2nd we see that this brings the psalmist to the solemn reminder that some will reject God and will suffer because of it…
The psalmist has gained a healthy spiritual fear/a reverencial AWE of God and his wrath that has led him to a richer and fuller understanding of God’s Word.
So we cannot look at these verses as the psalmist taunting and judging the wicked, but rather we should be more like the psalmist who humbled himself here… Henry goes onto say,
“…Good men have need to be restrained from sin by the terrors of the Lord, especially when judgment begins at the house of God and hypocrites are discovered and put away as dross.
This last verse imparts great wisdom TO the believer… we should have a healthy FEAR of God! I believe in what Scripture says that we are justified and declared NOT GUILTY, but that does NOT preclude us from seeking to live a life of holiness and seeking to please our God!
I believe the church today has come to the point where we are NOT afraid of God anymore… grace has been preached so often and for so long that we only see the grace of God and we simply ignore or do not even believe in the WRATH of God.
God is holy and He will NOT be mocked! He has His standard that He calls ALL of humanity to live by, and those who reject His standard, reject Him and ultimately will pay the price for that rejection!
