Psalms 119:175 - Praise For The Face In The Fire

Hidden Treasures of the 119th Psalm Just spectacular today as we're coming in for a landing on the 119th Psalm.

I can't believe the journey and all that we have learned is just more than amazing. As we are in the seventh anointing of the tav, the letter tav, which has to do with, again, truth that we will know at the end or the proof of the pudding, and oh, the delight and the fear of the Lord that we get today, as this verse is the seventh verse, second to the last of this idea of the letter tav. And again, it has everything to do with the end, and oh my goodness, does this one have to do with the end, especially when you think about the delight and the fear of the Lord. So it reads in English, verse 175, let my soul live, and it shall praise thee, and let thy judgments help me.

Oh, it's just a mouthful in so many different ways. I love the way each verse begins with the letter tav, and so that idea of let is once again in this verse as this is the end of the story, that our souls would live. That the psalmist wants his soul to live, that, why? That it would praise God.

I mean, what a wonderful ending that the reason that our souls would want that was just to share with God how cool, how amazing, how terrific everything that he is and that we've learned and all these things throughout the psalm are all coming to fruition. And then, let thy judgments help me. And I'll be honest that this is where King David is, you know, you've always heard is don't pray for patience. Well, he's saying bring on the judgments, bring on the heat.

In other words, this has to do with dross removal. In other words, and when you think about King David's life, oh, did the judgment come. And so many times the worst things that appear to happen in our lives, especially in King David's life, turned out to be the best thing.

I mean, when you think about his life, the judgments that resulted as his choices with Bathsheba, what happened to his family, all these things were dross removal so that he could be Israel's singers of songs. In other words, when you look at this word mispat, there's a fascinating thing I just saw this morning that I'll probably think about for the rest of my life. When we now, you know, having spent all this time to understand these letters and these life forces of the expression of God through these letters, this idea of mispat, it starts with that mem, that idea of Messiah and more, and then a shen, which we know is the refiner's fire, which is judgment. So you got the Messiah's judgment right there, but then the beautiful, beautiful, beautiful last two letters, well, every letter is beautiful, but the last two, you can't help but just go, oh, my goodness. The third letter is the letter pay, which means that God's face is in the fire of judgment.

In other words, the reason that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego survived the fire is they could see God was for them, right? And whenever we're in the middle of these judgments, here, if we could see that this was getting rid of the dross, whatever this has happened, God's done it for our best, and so there's that pay right there next to the letter tet, which means goodness. And so it means that all this fire and all this judgment is happening as a result of making everything good, you know, the way that it was originally supposed to be. But then the very, very beautiful last two letters that have to do with the way suffix work in Hebrew, and this is a very unusual suffix.

You won't find it in a normal suffix chart, but if you understand the letters, you can see what it's saying. It has to do with a nun and then a yud. So what does that tell us? That's faith's hand.

In other words, it's going to take faith to believe that these judgments were for our good, but they are there for dross removal. And so when you look back in your life, look at the many of the horrible things that have happened to you in your life, and the one thing that I can say that if we're reacting to it the way that King David would, we would be turning towards that face in the fire. In other words, you know, when Leslie ran away in my life, what did I do? I turned to God. When I got cancer, what did I do? I turned to God.

You know, when I lost the dealership, I turned to that face that was in the fire, right? And that is enough. His grace is sufficient for us. And the fact that he's got his face turned towards us, it's the blessing.

It's an amazing thing. And he knows that, you know, this is dross removal. Whatever is going away, whatever is getting burned up, is not something that's going to remain. And the hotter the fire, the more dross gets gone. And so here, King David, in his prayer, he's saying, give me faith here, Lord.

I love the suffix he puts on the end of it. It's like, I need some faith. And I do. I need the faith to see that, oh, this fire has a purpose and is to see your face in the fire. I just think that's so spectacular and so beautiful. And I hope that, you know, if you think about your own life, what was the worst things that ever happened to you? And did you see the face in the fire? Something to ponder, something to pray about. And then, you know, let our souls live that they will praise God about what he's doing in New Orleans.