Psalms 119:83 Waterproof Wineskins

Hidden Treasures of the 119th Psalm. All right, we get to get out our picks on verse 83 as we're digging around in verse 83 of the 119th Psalm here in the huff section. And it's a beautiful thing, this letter huff and these eight verses that we get to study. Today's the third verse in the huff section. And we've talked about before that the huff is sort of like the Hamakha that goes over the head.

But maybe another way for you to understand it is the huff is like the palm of your hand, that it's there for you to receive a blessing. And so you can see throughout these verses that the psalmist, through the gifting of the Holy Spirit, is sharing so much on how important desire is. And that has everything to do with Christmas, like what do you want for Christmas? And God loves it when we ask him for things we want very specifically. And very cool, you can see that the psalmist's desire first was for salvation. And then yesterday he talked about his hunger for his word as far as comfort.

And today we get a really, really cool ask. And this one is the ask of I don't want to leak, which it explains that this verse is often misunderstood. So I'm going to actually say it in English in the way that I would translate it rather than the King James, although it's close.

But it's different and I will explain why. So verse 83, for I have become like a wineskin in the smoke. I do not forget thy statutes. So when you read that in the King James, it says a bottle in the smoke and then it says yet. Well, yet I do not forget thy statutes. Well, the word yet is added. If you look in the Hebrew, it's not there. So when he said I become like a wineskin, which is more accurately what he said in the smoke. I do not forget thy statutes. Let me explain. And you won't see this anywhere. I've checked lots of commentaries and nobody seems to understand because nobody else has tied tanned many hides.

But the Indians have for years. And the way that you make a hide or a wineskin waterproof is you put it in the smoke. And so Jesus picked up on this parable and talked about putting new wine in new wineskins. Well, those new wineskins would have been freshly smoked because in order for a wineskin to not leak, to be waterproof, it needs to be cured in the smoke. And so it's a beautiful thing that what this ask is, is this is from a standpoint of I want to be waterproof.

And I don't know if you feel that way. But if you got a dose of the Holy Spirit this morning and throughout the day, you're leaking. And so that's why it makes sense that he says, I do not forget thy statutes and the statutes are those high, hard ones to hook them. We talked about this before.

But wouldn't it be just a wonderful thing, right, that we could go into our day not leaking? And so this being the third verse in the end of the eight that are going to be on the hoof, that means we did wisdom, which was salvation and understanding, which we talked about was what would comfort us. And so this third one would be if we're looking at the Isaiah 11 template, we talk about often of the seven anointings of the Holy Spirit. So the third anointing is, as we talked about, often counsel. So the anointing of counsel is telling us what direction that we need to go in. And here he's telling you the direction that he needs to go in is to not forget the statutes that, you know, if we are mindful of our desire is that we we have the word of God at our disposal at all times, then, you know, here we are. We're at this place where we realize that and one of those statutes, as you may well know, is right, love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your strength and love your neighbor as yourself. And, you know, what a neat thing to love the Lord in such a way this Christmas that other people would see that in you.

Right. And so I was a little heartbroken over my daughter recently and I thought, what could I do to to, you know, come after her heart or make her to feel like, you know, she's loved and all this. And interestingly, God put it on my heart to ask her for lunch. And so, you know, she's like 31, has her own daughter. But so when her dad asked her to lunch, which was totally unusual, the very first thing she said to me was, do you have cancer?

Are you mad at me? And, you know, that was kind of an indictment on my fatherhood to say, wow, do I have to have something like that before I ask my daughter to lunch? But as we had a chance to share together, I could see that God was allowing me to not leak, not forget his statutes. In other words, I was able to love my daughter with his love because I hadn't leaked. He gave me this through prayer and opportunity. And so I hope this Christmas that like the hoof that we think about what it is that we really want for Christmas. And like that good father that, you know, he's so excited to see his child delight in the present that he gave him for Christmas.

Believe me, God delighted as he sought my daughter and I sit down for that lunch just this week. And I hope that you can have a desire like that today as we could become like wineskins in the smoke. And again, don't miss that. It says bottle. But believe me, when you look at the Hebrew on that, it is a wineskin. OK, and wineskin holds wine.

All right. And which speaks back to the thirst that that that the psalmist referred to in verse eighty one of my soul fainth for thy salvation. That's a thirst. And as we talked about last episode, that when you thirst, you do that, you do that in your mouth and you do it in your soul. And so here he is creating a situation where he would be able to hold this everlasting wine.

Right. So as we take communion, you know, how cool would it be if we can always feel that kind of communion? Like we had the wineskin with the new wine inside of us that was growing alive the way that that wine does. And that, again, that we get to be in remembrance of him, which is, again, the whole idea of like when you when you do the the Lord's Supper. How many times I say do this in remembrance of me? Well, this is along the lines of this particular psalm.

If we're going to remember, we can't leak. And so, Lord, we know that, you know, the way that you cure a skin, if you're an Indian or anybody else will tell you, if you want to make it waterproof, you put it in the smoke. Well, the smoke that we're talking about here is holy smoke. OK, when you look at this word smoke, it's only used a few times in the Bible and specifically the smoke that came up off of Sodom and Gomorrah after the impurities had been burned off. And it's literally holy smoke. Right. As things become pure and it's making us waterproof and able to hold this wine as in new wineskin so that we won't crack and burst. Thank you so much for listening today.