Psalm 34
Amen. You can be seated and turn
your Bibles to Psalm 34. With Thanksgiving this week,
we want to think on what the Bible teaches us from Psalm 34
about being thankful to God when he delivers us from hardship. In the weeks to come after this
Sunday, we’ll be looking at some of the characters of Christmas.
We’ll be looking at Mary and Joseph, the wise men, the shepherds. We’ll be looking at Simeon. We’ll
be looking at the parents of John, the baptizer, and how the
scripture shows us their faith in the coming of the Messiah.
So those will be the subjects of our morning messages for the
weeks to come. We’ll stick through the book of James on Sunday night
until that’s finished in the new year. And then we’ll be back
in the book of Acts sometime in January. So that’s our pathway
ahead. Before we read God’s word, let’s
look to him one more time for help. Pray with me. Lord, we
thank you that in days past that you moved holy men by your spirit
to write down the things that you wanted to strengthen your
church, to build us up in our faith, to show us the way of
salvation through Jesus. And so let your word do the work
for which you intended it. Let it strengthen our faith.
Let it show us Jesus Christ. Let it give us our marching orders.
for the week ahead until we return to eat again at your table. Lord,
we need your help, your strength, and your grace. So now we come
asking, we come to taste and see that you are good. So let
us taste from this bread from heaven that is a gift to us.
And we ask it in the name of Christ, amen. This is Psalm 34,
and this is a Psalm of David when he changed his behavior
before Abimelech so that he drove him out And it says of David,
he went away. And King David, under the inspiration
of the spirit says these words, I will bless the Lord at all
times. His praise shall continually
be in my mouth. My soul makes its boast and the
Lord let the humble here and be glad. Oh, magnify the Lord
with me and let us exalt his name together. For I sought the
Lord and he answered me. and he delivered me from all
my fears. Those who look to him are radiant and their faces shall
never be ashamed. This poor man cried and the Lord
heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of
the Lord encamps around those who fear him and he delivers
them. Oh, taste and see that the Lord
is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. O fear the
Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack. The
young lions, they suffer want and hunger, but those who seek
the Lord lack no good thing. Come, O children, listen to me,
and I will teach you the fear of the Lord. What man is there
who desires life and loves many days, that he may see good? Keep your tongue from evil and
your lips from speaking deceit. Turn away from evil and do good,
seek peace and pursue it. The eyes of the Lord are toward
the righteous and his ears toward their cry. The face of the Lord
is against those who do evil to cut off the memory of them
from the earth. When the righteous cry for help,
the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The
Lord is near to the brokenhearted. He saves the crushed in spirit.
Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers
him out of them all. He keeps all his bones. Not one
of them is broken. Afflictions will slay the wicked
and those who hate the righteous will be condemned. The Lord redeems
the life of his servants. None of those who takes refuge
in him will be condemned. Amen. The word of the living
God for us. It’s helpful to know what’s in
your Bible in a couple weeks, maybe a month and a half or so
it’ll be the new year. Uh, we’ll be passing out those
read through the Bible plans and, and in a year’s time you
read through the old Testament and the new Testament. Uh, one,
one time you get exposed to every story, every poem, every, uh,
every speech, every sermon, every epistle. And it’s wonderful year
by year as you read through the Bible to begin to know and to
understand all that God teaches us. Imagine most of you in January,
if you set out to do this, you get a day or two in and it gets
overwhelming. And then you try to play catch
up and so you don’t. And I would imagine it’s the
case for me. There are some read parts of
your Bible. And I don’t mean you’ve never
read them. I just mean it’s been a while and it could be maybe
something like 10 years since you’ve read a certain portion
or passage of the scriptures. It’s good for us to know our
Bibles and it’s especially good when we come to a Psalm like
34, when it has this title, not the title that your translation
has given it, probably taste and see the Lord is good. That’s
from verse eight, that’s great. But the inspired title that’s
there of David when he changed his behavior before Abimelech,
so that he drove him out and he went away. Remember David
was the little guy. He fought Goliath. Saul’s armor
was so big that he tossed it aside and said, I’m just going
to fight this guy with the Lord’s help. He put aside his sword,
he put aside his armor, and he went with a slingshot, went with
his shepherd’s tool. And he went to the creek and
he picked up the smooth stones. He walked right up to the giant
and he slew Israel’s sworn enemy. Well, when, The Philistine died,
they went and looted, right? They took his armor, they took
his sword, and they brought it back into the camp of Israel.
Well, fast forward a little bit. God is using little David to
fight Israel’s battles. Saul is turning out not to be
the king that Israel should have wanted. God is going to anoint
David as king over Israel. And so in all of Saul’s military, escapades, you might say, his
military endeavors, David is the one God is favoring. And
in fact, the women of Israel have this little jingle they
sing, Saul has slain his thousands. Boy, that’ll make your chest
puff out, won’t it? until verse two, and David, his
10,000. Oh, Saul was mad. Saul was angry. And in fact,
there are several times in the book of 1 Samuel where it says,
evil spirit came upon Saul, so much so that his anger, he threw
a javelin, a spear at the wall, meaning to pin David to the wall. This was God’s man, a man after
God’s heart. What is that noise? Can somebody
make sure that noise goes away, please? That’s driving me crazy. Thank you. That’s going to drive
me mad. It’s a good thing I don’t have
a spear, right? Man, that is really driving my mind crazy.
Saul got so mad that he was throwing a spear at David. Meanwhile,
David becomes friends with Saul, with Saul’s son, Jonathan, right?
Jonathan and David became such close friends. They loved each
other as each of their own souls. And so as Saul’s son, Jonathan
and David became close in friendship, so also the anger, the wrath,
The murderous thoughts of Saul towards David grew and grew and
grew until one day after, we’ll skip over the story a good bit,
but Saul’s daughter, Michael, basically whom Saul tricked into
marrying so that she might be an entrapment to him, She says,
my dad’s gonna kill you, you gotta go. And so he flees, he
goes off into the wilderness. He wants to come back, and so
he and Jonathan have that little meeting where, I’m gonna ask
my dad, does he like you, does he hate you, and I’m gonna shoot
the arrow, and remember, if I tell the servant to go here, run for
your life. If I tell the servant to go there
and pick up the arrows, it’s okay, you can come back. Well,
the answer was, he’s gonna kill you. And so David leaves Jerusalem
with nothing. the clothes on his back. This
is, this is the next king of Israel. He’s got nothing. And
so he goes to the city where the priest are and he asked for
bread and they give him the bread of the presence from the temple
of God. And then they give him Goliath’s
sword. David has no weapon. And so he’s
got this big giant sword that this time he’s willing to take
up. and then he flees to the city of Gath. And as he approaches
the city of Gath, here’s David, the lookout says, here comes
that guy that killed Goliath, and he’s got Goliath’s sword.
You can imagine this is not a welcome wagon kind of experience. And
so David realizes he’s in great danger. Now pause for just a
moment. What did the people of Gath do? What did the Philistines
do back when Samson was captured and caught. They
made a spectacle of him. Remember, they chained him up,
they gouged out his eyes, and they wanted to make sport of
him. And David probably had that in mind and said, not gonna happen
to me, not gonna happen to me. And so he drooled, he let spit
come down his face. He made markings on the gate.
He acted like a crazy man. And the leader of Gath, Abimelech,
says, To the rest of his people, I’ve got enough crazies around
here. Why do I need another? And so David escapes for his
life. He acts a madman, but God shows
him his favor by letting him escape. This could have gone
really, really bad. That’s the occasion of the writing
of Psalm 34. That makes an interesting difference,
doesn’t it? to know that and to approach this psalm. Well,
how do we pick through this psalm? It’s an alphabetical psalm, what
we call an acrostic. It’s a A to Z, not our A to Z,
Hebrew A to Z psalm. It’s a poetic masterpiece of
saying, God has been good to me. If he’s your God, he’ll also
be good to you. This is a psalm where King David
says, I’m gonna praise God. That’s what verses one through
three tell us. I’m gonna praise God at all times. His praise
will be continually on my lips. My soul, if it’s gonna boast,
it’s not gonna be in my strength. He doesn’t sing the 10,000 song
about himself. His boast is in the strength
of the Lord. And he says, let you who are humble hear. and
be glad. And then he invites in verse
three, oh, magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name
together. This is the first feature of
this psalm. David is gonna personally give praise to God, but he wants
you to praise God with him. Every psalm has an individual
component. You do something in response
to God, but then it has a corporate response. We do it together.
And I don’t know that we think this way often, How many of us
came in the door today and said, we’re going to sing a song together.
And I want this song to be my song of deliverance because God,
you know, almost got in a wreck this week or, or I had a health
scare or I was sick and I got well, and I want the rest of
the congregation to give praise to God with me. for his work of redemption and
salvation in my life. We generally don’t think that
way. But one of the reasons we sing together is yes, we’re singing
to God, but we’re singing to each other. These words are true. Our God is trustworthy. You may
not have seen it this week as clearly as I have, but I did
and I want you to know it. Now, I get the experience standing
up here of seeing all of you and hearing all your voices.
And you can kind of get a feel for who’s, you know, kind of
well, I’m in church today, but I can really get a feel by seeing
your faces and hearing your voices. When I know from deep down in
your belly, God has been good and you can’t wait to exhale
his praises from your lips and from the depth of your being.
Well, this psalm shows us David’s praise, then the congregation’s
praise. That’s the first feature. The second thing it shows us
in verses four through seven is David’s experience and David’s
experience. I just recounted to you, he’s
in a heap of trouble. He’s got Saul after him and then
he’s got nowhere to go. He’s got nowhere to go. He can’t
even go to the Philistines for help. What do we say? The enemy
of my enemy is my friend. That doesn’t even work here.
Verse four, he says, I sought the Lord and he answered me.
And he delivered me from my fears. Those who look to him are radiant
and their faces shall never be ashamed. And then verse six,
this poor man cried and the Lord heard him and saved him out of
all his troubles. And then verse seven, boy, you
don’t wanna miss this one. The angel of the Lord encamps
around those who fear him and he delivers them. I don’t know
if you remember back in Genesis, Abraham and Sarah were kind of
old and God said, you’re gonna have a baby. They started doubting
God and Sarah had a really great idea. At least she thought so. take Hagar, my handmaiden, and
have a child with her. Well, that’s not the way God
wanted it. And so they had Ishmael and that didn’t go so well. And
so when the baby’s born and a couple of things happen in the life
of Camp Abraham, Hagar and Ishmael get sent off basically to die
in the wilderness. And God hears the cry of this
little one who’s dying in the wilderness and his mother weeping
for her child. And God, comes to her and helps
her. And she says, I knew that the
angel of the Lord encamps around me. And then you fast forward
in Israel’s history to when Elijah, I believe it was, was watching
over a battle over Israel and his eyes could see that the host
of the Lord surrounding Israel, the Assyrians or whoever the
enemies weren’t gonna beat Israel, and his helper who was with him
was upset. Oh, we’re gonna get beaten here.
We’re gonna die here. And he says, oh Lord, open the
eyes of my servant. He opened his eyes and he could
see the encampment of God around them. And I don’t know if you
think of this, but it’s true. God is everywhere present, as
are his angels who minister for him, as are his servants who
are mighty. And you may be bouncing through
life thinking, here I am all by myself. Here I am in my sick
bed. Here I am in my emotional troubles
and I’m holding in internally. Here I am in this fix or that
fix. And do you understand the angel
of the Lord, verse seven tells us, encamps around those who
fear him. And when it says it delivers
them, it’s really this word, he extricates them. I have this idea of a helicopter.
You know, like the people that fall off a boat in the ocean,
the Coast Guard goes and gets them. They lower the basket.
And that person in the basket reaches into the sea, the mighty
sea, the tempestuous sea, usually it is, and rescues them and brings
them back to dry land. Friends, that’s how God cared
for David. And that’s how he will care for
you by faith. Let my soul praise God. This
is how he has experience God’s greatness. And then the rest
of the Psalm is going to be David saying, okay, I’m going to praise
God. Okay. I’m going to tell you how good
he’s been to me. And then he’s going to launch
into this little bit of wisdom, get wisdom. He’s going to say,
and then wisdom will benefit you. If you look at verses eight
through 14, he says, Oh, taste and see the Lord is good. David’s
done that. Blessed is the man who takes
refuge in him. There’s a beatitude. Blessed
is the man who takes refuge in him. Oh, fear the Lord, you,
his saints. Those who fear him have no lack. The lions, the
young lions go about hungry. They suffer want, but those who
seek the Lord lack no good thing. And then he gives this invitation
in verse 11. Come on, children. Listen to
me. I will teach you the fear of
the Lord. What man is there who desires life? and who loves many
days that he may see good. Now, I want you to stop for a
minute. This sounds like pie in the sky theology. This sounds
like, oh, if you believe God and have faith in him, everything
will be rosy. Friends, this psalm was written
from the cave of Abdullam. The cave is the only place in
Israel where David could escape the wrath of Saul, the army of
Israel, and even the revenging wrath of their enemy, the Gathites,
the Philistines. David was living in a cave for
some time with about 400 misfits. And you say, oh, this is just
pie in the sky theology. Believe in God and it’ll all
go well. No, this is what you believe when you’re in the cave.
This is what you believe when one of your men escapes from
the city of God at that day where the priest were, And he says, Saul has come because
he heard the priest gave you bread. Saul has come to us because
he heard that the priest gave you the sword of Goliath and
his people have put to death every single priest, except me. I’ve escaped. One has escaped.
So he comes to David at the cave of Dolom. The situation is far
worse. And so put yourself into any
scenario. You may be sick. You may be cast
down. You may be in relational struggles.
You may be in vocational difficulty. You name the problem because
of life in this cursed world. David has been there. David is
in a cave. This is not pie in the sky. And
he says, come, I’ll teach you wisdom. And by the way, it has
benefits. He goes on to verse 13. Keep your tongue from evil. Keep
your lips from speaking deceit. Turn away from evil, do good.
Seek peace and pursue it. What’s the best way to make it
through life? It’s to fear God and live wisely.
That’s what the whole of the Proverbs teaches us. That’s what
the book of James is teaching us on Sunday nights. And so here,
David is praising God, inviting us to join the praise. He’s telling
us what God has done for him. And now he’s saying, wisdom,
fear of God, that’s the ticket. And it’s not pie in the sky.
This is, this is from the cave of difficulty. And then look
at the benefits of living a wise life. Verse 15, the eyes of the
Lord are toward the righteous. God is watching over you. How
sweet is that? His ears are towards their cry.
He hears every one of your sighs. He hears every one of your moans
and your groans. Doesn’t this connect us with
Romans chapter eight? If God is for us, who is against
us. What shall separate us from the
love of God? Shall something in this life?
No. Shall something in the spiritual world, the demonic world? Absolutely
not. That’s why we sang a few moments
ago, union with thee. Dear brothers and sisters, if
you have faith in Jesus and you are united to Christ, nothing
in this life will take you away from him. He is with you in life
and in death. And our ultimate goal is to be
united to him forever in heaven, where we sit in his glorious
presence. He goes on in verse 16, the blessing
of living for God is his faces against those who do evil. Oh,
you watch the news, you listen to politics and you think they’re
going to get us. It’s going to be bad. Christians aren’t going
to have this freedom and on and on. One of my grandkids, the
face of the Lord is against those who do evil. You sit back and
let God, take care of business. Verse 17, when the righteous
cry for help, the Lord hears, he delivers. When you read through
this passage in the Hebrew Bible and you get the verb tenses,
this is God’s fixed posture. As he sits on his throne, his
ear is always towards the righteous. Some of you moms, You’ve never stopped listening.
Your kids may be out of the house and you are still listening for
their cries. That’s our God. His baby monitor never runs out
of batteries, we might say. This is a God whose posture is
to hear and deliver. What do you do when you hear
your child cry? You go running. You pick them
up, you scoop them up. That’s what God is doing. Verse
18, the Lord is near to the brokenhearted. He saves the crushed. and spirit. And then he gives this great
benefit in verses 19 and 20 that connects us to the Lord Jesus
Christ. Many are the afflictions of the righteous. We don’t believe
that pie in the sky come to Jesus and all your problems go away.
It is not a truism, is it? Many are the afflictions of the
righteous. David’s telling you about it, but the Lord delivers
them out of all, maybe not in this life, but he will in the
life to come. You may spend your entire life,
as our catechism told us a little bit ago, in the veil of tears.
Your life may be full of losses and it may be full of crosses.
It may be full of hardships. but many are the afflictions
of the righteous, but the Lord will deliver you out of them
all. Verse 20 is the promise. This is the verse that John quotes
in his gospel of Jesus Christ. He keeps all his bones, not a
one of them is broken. Yes, the righteous cried for
help. God sent his son, Jesus Christ,
to rescue and to deliver us out of them all. And when he put
Jesus on the cross, when his wrath was poured out on him,
when the sins of the people were placed on him, when Jesus was
at the cross paying the penalty due us for our sins. God kept
his promise, not a one of his bones would be broken. No, he
was placed in the grave and the power of God raised him from
the dead. Verse 21 goes on to say, affliction
will slay the wicked. Those who hate the righteous
will be condemned, but the Lord redeems the life of his servants.
Jesus is the first fruits of that redemption. None of those
who take refuge in him will be condemned. Let’s just stop there
for a moment. You can be sicker than sick in
this world. You can be broker than broke in this world. You
can be alone in this world. You can just fill in the blank
with some malady. And it’s not a thing God can
not rescue you from. He can redeem you from all things,
but, but, but catch this, the big one, he can redeem you from
your sin for which you will either be forgiven of and granted an
eternity in the presence of God, or you will be held accountable
for and condemned. And you will spend an eternity
without him. So think on the words of King David, try God
on for size, taste and see that the Lord is good. David did.
I have, I know many of you have, and you will be blessed with
a life of fearing God, a life of God’s blessings. Yes, hardships,
but teaching hardships. and God will land you safely
on heaven’s shores one day in his glorious grace. Let’s look
to him now in prayer. Lord, we thank you for lessons
from long ago, lessons from King David, lessons from Christ. Lord,
may these truths be evident to us as your truth, as your way
of salvation for us. Lord, help us to taste and to
see that you’re good, help us to do that through not just our
experiences, but as we read through the Bible and see you’re a loving
God, a gracious God, a keeping God, a protecting God, a saving
God. And you do not let those go that
you love with an everlasting love. And so we give you our
heartfelt thanks now, and we bless you in the name of Christ,
amen. We want to