Psalm 11
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What are the righteous to do when everything seems to be crumbling?
How were you or your family members effected by the recent flood?
How have you or your family members been effected by the floating away of Christian morals in our society?
When things seem hard, what do you naturally find yourself try to find refuge in? Eating? Distraction? Drinking? Isolation? Etc.?
What foundations seem to be shaking in your life?
How can you find refuge in the Lord?
How can you actually do the admonition of Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:18 - “give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”
What is your favorite thing to eat at Thanksgiving?
Jobs have been jeopardized. The family unit has been redefined. Marriage has been mocked. Gender is now fluid and the government has seemingly become more invasive. Nothing seems to be as it was. Even the local churches and mainline denominations that once had leveed walls protecting their members from ungodliness and unrighteousness have taken a wrecking ball to the levee and have become synagogues of Satan and the cultural currents have swept them away.
In all these cases, what are the righteous to do? What do we do when the foundations are being destroyed and they are floating away? If you have wrestled with these questions or at least have had them come across your mind…I want you to know…that is exactly the dilemma David found himself in as he writes Psalm 11.
Textual Idea: When everything around us seems to be collapsing, the righteous ought to take refuge in the Lord.
Textual Idea: When everything around us seems to be collapsing, the righteous ought to take refuge in the Lord.
This morning with the time remaining I believe that the Lord will substantiate this claim and He will do so from His Word and in numerous places in it. So let’s give our attention to the Word of God and submit ourselves to its authority. Let the word be a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. Let’s give our attention to the Lord and let Him speak and let’s find out just like the author of Proverbs 30:5 that “every word of God proves true.” Let’s turn to Psalm 11.
1 In the Lord I take refuge; how can you say to my soul, “Flee like a bird to your mountain, 2 for behold, the wicked bend the bow; they have fitted their arrow to the string to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart;
3 if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” 4 The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord’s throne is in heaven; his eyes see, his eyelids test the children of man.
5 The Lord tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence. 6 Let him rain coals on the wicked; fire and sulfur and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup.
7 For the Lord is righteous; he loves righteous deeds; the upright shall behold his face.
Historical Context: There is not consensus among scholars as to the historical context of this Psalm…the unfortunate reality is that David was in many of these perilous situations throughout His life so I could have been any number of situations or maybe it might even be one that isn’t even recorded in the Scriptures. Knowing the exact historical setting to this Psalm is unimportant, because we all know what it feels like to to have the ground feel shaking underneath our feet.
Passage Breakdown: Verses 1a and 7 – contain the answer to our question: What are the people of God to do when everything around us seems to be collapsing. The answer is, “In the Lord I take refuge for the Lord is righteous; He loves righteous deeds; the upright shall behold His face.” This is where we are heading and we will discover this more in depth in just a bit, but first David needs to tell us what he is being told by those around him.
The Counsel of Despair (1-3)
The Counsel of Despair (1-3)
Psalm 11:1–3 (ESV)
1 In the Lord I take refuge; how can you say to my soul, “Flee like a bird to your mountain, 2 for behold, the wicked bend the bow; they have fitted their arrow to the string to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart; 3 if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?”
This is the advice people surrounding David, more than likely David’s very own men are saying. Basically, why don’t you just go ahead and give up on this idea that a righteous God will take care of His business in a right way. Clearly God is incapable of handling His business. Look at this mess. Look, the foundations are destroyed David so why we just get out of here. Have you ever felt hopeless? Have you ever been given hopeless advice? Have you ever given hopeless advice because the situation just seemed to bleak?
These are essential the words of Chicken Little: “The sky is falling.”
“Flee like a bird to your mountain.” We are birds and we don’t belong out here in the valley, but back up in those hills, there just might be some refuge for us there, so let’s go. Let’s not go putting our beaks where they don’t belong and if we do, we can be be sure of this, we will become targets. We will be in imminent danger because the wicked will put an arrow on a string and bend the bow and then shoot at us in the dark.
That is a pretty grim and dangerous situation for the “righteous one” to be in. When the ground beneath your feet is shaking and the foundations are being destroyed that is scary. We can see that it is a precarious situation to be in if you indeed are a “righteous one” in a world that loves darkness.
I love what David says here. He is so absolutely direct with those who are telling him directly to flee. Look at what he say…he aggressively meets their charged questions with a charged question of his own.
“How can you say to me?” In modern language, almost… “How dare you say to me…flee.” This is David’s heart that is swelled with confidence in God and in God alone, because if you looked at his circumstance whatever they specifically were in this Psalm, I would say his friends advice seems rather logical and fitting. So how can David look at the situation so differently?
Well, firsts lets asses the situation. Let’s observe the threat in verse 2. Being shot by a bow seems to be a legitimate threat to me. If you have been shot by and arrow you probably can’t testify to it because you probably bled out in field somewhere. Verse 2, if real, is very dangerous. An arrow whizzing through the nighttime air and heading straight for my upright heart? Ya I would want someone to warn me about that one. That might sting a bit.
And not to add insult to injury, but look at verse 3. Basically, there is nothing the righteous can do to stop the foundations from destruction or, …there is nothing that the righteous has done, or will be able to do (if the variant reading is correct) to stop them from being destroyed. Either reading is bad news.
What we see here is in these 3 verses is that those who are in power are WICKED and they are trying to KILL the RIGHTEOUS ones. Whoa…do you think David is culturally relevant today? The world is caving in on itself. The entire system is failing.
And so the wicked say, “Checkmate. I win the argument…the foundations are gone…so heed my advise and flee…get our of here, remove yourself and take with you your false sense of inflated importance and so called influence.” Just get out of here.
But is that how a person of faith should live? Do you know what David says… “How can you say this to me?”
David doesn’t agree, he says in this Psalm when everything around us seems to be collapsing the righteous shouldn’t just run to the hills, we ought to take refuge in the Lord. The world is flooded with darkness, but we shouldn’t run from it, we need shine light into it.
We live in a society where it is acceptable to gives two thumbs up to the cruel actions of harvesting and selling body parts of fully intact aborted babies while being outraged at people who say, “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays” because they don’t want Jesus inserted anywhere into the story of humanity. This place is messed up.
We live in a world that has shifted. And we live in a world that has been broken from the fall and was never really what we once thought it was anyway. Just because a culture as a whole once embraced Christian morals as an acceptable and even preferred way of life doesn’t mean that culture was “Christian.” The ideologies we embrace don’t make God pleased with us. We can clean the outside of the cup all we want, but if the inside is dirty…then we are certainly not clean, nor pleasing to the Father. Jesus quoted Isaiah, who was quoting the God of Heaven when He said, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. And their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.”
So there is financial instability, environmental issues, societal violence and there really is injustices happening on the globe, so flee to the mountains right? It certainly is tempting.
What mountain range do you want to flee too? Where are you tempted to find refuge in besides the Lord?
The Mountain Range of Distraction: (Netflix - Hulu - mind numbing candy crush, drug or alcohol usage)
The lonely mountains of Social Media where your identity is inseparably linked to the accounts you hold? Every time you go there, you feel more isolated.
Mountain Range of Despair - woe is me…let’s all just duck and cover or move out of state where the grass might be greener…for a while. Now, some of you listening have made that decision and it might be the right decision for your family. I had people congratulate me for leaving Illinois because of how crazy it is. Then I come to Washington and I miss my Egypt!
Idaho or Montana or any other “Red State” is not the Promised Land. The Promised Land is the the entire globe because the promise that was long ago made to Abraham has been ratified and expanded by the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus. He is ruling and reigning now and His Kingdom will come in its fullness when He returns with a double edged sword that proceeds from His mouth while separating the sheep from the goats, the wheat from the chaff. There will even be hope for Washington State when all things are made new!
So, the advice to flee seems to be good advice because arrows are ready to be made drunk with David’s blood, so the logical thing would be to do is to run away. But that conclusion is absurd to David. Why? He doesn't run because he knows that running and what he can construct into a refuge with his own ability won't bring him refuge at all. David knows that refuge only comes from the Lord.
We have experienced this right when we try to work out situation so that we feel comfortable with the outcome but it still leaves us empty and anxious and worried and nervous and fearful, fretful, self focused and overly cautious.
We dream about greener grass everywhere else, but fail to see the green pastures that we are currently laying down in because
1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.
We try our hardest to understand why bad things are happening and try to map out the inscrutable ways of the Lord and we end up exhausted. We try to understand why God would do things certain things in certain ways, but we do so with out His eternal perspective and perfect providence and we run out of breath as we try to ascend the mountain of self sustenance. We successfully make it into the death zone and run out of oxygen. As it turns out…we are not God.
So while David’s advisors say, “Run, flee, retreat, disengage.” – Let’s see what David says.
The Response of Faith (4-6)
The Response of Faith (4-6)
4 The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord’s throne is in heaven; his eyes see, his eyelids test the children of man. 5 The Lord tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence. 6 Let him rain coals on the wicked; fire and sulfur and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup.
David’s response to the logical advice from his counselors concerning the legitimate threat he was actually experiencing is rooted in what he knows to be true of God. (Oh to be like this). He assessed the situation from a theological perspective. He looked at His situation through the lenses of what he knew to be true of God. What did he know?
Look at verse 4.
1. God is in His holy temple - (The Hebrew sounds like something Yoda would say ) (Yahweh, in temple of holiness is)
2. God is reigning from the throne - (Yahweh, in the heaven chair is)
3. God is aware of all things
4. God is conducting all things in order to test what’s in the hearts of all mankind.
And now look at verse 5 where there is a clear distinction between the RIGHTEOUS and the WICKED. Both the righteous and the wicked are being observed by the Holy One who is ruling all from the Heaven chair. He is orchestrating the current events that David was finding himself in and there are two potential outcomes to the test. He will either pass or he will fail. So that begs the question: What is the determining factor that will either make you pass or fail the tests God brings about? What must David do?
There are two potential outcomes:
1. Pass the test and are righteous: like is says in (1 Pet. 1:3-7)
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you,
5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials,
7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
So we receive the fiery trials and take refuge in the Lord throughout their duration and we pass the test because the sustenance we recieved from the Lord during the trials is more pleasurable than any other “false refuge” we are tempted to run too.
2. We fail the test and are wicked: these are strong words, “His soul hates them.” There is a Christian cliche phrase that says, “God loves the sinner, but hates the sin.” Well, God says in this verse, “My soul hates them” not “My soul hates their sin. Sinners will be sent to hell, not just there sin. This passage say He abhors the sinner. Don’t overemphasize God’s love and underestimate His wrath. Our sin is not outside of us…it is at the core of who we are and we have a holy God who is dead set against sin. That’s the beauty of the cross. So please don’t demean the value of the precious blood of the Lamb to be culturally appropriate by saying God doesn’t hate sinners. Why? Because it was the Lord’s will to crush Jesus who was pierced for our transgressions; who was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. He stood in our place…He absorbed the hatred and wrath of God that we deserved.
Still not convinced God might have a distaste for sinners and not just the sin they commit? Well then verse 6 will be a tough pill to swallow. Does God hate the wicked? Well I don’t know how to reconcile the actions of God who rains down coals of fire on people, if really deep down He wasn’t that offended by them and their sin. I can’t wrap my brain around
the scenario where “well intended” people come to God thirsty and parched and He fills up a cup full of fire, sulfur and scorching hot wind and hands it over and say, “Try this…see if this will do the trick.” It doesn’t make sense. What does make sense is if these people are coming to God for partial refuge, all the while knowing that they are really just appeasing Him for a time and the map leading back to their false mountain ranges of refuge is in folded neatly in their back pocket. You do that…and you will fail the test.
So back to the teaching point of the text.
When everything around us seems to be collapsing, the righteous ought to take refuge in the Lord.
When everything around us seems to be collapsing, the righteous ought to take refuge in the Lord.
First of all who is righteous and how do you become righteous before a holy God when the Scriptures teach us that there is no one righteous, not even one. Those same Scriptures tell us that Jesus “knew no sin, but became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God.” If you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth your need for Jesus you will be saved…you will become blameless, righteous and above reproach. That my friends is grace.
So become righteous and then “take refuge in the Lord.”
The Psalm has come full circle now.
Take refuge in the Lord, behold His face (1a; 7)
Take refuge in the Lord, behold His face (1a; 7)
Psalm 11:1 (1a and 7)
Psalm 11:1a; 7 (ESV)
1 In the Lord I take refuge;...7 For the Lord is righteous; he loves righteous deeds; the upright shall behold his face.
What does taking refuge look like? (back to verse 1 and 7)
Refuge: a place to go to find safety, rest, or comfort, a trusted place to be kept safe.
Refuge: a place to go to find safety, rest, or comfort, a trusted place to be kept safe.
A change in your circumstance isn’t your refuge because God has already removed your biggest hurdle for rest. He has removed your sin as far as the east is from the west. You are safe from His judgement and He is currently and continually smiling on you because of Jesus. You might be undergoing some horrific and scary things right now, but know this, the Lord is righteous and in all that He does, He is acting righteously. We need to have a shift in our perspective. Instead of saying, “Why is God allowing this to happen?” We say, “Since God is allowing this to happen He must be doing something with it.” It must be producing some eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison because we know for certain that those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.
And we can be fueled by by the confidence that one day we will behold His face. Refuge is found and peace is experienced in the certain hope of the future reality of beholding the face of God.
So what happens when the enemy of God after wandering to and fro in the earth sees you like he saw Job may years ago and marks you in the cross hairs of his deadly, fiery poison tipped arrow and unleashes hell on you and your family. If that is your case and the dust settles or the flood waters recede, if you say like Job,
26 And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God,
You pass the test because your refuge wasn’t found in your possessions or your optimal living arrangments.
People the sky isn’t falling. It’s still up there. And even if it was it wouldn’t matter because the One who Himself is our refuge is continually building His universal church across the globe and has been throughout the ages and the stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.
So on this day that starts off our week of Thanksgiving, we can actually do what Paul tells the Thessalonians. We can...
18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
We don’t give thanks “for all circumstance.” We aren’t masochists or gluttons for punishment. Rather we give thanks, “in all circumstance.” Our gratitude isn’t in proportion to the pleasentness of our circumstances…it is in direct proportion to how we seek refuge in God while in those circumstances. It is our duty to be thankful “in all circumstances” because we have made the Lord our refuge alone, and He has made us righteous in His sight.
So the flood waters will certainly rise in our lives and things will be inconvenient or we may suffer massive losses in life, but we are anchored in the reality of the ability to the one who as Psalm 29 says,
10 The Lord sits enthroned over the flood; the Lord sits enthroned as king forever. 11 May the Lord give strength to his people! May the Lord bless his people with peace!
So we receive his strength, and His peace becomes our reality.
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