Meditations in Psalm 119
Tau (LITV)
169 Let my cry come near You, O Jehovah; give me wisdom according to Your word. 170 Let my prayer come before You; deliver me according to Your word. 171 My lips shall pour forth praise when You have taught me Your statutes. 172 My tongue shall answer Your word, for all Your commands are righteousness. 173 Let Your hand help me; for I have chosen Your precepts. 174 I have longed for Your salvation, O Jehovah; and Your law is my delight. 175 Let my soul live and it will praise You; and let Your judgments help me. 176 I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek Your servant; for I do not forget Your commandments.
“Let my cry come near You, O Jehovah; give me wisdom according to Your word.” Psalm 119:169
What do we ask of God when we come to Him in prayer? Do we ask for the blessings of this world or for blessings which are eternal?
When offered of God blessings and riches, young King Solomon wisely requested wisdom from the LORD God (1 Kings 3:5ff.).
And how important it is for us to gain wisdom and understanding in the ways of the LORD! It is the LORD who gives wisdom and understanding – He opens up our eyes that we might see and understand the Word of God and receive in faith its eternal truths.
The Bible says: “Happy is the man who finds wisdom, and the man who gets understanding. For its profit is better than the gain from silver, and its increase more than fine gold; she is more precious than rubies, and all the things you can desire are not to be compared with her” (Prov. 3:13-15). It also says: “Jehovah gives wisdom; out of His mouth are knowledge and understanding” (Prov. 2:6).
Since wisdom and understanding are of the LORD and come out of His mouth, the place to seek wisdom is of the LORD and from His Word.
Instead of praying to the LORD for the goods of this world, we ought first pray for wisdom and understanding according to God’s Word – that God would open up our hearts and winds and instruct us from His Word.
Again, the Bible says: “But you keep on in what you learned and were assured of, knowing from whom you learned, and that from a babe you know the Holy Scriptures, those being able to make you wise to salvation through belief in Christ Jesus. Every Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, so that the man of God may be perfected, fully furnished for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:14-17).
O Jehovah God, open up my eyes and heart and teach me from Your Word. Grant me wisdom and give me understanding that I may see my sinfulness and receive in faith Your mercy and forgiveness for the sake of Jesus, God the Son and my Savior. Amen.
“Let my prayer come before You; deliver me according to Your word.” Psalm 119:170
God desires that we come to Him in faith, believing that He will hear and answer our prayers for the sake of Christ Jesus, who suffered and died for our sins and rose again.
The Bible says: “And this is the confidence we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him” (1 John 5:14-15).
Because Jesus paid in full the punishment for the sins of the world when He suffered and died upon the cross, we as children of God through faith in Messiah Jesus (Gal. 3:26ff.) have the privilege of coming to God with all our prayers and petitions. And we know that He will hear us and answer us for Jesus’ sake.
Thus the psalmist prays: “Let my prayer come before You; deliver me according to Your word.”
God tells us in His Word: “Call on Me in the day of distress; and I will save you; and you shall glorify Me” (Psalm 50:15).
Not only will God hear our prayers, He promises in His Word to deliver and save us from all our distresses.
For this great privilege won for us by the shed blood of Jesus, and for God’s answers to our prayers and His deliverance from all our distresses, we give Him thanks and praise.
O Jehovah God, we come before you in prayer for the sake of Jesus (Jehovah God in the flesh come to save us). Graciously hear our prayer and grant us deliverance for the sake of Jesus, our Savior. Amen.
“My lips shall pour forth praise when You have taught me Your statutes. My tongue shall answer Your word, for all Your commands are righteousness.” Psalm 119:171-172
When we are taught of the LORD God from His Word, learn of the goodness and righteousness of His commandments, and come to know His righteous judgments – especially when we come to know and trust that though we are sinners deserving of God’s wrath and punishment, He has judged us forgiven and righteous for the sake of Jesus and His innocent sufferings and death in our stead – we have every reason to let our lips pour forth the praises of Him who so loved us that He provided for us salvation in His own Son and called us forth from the darkness and death of sin to faith and life in Messiah Jesus.
When we do not know and understand the teaching of the Holy Scriptures, we see no need to praise and glorify God. But when we see our utter sinfulness from His Word and see the richness of His love and mercy toward us in Christ Jesus, the praise pours forth. Our tongue answers God’s Word with words of praise and thanksgiving.
O LORD God, teach me Your statutes and Your judgments that I may see my sins and shortcomings and the punishment I justly deserve. But grant that I also see and place my hope and confidence in the mercy and forgiveness which you extend and give to me for the sake of Jesus’ atoning sacrifice upon the cross for the sins of all the world. Amen.
“Let Your hand help me; for I have chosen Your precepts. I have longed for Your salvation, O Jehovah; and Your law is my delight.” Psalm 119:173-174
The psalmist prays for the help of Jehovah’s hand just as we still today ask Him to deliver us from all evil and preserve us unto His heavenly and everlasting kingdom (cf. Matthew 6:9ff.).
By the gracious working of the Holy Spirit, the psalmist has chosen God’s Word and its message over the lies and deception of the world. He has come to trust in God’s grace and mercy for the sake of the promised Messiah and longs for the salvation God has so graciously promised. As a fruit of His faith in the LORD’s mercy, he delights in God’s Word.
We too have been enlightened by God’s Spirit, taught from the Word, so that we place our hope and trust in the Messiah and Savior who has come and redeemed the world. We long for the return of Christ Jesus and the salvation He has won for us – eternal life with Him in heaven.
We pray that Jehovah would uphold us and keep us in the truth faith until that day. We know our weaknesses and continual shortcomings and sins and so pray that God would graciously hold us in His hand and not let us fall away and be overcome by sin and unbelief.
And God has promised to hear and answer our prayers.
“The One having begun a good work in you will finish it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6).
“And the Lord will deliver me from every wicked work and will save me for His heavenly kingdom; to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen” ((2 Tim. 4:18).
Let Your hand help and uphold me O Jehovah, my God and Savior! I long for the salvation won for me by the Lord Jesus Christ and delight in Your holy Word. Amen.
“Let my soul live and it will praise You; and let Your judgments help me. I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek Your servant; for I do not forget Your commandments.” Psalm 119:175-176
It is our God and Savior who gave life, both physical and spiritual, at creation.
“And Jehovah God formed the man out of dust from the ground, and blew into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Gen. 2:7; cf. John 1:4).
He has also raised up our souls to life through the preaching of the good news that in Messiah Jesus all our sins are paid for in full and forgiven.
Jesus said: “Truly, truly, I say to you, the one who hears My word, and believes the One who has sent Me, has everlasting life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. Truly, truly, I say to you that an hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and the ones hearing will live. For even as the Father has life in Himself, so He gave also to the Son to have life in Himself” (John 5:24-26).
Though we all, like lost sheep, have gone astray, God laid all our sins upon Jesus and punished Him in our stead that we might have forgiveness for all sins and life everlasting (cf. Isaiah 53:6). And God searched for us and found us, calling us to repentance and faith in Messiah Jesus.
It is also God who keeps our souls alive, by the Word bringing us to see our sins and to repent, trusting in the shed blood of Christ for forgiveness and a place in God’s everlasting kingdom. He also teaches and guides us through the Word so that we know what is good and pleasing to Him.
When God gives life to our souls and preserves in us that faith and life, our souls praise Him for so loving us that He gave His only-begotten Son to redeem us. We praise Him for His loving-kindness toward us in Jesus.
O LORD God, keep us ever trusting in You and walking in Your ways. Let us never turn from Your Word but hold fast to it. When we go astray, seek us out and restore us. Let our souls live that we may praise You forever and ever. We pray in the name of Christ Jesus our Savior. Amen.
From the Lutheran Confessions
Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration
V. Law and Gospel
1] As the distinction between the Law and the Gospel is a special brilliant light, which serves to the end that God’s Word may be rightly divided, and the Scriptures of the holy prophets and apostles may be properly explained and understood, we must guard it with especial care, in order that these two doctrines may not be mingled with one another, or a law be made out of the Gospel, whereby the merit of Christ is obscured and troubled consciences are robbed of their comfort, which they otherwise have in the holy Gospel when it is preached genuinely and in its purity, and by which they can support themselves in their most grievous trials against the terrors of the Law.
2] Now, here likewise there has occurred a dissent among some theologians of the Augsburg Confession; for the one side asserted that the Gospel is properly not only a preaching of grace, but at the same time also a preaching of repentance, which rebukes the greatest sin, namely, unbelief. But the other side held and contended that the Gospel is not properly a preaching of repentance or of reproof [preaching of repentance, convicting sin], as that properly belongs to God’s Law, which reproves all sins, and therefore unbelief also; but that the Gospel is properly a preaching of the grace and favor of God for Christ’s sake, through which the unbelief of the converted, which previously inhered in them, and which the Law of God reproved, is pardoned and forgiven.
3] Now, when we consider this dissent aright, it has been caused chiefly by this, that the term Gospel is not always employed and understood in one and the same sense, but in two ways, in the Holy Scriptures, as also by ancient and modern church teachers. 4] For sometimes it is employed so that there is understood by it the entire doctrine of Christ, our Lord, which He proclaimed in His ministry upon earth, and commanded to be proclaimed in the New Testament, and hence comprised in it the explanation of the Law and the proclamation of the favor and grace of God, His heavenly Father, as it is written, Mark 1:1: The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And shortly afterwards the chief heads are stated: Repentance and forgiveness of sins. Thus, when Christ after His resurrection commanded the apostles to preach the Gospel in all the world, Mark 16:15, He compressed the sum of this doctrine into a few words, when He said, Luke 24:46,47: Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day; and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations. So Paul, too, calls his entire doctrine the Gospel, Acts 20:21; but he embraces the sum of this doctrine under the two heads: Repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. 5] And in this sense the generalis definitio, that is, the description of the word Gospel, when employed in a wide sense and without the proper distinction between the Law and the Gospel is correct, when it is said that the Gospel is a preaching of repentance and the remission of sins. For John, Christ, and the apostles began their preaching with repentance and explained and urged not only the gracious promise of the forgiveness of sins, but also the Law of God. 6] Furthermore the term Gospel is employed in another, namely, in its proper sense, by which it comprises not the preaching of repentance, but only the preaching of the grace of God, as follows directly afterwards, Mark 1:15, where Christ says: Repent, and believe the Gospel.
7] Likewise the term repentance also is not employed in the Holy Scriptures in one and the same sense. For in some passages of Holy Scripture it is employed and taken for the entire conversion of man, as Luke 13:5: Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. And in 15:7: Likewise joy shalt be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth. 8] But in this passage, Mark 1:15, as also elsewhere, where repentance and faith in Christ, Acts 20:21, or repentance and remission of sins, Luke 24:46-47, are mentioned as distinct, to repent means nothing else than truly to acknowledge sins, to be heartily sorry for them, and to desist from them. 9] This knowledge comes from the Law, but is not sufficient for saving conversion to God, if faith in Christ be not added, whose merits the comforting preaching of the holy Gospel offers to all penitent sinners who are terrified by the preaching of the Law. For the Gospel proclaims the forgiveness of sins, not to coarse and secure hearts, but to the bruised or penitent, Luke 4:18. And lest repentance or the terrors of the Law turn into despair, the preaching of the Gospel must be added, that it may be a repentance unto salvation, 2 Cor. 7:10.
10] For since the mere preaching of the Law, without Christ, either makes presumptuous men, who imagine that they can fulfill the Law by outward works, or forces them utterly to despair, Christ takes the Law into His hands, and explains it spiritually, Matt. 5:21ff ; Rom. 7:14 and Rom 1:18, and thus reveals His wrath from heaven upon all sinners, and shows how great it is; whereby they are directed to the Law, and from it first learn to know their sins aright-a knowledge which Moses never could extort from them. For as the apostle testifies, 2 Cor. 3:14f, even though Moses is read, yet the veil which he put over his face is never lifted, so that they cannot understand the Law spiritually, and how great things it requires of us, and how severely it curses and condemns us because we cannot observe or fulfil it. Nevertheless, when it shalt turn to the Lord, the veil shalt be taken away, 2 Cor. 3:16.
11] Therefore the Spirit of Christ must not only comfort, but also through the office of the Law reprove the world of sin, John 16:8, and thus must do in the New Testament, as the prophet says, Is. 28:21, opus alienum, ut faciat opus proprium, that is, He must do the work of another (reprove), in order that He may [afterwards] do His own work, which is to comfort and preach of grace. For to this end He was earned [from the Father] and sent to us by Christ, and for this reason, too, He is called the Comforter, as Dr. Luther has explained in his exposition of the Gospel for the Fifth Sunday after Trinity, in the following words:
12] Anything that preaches concerning our sins and God’s wrath, let it be done how or when it will, that is all a preaching of the Law. Again, the Gospel is such a preaching as shows and gives nothing else than grace and forgiveness in Christ, although it is true and right that the apostles and preachers of the Gospel (as Christ Himself also did) confirm the preaching of the Law, and begin it with those who do not yet acknowledge their sins nor are terrified at [by the sense of] God’s wrath; as He says, John 16:8: 13] “The Holy Ghost will reprove the world of sin because they believe not on Me.” Yea, what more forcible, more terrible declaration and preaching of God’s wrath against sin is there than just the suffering and death of Christ, His Son? But as long as all this preaches God’s wrath and terrifies men, it is not yet the preaching of the Gospel nor Christ’s own preaching, but that of Moses and the Law against the impenitent. For the Gospel and Christ were never ordained and given for the purpose of terrifying and condemning, but of comforting and cheering those who are terrified and timid. And again: Christ says, John 16:8: “The Holy Ghost will reprove the world of sin”; which cannot be done except through the explanation of the Law. Jena, Tom. 2, fol. 455.
14] So, too, the Smalcald Articles say: The New Testament retains and urges the office of the Law, which reveals sins and God’s wrath; but to this office it immediately adds the promise of grace through the Gospel.
15] And the Apology says: To a true and salutary repentance the preaching of the Law alone is not sufficient, but the Gospel should be added thereto. Therefore the two doctrines belong together, and should also be urged by the side of each other, but in a definite order and with a proper distinction; and the Antinomians or assailants of the Law are justly condemned, who abolish the preaching of the Law from the Church, and wish sins to be reproved, and repentance and sorrow to be taught, not from the Law, but from the Gospel.
16] But in order that every one may see that in the dissent of which we are treating we conceal nothing, but present the matter to the eyes of the Christian reader plainly and clearly:
17] Therefore [we shall set forth our meaning:] we unanimously believe, teach, and confess that the Law is properly a divine doctrine, in which the righteous, immutable will of God is revealed, what is to be the quality of man in his nature, thoughts, words, and works, in order that he may be pleasing and acceptable to God; and it threatens its transgressors with God’s wrath and temporal and eternal punishments. For as Luther writes against the law-stormers [Antinomians]: Everything that reproves sin is and belongs to the Law, whose peculiar office it is to reprove sin and to lead to the knowledge of sins, Rom. 3:20,7:7; and as unbelief is the root and well-spring of all reprehensible sins [all sins that must be censured and reproved], the Law reproves unbelief also.
18] However, this is true likewise that the Law with its doctrine is illustrated and explained by the Gospel; and nevertheless it remains the peculiar office of the Law to reprove sins and teach concerning good works.
19] Thus, the Law reproves unbelief, [namely,] when men do not believe the Word of God. Now, since the Gospel, which alone properly teaches and commands to believe in Christ, is God’s Word, the Holy Ghost, through the office of the Law, also reproves unbelief, that men do not believe in Christ, although it is properly the Gospel alone which teaches concerning saving faith in Christ.
20] However, now that man has not kept the Law of God, but transgressed it, his corrupt nature, thoughts, words, and works fighting against it, for which reason he is under God’s wrath, death, all temporal calamities, and the punishment of hell-fire, the Gospel is properly a doctrine which teaches what man should believe, that he may obtain forgiveness of sins with God, namely, that the Son of God, our Lord Christ, has taken upon Himself and borne the curse of the Law, has expiated and paid for all our sins, through whom alone we again enter into favor with God, obtain forgiveness of sins by faith, are delivered from death and all the punishments of sins, and eternally saved.
21] For everything that comforts, that offers the favor and grace of God to transgressors of the Law, is, and is properly called, the Gospel, a good and joyful message that God will not punish sins, but forgive them for Christ’s sake.
22] Therefore every penitent sinner ought to believe, that is, place his confidence in the Lord Christ alone, that He was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification, Rom. 4:25, that He was made sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him, 2 Cor. 5:21, who of God is made unto us Wisdom, and Righteousness, and Sanctification, and Redemption, 1 Cor. 1:30, whose obedience is counted to us for righteousness before God’s strict tribunal, so that the Law, as above set forth, is a ministration that kills through the letter and preaches condemnation, 2 Cor. 3:7, but the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, Rom. 1:16, that preaches righteousness and gives the Spirit, 1 Cor. 1:18; Gal. 3:2. As Dr. Luther has urged this distinction with especial diligence in nearly all his writings, and has properly shown that the knowledge of God derived from the Gospel is far different from that which is taught and learned from the Law, because even the heathen to a certain extent had a knowledge of God from the natural law, although they neither knew Him aright nor glorified Him aright, Rom. 1:20f.
23] From the beginning of the world these two proclamations [kinds of doctrines] have been ever and ever inculcated alongside of each other in the Church of God, with a proper distinction. For the descendants of the venerated patriarchs, as also the patriarchs themselves, not only called to mind constantly how in the beginning man had been created righteous and holy by God, and through the fraud of the Serpent had transgressed God’s command, had become a sinner, and had corrupted and precipitated himself with all his posterity into death and eternal condemnation, but also encouraged and comforted themselves again by the preaching concerning the Seed of the Woman, who would bruise the Serpent’s head, Gen. 3:15; likewise, concerning the Seed of Abraham, in whom all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, Gen. 22:18; likewise, concerning David’s Son, who should restore again the kingdom of Israel and be a light to the heathen, Ps. 110:1; Is. 49:6; Luke 2:32, who was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities, by whose stripes we are healed, Is. 53:5.
24] These two doctrines, we believe and confess, should ever and ever be diligently inculcated in the Church of God even to the end of the world, although with the proper distinction of which we have heard, in order that, through the preaching of the Law and its threats in the ministry of the New Testament the hearts of impenitent men may be terrified, and brought to a knowledge of their sins and to repentance; but not in such a way that they lose heart and despair in this process, but that (since the Law is a schoolmaster unto Christ that we might be justified by faith, Gal. 3:24, and thus points and leads us not from Christ, but to Christ, who is the end of the Law, Rom. 10:4) 25] they be comforted and strengthened again by the preaching of the holy Gospel concerning Christ, our Lord, namely, that to those who believe the Gospel, God forgives all their sins through Christ, adopts them as children for His sake, and out of pure grace, without any merit on their part, justifies and saves them, however, not in such a way that they may abuse the grace of God, 26] and sin hoping for grace, as Paul, 2 Cor. 3:7ff , thoroughly and forcibly shows the distinction between the Law and the Gospel.
27] Now, in order that both doctrines, that of the Law and that of the Gospel, be not mingled and confounded with one another, and what belongs to the one may not be ascribed to the other, whereby the merit and benefits of Christ are easily obscured and the Gospel is again turned into a doctrine of the Law, as has occurred in the Papacy, and thus Christians are deprived of the true comfort which they have in the Gospel against the terrors of the Law, and the door is again opened in the Church of God to the Papacy, therefore the true and proper distinction between the Law and the Gospel must with all diligence be inculcated and preserved, and whatever gives occasion for confusion inter legem et evangelium (between the Law and the Gospel), that is, whereby the two doctrines, Law and Gospel, may be confounded and mingled into one doctrine, should be diligently prevented. It is, therefore, dangerous and wrong to convert the Gospel, properly so called, as distinguished from the Law, into a preaching of repentance or reproof [a preaching of repentance, reproving sin]. For otherwise, if understood in a general sense of the entire doctrine, also the Apology says several times that the Gospel is a preaching of repentance and the forgiveness of sins. Meanwhile, however, the Apology also shows that the Gospel is properly the promise of the forgiveness of sins and of justification through Christ, but that the Law is a doctrine which reproves sins and condemns.
Bible Study in Preparation for Sunday
Scripture Readings for Sunday are: Psalm 119:169-176; Isaiah 64:1-9; 1 Corinthians 1:3-9; and Mark 13:24-37. Please read them in their context as you prepare for worship on Sunday.
The Adult Bible Class is studying St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians, at chapter 5, verse 22ff.
Remember to Pray
Remember to pray for our church and for all our members, that none be lost to Christ’s kingdom but that all continue in repentance and be strengthened and built up in the true and saving faith in Christ Jesus through the hearing and study of His Word. We pray for God’s healing and strengthening of our congregation, as well as for God’s help with our church’s financial needs. We continue to pray for all who have been sick or who are suffering among us – for Sam Rusch who has been sick and hospitalized numerous times; for Bonnie Hawes, who is recovering from heart surgery; for those who have been absent from us, for our extended families and for believers who are alone and have no congregation. Continue to pray for Lutheran congregations and believers around the world who are persecuted or suffering for their faith in Christ Jesus.
Events and Announcements
Advent Worship begins next Wednesday, Nov. 30, with a soup and sandwich supper at 6:20 p.m. and worship at 7 p.m.
On-line video of worship services can be found at: http://goodshepherdrogers.org/blog/worship-service-video.
Information for bulletins or newsletters may be sent to Pastor Moll by calling him at 479-233-0081 or by e-mail at pastor@goodshepherdrogers.org.
Psalm 14 – To the chief musician. A Psalm of David.
1 The fool has said in his heart, There is no God! They acted corruptly; they did hatefully in deeds; there is none doing good. 2 Jehovah looked down from Heaven on the sons of mankind, to see if there were any discerning and seeking God: 3 they have all turned aside; together they have become filthy; there is none doing good; not even one! 4 Have all evildoers not known, eating My people as they eat bread? They have not called on Jehovah. 5 There they were afraid of terror, for God is in the righteous generation. 6 You have shamed the counsel of the afflicted, for Jehovah is his refuge. 7 Who will bring the salvation of Israel out of Zion? When Jehovah brings back the captivity of His people, Jacob shall rejoice; Israel shall be glad.