Psalms 119:53 - Time Changer

Hidden Treasures of the 119th Psalm. Verse 53, today we get to dig around in our quest today in the Zion section of the 119th Psalm and verse 53 is loaded with zions and when you think about this whole idea of the Zion and a sword, not only does it start with a Zion, it has zions throughout it and I think you're going to feel fairly cut up by the time you hear this verse, which doesn't have any words but it has plenty of power in it. It says, horror hath taken a hold upon me because of the wicked that forsake thy law. So as you might guess, horror, that word, it starts with a Zion like every verse in the Zion section and then I also think it's really helpful again to lay that template of Isaiah 11's seven anointings of the Holy Spirit.

Again, when you read Isaiah 11, the first and third verses show you the seven different anointings and so this anointing is the anointing of knowledge and so there's really something to learn here and when you lay that template over it, all this cutting, then you begin to see that there's something to learn. In fact, this is kind of something I've been learning and I'm sure I'm still struggling with it but the idea that when people act a way that is lawless, I mean, it just absolutely freaks you out and you can see that this is what's happened here but there's more than that because the word horror here is used, it's quoted from Lamentations where Jeremiah had said that horror was caused based on this horrible famine that their skin was like as black as ovens. Well, you know, that's pretty horrible.

I mean, it's amazingly horrible. In fact, I can't say that I've ever been in that kind of horror over this type of a situation but the beauty of it is the psalmist has been and so I think there's something to learn here. So this horror had taken a hold of him because of the wicked that clearly have forsaken and then here comes the operating word, thy law. Now, the beautiful thing in Hebrew is the way that thy law is pointed out and so what's God's been teaching me, he started teaching me in Pilgrim's Progress when the worldly wise men, I anticipated to be gold and silver and money and all that but if you remember, hopefully you've read Pilgrim's Progress, but if you haven't, when Christian reaches worldly wise men, worldly wise men is teaching morals, right?

Because those people who think that they earn their way into heaven, that's the wisdom of the world and so the wisdom of the and so when we attach morals without Jesus, right? We give the impression that you can earn your way into heaven and so when it says thy law, it's really, really important that the psalmist does that and I'm going to share what I've learned that there's this wonderful movie by Rich Cristiano. He's done a couple movies with Gavin McLeod before he passed away. Gavin McLeod was the star of The Love Boat who you may not know is a fabulous Christian. I got to interview him one time and he's got an amazing story.

Yeah, he has an amazing story and hopefully we'll all get to hear it in heaven anyway. So, in this movie, it's called Time Changer and what's happened is that these are seminary professors that you're going to hear in this clip. They're seminary professors in the 1800s, okay? And they're arguing over a book that this professor has written talking about morals and using morals to get people to act right would be good for society and they're suggesting in some ways that even without the biblical application of that, that that's still good. So, here you're going to hear Gavin McLeod's argument to that and I think there's a lot of knowledge right here that we don't necessarily see but the psalmist saw it really clearly.

How often do we read where the prophets first say, thus saith the Lord before they speak? Yes, Norris. However, these moral standards taught universally would greatly benefit social behavior.

Gentlemen, gentlemen, please hear me. Satan is not against good morals. He is opposed to Jesus Christ. A man can have good morals his entire life, yet you and I know he will go to hell when he dies. It is Jesus Christ that everyone needs and the devil knows this more than all of us.

Dr. Anderson. Satan's goal is to remove the name of Christ from his commands and when we do this, people are deceived into thinking that if they live a good life, they will receive God's approval and attain heaven. I think we can use morals to attract people to the Lord.

Yes, but the ultimate issue in Christianity is the authority of Christ and the devil is attacking this authority by convincing us to teach morals alone. So, in the movie Time Changer, which I recommend, you can see it on Pure Flix, the whole movie is about this and if you watch this character, what happens is Gavin McCloud's character sends him ahead in time. He's from the 1800s and he ends up in the 20th century.

I think it's in the 1990s. Anyway, this guy is full of horror. I mean, you can see, I mean, if there's an example of somebody being filled with horror, I mean, he goes into a movie, they use God's name in vain and he's screaming all over the place. I mean, it's quite comical almost, but you can certainly see that, oh man, I don't have what this guy had because I've been like the frog in the hot water, just getting hotter and hotter and hotter, but the psalmist sees this. And so, there's wisdom here and then I just absolutely love with this piece of understanding, if you look at the way in Hebrew that it says thy law, okay, because at the end of it, it doesn't just say law, it says thy law and he's quoting the source and what the critical aspect of it is, is that, you know, there's this tav, which means the end of the story. So, this is why Time Changer is so beautiful to this understanding of knowledge, is knowledge, you know, once the end of the story comes, we'll know what in the world has been going on, right? And so, the word torah, which means law, it begins with this tav, right? And because again, at the end, we'll understand the law itself, because it all become very clear to us what all it was, you know, but as the word progresses, you know, torah, and that you can see that it's expressed, well, when you say your law, then you put another tav at the end of it, that means of you, so that extra tav is like saying of, and then when you put, it's the letter kuf, and it's really beautiful because there's a final form of the letter kuf, when you put it at the end of a word, then you're actually saying that this is your stuff, right?

And the way that this works is like there's a line that goes across and down, and it's showing that this is coming down from heaven like a king, which the whole idea of the letter kuf has to do with kingship, and so like the king comes down to give his servant something, all right? Which is critical to understanding that the Torah is not something that we invented or nor is the, you know, the whole moral thing. It's very, very clearly a piece of wisdom that comes in very, very wonderfully as we apply this verse to see that, oh my goodness, when somebody's disobeying the law, that's one thing, but when they're disobeying God, you know, that's something that really is going to lead to some horror.

It's going to lead to their skin being black as an oven, right? This is the kind of horror, and believe me, when you look in these words and all these zions, you can see things are being cut up, and I couldn't help but think of, you know, Peter, you know, that night in the garden, horror had grabbed hold of him because, I mean, they literally were taking the law, I mean, they, you know, and so he whipped out the sword and he was all there, but the good news is we know at the end of the story that Jesus put the ear back on the servant, right? And that he was there to take away, you know, where we had transgressed the law. I mean, it's absolutely a beautiful thing, and as you meditate on this verse, you know, just, I think it's really wonderful to think that, gee, when we tell somebody something's wrong, it's really good, like Gavin McLeod offers here, to quote the source, right? The source of this stuff is Christ, that without him, we don't have a chance at heaven. It's a beautiful thought today in 119 Psalm.