Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Daily Devotions for Week 6 of Sermon on the Mount Tues

Week 6 Day 2 Devotions
The Delightful Law
“Let your compassion come to me that I may live, for your law is my delight.” Psalm 119:77

Psalm 119 is the longest Psalm in the Bible and it is divided into twenty two stanzas, one for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. In each verse, each line begins with the same letter of the alphabet - this makes it what is called an acrostic Psalm. The text before us today is from the tenth verse of the Psalm and in the original language each of the eight lines in this verse begins with the letter “Yod,” the tenth letter in the Hebrew alphabet.

 The whole Psalm is an extraordinary tribute to the Law of Israel and in all but seven lines of the176 in the Psalm there is a reference to the Law. Furthermore, God is addressed or referred to in every one of the 176 lines! The author of this Psalm loves the Lord and loves the Law. We should too. “Your law is my delight:” What a wonderful way to describe God's law and no wonder Jesus wants to make it clear in the Sermon on the Mount that such a source of pleasure and delight is not done away with.

 Why do away with something that is so very good for us?
In our text the Psalmist is asking for the Lord's compassion to come to him so that he may live. He is suffering some sort of affliction and may even be close to death and his cry is one that has been on the lips of many who have suffered. It is interesting to look at the cause of his affliction which is mentioned in 119:75: “in faithfulness you have afflicted me.” The Lord-loving and Law-loving Psalmist is suffering an affliction which is the result of having broken the law and his loving and long-suffering Lord has in faithfulness had to afflict him. Breaking the law of God has consequences. Sometimes the natural consequences of breaking the law bring affliction without the Lord's faithful intervention - not all suffering or affliction comes from God. 

But sometimes stiffnecked rebellion and stubborn disobedience require that our Lord, because of His faithfulness to us, afflict us in order to bring us to our senses. It is at times like these that we, like the Psalmist, must cling more than ever to the Rock of our salvation, delighting in His Law even when it is broken laws that are causing us to suffer and cry out for compassion.

When stronger souls their faith forsook,
And, lulled in worldly, hellish peace,
Leaped desperate from their guardian rock,
And headlong plunged in sin's abyss,
Thy strength was in our weakness shown,
And still it guards and keeps thine own. (471)