And turn in your Bibles, please, to the book of Acts chapter 12. And we’re going to read two short selections from chapter 12 of Acts to illustrate the principles that we’ll find illustrated in Psalm 52. So we’ll read verses one through five of Acts 12, and then we’ll skip down to verse 20. and read verses 20 through 24. Listen to this. This is the very word of God.
About that time, Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. He killed James, the brother of John, with the sword. And when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. This was during the days of unleavened bread. And when he had seized him, he put him in prison, delivering him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the Passover to bring him out to the people. So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church.
And then to verse 20. Now Herod was angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon, and they came to him with one accord, and having persuaded Blastus, the king’s chamberlain, they asked for peace, because their country depended on the king’s country for food. On an appointed day, Herod put on his royal robes, took his seat upon the throne, and delivered an oration to them.
And the people were shouting, the voice of a God and not of a man. Immediately, an angel of the Lord struck him down because he did not give God the glory. And he was eaten by worms and breathed his last. But the word of God increased and multiplied. And now, if you’d please turn to the Old Testament and the book of Psalms, Psalm 52. Psalm 52. to the choir master, a mascule of David, when Doeg, the Edomite, came and told Saul, David has come to the house of Ahimelech.
Why do you boast of evil, O mighty man? The steadfast love of the Lord endures all the day. Your tongue plots destruction like a sharp razor, you worker of deceit. You love evil more than good, and lying more than speaking what is right. You love all words that devour, O deceitful tongue. But God will break you down forever. He will snatch and tear you from your tent. He will uproot you from the land of the living. The righteous shall see and fear, and shall laugh at him, saying, See the man who would not make God his refuge, but trusted in the abundance of his riches, and sought refuge in his own destruction.
But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever. I will thank you forever, because you have done it. I will wait for your name. for it is good in the presence of the godly. And that’s the reading of God’s word.
Let’s pray for him to bless it to us now. Lord, once again, we are confronted by words of scripture that sometimes are difficult for us to understand. We read these imprecatory words Help us to understand what to make of them. Lord, teach us from them. We pray again for the ministry of your spirit who breathes these words out, who preserved them for us in the word of God written. And we pray that he would be our teacher. Instruct us tonight for our good and for the glory of Jesus Christ, for it’s in his name that we pray. Amen.
So if you’re familiar with the history of David, you know that over time he fell out of favor with Saul. And as his favor with Saul increasingly declined, Saul’s son and David’s best friend, Jonathan, warned David to flee from Saul, that it was time he needed to get out of town because Saul really did intend to harm for David, and so Jonathan warned David of that. David fled. And in his haste, on his way out of the environs of Jerusalem, looking for a place to seek refuge from Saul, David went to Ahimelech.
Ahimelech was the priest in those days. And he asked Ahimelech for some bread. Now, we’re not going to get into all the ethical dilemmas that bound up in the fact that David was a little bit deceitful, perhaps, didn’t quite tell the whole truth to Himilek. We’re not going to deal with that tonight. make quick reference just for context of this psalm to the fact that Ahimelech did in fact give bread to David and some of the men who were traveling with him.
Not only did he give David bread, but it so happened, we’re never told how this happened, but so happened that there in the place of worship where the show bread was on display, the sword of Goliath which David had taken from Goliath after slaying him, was there and it’s wrapped up. And David asks Ahimelech if he’s got a sword. And he says, there are no swords here except for the sword of Goliath of Gath. And David says, I’ll take it. So Ahimelech, the priest, gave provisions to David and his followers and even armed David with one of the finest swords there was.
And then he went on his way, but it so happened there was a servant of Saul present on that occasion, witnessed the whole thing. That servant’s name was Doeg, he’s made reference to in the introduction to Psalm 52. Doeg was an Edomite. And he’s the villain in 1 Samuel 21, because he went back to Saul. He’s a servant of Saul. And when Saul begins to complain to his other servants that someone in his court is on the side of David, the son of Jesse, Doeg speaks up.
And he says, I saw David. He went to a Himalaya. Himalaya gave him food and a sword. And as a result of that, Saul rashly and wickedly ordered that Ahimelech’s entire clan be executed. And it ended up being Doeg who slaughtered them all at the behest of King Saul.
So that’s the background of this psalm, and that’s why Doeg is spoken of in the introduction. And This psalm was written, as were several of the psalms in book two, during that period after David had been anointed king. Sometimes we lose track of the sequence of events, but apparently David had already been anointed when he went and slew Goliath. So he, God had already rejected Saul, David had already been anointed king of Israel, and yet Saul was still king. David had not yet taken the throne. quite the opposite. He spent years, it seems, fleeing from Saul, evading capture, and so on. But there’s something very special, we might say, about this interim period between the anointing of David and when David actually is made king by the people of Israel.
And Christopher Ashe puts it this way, that this interim period prefigures eloquently and vividly the present age. In other words, the age in which we live. Because Jesus has been given all authority in heaven and on earth, so he’s been anointed, we might say. He is the king, the rightful king, but he has not yet returned for every knee yet to bow to him. And we live in a very similar interim period, like the one David was experiencing in the incident with Doeg.
And so during this in-between time in which we presently live, this psalm reminds us that those who fear the Lord can confidently trust him when faced with violent and deceitful adversaries. That’s what we see in this Psalm. Those who fear the Lord, you and I, can confidently trust him when faced with violent and deceitful enemies. Here again, can’t explain how it happened, but I had my outline in time for the bulletin to be printed. So you see the three points right there, but the character of the enemy, God’s intervention and the confidence of the righteous. Actually, there’s sort of a parallel to the three points from this morning’s sermon, because the themes relate in some respects.
But first of all, this psalm depicts for us the character of the enemy. And when I say the enemy, I’m speaking of the enemy of our souls, ultimately Satan, But all those who oppose us as Christians, all those who oppose Christ, and it may seem self-evident that the enemy that’s being spoken to in the psalm is Doeg, although there are some who dispute that.
They’d say, well, maybe it really refers more to Saul. Well, I would dispute that. Several commentators. kind of brought up alternate views. It’s always seems very natural that he’s speaking to and about Doeg, David is in this psalm. And the reason I think he’s not talking about Saul is because David, as you know, had very high esteem for Saul due to his office. So even all those years that Saul was pursuing David, David respected him, he respected the fact that he was the Lord’s anointed, even when he had opportunity to stretch out his hand against Saul, he would not do it. He knew he’d been anointed king. He knew he would be king someday, but he wasn’t going to grasp that through his own power or through any kind of violent action against the one who was seated on the throne already. And we don’t find anywhere else in Scripture, either in the historical narratives or in the Psalms, where David uses that imprecatory language against Saul. or against the Lord’s anointed.
So, Doeg is the, in the immediate context, Doeg is the villain here, but Doeg represents something more than just himself. So you have David and you have Doeg, and through them we can trace the rivalry. between good and evil, all the way back through history. God’s enemies versus God’s elect. If we think back from David and Doeg, we can think back to two nations, really, because David is an Israelite, Doeg is an Edomite, and the Edomites were opponents of the Israelites throughout their history. And you may already be there with me, maybe you went there ahead of me, but if you go back from Israel to Edom, it takes us back to Jacob and Esau, and the rivalry between those two brothers.
And we could keep going back and back all the way to that primeval rivalry between Christ, the eternal Son of God and Satan. And thinking in those terms, thinking of these rivalries and the original rivalry, we’re reminded by this psalm that we have spiritual enemies. And the character of our spiritual enemies is seen in Psalm 52, and it begins with the opening statement.
Why do you boast of evil, O mighty man? Some English versions, instead of the word boast, will use the word brag. The word there actually means to glory, so it says, why do you glory in evil? Why do you glory in evil? It comes from the same root as the word that we get the word hallelujah from.
It expresses how the mighty man, this evil mighty man boasts and glories in evil. The enemies of God and the enemies of God’s people revel and brag in evil. that shows us aspects of the character of the enemy. And you know, it’s bad enough to do evil, bad enough just to do it, but boasting of it makes it far worse. And that’s the character of the enemy. You notice that the Psalm says that regarding the enemy, his words are destructive, and they’re deceitful.
We see that in verse two, your tongue plots destruction, like a sharp razor, you worker of deceit. And then the end of verse four, makes reference again to the deceitful tongue. So you see two appearances of that word deceit. It’s both times it’s a translation of the same word. And it’s related to the idea of betrayal. So perhaps we see foreshadowings of Judas Iscariot even in this psalm, but it shows us that with his words, the wicked man schemes destruction and his tongue is likened to a sharp razor. He loves evil. He loves lying. He loves words that devour.
You know, in the scriptures say that it’s out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks. And so the deceitful tongue speaks out of the abundance of a heart that loves evil. Because that teaching of Jesus, that from the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, it works both ways. A heart that’s full of God’s spirit and that’s being purified by God’s spirit and that by God’s grace is good, it brings forth that which is good, but the deceitful tongue speaks because the heart from which it speaks loves evil.
So the character, as we see in this Psalm, the character of our spiritual enemies is bad indeed. And the Psalm shows us a pretty bleak outlook for those who are faced by such enemies. But into that shines hope from the only true source of hope. I know we like to talk about, we frequently do talk about those glorious two words, but God, right? Scripture can speak of all kinds of grim realities. But then by the grace of God, we can hear those words, but God, and we have those words right here in this Psalm, verse five, but God will break you down forever. So we have God’s intervention here. This statement in verse five is, you know, those but God statements oftentimes are directed to us as his children, us as his people, as words of comfort. Here, these words are actually directed to God’s enemies. or the enemy in view here in Psalm 52.
So that statement in verse five is spoken to the adversary, but God will break you down forever. In other words, the righteous judge of all the world is going to intervene against the evil man. And what the evil man has sown, he’s going to reap. because Almighty God will do violence to the violent. And you see the violent words that are used there in verses, in verse five, God will break you down forever. He will snatch and tear you from your tent. He will uproot you from the land of the living. So you’ve got break, snatch, tear, uproot.
The psalmist hope then is not merely in a response from God or God’s reaction to evil. His hope is based on an abiding truth that we saw back in verse one. After he asks this rhetorical question, why do you boast of evil, O mighty man? He says, the steadfast love of God endures all the day. as if it’s vain, it’s fruitless, it’s hopeless for the mighty man to boast in evil because of the steadfast love of God. And what does the psalmist say God will do to the wicked? How will he deal with the wicked?
He’ll break them down. And we should remember that. We should reflect upon and meditate upon this psalm when The forces of evil seem strong. Like in the hymn, This is My Father’s World, though the wrong seems oft so strong. And when we just look at that and stop there, it can be very discouraging, can’t it? But God will break them down. Even though they’re like a strong wall, like a fortress, we can remember but God.
And then you see, joined together those two terms, those two verbs, snatch and tear. Both of those words are uncommon words in the Hebrew Old Testament. They’re only used three or four times each in the whole Hebrew Old Testament, but they both imply violence.
There’s this violent sense in which God will snatch them and tear them. And he says, he’ll tear them from their tent. In other words, he’s going to, God is going to dislocate them from that place which is for them safe, that place which for them is familiar. And then you’ve got the word uproot. Those of you who have gardens, you know what it means for a plant to be uprooted. That means death for the plant. It’s the death sentence. And that’s similar to the fate for God’s enemies, because he says he’s going to uproot the wicked man from the land of the living. See lots of plant imagery in the scriptures. Jesus uses so many agrarian illustrations in his parables and in his teaching. And the Holy Spirit, as he breathed out God’s word, used agrarian imagery to describe both the wicked and the righteous.
And so the wicked are described in terms of what? They’re described in Jeremiah as being like a shrub in the desert, in a dry and barren place. Elsewhere, they’re described as a plant that’s plucked up, including the descriptions given here in Psalm 52. in one of Jesus’ parables. He describes the wicked as tares that would be cast into the fire.
But in contrast to that, the righteous are also described using this agrarian plant life description, starting with Psalm 1. The man who delights in the law of the Lord and meditates on it day and night, what’s he going to be like? He’s going to be like a tree that’s firmly planted by the rivers of water. Or in Jeremiah 17, where you’ve got the wicked being likened unto a shrub in the desert, then in contrast, the righteous are described as a plant that’s as a tree that’s planted, just like in Psalm 1, firmly by the waters. And this plant thrives. This tree thrives and it bears fruit. Or to use Jesus’ words in his description in the parable, that the righteous are like the wheat that was sown by the landowner. And then when the harvest is grown, it’s harvested and stored in his barn. image of safety, an image of fruitfulness.
So God intervenes when the evil man boasts and evil when the mighty man boasts and evil his and his gracious blessing is upon his covenant people. And that’s the source of their confidence. That brings us to our final point, the confidence of the righteous. After God gets done describing, in verse five, what’s going to happen to the wicked, then in verse six, we see what will result in the experience of the righteous, and that’s that they’re going to witness and respond to God’s judgment upon his enemies. Look with me at verse six again. The righteous shall see and fear, and shall laugh at him. Now, When it says that the righteous will see and fear, that’s speaking of a holy fear.
They see the works of God. They see how God intervenes. They see how He breaks down the wicked and tears them from their tent and uproots them. And upon observing that, they are in awe of God’s power. And they’re filled with this holy fear. at the sight of his just judgments.
But then it says that they laugh at the wicked. And it’s important that we take a moment to reflect on that. Because it might seem to be something that Scripture doesn’t intend to be when here or in someplace else in Scripture where it speaks of the righteous laughing at the demise of the wicked is not talking about some kind of vindictive, cruel laughter. That’s not what’s in view at all. But again, borrowing from Ash, this is the way he described verse six, where it says they shall laugh at him.
He says this is the delight that rightly greets the triumph of the justice of God. So it’s not a laughing that mocks at the suffering or the misfortune of the wicked, but it’s a laughter like the laughter of Abraham when God said Sarah was going to have a son. It’s a laughter of joyful faith. It’s a laughter of joy and confidence in seeing the Lord God administer justice. And just to reinforce that idea and to add, kind of develop this thought again. When it says the righteous shall see and fear and shall laugh at the man who didn’t make God his refuge.
That is not in any way saying that it’s fitting or appropriate for us to rejoice at the calamity of the wicked. Especially when we get into the New Testament and the teaching of Jesus, we see that that’s the case. We see that we’re supposed to love our enemy. We’re supposed to have compassion. on all. And we’re not to rejoice at anyone’s calamity.
That language of laughter is used in the Bible, but only of God’s enemies, only of God’s enemies. And we, from our perspective, don’t see as God sees. So we don’t know who ultimately are God’s enemies and who aren’t. So what’s our posture then towards the wicked? And particularly, what should be our attitude when the wicked suffer? And we see it in this life, in this present age.
We have some very helpful instructions in Proverbs 24, 17 and 18, where the writer of Proverbs says, do not rejoice when your enemy falls. Let me read that again. Do not rejoice when your enemy falls. And let not your heart be glad when he stumbles, lest the Lord see it and be displeased and turn his anger away from him. When people who we perceive to be our enemies suffer, when calamity comes upon them, it displeases God if we delight in that.
That’s what Proverbs is teaching us. So again, coming back to Psalm 52, when it says that the righteous shall laugh at him, it’s not the kind of laughter that mocks or that revels in the dismay, the downfall of someone else. The righteous observe the cause and effect relationship between the actions and consequences of the wicked. And so then they testify in verse seven, see the man who would not make God his refuge, but trusted in the abundance of his riches and sought refuge in his own destruction. So again, that’s not gloating.
It’s taking note. of a vital spiritual lesson. What’s happening in verse seven is God’s people are discerning the bitter fruit of rebellion against the Lord. And so that word that in our ESV is translated, see, see the man, it’s the same word that many other places translated as behold. It’s like, look, observe.
This is what happens when someone doesn’t make God his refuge, but trusts in his riches or seeks refuge in his own destruction. And then in contrast to that, in contrast to the downfall and God’s intervening and judging the righteous, judging the wicked, excuse me, the righteous prosper.
They prosper in the very truest sense of the word, in the eternal sense. Verse eight, but I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever. So the idea or the picture of a deeply rooted, constantly fruitful tree is a strongly gospel image.
Keep your place at Psalm 52, but turn with me to Psalm 92, where we see another really wonderful example. It’s the basis of a wonderful Psalm paraphrase in our Trinity Hymnal. Psalm 92, from verse 12 to the end, describes the righteous in the same terms that we see Hints of, just brief references to in Psalm 52. It says the righteous flourish like a palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
They are planted in the house of the Lord. They flourish in the courts of our God. They still bear fruit in old age. They are ever full of sap and green to declare that the Lord is upright. He is my rock and there is no unrighteousness in him. So there you see this grace image, this gospel image of a tree that’s established firmly. And the psalmist is saying, but I am like a green olive tree. And we know that all the psalms point to Christ in one way or another. And so Christ really is the green olive tree. Christ is the olive tree, and we are rooted in him. Christ is the olive tree, and we flourish through him. Christ is the green olive tree, and we, through him, have access to the house of God.
As it says in Psalm 5, verse 7, but I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house. I will bow down toward your holy temple in the fear of you. And then in the last verse of Psalm 52, we see the righteous giving glory to God for his gracious deliverance. Verse 9, I will thank you forever because you have done it. I will wait for your name for it is good in the presence of the godly.”
In other words, salvation is of the Lord. You have done it, the psalmist says. It’s none of my doing. It’s all of your doing. And so then, like the psalmist, you and I are called upon to wait upon the Lord. I will wait for your name in the presence of the godly. He says, so we wait on him. And we do it together. We do it as a community. We do it as a family.
We wait on the Lord as the household of the Lord. So the church again in this present age is it’s like David in that interim period. It’s also like unto a Himalak and David in the Doeg narrative, because we are subject to enemies. And we see what the enemies of God did to David. They pursued him. They’re constantly dogging him. Saul was always on the hunt for David. David had to flee from Saul continually. In the case of Ahimelech, though, what happened to him? He was slain.
And the church in this present age is like that, too. Thankfully, we don’t undergo things like that here in this land, but we have brothers and sisters in other parts of the world. that are suffering for their faith physically in very extreme ways. They’re being slain for their faith. I think of Nigeria and how Christians by the thousands are being put to death. I think of North Korea where Christians are imprisoned under very harsh conditions. I don’t know how people could live in such conditions. So, the church today is like unto Himalaya and David in that narrative from 1 Samuel. We’re subject to enemies, and that’s what’s sort of depicted for us in verses 2 through 4. But in the midst of the deceit and the hatred of all of our enemies, always remember and believe that the steadfast love of God endures all the day.
That’s what it says in verse one. And the steadfast love of God endures forever. As it says in the end, that idea of steadfast love that that’s the word chesed. It’s a word I hope you fall in love with if you haven’t already, but it frames this psalm. We see it at the beginning, we see it at the end. And because his steadfast love endures forever, we can trust in it forever. God’s steadfast love does endure forever. That’s the truth. It endures forever.
It’s clear, too, that God wants you to be sure of this. He wants you to know this. He wants you to be absolutely convinced that his steadfast love endures forever. And the reason I can be so certain of that, that he wants you to know it, that is, is because, among other things, the Holy Spirit breathed out an entire psalm to tell you that.
An entire psalm to tell you that the steadfast love of the Lord endures forever. And he tells you in that psalm not once, not twice, not seven times, but 26 times. The second half of every verse in Psalm 136 says what? The steadfast love of the Lord endures forever. Do you think God, your Heavenly Father, is trying to get a message across to you in that? His chesed endures forever.
Psalm 52 begins and ends with the steadfast love of God. Depending on what English version of the Bible you’re using, you might not see that phrase steadfast love. It might be translated something like mercy. Other versions use the term loving kindness. Some of the trendier, newer English versions use the expression faithful love. All those things are fair renditions of the meaning of that Hebrew word, but no matter what the translation is that you use, the thing it speaks of is God’s never-changing, eternal covenant favor. Because God our Father binds himself and obligates himself by an oath to bring you into mansions of glory. You can trust in him and his steadfast love. You can trust in him completely. And you can trust in him forever.
Let’s pray. Father, Your Word is so honest with us. It acknowledges that we have enemies in this life, and it’s open with us about the character of those enemies. We have fierce enemies, Lord. We thank You that You intervene in our behalf. We thank you for the great confidence we can have in our Lord Jesus Christ, that green olive tree. We thank you for your steadfast love, Lord. We thank you that it endures forever. Lord, help us to believe this. Help us to trust in this. Give us that grace and help us to glorify Christ as we continue on our pilgrim way. We pray this all in his name. Amen.