Psalm 30: "Daddy! Up!"

Psalm 30:1-3

"I will extol you,

O Lord, for you have drawn me up

    and have not let my foes rejoice over me.

O Lord my God, I cried to you for help,

    and you have healed me.

O Lord, you have brought up my soul from Sheol;

    you restored me to life from among those who go down to the pit." (ESV)

Comments:

King David had cried out to God to pick him up, rescue him from his foes and deliver him up from the grave. God had answered and David testified that the Lord had “drawn him up.” Further, David admits that his strength and success before the time of trouble were also due to the Lord preserving him, though he had begun to think that his success was because of his own strength. As a result, David saw the time of testing as a gift for it revealed to him his dependence on the Lord (v. 6-7). He saw the Lord not as normally angry but as One who showed a lifetime of favor. Even moments of discipline are an act of love and favor to those who are taught by them.

Ironically, this psalm was to be sung at the dedication of the temple, after David was dead. Perhaps in this light, it is a plea for the resurrection… the ultimate “Daddy, Up!”

Parents can usually remember times when their children were very young and scared and needed to be picked up and comforted. Perhaps we can remember times when we had to snatch them up into our arms to protect them from a very real danger to their lives—lifting them above sneaker waves, out of swimming pools, away from poisonous snakes, broken glass, snarling dogs, wood stoves and campfires are a few that come to mind. Most of these situations have happened down through the generations in my own family. What have you faced in yours?

Despite the failures of our biological parents, we have a Heavenly Father who does not fail, and is neither mean nor demeaning. He is a Father who doesn’t mock us for our weaknesses but is always working for our good. He is with us no matter what we face. His love changes us, but it doesn’t stop there. He has sent us to continue his mission as his hands and feet on the earth.

There are people around the world who face much worse things than the dangers I listed. There are also many children who had no loving parent to lift them to safety in such moments and there are some moments when even a loving parent has no power to rescue their child. There are far too many children who have been abandoned or abused by a parent, many are even sold into economic or sexual slavery. What an unthinkable idea to most of us…and yet it is all too real, especially for young women.  Such situations make clear the depravity of a darkened mankind. It is in the darkest times that the light can shine brightest, but will we?

At Christmas (as I write this post), perhaps we have heard the haunting lyrics of O Come, O Come Emmanuel which depicts the darkness and prayerful longing into which Christ came as heaven’s answer. Or perhaps we wrestle with the contemporary cruelty of people to each other and the apparent lack of “peace on earth” as the author of I heard the Bells on Christmas Day did. The lyrics to this carol were written by the great American poet H.W. Longfellow, in 1863, after his wife died in a fire and his son was seriously injured fighting for the Union (in the Civil War). The song climaxes with these verses,

And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;

"For hate is strong,

And mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;

The Wrong shall fail,

The Right prevail,

With peace on earth, good-will to men."

Longfellow's conclusion is right, but it doesn't happen automatically. So how can we participate in the Father’s work of deliverance? As one who believes in a miracle-working God, it is my tendency to pray and expect a miracle rather than get personally involved in being part of the answer. There is nothing wrong with praying and expecting a miracle…however, he may want me to be part of the miracle that he plans to work. In which case, I need to assume that the first miracle that results from my prayer is that of the Lord changing my heart to help the oppressed...to advocate with them in their plight.

Our mourning, along with theirs, can be changed to joy by the loving, protecting, delivering, life-giving work of God…even that which comes through us.

Psalm 28: Judgment in 3-D--“Dragged off, Due Reward, Torn Down

Psalm 28:3-5
Do not drag me off with the wicked,

                                      with the workers of evil,
            who speak peace with their neighbors
                           while evil is in their hearts.
        Give to them according to their work
                      and according to the evil of their deeds;
        give to them according to the   work of their hands;
                                        render them their due reward.
       Because they do not regard the works of the Lord
                                               or the work of his hands,
                                he will tear them down

                                    and build them up no more.

This passage starts with the psalmist expressing his dependence on the mercy of God for deliverance, then turns toward prayer for the Lord to judge the wicked in the sure knowledge that God will do so, and by verse 6 he is once again praising God for answering his prayer.

Dragged Off (v. 3)

David's request, "Do not drag me off with the wicked" can only be depended on if we are not the same as the wicked workers of evil.  We should not be self-deceived into thinking that we can be wicked and not suffer the wrath of a holy and loving God. 

Marley & Marley in
A Muppet Christmas Carol

Verse three's use of the word "drag" reminds me of several scenes in the old Whoopi Goldberg' 1990 movie "Ghost."It powerfully depicted the moment when an evil person died and demons came up out of the sidewalk and dragged their screaming soul off to hell. It was a graphic and memorable image in the midst of an otherwise forgettable movie. A more wholesome illustration is the scene from the Muppet Christmas Carole in which the Marley brothers appear to Scrooge...wrapped in the chains of their own misdeeds and warn him to repent. David's request to not be dragged off was not a request for an exception in God's justice, but a poetic commitment to follow in the ways of the Lord by faith.

God is our saving refuge, our shepherd! To paraphrase Romans 8:37-39, nothing can drag us away from his love. Similarly, Jesus made it clear that if we hear and respond to his voice, none can snatch us from his hand! As it is written,

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. (John 10:27-29)

Due Reward (v.4)

The Lord’s cycle of reward and recompense is sure…though it may not come full circle in this life. What remains will be settled completely in the next. This reward (or recompence in this case) is just because it is “according to”. God will match his response to the person “according to” the three synonymous phrases “their work”, “the evil of their deeds”, and “the work of their hands”, the bill of sin is due and judgment will come.

However, if we think we can approach God and demand justice to be meted out we may be setting ourselves up for a fall since what we need personally is mercy. Our own righteousness is insufficient and we can only fall before a holy God and ask for forgiveness. Jesus taught that “Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy.” (Matthew 5:7) However, those who refuse the mercy of God and show no mercy to others but instead oppress and abuse them will receive their due reward. It will not be one that anyone in their right mind wants to collect and in fact, many spend their life self-medicating in an effort to forget for another hour that such a judgment is coming. It is so much easier to cry out to God like David did and allow God to call forth the response of faithful love in our hearts.

So should we advocate for justice? Absolutely. However the justice we should work for as flawed human beings is restorative rather than retributive. It is not our place to condemn others to an eternal fate but to call them to repentance. It is a merciful justice that advocates for mercy to be extended to those who are oppressed and marginalized by the selfishness of our society.

Downward Destruction (v.5)

God will not regard the work of the wicked and proud person but will oppose it. Verse 5 says,

      Because they do not regard the works of the Lord
                                                or the work of his hands,
                                he will tear them down

                                    and build them up no more.

There are some people who don’t value what God has created, sustained, and redeemed. They deny the existence (or at least the relevance) of God in the creation of the universe. They mock the redemptive work of God in the lives of former sinners. Their actions, attitudes, and words work to tear down what God has raised from the dust. But God will finally respond in kind by opposing their work and tearing it down.

Throughout ancient history, we can see God tearing down empires, nations, and social structures that do not regard his works: Babel, Egypt, Canaan, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, and even Israel at times. Is it not still the way of things...that oppressive regimes are judged as God raises up a justice movement from within or by other nations from without? 

While it is easy to see the sin in the lives of other individuals, other churches, other cities, and other countries, we need to take a second look at our own lives, etc., and make sure that we approach God and others in the humility of faith and the purity of merciful justice.

Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5:5b-7)

If we don't then we will collectively be at risk of receiving the kind of message from God that Pharaoh once did.

Locust Swarm in Australia

So Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh and said to him, “Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go, that they may serve me. For if you refuse to let my people go, behold, tomorrow I will bring locusts into your country, and they shall cover the face of the land, so that no one can see the land. And they shall eat what is left to you after the hail, and they shall eat every tree of yours that grows in the field, and they shall fill your houses and the houses of all your servants and of all the Egyptians, as neither your fathers nor your grandfathers have seen, from the day they came on earth to this day.’” Then he turned and went out from Pharaoh. (Exodus 10:3-6)

If we lift ourselves up then God in his love will bring us down, and if we are low in our own eyes then God will lift us up…higher than we would ever have imagined. We can trust him with our lives! And in that trust, we will pursue justice on behalf of others.