It is by the grace of God that the Psalmist, in this portion of the Psalm, realised the everlasting existence of the law of God. The steadfast love captured the Psalmist’s attention, and this poses a question to us: how much do we truly know of the everlasting covenant of God? Concerning the law, it is written that the wages of sin is death, and God warned Adam and Eve that if they disobeyed and ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would surely die. God did not repeal the law but fulfilled its demand and verdict, atoning for the sin of the whole world by offering His own Son as a sacrifice. Yet those who lack the knowledge of what God has done to save us from the demands of that law remain liable to die in their sin, though a way exists — not to be justified by the law, but through the grace of God at work in their lives. God has liberated people from the repercussions of sin, but He has not removed sin from this world. In other words, He has given His grace to His people, that they might be saved from eternal death through the faith He begins and sustains in the life of a believer.
Preserve My Life LORD
I call with all my heart; answer me, LORD, and I will obey your decrees.
I call out to you; save me and I will keep your statutes.
I rise before dawn and cry for help; I have put my hope in your word.
My eyes stay open through the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promises.
Hear my voice in accordance with your love; preserve my life, LORD, according to your laws.
Psalm 119:145 – 149 (NIV)
The Psalmist was confident enough to call on God, for he prayed for the right purpose — the very purpose Jesus had taught us to pray for: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus asked His disciple Peter specifically to pray that he might not succumb to temptation because of the prevailing situation, but rather keep his faith. He further told Peter that the flesh is weak while the Spirit is willing. When Peter failed to hold on to this prayer, for reasons unknown, he subsequently disowned Jesus.
It may be that the prayer of the Psalmist was to save him from the threat of death at the hands of his enemies, yet he understood an incredible truth: that God alone could save him, and not his own strength or his associates. In this context, we often do not have sufficient confidence that God will save us from every critical situation we face, and so, instead of asking Him to save us, we ask Him to destroy our enemies — whereas He is the One who keeps them safe as well, by leading them not to become prey to temptation. Now, if our enemies are holding fast to God’s commands, we see them as strong people and question God as to why He should give them strength to overpower us.
The Psalmist was consistent in his request to God, continuing his prayer even through the night hours, placing his trust in His Word and meditating sincerely, so that he could ask God to preserve his life rather than ask God to destroy his oppressors. Do we ever rely on God when people surround us with false accusations, believing that God will preserve our lives — or do we instead gather the support of people to justify our stand before onlookers? More than that, do we ever ask God to keep our soul safe from perishing?
Enemies Are Far From The Law Of God
Those who devise wicked schemes are near,
but they are far from your law. Yet you are near, LORD,
and all your commands are true.
Psalm 119:150-151 (NIV)
The Psalmist is confident about the presence of God, for he has kept those laws. By abiding by the law of God, he had the confidence of having God near him, and this further prompted him to keep all the commands of God and found the truth in them. This understanding removed fear from the Psalmist while his enemies, surrounding him, were devising wicked schemes, for the Psalmist was quite certain that they were not adhering to the law of God, and that therefore they would not have the strength to overthrow him.
In our case, the application is often the reverse: we fast and pray to God to destroy our enemies, when we too are not adhering to His law. Through this night-watch prayer of the Psalmist, should we not learn to adhere to the laws of God, that we might gain confidence and strength to overcome the challenges we face daily in our spiritual advancement?
God Created Us To Live Forever
Long ago I learned from your statutes
that you established them to last forever.
Psalm 119:152 (NIV)
The first Psalm in the collection of Psalms declares the blessing of the person who meditates on His Word day and night. We can learn His Word through His Word, and there is no other learning tool that may replace this pattern of learning the statutes of God and knowing God. The problem with us is that we never allocate time to read the Word on our own, yet we do have plenty of time amid our busy schedules to learn the Word of God through other sources — such as preaching, conventions, workshops, and the comments of Bible scholars. In due course of time, we come to practise the ideas these people have conveyed to us in a highly fashioned, scholarly manner, until at last we fail to read the Word of our Father God on our own. Thus, the truth of the Word is concealed, and we unknowingly learn falsehoods thinking that the law of God is flexible and can be manipulated according to the effect of our misconduct.
Irrespective of what we understand about the law of God, God has established it to last forever, and it cannot be changed by our misconceptions. God is an unchanging God, today, yesterday, and forever — and so also are His laws. God has established His laws to last forever, because despite our rejection and rebellion, God keeps His statutes without changing them, that He might exchange the wages of our sin for eternal blessing, that we may live forever, as we were created in the beginning with the fullness of eternal life. Hence Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10b). As God has created His laws to last forever, so He has created us to have eternal life, to live with our Father God in His Kingdom forever.
“ק” Qoph – The Eye of a Needle
This portion of the Psalm falls under the heading of the Hebrew letter “ק” (Qoph), one of whose meanings conveys the eye of a needle. As this portion leads us to understand how God preserves our life forever, we may recall what Jesus said about the rich young man who was not ready to give up his riches. Jesus used an intentional hyperbole — contrasting the largest animal in ancient Palestine (a camel) with the tiniest of openings (a needle’s eye) — to show that human wealth and self-reliance make entering heaven entirely impossible on our own. It is remarkable to consider that the illustration Jesus used two thousand years ago still stands today, reminding us of the vulnerability of depending on wealth and self-reliance, and of how this can cost us our eternal life.
Notwithstanding this, the Hebrew letter “ק” (Qoph) also represents how, through the cycles of life we experience — evolution, growth, change, suffering, happiness, life experience — we are constantly being worked upon, that we might evolve and realise our true spiritual nature. It is therefore our responsibility to use this given short span of life to grow in His love, using the grace given to us to mature spiritually and to become a child of God who reclaims the original image of creation — the image of God, an eternal, living being. For whatever God has created is permanent, while everything else is temporary.
The Jordan Valley 
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