March 11

May Your loving devotion come to me, O LORD, Your salvation, according to Your promise. Then I can answer him who taunts, for I trust in Your word. — Ps 119:41-42 BSB

A living soul desires to give an answer to those who reproach them. But they cannot do this on their own, for they have no words of self-justification; that path is completely cut off. Therefore, they need something else to furnish them with an answer to these reproaches. And what can provide such an answer? Only the mercies of God in their soul. “Lord, give me Your mercies, the salvation You promised me. Then I will have an answer for those who taunt me, for I trust in Your word.” The coming of God’s mercies into the soul, and the manifestation of His salvation to the heart, provides the answer “for those who taunt me.”

Notice that “mercies” is in the plural, for there are many mercies, but “salvation” is singular, for there is only one salvation. How did the psalmist desire these mercies? Not just as something written in the letter of the word, or simply as truths recorded in Scripture to look at, like objects hung in a picture. No, he wanted them in his heart—to come to him, visit him, breathe life into him, and become part of him. He desired these mercies to become the life-blood coursing through his veins, the kingdom of God set up in power in his soul.

Why did he want internal mercies? Because he had internal reproaches. Why did he need mercy in his soul? Because condemnation was there. The sentence of death was written in his heart, and it was there that the sentence of acquittal needed to be recorded. The reproach was felt deeply—in the heart, in the conscience, in the inner being—and it was there that the answer needed to be given. If the reproach had been outward, an outward answer might have sufficed. But since the reproach was inward, in the heart and conscience, the answer had to be inward as well, written in the same place, engraved on the same heart, and brought with the same, or even greater, power to silence the reproach.