Psalms 119:76 A God Hug After The Spanking

Hidden Treasures of the 119th Psalm. How fun we get a God hug today in verse 76 of the 119th Psalm. So, you know, verse 76 is very much connected to verse 75. We'll get into all that as we talked about verse 75 yesterday. 76 is the fourth verse in the yud section, which are like the hands of God. And so God hug fits in there well. And the fourth verse being, if we use the Isaiah 11 template would be might, which this interesting interpretation of might here.

So to read the 76th verse in English, it says, Let I pray thee thy merciful kindness be for my comfort, according to thy word unto thy servant. So you might recall that yesterday's verse was I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right in a now in faithfulness has afflicted me. So it's kind of like, you know, when you get your spanking when you're a kid, and afterwards your father hugged you like he should to show you he still loved you, in spite of the fact that you had done wrong or whatever that is. And so it's almost like King David saying, I get it, I need to take my medicine.

However, would you mind giving me a hug? Because he's, he's leaning on the fact that he knows that he that he's going to be afflicted. But here he's asking God for his hesit is his loving kindness. And so essentially, he's asking God for a hug. And, of course, he's saying you promised, you know, according to thy word unto thy servant.

And so I love this. And as I have talked about on one of my Christian car guys shows, you know, there's there's four let it be's that happened in the UAD section. And this is the first you know, and so let it be that, you know, let I pray thee and there's a definite plea of please, please, please. You know, just like you can picture a child is fixing to get a spanking or just have a spanking, please, please, please show me you still love me. And so I have noted throughout my life that many times when I've been afflicted, if you look inside of that affliction somewhere, God always gives you a hug. It just like the story I talked about the Sunday school class coming to the hospital, or the Sunday school class building the wheelchair ramp, all those things I, when I was afflicted, there was always something that God was showing me. Oh, yeah, I'm right here.

And he's going to give me a hug. So years ago, I interviewed a missionary, actually, Billy Graham Association called me and said, We want you to interview interview this North Vietnamese pastor. He wasn't a missionary, I apologize, it was North Vietnamese pastor that has come into the country. And so he came and unfortunately, didn't speak English. They had three interpreters, none of which, in my view, spoke English all that well. And but nonetheless, that I'll never ever, if all my interviews ever on the radio, I'll never ever forget this one. Because, you know, I didn't know what he wanted to talk about. And it was very hard to communicate with. But one of my first questions that I asked the pastor was, you know, the Billy Graham associations, you know, asked that I interview you, you know, what, what did you want to get out to my audience?

What do they need to know? And after several long sentences in Vietnamese, which were very hard to understand, and just pushing into what the interpreters were trying to say to me, and I really couldn't get it. Finally, one of them just said prison. I said prison, North Vietnam, North Vietnamese. I said, when I think of a prison in North Vietnam, I met immediately went to whatever it is Rambo three or four, where you might remember, he was in that swamp with the big leeches on him.

And so I just looked at him. And I said, when I think of a prison in North Vietnam, I'm thinking swamp and the and like the Holy Spirit must have told me that because immediately, the pastor starts shaking his head. And he says, Oh, yeah, he was in a swamp. I was in a swamp. How long was he in a swamp? And it was for like, six years, he'd been in a swamp. And I said, Well, how many people were in this swamp with these was like, seven or 800 people in the same swamp. And I was like, well, how do you sleep when you're in a swamp?

standing up? How do you eat? What do you eat? What's in the swamp?

What do you drink? What's in the swamp? And as I started to picture what kind of a turmoil this pastor had been through by being, you know, essentially, he had shared the gospel in North Vietnam, and they threw him in prison in this swamp, with hundreds of other people.

And so as I started to walk through that with him, I was just in amazement. I said, Well, what's in the swamp? I said, Well, weren't people dying?

He goes, Oh, yeah, you know, every night, hundreds, you know, not hundreds, but every night, lots of people would die. And, you know, the sickness was all around you. And it was just obviously a horrible experience. I can't imagine not being able to sit down for years, right, of having to stand in a swamp.

I mean, I can't even imagine what that's like. And so I, I said, Well, you know, often when God has afflicted me in some way, and I actually wasn't aware of this verse in the 119 Psalm at the time, but I just, I just knew from my experience, that anytime God had really allowed something like this in my life, he always had something that was just really special that he delivered to me. And so I asked the pastor that very question. I said, Well, God always seems to give you something really cool when all these things come your way. What did he give you? And the pastor said, Psalm 91. And I was like, What? He said, Yeah, that somehow or another, he had given him the entire 91st Psalm that he either had memorized beforehand, or he knew it.

And there's no doubt he knew it word for word in Vietnamese. So, you know, I'm sitting there, I've got a computer right, but and I pull up, which honestly, at the time, I had not that much of an understanding of what the 91st Psalm was, I'm sure many of you do. But when you read the 91st Psalm, when you think about you're in a swamp standing up at night, the screaming and the howling, okay, of all these people dying all around you, you know, you get this picture. So Psalm 91 says he that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say he is my refuge and my fortress my God and him will I trust. Surely he shall deliver me from the snare of the fowler and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with his feathers and under his wings thou shall trust he shows his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.

For thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, nor the arrow that fly by day, nor the pestilence that walk in the darkness, nor the destruction that wasteth at noonday. I mean, what an amazing, amazing thing. And so I was just like, well, Pastor, how did you get out of the swamp? And you know, after another long thing between all their all the different interpreters, they said, well, good behavior, and I was like, good behavior. And finally, they got word to me that essentially what was happening is this pastor was leading people to Christ in the swamp. And because he was leading them all to Christ, they had to get him out of the swamp, because there are too many Christians in the swamp.

Amazing. And as I was sitting there processing that, all of a sudden, I just broke into tears because the Holy Spirit just made me aware of something that, you know, obviously, a lot of those people that were in this prison were there because they had made a bad choice of some kind, you know, murder, rape, stolen something, I don't know what caused them to be in the swamp. But undoubtedly, just showing you the very hesed, the loving kindness, let thy merciful kindness be unto thy servant, according to thy word, right? God sent those people a pastor, to lead them to salvation in the midst of this unbelievable, unbelievable horror of being in this swamp for whatever length of time. I've never, ever forgotten the story.

I never, ever will. But I can assure you, this verse is true. And that when you're afflicted, look for that God hug, it's coming. You don't know where it is, it may be in a swamp, but he will be there. I assure you, and his loving kindness is unbelievable. Thank you for listening today to the 119th Psalm.