“Plead my cause, and deliver me: quicken me according to thy word.” (v.154)
The cry is “Plead my cause” O LORD, and it is the prayer of a broken and defeated heart. When we get God on our side, who can stand against us? (Rom. 8:31) O that He might plead our cause before men, and bring us the victory over the world, and he will, by the way. It is amazing to me to see how fearful David seemed to be, yet how bold he was in battle so that many sang “Saul slew his thousands, David his ten thousands.” This tells me that it is not wrong to be afraid, in fact, it will lead us to a greater power, teaching us to seek Him who knows no fear. When we learn to fear enough to trust in God, we have come quite far in our life for Him, and can be “quickened” by Him. To be quickened by the Lord is to be lifted up by Him, resting in His arms, and given a new zeal, as well as life. David asks three important things here, to have the Lord to plead for him, or to intercede for him; and to deliver him; and to quicken , or revive him, all “according to thy Word.”
I believe our greatest prayers are those that are cried out of desperation, because our whole heart sees it important enough to beg God, and to cry out our need to Him. Fasting also is nothing without a certain element of sorrow. We seem to think of fasting as a remedy to get our prayer answered, and use it that way when we want something special from God, but we often make a mockery of it in so doing. Often the greatest pains produce the greatest prayers.
This particular verse sounds as if it were produced in tears, and from the chains of fear. Three times David asks the Lord to quicken him, and all three times it is according to a tenet or principle of God. The first is here, “according to thy Word”; the second is v. 156, and “according to thy judgments”; while the third is v.159, and “according to thy loving kindness”. There are many “according to’s” throughout the 119th Psalm, one would do well to study them.
This psalm ought to be read often, as it deals completely with the Word of God, and what greater subject could we seek?
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