Pslams 119:67 The Good In The Bad

Hidden Treasures of the 119th Psalm. I am having such a good time digging around in the TET section of the 119th Psalm. Today we get to dig into verse 67, and as we've talked about, the letter TET is the letter that begins the word tov, which means good.

It's often hidden. In this verse here, we're going to see that really well, I believe. So verse 67 is the third verse in the TET section. So if we're following along with that Isaiah 11, anointing, the seven anointings of the Holy Spirit. So they would start out with wisdom like the first verse we did yesterday.

We did the second verse. Today would be, so it's wisdom, understanding, counsel is the third. And counsel in Hebrew, when you look at it, you can see it's very much pointing you in the right path. And so, or the what's direction to go in your current situation.

So counsel is what we need here. Especially the way this reads. So verse 67 reads before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I have kept thy word. So you can see that they were going in the wrong way. But the affliction apparently made a course correction. So here we have the hidden goodness, right? That the affliction itself caused them to make a course correction. And then they kept the word, right? They kept Jesus.

I mean, that's essentially what it means when you're keeping the word. So, but in this case, of course, they're talking about the psalmist was talking about when he was afflicted. And clearly you could see a lot of times where King David was afflicted. Before he was afflicted, it's saying he went astray. So it's interesting that the affliction there, and you can say that he went astray with Bathsheba, that would be the easy one. And then he got afflicted. And then all of a sudden, you know, the word became very, very important to him, as you can see in, in many of the other Psalms that he wrote.

But let's just put this in practical terms. So once I did a show on the Christian car guy, I'll never forget it because I was like, the Holy Spirit had just guided me to do a show that was called Where Were You When Jesus Took the Wheel? So my thought was that I was going to get a bunch of callers to call in and share with me, you know, where God helped them avoid accidents. And when Jesus took the wheel there, you know, sin, the idea of counsel was all about that. Jesus take the wheel. But the first call changed everything and actually changed that entire show.

And it has everything to do with this particular prayer that the psalmist is saying here. So what the first caller said, Well, let me tell you where I was when Jesus took the wheel, I was driving on my way to an appointment with my girlfriend, and she ran a red light. And we were sideswiped. And now as a result of that accident, I'm paralyzed from the waist down. And so when I went to the hospital, I realized that wow! I have gone astray. And I went back to Jesus, and he said, Oh, I was certainly in this situation so that I could find my way back to God. And so it's not unlike- I've never forgotten the story. It's not unlike what Jesus said, if your arm is messing you up, cut it off. Well, here we have the situation of a man who lost the use of his legs, but I've never really been able to tell the story about Jesus. And as I said, God's right! What I've done is I've been able to tell the story forgotten that call as long as I live it it set up several other calls that were all along the same line and the last call that day was from a man that was a preacher's son and he had been preached to all his life as you might guess and he one day walked into the living room announced to both his parents I'm done with religion I don't believe in God this is ridiculous I'm not doing this anymore and he went out and got in his car and gotten a race and gotten a horrible accident as well he didn't have the tragic circumstances other than it was the time it sounded like it was pretty tragic and when his mother heard the ambulance she told the pastor father come on God has had you know our son out in the woodshed so again I don't know how this works in your own life if you've seen it where you've been afflicted and then all of a sudden oh my goodness you know there was a course correction well I was thinking about my own story last year I was determined to play classical gas and I had this idea really on the letter huff that gives us this idea for desire strong enough God's gonna come to our aid and help us to do it well I play the guitar and played it when I was younger and put it down for many many years and so I was just like man this is what I've I want to be able to play classical gas the whole time I was playing before that was my dream but I'd always given up on it and so I was hoping I could break that agreement and and be able to do that well I in fact I made the commitment that at the boot camp in the fall of last year I was gonna play classical gas and so long about August I'd been practicing practicing practicing and I finally gotten to the point where I could play about half the song I was very excited about my progress and then all of a sudden one day I just I got a new hedge trimmer and people that know me well know that's dangerous and Robbie's hands so unfortunately you know I didn't follow the directions and you know to make a very gross story short I really injured my little finger really really bad in fact some of it was gone for a period of time until it grew back but um then the result was a hospital visit all kinds of stitches well it was on my left hand right and if you are familiar with the song classical gas it requires quite a bit of use of the little finger in order to knit hit all the notes that are involved in that particular song because you got to stretch your fingers way out in order to be able to do certain things in that song so there I was I had this commitment and all of a sudden as I was praying through this God how did you let this happen you would do well before I was afflicted I went astray and I realized that oh my goodness I although I wanted to do this for God I wasn't doing it with God right because I was doing it in my own strength I was to learn how to play classical gas all on my own well now I was in a situation where I was gonna have to play it essentially with three fingers you know because your thumb is holding the other ones down so now I was like God are you are you sharing with me that if I do this with you you're gonna help me and what an adventure that started and and for two and a half months he and I worked every day to be able to play that song which I played at that boot camp but before I was afflicted right I wasn't on my adventure with Jesus I was on the adventure thinking that this was something I could do for Jesus but I wasn't on the adventure with Jesus so I love love love this verse and the idea of goodness right you see that the goodness is hidden in the affliction and then there's this also this concept of like whoa is this not counsel is this not beautiful counsel and so you know I love this verse I hope you've enjoyed studying with me today in the hundred back to you