Psalms 119:121 Is It Judgment First or Justice?

Hidden Treasures of the 119th Song Wow, wow, wow, do we get some wisdom in the ION section today?

We get verse 121 and wow, I mean, that's all I can say is just wow, there's so much here that it's almost hard to cover it all. But we will do our best to see what God has for us today in the ION section, the letter ION to begin with, I guess we need to have a bit of a discussion. It is, if you look at it, it looks very much like a yoke.

If you can think about what a yoke would look like an oxen and it is similar to that concept, because it has to do with vision. In fact, ION is the word for eye. And in the idea of the ION is really this idea of vision when it comes to God's vision, or what's God's vision for things to be. And some people would even say his providence, what's God's providence when it has to do with how he sees things.

And so it's very, very cool. And it plays out in the wisdom here of this verse, which I'm going to read it in English, and then we're just going to dig right in. So verse one twenty one, ION, I have done judgment and justice.

Leave me not to mine oppressors. And like all the verses in the hundred nineteen Psalm, it starts with an ION. And so in this case, the word ION or the letter ION is in the beginning of the word done. But I have done judgment and justice. And that's critical to the Jewish way of thinking, because you may know that in Exodus 19, when God gave them all these instructions, they said, We will tell God we will. They said this to Moses. This was before the ten utterances.

They said, We will do them. And that word do in Hebrew is beautiful in that, again, it begins with an ION. And then it has a shin meaning to oxidize. So this idea of God's vision oxidized and then a hey, which means it's going to be expressed.

So it has everything to do with do. And this is what the Psalms just starting out with this is we will do. And so he's saying, you know, just like what God asked for, this is what he's done. And he's actually quoting Genesis 18, 19. And he's describing, you know, why it is that God is going to bless or God is describing why it is he's going to bless Abraham's family.

And here's the verse in Genesis 18, 19. For I know him that he will command his children and his household after him, that they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment that the Lord may bring upon Abraham, which he has spoken of him. In other words, there's here, David is saying, I've done these things, which is has to do with the letter I am that he's going to do this justice and judgment.

Now, this is where it gets to be just a real, real mouthful, because I want you to think with me, this is so beautiful, so amazing. The order of what is going to get done here, because, again, the idea is do is God's vision. OK. And he says justice and then judgment. And so normally in a court system, if you think about it, you're going to go to court and they're going to have judgment.

All right. They're going to decide who's guilty, who's innocent. And then after that, there's going to be a sentence. And the idea of that sentence is to bring justice.

Right. And so there's a particular order that we use here, but it's important that we note this because there's so much about this that the order of this is that Jesus is going to teach on and the Holy Spirit is going to teach on. And we have so much to learn here.

It's phenomenal. And if you see all the places this is quoted, it's quoted in Jeremiah and the prophecy of what Jesus is going to be. It's quoted in Isaiah on what Jesus is going to be, that he's going to bring this judgment and justice. But it gets a little confusing when you actually see what Jesus taught about it and the Holy Spirit, because he gives it in the opposite order.

And we'll get into that in a minute. But before we do that, I want to talk about what the Jews teach about King David. And then this idea of he's done justice and excuse me, he's done judgment and justice. And so that what they teach is that King David, when he sat in court, as you might imagine, he judged Israel. And they said that when he would do judgment and if the person was too poor to pay the fine or too poor to pay back the sheep or whatever the situation is, the King David would do it himself, said that he would pay the fine and not unlike what Jesus did for us. Right.

He paid this fine. Now, along these lines, when we get to that note, this is the this is the wisdom verse, because we're talking about the anointing of the Holy Spirit from Isaiah 11. And so we're going to see the anointings of the iron. And so here's the wisdom. The understanding of it that we'll talk about next week is absolutely phenomenal.

Not next week, but on our next episode, we'll talk about it. The understanding of this is phenomenal. So the next verse, believe me, is so exciting.

You know, the combination of these two is unbelievable. But the idea here is King David would do these things. And unfortunately, some people would take advantage of him. And so when it says, you know, leave me not to my oppressors, nobody wants to be left alone, but especially not to oppressors. Well, the really cool thing that the Psalmist did, what King David did with his verse was, I told you that the word do is an iron and then a shin and then a hey. Well, the word oppress is, again, the letter iron and a shin.

So it's spelled exactly the same way with a big difference that the last letter is a cliff, which we're going to talk about that as we get to the curve section. But this is the idea that King David is is using the word that he's going to do, but he doesn't want it done unto him. That's not supposed to be done. He doesn't want to be mistreated. And so we don't want to be left to our oppressors. And of course, we all have one.

Right. You have an accuser. And believe me, he wants to accuse you and it will have everything to do with justice and judgment. So getting back to this idea of justice and judgment, just because I could spend a lot of time here, like, oh, my goodness, I was at a Bible study not long after I was originally studying this verse. And we were in John Chapter 16. And in John Chapter 16, Jesus is teaching about what's going to happen when the Holy Spirit comes. And so if we look at John Chapter 16, verses eight through 11, here's what it reads and listen to the order of how it's put here. He said, and when he has come, he will reprove the world of sin or convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment. You hear what he said? He's going to say righteousness, which is the idea of justice and then judgment rather than judgment, then justice.

So, wow. He says he's going to convict the world of sin of righteousness or justice and then of judgment. And then listen to this. He says of sin, because they believe not on me. In other words, if you don't believe Jesus, you're convicted of righteousness because I go to the father and you see me no more. And then of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. So if you think about the order that he's giving us here, you see, we often when we're thinking about like Satan's telling you, you did this and you did that, you're a sinner, blah, blah, blah. Well, we get our judgment and our justice mixed up because we normally face judgment. And then we get justice, just like it would in the court system. But see, Jesus is explaining that the Holy Spirit's role is that we would be convicted of sin so that we would believe that Jesus paid this. Right.

Because he is the son. And then his righteousness, you see, through his righteousness, we are made just. That's justice through his righteousness. We are made just. Then we get judged. Right.

I mean, how beautiful is that? The judgment is coming after we've been made just. In other words, after King David gave us the sheep or whatever, God gave us the justice. Then we get judged.

And so we're going to get a lot more into that when we get into the Zadi section. This will not be the first time that we visit this idea of judgment and justice. But this is a really I mean, it's amazing to me how many times you'll see these two words connected in the scriptures. You know, just do a Bible search under justice or judgment, you know, especially justice. And you'll see how many prophecies are. This is so connected to Christ because the whole idea of why he came was to make us just so that we could face the judgment.

I mean, it is absolutely amazing stuff. And so as this plays out in your life, right. You know, just like last night, I was just convicted that I was thinking these thoughts actually about a relationship I have with a relative that I quite often want to judge this person because of their behavior. And I won't go into that because I know.

But I will tell you this, that I was so sudden I went, wait a minute. They've because I know they're in Christ. They are already just so they don't need any judgment. I mean, they need judgment that they're they're they're innocent. And so I can I can forgive them because in all reality, if they are in Christ, they are just. And again, hopefully we can work on their behavior at some point. But, you know, this is a very important concept to get in our minds. What comes first judgment or justice? Well, because of what Christ did for those who are in Christ, they are already just. And that's neat, isn't it? Thank you for listening today.