Sermon Tone Analysis

*Remembrance and Comfort for Weary Pilgrims (Ps 119:49-56)*

/Preached by Pastor Phil Layton at Gold Country Baptist Church on November 23, 2008/

www.goldcountrybaptist.org

 

Psalm 119:49-56 (NASB95) 49 *Remember* the word to Your servant, In which You have made me hope.

50 This is my *comfort* in my affliction, That Your word has revived me.

51 The arrogant utterly deride me, /Yet /I do not turn aside from Your law.

52 I have *remembered* Your ordinances from of old, O Lord, And *comfort* myself.

53 Burning indignation has seized me because of the wicked, Who forsake Your law.

54 Your statutes are my songs In the house of my pilgrimage.

55 O Lord, I *remember* Your name in the night, And keep Your law.

56 This has become mine, That I observe Your precepts.

You may have noticed the word “remember” 3x (v.

49, 52, 55)

Another repeated word in this passage is “comfort” (v.

50, 52b)

 

Trying to follow that emphasis of the original, the title of today’s message is “Remembrance and Comfort for /Weary/ Pilgrims.”

-         The writer of this passage was weary in affliction (v.

50)

-         In v. 51, he was weary of arrogant scoffing against himself

-         v.

53; weary with anger even more so, for sin /against God/

-         In v. 54; weary on his journey, needing songs to carry on

-         v.

55, weary when he couldn’t sleep, but remembered God

 

The remembrances this passage speaks of provide much comfort for weary pilgrims.

I’m using the word /pilgrims/ because that’s the word and image at the end of v. 54, “pilgrimage,” a rich biblical image of one journeying one place to another.

In God’s providence and timing, this is the week our nation commemorates the Pilgrims who arrived on the shores of Massachusetts in 1620 (soon forming Plymouth colony) and who celebrated a harvest festival next Fall thanking God’s Providence for those that survived the first winter.

According to the Pilgrim Hall Museum, there are only 2 primary source documents, Governor William Bradford writing in /Of Plymouth Plantation, /and Edward Winslow, in /Mourt’s Relation:/

 

‘our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together, after we had gathered the fruits of our labors; they four in one day killed as much fowl, as with a little help beside, served the Company almost a week … many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest king … with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five Deer, which they brought to the Plantation and bestowed on our Governor, and upon the Captain and others.

And although it be not always so plentiful, as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want, that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.’[1]

/ /

Of our family vacations growing up, one of my favorite trips was visiting Plymouth Rock and seeing and boarding a replica ship of the Mayflower at Cape Cod, and visiting restored Plymouth Plantation where they have full-time actors that live there just like the original colony and they talk with you like the original settlers.

In the research I’ve seen, they didn’t mention “turkeys” at the 1621 meal or even use the exact phrase “thanksgiving” or maybe even call themselves Pilgrims (the word pilgrim came into common use 150+ years later).

But they were certainly thankful believers, in the Puritan tradition subset of non-conformists or separatists (and their sympathizers and supporters) who felt compelled by conscience to not only leave the Church of England but to physically leave England to Holland, eventually some travelling to the new world.

Bradford used the term “pilgrim” from the biblical OT imagery "strangers and pilgrims" who had opportunity to return to their old country but instead longed for a better, heavenly country (Heb 11).

He wrote:

/So they lefte [that] goodly & pleasante citie, which had been ther resting place, nere 12 years; but they knew they were pilgrimes, & looked not much on these things; but lift up their eyes to ye heavens, their dearest cuntrie, and quieted their spirits./[2]

The Pilgrims could identify with the writer of this psalm more than some of us can; v. 54 speaks of a singing heart in his pilgrimage.

-         The Pilgrims knew affliction (v.

50; nearly half didn’t make it that first winter) but had hope in a sovereign God (v.

49)

-         They knew persecution and derision from back home (v.51)

-         They knew indignation against the wicked (v.

53) strong enough that they felt they could no longer live in that place

-         They sought to keep God’s law as purely as they could (v.

54-55) and found comfort in remembering their God and in their faith that God had remembered them (ex: providence illustrated in the provision of corn and other graces of God)

 

Our passage in Psalm 119 today begins with the writer referring to himself as “servant” of God.

As one source says it: ‘The motif of the faithful servant of God as a pilgrim for whom this world is not his final home is deeply rooted in the exil[e] narratives of Genesis (the calling of Abraham) and Exodus.

It also finds reflection in numerous psalms, where the motif of the “way” or “path of righteousness” predominates … psalms [120-134, right after Psalm 119] were likely sung by pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem for Passover and Yom Kippur, since the pilgrim journey to Jerusalem was always referred to as a “going-up.”

But the pilgrimage motif is also found elsewhere, permeating, e.g., Ps. 119, where the Word of God is said by the Psalmist to be a light to the pilgrim’s path (v.

105) and his “statutes … my song in the house of my pilgrimage” (v.

54).

The Hebrew term for pilgrimage, /magur, /derives from /gur, /“to sojourn”; hence pilgrims are by definition “sojourners,” a people en route …

Peter addresses the early Christian community, “Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul” (1 Pet.

2:11).

The writer to the Hebrews describes those who were faithful to the first covenant as having seen the promises of God for a spiritual promised land “afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth” (11:13), and enjoins those to whom he writes to take up the same pilgrim calling … These concepts were quickly elaborated by the early Church … The Epistle to Diognetus says of … Christians that

they reside in their own fatherlands, but as if they were non-citizens; they take part in all things as if they were citizens and suffer all things as if they were strangers.

Every foreign country is [thus] a fatherland to them, and every fatherland a foreign country.

… They sojourn on earth, but they are citizens in heaven.

(Diogn.

5:5, 9)[3]

It is this God-centered eternity-focused Bible-saturated perspective that helps us journey through affliction (v.

50) and gives us true hope and comfort and life, reviving or restoring our soul (v.

49-50)

 

John Bunyan’s book /Pilgrim’s Progress /has the subtitle /From this world to that which is to come.

/He references today’s passage when a visitor says to Christiana (after her husband Christian died): ‘the bitter is before the sweet.

Thou must through troubles, as did he that went before thee, enter this Celestial City.

Wherefore I advise thee to do as did Christian thy husband [and he gave her a song and said] read therein to thyself and to thy children until you have got it by heart; for it is one of the songs that thou must sing while thou art in this house of thy pilgrimage, Psalm 119:54’

 

The path to heaven is not trouble-free, but there is great comfort and great thanksgiving the Word produces, even putting rejoicing songs in our heart.

Our passage (v.

49-56) gives pilgrims like us *Three Comforting Realities to Remember in Affliction*

* *

*#1 God Remembers His Promises and His Servants (v.

49-50)*

 

49 *Remember* the word to Your servant, In which You have made me hope.

50 This is my *comfort* in my affliction, That Your word has revived me.

REMEMBER – this is the first Hebrew word in vs. 49, 52, and 55, and is clearly an emphasis and theme of this passage.

Now if God knows everything, why does he pray for God to remember?

Is there ever anything God doesn’t remember?

What’s the answer, church?

Actually there are some things God doesn’t remember, things the Bible says he “remembers no more”:

 

Hebrews 8:12 (NASB95) 12 “For I will be merciful to their iniquities, And *I will remember their sins no more.”*

Hebrews 10:16-18 (NASB95) 16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them After those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws upon their heart, And on their mind I will write them,” /He then says,/ 17 “And their sins and their lawless deeds *I will remember no more.*”

18 Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer /any /offering for sin.

It’s been explained this way: ‘When applied to the Lord, the word “remember” means “to pay attention to, to work on behalf of.”

Being omniscient, God cannot forget anything, but He can decide not to “remember it against us” (Isa.

43:25; Jer.

31:34; Heb.

8:12; 10:17).

That is the negative side; the positive side is that He “remembers” to do us good and give us His blessing.

He remembered Noah and delivered him (Gen.

8:1); He remembered Abraham and delivered Lot (Gen.

19:29); He remembered Rachel and Hannah and enabled them to conceive (Gen.

30:22; 1 Sam.

1:19).

[God’s] Remembering is not recalling, for God never forgets; it is relating to His people in a special way.

The psalmist prayed that God would use the Word to work on his behalf.

The writer had hope because of the promises God had given to him, and he prayed that those promises would be fulfilled.’[4]

Calling on God to remember is not based on our worthiness (that’s why he uses the term “servant” in v. 49, a term of lowly unworthiness), it’s based on the covenant relationship the LORD has committed Himself to, it’s praying for the LORD to act in accord with his Word and His covenant, for His name sake, for His glory.

This is how Jeremiah prayed: “Do not despise /us*, */*for Your own name’s sake*; Do not disgrace the throne of Your glory; *Remember /and /do not annul Your covenant with us.” *(Jeremiah 14:21)

 

God said in Isaiah 43:25: “I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions *for My own sake*, And *I will not remember your sins.*

So we pray, for Your sake, forget our sin, not us; don’t remember my sin but do remember me.

Luke 23:39-43 (NASB95) 39 One of the criminals who were hanged /there /was hurling abuse at Him, saying, “Are You not the Christ?

Save Yourself and us!” 40 But the other answered, and rebuking him said, “Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?

41 “And we indeed /are suffering /justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.”

42 And he was saying, “Jesus, *remember me* [*personal prayer, remember /ME/!]*when

You come in Your kingdom!” 43 And He said to him, “Truly I say to you, today *you shall be with Me in Paradise*.”

We know God is gracious but /remember/ means /show grace to me.

/God is always faithful, but we’re not; so we pray “God remember us according to Your mercy and Word, not by our merit or works”

 

To pray /Remember Your Word /is like the church father Augustine said of his mother, “bringing before God his own hand-writing.”

The 2nd half of the verse shows that he was expecting God’s fulfillment of His covenant commitments and promises.

Literally v. 49b is “upon which (promise) You have caused me to hope.”