Psalms 119:114 - Strength in Numbers

Hidden Treasures of the 119th Psalm. How fun today we think about the letter Samak and the actual understanding that would come from the wisdom that we got in verse 113. Today we're going to talk about verse 114, but first I want to apologize because once again I should have said we're going to talk about this tomorrow, God willing.

Well, I apologize that we didn't have a podcast for a couple days because that fertilizer fire in Winston-Salem, North Carolina you may have heard about is actually only about a thousand yards right across the railroad tracks from our station, and so we were evacuated on Tuesday. We were never allowed to come to the station Tuesday morning, nor were we here yesterday, but I did get in today and we are going to bring you this verse, which again is the second in the Psalm. And we talked about it before that the Psalm has to do with the number 60, which in Hebrew, or to the Jewish culture, there's much about that number that has to do with nullification, and that word nullification and 60 has a lot to do with this particular verse, which I'm going to read it in English and then go into why that's so cool that it's related to the number 60. Because the Psalm itself, I should say maybe before we get started, looks like the letter zero. It has so much to do with support, you know, as far as like the way that you would sit in a circle in order to get support that a community, this is the church, the idea behind unity as we talked about in the first episode. So the understanding of this is absolutely spectacular from my standpoint. As we get into this verse today, it says, Thou art my hiding place and my shield, I hope, in thy word.

And so this verse, really, when you compare it to verse 116, which we'll get to here in a few days when, Lord willing, it's going to be a really neat comparison between those two verses because they're so related in this thought that he is bringing with this idea. And again, in Jewish culture, they're all about eating kosher, you may have heard that. And so, like, if you were to have a pot of stew that had meat in it, if it had any milk in it, it would not be kosher.

However, if that milk remounted to less than one 60th of the stew, then it would be considered nullified. And so that idea of nullification has to do with this letter 60, that once something has been cut by more than 60%, or by, you know, the number 60, then it becomes nullified. So they actually teach that, like, this is really cool, I think that prophecy is one 60th of a dream. And there's lots of things that they have to do that they talk about this nullification idea. Well, when he says thou art my hiding place, if you can think about that, if you're in a school of fish, and there were 60, you know, you would not be so easy to get at, there's a lot of support that's in that, that idea of nullification. So when we are his hiding place, and a lot of times, once we're in the church, then we, as being part of the crowd are not so easy to take on, just like the idea of the, you know, the baby seal that's, you know, trying to avoid the, you know, tiger shark, or whatever the situation may be, or white shark, you know, if there's a whole school of seals, you know, it there's a more formidable situation. And the same thing is here that his church in this case, when he starts out, that very idea of hiding has to do with this idea of nullification. And this idea of how we get support from the body of Christ from his church. And so how cool is it that as we hope in thy word, that we, as we join in the body of Christ, and we become more of the church, we find ourselves in this place for safety that has to do with being in community. And then he says that he's also my shield, which if you think about it, you know, King David was all about the military, right? I mean, the man fought in a whole lot of battles, and, and is in the case of, of Christ, and his word, you know, he's using this as not just as hiding place, but also his shield, as another way that the psalmist supports the psalmist.

And so he says, then, I hope in my word. And so, you know, when you look at this practically, you know, we talked about many times about my accidents, and how the church came and rallied around me. And the opportunity that you may have is very similar, because I'll never forget that you might remember, I talked about that I was crushed by a jeep, and I almost lost my left leg.

And I was in a wheelchair there for a couple years, because they had to do several surgeries to get my leg back to where it was supposed to be. In the meantime, you know, this came about where I had the opportunity to be the church for somebody else, because almost immediately I got a call from somebody in our Sunday school class saying, would you go visit this other man in the hospital who's just had a motorcycle accident, and he has almost the same injury to his leg that you had with your leg? Well, the cool thing is, even though that was over 20 years ago, to this day, you know, every time we see each other, there's still a bond there that came from this Psalmic, this idea of being in community, you know, that I could be there for him to share with him the things he was going to encounter, based on the injury that he had to his leg, and the different apparatuses that he would be involved in, and the different processes. But as just as, you know, 2 Corinthians 1 says, the God of all comfort comforts us with the comfort that we've been comforted with, well, this idea, again, has to do with the church, right? That so many times we are given opportunities. I have no idea how many cancer patients I've spoken to as a result of being healed from cancer.

I have no idea how many people that have had similar financial problems, you know, as a result of theft and those kind of things that I went through that I've had a chance to talk to. And it's amazing to me how cool it is that God has provided this idea of Psalmic, this idea of community, and how much he is our shield. And this whole idea here of this letter, as you begin to see it and understand it, that as we push into Christ, we're literally pushing into his church. And as we push into his church, we get this wisdom, we get this understanding that we then have Christ as both our hiding place and our shield. Thank you so much for listening, and I look forward to talking to you soon. God Lord willing, it'll be tomorrow.