Episode Transcript
We're gonna look at Psalm 119.
We're actually going to do a little bit, overlap a little bit in our review of the 11th set, which begins in verse number 81.
Because we did speak on that a little bit.
We talked about the first couple of verses there.
So we're gonna kind of overlap there just a little and then keep going through this.
So this will be the first week that we don't go through a new set.
This will be the same set we were actually scheduled to do last week.
So, but hopefully it'll be a blessing to you.
We are gonna look at a fair number of passages and verses today.
Sometimes we lose track, I lose track of time, not we, but I lose track of time.
And so I don't get to get to the verses.
And I think it's important for us to see the connection and the unity of the scripture as it speaks on single subjects over and over.
So let's pray and then we'll read verse number 81 through verse number 88.
All right, let's pray together.
Lord, thank you for everyone that's here, everyone that's listening.
Thank you for your blessings and sustaining power upon each person.
And Lord, for your grace to us.
Thank you even for those that aren't able to be here, but Lord, they would be here if they could.
And like Miss Judy and Miss Mary and others that are away and can't be here, Lord, bless them.
Lord, I pray that you would make this passage of scripture, this longest chapter in the Bible, fruitful to us as we look at it today.
Lord, thank you for those that have been blessed and encouraged, strengthened by these things that we've studied so far, but we pray that you would do it even more and that you would help these things really, really motivate us and really encourage us in doing your will, in Jesus' name, amen.
All right, let's read verse 81 through verse number 88.
The Bible says, 'My soul fainteth for thy salvation, but I hope in thy word.
Mine eyes fail for thy word, saying, when wilt thou comfort me?
For I am become like a bottle in the smoke, yet do I not forget thy statutes.
How many are the days of thy servant?
When wilt thou execute judgment on them that persecute me?
The proud have digged pits for me, which are not after thy law.
All thy commandments are faithful.
They persecute me wrongfully.
Help thou me.
They had almost consumed me upon earth, but I forsook not thy precepts.
Quicken me after thy lovingkindness, so shall I keep the testimony of thy mouth.
All right, last week we talked about, this is the set of eight, the octet, that deals a lot with persecution and suffering.
And that's the main theme through these.
A lot of times you can't find a theme, but it just so happens that in this set, there is a theme, and the psalmist mentions fainting and failing, and how his strength is spent, and how others are persecuting him, and he's consumed, or almost consumed.
And so that's what we find in this psalm.
We find a lot of pain and suffering, not so much joy, but trying to get through difficulty.
And in this case, and I know you can apply, difficulty can come from different trials and circumstances, but in this case, the difficulty was arising mainly from those that are seeking to do him harm.
All right?
And then what we also saw is that he turns to God's word for comfort.
He turns to God's word for comfort.
And of course, prayer is one thing we do when we're under difficulty and trouble, and when our peace is gone, and we feel the circumstances that are around us, or maybe temptation is hurting us, and weighing upon us, we go to prayer, but going to God's word is equivalent.
In other words, Lord, show me something from your word.
At this moment, I need that.
And I've given a testimony when I was in the Marine Corps in recruit training at a moment that God's word gave me what I needed, and I'm sure you've experienced that as well.
And so the psalmist turns to the word of God, and then we also saw how, we also saw about complaining, and I'll read the quote again, but I wanna look at the idea of complaining.
Verse number 82 says, 'Mine eyes fail for thy words, 'saying, when wilt thou comfort me?
So the psalmist is complaining, all right?
He is giving his complaint to God.
God, when are you going to help me?
When are you going to deliver me?
And this is actually a very common thing you find in the Psalms, complaining to God.
And the quote I read, which I think kind of encapsulates the truth, which is the important thing, it says this, 'Let us complain not of God, but to God.
Complaints of God are a give vent, give a vent to murmuring, but complaints to God, to faith, hope, and patience.
And we saw last week how that our complaints to God, although we find them very unpleasant, and they can be full of doubt, right?
But our complaints to God, there is an element of our complaints that are faith-based.
So how can someone have faith mixed with doubt?
It is absolutely possible.
And you find it, especially in the example when the disciples were on the ship, and they were obeying the Lord, going to the other side, and the Lord's asleep on a pillow, and they came to Him and they complained.
Carest thou not that we perish?
And so Jesus said, 'Where's your faith?
But yet they did come to Jesus and gave the complaint to Him.
They knew where to turn.
So you see that doubt mixed with faith, and I think all of us could relate to that in some measure.
So when we talk about complaining, let's look at a contrast here.
Look at Psalm number 13.
So I'm gonna show you a couple other examples of complaining that are good, good complaints, because we don't have control over what happens in our lives to a great degree.
Now, when evil comes upon us as a result of our sin, well, that's a little bit different than evil that comes upon us as a result of circumstances that are out of our control.
But when things are out of our control, in other words, we can't control what things happen to us all the time, and so sometimes it makes us upset, and the Lord knows that.
We saw that last week.
Psalm 13, verses one and two, look at what it says.
How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord, forever?
How long wilt thou hide thy face from me?
Now, from a doctrinal perspective, doctrinally speaking, had God forgotten the psalmist?
No, absolutely, we can say that without any absolute, with absolute assurance that God had not forgotten the psalmist in his trouble.
He felt like God had forgotten him.
So what principle can we draw from that?
The way that we feel is not always the same as what is real.
The way we feel and what is real sometimes are not the same, right?
So that's why we must turn, but in our complaint, often our complaint comes out of the way we feel, but that's the proper place to lodge a complaint, is with the Lord himself.
And it says here, this is what the psalmist is doing.
How long wilt thou hide thy face from me?
How long shall I take counsel in my soul, 'having sorrow in my heart daily?
How long shall mine enemy be exalted over me?'
Look at Psalm 89, if you would.
Psalm number 89 and verse 46, we see another complaint.
It says this, 'How long, Lord, 'wilt thou hide thyself forever?
Shall thy wrath burn like fire?'
So again, the principle is complaining is okay.
Sometimes our complaint has the wrong basis, but our complaining is okay when we take it to God directly.
Listen, let's take off the facade of spirituality that we like to wear, right?
And let's put off this idea that we're not allowed to tell God what we really think and how we really feel about a situation, lest we appear unspiritual to God.
You know, sometimes we are unspiritual.
Sometimes we lose faith.
Our hope is dried up and withered.
And sometimes we aren't as spiritual as we want to be.
And when we know we should believe the Lord and we should be that way, we aren't, but you know what it's best to do?
It's best to take that to God instead of faking it, right?
That's what the psalmist is doing all the time, right?
So this idea is, well, I know I'm not supposed to say that or think that or feel that.
Well, do you think God doesn't know what's in your heart?
He already knows it.
Take it to the Lord in prayer, right?
Now let's look, by contrast, let's look at Exodus 16.
Verse number two.
This is the kind of complaining that God looks, does not look well upon.
Exodus 16 and verse two.
Says this, And the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.
And the children of Israel said unto them, Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots and when we did eat bread to the full.
Look at that, look at verse four.
I'm sorry, let me finish verse three.
It's of course at a page break, so I have to flip.
When we did eat bread to the full, for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger, speaking to Moses and Aaron.
Then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you and the people shall go out to gather a certain rate every day that I may prove them whether they will walk in my way, my law or no.
Now who are looking at the verses, who are the children of Israel complaining against?
Looking at the verse.
Who are they complaining against?
Moses and Aaron.
Now keep reading.
Verse, look at verse number, I lost my verses here.
There they are, verse seven.
And in the morning, then ye shall see the glory of the Lord for that he heareth your murmurings against the Lord and what are we that ye murmur against us?
And Moses said, this shall be when the Lord shall give you in the evening flesh to eat and in the morning bread to the full for that the Lord heareth your murmurings which you murmur against him.
And what are we?
Your murmurings are not against us but against the Lord.
So they said, Moses and Aaron, they were murmuring against the leaders.
But Moses reminds them that it was not he that took them out of Egypt.
What is Moses?
Could Moses bring the whole congregation out of Egypt?
No, it was God that had led them out of Egypt.
So they're murmuring, they're saying, why did you lead us out of Egypt?
Who was doing it?
It was actually God.
So they were murmuring about the Lord.
But in place of the Lord, they plugged in Moses and Aaron.
But that was not what it was really about.
It was really about their murmuring against God.
Look at a few more places.
Look at verse 12.
I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel.
Speak unto them, saying, at even you shall eat flesh and in the morning you shall be filled with bread and you shall know that I am the Lord your God.
Look at chapter 17, verses one through three.
It says this, and all the, this is a separate occasion now.
And all the children of, the congregation of the children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of sin after their journeys, according to the commandment of the Lord, and pitched in Rephidim, and there was no water for the people to drink.
Wherefore the people did chide with Moses and said, give us water that we may drink.
And Moses said unto them, why chide you with me?
Wherefore do you tempt the Lord?
And the people thirsted there for water, and the people murmured against Moses.
Notice that again.
They're not saying, God, why did you do this to us?
No, they're blaming the leader.
But who's the leader?
What did he do?
All he's doing is what God told him to do, right?
All he is doing is leading the people.
God is the one who's behind this operation.
So though they're murmuring against the leader, the target is God, right?
And this assumes, and this is the case, that the leader's following the Lord, and Moses and Aaron certainly were.
It says this, wherefore, wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?
Imagine being Moses, being Aaron, and the children of Israel complaining to you and saying that you brought them out of Egypt.
And it's just, it's comical as we read it.
It wasn't at the time.
But the point is, is this kind of complaint is not acceptable.
This is people complaining against God to other people.
This is not taking their prayer and their complaint to God privately.
This is affecting, and we know what happened when these murmurs started to ripple out through the people, what happened.
That's when they started to want to stone Moses and appoint a leader to take them back to Egypt.
Where did that come from?
Complaining against God.
And so the principle is, take our complaint to God.
And you consider Job as well.
Let's look at a few verses in Job. The book of Job is a fantastic book.
When we first came back from Cambodia, when I was still in contact with the people on a regular basis there that we had worked with, I went through the book of Job on Facebook Live and in Khmer, and we studied the whole book.
And it was such a, it was so rewarding.
The book of Job is full of, if you're interested in philosophy, religious, spiritual philosophy, it's full of it.
And it's really, really good stuff.
Look at Job 33.
Now, a lot of people think that in the book of Job, that Job never said or did anything wrong.
The assumption, based upon basically one verse, there's two verses actually, based upon two verses in the early part of the book of Job that said that Job said not with his lips, the assumption was that Job, throughout this whole ordeal, Job didn't do anything wrong.
And that's not the case.
That is not the case.
Now, at the point in which those verses were cited, Job had not yet sinned, but the trial was not over for Job. Here's what I mean.
So there's three friends.
They come and try to comfort him, miserable comforters, Job calls them.
And then at the end, there's a man whose name is Elihu, and Elihu says that he's going to speak in the stead of God because Job had requested in the book that he said, oh, that there was someone that would stand in the place of God, basically so I could argue with God about why all this is happening.
And Elihu says, I'm he.
Okay, so Elihu speaks in the place of God.
And of course, we know the Lord speaks at the end.
Look at chapter 33, and verse number, let's start in verse number eight.
Now, listen to what Elihu says about Job. Surely thou has spoken in my hearing.
Now, this is Elihu speaking about Job. And I have heard the voice of thy words saying, I am clean without transgression.
I am innocent, neither is there iniquity in me.
Behold, he findeth occasions against me.
He counteth me for his enemy.
He putteth my feet in the stocks.
He marketh all my paths.
Behold, in this, Elihu speaking now, behold, in this thou art not just.
So Elihu's saying to Job, you're wrong.
These words of God are wrong.
I will answer thee that God is greater than man.
Why dost thou strive against him?
For he giveth not account of any of his matters.
Which is, in other words, another way of saying, God doesn't owe you an explanation.
And that's actually one of the key themes of the book of Job. And it's a hard pill to swallow, to be honest.
God does not owe us explanations.
And then you go on to chapter 34.
Look at that.
Verse number five.
And Job said, this is Elihu, I'm sorry.
Elihu quoting Job, he says this.
For Job hath said, I am righteous, and God hath taken away my judgment.
You know what that means?
That Elihu is quoting Job as saying that Job says, I'm righteous.
God hath taken away my judgment.
Which is to say, what God is doing to me is not right.
That's what Job said of God.
Is that right to say of God?
It's not.
See, Job stepped out of line.
In the extremity, in the suffering that he experienced, that suffering caused him to say things of the Lord that weren't true.
His complaint, now notice, Job is not talking to God.
He's talking to his friends about God.
See, that's the wrong kind of complaining.
And what he's saying of God is not true.
And it's at that point that Job messes up.
Now, because at the end, we know what does Job do?
He repents.
In other words, he acknowledges, Lord, I was wrong.
I was wrong, I was wrong.
You are right.
I don't have any reason to demand an explanation.
What I said was wrong.
And he says, I repent in sackcloth and ashes.
He says, I'm filthy.
So Job acknowledges his sin in the end.
You look at chapter 34, look at verse 35.
And verse 37 says this, Job had spoken without knowledge and his words were without wisdom.
Verse 37 says, for he hath added rebellion unto his sin.
He clappeth his hands among us and multiplieth his words against God.
This is what Elihu says in the place of God about Job. Now, why do I bring that up?
Because it's all about the direction of our complaint, the direction of our complaint.
And we dare not criticize Job too strongly because this is our tendency.
When we suffer, it's to direct our complaint at God but the key thing is to take it to God, to God.
That's where you can lodge your complaint.
All right, let's go back to our text in Psalm 119, verse number 83.
It says this, for I am become like a bottle in the smoke, yet do I not forget thy statutes.
Now, I covered this a little bit but the idea is they would use the bottles in that day were made of animal skins and they would sew them up and seal them so they wouldn't leak, obviously, but then once they were used and they were rinsed, they had to be dried and so they would hang them near a fire to dry them out.
And so what you have is this idea of moisture.
Okay, let's look at a couple verses that deal with that.
Look at Psalm 32.
I told you we're gonna look at a few verses so just hang in there.
Psalm 32 and verse number three.
Psalm 32, verse three, look at what it says.
David says, when I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.
For day and night, thy hand was heavy upon me.
My moisture is turned into the drought of summer.
You know, this is a weird way to put it.
This is not the way we would describe suffering as when things are going well, my marrow is wet and when things aren't going well, my marrow is dried, but is this not how it's described in the Bible?
It is, but the point is is I'm not advocating that you talk like that or you use that as an illustration unless people look at you like, what in the world are you talking about your marrow?
But the idea is that when all the moisture is sucked out of us, we're just wither away.
We have no strength, we have no power, we're just spent.
We're spent.
That is something that you and I can probably understand.
We can say, I'm just spent.
This trial has taken all my strength away.
I am dried up.
I am dried up.
I'll read this verse just for time.
Job 21, verse 24.
Job 21, verse 24 says this.
Talking about the wicked who continue to live, he says, one dieth in his full strength, being holy at ease and quiet.
His breasts are full of milk and his bones are moistened with marrow.
So you see, that's the idea of prosperity.
Dryness is the idea of suffering.
And you think, especially, you know, this, Miss Lisa here is from Arizona.
We were talking about before the Sunday school started how that it's desert, but there are some places in Arizona, especially golf courses that have grass.
They don't play golf in the sand.
Well, unless they're not very good, but anyway, they don't play golf in the sand.
In Arizona, they have grass.
You know what the grass represents?
That grass in those golf courses that you can see from the airplanes, right?
That represents moisture, health, life.
And when you live in the desert like Israel, when you live in the desert like Israel, so many places of Israel is, whenever there's no rain, which often is the case, that it just withers away.
So you can see why that would be something that would be in the minds of people there that lived in that area.
So what the psalmist is saying in 83 is he's saying, I'm done, this trial has spent my energy, my power, my moisture's gone, I'm like a desert.
I'm a plant that's totally wither up.
Now look at verse number 84.
How many are the days of thy servant?
When wilt thou execute judgment on them that persecute me?
How many are the days of thy servant?
Joshua, will you get Psalm number 39, verse four, and let's see, Brother Burgess, will you get Psalm number 90, verse 12?
I wanna have them read it to us.
So Psalm 39, verse four, and Psalm 90, verse 12.
Joshua, if you'll stand up and read Psalm 39, verse four, nice and loud.
Lord, make me to know my days, and the measure of my days, for it is that I may know how frail I am.
See that?
The measure of my days, right?
How long I have to live.
What is the purpose of that?
He says, that I may know how frail I am.
So the idea of us knowing our days gives us wisdom because it helps us to understand how we really are.
Okay, Brother Burgess, can you read Psalm 90, verse 12 for us?
So teach us the number of our days that we may apply in our pardons unto wisdom.
You see that?
It gives us wisdom, numbering our days.
So here's the principles I want you to kinda take away from this first part.
It says, how many are the days of thy servant?
Number one, our days are limited.
Now, I know you know this.
I'm just repeating it.
Our days are limited.
We have an end.
And we have to live with that end in mind.
So often, we and humankind, just say humankind, not differentiating between a believer and a non-believer, we live like we don't have an end.
We live like we will live forever.
We think, we believe, we act like we are gonna live forever.
We don't plan for the end.
Who likes to do that?
Right, who likes to think about that?
God says that is wisdom.
Number two, number one, our days are limited.
Number two, we do not know how many days we have, so it's a mystery.
So that tells us we need to use, we must use our time because it is limited in the best way possible.
And I don't wanna leave that generic.
That means wholly, completely for God.
That is the best way possible.
Our days are limited.
We do not know how many days we have.
And lastly, this, God does know how many days we have.
So when God, if God knows that, that means that everything He leads us to do, what we might call the will of God, He does so with the knowledge that our days are limited.
And so He has everything we need to do is going to fit inside that limitation because He knows we have a limitation.
So we can trust God to lead us and to do His will.
He has that limitation in His mind.
Now it's important, it's important for us not to live like we have all the time in the world.
Now that doesn't mean everything we do should be rushed or we should make rash decisions.
But at some point in our decisions, our end ought to come into our mind.
Amen.
We will, we know that our life will come to an end, but we also know that after that end, there's also a time in which our lives and motives and works will be inspected by the Lord.
That's part of this end.
And it also keeps us cognizant of the fact that what time we have is short.
And also, as we've read, it keeps us cognizant of the fact that we are not as good and great and strong as we think we are.
We, it shows us how frail we are.
I've said many times in our Sunday schools, we've gone through different things in the seven sayings of Christ from the cross, Psalm 119, other things, that one of the things the Lord wants us to understand is ourselves, the truth of us, who we are.
Of course, He wants us to understand the Lord, but He also wants us to understand ourselves.
Correctly, right?
And that's one way we do it.
Now, the second part of that verse says this, when wilt thou execute judgment on them that persecute me?
Now, I have to finish here.
The idea of persecution.
Look at 2 Thessalonians, if you would, chapter two or chapter one.
This will illustrate the point better.
2 Thessalonians chapter one, verse three.
The psalmist asks, when are you going to execute judgment on them that persecute me?
Persecution, the idea that we are unjustly troubled and unjustly targeted for harm because of our faith in Christ or because we try to live uprightly.
All right, that's the idea of persecution.
Look at what it says in verse number three.
We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet, because that your faith groweth exceedingly and the charity of every one of you toward each other aboundeth.
Thessalonica, Thessalonica or Thessaloniki, as they call it now, is a church that was started under persecution.
It was a hallmark of their origin.
Verse four, so that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith and all your persecutions and tribulations that you endure, which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God for which ye also suffer.
So if this church is being persecuted, that means there are persecutors.
Look at what it says.
And to you who are troubled, rest with us.
When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power, when he shall come to be glorified in his saints and to be admired in all them that believe, because our testimony among you was believed in that day.
You know what that tells us?
That tells us that these Christians were being persecuted and the question was, when are you going to take vengeance on the persecutors?
And in this church, the answer was, verse seven, when?
When the Lord comes back.
There's an answer.
When the Lord returns.
The Lord will avenge the persecutors.
Now it might not happen on this earth, but he will avenge those that persecute his people.
All right?
Now here's the other thing I want you to see as we finish, is this.
On the idea of persecution, there is nowhere in the New Testament in which a Christian is permitted to persecute another on the basis of their faith or of what they do.
You think, well, there might be one except, no, there's no exceptions, except for this.
The idea of church discipline.
You know, when someone sins in a public, in an obvious way, and the church has to discipline, that is disfellowship a person, put them out of the church and refuse to fellowship with them, that's not persecution.
First of all, they did the deed.
Number two, you are not bringing harm upon them, physically speaking, you are simply keeping them out of the body to protect the body.
That's not persecution.
So there's literally no grounds for the idea that a Christian should ever persecute someone else, even if they disagree with you, even if they're a Mormon or Jehovah's Witness.
We do not persecute other people.
This is a biblical principle, and it is a Baptist principle, because those two go together.
That's kind of the idea.
But there's one other case in which a Christian might do something to, you say, harm another person, and that's in the case of, in which a person does an unlawful deed, and the Christian uses a legal remedy for protection, which is the purpose of civil government.
But that's also not persecution.
It is never permitted for a believer in Christ to persecute another.
And we might say it like this, following our text here, which we'll have to pick up later, is this, we do not dig pits for other people.
Amen.
We do not dig pits for other people.
That is not permitted.
That is just not permitted.
And I know this is not a problem, but when you see the New Testament church, you know what you find?
You find they are always the ones suffering persecution.
But the problem is, if you look at, especially in the Protestant Reformation, what you find is those who were persecuted then turned into the persecutors.
Face palm, right?
But that is not permitted in the New Testament.
And I've come out of time, so we'll have to stop there.
