Psalms Lesson 16

Psalm 142

We’ll review tonight an individual lament Psalm which I asked you to do some work in. Those of you who turned in an outline, I must say that they were very, very good and it’s encouraging to see people able to use the categories and get out from the Psalms doctrinal points because they were coming to the Psalm with these categories. This is the individual lament Psalm category; we’re back in the individual lament Psalms for one evening and then we’ll finish and go on to the declarative praise psalms.

The individual lament Psalm has certain parts to it and the first one is the address; then the lament, then the petition, the praise and somewhere in it the trust section. Now let’s see how we did in Psalm 142. The address, what would be some good guesses on which verses in Psalm 142 are the address of the Psalm? [someone says verse 1-2; someone says 5] The lament section, [someone says 3-4, someone else 5a, someone says 3b-4]. Let’s go to petition, what parts of this Psalm are petition? [someone says 6-7, someone else, 5-6, someone else 5-7a] The praise section [someone says 5, someone else 7b, someone else 5b] The trust section, [someone says 7b, someone says 5, someone says 3a, someone says 1.]

Okay, let’s think first about the whole movement of the Psalm. Does the Psalm or does it not, and these are the steps that you want to apply, go through, I’m going to try to do this on the gizmo here just like you should be doing it if you want to do this on your own. First you go through and try to just spot the pieces and the first sweep that you make through the Psalm you’re going to have indecisions at many points so just relax about it. You move through, do the best you can the first time; now let’s come back and first of all, after the first sweep through, let’s go through here and just ask ourselves, is the order of the sections that we observed in Psalm 142, is the order of these sections what is usually seen in an individual lament Psalm. Are there any gross maladjustments that you… we have seen some pretty weird patterns here. If there aren’t, and it’s pretty obvious that it goes along address, lament, petition, praise with trust in here. It’s a pretty orthodox Psalm.

All right, if that’s the case, then we don’t have any major interpretive questions as far as saying now why did he put this up here or put that over that over there. So we don’t have any of those questions. Now when we come back through the second time let’s see if we can start specifically pinning things down. Let’s take the address; we’ve got verses 1, 2 and 5 as candidates. Let’s ask ourselves what is usually to be found in an address? How can we spot an address? What distinguishes the address from the rest of the Psalm? [someone says something] The use of the second person, now I think what’s happened here is that in teaching the second category, which was the individual declarative praise Psalms we stressed the second person. And I think some of you read that second person… I know some of you handed in papers and you dumped and were puzzled over the fact of why is it that in the first two verses it’s all third person, David is “I” and I’m talking about the Lord, I’m not talking to the Lord. And some of you had questions, what’s going on, why are we picking up a third person in these first two verses and not a second person. Well, I think this is because we’ve imported some of our understanding from the individual declarative praise Psalms back onto the individual lament Psalms.

Whenever you have second person in the Hebrew, particularly in poetry, it fluctuates back and forth between second and third. And I think you’ve heard me say that that boundary between second and third is not a reliable boundary to make any kind of interpretive decisions on. Sometimes the Psalm works beautifully, but what I’m trying to say is don’t get hung up, as some of you did when you hit verses 1-2 and see “I cried unto the LORD,” you were looking for it to say “I cried unto You, O Lord.” And you were looking for a second person there. Don’t let it bother you, second and third persons do hop back and forth. So though they can be useful they’re not always useful so don’t worry about that.

The address is basically just to introduce the petition, introduce the problem, the petition, do a quick summary. Now in the address you will necessarily have part of a lament, won’t you, if it’s a summary. How do you suppose you determine the little pieces of the lament that you pick up on the address from the main body of the lament? [someone says something] All right, in the lament itself, in the lament proper you’re going to start picking up a lot of details, and you might get a piece of the lament put up there in the address and it’ll be just quick, just enough to get you introduced to the problem. So it’s a matter of emphasis. And so this explains, I know one of the questions I’ve got that several people asked is why is the address in the third person. Well, that’s why, the second and third person hop back and forth, it’s just characteristic of the Hebrew poetry.

Can anyone think why this happens? David was a human being and he had a mentality and he certainly could distinguish between second and third person. Why do you suppose there is this tendency to start talking to the Lord and then start talking about the Lord? I’ll just toss this out, do you suppose this shows anything. [someone says something] A very good observation and that is did you ever notice what the heading is saying; what kind of a Psalm is this. Remember the Holy Spirit is very, very conservative when it comes to giving information on the background of these Psalms, so when He does come out with something in the heading, take advantage of it. He doesn’t usually give you this information, so treat it with kid gloves. A “Maschil,” that’s a teaching Psalm, it’s a wisdom type Psalm. So immediately you’re passing over to the third person. Why? Because he’s instructing other believers, that’s why. And in verse 7 he’s going to tell you all about why. But it’s an instructive Psalm.

So it’s a “Maschil of David: A Prayer, when he was in the cave.” And at least it pins down the area of his life; two possibilities, 1 Samuel 22, 1 Samuel 24, so we know roughly the area of his life. Obviously it was before he actually was king. Now one of you asked a question, doesn’t verse 7 sound like he’s king. It may sound that way but he wasn’t because the heading eliminates that possibility, David was not king. He was anointed king by position, legal position he had to king, Samuel had already anointed him, but he couldn’t occupy the throne because Saul was there. So Saul still occupied the throne though David had the prophetic right to the throne.

Okay, now let’s look at verse 5. The reason verse 5 would not be part of the address, well for two reasons, one the address either is found in the first few verses or there isn’t any address, it’s just jammed in with the body somehow. So it would be very unusual to find an address starting down in the fifth verse. You’d expect it in the first and if isn’t… verse 5 can be explained in a better way which we’ll see. So let’s eliminate verse 5 and settle on verses 1-2. Verses 1-2 form the address of the Psalm.

Now let’s move to the lament. The lament we have suggested 3b-4; 3-4; and 5a. That should provide an interesting variation. So let’s see what we can do with the lament. In the lament what do you primarily look for. Can you describe what you would look for if you were looking for a lament in a Psalm. [someone says something] All right, often times in a lament watch the person shifting, from “I,” he describes his own personal problems, to “You,” what the Lord was and was not doing, to “they” the enemy. Now the shifting from the first, second to third is not as clear in the lament as it sometimes is in the petition. But it spreads out and gives you details.

Now let’s look at the suggestions here. 3b-4, let’s read verses 3-5, “When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then Thou knewest my path. In the way wherein I walked have they secretly laid a snare for me. [4] I looked on my right hand and, and behold, but there was no man that would know me. Refuge failed me; no man cared for my soul. [5] I cried unto Thee, O LORD. I said, Thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of the living.” And then it goes on in verse 6, “Attend unto my cry.” Now there was a difference of opinion on verse 3 and verse 3 caused more problems in the people that worked on the papers than any other verse, and I think it’s because of the way it looks in the English text. You’re used to seeing parallelisms. And verse 3 doesn’t have that usual parallelism in it. See, “When my spirit was overwhelmed within me,” You heard me. That’s saying one thought. But then in the last part of verse 3, “In the way wherein I walked they have privately laid a snare for me,” that’s another thought, so you don’t have that parallelism of thought in verse 3, and that does suggest a fracturing is occurring here in the middle of this verse.

Now who put for 3a? [someone says trust] Okay, so you severed the third verse in half by taking the first part as trust, the second part as lament. Would anybody disagree with this? [someone says something] He was saying it would be a lament because it goes back. [someone else says something] Okay, there’s a problem of the tense in here. Now in this situation, watch this, in this situation it is true that we’re picking up a trust here, in 3a there’s a trust element. The only question is, how much are we going to distinguish the first part from the second part of the verse; that’s the real question. We’re picking up a trust section because verse 3a, “When my spirit was overwhelmed within me,” there’s the lament, there’s the pessimism, but wherever you have a fragment of trust in the middle of a Psalm there’ll be an optimism. And so you see the pessimism is “when my spirit was overwhelmed within me,” but immediately along with the pessimism, there’s an optimism, but “then,” right then, see the “then.” The same time “when my spirit was overwhelmed… then You knew” me. And there’s an optimism there.

Now it turns out in the Hebrew three is a tense problem here. And that the verb “ know” is a perfect tense and it can be referred to as strictly something out of the past or it can be something as a matter of principle, as a principle. If you take this as a principle type of verb, that is a verb that refers to something that recurs over and over again, then you’ve got a principle in the first part of verse 3. It isn’t rooted just to the historic cave problem, but the principle of verse 3 a would be true at any point in the believer’s life. He could almost say “whenever my spirit is overwhelmed within me, then you know my path.” Now whether we want to be that extreme about 3a or not, the important thing for you to notice is that we’ve picked up a trust here. There is an element of trust in 3a. We’ll leave it at that and say the lament moves, we’ll puts 3a in parenthesis, then 3b to where it ends.

Now there’s a difference of opinion whether the lament is terminating at the end of verse 4 or it is terminating at the end of verse 5. Would anyone like to advance arguments as to why you think the lament terminates at the end of 4 or why it terminates at the end of 5a. By the way, in all of this, do any of you have the New ASV; read verse 4. “Look to the right and see; For there is no one who regards me; There is no escape for me; No one cares for my soul.” What is different between the way the New ASV is handling verse 4 and the way your King James is handling it. [someone says something] It’s present but more important what kind of verb; what is the mood of the verb, indicative or imperative. In the New ASV they’ve translated that verb as “LOOK,” whereas in the King James it’s a very mild “I looked on my right hand.” Now in the Hebrew the New ASV is correct, the New ASV is the proper translation; this is an imperative, “Look” David is saying, “on my right.”

Now this is why verse 4 goes with verse 5. It’s hard to separate verses 4 and 5. Now this is where again translation may throw you off in your outline but don’t worry about it, it’s not a serious mistake. Verse 3a, we’ve got 3b; verse 4 everyone agrees; now verse 5. Let’s look at verse 4 and then see how it’s related to 5. In verse 4 David is saying, “Look to my right and look, there’s no man that would know me. Refuge failed me; no man is caring for my soul.” It’s all present tense; look at this thing. “I cried unto You, O LORD. I said, Thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of the living.” Now most of the people that handed in the papers spotted this and that is verse 5 is also a trust section. You see the confidence in verse 5, “I cried unto You, O LORD. I said, You are my refuge and my portion in the land of the living.” So there you have a trust section that’s developing.

Now let’s look at these verses and label them. Under 3b everyone agrees that’s a lament. Under verse 4 everyone agrees that’s a lament. Under 3a some would say it’s trust and most people would say 5 is trust. When you get this kind of structure in the Psalm this will help you when you’re outlining, is an artistic device sometimes for the Hebrew to bracket things, I call it, for lack of anything better and more sophisticated, I call it the sandwich technique, so you have the two pieces of bread and the stuff in the middle, and you see this again and again in the Psalms, where they kind of bracket it. And so therefore let’s make the lament, 3a-5, or at least say there’s a section there, it’s a mixture of lament and trust and we’ll come back to it when we outline.

Then let’s see, we have petition and we have a little divergence of opinion as to what the petition is. Now I know why some of you are saying verse 5 is petition. Look at verse 5 and now look at verse 6 and 7. Do any of you see a difference in the spirit behind verse 5 and behind verses 6-7? Granted it is all addressed to God, we don’t debate that it’s addressed to God, but do you pick up anything different between verse 5 and verse 6? And if you do can you state it. [someone says something] Okay, this is going to be the other argument for putting verse 5 with verse 6 because verse 5 is a most excellent preface for his prayer. He’s making the petition, see the petition in verse 6, “Attend to my cry; for I have been brought very low. Deliver me from my persecutors; for they have become stronger than I.” There’s his petition but why is he petitioning?

On the basis of the truth of verse 5, and somebody very astutely remarked in their paper, under application I asked you to see if you could apply this to the Christian and somebody pointed out that this is the mark of a man’s maturity because before he moved in with the petition he had that confidence and it just comes spilling out all over the place in the Psalm. He’s in a jam but when he comes to the Lord he doesn’t come in panic, he comes relaxed, in one sense, in the sense that he knows, beyond the shadow of a doubt he knows that the Lord is his “portion in the land of the living.” And because of that, now he prays “Attend unto me,” O Lord. And if verse 5 wasn’t there we could argue that verse 6 would be a panic prayer and not a genuine prayer of faith. The difference between a panic prayer and the prayer of faith is the fact that the panic prayer doesn’t have a platform of faith to operate, it’s just a quick panic thing, “O God, help me” kind of prayer. And that’s a lot different from this kind of a petition because this is rooted in a fact… a fact!

Then we see verses 6 and 7; verse 7, there seems to be some difference of opinion and verse 7 is a complicated verse. So we’re on the petition and we’ll say verse 6, now what about verse 7? There’s a problem in verse 7, what is it? Can anyone suggest why we’re having difficulty with our categories in verse 7? [someone says something] Okay, it’s split in two, part of it is petition, part of it is praise. Does everybody agree with that.

So now let’s look at what we’ve got: address, verses 1-2; lament, we’ll put 3a in parenthesis because that’s trust; 3b-4; and then verse 5 is a trust; petition, verses 6-7a, and praise 7b. Now there may be some questions, this is literature and you’re not going to pin it down like a science problem and solve the equation, but does anybody have any pressing counter arguments, objections to this breakdown, or is there anything not clear, why you’re not clear as to how we got to this point.

Now let’s begin the next step after having dug some of these pieces out is to see if we can start putting them together in some sort of coherent outline. How would you begin to put the pieces back together in a coherent thought outline, stressing the content of what this Psalm is saying. Where would you make your big break? Where are your major sections in this? As far as I could tell those who handed in their papers, there was a neat division, a flip-flop in verse 5; most of you hit it and it was just a discussion of which side verse 5 goes with. Some of you put it with verses 6-7. Others had it this way and basically those are the choices that we’ve got. Do you see what I’m talking about, two large sections on an outline. Can some of you argue one of these, justify why you put verse 5 with the first four verses, or justify why you would place verse 5 with the last two verses. We’re moving verse 5 back and forth to try to find which side of the fence it goes on most easily in the outline. [someone says something] You would argue that verse 5 goes with this because of the fact that now we have the basis plus the petition. Anybody that put verse 5 with the other would you justify why you might do it this way.

Again, I’m stressing the point, one of these is not going to be right and the other wrong, David didn’t give us the outline. The outline is just a means for absorbing the content out of the text. That’s what this is an exercise in. [someone says something] Okay, the tense forms. And we’ll put King James version. But there is another reason for putting verse 5 here; can any of you see it. Go back to whatever you have in your notes on the pieces here. [someone says something] Okay, there is this sandwich thing that I pointed out, just the structure, you’ve got one part of the trust section here, one part here. Just experience, and I know this is going to sound subjective, etc. but my experience in working with the Psalms is this: that when you get in this kind of a situation you really want to pinpoint the outline, it’ll help you if you visualize that trust section as having been originally in David’s mind one piece, and then he kind of broke it and put one piece over here and one piece over here to cluster things. In other words, it’s like two parts of a parenthesis. And if you’ll visualize that process that might help you.

But to be perfectly frank with you regardless of whether you put verse 5… [tape turns] …I think we can get the spiritual truth out regardless of which side we’re going to go on here. That’s not a facetious statement because sometimes you actually get a warped idea of the Psalm by not being careful, so let me just say I’m not trying to condone sloppiness. But the rule in basic Bible study is to be as tight with the text as you can. In other words, hit the text with everything you’ve got to be as specific and tight with it, don’t allow it to flop around under you because the tighter you are with the text the more you’re going to see in the text. If for no other reason than the fact that you’re debating with yourself, what do I do with verse 5, and in the very process of thinking about what you’re going to do with verse 5 you’re going to see something in verse 5. So all of this is a mental exercise, so to speak. So it’s neither here nor there, as far as I’m concerned whether you put verse 5 in the first part or the second part, as long as you have gone through the process of asking yourself the question and dug a little bit, that’s the point.

Now let’s go through it on a verse by verse basis. Let’s look first at the address. Since we’ve gone through the individual lament Psalms before, what are some principles that you see operating… and also, those of you who have King James and not the New ASV, all the tense forms in verses 1-2 and imperfect tense forms; they’re all imperfects, meaning they can go on and on and on and on, it can be habitual. “I cried unto the LORD,” “I make my supplication,” I poured out my complaint,” “I showed before Him my trouble.”

Okay, looking at the content of the first two verses are there some spiritual principles that you see there. Maybe they’ve been related to what we’ve seen before but just drop them out anyway, repetition won’t hurt. [someone says something] Okay, again do you see the personal-ness of the Psalms, the extreme personal-ness; this personal-ness in David’s life is going to explain, when we get in the Sunday evening comparing Saul and David. Saul does not have this quality in his personal life. Saul is a very moral person; Saul would have been elected to any board of any fundamentalist church. And David would never have made it. He probably wouldn’t even make it through the front door, simply because oh, a guy like that, with his background, we can’t tolerate him in our congregation, we’re too self-righteousness to have a guy like that hanging around. So David has, in his life, a sense of sin, because it’s quite obvious to him, but the very sense of sin has produced a personal-ness about God. He’s relaxed in the presence of God and he talks to God in a personal way. Read 1 Samuel sometime and see if you find the same thing in Saul. There’s not that personal intimacy at all with the man, in spite of the fact that from the outside Saul has it hands down all over David. On the outside Saul has all the morals, he has all the reputation in the community, and so on. David doesn’t have it, but on the inside the difference is just like black and white with these men.

All right, the only other point I make in passing in verses 1-2 is the emphasis on the voice in verse 1, and that would be the idea again of the personal-ness with words. And this is something that we have to stress in our generation. It’s becoming increasingly important for you to know this as a believer because the liberals are pounding us on the left and on the right and in the front and back, all over the place, in the press, in the popular books that you read, you get hit with this all the time, that man has a deep encounter with God, and they talk about this encounter with God, and the spiritual meeting of man and God, etc. but missing in all of the discussion is the fact that the man talks to God and God talks back; that there’s a verbal exchange involving ideas between the two. In other words, the modern man in our generation does not have a personal relationship with God. He’s using the words, but you don’t have a personal relationship with anybody unless you communicate with them. Just looking at the person is not any communication, is not any personal relationship, you’ve got to communicate words, and until you do communicate with words you don’t have it. And its’ the same thing here. So the emphasis again here is on the Word, the real nature and guts of the Christian relationship is the communication involved.

Now verses 3-5, the lament. We’ll call the whole thing a lament because there are two trust sections in here and this certainly shows David’s trust as well as his problem. By putting the trust section with the lament, combined with what was pointed out about the heading, that it is a Maschil Psalm, what do you think David is trying to teach us. If this Psalm’s primary import is teaching, it’s to produce chokmah in the believer, wisdom in the believer. What is it that David’s trying to emphasize in this Psalm; if he might be up here tonight presenting the Psalm to us, perhaps singing it to us, what is the burden of his heart that we understand out of all of this.

[someone says something] All right, the idea is that when you get at the end of the rope that He’s there. And as someone summed it up, the central thought of this Psalm is how long can I possibly go on and that’s the thought that’s on David’s mind. How long can I keep this up, how long does this pressure go on and on and on and on, but in the middle of it, by using the sandwich, his problem is right here, and just looking at that from the human viewpoint this is the way the problem looks. How long, O Lord, how long is this thing going on, and then the human viewpoint turns into divine viewpoint by putting trust on either side. And that’s what shifts, the human viewpoint immediately into a divine viewpoint mentality. “When my spirit was overwhelmed with me, then You knew my path.”

Now let’s examine 3a, which is the bracket on one side, and verse 5 which is the bracket on the other side. These two brackets shift the human viewpoint panic mentality over into a relaxed divine viewpoint mentality. Now let’s see how it happens. Before we get to 3a and 5, just quickly look at the problem. “In the way wherein I was walking they have laid a snare for me. [4] I looked on my right hand, and look, there was no man there,” “there was no man that would know me. Refuge failed me; no man cares for my soul.” So in the middle of this problem he is absolutely deserted. Said another day, David’s problem is so great that no human aid is possible. No human aid is possible. He’s got himself in a jam and there’s no gimmick that can be used to get out of the jam. So from the human viewpoint there’s reason to panic. There’s reason for David to fall apart; there’s reason for David to have some sort of a neurotic reaction to the thing and just go crazy because he’s faced with this pressure that goes on and on and on and on and on and never lets up, and he knows that no matter who’s there, there’s nobody that can help him.

Put in a modern context, this is the kind of problem you’d have if you got yourself into a jam where no minister on earth can help you, where no medical doctor can help you, where no psychiatrist can help you and no psychologist can help you. Now if you have that kind of a problem, that’s the kind David has; welcome to the club. So here David is with this kind of a situation.

Now what changes in his divine viewpoint are these additions that he makes, and he’s telling us through this Psalm, believer, you do the same thing as I did, and I am a living testimony that it works. Remember the Hebrew emphasis is not on the idea but on the experience of history. All right, “When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then You knew my path.” What particular divine attribute do you think is on his mind, of all the attributes of God. God is sovereign, God is righteous, God is just, God is loving, God is omniscient, God is omnipresent, God is omnipotent, immutable and eternal. What of those attributes do you think is fixed on his mind by the way he’s handling it from 3a? What aspect of God’s being? [someone says something] All right, there’s sovereignty involved; does anybody else have another attribute? [someone says something] Omniscience, okay. Omniscience, sovereignty, more so omniscience probably, just as far as the relative balance goes.

“When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, You knew my path,” now there’s going to be a play on the word path here, so watch this “path,” I’m going to come back to it. But be careful, what is it God knows, His problem or the path. And there’s a very interesting, you would expect “when my spirit was overwhelmed within me, O LORD, you knew” my problem, but David doesn’t say “you knew my problem.” Obviously God in His omniscience knows it. But what strikes David is that God knows his path. And we’re going to come back to that.

But let’s skip to verse 5 to get the other side of the sandwich, “I cried” and this is an imperfect, “I cry unto Thee, O LORD, I say,” and then what follows that comma is a quotation; whatever follows that you could put in quote marks and say that’s the promise that he claimed. Here is a believer in the middle of pressure applying the Word; there’s the promise, “Thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of the living.” Now he’s memorized that, that occurs in other places in the Word. So that’s the promise that he’s applying. So the second thing is, not only is he reflecting on the doctrine of divine essence, that’s one thing that changes the problem into a divine viewpoint thing, the other thing is a promise from the Word. And in particular, what doctrinal area is this promise from the Word in? “Thou art my portion in the land of the living.”

Well, let’s just take this, somebody in one of their papers did a very good study of this “portion,” at least they did as well as they could with the situation at hand, and they asked what does this mean, “my portion in the land of the living.” Let me give you a hint and then let’s see if you can come up with what David’s getting at here in this promise, verse 5. The word “portion” is the same word in the original language as inheritance. Now normally, when this word “inheritance” is used it refers to private property. Remember the Jew and the boundary lines of Leviticus, each family had a personal property. And every major family had that property, economic freedom is the basis of political freedom, etc. And so their inheritance was the land. Now David comes along in the middle of a pressure, and remember historically what is David’s life like right at this moment. You’ve got to get the historical background. Does he have the throne? No. He’s been promised the throne, but does he actively have any land under his feet? What is David doing right now? Can anyone summarize this time of his life? He’s on the run, actually he’s like a guerilla leader today, he’s on the run completely. It’s very defensive all the time here. He doesn’t have any inheritance, so why does he say, “You are my inheritance in the land of the living”

What’s he saying here in this phrase? [someone says something about referring to Samuel’s anointing] Okay, and “the inheritance in the land of the living,” let’s work on “the land of the living” here a minute, sharpen this up. What do you suppose the “land of the living” means. Some of you suggested that this was in eternal life, “land of the living.” What do you think it means? Don’t try too hard. [someone says something about in this life are…] Right. Now let me show you something strange in this promise and here’s where I hope that this will show you a little bit more about how he trusts the Lord. To the normal Hebrew mind the portion, or the “inheritance in the land of the living” was the land and in eternity it was God. Now David comes along and says no, “in the land of the living you are my inheritance,” right here and now. I’m not concerned with the land.

That is David’s mentality that was ten centuries in anticipation of the Christian church, when the Church, the body of Christ, has no portion “in the land of the living.” We have no inheritance in this life; we have no inheritance throughout the Church Age. The body of Christ is totally without a land; the Crusaders were wrong, the Church is never supposed to fight for The Holy Land; the Holy Land doesn’t belong to the Church, it belongs to Israel. So aside from the slaughter of many thousands and the stupid religious war it was based on very poor Bible doctrine. The Church should never fight for any land, we have no land. David, ten centuries before his day caught the principle and God trained him. Don’t you suppose, now again, thinking not naturalistically but just thinking in terms of cause and effect, can’t you visualize yourself being in David’s position, being anointed to a high office, God promising you that you’re going to be in the office but everywhere you go you’re chased all around; you know, you put on your clothes one day and you have to move from this house to the next house, all your cassettes are sitting there in the kitchen and you walk out the door and leave them. And so you don’t have any property. And somebody hounds you from point to point to point to point, week in and week out, month after month. What are you finally going to come to the conclusion? You go crazy or you solve it the other way and that is that the only thing that counts today is the fact that I’ve got the Lord, because by evening I can’t tell whether I’m going to have my cassettes, my coat, my car or anything else. So for months David has been going through an experiential school where he’s learned this, so when he says, “You are my portion in the land of the living,” it wasn’t just by BMA that he found that truth out, it was because he lived through that kind of situation for months upon end.

Those are the brackets and they have to do with God’s essence. Think doctrine of divine essence, which is the simplest thing that you can learn; the simplest doctrine that you can learn is the best one you can ever learn in your whole Christian life. God is sovereign, God is righteous, God is just, God is love, God is omniscient, God is omnipotent, omnipresent, immutable and eternal. It takes you two minutes to learn that and yet every trial, EVERY trial in the Christian life basically centers on how well you experientially understand what that’s saying. Every trial, and this is a beautiful example of it. Every promise that God gives you is backed by this. And every satanic attack is going to be directed to one or more of these attributes. Every satanic attack in some way, shape or form is trying to blot over the character of God, because satan is the Hebrew word for accuser, or smearer, character assassinator. Satan is in the business of distorting this simple basic doctrine; that’s all he has to do, he doesn’t have to create some big hairy heresy. All he has to do is get you faked out right here, that’s all he has to do and he’s got you behind the 8-ball every time, a simple fake out on the doctrine of divine essence.

Now let’s look at the problem that David has here. Now we want to go back and find out… let’s see what we can learn about that word “path,” why does he say God knows my path and not me? Or my problem? Why my path? The answer is found in the last part of verse 3, “In the way wherein I walked have they privately laid a snare for me.” Now the word “walk” means habitual walk. “In the way wherein I walk all the time they laid a snare for me.” Now David’s complaint here is that… let me ask you, is he or is he not in the will of God when they laid a snare for him? [someone says something] All right, David is in the will of God to begin with… in, not out! That’s the setting for this Psalm, David is in the will of God and he is hit right between the eyeballs with this problem, and he didn’t get into the problem because he was out of the will of God; he got into the problem because he was in the will of God. And this is the way it can be in the Christian life. You can suffer because you are in the will of God, not necessarily out of it (you can suffer because you’re out of it too, that’s another way to do it). But if you’re going to do it it’s better to suffer because you’re in the will of God. It’s exciting because what it means is that Satan considers you important enough to throw some road blocks up. You’re taking away from his real estate a little bit and he doesn’t like it. And by the way, don’t expect him to act like the United States Defense Department on foreign policy, oh yeah, you can go ahead and have it, peace at any price. Satan doesn’t operate that way. You take an inch from him and he’ll punch you in the jaw, and what you have to do is punch him back twice. And that’s the attitude that you have to have as a believer; he throws one shot over you throw two back. He gets tired of it after a while and takes off and that’s what James 2 says, resist Satan and he’s going to flee from you. What’s resisting, saying oh well Satan, if you want it this is the Lord’s will. That’s passivity, that’s not standing up for your rights as a believer or for the Word.

So what he’s saying here is that “in the way wherein I have walked they have privately laid a snare.” “They” are his enemies, and very few of you who handed in the papers noted the fact when I said how to apply this to the Christian life, that “they” here in verse 3 is parallel to Ephesians 6, demonic powers. That’s the analogue between the Gentiles, or the Jews under Saul in this case, David’s personal enemies. They are not impersonal enemies, they are personal enemies. Now who are the personal enemies of the believer? They are the principalities and powers of darkness, Eph. 6. So, “they laid a snare for me,” “privately” means it’s sneaky, in the darkness, Satan doesn’t come up and do this in the open, he doesn’t put a flashing yellow light to tell you there’s a barricade up ahead because he wants you to hit it. So he’s not going to light it, he’s going to put it there privately so you can feel it when you hit.

Okay, “I looked on my right hand” and so on, that’s very clear. “Refuge failed me, no man was caring for my soul.” Let’s go to verse 6, here’s his petition, “Attend unto my cry; for I am brought,” “I have been brought very low,” it’s a past tense, perfect, “I have been brought very low. Deliver me from my persecutors,” there again is the personal enemies, “for they are stronger than I.” Now you see David’s humility; this is the secret of a great man; this is the secret of a spiritual giant. Saul would have had difficulty with this. Saul would have had difficulty in saying that my persecutors are stronger than I, because it would have been too much for Saul to admit it. Not David; David blew it and he knew it, I know, they’re stronger than I am. I don’t have to swallow my pride to acknowledge that little point Lord. They’re stronger than I am. So you see, here’s the attitude that receives grace.

Finally the rest of the petition, verse 7, “Bring my soul out of prison,” in Psalm 91, do you remember the analogy of Satan; what was Satan cast as in Psalm 91 where we said that he limited the freedom. The fowler that traps the bird that is free. Why is the bird used as an analogy of the believer? Because it’s the freest animal, it flies, free, but the fowler snares it and that is a picture that Satan will always do to the believer, he destroys freedom. He will always destroy freedom and generally, the irony of it is that Satan destroys freedom by coming to you in the name of freedom. He comes to you in the name that you can be free from the sovereign of God and after he gets through with you you don’t have any freedom whatever. And David senses this so he says take “my soul out of prison,” I don’t have freedom, “that I may praise Thy name.” There’s the reason, “that I may praise Thy name.” Now there’s the feature that we’ve seen, we facetiously refer to as “Jew-ing” God in prayer. And some of you have remarked on your papers how this has helped you in your prayer life. This shows you the boldness that David had; now God, if you want me to be [can’t understand word] to praise Your name you’d better get me out of this. And that’s the way he did it; that’s his petition to the Lord.

Finally, the last part of verse 7, here’s the praise and we don’t have time to go into justification for why I’m going to say what I’m going to say about the word “compass,” but this word has a whole word picture behind it. The word “compass” means to overcome. It means to overcome and the thought behind this is this: “The righteous one shall compass me about,” but the thought is, they shall triumph in me, or because of me, or through me. The Hebrew word means in, through or by. So “they shall triumph through me, because,” the word “for” meaning because, “Thou shalt,” and it should be future perfect, “Thou shalt have bountifully dealt with me.” And this is why the Psalm, a Maschil, is teaching something. The righteous ones are ourselves, those who are believers in Jesus Christ. The righteous ones will triumph over whom? Their personal enemies, which are the principalities and powers in the Church Age. “The righteous ones shall triumph because of me,” David says. How do we as Christians triumph because of David? Because David was the historical instrument that God used to reveal His truth about spiritual combat.

“The righteous ones shall triumph because of me, because You have dealt bountifully with me.” And it terminates on the note that is always there in Hebrew text; it is not the idea, it is the historic reality. It is not because they shall triumph because they heard David’s great thoughts. We did not triumph because David teaches us good doctrine, which he does, but that’s not why we triumph. We do not triumph because David gives a very sweet sounding devotional in Psalm 142; David says no, there’s only one reason why the righteous are going to triumph because of me, because God, You worked in my life and therefore You have given the believer historic evidence that you can do the same thing in their life. So the closing challenge of the Psalm is if this isn’t historically real, and this is just a fake story, forget it, forget it, because it has absolutely no application in your life unless this literally happened and God literally intervened. And then we can say because God literally dealt bountifully with David.

Shall we bow our heads.