The first half of this stanza showed one reason that the psalmist was certain that God would deliver him. The rest of this passage gives two more reasons. Take a look at this passage in Psalm 119:125-128:

God is a loving God. Of course, that goes hand in hand with his holiness and the need for righteousness in our lives. As the psalmist has discovered and revealed in this stanza of Psalm 119, God will deliver his people because of his love; and, in fact, God will deliver the psalmist because of that love.

The psalmist has enemies, and his enemies are the enemies of God. This is perhaps the lowest point in the entirety of Psalm 119, and we see the writer cry out for deliverance. His first reason for requesting that deliverance is because of God’s love, in verse 124.

The second reason the psalmist gives here is because he is God’s servant. The writer is basically declaring, “I belong to you, God! Help me because of that!” And like any good earthly master, who cares for that which belongs to him, should God do any less than care for those who belong to him?

The psalmist also seems to understand that God’s deliverance can be seen in the Word. He asks for deliverance, and he asks for it in the form of discernment to understand God’s statutes completely. You can see this clearly in verse 125.

Finally, the third reason the psalmist gives, in verse 126, is simply because it is time for God to act. This has nothing to do with the writer’s timeline, or because time is somehow running out before the psalmist will be overwhelmed by those who are against him. No, here, the writer is more concerned with God’s reputation than his own needs. His cry is that God should act because his law is being broken.

This is a quality that is rare in our world. We tend to place our own needs and values ahead of all else. But the writer here has shown in what order the priorities should be. Our desire should be for God, and for his Word, above our own needs.

In the closing verses of this stanza, the writer gives a contrasting statement, one that depicts a hatred of what is wrong against a love for what is right. In our age of relativism, this is a hard statement for many to accept. We would rather believe that what is right for you may not necessarily be right for me. We would rather not have a definitive right and wrong, because it brings with it guilt and conviction.

But that is what the writer gives us here. He states that there is a right path and a wrong one. There is the truth and there is the lie. There are things that God hates, that we should hate as well. And there are things that God loves that we should seek after to love also.

There is an absolute truth, and we must hold to it firmly. We must avoid every wrong path and cling to the one thing that is true above all else. We must hate what God hates, or we will never learn to love God fully. And the best way to know what God hates and what God values can be found by reading his Word.

I strongly encourage you to take the time daily to invest in the pursuit of God’s heart. I strongly urge you to spend time in his Word daily. It’s the only way that we can discover the truth and grow in it fully.

Question: Do you love what God loves and hate what God hates? If not, what is holding you back? You can leave a comment by clicking here.