And, Standing Firm When the Foundations Are Under Attack
Scripture: Psalm 11:1-7
Date: November 9, 2014
Speaker: Sean Higgins
Doctrines such as the sovereignty of God and the righteousness of God and the coming judgment of God are like logs on a fire that keep us alive in the cold. They are proper theological conclusions when we read and study the Bible, and we do want to be correct, to know and speak the truth. But just as hearing the Word without doing the Word doesn’t do any good, so does hearing the Word but then running away when it gets hard. Hearing the Word is for when it gets bitter. We can do more than lay the logs of doctrine beside each other and award one another for accurate measurements. We ought to pile them up for the Spirit to ignite for us to get warm.
Imagine a mechanic who trained for years at the best technical schools, who opened his own shop, who owned the finest tool chest in town, and then who, when anyone brought their car problem to him, shut the garage doors and went home. Everyday he would tell his wife, “But you wouldn’t believe how badly the engine sounded and how loudly the brakes squeaked. What could I do?”
Imagine a professor who prepared meticulous syllabi and lesson plans, who had first-class lecture methods, who collected a personal resource library without peer, and who ran to the dean every time a student disagreed with her conclusions. “But he challenged my authority. He acted like he knew better. What could I do?”
Imagine a soldier who secured the best position on the battlefield, who rallied his fellow troops up to the line, who loaded all his weapons, and who abandoned the cause as soon as he heard the first shot fired. “But they were using real bullets. We could be killed. What could I do?”
A mechanic is meant to use his tools and fix the broken not ignore the broken. A professor is meant to use her books to teach, and not just the eager ignorant but also the disagreeably ignorant. A soldier is meant to fight a real enemy when the rounds are live. He has live rounds, too.
And believers are meant to be in the world of hate and conflict without being of it. What are our tools, our resources, our weapons? Truth. Believers are to build on and battle with the sovereignty and righteousness and coming judgment of God when they are threatened rather than suppose that these doctrines are threatened when it’s hard.
Are we in the modern Western church not mostly men who run away? We desire to escape more than to endure. We would rather bolt than engage. We believe as long as it doesn’t require us to be too bold, as when someone else might disagree with us, let alone when they might try to hurt us. Because we live in a time and place where others have fought to secure the relative peace we enjoy, because we don’t really expect the foundations to crumble, we may not even run, we just ignore. We are digital ostriches, planting our heads into the distractions of the screen. We prefer sports, sitcoms, web surfing, and social media. It’s a real temptation for God’s people to withdraw. When the going gets tough today, the tough turn on the TV.
Psalm 11 should encourage us. David is in a much more dangerous situation than we probably ever will be. But so was his situation more drastic than most of the Jews in Israel who were under his leadership. Yet this song, To the Choirmaster , was meant for corporate worship. God’s people would be encouraged to know that their leader remained steadfast (at least this time), but also they would be strengthened by the truth food to be faithful themselves.
This poem is not a prayer but a meditation. There is no direct address of God, instead there is a lyrical rehearsal of theology. These are tools for us when we face trouble.
David doesn’t provide any particular details of the threat in the poem, but the temptation to run was great.
In the LORD I take refuge;
how can you say to my soul,
“Flee like a bird to your mountain,
for behold, the wicked bend the bow;
they have fitted their arrow to the string
to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart;
if the foundations are destroyed,
what can the righteous do?”
(Psalm 11:1–3, ESV)
The song begins with a common refrain found in the Psalter, In the LORD I take refuge . Yahweh is David’s safe place. David starts this way because something is wrong and someone is telling him that he needs to get away.
How can you say to my soul…? Maybe this personifies his own internal thought battle since no advisor’s name or title is given. More likely, though, this came from a counselor to the king. The rest of verse one through verse three are the content of his fear, but it is counsel that David criticizes as he repeats it, how can you say ?
The urge to action is urgent. Flee like a bird to your mountain . Fly away, quickly. The reasons follow but, if it really was this bad, David probably knew it already without needing the obvious reported to him. The mention of your mountain may be a reference to David’s own comment in 1 Samuel 26 when he called out to Saul after sneaking into the camp and taking Saul’s spear and jar of water:
let not my blood fall to the earth away from the presence of the LORD, for the king of Israel has come out to seek a single flea like one who hunts a partridge [a game bird] in the mountains.” (1 Samuel 26:20)
So David has run before. It seems like it’s time to flutter away again because he’s being hunted.
For behold, the wicked bend the bow . You bend the bow in order to string it. You don’t keep the bow bent, that would weaken the tension over time. The wicked , plural, are preparing to attack. In fact, they have fitted the arrow to the string . Ready. Aim. The string is stretched and the only thing left to do is let it go. The weapon is ready to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart . The attack won’t be obvious; it’s planned in secret and executed suddenly from the shadows.
How many times must David have heard this in a morning cabinet meeting in the palace oval office? He experienced some years of peace, but much of his reign saw difficulties and threats, if not from other nations, then from within, including his own son.
The most dramatic, and presumably the most persuasive, reason for escape comes in verse 3. If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? This is the central burden of the Psalm and the most compelling counsel to the king personally.
This counselor ties, not entirely without reason, the well-being of the country to the well-being of the king. The foundations are the structure and the stability of the nation, her laws and processes, as directed by the leaders. If David is destroyed as the top leader, so with him the foundations of society will be destroyed. If that happens, What can the righteous do? That is, “If you don’t protect yourself then you’ll leave the people unprotected, too.”
Without minimizing the legitimacy of the intel and the severity of the threat—a level RED risk, with implications of national security—David responds to the unbelief and despair of this counsel. At best this counsel is pessimistic. Probably it is panic. “What are we going to do? It’s hopeless.” The tone of this temptation is not about physical fleeing but about freaking out fleeing.
For all we know David may have left the palace after all. If he wrote this poem when Absolom came after him, he did indeed go out of Jerusalem. Trusting God does not mean that we don’t take the avenues He provides. Jesus escaped angry mobs multiple times before it was time not to escape. John Bunyan has a great line about this.
Has thou escaped? Laugh. Art thou taken? Laugh. I mean, be pleased which soever things shall go, for that the scales are still in God’s hands. (Seasonable Counsel, or, Advice to Sufferers, 726)
Whether you stay or go, whether captured or not, laugh. So the concern is not so much about location but about trust. The question isn’t where is safest? but Who can make safe? Who holds the scales? David would not abandon his confidence even if he decided to relocate.
Faith provided a different perspective on his problems than what was visible. David’s confidence wasn’t in his security detail, but in God.
The LORD is in his holy temple;
the LORD’s throne is in heaven;
his eyes see, his eyelids test the children of man.
The LORD tests the righteous,
but his soul hates the wicked
and the one who loves violence.
Let him rain coals on the wicked;
fire and sulfur and a scorching wind
shall be the portion of their cup.
For the LORD is righteous;
he loves righteous deeds; the upright shall behold his face.
(Psalm 11:4–7, ESV)
The situation didn’t look good but that doesn’t mean that the Lord wasn’t looking at the situation. Yahweh is present, He is ruling, He is seeing. The LORD is in his holy temple . All those days we’ve worshipped…nothing’s changed; God is still among His people. The LORD’s throne is in heaven . Above it all, over it all, He reigns more than any earthly king. The heavenly king is supreme and can’t be dethroned.
When, therefore, deceit, craft, treachery, cruelty, violence, and extortion, reign in the world; in short, when all things are thrown into disorder and darkness by injustice and wickedness, let faith serve as a lamp to enable us to behold God’s heavenly throne, and let that sight suffice to make us wait in patience for the restoration of things to a better state. (John Calvin)
And his eyes see, his eyelids test the children of man . He’s watching, so the reference to his eyes . He’s scrutinizing, so his eyelids . We usually squint when we’re really focusing on something. The wicked plan to shoot in the dark so that they cannot be seen. They are the ones, in fact, who can’t escape.
The rest of the song explains the testing, both Yahweh’s attitude toward those He tests and the consequences of His testing.
The LORD tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence . Let’s not miss that all men are watched and tested. The first group mentioned are the righteous. God tests , He “examines,” a reference to the process of refining metals by fire. It starts with those who do righteous deeds (see verse 7). So how David responds to the wicked is part of the process.
As for the wicked themselves, the soul of Yahweh hates the wicked . We’ve gotten happy with saying, “God loves the sinner but hates the sin.” But the two are not that easily divided. Sin is personal. Persons commit sin. And so the punishment will be on persons. Let [Yahweh] rain coals on the wicked; fire and sulfur and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup . First, with a reference to the punishment of Sodom and Gomorrah: it rains fire and sulfur. Then the scorching wind brings heat that destroys anything living, or the source of food for living things. There will be judgment from a righteously sovereign God. It is what they deserve. The portion of their cup is what they have coming to them.
The attitude toward, and reward for, the righteous is different. For the LORD is righteous; he loves righteous deeds; the upright shall behold his face . He loves when men don’t panic. Isn’t that part of the righteous reaction in the song? In the middle of threat, don’t give up or run away. Those who seek the Lord and they will enjoy fellowship with Him. The upright shall behold his face . The wicked can’t be in His presence, just as we saw in Psalm 5:4-6.
We may not be able to attach the foundations of our society to the safety of one man as Israel could with their king. But we are no less tempted to despair at foundation crumbling and sky-is-falling prophets who observe the evils in our culture and predict the coming of worse. What can we do?
How we respond IS part of the test. How God’s people despair or don’t will be part of the hole in the cultural floor rotting faster or not. There is a way to flee that is not out of faith. There is a way to stay in faith, even when we fail. The Lord is testing us, always, and He loves righteous deeds even if they don’t appear effective, at least not right away. They are still right.
The Psalms are poetic plows, turning over the hard soil of unbelief and apathy in our views of the world. It is difficult if not impossible to see every square inch as something that Jesus cares about. Not only is it better, it is right, and He is watching. The Psalms are for us.
God continues to do as He pleases, preserving the righteous and preparing judgment for the wicked. The New Testament continues the same message. Here are seven verses but only one sentence:
For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority. (2 Peter 2:4–10, ESV)
God is not going anywhere. And His people should stand in confidence in Him. That’s what lyrical doctrine is good for.
You do not have the option to be watched and tested by God or not. He is watching. He will be watching if you have to choose between fight or flight. He will be testing when you’re faced with a choice between dependence or despair, or distraction. You will have to choose between waiting on the Lord and mounting up with wings like an eagle or burying your head like an ostrich. When it gets hard it doesn’t mean that your faith is in the wrong place. It means that’s the place where your faith is being made strong.
For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And
“If the righteous is scarcely saved,
what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?”Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good. (1 Peter 4:17–19, ESV)