Hidden Treasures of Psalms 119 - Testimonies

Hidden Treasures of the 119th Psalm.

So, we are going on a treasure hunt, and the gold we are seeking in this treasure hunt is actually the face of God, pure light. And how fun to actually mine this treasure with King David, a man who sought God with his whole heart and his understanding of God's expression of the Hebrew language itself as he goes through the 119th Psalm, letter by letter giving us eight verses, which the Jews teach as eight faces of each letter of expression. So, join us taking this deep dive mining with King David in the 119th Psalm. We get to do some mining again today on 119th Psalm, and I am so honored that you would join me in these deep dives.

I really enjoy digging into this and so grateful for the people that share it with me. And today, we're going to start off again still in the introduction with these ten words that we're going through one at a time, and we're up to the word testimonies today. So, in the King James Version, when you find the word testimonies in the 119th Psalm, you'll find it over and over and over again. Exactly what do they mean by that, and I think this is another place that you'll agree with me is like, wow, how cool is that?

I think you're going to be so glad you listened to this episode. The word testimonies in Hebrew, I might suppose would be pronounced eta, and it has this first letter, which is an ayin, which means it's sort of the eyewitness to something, and then you've got a dalet again, which is either a doorway or it can be a servant, but in this case, I believe it's very much a servant that's, you know, serving what it was that he witnessed and then expressing the service to the court of this is what I saw, and this is what's helpful to, again, in Acts chapter 1 where it says you're going to be my witness, you're going to receive power to be my witness. So, this idea of witness is huge, but there's something else that the Jews teach about this word that I think is amazing and really, really beautiful, that when they used the word, the way they translated it in the piece that I saw on the 119 Psalm was the word remembrance. And so, when they were keeping these particular type of things, the testimonies, they're keeping the remembrances, and so, you can imagine that for a Jew, one of the things they keep very diligently is the Sabbath, but they're remembering that God rested on the seventh day, or they're keeping a Passover, and they're remembering how God took them out of Egypt with an outstretched arm and all that is beautiful. It's beautiful. But what I found even strikingly more beautiful, and actually my boss helped me see this one time, I was doing an episode with him on his Bible study in the book of Luke, was Jesus was pretty clear on that last night when he instituted what we know as communion or the Last Supper, he said, do this in remembrance of me.

Now, like, how cool is that? Like, Jesus is taking these, and then again, at the end, when he takes the cup, this is a new covenant of my blood, do this in remembrance of me. In other words, he is instituting here something that David would speak of in the 119th Psalm, these remembrances.

And so, yes, we remember the Sabbath, and yes, we remember the Passover, but this one's added right in there is a uniquely Christian remembrance, right? So, when you see this word in the 119th Psalm the next time, believe me, you can't help but think about these remembrances and the power that they have that was described in Acts chapter 6. To be his witness, right, is one of the most powerful things that we can do, is share what Jesus, what we had an eyewitness to, that we saw Jesus do in our very own lives. These are our remembrances, and you might remember that John Bunyan in The Pilgrim's Progress, what genius it was that he would have Pilgrim, or Christian quite often, would take his testimony out of his bosom. Because his testimony, he kept close to his heart, his very own story, his very own eyewitness to what God had done in his life. And so, he was keeping this particular testimony, right, as a way to know, if God has come through from me before, and this is how precious these remembrances are, if God's come through from me before, in this situation when I had cancer, or in this situation when my daughter was fixed to get buried, or whatever it was that you saw Jesus coming, eyewitness to that, man, keep those in your heart, keep them close, like John Bunyan's Christian character, right? And pull those out the next time that you begin to become discouraged. Or, as you're going through the 119th Psalm, keep those remembrances.

So, how fun is this? As we're digging deep, again, listen to the previous episodes, on all these 10 words, there's a PDF that has all these explanations that'll help us as we go through the 119th Psalm. It's in the show notes today. And once again, I am so grateful. And if you have any questions, or you think, wow, Robbie, would you cover this? You know, my email address is always in those show notes, too. So, just email me. I would love to hear from you. So, God bless, and thanks for riding with us today on this mind train.