Psalms 119:157 Knowlege Of The Enemy

Hidden Treasures of the 119th Song. Digging around today in the knowledge anointing of the letter Resh, with again the letter Resh being this idea of the beginning or the head of a river, but also the chooser to some extent as where the beginning goes is where the river follows after that.

So it's really a spectacular thing that we're going to get some knowledge that we are going to get some knowledge. Along those lines today in verse 157, it reads in English, many are my persecutors and mine enemies, yet I do not decline from thy testimonies. So as is the case in each of the verses, the word that starts with Resh, that would be the clue to what the Psalmist is trying to get us to understand the knowledge that's here. The word many is a way that's translated, but I would perhaps suggest he meant to say more in English if I was to translate it the word great.

If you look at that word in Hebrew, you'll see that many times it's translated great, and certainly in the book of Genesis it's always translated as great. And the idea of there are persecutors are great. In other words, from a standpoint of firepower, Satan has a whole lot more firepower than we do.

That's why we so desperately need God. So great are our persecutors and our enemies. And that word persecutors, by the way, is also the same word that's in the 23rd Psalm where it says, Surely goodness and mercy will follow me. Well, that idea of persecution there is actually, these people are dogging you, or Satan is dogging you, chasing you in pursuit, hot pursuit, actually. And so here you have these great, and believe me when I tell you that this is a critical part of, to me, a knowledge that is very useful in my life to know that Satan hates us, especially hates God. And so when he sees his glory, God's glory, well up in us, it's kind of like whack-a-mole.

He is going to do everything he can to get you to hide and find ways and angles in order to make you wish you hadn't come out of your foxhole. So he is a great persecutor, which is that whole picture that John Eldredge paints so beautifully of the love story that's in the midst of a great battle. We can see that, and so clearly that's taught throughout the Scriptures. And here we see that this enemy is dogging us and pursuing us, and you don't have to go through many days in this life to realize that this stuff happens. And so the beautiful thing is, the second part of the verse is, Yes, I do not decline from thy testimonies. And why that's so critical in this understanding of knowledge from my perspective is that idea of decline is kind of like a tent that would get staked.

In other words, there's some tension there or a bow that would be strung. And so in other words, if you get the picture of your tent stakes are down in the ground on these testimonies. In other words, you know that God comes through for his bride every single time without fail. He is there to help us if we turn to him. And so by saying, you know, no matter how hard they pursue, you know, we are still, the anchor is going to hold, right? We still have this tension on the fact that we know that these testimonies, essentially, this is a New and Old Testament, but in so many different ways, it's your own testimony, how God has come through for you time and time and time again. And so as we see these persecutions coming, however they may come, because you do have a great enemy and he is pursuing you like a dog would pursue his prey.

Yet we can just fasten ourselves to these stakes. And so is this, you know, my picture. I was thinking of a story and I couldn't help but remember when they discovered all the money missing at the dealership. This was back in 2007. And I had this wonderful CPA by the name of Lisa McDonald, who came in, she was helping me. And when she realized what had happened with the payroll taxes and all that, and she said, Robbie, we've got to go to the IRS, we got to go to the State Department of Revenue, and we got to tell them all this.

And when we do, they are going to be out here with guns and badges. And they're going to be doing an investigation. And believe me, at that point in time, I was being pursued in so many different ways, being investigated in so many ways. But I could still just hold on to the I knew that I had not taken the money. And I also knew that I had no idea that the payroll taxes weren't being paid.

I had no idea that the state wasn't getting paid what it was supposed to be paid. And I knew in my heart that that was the truth. And whatever happened, I was willing to let go of that because I knew that that was what and so it was interesting that I could just anytime I began to panic about what was going on, I was like, well, God is with me.

He always comes after his bride, I know what the truth is. And I know where my anchor will hold. And whatever God has in mind through this, it's going to be okay. And I can still, you know, I think about the tension of that particular time, when so many people were apparently coming after me.

When in our reality, they were being driven by a lie, that they did not understand what the truth was. But if the truth came out, you know, it all was resolved to some extent, of course, the money still has to be replaced. We're still dealing with that. But you know, he's a great enemy. And he's coming after us with all he's got. But the beautiful thing is, if we really can put our tent stakes right there in the fact that Jesus got this, has this, he is your bridegroom, and everything is going to come out in the end. We know that. And so beautiful verse, a wonderful understanding, this knowledge, this understanding that yeah, we have great enemies, because we're in the midst of a great war and, and but there's this great love story going on. And you are the prize in so many different ways. So thanks for listening.