Psalm 55
Our reading is from Psalm 55.
It’s a longer one than we’re used to. It’s 23 verses. And
the title of the Psalm says to the choir master with stringed
instruments, a masculine of King David. And he says in verse one,
give ear to my prayer, O God, and hide not yourself from my
plea for mercy. Attend to me and answer me. I
am restless in my complaint and I moan because of the noise of
the enemy. because of the oppression of
the wicked. For they drop trouble upon me, and in anger they bear
a grudge against me. My heart is in anguish within
me. The terrors of death have fallen
upon me. Fear and trembling come upon
me, and horror overwhelms me. And I say, oh, that I had wings
like a dove. I would fly away and be at rest.
Yes, I would wander far away. I would lodge in the wilderness.
I would hurry to find shelter from the raging wind and the
tempest. Destroy, O Lord. Divide their
tongues, for I see violence and strife in the city. Day and night
they go around it on its walls, and iniquity and trouble are
within it. Ruin is in its midst. Oppression and fraud do not depart
from its marketplace, for it is not an enemy who taunts me.
Then I could bear it. It is not an adversary who deals
insolently with me. Then I could hide from him. But
it is you, a man, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend.
We used to take sweet counsel together. Within God’s house,
we walked in the throng. Let death steal over them. Let
them go down to Sheol alive, for evil is in their dwelling
place and in their heart. But I, I call to God and the
Lord will save me. Evening and morning and at noon,
I utter my complaint and I moan. He hears my voice. He redeems
my soul and safety from the battle that I wage. For many are arrayed
against me. God will give ear and humble
them. He who is enthroned from of old, because they do not change
and do not fear God. My companion stretched out his
hand against his friends. He violated his covenant. His
speech was smooth as butter, yet war was within his heart.
His words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords. Cast
your burden on the Lord and he will sustain you. He will never
permit the righteous to be moved. But you, O God, will cast them
down into the pit of destruction. Men of blood and treachery shall
not live out half of their days. but I will trust in you. Amen. This is God’s holy word.
Over the last several weeks, my car has been stuck on the
country radio and every song is a cheating song, a drinking
song, a loving song or a leaving song and you can predict it.
You can hear a new song that you’ve never heard before and
you can pretty much predict the words, right? You know how it
is. Well, In the Psalms, particularly in the 50s, it seems like we’re
stuck on the radio, a country radio, and it’s David’s country
radio, and it’s all betraying songs. Psalm 52, 53, 54, now
55, another betrayal song. But there’s a little progression
going on, and one of the first Psalms we looked at, David, was
David was betrayed by an enemy. Remember Doeg, the Edomite, who
saw David in the city of the priest, and he told Saul that
David was hiding among them. He told Saul that he had been
given provisions by the priest. All the priests were put to death.
A wicked thing was done in Israel. The next betrayal is from David’s
own kith and kin, the Ziphites. They told Saul that he was hiding
among them. But now the betrayal gets a little
closer to home. It’s not somebody far off. It’s
not a group distant, but it’s someone close. And this Psalm
takes us through David’s despair. It takes him through his desire
for justice. It takes us through his understanding
of who God is and who people are and how the thing will get
resolved. Notice how he begins his plea.
Verse one, he asked God, give ear to my prayer. Hide not yourself
from my plea for mercy. Attend to me, answer me. He tells
a little bit about his condition. I’m restless, my complaint. In
my complaint, I moan. The noise of the enemies around
me, oppression of the wicked. And notice how grievous, how
awful his suffering is. They drop trouble on me. And
in anger, they bear a grudge against me. Well, there’s step
one, but it in verse four picks up. My heart is in anguish within
me. The terrors of death have fallen
on me. It’s as if the grief and the
suffering are piling on. It’s getting worse and worse.
Verse five, he speaks of fear and trembling come upon me. Horror
overwhelms me. It’s a little bit, a little reminiscent
of the passage we read from Jesus’ experience in the garden. As
he’s moving towards the cross, his disciples are really moving
away from him. His close friends, his confidants,
his prayer partners, his ministry compatriots, they are edging
away from him. They’re sleeping. They’re scared.
They’re timid. Their faith is wavering. They
don’t understand what is going on. And Jesus, in the agony of
the garden, As he cries out to God that God would remove the
cup of wrath from before him, he sweats blood and there’s droplets
of blood are pouring forth from his pores. And so we see the
anguish of David. We see the anguish of Christ.
We maybe have felt this kind of anguish in us before. One
of those things we described where you go to bed heavy hearted
and you can’t sleep. You lay through the night restless.
You wake up in the morning and the covers are up to your eyes
and they’re covering your nose. And you know that if you get
out of bed, something bad is going to happen. And that’s right
where David is. Fear and trembling have come
upon me. Horror overwhelms me. He’s paralyzed by grief and by
trouble. Look at verses six and seven.
You know how we get in a hot spot, a bit of hot water, a bit
of trouble, and we dream of escape. And that’s what he does here,
verses six and seven. I say, oh, that I had wings like
a dove. I would fly away and I would be at rest. Yes, I would
wander far away. I would lodge in the wilderness. He dreams of escape. He dreams
of blue skies. He dreams of flying off out of
the rage of the fire and off into the wilderness where it’s
quiet. He says in verse eight, I would hurry to find shelter
from the raging wind and tempest. But that’s usually a dream, isn’t
it? What’s the saying? We pray that God will get us
out of trouble. But what is it often he does?
He gets us through it. And so it’s a reminder that Life
is full of trouble. Life is full of hypocrisy. Life
is full of wickedness. Life is full of grief, and it
does pile up upon us. It does pile on, and it can paralyze
us, literally. But David speaks of that to the
Lord in those first eight verses. Notice in verses 9, 10, and 11
what he asked God to do. This is One of those imprecatory
sections, he says, destroy, oh Lord, divide their tongues. For I see violence and strife
in the city. Day and night they go around
on its walls and iniquity and trouble are within it. Ruin is
in its midst. Oppression and fraud do not depart from its
marketplace. I read this morning in the news
that Tom Hanks, We love it when a prophet from Hollywood speaks,
but Tom Hanks said to everybody who’s fussing and whining and
complaining about the current culture and context of our nation,
he says, read history. We’re not the first to be in
a situation like this. And history will tell you the
solution. I thought, what a smart thing to say. This is just recycled,
same old, same old. We get in this bit, there’s nothing
new under the sun. It’s like that. What’s going
on in David’s life? The culture is rotten. His friends
are rotten. His own family betrays him. This could be, it may be, it
doesn’t have to be, but it is likely. The period of time when
his own son Absalom tried to ascend to the throne in a wicked
way, in a theft of the monarchy, certainly wasn’t approved by
God, but it was approved by at least by the people who Remember
they came to him and he said, if you come to my father, you’ll
get not so good judgment. But if you come to me, I’ll give
you the best I can offer. And so he won a little bit of
allegiance. He had won some allegiance within
his father’s ranks. And so David had someone close
to him who had betrayed him. But there’s another in the story,
a man named Ahithophel who was David’s counselor, one of his
wise men. And he had gone with Absalom. And so when David speaks
here of what he wishes God to do. He speaks harsh words, destroy,
oh Lord, divide their tongues for I see violence and strife
in the city. You see pictures of Jerusalem here. They’ve, they’ve
stolen the city from the King. I mean, after all, what is Jerusalem
called? It’s called the city of David. They’ve run him out of his own
town, his own place, the city that he conquered in had begun
to build where he had begun to establish God’s kingdom. But
notice in verse nine, there’s a little bit of Babel language
from Genesis, destroy all Lord, divide their tongues. What do we want to happen when
somebody plots and plans against us? We want their plans to fall
apart. Well, how did God destroy the
plans of the Babel folks, the tower builders. They were making
a name for themselves, building it high. What did God do? He
came down and looked and he scattered them and gave them different
languages. You can think of David sitting in a cave, fearing for
his life. And he says, all right, God, I’m going to pray back to
you your word, because that’s how we’re supposed to pray. I
don’t like these people. I don’t like what they’re doing
to me. What all have you done in the past to people? that have
done bad things. So he’s probably thinking through,
well, okay, here’s my situation. In that Babel situation, you
did really great. You scattered the people, you
confused their language, and their wicked plan didn’t come
to pass. So that’s what I’d like you to do for Absalom and Ahithophel
and others who have plotted against me. You see, he’s recounting,
he’s being reminded of what God has done in the past to thwart
evil plans. Day and night, they go around
on its walls. Iniquity and trouble are within it. You see those
three sets of things, verse nine. I see violence and strife in
the city. Day and night, they go around on its walls. There’s
iniquity and trouble, so there’s violence and strife. There’s
iniquity and trouble. Ruin is in its midst, and then oppression
and fraud. You see three sets of twos there. David is on a roll speaking about
the wickedness that is going on in this situation he finds
himself in. If you move to verses 12 through
14, you see David wondering, will there be justice? Will there
be justice? And we may wonder that as we
look at the current situation we find ourselves in. How long
will this politicking go on? How long will this left and right
and middle business go on? How long will people rail against
the church? How long will people rail against
the Christian family? How long will people rail against
the Christian world and life view? How long will evil prevail? But you know, the only thing
that can solve our problem in America or Europe or wherever
it is, is the salvation of God proclaimed, the eyes of the hearts
of people opened, and Jesus laid hold of by faith, and more men
and women and boys and girls coming to faith in Jesus and
living transformed lives. That’s the only thing that’ll
solve it. We can throw money at it. We can raise up a government
program. We can put more money into education. We can do all
kinds of things that maybe Throwing gas on the fire or good money
after bad, whatever we can do that But really the only solution
to the difficulty in this world is a Holy Spirit revival But
David asked the question about justice verse 12 he says It is
not an enemy who taunts me that I could bear It is not an adversary
who deals insolent with me. Then I could hide from him. I
but it is you, a man, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend. You see words of intimacy, words
of strong and close relationship, relationship and equal. How many people could
say they were equal to King David? You were his companion, his friend,
familiar friend. We used to take sweet counsel
together. Within God’s house, we walked in the throng. They made the pilgrimage up to
Jerusalem together. Get into some conversations from
time to time with fellow Christians. And there’s a sad theme that
I hear over and over. Now, one we always hear is this,
why should I join the church? It’s just a bunch of hypocrites. Well, the answer we give back
is there’s always room for one more. Come on and join us. But
I think one of the sad realities is the church is a place where
we very often get hit by friendly fire. Church is a place where
we often. bump into folks that don’t keep
their word. Think of Psalm 15. Psalm 15, we studied a good year
and a half ago, and in Psalm 15, speaks about the man, speaks
about the person who can ascend God’s holy hill. It speaks of
the person who can come into the presence of Almighty God.
Oh Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on
your holy hill? He who walks blamelessly, who does what is
right, who speaks truth in his heart, who does not slander with
his tongue, who does not do evil to his neighbor nor takes up
reproach against his friend, in whose eyes a vile person is
despised, but who honors those who fear the Lord, he swears
to his own hurt and he does not change. In a sense, you hear
David saying, where is the person who keeps his word? Where is
the person who swears to his own hurt, who will not back down?
David had that in Jonathan. David had that in Jonathan. They
made covenant together, but we, you know, we make covenant together
in the church. We make covenant together in church membership
and in church vows and marriage and marriage vows and baptism
and baptism vows, ordination vows. We, we give our word. But
I think it’s very often we find that a lot of the hurting that
is done is very often done within the context of the church. And we hear David’s strain here. This one’s close. This one hurts.
This one hurts more than any other hurt that maybe he possibly
has had before. Notice how he responds in verse
15, let death steal over them. Let them go down to Sheol alive,
for evil is in their dwelling place and in their heart. Now,
you know, Sheol is a familiar word in the Psalms. It’s the
place of the dead. It’s let the grave swallow them
up. Now again, David, as he’s sitting
in a cave, he’s thinking about what these people have done to
him. And he’s thinking through what God has done in the past to deal
with wickedness. And he says, okay, this is what they’ve done.
This is what God’s done. What past Bible story could I
think up of? Could I think of, and I say,
God, you do that to my enemies. Well, What does he think of here
in verse 15? He thinks of Korah and their
rebellion back in the wilderness days. And what did God do to
Korah and those who rebelled against his authority or Moses’
authority? Well, the ground opened up and
it swallowed them and all their possessions. So let death steal
over them. Let them go to Sheol alive. Open the earth and swallow them.
Why? Why would that be justified?
Evil’s in their heart. We get to verse 16 and there’s a turning
point though. Anytime we come to that wonderful
three letter word in the Bible, the word, but, but God or, or,
but this, but that we have in verse 16, but I will call. to
God and the Lord will save me. Now compare the next couple of
verses with the first couple of verses. In the first couple
of verses he was saying God help, God hear, God listen, God be
attentive to my pleas. And now he speaks very confidently.
I call to God and the Lord will save me. It’s declarative, it’s
not a question or a request. Evening and morning and at noon
I utter my complaint and I moan and he hears my voice. He redeems
my soul in safety from the battle that I waged, for many are arrayed
against me. God will give ear, he’ll listen,
he’ll humble them. He who is enthroned from of old.
You might have that little word, Selah, there in your Bible. That’s
the stop and think about it word. And notice how he breaks up verse
19. God will hear, he will humble,
he is enthroned from of old. Now take a pause and think on
that. And then he says, because they do not change and they do
not fear God. This is a moment of faith for
David. And it’s a good lesson to us.
We get in the panic of trouble. We get in the panic of grief
piling on. We get in the panic of being
overwhelmed. We get in the panic of things
aren’t going right. We get in the panic of I’m out of money.
I’m out of time. I’m out of health. I’m out of every option in life.
but I call to God, verse 16. And that’s where we ought to
be in the midst of our troubles. Sure, there’s the panic. Sure,
there’s the tears and the sleepless nights and those things, but
we have to get to the point of verses 16, 17, 18, and 19 in
our lives and say, but I will call on God. He’ll hear me. He’ll save me. He’ll redeem me.
He’s the God in Hebrews. I will never, ever, ever, three
times, leave you or forsake you. And so David comes to a place
of faith, and so should we. He does a little bit more musing
on his situation. My companion, in verse 20, it
says, my companion stretched out his hand against his friends.
He violated his covenant. You know, we act surprised when
we get hurt by others, don’t we? We get surprised when somebody
offends us, when somebody doesn’t keep their word. We get surprised
when Whatever happens takes place. We get surprised. David says
here, in a sense, don’t be surprised. My companion stretched out his
hand against his friends. He violated his covenant. He’s a covenant breaker. His
speech was smooth as butter, yet war was in his heart. His
words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords. That’s a tough spot to be in.
I have a friend who was in a situation about a year or so ago. And I
asked him a little bit about it. Asked him what was going
on. Do you have people you can trust?
Do you have friends you can talk to? And he said, in my situation,
I can count 10 people on my hands, people I used to love and serve
with. And he said, I can’t even get
up to one full hand of people I trust right now. What a rotten
situation. What’s the saying? Who needs
enemies when I have friends like these? That’s the situation he
was in. Here’s David speaking of it.
We shouldn’t be surprised. There’s only one covenant keeper
and that is Christ. The rest of us by nature are
covenant breakers. We’d like to be that fellow in
Psalm 15 who swears to his own hurt. We’d like to be the one
who will always be there, but we will fall and fail. Notice his trust, though, in
verse 22. Cast your burden on the Lord. And there’s three promises
that come up here. Cast your burden on the Lord
and he will sustain you. Cast your burden on the Lord
and he will never permit the righteous to be moved. Cast your burden on the Lord
and you, O God, will cast them, your enemies, down into the pit
of destruction. Men of blood and treachery shall
not live out half their days. Verse 22 is a good place to land
as well as verse 16. But I call to God, 16 tells us,
verse 22, cast your burden on the Lord. There’s something about
faith and prayer, faith and prayer, faith and prayer, faith and prayer.
And I’ll tell you, there’s sometimes in life, that’s all you’ve got.
Your checkbook won’t get you out of the situation. Your friends
or the strings you can pull, the relationships you have, the
success you’ve enjoyed, they will not get you out of it. but
you call to God. You cast your burden on the Lord
and he will sustain you. He will never permit the righteous
to be moved or literally to fall over. You keep your eyes on Christ
and you will not sink into the water, but you, oh Lord, will
cast them down into judgment. One of the things we have to
remember is evil people may get away with evil in this life.
They may succeed at it, they may flourish in it, It may haunt
you, it may bite you, it may hurt you, but at the end of the
day, God will come in judgment and he will make all things right
and make all things new. Notice how the verse ends, just
a simple statement, but I will trust, I will trust in you. And it’s a good reminder to us
to stand tall when the wind is blowing, to stand tall when the
tempest is upon us. It’s a good reminder to stay
at your post. Never leave your post, no matter
what. Here we are, probably this week,
we’ll see what a judge in a military court down in eastern North Carolina
will do to a man who admitted to, who pled guilty to, deserting
his army post. God says, don’t abandon your
post. Stand tall in the wind. I will
sustain you and I will see you through it. He did that for Christ. Christ trusted his heavenly father
and said, whatever cup you give me to drink, whatever suffering
you put in front of me, whatever cross I must bear, whatever death
I must endure, whatever grave I must be buried in, whatever
hell I must endure, I will do it because you will sustain me. We have a little question in
our larger catechism. We have a question that says,
why was it requisite? Why was it necessary for Jesus
Christ to be both God and man in two natures? He must be man
in order to be the right sacrifice. He must be man in order to be
the sacrificial lamb, to live obediently, to live perfectly,
to die that death. But you know why he must have
been God and have a divine nature? It was in order to bear up. It
was in order to bear up under the wrath of God. No human, no
human could stand or withstand that unmitigated, undiluted,
full wrath of Almighty God. And so Jesus had to call to God.
He had to cast his burden on the Lord. And he had to say,
but I will trust in you. Now let’s just put it simply. If it’s good enough for Christ,
it is good enough for us. Let’s pray.