Hidden Treasures of Psalms 119: The Cross is The Answer

Hidden Treasures of the 119th Psalm.

So today we're changing gears as God trying to change my gears this morning. And you know, if you pray the 119th Psalm most every day for a long time, you will get some downloads that are unbelievable. And I feel like that's exactly what God has done for me. For those of us who were along on the ride on the 119th Psalm, this is insightful.

I can't even believe all that God showed me today. But I would urge you, actually, that's quite a journey to go back and listen to all those verses. I did a podcast on every verse on the 119th Psalm as we went through that. And I learned a lot. And so, you know, you may not be surprised or I know a lot more about it now than when I was doing those podcasts. And I go back and listen to them sometimes.

They go off. I only knew then what I know now. But nonetheless, you know, it was the journey and no doubt God taught me so much and what he has been continuing to teach me.

And I can't even imagine what it's going to be like in five years. But you know, one of the burning questions about the 119th Psalm are these words that are repeated time and time and time again. Specifically, the words that are repeated are commandments and the way or the path, however you want to look at it.

It's Derek and Hebrew. That's repeated numerous times. The word itself, word, is repeated numerous times and in different ways. And then there's this idea of the precepts and the idea of the statutes and the idea of the judgments and the idea of commandments. Those are repeated time and time and time again. So fascinatingly, as you go through those, we have all these letters of the Hebrew alphabet that this is going to be illustrating what those letters and how they're connected to each of those ideas of the commandments of the statutes of the precepts and testimonies. That's another word that's used throughout the 119th Psalm. What are these testimonies?

Specifically, what do they mean? Right. And so, you know, we all have an idea of what all those things are, but that is something that God has continued to teach me to make it actually simpler and simpler and simpler until I got to the point where today I want to do a podcast on what God has taught me, that essentially every one of those to its own extent is the cross. I'm not shocked because he kind of knew that that was the answer. But oh, is it the answer? And let me explain how that works. Okay. And I don't know how I'd missed this before, but God just continues to teach me this.

Right. And it started out with the idea of the commandments, right? That Jesus has, you know, all this through that, you know, essentially he himself said, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments. And if you listen, read the 119th Psalm or pray it, you can't help but come across the word commandments at time and time and time again, which is mitzvah in Hebrew. But as you think about the commandment was right, take up my cross and follow me, love one another, take up my cross and follow me.

He said that numerous times. There's a commandment for you. Well, how is a commandment like the cross? Because if you take up your cross, right, you're going to die to yourself just like Jesus did. And therein is how commandments fit into the cross.

It just clearly does. Well, I don't know if you thought about it from when I had not until actually today was, oh my goodness, you want the ultimate testimony? Like blessed are they who keep his testimonies and seek him with their whole heart. What's the ultimate testimony? Like the ultimate testimony is Jesus went to the cross to die for me.

I mean, yes, you have all those other testimonies you can keep, but here comes the ultimate one. It's the cross, right? How about let's go to judgments, right? Well, the biggest judgment of all time was that Jesus takes our judgment, right? Again, it goes back to the cross and it points to, which is fascinating, the word judgment ends with a tav, which is good, you know? And I know thy judgments are right and in faithfulness thou has afflicted me. All those things speak back to, again, that Jesus would take our judgment, right?

And nothing could be more amazing than that at the cross. Well, how about statutes? Okay, my favorite, you know, like, oh, if you'll just teach me thy statutes. Well, we know that that's a het and a kuff.

Those are the two only letters that are in the word statutes. And that het has to do with our marriage to Christ, marriage to God. And the kuff has to do with the proximity and holiness. Well, how would we be holy?

How could we get close to God? How could we be united with God if it weren't for the cross? Again, statutes are deeply, deeply connected, again, to the idea of the cross.

And so I would challenge everybody, as I've been challenged, to think about how beautiful this is. It's just absolutely amazing that if you will just go through the 119th Psalm thinking about, oh, precepts. I hadn't said about a precept. Precepts, you know, if you look, I think it's the 31st Psalm, it says, into my hands I commit my spirit. It's what Jesus said from the cross, right?

Well, when I came across this, it just lit up my world. That word commit, my spirit, that word commit is the word precept. And so that precept is that, wow, if I take up my cross and follow Jesus, I am following the ultimate precept, okay?

They all point back to that. It's just amazing how it all works. So you want some fun, just, you know, like I had a blast doing it this morning and I don't want to rob anybody of it. Just go through the whole 119 Psalm and try to see how many times you can fit the idea of dying to yourself. It's all through the, you know, the whole idea of the way, because the path is dust, okay? My soul cleaves unto the dust. It starts the path that Derek starts with the dollard, which is dust.

And how do we do it? We fall like dead so that we can, right, be brought up again. So here's a story for today that I think is remarkable. I had to go watch it. And for those of us who love Star Wars, it's right on the money, okay? Rather than tell any other story, I think Hollywood's told this story better than anybody could ever imagine. If you go back and watch this scene and see what Hollywood was unknowingly showing us about the statutes, about the precepts, about the commandments, about all this stuff is all wrapped up in about a 30 second little movie clip right here, okay? So what happens is you might know that Darth Vader is the ultimate betrayer, not unlike Satan, right?

Not unlike Adam. He's gone over to the dark side for the time being anyway. And we know that that's those of us who know anything about Star Wars. No, he's the bad guy. He's got a Nazi looking helmet for a very good reason.

He's black for a very good reason. You know, it's all has to do with the dark side, has to do with evil, right? And he's going to meet Obi-Wan Kenobi in the first movie in a lightsaber fight that you may be aware of. If you're not, this will still work for you listening.

You're going to love it. So Obi-Wan Kenobi at one point in time was Darth Vader's teacher. He taught him about the force. Well, as you may know, who taught Satan, right? Who's the Lord of Angel Armies?

Well, that would be Jesus. And so, you know, here you see the master and the student facing off, which we obviously got to see this, you know, when Satan tried to tempt Jesus. And so interestingly, as they meet, right, then Darth Vader boasting, as you might imagine, because he's very proud man says, Ah, now the master me, you know, when I we first met, you know, you were the student and I was a teacher, but now I'm the teacher and you're the student, right? And that's what Darth Vader says. Of course, Obi-Wan Kenobi says to this and this is absolutely spectacular. When you think about with the idea of the statutes and the precepts and all that we just talked about, Obi-Wan Kenobi says, you can't win Darth, because if you strike me down, I'll become more powerful than you could ever imagine. Well, let me just tell you that if you're ever facing Satan in any way, shape or form, you can tell him those very words, right?

You can't win. Because if I die to myself, right, you're going to swing and miss just like Darth Vader swung at Obi-Wan Kenobi, which we'll get to in a second and completely missed. In other words, if I'm dead, you can't take me out because I'm already dead. I died to myself, right? He's dead. He's gone.

Can't hurt me, right? This is so spectacular. So just follow on in the movie. If you watch for a few seconds, for whatever reason, they begin to, you know, duke it out here with their lightsabers. And then it's always seemed peculiar to me the way they did this until today I finally understood that they would start this sword fight. But then all of a sudden, as soon as Obi-Wan Kenobi recognizes that young Skywalker has entered the bay where they're fighting and sees them fighting, at that point in time, Obi-Wan Kenobi points his lightsaber up in the air almost like he's praying, and he disappears. And then Darth Vader swings, and it's a complete mess because there's no Obi-Wan Kenobi to hit. Well, I've often wondered why did he wait till Luke could see it? Well, think about it from a standpoint of the statutes and the precepts and all that other way. He was teaching young Skywalker what was necessary in order to defeat evil is to die to yourself.

Okay. It's really, really, really unbelievably cool. When you think about what Hollywood has done here, right? They've given us one little simple lesson. They've given you the statutes, the precepts, the commandments, the Derek, all sorts of different ways. Again, if you love the 119 Psalm as I do, I hope you've enjoyed this particular episode. I know there's so much to think about in all this, but I just thought you might enjoy this little trip back down the 119 Psalm lane to think about, oh man, how about these testimonies? What a testimony. How about these commandments, right?

And how simple it can be. Oh, it's wonderful. Once again, like we talked about with the disciples that God wants to share the light. He wants to continue to build the fire.

And so he sends these things out two by two. And so, so if God put it on your heart to share this podcast with somebody that loves Jesus, that somebody that loves to think deeply in Hebrew and those kinds of things, 119 Psalm, whatever it may be, that this has sparked an interest, you go, oh man, well, share it with them. Just hit the little share button on your podcast and help this spread like fire that people will see God in all this, which is my hope. And clearly I'm thankful for your listening and for your participation in our ministry. God bless.