Read Psalm 119:81–88
Questions from the Scripture text: What is the psalmist’s soul doing (Psalm 119:81a)? For what? In what does he hope (verse 81b)? What is happening to his eyes (Psalm 119:82a)? From what? What has he been searching the Word to ask (verse 82b)? To what does he compare himself in Psalm 119:83a? What has He still not done (verse 83b)? What does he ask in Psalm 119:84a? What is he looking forward to at the end of these days (verse 84b)? Upon whom will He execute judgment? What have the proud done to him (Psalm 119:85a)? What did they violate (verse 85b)? What is true of God’s commandments (Psalm 119:86a)? But what is true of his attackers (verse 86b)? What does he want from God (verse 86c)? What have the persecutors nearly done (Psalm 119:87a)? But what has the psalmist still not done (verse 87b)? What does He ask God to give him in Psalm 119:88a? According to what? In order to do what (verse 88b)?
What can a believer do when he is at the end of his rope? Psalm 119:81–88 looks forward to the morning sermon in public worship on the coming Lord’s Day. In these eight verses of Holy Scripture, the Holy Spirit teaches us that, even at the end of his rope, the believer must persist in crying out to God for the life he needs to keep searching God’s Word and keeping the testimonies of God’s mouth.
At the end of his rope, Psalm 119:81-84. The agony in these verses is intense. “faints” (Psalm 119:81a) is translating a word that means his soul has been entirely consumed in looking for relief from God. Still, he hasn’t given up. It would be wicked to look for salvation elsewhere, and wickedly unbelieving to give up as if there wasn’t hope for it with God.
It’s not just baby believers who end up like this. The psalmist knows what he should do: look to God for comfort by way of His Word! The problem is that this is exactly what he has been doing, and he still hasn’t found relief. It’s not just that his soul is consumed; the same word is now translated “fail” with respect to his eyes (Psalm 119:82a).
Our eyes have been created to behold God’s manifold works of goodness and wisdom, but especially to behold God’s Word. I hope, dear reader, that this is how you like to use your eyes. Isn’t it marvelous? God has given us physical organs by which we may look at His Word! The psalmist has been looking for God’s comfort in God’s comforting Word, but alas! He has not been able to obtain the comfort that he knows is there.
Recently, in studying Matthew 9:17, we thought about how wineskin bottles begin as pliable and slowly firm in their shape. But a wineskin that is too close to fire, or exposed to smoke, could dry out too quickly, with shrinkage in undesirable ways, and become too brittle (and, if used for wine, burst because the wine is still fermenting!). This is how the psalmist feels about his life—prematurely dried out and unable to fulfill his function (Psalm 119:83a). Still, he is looking to God’s Word not just for comfort (Psalm 119:82) but for direction (Psalm 119:83), especially in his distress and despair.
Finally, the question in Psalm 119:84a isn’t just a random inquiry about the length of his life. Combined with verse 84b, it becomes apparent that the psalmist knows what three thousand subsequent years of believers have experienced: sometimes we don’t get justice in this life. The psalmist trusts the Lord; he continues to call himself “Your servant.” But as a finite creature, he doesn’t know how long he can bear up under the attacks. So it is natural that he cries out to know how long this might end up lasting.
It is important to learn from this verse that it is permittable to raise our complaint to God—to express to Him our agony and difficulty under His providence. This is very different from complaining against Him, whether to others, in our hearts, or even to Him Himself. All of these are wicked, and we know it. The godly heart might be confused by his remaining sinfulness and tendency to complain against God: can it be right to tell God how hard on us His providence is? So for three thousand years, the Lord has given to His people this Psalm to sing, pray, and learn from.
But not at the end of his resources, Psalm 119:85-88. When the believer’s experience, and especially his own heart, is letting him down, there is one place of recourse: God Himself. As the proud persecutors have been plotting against (“digging pits for,” Psalm 119:85a) him, it has been against God’s faithful law (Psalm 119:85b, Psalm 119:86b). Psalm 119:86a literally says, “All Your commandments are faithfulness.” Here is something that we can always rely upon: God’s Word is as faithful as He is.
This is why the psalmist is sure that the persecutors will be judged (Psalm 119:84b), and why he refuses to abandon living according to God’s Word Himself. God’s justice guarantees that help will come—though perhaps, as we observed in verse 84, only after death.
Still, God Himself is the help. When the believer is at the end of his rope, he is not at the end of his resources. The strength that we have is limited, but we are not a closed system. In fact, we are continually sustained by the Lord. So being at the end of our rope does not mean that we are at the end of our resources. For, God Himself is our great Resource!
This gives rise to one of the most honest Christian prayers there is: “Help me!” It’s grievous that “God help me” has become a byword to so many, when it is a proper watchword for the believer. Dear reader, may it be a reflex of your heart to look to the Lord (and cry to Him!) for help as often as you feel your need of it. Not just when it feels like other resources have failed, but in every use of the means that He Himself has given and supports.
There is a glimmer (however small) of hope even in the statement of Psalm 119:87a. Those who have almost made an end of him are on the earth. But God is in heaven! Just as He is constant in faithfulness, so also He is almighty in power. And with the fullness of His divine being, His covenant love (“lovingkindness,” Psalm 119:88a) bends itself devotedly, unwaveringly, unstoppably upon the objects of God’s eternal, electing affection.
“Revive me” is literally “make me live”! Every creature lives every moment only by the goodness of God (cf. Psalm 104). He makes all men live. In Him, we live and move and have our being (cf. Acts 17:28). For the believer, His making us live comes not only in His ordinary goodness to all the creatures, but in the covenant love that brought us to faith in the first place.
Finally, note the primary purpose for which the believer desires this life to be continued to himself: “so that I may keep the testimony of Your mouth.” He is not again asking for some idea of how long this will be, or for the judgment to fall now on the persecutors (though such requests are appropriate). His primary desire is that he might continue to keep God’s Word.
Why? Not just because it is morally and judicially right or even covenantally obligatory, but because it is personal. It is “the testimony of Your mouth.” It is breathed out by this God Who has made the saint and loved the saint and redeemed the saint. And this is the great thing that he hopes to do with the life that the Lord continues to him: to keep that personal testimony that has personally come from the Lord’s “mouth.” Keeping God’s Word isn’t just moral; it’s personal. If you are reading this or hearing this, the Lord is continuing to you your life. Isn’t He doing so in order that you might know Him and His love to you and devote your own life to the keeping of His Word?!
When have you felt like your soul was used up, your eyes were used up with looking in the Bible for help, and your life was dried up and brittle? How much of your inner thought life and interaction with God is a crying out to Him for help? How are you making it the great project of the life that He has continued to you that you would “keep the testimony of His mouth”?
Sample prayer: Lord, when all our soul, our eyes, our life are used up in looking for comfort from Your Word, still, our hope is in You. Help us! All Your commandments are faithfulness, and all of Scripture is the personal testimony that has been breathed out by You. So, in Your steadfast, covenant love, continue to us, now, our life. And grant that we would devote that life to keeping the testimony of Your mouth—offering worship to You by Your own grace, that we might live entire lives of worship unto You by that same grace, through our Lord Jesus Christ, in Whose Name we ask it, AMEN!
Suggested songs: ARP119K “My Soul Is Fainting” or TPH119K “My Soul for Your Salvation Yearns”