Psalms Lesson 3

Psalm 6:4-10

Last week we came to Psalm 6 and we worked with the different parts of the Psalm and we showed how an outline could be constructed that would express the thought of this Psalm. We divided the Psalm at verse 7 so that Psalm 6:1-7 form one large section and verses 8-10 form the second section. We said that this was divided on what basis? What was the central thing that divided the first seven verses away from the last three. In verses 8-10 it’s talking about an assurance; do you see the shift in David’s attitude. Verse 7 is very melancholy, it’s full of lament, it’s full of petition and then beginning at verse 8 there’s a confidence, there’s a new air, the whole attitude has shifted radically. Because of this shift we then have this division occurring.

We divided the first section, verses 1-7 into three subsections; verses 1-3, verses 4-5 and verses 6-7, and these were pretty much divided along the lines of the address, that section of the individual lament psalm, the petition, and then the lament itself. That’s pretty much how we organized those sections. Now when we come to exegesis, last week we worked with the first three verses. Are there any questions, anything that you don’t see why we said what we did say? The first 3 verses of Psalm 6 are an address, we summarized the thought by saying that David is turning to Jehovah amidst severe disciplinary pain. And that was the response of the faith technique in the middle of a crisis in life.

We’ll go to verses 4-5, which is the next section and in this section we could summarize the thought as David urgently prays for relief or else he dies. David urgently prays for relief or else he dies. In these two verses why do we say there’s an air of urgency about this? In our form analysis of an individual lament psalm, how did we use that to draw the conclusion that there’s something urgent and hurried about this petition? The petition in this Psalm is coming before the lament and your usual format in an individual lament psalm, remember the parts of the psalm usually line up as address, lament, petition and praise, and somewhere in there we have the trust section tacked in. But in this particular psalm we go address, petition, lament and praise. These two are in reverse order. So our form analysis of the psalm tells us that the psalm has been shoved out of the normal position, that you normally meet. And if something is abnormal, just the way a person writes, obviously we use this creatively when we write, we jockey sentences around in an abnormal order to draw attention to something. And so the lament coming last and the petition coming first suggests that there’s something that’s got to be done quickly here. So the putting of the petition first, before the lament shows there is urgency in this.

Psalm 6 is a prayer that was done by a believer under severe discipline of God. And he’s praying that the discipline would be terminated in his life. So in verses 4-5, “Return, O LORD, deliver my soul: oh, save me for Thy mercies’ sake. [5] For in death there is no remembrance of Thee; in the grave who shall give Thee thanks?” Now in verse 4 we have three petitions, basically. Can you see those three verbs in verse 4 that we would say they are imperatives; these are the three parts to his petition: return, deliver, and save. All are used synonymously and there’s a point here, and again, it’s these little details, if you learn to master the little details of the text, this is what makes Bible study exciting and this is why some people never get the point, they think Bible study is dull and after I get through reading Mickey Mouse if I have time I’ll read the Bible or something. The reason for this attitude is because they’ve never fallen in love with the details of the text.

Verse 4 is a beautiful illustration of this. All three of these first verbs are parallel and mean about the same thing. Now it’s easy for you to understand “deliver,” and it’s easy for you to understand “save,” but what about this “return” business? Why is that there, and it seems to be used in parallel with “saved” and “deliver.” What’s “return” or “turn,” what to you think he means here, turn or “return O God.” [someone answers] Very good point; the point is that if God is turning or returning it indicates obviously that at one time He turned away, doesn’t it? And why would He turn away from a believer unless it was a case of discipline. So this is another thing that points out the tremendous discipline that’s involved.

Now the word “return” is a very powerful term. [someone says something] He turned from God, true, but as we have noticed time and time again in these Psalms, the extreme personality of God is shown in the Psalms. For example, in verses 1-2, particularly in verse 1, “rebuke me not in Your anger,” God is angry at this point, “neither chasten me in Thy hot displeasure.” The point there is, and it’s something very, very critical in 20^th century because the whole whoop and woof of culture teaches us not to do this, and it’s rubbed off on how Christians think. It’s even rubbed off on how we talk about spirituality because many, many Christians, I mean, I catch myself doing this, just sucking this in from the culture all around us, we think of God as immobile. Now in one sense He is immobile, one of His attributes is immutability. But immutability means not that He is immobile, but that He has an abiding stable character. It’s one thing to have a stable character, it’s another thing to be a statue. Do you see the difference? God is not an infinite statue that sit there and looks, but actively involved in history, God is turning away, and getting angry.

For example, just think of this a moment, because the thought will really grab you once you think about it for a few minutes, and that is that the God of the universe, who was the Creator, can get mad at you personally. That’s a hard thought, but just think about it, that the God of the entire cosmos that created the world, can get angry at what we do, and get angry at us personally. What does that show you about how significant your life is, to make the God of the universe angry. There’s a blessing in this and not a cursing, when you see it in the right way. This is something tremendously powerful here, that I can actually do something to hack off the God of the universe. It’s tremendously powerful doctrine here. The extreme personality of God, that God doesn’t just sit there and go ho-hum, he goofed again, etc. That isn’t the way He reacts to the believer. The point here is the anger, He’s furious at David. God is furious at David here.

There are other passages in the Bible where this comes out; Psalm 2 for example, talks about God sitting in heaven and laughing; laughing at the people that think they can outwit Him. And it says “He that sits in the heavens shall laugh, He shall have them in derision,” that means that God is laughing, it’s one of the points in the Bible where God laughs. He laughs at His enemies.

But here this word “turn” or “return” is another one of these things; like verse 1, verse 4 is another verse that’s teaching the extreme personal reaction that God has. Turn to Numbers 25:4 and you’ll see a similar use of this very verb, shuwb or return as it’s expressed in English. People began to engage in idolatry, verse 2, “they called the people unto the sacrifices of their gods, and the people did eat and bowed down to their gods.” This is a contact with spiritism and demonism, because the idols in the ancient world, from all the evidence we have, were made and done in wood and stone from dreams that demon-possessed people had. And so the demons would show themselves to these people in dreams, and the people would then carve a picture of what they saw in their dream. And these were the idols of the ancient world. And so these gods are actually the demons behind the idols. The idols represent the demons, so when these people would worship and fall down before this physical idol, they were in effect worshiping and falling down to the demon power that had motivated the idol. This has been seen and related in Dr. John Nevius’ work, Demon Possession and Allied Themes in China, where case after case would happen where a believer would have an idol in the house, usually in the Chinese homes they would have this place and it’d be the living room or what we would call the dining room and they’d have this little place and they’d have an idol right there. And when these people became Christians if they didn’t break the idol when they became Christians they never could go on in the Christian life, they would always be troubled, until they physically broke the idol. Now it sounds picayune and it sounds magic but this is just the way it is; the power of those idols is fantastic.

Now in verse 4, God is angry at the people. Here is another case where God is furious at His people. Now does God love these people or not? It’s very easy if you just read this verse to say God is a meany, but what has God done for these people, this generation. He’s redeemed them, He’s cared for them, they’ve had shoes that haven’t worn out, clothes that haven’t worn out, He’s provided food for them, He’s done all sorts of things for this generation so He does love them, but He’s furious at them. “And the LORD said to Moses, Take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the LORD against the sun, that the fierce anger of the LORD may be turned away from Israel. [5] And Moses said to the judges of Israel, Slay every one his men that were joined unto Baal-Peor.” But notice the word “turn away” in verse 4; that is the same word that is used in Psalm 6, “return,” the same Hebrew word, shuwb, and it means that God is turning away, and it means that he is hacked off, very much. And there has to be a change, not in God’s character for that would violate the attribute of immutability, but there has to be a change in his personal attitude.

[someone says something] Well, the experience of the Psalm, now later on he sat down and wrote the Psalm about it and he writes the Psalm as though it’s in present tense, he’s reliving it. But as he’s at this stage of petition, when he thinks back to when he made the petition, the confession comes out here and I think we’ve got it in verse 4, I think we can prove that he’s confessing right here in verse 4. [something else said] You’re asking whether he was making petition apart from the confession? I think he’s making them both together; I think it’s mixed together here. Let me show you why. Can anyone argue on the basis of the last part of verse 4, what does the last part of verse 4 indicate about David’s mental attitude? Would a believer out of fellowship be able to make that kind of a petition. Let’s face it, when we’re out of fellowship do you feel like doing anything for God’s glory. No. See, why is he making the petition in verse 4? The last thing you want to do when you’re out of fellowship is fiddle with God’s glory. Let’s be honest, that’s just the way it is, and don’t tell me you haven’t had the experience.

Verse 4 is based on the glorification of God, “…save me on account of Your mercies,” or “for Your mercy’s sake,” or “for Your love’s sake.” Now the word love, or mercy here, is the word for loyal love, chesed, and we’ll see this in the Old Testament a lot. Chesed is a special word in the Hebrew language that doesn’t mean just love but it means love that is loyal to a covenant. The Hebrew had another word, ahav, for just love itself. This is not the word for love, this is the word for love that is loyal to a prior agreement. Illustration: boy falls in love with girl, ahav; boy marries girl, and after marriage chesed. See the point, there’s a defined relationship and he is loyal to that relationship. That’s chesed. Now what does chesed suggest to you? The fact that this word chesed is used for mercies and not ahav in verse 4, what does that suggest about the logic of this particular petition? Do this on account of your loyal love’s sake? [someone says something about bargaining with God] David is saying here’s this bargaining thing coming up, over and over we’ll see this, and it may be a shock to some of you that are used to very anemic type of prayers, but in the Psalms there is bargaining going on.

There’s actual literal bargaining going on and so what David is doing, he’s saying now God, if You are loyal to Your covenant… what covenant do you suppose He’s talking about here? Remember we said when we started this Psalm you have to perform a form analysis and a theological analysis and part of the theological analysis was what covenant? There are four covenants in the Old Testament, Abraham’s, Moses’, David’s and the New Covenant. Which one are we talking about? [someone says Abraham] The Abrahamic Covenant is the base for all of them, but the provisions of the Abrahamic Covenant have been enlarged by these other covenants, and in particular who is this we’re talking about. Now we can’t know dogmatically here because we don’t know how old David was when this Psalm was written. If we could be sure he was king then we could argue on the basis of 1 Samuel 7. If we’re not sure he was king then it would be something prior to that. But whether he’s king or not the principle is the same so let’s pretend he’s king, because if he’s not king it would still fall back on a prior covenant, the Abrahamic Covenant.

In 2 Samuel 7 what was the agreement that God had made with David? That He would bless his house, so the seed… actually what it is is amplifying that seed provision of the Abrahamic Covenant and the seed is now going to be Davidic, so when Messiah comes it’s going to be through David’s line. So that seed, this house, will go on forever, it will never be destroyed. David need never worry that his name disappear from the face of the earth because his genes will go on through into Messiah. That is the promise of God. Why do you suppose David brings that up at this point? What’s the bargaining? Let’s see if we can recapture the thoughts of David’s mind as he fights this out before God. The situation is that he is dying, and he goes back to the covenant or the promise that God has given him about his house. [someone says something] All right, he could be saying this, this is one possibility, if it’s early in his life David could be saying God, you sort of have to do it because otherwise the name isn’t going to work out. However, the problem with that is, although that’s a good thought and the principle is there, the problem is that is chronologically in David’s life we know he already had children by this time. So that he does have children, and so it would be physically possible for God still to keep His covenant in that sense of the seed, and have David die a sin unto death, discipline.

The key is given in the next verse, “For in death there is no remembrance of Thee; and in the grave who shall give Thee thanks?” Does this suggest an answer to the problem of why David went back to the Davidic Covenant promise? He’s not necessarily, he doesn’t have to be worried about the fulfillment of the promise as such because he’s already got children on the scene; so he doesn’t have to be worried, as such, with the existence of the second generation. But what does he want to do? What does verse 5 suggests he wants to do? He wants to let God do a work so he can personally be enthusiastic about it in this life. In other words, he’s saying God… if we want to rephrase it, maybe we can get the thought across this way, it’s as though he’s deciding between the following two points of view. In one way God could say all right, David, you’re going to go down in flames, you’re going to die a glorious death and it’s going to be a great testimony to all the people. That’s one possibility, it wouldn’t violate the Word of God of any of God’s covenants, because David still has a physical seed. But David doesn’t want that, he wants the second thing; he’s saying God, it’s nice for me to go down in flames and be a glorious testimony but it there’s any testimony I want to be around to be part of it and join in with it. Now what does that suggest about David’s enthusiasm for God? It’s not a selfish… you miss the point in verse 5 if you’re thinking David is just praying to avoid death. David knew he was going to die; David is not praying this prayer just to avoid death. He is praying the prayer in order to stay alive longer so he will have more opportunities to praise God and to view God’s saving works.

Can of you suggest a logical link between that concept in verses 4-5 and what Paul says in 1 Cor. 15 when he says that death is an enemy to the believer, the last enemy is death. Why is death an enemy to the believer? Can you catch the parallel thought from Paul, over in 1 Cor. and what David is talking about here in verses 4-5. [someone answers] Okay, death eliminates a portion from your life, that is, the opportunities you have to (1) personally view God’s work in history, although it’s true you can view it from heaven, the point is you’re not viewing it from within history, so to speak, down on the stage. And (2) can you trust God’s promise after, I mean, there’s no contest, after you die you’re in the immediate presence of the Lord, so there’s no contest then, the game is over, you don’t have any time to make points in the good sense of the word of making points. The whistle has blown, the fourth quarter, it’s all over. So the point is that death is an enemy to the believer because it removes us from the scene of God’s action. And David wants to be where the action is, God’s action. And that’s the petition here in verses 4-5.

Now in verses 4-5 the attitude that David has toward wanting to be where the action is, do you sense from this that he has already confessed and is back with the Lord, he’s moving back now? In other words, the point is, if David’s still out of fellowship by the time we’re reaching verses 4-5 I don’t see how you can explain verses 4-5, because when you’re out of fellowship you just don’t feel like arguing this way, on the basis of 4-5; that’s the last kind of argument you want to argue, verses 4-5 type. So therefore in answer to the previous question, is there a confession located inside this Psalm, I think there is implicitly and I think it’s happened by verse 4. David skips over it because his point is to get on to the issue of the enemies but it’s there and it’s implied in the text.

Now let’s go back to verse 4 and pick up a few other details. “Return, O LORD, and deliver my soul,” now you see David speaks of a need to deliver his soul. We have to be careful here because some people who deny eternal security read back in this all sorts of things. They notice that in the Old Testament economy, in the dispensation before Pentecost, that the Holy Spirit’s indwelling ministry was selective and temporary. And so they argue from that that salvation was selective and temporary. That is not a valid line of reasoning. In the Old Testament the Holy Spirit’s indwelling ministry was selective, in that He did not indwell all men, and it was temporary in that He did not always indwell the same man. This is why in Psalm 51 David could pray “take not Thy Holy Spirit from me.” The New Testament saint doesn’t pray that prayer because we live on the other side of Pentecost.

However, the Holy Spirit did have some sort of an enabling ministry that was universal and it was constant. That’s the only way we can explain the problem of the flesh; the Old Testament saint had victory over the flesh. How did he have victory over the flesh? If the mechanics taught in the New Testament are valid then he must have had some enabling ministry of the Holy Spirit. It’s not defined and not described for us in detail that we’d like to have it. The only thing that we do know is that the Old Testament saint was regenerated and we presume, therefore, that the Old Testament saint also had an enablement of the Holy Spirit in his life; the Holy Spirit did not indwell except certain people. Now this should teach you something: this should teach you that the Holy Spirit’s indwelling is not just for enabling. If the Holy Spirit wanted to enable you He could do it without indwelling us. So therefore the Holy Spirit’s indwelling ministry has other things in view besides just mere enablement; the Holy Spirit indwells you because of other reasons besides enabling us; it’s selling the Holy Spirit short to say the Holy Spirit indwells today to enable us to live the Christian life. The Holy Spirit could enable us to live the Christian life without indwelling us, as He did the Old Testament saint.

Now, in this he says God “deliver my soul,” and so we have to go back to the fact there’s something going on in David’s soul. What is happening in David’s soul? In terms of our chart, David being out of fellowship is going to have a problem because God consciousness in his conscience keeps telling him he’s out of fellowship. His conscience keeps telling his mind he’s out of fellowship, his mind rejects it because he’s on negative volition, and so his mind is opposing the work of his conscience. So his conscience and his mind are at odds and it’s having all sorts of effects on his mind, and those effects are described in verse 6-7, but all of this problem with his mind is due to his being out of fellowship and the collision between his mind and his conscience. He’s using all the defense things, rationalization, isolation, suppression, projection or just blaming somebody else. All of these defense mechanisms are operating because he’s out of fellowship. Furthermore, his emotions are out of whack; his emotions are completely out of control because his mind is doing battle with his conscience, his emotions are reacting to the battle, with the result that his emotions are all screwy, they don’t fit with what’s going on, he can’t respond normally to people, he can’t respond normally to situations in life.

So this is David and this is what he asks for in verse 4, “deliver my soul,” he’s talking about something psychological there, he’s talking about a restoration for mental peace and joy, that’s what “deliver my soul” is talking about.

Now in verse 6-7, the next section, this is the last section of the first group of verses, verses 6-7 David describes his sufferings produced by his enemies. “I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears. [7] Mine eye is consumed because of grief; it waxeth old because of all mine enemies.” This goes back to the point that we made over and over again, and will make over and over again in both this series and in the Proverbs series, that there is no reason why anyone today has to be suffering acute mental and emotional disorders, unless of course, they are chemically and organically caused through bodily damages. But apart from organic causes, the reason why people suffer mentally and emotionally today is simply one reason: guilty conscience. I know that sounds harsh but if we’re to be honest with the text of God’s Word we have to say that is the only reason God’s Word gives, that we are out of line with what God wants us to be; we’re out of place and we’re suffering the results. As one man said: we don’t break God’s laws, God’s laws break us. That’s very apropos in the psychological realm. There is always a price to be paid. I’ve noticed this and I think it’s a very interesting observation, other counselors… [tape turns]

…see the psychiatrist, the psychologist, the counselor or anybody else, there’s nothing ennoble about having this problem. The only foolish thing about it is that once you have it, not to do something about it. We all are fallen, and therefore we can all be in the same state as verses 6-7; it’s just by the grace of God we’re all not there because we’re fallen, rebellious creatures. But, the foolish thing, the really, really foolish thing to do is to have the problem of verses 6-7 and not solve it but to constantly bathe it and soak it. David, here in verses 6-7, isn’t coddling his problem; he isn’t going through all of the panaceas to solve it, he’s going directly to the prime cause. The prime cause: disobedience. Solution: obedience, it’s as simple as that. Now in practice it isn’t always as simple as that because we have to work back and find out where is the disobedience and that takes time. But the point is, in principle it’s very, very simple. It can save you, and your friends or anyone around you with whom you work, thousands and thousands of dollars if you want to measure it financially, through a simple Biblical principle, and just think, it’s all free. God’s grace is “no charge.”

Okay, “I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim,” now this is…you’ll find hyperbole, you’ll find exaggeration because this is poetic literature. He’s not talking about the bed swimming out through the door. He’s not talking about that, this is an exaggeration of tremendous agony of nightmares and other things at night; notice he says “all night” it means he suffers from something, if he’s crying all night it must be he’s awake all night. Which means that one of his problems must have been insomnia. This isn’t arguing that all insomnia is discipline, don’t reverse the principle, just be careful. The point here is that in this case the insomnia was due to divine discipline in the man’s life. “I water my couch with my tears,” literally in the Hebrew the word “water” means I dissolve my couch, you wonder what kind of a couch did he have, well, it was a kind of a reed like thing, in the archeological work at Jericho they’ve found these beds that the people had and they were made of reeds, they didn’t have spring mattresses, they had reeds that they stretched between this wood frame and that’s what he’s talking about getting wet; in other words, the water was going down through the linen that he had on the bed, down into these reeds that were underneath. So this is what it means when it says “I dissolved my couch with my tears.” So it certainly would indicate extreme emotional instability here.

Now in verse 7 there’s an interesting term, “Mine eye is consumed because of grief; it waxes old because of all my enemies.” Now we have to study this term, the “eye.” Obviously he’s been crying and so his eye is on his mind. But the “eye” in Scripture means more than that. Turn to Matt. 6:21. The physical eye is no doubt in view, we’re just pointing out there’s something else in view besides the physical eye. “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also,” Jesus says. [22] The light of the body is the eye; if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. [23] But if thy eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is the darkness.” Do you see what Jesus is talking about? It’s your outlook, and see, it goes back to something. It goes back to this problem of chaos in the heart, which David is experiencing. He goes no negative volition; he experienced darkness of the soul. The darkness of the soul results in all of these defense mechanisms going on, it results in tremendous emotional revolt and instability. After that we find a buildup of human viewpoint, so he has human viewpoint built up in his mind and the human viewpoint has as its effect to create doubt, and because he doubts he can’t use the faith technique, so he can’t pray and he can’t confess. So the thing that is most critical in David’s life is faith, and he can’t use it because of this. And when he’s talking about this buildup of human viewpoint that is this eye.

In other words, his whole mental outlook is colored by the human viewpoint that he is sucking into his mind by his negative volition. He’s gone on negative volition in revolt against God, it has resulted in darkness occurring in his soul, with the in draft of human viewpoint and the product is that he begins to have an inner hatred for God, if not for God at least for some of His attributes, which is saying the same thing. And then finally he’s experiencing total frustration with life, which comes about because he has rejected the will of God and the plan of God for his life. So this is chaos in the heart and that’s what David has.

Back in verse 7 of Psalm 6, “My eye is consumed because of grief,” in other words, what God is using here in verse 7 is a little judo on him. Remember when we studied apologetics, we said that one of the ways to work in apologetics is a negative approach first and we used the parable of the prodigal son, and we said the son hated his father, could not accept his father’s love, so therefore what did God do? He said all right, we’ll take this boy and we’ll give him all the money, etc. through the father, of course; the father gave him the funds, gave him his inheritance and he let the kid go; you want to go out and do it your way, go out son and do it your way and see where it gets you. So the kid did it and finally wound up in the pig pen. And the Bible says “when he came to himself,” then he spoke to God and said God, I have sinned against Thee. In other words, it was impossible for that prodigal son to confess and be restored as long as he was hardened; he had to be clobbered good by God before he’d get to the point where he was willing to change.

And when David says “my eye is consumed” of course this means the physical eye, of course this means that his physical eye is consumed, but it means more than just his physical eye, it means that whole foul mental attitude that he had all the time that he was out of fellowship, for however long it was, we don’t know how long it was, but for that time that he was out of fellowship, during that time he had built up this human viewpoint that had a very bad outlook on life. So what God did, He made him miserable, miserable, miserable, miserable, frustrated, frustrated all the time, constantly, no joy, no peace, nothing satisfactory. And so after a while he got to the point, well you know, it might just possibly have something to do with my mental attitude. Not it takes some people a long, long time to learn that lesson, and this is why there’s so much misery in the world. It’s amazing how much people suffer before they wake up to a few simple things, and here David is suffering, suffering, suffering, and when he says “my eye is consumed,” perfect tense in the Hebrew, meaning that it’s done, it’s finished, he says I give up, my whole attitude is shot, this attitude of disobedience. So verse 6 tells us, as verse 4 told us, verse 4 told us that he had already confessed, or was in the process of confessing, and verse 6-7 tells us that there was a long history behind this confession, before David was able to co

“…it waxes old because of all my enemies,” now when you see the word “because” you tend to think they were the final cause of it all, that’s not true. In the Hebrew it is not the strong preposition for cause used here; it is the preposition “in” or “with” meaning the instrument of. “It waxes old through the instrumentality of my enemies.” You see, he knew why, it wasn’t because of his enemies, it was because of his disobedience. He’s not having this trouble, this mental attitude problem because of enemies. Now translated into the present dispensation the Christian has trouble with demon powers; all right, they are not the final reason, they are the instrument of chastening but they’re not the real reason. The real reason is because of our disobedience. And when we disobey then God has means, either physically, in the physical natural realm through disease, suffering, accidents or in the spiritual realm through demonic agencies to apply the stick. So therefore we find “because” in verse 7 refers to instrument, not the final cause. [someone says something]. They’re both coterminous, in other words, at the point of positive volition which comes first, it’s one of those questions that’s very touchy theologically but the point is that when we’re out of fellowship, basically why we turn is because the Holy Spirit’s already operating in grace toward us even before we turn. See, it’s grace before, and after, and during. [something else said] How much did he have to change, so to speak? Again I don’t think you can separate the two because you see, you’ve got David and you’ve got the world out here, and the problem is that David is perceiving the world wrongly. Whenever we’re out of fellowship, or basically to the degree that we are entertaining human viewpoint we’re all insane, because if human viewpoint is a distorted view of reality and we’re going along on human viewpoint, then insanity only varies relatively from person to person. And so what we have here is by God’s grace how do you get rid of human viewpoint, that’s the real issue; and it’s always by the enlightening ministry of the Holy Spirit, and how does the Holy Spirit work? He alters our perception. I’m firmly convinced that both Satan and the Holy Spirit operate this way; it’s not that they actually change the truth that’s out there, it’s that they change the perception up here.

So for example, if you have gotten out of fellowship, you can be influenced satanically to misread the remarks of any believer. In other words, you can walk through a group of believers and they can smile at you and you’ll take it wrong. And this is the way it is, we’re always this way. And why? Is it because something actually has changed in the external world? No, not at all. What has happened is that inside our perception is being affected, the way we perceive things. We take things the way we want to take them. And this is how I think the Holy Spirit does this. That’s why I don’t think you can separate the destruction of human viewpoint and the work of the Spirit; it is not rendering us into passive robots either because we have a role in there too in that we are the ones that choose it, ultimately, yet at the same time we can’t affectively choose it without the light of the Holy Spirit. I mean, what would we know to choose then, if the Holy Spirit doesn’t present an issue. So there’s two things there. If you want a physical illustration, turn to the healing of the blind man in the Gospel. Jesus heals the blind eyes but he usually tells the blind man to do something too.

Verses 6-7 form the last part of this Psalm; that’s the whole group, verses 1-7. Now we shift into the next large section, the final one, and we just simply entitle this: David’s confident assurance that Jehovah has head and will defeat his oppressors. So you see, there’s a whole air of confidence here. So by verse 8 he is able to turn to his enemies, which in our dispensation would be the principalities and powers of darkness, and say get out of here, just beat it. Now why is David able to turn to his enemies and say “depart.” He couldn’t have given this command to his enemies unless he had first been assured of full restoration with the Lord. And when he has this inner assurance of full restoration with the Lord, then he has the confidence to issue the command, get out of here, “all you workers of iniquity,” the word “workers” is a participle which means it’s their constant nature to do this, which therefore is a perfect illustration of the principalities and powers in the New Testament.

“Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity; for the LORD has heard the voice of my weeping.” Now that little part in verse 8 shows you his declarative praise. Remember the two kinds of praise in the Psalms, there’s the vow of praise and then there is declarative praise. The vow of praise is used before the petition is heard; in other words, O God, if you hear my petition then I will rise up and call you blessed, or something. That’s a vow of praise; it means the petition has not been heard, he may be confident God will hear it and answer it, but it hasn’t been heard or answered yet. That’s the vow of praise. Declarative praise is issued after the petition has been heard and God has acted. Now we’re not sure exactly how God has acted, but evidently through either the priest, through his conscience or by direct revelation, David has the assurance that God has heard the voice of his weeping, and because of this he then turns against his enemies and issues the order, “Depart from me.”

Now that is always the order, first, the restoration, then the dismissing of the workers of iniquity. [9] “The LORD has heard my supplication; the LORD will receive my prayer.” And this particular phrase in verses 9-10 is what we call a gnomic expression, it’s a statement of a rule, it’s the use of the perfect and imperfect together, and this is usually in Hebrew poetry a rule. And what he’s saying in verse 9 is declarative praise. Verse 8, “the LORD has heard the voice of my weeping,” that is an announcement about a specific thing. But verse 9 we might better translate it, “The LORD hears my supplication; the LORD receives my prayer,” and there you can see it move from the specific over to a general pattern of God’s working. So this is what praise does, it moves from the specific event over to drawing generalizations about God’s character, who He is and how He works.

Then finally verse 10; in verse 10 we have to modify just a little bit from the King James. In the Hebrew there’s such a thing as an imperfect tense. The imperfect tense simply means action that has gone on, it started and ended outside of the span of the observer. In other words, it’s not like the participle; the participle means I’m watching, I’m watching, I’m watching, I’m watching and I’m watching, it’s like a motion picture, I’m constantly watching it. The imperfect tense isn’t like that; the imperfect tense is the action goes on and it kind of passes out of a field of vision; it may stop, it’s not constant, and therefore the imperfect is usually translated by the future. But it can mean other things, it can mean, as it is used in verse 10, it can mean the sense of a request. “Let all my enemies be ashamed,” this is a possible translation… this is a possible translation, there’s nothing wrong with it, except I would prefer to just simply make all the verbs in verse 10 future, because this would then express, it would follow upon verse 9, verse 9 is expressing how God works, verse 10 expresses how God works too. “All my enemies will be ashamed and sore vexed; they will return and be ashamed suddenly.” In other words, it expresses confidence that this is happening, will happen.

There’s a few little final points to notice in verse 10. The word “ashamed” is a word that is used throughout the Old Testament in a very technical sense. It is used for people who are disobedient to God, believers or unbelievers, who erect a plan and then God shoots the plan. For example it’s used of false prophets, they make all these prophesies of what’s going to happen, and Jehovah comes in and He falsifies their prophesies. The word “ashamed” is very close to our word falsification, technical term. And what it means is that they will be falsified, meaning that all their plans to assault me will go down the drain. And here we see the workings of Satan, because when Satan chastens the believer Satan isn’t interested in proving us, any more than a germ is interested in improving us; Satan just sees the opportunity to attack and he attacks for his plans. Remember his plan, stop the work of God; that’s what he has in mind. God, the sovereign God, He kind of let’s the gate up and okay Satan, you can attack this believer this much. Now God is working Satan’s viciousness for our good, and He’s bringing good out of the situation, but Satan never intends to bring good into our lives… NEVER. Satan always intends to create the snare of the fowler, the point of Psalm 91, the idea of the fact that he removes the believer’s freedom, etc. That’s always the picture of Satan, Satan always wants to destroy, never build. But here, “all my enemies will be falsified,” it means their plan, their vicious plans to destroy me will just pffft, that’s it. When God interferes, they think they will have gotten somewhere but they won’t.

This thought is captured for us in Old Testament Deuteronomy 32:27, here was the song that supposedly every good citizen of Israel had to know. Don’t know whether it was the national anthem or what but it taught them their history. So in verse 27 it’s a prophecy of the Gentile nations that will attack. This is David’s enemies, same concept; they’re attacking Israel and God says, verse 26, “I would scatter them into the corners,” that’s Israel, “I would scatter Israel into the corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men, [27] Were it not that I feared the wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should behave themselves strangely, and lest they should say, Our hand is high, and the LORD has not done all this.” See the tendency would always be on the part of the Gentile nations, because they had victory over Israel, would be to gloat over it. In other words, they would not just take it as the fact that Israel’s God let them do it, they would take it as that their gods were more powerful than the God of Israel. Just as for example, when the principalities and powers attack a believer, they take it as though Satan is more powerful than the Christ who is the Lord of the believer. So this is why God never lets it go on totally, because He at some point has to protect His own reputation, and here’s the point where it comes into play, “were it not I feared the wrath of the enemy.” In other words, God has to maintain His reputation, that He is more powerful than they are.

Finally, verse 35 in the same chapter, “To me belongs vengeance, and recompense,” God is saying to the Gentile nations, “their foot shall slide in due time. For the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste. [36] For the LORD shall judge His people, and repent himself for His servants, when He sees that their power is gone, and there is none shut up or left,” in other words, this is the believers at the extreme end of discipline; God will repent Himself, He will change His mind. And then finally verse 43, “Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people,” this is a warning to the Gentile nations, you’d better rejoice with Israel, “for He will avenge the blood of His servants, and will render vengeance to His adversaries, and will be merciful unto His land, and to His people.” That’s a warning that the Gentile nations would be God’s paddle, but only up to a point… only up to a point. And God says yes, I’m using you Gentile nations to discipline My people but don’t draw rash conclusions from that and don’t gloat over it. This is the same warning that would in the church age against the demon powers, they are allowed to afflict the body of Christ, but only up to a point… only up to a point.

And let’s finish up Psalm 6, “my enemies will be ashamed,” that is falsified, and hopefully this Deuteronomy passage has given you some of the theology of the Old Testament here, “and sore vexed” means be made very hopeless. The word “sore vexed” is used in verse 3. Do you see the irony of this Psalm. David starts out as the one who is “sore vexed;” who winds up as the “sore vexed?” His enemies. The Christian, the believer throughout the Church, think of the believers who were martyred in the coliseum at Rome, eaten by lions, remember Peter said Satin is like a lion that seeks whom he may devour, it literally came true to come Christians, and Satan gloated over it. You can just read history and sense Satan saying ha-ha, those Christians taste nice, yum- yum, and this kind of thing, I attained the triumph, but this is a prophecy toward Satan too, yeah Satan, and you’re going to be in the lion’s den, you’ve got your turn coming, it’s not called the lion’s den it’s called the lake of fire. So you see how the tables are turned.

“They will return,” that means they will change, it’s the same word verse 4, “and they will be startled suddenly.” They “will be startled,” judgment will come upon them and they won’t know what happened when it hits.

Any questions on this? [someone says something] Probably, we can’t tell, but he probably wrote it just so it’d fit, be in good literary form; sure, when he’s going through this he isn’t thinking of literary form. [another question] Well, in studying David’s life there are two possibilities as to what his enemies were doing to cause this inner suffering. If this is the early period of his life, David was being pursued in the highlands. David was, what we’d call a guerilla leader actually, he gathered a group of the most unpromising clods you could imagine, had about two or three hundred of these guys, and they’d just hop from cave to cave to keep out of Saul’s way. Saul had the army of Israel marching after him. Now in this situation had David been out of fellowship, just the pressure of constantly being hunted day and night, day and night, day and night, would have got to him after a while. In other words, it’s a combination of the external pressure and the internal being out of fellowship.

But I don’t think that’s the situation here because he’s talking about his bed at night, and if he were in the wilderness situation I don’t think this would be the setting. So I rather think this Psalm is written while he’s king, the later part of his life and in this situation he had a lot of enemies; he had foreign policy problems, and it would be just the thing, like for example someone pointed out recently in a book how President Nixon, after he ordered the Cambodian invasion had to go see a psychiatrist, and was regularly visited by one, etc. Leaders in high places are susceptible to this kind of pressure.