“Track 35: My Soul Will Rejoice in the Lord’s Salvation (Psalm 35)", Will DuVal | 7/5/26
Psalm 35 | 7/5/26 | Will DuVal
I wanna open this morning by inviting you to remember a time when you felt particularly THREATENED. Maybe it was a serious health scare / diagnosis… Or an unexpected crisis like a car accident or a natural disaster. But if we wanna stick CLOSEST to the context of Psalm 35 for this morning, it would be a time when you were threatened by AN OPPONENT… an “enemy”. Not just “afflicted” but ATTACKED.
Before moving to St. Louis, I did youth ministry at a secular boarding school in northern Indiana. My boss, the head chaplain, was a very progressive PCUSA minister who was excited to hire me out of Vanderbilt Divinity School, with its reputation for academic excellence, social-justice activism, and hermeneutical “creativity”. Her biggest question to me in the interview process was: “Would you love and accept a student in your youth group who came out as gay?” and I answered “Of course”, so I got the job. And we actually worked together well for years, mostly stuck to our own lanes. But everything hit the fan when she discovered that one of my youth group volunteers, a seasoned math teacher at the school, attended a church in town whose sign out in front of the building encouraged passers-by to “Vote NO” on a state-wide amendment that would have legalized gay marriage. When my boss found this out, she stormed into my office the next day, fuming, and demanded that I FIRE him from helping lead the youth group - “We cannot have that kind of HATRED and BIGOTRY taught to our students!”. Well, my friend the MATH teacher went straight to the HEADMASTER and argued that he had the right to attend whatever church he wanted, and his views on social issues would NEVER stop him from loving any student. So that afternoon, the headmaster called ME into his office, to ask for MY input. And I knew the choice in front of me. I had heard my boss BRAG to me in the past about fellow faculty members she’d gotten sideways with and subsequently gotten them fired; she was vindictive. But I stood by my beliefs, my friend, and the truth: “Eric is a wonderful mentor to the students; I don’t want him out of the group; SHE does.”
The very next day, I was called into a meeting with the head of H.R., where my boss spent over an hour airing out all of the dirt that she’d apparently collected on me over the past 5 years, and when THAT didn’t stick, lobbing blatantly false and fabricated accusations at me, culminating with her DEMAND that I be fired immediately, or else SHE was resigning.
That was the closest I’VE ever felt to where DAVID finds himself this morning, in Psalm 35. This IS a psalm of David, as the inspired superscription we’re about to read informs us. We can’t be sure of the exact CONTEXT behind David’s writing here, however, the words he opens the psalm with is VERY similar to language he uses in 1 Samuel ch24 (v15), when David was being chased around the Engedi wilderness by the paranoid, enraged King SAUL, so it’s very likely THAT was the occasion for David’s words here.
Psalm 35 is typically categorized as one of the dozen or so “imprecatory” psalms, so titled because they “imprecate” or “call down” a CURSE upon an enemy. But that is a bit of a misnomer, since David isn’t HIMSELF cursing Saul or anyone else here; he is pleading with the LORD to please look down and see how threatened and unjustly opposed David is… and DO something! The Bible exhorts us to “Repay no one evil for evil… Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it[i] to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord, I will repay”” (Rom 12:17-19). Psalm 35 is David’s request that God make GOOD on that promise to repay, to AVENGE, and thereby to VINDICATE or “clear, justify, uphold and defend” David and his cause, his integrity. You might REMEMBER that story of David and Saul, where David kept getting all these chances to take Saul’s life - in the cave while Saul was using the bathroom; in his tent, while Saul was fast asleep - David could’ve ENDED Saul’s unjust pursuit and David’s undeserved EXILE. But he kept SPARING Saul’s life, maintaining that THE LORD must be the one to defend and vindicate David. And in Psalm 35, David BEGS… he BELIEVES… and he BLESSES the Lord, for the deliverance that David is SO sure of, in his faith, that he considers it as good as done, even though Saul’s still alive and chasing him for the moment.
And in so doing, David offers us a MODEL here for responding when we TOO inevitably find ourselves in that place of danger, threatening, OPPOSITION: the model is SIMPLE (to UNDERSTAND, anyway!): Like David, we ought to respond to affliction and attacks with
1) humble RELIANCE, with
2) confident TRUST, and with
3) expectant PRAISE.
Beseech the Lord for salvation, BELIEVE in the Lord for salvation, and then BLESS the Lord for salvation.
Or I think I did “P”s in the bulletin: we Petition or PLEAD for God’s help, we Put our TRUST in God to help, and then we PRAISE God for helping, and coming through for us.
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I invite you to STAND… Psalm 35; hear the word of the Lord:
“Of David.
1 Contend, O Lord, with those who contend with me; fight against those who fight against me!
2 Take hold of shield and buckler and rise for my help!3 Draw the spear and javelin[a] against my pursuers!Say to my soul, “I am your salvation!”
4 Let them be put to shame and dishonor who seek after my life!Let them be turned back and disappointed who devise evil against me!
5 Let them be like chaff before the wind, with the angel of the Lord driving them away!6 Let their way be dark and slippery, with the angel of the Lord pursuing them!
7 For without cause they hid their net for me; without cause they dug a pit for my life.[b]8 Let destruction come upon him when he does not know it!And let the net that he hid ensnare him; let him fall into it—to his destruction!
9 Then my soul will rejoice in the Lord, exulting in his salvation.10 All my bones shall say, “O Lord, who is like you,delivering the poor from him who is too strong for him, the poor and needy from him who robs him?”
11 Malicious[c] witnesses rise up; they ask me of things that I do not know.12 They repay me evil for good; my soul is bereft.[d]13 But I, when they were sick— I wore sackcloth; I afflicted myself with fasting;I prayed with head bowed[e] on my chest.14 I went about as though I grieved for my friend or my brother;as one who laments his mother, I bowed down in mourning.
15 But at my stumbling they rejoiced and gathered; they gathered together against me;wretches whom I did not know tore at me without ceasing;16 like profane mockers at a feast,[f] they gnash at me with their teeth.
17 How long, O Lord, will you look on? Rescue me from their destruction, my precious life from the lions!18 I will thank you in the great congregation; in the mighty throng I will praise you.
19 Let not those rejoice over me who are wrongfully my foes,and let not those wink the eye who hate me without cause.20 For they do not speak peace, but against those who are quiet in the land they devise words of deceit.21 They open wide their mouths against me; they say, “Aha, Aha! Our eyes have seen it!”
22 You have seen, O Lord; be not silent! O Lord, be not far from me!23 Awake and rouse yourself for my vindication, for my cause, my God and my Lord!24 Vindicate me, O Lord, my God, according to your righteousness, and let them not rejoice over me!25 Let them not say in their hearts, “Aha, our heart's desire!”Let them not say, “We have swallowed him up.”
26 Let them be put to shame and disappointed altogether who rejoice at my calamity!Let them be clothed with shame and dishonor who magnify themselves against me!
27 Let those who delight in my righteousness shout for joy and be glad and say evermore,“Great is the Lord, who delights in the welfare of his servant!”28 Then my tongue shall tell of your righteousness and of your praise all the day long.” This is the word of God…
Here’s your OUTLINE for this passage; it’s a “3 x 3 x THREE” outline:
*There are 3 sections or MOVEMENTS… 3 cycles in this psalm; David more or less repeats his main point, with slight variation, three times; in vv1-10, then in vv11-18, then vv19-28.
*The second TRIAD here is David’s repeated EXAMPLE to us, that I mentioned in the INTRO; how we respond in the face of opposition: we 1) PETITION the Lord, we 2) place our TRUST in the Lord, and we 3) PRAISE the Lord, for coming to our aid.
*But the THIRD triad is how we ought to APPLY this psalm: “Who is this Psalm FOR? For WHOM do these words SPEAK?” And we’re gonna see there are actually THREE answers to that question.
On the one hand, the most OBVIOUS answer is: DAVID. These are DAVID’s words, reflective of David’s experience and life. So we’ll call that the PROXIMATE reading of the passage, because it’s closest to the original meaning of the text.
But then there’s the PERSONAL application to our OWN lives. That’s why I invited you to read YOURSELF into David’s words, to imagine a time when YOU were under attack. The Bible says of itself that while it was written BY specific people at a specific time in history, it was also written FOR EVERY person, living at ANY time… that we too might know the LORD through His TIMELESS word. David’s experience, as we’ll see, is OUR experience; maybe not EXACTLY. You may not get chased around the desert by your insecure, bloodthirsty father-in-law; but you MAY get called into that meeting with HR by your insecure, vengeful BOSS. And even if you’ve NEVER faced open antagonism like that before, from another PERSON, I’m gonna use David’s threefold imprecation here against HIS enemy as an opportunity to remind you of the three greatest enemies of EVERY believer. You say, “Pastor, I don’t really HAVE any “enemies”; I’ve never HAD a boss like that… A family member come after me like that, like David did”; maybe NOT. But make no mistake, Brother, Sister: If you are a follower of JESUS, then you HAVE enemies; THREE of them, at least: 1) the WORLD, 2) the FLESH, and 3) the DEVIL.
Jesus says of the WORLD in John 15: “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you [my followers] are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (v19).
The Bible says of the FLESH, our innate sinful nature, that “those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal 5:24); that we “walk not according to the flesh [our old, SINFUL ways] but according to the Spirit”, the way of CHRIST.
And the Bible calls the DEVIL, our enemy, our “ADVERSARY”.
So the WORLD, the FLESH, and the DEVIL. The external system and culture that sets itself up against God and tempts us toward power, materialism, self-over-others… The INTERNAL pull of our own SIN that does the SAME… and then the personal, supernatural force of evil - SATAN - who presides over ALL of it; he is the “RULER of this world” (Jn 12:31); he is the “TEMPTER” and the “ACCUSER” of the brethren; Satan can’t CAUSE us to sin, but he certainly TEMPTS us to, and when we DO fall prey, he’s always there to ACCUSE us in our guilt and shame: “You must not really be a Christian… How could God still LOVE a sinner like you…”.
World, Flesh, Devil; those are our enemies, in this second way of understanding this psalm: the PERSONAL interpretation.
Proximate (David is being attacked), Personal (WE are under attack), but then THIRD, there is the PROPHETIC reading of the text, as a messianic psalm pointing a whole millennium ahead of David… to CHRIST. Really, they’re ALL “messianic” psalms; Jesus said “ALL the Scriptures point to me!” (Jn 5:39; Lk 24:27) If we don’t read JESUS into them, we’re reading them WRONG! But some of the scriptures, and some of the PSALMS, in particular, point a little more UNDENIABLY to Jesus; you can’t read Psalm 35 and know the story of Jesus, and NOT see its prophetic fulfillment in Him.
So we’re gonna consider all THREE now - the PROXIMATE, the PERSONAL, and the PROPHETIC implications of Psalm 35, as we work our way through. Beginning…
In v1, POINT #1- We plead, we put our trust in, and we praise the Lord for His SALVATION. (vv1-10)
Proximately, we see DAVID do that here. First, he PLEADS, he PETITIONS the Lord, v1, to “Contend, O Lord”. It’s a LEGAL term; he’s requesting divine LITIGATION against those who “contend” that David is GUILTY.
Then David shifts metaphors in v2, from the courtroom to the battlefield: ‘Lord, “Take hold of shield and buckler” - a “buckler” is just a BIG shield. So “DEFEND me, Lord; “rise for my help!”.
But David doesn’t just request DEFENSIVE protection; v3: “Draw the spear and the javelin against my pursuers!”; “God, go on the OFFENSIVE against them; ATTACK my attackers!”
So that you might “SAY to my SOUL”: ““I am your salvation!””.
Now, I’m really trying to stick to the PROXIMATE interpretation, as it applies to DAVID here first, but if I can make it PERSONAL for just a moment:
Friend: Do you know that your SOUL needs SAVING?
That your SOUL is under ATTACK, by the WORLD, the DEVIL, and most of all, by your own sinful FLESH, and your ONLY hope of “salvation”, of RESCUE, is the LORD - Jesus Christ. Acts 4:12 “there is salvation in NO ONE else”. Romans 3: we have “all have sinned… and we are justified [or “made RIGHT with God”... we are FORGIVEN…] by his grace… that [comes to us] through… Christ Jesus” (vv23-24).
There’s a very simple answer, to Jewel’s 1995 hit single “Who Will SAVE your Soul?” – JESUS will! Jesus will SAVE your soul, if you turn from your sin and trust in Him by faith.
Back to David, v4: “Let them be put to shame and dishonor… Let them be like chaff before the wind, driven away” by WHOM? “The ANGEL of the LORD”. That’s kind of interesting; the ‘angel of the Lord’ appears somewhere between 50 and 60 times in the OT (depending on who’s counting), and almost EVERY time, arguably every time (depending on who’s INTERPRETING), this “angel” is actually a preincarnate appearance of CHRIST Himself. So David is prophetically here - without even realizing it - praying for CHRIST’s protection from his enemies.
Why? V7: “For without cause they hid their net for me;
without cause they dug a pit for my life.”
When David HAD the chance to kill Saul, but instead spared his life, and then CONFRONTED Saul about his continued pursuit, David said, “If I have WRONGED you, O my king, may God HIMSELF strike me down”. But NO; Saul was chasing David “without CAUSE”.
So, David prays, “May his own NET, that he intended for ME, instead ensnare HIM, and lead to HIS destruction.”
Let’s shift now and consider how this applies PERSONALLY to our own fight against the DEVIL, in particular, because so much of the imagery here is similar to how the apostle PAUL, in the NEW Testament, describes the WAR that we believers wage against our enemy, SATAN. Paul says, “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against… the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. [Who’s THAT? Satan! ] 13 Therefore [Paul writes] take up the whole armor of God” (Eph 6:12-13)... INCLUDING “the shield [and BUCKLER] of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one”, the devil. And while there’s no “spear” or “javelin” in Ephesians 6, Paul DOES call us to wield “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God”, the BIBLE, is our OFFENSIVE weapon, in this spiritual battle. That’s how JESUS used God’s word against Satan, when Satan was tempting him in the wilderness, remember? Three times Satan tempted him, and three times Jesus quoted SCRIPTURE as his COUNTER-attack. We must KNOW and EMPLOY God’s WORD.
Let’s go all the way back to v1, the courtroom: Satan is “the accuser of the brethren”; he’s the PROSECUTOR, who seeks to bring a CASE against us before the LORD: “God, you can’t possibly ACCEPT Will; be in right RELATIONSHIP with Will; didn’t you hear what he SAID, yesterday on the volleyball court, when he shanked that pass? God, didn’t you SEE what he DID just this MORNING, when that person who always wants to talk to him every Sunday, and keeps him from greeting the newcomers; instead of honestly and directly saying something to them, he passive-aggressively mentioned it in his sermon, and then he AVOIDED them in the foyer when they STILL didn’t take the hint; THAT’S not very Christian… and he’s their PASTOR!!”
Satan is our ACCUSER. But David invites us to PRAY here: “Contend with him, O Lord… fight against him” on my BEHALF.
And here’s the good news for you and me this morning, Church, for those who are in Christ Jesus: God has not only FOUGHT the battle for us; he’s already WON it! Romans 8: “If God is for us, then who can be[i] against us? …Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who [declares us RIGHTEOUS]. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died… and was raised—who is at the right hand of God… interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” (vv31-35)
Answer: NO ONE. Not SATAN, not our SIN, any longer; “JESUS paid it ALL!” “[NOTHING can now] separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (v39). That is a PROMISE of God that we can confidently place our TRUST in.
And when we do - we’ve PLEADED for the Lord, and placed our trust in Him - then thirdly, we can PRAISE Him right alongside David: “my soul will rejoice in the Lord,
exulting in his salvation.”
That’s what we come here every Sunday to DO, isn’t it? “REJOICE in the Lord… EXULT in his SALVATION”. I hope that’s why you’re here.
Not to try and score some points with God.
Not to make your spouse happy.
Not to “raise your kids with religion”.
But to REJOICE in the Lord’s SALVATION - the spiritual reality that GOD has worked in your life, in your SOUL, to bring you from DEATH to LIFE…. From guilt and shame and separation from a holy God like Him, to FORGIVENESS and CLEANSING and RECONCILIATION & COMMUNION with Him, in and through CHRIST.
I pray that’s true of you, and I hope you’re here to PRAISE Him for it.
We’re gonna save the PROPHETIC fulfillment - how this psalm points us to CHRIST - for the very end. So let’s move on to…
Invitation #2 now - We plead, we put our trust in, and we praise the Lord for His PRESERVATION. (vv11-18)
Very similar LAMENT from David here in vv11-18 to what we heard above; in fact, in v11, he’s right back in the COURTROOM again: “Malicious witnesses rise up” against me.
Back in v3 his “SOUL” cried for salvation; now in v12: “my soul is bereft.”
But David STRENGTHENS his case against his enemies now. He’s already told us that it is “without CAUSE” that they “devise EVIL against (him)” (vv4,7). But NOW he adds in v12 that they “repay me evil for (MY) GOOD”. David says, “I’ve done THEM GOOD; if ANYTHING, I’ve given them “cause” to LOVE me!”. Saul’s son JONATHAN, who was David’ best FRIEND, he tried CONFRONTING his jealous father about this in 1 Samuel 19; he asked, “Why do you sin against innocent blood by [seeking to] kill David without cause?””; same phrase as before. But then he adds, “David has not sinned against you, (father) but his deeds have brought good to you. 5 For he took his life in his hand and he struck down the Philistine, (Goliath) and the Lord worked a great salvation for all Israel. You saw it, and you rejoiced!” (vv4-5) “Dad, you oughta love DAVID more than ANYONE in all Israel!”
David builds the same CASE now, in vv13 & 14:
“when they were sick, I put on SACKCLOTH”, I MOURNED for them; “ I afflicted myself with fasting”
“I prayed (for them)...”
“went about as though I grieved for a friend or even my brother”
Even “as one laments his own mother”
Interestingly, instead of citing his bravery against Goliath, like Jonathan did, the “GOOD” that David recalls here is much more personal: when Saul was “SICK”, tormented by an “evil spirit”; who’d he call to come serenade him to sleep, ease his affliction? DAVID! David says, “When YOU were afflicted, I WEPT for you, PRAYED for you, I afflicted MYSELF for you with FASTING… and THIS is the thanks I get in return?”
“at my stumbling they rejoice and… gathered together against me”, to KICK me when I’m DOWN, and vulnerable.
They “tore at me without ceasing”, these “wretches whom I did not know”. That’s an interesting detail; some commentators think David can’t be talking about Saul here, because David of course knew Saul WELL. But I think we can interpret this in TWO ways: first of all, David’s ASSAILANTS here are consistently PLURAL; ALL of the pronouns here - “THEY rose up… THEY repay… THEY tore…” - they’re all plural. Meaning it wasn’t JUST Saul who came against him; Saul recruited a whole ARMY of “wretches”. The same ARMY, by the way, who’d ALSO been there that day in the Valley of Elah and witnessed David’s courage and DELIVERANCE of Israel over Goliath and the Philistines. THOUSANDS of soldiers “whom (David) did not know”, but who knew HIM, and who sang his PRAISES as they returned home from battle: “David has killed his TENS of THOUSANDS…” (actually, those praises are where we first see Saul’s jealousy against David bubble up; 1 Samuel 18 says, “Saul was very angry, and [the crowds’ songs] displeased him…. So Saul eyed David from that day on” (vv8-9).
Now, that same unknown crowd who once PRAISED him has turned on David as well. Remind you of anyone else? Who was PRAISED as he rode into town on Palm Sunday - “Hosanna! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!” (Mk 11:9-10) - but just LIKE David, he was praised at first, but then ATTACKED just days later: “CRUCIFY Him!”
But the OTHER explanation for David claiming he “does not KNOW” his “wretched” opponents here, is perhaps he’s saying of Saul: “Well, I THOUGHT I knew him! I thought we were COOL! But clearly I did NOT know him… at ALL!”
They “tore at me without ceasing… they gnash at me with their teeth”; I emphasize God’s PRESERVING grace here in point #2 because of just how OFFENSIVE (in every sense of the term) David’s enemies have become now. Hence, his plea for protection: “Rescue me from their destruction, my precious (or “ONLY”) life (David’s saying, “I’m not a CAT! I don’t have SEVEN! This ain’t Super MARIO where you start with THREE lives and can collect even more… respawn… NO! This is IT for me! If these “lions” KILL me - that’s IT! Game OVER! So God: RESCUE me! PROTECT me! PRESERVE my single, solitary life.
And once again, David PLEADS, he places his HOPE in the Lord’s deliverance, so much so that he ends this section once again with PRAISE, in v18: “I will THANK you in the great congregation; in the mighty throng I will praise you.”
If we can make this personal now, and consider a new “enemy” this time: how about THE WORLD? The treatment that Christians get - SHOULD get, anyway; should EXPECT to get; cuz Jesus all but PROMISED, “If the world HATED me, it will ALSO hate YOU” (Jn 15:18-20).
Do you ever feel like it “repays” you “EVIL for GOOD”?
-You stay late at work getting the big report ready, and your BOSS takes all the credit; that’s the way of the WORLD.
-My daughter came home crying from school this past year, because she’d be sitting with her friends (well, she THOUGHT they were here friends) at the lunch table, and another friend would come and wanna sit with them but they’d run out of SEATS at the table, and so Ellery is SO sweet, that she offered to get up and go sit ALONE, and give that girl HER seat. Well apparently this had happened like MULTIPLE DAYS in a row, and none of the girls EVER said, “No, Ellery: you sat alone YESTERDAY; I’ll go…” or “How about we ALL divide up into TWO groups so that NO ONE has to sit alone…” - they didn’t do that; WHY? Cuz they’re WORLDLY! They are selfish little 4th grade BRATS who instead imposed upon my daughter’s KINDNESS, her CHRIST-like-ness. They repaid her GOOD with EVIL. That’s the way of the WORLD.
I was thinking about it this week especially in light of our country’s big semi-quincentennial BIRTHDAY - “Happy Fourth (or FIFTH), by the way” - but I was just remembering how RIDICULOUS the “CANCEL culture” got just a few years ago; remember they were trying to cancel (“THEY”; “wretches whom I do not KNOW”; THEY…) tried to cancel pretty much ALL of the Founding Fathers - Washington, Jefferson, Franklin… they were slave-owners, they mistreated Native Americans, so we’re gonna IGNORE all the GOOD they did - like FOUNDING our COUNTRY! - and focus only on the BAD, and we’re gonna PURGE them from the HISTORY books, TEAR DOWN their STATUES. Remember they even tore down Abe LINCOLN’S statue?! Cuz he didn’t free the slaves ENOUGH, or something crazy; the city of Boston removed their “Emancipation Memorial” because they thought the freed slave in it looked too “subservient”, bowing at Lincoln’s feet, in gratitude.
They say “NO GOOD DEED goes unpunished,” right? “Nice guys finish LAST” around here, in the WORLD’s corrupt system.
Why? Jesus diagnosed it perfectly in John ch3: “light has come into the world, but people loved the darkness RATHER than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed” (vv19-20). The world can’t STAND good men like Lincoln or David or JESUS because that much LIGHT has a way of EXPOSING our own darkness and SIN by comparison, by CONTRAST. We killed JESUS because we feel GUILTY when He’s around; his SINLESSNESS can’t HELP but remind us of our sin-FUL-ness… and we HATE it. Darkness HATES the light; it “gathers together AGAINST it”, to EXTINGUISH it.
Invitation #3 now - We can plead, put our trust in, and praise the Lord for His VINDICATION. (vv19-28)
That is David’s new emphasis in this final section now: being VINDICATED by the Lord - “CLEARED of all accusation”, “JUSTIFIED in his righteousness”, and “DEFENDED against his opposition,” even “AVENGED”; the word “vindicated” carries ALL those connotations.
And we see ALL of that in David’s PRAYER here: “Lord, “Let (them) not rejoice over me”; don’t let them WIN…”; “Awake”, v23, “and rouse yourself for my vindication, for my cause, my God and my Lord!
Vindicate me, O Lord, my God,
according to your righteousness,
and let them not REJOICE over me!”
That is David’s CRY, and his CONFIDENT assurance: that his haters WILL be “put to shame and disappointed altogether”, but “those who delight in my righteousness (shall) shout for joy and be glad” (vv26-27). And once again, in RESPONSE, David vows to PRAISE the Lord for His vindication; v28: “Then my tongue shall tell of your righteousness, (Lord)
and of your praise all the day long.”
Historically, we know the Lord DID vindicate David. Saul was killed, David returned from exile, and assumed his rightful place on the throne, as king.
And I’m itching to finally get to the PROPHETIC fulfillment of all of this in CHRIST, but let’s consider first our PERSONAL vindication, because it is so INTER-CONNECTED with Christ’s vindication, that I think it’ll offer us a good segue way.
But we’ve considered how the Lord SAVES us from SATAN; how He PRESERVES and PROTECTS us from the WORLD; but what about God’s VINDICATING us of our FLESH, our own SIN? Just look at David’s LANGUAGE here, and consider with me how it applies to our OWN fight against indwelling SIN:
V19: our sin wants to “REJOICE”, TRIUMPH over us; “MASTER” us (Gen 4:7).
V20: it does not speak / bring “PEACE” into our lives, but CHAOS and DESTRUCTION.
V20: sin DECEIVES us; it PROMISES us happiness, but only leaves us feeling guilty and empty in the aftermath.
V21: our flesh “opens wide [its] mouth against [us];
saying, “Aha, Aha! Our eyes have seen it!”” - the Bible says “our hearts CONDEMN us” (1 Jn 3:20), our sin loves to REMIND us of our shortcomings and failures: “I SAW that!”
But now David makes the TURN in v22: “But “YOU have seen, O Lord; [The WORLD, the DEVIL, even our own FLESH says, “I SAW that! You’re GUILTY!” But we cry out with David: “But YOU have seen me TOO, Lord! You look DOWN from heaven on my HELPLESS estate, and I am TRUSTING you, I’m BEGGING you, to COME to my aid…] be not silent! Be not FAR from me!”
“Vindicate me, O Lord…
according to…” MY righteousness? No! “...according to your righteousness”! Friends, the Bible says that all our righteousness is but “filthy rags” (Isa 64:6), compared to the holiness that God desires, and deserves and DEMANDS of us. We need a righteousness - and a vindication - that is NOT our own. We need CHRIST’S righteousness! CHRIST’S vindication - HIS victory over our sin.
*Our sin wants to “rejoice”/triumph OVER us, v19; but in Christ, “We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that [our] sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin,” Romans 6:6.
*Our flesh wants to make a public SPECTACLE of our sin and guilt, v21: “Aha! Aha! We SAW that!”; but Christ has put our enemies - the world, the devil, AND the flesh “to open shame,” made a “public spectacle” of THEM, by triumphing over them in [his death and RESURRECTION]”, Colossians 2:15.
*Our sin’s “desire”, v25, is to “swallow us up”; but in Christ, we have a Savior who “swallowed up Sin and Death FOREVER in VICTORY”, 1 Cor 15:54.
Friends, Jesus IS the prophetic fulfillment of Psalm 35.
HE was the one “hated without cause”; as a matter of fact, Jesus QUOTED this psalm in John 15:25, on the night before he was betrayed and crucified: “the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated me without a cause.’”.
His “SOUL” was “BEREFT”, there in the Garden of Gethsemane, as He pleaded for the cup of God’s wrath to pass from Him.
“Malicious witnesses” rose up against him, bringing false charges of blasphemy and sedition.
Jesus brought NOTHING but KINDNESS and LOVE everywhere he went, and yet his enemies “repaid” him “EVIL for his GOOD”.
They “gathered together AGAINST” him and “REJOICED” as He “stumbled” up the hill of Calvary, under the weight of His cross… under the WEIGHT of our SIN!
He was “profanely MOCKED”, v16, as he HUNG there; the soldiers and Sanhedrin “GNASHED their TEETH” at him.
He PRAYED, “How long, O Lord, will you look on? Rescue me from their destruction”. “My God, My God, why have you FORSAKEN me?” My “precious life… to the LIONS”?
And that wasn’t ALL that Jesus prayed from the cross. You know, there is ONE massive, really important way in which Jesus was NOT like David. David prays here in Psalm 35 for his enemies DOWNFALL: “Let them be put to shame… Let destruction come upon them”. But you know what JESUS prayed, for HIS enemies?
“Father, FORGIVE them, for they know now what they DO.”
And friends, it’s a really good thing that Jesus is even more merciful and forgiving than David, because WE are his enemies! It was OUR sin that held him there, on the cross! And yet, while we were YET sinners, REBELS… ENEMIES… because of the great LOVE with which He LOVED us, Christ DIED for us.
[[CONCLUSION]]: But that was NOT the END of Jesus’s story. Because the “shame and dishonor” with which he was “clothed” on the cross that Good Friday was ECLIPSED by His VINDICATION on Easter Sunday, as Jesus TRIUMPHED over death and grave in His GLORIOUS RESURRECTION! And this morning, He invites YOU to join him in His DEATH - CRUCIFY your flesh, the world, the devil - that you might ALSO be RAISED to newness of LIFE with Him, in His resurrection.
Repent of your sin, trust in Jesus for salvation, and find eternal LIFE in Him this morning. Let’s pray…