The Promise of Comfort

Introduction:  This section of Psalm 119 deals with the comfort of God's Word.

“Remember Your word to Your servant,

                upon which You have built my hope.

This is my comfort in my affliction,

                for Your promise has given me life.”

The psalmist opens with a prayer.  It is a personal prayer like that of the thief on the cross "remember me"!  And not only is the one who prayed remembered, but also realizes the promise of salvation.  In this sense our psalmist pleads for the eternal comfort of God's word.  The psalmist makes this prayer from the hope that the Lord has already given to him.  We should well note that the psalmist lived a life similar to our own; he too had his trials and tribulations.  There are times in all of our lives when we are forced to wrestle with the pressure and purpose of the worldly.  The events of the last few weeks are but only a reminder of how interesting life can become, if the Lord withholds His restraining hand upon the devil and all his minions.

There are of course many and varied levels of worldly concern, I was able Friday to lie to rest a legal problem that had been plaguing me since May.  And by mid-week I will finally be free from a public service job, which has demeaned and dampened my enthusiasm for almost any type of work these last fifteen to twenty years.  Of course my new calling, as Stated Clerk for our Presbytery, will have its new demands, troubles and opportunities.  No sooner do I walk out the “skool” door on my birthday, and I must immediately take a two-day tour through three states to deal with the opportunities of service in my new enterprise as the elected servant and clerical administrator of a dozen churches.

And yet, any of our daily problems and heartaches barely compare to the problems of physical survival and the terror of persecution suffered in many times and places in Christ's Church.   Whatever our calling, the God of all comfort has given to us the same words of hope in Jesus Christ.  Whatever our suffering comes our way, we may find our comfort in the promise of God's Word.  It is in His Word that our lives are preserved for His service.  That knowledge should comfort us whatever task He lays before us.  Of particular interest to us today are the words of verse fifty-one.

 “The  arrogant have mocked me without restraint,

                 but I have not turned from Your law."

That word "Restraint" is an appropriate word for our government this week!  It reminds me of the problem faced by our troops in Viet Nam, Granada, Panama and now in the Middle East.  In all of those cases we were faced with military powers that at the drop of a helmet would fade into the general population of their countries.  From that protected position they would seek to goad us into using massive force to destroy them and in the process wreck havoc upon countless civilians.  At least in Panama we finally began learning something about fighting this type of modern war.  At least there, the civilian deaths were numbered in the hundreds instead of the plurality of thousands.  When the mass graves in Panama were dug up, it was a fact that the majority of the bodies were mostly males of appropriate military stature and ages. That minimal success, if we may call it a success has been a very difficult lesson to learn and apply in the context of the types of wars that appear on the horizon of the Twenty-First Century.

Development:  Of course, there are always wars and rumors of wars, even as I updated my notes on these verses from 1990, I could almost engage the computer to substitute the country Afghanistan for that of Panama!  My how little the world changes.  Yes, we are all to often faced with the taunts of the Noriega’s and Taliban’s of this world.  And while the 9/11 attacks have surfaced some primal elements of spirituality in this country, the popular national phrase of this fall “God Bless America” is being attacked as inappropriate for school children to see displayed on public property.

Too often, we as Christians have been taunted, in this country, in the courts by angry arrogant people who know that we are restricted in our actions by our subservience to the Law of God.  They know that conscientious Christians ought to do everything possible to avoid court cases.  And so they take advantage of the fact that we are under God's law to use the courts in only in a protective or defensive sense.  Even as the rednecks in this country demand that our government just nuke the Middle Eastern enemies, so too would we like to go for the throat of our religious enemies.  However we are restricted like our troops in the Middle East.  There are to our popular way of thinking not enough free-fire zones to fight a proper battle!

The same restrictions hold true in our civil contest for the lives of the unborn.   Every single week we loose two-thirds of those lost at “Ground Zero”, to the blood letting of American abortuairies – but who in the media has enough guts to notice.  Thank heaven, only in a handful of cases have the ProLife people lost their cool and made terrorist attacks on the enemies of the unborn.  I do hope and pray that Christian leaders and followers in the ProLife movement will continue to realize that there are legal, moral and sacred restrictions to what they may do.  But, you say, it isn't fair; the opposition has no restraints upon their actions!

 Well, look at verse fifty-two for our marching orders in life's conflicts.

 "I remember Your ancient laws, O Lord,

    and I find comfort in them."

 Now the words translated "ancient laws" here are translated in an older version as "judgments of old".  The shift there is to the actions of God.  C.H. Spurgeon comments on this phrase in these words:  "When we see no present display of the divine power it is wise to fall back upon the records of former ages, since they are just as available as if the transactions were of yesterday, seeing the Lord is always the same."  He further observes that "Our true comfort must be found in what our God works on behalf of truth and right."

We must always remember that God is God indeed.  We know of course that He has a plan to bring about and even if we want to come out in our conflicts swinging, that may not be His purpose!  If we desire further trials and tribulations, let us of course do our own thing!  Let us use the courts aggressively, let us march and clamor whenever and wherever it pleases us.  And on the international scene, let us just drop a few bombs on another harmless aspirin factory and declare a simple victory until the next worldly attack upon our institutions, concepts and constitutional documents.

 But, I would admonish you not to expect any comfort because when we go our own way we have fallen to the level of those who follow not the Laws of our very own God!  Aaagh some of you may react because you have been caught up in the conflicts of this age just as I have been!  Fourteen years ago my Doctor told me that it might help my developing angina pains to struggle against the stupidity of public education.   I did and I came close to a nervous collapse of three bodily functions.  I was placed on sick leave for six weeks.  Providentially that was when we began our work here together.  So you see, the Lord has a proper place for all of our passions and while our military have been called to exercise extreme prejudice only on proper occasions, this is not the way of the Church of Jesus Christ.

Conclusion:  Our calling within the Kingdom of the Spirit is different – we are to treasure the ancient laws of our God and King.  And while we may defend that Kingdom in appropriate and even material means, our purpose is to seek the increase of His kingdom through word and deed.  I have heard several reports that the sale of alcohol is down, that mindless entertainment is less popular and that culturally our American society may be ready to hear the words of comfort to be found in the Scriptures.

May we all be ready to serve our Lord and King by sharing the eternal comfort that we find not only in this Psalm, but also in every book and chapter of God’s precious and holy word.  So give us opportunities Lord to this week to share the hope that is within us and may Your Kingdom increase and especially Lord encourage us to pray that the gospel might once again be in season.  Amen.