Ps 52

The Strong man and the Suffering believer

(Psalm 52)

Good morning. I hope you all have had enough coffee, because today we are going to be addressing a difficult question one often faces in their spiritual life: how do I deal with emotions that arise when I am treated unjustly? What do I do when I feel these strong emotions, that are not particularly “Christian,” like anger, bitterness, and guilt. How should I act when I feel things I think I “shouldn’t be feeling” in response to the actions of others? Should I suppress those feelings and pretend like they are not there? Should I give them full reign and “be true to myself” ? Is there another option for the believer? Those are the questions I propose to begin to address today, so let’s get started.

Today we are going to be in Psalms 52, so if you have your Bibles, please open to that passage and keep the Bibles open throughout our time today. My plan for our time is as follows: First, we will gain some valuable background information on our psalm. Next, we will walk through the text, analyzing it as we go. Finally, we will see how we might apply this text to our lives today.

Before we proceed, I have a question to ask, and there is no need to raise your hands. How many of you, when you read a psalm like this, skip over verses 1 and 2? I know that is certainly my tendency. I might read it, but only so I can get to the “good stuff” that follows. Unfortunately, this reveals a significant flaw in our study of the Bible. If every word of scripture is God breathed, then we would do well to pay attention to each one. In this case, the first two verses of the psalm provide us the key to understand everything that follows. Au chef de chœur. Cantique de David, 2 lorsque Doëg, l’Edomite, vint dire à Saül: «David s’est rendu dans la maison d’Achimélec.» ideessdf The The verses themselves are not particularly revealing, but they allude to an event found in the Old Testament, and by going back and reading that full event, we gain tremendous insight into the situation. The story itself is found in 1 Samuel 21 and 22. It is a bit long, so we won’t read it together this morning, but I would invite you to go back and read it in it’s entirety and then reread the psalm later this evening. For now, I will summarize the events.

The story begins with David on the run from King Saul. David has just discovered that Saul intends to kill him the next time he sees him, so David is fleeing with some of his trusted men. David has done nothing wrong, but is being pursued nonetheless. David and his men come to a town called Nob, where the priests of the Lord live. David lies to the priests, telling them that they are on a secret mission for Saul, and request supplies and food. The priests provide what they can, and David continues on his way, but not before a man named Doeg the Edomite, who is the head herdsman for Saul, sees David and his men. Doeg returns to Saul and tells him that he saw David on the run, and then describes the situation in such a way that it appears that the priests were conspiring with David to help him overthrow Saul, which was clearly not true. Armed with this lie, Saul confronts the priests, who deny his accusation. Nonetheless, Saul commands his soldiers to kill all the priests, their families, and their village. The soldiers refuse, so Doeg volunteers, and proceeds to kill 85 priests as well as all the inhabitants of their city, “both man and woman, child and infant, ox, donkey, and sheep.” One priest, however, escapes and finds David and tells him all that has happened. David says, “I knew on that day, when Doeg the Edomite was there, that he would surely tell Saul. I have occasioned the death of all the persons of your father’s house.”

Imagine that you are David. Imagine how you might feel in his shoes: You are fleeing for your life. You have left behind your home and your wife, and are being chased by your father-in-law, who is the king of Israel and intends to kill you if he ever sees you again. You lie to the priests of God to get the supplies you need, and because of your lie, that priest, as well as his entire family and city are dead, save one man. Imagine the emotions David is feeling. Fear for his own life. Rage at the men who have slaughtered innocent men, women, and children. Guilt over the fact that it was his lie that started the whole process in motion. Hatred for Doeg, who willingly lied and murdered for his own selfish gain. I am sure there are many more, but I think you get the idea.

With these thoughts in mind, let’s now turn our attention to our Psalm, Psalm 52. The first two verses now carry significantly more meaning, no? This psalm is David’s response to these tragic events. So, let’s see how he, inspired by the Holy Spirit, deals with this horrific situation.

He begins with a kind of thesis statement that summarizes the whole psalm: “Why do you boast in evil, O mighty man? The steadfast love of the Lord endures all the day.” Given the description he provides of this mighty man, we can safely assume he is addressing Doeg the Edomite, but it is left vague purposefully, because Doeg here serves as a type. He represents the powerful, influential worker of evil that the believer is likely to encounter as they sojourn in this world. One thinks of a men like Hitler, Mussolini, or Stalin, but this could also apply more locally to individuals like the corrupt policeman, malicious boss, or abusive parent or relative. Some in this room have suffered under men and women like this, and many more are likely to suffer under these kinds individuals before our time on earth is finished. In that light, David’s response here is fascinating. He asks, why do you boast in evil?

I find that question interesting, because the answer to me seems pretty obvious: he is boasting because his evil actions are achieving their desired results. He has become a mighty man (verset 3). He has wealth and influence (verset 9). He is able to create destruction with his words (verset 6). He is trusted. He tells lies and people believe him (verset 4 et 5). He has real power and he has gotten it all while rejecting God (verset 9). From a worldly perspective, he has many reasons to boast. I appreciate David’s honesty here. He acknowledges all of these facts and he calls them out. Sadly, this is where most of us stop when faced with injustice and abuse. We focus on the present realities, and we conclude that God is either not there, too weak to do anything, or indifferent to our suffering.

Fortunately David doesn’t stop there. He doesn’t just look at present circumstances. He looks to both the eternal reality as well as to the future, and more importantly, to the One who controls the future. He says, in verset 3, “The steadfast love of the Lord endures all the day.” David casts his eyes to the God he loves and serves, and recites to himself the eternal truths he knows. He comforts himself by reminding himself of the steadfast love of the Lord for him, which never ends. He also reminds himself of the another comforting truth about a future reality. In Verset 5 he says "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.” While at first glance this seems quite harsh, once we get the context for these verses, we understand them better. This individual being addressed is one who gladly murders the priests of God. He kills men, women, children, and infants for his own personal gain. I have a wife and a son. I imagine a man murdering them without a second thought, and I begin to understand David’s perspective. It is both right and just that this man be punished. While David does not seek vengeance himself, he does acknowledge the comforting truth that evil will not go unpunished forever. God is neither absent nor indifferent. While he delays judgement so that some might repent and turn to him, he does not delay forever. There will come a day when all men will give an account for every one of their actions, and be recompensed accordingly. And that day will come when it is least expected, see the terms snatch and tear. See also verse 5, God will break you down forever. The punishment is not temporary. Such an individual will be punished eternally in hell. Though none of us find hell a pleasant idea, consider the alternative. Consider a god who did not punish such wickedness, but rather said, “that’s ok, no problem, I’m sure it was an honest mistake” Fortunately, our God is no such God. He is just and he cares about the sufferings of his people.

Continuing on to verse 9: the righteous shall see and fear, and shall laugh at him. Here again we have a phrase that seems odd on first pass. However, as we consider the context, it becomes more clear. This man terrorizes the righteous. He lies and murders for selfish gain. His life meant suffering and mourning for countless. Now his death and judgement mean joy for those who are freed from his tyranny. It also means glory for God. This man rejected God’s commands and lordship, and destroyed God’s creation without a second thought. But God will have the victory. He will show His power by removing this man from the earth at the moment he, the sovereign Lord of creation, sees fit, and there is nothing this man or anyone else can do to stay his hand. Such power creates reverent fear in the believer.

Moving on to the final section of our psalm, we see David look to his own spiritual realities, which stand in stark contrast to his present, felt realities. Unlike the wicked man who is currently thriving, but will be uprooted by the Lord, David is currently suffering, but is nonetheless planted firmly in the Lord. His confidence lies, not in the strength or depth of his own roots, but in the Lord. It is the Lord who guards and watches over that house, so David is confident that none shall uproot him. He trusts in the love of the Lord that acts as his soil, which is unchanging, lasting forever and ever. In contrast to the wicked man who will be broken down forever, the author is confident that he will experience the love of this great God forever. What’s more, he responds with grateful worship now for the blessings he will receive, because such promises deserve worship and thanksgiving. Finally, he resolves to wait with patience for all these things to come to pass. And he knows they will, because they are tied to the “name” of the Lord, which represents his character and his identity, which never change. Finally, he finds comfort in the community of the faithful who surround him and wait alongside him.

His confidence is in the Lord. It is the Lord who owns the house where he is planted. He is it’s guardian, so David need fear no man. It is the Lord’s love that acts as his soil, holding him fast. With such solid, nurturing foundation he need not fear uprooting. It is the Lord’s will that has planted him there, so he need not fear being uprooted like the evil man. It is the Lord’s people he is planted among, so he knows he is not alone. Since it is the Lord who has done all this, David responds with grateful worship and

praise, both now and forever. Finally, he resolves to wait with patience for all these things to come to pass. And he knows they will, because they are tied to the “name” of the Lord, which represents his character and his identity, which never change. Finally, he finds comfort in the community of the faithful who surround him and wait alongside him.

Now, having analyzed our passage, how shall we apply it to our lives? I have three ideas, and we will close.

First, for the believer who is suffering or has suffered unjustly at the hands of such a mighty man or woman; follow David’s lead. Acknowledge and name the evil done. Don’t try to hide the pain or suffering. Acknowledge and mourn that which has been lost. Don’t seek vengeance or revenge. Remind yourself that the Lord withholds punishment from the wicked so as to give them time to repent, but that season does not last forever. Pray for them, that they might see their sin and repent, turning from it to the Lord God, their creator and trust that he will distribute justice in his way and in his timing. Finally, remember that if you are in Christ, your roots are firmly planted in the Lord. He is with you now in the midst of your suffering, and you will be with him in his house forever. His love is yours and is unchanging. Meditate on these things and take heart. The Lord will vindicate his name among the nations. Finally, lean into your community of faith. If you are not part of a group de communaute, I would strongly recommend finding one, as it is these brothers and sisters who God has ordained to come alongside you and support you during your earthly pilgrimage.

Next, for everyone in the room, believer and nonbeliever alike. When we read a psalm like this, we tend to read ourselves into David’s role, and that is reasonable. This was the author's intent. However, if we look at the whole counsel of scripture, we realize that in our natural state, the one in which we were born, we are all, in fact, in the place of the mighty man. Sure, we may not murder or plot other’s destruction, but we all naturally love evil more than good and lying more than speaking the truth. If you don't believe me, just look at our entertainment. Our flesh loves to watch sin in all of it’s various manifestations. What's more, if we are honest, our flesh naturally prefers lying, gossip, slander, lust, and all other evil things to righteousness and obedience to the commands of Christ. Are you still unconvinced? Consider then, where you go for refuge when times get hard. If you are not a Christian, I bet you run to things like relationships, money, fame, power, praise from men or women, sex, drugs, pornography, just to name a few. Like the mighty man, you seek refuge somewhere other than the Lord, and you refuse to make God your refuge. I know this because I was once just like you. When I was hurting I ran to pornography and the approval of people to medicate my pain. But, as you know well, it never really worked. Sure it numbed the pain for a moment, but when that wore off, I was worse off than before. Why do I belabor this point? I do so because of what it reveals to us about ourselves. All these things reveal that, without intervention, we are headed toward the same end as the mighty man, namely, a sudden death and eternal punishment. The incredible news is that someone has intervened. While we deserve to be snatched from our tents and broken down by God forever, we have another option. God has loved us so much that he sent his son, Jesus Christ, into the world. While we were dead in our sins, Christ lived the perfect sinless life we could not. While we were living a life separated from God, he died in our place on the cross. The snatching, tearing, and breaking down that our sin deserves was poured out on Christ, the only one who never deserved it. He took the father’s wrath for sin on

himself and drank it to the dregs. Then he died and three days later, rose again. And now he sits at his Father’s right hand, ruling and reigning, and he will return to judge the living and the dead and then inaugurate his eternal kingdom. Today he extends to all the same offer: repent of and turn from your life of rebellion and sin against God, believe that Jesus has done all the work necessary to make you righteous and bring you into a right relationship with God, and receive his free gift of eternal life, following him and loving him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. For the believers, rejoice in this, your salvation. This is why you are planted in the house of God. Jesus is why you will know the love of God forever. Praise His Holy Name.

For the nonbelievers, I would tell you, consider these words. I have no desire to coerce or try to scare anyone into following Jesus. However, I cannot ignore the plain council of scripture. The choice is before you: Trust in Christ and his work on the cross and be firmly planted in the house of God forever, or refuse to take refuge in the Lord, and receive the same ultimate end as the mighty man in our passage. The choice is entirely yours. I could wish there was a third option, some middle ground or exception, but you will not find one in scripture. The Bible says we are either dead in our sins and enslaved to the god of this world or alive in Christ, servants of the Most High God. There are only two options. I would counsel you, come to this sweet savior, forsaking your life of sin. He loves you, just as you are. Turn from your life of sin and be planted in the house of God forever. The offer stands open to you. Today is the day of salvation. Let’s pray.

Ps 58

Joy for Justice

(Psalm 58)

Jason Procopio

NOTE: Like most of the psalms, there is an issue of verse numeration between French and English translations. Most psalms have a subtitle (“Psalm of David, to the tune of ‘Do Not Destroy’,” etc.). In many English translations (such as the ESV, which I use below) these subtitles are not generally given verse numbers. However, in the French translations, these subtitles are counted as separate verses.

Consequently, there is usually one more verse in the French translations than in the English, and each verse is one number ahead. So if you’re following along with us on the screen, in order to not get lost, be aware that if we’re reading (for example) v. 5 in French, it will be v. 4 in English.

I’ve waited years to preach a psalm like this, for reasons you can probably guess. Psalm 58 is what is known as an “imprecatory prayer”—that is, a prayer that God would execute vengeance on the evildoer.

Clearly these psalms—and there are quite a few of them—present us with some difficulties. Everyone understands the desire for justice against wrongdoing; but it can be disconcerting to hear David pray that God would break the teeth of the wicked, or—as he does in another psalm—rejoice in the idea of their enemies’ children being bashed to death against rocks (Ps. 137.9).

This doesn’t exactly square with the Christian ideal of love as we find it in the New Testament. Didn’t Jesus himself change things? Matthew 5.43-45: 

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.

How can we accept David’s prayer as legitimate when we are meant to love our enemies? It’s a difficult question, but one we have to deal with if we’re going to read the Psalms, because there are a lot of these. The overwhelming cry of all the imprecatory psalms is that God would vindicate righteousness, and punish unrighteousness. We don’t even need to think of the atrocities committed throughout history to understand this; we feel it in our own lives. Any time a wrong is committed against us—often we feel it even more acutely when the wrong is committed against someone we love—we feel the desire for something to happen to the person who committed the wrong, for some kind of punishment to be exacted to make them understand what they have done and feel sorry for it.

Of course Jesus changed things. The Son of God came to live a sinless life in our place, to be punished for our sin, in our place, and to give us his perfect life: although we were naturally enemies of God, rather than punish us for our rebellion, God declares us righteous—which means he could do the same for anyone. This is the good news of the gospel, and it definitely changes things.

But having that in mind isn’t how we should come to these kinds of psalms, at least not at first.

Rather than simply let the gospel shape the way we read these psalms, we need to let the psalms help us understand the gospel. In order to get to the good news, we need to feel the weight of the bad news, and these psalms help us do that.

On the surface, this psalm addresses the injustice of the tyrants of the world, but it doesn’t stay there for long: rather quickly David widens his scope, and makes us all uncomfortable.

Unjust Men (v. 1-5)

First we need to talk about why I’m mentioning “tyrants” at all, because it’s not necessarily obvious. V. 1:

1  Do you indeed decree what is right, you gods?

There’s a translation issue here that needs to be addressed. When we see the ESV translators end the first sentence of v. 1 with “you gods” (or “you mighty lords”), the idea of tyrants isn’t that hard to guess. But it should be said that there is another way to translate this, which is equally valid as far as the language goes: Is it in silence that you decree what is right? (No “you gods”.) This is the most literal translation, and it is the way all of the French translators have rendered the verse. Many English translation opt for “gods” or “lords”, not because that is clearly the best translation, but because they think “in silence” makes little sense.

In either case, the context of tyrants still seems to be in mind here, because in the second sentence of v. 1, David speaks of those who have the power to decree what is right. These are those who have the power to judge, to make laws, to render verdicts over guilt and to deal out punishment as they see fit: not everyone can do this.

So let’s take both possibilities into account—certainly both are common enough.

V. 1 again:

1  Do you indeed decree what is right, you gods?

Or:

Is it in silence that you decree what is right?

Do you judge the children of man uprightly?

2  No, in your hearts you devise wrongs;

your hands deal out violence on earth.

How many rulers over history have pretended to rule rightly, as a servant of the people—all the while exploiting the people under their power? How many rulers have pretended to be just, while perpetrating injustice? That’s what the psalmist is getting at here: “You tyrants, do you sit back and judge fairly, impassively? No—you get your hands dirty.”

We see this because even more than simply turning a blind eye to evil for the sake of their own gain (another way of interpreting “in silence”), these tyrants take the evil that begins in their hearts, and work it out in their hands. Their evil is premeditated and intentional.

Why do they do this? The simplest answer—and the answer the psalmist gives—is because they are sinners. V. 3:

3  The wicked are estranged from the womb;

they go astray from birth, speaking lies.

4  They have venom like the venom of a serpent,

like the deaf adder that stops its ear,

5  so that it does not hear the voice of charmers

or of the cunning enchanter.

They want what they want, and they have the power to get what they want…so they get it, no matter what it costs, and no matter whom it hurts.

Just before leaving for vacation I finished reading Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment—an amazing read if you have the patience for it. The main character of the book is a young law student named Raskolnikov, who murders an old pawn-broker and steals money from her, hoping to get himself and his family out of poverty. (This isn’t much of a spoiler, it’s at the beginning of the book.)

Later on we find out a little more about how he justifies the murder to himself.

He has come up with a novel theory that laws are necessary to govern ordinary people, because ordinary people need them, but that throughout history there have always been exceptional people to whom the rules should not apply, because if they obeyed all the rules, society would not progress. (The example given in the book is, of course, Napoleon.) Raskolnikov fancies himself one of these extraordinary people, so feels justified in killing this horrid old woman so that he can finish his studies and contribute to the welfare of society.

In other words, in his mind, the only difference between himself and Napoleon is that Napoleon had the power to carry out what he had in mind…and why should that make any difference?

It’s a difficult moral problem that Dostoyevsky lays out beautifully, without giving an easy answer. Instead, he shows us what devastating effects the murder has on the young man: pre-murder Raskolnikov and post-murder Raskolnikov are two very different people, and the collateral damage keeps piling up.

And that was part of Dostoyevsky’s point. Tyrants show us on a large scale what all humanity is capable of on a small scale; they’re what happens when sinful people have all the power they need to work out the evil within them.

But everyone has this potential in them—from the mightiest ruler to the poorest student. From the oldest to the youngest. V. 3 again:

3  The wicked are estranged from the womb;

they go astray from birth, speaking lies.

No one has to teach a small child to lie; every parent knows it happens all on its own, when a child feels like they can get something they want out of misrepresenting the truth. (And keep in mind, David isn’t just speaking theoretically: this is the man who, after acting like a tyrant and having a man killed in order to sleep with his wife, proclaimed in Psalm 51.5: Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.)

“The wicked” are like this, and David knows that naturally, he is one of them. He says (v. 4),

4  They have venom like the venom of a serpent,

like the deaf adder that stops its ear,

5  so that it does not hear the voice of charmers

or of the cunning enchanter.

In other words, the wicked want what they want, and no amount of argumentation or logic will convince them to not want it.

Have you ever tried that? To make yourself not want something you desperately desire? Good luck with that; it doesn’t work. The tyrant’s problem—our problem, if left to our own devices—is that we are led by our own desires.

And it is here that we see the subtle shift in what David is saying: by speaking of large-scale evil at the hands of rulers, he identifies characteristics that are present in all of us—even present in David himself. He’s not only speaking about evil men in power, but about all those who try to go through life without God—for without God, the only difference between our evil and the evil of tyrants is, as Derek Kidner says, a difference “of degree rather than kind”.

As tyrants are led by their desires, so are we all, if left to our own devices. Whether our desires result in widespread catastrophe or not is—at least as far as our hearts are concerned—irrelevant. Our natural desires are “anti-God”, and flow from the same polluted source.

So we can see that “the wicked,” so often referenced in the Bible, are not merely those evil people who have unlimited power to harm; they are all of us, as we are without God.

Prayer for Justice (v. 6-9)

You would think that because David knows that on his own, he is wicked too, that would lend him some compassion—that maybe he would pray for the wicked, that they would receive the forgiveness he himself has received.

But that’s where these psalms come in to instruct us. Before any talk of forgiveness makes sense, we have to understand what we’re being forgiven from—what all sin naturally deserves.

And that’s where David goes: in reaction to these “anti-God” desires that David deplores, he prays that God would execute justice. V. 6:

6  O God, break the teeth in their mouths;

tear out the fangs of the young lions, O Lord!

7  Let them vanish like water that runs away;

when he aims his arrows, let them be blunted.

8  Let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime,

like the stillborn child who never sees the sun.

9  Sooner than your pots can feel the heat of thorns,

whether green or ablaze, may he sweep them away!

Again, we need to see here that what David is going for—and what all the psalmists are after in this type of psalm—is not necessarily that God would literally do these things to the wicked. He’s not literally asking God to break their teeth and turn them into water. He’s expressing through vivid imagery the feeling of outrage that injustice should conjure up in us. When we see sin in the world around us, we should feel indignation toward it.

This indignation is very different to how we feel about sin most of the time. We read David’s prayer for justice and we think he’s laying it on a bit too thick; certain crimes against humanity, certain types of abuses, deserve that kind of outrage, sure. But things like pride? lying? sexual immorality? losing your temper unfairly? These are things we’ve all done; these are things we all struggle with. So these things, we tend to write them off as “normal” when they creep up in ourselves, and we treat them like they’re no big deal.

But when we’re on the receiving end of it, we have no problem feeling David’s outrage. My son Jack and I were at the post office a few weeks ago. A young woman was there directing people towards the machines, and she told us to get in a particular line. So we got in the line, and someone in another line got angry at me because apparently he was there first. I tried to tell him I just went where the girl told me to, and that he could go ahead of me, but he kept getting angrier, and started insulting me, telling me what a bad father I was, pointing at Jack and saying, “You should be ashamed at what you’re teaching your kid.”

I’ve got to admit that listening to this guy going after me like that, with my son standing right next to me listening, filled me with the kind of indignation we read here. “Lord, break his teeth! Dissolve this guy into slime!” And I felt that…over a guy insulting me in the post office. The greater the harm done, the more acutely we feel this outrage.

And we should feel it because, it would seem, this is exactly how God himself feels toward sin. Sin deserves absolute condemnation—as Paul says in Romans 6.23, the wages of sin is death. If we read this psalm and feel like David’s going a bit over the top, it’s not because he’s overestimating the seriousness of sin, but because we underestimate it.

Sin—all sin—is brutal and ravaging…but we don’t realize it, because much of the time it’s disguised as angelic. It’s disguised as something we all find “normal.” It’s only when things get horribly out of control that everyone sees sin for what it is, and by then it is too late.

Psalms like this help us to remember how serious sin is, because the outrage expressed over the abuse David’s feeling is proportionate to the offense: this is how sin should make us feel.

Joy Because of Justice (v. 10-11)

If we weren’t already uncomfortable enough over David’s language, he takes it even further in the final verses of the psalm, in which he describes not only our desire for justice—the kind of brutal justice described in v. 6-9—but the joy the righteous will feel when that justice is finally given. V. 10:

10  The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance;

he will bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked.

11  Mankind will say, “Surely there is a reward for the righteous;

surely there is a God who judges on earth.”

That’s hard to read; any person with half a heart would be a little uncomfortable reading v. 6-9, and a little disgusted reading v. 10. David describes the kind of glee a particularly violent person celebrates after a victory on the battlefield: bathing his feet in the blood of the wicked. Why would that kind of judgment cause anyone to rejoice?

There are two reasons the psalmist gives, which all of humanity will see. The first is that “there is a God who judges on earth.” This only sounds like bad news to those who are guilty. Anyone who has been wronged—particularly those who have been traumatized by the wrongs committed against them—understands the immense relief of this promise. Imagine what will be like, when not a single injustice, throughout all human history, is forgotten or ignored, but exposed, and punished appropriately. How safe will the world be, when injustice is a thing of the past, because there is a God who judges on earth?

The second reason may be a little more difficult for us to accept—God’s judgment is reason for rejoicing because it will prove that “there is a reward for the righteous.” This is harder for us to integrate, because as we saw before, no one is righteous. We all have sin in us. So, at least if left on our own, we should all be on the receiving end of God’s judgment.

But this is what David understood, if only partially: God’s judgment against sin co-exists with his love for his people. He cannot abide sin, even the so-called “normal” sins we see in ourselves every day; he must judge sin.

At the same time, he loves his people, infinitely more and better than the best parents among us love our own children. So he does not wish to punish us. Punish our sin, absolutely; punish his people, never in life.

So how does he pull that off? At the time that David wrote this, he didn’t have the whole picture; but we do; we talked about it at the very beginning. God sent Jesus Christ to live a perfect, sinless life for us, in our place. He takes our sin, puts it on himself, and in exchange, gives us his perfect life. He is punished on the cross for our sin; and we are declared righteous before God, because we are wearing the perfect righteousness of Christ.

When David says, “Surely there is a reward for the righteous,” he’s talking about us—about all of us who have placed our faith in Christ. But he’s not talking about us because we live perfect, sinless lives. He’s talking about us because God has given us Christ’s perfect righteousness.

“Surely there is a reward for the righteous”—eternal life, eternal joy, eternal peace with God our Father.

“Surely there is a God who judges on earth”—Christ was judged for us, in our place, even more harshly than what David prayed for in Psalm 58.

What a joy to know where we stand in this situation—that if we have placed our faith in Christ, we are no longer on the side of the tyrants and abusers, no matter how imperfect we still may be, no matter how abusive we ourselves may have been in our past. We are counted among the righteous, and we will rejoice in God’s vengeance, because on that day—either because we see the wicked punished for their sin, or because we see Christ punished for our sin—all mankind will say, “Surely there is a reward for the righteous; surely there is a God who judges on earth.”

Conclusion

Now to close, let’s come back to our initial question: how can we square David’s prayer in this psalm with Jesus’s appeal to love our enemies?

David’s prayer is a prayer for justice, which is good and legitimate. He didn’t yet have the full picture of how this justice would come to pass; it’s logical that he would pray like this, because as far as he knows, how else could it possibly happen? We should take from this less the desire that God punish wicked people, and more the desire that God would punish wickedness.

Now I know this is hard to conceive of for some of us. I’ve known people who have been emotionally, psychologically and physically abused, by their spouses, or by their parents, or by someone they’re close to. That may even be the case (in fact, probably is the case) for at least some of you here. So it’s quite possible that you have prayed, as I have, that God would stop them. That he would punish these people—literally and immediately—that he would exercise his justice by letting his wrath fall on them.

If you’ve prayed like that, that’s okay: we all have reasons to do so, and those reasons are legitimate. But in the light of the gospel, here is what we need to keep in mind.

These cries for punishment are proportional to the gravity of sin. That’s why Jesus came in the first place: because sin is so horrific, sin is so grievous, that it deserves a worse punishment than any of us could imagine. In addition, sin is so horrific, and so grievous, that it deserves a punishment none of us could carry on our own—if it falls on us, we’ll be paying it for all eternity. Christ came to save his people from that…and we don’t know who God is going to bring into his family before he returns.

Those who are wicked today (that is, those who are either living for themselves, apart from Christ, or who are actively perpetrating evil against other people) may well continue the rest of their lives in wickedness, and die apart from Christ. These people will suffer a justice far worse than the punishment David prays for here: an eternity separated from God in hell. Justice will be done—not by us, but by God himself—and God’s people will rejoice because we will see that there is a God who judges on earth. That’s one possibility.

Here’s the other possibility. Those who are wicked today—even our enemies—may be radically and miraculously saved by Christ tomorrow. They may recognize the sin in their life, repent of their sins, turn to God in faith, and be saved by his incredible grace. In the case of these people, God’s people will rejoice as well, because we will see justice done for their sins too: the wrath of God, poured out on Jesus Christ, who took their sins on himself on the cross. We will rejoice, because we will see that surely there is a reward for the righteous.

So in the light of these realities, this psalm, and other psalms like it, should have four dramatic effects on us.

Firstly, if you are not living for God, this psalm should fill you with fear. It should cause you to realize that your rejection of God is far more serious than you suspected. It should open your eyes to the reality that you cannot save yourself from the wrath of God against your sin—that you need a Savior, and that you are invited to turn to him, and repent of your sin, and be forgiven. We’ll give you the opportunity to do that in just a minute.

Secondly—for those of us who already have repented of our sin and turned to Christ—this psalm should fill us with confidence that God is a just God, who punishes sin rightly. (These prayers are in the Bible, not as cautionary tales concerning how not to pray, but rather to teach us that such justice is a good thing.)

Thirdly, it should fill us with hatred of all sin, including our own. It should make us look at the sin in our lives with horror, because we know that whatever awful judgment the psalmist prays for, Christ endured that and much more, in our place, for us.

And lastly, it should fill us with a profound and unending gratitude that the justice prayed for is not executed on us, but for us. It should make us so thankful that we want to dedicate all of our lives—all of our eternity—to running away from sin, and towards holiness. It should make us want to be like Christ.

We will rejoice on the day of his judgment, even if today it seems harsh, because on that day, we will enjoy the reward of the righteous, and the peace of the God who judges on earth.

Ps 45

The marriage of our dreams - Psalm 45

Joseph Tandy

I don't know where you were on 29 April 2011, the wedding day of Prince William and Kate Middleton, or 1 July 2011, for the wedding of Prince Albert of Monaco and Charlene Wittstock or 18 May 2018, for the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

For many here, the answer is probably in the classroom. I imagine a few were in front of their TV though.

And in case you're tempted to reply "prince and princess weddings ... this is France! We cut off our king's head, what business is it of ours?" I'll simply remind you that Kate and William's wedding was watched by 15 million French people, not far from a quarter of the population, and by 2 billion people worldwide.

Why did this happen? Why did so many people want to follow the weddings of couples they don't even know?

Closer to home, it's summer. It's wedding season. Many of us have been looking forward to friends' weddings. Some have endured months of preparation before finally saying yes to each other! We're delighted.

Even if marriage is less valued in France than it was a few decades ago, the fact remains that, judging by the number of television viewers at royal weddings, or the posters in the metro for wedding fairs, marriage is apparently not dead.

Some people still dream of it. There's still the dream of living happily ever after and having lots of children.

Among Christians, you only have to look at the number of books written on this subject, or the number of people who come to the marriage course at Connexion church, to see that many of us place a lot of hope in the prospect of marriage.

I speak as a married man, but let me ask: why?

Is it because we believe that marriage will bring us happiness that eludes us, or the answer to our loneliness, or that it will help us keep our family happy?

Is it legitimate to have such expectations of marriage?

This summer we are in book 2 of the psalms, and psalm 45, which we are meditating on this morning, follows ... psalms 42, 43 and 44.

What is the theme of psalms 42, 43 and 44?

Let's go back a few pages

Psalm 42 verse 6 - Why are you downcast, O my soul, and groan within me?

Psalm 42 verse 12 - Why are you downcast, O my soul, and why do you groan within me? Psalm 43:5 - Why are you downcast, O my soul, and why do you groan within me?

Psalm 44:24 - Arise! Why do you sleep, O Lord? Wake up, don't put us off for ever! Why do you hide yourself? Why do you forget our misery and oppression?

Psalms 42-44 talk about ... when things aren't going well. Times when we feel discouraged, downcast, sad and alone.

Psalm 45, which follows them, is about ... marriage.

The order of the psalms is not random. God is telling us that the answer to discouragement, sadness and loneliness has something to do with marriage.

Let's be more frank. The answer to discouragement, sadness and loneliness is marriage! That's what book 2 of the psalms suggests.

Marriage is the solution!

But what kind of marriage? That's the question, and that's what we're going to find out this morning.

We'll see that it's not unjustified to have high expectations of marriage ... as long as we understand which marriage is the only one to fulfil these expectations.

We're going to talk about...

a royal wedding an ideal husband a privileged wife

First and foremost A royal marriage

The wedding described in this psalm is a cause for rejoicing, because it is not just any wedding. It is a marriage with enormous stakes for the whole world.

Psalm 45 verse 1

To the choirmaster, to the tune of "The Lilies". Descendants of Korah. Canticle, song of love. Beautiful words bubble up in my heart.

I say, "My work is for the king.

May my tongue be like the pen of a skilful writer!"

If you were at a wedding this summer, I don't know what music the couple chose to mark the occasion.

Perhaps a beautiful piece of classical music for the bride's entrance - Bach, Handel, Mendelssohn, Pachelbel. Perhaps a song of praise.

Then for the dance party, there are the must-haves. Depending on the generation, Claude François, Black Eyed Peas or ... something else if, unlike me, you've been following the evolution of pop music since 2009.

I don't know if you've ever attended a wedding for which a new hit has been specially composed. For William and Kate's wedding, there was music written especially for the occasion.

It's a sign that this isn't just any wedding.

That's the case with this psalm. It is a love song written for the wedding ... of a king!

His name is not mentioned, but there is reason to believe that it was the wedding of King Solomon, the son of King David.

Compared to this wedding, the weddings of the princes and princesses mentioned above were nothing.

Everyone would have been in the streets of Jerusalem to follow the procession, the press would have been talking about it for months, every woman would have drawn a picture of the bride's dress to have the same one.

It was a wedding like no one had ever seen before. Why was it so important?

When you read a passage from the Bible, it's important to try and fit it into the big story of the Bible. The Bible tells a big story. If you forget that, it's a bit like starting a series with episode 15 without having watched the previous episodes. You risk getting lost.

As in any story, there are turning points in the Bible.

One such turning point comes in the book of 2 Samuel, chapter 7, where God makes an extraordinary promise concerning the sons of King David.

Keep a finger in the psalms and let's all look for 2 Samuel 7 Listen to what God promises in verse 12. He says to David:

"When your life ends and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up after you your descendant, the one who will be born of you, and I will establish his kingdom. He will build a house in honour of my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever. I will be a father to him and he will be a son to me.

Why have so many people followed the weddings of princes and princesses in recent years? Above all, it's for the spectacle.

Some may have watched to pick up a few ideas for their own wedding - what if I had the same hairstyle as Meghan.

And then there are those who like to see a tradition continue.

All in all, there wasn't much at stake for the average person. A beautiful day, a beautiful spectacle. That's all there was to it.

In the old days, a king's wedding was more important. It meant that the monarchy would continue and that the future would be stable.

But for God's people the stakes were even higher, because God's commitment to prosper, protect and care for his people forever rested on this promise of a royal line from David.

God's purpose in making this promise was to say: OK, you people can't take care of yourselves. You're too weak and too disobedient. But I'm going to give David a royal offspring who will do for you what you can't do on your own.

From now on, all your hopes will depend on this king.

For this royal line to continue, David's sons had to marry and have children.

That's why the psalmist rejoices at the end of his song. Let's go back to Psalm 45 and verse 17.

He says to the king:

"Your children will take the place of your fathers, you shall make them princes over all the land."

All this means that the marriage celebrated in this psalm was good news not just for the couple but for everyone!

These days, it's quite rare to have public events where everyone places their hopes in a few individuals.

We've become cynical about politics. The exception is undoubtedly sport.

Last year, the French people pinned their hopes on a handful of footballers chosen by Didier Deschamps.

This summer, some are pinning their hopes on a few rugby players chosen by Fabien Galthié for the World Cup.

It's a small thing. No life or death stakes normally.

This royal wedding was an event with colossal stakes for all the people ... because it was the fulfilment of God's promise to prosper, protect and care for his people forever.

Everyone's hopes were pinned on this royal wedding because everyone's hopes were pinned on David's descendants.

It was and is God's plan to bless his people through the marriage of their king. So ... the bride and groom. What do we learn about them?

Second point. This Psalm presents a

An ideal bridegroom

The king who marries is described as perfect in every way. First of all, it talks about

His beauty

Verse 3

You are the handsomest of men,

I'm not going to risk naming the stars who would be considered BGs (beaux gosses) by the ladies here. You can tell me later.

The king of Psalm 45 would overshadow them all.

More followers on Instagram than Cristiano Ronaldo and Justin Bieber combined.

His beauty also extends to his character.

Grace flows from your lips;

Never a hurtful word. Never a dishonest promise. Never flattering words to manipulate. Purity, integrity and tenderness in every respect.

But in addition to its beauty, this psalm celebrates...

His majesty

Verse 4

"Valiant warrior, put your sword at your side,

a sign of your greatness and majesty,

yes, your majesty! Be victorious, mount your chariot, defend truth, gentleness and justice, and let your right hand show itself in marvellous exploits!

Your arrows are sharp,

peoples shall fall under you

they will strike at the heart of the king's enemies."

Today, the image of the white knight who comes to the rescue of the widow, the orphan and the damsel in distress may seem a little outdated. Even Disney has left it behind.

But triumphing over evil, fighting for justice and protecting the people are fundamental elements in the job description of God's chosen king.

Think of David. The king his descendants were supposed to emulate.

He wasn't just a BG - handsome. He was a BG - good warrior (bon guerrier)!

He killed Goliath. He established peace by defeating the enemies of God's people.

He was a majestic warrior.

Just in case you were worried that the king in this psalm was an example of toxic masculinity - a violent tyrant - look again at the causes he fights for.

Verse 5

uphold truth, gentleness and justice

He triumphs majestically ... for gentleness

All this means that he will be a husband who lives up to all expectations!

Strong, capable of defending his people and perhaps above all his own.

He's no slouch, but he's no bully either.

What drives him is not the pursuit of selfish gain, but the values that count in God's eyes. Truth, gentleness and justice.

No chance of his wife waking up one day wondering 'who the hell is this man I married? No chance of disappointment.

He exceeds all expectations of a husband.

A husband who stands out for his beauty, his majesty and ... this is where it gets weird ...

His divinity?

Look at verse 7. Who is this verse about?

Your throne, O God, is eternal.

The sceptre of your kingdom is a sceptre of justice. You love justice and hate wickedness;

If we only read up to this point, we get the impression that the psalmist stops talking about the king and turns to God.

Your throne, O God, is eternal.

But look at the rest of verse 8

Therefore, O God, your God has anointed you king

He addresses the king as if he were God!

O God, your God ... has made you king

The kings of the Old Testament were important people. They had to reign in God's name and under God's authority.

They were not God in person.

They were normal men, sometimes with qualities, often with great flaws.

It's as if at this point in the psalm, the psalmist lifts his eyes to look beyond Solomon's marriage to ... the ideal ... anticipated by that marriage.

Some marriages have this effect.

When Prince William and Kate got married, the phrase that kept cropping up in the media was "fairytale wedding".

A prince, a princess, a palace, a carriage - it was a fairytale.

As if their marriage conjured up an ideal ... of what we would like a marriage to be.

I didn't spend much time with Prince William. He undoubtedly has his qualities. Basically, he's a normal man.

But on the day of his wedding, the media presented him as Prince Charming - distinguished, noble, gallant, handsome and so on.

Behind the marriage between a normal man and a normal woman, there was this dream of an ideal marriage with an ... ideal husband.

Something similar happens in this psalm.

It says that the ideal husband, anticipated by Solomon, is a ... divine husband.

A husband who is God.

Except that this isn't a fairy tale. This is reality.

Behind David the father's plan to give a wife to his son, Solomon, the Bible speaks of God the father's plan to give a wife to his son, Jesus.

In fact, the whole story of the Bible is the story of an arranged marriage between the ideal husband, Jesus, and a bride.

Let's jump ahead to the New Testament and the letter to the Hebrews. Hebrews 1:8

But God said to the Son (to Jesus): Your throne, O God, is eternal. The sceptre of your kingdom is a sceptre of justice. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; that is why, O God, your God has anointed you king over all your companions with the oil of gladness.

The ideal bridegroom anticipated by this psalm ... is the Son of God. He is Jesus. ***

If you're like me, you may find the idea of Jesus as a husband surprising.

Jesus as saviour, okay.

Jesus as a friend, okay.

But Jesus as a husband...?

Jesus remained celibate throughout his life on earth.

As God, he's not afraid of intimacy, he's relational by nature, but he doesn't need a wife to be relational!

He has always lived in relationship with his Father and the Holy Spirit. It's not as if he's lacking something.

To say that Jesus is the ideal spouse is to say that his goodness and love are so enormous that they go beyond the Trinity to human beings.

God did not create humanity in a cold way or as some kind of biological experiment - let's put some mammals on the earth and see what happens!

No! In creating humanity, God was looking for a bride to whom the beauty and majesty of his son would overflow and who would come to recognise Jesus as ... the ideal bridegroom.

As we all know, men's image has taken quite a battering in recent years.

The Weinstein affair, balancetonporc, etc. have shown that we men are far from perfect.

Even if our behaviour doesn't go as far as Harvey Weinstein's, if you're like me, our shortcomings mean that we're often disappointing men, fathers and husbands.

Ladies, you may have been disappointed by men. Hurt, perhaps.

There is one man in the universe who will never disappoint.

The ideal husband. Jesus.

Which begs the question. If Jesus is the ideal husband, what do we learn about his wife? A privileged bride

The bride described in this psalm is invited to give herself to her husband, for whom she has made herself radiant.

Perhaps you've already been invited to a dinner party and during the aperitif you take out a big photo album, put it on the table and say: this is our wedding album, take a look at it.

It shows the whole day, from the preparations to the church, the ceremony and finally the dance.

Some people just love looking at these photos!

Then there are... the others.

The unfolding of the wedding day is a bit like what we have in verses 11 to 16, with a special focus on the bride.

First, in verse 11, we imagine her waking up on the big day and remembering the invitation before her.

The invitation (11-13)

"Listen, my daughter, look and incline your ear, forget your people and your father's house."

If you are married, you may remember the moment when you got up on the wedding day, looked in the mirror and said to yourself: this is it!

My life will never be the same again.

I'm going to give myself body and soul to another person ... for life! Until death do us part.

Am I ready?

But for this bride, there is no reason to hesitate about her choice because - verse 12: "The king desires your beauty.

Since he is your lord, bow down to him!"

She has been chosen ... by the best of husbands.

A husband who loves her.

A husband who desires her.

A husband who deserves her readiness to give herself entirely to him. And so she does.

Verse 14 Preparation (14)

"The king's daughter is resplendent inside the palace, wearing a garment woven of gold."

We're moving on in the photo album to the part some people like best - the photos of the bride's preparation.

You know what I'm talking about. We've got 15 photos of the hairstyle, 15 photos of the dress taken from every conceivable angle, earrings, jewellery, mascara etc.

It's a good thing no one took my photo the morning before my wedding. It wouldn't have been a pretty sight!

Why so much preparation? Because the occasion deserves it.

You can imagine the bridesmaids helping the bride arrange her dress. You imagine her being made up, her hair done, perfumed, prepared... for the moment that awaits her.

A moment of joy

Joy (15-16) Verse 15

"She is presented to the king in her embroidered garments;

Young girls, her companions, are brought after her.

They are ushered in amidst rejoicing and gladness; they enter the king's palace."

The wait is over.

Silence falls over the guests.

The door opens.

All eyes riveted on the procession.

The bride enters... radiant.

The groom, transfixed, has eyes only for her.

The joy.

I remember that unforgettable moment.

But I don't think my wife Anne-Sophie will mind if I say that even this unforgettable moment for me fell short of what this psalm describes.

Finally, let me say what I have implied without explicitly saying so far.

This love song, perhaps composed for Solomon and his wife, was also written for us.

Jesus is the ideal spouse. His privileged bride is us. His church. All those who have put their faith in him.

We are the ones who have accepted his invitation, having been chosen and desired before the foundation of the world, as the letter to the Ephesians says.

Before we even existed ... the King had brought these desires upon us. Then he waited for the day when he would issue this invitation to us:

look and listen,

forget your people and your father's house Since I am your lord, bow down before me.

If we are Christians today, we have accepted the invitation, and since we have accepted this invitation, we have also been prepared.

The apostle Paul says in Ephesians that Jesus gave himself for his bride to lead her to holiness, having cleansed her and washed her with the water of the word, so that she might appear before him glorious, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but holy and blameless.

Christ did not choose us because we were a lovable bride, but to make us a lovable bride.

He has forgiven us, and little by little he is transforming us, and when he returns he will finally make us perfect, and for us that day, when we are presented holy and without blemish before him, will be a day of joy and a feast such as has never been seen before.

Revelation 19 - last reference - two pages before the end in your Bible This is what will happen when Jesus appears.

Revelation 19 verse 7

"Let us be glad and rejoice and give glory to him, for the time of the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. It has been given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and pure." For the fine linen is the righteous works of the saints."

I don't know how you imagine heaven

Angels sitting on clouds playing harps - that kind of sappy image! No, it starts with a wedding. Our royal wedding to Jesus.

The whole point of this psalm is that we want that wedding.

It's our hope

To be, as a church, married for eternity to the ideal bridegroom.

Again, for some of us, the image may surprise us or make us uncomfortable. Perhaps especially for us men.

What is it? Married to Jesus. How bizarre!

Obviously we need to explain what we mean.

It's the church as a people that's married to Jesus, not each individual.

And ... the image of marriage is an image. Our relationship with Jesus will not be anything like a human marriage. Rest assured gentlemen, you won't literally have to wear a dress.

It's an image ... an image that expresses the joy, love and intimacy that Jesus will share with us forever.

But if this marriage is more than a human marriage, it is no less.

Is it possible that if we struggle with the idea of marriage to Jesus, it's because there are a few blind spots in our relationship with him.

Maybe for the guys in particular, we're interested in theology.

Reciting the 5 points of Calvinism and being good at apologetics, we like that.

Serving in church, okay.

But if you're like me, the idea of a close and joyful relationship with Jesus might be an area that needs some work.

Jesus didn't just save us from hell ... but also for that intimate relationship with him.

***

It's clear that this psalm gives valuable encouragement if you're single and suffering from it. No one who believes in Jesus will miss out on marriage. Not ultimately.

We might miss the human institution that exemplifies it. Not the reality behind it.

I'm not single, so I asked a single friend how this psalm encouraged her.

Her answer: What I love about the Husband King is his blend of glory and strength, justice and humility. Isn't that what we all dream of! There is a call for me (as there is for all of us) to forget my people and my father's house. I understand this as a call to total devotion to the King. When I begin to grieve over my celibacy, it helps me to remember that Jesus has called me to devote myself to him with all my heart and body, which is wonderfully precious and a privilege.

Perhaps some of you are thinking that everything would be better if you were married. Rest assured, you will be.

Jesus has chosen you, desired you, prepared you to belong to him.

If your celibacy is a painful subject, please meditate on this psalm.

For those of us who are married, our marriages go better when we have this marriage with Jesus as our ultimate horizon.

Someone said this in my community group this week.

The prospect of marriage with Jesus does not devalue human marriage; it elevates it.

Our marriages are not to be taken lightly.

We are living something that anticipates ... faintly ... what we will live in eternity.

We should cherish them and live them as means of preparation for the great wedding!

But in fact ... the primary purpose of this psalm is neither to help us with our celibacy, nor to help us with our marriage.

As we saw at the beginning, it is to help us when our soul is downcast within us.

For the early readers of this psalm, when they were discouraged, the prospect of simply being part of the crowd at Solomon's wedding, and seeing God's promise fulfilled, brought balm to a downcast heart.

But if we are Christians, we know that we will not simply be part of the crowd. We have been invited to come to the altar.

As long as we are in this world, as long as we are waiting for the big day, many things can and will discourage us.

There will be times when we ask: Why be downcast, my soul, and groan within me? Maybe you're the one asking that question.

Waiting for marriage is often a painful time.

(Sorry, if you've just got engaged. Congratulations and sorry)

Waiting is hard and it's that hard waiting that we live for as long as we're in this world.

But when we're discouraged or down, the answer is to meditate on this great marriage to come. He has asked for our hand in marriage. He has prepared us for the occasion.

So perhaps the words we need to hear are these

Psalm 45 and verse 12: Look and listen, forget your people and your father's house ... the king desires your beauty.

Ps 52 français

L’Homme Fort et le croyant qui souffre - Psaumes 52

Bonjour à toutes et à tous.

J’espère que vous avez bu assez de café,

parce qu'aujourd’hui, on va aborder une question difficile

à laquelle on est souvent confronté dans sa vie spirituelle ;

comment gérer les émotions qui surgissent lorsque on est traité injustement ?

Qu’est-ce qu’on doit faire lorsqu’on ressent ces émotions fortes,

qui ne sont pas particulièrement “Chrétiennes” comme la colère, l’amertume, et la culpabilité ?

Comment est-ce qu’on doit réagir

lorsqu’on ressent des choses qu’on pense ne pas devoir ressentir

en réponse aux actions des autres ?

Est-ce qu’on doit réprimer ces sentiments et faire comme s'ils n'existaient pas ?

Est-ce qu’on doit leur laisser le champ libre et “être fidèle a soi-même" entre guillemets ?

Est-ce qu’il y a une autre option pour le Chrétien ?
Voilà les questions que je vous propose d'aborder aujourd’hui. Commençons.

Aujourd’hui on va étudier le psaume cinquante-deux.

Si vous avez votre bible, ouvrez-la à ce passage et gardez-la sous les yeux pendant tout le temps qu’on va passer ensemble.

Mon plan pour aujourd’hui est le suivant ;
On va tout d'abord aborder quelques informations d’arrière-plan importantes.

Ensuite, on va parcourir le texte en l'analysant au fur et à mesure. Enfin, on va voir comment on peut appliquer ce texte a notre vie.

Avant de continuer, j’ai une question pour vous (c’est pas nécessaire de lever vos mains).

Combien d’entre vous, quand vous lisez un psaume comme celui-ci, sautent les versets un et deux ?

Je sais que j’ai tendance à le faire.

Je vais les lire un peu rapidement pour pouvoir passer à “la partie importante” entre guillemets.

Malheureusement, cela révèle une faille importante dans notre méthode d’étude de la Bible.

En effet, si toute l’écriture est inspirée de Dieu, on ferait bien de prêter attention à chaque verset.

Dans notre cas, les deux premiers versets du psaume nous donnent la clé pour comprendre tout ce qui suit.

Au chef de chœur. Cantique de David, 2 lorsque Doëg, l’Edomite, vint dire à Saül: «David s’est rendu dans la maison d’Achimélec.»

Maintenant, vous pourriez dire,

“Josh, tu as dit que la clé pour comprendre ce psaume se trouvait dans ces versets, mais je ne vois pas de clé.

Je vois juste quelques détails et quelques noms, dont certains que je reconnais, et d'autres pas.”

Et, c’est vrai.

Ces versets ne sont pas particulièrement révélateurs, mais ils font allusion à un événement de l’ancien testament.

Si on revient en arrière et qu’on lit cet événement, on obtient un aperçu formidable de la situation.

Cet évènement se trouve dans les chapitres vingt-et-un et vingt-deux, de Un Samuel.

L’histoire est un peu longue, donc,
Je vais la résumer plutôt que de tout lire.
Cependant je vous invite à la lire en entier et à relire le psaume ce soir. Voila, donc, le résumé.

L’histoire commence avec David qui fuit le roi Saül.

Il vient de découvrir que Saül a l’intention de le tuer

lors de leur prochaine rencontre.

Il s’enfuit donc avec quelques-uns de ses hommes de confiance.

Il n’a rien fait du mal, mais il est tout de même poursuivi.

David et ses hommes arrivent à une ville appelée “Nob,” où habitent les prêtres du Seigneur.

Il ment aux prêtres, leur disant qu’ils sont en mission secrète pour Saül, et leur demande des provisions et de la nourriture.
Les prêtres lui donnent ce qu’ils peuvent, et David continues de fuir. Cependant, un homme appelé Doëg l’Edomite voit David et ses hommes.

Doëg retourne auprès de Saül et lui dit qu’il a vu David,

Mais il décrit la situation de telle sorte que

les prêtres ont l’air de conspirer avec David pour renverser Saül,

ce qui n’est pas vrai.

Armé de ce mensonge,

Saül confronte les prêtres,

qui nient ses accusations.

Néanmoins, Saül ordonne à ses soldats

de tuer tous les prêtres, leurs familles, et leur village.

Lorsque les soldats refusent,

Doëg se porte volontaire et tue quatre-vingt-cinq prêtres,

ainsi que tous les habitants de leur village,

“les hommes et les femmes, les enfants et les bébés.”

Un prêtre, cependant, s’échappe,

trouve David

et lui raconte tout ce qui s’est passe.

David lui répond, “Je savais bien, l’autre jour, que Doëg l’Edomite, qui se trouvait là, ne manquerait pas d'informer Saül.

C'est moi qui suis responsable de la mort de tous les membres de ta famille.”

Imaginez maintenant que vous êtes David.

Imaginez ce que vous pourriez ressentir à sa place.

Vous êtes en fuite pour sauver votre vie.

Vous avez laissé derrière vous votre maison et votre épouse,

et votre beau-père vous poursuit pour vous tuer.

Vous avez menti a un prêtre de Dieu pour obtenir les fournitures dont vous avez besoin.

Et le pire, c’est qu’a cause de votre mensonge,

ce prêtre, sa famille et tout son village sont mort,

a l’exception d’un seul homme.

Imaginez les émotions que David ressent.

La peur pour sa propre vie.

La rage contre les hommes qui ont massacré des hommes, des femmes, et des enfants innocents.

La culpabilité parce que c’est son mensonge qui a déclenché tout le processus.

La haine de Doëg, qui a volontairement menti et assassiné pour son profit égoïste.

Je suis sûr que David a beaucoup d’autres émotions, mais je pense que vous avez compris l’idée.

En gardant cette histoire à l’esprit,
on va maintenant se pencher sur notre Psaume, le Psaume Cinquante-deux.

Les deux premiers versets semblent beaucoup plus importants maintenant, n’est-ce pas ?

Le Psaume est la réponse de David a ces évènements tragiques.

Voyons maintenant comment, inspiré pas le Saint-Esprit, il aborde cette horrible situation.

David commence par une sorte de thèse qui résume l’ensemble du psaume :

Pourquoi te vante-tu de ce qui est mal, toi l’homme fort ?

La bonté de Dieu subsiste toujours.

Etant donné la description qu’il a fait de cet homme fort, on peut supposer qu’il s’adresse à Doëg l’Edomite,

mais il reste volontairement vague, car Doëg sert ici de type, d’idée.

Il représente l’agent du mal, puissant et influent, que le croyant va croiser dans sa vie terrestre.

On pense à des hommes comme Hitler, Mussolini, et Staline,
mais cette description peut également
s’appliquer à quelqu’un plus proche de notre vie quotidienne,
comme le policier corrompu, le patron malveillant, ou le proche violent. Certains dans cette salle ont soufferts d’hommes et de femmes comme eux, et beaucoup plus d’entre nous vont souffrir de ce type de personnes,

avant que notre vie sur terre soit terminée.

Je trouve donc la réponse de David fascinante.
Il pose la question : “pourquoi te vantes-tu de ce qui est mal ?

Je trouve que cette question est intéressante parce que la réponse me semble assez évidente :

Il se vante parce que ses actions malveillantes atteignent les résultats souhaités.

Il est devenu un homme fort (verset trois).
Il est riche et influent (verset neuf).
Il est capable de créer de la destruction avec ses mots (verset six). On lui fait confiance.
Il ment et les gens le croient (versets quatre et cinq).
Il a un pouvoir réel et l’a obtenu en rejetant Dieu (verset neuf).
D’un point de vue terrestre, il a de nombreuses raisons de se vanter. J’apprécie l’honnêteté de David.
Il reconnaît tous ces faits et il en parle.
Malheureusement, c’est là
que la plupart d’entre nous s’arrêtent
Lorsqu'on est confrontés à l'injustice et aux abus.
On se concentre sur nos réalités actuelles, et on en conclut
soit que Dieu n’est pas là,
soit qu’il est trop faible pour intervenir,

soit qu’il s’en fiche.

Heureusement, David ne s’arrête pas là.
Il ne se concentre pas uniquement sur les circonstances actuelles.
Au contraire, ll se tourne à la fois vers la réalité éternelle
et vers l’avenir
et, plus important encore,
vers celui qui contrôle l’avenir.
David dit au verset trois, “La bonté de Dieu subsiste toujours."
Il regarde au Dieu qu’il aime et qu’il sert,
et il se récite les vérités éternelles qu’il connait.
Il se réconforte en se rappelant l’amour de Dieu pour lui, qui subsiste toujours. Il se réconforte avec une autre vérité de l’avenir.
Au verset sept, il dit
“ C’est pourquoi Dieu t’abattra pour toujours,
il s’emparera de toi et t’arrachera de ta tente,
il te déracinera de la terre des vivants.”
Si, à première vue, ce verset semble dur,
une fois qu’on connait le contexte, le verset prend tout son sens.
La personne a qui David s’adresse
est celle qui assassine volontiers les prêtres de Dieu.

Cette personne tue des hommes, des femmes, des enfants, et des bébés pour son profit.

J’ai une femme et un fils.

Je pense à un homme qui les assassine sans hésiter,

et je comprends le point de vue de David.

Il est juste et équitable que cet homme soit puni.

Bien que David ne cherche pas à se venger,

il reconnait la vérité réconfortante que le mal ne va pas rester impuni pour toujours.

En effet, un jour vient où chaque homme va devoir rendre compte de ses actes et sera puni ou récompensés en conséquence.

De plus, ce châtiment sera éternel.

Meme si aucun d’entre nous ne considère l’enfer comme une idée plaisante, imaginez l’alternative.

Envisagez un dieu qui ne punirait pas une telle méchanceté, mais qui dirait : “pas de soucis, c’est pas grave, je suis sûr que c’était pas fait exprès.” Heureusement que notre Dieu n’est pas comme ça.
En effet, Dieu est bon et il se soucie des souffrances de son peuple.

On va continuer au verset neuf : Les justes le verront,
ils éprouveront de la crainte,

et ils se moqueront de lui.

Une fois de plus, on a une phrase qui semble un peu bizarre à première vue.

Pourquoi se moquer d’une personne en cours de jugement ?

Mais, là encore le contexte nous aide.

Cet homme terrorise les justes.

Il ment et tue pour son profit.

Sa vie a été synonyme de souffrance et de larmes pour beaucoup de personnes.

Sa mort et son jugement seront synonymes de joie pour ceux qui seront libérés de sa tyrannie.

Voilà pourquoi le peuple célèbre sa chute,
qui est exprimée de manière hyperbolique
sous forme de moquerie.
De plus, les peuples aussi se vantent de la victoire de Dieu sur le mal. Cet homme a rejeté les commandements de Dieu et sa seigneurie, et il a détruit sa création sans hésiter.

En réponse, Dieu va demontrer sa puissance en éliminant cet homme de la terre au moment où Dieu,

le souverain seigneur de la création, le decidera,
et il n’y a rien que cet homme ou qui que ce soit d'autre
puisse faire pour l’en empêcher.
Les peuples voient cela et se réjouissent.
Une telle puissance suscite une crainte respectueuse chez les croyants

et exige qu’on réponde par l'adoration.
On va donc faire une petite pause ici et adorer ce Seigneur puissant.

Enfin, on arrive à la dernière partie de notre psaume.

Dans cette partie, on va voir David porter son regard sur ses propres réalités spirituelles,

qui contrastent fortement avec les réalités qu’il ressent sur le moment. Contrairement au méchant qui prospère mais qui sera déraciné par Dieu, David souffre, mais il est néanmoins fermement ancré dans le Seigneur. Il place sa confiance

non pas dans sa propre puissance ou dans la profondeur de ses racines, mais dans le Seigneur.
Il sait qu’il est planté dans la maison de Dieu (verset dix),
et que c’est Dieu qui garde et qui protège cette maison.

Il est donc en sécurité.
De plus, il sait que c’était Dieu qui l’y a planté (verset onze)
et que son sol est la bonté de Dieu, qui subsiste pour toujours (verset dix). Pour toutes ces raisons, il loue Dieu et il promet de Le louer pour toujours. Enfin, il trouve une communauté parmi les fidèles,

qui le réconfortent et attendent à ses côtés que Dieu accomplisse toutes ces choses

Maintenant que notre passage a été analysé, il ne reste plus qu’à voir comment on peut l’appliquer à notre vie.

J’ai quelques idées, puis on va conclure.

Tout d’abord, pour le Chrétien qui souffre

ou a souffert injustement aux mains d’une personne forte;

Voila, ce que le texte vous encourage à faire:

suivez l'exemple de David.

Reconnaissez et nommez le mal commis.

N’essayez pas de cacher la douleur ou la souffrance.

Reconnaissez et pleurez tout ce qui a été perdu.

Ne cherchez pas la vengeance ou la revanche.

Rappelez-vous que le Seigneur suspend son jugement

pour donner du temps à la repentance,

mais que ce temps ne dure pas éternellement.

Priez pour eux, afin qu’ils se rendent compte de leur péché et se repentent.

Croyez que Dieu va distribuer la justice a sa manière et en son temps.

Rappelez-vous que si vous êtes en Christ, vos racines sont fermement plantées dans le Seigneur.

Il est avec vous dans votre souffrance
et vous allez être avec lui dans sa maison pour toujours.

Son amour est pour vous
et il dure pour toujours.
Enfin, appuyez-vous sur votre communauté de foi.
Si vous ne faites pas partie d’un groupe de communauté, je vous recommande d’en trouver un et de le rejoindre. Ce sont ces frères et sœurs que Dieu a désignés
pour vous accompagner et vous soutenir
au cours de votre pèlerinage terrestre.

Ensuite, pour toutes les personnes présentes dans la salle, qu’elles soient chrétiennes ou non chrétiennes.
Lorsqu’on lit un psaume comme celui-ci,
On a tendance à nous mettre dans la peau de David,

est c’est logique.

C’était son intention.

Cependant, lorsque on voit l’ensemble des Ecritures,

On se rend compte qu’on n’est pas naturellement comme David.

Au contraire, on est plutôt comme l’homme fort.

Mais, vous pouvez dire, “Je n’ai jamais tué personne ni comploté pour sa destruction,’

et j’espère que c’est vrai.

Mais, si on est honnêtes,

On préfére naturellement le mal au bien et le mensonge a la vérité.

Si vous ne me croyez pas, il suffit de regarder nos divertissements.

Notre chair aime regarder le péché sous toutes ses formes :

assassinat, viol, violence, calomnie, tromperie,

et ca c’est juste dans un seul épisode de Game of Thrones.

Vous êtes toujours pas convaincu ?

Réfléchissez ensuite à ce vers quoi vous allez

lorsque les temps sont difficiles.

On est toujours tentés de courir vers des choses comme

Les relations amoureuses, le sexe, la pornographie, le pouvoir, la popularité, l'argent ou l’influence pour soulager la douleur.

Ces choses fonctionnent pendant un moment,
mais nous laissent en fin de compte plus cassés et plus vides qu'avant. Je le sais, parce que moi, je les ai essayés.
Comme l’homme fort, on cherche refuge partout sauf en Dieu,
ce qui est une rébellion et un rejet de Dieu.
Sans intervention, on irait vers la même fin que lui.
Mais l'incroyable nouvelle,
c'est que quelqu'un est intervenu.
Bien qu’on merite d’être déraciné de la terre des vivants
et abattus par Dieu pour toujours à cause de notre rébellion,

On a une autre option.
En Ephésiens deux, on lit
‘ “A cause du grand amour dont Dieu nous a aimés,
nous qui étions morts en raison de nos fautes,
il nous a rendus à la vie avec Christ.”
Jésus Christ, Dieu en chair, est né il y a deux mille ans.
Il a vécu la vie d’obéissance parfaite à Dieu, sans faute ou péché.
Il est le seul à avoir mérité la vie éternelle avec Dieu par ses actes.
Mais au lieu de cela, il est allé à la croix
et a pris sur lui le châtiment que nos péchés méritaient.
Il est mort, mais trois jours après, il est ressuscité.
Il a vaincu le péché et la mort
et il est assis à la droite de son père.
Et maintenant, il fait la même offre à toute l’humanité :
repentez-vous de votre rébellion contre Dieu,
croyez que Jésus a pris le châtiment que vos péchés méritaient sur la croix, vous donnant en échange le mérite de sa vie juste,
renoncez à votre ancienne vie
et suivez Jésus pour le reste de votre vie.
Si vous faites cela,
Jésus vous promet qu’après votre mort,
vous allez vivre avec lui au paradis pour l’éternité.

Vous perdez votre condamnation et gagnez la vie éternelle avec Dieu. C’est pourquoi nous l’appelons la bonne nouvelle.

Pour les chrétiens, réjouissez-vous de ceci, le message de votre salut.

En effet, vous êtes plantés dans la maison de Dieu, en sécurité dans son amour pour toujours.

Notre Dieu est digne d’être loué.

Pour les non chrétiens, je vous invite à envisager l'offre de ce Dieu de grâce. Vous pouvez continuer à vivre comme avant,
en vous réfugiant dans des choses qui finiront par vous faire défaut,
et finir par subir les conséquences de votre rejet de Dieu.

A l’inverse, vous pouvez vous détourner de votre ancienne vie et recevoir ce don gratuit de Dieu en Jésus-Christ.
Ainsi vous pourrez entrer dans une relation restaurée avec Dieu, maintenant et pour l’éternité.

C’est à vous de choisir. Prions.

Notre Père céleste.
Tu es si bon pour nous.
Alors que nous étions tes ennemis,
tu as fait de nous tes enfants par l'intermédiaire de ton fils, Jésus-Christ, et de son œuvre sur la croix.
Je prie pour les personnes ici présentes qui te connaissent,
afin qu'elles soient encouragées
alors qu'elles sont confrontées à la souffrance et à des émotions difficiles. Sois avec eux et fortifie-les par ton Esprit.
Pour ceux qui ne te connaissent pas,
je te demande d'ouvrir leurs yeux à ta beauté et à ta grâce.
Convaincs-les de leur péché et de leur besoin d'un sauveur,
et montre-leur que tu as fourni ce sauveur en ton fils, Jésus.
Merci pour tout ce que tu as fait pour nous à travers lui.
C'est en son nom que nous prions.
Amen.

Ps 51 Eng

The Confession

Psalm 51

Jason Procopio

If you’ve come here for a while you know that in our services we follow a liturgy that is fairly classic and fairly fixed: a call to worship, a time of confession and assurance of pardon, the preaching of the Word, Communion, benediction, etc. Today we’re following that same structure, but we are going to change it up a little, in that we are combining our time of confession and our time in the preaching of the Word. And we’re doing it this way because our text for today is surely the most well-known confession in the whole Bible, Psalm 51.

This Psalm was written by King David, and if you have your Bibles, you can see this title above the main text: To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba. Often the title above the Psalms gives us a clue as to the author of the Psalm or the context in which the Psalm was written; this title is even more illuminating than most. 

The episode it refers to is beyond tragic; we find it in 2 Samuel 11. The people of Israel at war, and for once David is staying behind in Jerusalem. He’s walking on the roof of his palace, looking down, and he sees a woman bathing below him. He is completely smitten; he finds out that the woman, Bathsheba, is the wife of one of his officers. David sends for her, and sleeps with her, despite the fact that she’s married to one of his officers. Not long after, she comes back to him and tells him that she’s pregnant. So to try and cover his tracks, David calls her husband, Uriah, in from the battlefield, and tells him to go rest at home—he’s hoping Uriah will sleep with his wife, so everyone will think it’s his baby. But Uriah is too honorable a man to do this—he says, “My men are out on the battlefield; I’m not going to go in and have a huge meal and sleep with my wife.” David tries again, and it doesn’t work; Uriah won’t even go inside his house, but sleeps on the front porch. 

David’s solution? He sends Uriah back to the front lines of the battle, where he knows he’ll be killed. And sure enough—word gets back that he was killed in battle. So on top of everything else he’s done, he’s guilty of murder too. When Bathsheba’s time of mourning is over, David marries her, so that their child can be “legitimate.”

All that’s just background. The real context of this Psalm comes in 2 Samuel 12, when God sends the prophet Nathan to David. Nathan tells David the story of a rich man who is unwilling to slaughter one of his many sheep to feed his guests, so he takes a poor man’s only lamb for a meal, a lamb this poor man loved very much, and kills it instead. David is furious. He says (v. 5-6), “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die, and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.” And Nathan says (v. 7), “You are the man!” David realizes what he has done; he is broken over what he has done. He says (v. 13), “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin.” 

Why would God forgive this?

This is astonishing. He’s raped another man’s wife; he’s killed her husband; the baby he’s put in her will die as a consequence of his actions (as we see in v. 14). And “The Lord has put away your sin”?! The justice-seeker in us all is furious at this idea, because if, say, Emmanuel Macron did something like this, everyone would seek punishment against him. It would be the scandal of the century. But what the Bible tells us is that while David does get off easy, his sin is not left unpunished. 

In Romans 3.25-26, the apostle Paul writes, God put [Jesus Christ] forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. (This is precisely what he did to David—he passed over his sin, for the moment.) 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. That is, God did punish David’s horrible sin, to the fullest extent of the divine law: but he did it by punishing Jesus Christ in his place…which is exactly the same thing he has done for all of us. This is how he can remain just and declare sinful people just when they are not: by punishing his perfect Son in their place. So David does get off easy, but his sin is punished—because Jesus was punished in David’s place.

Why did David write Psalm 51 if he was forgiven?

That is what happened. And even if David doesn’t yet know exactly how it would work, he knows that this is what has happened. God has put away his sin, and he knows it. And that incredible reality—knowing that he should be punished for this, but that his life is spared—breaks his heart.

That’s the context, and it’s important to see it, because many Christians have a misconception of what confession is. They know what the gospel says—that God sent Jesus Christ to take our place on the cross, to take our sins on himself and be punished for our sin, in our place. So now, because of that, if we have faith in Christ then all of our sin is covered—past, present and future. They know that. But at the same time, they’ve grown up with this idea that in order for it to be of any use to them, they have to confess: that is, Christ gave them the possibility of being reconciled to God, but if there is any unconfessed sin in their lives, they aren’t really reconciled to him. (Just one example: when I was a child I was told in Sunday School to be careful, because if I was in a car wreck, and I said a bad word before the accident and didn’t think to confess it and ask God forgiveness, I couldn't be sure that God would let me into heaven.) The idea is that you sin, and then you confess that sin, in order to be forgiven—and if you ever neglect to confess that specific sin, you’re not forgiven.

But we see here that that idea isn’t true. Nathan says to David, “The Lord has put away your sin,” and it is after that assurance that David writes his beautiful confession in Psalm 51. So why does David write Psalm 51 if he knows he’s already been forgiven? The answer is simple: even if he’s forgiven, he’s still broken. He’s still damaged by his sin. Even if he knows he’s been forgiven, emotionally he’s still dealing with an incredible amount of guilt over it. He feels sorrow over what he has done, and writes his psalm to express that sorrow, to acknowledge his sin, and to ask for God not only to forgive him, but to restore him. 

So let’s look now at the psalm itself. In this psalm, David talks to God about what has happened and about what’s going on in his mind; and here we see that he realizes a certain number of things, and he proactively does a certain number of things. And the things he realized are things we need to realize.

1) What David Realizes

Firstly, David realizes the weight of his sin. V. 3: For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. He can’t get it out of his mind. He can’t stop thinking about it. When I have sinned against Loanne, I have a hard time dealing with the aftermath. She’d be the first to tell you that I don’t react well to being told I’ve done something wrong. After she calls me on something I’ve done, or I confess something I’ve done, I tend to sulk. Sometimes it is because of pride; I don’t like her telling me I’ve done something wrong. But not always; oftentimes it’s because my sin is ever before me. It is painful to see how bad we truly are. Even if we’ve been forgiven, we often find it difficult to go about our lives as if we actually were forgiven: we keep coming back to our sin, we keep thinking about it. This is what David’s dealing with—his mind keeps drifting back to his sin, reminding him of how wicked he truly is.

He realizes that sin is, so to speak, “in his blood.” V. 5: Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. He doesn’t mean that his mother’s conceiving him was sinful, but rather that from the very moment of conception, he had a sinful nature. After the first man and the first woman rebelled against God, that sin infected all of humanity—it is now part of our nature. 

You can see this in very young children. You don’t have to teach a baby to get angry; you don’t have to teach a toddler how to tell a lie. I didn’t teach my five-year-old to be selfish. Even before he realizes why it’s wrong to be selfish, he is selfish. And even now that I’ve known for decades that it’s wrong to be selfish, I’m selfish too! These sinful tendencies have been with us since the very beginning. And knowing this doesn’t excuse our sin: quite the contrary! It means that whatever sin we do is only the beginning. David’s saying, “I know what I did was wrong, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Everything in me naturally drifts toward sin, and it’s always been this way.”

He realizes that he should have known better—not because society told him so, but because God told him so. V. 6: Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. From his childhood, David had a very close relationship with God: he trusted him and placed his faith in him and was taught by him. All of his life, God had been teaching David how to resist sin, how to please him, so there truly is no excuse. He should have known better. And we all know what that is like—how after we sin, when we look back on what happened, we are amazed at our own stupidity, at how easily we were duped.

He realizes, finally (and most tragically) that he has primarily sinned against God himself. V. 4: Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. This is an astounding affirmation. He has killed a man. He has raped a woman. This is horribly wrong. He doesn’t say what he says to decrease the horror of his sin—quite the opposite. As bad as what I did is, it is even worse given that it has made a mockery of God. The worthier the person sinned against, the greater the horror of the sin. God is the most infinitely worthy being in all the universe, so as bad as it was for David to hurt Uriah and Bathsheba, his sin is truly horrible because he has sinned against God. 

You may have a hard time identifying with this psalm because you’ve never killed anyone; you’ve never raped anyone. So it’s easy to see David’s sorrow from a distance, and say, “Yeah, that sucks for him; but that’s not where I am.” I’m sorry, but it is. This is why we affirm that all sin is deserving of eternal punishment, even if we haven’t ever done anything as bad as this: the true horror of our sin lies not in what we do, but in against whom we do it. In all of our sin, from the greatest to the smallest, the all-glorious, all-worthy God is the one we sinned against: thus, he is justified in his words and blameless in his judgment.

So David realizes these things, and he is broken. And that is why he does not simply admit what he’s feeling: he does something about it. 

2) What David Does

Firstly, he turns to God. V. 1: Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. He doesn’t do what we so often do—when we have sinned, we tend to run away from God, because it’s painful to pray when you know you’ve sinned against God. David doesn’t do that. He knows his only hope in this situation is in God, so no matter how painful it is to come to God and admit what he’s done, he exposes himself to that pain and turns to God for help.

David didn’t know what Jesus would do. He didn’t know that God was passing over his sins for now, in order to punish them in the person of Christ. But he trusted what God had told his people: that he was a gracious God, who forgives sin, who is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. So he’s asking God to do what he said he would do, to be the God he promised to be. Today, when we do this same thing, we have an even surer footing to stand on, because we know how God can forgive sins. We call upon him to forgive us on the basis of Christ’s sacrifice for us. 

Secondly, he asks God to cleanse him. V. 2: Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! V. 7: Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean... (Hyssop was the branch the priests used to sprinkle blood on property that had disease on it, to declare it pure.)  ...wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. I read this week about something called the "contagion heuristic." Imagine someone gives you a sweater that has just been thoroughly washed and dried; you put it on; and then the person tells you the sweater used to belong to Adolf Hitler. How would you react? Most of you would probably want to get that sweater off as soon as possible—but why? Objectively it makes no sense; not a single molecule on that sweater has any connection with the man himself; the connection is all in our heads. 

We all tend to have emotional reactions to impurity even after that impurity has been dealt with. And that is surely part of what David's talking about here—"God, I know you've forgiven me, but please let me feel it." But I don't think that's all he means, for two reasons: 1) That's not what he says—he doesn't say "Let me feel pure," but rather, "Wash me; cleanse me; purge me..." These are very active words; and 2) Anyone who has sinned knows that being forgiven by God doesn't mean there are no after-effects of sin on our own hearts and minds. Think of sexual sin: A man cheats on his wife, then comes clean. God forgives him; she forgives him. And yet there are still lingering reminders in his heart and mind of his sin. There are still those unhelpful habits and inclinations of the heart that got him to the point where he would be tempted to adultery in the first place: the tendency to gaze too long at other women on the bus, or to linger on hateful thoughts about his own wife that she doesn't deserve...

Forgiveness reconciles us to God, but it does not make us like Christ. So David asks for more than forgiveness. He says, "Lord, you've removed the tumor; but the cancer is still in me. Please don't stop at forgiveness. Heal me. Cleanse me. By the power of your Spirit, make me pure again."

Not only does he pray for cleansing, he prays for renewal. V. 10: 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. 11 Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Some Christians who believe what we believe feel uncomfortable with this kind of language—because we believe, as the Bible states again and again, that if we truly have faith in Christ, he won’t cast us away from his presence; he won’t take his Spirit from us. This is true, and we affirm it, and we love this truth: God will cause his elect to persevere in their faith.

So why say this? David says this because when he sinned, he did not act like a child of God. He did not behave as one who has the Holy Spirit. He did not act like someone who lives in the presence of God. So there are two possibilities: either his behavior is proof that his faith is not genuine, that he really isn’t a child of God; or this child of God, at that time, gave into the sin which was still in him, waging war on his new nature. In either case, his prayer is valid and necessary. 

When we sin, we see things in ourselves that do not gel with whom we know ourselves to be. We are children of God, reconciled to him by Jesus Christ, regenerated by the Spirit, we are new creations…and yet we do things that aren’t at all in keeping with that reality. And so we pray, “Lord, don’t treat me like someone who isn’t really your child! Don’t let me act as if I weren’t really your child! Don’t let me behave in such a way that shows I don’t have your Spirit! Let me prove by my actions that I truly am elect, that I truly am your child! Change my heart to desire the things you command! Renew my heart, so that I might truly want to obey you! Let my life prove that I really am your child, and that I am being changed to be like Christ.”

Next, he prays for joy in God. V. 8: 8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. He says it again in v. 12: Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. I love these verses. When you are sitting under the weight of your guilt, this is really what it feels like: God is breaking my bones, and he’s RIGHT to do so. Why? Because if he never allowed us to feel the crushing weight of our sin, we would never fully appreciate how monumentally huge his grace to us is. 

Many of you know that the first few years of my marriage to Loanne were very rough. And in that period I sinned against her in a way that didn’t make her angry; it actually wounded her. There were about two days when we didn’t know how we were going to work through it, whether or not she’d be able to forgive me. It was miserable—the guilt I felt made me feel physically ill. And finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she came to me and said, “Right now, I don’t like you much; but I do love you. I forgive you. It’s hard, but we’ll get through this.” She had said “I love you” before; she had said “I forgive you” before. But those words had never before carried such weight, because my guilt had never before weighed on me that heavily.

When we sin, God “breaks our bones”—or, to use more theological language, he “convicts us by his Holy Spirit.” And he doesn’t do this to punish us; he does it out of love, that we might look upon his grace and feel the weight of that grace more fully than we ever had before. This is what we pray when we sin. We are hurting, we are being crushed under the weight of our guilt, so we pray, Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. Let me realize that all this time, you never stopped loving me, and the proof of that was that you sent your Son for me, knowing full well every sin I would ever commit.

This is why he says in v. 17: The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Those verses can initially sound cold. But there are good reasons why one of the marks of a Christian is a broken and contrite heart. Firstly because we deserve to be broken for how we’ve treated God, how we treat him every day; and secondly, because it is only if we are broken and contrite over our sin that we will feel the joy of our salvation. If you never feel sick, you never feel the relief of getting well. So we welcome that brokenness; we welcome that contrition—not as an end in itself, but rather as the necessary and right response that leads us into the joy of our salvation.

Lastly, David commits to worship. After asking God to cleanse him, to renew him, to restore the joy of his salvation, he tells God the ultimate reason why he should do these things—it is not merely for David himself, but for God and for others. V. 13: 13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. 14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. 15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. 

We may have a hard time with this—we might see this as David attempting to manipulate God into restoring him—“It’s not really for me, God; it’s for you.” And we have a hard time believing his motivations are not skewed here, that David isn’t just saying this to tell God what he wants to hear. The fact that we feel this way is evidence that David’s talking about something we experience very little in our day. Among the greatest joys God gives to Christians are worship and evangelism. And sadly, very few of us actually see these things as joys. When we gather for worship, we stand up and sing as if it were a chore; this is the part we have to get through in order to get to the interesting stuff. Even worse is sharing the gospel with others—it is something so unpleasant for most Christians that most of us rarely if ever actually do it.

Brothers and sisters, this is so far from what it should be. Worship is a gift God gives us to feel the joy of his grace and forgiveness more fully—how good was he to allow us to not only know these realities, but to bring artistic expression into the mix and sing of them? To let our knowledge of his grace be accompanied with rhyme, and melody, and harmony?

Evangelism is a gift God gives us to feel the joy of our salvation more fully. Anyone who has ever shared the gospel with anyone else can tell you that there is intense joy in that experience, even if that person rejects it! At worst, you’ve gotten to articulate to someone else what you believe and why (and expressing something allows us to appropriate it more deeply); and at best, we get to watch as someone else discovers the wonder of the gospel like you once did. Have you ever watched as a baby sees snow for the first time? 

So David commits himself to these things—not as a way to convince God to forgive him, but rather because he misses the joy of these gifts and wants to come back to them.

Conclusion

What may be the most surprising part of this text is David’s courage. David was an Israelite, and had grown up with stories of God displaying his power in Egypt; and he had seen this power at work in miraculous ways in his own life. So coming before God after having done what he did must have been terrifying. When Nathan came to him, there was the very real possibility that God would kill him then and there. So the grace he had received was not light to him; and no matter how far removed we feel from such a time or from such experiences, the grace we have received is not light either. 

This text and others like it help us to take neither confession, nor grace, lightly. Our moments of confession give us the opportunity to feel the weight of our sin, yes—but not to crush us. On the contrary, when we feel the weight of our sin, we appreciate the grace he has given us in Christ more fully.

So I’d like to invite you to a time of confession now—to think with me on the sins that we have committed against God this week, and to ask him for forgiveness. Keep this text before your eyes, and know that the completely unexpected grace David received is also ours.