Hidden Treasures of Psalms 119: 49th Verse Jubilee

Hidden Treasures of the 119th Psalm Oh, it's Jubilee Day here on the 119th Psalm and God has kind of shown me that, wow, rather than digging back down, what a great time since we're in the 49th verse to take a Jubilee, which has everything to do with what we're going to be talking about today.

So, you know, we're heading into the Zion letter, which is really, really cool. It's the seventh letter, as you may know, of the Hebrew alphabet. And most people say it looks like a sword, but it can also in the ancient Hebrew, it looked like a plowshare. And some people say it's a crown.

So all those things kind of fit into what we're going to be talking about today. But let's just think about the positioning of the letter. It is the seventh letter of the Hebrew alphabet, which, again, it's significant, especially from the Jewish perspective, because, you know, they have taught that all sevens are dear and especially in space and time and spirit. OK, so to the Jews, the seventh heaven is a big deal, right?

When it comes to space. And when you think about all the ramifications of seven, obviously, you know, you you can't help but see Shabbat in there that the seventh day God rested. Right. But also, when you look at generations.

Right. The seventh from Adam was Enoch. And the Jews teach that the seventh from Abraham was Moses. Of course, that whole generation, Moses, Aaron and Miriam all were in that seventh from Abraham. And then the 14th generation from Abraham is clearly, you know, David himself, the writer of this particular psalm. And you may know that the Jews teach that he is the seventh son of Jesse. So here he is, the, you know, 14th generation from Abraham, the seventh son of Jesse. You know, how beautiful is that? And of course, you know, if you go check out Matthew, you're going to find out that 14 generations after David, right, is the captivity and 14 generations after the captivity comes Jesus.

Okay. So I mean, it's it's really cool. The seventh king of Israel is a big deal to them.

It was Asa. And so, you know, there's no doubt that you got the seven days, but then you got seven months, the months of Tishri is huge. It's absolutely huge, because you may know it starts out with Rosh Hashanah, right? That's their Jewish New Year and then into the Day of Atonement. And they also celebrate the sukkah in that, which is the Feast of Tabernacles. They do all that in the seventh month, the month of Tishri. And you may know, and you may even recall that that was the day, the month and the seventh month that Noah's Ark rested in Merah on the 17th day.

So all this is to tell you, this number is like, oh, my goodness. I mean, this is it's it's full of meaning. Certainly, when you think about one word that obviously the Psalm is King David hones in on throughout this song. And the word is Zakar, which means remember is the way it's translated in English, but we really get ripped off if we just go with the idea of Zakar. I mean, when we just go with the idea of remember, because in English is just not a good translation of that word. So Zakar, if you can think about the idea of remembering, it starts out with this kind of plowshare or starts out with a sword or starts out with a crown. You know, just take any of the three and think about your mind for a minute.

Okay. And so you obviously got a crown or you got to cut through the clutter, however, that works through a plowshare or sword, you got to do something. And the second letter is a cuff. And this idea of the cuff is, you know, really, really neat that it looks like the palm of your hand, but it's literally suppressing out everything else that doesn't matter and getting down to the thing that really matters. And, you know, it's really cool that I get to work with special needs folks all the time. And the big deal with autism is they don't have that ability to focus on what we consider to be the normal thing that's important right this minute, right? So there's a fan turning in the room and they can't get their mind off the fan because the fan has got them totally distracted. It's not unlike ADD.

And I'm sure autism is some spectrum of that and whatever. But the idea is it was we begin to focus our mind and we we get rid of all the distractions and we get down to what we're focused on. That's the idea of the hoof, putting your hand on something and put your palm on it and on the idea of that inside your mind.

So now you see this sword is going to cut through the clutter of the plow, right? And you're going to get down to where you can get your hand reach in there and grab the most important thought. And then the last letter is the letter race, which you may know the Torah second letter, when it starts with bare sheet, which means in the beginning, and the race has everything to do with high priority, and what's first. And of course, it also a lot of times is the Spirit of God, right rock, it starts with that race.

And so you're seeing that, obviously, the Holy Spirit is there to help us remember, but also to put first things first, right, which is kind of the whole idea of this remember. And so we just go back in the scripture to Genesis and think about what happened. If you look at it in Genesis, I believe it's chapter eight, it says, God remembered Noah. You know, it was like, Oh, well, you know, who's I forgot about the guy out there floating around in the ocean.

Now, it isn't that way. It was all of a sudden, Noah became the priority of what God was going to deal with on the seventh month of 17 days. In other words, now Noah is going to be something that that I'm going to really focus on and then think about all the places. I mean, I was just absolutely amazing to me that Jesus when he set up, obviously the Lord's table Last Supper, he said, Do this in remembrance of me, in other words, get this focus, put this in top priority, you know, and, and the thief on the cross, what did he say, Remember me, when you come into your kingdom, this, this idea and believe me, you know, that is the idea of what he wants. And so, if you, you know, take an overview of the Zion section, right, which has everything to do with freedom, because the year of Jubilee is the day, if you follow that of the Old Testament, right?

It was just a Shabbat to begin with, you're free from work. And then if you take the Jubilee year, that was the year that they forgave all the slaves, and they all went free, right? And and clearly, that's Jesus's message, that that if we can make him priority, we can put him right there, and that, you know, comes with, with this idea of Jubilee, this idea of freedom, it's it's really, really kind of cool. And clearly, the psalmist hones in on this throughout this whole section.

So I thought it would be cool to take sort of a Jubilee look at this. And then I just want to, you know, if you just ponder with me a minute, when did God remember you, right? Like God remembered Noah right there. And he certainly, you know, remember David at certain times, he remembered all these different Bible characters, but when, when do you know that God remembered you?

And so as I thought about that concept, you know, when did God remember Robbie? Well, you may know my story is that I had lymphoma and I actually didn't have any old kind of lymphoma I had apparently I had angiocentric T cell lymphoma, which my sister worked at University of Michigan Hospital and when they got the pathology on this type of cell and all that she went and did all this research and she's like, Oh, Robbie, we're in bad trouble. Because, you know, there's only been like four people in the United States that have had this and nobody lasted, you know, two months that this is a really dangerous killer cell lymphoma was kind of what was communicated to me. And of course, it was spreading through my body. And I had these tumors that were all over my body in my skin, and they were great, big, huge round thing. I kind of looked like job. And, you know, I didn't want to be out in public, but I was still working. And so I worked at Bob Neill Chrysler Plymouth G vehicle at the time. And I was back in my office when God remembered Robbie.

And I don't know how this works. Exactly. I all I know is just so clear that God remembered Robbie. Because there was a pastor by the name of Richard Little, who came in. And he knew actually one of my finance managers, Joe Vols. And he said, Joe, God has told me there's somebody in the dealership that needs to be healed. You see the remembering God decided to deal with Robbie's put me first on the list, however, that worked. And so Pastor Little, he pointed him to me back and he said, Oh, that's got to be Robbie.

He's got this horrible cancer. And he's back in his office because he doesn't want anybody to see him. And Pastor Little comes in there. And at the time, I can assure you, I was a baby Christian, maybe two or three years, I had no idea what it meant to lay hands on somebody would know what it idea what it meant to late anoint with oil.

But he being the type of Presbyterian that he was, was very much into those things. And so he came in with oil, and he was going to lay hands on me. And, you know, he had no idea who I was, God just told him, there was somebody at that dealership that needed to be healed.

And here he came. And he prayed over me. And at the time, I can't say it was my faith. That got me healed, right?

Because I kind of thought the guy was a little whacked, you know, just honestly. But what I know is this is when he came in, it was on a Friday. And I was covered in these tumors from head to foot.

I don't know how many I had, but I probably 50 or 60, a lot of them all over me. And when Monday came, I was actually supposed to start my first chemotherapy treatment, okay. And all I know is somehow Sunday night, after his prayer, and yeah, there were a lot of people praying for me. And what I know is God remembered me.

I don't know if it was Pastor Little's prayer, but I sure think it was because I felt something that day when he prayed for me. I just felt like, oh, man, something happened. Well, something did happen because Monday morning, I did not have one tumor, not one. And they all got gone.

And praise God, he remembered me. And the doctors were amazed. And they took pictures, and they did biopsies. And they came back and they said, Robbie, we don't understand, but apparently your cancer turned on itself, and it ate itself. And I said, well, I'm not sure how that works.

I'm not exactly sure. What I do know is that God remembered me. And so what a cool thing to just ponder as we think about this letter, Zion, and we think about the power of remember. And of course, we're going to dig deep into this as we go through the verses that King David is going to share with us on the importance of the Zion and the importance of this letter and the importance of remember, right, even in the mezuzahs, in the Jewish people's house, and the things that they wear and all the stuff that they do to remember, because they understand that there's a huge power in this letter. There's a huge power in this number.

And of course, the power is all gone. And so I hope you think about when did God remember you as we dig into this 119 Psalm. I'm so honored, really am, that you would listen today. God bless.