Ps 11

the end of the test

(Psalm 11)

Jason Procopio

Today I’m very happy to begin once again our annual summer series in the Psalms. We do this every year; every year we focus on one specific book of the psalter—and this year we’re looping back around to book one, which comprises Psalms 1-41. So all the psalms we’ll be doing this summer come from this section of the psalms.

We already did a handful of psalms from this section five years ago, so as I was thinking about what psalms to do this year, I was trying to think through what the church has been going through this past year and these past months, to see if there were any that fit our situation. I started reading the psalms with this in mind, and I didn’t have to go very far before Psalm 11 stopped me in my tracks. So that’s where we’re going to begin today—Psalm 11.

Just a quick reminder: the book of Psalms is basically a songbook. It is a compilation of prayers and songs written for the context of the public worship of the people of Israel in the Old Testament, and the church of Christ in the New Testament. So these songs exist to give us examples of what worship looks like: in the context of the church, in the context of our lives, in the context of our prayers and our joys and our struggles.

And it is one of those prayers in struggle that we’re going to see today. The author of this psalm (as we see in the title) is King David, who wrote the majority of the psalms we have here. King David was a man “after God’s own heart,” who knew his own sin very well, and who knew God’s grace very well as a result. He had enemies frequently pursuing him, from outside and from within (one of his fiercest enemies was actually his own father-in-law, the previous king of Israel, Saul). As a result of all of these attacks, David was frequently overcome with despair. 

And this psalm (like many other similar ones) is an expression of how he responds to this despair. So through this psalm, David teaches us a) that it’s okay to despair; and b) how we should respond to that despair when we feel it.

So we’re going to take the psalm bit by bit. In v. 1-3 David establishes what is going on in his own mind as he is suffering; in v. 4, he explains a key aspect of God’s activity in the world; and then in v. 5-7, he explains God’s goal behind this particular activity. And in so doing, David teaches us one key aspect of the way we should see our own lives and our own struggles.

The Righteous and the Wicked (v. 1-3) 

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?” 

We don’t know exactly what is happening—whether he is facing physical attack from outside, or merely chaos from within his own kingdom. At any rate, the attacks are imminent: the bow is set, the arrow is on the string, aiming at the upright in heart. The “foundations” are about to be destroyed. (These “foundations” are either the specific people, like David, who ensure that Israel is judged rightly, or the principles of justice on which Israel was founded.)

It doesn’t really matter what exactly is happening; what matters is the advice David is receiving, either from a counselor or from his own fear: Get out of here! Flee like a bird to your mountain, where you’ll be safe! 

We all understand this reflex: we’ve all known situations which are so frightening, so terrible, that we have only one desire: to hide under the covers and wait for it to all be over.

But David’s response is emphatic: How can you think like that? How can you say that? It makes sense to go to a safe place when you’re in danger, but my “safe place”—my refuge—is the Lord. No mountain, no cave, no fortress could be as solid a protection as he is. 

To understand why David responds this way—with such trust in the protection of the Lord—we have to understand the two opposing situations he presents to us here, without much explanation (because it would have already been known by the people of Israel): the situation of the “righteous,” and the situation of the “wicked.”

When we think of someone who is “wicked,” our minds quickly go to the worst possible people we can think of—we think of a Bond villain. But when the Bible calls someone “wicked,” that’s not what it has in mind. The “wicked” in the Bible are, quite simply, those who pursue sin. That’s the case of every one of us, naturally—sin is rebellion against God, in our hearts and in our acts, and all of us are naturally rebellious against God. None of us want God to be our Master and Lord. We want to be our own masters. So the wicked live in active rebellion against God, and as a result, they see their motives and their actions twisted to wicked ends: they walk further and further away from God, and dig themselves deeper into their own selfish desires.

The “righteous” does the opposite. The word “righteous”, like the word “wicked,” has two meanings. The first meaning of “righteous” is morally just. Just like the wicked may be a genuinely evil person, like Hitler, the righteous may be morally upright. Even unbelievers can be what most of us would consider “good people.” The problem is that biblically, this definition of “righteous” isn’t enough—because even though most of us are pretty “good,” none of us are totally good. There is sin in each of us, and there is a desire to resist the God who created us. So even if most of us may be pretty “good,” none of us are truly “righteous.”

Which is why you need the other meaning. In the Bible, the word “righteous” more often refers to someone who trusts in God for their righteousness. These would be the people who know they aren’t righteous, so turn to the only being in the universe who is (God), and ask him for help. This is what God provided for us when he sent Jesus Christ: Christ became a man, Jesus; he lived the perfect life we should have lived (so he was the first truly righteous human being); then he took our sin on himself and was punished in our place, for our sin; and in exchange for our sin, he gave us his righteousness. So God declares us righteous, because Jesus was righteous for us.

Now of course at this point, David doesn’t know that—this psalm was written centuries before Jesus ever arrived. But David knew God was going to definitively save his people. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, David wrote a number of Messianic psalms that indicate that even if he didn’t know Jesus’s name or exactly what his coming would look like, he knew salvation was coming: so David was waiting for him and trusting in him, in advance.

This is why he can have such solid trust in God’s protection—because he knows that God is the God who saves his people, whom he makes righteous.

The Test (v. 4)

Next, David lays down the principle guiding his confidence—God sees the righteous and the wicked rightly, and thus he knows exactly how to bring about his will in them. V. 4:  

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. 

So there are two things that we must see here. The first is that from God’s throne in his holy temple in heaven, his eyes see. He sees every motive, every action, every thought and attitude. He is all-knowing, all-seeing, he knows what’s going on inside of us.

The second thing is that he tests the children of man—that is, every human being. 

Now it might look as if this “test” is a simple examination that God performs on human beings. But we have to remember that God has no need of such things—he knows and sees everything already. So every time we see God “examining” someone in Scripture, or “testing” someone, we need to realize that there are always two things going on. There is God, who sees into the depths of our hearts and knows us better than we know ourselves. And there is God, who puts us in situations in which we will finally be able to see that which is in us.

Nearly every time this word “test” is used in the Bible, it is referring to a situation God puts someone through, in order to reveal what is inside of them. We talked about this in our series in 1 Peter, and also when we saw Abraham’s test in Genesis 22. The image frequently used in Scripture is that of gold or silver being purified in fire—the fire melts the gold, and brings the impurities to the surface. 

The same word is used in Psalm 66.10:  

For you, O God, have tested us; 

you have tried us as silver is tried. 

Or in Proverbs 17.3:  

The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, 

and the Lord tests hearts. 

If metallurgy doesn’t speak to you, think of something we all have in our homes—think of a tea kettle. You fill it up with water (and nearly all water in France is hard water, with a lot of calcium); you heat the water to boiling, and what happens? The calcium in the water leaves a white crust at the bottom of the kettle. The heat draws out the calcium deposits.

This is the kind of “test” God puts people under—he puts them in a situation where there will be heat, and whatever is in them will naturally come out. And he does this to all of us—whether we are Christians or not. Sooner or later what is inside will come out. This is just a general true fact about what it means to be human. Even if we manage to hide who we are from everyone else, sooner or later we will be put in a situation in which we will see who we really are.

Given enough time, what is inside will come out. In moments of stress or sadness or suffering, of sometimes simply if enough time passes, what is inside of us will come out. Our sin, yes, but also the parts of us that God is changing. Who we are becoming will be made visible. 

The End of the Test (v. 5-7)

So let’s take this principle, and remember David’s situation when he says it. He is being attacked—people are coming after him, to kill him or to dethrone him, but he knows he doesn’t need to run away. He knows he is protected, because God sees the men who are coming after him, and knows they are wicked. He knows what is in them, and he knows what is in David.

The question is, how will God respond? What will be the end result of his “testing” of the children of man?  

5  The Lord tests the righteous, 

but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence. 

So what we saw before was that as God tests men, putting them through difficult situations or sometimes just the test of time, what is inside will necessarily come out. And the first thing to “come out” that David mentions here is the evil of the wicked. And he says (v. 5) that God’s soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.

I understand that this is a difficult thing to square with what we have often heard about God, that God is love. And he is love. But God’s love of his good creation—including us—is not contrary to his hatred of sin, and those who persist in it. 

There is a phrase that gets kicked around church a lot: “Hate the sin, love the sinner.” I understand the motivation behind that idea, and it’s a good one—but it’s not always realistic, if we bring actual love into the picture. I love my kids more than anything in this world. If someone cruelly abuses my kids, I guarantee you I will not react well if someone said, “Well, you know—hate the sin, but love the sinner.” I’m sorry, but I won’t feel love toward that person. I will respond with anger and with a desire to see that person punished, precisely because I love my kids so much.

Now of course our anger will be mixed up with sin, because we are sinners too—our desire for vengeance or justice won’t be pure. But God’s is—and we see that he responds in exactly the same way toward those who persist in their sin. Because of sin, we are cruelly abusing the creation God loves. And I’m not talking about pollution; I’m not talking about ecology. I’m talking about the thing which made pollution possible. God hates sin with everything in him, because it destroys and mars everything that is good in creation. And for those who persist in sin until the very end, his hatred and his anger are directed towards them.

This may seem extreme to some of us, but Jamie Smith sums up well why it’s not extreme with one simple phrase (which is, coincidentally, the title of one of his books): “You are what you love.” He says that if I really wanted to get to the root of who you are, what “makes you tick,” I might be tempted to ask you what you believe, or where you were educated, or what your opinions are about important subjects. But these aren’t the right questions. If I really want to get to the bottom of who you are, the question I should ask is, “What do you want? What do you desire? What do you love?”

For those who love their sin more than God—and it is one or the other, Jesus said in Matthew 6.24—they become the sin they love. They become virtually indistinguishable from the sin that controls them. 

So God, because there is no impure motive or understanding or attitude in him, can’t simply “hate sin and love the sinner.” Because for those who persist in their sin till the very end, there is no separating the two. 

Because God loves what is good, he hates what is evil, and will exercise judgment on it.

And that’s what David says in v. 6. 

6  Let him rain coals on the wicked; 

fire and sulfur and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup. 

The evil of sinners will manifest itself and be undeniable, even to the person who commits it. How will this person see the horror of his sin? He will see the severity of God’s judgment, and understand how bad his sin is.

It’s no accident that David talks about raining coals, fire and sulfur and scorching wind. Remember the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, which we saw just a few weeks ago? The judgment of Sodom, Derek Kidner says, “stands in the Bible as a perpetual reminder of sudden and final judgment”.

The point here is that there is no escaping God’s judgment against sin, and there is no escaping the knowledge of sin that comes with his judgment. God tests the children of men, so that what is inside comes out. This test will make their sin visible, not only to God, but to themselves—because they will see the judgment their sin deserved.

If that’s the end of the test for the wicked, what is the end of the test for the righteous? V. 7: 

7  For the Lord is righteous; 

he loves righteous deeds;

the upright shall behold his face. 

So the righteous God judges sin—that is his response to those who reject him and pursue their own sin until the end. We see this as a negative action on his part, but it’s not—God is righteous; he loves righteous deeds; and his judgment on sin is one of these righteous deeds. 

But his righteousness doesn’t burn the “upright”—those who trust in God for their salvation and turn away from their sin. Even though they absolutely deserve the same judgment as the wicked, the upright have another experience altogether: they see his face.

Why? Because when God “tests” them, when God assesses their character and puts them in situations which bring it out, what is the fundamental characteristic he sees? 

That they are trusting him for their salvation. That is all—and that is all they need. On the basis of that one simple fact, he lets them behold his face. 

Every night when we put Zadie to bed, I pray the same prayer to her. She is able to repeat it with me (if she wants to). It is the prayer God told Aaron to pray over the people of Israel in Numbers 6.24-26:  

24  The Lord bless you and keep you; 

25  the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; 

26  the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. 

To see God’s face is to receive the highest blessing imaginable. To see God’s face is the reward of the gospel. 

In Christ, there is a fundamental shift in relationship between human beings and God almighty. Our sin always stood as a barrier between men and God. When God brought Moses onto the mountain, he told him (Exodus 30.20), “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” Even with the sacrifices of the Mosaic Covenant, there was always a separation between God and the people of Israel—they couldn’t enter into the Most Holy Place at the heart of the temple.

But what did John say happened when Jesus came? And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1.14). The disciples saw God’s glory in the person of Christ, as he went about his ministry and lived and died and was raised before their eyes. When he died, the veil in the temple which served as the barrier into the Most Holy Place was ripped in two; and now, as the author of Hebrews says in Hebrews 10, in Christ we have perfect access to God. We can come not just near God but to God, directly, because we come in Christ. Just as the disciples saw God’s glory in the person of Christ, we now have the possibility to see God’s glory through the person of Christ.

The question is, How do we see him? What does that “seeing” look like today? The apostle Paul talks about how God’s Spirit “enlightens the eyes of our hearts, that we may know the hope to which he has called us” (Ephesians 1.18). It is an internal work the Holy Spirit does in us, allowing us to see God’s hand and his providence at work for our good and for his glory.

The Spirit has many tools which he uses to bring this new kind of “seeing” about. He uses nature—for a Christian, going to the mountains or seeing a sunrise should be a time of worship, driving our eyes up to the One who created them. He uses the church—as we see God at work in and through the lives of our brothers and sisters, we see God’s glory. He uses his Word—as he tells us, day in and day out, how he has always worked to make his glory known, we can see him still working in these same ways today.

And he uses tests. This is why David wanted to remind us in v. 5 (in case we’d forgotten) that God “tests the righteous.” When David gives this comparison of how God judges the wicked and reveals himself to the righteous, he’s not saying it mainly to convince sinners to stop sinning. He’s not writing to make the wicked afraid of judgment. 

He is encouraging God’s people in the midst of trial. This song is sung by God’s people to help them remember, in the time of suffering, that God knows his people, and protects them.

David is being attacked, but he knows that God is sovereign over all things, and that he belongs to God. God knows that David is righteous; he knows that David is trusting in him for his salvation. And so David knows that whatever test God allows him to endure—even this very attack—will only serve to reveal the trust he has in God’s salvation, and help him behold God’s face, to see him more clearly and to have greater trust in his goodness and his grace.

Application

Now here’s why this psalm is so important for us, in the context of Western Christianity in France today. Christians today are very quick to attribute their suffering to an “attack”. It could be an attack from actual, real people; it could be an attack from other people who call themselves Christians (or, Lord help us, who actually are Christians and who are simply misguided). It could even be—as many are quick to say—an attack from Satan himself, like in the case of Job. And all of that may well be true.

But when we go too quickly into “attack” mode, what does our attitude become? It becomes one of fearful defense. Let’s say someone is saying things about you that are not true. The immediate reflex, for most of us, is to go on the defensive. You want everyone to know that whatever is being said about you isn’t true. So you try to keep a tally of everyone this person has talked to, so that you can go around and talk to them, and make sure that they know these things being whispered about you aren’t true.

But the Lord is in his holy temple; his throne is in heaven; his eyes see, his eyelids test the children of men. So we don’t need to defend ourselves against unjust accusations—because God knows what is true, and he will defend our cause. He will stand up for us, and remind the universe that whatever horrible things might be true about this person, he is mine. 

This same defensiveness infects our relationship with God as well. Our prayers become, not confident, but afraid—“Lord, please help us! What are we going to do? What’s going to happen if this continues? What will become of us?” We pray as if we’re trying to convince God to intervene when he doesn’t really want to.

Do you see the problem? The truth the Bible shows us time and time again is that even attacks against us do not fall outside of the realm of God’s sovereignty and his goodness. Nothing escapes his attention. He’s not looking at us and saying, “Oh no, they’re in trouble! I’d better swoop in like Superman and save the day!”

That never happens. What does happen is what we see here: that the Lord tests the righteous. 

He allows us to endure painful situations in which we have no solution available, in order that we might see his goodness and his protection in those situations, and discover that he is even better than we knew.

You may be suffering the consequences of your sin; God is allowing those consequences to help you see that sin, and bring you to repentance, that you might behold him. 

You may be suffering legitimate, unfair attacks from legitimate enemies; God is allowing that attack to come in order to grow your trust in him, that you might behold him. 

In every case, if God has allowed it, he allows it that they might “behold” him. 

So although the Bible definitely calls us to pray, and to pray repeatedly and continually that God intervene on our behalf in our situation, we need not pray fearfully. We need not pray desperately, as if God doesn’t already know we need him.

Even in times of what we see to be completely unfair, unjust attack—from any corner—rather than fearing and lamenting the trial, God calls us to set our eyes on him, because he loves us enough to test us and help you see him.

The Lord tests the righteous...For the Lord IS righteous; he loves righteous deeds; the upright shall behold his face.