Promise 38: Rejoicing

  1. Rejoicing

Psalm 19.8

The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart:

 The Word of God is right, and that is good, but that is not all; it also rejoices the heart. The promise is that the Word will bring joy to the heart. The joy of the Lord will be your strength. The deep, inner, abiding joy of God shall dwell deep within the heart so solid that no fear, no worry, no threat, no sadness, no danger, and no darkness can touch the joy of the heart worked deep into it by the Word of God. Great joy results from understanding the Word of God: Nehemiah 8:12: “And all the people went their way to eat, and to drink, and to send portions, and to make great mirth, because they had understood the words that were declared unto them.” It is like the joy of a Christmas holiday when we understand the words of God to us. “I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies, as much as in all riches.” (Psalm 119:14).

The statutes of the Lord are right, and the guarantee is that when they are kept joy comes into the life because rightness and uprightness belongs to the Lord. The joy of life and the joy of living with God cannot be taken away. When the laws of God are followed joy follows, because joy is the natural product of right living and because there is joy and satisfaction in knowing that we have done the right thing. Even doing the wrong thing and being convicted of the error by the Word of God is a blessing for it brings one to repentance and restoration to favor by faith in Christ. This rejoices the heart. The joy of doing the right thing because God says it is right is it’s own reward, just in the action of doing it, but the added blessing and promise is that it rejoices the heart; it plants and grows up joy so strongly and solidly that such abiding joy will carry us over and through many rough patches of life.

Let the Word of Christ dwell in your hearts by faith so richly that you not only hear and believe and do but also rejoice.

Promise 37: Making Wise

  1. Making Wise

Psalm 19.7

The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.

 The promise is that the Word of God will be used by God to make the simple wise. There is a condition: one must be simple. “Simple” means open to teaching, open to learning more; it means not being already a “know-it-all,” proud of my knowledge, smug and secure in myself. Simple means being humble enough to receive some gift, some treasure, some insight, some revelation, some rebuke, some chastening, some grace, some forgiveness, and some compassion. When I am open and empty and ready to receive what God what God has for me then the promise is that He will make me wise. Wisdom = knowledge about practical living that brings benefit and blessing into life; how to live a good life.

This wisdom comes from down from above, not from below, and it is not worldly wisdom: this kind of wisdom lead to death, not life, destruction, not building up, breaking down, not restoring. The wisdom from God is life and health. The one who fears God and hears His Word is made wise for wonderful living. “The holy scriptures are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” (2 Timothy 3:16).

The testimony of the Lord is sure = the Word of God is true, efficacious, and inerrant. The Word of God can be trusted to be the Wisdom and Truth of God for an ordered and blessed life in His Creation. It is sure; one can count on it; one can stake one’s life on the Word of God. One can believe the Word and trust in its promises and commandments, even though the world fights tooth and nail with every proposition from God’s Word: “That command is impossible; that promise is not true; that threat will never happen. Do you believe this stuff?” On and on doubts assail us, but the sure Word stands up strong.

To the world the simple believer in God’s Word may appear truly simple, in the sense of dumb and stupid, unsophisticated and uneducated, but the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of the world. So we take God at His Word and trust that His way is the best way to live, in spite of what the devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh may say. Without wisdom life would culminate in the disasters of folly.

Which way do you wish to be wise? Worldly or godly? From above or from below? Which wisdom do you seek?

Promise 36: Converting

  1. Converting

Psalm 19.7

The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul:

 Conversion of the soul is an unconditional promise: that the Lord will convert the soul, but the implied condition is that we must read, hear, learn, or in some way receive the Law of the Lord. The Lord promises to use the Word of God to convert the soul.

The law of the Lord is the Torah, or the Book of Moses, the first five books of the Hebrew Old Testament. Torah means “Instruction” and Torah then means it includes the entire instruction from God about life: where it comes from, what it is, what it means, where it is going, and how to live a good life. It is considered the manufacturer’s manual for the proper operation of the universe. The “Law of the Lord” can be narrowed to one command: “Love God and love neighbor.” It can also be widened to include the entire revelation of the Scriptures, both Old and New Testament. The “Law” of the Lord also includes the Gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ. Law = Word.

This Word of God is perfect, complete, whole, without error, and effective in purpose. The Word will accomplish that for which it was sent: Isaiah 55:11: “So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” In that sense the Word is perfect: it will accomplish conversion.

Converting the soul means to turn the soul around completely from going in the wrong direction to going in the right direction. Conversion, a complete turning around of life’s direction, happens when one comes to a saving faith in Jesus Christ by the working of the Holy Spirit though the Gospel. “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” (Romans 11:17). Faith converts a person from darkness to light, from death to life, from sin to righteousness, from hell to heaven. That faith comes through the Word, more precisely, it is the Holy Spirit creating faith in the soul though the hearing of the Gospel. This makes him a new creation; the old has gone, and the new has come.

This total turn around conversion may happen in a moment or over time from our own experience of it. But one time conversion is not enough to maintain the overcoming Christian life on a daily basis. We may have been transformed once, but we all need continual transforming and restoring. The word “convert” can also mean “restore, revive, or refresh.” This is our need and this is God’s promise. “He restoreth my soul.” (Psalm 23: 3). Life, surrounded by sin, death, and devil has a way of draining life, sapping energy, putting things in disarray, and messing things up. We need the restorative powers of the Word of God on a regular basis, not just to be fed, but also to be converted and restored.

Life cannot be fully lived without this enduring inner good; and God gives it freely. If you like your life the way it is, don’t seriously read your Bible because the results for your life will be serious.

Promise 35: Buckler

  1. Buckler

Psalm 18:30

He is a buckler to all those that trust in him.

 A buckler is a large shield that covers nearly the whole body so that the warrior may be protected from arrows and spears during battle. The believer is always and ever in this life involved in spiritual warfare since the devil, sin, and death are relentlessly present to fight against his soul and diminish his life. He cannot fight and protect himself very well without a shield. The Lord Himself is that shield; He is our defense and our protector.

The Lord, our Great Warrior, puts us behind the buckler, behind Himself, so that the enemies cannot harm us. He will not stop the slings and arrows, spears and javelins, from being thrown our way. Some new attack comes at us every day. Every day we put on the armor of God; we live our lives safely enjoying His blessings under his protection and behind His shield and buckler.

This promise of protection is conditional: it is for those who trust in him. Placing one’s trust in Him is a matter of believing the Gospel of Jesus Christ, acknowledging my sin and guilt, recognizing my weakness and need, confessing and repenting, believing Jesus died and rose for me, receiving the forgiveness of sins, and trusting in Him to give me eternal life today. Led by the Spirit to make that simple transaction I am trusting in him. Trusting in Him, seeking His refuge, I claim the promise of God being for me a buckler. He daily overcomes sin, death, and devil. I am secure; I am content.

The word for “buckler” can also be translated “Suzerain.” Suzerain is a covenant protector, the stronger of two kings entering into covenant agreement to protect the weaker if the vassal king pays tribute and loyalty. The picture of a strong ally who will protect us weaklings from the marauding enemy is also a valid interpretation. Either way, I am safe in Him.

Promise 34: Enlightenment

  1. Enlightenment

Psalm 18.28

For thou wilt light my candle:

The Lord my God will enlighten my darkness.

 Light comes from God and He will give us light. God promises to enlighten my darkness so that I can see where I am and where I am going. He promises to light my candle so that I can see my way. Luke 1:79: “To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

Without God’s light and enlightenment I am in darkness and I cannot see. I cannot see God; I cannot see His blessings and gifts; I cannot see my pathway; I cannot see life; I cannot even see myself, where I fit in to God’s scheme of things, who I am, where I come from and where I am going. In the darkness I wander around, groping and lost, looking for some glimpse of light and hoping for something. The spiritual darkness in which I am lost is because of my own sin; I brought on my own darkness by my own sin and guilt; I separated myself from God and so I lost the light and the life of God. I could not find my way out of the darkness of death. The Lord Himself, my Light and Life, had to come to where I was and be the Light for me and by His grace bring me into the light.

The Holy Spirit enlightens my dark heart with Truth and Life in Jesus Christ, while He gives me faith in Christ. Now I see God, His grace, His love, His forgiveness, His truth, the meaning of His death on the Cross, the glory of His Resurrection; and I see the promises fulfilled in my life and the hope planted in my spirit. I see the glories of the invisible kingdom; I see the beauty of the future Kingdom; I see the King in all His glory welcoming me with open arms and receiving me to Himself.

When the Lord lights my candle it is more like the Sun shining on a clear day. This promise is always held before us, so that we can ever more clearly see by faith the wondrous things God has done for us and given to us.

Promise 33: Save the Afflicted

  1. Save the Afflicted

Psalm 18.27

For thou wilt save the afflicted people;

But wilt bring down high looks.

 God promises to save the afflicted from whatever they are afflicted with; and He will save the afflicted from those who afflict them. When we are afflicted by anything for any reason we only need to look to this promise from God: He will save the afflicted people. When we are afflicted we are more likely to turn to the Lord for help and salvation than when we are smug and secure in our own right. God loves all people and would save everybody, but those who are smug with “high looks” do not need help and do look to the Lord for salvation. But God loves the high and mighty, too, and so He brings them down and afflicts them, in order that they might call on the Lord and that they might receive His Salvation. Poverty of spirit is willinging to receive a gift. Psalm 34:19: “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.” James 2:5: “Hath not God chosen the poor of the world to be rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to those who love him?”

The old saying used by preachers who remind themselves to preach Law and Gospel goes like this: “The Word of God comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable.” The proper distinguishing of Law and Gospel is to know when and to whom the Law or the Gospel should be preached. And I individually need to know when I need to apply one or the other particularly to my own heart. There are seasons when I feel pretty comfortable and at ease, smug and on top of the world: those times I need to hear the Law to bring me down to repentance in dust and ashes, to let the Law afflict me with guilt and shame and fear that I might repent and turn to the Lord for Salvation. There are other seasons when I feel down, blue, and afflicted with guilt and weakness and despair and in need of help: those times I need to hear the Gospel to lighten my spirit, lift my burden, fill by heart with joy, forgive my sins and save me from my afflicted feeling.

God always resists the proud and hates pride in anyone. He will correct it in His people and punish it in His enemies. His threat will always come true: he that exalts himself shall be abased; “He will bring down high looks.” The humility of Christ subdued the pride of Satan; my very salvation depends on the outcome of that contest between these two principles in my heart.

True happiness and the joy of life in part comes from knowing the difference: when I need Law or Gospel; affliction or comfort; salvation or conviction; repentance or faith. Either time, the point is always the same: to save the afflicted people; two different and contradictory “words from God” have the same purpose, salvation. God’s wisdom will be shared with us so that we will know when and how to appropriate the promise at the right time.

Promise 31: Hear

  1. Hear

Psalm 17. 6

I have called upon thee, for thou wilt hear me, O God:

Incline thine ear unto me, and hear my speech.

 The promises of God to hear our prayer are numerous in Scripture; the commands to pray are also plentiful. We pray because God commands it and because God promises to hear it. Believing in a God who promises to hear our prayers makes all the difference in the world for our faith, our regular lives, and for our eternity. There are two kinds of people who believe in a prayer hearing God: 1) those who believe God hears our prayers because they have heard the Gospel and believe in the goodness and mercy of God in Christ Jesus and therefore have a personal relationship with a merciful God who hears and cares; 2) those who think God hears prayer when they do it right or do it rite, who treat God like a superstition that responds to the proper ritual or to a “holy man.”

God is a prayer hearing God who wants me to talk to him (and listen) because He desires an ever-increasing intimacy with me developed through communication. God hears because of His Son, Jesus Christ, who has interceded for us and brought us to the Father as forgiven children, whom He loves and cares deeply about. God hears our prayers simply because He is a prayer hearing God; that is His nature, for God is Love. The childlike believer who knows God loves him just talks to Him, naturally praying about the things of life, and doesn’t wonder if God hears: he knows. The compassion of God consists in this that He hears when we call.

 

Our pleadings, as the pleas of the Psalmists, are not manipulations but confident requests made in quiet response to a God who promises to hear.

Promise 30: Joy and Pleasures

  1. Joy and Pleasure

Psalm 16.11

In thy presence is fullness of joy;

At thy right had there are pleasures for evermore.

 Joy and Pleasures are unconditional promises for those who are in God’s Presence or at His right hand. Whenever humans are graced by God to feel Him or have a religious experience one word often used to describe that experience is Joy, full to bursting joy. But the believer is in the presence of God by faith, not by sight, and not only when God’s presence is felt. Thus joy is always available since the presence of God is always available. The presence of God is near us, with us, and in us, although we do not normally utilize it or even notice it. And if the presence is here then so is the joy of the Lord, whether felt or noticed or not. The promise is given to us to realize that the joy of the presence of God is always near and available, no matter how we are feeling at the moment. By faith we may enter into the presence and the joy. “Come unto me.”

With the Lord by our side there are also pleasures, in addition to joy; these are the pleasures of life, both spiritual life with God and social life with people and physical life in a pleasant environment. The emphasis is on the pleasures of this earthly life, but when the words “for evermore” are added another dimension of life open up, for we know more about the pleasures of Paradise with God than we think we do. It is easy to imagine what we have not yet experienced because we may simply enhance and expand any pleasant experience on earth and multiply it in eternal paradise. The glorious vistas of eternity are now open to people, since Christ has conquered death. The heart and soul is filled with hope, and the flesh shall dwell securely. It is not the contrast between life and death that is so significant, but rather contrast between life with God and life without him.

The pleasures of life promised by God to be with God are different than the pleasures of world “promised” by Satan: the primary difference is the eternal, long-lasting pleasure of life with God over against the temporary, momentary thrill or high of worldly life; worldly temporary thrills normally crash with a thud when they pass, while godly pleasures leave a lasting and pleasing effect; another difference is in the depth or shallowness of the pleasure, for after the worldly pleasure passes we realize how empty and shallow it really was; after the experience of a spiritual pleasure we notice that it lingers and grows in significance.

Even in the midst of pain and tragedy the eternal weight of glory (2 Corinthians 4:17) in the pleasures of God are still available, and when asked, God may bring in glories and pleasures that overwhelm and outweigh the pain and tragedy. Worldly pleasure cannot do that.

Let your imagination take hold of fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore and run wild with these promises. Apply this promise to your life in the most contrary circumstance and see the difference. It’s the promise that is more real.

Promise 29: Path of Life

  1. Path of Life

Psalm 16.11

Thou wilt shew me the path of life:

 This unconditional promise that the Lord will show me the path of life means more than merely point the way; He will put me on the path. Even more, Jesus says that He is the Path; He is also the Life. He who believes in Him is on, or in, the Way to Life and even already has the Life.

For the original Psalm writer, David, the path of life did not immediately mean eternal life and life after death. It is Jesus who further developed the concept of “Life” to mean Eternal Life and that that eternal life is the life of God Himself and it begins right now on this earth, and never ends. Thus “path of life” for the NT believer means eternal life (the true God and Jesus Christ); he who believes “has” eternal life (not “going to have”) right now on earth and will have it forever after earthly life is ended.

David the writer and prophet most likely understood “path of life” to mean the best way to live and enjoy the gift of life on earth to its fullest measure; it meant a rich and full life in constant communion with the living God; it meant God would abundantly grant and provide this quality of life as long as he lives. The path of life is keeping the commandments of the covenant, seeking forgiveness when failing, and having a heart for God at all times. Most people know this path is blessed and the consequences of staying on the path are better, but the fearer of God realizes he cannot do it himself and needs God’s support, teaching and help. God will show him the way.

That this “path” may lead to a blessed life after death, to heaven, does not even come into consideration; an end or goal of the path of life is not even in the picture. Living today, and getting from day to day, with the Lord is the best life. God promises a good life. That that life is eternal and goes on after physical death is coincidental and irrelevant, though true.

Promise 28: Deliverance out of Hell

  1. No Sheol

Psalm 16.10

For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell;

Neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.

 The amazing unconditional promise for our soul is that it won’t stay in Sheol/Hades (Hebrew and Greek for the Nether World). Many cultures throughout the ancient world believed in something after death. For the Hebrews and Greeks and others after death some shadowy existence continued in Sheol/Hades. The figures were called shades; they had some conscious awareness but very little that could be called lifen. No one knew much about it, but it was not pleasant even though it did not seem to be particularly painful either. Every dead soul, believer or unbeliever, went to the underworld along with the evil angels and demons of the devil, and the place was literally “under the earth.” Hints and glimpses of life with God in heaven was here and there in the OT but very little was given to go on. The concept of resurrection was rare and fleeting. Hope and belief in resurrection and afterlife grew until the time of Jesus, but it was dim, vague, uncertain and controversial. But that there was some kind of underworld called Sheol for souls after death was never doubted. English has no word for Sheol/Hades other than “hell,” so hell we must use.

Then out of the blue comes this remarkable promise in Psalm 16 v. 10, that God would not leave his soul in Sheol. Deliverance from this sort of shadowy, eternal prison was unheard of. That everyone would die and go to hell was assumed and never doubted; but that anyone could be delivered out of hell was not on anyone’s radar. Several times the Psalmist describes being delivered “from” death and Sheol but he had never quite entered into hell. “Out of” presumes one is already in hell and will be set free from its confines. This is the meaning of “not leave in.” Apparently the righteous souls in hell before Jesus went there were liberated from there to go to heaven; this happened during Jesus’ descent into hell. A portion of Hades was also called ‘Paradise,” or even “the Elysian Fields” in Classical literature. In this way and at this time the promise was fulfilled: Jesus descended into hell (the realm of the dead) to proclaim victory and liberate the captives. Ultimately, at the End, death and hell (hades/Sheol) gave up its dead and is cast into the lake of fire, which is the second death. (Revelation 20:13, 14)

Although we are not delivered “out of” hell, we are delivered “from” hell; we have abundant and certain promise that we shall not experience hell at all. However, what will happen to the body? It is buried or burned and awaits the resurrection of the body. However, one human body, and only one, called the Holy One, did not see corruption or decay. This incorruption of the body in the tomb is prophesied here in Psalm 16. According to Peter in Acts 2;31, David, the Psalmist and prophet, foresaw the resurrection of the Christ from the dead and that his body did not see corruption.

Though not here given as a promise for us, we know that the resurrection of our human body is a promise for us as it is for all human beings. The first resurrection is the resurrection of the body of Jesus; we who believe in Him have a part in His resurrection and are guaranteed that our body will rise again to eternal life and the second death has no power over us..

The deliverance of the soul from hell is promised to the faithful; the resurrection of the body is promised to the only Holy One, Messiah, in verse 10.