“'In You I Take Refuge': Hope in God’s Deliverance (Psalm 31)” | 9/13/2020
Psalm 31| 9/13/20 | Will Duval
This morning, we continue our study of the “Psalms of Hope”; we’ve now looked at Psalms 13, 23, 27, and 30 together, and this morning we’re going to be camping out in Psalm 31 - “In You, O Lord, I Take Refuge”, and we’re reflecting on the hope that we find in God’s DELIVERANCE. Which bears the question: deliverance... from WHAT?
In Christianity, we sometimes refer to the “3 enemies of the soul” - the flesh, the devil, and the world. The FLESH refers to our personal SIN; we are all born with an internal, fleshly, fallen, sinful nature. The DEVIL, Satan, is the external, supernatural, spiritual embodiment of evil. But then there’s this third category: “the WORLD”. Psalm 31 for today is David’s cry for deliverance from the perils of THE WORLD. But it’s a category that evangelical Christians like us often struggle with. And here’s why; quick history lesson:
In the early 20th c., in the wake of the Enlightenment - the Protestant church was basically split into two big camps, around one big issue: the inerrancy of Scripture.
The Inerrancy of Scripture - the fact that the Bible is God’s word, and as such, it contains no errors, it is perfectly trustworthy and authoritative in all matters to which it speaks - that doctrine really became the dividing line for churches. And sadly, MANY churches bought into Enlightenment thinking hook line and sinker - “We can’t square these new scientific theories like evolution with Genesis 1… we can’t see, hear, taste, or touch angels, we can’t empirically verify their existence…” so there was this attempt to “demythologize” the Christian faith; basically, to remove the FAITH component altogether; to strip away anything deemed unreasonable for a “modern, Enlightened” person to believe.
So instead of the BIBLE being authoritative over you; now YOU become the authority over the Bible. Such churches will say the Bible “contains” the word of God, but it is not itself “the word of God”; we decide which parts are which. So if you don’t like what the Bible says about homosexuality? That part was written by an uneducated, 1st c. bigot. But the part about “loving your neighbors”... we like that; we’ll keep it.
Now go back to the 3 enemies of the soul - eventually, liberal, mainline Protestantism reached the point where they said: 1) we can’t believe in a literal devil; that’s the stuff of fairy tales; And #2) when it comes to “the flesh”, we definitely don’t want to believe that we are all inherently sinful, that sinners deserve, and most sinners will actually spend, an eternity separated from God in a place like HELL; if we can get rid of ANY doctrine, Hell is gonna be the first one to go! And so liberal Protestantism essentially redefined, and narrowed its understanding of “sin” to just that third category: “the world”. Sin isn’t so much a “me” problem, as an “out there” problem. Sin won’t keep me, personally, from a holy God; he’s too loving and forgiving for that; the real problem with sin is that the WORLD is so full of it; it’s a systemic problem.
And in response, evangelical Christianity, the biblical inerrantists, rightly stood up and said, “WHAT?!” 1) Jesus himself interacted with Satan; are you gonna demythologize HIM next? (And many do; self-identifying “Christians” who discredit Jesus’ miracles, and reject his literal, historical, bodily resurrection.) Evangelicals said, 2) “the substitutionary atoning death of Christ in the place of fleshly SINNERS is the very CORE of the gospel; you take that away and Christianity becomes just another self-help, do-it-yourself religion.
But in our insistence on the personal, individual, internal dimensions of sin, we evangelicals have swung the pendulum SO far that when it comes to that THIRD category - the “world” - we often neglect the very real corporate, systemic, external reality of sin as well. The Bible gives us categories for BOTH. The Bible says “there is PLENTY of sin to go around: YES, sin in YOU, in ME, but also sin in systems, institutions… sin in the CHURCH. Sin in... every form of man-made government in the history of the world, yes, even democratic republics. Sin in... every form of man-made economic structures, yes, even capitalism. Scripture affirms that sin really does pervade EVERYTHING that sinners like you and me touch, in this world. And if you think that God only sees us and judges us as individuals, that God isn’t concerned with corporate sin as well, I would encourage you to read ANY of the OT prophets. They are EXCLUSIVELY written in second person PLURAL indictments: “y’all screwed up”; “y’all are mistreating the poor”, “y’all have forgotten about the orphans.” It’s God’s judgment against the unjust and oppressive systems and structures that his people have put in place.
Psalm 31 confronts our evangelical, individualistic sensibilities. Psalm 31 isn’t about David’s personal sin. He only mentions it ONCE, in v10, almost as if to say, “Listen God, I know I’m not perfect, BUT…” and then he continues on. Psalm 31 isn’t about the devil; I could over-spiritualize it and make all these references to David’s “enemies”, his “adversaries”, his “persecutors” about our fight against SATAN; but I think that’s a disingenuous reading of the text. No, Psalm 31 is all about sin in “THE WORLD”. What do we do, as believers, with the sin “out there”? It’s appropriate that we’re discussing this passage the week of Sept 11th. There is real sin “out there”, amen? David is being sinned AGAINST in Psalm 31, and the question for him, and vicariously, for US this morning, is “how will we RESPOND when we are sinned against?”
Have you ever felt like you were a VICTIM? Some of you hear that word, and you immediately go to Marxism, critical theory, intersectionality. I’m not trying to be political this morning; I’m just saying, in the Bible, and in life, there really is such a thing as oppressors and victims. And the really interesting thing about Psalm 31 is that the VICTIM here, is a king who was presumably the most powerful guy in the COUNTRY! You don’t have to be poor, powerless, marginalized, a minority… to be a victim. King David was victimized. Jesus was the most powerful guy to ever walk the PLANET, and he was the victim of the worst crime in history.
The dictionary defines a “victim” as “a person harmed as a result of someone else’s action.” By that definition, I’d go so far as to speculate that we have ALL been victims, at one time or another. Last week, Polly and I got a letter from our neighborhood association claiming they never received our check in the mail, so now we owe a $90 late fee on top of it, or else they’re sending the bill to collections. Polly can’t prove she put the check in the mail. So now she’s gotta drive all the way downtown and physically deliver another check herself, and pay a late fee... we are victims of the Postal Service’s incompetence. (Eli - can you do something about that for me, brother?).
A more serious example: I was the “victim” of a wrongful termination, from my previous job, as youth pastor at a secular boarding school in Indiana; it was essentially religious discrimination: I was let go because my boss was the liberal kind of “Christian”, and I was the evangelical type, and she got upset that I was preaching the gospel and telling students they needed Jesus, so the school didn’t renew my contract. What recourse did I have? HER boss, the head of school, was an agnostic.
*Where do you GO, when you’re the victim of bureaucratic incompetence. To whom do you appeal, when you’re the victim of workplace discrimination... when the whole SYSTEM is corrupt?
*Where do you go, when you’re a child, and you get sexually abused by your own father? Verbally abused by your own mother? When the very people charged with PROTECTING you, looking out for you, are the ones victimizing you?
*Where do you go when you’re the victim of racial discrimination by the police? The very people charged with protecting you…
*Where do you go when you’re the victim of spiritual abuse? I met with a big group of folks just this past week, who are checking out West Hills now after they got run out of their old church for questioning the leadership; there was some shady stuff going on and this contingency of like 40 or 50 of them started asking questions, and they were essentially told they were in SIN for even questioning their elders; Hebrews 13:17 - “submit to your church leaders”... Where do you turn, when you feel like you have no more recourse? Nowhere left to turn?
David’s answer, in Psalm 31, is that the believer turns to the LORD. We entrust our lives into HIS hands. And this psalm divides up into 4 sections, that offer us an OUTLINE for understanding how we ought to respond when we’re faced with distress, in particular, distress imposed ON us by “the world”, when you’re the victim of others’ sin, like David.
So would you stand with me, as you’re able, for the reading of God’s word. Psalm 31:
In you, O Lord, do I take refuge;
let me never be put to shame;
in your righteousness deliver me!
2 Incline your ear to me;
rescue me speedily!
Be a rock of refuge for me,
a strong fortress to save me!
3 For you are my rock and my fortress;
and for your name's sake you lead me and guide me;
4 you take me out of the net they have hidden for me,
for you are my refuge.
5 Into your hand I commit my spirit;
you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.
6 I hate[a] those who pay regard to worthless idols,
but I trust in the Lord.
7 I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love,
because you have seen my affliction;
you have known the distress of my soul,
8 and you have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy;
you have set my feet in a broad place.
9 Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress;
my eye is wasted from grief;
my soul and my body also.
10 For my life is spent with sorrow,
and my years with sighing;
my strength fails because of my iniquity,
and my bones waste away.
11 Because of all my adversaries I have become a reproach,
especially to my neighbors,
and an object of dread to my acquaintances;
those who see me in the street flee from me.
12 I have been forgotten like one who is dead;
I have become like a broken vessel.
13 For I hear the whispering of many—
terror on every side!—
as they scheme together against me,
as they plot to take my life.
14 But I trust in you, O Lord;
I say, “You are my God.”
15 My times are in your hand;
rescue me from the hand of my enemies and from my persecutors!
16 Make your face shine on your servant;
save me in your steadfast love!
17 O Lord, let me not be put to shame,
for I call upon you;
let the wicked be put to shame;
let them go silently to Sheol.
18 Let the lying lips be mute,
which speak insolently against the righteous
in pride and contempt.
19 Oh, how abundant is your goodness,
which you have stored up for those who fear you
and worked for those who take refuge in you,
in the sight of the children of mankind!
20 In the cover of your presence you hide them
from the plots of men;
you store them in your shelter
from the strife of tongues.
21 Blessed be the Lord,
for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me
when I was in a besieged city.
22 I had said in my alarm,[b]
“I am cut off from your sight.”
But you heard the voice of my pleas for mercy
when I cried to you for help.
23 Love the Lord, all you his saints!
The Lord preserves the faithful
but abundantly repays the one who acts in pride.
24 Be strong, and let your heart take courage,
all you who wait for the Lord!
This is the word of the Lord... (LET’S PRAY…)
-
FOUR things the Christian will do, when oppressed, in times of distress:
#1) Before we do ANYTHING else, We PRAY (vv1-8): We Put our lives in God’s hands, and PRAY.
Now, listen to me: “putting your life in God’s hands”, going to Him first, doesn’t mean you go to Him ONLY. If you get mugged, you may go to God... AND the police. If a drunk driver takes the life of your child, you may go to God AND a professional Christian counselor. If you catch your husband cheating, you may go to God AND the elders of the church. Going to God first doesn’t mean going to God only. Please hear that this morning.
But it DOES mean, above all else, trusting in the LORD, v1, to be your REFUGE. Your shelter from the storm. Trusting Him, v1, to “deliver you”. David says, “let me never be put to shame”; shame is “public disgrace”. The context for Psalm 31 was likely David’s being deposed and exiled from Jerusalem by his own son, Absalom. Talk about a walk of shame! And David lived in an honor-shame culture, where experiencing blessing was considered a sign of God’s divine favor, while experiencing troubles signified God’s judgment. David says, “God I know you don’t work like that; I know that you’re not just some impersonal, karma dispenser; that sometimes the wicked really DO prosper, and the righteous DO suffer in this life, but God - THEY don’t know that! The world is gonna look on my suffering and shame and say, “Man, that David must be SOME kind of SINNER…”
So God, would you “DELIVER me… incline your ear - LISTEN to me. RESCUE me, speedily. Be my “rock of refuge”, my “strong fortress”. These are vivid, powerful images of God’s protection and safety.
And then David shifts in v3 from a prayer of petition to a prayer of thanksgiving, from asking to proclaiming: “you ARE my rock and my fortress”, “you ARE my refuge” (v4), “you TAKE me out of their net”, you “LEAD me and guide me”, and WHY does God do it? V3: “for your name's sake”. God delivers us, primarily, for his OWN glory. Because HE gets glory from v5, “redeeming” us, from proving that he truly is a “faithful God”. Remember Psalm 23 “He leads me in paths of righteousness; WHY? for his name's sake”. John Piper recognizes: “there is a great sense of confidence that arises from the conviction that God’s honor is at stake in the way he is leading my life”.
And it is because of that confidence that David can declare in v5: “Into your hand I commit my spirit”; God - I’m trusting YOU and you alone. In my FLESH, my natural reaction is to cling to and desperately try and leverage whatever little power I have remaining - you try and oppress ME with a late fee; you better be ready to LAWYER UP! You fire ME without just cause; I’ll take matters into my OWN hands. But David models for us here the kind of FREEDOM that comes from simply turning it over to God, and trusting Him for deliverance. I commit my spirit into the hands of the One who made it, who has the power to actually redeem it.
David declares in v5, “you have redeemed me”. Past tense. But then he turns around in v9 and continues praying: “God, I’m still in distress!” What’s going on?
Scholars call this the “prophetic perfect” verb tense. Where the past tense is used of an event - like redemption here - that is still yet to occur in the future, so as to emphasize the author’s certainty that it will actually happen. That it’s as “good as done” (Ash, Psalms for You, 60).
And because of that certainty, David is resolute, in v6, about where his hope truly lies. David lays out the options for us, for where we can turn when life gets tough, ready for them? Two options: #1) trust in the Lord, that’s David’s pick; OR, 2) trust in “worthless idols”. Everything else you will turn to and trust in when you are in distress - your bank account, your job security, your intelligence, your family, your ____ [fill in the black] - David says, “let’s call it what it is: it is IDOLATRY!” It’s a violation of BOTH commandment #’s 1 AND 2: “You shall have no other gods before me” / Trust in Yahweh alone, and “Don’t make IDOLS!”; if you are stressed about the coronavirus and you keep running to cable news, to the CDC, to social media; David says, “You might as well go ahead and build a GOLDEN CALF! It is idolatry; GOD is our refuge and fortress; don’t run to anyone or anything else. It’s “worthless”. “The word means empty, vain, useless” (Ash, 61); everything else will inevitably let us down. “When David says, ‘I hate those who pay regard to them’, he’s not expressing a personal vindictive hatred; the word means to ‘oppose’, to ‘have nothing to do with’, I will NOT join them in their idolatry.” (Ash, 61)
Instead, David says, v7: “I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love”
In God’s chesed; His covenant love; God is bound to David, by his own name. My wife made a covenant to me; when she said “I do”, she BOUND herself to me, her name and honor are at stake now. “For better or worse, richer or poorer, til death do us part” - friends, if you are in CHRIST, you can now rejoice that no matter how dark life seems to get, no matter how much “the world” seems to oppress you, no matter how alone and abandoned you may FEEL at times - feelings come and go, they aren’t trustworthy; God’s covenant LOVE is trustworthy. The Almighty God of the universe has BOUND himself to you in covenant faithfulness! So no matter HOW bad life gets, you can say in the MIDST of your trials: “I will rejoice and be glad, because...
V7: God sees my suffering.
He knows my pain (not just “intellectually”; the word is “yada”, it’s the same word the Bible uses euphemistically for “knowing one another sexually”; God intimately knows my distress, because he tasted it for himself on the cross)
V8: God has promised never to leave or forsake me
And he has “set my feet in a broad place”, literally, an “uncramped space”. Imagine being in a room where the walls are closing in on you. Life feels that way sometimes, doesn’t it? But David says, God plucked me out, delivered me from the shadow of death, and set me back in a broad, spacious place. I can trust his promises, that He has plans to PROSPER me not to harm me, that he’s working all things together for my good - his promises are as good as done. Even THOUGH, we see in vv9-13, at present, David is still in the crucible.
So #2) After PRAYER, we Pose our Problem to God (vv9-13): Be honest about your situation.
Remember Psalm 13 from a few weeks ago, and the good news that Christianity is such an HONEST and REAL faith. It doesn’t just try and slap a smiley face over your pain; our faith allows us and actually invites us to get REAL about our hurts. We noted it again LAST week: God doesn’t promise to REMOVE your sadness (“Weeping may tarry for the night...” but what? JOY comes… in the MORNING”); God promises to REDEEM our sadness. To collect our tears in his bottle and ultimately, to right every wrong.
But in the meantime, in the here and now, God knows there will still be plenty of weeping. Like, enough at times, v9 to make your eyes feel like they’re “wasting away from grief”. Have you ever cried so much it hurt? Your eyes just gave up. We surrender. You literally ran out of tears.
David says: Not just my eyes, but “my soul and my body also.”
V10: “my whole life is spent with sorrow,
and my years with sighing; [the health wealth and happiness gospel is just STUPID! God let David go YEARS on end filled with sorrow. Some of you will live with some degree of sorrow lingering for the rest of your LIFE for that lost loved one; some of you will battle clinical depression the rest of your LIVES. David says:]
my strength fails because of my iniquity, [in other words, “In my sin, I don’t even have the strength to buck up and fight back against my oppressors]
and my bones waste away.” Why?
V11: “Because of all my adversaries I have become a reproach,
especially to my neighbors,
an object of dread to my acquaintances;
those who see me in the street flee from me.”
Even David’s friends have turned their backs on him; and that’s always the worst part, isn’t it? You expect it from your “adversaries”, from those who don’t like you, but when your friends begin to desert you? When my dad left in middle school, all of a sudden I stopped getting invited to a lot of sleepovers. Birthday parties. Because it felt like there was this dark cloud always following me around. And who wants THAT at their party? So my former “friends” would “see me in the street”, in the halls at school, and “flee from me”.
Have you been there? You feel like, v12: “I have been forgotten, like one who is dead;
I have become like a broken vessel.” See, this is why people pray the psalms; they give us language for emotions that, in our moments of weakness, we can’t even find the WORDS to express.
V13: “ I hear the whispering of many—
terror on every side!—
as they scheme together against me,
as they plot to take my life.”
There really are oppressors in this world, victimizers. There are advantageous people out there who want to capitalize on your distress. Whether you’re a king with a crown they want, or they’re predatory loan sharks looking to sell you a subprime mortgage, there are plotters and schemers out there.
So David PRAYS, he poses his problems to God, and then
#3) He PRAYS some more! He returns to prayer, in vv14-18, and Trusts God to deliver him (you)
I want you to notice the REPETITION here; of vv1-8 showing back up again here in vv14-18:
v.1: “let me never be put to shame”; v.17: “let me not be put to shame” v.2: “come quickly to my rescue; . . . save me”; vv.15-16: “deliver me . . . save me” vv.2-4: “my rock of refuge, a strong fortress . . .”; v.14: “You are my God” v.4: “Free me from”; v.15: “deliver me from” v.5: “Into your hands I commit my spirit”; v.15: “My times are in your hands” v.6: “I trust in the LORD ”; v.14: “I trust in you, O Lord”; v7: “in your love”; v.16: “in your unfailing love”
Why the redundancy? I think the point is that we can’t just pray it once and be done... move on; in our times of distress, we’ve got to remain in CONSTANT dependence on God. You start with prayer, you plead your case, and then you pray some MORE! So David cries AGAIN:
“I trust in you, O Lord;
I say, “You are my God.”
My times are in your hand” (vv14-15)
James Johnston (Psalms, 246-7) notes: “When David says, “My times are in your hand” (v. 15), he’s not shrugging his shoulders like a laid-back surfer. “Whatever, dude.” He’s not emptying himself of expectations like an eastern mystic, who says, “You are sad because you want and do not get. If you do not want, then you will not be sad.” And he is not fatalistic like a Muslim who says, “Insha’ Allah”—“it’s in God’s hands.” Rather, this is a towering declaration of trust. David says: “You are my God” (v. 14). And he knows God will rescue him because of his steadfast love, his covenant loyalty. But David trusts God to do it in his own timing. Lord, rescue me when you know the time is best. I would like you to rescue me today. But I trust you if I have to wait until tomorrow or next week. I may not receive the email I need for another six months. You may not rescue me in this life—if I go to my grave still waiting for your promise, I trust you. My times are in your hands”… And God’s hands are the safest place in the world. There’s no better place to trust your life.”
Now, what do we make of v17? “Let the wicked be put to shame;
let them go silently to Sheol”!
There are entire PSALMS in the Bible that are essentially prayers that God would send the wicked to HELL! How do we square that, with Jesus’ command in the NT to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt 5:44)?
I think we have to go back to the feelings vs. actions thing. The Bible gives us permission here to be brutally honest about our feelings. You don’t have to sugar-coat it; God knows your heart anyway. He knows you want your sexual assaulter to rot in Hell. Your child’s drug dealer to burn. And those feelings are perfectly NATURAL. But that doesn’t make them GODLY. In fact, our nature, our SIN nature, our flesh, is diametrically opposed to God’s nature. The apostle Paul says in Romans 7: “there is nothing good in me”, innately (v18).
So if I’m going to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, who prayed while HE hung on the cross: “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do” - I’m gonna have to depend on HIM for that kind of strength; that isn’t coming from inside me. To forgive the drunk driver who killed MY child in a car crash? Uh uh - not coming from me; I want ‘em to BURN.
But part of what it means to trust GOD to deliver you, is leaving justice to Him as well. Romans 12:19 “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it[i] to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 20 To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink… Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
Lastly, #4) Praise God. (vv19-24). Thank God when He DOES deliver you. Better yet, like David, thank Him even BEFORE he delivers you, because you know it’s as good as done. Listen to how David extols the Lord:
“Oh, how abundant is your goodness,
which you have stored up for those who fear you
and worked for those who take refuge in you…
Blessed be the Lord,
for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me…
you heard the voice of my pleas for mercy
when I cried to you for help.”
“Love the Lord, all you his saints!
The Lord preserves the faithful
but abundantly repays the one who acts in pride.
24 Be strong, and let your heart take courage,
all you who wait for the Lord!”
Johnston says (242): “THE AIM OF THIS ENTIRE CHAPTER is for you to be strong.” To be courageous. Because you can trust in your time of need, that God will deliver you. As the old hymn goes,
“When doubt and fear assail me,
And bend my spirit low,
I know there is a Saviour,
To whom I e’er can go”
The story is told (Johnston, 242) of “a house [that] caught fire, and a young boy inside was forced to flee up to the roof. His father stood on the ground below him with his arms outstretched, calling to his son, “Jump! I'll catch you.” The boy had to jump to save his life. But all the boy could see was flame, smoke, and blackness, so he was afraid to leave the roof. His father kept yelling, “Jump, son! I will catch you.” But the boy yelled, “I don’t want to, Daddy—I can't see you.” His father called back, “Just jump, son, you don’t have to see me - I can see you!”
Friends, you have a Father who SEES you, who knows you, and who promises to deliver you in your time of greatest need. You can TRUST him.
We will ALL be caught on a metaphorical burning roof at some point in our lives; the whole WORLD feels like it’s on fire sometimes these days, doesn’t it? The world will oppress you; Jesus stands ready to catch you. Will you jump to him?
Psalm 34:19 acknowledges that “Many are the afflictions of the righteous,
But… BUT! the Lord delivers him out of them all.”
But you still have to jump. Let’s pray.