Psalm 54
Reading from Psalm 54, verse
one, I’ll read the title first. It says, to the choir master
with stringed instruments, a masculine of David, when the Zephyrites
went and told Saul, is not David hiding among us? Verse one says,
oh God, save me by your name and vindicate me by your might.
Oh God, hear my prayer. Give ear to the words of my mouth.
For strangers have risen against me. Ruthless men seek my life. They do not set God before themselves. Behold, God is my helper. The
Lord is the upholder of my life. He will return the evil to my
enemies and your faithfulness put an end to them with a free
will offering. I will sacrifice to you. I will
give thanks to your name. Oh Lord, for it is good for he
has delivered me from every trouble and my eye has looked in triumph
on my enemies. Amen. This is God’s holy and
inspired word. And may he bless it. David has
nowhere to turn. That’s the spot he is in in Psalm
54. He has nowhere to turn. He’s
on the run from Saul and the story goes on and on and on and
it continues. Remember a couple of weeks ago
when we looked at some of the earlier Psalms, David had been in the
priestly city of Nob. He had gone to the priest there
and he Received the showbread from the table of the presence
and he received the sword of Goliath which was there with
some other artifacts in the place of worship and Doeg, remember
Doeg the Edomite? Nasty fella. He goes out to Gibeah
and tells Saul that David is among the priests and they have
helped him and so Abiathar, the priest, is called. He’s called
to give an account. Saul is angry. He asked his servants
to put the priest to death. They won’t do it, but good old
Doeg, the nasty fellow he is, is happy to kill all the priests
and their wives, their children, and their livestock. But one
escapes. He tells David. David flees. So as the story
goes on, David leaves Nob and flees to a city of his own kindred,
a city of Keilah. in the southern part of the country
of Israel. And David rescues the city. Now, remember he has the ephod,
he has the priestly garment that one can use to inquire of the
Lord and ask, is there going to be success? What should I
do? What’s wise? What’s the right thing or the
wrong thing here in this situation? And so David has the ephod and
he rescues the city of Keilah, but he’s inside that walled city
and somebody escapes and tells Saul, is not David among the
city and he’s behind the gates. And so David has to escape because
he inquires of the Lord and says, will they tell on me? And the
Lord says, yes, they will. So he leaves and he’s now in
the desert of Zipf or the Zipfites. And so Psalm 54, a masculine
David, when the Zipfites went and told Saul. So David is in
a bad way. He’s on the run. He’s running
out of options and he has Saul and the entire army of Israel
on him, and now he’s in the wilderness. He’s away from the cities. He’s
hiding in the caves. Now, David is betrayed. David
has just saved a city of his own kinsmen, and they turn on
him. And so here he is abandoned.
And we see in this Psalm a couple different movements. We see David
calling to God for some help. We see a picture of who the people
are who do not follow God. We see confidence in God, and
then we see a fitting response to God’s deliverance. So first
thing to consider in verses one through two, David says simply,
save me by your name. Oh God, save me by your name.
Vindicate me by your might. Oh God, hear my prayer. Give
ear to the words of my mouth. And the way I want you to think
of this Psalm is this way. You get yourself in hot water. You
panic. You cry, you hyperventilate,
you call everybody you can on the telephone, you text message
everybody you can, you email everybody, you create a panic,
right? You’ve been there, you’ve done
that. And later it’s like, well, it wasn’t that bad, but that’s
what you do. Well, in this Psalm, you see David sort of take it
easy. He asked God for help. He thinks on the word, he trusts
in God and then he watches God deliver. And there’s a little
bit of a model in this. And so when David comes in verses
one through two and says, save me by your name, he has nowhere
to turn but to God. He has nowhere to turn but to
God. Now we have somebody come up to us and they say, well,
I just got a bad diagnosis or my child is being foolish or
I don’t know, name the problem, what do we do? We pat him on
the head and say, there’s nowhere to turn but to God. Now, is that
true? Of course it is. But it’s not
easily swallowed. But the psalm, the psalmist,
the word of God teaches us that it is the real solution to our
problems. When there is nowhere to turn,
we turn to almighty God. Maybe you’ve been there, maybe
you’ve hit rock bottom. You’ve been emotionally empty.
You’ve been at that point where there is nothing left in you
and you have that feeling in you where the world is gonna
come to end. Maybe you get in your bed at night and you hope
the Lord gives you sleep. You wake up the next morning,
you open one eye, not both, but you open one eye, you stay under
the covers and you keep them pulled up. And I’m being serious
about this, I’m not making this funny. You know that if you get
out from under those covers the next day, because things are
at such, a rock bottom place that it won’t go well. And you
say, could I just stay here? And this blanket keep me from
enduring something unpleasant, uncomfortable. So that’s the
place where David is. And so first, in verses one and
two, he prays to God, save me by your name. Now it gives two
verbs here, two requests of God, save me and plead my cause. Save me, we see there in verse
one, and at the end, it’s like the couplet to the sentence,
and vindicate me by your might. Save me and vindicate me by your
might. by your might. Save me by your
name and vindicate me by your might. Very often in the scriptures,
when God says something, he, he explains it. So save me by
your name, vindicate me by your might. We like that word saved,
don’t we? We’re going to sing in a little
bit redeemed, redeemed by the blood of the lamb. We like to
be saved. We like to have salvation. And
that’s what David’s asking for. Lord, If I come out of this cave,
if I poke my head out of the walled city of Kila or the Zephyrites
tattle on me, I could lose my neck. I could lose my life. And
he simply prays, save me, oh God, by your name. Now, why does
he say by God’s name? Why doesn’t he say by something
else? Save me by my own sword. Save me by my army skills. Save me by my good looks and
charm or my wisdom. Nope, simply save me by your
name. It’s the character of God. It’s
the personality of God. This morning we read from Genesis
chapter 22, where Abraham was asked to sacrifice his own son, Isaac.
And as they were going up the mountain, his son says, got the
fire, got the knife. What about the lamb? And Abraham
says, God will provide for himself a lamb. And after the sacrifice
of the ram that was in the thicket, he says, on the mountain, the
Lord himself will provide. Jehovah Jireh, my provider, our
provider. And so the name of God in that
case, in that story comes true. God provides for Abraham. Or
how about Moses at the burning bush? You want me to go to who? and say, let your people go?
You want me to go to Pharaoh, the most powerful man in the
world, in the universe? You want me to go to him and
say, let the people of God go? Who shall I say has sent me? Well, you tell him that I am
has sent you. And so God reveals who he is
in his name and in his character, his personality. So save me. Grant me salvation by your name.
But he also says, plead my cause by your mightiness. What does
it mean to plead cause? We need a lawyer. We need an
advocate. We need a person to vindicate us, to judge the matter. And he appeals this time, not
to the name of God, but to the mightiness of God. You’re the
God who delivered Israel out of Egypt. You’re the God who
divided the Red Sea. Your people walked across on
dry land, and when the Egyptians pursued, they were washed over
and they were killed. and the rider thrown into the
sea. You’re the God who put your own son on the cross, but in
his death made satisfaction for sins, in his death sent the enemies
of God fleeing for their lives and letting them know, putting
them on notice, their judgment and their doom is sure. He’s
saying, vindicate my cause by your covenant promises, your
covenant ways. Now, how is it that a lot of
people when they get into A situation where they feel abandoned. They
feel like there’s nowhere to turn. How is it that they, when
they don’t go to God, try to alleviate their problems? They
turn to idols. They turn to drugs or alcohol.
They do things that will mask and cover their hardship. But only God can fix it. And
we have to remember the Lord Jesus. He both set an example
for us in prayer but he is our one to go to. He set an example
for us, remember, in his earthly life. He went to the father very
often in prayer. He had enemies, like David. People were after him. He often
fled cities because they wanted Jesus’ neck for his teaching
and his kingdom and his power. So we not only have a high priest
who has been there, and has gone to the Father. We have a high
priest who now ever lives above. He sits at the right hand and
he makes intercession for us. And so when we get ourselves
into a bad spot, when we’re at rock bottom, we can go to Jesus,
that great high priest. And like his own example, we
pray, we show our submission, our humility, our confession,
and our thanks. You know, there’s something about
this Psalm. We can read these six verses in about, what, 30, 40
seconds. And we can say, chop, chop, chop,
save me, vindicate me, whoop up on my enemies. And yes, and
I’ll go to church Sunday and I’ll worship you. We can spit
that out and say, okay, all is good. This is a Psalm that we
ought to drink in slowly. I mean, all of them, we should.
But this is something that you read your Bible and you have
pen and paper. You have a cup of coffee or a
glass of water. You’re sitting at the table and you are reading
it. You’re thinking about it. And you’re saying, oh God, save
me by your name. And so you read through your
Bible and you look for examples like the story of Abraham. You
look for stories like when Abraham’s wife, Sarah, sent Hagar out into
the wilderness so that Ishmael would not be troubling their
house anymore. And what did Hagar discover? There is a God. sees and you read story after
story after story in the Bible where the names of God are revealed
and you say save me God by your might like you did Hagar like
you did the Israelites like you did Isaac at the altar like you
did Jacob when you wrestled God reveals himself to his people
over and over in the Bible and so this is a psalm to drink in
and it takes us all over the scriptures and we see how great
God’s name is and how he has pled the cause of many. But it’s
a prayer. Prayers take time, they take
thought, they take submission and humility and confession and
thanksgiving. There’s a second thing in this
passage that we learn and it’s in verse three. It’s a picture
of people who ignore God. For strangers have risen against
me. Ruthless men seek my life. They do not set God before themselves. Now remember Psalm 54 is connected
to Psalm 53 and 52 and Psalm 2 and Psalm 1. The fool in his
heart says, there is no God. And so in 54, who is it? We find in verse three, we find
the fool who says in his heart, there is no God. He’s a stranger.
He’s risen against David. These are ruthless men. They
seek the life of another, even the anointed, the king of Israel.
And they do not set God before themselves. And so the second
thing we consider is there are people who ignore God. They’re
outside the covenant. They’re self-centered, self-seeking.
They’re arrogant. They have no mercy or thought
for others. They have no regard for life,
no regard for humanity or decency. Sometimes you see something on
the news and you say, have those people no regard for humanity
or life or other people’s needs. That’s the person we find in
verse three. They’re ruthless. They are wicked,
they are strangers, they are outside the covenant people of
Almighty God. That’s the third thing that pops
up in this passage. We find it in verses four and
five. After David has prayed for salvation, after he has acknowledged
the person who does not look on God, he says in verses four
and five, but I have confidence in God. There’s always movement
in these Psalms. There’s a need, there’s a cry
for help. There’s an affirmation of the wicked. And here there’s
a affirmation of the confidence of God. Verses four and five
say, behold, God is my helper. The Lord is the upholder of my
life. He will return the evil to my enemies, and your faithfulness
put an end to them. This has a little bit of that
imprecatory feel, you know, the imprecatory aspect of the Psalms.
We want God to deal with our enemies, you know, dash their
little ones against the stone. That’s the hard one. Do unto
them as they have attempted to do to me. So, David has a problem. He has a big one. He stops and
he takes stock. He thinks about who his enemies
are. He thinks about who his God is. He asks for help and
now he says, I’m feeling pretty good. Okay, so go back to the
moment you find out some bad news. Go back to the moment you
panic. Go back to the moment you call
everybody. You text everybody. You email everybody. You create
such a panic that you’re hyperventilating. You’re out of breath and all
is lost. The world’s going to come to
end and things couldn’t be any worse if They tried. Well, David has thought through
this. He sees clearly. He’s had some
time to think and some time to pray. And here’s the most important
thing. He remembers who God is. God is my helper. The Lord is the upholder of my
life. He remembers who God is. He can
see a little more clearly. And there’s a sense of verse
four being a little bit sing-songy. Can you imagine coming to the
conclusion while you’re sitting in a cave hiding from your enemies
and you say, behold, God is my helper. Aha, eureka, wonderful
news. All is not lost. The Lord is
the upholder of my life. There’s something exciting and
exclamatory about this. God is the sovereign one. He
is the sustainer, the chief upholder of my life. What a blessing David
finds in the truth about who God is. But there’s a second
little twist to these, to his confidence. You find it in verse
five. He will return the evil to my
enemies in your faithfulness. put an end to them or let them
disappear. It’s literally what it says.
God is a just God. God is a just God who will execute
justice. He asked him earlier to save
him, to plead his cause or adjudicate the situation. Now he’s saying,
you will execute justice. And there’s a Levitical principle
in play here. And it’s a principle of this.
Let the evil plan they plotted against me happen to them. That’s very often something we
find in biblical language. And that’s just what David has
asked for. What the evil, what evil they wished on David, may
it come upon them. He literally says, may it recoil
on them. Other places in scripture we
see, let them fall into their own snares. You know, you lay
a little bear trap, dig a hole and put some brush over it. And
wouldn’t it be humorous if your enemy, who wanted you to fall
in the trap, fell in the trap themselves? I like those ones
where they catch your ankle in a rope and you spring up in a
tree. That’s what I think I have in mind here when I read something
like this. Let them fall into their own trap as you show your
name and your might to them. A couple of years ago, I went
through a little situation with some folks who just quit working
on resolution. And the best advice I got was
this, you just stand back and you watch and God will rub their
nose in their own mess. And I can tell you now that time
has passed, that is exactly what has happened. And that is often
the way God’s justice works. And first of all, we ought to
be very careful, because we get these little evil devices in
our own hearts, don’t we? We say, oh, I know how to fix
that person. But what does the apostle Paul
tell us? What does Jesus teach us? Vengeance is mine, saith
the Lord. God can repay way better than
we can. But people often will have their
own noses rubbed in their own messes. Ultimately, what does
David want? At the end of verse five, put
an end to them, kill them. Okay, they’re enemies of the
crown. They are enemies of the covenant. They are enemies of
the kingdom of almighty God. Put an end to them. But we must
remember, let God do justice. Let God do justice. Now, if you
got your little Bible hats on, you’ll be thinking that old David
gets his chance. He gets his chance a couple of
times. He’s hiding in a cave and he goes way into the back
of the cave. And what do you know is gonna come up? I mean,
this is real. This is not me making a funny.
I know y’all can’t take me seriously sometimes. Saul’s gonna come
in the cave to go to the bathroom. And what do you think David’s
friends say? The Lord has delivered Saul into
your hands. And twice, David has to say,
I will not reach out my hand to touch the Lord’s anointed.
But he does go and cut a little piece of his robe. And he says,
oh, Solly, I could have, I could have, I should have, but I didn’t.
And even then his rebuke for his taunting of King Saul, David
will get his chance twice at least to take the life of Saul. And he says, no, it is for only
the Lord to do this. And where are we going to find
Saul in another point in time? He’s going to be hanging from
a tree. The final thing we have in this
passage in verses six and seven is a fitting response. With a
free will offering, I will sacrifice to you. I will give thanks to
your name, oh Lord, for it is good, for he has delivered me
from every trouble and my eye has looked in triumph on my enemies. How often have you been delivered
and you come to church the next Sunday and completely forgotten? what God has done for you. I
can raise my hand. How often have you sat down to
a meal, maybe even just a simple meal and you forgot to give thanks? How often have you been blessed
upon blessing upon blessing upon blessing and you forgot to go
jumping up and down in the house of the Lord and say, my God has
delivered me. In order to give thanks and praise
to God, but also to let others in the household of faith know
God has been good to me, just as I am sure he has been good
to you. You see, it’s a fitting response. It’s a fitting response
for us to say, God, you have been devoted for me. You saved
me by your name. You sustained me by your might. And now, since you have devoted
yourself to me and saved me, I will devote myself to you. to you, oh God, I’ll worship
you. I’ll acknowledge you for your greatness and your goodness.
You know, every hymn we sing has a story.
We sing, it is well with my soul and we know the story of the
children who were lost at sea and just the travail and the
trouble and it makes it more meaningful when we sing a hymn
that we know the story of. We sing hymns of like amazing
grace where The slave trading fella from England realized how
wicked he was, how awful he was, and how God saved a wretch like
him. We know these hymns have context.
Well, the psalms were meant to be sung. It’s the hymn book of
the Christian church. We do sing psalms from time to
time. We sing hymns, but they have
stories and they tell a story about how God and his greatness
has devoted himself to us and how we then ought to devote ourselves
to almighty God. They’re rich, they’re full. And
there’s a sense where we need to have a Bible and a Psalter
and a hymnal and at least a kazoo or something so that we can hum
and sing along the hymns and the Psalms of the faith so that
we can be reminded over and over and over about God’s greatness.
So what do we do when we’re betrayed? We pray. We trust, we watch,
and we worship. And we remember that Christ hears
our needs. He’s been in our place, and he
is a trustworthy Savior who can rescue us from all hardship.
Let’s pray together. Lord, bless your word into our
hearts and our minds this night so that we can live this week
fresh of your grace, strong in your your might, and we can live
in such a way that shows the world the power of the cross,
the greatness of Jesus, and the transforming power of the gospel.
Lord, help us not to forget these things, but help us to live and
believe them, and even to share them with others who are maybe
failing or falling or faltering. Lord, give us grace in these
things, in Christ’s name, amen.