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.

Psalm 9 "Just Men"

Psalm 9:1-2, 15-16, 19-20

I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart;
I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.
I will be glad and exult in you;
I will sing praise to your name, O Most High...
The nations have sunk in the pit that they made;
     in the net that they hid, their own foot has been caught.
The Lord has made himself known; he has executed judgment;
    the wicked are snared in the work of their own hands...

Arise, O Lord! Let not man prevail;

    let the nations be judged before you!

Put them in fear, O Lord!

    Let the nations know that they are but men! Selah

Comments:

This psalm is an acrostic psalm that seems to be paired with Psalm 10. It is acrostic because each four-line section starts with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. This poetic and memory-aiding element does not generally come through in translation. While its poetic technique is acrostic, its style is one of praise and prayer. Psalm 9 seems more focused on praise with a little lament (think “prayer request”) thrown in, while Psalm 10 is more lament with some praise thrown in. 

In Psalm 9 we see the Lord as praiseworthy, upright and just, and enduring. We also see the opposite in the nations/wicked who are despicable, oppressive, and doomed. Do you remember the cereal commercials that touted, “Silly Rabbit, Trix are for kids!” Well, I hear a little of that taunt in the psalmist's descriptions of those who would think that praise, honor, and glory are their own possessions. Praise is for God not for men. If we need to be personally reminded with regularity that we are “but men” (v.20) how much more so for the large groups of prideful people like us that we call nations?

I was talking this week with a couple of friends about how uncomfortable it is when we are reminded that we are “just men” and our illusion that we are something more is shattered. It is painful because such revelation happens in times of weakness, failure, rejection, disappointment, and loss of situational control. However, it is out of such times of conviction that we can confess and repent (1 John 1:9) and experience the total cleansing of Christ. It is out of the crushing brokenness that we can become vessels of encouragement to others (2 Cor. 1:3-5). It is from the dark valley of our humiliation when even in our wildest imagination we can’t take credit for anything good that might happen that God can use us powerfully like he did Gideon’s remnant of 300 (Judges 7:2). In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul wrote a humbling message to the church that thought it had it all together,

For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 1:26-31)

But let’s be honest, how many people would want to play the part of Wile E. Coyote?

Wile E. Coyote Explodes (Looney Tunes)

You remember who he is—the buyer of all things ACME to catch the Roadrunner but who always fell into his own trap (or had his own trap fall on him). Yet we do it all the time when we think we can manipulate and objectify others.

Psalm 9 makes it clear that the person who is unjust, unkind, and treacherous towards other people (who have been made in the image of God) will fall into their own trap (v. 15-16), and worse! So, I am thankful for those times when God reminds me that I am just a man; I don’t enjoy them, but I am thankful for the results.

In the end, God wins, and the nations that forget him shoot themselves in the knee.

 

I pray that my knees might not be locked or hyper-extended in my prideful defiance, but bent in the humility of praise and prayer. So far, the Lord has been faithful to let me know. How about you?

Psalm 7 "The Fury of My Enemies"

Psalm 8:1-2, 6

O Lord my God, in you do I take refuge;
    save me from all my pursuers and deliver me,
lest like a lion they tear my soul apart,
    rending it in pieces, with none to deliver…

Arise, O Lord, in your anger;
    lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies;
    awake for me; you have appointed a judgment.

Comments:

This psalm is considered either an Individual Lament or a Song of Trust while containing both imprecation and lament. Trust psalms (there are 10) center their attention on the fact that God may be trusted even in despair. They help us express our trust in God whether we are doing well or not. They help us express a trust that transcends our circumstances. Here David is suffering at the hands of a certain Benjaminite named Cush. We don’t know anything else about him but assume that he was a follower of Saul in his persecution of David. He certainly was accusing David of something that he had not done…something that would have been not only a threat to David’s reputation and livelihood, but also to his very life.

There are three simple observations I would like to from these verses—refuge, judgment, and the fury of my enemies.

Refuge

Refuge (Heb. chacah; pronounced “khaw-saw”) is a common idea in the Psalms where it is used at least 24 times for the act of seeking shelter, placing one's trust for protection, and deliverance. The question for us, as well as for the psalmist, is not do we seek refuge, but where do we seek it. Where do we seek refuge from those who pursue us with malice and seek to prey upon us like a lion? Where can we hide? Who can we trust to have our back—really? Part of knowing where to take refuge depends on who it is that is seeking to harm us. Maybe we don’t recognize the roaring lion that is behind the low-grade harassment we face at school, work, or even at home. We need a refuge that is up to the challenge—“O Lord my God, in you do I take refuge.” He is not our last resort. He should be our first response for he is our only hope! 

Judgment

Occasionally the psalmist will ask for God to judge the wicked, the violent, and the ones who unjustly and deceitfully seek his demise. This psalm is no exception. However what stands out to me is that before he asks God’s judgment on others, he invites that same judgment upon himself in verses 3-5. David is not saying he is sinless, only that he has not done that which he is accused of. It is a good practice to examine our own hearts honestly before pointing at others. I need to judge my own heart first before judging others…and while I am at it, I need to trust it all to the Lord.

Fury

In verse 6 David asks the Lord to act, specifically to “Arise, O Lord, in your anger; lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies…” David has faced the fury of Cush. Fury (‘ebrah) is not just anger, but an outpouring, overflow, outburst of wrath and arrogance. I confess that in my twisted mind I pictured David asking the Lord to come against the Plymouth Fury of his enemies! After researching this idea, I found it more appropriate than I first thought, as perhaps one of the scariest cars ever was a haunted, driver-less, evil, 1958 Plymouth Fury in the horror movie, Christine.

No matter what failures of our past seem to relentlessly stalk us, we take refuge in the blood of Christ at the cross. The scent trail of our guilt ends there with our crucifixion with Christ (Galatians 2:20). Christ lives in us now, by faith, and his life is indestructible!

No matter how strong the attack against us, no matter how heinous the accusation, it is not a stretch for the Lord to be our refuge and our deliverer! He is faithful and true and for that, we lift up our heads and hands and give him thanks!

Psalm 143 "Sitting in Darkness"

Psalm for Today = 143:1-4

¹ Hear my prayer, O Lord;
    give ear to my pleas for mercy!
    In your faithfulness answer me, in your righteousness!
² Enter not into judgment with your servant,
    for no one living is righteous before you.

³ For the enemy has pursued my soul;
    he has crushed my life to the ground;
    he has made me sit in darkness like those long dead. 

⁴ Therefore my spirit faints within me;
    my heart within me is appalled.

Comments:

This psalm of David is classified as an Individual Lament; individual because it is written in the 1^st person singular (me, my, I) and a lament, not because it is sad or mourning, but because it is asking God for something. There was a situation in the life of the psalmist that needed the intervention of the Lord.

What impressed me this morning as I was reading was not David’s request for help but his confession that “no one living is righteous before you”(v.2). As Christians, we are quick to quote Romans 3:23’s “for all have sinned” and move on. Yet I wonder if we really believe that we are sinners who stand no chance of talking, explaining, or bluffing our way into eternity. Surely if God were to judge between us and our enemies, we would be justified — right? No, we are all unable to stand should God enter into judgment with us…no matter our nation, race, culture, or socio-economic class. We are no better than any other in this respect.

1 John 1:8-9 says, ^“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

David understood confession. He also understood how his enemies had impacted his life. In poetic language, he describes the darkness in which he was forced to live. How Jesus changes this! While our physical circumstances may not be changed immediately, Jesus came to minister to those in darkness. As we see in the Gospels,

Matthew 4:15-17 [Isaiah 9:1-2]

¹⁵ “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali,
    the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—
¹⁶ the people dwelling in darkness
    have seen a great light,
and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death,
    on them a light has dawned.”

    the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—

¹⁶ the people dwelling in darkness

    have seen a great light,

and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death,

    on them a light has dawned.”

¹⁷ From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

John 1:9-13 

“The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. ¹⁰ He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. ¹¹ He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. ¹² But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, ¹³ who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. 

Are we a zombie nation, or does our heart condition appall us? Will we confess our need to the Lord? Will we admit our guilt and unworthiness? Will we receive the true light, Jesus Christ’s gift of salvation, or will we sullenly choose to continue sitting “in darkness like those long dead”?

We all need to hear and heed the words of Jesus,
       “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Psalm 140 "What's on Your Head?"

Psalm for Today = 140:7, 9-10

 ⁷ O Lord, my Lord, the strength of my salvation,
    you have covered my head in the day of battle…

    you have covered my head in the day of battle…

⁹ As for the head of those who surround me,

    let the mischief of their lips overwhelm them!

¹⁰ Let burning coals fall upon them!

    Let them be cast into fire,

    into miry pits, no more to rise!

Comments:

The psalmist’s lament (request) to God is to be preserved from violent men (v.1, 5) who are acting out of evil/wickedness. There is a discernible ABC A’B’C’ thought pattern in verses 1-5 if you look for it.

What caught my eye today was the juxtaposition of the psalmist’s head, which had been protected in battle by the Lord’s covering (v.7), and the wicked who are different and upon whose head David prays an imprecation. Yet if we look at the content of the imprecation, we see the judgment he prays for them is totally appropriate and is based on their own words and plans against God’s people, “let the mischief of their lips overwhelm them!”

The day of battle dawns for all of us blood red, wrath red, in the morning. As we enter the fray, are we wearing the Lord’s helmet of salvation, or have we been left vulnerable by persistent wickedness and evil to the Lord raining burning coals down on us? It is sad to think that some people are so hateful to others that those others, out of self-defense, would pray a curse on them from the Lord! I don’t want to be a part of that group of violent men. O Lord, preserve me!

Here is an interesting twist. The idea of coals falling on someone’s head sounds familiar in the New Testament context, doesn’t it?

Romans 12:19-21 (ESV) says, 

“Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”

To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him;

                                          if he is thirsty, give him something to drink;

for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.”

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

This is the kind of imprecation we should pray…that they would be totally messed up by our kindness, by our non-violent response to their violent ways, and by our willingness to trust judgment into the hands of God. If we leave the judging to God, our loads will be lightened to lead our community in love and forgiveness! 

May our lives of love and acceptance pour burning coals on the heads of our enemies to the place where they would cry out to you, Lord, to forgive them.

Psalm 111 "With Faithfulness and Uprightness"

Photo by Sven Mieke on Unsplash

Psalm for Today = 111:7-8

The works of his hands are faithful and just;

    all his precepts are trustworthy;
they are established forever and ever,

    to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness.

Comments:

Too often it seems that we sit in judgment on God and his works—critics and Christians alike. Critics look at God’s driving out the Canaanites before Israel as the moral equivalent of genocide. Surely they say, “Such a God is not worthy of worship.” But the psalmist provided commentary on such works of God…as “faithful and just; all his precepts are trustworthy.” As I have written elsewhere, when we don’t understand the reasons, we must rely on a default setting that embraces God’s faithfulness and justice.

But what about those who claim to be Christians? Do we really live like we believe that “all his precepts are trustworthy” and that they should “be performed with faithfulness and uprightness”? Because we are under a different covenant we often think we no longer have to live in harmony with God’s commands. This faulty view of the Bible produces a life of selfishness. Jesus said “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15) Later in the same chapter, Jesus said, “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” (John 14:21)

So what are those commandments that we need to keep? It is true that there are commands in the Old Testament that pertain to diet, dress, and sacrifice within the Mosaic Covenant community that were fulfilled in Christ and while continuing to be instructive for us are no longer requirements placed upon us. Yet the heart of the commands continues. Jesus summed them up when he said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-39)

Because God kept his promises to liberate Israel from Egypt and bring them into the promised land the psalmist not only responded by giving thanks but by encouraging obedience. The psalmist here in Psalm 111 was calling for the same response from us that Jesus later confirms—love God and love your neighbor. All the rest is about helping us to understand what that means and how to do it “with faithfulness and uprightness”.