Pastor Don’s Bible Bytes
“You are my hiding place and my shield; I hope in your word.”
Psalm 119:114 ESV
Psalm 119 the longest chapter in the Bible. The author of this Psalm could be David, Daniel or Ezra. No one truly knows but, suffice it to say, although there are many themes throughout the Psalm they all point at the exaltation of God’s word!
What does it mean that God is our hiding place? When I read this I think about Jesus being the “Good Shepherd”. How a shepherd protects his sheep. How during the night, when they are most vulnerable, the shepherd would gather them together in a fenced in area called a “sheep fold” to keep them safe. The shepherd would then have an “under shepherd” lay across the entrance and sleep. This would keep the sheep in and also allow the junior shepherd to be woken up should a predator attempt to get in the fold. Kind of like Jesus being the shepherd and your pastor being the junior or under shepherd. So, for the sheep, the hiding place is the sheep pen or fold. The shield is the shepherd s his job is to protect the flock.
Now, let’s look at the word “HOPE”! Because generation after generation changes the true meaning of words, we need to take a look at the original meaning of this word “hope”. The word hope is from the Hebrew verb “yâchal”. For modern day English speakers, when we hear the word hope we are “hoping” in something unknown. We go to a job interview and we hope they pick us for the job. But, we don’t know if they will. But, we hope they do. Or, we hope for any other thing we want but are not sure we will be able to get it. The hope we read about in scripture is a patient waiting for something that is going to come to pass but we just don’t know when. For instance the “Rapture” of the church. We know for a fact it’s going to happen but, not even Jesus knows when it will be. So, we all wait in hopeful expectation for that day. We all know for those that are believers to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. We know we’re going to die someday because ten out of ten people do. But, no one knows the time or the day of their departure. So, we patiently wait in hopeful expectation for that day.
So then, what does it mean to “HOPE” in God’s word?
I’ll answer it with a another question… What else do we have to put our hope in? Regardless of what the world thinks, God’s word is the only truth we have. Regardless of what the world thinks, truth is not relative! Regardless of what the world thinks there’s only one way out of this mess alive and that’s through a relationship with Jesus Christ.
“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.”
1 John 2:15-17 ESV
Put your HOPE in Jesus! It’s a for sure deal!!!
Love ya,
Pastor Don