Psalm 33: The Key to a Thankful Heart
Related MediaKatherine Mansfield was a brilliant writer, but she did not know God. Because of health reasons, she moved to Switzerland, where she found herself rejoicing in the bracing mountain air and the beauty of the mountains. She wrote to a friend, “If only one could make some small grasshoppery sound of praise—thanks to someone, but who?” How empty for a person to feel thankfulness and praise for the beauty of God’s creation and yet not know the Creator so as to render thanks to Him!
If I were to ask, “Would you like to develop a thankful, worshiping heart?” I would guess that all of us would say yes. We recognize that it’s right to be thankful to God for His blessings. It’s even American, in that we have a national holiday once a year to give thanks, although many would be like Katherine Mansfield—give thanks to whom? But as Christians, we realize that it is right thank God in everything (1 Thess. 5:18).
But before we jump on the thanksgiving bandwagon, we need to realize that genuine thankfulness is inextricably bound up with trust. We will never truly thank God until we first truly trust Him. We will not be grateful to God for all that we have until we first recognize that we’re dependent on Him for all that we have.
By nature, we’re not trusting creatures. We’re creatures of necessity. We trust God when we’re forced to trust Him because our problems go beyond our abilities. The rest of the time, we get along just fine by ourselves. If we can solve the problem by ourselves, we don’t resort to prayer and trusting God, because we don’t need to trust Him. But it’s only when we come to the end of ourselves and cast ourselves in total dependence on the Lord that we begin to experience genuine praise and thanksgiving.
Psalm 33 was written to those addressed as “righteous ones” and “the upright” (v. 1). That is, it is written to those who know God personally and who are seeking to please Him by living obedient lives. But even these people need to be exhorted to “sing for joy in the Lord” (v. 1), to “give thanks to the Lord” and “sing praises to Him” (v. 2). The psalm tells us that…
The key to a thankful, worshiping heart is to rely completely on the Lord.
We don’t know who wrote this psalm. It is sandwiched between two psalms of David, so perhaps he wrote it. David certainly had learned the lesson that the psalm communicates. David was a man of praise and thanksgiving because the Lord had put him in so many situations where every prop was knocked out from under him, forcing him to trust in God alone for deliverance. When God did deliver him, he was flooded with thankfulness and praise.
The psalm begins with an exuberant call to praise God in song and with musical instruments (vv. 1-3). Then, the psalmist gives the reason to praise God (vv. 4-5), because of His word and His work. Then verses 6-12 develop the theme of God’s word as seen in His creation (vv. 6-9) and in His counsel (vv. 10-12). Verses 13-22 then develop the other theme of how God works. He does not work through man’s strength or schemes (vv. 13-17), but rather through those who fear and trust in Him (vv. 18-19). The psalm ends with a final affirmation of trust in the Lord (vv. 20-22).
If the key to a thankful, worshiping heart is to rely completely on the Lord, then the question arises, “How do I learn to rely completely on the Lord?” This is developed in the two main sections of the psalm:
1. We learn to rely completely on the Lord by recognizing the power of His word (33:6-12).
The psalmist is referring primarily to God’s spoken word, but it applies no less to His written word.
A. The power of God’s word is seen in His creation (33:6-9).
John Calvin (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], on Ps. 33, p. 542) insightfully points out that the psalmist brings before us God’s creation of the world, because until we believe that He created all that is, we won’t believe that the world is controlled by His wisdom and power. In other words, believing that God created the world also leads us to the truth of His providence in ruling the world, which the psalmist develops in verses 10-12. This relates directly to our believing that He controls the circumstances of our lives, working everything together for good for us according to His purpose (Rom. 8:28). So to develop a thankful, worshiping heart, we must bow in awe before the Lord as we realize His immense power in speaking the universe into existence (Ps. 33:8-9).
The immensity of the universe is staggering! This week I was listening to the “Star Date” feature on NPR. They said that astronomers are discovering vast regions of space that are completely empty. One such space is a billion light years across. That is 10,000 times greater than the distance across our Milky Way galaxy! And there are billions of huge galaxies like our Milky Way! Truly, with David (Ps. 8:3-4) we can exclaim, “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained; what is man that You take thought of him, and the son of man that You care for Him?”
God didn’t have to struggle and strain to create the universe. Rather, He did it by His bare word (v. 6). As Genesis 1 records (eight times), God said, “Let there be…” and it happened! As our psalm puts it (33:9), “He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.” Creation is a miracle of God’s power. He created everything out of nothing by His word alone. As with all miracles, you cannot prove it; you must accept it by faith in God (Heb. 11:3). But the only alternative is that nothing produced everything, or that matter has always existed, but in some miraculous manner by sheer chance alone it came to have the intricately ordered form that we now observe. Which view takes more faith?
The psalmist then goes on to consider the oceans (Ps. 33:7). God “gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap; He lays up the deeps in storehouses.” The only ocean that the psalmist may have seen would have been the Mediterranean Sea, or perhaps the Red Sea at the Gulf of Aqaba. He would not have known that the world’s oceans cover two-thirds of the earth’s surface. The Pacific Ocean alone covers almost 64 million square miles at an average depth of over 14,000 feet, with its greatest depth almost 36,000 feet! If you’ve ever flown over it or sailed it, you know that it is huge! But the psalmist pictures God as piling the water together as a farmer would pile a heap of grain in a barn. This could be a reference to God’s stacking up the waters of the Red Sea when He brought Israel safely through, or it may be a poetic description of God keeping the mighty oceans within their boundaries.
But either way, when you consider the grandeur of the heavens and of the oceans, the conclusion is (33:8-9): “Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded and it stood fast.” There is no way to harmonize or reconcile this text with the view that the universe and life on earth came about by random chance over billions of years. Nor is there room for the view that God guided the process of evolution over billions of years. Rather, God spoke and it was done instantly! The obvious application is that we should fall on our faces before such a powerful Creator. Who are we to vaunt ourselves in pride against Him?
The apostle Paul applies the doctrine of creation to our salvation. After saying (2 Cor. 4:4) that Satan “has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ,” he adds (2 Cor. 4:6), “For God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” In other words, if you know Jesus Christ as Savior, it was not your doing. You were in utter spiritual darkness; furthermore, you loved it (John 3:19)! Just as He spoke the sun into existence, even so God spoke light into your dark heart.
You may be thinking, “But didn’t I have to choose to believe in Christ?” Yes, of course you did. But the question is, “How were you able to choose to believe in Christ?” The Bible is clear, if you have believed in Christ as Savior and Lord, it is because God first opened your blind eyes to see. That is the only doctrine of salvation that causes us to humble ourselves in awe before the Creator.
But the human race is prone to pride. We band ourselves together in nations and assemble powerful armies to conquer kingdoms and control our destiny. So the psalmist goes on to show…
B. The power of God’s word is seen in His counsel (33:10-12).
“The Lord nullifies the counsel of the nations; He frustrates the plans of the peoples. The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of His heart from generation to generation. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom He has chosen for His own inheritance.” Contrast these words with the proud words of poet William Ernest Henley, “I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.” God says, “No, you’re not!”
A story is told of a newly-elected politician who had just arrived in Washington, D.C. He was visiting at the home of one of the ranking Senators. The two men stood looking out over the Potomac River as an old, rotten log floated by. The older Senator said, “This city is like that log out there.” “How’s that?” asked the younger man. The Senator replied, “Well, there are probably hundreds of bugs, ants, and other critters on that old log as it floats down the river. And I imagine that every one of them thinks that he’s steering it.”
Proud man thinks that he is steering the course of history. But the Bible is clear that God sets up and takes down the most powerful kings in history for His own sovereign purposes. Whether it was Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, or Artaxerxes, God used them to further His purposes for His chosen people. Of course, none of those men knew God or were seeking to follow God. They were making decisions that they thought would further their own agendas. But behind the scenes, God providentially used their decisions to further His agenda. They were responsible for their decisions and they will answer to God for those decisions. And yet God used those decisions to implement His own counsel and plans.
We see this plainly illustrated in the most important event in human history, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. This was Satan’s and proud man’s most serious attempt to cast off God’s rule. Yet in Acts 4:27-28 the early church prays, “For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur.” These self-centered, proud rulers were responsible for crucifying the Lord’s Anointed One. And yet, in so doing they inadvertently carried out God’s eternal plan of redemption. God nullified and frustrated their plans and established His plan.
The power of God’s word as seen in His counsel is further stated in verse 12: “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom He has chosen for His own inheritance.” This refers to Israel, whom God chose as distinct from all other peoples to be His people (Deut. 7:7-8). Although they were often disobedient and rebellious, He used them to bring the Savior into the world. As I understand Romans 11, although God has set them aside for these past 20 centuries because they crucified the Savior, He will yet graciously bring a widespread revival among the Jews, to the praise of the glory of His grace. Meanwhile we (the church) are “ a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession” (1 Pet. 2:9). The reason that any of us are a part of God’s people is His sovereign choice of us.
So the point of verses 6-12 is that we will learn to rely completely on the Lord when we see the power of His word as seen in His creation and in His counsel or His sovereign plan. Because His word stands against all opposition, we can confidently rely on Him. But, also,
2. We learn to rely completely on the Lord by recognizing the pattern of His working (33:13-22).
In verse 4, the psalmist says that we should thank and praise the Lord for His word, but also because “all His work is done in faithfulness.” So after developing the theme of God’s word (33:6-12), he now shows that God does not work through man’s strength or schemes (33:13-17), but rather through those who fear and trust in Him (33:18-19). Therefore, we trust and hope in Him (33:20-22).
A. God does not work through man’s strength or schemes (33:13-17).
“The Lord looks from heaven; He sees all the sons of men; from His dwelling place He looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth, He who fashions the hearts of them all, He who understands all their works. The king is not saved by a mighty army; a warrior is not delivered by great strength. A horse is a false hope for victory; nor does it deliver anyone by its great strength.”
The psalmist pictures God as looking down from heaven as you or I might look down from a tall building on people below. But God sees everyone on earth. He sees the woman bent over her rice paddy in Thailand. He sees the Indian in the loincloth hunting for food in the jungles of South America. He sees the executive at his desk on the 44th floor of the skyscraper in Manhattan. He sees us sitting here. But more than seeing everyone, God knows what they’re thinking in their hearts. He made every heart and He understands not only what we do, but also why we do it.
There is the king going out to battle with what to him is a “mighty army” (v. 16). Is he trusting in that army for victory? God knows. There is the soldier, his muscles rippling with strength, mounted on his impressive horse (vv. 16b, 17). Is he trusting in his own strength or in the strength of his horse? God knows.
The fact is, our human tendency, even as redeemed people, is to perfect our methods and then to trust in them. We live in a day that is awash in methods and techniques for how to live the Christian life or how to have a happy family or how to build a successful church. Of course, many of these methods are helpful because they are based on Scripture. Granted, God’s normal way of working is not through faith plus nothing, but rather through faith plus using certain methods or means to accomplish His will. But the ever-present danger is that we plug in the methods and trust in them to work, instead of using the methods while we trust in God to work. The psalmist is saying that God does not work through man’s strength or schemes, because then man gets the glory.
B. God does work through those who fear and trust in Him (33:18-19).
The psalmist just said (v. 13) that the Lord sees everyone on earth. But now (v. 18) he states that the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him. What does he mean? He means that God looks with favor on those who fear Him and trust in Him to deliver them from overwhelming situations. In other words, God’s means of working is not to find people with slick methods and bless them, but rather to find people who trust in Him and bless them.
Note that these people are not described as strong and self-sufficient. In fact, they’re in grave difficulty. They are facing death and famine (v. 19). People who learn to be thankful must first learn to trust in God. And people who learn to trust in God must at some point be stripped of every human prop so that they look to God alone for deliverance. As Paul put it (2 Cor. 1:8b-9), “we despaired even of life; indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead.” As George Muller said (A. T. Pierson, George Muller of Bristol [Revell], p. 437), “It is the very time for faith to work, when sight ceases. The greater the difficulties the easier for faith. As long as there remain certain natural prospects, faith does not get on even as easily … as when all natural prospects fail.” Hudson Taylor said (source unknown), “You have proved the sufficiency of God only when you have trusted Him for the impossible.” God works through helpless people who trust in Him.
C Therefore, we trust and hope in Him (33:20-22).
Verses 18-22 are filled with synonyms for trust in the Lord: “fear” (v. 18); “hope” (vv. 18, 22); “waits” (v. 20); “our help and our shield” (v. 20); “our heart rejoices in Him” (v. 21); and “we trust in His holy name” (v. 21), which means, “in His holy character.” The psalms, which emphasize praise and thanksgiving, also emphasize trust. The Hebrew word for “trust” occurs more frequently in the Psalms than in any other place (50 out of 181 times). Again, it’s not that methods are wrong, but rather that trusting in methods is wrong. Our trust must be in God alone. What is the result? Go back to the beginning of the psalm:
3. Complete trust in the Lord results in a thankful, worshiping heart (33:1-5).
Thankfulness and worship are bound up with trusting in the Lord. When you have no human means of escape and you cry out to God as your only hope and He delivers you, your heart overflows in thankfulness and praise to Him. When a slick method works, the method gets the praise. When God works, then He gets the praise.
And it’s rather exuberant praise that the psalmist calls for (vv. 1-3): “Sing for joy in the Lord…. Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre; sing praises to Him with a harp of ten strings. Sing to Him a new song [i.e., one that celebrates some new deliverance or victory]; play skillfully with a shout of joy.” You don’t get the impression that he would be pleased with folks reading their bulletins or sitting stoically through the singing! Calvin (p. 538) describes this as “the vehement and ardent affection which the faithful ought to have in praising God.”
You may protest that your personality is too reserved to get excited about worship. But we all get excited about that in which we delight. If you’re watching a close football game and your team makes a spectacular catch in the end zone, do you sit there stoically eating potato chips? You’d probably fling the bowl of chips in the air! Why? Because you delight in football.
The secret to heartfelt praise and thanksgiving is to recognize that you were in a desperate situation. You could not save yourself from God’s righteous judgment. You cried to the God who spoke the universe into existence, the God who sent His Son, to save you by His grace. Because now you have experienced His great love and grace, you delight in Him and His great salvation and you can’t help but sing for joy!
Conclusion
Matthew Henry (Matthew Henry’s Commentary [Revell], 3:351) comments on verse 5, “What a pity it is that this earth, which is so full of God’s goodness, should be so empty of his praises, and that of the multitudes that live upon his bounty there are so few that live to his glory!” I hope that that cannot be said of us. As God’s “righteous ones,” let’s lean hard on Him to work through us for His glory. When we see Him deliver our souls from death and keep us alive in famine (v. 19), our response will be to sing and praise Him exuberantly with thankful hearts.
Application Questions
- Why does evolution fly in the face of biblical Christianity? Can one believe in “theistic” evolution and still believe the Bible?
- How does affirming God’s sovereignty over all (Ps. 33:10-12) help us to be thankful, worshiping people?
- Where is the balance between using human methods versus trusting in God alone? How can we avoid putting our trust in the methods? When are we presuming on God?
- Is worship style a matter of personality or of being thoroughly delighted in God? Give biblical examples.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2009, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Related Topics: Thanksgiving, Worship
Psalm 34: Enjoying God and His Blessings
Related MediaA question that I often ask those who come to me for counsel is, “Do you want God’s blessing in your life?” On the surface, it sounds like a no-brainer. “Duh! Of course I want God’s blessing in my life! Do you think I’m stupid, or what?” But answering yes to that question commits you to an often-difficult way of life. God does not bless those that ignore His commandments and live to please themselves. He blesses those that fear Him and walk in His ways, turning from their sins. Now, do you really want God’s blessing in your life?
David did. In spite of his many failures and sometimes flagrant sins, he kept coming back to the Lord, repenting of his sins, and seeking God as his chief joy and treasure. David wasn’t just, as so many do, trying to milk God for His blessings, but continuing to live for his own selfish ends. Rather, David saw God Himself as the supreme blessing. He would agree with what Asaph wrote (Ps. 73:25), “Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth.” In Psalm 34, David tells us how to enjoy God and His blessings:
To enjoy God and His blessings, seek Him for salvation, fear Him, and walk in His ways.
Psalm 34 is an acrostic, with each verse beginning with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Interestingly, as in Psalm 25, one letter (vav) is missing and the final verse interrupts the sequence, thus making it stand out for emphasis. As with all acrostics, the outline is not as clear as in some other psalms. Derek Kidner (Psalms 1-72 [IVP], pp. 138, 140) outlines it broadly as, “Rejoice with me” (vv. 1-10) and “Learn from me” (vv. 11-22). The first section is David’s testimony; the second section is his teaching. Addressing his audience as “children” (34:11) was a common way for Hebrew teachers to address their pupils.
The psalm comes out of an embarrassing incident in David’s life. He was running from King Saul, who was seeking to kill him. He came famished to Ahimelech the priest, who gave him and his men the consecrated bread. David also took Goliath’s sword, which had been stored at the Tabernacle. An informant told Saul where David was at, so he had to flee again. This time, perhaps in panic, he fled from Israeli territory and went to Achish, the Philistine king of Gath. It’s rather bizarre, because Gath was the hometown of Goliath, whom David had killed! So here is David, carrying Goliath’s sword (which could hardly be camouflaged!), showing up in Goliath’s town! Achish, by the way, is referred to in the Psalm inscription as Abimelech, which was a dynastic title for Philistine kings (it means, “my father is king”), much as Pharaoh was a title for Egyptian kings.
David wasn’t long in Gath before the servants of Achish said, “Isn’t this David, of whom the Israelis sing, ‘Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands?’” (See 1 Sam. 21:11.) So, fearing that he had jumped from the frying pan into the fire, David panicked. He decided to act like an insane man, scribbling on the city gate and drooling into his beard. Achish fell for the ruse. He sarcastically asked his men (1 Sam. 21:15), “Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this one into my presence?” And so by his deception, David was enabled to escape. But his acting like a madman had dishonored God in front of these pagans.
But then he wrote this psalm, praising God for his deliverance and denouncing deception (Ps. 34:13). What’s going on here? It seems that in reflecting back later on this close escape from death, David realized that in spite of his failure, God had been gracious in rescuing him anyway. True, David had been in a very tight spot, but that did not justify his deception. He actually continued this pattern of deception with Achish, convincing him that he was raiding Israeli villages, when he actually was slaughtering off the inhabitants of the land (1 Sam. 27:8-12). This almost resulted in David’s being forced to go into battle with the Philistines against his own countrymen. It also resulted in the capture of David’s and his men’s wives and property, so that his own men were talking of stoning him (1 Sam. 30:6).
So sometime after David recovered from all of these difficult trials caused by his own panic and deception, he penned Psalm 34. He realizes now that deception and evil are not the way to the good life. Rather, seeking God for deliverance, fearing Him, and walking in His ways are the way to enjoy God and His blessings.
Even some conservative commentators have said that the psalm does not bear any resemblance to the circumstances alluded to in the title. But there are connections that can be made. In verses 4-6 David alludes to the extreme danger that he was in. Some may ask, “How can he say that he cried out to the Lord for deliverance when he was using deception to get out of this jam?” The answer is that he did both. It is rare, especially for younger believers, to be completely pure in our methods, especially when we’re in a sudden crisis. So the psalm is a testimony to God’s grace in bearing with our weaknesses. This does not justify our sin, but it does magnify God’s grace towards his weak children.
Further allusions to David’s situation include verse 7, which pictures the angel of the Lord guarding David’s camp at the cave of Adullam, where he fled from Achish. Verse 10 refers to the lions that inhabited the area. Some commentators take this as a poetic reference to powerful, rapacious human leaders. But it would be natural for David to refer to the hungry lions that he saw around him, contrasting them with God’s care for him and his men. Verses 13 and 18 reflect David’s later repentance as he thought back on his panicked use of deception. And, verse 20 reflects David’s safe escape from the Philistines. He was probably handled roughly, but he got away with no broken bones.
We can draw four practical lessons from this psalm:
1. The life that God blesses is not free from extreme trials.
This is a psalm about close escapes from death. We see this in the psalm title. It is also evident in verses 6 & 7 and 17 & 19. Verse 19 states plainly, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous….” I bring this up because I often encounter Christians who think, “I trusted in Christ as my Savior and I’m trying to follow Him. So why am I having all of these trials?” They mistakenly think that following Christ means that He puts a protective shield around you, so that trials just glance off. But Paul told the young converts in the churches he founded (Acts 14:22), “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.” Peter wrote to a suffering church (1 Pet. 4:12), “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as if some strange thing were happening to you.” Note three things:
A. Some trials are due to our own sins and shortcomings.
We have already seen this with David. He may have fled to Achish in panic without pausing to seek the Lord. His later trials when his and his men’s families and possessions were taken were a direct result of his wrongful thinking that he would perish at the hand of Saul (1 Sam. 27:1). Later, David watched his own family fall apart and his kingdom go through Absalom’s rebellion as the consequence of his sin with Bathsheba (2 Sam. 12). He also saw many in his kingdom die as a direct consequence of his sin in numbering the people (2 Sam. 24:10-17).
The important lesson is to learn how to respond when God brings into your life these consequences for your sins. It’s easy to minimize your own responsibility for the sins by blaming others or by excusing yourself, and then to get angry at God. You can think, “What I did was no worse than what everyone else does. Besides, if I hadn’t been provoked, I wouldn’t have done this. So it’s not fair for God to discipline me when others do far worse and get away with it.”
Or, you can humble yourself before God, as David did, with a brokenhearted, contrite spirit (Ps. 34:18). You can submit to God’s dealings with you, as difficult as they are (2 Sam. 16:5-13).
B. Some trials are due to the sins of others against us.
David got into this jam with Achish and the Philistines because Saul was wrongly trying to kill him. David had done nothing to undermine Saul’s authority or leadership. He had been loyal to Saul, serving him as a son. And yet Saul was insanely jealous of David and was trying to kill him.
Again, it is important how you respond when someone else has sinned against you in a terrible way. Perhaps your father molested you. Or your parents may have abused you verbally and physically. Or, a trusted friend betrayed you. Or, you were sabotaged at work by unscrupulous co-workers who got you fired, even though you were a conscientious, hard worker. Do you take refuge in the Lord and pray for those that wronged you? Do you recognize that if God had not been gracious to you, you would be acting just as they acted or worse? When we’re sinned against, we need to be very careful not to sin in reaction.
C. When we turn to the Lord in our trials, He can use even our past sins for His holy purposes.
This is not in any way to say, “Let’s sin so that grace may increase” (Rom. 6:1)! Rather, it is to recognize that God is the God of the second (and third and fourth) chance. The Bible is full of stories of those whose disobedience God used to teach us and to further His holy purposes. Here is David, teaching us not to use deception as he did. Jacob’s story shows us the same thing. Jonah’s story shows us God’s grace in using the disobedient prophet. Peter’s denials and restoration have encouraged most of us when we have failed the Lord.
So whether your trials are due to your own sin or to the sin of others against you or due to living in a fallen world, don’t let those trials cause you to turn away from the Lord in bitterness. Rather, let them push you to the Lord for deliverance and grace.
2. Our trials should drive us to the end of ourselves so that we seek the Lord for salvation as we fear Him and learn to walk in His ways.
We can break this down into four components:
A. To come to the end of ourselves, we must be brokenhearted and contrite over our sins.
David is boasting here (34:2), but not in himself. He is boasting in the Lord, which means that he recognizes that he is the object of God’s undeserved favor (see 1 Cor. 1:26-31). As a result, the humble (those who also recognize that they are recipients of grace) will rejoice with him as he tells of God’s deliverance. So David concludes (34:18), “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”
John Bunyan wrote an entire book titled, The Acceptable Sacrifice, or The Excellency of a Broken Heart (in his Works [Baker], 1:685-720; also, published separately by Banner of Truth). I cannot recommend it highly enough! (I put a page full of quotes on the back of today’s bulletin and also on the church web site.) Bunyan goes into great detail to spell out what a broken heart and a contrite spirit consist of, so that we can evaluate our own hearts before God to make sure that we are broken and contrite. While we grow in brokenness before the Lord over time, if we have never been broken and contrite before Him, we are not truly saved.
While I cannot begin to condense all of Bunyan’s gems into one sermon, let alone one paragraph, let me summarize how he explains the two terms, broken and contrite. To have your heart broken means “to have it lamed, disabled, and taken off by sense of God’s wrath due to sin, from that course of life it formerly was conversant in” (1:695). As for a contrite spirit, it “is a penitent one; one sorely grieved, and deeply sorrowful, for the sins it has committed against God, and to the damage of the soul” (ibid.).
Further, the brokenhearted man sees himself to be a poor man, as David here acknowledges himself to be (34:6). Jesus picked up on this theme when He said (Matt. 5:3-4), “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”
Bunyan’s treatise is primarily based on David’s cry after his sin with Bathsheba (Ps. 51:17), “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.” Isaiah also writes about a broken and contrite heart (57:15): “For thus says the high and exalted One who lives forever, whose name is Holy, ‘I dwell on a high and holy place, and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit in order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.” If you need reviving, it begins with a broken and contrite heart! (See also, Isa. 61:1; 66:2.)
B. Our brokenness should drive us to seek the Lord for salvation and take refuge in Him.
Until you realize that you are broken beyond your own ability to fix, you will not cry out to God for salvation from your sin. As long as you think that your own goodness or works will get your life put back together, you will not see yourself as a poor man (or woman), crying out to God to save you (34:6). As God opens your eyes to the seriousness of your sin, let it drive you to the cross for God’s salvation. Although David may have hid in a cave from Saul and from the Philistines, in his heart he was hiding in God as his refuge (34:8). Are you? Have you come to the place of feeling broken and crushed by your sin, so that you have cried out to God to save you through Jesus and His shed blood?
C. To experience God’s salvation, we must fear Him.
David feared Saul and he feared the Philistines. But he testifies (34:4), “I sought the Lord, and He answered me, and delivered me from all my fears.” He goes on to state (34:7), “The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him, and rescues them.” Further (34:9), “O fear the Lord, you His saints; for to those who fear Him there is no want.” Again (34:11), “Come, you children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord.” Fearing God is inextricably bound up with experiencing His salvation.
I read somewhere last year that a professor at a Christian college mentioned fearing God in his classroom. He said it expecting that all the students would agree that we are to fear God. But he was stunned when they all vigorously disagreed that as Christians we should fear God! They argued that God’s love excludes all need to fear Him! While it is true that perfect love casts out the fear of punishment (1 John 4:18), it is also abundantly clear that we are always to fear God in the sense of bowing in reverent awe before Him. Even the saints need to be exhorted to fear God (Ps. 34:9)! If you do not fear Him, you will not take refuge in Him.
D. To fear the Lord is to live in obedience to Him.
Throughout this psalm, there is an emphasis on being righteous, which means, to obey the Lord. David addresses his readers as “saints” (or, “holy ones”), which is somewhat unusual in the Old Testament (Willem VanGemeren, Expositor’s Bible Commentary, ed. by Frank Gaebelein [Zondervan], 5:284). He exhorts us to “depart from evil and do good” (34:14). He assures us (34:15) that “the eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and His ears are open to their cry.” Most scholars also take verse 17 to be referring to the cry of the righteous (the Hebrew word “righteous” is lacking). He also mentions the righteous in verses 19 & 21.
By contrast, David states (34:16), “The face of the Lord is against evildoers, to cut off the memory of them from the earth.” Further (34:21), “Evil shall slay the wicked, and those who hate the righteous will be condemned.” So either God’s eyes are towards us favorably because we obey Him (34:15), or His face is against us because we disobey Him (34:16, 21). At the root of obeying the Lord is fearing Him. As Proverbs 8:13 states, “The fear of the Lord is to hate evil.” Fearing Him leads to obeying Him, which leads to enjoying God and experiencing His blessings.
3. When we experience God’s blessings, He expects us to share it with others and to invite them to experience God’s blessings, too.
The entire psalm repeats the theme, “I’ve received God’s blessings; you can, too!” Verse 3, “O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together.” In verses 4-10, the idea is, “God rescued me; He can rescue you, too!” Thus, the invitation (34:8), “O taste and see that the Lord is good; how blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!” Don’t just look on, wishing that my blessings were yours. Taste the Lord’s goodness yourself! Prove in your own experience that the Lord saves all that take refuge in Him. Or, again, based on David’s experience of not being in want of any good thing (34:10), he invites his readers to listen as he teaches them about the truly good life (34:11, 12).
Praise is best when it is shared. Have you ever stood alone at the rim of the Grand Canyon, admiring the spectacular view, when a stranger walks up? It’s hard not to say, “Isn’t this amazing!” Why? Because praise is meant to be shared. In verse 5, David says that those that looked to the Lord were radiant. The Hebrew word is used (Isa. 60:5) of a mother’s face lighting up with joy when her children, given up for lost, return home. She can’t hide her delight. When you’ve experienced God’s salvation, your face should be radiant when you think about your Savior! And you should want to share your praise with others in joyful song.
But the psalm states that God delivers the righteous from all of his afflictions (34:19). “He keeps all his bones, not one of them is broken” (34:20). John (19:36) cites this verse (or Exod. 12:46) as applying to Jesus not having His legs broken on the cross. Yet Jesus was not delivered; He died. We all know of many of God’s faithful servants who have not been delivered from all of their afflictions. Many have not only had their bones broken, but they have been brutally killed for the gospel. Thus we must consider a final point:
4. The ultimate experience of God’s blessing and salvation will not be in this life, but in the life to come.
The final verses (19-22) must find their ultimate fulfillment beyond death, when God will finally justify His servants and condemn the wicked. These verses make obvious what the Bible clearly teaches throughout, that there is a great divide between those whom God redeems and those whom God will condemn. The Hebrew word for “condemned” (34:21, 22) means to bear one’s guilt (Kidner, p. 141). It is the opposite of being justified. “Those who hate the righteous will be condemned” (34:21b). “None of those who take refuge in Him will be condemned” (34:22b). Those are the only options! Make sure that you’ve taken refuge in Jesus Christ! “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1).
Critics scoff, “That’s just pie in the sky when you die!” My response is, what will you have in the sky when you die? We’re all going to die. The question is, where will you spend eternity? If Jesus is not bodily risen from the dead, you don’t need to worry about it, because there is no eternity (1 Cor. 15:12-19). But if He is risen, you had better make sure that He has redeemed your soul and rescued you from God’s righteous judgment!
Conclusion
So, how many of you want God’s blessing in your life? No, don’t raise your hands. Rather, repent of your sins. Ask God for a broken and contrite heart. Cry out to Jesus for salvation. Then, live by fearing Him and walking in His ways. You’ll be blessed!
Application Questions
- Why do so many Christians think that following Christ brings exemption from trials? Why is this view spiritually dangerous?
- How does a person who lacks a broken and contrite heart get one? How would you counsel such a person?
- Why do so few Christians live in the fear of God? Have we over-emphasized His love?
- Why is it not a cop-out to say that our final blessing and salvation only comes in heaven?
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2009, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Related Topics: Spiritual Life
Psalm 36: Deceived by Sin or Delighted in God?
Related MediaGod profoundly changed my spiritual life in the summer of 1970 when I first read A. T. Pierson’s, George Muller of Bristol [Revell]. I have gone back to that book time and time again for spiritual encouragement and guidance. Muller was a great man of faith who trusted God to provide for over 2,000 orphans at a time in Bristol, England, in the 19th century. He refused to make any of the needs of the ministry known to any potential donor. Rather, he demonstrated that God hears and answers our prayers when we diligently seek Him by faith.
Roger Steer aptly subtitled his biography of Muller [Harold Shaw Publishers, 1975], “delighted in God!” Muller was a man who found joy in God. Muller emphasized that the first business of every morning should be to secure happiness in God through time in God’s Word and prayer (Pierson, pp. 257, 315). Pierson said of Muller (p. 257), “He taught that God alone is the one all-satisfying portion of the soul, and that we must determine to possess and enjoy Him as such.”
David was also a man who was delighted in God. In Psalm 37:4 he wrote, “Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart.” We see the same emphasis in many other psalms (e.g., 5:11-12; 16:11; 27:4; 31:19; 32:11; 33:1; 34:8). It is certainly a major emphasis in Psalm 36. We don’t know what the circumstances were that prompted David to write this psalm. The title identifies David as “the servant of the Lord,” which is only used elsewhere in Psalm 18. We can’t be sure why it is only in these two psalms. But it is true that only those who are the Lord’s servants, that is, submissive to Him as Lord, can be delighted in Him.
David begins the psalm in a rather unusual way, giving a succinct but profound analysis of the sinfulness of sin (36:1-4). Then he abruptly turns his focus on the delightfulness of God and the blessings that He bestows on His people (36:5-9). The psalm concludes with a prayer that the Lord will continue His lovingkindness to His people and protect them from the wicked. The final verse is a prophetic look at the final judgment of the wicked. Thus David shows us in stark contrast two ways to live—in the deceitfulness of sin or in the delightfulness of God.
The deceitfulness of sin and the delightfulness of God should cause us to seek Him for a continuing experience of His love.
Charles Simeon has no less than seven sermons on different verses in this psalm, so there is much here that I cannot cover in depth. We will follow David’s three divisions:
1. Sin deceives the sinner by flattering him so that he actively plans and pursues it (36:1-4).
Is David here describing only what may be called “the abandoned despisers of God” (John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], on Ps. 36:1, pp. 2-3), or does it refer to all sinners generally? I would agree with Derek Kidner (Psalms 1-72 [IVP], p. 146), who comments on Paul’s citing, “there is no fear of God before his eyes” (36:1b), at the end of his indictment of the human race in Romans 3. Kidner observes, “This is the culminating symptom of sin in Romans 3:18, a passage which teaches us to see this portrait as that of Man (but for the grace of God) rather than of an abnormally wicked type. All men as fallen have these characteristics, latent or developed.”
In other words, Psalm 36:1-4 is a snapshot of the fallen human heart, apart from God’s grace in Jesus Christ. It unfolds a progression, showing that sin begins in the heart and expresses itself in words and deeds. We can look at it in two parts:
A. Sin deceives the sinner by flattering him so that he does not fear God or hate sin (36:1-2).
The first two verses contain some complex difficulties in the text, translation, and interpretation that go beyond my scholarly ability. One Hebrew scholar (J. A. Alexander, The Psalms Translated and Explained [Baker], p. 155) says of verse 1, “This is one of the most difficult and doubtful verses in the whole book of Psalms.” The King James and NIV follow the reading “my heart,” whereas the NASB and ESV follow the reading, “his heart.”
If the first reading is correct, the NIV translation makes good sense, “An oracle is within my heart concerning the sinfulness of the wicked: There is no fear of God before his eyes.” David would be reporting an oracle or word from God about the wicked, that their sin is rooted in the fact that they have no fear of God. If the variant behind the NASB and ESV is correct, transgression is personified as speaking to the hearts of the ungodly. That is, sin speaks to and entices them in their hearts.
The second verse is also difficult. It may mean that sinners flatter themselves into thinking that their sin is not so bad, even though others grow to hate them for it. The sinner is blind to what everyone else plainly sees, namely, that his sin is repugnant. Or, it may mean that sin flatters the sinner so that he cannot see his own sin or hate it for how evil it is. He is so deluded by his sin that he thinks he is right, or at least that he is no worse than everyone else.
If we can get beyond the interpretive difficulties, there are some profound insights here regarding sin and how it works to deceive us through flattery. First, at the heart of sin is a complete lack of understanding of who God is, so that sinners do not fear Him. They do not understand God’s absolute holiness. Therefore, they do not believe that He will judge all sin. Invariably, sinners think that God is a good old boy upstairs, who winks at sin, or at least who is tolerant of all but the worst sins. They view God as loving, but not as just and righteous. So He will be lenient on judgment day. This is verified by polls, which show that most Americans think that they will go to heaven when they die.
Second, sin flatters the sinner into thinking that he isn’t a really bad sinner, and so he does not hate his sin. He thinks, “Well, at least I’m not a terrorist or a child molester or a serial murderer.” So he excuses his lying, lust, greed, gossip, and other such sins, because these are more acceptable sins.
Harry Ironside (Illustrations of Bible Truth [Moody Press], p. 71) tells of asking a man after a gospel meeting, “Are you saved, sir?” The man replied that he was not, but he would like to be. Ironside asked him if he realized that he was a lost sinner. The man replied, “Well, I suppose I am, but I’m not what you could call a bad sinner. I am, I think, a rather good one. I always try to do the best I know.” Imagine that—a good sinner! We should rather agree with Puritan Ralph Venning, who wrote, “Consider that no sin against a great God can be strictly a little sin” (cited by Leland Ryken, Worldly Saints [Zondervan], p. 219).
Jonathan Edwards has an insightful sermon on verse 2 in which he spells out eight ways that sinners flatter themselves (“Self-Flatteries,” in The Works of Jonathan Edwards [Banner of Truth], 2:218-219):
1. Some flatter themselves with a secret hope, that there is no such thing as another world…. 2. Some flatter themselves that death is a great way off, and that they shall hereafter have much opportunity to seek salvation…. 3. Some flatter themselves that they lead moral and orderly lives, and therefore think that they shall not be damned…. 4. Some make the advantages under which they live an occasion of self-flattery. [He is referring to those living in a Christian country or raised in a Christian home, who think that they are thus right before God.] 5. Some flatter themselves with their own intentions [they intend to seek God later]…. 6. There are some who flatter themselves, that they do, and have done, a great deal for their salvation…. 7. Some hope by their strivings to obtain salvation of themselves…. 8. Some sinners flatter themselves, that they are already converted [when they are not].
Since sin is so deceitful through its flattery, how can we know whether we are being deceived by it? Here are some questions to ask yourself:
Do I fear God, before whom all things are open and laid bare (Heb. 4:13)?
Since God knows the very thoughts and intentions of my heart, am I in the habit of judging my own sin quickly on the thought level?
When I read the holy standards of God’s Word, do I apply them to my own heart, or do I just skim over them or apply them to others?
Am I growing to identify and hate my own sins more and more through God’s Word?
B. Sin deceives the sinner so that he plans and pursues it (36:3-4).
David shows how enveloped in deceit the sinner really is. First, sin deceives him so that he cannot see and hate his own sins (vv. 1-2). But, then he uses wickedness and deceit in his own words toward others (v. 3). The second half of verse 3 indicates that this person is in a downward spiral. He used to have some semblance of common wisdom and good behavior, but he long ago abandoned it. Now, rather than despising evil, he lies awake at night thinking about his next sin, planning how to do it and plotting a path to get there (v. 4). So he is not just inadvertently drifting into sin. Rather, he is deliberately planning it.
If you are thinking about how you can get your girlfriend into bed, or how to sneak your next view of Internet pornography, or how to get your next drink or hit of drugs, then David is describing you! You do not despise evil; rather, you’re planning how to do it. You may profess to be a Christian, but your secret thoughts reveal that there is no fear of God before your eyes! Take heed!
Then, without any transition, as if this contemplation of how sin flatters and deceives is too horrific, David abruptly shifts focus:
2. The delightfulness of God attracts us to seek Him as the source of every blessing (36:5-9).
From the depths of depravity, David leaps to the heights of God and His abundant blessings towards those who seek Him. Note five things:
A. God’s lovingkindness and faithfulness are immense (36:5).
“Your lovingkindness, O Lord, extends to the heavens, Your faithfulness reaches to the skies.” David mentions God’s lovingkindness three times in this psalm: in verse 5 with regard to its immensity; in verse 7 with regard to its value; and, in verse 10 as a prayer that the Lord will continue dispensing it.
The Hebrew word that the NASB translates “lovingkindness,” is hesed. It is often coupled with “faithfulness,” and thus has the nuance of “loyal love,” or “covenant love.” The Septuagint usually translates it with the Greek word for “mercy.” The Hebrew word for “stork” comes from hesed, because the Hebrews observed the tender care that the stork has for its young. It flies into the high fir trees to make its nests secure from predators (Ps. 104:17). If you’ve ever seen a baby bird, there isn’t much to be attracted to! They are scrawny and ugly and spend all their time with their mouths open, squawking for food. And yet the stork parents show loyal love for their young, providing for all their needs. That’s how God’s loyal love is towards us.
God’s “faithfulness” means that He always keeps His promises. He is consistent, never changing. By saying that God’s lovingkindness extends to the heavens and His faithfulness to the skies, David means that these qualities are immense or inexhaustible. We can keep coming to Him for more of His love and He never runs out of it!
B. God’s righteousness and judgments are impressive (36:6).
“Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; Your judgments are like a great deep. O Lord, You preserve man and beast.” The Hebrew word for “righteousness” means “conformity to an ethical or moral standard” (Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, ed. by R. Laird Harris, Gleason Archer, and Bruce Waltke [Moody Press], 2:752). God Himself is the standard for what is righteous. He always wills what is right and does what is right. To say that His righteousness is like the mountains of God (or, the mighty mountains) is to say that His standards are impressive and immovable, because they stem from His holy character.
God’s judgments in this context refer to His providential governance of His creation. By saying that God’s judgments are like a great deep, he means that they are unfathomable. God’s ways are not our ways. We cannot understand all that He does or why He does it. We cannot understand many of the trials that He brings into our lives. Why does the Lord allow a drunken Herod to chop off the head of the godly John the Baptist? Why does He allow another Herod to execute James, while God delivers Peter from the same fate? All we can say is, it was His sovereign purpose.
When David adds that God preserves man and beast, the meaning is that since he takes care of irrational animals, surely He will care for our needs (Calvin, p. 10). When Paul considered God’s impressive judgments, he exclaimed (Rom. 11:33), “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!”
C. God’s lovingkindness is precious and inviting (36:7).
It’s as if David can’t contain himself as he thinks about how delightful God is, so he exclaims, “How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God! And the children of men take refuge in the shadow of Your wings.” Derek Kidner (p. 147) observes, “The word precious establishes at once the change of scale from the immense to the intimate and personal. Steadfast love … needs both emphases: that of verse 5 as too great to grasp, and of verse 7 as too good to let slip.” The idea here in contrast to verses 1-4 is, how stupid it is of the wicked to disregard God and His ways! To miss out on God’s immense and intimate love in order to pursue sin is the height of folly! God’s love invites us to take refuge under His protective wings, as baby chicks hide under their mother’s wings.
D. God’s provisions for His people are abundant and delightful (36:8).
“They drink their fill of the abundance of Your house; and You give them to drink of the river of Your delights.” “Abundance” is literally, “fatness.” It pictures the best portion of meat from the sacrifices offered at the temple. In modern terms, picture prime rib or a delicious steak. To drink their fill literally is to be drunk with. So it mixes metaphors, but communicates having all of something delightful that you want or need.
To appreciate the river metaphor, you have to remember that David was writing to people who lived in a desert. For them, a flowing river was especially wonderful. It meant life and refreshment. You could have all that you needed to drink. You could cool off by bathing in it. You could irrigate your crops with it. The word “delights” is “Eden” in Hebrew, so it may be a reference to the original Garden, with the four rivers flowing from it.
Is this your concept of God towards you? Do you see His lovingkindness and faithfulness as immense? Do you think of His righteousness and judgments as impressive and awesome on the personal level, because He cares for you? Is His love precious and inviting to you? Do you see His provisions as abundant and delightful? But, there’s more!
E. God Himself is the source of life and light (36:9).
“For with You is the fountain of life; in Your light we see light.” Life means not only that physical life comes from God, but also spiritual life. This verse sounds like John 1:4, which says of Jesus, “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.” Or, as Jesus claimed (John 5:21), “For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes.” Jesus is the source of eternal life for His chosen ones. The fountain of life suggests an unending supply. He never runs dry!
God through Jesus is also light for His people. Adam Clarke writes (Clarke’s Commentary [Abingdon-Cokesbury Press], 3:335), “No man can illumine his own soul; all understanding must come from above.” Spiritually, we are all like the man born blind (John 9). In our natural state, we can’t see the beauty and glory of God and His many delights, because Satan has blinded our minds (2 Cor. 4:4). Only God can open blind eyes to see “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”
Jonathan Edwards has a wonderful sermon on Matthew 16:17, where Jesus tells Peter that he did not arrive at his understanding that Jesus was the Messiah through human reason. Rather, the Father revealed it to him. Edwards’ sermon is titled, “A Divine and Supernatural Light, Immediately Imparted to the Soul by the Spirit of God, Shown to be both a Scriptural and Rational Doctrine” (in his Works, 2:12). He argues that this divine and supernatural light is not just the rational belief that God is glorious and holy, but also a sense of the loveliness and beauty of these qualities.
So David begins by showing how sin deceives the sinner by flattering him so that he plans and pursues it, rather than hating it. Then he abruptly contrasts the immense delightfulness of God, to make us want to seek Him as the source of every blessing. Finally,
3. The delightfulness of God should cause us who know Him to pray for a continuing experience of His love (36:10-12).
“O continue Your lovingkindness to those who know You, and Your righteousness to the upright in heart. Let not the foot of pride come upon me, and let not the hand of the wicked drive me away. There the doers of iniquity have fallen; they have been thrust down and cannot rise.”
David’s prayer is for those who know God (36:10). Even though we who have come to know God through Jesus Christ have experienced His grace and love, we need a continuing, steady flow of it. Even though He has promised it (Rom. 8:35-39), we still need to ask Him for it.
Also, David asks for God’s righteousness to continue to be given to the upright in heart. We might think, “If they’re already upright in heart, why do they need more righteousness?” But we are never fully sanctified in this life. We will not be completely like Jesus until the moment that we see Him face to face (1 John 3:2). And so we must continue to ask God to give us His righteousness. Also, this isn’t just outward behavior, but uprightness of heart. We need to seek God for a pure heart, or thought life. All outward sin begins with corrupt thoughts that are not judged. If your righteousness is outward only, it is only a matter of time until you sin outwardly, because you haven’t cut off the source.
In verse 11, David asks that the Lord protect him from the proud and wicked, who would try to bring him down to their level. Evil people feel convicted by righteous people. So they want to see the righteous fall so that they can justify their own sin. In the final verse, David prophetically looks ahead and sees the place where the wicked meet their final demise. David is so confident of God’s righteousness and justice that he sees this yet-future event as if it has already happened. God will surely judge the wicked or else the Bible is false!
Conclusion
Have you cried out to Jesus Christ for life and light? Has He opened your eyes to the deceitfulness of sin, so that you hate it? Are you delighted in God and His abundant love? As John Piper points out, it is your duty to delight in Him (The Dangerous Duty of Delight [Multnomah Publishers]). As he also says (p. 21, italics his), “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” I encourage you to join George Muller in making the first business of every day to find happiness in God.
Application Questions
- Why is the fear of God the foundation for a holy life? Why is fearing God not opposed to experiencing His love?
- Edwards mentions eight ways that sin flatters the sinner. Can you think of other ways?
- Why are so many people who were raised in church turned off towards God? Do we properly emphasize His abundant goodness and delightfulness in our homes and in the church?
- How would you advise a Christian who said that he wanted to hate sin more and love God more? What should he do?
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2009, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Related Topics: Hamartiology (Sin), Love
Psalm 37: What To Do When The Bad Guys Win
Related MediaWhat do you do when the bad guys win? I’m not talking about when the Chicago Bulls beat the Phoenix Suns for the N.B.A. championship (although if you’re distraught, you could apply this message to that situation)! I’m talking about how we respond when we do what’s right and get penalized, while the wicked seem to prosper. For example:
Your neighbor brags to you about how he cheats on his taxes each year. His home is loaded with the finest in furniture and appliances. He has two new luxury cars and all the latest toys. They vacationed in Hawaii last year. You are honest and pay your taxes. You give faithfully to the church. Your furniture would be rejected by Goodwill. Your one clunker of a car is on its second 100,000. And the closest thing to vacation that you could afford last year was to manage to go to the Grand Canyon for a day. Galling, isn’t it?
You’re single and trying to follow the Lord. You will only date Christian guys. Your last date was in 1989. The girl next door has no moral standards and she’s got handsome hunks lining up to see her. Irritating, isn’t it?
I’ve had personal experience with losing while the bad guys win. I’m not in the Social Security system, so I have to set aside something for my retirement. It’s not much, not even enough at this point to live on for more than a year. We’re not being greedy or storing up treasures on earth. We give generously to the Lord’s work each month. But we lost both a major portion of our retirement funds and 15 years’ equity in our home due to two separate instances of being defrauded by crooked men who are doing quite well.
Sometimes it seems like it doesn’t pay to be good! When the evil prosper and the good suffer, you can be tempted to doubt God, especially if you’re the good guy! If you’re not careful to cultivate the right perspective, you can be tempted to say “Forget it!” and join the evildoers.
David had been there. Although he had been anointed king as a teenager, he spent the better part of his twenties running from the ungodly King Saul. On several occasions, David did the right thing by sparing Saul’s life, only to watch Saul return to his comfortable palace, while David went back to a cave. During that time, David and his men did right by a man named Nabal, protecting his shepherds and flocks from bandits. But when David asked a small favor of Nabal in return, Nabal said, in effect, “Drop dead!” David had many occasions to reflect on the problem of personal injustice.
As an old man (Ps. 37:25), David wrote Psalm 37 to share his insights on this problem. The psalm reflects the wisdom he had gleaned from years of walking with God. There is far more here than we can cover in one short message. But in skimming it, we can discern some principles for how we should respond to personal injustice:
When the bad guys win, submit to God, be content in Him, and do rightly, trusting the Lord to judge righteously.
The psalm is an acrostic in which approximately every other verse begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet (the English gets out of sync). This made it easier to memorize, although it makes it more difficult to discern the structure of the ideas which are interwoven throughout. But roughly, 37:1-11 deals with the idea of submitting to God; 37:12-26 speaks of contentment in Him; 37:27-40 expands on doing rightly; and, trusting the Lord to judge righteously recurs through the whole psalm.
1. When the bad guys win, submit to God (37:1-11).
Although the word “submit” does not occur in these verses, it is the idea behind both the negative and positive commands given here. Negatively,
A. Submitting to God means putting off irritation, envy, and anger.
Three times we are commanded not to fret (37:1, 7, 8). The Hebrew word means to burn. The verb is in the Hebrew reflexive stem which could be translated, “Don’t work yourself into a slow burn” when you see evil men prospering. Don’t let it get under your skin; it will only lead you into wrong (37:8). One reason we get irritated when we see evil men getting away with their schemes is that we are assuming that we know how to run the world better than God does. So one aspect of submission to God is to put off such irritation, giving God the sovereign right to deal with evildoers in His time and way.
We’re also commanded not to envy wrongdoers (37:1). This confronts the selfishness and evil motives in our hearts. Often the reason we don’t want evildoers to prosper is not that we abhor the sin they commit, but that secretly we wish that we could do the same thing. We want for ourselves the pleasures of sin which they are enjoying. But we must submit to God by judging our envy.
We’re also commanded not to anger (37:8). The first word (“anger”) comes from a Hebrew word meaning “nostrils.” When someone gets mad, his nostrils flare out. The second word (“wrath”) comes from another Hebrew word meaning “hot” and points to rage. The Bible teaches that most anger is sinful and that we can control it (otherwise it wouldn’t command us to stop doing it). Anger shows that we are not in submission to the sovereignty of God. We’re saying, in effect, “God, I don’t like the way You’re running things! It’s not fair! I don’t deserve this kind of treatment from these wicked people.” The bottom line is, we’re not submitting ourselves to God.
A rule of thumb for discerning righteous anger from sinful anger is this: If I am angry about injustice done toward others, it may be righteous anger. This anger should motivate me to take appropriate action on behalf of the victims. If I am angry about injustice done toward me, it’s probably sinful anger. Most anger is selfish and therefore sinful. Submitting to God when I see the bad guys winning means putting off irritation, envy, and anger.
B. Submitting to God means putting on trust, obedience, patience, and humility as we delight in the Lord.
When we see the bad guys winning, we need to shift our focus from the evildoers to the Lord. Five times in 37:3-9 David mentions “the Lord” by name and five more times he uses the third person pronoun to refer to the Lord. He is saying that the antidote for getting frustrated with the prosperity of the wicked is to be deliberately God-centered. This involves putting on several qualities:
Put on trust (37:3a, 5). “Trust in the Lord” is not a hollow slogan; it is a course of action. It means that when evildoers seem to be winning and you are losing, you roll the whole problem onto the Lord and watch Him vindicate you in His time (37:6).
Put on obedience (37:3b). “Do good; dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.” Leave things in God’s hands (trust) and go on with your normal duties obediently before the Lord. Don’t let the other person’s sin lead you into sin. Do what God has given you to do in obedience to Him.
Put on patience (37:7, 9). “Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him.” That’s the hard part of submission, isn’t it! He may not act on your timetable. It may take months, years, or even a whole lifetime for God to act and vindicate you. But if you trust Him to be a just and righteous God and if you submit to Him, then you’ll wait patiently.
Put on humility (37:11). To be “humble” (NASB) or “meek” (NIV) means to realize our own weakness and sinfulness so that we rely on the Lord, not ourselves. This awareness of our sinfulness means that we won’t self-righteously judge the wicked. Apart from God’s mercy, we would act just as they do. Humility means being aware of our own inadequacy apart from the Lord, but at the same time of our adequacy in the Lord (2 Cor. 3:5). Meekness does not mean weakness but, rather, brokenness. A humble or meek person is like a strong but broken horse: powerful, yet submissive to its master’s touch.
Jesus took Psalm 37:11 as His third Beatitude: “Blessed are the gentle [humble, meek], for they shall inherit the earth” (Matt. 5:5). The world says just the opposite: “Blessed are those who assert themselves and stand up for their own rights.” But Jesus and David disagree; it’s the meek who will ultimately come out on top. The “abundant prosperity” of 37:11 is literally, “abundance of peace” and refers to soul-prosperity, not to material riches. The person who finds his adequacy in the Lord rather than in himself or his things has an abundant source of peace.
Be delighted in the Lord (37:4). Trust, obedience, patience, and humility can all be summed up in the phrase, “Delight yourself in the Lord.” Be captivated with the Lord and all that He is. Rather than focusing on the things which the world seeks, focus on the Lord. In gaining the Lord, you gain everything else you ever need: “He will give you the desires of your heart.” This doesn’t mean that He will give you anything your selfish heart desires. If you are delighting yourself in the Lord, then your desires will be in line with His desires. This is the Matthew 6:33 of the Old Testament: “Seek first God’s kingdom and righteousness and all these things [your needs] will be added unto you.”
You may apply these principles to your marriage (or to any relationship). Say that a husband wrongs his wife (insensitivity, verbal abuse, adultery--you name the sin). She will be tempted to get irritated, to be envious (“he does as he pleases, but I can’t”), and to get angry. If she responds selfishly, by getting even or standing up for her rights, she will only cause more damage to the relationship.
But if she responds to the wrong done her by putting off irritation, envy, and anger and putting on trust in the Lord, obedience, waiting patiently on Him, and humility (awareness of her own inadequacy but also of Christ’s sufficiency), not in a spirit of self pity, but rather delighting herself in the Lord, her husband will say, “She’s got something I need!” He may be brought to repentance and the marriage may be saved. But whatever the outcome, she enjoys the abundant peace that comes from the Lord.
So the first principle is, When the bad guys win, submit to the Lord.
2. When the bad guys win, be content in the Lord (37:12‑26).
This psalm doesn’t come from an ivory tower. It comes out of the crucible of David’s life and recognizes the fierce conflict which exists between the wicked and the righteous (37:12-14). We may face some difficult times that try our faith. We may be afflicted and needy. But whatever the trial, we can learn to be content in the Lord. These verses reveal two areas for contentment:
A. Be content that the Lord will judge (37:12‑15).
God isn’t worried about the proud schemes of the wicked (37:13). He knows that the seeming victories of the wicked only last for a season, and then their schemes will come back on their own heads.
An atheist farmer ridiculed those who believe in God. He wrote a letter to a local newspaper in which he boasted: “I plowed on Sunday, planted on Sunday, cultivated on Sunday, and hauled in my crops on Sunday; but I never went to church on Sunday. Yet I hauled in more bushels per acre than anyone who believes in God and goes to church.” The editor printed the letter and then added this remark: “The Lord doesn’t always settle His accounts in October.”
As Christians, we can be assured that if the Lord doesn’t settle the account in this life, there is a coming judgment when everything will be made right (Rev. 6:10-11). We can leave vengeance to God, being content in Him (Rom. 12:19-21).
B. Be content that the Lord will provide (37:16‑26).
Personal injustice often hits us in the pocketbook. (I speak from experience!) But there are great lessons to be learned when the bad guys win by stealing your money or goods. Here are two:
(1) The Lord will provide for your needs, but your needs may be less than you think (37:16). You may only have a little, but it will be enough. You may fall (37:24; financially or materially in this context), but you won’t totally fail. The Lord will sustain you (37:17, 24‑25). Sometimes the Lord has to take away our things to reveal to us how much we take pleasure in this world and how little we take pleasure in Him. We need to learn that if we have food and covering, with these we can be content, as long as we have the Lord (1 Tim. 6:8).
(2) If you expect the Lord to provide, you’ve got to trust Him by giving. David says (37:17), “The Lord sustains the righteous.” If you keep reading you discover that the righteous are marked by generosity (37:21, 25-26). To claim God’s promises to the righteous, you have to meet the conditions of being righteous! You have to be a generous giver.
Many years ago a secretary of a British missionary society called on a Calcutta merchant for a donation. The man wrote a check for $250, a sizeable amount in those days. Just then an urgent cablegram was brought in, informing the merchant that one of his ships and all its cargo had been lost at sea. The merchant explained and told the secretary, “I need to write you another check.”
The secretary understood perfectly and returned the check for $250. The merchant wrote another check and handed it to him. The secretary was amazed to see that the new check was for $1,000. “Haven’t you made a mistake?” he asked. “No,” said the merchant, as his eyes filled with tears. “That cablegram was a message from my Heavenly Father which said, ‘Do not lay up treasures on earth.’”
If you’re walking uprightly before God and giving generously to support the Lord’s work, and someone cheats you out of money (or you lose it some other way), you can be content that God will provide for your needs. He’s not blind to what’s going on. Keep walking uprightly, keep being generous, and keep trusting Him, and He will take care of your needs and your family’s needs (37:25-26).
So when the bad guys win, submit to God and learn to be content in Him.
3. When the bad guys win, do rightly (37:27-40).
We saw this theme earlier (37:3), but it’s prominent in 37:27-40. When you’re wronged, the temptation is to retaliate with wrong. But our focus should be on pleasing the Lord in spite of how others wrong us. Here David outlines three areas of righteous living: Righteous actions (37:27); righteous speech (37:30); and, righteous thinking (37:31, “heart” = the inner person). Let’s consider them in reverse order.
Righteousness begins in your thought life (“heart”). God changes us by renewing our minds (Rom. 12:1-2) through His Word (Ps. 37:31; 119:11). If you are not steeping your mind in Scripture so that it shapes your thinking in every situation, you will not respond in a manner pleasing to the Lord when someone wrongs you.
If your thought life is being shaped by Scripture, then your words will become progressively righteous. When someone wrongs you, rather than lashing out with abusive speech, you will speak words of wisdom (37:30) that build up and give a blessing (Eph. 4:29; 1 Pet. 3:9). And, if your thought life and words are in conformity with Scripture, you won’t retaliate with wrong actions (Ps. 37:27). Instead of responding to evil with evil, you will seek to overcome evil with good (Rom.12:21). Instead of being mean, you’ll respond with kindness.
So David is telling us that when the bad guys win, we should submit to God, be content, and do rightly. Permeating the whole chapter is a fourth principle:
4. When the bad guys win, trust the Lord to judge righteously (37:2, 9, 10, 12-15, 17, 20, 22, 28, 34, 35-36, 38).
If you’ve been wronged, get the long‑range picture. God is a God of justice (37:28); He will right all wrongs someday. Have you ever noticed in the Book of Revelation how God lets wicked Babylon go on in sensuality and wealth until the last hour? Then in one day, in one hour, her judgment falls (Rev. 18:8, 10, 17, 19). Right up to the eleventh hour it looks like wickedness will triumph. Don’t be fooled! In that final hour, God will act on behalf of His saints (Rev. 18:20, 24).
So David’s bottom line must be our bottom line: “The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord; He is their strength in time of trouble. And the Lord helps them and delivers them; He delivers them from the wicked, and saves them, because they take refuge in Him” (Ps. 37:39-40). If you take refuge in God, you can trust Him to judge righteously and vindicate you.
Conclusion
But you may be thinking, “That’s great for eternity, but what about now? Is getting trampled on by ruthless scoundrels while I wait for heaven all that I have to look forward to?”
You may get trampled on, but you have something while you wait. In this psalm God’s blessings upon the righteous are summed up in a recurring theme: “inherit the land” (37:9, 11, 22, 29, 34). What does this mean? In its context, it applies to God’s covenant promise to Israel, that they would dwell in Canaan, the land of His promise. David is saying that God isn’t going to let the wicked displace the righteous from God’s promised land.
There is an application for us. There is a sense in which the righteous (or the meek) inherit the earth now. The righteous man, as we have seen, is submissive to God and content in all that God provides. The apostle Paul was such a man. He described himself as “having nothing yet possessing all things” (2 Corinthians 6:10). He knew how to be content no matter what his circumstances (Phil 4:11), so he could enjoy all that God richly supplies (1 Tim. 6:17; 1 Cor. 3:21‑23).
The disciples were righteous men. On one occasion, Peter was concerned because he and his companions had left everything to follow Jesus. He asked, “What is there for us” (Matt. 19:27; Mark 10:28). Jesus answered, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and for the gospel’s sake, but that he shall receive a hundred times as much now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms” ... then He adds ... “along with persecutions; and in the age to come, eternal life” (Mark 10:29-30). Christians have it now and then!
There’s no guarantee of exemption from persecutions, but there is a sense in which even now we inherit the earth as we trust in and follow the Lord. We can enjoy what He has supplied even if we’re persecuted, because we know the Creator. We can delight ourselves in abundant peace (37:11), even when the bad guys win.
Discussion Questions
- Is it sin to be angry when someone wrongs you?
- Does “trusting the Lord” mean not taking any action? Can you trust the Lord and confront an evildoer?
- Is it wrong to go to court or stand up for your rights if you’re treated unfairly? What biblical principles apply?
Copyright 1993, Steven J. Cole, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, © The Lockman Foundation
Related Topics: Hamartiology (Sin), Spiritual Life, Cultural Issues, Suffering, Trials, Persecution, Temptation
Psalm 39: How Transient I Am!
Related MediaSpecial New Year’s Message
Two things always make me think about the shortness of life: illness and the New Year. When I get sick, as I was the week before Christmas, I realize how weak and vulnerable I am. An invisible germ can invade my body and sap my strength and there isn’t much that I can do about it. When you’re well and especially when you’re young, you tend to think that you’re strong and invincible. I recently read an interview with Tom Cruise in Reader’s Digest. He comes across as being in total control of his life. He’s not! He should look at actors like Christopher Reeve, who broke his neck, or Michael J. Fox, stricken with Parkinson’s disease, and realize that life is very tenuous. Illness reminds me of that fact.
Changing the calendar to a New Year also has a way of reminding me of how short life is. I preached on this psalm on the first Sunday of 1981. I was lamenting then, 25 years ago, how quickly the years fly by! Now my kids are all married and I’m looking at my last year in my fifties. The clock of life never stops to give you a time out. It just keeps ticking toward the final buzzer.
Since life is so short and goes by so quickly, how can we make the most of it? None of us would say, “I’d like to waste my life!” However many years God gives us, we want to make them count for eternity. But, how?
Psalm 39 reflects David’s struggle with this problem. We encounter the mixed emotions of a man who is reeling under God’s discipline as experienced in some illness (39:10), and yet who knows that God is his only hope (39:7). He has no one else to turn to. David’s answer is simple and yet profound:
Because life is so transient, we must live it for the Lord.
James (4:14) states that life is a vapor. Scripture often mentions that we are like the grass of the field, flourishing in the morning, but faded and gone by sundown (Job 14:2; Ps. 90:5-6; Ps. 102:11; Isa. 40:6-8; 1 Pet. 1:24). Because life is so short, to be lived meaningfully and productively, it must be lived for the Lord in light of eternity. My parents used to have a plaque by our door with the familiar couplet, “Only one life, ‘twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.” That’s what David is saying in this psalm.
Background:
This psalm arises out of some unspecified problem in David’s life (39:10). Apparently he had some illness, which he relates to God’s hand of discipline (39:11). It may be that David saw a direct link between a sin that he had committed and this trial, or he may be simply relating his suffering to the curse on the human race that stems from Adam’s sin.
But whichever the case, in the midst of his suffering, David is tormented with the severity of God’s discipline in view of the shortness and uncertainty of life. Derek Kidner says (Psalms [IVP], 1:155), “The burning question of this psalm is why God should so assiduously discipline a creature as frail and fleeting as man.” It’s the same question that the suffering Job asks (Job 7:16-19):
“I waste away; I will not live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are but a breath. What is man that You magnify him, and that You are concerned about him, that You examine him every morning and try him every moment? Will You never turn Your gaze away from me, nor let me alone until I swallow my spittle?”
In his intense pain, Job is asking, “God, don’t You have better things to do than to afflict me? Just leave me alone!” But although both Job and David complain, they are not defiant. David knows that unbelievers are waiting to scoff at him and at his God, and so he is careful to voice his protest in a submissive manner, as a learner (39:4) whose only hope (39:7) is the God who seemingly is being so harsh with him. It’s in this context that David makes his point, that life is transient and thus must be lived for the Lord.
1. Life is transient (39:4-6).
David is painfully aware of the shortness of life, as brought home to him by his suffering. He prays that he might learn the lesson of his suffering well. It’s so easy to forget the lesson as soon as the suffering is past and to revert to the mindset that life will go on for a very long time to come. David prays that God would not let him forget how transient he is.
Twice (39:5, 11) David repeats, “Surely every man at his best is a mere breath.” The word breath comes from a Hebrew word that is used 36 times in Ecclesiastes to mean vanity. It refers to that which has no substance, or to that which is transitory and frail. One early writer illustrates the Greek equivalent word with building houses of sand on the seashore, chasing the wind, shooting at the stars, or pursuing your shadow (Richard Trench, Synonyms of the New Testament [Eerdmans], p. 181). A modern example might be that of a child chasing soap bubbles. There is no substance to that activity. If you try to catch one, it bursts in your hand.
David is saying that life seems like that. It is like your breath on a frosty day. You see it for a quick instant and then it is gone. He gives two factors that make life seem so transient:
A. Life is transient in view of eternity (39:5).
David compares his short life to God in eternity: “Behold, You have made my days as handbreadths, and my lifetime as nothing in Your sight.” When you’re young, 70, 80, or 90 years may seem like a long time. But when you view the few fleeting years of life in light of God and eternity, they are nothing.
David had a similar thought in mind when he wrote Psalm 8:3-4: “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained; what is man that You take thought of him, and the son of man that You care for him?”
Looking up at the night sky should give you the sense of being a speck in time comparison with the eternal God, who spoke the universe into existence. If you look carefully on a clear night, you can spot Andromeda Galaxy, the most distant object visible to the naked eye. If you could travel at the speed of light, it would take you 2.2 million years to get there! It contains hundreds of billions of stars. I used to have a poster that showed the Milky Way galaxy. An arrow pointed to a tiny spot and said, “You are here!”
Think about that and then pray with David (39:4), “Lord, make me to know my end and what is the extent of my days; let me know how transient I am.” Life is transient in view of eternity!
B. Life is transient in view of death (39:6).
Whatever man does, it all comes to nothing at death. Men work hard and scheme and fight to amass huge fortunes. They die and their bodies go into a box in the ground. What was the point of all their frenetic activity?
Since you cannot escape death, you should not live as if you could. A legend tells about a Baghdad merchant who asked his servant to run an errand. While at the marketplace, the servant rounded a corner and came face to face with Lady Death. He was so frightened that he ran back to tell his master. “I’m terrified,” he said. “I want to take the fastest horse and ride toward Samarra.” The master granted the request.
Later that day, the merchant himself went to the marketplace and he, too, saw Lady Death. “Why did you startle my servant?” he confronted her. Lady Death replied, “Frankly, it was I who was startled. I couldn’t understand why your servant was in Baghdad, because I have an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.” None of us can escape that appointment!
Maybe you’re thinking, “I know that death is certain, but I’m young and I’d rather not think about it. I still have plenty of time.”
But, death is not only certain, it is also unexpected. You don’t know whether you will be alive at this time tomorrow, let alone on next New Year’s Day. I read about a Scottish pastor who was burdened for the soul of a businessman who occasionally attended his church. The man readily admitted that he was not born again. Whenever the pastor would try to talk to him about his soul, the man would reply that as long as he was in good health, he would wait. Besides, he was just too busy to think about such matters.
So one day, the pastor decided to startle the man into realizing that he couldn’t afford to keep dodging the matter of where he would spend eternity. So he walked into the man’s office without knocking or calling in advance. When the startled man looked up, the pastor asked abruptly, “Did you expect me?” “No, I didn’t,” the man replied. The pastor then said grimly, “What if I had been Death?” Then he spun around and walked out.
The haunting question kept echoing in the ears of the businessman. It demanded an answer. By the end of the day he had trusted in Jesus Christ as his Savior and Lord. (“Our Daily Bread.”)
So we need to keep in front of us at all times the fact that life is transient in view of eternity and in view of death. But, maybe you’re wondering, “So what? What can I do about it?” Well, you have two choices. You can live for yourself, figuring, “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” Or, you can live for the Lord, which is the only option with any hope. That’s what David did. He knew that because life is transient, …
2. Life must be lived for the Lord (39:1-3, 7-13).
You may be thinking, “That’s a nice cliché, but what does it mean?” David delineates three things:
A. To live for the Lord means that I put all my hope in the Lord (39:7).
David writes, “And now, Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in You.” The longer I live, the more I realize that there is nowhere else to put your hope. Is your hope in your family or friends? Loving relationships are a wonderful gift from God, but people can easily be taken away. If your hopes are there, you’ll be left empty and disappointed. Is your hope in this world, or in the things of the world? You will surely be disappointed, because those things cannot satisfy your soul and they’re as fleeting as your breath on a cold morning. But, if you make the Lord and His promises your hope, you will never be disappointed.
That’s easy to say and even easy to agree with. But in reality, even Christians can easily get caught up with the things of this world, rather than with the things of God. Many Christians, who would say that they hope in the Lord, subtly drift into the pursuit of financial security ahead of the pursuit of God. They work long hours to provide a comfortable lifestyle for their families. But they hardly give any thought or effort to get the gospel to those who have yet to hear about Jesus Christ. They’re too busy pursuing financial success and security.
Other sincere Christians have been tainted by the world concerning the pursuit of pleasure. There is a proper place, of course, for recreation. We all need time to be refreshed and renewed. But how much is enough? Many Christians won’t get involved in serving in the local church because, they say, “It would tie me down on the weekends.” Frankly, they are more committed to pursuing their favorite activities than they are to seeking first God’s kingdom. So the church lacks faithful workers because we give lip service to the things of God, but our hearts are really in the pursuit of pleasure.
Even the family can wrongfully take precedence over the things of God. Certainly, God wants us committed to our families. But I’ve seen Christians who frequently take weekends away from church for “family time.” They are communicating to their kids that fun with the family takes priority over the kingdom of God. That’s the wrong message.
The solution to being enamored with the world is not to make a resolution to stop being enamored with the world. The solution is to become enamored with the Lord. When He becomes your delight and the object of your love, the things of the world fade away by way of comparison. The problem is not the pursuit of pleasure. Rather, it is the pursuit of pleasure in the wrong places, instead of pursuing pleasure in the only source that really delivers—in God.
B. To live for the Lord means that I make holiness my desire (39:1-3, 8).
David prays (39:8), “Deliver me from all my transgressions; make me not the reproach of the foolish.” The foolish are the godless, who are quick to pounce on any failure on the part of believers. David prays that they would not have occasion to scoff because of him. For that to be true, David knows that he needs to be delivered from his sins. He mentions two areas for holiness:
(1). Pursue holiness in speech (39:1-3).
David was aware that his words of complaint might be misunderstood or misinterpreted in the wrong company. He wanted to be careful not to say anything in the midst of his trials that would make God look bad. So, he muzzles his mouth (39:1).
To grow in holiness, you must learn to muzzle your mouth, if I may be so blunt. We see this in James 3:2, “For we all stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body as well.” James (3:8) goes on to say that the tongue is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With that poison tongue, we can damage and even destroy lives, families, and entire churches. We should use our words to glorify God and to build up His people.
When I was in college, I met for a weekly dinner and discipleship group with a bunch of guys. While we waited for dinner to be served and often during dinner, we would exchange “friendly” put-downs. One guy would say something funny that put down another guy. That guy would respond by topping the first guy’s put-down. It was all supposedly in good fun.
Then one night one of the guys, a muscular, athletic new believer, got a stern look on his face and said, “Guys, we’re sinning!” We all began to protest and to put him down for being so overly righteous. But he stuck to his guns. Finally, we all realized that he was right and we were wrong. Our supposedly friendly put-downs violated Scripture. One such verse, which I recommend that you memorize, is Ephesians 4:29: “Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.” Pursue holiness in your speech!
(2). Pursue holiness in behavior (39:8).
David wanted to be rid of all his transgressions. Since all sin begins in our minds, to be holy in our behavior, we have to judge our sins on the thought level. Jesus explained (Mark 7:21-23):
“For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.”
Jesus gave the positive side in Matthew 5:6, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” Hunger and thirst are strong motivators. When you hunger and thirst, you recognize your need. Sadly, even God’s people often do not sense their intense need for holiness, and so they dabble with it. But they don’t hunger and thirst after it.
Maybe, if you’re being honest with yourself, you’re thinking, “He’s describing me. I don’t really hunger and thirst after righteousness. If God wanted to lay it on me, I suppose it would be nice, but I’m not striving after it as if my survival depended on it.”
If that describes you, how do you develop a hunger and thirst for righteousness? One means that God often uses is the one that He used here with David: trials. So, to live for the Lord means that I put all my hope in the Lord and that I strive after holiness. Also,
C. To live for the Lord means that I submit to His hand of discipline in my life (39:9-13).
God often uses trials to show us our lack of holiness. Trials should cause us to examine ourselves, to see what God may be trying to teach us. David here realized that God was disciplining him and he states a general principle (39:11): “With reproofs You chasten a man for iniquity; You consume as a moth what is precious to him….” Why would God consume as a moth what is precious to us? That sounds cruel! The answer is, because we’re counting the wrong things as precious. Our hope isn’t fully in the Lord, but in other things. So God has to consume those things to show us that He alone is worth hoping in.
David’s final plea is full of mixed emotions. He pleads with God to remove the trial before he perishes (39:10) and yet he acknowledges God’s right to reprove him, thus showing his submission to God’s hand (39:11). His final appeal (39:12-13) contains a plea that God would hear his prayer, his cry, and his tears (note the increasing intensity). Then he asks God to turn away His gaze so that David could have a brief respite from his trials before he dies. Derek Kidner compares David’s request here with Peter’s illogical cry, “Depart from me” (Luke 5:8). He observes (p. 157) that such prayers in the Bible are a witness to God’s understanding of how we speak when we are desperate. He grants the request of our hearts, not necessarily the words of our lips.
When God disciplines you, it is fine to plead with Him to remove the trial. It is also okay to complain, as long as you do it with a submissive heart that acknowledges God’s right to deal with you as He sees fit. It is not okay to rage defiantly against God and accuse Him of treating you unfairly. The key to growing through His discipline is to submit to Him in it and to ask Him to help you learn the lessons He has for you in the trials (see Heb. 12:3-11).
Conclusion
I don’t mean to be morbid, but I think that it is helpful to think about the questions, “What if 2006 were my last year on earth? How would I live differently than I lived in 2005?” The only way that your life will count for eternity is if your trust is in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord and if you live each day for Him.
How can you know if you’re living for the Lord? Ask yourself three questions:
(1) What are your hopes? What are you counting on for happiness and fulfillment? Your marriage? Your children or grandchildren? Your retirement plans? Your financial stability? All of those things have their place, but they shouldn’t be the focus of your hopes. Only the Lord will satisfy. Put your hope in Him.
(2) What are your desires? What is it that you really seek in life? Happiness? Comfort? Peace? Love? These are all good things, but they do not come from seeking them, but rather from seeking the Lord. Hunger and thirst after His righteousness in your life.
(3) How do you respond to God’s hand of discipline in your life? When you encounter trials, what do you do? How do you deal with your attitude at such times? Do you complain and shake your fist at God? Do you turn your back on Him and turn to the world? Or, do you submit to His hand of discipline?
With David, pray in the New Year, “Lord, let me know how transient I am!” In light of that, live every day for the Lord!
Application Questions
- Is it possible to think too much about how transient life is? If so, where is the balance point?
- Can a Christian legitimately serve God just as well in a menial job as in “full time” service for Him? Why/why not?
- Obviously, every parent has hopes for his marriage and family. Is this wrong? What does it mean to hope only in God?
- If a Christian admits that he does not hunger and thirst after righteousness, how can he kindle that desire?
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2006, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Related Topics: Spiritual Life, New Year's
Psalm 40: When You’re in the Pit
Related MediaThe late Supreme Court Justice, Louis Brandeis, said to his frustrated, impatient daughter, “My dear, if you would only recognize that life is hard, things would be so much easier for you.” (Source unknown.)
Jesus told the disciples to expect trials. He begins John 16 by stating (16:1, 2), “These things I have spoken to you so that you may be kept from stumbling. They will make you outcasts from the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God.” He ends that chapter in a similar vein (16:33), “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”
Yet in spite of these words and many other similar Scriptures (John 15:18; Acts 14:22; 1 Thess. 3:3-4; 2 Tim. 3:12), many that profess to know Christ stumble and fall away when they get hit with various trials. If you’re going to persevere with Christ, you must know in advance that you will face times when you are in the pit, and you must know what to do when you’re there. Rather than turning away from the Lord, you must learn to turn to Him to rescue you from life’s pits.
Psalm 40 is a song about the pits. It falls into two sections. In the first half (40:1-10), David tells how God got him out of one pit and he sings God’s praise for doing so. But he did not then live happily ever after. Rather, it is evident from the second half of the psalm (40:11-17) that he is in another pit, crying out to the Lord to deliver him from this one. Because David waited intently on the Lord to rescue him from the first pit, he knew how to wait on the Lord to get him out of the second pit. So it’s a psalm about what to do when you’re in the pit.
When you’re in the pit, wait intently on the Lord and proclaim His goodness when He answers.
Rather than follow the structure of the psalm, I want to follow David’s plan for getting out of a pit and his example of what to do when the Lord rescues you.
1. When you’re in the pit, wait intently on the Lord.
What is “the pit”?
A. The pit could be any of a number of life’s trials.
David does not specify exactly what the trials of the first pit entailed. The second pit clearly involved the consequences of David’s sins (40:12) and many enemies that were trying to destroy him (40:14-15). But he doesn’t exactly say what the first pit was, except to describe it as a “pit of destruction” and “the miry clay” (40:2). Some think that it was David’s enemies, while others think that it could have been physical illness or some deep emotional distress. Perhaps as with Paul’s “thorn in the flesh,” we are not told so that we can relate all of our trials to David’s situation.
Marla and I do a fair amount of hiking, and we have encountered a lot of mud. We were hiking a muddy trail in Kauai when the man in front of us fell flat on his face, covering his entire front side with mud. We were hiking in the rain in Nepal when Marla slipped and hurt herself. Arizona mud is especially sticky and slippery. It gets on your shoes and you can’t walk. If you fell into a pit whose walls and bottom were mud, you would be in big trouble! That’s where David was. He was trapped and unable to free himself.
If you have not yet cried out to God to save you from judgment and eternal punishment for your sins, then you are in a deep pit with no human way out. You may not feel like you’re in that pit. You may feel as if life is going reasonably well. But Paul describes your future this way (2 Thess. 1:7b-9), “when the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power.” It’s the worst of all pits to be in!
Your pit could be poor health, the loss of your job, former friends that turned against you, an unfaithful mate, rebellious children, or any other overwhelming problem. You may be responsible for being in your pit, or you may be a victim of the sins of others. David’s situation in the second pit seems to have been a combination of both. He acknowledges his many sins, which have overtaken him like a fog, so that he can’t see his way clear (40:12). I think that he is not referring to sins that he was currently committing, but rather to the consequences of past sins that were now coming home to roost. But, also, the consequences involved wicked people who were wrongly intent on destroying David (40:14).
B. When you’re in the pit, you’ll be tempted toward pride or falsehood to get out of the pit.
In verse 4, David writes, “How blessed is the man who has made the Lord his trust, and has not turned to the proud, nor to those who lapse into falsehood.” When you’re in a pit, it’s very easy, even if you profess to trust in the Lord at other times, to grab onto any seeming way of escape, even if it means compromising your faith. The proud are those that boast in their own abilities. They don’t recognize or admit any personal weakness. Rather, by their own ingenuity and effort, they will get out of their crisis on their own. Or, if you’re in a jam and it looks like a little “white” lie will get you out of the jam, you can be tempted to use it. You justify it by thinking, “Well, it’s just this once and I do need to get out of this pit.” But you’re trusting in your lie, not in the Lord.
King Asa was a classic example of a good man who fell into this trap. He was a good king who instituted many reforms in Judah. When a million-man Ethiopian army invaded Judah, Asa called out to God and affirmed his trust in God alone to deliver them (2 Chron. 14:2-12). But many years later, after a long reign that God had blessed, when the king of Israel came up against him, Asa sent tribute to the king of Syria and enlisted his help against the enemy. Interestingly, his ploy worked. The king of Israel had to abandon his invasion of Judah to defend his northern flank.
But, a prophet rebuked Asa for relying on the king of Syria instead of relying on the Lord (2 Chron. 16:7-9). Asa’s final days were plagued with painful gout. But 2 Chronicles 16:12 reports, “yet even in his disease he did not seek the Lord, but the physicians.” It’s not that it’s wrong to go to doctors, but it is wrong to trust in doctors if your primary trust is not in the Lord. The lesson is, it is always wrong to trust in anything or anyone other than the Lord to get out of your pit, even if it works.
C. The way out of the pit is to wait intently on the Lord.
David says (Ps. 40:1), “I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined to me and heard my cry.” Waiting on the Lord is a common theme in Scripture. For example, Psalm 37:7: “Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him; do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who carries out wicked schemes.” Again, Psalm 37:9: “For evildoers will be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord, they will inherit the land.” And again, Psalm 37:34: “Wait for the Lord and keep His way, and He will exalt you to inherit the land; when the wicked are cut off, you will see it.” But, what does it mean to “wait” on the Lord? Our psalm gives us at least seven clues:
(1). Waiting on the Lord is intently active, not passive (40:1).
The Hebrew of verse 1 is an intensified form of the verb, literally, “Waiting, I waited.” The New English Bible translates it, “I waited, waited for the Lord.” It’s not a passive, ho-hum kind of waiting, like you do at the doctor’s office when you thumb through a bunch of magazines to pass the time. Rather, it is an intently active time when your situation in the pit tunes your heart to the Lord in ways that you would not normally experience. It means to wait expectantly as you hope for God’s promises to be fulfilled on your behalf. The more intense your situation, the more intently you wait upon the Lord to fulfill His promises.
(2). Waiting on the Lord means to cry out to Him for deliverance (40:1, 13, 17).
God’s timing often does not coincide with our timing. We want it done instantly, but God has other purposes. But when you’re in a pit, there is a sense of urgency. In verse 1, David mentions his cry, which may have been as simple as, “Help, Lord!” In verse 13, he directly cries out, “Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me; make haste, O Lord, to help me.” In verse 17, he repeats, “Since I am afflicted and needy, let the Lord be mindful of me. You are my help and my deliverer; do not delay, O my God.”
One reason we often do not cry out to God for deliverance is that we do not see ourselves as afflicted and needy. This is especially true in the case of those who do not see their own need for salvation from God’s judgment. They’re like the guy I mentioned last week, who saw himself as a “good sinner.” Good sinners may admit that they need a little assistance now and then, but they don’t need a Savior. You don’t need a Savior unless you are helpless at the bottom of a slimy pit. Because our tendency, even after salvation, is to think that we can do it ourselves, the Lord graciously keeps putting us in one pit after another, so that we cry out to Him.
(3). Waiting on the Lord means trusting Him alone (40:3, 4, 11).
In verse 3, David expresses his hope that because of his testimony of waiting on the Lord, others will also come to trust in Him. In verse 4, as we’ve seen, he mentions how blessed is the man who has made the Lord his trust. In verse 11, some versions translate it as a prayer. The NIV, for example, translates, “Do not withhold your mercy from me, O Lord; may your love and your truth always protect me.” But Derek Kidner (Psalms 1-72 [IVP], p. 160) says that unquestionably it is not a prayer; it’s a statement or reaffirmation of trust: (NASB) “You, O Lord, will not withhold Your compassion from me; Your lovingkindness and Your truth will continually preserve me.” Waiting on the Lord means, “Lord, You’re my only hope for deliverance.”
So waiting on the Lord is not just a passive biding your time. It is an active crying out to the Lord, trusting Him to answer because of His love and compassion.
(4). Waiting on the Lord means recounting His many wonders and His providential care (40:5).
Waiting on the Lord gives you time to think. But you’ve got to direct your mind to think about the right things. If you think, “Oh no, God has abandoned me! I’m doomed!” you will either panic or turn to the world for help. But if you think about God’s many wonders and how He has worked in the past to deliver His people, you will wait with expectant hope in Him.
As David waits on the Lord, he thinks about who God is and what He has done. He says (v. 5), “Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders which You have done, and Your thoughts toward us; there is none to compare with You. If I would declare and speak of them, they would be too numerous to count.” Maybe David was thinking about the wonders of creation (see Ps. 104). God established the earth so that it is hospitable for us to live here. He placed the earth at the proper distance from the sun, so that we do not burn up or freeze. He waters the earth, providing crops for our food. He preserves us from many catastrophes that we don’t even know about. I heard recently that a meteorite came uncomfortably close to earth. If it had hit, it would have wreaked major damage. And yet I never heard any newsman giving thanks to God for preserving us from destruction!
David also was probably thinking about God’s many wonderful acts of delivering His people from trouble. He brought them out of Egypt in the Exodus. He preserved them in the wilderness. He enabled them to conquer the powerful Canaanite nations and occupy the Promised Land. He saved them time and again from powerful foes that threatened to destroy them. On the personal level, David had seen God deliver him from the bear and the lion, not to mention from Goliath and from Saul’s repeated attempts to kill him. If you have known the Lord for any length of time, you can think back to many times when you were brought low and the Lord delivered you. So as you wait on Him now in whatever pit you may be in, recount His many wonders and His kind thoughts toward you. Truly, there is none to compare with Him!
(5). Waiting on the Lord means obeying Him (40:6-8).
“Sacrifice and meal offering You have not desired; my ears You have opened; burnt offering and sin offering You have not required. Then I said, ‘Behold, I come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me. I delight to do Your will, O my God; Your Law is within my heart.’”
The thought of verses 6-8 in the context is (I am following J. J. S. Perowne, The Book of Psalms [Zondervan], p. 335), “My heart is full of Your abundant goodness towards me. How can I express it? In times past, I might have thought that an offering was the proper thing to do. But now I realize that what You really desire is an obedient heart that delights to do Your will.” In other words, David is affirming what Samuel told the disobedient King Saul (1 Sam. 15:22), “Has the Lord as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams.”
As you know, the author of Hebrews applies these verses to Jesus (Heb. 10:5-7). There, the author quotes the LXX, which translates the second line of verse 6, “a body You have prepared for Me.” This was apparently an interpretive paraphrase, where they used a part (the ear) and expanded it to the whole body (F. F. Bruce, Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews [Eerdmans], p. 232). The Hebrew text (of Ps. 40:6) is literally, “My ears You have dug.” It has wrongly been interpreted to refer to the master’s piercing the servant’s ear with an awl (a different Hebrew word; Exod. 21:6; Deut. 15:17). But the idea here is that God opened the ear of His servant so that he would be obedient to His Word, which was in David’s heart. Applied to Jesus, that obedience was unto the cross (see Isa. 50:5-7).
The application for us is that when we’re in a pit, we must focus on continuing to obey the Lord, even if He does not deliver us quickly. The devil will tempt us to give up trusting in the Lord and to seek fulfillment in other ways. He will whisper, “God isn’t meeting your needs. If you want to get a mate, why keep waiting on the Lord? Look at all these nice, available non-Christians who could meet your needs!” Keep obeying God’s Word as you wait.
(6). Waiting on the Lord means seeking Him (40:16).
“Let all who seek You rejoice and be glad in You; let those who love Your salvation say continually, ‘The Lord be magnified!’” In this context, seeking the Lord is a synonym for crying out to Him in expectant prayer. If you’re seeking the Lord and not just deliverance from your pit, you won’t forget about God after He delivers you. Sadly, many “use” God like Aladdin’s Genie and put Him back on the shelf when they get what they want. But here, the reason that David waits on the Lord and seeks Him is so that He will be magnified, or glorified. If David turned to some human scheme for deliverance, then David and his ingenuity would get the credit. By seeking the Lord alone, when the Lord answers, He gets the credit.
(7). Waiting on the Lord means rejoicing in Him (40:16).
No doubt, David was rejoicing and glad about his deliverance when it came, but he makes the point here to rejoice and be glad in You (“in the Lord”). The joy is not just in the deliverance, but in the Lord who delivers. It means finding God as our eternal treasure, so that we rejoice in all that He is, as well as in all that He does for us.
So when you’re in the pit, wait intently on the Lord. Don’t turn to the world for answers. Turn to the Lord. Waiting on Him means crying out to Him; trusting Him; recounting His many wonders; obeying Him; seeking Him; and rejoicing in Him. Then,
2. When the Lord rescues you from the pit, proclaim His goodness.
David hammers this theme throughout this psalm. In verse 3 he says, “He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; many will see and fear and will trust in the Lord.” In verse 4, David testifies to the blessing that is on the man who makes the Lord his trust. In verse 5, he extols God for His many wonders and His thoughts towards us. In verses 9 and 10, he again affirms, “I have proclaimed glad tidings of righteousness in the great congregation; behold, I will not restrain my lips, O Lord, You know. I have not hidden Your righteousness within my heart; I have spoken of Your faithfulness and Your salvation; I have not concealed your lovingkindness and Your truth from the great congregation.”
Why does David repeat himself so determinedly? It is because he knew that if he did not repeatedly make it plain that the Lord had done great things for him, others would chalk it up to David’s good luck or to his natural abilities. But David wants everyone to know that he was helpless in a pit of destruction, sinking into the slimy mud. He never could have rescued himself. All he did was cry out to God and wait expectedly for God to deliver him. And when God did rescue him, David made sure that God got all the praise.
Conclusion
A telescope takes what looks like a tiny object in the night sky and magnifies it so that we get some idea of how awesome it really is. Without a telescope, people either ignore the stars or maybe look up and think, “Twinkle, twinkle little star.” Little star? With a telescope, astronomers know that many of those stars are anything but little. They dwarf our own sun, making it look like a speck of dust by comparison!
Many in the world either ignore God or think of Him as small and distant with regard to their lives. As Christians, we have cried out to the Lord to save us from the pit of destruction. We were mired in our sins with no way out. He sent His Son to offer Himself obediently on the cross on our behalf (as Ps. 40:6-8 predicts). Since He has delivered us, we are to be like telescopes. We are to magnify the Lord and His great salvation to a world that shrugs Him off, while they waste their lives watching inane TV shows or pursuing riches that will perish at their deaths. We should also tell others about how the Lord rescued us from other trials, so that they will join us in saying continually, “The Lord be magnified!”
Application Questions
- How can we determine the balance between trusting completely in the Lord versus using legitimate means or methods?
- Why is pragmatism (“if it works, it must be okay”) dangerous? Do ungodly methods sometimes “work”?
- Study Genesis 41:1 and Acts 24:27 in their contexts. Why does God make His choice servants wait, especially when they could accomplish so much if they were free?
- Read the story of King Saul (1 Samuel 15). Why was he tempted not to wait on the Lord, but to take matters into his own hands? What were the consequences?
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2009, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Related Topics: Spiritual Life, Suffering, Trials, Persecution
Psalm 42-43: Dealing With Depression
Related MediaThe psychology instructor had just finished a lecture on mental health and was giving an oral quiz. Speaking specifically about manic depression, she asked, “How would you diagnose a patient who walks back and forth screaming at the top of his lungs one minute, then sits in a chair weeping uncontrollably the next?”
A young man in the rear raised his hand and answered, “A basketball coach?”
We laugh, but real depression is a serious problem. “Mild or severe, depression affects more people in our culture than any other emotional disorder,” says Harvard psychiatrist, Dr. Armand Nicholi II. According to a Newsweek article (5/4/87, p. 48), an estimated 30-40 million Americans, twice as many women as men, will experience depressive illness at least once. The disorder is so common that it is called “the common cold of mental illness.”
It should not be surprising that the Bible has much to say about depression. A thorough study would consume many sermons, but Psalms 42 & 43 give us some solid counsel. In some ancient Hebrew manuscripts these companion psalms are a single psalm. Whether two psalms or one, the subject is obviously similar and they are united with the common refrain of 42:5, 11, and 43:5. Many reputable scholars think that David was the author, in which case the title, “of the sons of Korah” indicates a group of Levites in charge of temple worship to whom he presented the psalm.
We cannot say for sure who wrote it, but we do know that the author found himself exiled from Israel and from the worship festivals of God’s people. He was being taunted by enemies who said, “Where is your God?” (42:3, 10). Their oppression (42:9; 43:2) had plunged the psalmist into deep depression. But he doesn’t stay depressed. He grabs himself by the shoulders, takes stock of his situation, confronts his depression, and seeks God with renewed intensity. He shows us how to pull ourselves out of the nosedive of depression:
When you’re depressed, rouse yourself to seek God as your hope and help, no matter how despairing your circumstances.
I see three steps in these psalms for dealing with depression:
1. When you’re depressed, recognize it and begin to confront yourself as to why you’re depressed.
The first step to conquering depression is to admit it. The psalmist readily admits, both to himself and to God, that he is in despair (42:5, 6, 11; 43:5). The Hebrew verb means to be bowed down or prostrated; we might say, “Laid low,” or “in the pits.” If you don’t recognize your emotional condition, either because you don’t know the symptoms or you don’t want to appear unspiritual or whatever, you can’t deal with it.
Various symptoms in varying degrees point to depression. Note the psalmist’s description of himself: He mentions his countenance (42:11; 43:5). A depressed person looks sad or down. A loss of appetite and frequent crying are often present (42:3). He describes his anguish as “pouring out” his soul (42:4); he felt emotionally drained. He felt as if he were in the deep, being overwhelmed by the waves (42:7). (Jonah quoted this verse when he was inside the great fish [Jon. 2:3].) Often depressed people feel overwhelmed by circumstances to such an extent that they are immobilized. They don’t know how to cope or where to begin.
The enemy’s relentless taunts felt like a shattering of the psalmist’s bones (42:10). Often physical symptoms such as headaches, digestive disorders, and chronic pain accompany severe depression. He repeatedly describes himself as being in despair (hopeless) and disturbed (anxious; 42:5, 6, 11; 43:5). The psalmist feels abandoned, even rejected by God, and he’s confused by it (42:9; 43:2). Feelings of guilt and rejection are common symptoms of depressed people. In addition are often fatigue, a loss of motivation to do anything, difficulty in concentrating, sleep disturbances (either insomnia or excessive sleep), and thoughts of suicide.
There are a number of causes of depression. Once you recognize the symptoms, you’ve got to do as the psalmist does here, and begin to confront yourself as to why you’re depressed (42:5, 11; 43:5). Depression is like the red warning lights on the dashboard of your car. They tell you that there’s a problem under the hood. If you keep driving and ignore the warning light, you could cause a lot of damage to your engine. So you’d better pull over and figure out what’s wrong.
Depression may be due to physiological causes. We’re complex creatures. Our emotions are not separate from our bodies. Some people are more prone to depression due to their physical makeup (glands, hormones, etc.). Many women struggle with depression related to their menstrual cycle, to having a baby, or to menopause. Certain changes in the aging process can make us prone to depression. Perhaps we’ve pushed too hard or have been under unusual stress and we’re just exhausted and need some rest and a change of pace. If you’re depressed, get a medical checkup if you haven’t had one for a while.
Depression can hit when we come down from a spiritually enriching experience. Perhaps the excitement of the early days of our faith wears off or is dulled by our trials. The psalmist here fondly recalls the earlier times when he enjoyed going to God’s house in procession with other believers (42:4). Sometimes I’ve gotten depressed when I suffered a disappointment that I didn’t process mentally before the Lord. I had hoped and prayed for something, but it didn’t happen. If I don’t consciously submit my disappointment to the Lord, I can end up feeling depressed, but not knowing exactly why until I think it through. Self-pity is another common cause of depression. And, depression is a common reaction when we suffer a loss of any kind, especially the loss of a loved one through death.
It’s important to know yourself. If your depression is just a minor mood swing, like a pilot flying in minor turbulence, you make a slight adjustment and don’t get too concerned. But if you’re in a nosedive, you need to take some drastic action to avoid a crash. The psalmist is doing that here: He grabs himself by the shoulders, talks to himself about what he knows to be true in spite of his feelings to the contrary, and eventually pulls himself out of it.
It takes the psalmist a while to get on top of his depression. There are four cycles of lament and hope in these two psalms:
Lament |
> |
Hope |
42:1-4 |
> |
42:5 |
42:6-7 |
> |
42:8 |
42:9-10 |
> |
42:11 |
43:1-2 |
> |
43:3-5 |
It may take you a few cycles of up and down before you pull out of your nosedive. But the crucial thing is that you are aggressively dealing with it and not just drifting with the circumstances. Even if you feel depressed, you are responsible to please the Lord by living in obedience to His Word.
We need to be very careful at this point! We live in a feeling-oriented culture. We hear that “feelings aren’t right or wrong, they just are.” So we need to get in touch with and accept our feelings. If we defy our feelings or seek to conquer them by going against them, we’re “in denial.” But we need to develop a biblical theology of emotions and weigh the world’s counsel by the Scriptures. Many believers are defeated by depression and other negative emotions because they have not sought a biblical approach to dealing with these problems.
The Bible says that we must discipline ourselves for the purpose of godliness (1 Tim. 4:7). Discipline, by definition, means going against my feelings. I may not feel like exercising, but if I’m disciplined, I do it anyway. I may feel like spending money impulsively, but if I’m disciplined, I go against my feelings because I have decided to live by a budget.
While even the most mature believers are susceptible to depression (Elijah, 1 Kings 19:1-4; John the Baptist, Matt. 11:2-3; Peter, Matt. 26:69-75), the Bible is clear that we should be marked by joy in the Lord, even in some of the most difficult circumstances (John 15:11; Acts 5:41; 16:25; Gal. 5:22; Phil 4:4). A consistently depressed Christian is a lousy advertisement for the Lord and His salvation. And so we must confront our depression and bring it under the control of the Holy Spirit. When we think rightly and act rightly, our depression will be replaced by genuine joy in the Lord. So the first step when you’re depressed is, recognize it and begin to confront yourself as to the reasons why.
2. If your depression stems from overwhelming circumstances, think biblically about those circumstances.
Learning to respond biblically to trials is one of the most crucial lessons you can learn as a Christian. God has given us the resources to be overwhelming conquerors in even the most desperate situations, including torture and martyrdom (Rom. 8:35-37). Living by faith means choosing to believe God and His Word rather than circumstances. So we need to answer several questions when we are overwhelmed by circumstances, as the psalmist was:
(1) Are my circumstances due to any known sin on my part? In Psalms 32, 38, and 51, David’s depression was due to his sin. If we’re aware of disobedience to the Lord, we need to confess it, turn from it, and appropriate His cleansing and forgiveness. If we’re not aware of any sin, then we need to be careful to continue walking uprightly before the Lord, and not give in to the temptation to rail against God in our time of trial. There’s a difference between complaining to the Lord in a submissive manner and shaking your fist in His face.
The psalmist here doesn’t mention any sin on his part. He is confused and he feels as if God has rejected him, and he tells God those feelings. But it’s also clear that he had taken a stand by testifying to his enemies that the Lord was his God. They were throwing it back in his face, asking, “Where is your God?” This added to his despair, because he didn’t want to bring reproach to the name of the Lord. The psalmist wants to follow God’s light and truth (43:3). He wasn’t suffering due to sin.
(2) Does God want me to do anything to change my circumstances, or am I shut up until He acts? Sometimes the Lord wants us to take steps to get out of our troubles: write a resume, call for the job interview, etc. I remember once when I was single and feeling as if I’d never get a godly wife. At the time I was meeting with a few Christians in a house church where there weren’t any candidates for a wife. There was a commercial on TV for Hertz Rent-a-Car which showed a person flying through the air and into the seat of a convertible while the announcer said, “Let Hertz put you in the driver’s seat.” As I was praying for a wife, the Lord brought that commercial to my mind and said, “I’m not going to bring your wife floating through the window while you pray! If you want me to bring you a wife, put yourself in some places where you might meet a likely candidate!” It was shortly after that that I was introduced to Marla.
The psalmist seemed to be shut up in his overwhelming circumstances, with no where to go except to pray fervently. If that’s where you’re at, then pray fervently! As long as we have access to God in prayer, there’s hope! God can change things drastically and quickly when He’s ready (see Gen. 39-41, Joseph in prison in Egypt).
(3) If I can’t change my circumstances, how does God want me to change my attitude? The psalmist here is aggressive in confronting himself (three times) to deal with his despair so that he can regain a sense of God’s presence. He can’t change his circumstances, but he can change his focus from himself and his overwhelming situation to God. By the end of the psalm, his circumstances haven’t changed, but his attitude has, because he has deliberately focused on the Lord. We are commanded in the Bible to rejoice in the Lord always (Phil. 4:4; 1 Thess. 5:16). The only way to obey that command sincerely is to change my attitude by changing my focus from self to God.
(4) Is God in sovereign control of this situation or not? If so, what is He trying to teach me? Obviously, God is sovereign even over the evil and sinful things going on in this world. No one can thwart His purpose (Eph. 1:11; Acts 2:23; 4:27-28). But it’s easy to doubt or forget that fact when you’re overwhelmed by a trial. So you have to affirm God’s sovereignty in the midst of your trial. The psalmist does that here when he calls the waves that were crashing over him ““Your breakers and Your waves” (42:7). It was evil men who were oppressing him, but the psalmist knows that God has them on His leash, as it were, and that He has sent this trial for His purpose.
I hear some Christians say that God didn’t cause a trial, He just “allowed” it, as if that somehow gets Him off the hook! Or, they blame Satan for a trial, as if he sneaked up and did it when God was asleep! But the Bible is clear that trials come from the Lord for our benefit (Ps. 66:10-12; Rom. 5:3-5; Heb. 12:1-13; James 1:2-4)! You may think, “How can God be good and bring a catastrophe into the lives of His children?” Our problem is, we underestimate the strength of our flesh. We are blind to the extent of our pride. We are dull as to how much we love this wicked world. So the Lord in love sends overwhelming trials to teach us not to trust in ourselves, but in Him alone (2 Cor. 1:8-9). That leads to the third step in dealing with depression:
3. When you’re depressed, your main need is to seek God Himself, not just relief.
When we’re in emotional pain, we should see it as an opportunity to seek God and grow in Him, not just try for quick relief. Though the psalmist was in pain, he realized that his real need was God (42:1-2, 5-6, 11; 43:4-5). In fact, he begins this psalm by recognizing that above all else, his need was for God and God alone. I love the way Matthew Henry ([Revell], 3:394) comments on 42:1: “casting anchor thus at first, he rides out the storm.” The first place you need to cast your anchor when the storms of depression hit is pray, “O God, my soul pants and thirsts for You, the living God!”
(1) Seek the person of God. The psalmist’s thirst for God seems to grow in intensity, not slacken. Matthew Henry puts it (3:394) that the psalmist thirsts “for nothing more than God, but still for more and more of him.” Depression can either whet or dull our thirst for God. God allows suffering to drive us closer in dependence upon Him. The need for the depressed person is reality with the living God. We are to hope in Him; He is our help.
The psalmist knew God personally before this trial hit. Note how he calls God “my God” (42:6, 11; 43:4, 5); “the God of my life” (42:8); “my rock” (42:9); “the God of my strength” (43:2); “God my exceeding joy” (43:4). This tells us that the godly can feel depressed. But it also tells us that the time to prepare for crises is before they hit. He had spent time with God before and knew God as his God. Therefore he had a refuge, a familiar relationship to turn to in his time of despair.
(2) Seek the presence of God. The psalmist wanted to appear before God (42:2), to know the help of His presence (42:5). That sounds good on the surface, but when you think about it, to appear in the presence of God can be a terrifying thing, even to the godly. If there is sin in your life, the light of God’s presence shines on it and brings it into the open. So the only person who can truly desire the presence of God is the one who is willing to confess and forsake sin. God sometimes shows us our need for Him by depriving us of the sense of His presence and help, so that we will all the more seek Him. The thirst for God when He is absent is a sure sign that we are His children.
(3) Seek the praise of God (42:8; 43:4). When you’re depressed, the last thing you feel like doing is praising the Lord. But, praise is a command, not a feeling. If we obey, we often feel better. The song drives the darkness away. To praise God is to focus on His attributes and actions. As we deliberately direct our thoughts to God’s saving grace toward us in Christ, that He, by His mercy, drew us out of a horrible pit, our spirits will be lifted.
(4) Seek the precepts of God (43:3). God’s light and truth from His Word will show us the way back. Again, even if you don’t feel like it when you’re depressed, read God’s Word and ask His Holy Spirit to shine His light into your darkened heart. God’s light and truth are threatening to the soul who does not want to confront his own sin and self-focus, but God’s truth will lead you to His dwelling place where you will find God Himself to be your exceeding joy (43:3-4).
(5) Seek God with the people of God (42:4; 43:3-4). The psalmist seems isolated in his depression, which is often the case. But he realizes that the place of joy where the need of his soul would be met is in corporate worship with God’s people. When you’re depressed, you often want to avoid people, especially gathering with God’s people. But that’s what you need. Go against your feelings and force yourself to gather with God’s people to seek Him. There is something about corporate worship that cannot be experienced in individual worship.
Conclusion
Martyn Lloyd-Jones, in his solid book, Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cure ([Eerdmans], pp. 20-21), comments,
Have you not realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them, but they start talking to you, they bring back the problems of yesterday, etc. Somebody is talking. Who is talking to you? Your self is talking to you. Now this man’s treatment was this; instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself....
The main art in the matter of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself. You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself, question yourself. You must say to your soul: ‘Why art thou cast down’--what business have you to be disquieted? You must turn on yourself, upbraid yourself, condemn yourself, exhort yourself, and say to yourself: ‘Hope thou in God’--instead of muttering in this depressed, unhappy way. And then you must go on to remind yourself of God, Who God is, and what God is and what God has done, and what God has pledged Himself to do. Then having done that, end on this great note: defy yourself, and defy other people, and defy the devil and the whole world, and say with this man: “I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance, who is also the health of my countenance and my God”.
Is God Himself “your exceeding joy” today (43:4)? If not, don’t rest until it is true. Your need is not happiness; your need is not relief from your pain; your need is God! Thirst after God! Rouse yourself to seek Him as your only source of hope and help, no matter how despairing your circumstances. Hope in God! You shall again praise Him, the help of your countenance and your God!
Discussion Questions
- Will going against your feelings create long-term psychological damage? Support your answer with Scripture.
- Should Christians take medication for depression? Does this differ from taking aspirin for a headache?
- Is there a difference between God “allowing” trials and “sending” them? What Scriptures show that He sends them? Do any verses support the view that Satan sends trials?
- Is there any biblical support that a depressed person needs to build his self-esteem? How should a depressed person view himself?
Copyright 1993, Steven J. Cole, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, © The Lockman Foundation
Related Topics: Spiritual Life, Suffering, Trials, Persecution, Comfort
Psalm 46: Our Sufficient God
Related MediaAs you probably know, one of the most heated debates in Christian circles right now concerns the role of psychology in the Christian life. At the heart of that debate is the question of whether the Bible and the resources it points us to--a personal relationship with God, forgiveness of sins, the promise of eternal life, our riches in Christ, the fellowship of the church, etc.--are sufficient to deal with the complicated problems people face, or whether we must supplement these things with the insights of modern psychology.
Pastor John MacArthur (interview in “Servant,” 9/91) tells about being on a Christian talk show where he said to the host, “Don’t you believe that the Holy Spirit, the Word of God and the living Christ are fully sufficient for our sanctification? Psychology is only a hundred years old, people have been being sanctified a lot longer than that.” She said that some people can’t get into the position to be sanctified until therapy helps them deal with some psychological issues. MacArthur comments, “That God can’t do His work in you until a good therapist gets it started is a frightening concept.”
In his book, Our Sufficiency in Christ [Word, 1991], MacArthur tells about his church being sued over a counseling case. During the trial, a number of “experts” were called on to give testimony. He says (p. 57), “Most surprising to me were the so-called Christian psychologists and psychiatrists who testified that the Bible alone does not contain sufficient help to meet people’s deepest personal and emotional needs. These men were actually arguing before a secular court that God’s Word is not an adequate resource for counseling people about their spiritual problems!”
In the same book, in referring to so-called “Christian” psychology, he states (p. 31), “The clear message is that simply pointing Christians to their spiritual sufficiency in Christ is inane and maybe even dangerous. But on the contrary, it is inane and dangerous to believe that any problem is beyond the scope of Scripture or unmet by our spiritual riches in Christ.” Please be clear: At issue is not whether Christians need counseling. The question is, do they need the counsel of the ungodly, or is Scripture sufficient?
I agree with MacArthur and so does the author of Psalm 46! Scholars are not unanimous, but I agree with John Calvin who relates this psalm to the time when King Hezekiah of Judah was surrounded by the army of Sennacherib, King of Assyria. Forty‑six towns and villages in Judah had been sacked. Over 200,000 residents had been taken captive, along with much spoil. At least 185,000 troops surrounded Jerusalem, and it looked like only a matter of time before the city fell.
But proud Sennacherib did not reckon with the fact that Hezekiah’s God is the living God who will not be mocked. Hezekiah prayed, God spoke, and in one night the angel of the Lord defeated Sennacherib by killing 185,000 of his soldiers (2 Kings 18‑19; 2 Chronicles 32; Isaiah 36‑37).
Whether out of that situation or some other, Psalm 46 was written out of the crucible of extreme adversity from which God had provided deliverance. It relates to anyone who is in a time of trouble, or to anyone who will face trouble, no matter how extreme, in the future. It tells us that
When trouble strikes, God is sufficient to get you through.
No problem, whether emotional, physical, or spiritual, is too big for our God. If we will learn to take refuge in Him and lean on Him alone for strength, then with the psalmist we can face the most extreme crises with quiet confidence, because God is with us and He is sufficient. But we would be in error if we thought that God insulates us from problems. The psalm makes it clear that ...
1. Trouble will strike the godly.
The fact that God is our refuge and strength does not mean that we are immune from troubles and problems. The abundant life is not a trouble‑free life. We need to be clear on this because many false teachers today claim that it is God’s will for every person to enjoy prosperity and perfect health. They teach that since Jesus has promised to answer the prayer of faith, all that stands between you and material prosperity and physical health is your lack of faith. Confess it as yours by faith, and it’s yours, according to this heresy.
But the Bible teaches no such thing. It teaches that God is our help in trouble, not that He will exempt us from trouble. The psalm mentions catastrophic trouble: global changes (46:2), severe earthquakes and storms (46:2‑3), and wars (46:6, 9). Hebrews 11:35-38 mentions all sorts of terrible trials which faithful believers have had to face: being homeless, without proper clothing and food, mockings, torture, beatings, imprisonment, and various forms of cruel execution.
God does not protect Christians from this sort of thing. When a plane goes down, God does not make sure that there are no Christians aboard. When war ravages a country, God does not preserve the believers from its effects. God does not allow cancer to strike only those who have lived a life of sin. No, trouble will strike the godly as well as the ungodly. The question is, when trouble strikes, do you want to face it with God as your refuge and strength or do you want to find help elsewhere? Psalm 46 shows that when trouble strikes,
2. God is sufficient to get you through.
Let’s look first at the God who is sufficient and then at how we can lay hold of His sufficiency in our troubles.
A. The God who is sufficient.
The psalm falls into three sections:
46:1‑3: God, the refuge against the raging of nature.
46:4‑7: God, the resource against the raging of nations.
46:8‑11: God, the ruler over the rebels of earth.
(1) God, the refuge against the raging of nature (46:1‑3). The psalmist pictures one of the most frightening and catastrophic natural disasters imaginable: an earthquake so severe that the mountains slip into the heart of the sea. In California, we who lived in the mountains used to joke about how, after “the Big One” hit, we would have beachfront property. But the psalmist is picturing a quake so big that the mountains get swallowed up by the sea! He is saying that in the worst disaster we can imagine, God is sufficient as our refuge and strength so that we need not be terrified.
As our refuge, we can flee to God and find relief and comfort. As our strength, we discover that His strength is made perfect in our weakness as we trust in Him (2 Cor. 12:9). And, God’s protection and strength are immediately available (“a very present help”) the instant we turn to Him. While He may delay delivering us to show us our absolute need for Him or for reasons we can’t understand, we can always have immediate comfort and calm when we flee to God for refuge and strength.
During an earthquake a few years ago, the inhabitants of a small village were alarmed by the quake, but also surprised at the calmness and apparent joy of an old woman whom they all knew. At length one of them asked her, “Are you not afraid?” “No,” she replied, “I rejoice to know that I have a God who can shake the world.”
Whatever personal catastrophe you face--a major health problem, the death of a loved one, the loss of your job, emotional problems, relational conflicts, or whatever--God is bigger than your problems. He is readily available to help if you will take refuge in Him and trust in His strength.
(2) God, the resource against the raging of nations (46:4‑7). “There is a river ....” Jerusalem is one of the few ancient cities not built on a river. Ancient cities needed water close at hand, especially during a siege. When Sennacherib attacked Jerusalem, he was sure that their lack of water would ultimately drive them to surrender. But unknown to Sennacherib, Jerusalem had a source of water. Wise King Hezekiah had built an underground tunnel which secretly brought water 1,777 feet through solid rock from the spring of Gihon to the pool of Siloam. That little stream supplied all of their needs during the siege.
That river is a picture of the greater spiritual resource of the Lord Himself: “God is in the midst of her, she will not be moved” (46:5). He is the living water who alone can quench our spiritual thirst. He is the God who is powerful enough to quell the uproar of the nations by simply raising His voice (46:6).
Jesus told the woman at the well: “Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life” (John 4:14). Jesus also said, “If any man is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water’“ (John 7:37‑38). He was referring to the Holy Spirit, who is given to every believer.
Whatever problems rage against us, God’s Spirit is the ever‑flowing river who sustains us and gives us gladness even while we’re under siege (Ps. 46:4)! If Christians would learn to drink from the abundant river of God’s Spirit, why would they ever turn to the supposed wisdom of godless men like Freud, Jung, Rogers, and company? God is our refuge and resource in times of trouble.
(3) God, the ruler over the rebels of earth (46:8‑11). Nations may rage and proud men may rebel, but God’s sovereign purpose will be fulfilled. He sets up kings and removes them as He wills. He is God; He alone will be exalted in the earth (46:10). When Christ returns, He will crush all opposition to His reign. The mightiest armies on earth are no match for His sovereign power.
Do you think that this God, who rules over His creation, who speaks the word and an entire army drops dead, is sufficient for your problems? When trouble strikes, we need to focus on our God who is sufficient: He is our refuge, He is our resource, He is our ruler. We need to lay hold of His sufficiency. But how?
B. How to avail yourself of His sufficiency:
(1) Depend on Him as your refuge. On Him! It is God Himself who is our refuge and strength‑‑not our armies, not our fortresses, but God. It’s so easy to build up our own defenses against trouble and to put our trust in them instead of in God. We trust in our bank accounts, our insurance policies, our schemes and plans for the future. There is nothing wrong with these things‑‑the Bible, in fact, urges us to be prudent in planning for the future. But those things can become wrong if we allow them to shift our trust from God alone.
How can you learn to depend on Him alone? Get to know who He is as revealed in His Word. Trust springs out of knowledge. A person who has little knowledge of flying will be greatly afraid in flying through rough weather. An experienced pilot, who knows flying and knows his aircraft will not be afraid. Because he has greater knowledge, he has greater trust.
The refrain (46:7, 11) suggests two areas in which you need to know God:
(a) Know Him as the Lord of hosts. “Hosts” refers both to the heavenly bodies (the universe) and to the angels. Our God spoke this vast universe into existence and rules over the billions of stars and planets. He is the Lord of all of the armies of heaven. With short, crashing phrases that hit like hammer blows, the psalmist shows us the might of our God: “The nations made an uproar, the kingdoms tottered; He raised His voice, the earth melted. The Lord of hosts is with us” (46:6). God is not some feeble, senile old man with a long white beard, sitting in heaven worried about the rebellion of man. He is mighty! If such a God is for us, who can be against us (see 2 Kings 6:8‑23)? If you know God as the Lord of hosts, you will depend on Him.
(b) Know Him as the God of Jacob. Why not refer to Him as the God of Abraham, the great man of faith? Or why not at least refer to Him as the God of Israel, the name given to Jacob after he strived with God and prevailed? Jacob means “supplanter” or “deceiver.” Jacob was a conniving schemer. Why refer to the God of Jacob as our stronghold?
This points to God’s sovereign grace. God chose conniving Jacob over nice guy Esau so that everyone could see that He saves us on the basis of His choice, not because of our good works (Rom. 9:11). One of the errors psychology has brought into the church is to try to build people’s self-esteem by telling them, “Christ died for you because you were worthy.” Not so! He died for you while you were an unworthy sinner (Rom. 5:8). But the good news is, if He chose you apart from your worthiness, He will keep you and enable you to persevere unto the day of Christ because He is the God of Jacob.
So you can depend on Him, even if you’ve failed, if you know Him as the God of Jacob. His help in a time of trouble is not conditioned on your great strength, but on His great grace. When you are insufficient (which is always), depend on the Lord of Hosts and the God of Jacob as your refuge.
(2) Draw on Him as your resource. If you know Christ as your Savior, then you have His life within you. His Holy Spirit is that river of life, sufficient for your every need. He is that “river whose streams make glad the city of God” (Ps. 46:4). Draw on Him. How?
(a) Drink from Him daily. You have the Holy Spirit of God dwelling in you! You are “a holy dwelling place of the Most High” God (46:4)! You are privileged to be able to draw upon His strength daily. He refreshes. He brings gladness and joy. Do you drink from Him daily? Do you have a time when you meet alone with Him in the Word and in prayer? Do you walk each day in conscious dependence upon Him, confessing your sin and yielding to His way? The river is there, but you’ve got to drink daily or you’ll dry up spiritually.
(b) Meet with His people regularly. Jerusalem was the “city of God” where God dwelled with His people in a special sense (46:4-5). The temple was there; it was the center for worship. Today God lives in every believer individually, but there is a special sense in which He dwells with His people corporately. God never intended of us to live the Christian life or to face trials in isolation.
We need one another in the Body of Christ: to encourage one another, to bear one another’s burdens, to stimulate one another to love and good deeds. For this to happen, you’ve got to be involved with the Lord’s people beyond our Sunday worship service. The Lord is the river, but believers are the streams. To drink fully from the river, you’ve got to be in connection with the streams. You drink of the Lord through His people.
Thus to lay hold of His sufficiency: Depend on Him as your refuge; draw on Him as your resource.
(3) Defer to Him as your ruler. God desires that you submit to Him voluntarily. If you do not do it voluntarily now, a day is coming when you will do it under force: Every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:10-11).
There are two things to be said with reference to deferring to Him as your ruler:
(a) Behold His works (46:8). In the context the psalmist is referring to God’s miraculous deliverance of Jerusalem in destroying the Assyrian army. But we can apply it as an invitation to review God’s works down through the centuries. See how He has delivered His people time after time, both in the Scripture and in church history. The God of Abraham, Moses, David, Hezekiah, Peter, and Paul; the God of Luther, Calvin, Edwards, and Spurgeon, is your God. Behold His works and you will submit to Him as your ruler when you face a crisis.
(b) Bow to His ways (46:10). He is God. The command to cease striving is God speaking to the nations who are fighting against His people and His purpose. “You won’t win, so quit while you can!” But we can also apply it to ourselves. When trouble hits, don’t strive against God. Know that He is the sovereign God, even over your crisis. As God, He will be exalted and glorified in the earth. He wants you to exalt Him by submitting joyfully to Him through your trouble. The chief end of man is not to live a happy, trouble‑free life. The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. We glorify Him when we defer to Him as our ruler in times of trouble.
Conclusion
Psalm 46 inspired the great reformer, Martin Luther, to write his triumphant hymn, “A Mighty Fortress is our God.” Luther faced numerous dangers and threats on his life from the pope and his forces. At one point he spent 11 months in hiding in Wartburg Castle. In the face of opposition, excommunication, and pressure from every side to back down, he stood firmly for the truth of salvation by grace through faith alone. When he had occasion to fear or grow discouraged, he would say to his friend and co‑worker, Philip Melanchthon, “Come Philip, let us sing the forty‑sixth Psalm,” and they would lift their voices:
A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing.
Our helper He, amid the flood, Of mortal ills prevailing.
Luther wrote, “We sing this Psalm to the praise of God, because God is with us, and powerfully and miraculously preserves and defends His church and His word, against all fanatical spirits, against the gates of hell, against the implacable hatred of the devil, and against all the assaults of the world, the flesh, and sin” (in The Treasury of David [Baker], by C. H. Spurgeon, II:384).
For you to experience God’s sufficiency in a crisis, you must be learning to experience it each day. If you aren’t learning to depend on Him as your refuge, to draw on Him as your resource, and to defer to Him as your ruler when things are going smoothly, you won’t know how when trouble strikes. A crisis does not make a person; a crisis reveals a person. In a time of trial, you turn to what you trust. An alcoholic turns to the bottle. An addict turns to drugs. A worldly person turns to the world’s wisdom. A Christian should turn to the Lord. When trouble strikes, He is sufficient to get you through.
Discussion Questions
- Some say, “All truth is God’s truth; thus we can use the truth of psychology.” Why is this fallacious?
- Some argue, “We use modern medicine; why not modern psychology.” Why is this fallacious?
- How do we find the balance between “raw” trust in God and the proper use of means or methods?
Copyright 1993, Steven J. Cole, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, © The Lockman Foundation
Related Topics: Spiritual Life, Suffering, Trials, Persecution
Psalm 48: The City of the Great King
Related MediaI commonly hear people, both in the church and out of it, say something like, “We’re planning to move out of town. We’re tired of the crowds and the congestion. We bought acreage out in the country where we’ll be a long ways from all these people.” That seems to be a part of the American dream: get away from the city!
Has it ever occurred to you that God describes heaven as a city? Heaven is the New Jerusalem. So if you want to spend eternity in heaven, you’d better get used to city living! I know, at least your neighbors in heaven will be perfect, but you will have neighbors!
In the Bible, cities are the desirable place to live. To live away from the city is to be unprotected from bandits, invading enemies, and predatory wild animals. It is to battle the elements. It is to cut yourself off from commerce, social relationships, and community support. The biblical mindset is, “Why in the world would anyone want to move out of the city into the wilderness?”
In America, there is also a cultural tendency towards individualism. We prize the rugged individualist. When we relate to one another, we tend to compete rather than to cooperate. As American Christians, we rightly emphasize having a personal relationship with Christ, but sometimes we neglect to emphasize that the Christian life is more than just you and Christ. It necessarily makes you a part of His body, the church. You become a fellow citizen with the saints, a member of God’s household (Eph. 2:19). Or, to put it another way, you become a citizen of God’s city.
Psalm 48 sings the praises of Zion, the city of our God, the city of the great King (48:1, 2). It is a companion to Psalms 46 and 47, which also proclaim God’s victory over His enemies. Psalm 46:4 also refers to “the city of God, the dwelling places of the Most High.” Commenting on the Old Testament theology of Zion, Willem VanGemeren writes (Expositor’s Bible Commentary, ed. by Frank Gaebelein [Zondervan], 5:355),
The psalmist affirms that God’s beneficent rule belongs only to the godly, the residents of Zion.
Mount Zion stands for the vision of God’s kingship. God’s kingdom is greater than Jerusalem but receives its visible expression in the temple and palace of Jerusalem….
Yahweh has chosen to establish his kingdom and delights in those who submit themselves to his rule: “For the Lord has chosen Zion, he has desired it for his dwelling” (132:13). The Zion theology-eschatology inspires God’s people with adoration, joy, hope, and commitment to the Great King…. The godly are those who live and act in anticipation of the vision of Zion. This hope was the basis for ethics, praise, and evangelism (48:8-14).
But this vision of Zion as God’s city and dwelling place is not just for the Jews. The New Testament applies this Old Testament vision to the church. In Galatians 4:26, Paul says, “But the Jerusalem above is free; she is our mother.” In Ephesians 2, Paul goes to great lengths (2:11-22) to show that the Gentiles now have become partakers with the Jews of the covenants of promise. He concludes (2:19-22), “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.”
The author of Hebrews contrasts the terrifying fear of those who received the Law at Mount Sinai with the reverent awe of those who have received the New Covenant. He says (Heb. 12:22-24), “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant….”
The apostle John writes (Rev. 21:1-3), “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I hear a loud voice from the throne, saying, ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them’….” In verses 9 & 10, he specifically identifies this new Jerusalem as the wife of the Lamb.
So while Psalm 48 is about the Jewish vision of Zion as God’s city and dwelling place, in light of the New Testament, we may legitimately apply it to the church, which has been grafted in to believing Israel (Rom. 11:17-24). Just as God promises to establish Zion forever (Ps. 48:8), so Jesus promised to establish His church forever (Matt. 16:18). We are God’s temple, His dwelling place (1 Cor. 3:16). So Psalm 48 has direct application to us.
Psalms 46 and 48 both seem to have been written in response to some stupendous deliverance of Jerusalem from powerful enemies that threatened to annihilate it. While scholars differ and we cannot be dogmatic, I am inclined to view it as the deliverance under King Hezekiah from Sennacherib’s powerful army (described in 2 Kings 18:17-19:37; 2 Chronicles 32; & Isa. 36-37). This army had been unstoppable, and now it surrounded Jerusalem. It looked doomed. But in response to Hezekiah’s and Isaiah’s prayers, the angel of the Lord went out and killed 185,000 of Sennacherib’s troops in one night. He returned defeated to Ninevah and was murdered by his sons as he worshiped in his idol temple.
But whatever the historical situation, the psalm joyously proclaims God’s greatness as seen in the splendor of His city, which He miraculously delivered. While parts of the psalm would almost lead you to think that it is praising the beauty of Zion, the first and last verses serve to show that it is actually a psalm about the greatness of God as seen through His city. The idea is:
God’s city is to proclaim the praise of His salvation to all the earth and to succeeding generations.
The psalm falls into three segments: verses 1-3 show that God’s city is to proclaim His greatness, holiness, joy, and power. Verses 4-8 show God miraculously saving His city from powerful enemies. Verses 9-14 show that God’s city should praise Him for His great salvation and spread His praise to the ends of the earth and to the next generation.
1. God’s city is to proclaim His greatness, holiness, joy, and power (48:1-3).
A. God’s city is to proclaim His greatness (48:1).
“Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, in the city of our God….” How can we ever praise God in proportion to His infinite greatness? It’s impossible! Maybe the heavenly chorus will come the closest, when the millions and millions of saints and angels join together to sing God’s praise. But even that will fall short, because His greatness is far beyond the highest heaven! But here below, we should not give up just because it is impossible. We should worship Him with all our being. When visitors come into our midst, they should conclude, “These people must be worshiping a great God, because they are so caught up in wonder, love, and praise!” Join me in praying that as a church we will give our great God the great praise that He deserves!
B. God’s city is to proclaim the beauty of His holiness (48:1b-2).
The psalmist describes God’s city as “His holy mountain” and adds that it is beautiful in elevation. Jerusalem, of course, is at an elevation of 2,500 feet above sea level, so that writers talk about “going up” to Jerusalem (Ps. 122:4). But the theological sense of “beautiful in elevation” is well expressed by A. A. Anderson (cited by VanGemeren, ibid., 5:363), “It is here that, in a sense, heaven and earth meet.” The city’s holiness and beauty, not to mention its strength, are due to the fact that God dwells there with His people.
The world probably thinks of holiness as being rather drab or boring, but in the Bible God, who is holy, is beautiful (Ps. 27:4; Isa. 33:17). Psalm 96:6 declares, “Splendor and majesty are before Him, strength and beauty are in His sanctuary.” Thus God’s people, who are to be holy as He is holy (Lev. 11:44), are to display the Lord’s beauty. Psalm 50:2 states, “Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God has shone forth.” Sin is always ugly in its final form; holiness is beautiful or attractive. As God’s people, we are to display His holiness to a sinful and ugly world. It is vital that we judge our sin and labor to make the church a holy people (Titus 2:11-14).
C. God’s city is to proclaim the joy of being His people (48:2).
The psalmist calls God’s city “the joy of the whole earth.” Again, the world does not think of holiness and joy in the same breath, unless to contrast them as opposites! But they always go together in the Bible. Some try to limit this to the joy of the whole land, meaning, the land of Israel, because there never has been a time when Jerusalem has been the joy of the whole earth. But I agree with those who take this to be a prophetic vision of the future, when Jesus shall reign over all the earth (see Isa. 2:2-4).
The most difficult phrase to interpret in the psalm is that Mount Zion is “in the far north.” The NIV transliterates the Hebrew word for “north” as Zaphon, which was a pagan mountain north of Ugarit where Baal was worshipped. This line of interpretation argues that Israel borrowed from Canaanite and other pagan religions the idea that the supreme place where the gods reigned was a mountain in the north. But the Jews contended that the living and true God reigned in the north, on Mount Zion. This view claims for support Isaiah 14:13, where the king of Babylon arrogantly claims, “I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, and I will sit on the mount of assembly in the recesses of the north.” Derek Kidner understands “the far north” (48:2) to use this imagery to connect the earthly Mount Zion with the heavenly one (Psalms 1-72 [IVP], p. 179).
But other commentators (Franz Delitzsch, J. A. Alexander, J. J. S. Perowne) argue that the Jews would never have used this pagan mythological idea to describe God’s dwelling in Zion. These writers take the phrase to refer to some geographic aspect of Mount Zion, although it is not clear exactly how this fits. So I do not know how to explain it.
But don’t let the difficulty cause you to miss the point, that as the city of the great King, we are to extend God’s joy to the whole earth. To proclaim His joy, we must be experiencing it as we rejoice daily in His great salvation. Thus, God’s city should proclaim His greatness, His holiness, and His joy.
D. God’s city is to proclaim His power (48:3).
“God, in her palaces, has made Himself known as a stronghold.” The next few verses go on to portray a coalition of powerful kings coming up to conquer the city, but they aren’t able to raise a hand against it. When they see it, they tremble, panic, and flee. The cause of their terror is not just the impressive walls and towers of the city, but the God who dwells in the city. As J. J. S. Perowne puts it (The Book of Psalms [Zondervan], p. 389), “It is the Glory of His Presence which makes her glorious: the strength of His Presence which makes her safe.” The people of God’s city should know Him in a very practical way as their stronghold when they face trouble (Nahum 1:7).
This point is related to the earlier point about holiness. As we rely on God’s Spirit to live holy lives in this corrupt world, we display His power. It is an utter tragedy when those that claim to know God are exposed for living a secret life of sin. May it never be said of us!
Thus the first section of the psalm makes the point that God’s city is to proclaim His greatness, holiness, joy and power. His power is especially displayed in the second section:
2. God saves His city and will establish her forever (48:4-8).
There are two points here:
A. God saves His city from powerful foes that unite to destroy it (48:4-7).
Verse 4 pictures these kings joining together and passing by the city to size it up. Before they actually see it, they are proud and confident. But then (v. 5) they saw it, they were amazed, terrified, and they fled in alarm. In Hebrew, there are four terse verbs in close succession here. It reminded Calvin of Caesar’s famous boast, “I came, I saw, I conquered” (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], on Ps. 48:4, p. 223). But here, they came, they saw, and they fled in panic. The psalm uses two metaphors to describe their fear. First, they were in anguish as of a woman in childbirth (48:6). Second, they were like ships on the Mediterranean Sea, broken up by an east wind (48:7). The ships of Tarshish represent the strongest and largest ships (see 1 Kings 10:22). But when God raises a powerful wind, these ships are like matchsticks, tossed and broken up by the sea (see, also, Ezek. 27:25-27; Rev. 18:17-20).
Calvin (ibid.) applies these verses by pointing out that the church can expect to be assailed by powerful enemies. God uses such assaults to humble us and to demonstrate His own great power. Then he adds, “At the same time, let us remember that a nod alone on the part of God is sufficient to deliver us….” Thus we should look to God alone and not to human help.
B. God’s salvation of His city changes hearsay into experience (48:8).
“As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God; God will establish her forever.” Israel had heard stories of how God in the past had delivered His people from annihilation, but now they had seen it firsthand. This should be the testimony of every true child of God. You have heard of how God has saved others, but now He has saved you. You can add your story to that of others, that the Lord of hosts has rescued you from Satan’s destructive grasp. He has placed you in His city, which He will establish forever. This brings us to the final section:
3. God’s city should praise Him for His great salvation and spread His praise to the ends of the earth and to the next generation (48:9-14).
There are five thoughts here that I can only touch upon:
A. Our experience of God’s salvation should deepen our thoughts of His love (48:9).
“We have thought upon Your lovingkindness, O God, in the midst of Your temple.” Specifically, they were thinking of how God had demonstrated His love in saving them from destruction. Paul writes (Rom. 5:8), “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” We should think on that often, especially as we gather in His temple.
B. Our experience of God’s salvation should go from us to the ends of the earth (48:10).
“As is Your name, O God, so is Your praise to the ends of the earth; Your right hand is full of righteousness.” As the story of how God delivered Jerusalem spread, so did His praise. His righteousness refers to His righteous judgment on the wicked kings who sought to destroy God’s people. As many Scriptures make clear, if we have experienced God’s salvation, then we are to spread God’s praise and glory to the ends of the earth. And when we proclaim the gospel, we must not neglect to tell of God’s righteousness (see Acts 24:25). People need a Savior precisely because they will face a God whose right hand is full of righteousness.
C. Our experience of God’s salvation should cause us to rejoice in His righteous judgments (48:11).
“Let Mount Zion be glad, let the daughters of Judah rejoice because of Your judgments.” The “daughters of Judah” refers to the smaller towns surrounding Jerusalem. The cause of their joy, if this refers to Sennacherib’s invasion, was 185,000 dead bodies of the Assyrian army. Many today that purport to believe in Christ at the same time are repulsed by the biblical view of God’s righteous judgment. Many others tolerate His judgment, but they don’t like it. But the Bible portrays God’s saints as rejoicing when He pronounces judgment on wicked Babylon (Rev. 18:20). Maybe we have been tainted too much by our tolerant culture and need to re-think this one! If we’re saved, we should rejoice in His judgments.
D. Our further meditation on God’s salvation should impel us to tell it to the next generation (48:12-13).
The residents of Jerusalem had been cooped up within the walls of the city because of Sennacherib’s troops outside. But now the troops are dead and so the psalmist invites the people of God to take a stroll around the city. Count her towers—they’re all standing intact, with no damage from battering rams. Consider her ramparts—they’re unscathed. Go through her palaces—they’re still magnificent. Then tell the next generation, who weren’t yet alive to see this firsthand, what the Lord did to save His people. These verses are not encouraging God’s people to put their trust in Jerusalem’s towers and ramparts. Rather, to see them still standing is a testimony of God’s faithfulness towards His people. That is worth handing off to the next generation!
E. God’s salvation means that we will praise Him forever (48:14).
Verse 14 ties the end of the psalm back into verse 1: God is great and greatly to be praised. This God is “our God forever and ever; He will guide us even unto death.” Some versions read, “He will guide us forever,” but the sense is essentially the same. We can trust and follow and praise this God because He is faithful to deliver His people. Not even the most powerfully evil rulers in this world can thwart His loving purposes for those who dwell in His city. They have His protection, even if they die (Luke 21:16-19)!
Conclusion
In 1956, five young missionaries were speared to death by the Auca Indians as they sought to take the gospel to that primitive tribe. One of those men was Roger Youderian. His wife, Barbara, wrote in her journal, “Tonight the Captain told us of his finding four bodies in the river. One had tee-shirt and blue-jeans. Roj was the only one who wore them…. God gave me this verse two days ago, Psalm 48:14, ‘For this God is our God for ever and ever; He will be our Guide even unto death.’ As I came face to face with the news of Roj’s death, my heart was filled with praise. He was worthy of his homegoing. Help me, Lord, to be both mummy and daddy. ‘To know wisdom and instruction…’” (Elisabeth Elliot, Through Gates of Splendor [Spire Books], p. 191).
This psalm teaches us that the history and destiny of God’s people is inextricably linked with God Himself. Knowing that this God is our God gives us a sense of peace when we’re under attack. It gives us a sense of purpose to serve His great cause of spreading His glory to every people. It gives us a sense of belonging to be a part of the city of this great King.
Don’t despise the church! Don’t be a Lone Ranger Christian! Don’t move to the country, away from God’s people! God’s purpose is bound up with a city. Move into His city and join together with the citizens of Zion in proclaiming the praise of His salvation to all the earth and to succeeding generations. Make sure you’re a citizen of the great city of the great King!
Application Questions
- Many withdraw from the church because they’ve been burned. Is this a good reason to pull out? Why not?
- What can we as a church do to proclaim God’s greatness more effectively in this city?
- Is the urge to flee from the city ever justified? If so, when?
- What are some implications of heaven being called “the new Jerusalem”? Why would God use this imagery?
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2009, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Related Topics: Spiritual Life
Psalm 49: A Psalm for the Recession
Related MediaMarla and I will always remember a November night in 1980. After being awake most of the night cleaning up the vomit from both of our little girls and their bedding, we were awakened at 4 a.m. by a phone call from a neighbor. Her husband was a volunteer fireman. She called to warn us that the fire department would be forcing us to evacuate our house at 7 a.m. because of the danger of the nearby Panorama Fire.
We had three hours to go through everything that we owned and decide what to take with us, realizing that whatever we left behind could go up in smoke. Our only car was a 1968 Mustang, which did not have much cargo space. And my office was at home, so what we took included some of my books and files, which went on the top rack.
We were out of our home for three days. Thankfully, the fire did not reach our house. But the experience was an unforgettable lesson in clarifying what is really important in terms of material possessions. What really matters and what could we live without?
It is my prayer that the current recession would be a life-changing, unforgettable lesson in values clarification for all American Christians. Perhaps God will use it to pry us loose from our love of the things that so easily tempt us. Maybe we will begin to identify with the vast majority of people around the world for whom life is a perpetual recession. Maybe we will grow in our understanding of what it means truly to seek first God’s kingdom and righteousness. Maybe we will be more faithful to lay up treasures in heaven, where recessions never affect our investments. Maybe in light of the shortness of life, we will shift our focus from storing up treasures on earth and instead focus on being rich toward God.
Psalm 49 is a psalm for the recession. Its theme is the futility of living for this world’s possessions, status, and fame, in light of the certainty of death. It is a “wisdom” psalm, similar in theme to Psalms 37 and 73. Rather than focusing directly on praise to God, the psalm gives instruction that—if we heed it—will ultimately result in praise to God. It gives us the understanding that we need to live rightly in light of eternity, so that one day we can present to God a heart of wisdom (Ps. 90:12). The message is:
Because we all will die, our focus should not be on riches and fame in this life, but on eternity with God.
Several commentators observe that Jesus probably based the parable of the rich fool on this psalm (Luke 12:16-21). He prefaced the story with a warning (12:15), “Beware, and be on your guard against every form of greed; for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions.” Then He told the story of the man who was very successful. His barns were full, so he decided to build bigger barns. He congratulated himself by thinking (12:19), “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry.” But God told him (12:20): “You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?” Jesus’ conclusion is (12:21), “So is the man who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”
Psalm 49 falls into four sections. In verses 1-4, we have the psalmist’s call to all people from every culture and stratum of life. Everyone needs to hear his counsel. In verses 5-12, we have the psalmist’s counsel, that we should not fear when those who trust in their wealth increase, because their wealth cannot buy them an escape from death. In verses 13-15, we have the psalmist’s contrast, as he sets the foolish, who ignore eternity and trust in their wealth, against the godly, who look to God to redeem and receive them. The conclusion (verses 16-20) gives us the psalmist’s repeated counsel, that we should not fear when the wealthy increase, because they will soon die like unreasoning animals.
1. The psalmist’s call: Every person from every country and every walk of life should hear this counsel (49:1-4).
The psalmist is not just a poet, but also a preacher. He is preaching not just to the people of God, the Jews, but to all peoples, to all the inhabitants of the world. The social nobodies may be tempted to shrug off his message as applying only to those who are high on the social ladder, but the psalmist includes both low and high. The poor may think that a sermon in song about trusting in material possessions only applies to the rich, but the psalmist addresses rich and poor together. The poor can be just as materialistic as the rich, because materialism is a desire of the heart, not just a matter of owning things. So you can’t shrug off the psalmist’s message by thinking, “I am too poor to worry about living for possessions.” His message applies to all people in every culture.
Furthermore, the psalmist claims that he is going to speak wisdom and give us understanding (49:3). Wisdom comes from a Hebrew word meaning “skill.” It was used of the skill of the craftsmen who constructed the beautiful tabernacle (Exod. 36:1-2). It refers to the necessary skill to live in such a manner as to produce a beautiful life in God’s sight.
Proverbs 2:6 tells us, “For the Lord gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding.” So the psalmist is not giving us the wisdom and understanding of a sage, who has assimilated man’s wisdom. Rather, he is passing on to us wisdom that he has gained by inclining his ear to God. The proverb that he is going to give us (49:4) is in verse 12 and repeated again with a slight variation in verse 20, “Man in his pomp, yet without understanding, is like the beasts that perish.”
The psalmist also says that he is going to open up (lit.) to us a riddle on the harp. The word riddle is used of Samson’s riddle of the lion and the honey (Judges 14:12-15) and of the difficult questions that the Queen of Sheba brought to Solomon (1 Kings 10:1). In our psalm, the riddle seems to be the age-old question, why are evil people rich and comfortable, while the godly are often poor and oppressed? The psalmist’s answer to the riddle is that no amount of money can buy a person an escape from death and judgment. We all must stand before God, who will either condemn us because we lived for this world (49:14) or redeem and receive us because we lived wisely in light of eternity (49:15).
Some have pointed out that the psalmist’s message, on one level, does not seem all that profound. Calvin (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], on Psalm 49, p. 235), for example, comments that even worldly philosophers have pointed out the shortness of human life and the vanity of putting your confidence in things. But Calvin says that the real scope of the psalm is to comfort God’s people who are exposed to suffering by teaching us to trust God to right all wrongs at the judgment. And the psalm urges us to be patient when it seems that God is not governing the world, realizing that He will rectify all wrongs in His good time.
It also seems to me that while the message of the psalm is very basic, something that every Christian knows, it is at the same time a message that we need to hear and think about often. Although I know intellectually that even when one has an abundance, life does not consist of possessions, it’s easy for me to forget this and be tempted by greed. On our recent trip, we drove by many casinos, none of which seemed to be hurting for business. Even Christians can be tempted to gamble, especially when times are tough, thinking that if we just hit the jackpot, we would be happy. Because we’re all susceptible to this (or the Bible wouldn’t warn us against it), we all need to ponder the message of Psalm 49.
2. The psalmist’s counsel: Do not fear when those who trust in their wealth prosper, because their wealth cannot buy them an escape from death (49:5-12).
This section falls into two subsections:
A. The prosperity of the wealthy wicked is brief at best and useless when it comes to staving off death (49:5-9).
The theme of fear pops up in verse 5 and again in verse 16. Why is the psalmist prone to fear because of the wealthy? The answer is that often, the wealthy oppress and take advantage of the poor. The psalmist describes himself as surrounded by “supplanters” or “deceivers” (49:5; it’s the Hebrew word for “Jacob”). So he is not talking about all of the rich, as if to be rich is to be sinful. Rather, he specifically mentions “those who trust in their wealth and boast in the abundance of their riches” (49:6). He’s talking about the arrogant rich who do not trust in God.
Power and influence often go along with wealth, so that the wealthy have close ties with those in political power or they use their wealth to gain such offices for themselves. You see this often in countries where power is by clans or by connections, not by law. Those in power ignore the law, so it is fearful when the wicked rich come to power. Even in our own country, bribery and influence peddling among the rich and powerful can threaten the poor.
The psalmist reflects on the obvious (which isn’t always so obvious!), that no one can use money to redeem his brother or to give God a ransom for him, so as to prolong his life (49:7-9). In other words, you can’t bribe God with a payoff to buy yourself or anyone else a few more years, much less to escape from death so as to live forever. I thought about this when Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis succumbed to cancer at a relatively young age. Her fabulous wealth could get her the best doctors in the world, but they could not extend her life. God holds the trump card of death and no amount of money or fame will keep Him from playing it!
So the psalmist’s first answer to the riddle of the prosperity of the rich and their oppression of the poor is that their success is brief at best and useless in staving off death.
B. The failure of wealth is certain and total (49:10-12).
The psalmist goes on to point out that it is absurd to trust in riches in light of the certainty of death. The odds that you will beat death are not very good! Since death is 100 percent certain and no one will be taking any of it with him, you’d think that everyone would be living in view of eternity. The psalmist observes (49:10) that the wise and the stupid both perish and leave their wealth to others. They think that their houses will endure forever (49:11). (A transposition of Hebrew letters makes the verse read that their graves are their houses [NIV].) They name their lands after themselves. But they die and are soon forgotten. The psalmist’s grim conclusion is (49:12), “But man in his pomp will not endure; he is like the beasts that perish.”
The Russian writer, Leo Tolstoy, has a story, “How Much Land Does a Man Need?” It’s about a man who keeps longing for more and more land. Finally, he strikes a bargain that for 1,000 rubles, he can have all the land that he can walk around in one day. But the catch is, he must be back at the starting point before sundown or he loses his money and the land. So he starts off early. As the day goes on, his greed drives him to keep going a bit farther and just to go around that nice piece of land over there.
Finally, he realizes that the sun is getting low, so he turns toward the starting point and picks up his pace. As the sun drops lower in the sky, the man starts running. He is sweating profusely; his heart is pounding. Just as the sun is setting, he sees the finish line. He gives it everything he’s got. He sprints up the hill and across the line just as the sun sets. He falls to the ground and blood spurts out of his mouth. He is dead. His servant digs a grave, just long enough for him to lie in, and buries him. Tolstoy concludes, “Six feet from his head to his heels was all that he needed.”
So the psalmist’s counsel is, do not fear when those who trust in their wealth increase in power. Their wealth can’t buy them an escape from death. At death they will lose everything. As they say, you never see a hearse pulling a U-Haul!
3. The psalmist’s contrast: The foolish ignore eternity and trust in their wealth, whereas the godly look to God to redeem and receive them (49:13-15).
In verse 13, the psalmist adds a new thought to his theme. He points out that the foolish ignore the transitory nature of riches and the certainty of death, but he adds, “And of those after them who approve their words.” In other words, even though others watch the rich accumulate their wealth only to die and leave it all behind, they don’t learn the lesson. They still want to get rich. As James Boice puts it (Psalms [Baker], 2:412), “You do not have to have wealth to perish because of wealth. You can perish equally well merely by making money your goal and forgetting spiritual things.”
Then, concerning both those that trust in their wealth and those that envy the rich (49:13), the psalmist adds (49:14), “As sheep they are appointed for Sheol; death shall be their shepherd; and the upright shall rule over them in the morning, and their form shall be for Sheol to consume so that they have no habitation.” The metaphor of sheep suggests those who mindlessly follow the shepherd. But in this case, the Lord is not their shepherd; rather, death is! While the wealthy may live in mansions now, when they die, they will have no habitation, except for Sheol, the grave.
Up to this point, the psalmist has focused exclusively on the foolishness of those who trust in their riches and glory in their fame and ignore the inevitability of death. But now he introduces a contrast between them and those who trust in God, which he will further develop in verse 15. In verse 14 he says, “And the upright shall rule over them in the morning.”
That phrase, “in the morning,” is a word of hope for those who are currently oppressed by the ruthless rich. It points to a new day, when God will right all wrongs. It implies a day beyond this life, because in this life, it is not always the case that the upright will rule over the wicked who have oppressed them. So verse 14 anticipates the day of resurrection and reward for the righteous, as well as judgment for the wicked.
Then (49:15) the psalmist breaks in with a great “But God,” which Derek Kidner calls “one of the mountain-tops of Old Testament hope” (Psalms 1-72 [IVP], p. 182): “But God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol, for He will receive me.” Some contend that the Old Testament does not have a clear doctrine of life after death, but this is one verse among many others that refute that idea. H. C. Leupold (Exposition of Psalms [Baker], p. 386) observes, “The offhand way in which this deep and comforting truth is mentioned surprises us. Why the writer does not dwell on this matter longer is difficult to determine. It must be that the hope of life with God was more real in Old Testament days than many commentators would allow for.”
Also, when the psalmist says that God will “receive me,” it is the same Hebrew verb used of God’s taking Enoch to heaven directly without dying (Gen. 5:24). It is also used in Psalm 73:24, “With Your counsel You will guide me, and afterward receive me to glory.” Both of these verses show that the saints in the Old Testament had a hope of life with God beyond the grave. Granted, that hope became clearer when Jesus came and explained things more plainly. But it is here in the Old Testament as well.
But, why is it that those who trust in their riches will be consumed in Sheol, whereas those who are upright (49:14) will be welcomed into heaven by God? The difference is that God will redeem their souls (which often means, “life”) from the power of the grave. To redeem means to buy back or buy something or someone out of the marketplace. In spiritual terms, it refers to God’s buying us out of the marketplace of sin and setting us free.
While the psalmist probably did not understand the doctrine of redemption as clearly as it would be revealed in the New Testament, we now know that Jesus Christ paid the price that our sin deserved. The wages of our sin is death, eternal separation from God. Jesus died to pay that price so that we may go free by faith in Him. If you have trusted in Jesus’ shed blood, you have hope beyond the grave, that God will receive or welcome you into heaven! So, as one commentator observes, “We leave the world either with God or with nothing” (Murdoch Campbell, cited by Boice, p. 414).
Thus we have the psalmist’s call to all to listen; his counsel, not to fear when the wicked wealthy increase; and his contrast between the final destiny of the wicked and the righteous. Finally,
4. The psalmist’s repeated counsel: Do not fear when the wicked wealthy prosper, because soon they will die like unreasoning animals (49:16-20).
The psalmist repeats for emphasis and review his earlier counsel (49:5-12). Don’t worry when a man becomes rich and famous, because when he dies, he leaves with the same amount as everyone else: Nothing! In verse 18, the psalmist first states the general truth, that rich men congratulate themselves on their success (like the rich fool, Luke 12:19). But then, in the second half of the verse, he changes from the third person to the second person. He addresses the rich directly to get their attention. Both clauses drive home the same lesson, that no matter how much worldly success you attain, you’re going to die and you can’t take it with you.
Then the psalmist ends by repeating the theme or proverb of verse 12, but with a slight change. In verse 12, the phrase “will not endure” literally means, “does not pass the night.” As Dr. Boice explains (p. 412), “It suggests that in view of death a person’s position in life is not as secure even as a traveler who turns into an inn for the evening. In our case, life is so short that we do not even make it to the morning.” But in verse 20, the psalmist adds, “Man in his pomp, yet without understanding, is like the beasts that perish.”
The point of the psalm is to gain that understanding so that you do not perish! To die without understanding the need to be right with God is to die like an unreasoning beast. Don’t do that! Learn from the psalmist: Because you will die, your focus should not be on accumulating more and more stuff in this life, but rather on spending eternity with God.
Conclusion
As a young man, Jonathan Edwards wrote down 70 resolutions to govern his life. Number 9 was, “Resolved, To think much, on all occasions, of my dying, and of the common circumstances which attend death” (The Works of Jonathan Edwards [Banner of Truth, 1:xx). That resolution may strike you as excessively morbid, especially for a 19-year-old. Maybe when we’re in our seventies we will think often of our own death, but certainly not in our twenties! But Edwards was really just applying the message of Psalm 49: Because we all will die (and we don’t know when), our focus should not be on riches in this life, but on eternity with God.
This psalm for the recession tells us, “Don’t lay up treasures on earth. Everything that you invest in this world will soon be gone. Invest in God’s kingdom! Be rich toward God!” If you have trusted in Him to redeem you through Jesus Christ, then you have the hope that He will receive you into heaven when you die. No recession can touch that!
Application Questions
- As American Christians, how can we determine an appropriate level of consumption in light of the world’s glaring poverty? How much stuff is too much?
- How can a conscientious Christian determine the appropriate amount to set aside for retirement?
- Jonathan Edwards resolved, as a young man, to think often about his own death. Is this overly morbid or biblically wise?
- A Christian friend confides that he (she) likes to gamble. He (she) shrugs it off as innocent fun. How would you counsel? What Scriptures would you use (besides this psalm)?
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2009, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Related Topics: Spiritual Life