Psalm 119.4 - Fear GOD, not DOGE

YouTube video with Portuguese captions

It’s been an interesting month. As I compose these lines, it’s been a month since the Trump administration took office in Washington. Opponents and supporters, alike, have been left in a daze at the speed and extent to which the new President has taken over the reins of power. Like it, or not, one thing is clear: Donald Trump means what he says, and we had better assume he means it. Many who thought what he said as a candidate was a hyperbole now realize shock,  “He was serious!” He really meant it. Over and over we see or hear the words,

Promises made, promises kept.

I heard a commentator on the TV discussing  the government crackdown on fentanyl smugglers and dealers. “President Trump is not messing around.”

In other words:

He means what he says.

He really means business.

He’s serious, he’s not joking, is he?

 I confess I’m interested in seeing how far President Trump gets in his radical reforms, but let’s think about what Psalm 119.4 says about God:

You have commanded that Your precepts

be diligently kept. Ps. 119.4 HCSB

You have laid down precepts that are to be fully obeyed. NIV

This whole Psalm 119 revolves around the importance of God’s Word and the psalmist’s relationship to it. The opening verses describe the blessings of following God’s instructions, encouraging the reader to consider carefully the rest of the 176 verses that make up the longest chapter in the Bible. But after the first two verses focus on the benefits to those who live according to the Word of God, verse four looks at God’s attitude towards His Word.

Thou hast commanded us to keep thy precepts diligently.  KJV

Many translations follow a similar wording, but the KJV puts “us” in italics to show that there’s no “us” in the original. Other translations, like the HCSB, say something like “He commanded that the precepts be kept…”

My translation/paraphrase would be “You instituted precepts to be followed to the last detail,” which is close to what the NIV says, “You have laid down precepts that are to be fully obeyed.”

The words “diligently” in the KJV, “fully” in the NIV, translate the Hebrew adverb “meod”, which intensifies the meaning of the word it modifies, and it is used all throughout the OT, usually translated as “very” or “extremely”, but it’s translated as “utterly” in verses 8 and 43.

However we read it, we come away with the feeling: God is not messing around. He means what He says. He demands that His Word be fulfilled to the letter. I think of Jesus’s words in Matthew 5.18: For I assure you: Until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or one stroke of a letter (jot or tittle – KJV) will pass from the law until all things are accomplished.

Like it or not, it’s a fact we have to deal with. This tells us what God “feels” about what He says. God is serious and He means business.

What lessons can we take away from this?

1.  “Promises made, promises kept” we often hear about Trump. Only God never fails to keep a promise.

But no matter how fully Trump follows through on the promises he made, like any of us mortals, he is not omnipotent. He is subject to outside forces, political, social, and economic. He is subject to physical limitations and is not immune to illness or death. God, on the other hand, is omnipotent. No outside force can hinder Him from doing what He has promised to do.

None of us is omniscient. None of us know all the factors involved in our most well-intentioned promises. No one can foresee catastrophic events, earthquakes, floods, wildfires, plagues and pandemics, or losing our job.

I could ask a friend for a $1000 loan and promise to pay the money back by a certain day. And I would be serious about it, but I wouldn’t be counting on having an accident.

A couple of years ago I mailed my state and federal income tax forms by registered mail and the next day a major blizzard shut down roads and airports all over this part of the country. Six weeks later I checked, the tax forms had still not been delivered to either tax center. They never did arrive, and I had to file new sets of forms.

That’s an example of what Robert Burns meant when he wrote in a poem about

“The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men” . . .or as we say today, “The best-laid plans of mice and men”…  They all go astray.

We are subject to the unforeseeable and therefore the unpreventable.

2.  God’s promises include prophecies.

The Bible is a collection of prophecies God made, directly or through His prophets, and so far, not a one has failed. Some prophecies are still to be fulfilled, but God’s record over thousands of years of history tells us that we must take God at His Word.

3.  God does not make empty threats.

We rejoice in the promises of help and blessing, but some of God’s promises involve punishment. I recall a rock-throwing incident when I was in the 1st or 2nd grade.

I was waiting for the school bus across the road from our house and I decided to occupy my time by tossing small pieces of gravel at passing cars. From the house Mom saw me and told me to stop throwing at the cars. I stopped. She went back in the house. Then I did it again, but she was watching out the window and saw me. Just as the bus arrived and I was getting on, she yelled out, “You’re getting a whipping when you get home.”

It was a very long day at school, because I knew she meant what she said. It was not an idle threat. She kept her word and I got my punishment for direct disobedience.

When God promises punishment for sin, our disobedience of His clear instructions, He means it. Let’s look at 2 Peter 3.3-13

Summarizing that passage, here is what it says:

1. People scoff at the idea Jesus will return in glory and judgement.

(God) 3First, be aware of this: Scoffers will come in the last days to scoff, living according to their own desires, 4saying, “Where is the promise of His coming?  Ever since the fathers fell asleep,  all things continue as they have been since the beginning of creation.”

(Man) “This talk about Jesus coming back is religious fantasy. Sanctimonious sci-fi.”

2.  They willfully ignore the historical fact of the universal flood.

(God) 5They willfully ignore this: Long ago the heavens and the earth were brought about from water and through water by the word of God. 6Through these waters the world of that time perished when it was flooded.

(Man) “We can explain all the landforms on earth, and the fossil evidence, even if it takes us millions of years to do it.”

3.  In the same way, the present earth and heavens will be subjected to a fiery judgment.

(God) 7But by the same word,  the present heavens and earth are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

(Man) “Climate change is the real existential threat to mankind. The remotest threat to earth would come from an asteroid, but we’ll find a way to deal with that if it ever happens.”

4.  The long delay in judgment does not mean God has forgotten what He said.

(God) 8Dear friends, don’t let this one thing escape you: With the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. 9The Lord does not delay His promise,  as some understand delay,

(Me) I hoped my mother would forget about the whipping before I got home from school. She didn’t. How could God forget?

5. God would rather forgive than destroy.

(God) 9The Lord does not delay His promise,  as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance.

(Lesson) God does offer forgiveness to sinners who repent. Reject that offer at your own peril.  BECAUSE…

6.  This day WILL come when we least expect it.

(God) 10But the Day of the Lord will come like a thief;  on that day the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, the elements will burn and be dissolved,  and the earth and the works on it will be disclosed.

(Lesson) Just like the day finally came when you got your driver’s license, your college degree, your wedding day came, got the keys to your own house, your pregnancy finally ended with a crying bundle of joy … That day will come

7.  We therefore must take God at His Word and do as He says.

(God) 11Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, it is clear what sort of people you should be in holy conduct and godliness12as you wait for and earnestly desire the coming of the day of God.

(Lesson) God is serious about what He says. We have to get serious about His Word, too.

8.   A new world of righteousness will replace the evil world destroyed by fire.

(God) The heavens will be on fire and be dissolved because of it, and the elements will melt with the heat.

(Lesson) This must be important; He already said this in v. 10 and the works on it will be dissolved  Everything we work for and build will disappear, which reinforces what He just said in v. 11 it is clear what sort of people you should be in holy conduct and godliness What are we living for? What is our aim in life?

9.  Because He has promised it, we cam await patiently for it.

13But based on His promise, we wait for the new heavens and a new earth,  where righteousness will dwell.

(Lesson) Promise made, promise kept. We can wait patiently for justice and righteousness.

But I close with this reminder. Not only will God keep His promises, He still demands obedience “to the uttermost”, something none of us can do. We are all condemned…

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death spread to all men, because all sinned. Romans 5.12

Summarizing Romans 8.3-4, we read

What the law could not do since it was limited by the flesh, God did… sending His own Son in flesh like ours … as a sin offering, in order that the law’s requirement would be accomplished in us …

That requirement of the law included death to everyone who failed the least of the commandments, and since Jesus accepted our sin, He had to accept our penalty, and He died as the sacrifice for us. His last words were, “It is paid.” He fulfilled God’s Law to the last jot and tittle.

I wonder how many of us take God seriously. As I said in the beginning, it’s interesting to observe people’s reactions to President Trump and what he is doing and how quickly and forcefully he pursues his objectives. Whether others are for or against him, he carries on with what he envisions for America and the world.

Whether we agree with President Trump or to what extent we approve of his actions, he is determined to do what he promised. He is feared by some and admired by others, but he is only a man. God, however, is omniscient and omnipotent and we had better believe Him when He says in John 3.18

Anyone who believes in Him(Jesus) is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the One and Only Son of God.

Take God at His Word. Believe Him. Believe in His Son Jesus. He means what He says.