“Righteous are you O LORD,
and right are your rules.
You have appointed Your testimonies in righteousness
and in all faithfulness.
My zeal consumes me,
because my foes forget Your words
Your promise is well tried,
and your servant loves it.
I am small and despised,
yet I do not forget your precepts.
Your righteousness is righteous forever,
and Your Law is true.
Trouble and anguish have found me out,
but Your commandments are my delight.
Your testimonies are righteous forever,
give me understanding that I may live.”
Psalm 119:137-144 (ESV)

These verses are nothing more than a reprieve from much that has been said before. The Psalmist want to jump right into it with praise and thanksgiving as he nears a pause in the lesson that he has been giving the People of Judea. Here is a reminder that the Ways of the LORD God is paved with righteousness. That the Law is filled with His Righteousness and that every thing contained in the law is filled with the Righteousness of God’s wonder, Power and mercy! As I go through the verses I am going to use the Jerusalem Bible translation, because in this case it offers more intent understanding of what was spoken to the people.

“Righteous, indeed, Yahweh! And all Your rulings, correct!” All the rulings of the Lord are Correct. Nothing he has ever said is to be taken away or disregarded. Even in these days when we are free from the bondage of the Law, we are not free to regard them as incorrect. In the book of Tobit (from the Apocrypha), “You are just O Lord, and just are your works. all Your ways are grace and truth, and you are the Judge of the world.” and from 2 Timothy 4:8, Paul speaks of his own righteousness, “And now the prize awaits me – the crown of righteousness that the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on the day of His return.” (NLT) As we know that the righteous judge, who sits at the right hand of the Father, is Jesus rewards His faithful we also know that the God of the exiled Jews is the same judge. We know that the Laws and rules on righteousness Jesus, who sit at the Right hand of God came from the Father to the people of Israel and Judea. God Rewards His faithful,and obedient people. We know that what God has spoken is truth, correct and unwavering today just as it was for the returning children to Jerusalem.

So We can give thanks to God for giving to these people a reminder just as he reminds us through the words of Jesus, “Anyone who listens to my teaching and obeys Me is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock.” (Matt.7:24 NLT). Since Jesus is our Rock, we must build our house of faith on His foundations, and those foundation are built on the Righteousness of the Law, the Correctness of The Word of the Father to the children of Israel. But the Psalm continues with, “The decrees You impose, how righteous, how absolutely faithful!” Psalm 119:138. Look carefully at one word here, “impose”. The Law is not a suggestion or an rule to be taken lightly. God imposed them upon a unruled and contrary people, a people who would rather go back to the slavery of sin than follow the decrees God laid out for them. Today we try to wiggle out of the law by finding the excuse: “Jesus freed us from the bondage of the Law,” so we can sin without regard to the Righteousness of the Law and of the Lawgiver. We walk in unrighteous behavior, doing as we please and say that it is OK with God because He forgives my transgressions even if I don’t repent.

I think this was the attitude of the Remnant that was left in Judea and also of many who were returning to Jerusalem from captivity. God had abandoned them in their minds and they had forgotten how merciful He is. They were punished for their transgressions before the captivity, they had lived in a foreign land, picked up a new language, new culture and new bad habits and have forgotten why they were a people chosen of God. Perhaps they felt that because they were allowed to return to Jerusalem, their sins and the sins of their fathers were forgiven but they did not have to make changes in their lives. Is that not also what was taught by your churches, that won’t you said “I’m sorry” to God you didn’t ever have to worry about your future sins? Weren’t you told that all your sin, even those you would commit later in life were forgiven so you never had to worry about sinning again? That is like saying the Law of God is no longer applicable any more, that sin is justified by God condoning it. We have to remember that we are chosen to do good works, to live as Jesus lived, to preach the Good News of Salvation by living in the obedience of the Word, both the Oral Law of Moses and the Living Law of Christ.

But the Psalm writer has not forgotten. He knows the the Law is for the living and that it is perfect because it came from God. If I am right in my thinking that this was written by the instructions of Ezra and Nehemiah, the writer of this stanza is one who is devote and has a great love for God. In the next verse, I find the key to the stanza. If nothing else matters it is these words to the people of Judea and Jerusalem. “Zeal for Your House devours me, since my oppressors forgot Your Word.” Ps 119:139. And this is a problem today. To many people who claim to know Christ and His Word, are not consumed by it. They do not have a zeal for righteousness in their own house. When Jesus told the priests that they must eat of His flesh and drink of His blood to get into heaven(see John 6:52-58), He was speaking to the zeal that they did not have for the righteousness of God. Their zeal was for power, they did not have the zeal to consume all that was Righteous and True before God or they would have recognized that Jesus was the Truth, the Way and the Light of the Father. When Ezra and Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem to build the temple and establish the city, they faced three types of personalities. The first is the Assyrians and Babylonians who had lived in the nation since the fall of the city, people who had no knowledge of the God of Abraham, Moses and David. People to whom the Law was foreign. The second was the remnant who were left behind after the conquest, people who had no spiritual leadership, who had no temple to worship God in and who had no Law of God left with them. Even when the Maccabees claimed the land briefly and tried to restore the temple, they were basically untrained. Their own soldiers carried “good luck” idols with them, symbols of false gods, or spirits. Yet even in their misguided beliefs, God performed the miracle of the lamps. The third were a people they brought with them, some not so willing who also had lost their culture, their written language and their traditions. The one thing that each of these three groups had was the loss of the Word, the Law. Many who no longer could read the script of the Hebrews. To each of these people, Nehemiah brought order, and the Law. It was his mission and the mission of Ezra to establish a zeal and a love for the Word, the Law of God. The Word, the Law, had to be rewritten in the text of the very enemies who had conquered them.

Today we have churches that don’t teach from the Law, or even allow it to be spoken of. We have churches that have no Sunday Schools, no Bible classes, no teaching from the Word. We have many that the preachers are poorly schooled, who only know what they have been taught by unqualified people locked into doctrines that are not biblical. But most of all we have leaders who do not have a Zeal for the Word. But perhaps the saddest thing is that they don’t want to know what is right. They contest and confront those who delve into the Word with the zeal they do not have. Instead of being warriors for the Word they have become foes to the knowledge of the Spirit. Because there is a lack of teaching the Law and the benefit of God’s Love through the Law, we are left “lawless” in a culture of sin. I see this in those who claim that the Holy Spirit’s gifts and signs are no longer in the church yet the evidence is all around them. They have eyes but do not see, ears that will not listen, hearts that can’t not understand that God is today the same as yesterday. Perhaps it was the same for the remnant, who felt abandoned, and the exiles who saw nothing new but animosity from the others in the land. Did they also feel that God was no longer relevant? Did they disregard the Law as “old School” and no longer pertaining to their lives?

This brings us to the response of the psalmist to the lack of zeal, the turning way from the knowledge of God’s Law. “But Your Promise is well tested, and your servant holds it dear!” (Psalm 119:141) And it is still true today! God’s Promise of salvation, His promise never to abandon His Chosen is still true today. And like the Psalmist, we’re to hold the Promise dear to our hearts. We are to believe that the Promise is well tested. That Jesus came to fulfill all the Promises of The Father. What is understood here is that in spite of the loss of zeal for the Word and the Law, because of the rejection and persecution, the writer’s zeal is stronger. We need to look no further than to the persecuted Christians around the world to see that they also have that quantity of zeal and hunger for the Word. But the Promise of Christ is that the Law requirement is fulfilled. It does not replace the Law but shows us how to live in the Love of the Law, the Love in which it was given so that man could serve and know God. It is in the writing of Paul to Ephesus, I find a great zeal of the people for God, but then just a few years later, John records in Revelation 2:4, “But this I have against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.” In many who came to Christ with great emotion, great zest and fervent love, they have become “lukewarm, tepid” and quite distasteful in God’s grace. They have set aside their love and returned to the pleasures of the world. They and their leaders have no zeal, no fire for the Word.

And I find that just as in the day of Ezra and Nehemiah, those who teach and love the Law are despised, they are thought as little and legalistic. Those who share that we are to live in accordance to the Word as taught to the exiles, the remnant and the new people in the land of Judea, that to have a good society, a healthy society, we must live within the Law of God. So when the psalmist says, “Puny and despised as I am, I do not forget your precepts.” I hold them dear to my heart. I may be despised, I may be thought of as legalistic, but I am bound with the Love of the Law giver. And statement that comes through in every passage of the law is that we are bound with Love to obey, not as slaves to a task master but as children to a loving Father. So it was with the spiritual leaders of the New Jerusalem. They presented a Old Law for a New People, but it is still the law that comes from Righteousness. To a people who condone divorce, adultery, exploitation of the people, the widows, elderly and the disabled, and yet lead our churches, I am weary. with a loud voice I cry out, where is the Law? Where is the teaching of the Word as God commanded? As Ezra complained about intermarriage (Pagans to Jews), and Idolatry (pleasure before God), and lack of intense worship with song and praise for the Law. We live in a world today that mocks devote worship and a zealous heart for the Word, the Whole Word.

The Psalmist says that. “Your Righteousness is eternal righteousness, Your Law holds true for ever!” Who then is man to tell me that because we are free from the bondage of sin, the LAW no longer has value? Who is it that reads the Christ Jesus came and replaced the covenant of Moses with a lawless one. What grace is there in rejection of God’s ever lasting, eternal law? Yes Righteous indeed is the Law and I will delight in it. As we read the bible, the Old and the new Covenant, we must take into our hearts that whenever God made a new covenant, He did not replace the old but refined it and expanded it. The Covenant with Adam was filled with promise, the Covenant with Abraham, with promise, the Covenant of Moses loaded with promise, the covenant with David, gave us Christ. And the Covenant of the Cross gave us life, but none of these covenants replace the elder. And while the atonement has been made by the Cross of Jesus, it did not exclude the responsibility of the believers to obey the commandments of God nor did it cause us to lose our zeal for the perfection of the love of God who gave us the Law. God gave Moses the Law so that man may know how to obey and serve Him. When Christ came we now know why to obey, we can understand the purpose of the Law and like Ezra and Nehemiah and the writers of the Psalms, we can understand to love it, not shun it as did the people of Jerusalem and Judea.

So while The psalmist laments the condition of the people, the lack of respect for God and his smallness before the people, he still cries out, “Though distress and anguish grip me, your Commandments are my delight.” Let our zeal for the Word and God’s Will through the Law be consuming in nature. Let is fill us with the desire to love and to serve God Forever! And his final cry is what drive us forward into the study and delight of the Word, “Eternally, your decrees – explain them to me,and I shall live.” Yes Lord, explain them to my heart! Let every part of me be filled with the law as an instrument of your Love. Let me see that I am not a slave to them but a lover of them as Christ loves me. Let me understand the depth of your Word, the greatness of you passion for me and your people. And let those who hear me share the Word and the Law, know that it is with the Love that Christ gives that I do so.

“Thy testimonies are wonderful:
therefore doth my soul keep them.
The entrance of thy words giveth light;
it giveth understanding unto the simple.
I opened my mouth and panted:
for I longed for thy commandments.
Look thou upon me, and be merciful unto me,
as thou used to do unto those that love thy name.
Order my steps in thy word;
and let not any iniquity have dominance over me.
Deliver me from the oppression of man;
so I will keep thy precepts.
Make thy face shine upon thy servant;
and teach me thy statutes.
Rivers of waters run down mine eyes,
because they keep not thy law.” (KJV)

The Psalmist, whom I believe to be Nehemiah, or by Ezra’s instructions to the priests, in this case, begins this stanza with the delight in the Law, the Torah. After many years in exile, the Hebrew Children have returned to Jerusalem and found the city and temple in ruin. The remnant has forgotten the Law and adapted the ways of the Assyrians and Persians. They have forsaken the teachings of the LORD Yahweh and married out of the faithful, they have begun to worship idols and taken on the customs of the pagans. The recurring theme of the Psalm is that God’s Precepts are wonderful, they are not to be taken light-heartily but embraced with passion. David says; “The Law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul. The decrees of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple.” (Psalm 19:7-8 -NLT). The people needed to be reminded of this. They have been in exile from the teaching of the Law for many years, they have forgotten the teachings, they no longer spoke the old language but now spoke Aramaic, the very written word has been lost to most and the Torah had to be explained to them in a new tongue and written down in a new script. They had to relearn the language of their fathers.

Today we have many translations of the text of the Old Testament, and many churches do not use the understandings of the Torah for teaching or for study. Yet to these people, they were as new words, new hope and a promise of God’s awesome might and glory. They received the instructions of Nehemiah as did Job when he said, “I long for the years gone by when God took care of me, when he lighted the way before me and I walked safely through the darkness,” (Job 29:2-3 NLT). Looking at Psalm 119:130 we read into it that God’s Law is like a morning dawning, as the light grows in the east so does the light of the Word grow and warms us. It comforts us, it drives away the darkness. The Word, the Law, the teachings make us safe in the love of the Father. As sin hides us from peace, God’s Word drives out that darkness, it overcomes it. As Satan tries to hide in the dark, Jesus exposes him and we can see what is evil and unjust in God’s sight. As Christians today,we see through light of the Holy Spirit, we have learned what great Love God has for us. Because we know the sacrifice of Jesus we “pant expectancy” as a deer when it comes to the water. For we have seen the Living Water (John 4:10-14). In Our purpose of life, are we still desiring to drink deep of the living water? Where are we walking? In a patched hot, dry desert or by the cool streams of springs of God’s Grace and Mercy? The message to the Children of Israel was to long for the commandments of the LORD, the desire of our hearts is to long for the Great commandment to Love with all of our being Our God and to love each other as equal to ourselves.

The Psalmist cries out for his people, “Come, show me your Mercy, as you do for all who love your name.” (Psalm 119:132 NLT). And God heard the prayer and he sent Jesus, His Son to die for us, giving us mercy. While the people were only looking for protection from their enemies, we see now that God has protected us fro the Great Enemy, Satan. And he has rescued us form eternal death and given us everlasting life. Yet in today’s temptations we surround ourselves with the very things that distract us, we justify our wrongness and pursue things that are ungodly and still call ourselves a people of God. Shame on us! We are no better than the remnant that lost their heritage while in captivity or exile. We have replaced the Wisdom of the Word with outlandish ideas of self-gain, self importance and into thinking we can dictate to God what is right and what is wrong. We justify our actions and tell ourselves that the Law of God is for us to desire what is good and what is evil. We continually sin against God and then deny that it is sin or we say that because God has forgiven us all sins, we can still commit them without recourse.

Because of the turmoil in the world today, because of the persecutions of Christians, because those in the West have taken on a god of wealth and perversion we are no different from the Children of Israel and Judea who return to Judea and Jerusalem to face the constant harassment of their neighbors. As the trials we face today to preserve the faithfulness, we cry out as did David, “With regard to the works of man, by the word of Your lips I have avoided the ways of the violent. My steps have held fast to your path.” (Psalm 17:4-5 -ESV). Or have we? Do we still linger in the desires of the violent, those who seek to take and not give, to the desires of the flesh and the enjoyment of things not of God? Are we like David in saying to God, “Keep back your servant also from presumptuous and let them not have dominion over me! Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression.” (Psalm 19:13 ESV). There seems to me there are to many weak an senseless reasons to flee from God’s ways and to hide from faithfulness. But we are to stand up to these temptations, these aggressions and trials. We need to be as the Psalmist says to the people, let God guide you, let the Spirit of God teach you to overcome evil and to be protected in Righteousness from any and all evil and wickedness.

Paul told the Roman Christian community, “When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners.” Romans 5:6. And again he said “Do not let sin control the way you live! (or do not let sin reign in your body which is subject to death), do not give in to its lustful desires.” (Romans 6:12 NLT). We are in a battle to preserve our souls, to stand up to the weakness that prevails around us, to reject the sins of the world that corrupt our beliefs and our Salvation. Are we no different from the Jews returning from Babylon? Do we harbour wrongness in our hearts and claim that we are still faithful to Jesus? Just because we say we are Christians does not mean that we are faithful to God any more than it meant that the Returning exiles were faithful to the Law of Moses.

But now as was in the day of Ezra and Nehemiah, we are surrounded by evil and wickedness. Our Media, our neighbors and your enemies seek to destroy our resolve to follow God’s way. The psalmist shouts out to the people and to God, “Rescue me!…then I can follow Your commandments.” In the prayer of Jesus, “Lead me not into temptation but deliver me from evil” David called out to God (Psalm142:5-6 NLT), “Hear my cry,for I am very low. Rescue me from my persecutors, for they are too strong for me.” WE can not stand “Then I pray to You,O LORD. I say,’You are my place of refuge. You are all I really want in life.alone or be brave enough to resist that which oppresses our soul. We need to cry out to God, “Protect – Preserve – Provide!” Lean onto God’s understanding, read the Word of God and learn from it how to pray, how to live and why to Love God.

This brings me to the point of the lesson, (NLT)”Rivers of tears gush from my eyes because the people disobey your Law.” Psalm 119:136. Throughout my life I have heard the heresy that we can continue to sin because we have been forgiven the sins we have yet to commit. But oh that is so untrue. We are still called to obey God, to not sin. We are told that those who claim to know God and yet continue to revel in the flesh will be dealt with more harshly than non-believers. As Jesus took our burdens to the cross, His sorrow was so great that He sweat blood, So great was the pain on the cross that he cries out to God, “Why have you forsaken me?” It is like the psalmist knew that regardless of the reassurance from God not to foresake the people if they keep His Law, they would time and time again. And even after the death and resurrection, those who followed Jesus would run away and hide. And over the centuries that followed, men would distort His Word, abuse His Love and ignore His Laws. Oh what sorrow it must have been for Jesus as He hung there knowing that man would not keep their word to God, they would turn away from His Statutes, His Decrees, His Love. “When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, your lives will produce evil results: sexual immorality, impure thoughts, eagerness for lustful pleasures, idolatry, participation in demonic activities, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, divisions, the feeling that everybody is wrong except those of your own little group.” (Galatians 5:19-21 (NLT) All these thing are the sins that violate the Law of God’s Love. All these attitudes cause our Lord Jesus to cry. For all these sins that filled the people returning to Israel and Judea from captivity still reign in the hearts of those who cry out “Lord, Lord!” and Our Father in heaven will not hear them for their sins revolt against the Love of the Cross. Add to these offences, Envy, drunkenness, sexual sins, wild living, and other sins. “Let me tell you again, as I have before, THAT ANYONE LIVING THAT SORT OF LIFE WILL NOT INHERIT THE KINGDOM GOD!” Galatians 5:22.

Joel told the people, in a Word from God, “Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the minister of the LORD weep…” (Joel 2:17a ESV). God has sent judgement to his people because of their sins. Micah laments the voice of God in saying, “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” and he follows with the Words from God to the sinful, arrogant people of the land with, “The voice of the LORD cries to the city and it is sound wisdom to fear Your Name;…. ‘Hear the rod and Him who appointed it!'” (Read Joel 2:9-15) For these reasons, the Psalmist weeps, because the people have still not heard in their hearts the Wisdom of God’s Will. Why then, even after we have come to the saving Grace of Jesus, do we seek to destroy the gift by returning to the ways of our past? Jesus told His disciples that we must continue to forgive the repentant sinner, but I as read Luke 17:1, I see Jesus say, “Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come!” And when it is our leaders, our ministers that tempt us with their sins, then woe be to them! When it is us who lead our children into sin because we struck down goodness with pride and envy and greed, then woe be to us!

For this we must also weep because Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The Slave does not remain in the house forever: the son remains in the house forever. So if the son sets you free, you are free indeed.” But are we to return to the slavery of sin? No we are not! we are set free by Jesus and His grace but if we return to sin then we are again it’s slave and a slave by choice. For this Our Lord must weep! Paul told the Roman Christians, both Gentile and Jew, “For all who have sinned under the law will perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. …For the Gentiles, who did not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even if they do not have the law. They show the work of the law on their hearts. …” (See Romans 2:12-16) the same goes for us today as Christians, if we who have the law of Christ, fail to abide are we then less than those who not knowing Christ abide in His teachings? Oh that I might cry for the many who claim Christ in the mouth but not in their hearts. We are to be careful in what we claims faith, because “For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin” (Romans 14-23b). But remember this also, “We who are strong have an OBLIGATION to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves.” (Romans 15:1). Those who are in leadership, who are the teachers of the Word must have the fortitude to lead, to encourage and to REBUKE and not to be examples of sin. We should be those who cry out for the sins of our brethren, to show the righteousness of obedience to the Word, to follow in every way the commandments of Love and service to the Word.

The psalmist weeps, tears gush down his face like a river because the people are tempted by the world to turn away from God’s instructions. Just as James wrote, “But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then the desire when it is conceived give birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth DEATH!”(James 1:15). What then is there so enticing about sin? that is so grand that eternal life is worth placing in jeopardy? Oh I know that there are those who say that they have eternal life even as they sin, but is that really so? Did we ever have eternal life if we constantly turn from Christ and rejoin Satan in living with sin as our god? As I write this, I am constrained not to cry myself, because I see the world who says “I believe” yet with every breath they seek only the things that are not of god, but of the flesh. The Prophets wept for the people of Israel and Judea as they forsook Their God for the things of their neighbors, the false gods, the wealth of false prosperity and the oppression of their own. Today, I see governments who make claims that they represent God and godliness yet abuse the poor, the elderly, the weak and the infirm. So often we hear the politicians, “I am seeking after God” and then they reward the rich, line thier pockets with wealth from lavish gifts and take away from the working poor, the elderly and education, medical care and other important things in defiance of Jesus commandment to care for their neighbor. To many times I see churches close down ministries and give their leaders vast amounts of wealth and power, ignoring the needs of their communities wretched.

The Psalmist cries with tears like streams because they have forgotten to “…keep His word,in him is truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in Him: WHOEVER SAYS HE ABIDES IN HIM OUGHT TO WALK IN THE SAME WAY IN WHICH HE WALKED.” (1 John1:4-5 ESV). But as the psalmist knows, “Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.” (1 John 3:4 ESV). and we are commanded through John, “No one who abides in [Jesus] keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen Him or known Him. Little children, let no one deceive you. WHOEVER PRACTICES RIGHTEOUSNESS IS RIGHTEOUS. WHOEVER MAKES A PRACTICE OF SINNING IS OF THE DEVIL, for the Devil has been sinning from the beginning.” (1 John 3:6-8 ESV). So this is the choice; be in Christ and resist temptation and sin or live outside of christ and continue to reject His grace by sinning. Are we to continue to live in the flesh, to ignore the Law of Love and the Commandments of God or are we to truly abide in Christ and live in every way for His wonderful grace and forgiveness by obeying the Testaments of forgiveness, service to each other and loving to obey His every command?

John tells us that “We know that every one who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him.” (1 John 5:18 ESV). But then, if we continue to sin then are we rejecting Christ? Are we then still held in control by Satan? Are we carrying the ways of the world and rejecting the ways of Jesus? Were we ever truly “Saved”? And Angels weep and all the saints in Heaven and the very Salvation of Jesus mourn because we have made a choice to follow after Evil rather than Righteousness. On This very sad understanding I leave you; Repent and sin no more! Go forth and do godly works, speak with godly lips and live in the most godly way seeking after the things of God and reject the desires of the world and the death that it can only offer.

“I hate those who are undecided about You,
but my choice is clear – I love Your Law.
You are my refuge and my shield;
Your Word is my only source of Hope.
Get out of my life, you evil minded people,
for I intend to obey the commands of my God.
LORD, sustain me, and I will be saved;
then I will meditate on your principles continually.
But you have rejected all who stray away from Your principles.
They are only fooling themselves.
All the wicked of the earth are the scum you skim off;
no wonder I love to obey Your decrees!
I tremble in fear of You:
I fear Your judgments.”
Psalm 119:113-120(NLT)

There are many who proclaim to love God and who are professing to be “born again Christians” who live in a double minded world. The author of Psalm 119 has come from Babylon only to find that the remnant who was left behind has adopted the religion and culture of the Assyrians and Persians and corrupted their faith in the God of their ancestors.

While claiming to be faithful to God, they have in fact, deserted Him and the Law of Moses. He has come to hate these people that want to corrupt his Faith and the Law among the returning exiles. The is choice is clear! The only avenue to follow is one that holds the evil in the land with great contempt (see Ezekiel 9:3-6) and to love the Law with a zealous heart. The writer is concerned that these people who have corrupted the word and joined with the “world view” will dilute and distort the faithful. Is that not also something that has happened in the churches today? Haven’t too many believers succumb to the teachings that divorce, abortion, sexual misconduct and homosexuality are not “sin”? All around us we see the Word of God weakened or outright attacked and the people who want to follow the Word of God and the teachings of Our Lord Jesus are mocked and persecuted.

But as for me and my family, we will stay in balance with God by obedience to the Heart of the Law, Jesus. As with the writer, I love the peace that God’s Law, his Word, gives me. My soul is secure not in the claiming to be a Christian but in the refuge and protection that living in obedience to His Loving Will offers me.

The psalmist tells the corrupt and deceivers, “Get out of my life!” Whenever we find those who condone, practice or promote sin in their lives and justify it by saying, “I am saved, God has forgiven me of what I am about to do,” we are to run to the nearest exit lest they corrupt us. Many times I have heard that contemptuous living is justified because, “Jesus forgave me and nothing I do is considered a sin.” That is not what Jesus said nor is it what Paul tried to convey to the early church. Jesus said, “If you love Me, you WILL obey my commandments.” In Matthew 7:21,23 Jesus says, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord” will enter the Kingdom of heaven. … I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness.'” Then he continues with the illustration of the house built on rock (Faithfulness) and the house built on sand (foolishness). See Matthew 7:24-27).

David says in Psalm 139:17-18, “How precious to me are Your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I could count them, they would be more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you.” It is better to live one day with God than a thousand anywhere else. It is wiser, surer and more blessed to be living in the Word of God than to dwell in the failings of the world.

The Psalmist cries out, “Hold me up that I may be safe and have regard for your statutes continually!” (Psalm 119:117 ESV). While under the stress of the challenge of belief by those who would seek to justify falsehoods, he goes to the Creator to give him the strength and encouragement to withstand them. It is easy to say that it is alright to live a sinful life, Jesus has forgiven me, but the truth is that Jesus only forgives the contrite heart and those who seek to be true repentants thereby no long desiring to repeat the offenses against their Redeemer and purifier. “Uphold me according to Your promise that I may live [in grace]” is his desire. That is the dream of the faithful.

For it is by the Grace of the Father, given to us by the Divine Breath of the Holy Spirit as the result of the Sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. In this we are forgiven and in this we are live in obedience of the Law of Christ’s Perfect Sacrifice. While many will use Paul’s Letter to the Romans to say that we can not earn our right to salvation (and I have no argument with that), he also says in Romans 8:9,12, “You therefore, are not of the flesh but of the spirit, if in fact the spirit of God dwells in you. … so then brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh to live according to the flesh.” We are to die to sin and to reject all things that lead to sin.

The psalmist goes on to condemn those who reject the law of godliness and embrace the ways of the flesh, even to call them the scum of the earth! In verse 119 he claims that God has removed the wicked like dross, the film of waste that is left after refinement of metal. In verse 118, the claim that those who reject God are in turn rejected is made and we should take perfect note of that. When those who profess the faith yet reject all the teachings of moral behavior, who refuse to live within the Law of righteousness expect that God is so forgiving that he will allow them to be counted as the redeemed is ludicrous. Those who cry out “Lord, Lord,” and walked in the path of evil will not be counted as those who know the Lord Christ. As the New Living Translation says, “They are only fooling themselves.”

The choice is ours, to live in the loving care of Our Redeemer in obedience and service, or to live outside of His Grace by remaining in a sinful lifestyle. Will we love God’s testimonies by faithfulness to them or will we reject His love for us by disobedience? It is time, and long overdo, to stop the feel-good theology and return to the testament of godly obedience.

The final verse of this stanza, Psalm 119:120 reads, “My flesh trembles for fear of Thee, and I am afraid of Thy Judgments.” (RSV). The fear is the respect of God, the reverence of His Awesomeness. It is not a fear of a coward or of as from a bully, but the fear that we might cause sorrow to the greater among us. And God is among us, through the Holy Spirit. If a police officer was standing beside you would you break the law before his eyes? Yet we who claim Christ, daily choose to disregard His presence and continue to sin; deliberately and continually claiming that His forgiveness allows us to behave this way.

Christ came that we might be free from the sinful nature that rules the flesh. Seek to walk in the path of Jesus and flee from the desires of the flesh. Love the Testimonies of Faith, righteousness and clean living that we may not be as the dross, the scum on the melting pot of purification. Let us not be like the remnant left behind who added to their beliefs the ways of the pagans, the common law of self-indulgence, and remain faithful to the command of Jesus to obey the meaning of the whole of the Law. That is to Love God with our entire being and to love our fellow man as we love ourselves. Let us live in the loving-kindness to each other and the devotion to God as Christ has shown us.

Let our Faith be one-way, all the way and in the Way. Put out the double minded man and become single-minded for Christ’s holiness. Let us become Wholly devoted to God. Let us stand up to those who want to defile us with hypocrisy, decadence and the foolishness of sin.

Your word is a lamp for my feet
and a light for my path.
I’ve promised it once and I’ll promise it again:
I will obey Your wonderful Laws.
I have suffered much, O LORD;
restore my life again, just as You have promised.
LORD, accept my grateful thanks
and teach me Your Laws.
My life constantly hangs in the balance,
but I will not stop obeying Your Law.
The wicked have set their traps for me along Your path,
but I will not turn from your commandments.
Your decrees are my treasure;
they are truly my heart’s delight.
I am determined to keep Your principles,
even forever, to the very end. Psalm 119:105-112 (NLT)

It has been awhile since I wrote on Psalm 119 and that is in part because I had written on the first verse and at the time didn’t have anything else to say at that time (see: “Lamp Unto My Feet!”, posted Oct. 29 , 2009). The power of the first verse is so great that I had to wait upon the LORD to guide me into an understanding that went beyond the opening of this stanza. Even now, I wonder if it is the right message that I should give concerning the remaining verses of the text.

The writer of the Psalm is conveying that even as those who set snares and folly in his path to prevent him from walking safely in the Law, God’s Word is the Light that keeps him safe. It shows him the pitfalls of man and the entanglements of the world so that he might avoid them. He starts with the promise to stay firm in the Word and that he is grateful to have the instruction of Moses to keep his life in order. To him, the Law of God is wonderful! For many years I was taught that as Christians, we were no longer bound to the Law, yet as I matured in the understanding of the Ways of God, I found that I was compelled to regard them with fondness because they kept the Children of God safe.

When the Children of Israel, the remnant of Judea, returned from Babylon they had lost much of their culture, religious practice and their faith as well as their language. Nehemiah had to teach them the Law all over again. The Word of God had to be explained to them in Aramaic because they had forgotten their own language, Hebrew. This is something that I did not know until just a few weeks ago. With this in mind, we can see that Nehemiah was grateful that he had retained the language, customs and history of his people and of his God. The writer tells us that he and the people of Israel have suffered much. In fact they had lost their land and their nationality and had been scattered over the empire. The only thing they have left is their Faith and their God. And with that comes the Law, the Word of God for them.

The question for us is: Does the Law of Christ give us light as we are scattered among the secular ways of the world? Do we retain our love of God’s Ways for our lives? Or have we accepted a watered down version of the Truth that lets us stumble and trip into sin? What Nehemiah wanted for his people was the promise of God restored to them. He was grateful for the blessings that they had received, the freedom to return to Jerusalem and to restore the temple. Now he wants the Faith of the people to be restored as well. This song of love, to be sung in the restored temple, was to give the people the same desire to seek the commandments of God, the Law of God’s Love for mankind. Our lives hang in the balance of God’s mercy. The very Mercy given to us by the Sacrifice of Jesus is the restoration that the psalmist prayed for yet could not conceive.

As the “Oral Law” was the Light of God given to the people, Jesus is the “Living law” given to us. The Light of the Lamp is the promise of the Testament of the Jews and we are told that Jesus is the Lamp of the World. Because we have suffered much, living in the sinful nature, when we turn to Christ, we are shown the Light and our path of righteousness is bathed in the glow of His Light. Our lives are restored in the Promise. We are dead to the ways of the Oppressor, Satan, and made alive and fresh in Christ. In this we give thanks.

Because of Jesus giving us the opportunity to be reconciled with the Father, our lives hang in the balance of His Mercy and Grace. (See Psalm 119:109). If we accept the Way of Christ as our way of life and srtive to live in harmony with the teachings of God’s Word, the balance tips in our favor. If we live outside of the will of God, teh balance it tipped away from His Love. To live as we are taught by the Love of God for us, is to live in harmony with Him. This is shown to us by the Law of Love given to us through the blood of the Lamb of God. Even as teh world sets the traps and snares before us, to trip us up into committing offenses to God, observing the commandments of Christ, given to us with the law of the Covenant of Abraham and Moses. Jesus does not give us something new but gives understanding to the Law that we may serve and obey fully the will of God.

Hosea says for us to; “Bring your petitions, and return to the LORD. Say to Him, “Forgive all our sins and graciously receive us, so that we may offer You the sacrifice of praise.” (Hosea 14:12). In our trials and facing the temptations of the world, we plead to God to restore us to righteousness, to renew in us a clean Heart, a right spirit, that we may be worthy of giving praise to Our King. Through Jesus, we have the forgiveness that the psalmist asks for his people. Because of the Cross we are welcomed back into the family of God. Our lives hang in the balance of God’s Mercy and His Justice. We deserve nothing from God because we have done no good thing with our lives. Yet because of Jesus, the efforts in our lives are considered good. We are able to do good things according to the Spirit of God directing our thoughts. It is because of our Love for God that we are able to accomplish great things. And as the result of the Mercy given to us by Christ, we are never to stop obeying the “Living Law” and the “Light of the World,” Jesus. His commands are the commands of the One who Loves far more than we can.

The Words of Jesus and the lessons from the Law that cause us to live in righteousness are to be held close to our hearts and be the Breath of the Spirit of God be our breath. For like the psalmist, I also am “determined to keep Your principles, even forever, to the end.” One verse that I love and stands alone is; “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men , be strong. Let all that you do be done with love.” (1 Corinthians 16:13 ESV). Because of the watchfulness of the Spirit of God within us, we are able to stand firm. We can act like true men of Redemption and weather the storms of evil that try and overtake us. We can determine to avoid the traps of men and to walk in right living according to the law that is given to us by the prophets and be the examples of Christ Jesus. And in all this we give thanks to God. We thank Him that we have the trials, the persecutions and the anxieties that confront us daily.

Let the decrees of God’s justice and His desire that we have the delight of His word in our hearts, guide us every day. As we grow in Faith and Love of Jesus, be determined to follow the path of Righteousness to the fullest. Desire only what is pleasing to the Father so that the Son of God may dwell in our every action and thought. Avoid the tricks of the Oppressor and the lies of the flesh that seek to destroy faith and love of God. Even forever to the very end of our days remain faithful and confident in His Word. When Paul wrote, “Don’t you realise how kind, tolerant and patient God is with you?….Can’t you see how kind He has been giving you time to turn from your sin?” (Romans 2:4) he is seeking of those false ideas, concepts and the folly that has led us into sin even as we profess our belief in Him. Gos has been merciful and by Grace has rescued us from our sins. For this reason, we should awaken to the Love of His law and the Love of Christ’s Way. We have what the Exiled Jews did not; the ability to understand the law as it was intended. The instrument of God’s Love to preserve us as His chosen children.

Each day I read of the persecutions of Christians around the world and I read the testimonies of those who have been imprisoned. They do not weep in fear but shout out in joy that they have Christ to live for and to die for. What little do we have to complain about in our sheltered lives, protected by laws and privilege? Nothing. Yet the Children of Israel, coming back to Jerusalem after years of exile, had much to fear. They were strangers in their own land, much as were the people who returned to Palestine after WWII. Today the Christians in Burma, North Korea, Egypt, Pakistan and many other nations face the same troubles as did the Israelites. Unwelcomed in their home lands. To them, the creed of Psalm 119:105-112 is a beacon of hope and of promise. Let it also be the beacon of Promise and of the reality of Salvation for you. Let God speak His Law unto your hearts that you will strive to serve and obey out of thanksgiving and love.