Psalms 119: 4th Review - Order My Steps

This is the Truth Network. You know, order my steps in your word that not any inequity would have dominion over me, so I love to ask God where do we want to go in his word, and I did that this morning. And he sent me, interestingly, as we were still in this review, I thought we might be going back to Philippians, but no, he said he wanted me to go to John chapter 5. And you might remember that John chapter 5 has to do with the paralytic that is at the pool of Bethesda, and I don't know that I ever noted, like I did this morning, that that pool of Bethesda has to do with a house, Beth being in Hebrew, the house, and chesed, the house of God's loving kindness. And so the paralytic found himself there at the sheep gate, right, and of course, if we just finish the 119th Psalm, we, like lice sheep, have gone astray, so a good place to be when you're a paralytic is in the, right outside the sheep gate in the house of God's loving kindness, and of course, Jesus approaches this man and asks him this question that we're all very familiar with, or I hope you're familiar with, where he said, essentially, do you want me to make you sound, or do you want me to make you whole? And it's a fascinating question, and of course, immediately as I looked at that this morning it asked that exact same thing for me, like God was saying, Robbie, do you want to be made whole?

And so as I thought about that, I was looking for where that word might be found in Hebrew, that I could study it, because when I went to the Greek, I found nothing there that really grabbed me, and so I was like, well, where might that be in Hebrew? And so I thought and thought about, you know, similar to Jesus, where there might be a healing in the Old Testament, and so I recall that what I call Elisha, some people call Elijah, however you want to say it, it's Elijah's disciple that was very much like Christ, you right, remember he was plowing with the 12 oxen, and you know, he followed John the Baptist so to speak, since Elijah was that picture, and there's so many ideas that Elisha is very much like Christ, and he was the one who does some healing in the Old Testament, and you might remember the story that's in 2 Kings 5, where there was this general of the Assyrian army who had leprosy, and he went to the king of Israel and sent him a note, of course the king of Israel had nothing, and so then Elisha sent him a note, he actually went to Elisha, Elisha sent him a note, he didn't come outside and wave the magic wand over him or anything else, he just sent him this note, and in that note it said that he was to go wash himself in the Jordan seven times, and he would be made, his flesh would be made new, where his flesh would be restored, and so as I thought about that, it's not unlike the situation where he would be made sound, and so that word became very important to me, like what was the word that Elisha used in this particular scenario? And so the word that he used is shuvah, and in Hebrew the word shuvah has to do very much with the prodigal son, because the idea is repentance, like it's going to be made new, and so when the prodigal son was in the pig pen and he turned back towards the father at the point he turned back, that is shuvah, that is the idea of returning. And so it's really really cool, and this has everything to do with the 119th Psalm, and that's how we go from 2 Kings 5 over to Genesis chapter 3, because what did God say to Adam after he sinned, that he is nothing but dust, and you might have heard me, I've done several shows in the past on being butt dust, and the idea of being butt dust is you're going to return to the dust. And I thought, oh my goodness, I'd never seen this before in Genesis, like I saw it so clearly this morning, that oh my goodness, that what's happening there is they are dying, right?

You said when you're returned to dust, you're dying, it's like you must be born again, you must do shuvah, you've got to return to the dust so that you can be born again. And so when you think about what he was told to do, to go wash in the Jordan seven times, that idea of washing in the Jordan seven times has everything to do with repentance. Because here's this guy, when you really think about his deal, he was arrogant as he could be. In other words, he was mad because Elisha didn't come out and wave his magic wand, he was mad at the king of Israel because he didn't do anything. And again, he was being told to go wash in the Jordan and he wasn't going to do it.

But his servant said, well, look, you might give it a try, so to speak. So he does this and in order to do that, right, he's got to return to God to whatever extent, right? You've got to follow the commandments that you believe that came from God. And so as he goes into the Jordan, the seven times can help it remind you of the Shin section where it says seven times a day, I praise you because of your righteous judgment. I'm talking about in the 119th Psalm, right, where seven times a day, I will praise you because of your righteous judgment. Well, the idea of shuvah is it starts with that letter Shin. And once again, we're right there to this point of repentance has everything to do with shuvah, which has to do with the letter Shin. And the really, really neat thing that the Jews teach and Jesus taught on such a level, it's unbelievable when he taught the story of the prodigal son, that the idea of the Baal teshuvah, the master of the return, right?

And the Baal teshuvah has a greater seat at the table than does the Zaddik. And we talked about the Zaddik being the righteous one. And so the righteous one was the older brother, right? He was arrogant.

They had all those issues. But his son, his brother, excuse me, his brother, the one that actually was Baal teshuvah, master of return, ended up with a better seat at the table and actually got the fatted cat and all that because he had overcome his evil inclination. And he realized at a deep level, the love of the father that unfortunately the older brother had not yet realized that though, you know, the older brother still has the idea of he can do shuvah and he can end up seeing how much the father would love him, would he return in the same way. But what the Jews teach about the Baal teshuvah, in other words, the master of the return, the word Baal, meaning master, was that the Messiah himself would be the ultimate Baal teshuvah. And the idea being that the Messiah would have this at a level that's never been seen before. And that picture is Jesus completely because, as we talked about before, Jesus came back from the dead.

Talk about a return. He came back from the dead after taking on the sin of the world. I mean, there's no bigger Baal teshuvah in all the world than would be Jesus. And so such is the picture of Christ.

And so glaringly pictured right here as we see this idea of shuvah and the seven times a day. And one of the beautiful things to note on the story in 2 Kings chapter 5 is he told him to go wash himself in the Jordan seven times. Well, the Jordan, I don't know if you've ever thought about what the word Jordan means, but it means to go down in Hebrew, okay? Because the Jordan goes down to what? The Dead Sea. And so as we go down in the baptismal waters, wherever you've been baptized, I'm going to bed anything or I'm going to hope that they said you're buried in the likeness of his death and raised to walk in newness and life. I mean, it's an amazing thing that Jordan River goes down to the Dead Sea, but it goes up to Galilee, okay?

It's just the way it goes. So if you think about this idea of having the opportunity seven times to wash himself, you can't help but see how the 119th Psalm comes so clearly into play as we're studying this idea of what Jesus said to the paralytic, right? That do you want to be made sound?

Well, here's how. Essentially, shuvah, which means in this case so much that we've got to return to the dust. Just like it said in the beginning verse of the Dalit section, you might remember King David said, my soul cleaves unto the dust, quicken thou me according to thy word. In other words, when he cleaved to the dust is what you're dying. And to be quickened is being made alive again. Here's how we get born again. And so at the point in time that we die to ourselves, he who loses his life for my sake will find it. Thanks for listening.