MONDAY 21st
Psalm 119:65-72 – Section Nine – Hebrew – TETH
‘You have dealt well with your servant, O LORD, according to your word. Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I believe in your commandments. Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word.
You are good and do good; teach me your statutes. The insolent smear me with lies, but with my whole heart I keep your precepts; their heart is unfeeling like fat but I delight in your law.
It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes. The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces.’
‘You have dealt well with your servant, O LORD, according to your word.’ (v65) I want to link to this another verse of Scripture, Psalm 13:6 ‘I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me.’
I remember as a child when one of us as siblings would do something wrong, we knew what the consequences would be, ‘you are going to get what’s coming to you’, which meant, well, best put it this way, we were going to be punished! And we were!
Thank God that although we all deserved what was coming to us, God in his mercy and out of his great love, stood in to take our place in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, he took our punishment, he took the wrath of God, he took all that we deserved and suffered instead on our behalf, as an atoning sacrifice for our sin. And what was written in psalm 103 is the testimony of all who have come to believing faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, ‘The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.’ Did you notice what it says in verse 10, ‘He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities’, and why? because of what Jesus has done for us, the words of a song that have blessed me over the last few months are so applicable today, I was a wretch, I deserved what was coming to me – BUT JESUS TOOK MY PLACE, thank you Jesus for the blood. He has dealt bountifully toward us with salvation and forgiveness.
I was a wretch
I remember who I was
I was lost, I was blind
I was running out of time
Sin separated
The breach was far too wide
But from the far side of the chasm
You held me in Your sight
So You made a way
Across the great divide
Left behind Heaven’s throne
To build it here inside
And there, at the cross
You paid the debt I owed
Broke my chains, freed my soul
For the first time, I had hope
Thank You, Jesus
For the blood applied
Thank You, Jesus
It has washed me white
Thank You, Jesus
You have saved my life
Brought me from the darkness
Into glorious light
You took my place
Laid inside my tomb of sin
You were buried for three days
But then You walked right out again
And now death has no sting
And life has no end
For I have been transformed
By the blood of the Lamb
There is nothing stronger
Than the wonder working power
Of the blood, the blood
That calls us sons and daughters
We are ransomed by our Father
Through the blood, the blood
There is nothing stronger
Oh the wonder working power
Of the blood, the blood
That calls us sons and daughters
We are ransomed by our Father
Through the blood, the blood
Steven Musso, Charity Gayle, Ryan Kennedy,
Bryan McCleery, Elisha Albright Hoffman
David Gentiles, John Hart Stockton