Psalms 119:147 Before The Dawn

Hidden Treasures of the 119th Psalm as we've talked about that letter, kuv, is the beginning of the word kadosh or holiness, and it has everything to do with that. And so the counsel of this is hopefully helping us to see how we can both get closer to God and also spend more time with Him. So I'm sure you're going to see that in this verse, which the first time I read it in the King James I really struggled because I didn't understand the word prevented in this context.

So we'll get through it, just bear with me. So verse 147 says, I prevented the dawning of the morning and cried, I hope, I hoped in Thy word. And so that idea of preventing the dawning of the morning, it's like He was venting before the morning, in other words, pre-venting. And the idea is that He's actually getting there before the dawning of the morning and cried. And we did that whole episode back when it said He rose at midnight to establish praise because of His righteous judgments, because of God's righteous judgments, that we talked about that King David would get up because of his harp that would make a tune and he would get up at midnight and begin to praise.

And here we see this concept again, and it's great counsel, right? To get up before the dawning of the morning and crying that we hope. And that word hope there is so beautiful in that it has a lot to do with waiting on the Lord. And so in a way, He's not just crying, He's waiting on the word of God, as it were, in this particular example. So I think that it's a fantastic idea for us to both draw close to God in the morning and as early as possible, wherever God has you on that. Um, range, but the cool thing is, um, it really is a way that as we get closer and we spend more time with God, you can't help but get more holy. I mean, the light will help you see things like you've never seen before, especially if what you're doing in this time before the morning that He's talking about is hoping or waiting on thy word. And so, you know, clearly in my own life, this would be, you know, just one of my favorite verses because it is really what I do and I've done for years and years and years is I'd love to get up before the dawn. And they actually say the Jews teach that David would would pray for the salvation of the people of Jerusalem in this time. And so he was when he was hoping in the word, what it was actually praying was for the salvation of those people of Jerusalem which we know would come as Jesus did in very need in the word and the way that it was given to King David himself. But certainly when I think about this verse in the way that God brought it home to me was when I had the brain abscess and you might remember I had this infection in my brain and unfortunately they had had to do a biopsy and that biopsy got a staph infection and that staph infection, you know, it was horrible. However, you know, I had my Bible there and the things that I wrote in my Bible at that time I wrote in red ink. I may have mentioned that before and so they're very very precious to me and the 38th Psalm is especially so because if you look in the 38th Psalm in the fifth verse, it says my wounds festered and were loathsome right because of my foolishness and so I definitely could relate to you know, the idea of this is an infection that's spreading throughout your body and this is what I was experiencing and trying to see you know, what was these these wounds and the interesting thing is it they just aren't physical wounds that he's talking about because you might remember in another Psalm he says my heart is wounded and I'm needy and he's talking about the wounds of the heart and so when I think about when God arrested me at this point in my life or allowed these things into my life to stop me, you know, my wife and I were talking about it just last night. She said yeah before all that started to happen in your life you were a real jerk, you know, that I had these wounds and those wounds father wounds Etc drove me to think that I needed to prove to the world that I had what it took that I needed to be a great man like my father that I had all these issues that I had to struggle struggle struggle and there was all this pressure and it led me to not spend the time with my family that I should and it led me to to be really really driven and my wife would tell you I was certainly workaholic and so unfortunately a lot of times I prevented the dawning of the morning by going to work and staying there until after dark in the car business it would be easy sometimes to stay there till midnight and so it was crazy and no doubt God used this idea of my foolishness to to allow other wounds to fester to get my full attention but when you get down to the 15th verse in the 10th verses later he talks once again in the 38th Psalm like he did in this Psalm that his hope is in the word right I mean it's really really beautiful I'll read the 15th verse for you friendly Oh Lord do I hope thou will hear Oh Lord my God and so that verse was not my just held on to right because I knew this is where I was but I knew that my hope was in God and as I went through those times you know it's really cool to look back on now and see how he was dismantling my life literally dismantling it through illnesses and some other things that happened with my jobs in order to get my attention so that I could get to the place where I could delight in the mornings I could delight in in in where we are going as we prevent the dawning of the morning and get a chance to grow closer to him and see more light and if you get more light you get more life and and this idea of of early is also the early is also the word East which again has to do with time and space and so we look at this letter cuff throughout this study it so much of it will have to do with time and space so as we get up with God before the dawning of the morning we're actually spending time and as we draw close oh my goodness it's a beautiful thing to study I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do talk to you next time.