TAU

 ¹⁶⁹ Let my cry come before You, O LORD;
         Give me understanding according to Your word.
 ¹⁷⁰ Let my supplication come before You;
         Deliver me according to Your word.
 ¹⁷¹ My lips shall utter praise,
         For You teach me Your statutes.
 ¹⁷² My tongue shall speak of Your word,
         For all Your commandments are righteousness.
 ¹⁷³ Let Your hand become my help,
         For I have chosen Your precepts.
 ¹⁷⁴ I long for Your salvation, O LORD,
         And Your law is my delight.
 ¹⁷⁵ Let my soul live, and it shall praise You;
         And let Your judgments help me.
 ¹⁷⁶ I have gone astray like a lost sheep;
         Seek Your servant,
         For I do not forget Your commandments.

God reveals the secret of the overcomer in the last verse of this marvelous psalm. He understands that he walks not in perfection; he goes astray like a lost sheep. Still, though, he does not forget God’s commandments. When he sins, because he knows the Law, the Law convicts him as a lawbreaker and then leads him back to Christ for forgiveness. The overcomer repents of his sin, gets up from that sin for the seven times seventieth time, and walks on with God. He has learned to practice righteousness according to the Book of John. This is he whom Jesus speaks about when he says,

And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. (Matthew 5:2-4 KJ2000)

Overcomers understand they are poor in spirit. They walk not in great supernatural power, nor walk in perfection without sin. Men in the world and in the world’s churches do not esteem nor acclaim them. In fact, as this psalmist writes in verse 161, “Princes have persecuted me [the overcomer] without a cause.” Overcomers realize their poverty and seek true riches, the Word of God and the glorification of their flesh so that they can actually peform God’s Word. Therefore they mourn presently at their poverty, discomfort, distress, and affliction. They do not cry at every earthly sorrow. This is not how they mourn. They mourn for the poorness of their spirit for they know they have not yet been saved from the defilement of their flesh. But Jesus makes them two sure and certain promises, they shall be comforted and they shall inherit the Kingdom of Heaven! 

Notice that this last stanza begins with the overcomer crying out to God, mourning for his lack of understanding and poorness of spirit. He prays God will hear him and deliver him from his affliction. Though afflicted he still praises his God and prays that God will continue to reveal his statutes to him. Then he himself will also teach others God’s righteous commands. He asks for and expects God’s help for he has chosen God’s ways, his precepts. Thus he longs for God’s salvation! He knows he not yet saved. He craves salvation because God’s Law is his delight and he wants to walk in it. “Let my soul live!” he begs. Christ died to reconcile his spirit to Himself. He knows God is for him, has died for him even, but he knows his soul, his fleshly soul still dwells in darkness and evil. “Let my soul live!” he cries. “Until I truly live, until I have really been born again, born of water (God’s Word, God’s Law) and born of the Most Holy Spirit, I shall always go astray as a lost sheep. I long for your salvation. Let my soul live!”

Paul said, “For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.” (Romans 7:14 KJ2000) The Law is spiritual, but we have made it something carnal and legalistic, something to be feared or shunned. The overcomer, however, has learned somthing entirely different about God’s Law. The Law has become his delight, and he hopes one day to walk in its reality.

He that overcomes, the same shall be clothed in white clothing; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels. (Revelation 3:5 KJ2000)

He that overcomes will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name. (Revelation 3:12 KJ2000)

To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and sat down with my Father in his throne. He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says unto the churches. (Revelation 3:21-22 KJ2000)

Thus has this psalmist by the Holy Spirit described God’s Overcomer.