Psalm 112
1 Praise the LORD. Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who finds great delight in his commands.
2 His children will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed.
3 Wealth and riches are in his house, and his righteousness endures forever.
4 Even in darkness light dawns for the upright, for the gracious and compassionate and righteous man.
5 Good will come to him who is generous and lends freely, who conducts his affairs with justice.
6 Surely he will never be shaken; a righteous man will be remembered forever.
7 He will have no fear of bad news; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the LORD.
8 His heart is secure, he will have no fear; in the end he will look in triumph on his foes.
9 He has scattered abroad his gifts to the poor, his righteousness endures forever;
his horn will be lifted high in honor.
10 The wicked man will see and be vexed, he will gnash his teeth and waste away; the longings of the wicked will come to nothing.
In the previous post I began sharing with you what the Lord was speaking to me about the prophetic promises contained in this powerful prophetic psalm. The list of blessings it says will accrue to the man who fears the LORD, who finds great delight in his commands is truly mindboggling! As I said there, I was totally blown away by what it says concerning not only the blessings that come upon that person, but also upon his/her children, and their children’s children!
God declares and decrees that the posterity of those people who fear the LORD and find great delight in his commands “will be MIGHTY in the land!” They are not wimps or casper-milquetoast people! They don’t live their lives in a corner, cowering in fear and trepidation.
They do not live their lives anonymously; they are known and noticed wherever they go. People know who they are!
Perhaps more tellingly, as with Jesus and the Apostle Paul, demons know who they are, as well.
Whatever their hand finds to do, they do it with all their MIGHT. They’ve established a habit of being STRONG in the Lord and in the POWER of HIS MIGHT!
They’ve learned that the joy of the Lord is their strength.
They are indefatigible, indestructable, and invincible. THEY ARE MIGHTY PEOPLE!
The children of the man who fears God and finds great delight in His commands are the real reflector of his life! The seed he sowed while living, germinates and produces a multiplied harvest in the lives of his children, who are exponentially more blessed in every aspect of their lives than was he during his lifespan on the earth.
As Proverbs 13:22 says, “A good man leaves an inheritance for his children’s children, but a sinner’s wealth is stored up for the righteous.”
It has been both astonishing and humbling to see the Lord’s workings to bring forth these things in my own life. Just a few days ago, on May 3rd, my daughter, Angela, and I celebrated the one year anniversary of our reunion after 37 and a half years of involuntary separation that began when she was only 6 months old. I first told about our reunion in the tribute to my father I wrote and posted on my website in 2006 following his homegoing. In addition to telling about some of our experiences from time to time in my various writing forums, she and I plan to co-author a book relating the life-revolutionizing impact this reunion has had upon both of our lives, as well as her children.
What a year this past twelve months has been! In some ways it seemed like only a month. In other ways it’s seemed like a hundred years! While the victories have been phenomenal, the battles have been ferocious! I had the indescribeable joy, honor, and privilege of leading my daughter to the Lord and laying hands on her to receive the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, and have witnessed firsthand one of the fastest and most profound life transformations I have ever seen or heard about as the indwelling Spirit has performed in her His sanctifying work.
The Lord has continued to also use me to facilitate my daughter’s ongoing deliverance from demonic influence and bondage, which has been one of the most thorough cleansings and deepest purgings I’ve ever had a part in, though I’ve so often yearned for it in the case of many others to whom I’ve ministered over the years.
Truly, we have in her case plumbed a significant portion of the depths of the passage, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come!” (2 Cor. 5:17). She is truly a new creature, and every day old things are passing away, becoming passe, obsolete, and dead, while we truly do behold in amazement the new things that have come to replace the old things and ways.
As great as the transformation has been, still so much more is yet to come as that maturation process “unto the measure of the stature that belongs to fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13) continues, as it does in us all. It is altogether astounding what the Holy Spirit CAN do in us all, if only we get out of His way and let Him have His way, yielding to His supernatural sanctifying power!
After 38 years of living with a gaping void that could not be filled by anything or anyone else, I cannot describe to you the overflowing joy I am now experiencing in knowing that whatever small portion of the Kingdom of God I am able to appropriate in my life, it is a seed — an “incorruptible seed” — that will produce an abundant harvest in my posterity, that is, my children’s lives, and their children’s lives, and on through the lineage that shall come should Jesus tarry. Such a prospect has given me a new impetus for living for Christ and striving against the devil!
Every day I am seeing more and more of the promises of Psalm 112 being infused into the life of and implanted into the future of my daughter and her three children (who, by the way, she in turn led to the Lord and who have also received the Baptism in the Holy Spirit). As the writer began the Psalm, I too shout the exultation, “Praise the Lord!”
O, that multiplied thousands of the children of God could begin THIS YEAR of 2007 to inherit these promises in their lives, and sow the seeds of righteousness into their children’s lives!
The second promise of this powerful Psalm, found in verse 3, is that WEALTH and RICHES are in the house of the man who fears God and finds great delight in His commands! What a promise! And how much greater number of God’s people need to appropriate this promise into their lives in these last days when the funding of the purposes and plans of God requires such a superabundance of just that—wealth and riches.
But our discussion of that promise will have to wait until the next article in this series.
