Another blessing received by the loving seekers of God through the living Word is that of enjoying God as their hiding place and shield. The psalmist declared, “Thou art my hiding place and my shield: I hope in thy word” (v. 114). When we enjoy God as our portion and experience the shining of His countenance, He becomes our covering and hiding place. From every direction—top and bottom, front and back, right and left—He covers us and hides us. Because of our commission to bear the Lord’s testimony, we face opposition and attack. But we have a hiding place, and this hiding place is God Himself. Nearly every day in my prayer I tell the Lord that I take Him as my hiding place. Often I say, “Lord, You are a high tower to me. Teach me to hide in You.”
As the hiding place, the Lord is for our rest and our living, but as the shield, He is for our protection in fighting. When a soldier goes forth to battle, he cannot bring his house with him. In order to fight, he must come out of the house. But he still has a shield to protect him from the enemy. Likewise, whenever we must face the enemy, God will be a shield to protect us. Because we are here living and fighting, we need both a hiding place and a shield. For our living, God is our hiding place; for our fighting, He is our shield.
The psalmist also enjoyed God’s help (v. 175b) and well-dealing (v. 65). God’s well-dealing is His dealing with us in a way that fits His purpose and our need. God is never wrong in the way He deals with us. His intention is always good, and His motive is always pure. Because God is sovereign, He cannot be wrong. He has a purpose concerning us, and we ourselves have a need. As God deals with us, He cares both for His purpose and our need.
We all have complained to God at times. If we do not complain openly, we at least complain inwardly. Sometimes when I have been tempted to question the Lord’s dealing with me, I have had to stop short. I realized that God’s dealing was His well-dealing.
A brother may be tempted to complain to the Lord about his wife, or a sister about her husband. But God gave you a particular wife or husband according to His well-dealing. Again I say, God cannot be wrong. His intention is good, His motive is pure, and His way is right. Therefore, His dealing with us is always His well-dealing.
Through the living Word of God we may also enjoy God as our wisdom, understanding, discernment, and knowledge (Psa. 119:66, 98-100, 169; 19:7b). Those who enjoy God have understanding. The less we enjoy Him, the less understanding we have. Lacking understanding, we may conduct ourselves in a foolish manner. But the more we enjoy the Lord, the more understanding we receive.
It is rather easy to define knowledge, but it is difficult to define wisdom, understanding, and discernment. Knowledge is a matter of knowing things. Compared to wisdom, understanding, and discernment, knowledge is superficial. I may know a certain brother and his wife by name. This is knowledge.
I would not try to define wisdom, understanding, or discernment, but from my experience I can say something about them. Whereas knowledge is related to things we have learned, wisdom is not a matter of learning. It consists of something deep within us, mainly in our spirit. Wisdom is both deeper and higher than knowledge. Understanding involves both wisdom and knowledge. If you have knowledge but not wisdom, you cannot have genuine understanding. Discernment requires all three—knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. According to spiritual mathematics, if we add together knowledge, wisdom, and understanding, we shall have discernment. However, the matter becomes much simpler when we realize that as long as we experience the Lord and enjoy Him, we have knowledge, wisdom, understanding, and discernment. Out of his experience, the psalmist could say that because he enjoyed God Himself, he was wiser than his enemies and understood more than the ancients and all his teachers. Enjoying God through the Word, he gained knowledge, wisdom, understanding, and discernment. In fact, God was all these things to him.
I believe the young people can testify that when they are far from the Lord in their experience, they often act in a foolish way and are short of understanding. But when they turn to the Lord and experience Him, even a little, they immediately have wisdom and understanding. This understanding comes not from education or training; it comes from loving the Lord, contacting Him, and inwardly turning to Him. Knowledge, wisdom, understanding, and discernment issue from our enjoyment of the Lord.
Through the living Word of God the loving seekers of the Lord are also preserved from sin (v. 11), from stumbling (v. 165, Heb.), and from every evil way (v. 101). It is very easy to sin, go astray, or be stumbled. Many Christians are bothered by these three things. But if we enjoy the Word and daily get into it, we shall be preserved from sinning, from going astray, and from being stumbled. Our footsteps will be established, and we shall be overcomers (v. 133). No iniquity will have dominion over us. All negative things will be under our feet. This also is a result of enjoying God through His living Word.
If our contact with the Bible does not bring in the harvest of blessings covered in this message and in the foregoing message, our contact with the Word must be wrong in some way. The proper approach to the Word of God should issue in all these blessings. If we come to the Word in a right way, we shall enjoy the Lord’s enlightenment, life, watering, restoring, and delivering. Ultimately, we shall enjoy God Himself as our portion. Then we shall have knowledge, wisdom, understanding, and discernment; we shall be preserved from every evil way; we shall be established; and we shall be overcomers, those who are above every negative thing.