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The Scriptorium

Time to Act!

God, through us. Psalm 119.126

Psalm 119.121-128 (4)

Pray Psalm 119.126.
It is
time for You to act, O LORD,
For they have regarded Your law as void.

Sing Psalm 119.126, 127.
(Leominster: My Heart Doth Overflow)
The wicked scorn Your Word; let us be strong and bold
to act for You our sovereign Lord, and love You more than gold.
How precious is Your Word, no treasure on the earth
compares to it or to You, Lord, of holy, matchless worth.

Read Psalm 119.121-128; meditate on verse 126.


Preparation

1. What “time” was it?

2. What made this “time” so urgent?

Meditation
This verse puzzles me with respect to who should be acting here. Literally the text reads, “It is time for doing to the Lord,” which could convey the idea that, since the Law of God has been set aside, what is needed to re-establish it in the affairs of men is for some to begin living and doing, obeying the Law with a view to serving God, so that His wisdom and power for love may again be seen (Deut. 4.6-9).

It's not difficult to see that this condition describes the times in which we live. For not only in the unbelieving world but in many sectors of the Church, God’s Law has been considered void and unnecessary, if not downright harmful. It’s time for this to change before the world and the Church become overwhelmed by the lies of relativism.

Another reading, favored by several translations, suggests that the negating of God’s Law among men has become so pronounced that God Himself needs to act, to restore the Law to life in society. This begs the question as to how He would do that, for surely His way of furthering His rule is to act within and through His people.

So, again, it comes down to faithful people putting the Law into practice if the voiding of the Law is to be overturned and the Law given its rightful place in church and society once again.

But God’s people will not act in this way unless He moves within them by His Spirit. Each of us must daily seek the Spirit’s reviving Presence and power, and call on others to join us in seeking Him for revival, renewal, and awakening. He will teach and empower us to keep the Law and all the Word of God as the standard for every aspect of our lives.

It is indeed time for God to act. And when He does, when He acts to bring His rule more powerfully and beautifully to the world, will He act through you?

Treasures Old and New: Matthew 13.52; Psalm 119.162
When our mindset and heartset are correct we will be ready for God to act through us. “Revive us, and we will call upon Your name. Restore us, O L
ORD God of hosts; cause Your face to shine, and we will be saved!” (Ps. 80.18, 19) Saved to do His will.

Psalm 119.9-16 is our preparation manual for revival; and guide in how to avoid being the object and subject of God’s action. We are instructed to:
1. Take heed—pay attention—to God’s word. (vs. 9; Deut. 32.46.47)
2. Seek God with your whole heart. (vs. 10; Col. 3.1)
3. Do not wander from His commandments. (vs. 10; Jude 21)
4. Hide God’s word in your heart by reading and memorization. (vs. 11; Ps. 119.105)
5. Don’t sin against God—which would be any time you sin. (vs. 11; Ps. 51.4)
6. Ask God to teach you His statutes. (vs. 12; Ps. 25.4)
7. Be able to declare, then declare, all the judgments of God. (vs. 13; Ex. 20.1-17)
8. Rejoice in all of God’s testimonies. (vs. 14; Phil. 4.4)
9. Meditate on God’s precepts. (vs. 15; Phil. 4.8)
10. Contemplate God’s ways. (vs. 15; Is. 55.8, 9)
11. Delight in God’s statutes. (vs. 16; Ps. 1.2)
12. Do not ever forget God’s word. (vs. 16; Josh. 1.8)

Solomon told his son to: “pay attention to my wisdom; lend your ear to my understanding, that you may preserve discretion, and your lips may keep knowledge” (Prov. 5.1, 2). God prescribes the same course of action for us when it pertains to Him and His word, so that we can act in a godly way; and not be acted upon in a Godly way!

Any way we look at it, God acts. He acts through His creation; He acts through His creatures. But make no mistake: He acts. In 1 Samuel 6. 19 and then in 7.9, 10 we read about God acting. First against the Israelites, His chosen people; and then against the Philistines, His unchosen people. Both chosen and unchosen acted wrongly against God; both folks saw His anger and displeasure. “Then He struck the men of Beth Shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the L
ORD. He struck fifty thousand and seventy men of the people, and the people lamented because the LORD had struck the people with a great slaughter.” Next the Philistines. “Then Samuel cried out to the LORD for Israel, and the LORD answered him. Now as Samuel was offering the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel. But the LORD thundered with a loud thunder upon the Philistines that day, and so confused them that they were overcome before Israel.” It is indeed time for God to act, for so many of His people and so much of the world have regarded His law as null and void—as if it had been rescinded, nullified, or abolished. A truly life-changing miscalculation.

And we know this to be true: He will bring His rule more powerfully and beautifully to the world.

In light of that, may God’s Holy Spirit empower us to be used mightily for this action with Him.

For reflection
1. In a world that has rejected the Law of God, how does God act to restore His rule?

2. How do the Gospel and the Law work together to restore God’s rule?

3. How does God bring His rule – His Kingdom – to earth through you?

…the Prophet's grief proceeded from no other cause than that he could not endure to see the divine law violated. In short, this is a prayer that God would restore to order the confused and ruinous state of things in the world.
John Calvin (1509-1564),Commentary on Psalm 119.126

Pray Psalm 119.128.
God’s Word is the way “to order the confused and ruinous state of things in the world.” Ask Him to use you today, in each task or responsibility or relationship, to bring His rule of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit on earth as it is in heaven.

Sing Psalm 119.128.
(Leominster:
My Heart Doth Overflow)
Speak, Lord, and let us hear, the precepts of Your Word,
and know Your Presence ever near – our good and sovereign Lord!
Your ways are right and true; I hate each lying way;
Your precepts let me ever do and never from them stray.

T. M. and Susie Moore

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Except as indicated, all Scriptures are taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. For sources of all quotations, see the weekly PDF of this study. All psalms for singing are from The Ailbe Psalter (Williston: Waxed Tablet Publications, 2006), available by
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T.M. Moore

T. M. Moore is principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He and his wife, Susie, make their home in the Champlain Valley of Vermont.
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