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Psalm 55: Mischief In The Midst Of It

Joe Harby on

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Introduction

In all of Scripture, David was one of God’s most favored servants. He was also one of the most tested and tried of all His servants, and there is a connection between the two conditions. It is through much tribulation that we enter the kingdom of heaven, we are told, and this does not mean that we are carried to glory on a litter covered with rose petals. It means something else entirely.

The Text

“Give ear to my prayer, O God; And hide not thyself from my supplication. Attend unto me, and  hear me: I mourn in my complaint, and make a noise . . .”  (Ps. 55:1-23).

Summary of the Text

We are not told the circumstances of this psalm, but from the description, it may have been after the revolt of Absalom, and the treachery of Ahithophel. The psalmist begins by pleading with God to really hear him (vv. 1-2). His complaint concerns the slanders of his enemies (v. 3). The slander and the malice behind it have not left him unaffected; he is really shaken (vv. 4-5). If he had the means to fly away from it all, he would fly straight to the wilderness (vv. 6-8). He then asks God to intervene, and overthrow them and their impudent plots (vv. 9-11). David would have been able to handle it if an enemy had done this, but this was a treachery that struck really close to home (vv. 12-14). David prays for God’s judgment to fall upon this treachery (v. 15). As for David, he will trust in God (v. 16-19). His foes are the way they are because they do not fear God (v. 19). This lack of fear for God results in a life of treacherous flattery (v. 20-21). David turns to exhort himself (and others) to trust in God (v. 22). The sovereign God is God over traitors as well as everything else. The distinction between the one who betrays and the one who trusts is a sharp distinction (v. 23).

Arguing the Case With God

There is a vast difference between complaining about God, which is terrible, and complaining to God, which He welcomes. We should all know what happens to those who murmur, complain, moan, and grumble. Their bodies are scattered over the desert. But the alternative to this is not Stoicism. David here “makes a noise” (v. 2). Lay out your case. Reason it through. Don’t pray like you were a block of wood. If you do, then you will get answers to prayer of a kind that would satisfy a block of wood. The Psalms teach us to sing, and to pray, and to argue rightly. The faithful servant in prayer does not want to “say the right words.” He wants an audience. He wants his prayers to be heard. Your goal should be to learn how to offer prayers that cannot be refused. As John Bunyan put it, it is better that your heart be without words than that your words be without heart.

Courage and Fear

Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is doing what you are called to do, despite your fears. This psalm is clearly messianic in its direction and intent. David had his Ahithophel and Christ had His Judas, both of whom ended by hanging themselves. Both David and Jesus dealt with treachery. And both dealt with fear. Here David speaks of trembling, fear and horror (vv. 4-5). The Lord Jesus sweat drops of blood in His anguish (Luke 22:44). The Lord Jesus did not confront the cross with passive indifference, but rather with obedience, which is a very different thing. Jesus faced the effective work of His traitor with strong crying and tears (Heb. 5:7), but He faced it.

Buttered and Battered

In the words of Spurgeon, David was buttered with flattery and battered with malice, and from the same source. You butter something up when you want to devour it. This man who had betrayed David was smooth in his words, as smooth as butter, but war was in his heart (v. 21). His speech was softer than oil, but at the same time that same speech was a drawn sword (v. 21). This was someone who had been close to David, who had worshipped together with him (v. 14). David says He could have handled it if it had been someone who was supposed to be hostile. Never forget that Judas was dear to Jesus.

When you are reading the story of Scripture, and you are reading the story of the Church, and you are reading the story of your life, remember that treachery is archetypical. A servant is not greater than his master. Something can be a kink in the story without being a kink in the Story. God uses traitors to advance His kingdom. After all, He used a traitor to save the entire world (Acts 4: 27-28).

In Broad Daylight

David, who was king in the city, nonetheless saw evil taking root in the city. He wanted God to act in order to destroy their machinations, for he had seen violence and strife in the city (v. 9). Mischief is in the midst of it; sorrow is in the midst of it (v. 10). David knows this because they go about on the walls “day and night.” This indicates two things. One is that their plotting is ceaseless—they tirelessly work toward their corrupt ends. It also indicates that they are willing to advance their agenda in broad daylight. They cook up some mischief, and then come out onto the Capitol steps and hold a news conference to brag about it. Someone with David’s insight can see what they are doing, but for most people they offer one thing for public consumption, and behind closed doors you find the “wickedness,” the “deceit,” and the “guile” (p. 11).

God Will Judge

When the judgment of God falls, the wicked will be destroyed (v. 9). They will fall, suddenly, under the force of one blow. They will fall backward, down into death and Sheol (v. 15), for wickedness is in their dwelling, and in their midst. The schemers and climbers and plotters and all such progressives, are climbing up a rock face, an endless climb with no top, and Hell below them. There will come a time when they cannot hold on, and must let go. And they will fall backward, and take their place among the helwaru, to use an old Anglo Saxon word. Contrary to popular opinion, Hell is not a travesty of justice; Hell is nothing but justice. All the excuses, all the smooth words, all the rationalizations, all the slanders, will burn away in an instant, and nothing will be left but the justice of it.

Mischief in the Midst of It

We are not supposed to over-engineer our understanding of the city. We call upon our leaders to confess that Jesus is Lord, and to govern as though He is Lord. We confess that there is no alternative to this that can result in salvation for us, and for our people. There is no salvation without a Savior. But in order to be blessed by this Savior, we must call upon Him. We do not get to be like an embarrassed teenager who wants a ride to school in the family car, but who does not want to be seen with the family car. Well, which way do you want it?

We rest upon God alone. He will deliver us. As has been forcefully pointed out, God can intervene with means, with various means, and apart from means. Absalom was hanged without a rope, and Ahithophel was hanged with one.

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Ruth 4: Tamar And Ruth

Joe Harby on

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The Genealogy of Matthew 1

Although the idea of Mary’s immaculate conception had been held by some within the church for centuries, the doctrine was not formally embraced by the Roman Catholic Church until Pope Pius IX declared in 1854 that it was official dogma.

The idea behind the doctrine is that it just seems like the Messiah, who would be the perfect and sinless lamb of God, could not be born of a woman who had been stained by sin. And so Mary must have been kept completely pure for Jesus’ sake. But if we pay close attention to the Genealogy of Matthew 1, we will see that Matthew is highlighting something very different. Bathsheba, Rahab, Tamar, Ruth, and Mary – these five women are the only women mentioned in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus. If we wanted to talk about the purity of Jesus’ line, the author clearly picked a lot of the wrong women here.

Tamar

In Genesis 38 we read the story of Tamar.

Rejected

First Tamar loses her husband. Then she is rejected, in the most humiliating way, by Onan. In doing this, Onan was saying that it would be better for his seed to rot on the ground than to be in Tamar’s womb. Then Onan dies and Judah himself, in a very dishonest way, rejects her again and she is sent away to live with her father.

Defiant

But Tamar refuses to take this. She sees what Judah is doing and she hatches a plan. Just as Judah’s father, Jacob, got what had been rightfully his by deceiving Isaac, so too Tamar tricks Judah into giving her what was rightfully hers.

Righteous

When the whole story is over, Tamar is the one who is declared righteous. And she is the one who is included in Jesus’ genealogy. We have to remember that throughout this whole story, this Tamar fighting for the line of the Messiah.

Ruth

And then there is Ruth, the Moabitess. Although it might not jump right out at you at first, Ruth is clearly being described to us as being another Tamar. It might seem strange because Ruth is not nearly as scandalous in her behavior as Tamar, but the author had Tamar in mind when he told the story of Ruth.

They are in very similar situations. Both are foreign wives, taken by young Israelite men as they wandered with their fathers away from Israel. The husbands of both women died childless, leaving their widowed wives with the choice of returning to the home and gods of their fathers or of clinging to the hope that they might still find a place within the family of Israel, the people of the one true God.

Defiant

Unlike her sister-in-law, Orpah, Ruth refuses to leave Naomi, “Your people will be my people, and your God, will be my God.” And then again, when she understands who Boaz is, she insists on being with him.

Rejected

Ruth’s rejection is less obvious, but when Boaz agreed to be her kinsman-redeemer he tells her that there is another man who is closer to her, who is really the first in line. However, when Boaz puts the matter before this man, Palony Almony, he rejects Ruth because he is concerned that she will ruin his inheritance.

Righteous

Boaz declares that Ruth is blessed (3:10), because her covenant faithfulness has steadily increased. And he proclaims her to be a “virtuous woman” (3:11).

Ruth as Tamar

As the story of Ruth ends, the author of Ruth gives us several more obvious hints that we should be thinking of Ruth as another Tamar. First, the elders in the gates of Bethlehem give a blessing that explicitly compares the two women (4:12). Second, the chapter concludes with a brief genealogy, beginning with Tamar’s son Perez and going to Ruth’s great grandson David (4:18-22).

Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba as the Church

The last bit of genealogy in Ruth places the coming of King David in the context of the lives of these women. As David is the picture of the king to come, King Jesus, these women picture the bride that Jesus would take, sinful and rejected by men. These women, despite their rejection, cling to the covenant family with all that they have. What would it look like for someone to be in that position in our midst?

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Psalm 54: According To His Truth

Joe Harby on

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Introduction

The background to this psalm is found in 1 Samuel 23, and it is a testimony to David’s faithfulness to God in the midst of much unfaithfulness to him. David had delivered Keilah from the Philistines, but the Lord told David that they would turn him over to Saul. He then went to the wilderness of Kiph, but the Kiphim went to Saul the tyrant and promised to turn David over to him. Saul, true to form, felt like he’s the one who needed compassion (1 Sam. 23:21). The one exception to all this treachery was Jonathan. In this background chapter, he makes a wonderful covenant with David—Saul, the tyrant, fathered one of the noblest sons in all of Scripture (1 Sam. 23:16). But when most men are treacherous, and when many men are flakes, God remains God.

The Text

“To the chief Musician on Neginoth, Maschil, A Psalm of David, when the Ziphims came and said to Saul, Doth not David hide himself with us?

Save me, O God, by thy name, and judge me by thy strength. Hear my prayer, O God; give ear to the words of my mouth. For strangers are risen up against me, and oppressors seek after my soul: they have not set God before them. Selah. Behold, God is mine helper: the Lord is with them that uphold my soul. He shall reward evil unto mine enemies: cut them off in thy truth. I will freely sacrifice unto thee: I will praise thy name, O LORD; for it is good. For he hath delivered me out of all trouble: and mine eye hath seen his desire upon mine enemies” (Ps. 54:1-7).

Summary of the Text

When the Kiphim volunteered to turn David over to Saul, David cries out to God, asking for salvation by the name of God (v. 1), and he requests that he be judged by the strength of God (v. 1). He then urges God to listen (v. 2). David says that his problem is two-fold—strangers have volunteered to take up the conflict with David (v. 3), and oppressors are trying to get him (v. 3). The Ziphim are the strangers, who should have had no problem with David, and the oppressors are Saul and his forces. Both are motivated by a functional atheism—they have not set God before them (v. 3). We then find a selah—Spurgeon says that David is out of breath with indignation. David then says that God is with him; the Lord is also with those who encourage David (v. 4), which would have to include Jonathan. David knows the shape that this help will take—God will reward evil to David’s enemies, and will cut them off in His truth (v. 5). David knows this will happen, and he promises to pay his sacrificial vows when it does (v. 6). He will praise God’s name (v. 6), the name by which he was saved (v. 1). David claims his deliverance by faith (v. 7), and he foresees his God-given victory over his enemies (v. 7).

More on Atheism

We considered the realities of functional atheism in the previous psalm, but we see that same kind of atheism at work here. David says that strangers have risen up, and oppressors have pursued, because “they have not set God before them.” But what does Saul say when the Ziphim come to him? He puts a pious varnish over it. “And Saul said, Blessed be ye of the LORD; for ye have compassion on me” (1 Sam. 23:21). Saul pronounces this blessing in the name of Yahweh, the covenant God of Israel.

We have noted this characteristic of Saul before—trying to murder others while expecting everybody to feel sorry for him. But this kind of thing is often a function of retroactive justification. If one man wrongs another, he is frequently not of a mind to say to himself, “Yes, I did a vile thing without any good reason.” The human heart is a self-justification factory, manufacturing reasons by the quarter ton.

Most of those reasons are of a very poor quality indeed, and have a very tenuous relationship to any kind of orderly chronology. So one man wrongs another, and then goes hunting around in the past (anything earlier than his sin) for retroactively perceived grievances, things that were perfectly fine with him at the time. This is the way the world works, but it must not be the way that you work.

Judgment Is Real

Now David is not being petty or vindictive. As with the imprecatory psalms, the whole point is to turn a grotesque situation over to God, who is the one who sees all things perfectly. We can know the main outlines, but we still turn it over to God. While the bulk of this psalm is David asking to receive help, in one place he makes a direct statement about what God will do to those who are persecuting him. So it is not turned over to God in a spirit of agnosticism; the situation is turned over to God with particular requests attached. David here says that God will “reward evil” to David’s enemies. David has a particular request that God “cut them off.” He wants God to do this in God’s truth, and according to God’s judgments, but he nonetheless wants God to do it. Someone has ably defined a liberal as someone who won’t take up his own side in a fight. If that is the case, the spirit of liberalism is pervasive in the modern church—even including ostensibly conservative churches.

The Troublesome Issue of Works

God will not not judge the world in the aggregate. He will not judge by the gross ton. His judgments will involve glasses of cold water that some people gave and other people didn’t (Mark 9:41). His judgments will include every idle word that some people spoke and some people didn’t (Matt. 12:36). God will render to every man according to his deeds (Rom. 2:6). The apostle Paul also says of false teachers that their “end shall be according to their works” (2 Cor. 11:15). He also asked that Alexander be rewarded “according to his works” (2 Tim. 4:14). “And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man’s work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear” (1 Pet. 1:17).

Now in line with all the Reformation, we hold that the dividing line between the sheep and goats is a line drawn by the electing good pleasure of God, and is not according to works. But once the Lord’s infinite wisdom has drawn that line, the punishments and the rewards that are apportioned to the reprobate and the elect respectively most certainly are in line with how we have lived our lives. The scriptural testimony to this reality is abundant. And so it is crucial that we turn to Christ, knowing that His mercies endure forever.

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Psalm 53: Functional Atheism

Joe Harby on

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Introduction

This psalm is a variation of the fourteenth psalm, and makes a point important enough to be repeated. And that point is that this psalm applies to the whole human race, and not just to the tiny minority willing to claim their atheism openly. This is a psalm, not about atheism proper, but about the true nature of sin.

The Text

“To the chief Musician upon Mahalath, Maschil, A Psalm of David.

The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: There is none that doeth good. God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, To see if there wereany that did understand, that did seek God. Every one of them is gone back, they are altogether become filthy; There is none that doeth good, no, not one. Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge? Who eat up my people as they eat bread: They have not called upon God. There were they in great fear, where no fear was: For God hath scattered the bones of him that encampeth against thee: Thou hast put them to shame, because God hath despised them. O that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion! When God bringeth back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad” (Ps. 53:1-6).

Summary of the Text

Like Ps. 14, the ascription is given to David. The psalms are almost identical, and the chief thing that appears to separate them is the context. The name of God is used seven times in each, but in Ps. 14, it is three times Elohim and four times Yahweh. In the psalm before us it is seven times Elohim, the Creator God. The Nabal, the blockhead, has said in his heart that there is no God (v. 1). They are corrupt, all of them, and pursue iniquity. Omniscience can’t know certain things, and one of them is where a righteous man might live (vv. 2-3). All are filthy; all are rancid (v. 3). Hatred of God translates to hatred of God’s people, and these corruptions eat the saints like they were a morsel of bread. As Thomas Watson put it, this is a Christ-hating and saint-eating world. They have not called upon God (v. 4). But judgment approaches, and those who had no fear of God will suddenly find themselves seized by fear. God scatters their bones (v. 5), and puts them to shame. The psalm concludes with a longing cry: O that the salvation of the Lord would appear out of Zion, and that the captivity of the Lord’s people would end (v. 6).

Apostolic Application

The apostle Paul quotes this passage in his indictment of the whole human race. Before he quotes it in Romans 3:10-12, he introduces the citation with his application. What does he say? “What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; as it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one . . .” What does this mean? Paul is saying that the indictment applies to all men, Gentiles and Jews both, and this makes it plain that we are talking about archbishops, seminary profs, and faith- based soup kitchen volunteers as much as about the chairmen of atheist leagues, and the writers of best-selling screeds against God. No one is righteous. Apart from the grace of God, no one does what is right—not the village atheist and not the village priest.

At the same time, God does reserve a people for Himself. They are seen in this psalm — God says the corrupt devour “my people” as though they were bread. God has a people. But He does not have them because of any righteousness they came up with on their own. Atheists devour only those who used to be atheists. No, the gospel indictment is universal, including every last man, woman, and child, Christ only excepted.

Functional Atheism

What is sin? It is, in the moment, an action that rests upon the idea that God does not see. But of course, God, if He exists, does see. This means that every deliberate sin presupposes a functional atheism. One of the reasons so many professed believers are rattled and upset by open atheism is that they are envious of the man who dares to say openly what so many nourish in their hearts. Our text says, “the fool says in his heart,” not “the fool says in his book . . .” Regardless of what intellectual workarounds may be in place, the result is a functional atheism. “He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten: he hideth his face; he will never see it” (Ps. 10:11). “Yet they say, The LORD shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it” (Ps. 94:7).

Sin Is Never Solitary

But there is more. It gets worse. Sinners, when they sin, must do so in the presence of God. This is why the unconverted heart hates God, and would kill Him if that were possible. The fourteenth psalm has them turning aside, while here they are described as turning back, running in the opposite direction. But when they do, God is there, and this is obviously intolerable. What David found, to his comfort, was that God was everywhere (Ps. 139:8), and the sinner finds this to be a standing insult. If there were a blow that he could strike that would kill God, he would do so. And the only deliverance from this settled disposition is when God in His mercy strikes the blow that slays the dragon in every heart. That is what we call being crucified with Christ, and when that happens, we are born again.

If you doubt this, consider what happened when it became possible to kill God, when God took on human flesh as Immanuel, as God with us? He was crucified, not by pirates, but by the leading theologians of His day. You will never understand grace until you understand the nature of this pervasive atheism.

Moral Cowardice

The one who did not fear God, fears Him now (v. 5). The one who flees from God successfully must be the one who does it by fleeing to God, in Christ. And when he does this, perfect love casts out fear.

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