Psalms 119:98 Made Wise By Our Enimies

Hidden Treasures of the 119th Song. So amazingly, we get to dig around in these mem verses, which again, that letter is so significant when you think about the fact that it starts the word Messiah. It is clearly a reference for Christ, but when we think about this, as we get an opportunity to see the seven faces, or excuse me, since there's eight verses, the eight faces of the letter mem.

You know, we talked about the wisdom one yesterday, which would be the first anointing. The second one is understanding, and wow, what an understanding we get a chance to look into. So verse 98 in English, which is the second verse in the mem section, it says, Thou through thy commandments has made me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever with me. And what a cool verse this is in Hebrew to look at, and the concept that really is almost mind-blowing when I discovered it some years ago, actually, that it's interesting that by, you know, just looking at how your enemy pursues you, gives you a real good idea of the value of your testimony, of the value of your walk with God. You know, where he is attacking you is quite often the place of your greatest strength, or the part that he is the most afraid of, or if you're in an event or doing something where you see, you know, him coming after you in all sorts of ways, even with your family. Like when you go to cut a Christmas tree and all of a sudden fights break out all over the place, clearly, you know, Satan is after something, and so by digging into that very thing, you can become wiser than your enemy because you can see the value of what, you know, that Satan sees or whoever your enemy is that's coming against you. As a matter of fact, you know, the Jews have taught this from this verse for a long time, and I guess the rabbi, or they call him the chief rabbi of Israel when the seven years war was going on or whatever that war was in Israel, he sent a letter to the general saying, can't you tell that our enemies are smarter than us because they're worried about, you know, all sorts of things other than our outer defenses. And so, as I said, this concept has been around and understood, but it's really, really cool to think about with your own story, right?

In your own case. And you might recall that I told in a previous episode how, you know, that I found out that my name was Faithful, that God called me Faithful. And by, you know, digging into the fact that I was always being betrayed kind of led me to the understanding that, wow, my faithfulness is what Satan has gone after. He's trying to get me to hide that because, you know, through, again, those enemies will make us wiser if we just study their point of attack. But then there's the second part of the verse, which is really, really beautiful as I meditated on it because, you know, what it says is, for they are ever with me, and my initial reading of that was whether my enemies are forever with me.

And I'm sure they were for King David, and they are for me. But more importantly, I believe, and I think since the mem has to do with the concept of more, and the concept of kingdom, is that the they that the verse is referring to are not the enemies, but the commandments. In other words, as we begin to understand more and more, love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and love thy neighbor as thyself, and all those things that are ever with us, then those commandments, through the understanding of how Satan is coming after those, is actually making us wiser than our enemies.

And a good way to look at this is, you know, what's a good example of that? So if you look in Genesis 4, you know, there's the story of Cain and Abel, and clearly, you know, Cain had made this offering, and he didn't get what he expected. His brother did, however, and so he was upset. And then the Lord came to him with this phenomenal wisdom in verse 6, and the Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry?

And why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it. So the idea here is, it's fascinating, when you study that word in Hebrew, the do well idea, is really, could also be translated exalted. In other words, to get above the situation, don't stay underneath the hammer of the affliction that Satan has you under.

Rise above it to see what is Satan coming after here, right? And what was Satan coming after in the case of Cain was his love for his brother. I mean, he was coming after the whole love your neighbor as yourself. I mean, this is a commandment that would have hopefully been with Cain, but it wasn't.

And since he couldn't rejoice in his brother's acceptance, you know, he fell into this unbelievable sin. And so when we look at what actually goes down inside of, you know, what it is that we're feeling, it's often revealed to us what our enemy is actually after. And if we can identify that and rise above it, it gives us a phenomenal leg up. It gives us wisdom, kingdom wisdom, right? And so here we have in these verses of Mem, this is a very, very wonderful understanding and something that's very applicable to our lives to see that, again, through thy commandments, he's making you wiser than your enemies. And those commandments are ever with you. Now, your enemy may be too, but one thing I'm absolutely certain is that what God has for eternity, right?

When you say, is it ever with you? Well, if it's gonna be forever, it's gotta be the commandments, not the enemies, because we know what happens to the enemy in the end. So again, my take on it, again, I'm so grateful for the law and a chance to talk this over with you today. I'm so delighted that we get to study these verses, especially in this Mem section, the Messiah. It also has to do with water and some really, really cool things that we're going to get into as we continue to dig into the Mem section of the 119th Psalm.