Samekh - Psalm 119:113-120 Series

SAMEKH

February 29, 2012

Oak Park Baptist Church – Wed Bible Study Series

Psalm 119:113-120 (ESV) – 15 of 22

Samekh – 15th letter of the Hebrew Alphabet

Read/show ALL verses b4 verse by verse teaching…

[show verse]

113

I hate the double-minded, but I love your law.

Here we find the psalmist speaking in what I would call reverse logic, as he reveals what He loves about God by revealing what he hates about humanity. [show highlighted verse here]

The psalmist proclaims that he hates those who are double minded! Do you know what double minded means? And NO it does not mean you have twice the brain power! 

Double minded can be loosely translated as wishy washy or riding the fence… not taking a stand… [show verse with definitions here]

Being double minded is when one allows the circumstances and situations of life and the world to influence and change their decisions! These are people with NO conviction to stand upon.

James put it like this in James 1:6-8 [on screen now]

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6…for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

The Revelation Bible study commentary puts it this way: The psalmist here is a man of a single mind; he loves God and His law!

Meaning that his focus is ON God and is concentrated on his walk with God, therefore, he is stable! Unlike the double-minded man… whose life is tossed about by the circumstances and driven by the situations of life!

How often do we find ourselves ‘double-minded’ in our lives? We make decisions based solely on the outside circumstances and what we fail to do is seek out counsel in the Word of God!

We have to make decisions and sometimes the circumstances of life will force our hand, but when we are grounded in the counsel of God’s word our decisions will be focused on pleasing Him and not the world!

In this verse we see the focus of the psalmist’s life, it is on serving God and constantly seeking after His word and His guidance in life.

The verbs used here are strong emotive verbs that are very descriptive in nature and they reveal the psalmists passion FOR serving God but also his passion AGAINST those who do not!

How zealous are we for our Lord? How angry does it make us when we see the Lord being put on the shelf by others!

I want you to understand that this anger I speak of here is not an anger that strikes out at the individual, but a righteous anger that hates sin and hates the Enemy who brings temptation and who hates the broken and sinful world we have to live in…

This ‘righteous anger’ that should be burning within us should a great motivating factor in us sharing the LOVE of Christ to the world… by sharing Christ we punch the Enemy in the face, we slap him around, we damage his plans and purpose!

By sharing Christ and His love, we bring others to know the Word of God in Jesus Christ and they begin to live in accordance to His Word!

We should seek to be stable in our walk, single minded and focused on God’s purposes! We must avoid any hint of being unstable, and we can do this by immersing ourselves INTO God’s word! But the psalmist continues…

[show verse]

114You are my hiding place and my shield; I hope in your word.

Now when we read this verse we can see that the psalmist had a wonderful grasp on his understanding of God and God’s promise of protection for His children. Look again at what the psalmist says, “You are my hiding-place and my shield...” [show highlighted verse here]

Matthew Henry’s Commentary on Psalms tells us that when David was being pursued by King Saul that he often took shelter in close places! When he was in war he guarded himself with his shield.

Spiritually, God was both of these things to him! God was David’s hiding-place that would protect him from danger…BUT God was also David’s shield of protection to preserve him in danger!

This is what David clung to when on the run from Saul… it was God’s protection and preservation that he clung to… the protection of his life from death and the preservation of his soul from sin.

God is the strength and shield to those who trust in Him, He is their help and shield, their sun and shield, their shield and great reward, and here in this passage the psalmist proclaims that God is also his hiding-place and shield.