Psalms Lesson 17

Psalm 34:1-7

We’re back to declarative praise Psalms; last week we went back temporarily to a lament Psalm, and so you can understand the categories, an individual declarative praise Psalm has a proclamation, which, “I will praise,” and this proclamation is generally a time when the psalmist pays his vow of praise. In other words, he has been in a problem, he is out of the problem but he promised the Lord, Lord, when you deliver me I will witness to the Word, and I will declare the Word. And so the proclamation is actually an announcement that he is now paying his vow, that he is now praising God, he is now teaching the Word.

The second part of an individual declarative praise psalm is an introductory summary. The introductory summary is the heart of a praise psalm, in fact it’s the heart of all Psalms, and this is usually God intervened and God delivered and there won’t be any details given but there will be this summary statement of what God did. The third section deals with what we just call the main section and it has several parts to it. It has one looking back where the psalmist is telling you what his problem was, then there’s a report of deliverance and he’s telling you how God delivered him, and there will be a praise section which will be one of two types, it’ll be just a simple vow to keep on praising, it can be descriptive praise which means that he is generalizing from the specifics of his experience. And often times the descriptive praise becomes so intense that the whole Psalm turns over into an instruction, such as Psalm 32. And this is where instruction first began and it’s important that you see the cause/effect and how the Biblical concept of instruction started. It started from a personal encounter with God who revealed Himself. So instruction is never like studying a subject today in a classroom, the instruction always flows out of a personal genre.

Now let’s turn to Psalm 34 and see if we can spot these sections in this Psalm. We’ll be on Psalm 34 tonight and next week. Let’s first notice the Psalm heading. Remember in the Hebrew verse 1 is what you see there under the title; the Hebrews considered this part of the text. “A Psalm of David, when he changed his behavior before Abimelech, who drove him away, and he departed.”

You look at this for a few moment and see if you can spot some of the sections, the proclamation, the introductory summary and the main section. Just a word of encouragement, I’m sure that many of you think while you’re doing this that this is sure a heck of a way of getting a spiritual blessing out of a Psalm by running it through the meat grinder like this. The answer is: yes this is a way to get a spiritual blessing because these Psalms are meant to be understood and it takes effort to understand the Word of God. It always takes effort to learn; there’s no way this leaks into you through the fingertips by osmosis. God the Holy Spirit does not accommodate to our laziness. He’s willing to teach if we’re willing to learn.

Okay, let’s begin with the proclamation, obviously it begins in verse 1, where does it stop?

[someone says something] Verse 3; okay, proclamation verses 1-3. Any other candidates? Let’s look at the introductory summary, this is a little tricky and some of you are going to do it depending on what translation you have. Where would you begin the introductory summary. Verse 4; where do you think it ends. [someone says something] It ends in verse 7; verse 6, any other candidates for the introductory summary? [someone says something] Verses 4-10, okay, any others. Let’s go on to the main section and see if we can find out where that is. The main section, [several people say something, can’t hear any of it] Okay, you took verse 5 as part of it, 4-5. Now who here has a New ASV. Just answer, are they handling verse 5 as imperatives or as indicative moods? [someone says something] Indicative; does anyone have a translation that handles a verb in verse 5 as an imperative? Okay, I’m surprised the New ASV didn’t do that.

So let’s look then at the main section, can someone pick out the three, looking back, report of deliverance and praise. Now remember when you analyze a Psalm like this you’ve got to have the main section and if when you start juggling your outlines you have to shave down some other part, shave it down, so that you do get at least your main section. The main section has always got to be there. The other parts can be sacrificed but your main section has got to be there. Now looking at the Psalm… [someone answers] 6-7 report of deliverance; anybody else? You’ve got an awful long praise section, what do some of you think about that one? This Psalm seems to just run off at the mouth here on this praise. Does anybody have an idea for handling this? [someone says something] This praise would be used for instruction, what gives you the idea it’s instruction. Just follow through. [someone says something] Okay, do you notice verse 11? Verse 11 is a major break in this Psalm because everything that follows verse 11 is instruction. So verse 11 and following, everything, verse 11 and what follows is a whole instruction thing tacked onto this thing. Verse 11 and following is identical in most structures with Proverbs; it’s a proverbial wisdom literature.

Can anybody fill in the main section a little bit more. You’re doing real good for hitting this cold, so don’t be embarrassed at all. Looking back, let’s see if we can go back to that thing. What are some verses that we can put in there for looking back. [someone says something] Verse 6, okay. 5 on looking back. Here’s a hint, remember a kind of praise, the praise that you find developed in this kind of a Psalm would be descriptive praise and descriptive praise deals with principles, not events. Can you spot descriptive praise here; there’s a key example of it. Look for something that talks in terms of the principle.

Okay, let’s see what we can do with this. The proclamation section is verses 1-3; the reason for it is that it’s all directing toward worship, I will do this and come join with me. So that’s correct. The introductory summary, the reason why we’re having trouble with it is verse 5 is a very difficult verse and the Hebrew texts are divided on this. Most translations, as you obviously saw, are handling verse 5 as an indicative; that means the normal mood of a verb, so and so did something. Now some other manuscripts handle these as imperatives, so that it reads: “look at Him and be enlightened, and let your faces be not ashamed.” Now I’m going to hope to show you in the course of the evening that the Hebrew texts that take the imperative mood are probably correct and the majority of translators have followed translation tradition that is probably wrong. And our basis for rejecting the majority rule is the fact that when we start to analyze the Psalm the way we’re doing, it fits very nicely to turn these into imperatives.

Here’s why. If we make verse 4 the introductory summary, that quickly summarizes everything, then verse 5 is an exhortation to do something about this. This Psalm has a great degree of exhortation in it that’s characteristic of this thing. There’s exhortation plugs in every point. Notice verse 2, he doesn’t just say I will bless the Lord, he says “My soul shall make her boast in the LORD; the humble shall hear of it,” and so then in verse 3 he immediately slides over into an exhortation. “Oh, magnify the LORD with me,” everybody. So verses 1-2 he comes individually before the Lord and by verse 3 he’s already gathering the people around to join with him. And so in verse 4 he summarizes it; in verse 5, in the outline you can tack them together, but strictly speaking I would prefer to just take verse 4; now if you’re going to take verse 5 in the indicative mood and the majority of translations, I can see why you would argue the other way and put verse 5 with verse 4. But our differences have to do with a technical problem here.

Verse 6 is actually a combination of looking back and the report of deliverance; it’s all collapsed into one verse here. “This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles,” and again I can see why some of you would put verse 5 in there if you took the indicatives which I do not. Verse 7 is descriptive praise, it’s not part of the report of deliverance because it doesn’t say “The angel of the LORD encamped around about,” if it said “the angel of the LORD encamped,” past tense, then he would be talking about a historical event. But it’s not saying that, it’s saying “The angel of the LORD encamped,” principle, descriptive praise. See the difference between descriptive praise and the narration of an event? And then verses 8-10 is kind of an exhortation plugged in here, “Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who trusts in him. [9] Oh, fear the LORD, ye his saints;” and it gives reasons for it.

Then verse 11 is a whole instruction section, so therefore here’s the way I’m going to approach the Psalm tonight. The first part I’m going to take, verses 1-3 and I’m going to summarize the thought of verses 1-3 as follows: and I’m going to dictate this slowly so you can copy it down; I know that these sentences are long but I want you to copy them down so that later on if you’re teaching a class or something in the Psalms or if you just want to go to the Psalms for personal edification, this will help you get in the text.

Verses 1-3, David invites the downtrodden to join him in continual praise to Yahweh so that they will become joyous. The next section, verses 4-10, I divided the Psalm into three large sections, 1-3; 4-10 and 11-the end. We won’t do the third section tonight. Verses 4-10 I would summarize the thought this way. David exhorts the downcast to become joyous and to learn to trust Yahweh because of the revelation of Yahweh in David’s life. And verse 11 we’ll get to next week.

Now let’s look at the first three verses. Again, before we start the Psalm let’s look at the heading. What’s the rule on the heading for the Psalm. When we find a heading on a Psalm we use it for everything it’s worth because the Holy Spirit is very, very conservative about giving us any information on the historical background of these Psalms so when He does, let’s suck it up. Now this particular incident is found in 1 Samuel 21. Fortunately this Psalm we can pinpoint in David’s life. If you’re discouraged tonight you can join David’s club because this Psalm was written to discouraged people.

1 Samuel 21:10, “And David arose, and fled that day for fear of Saul,” now the situation is this; Saul has been anointed king, and he’s been rejected by God. Samuel has anointed David but in the time interval between David’s anointing and Saul’s death, Saul commits the sin unto death. He gets involved in spiritism and consults a witch and that’s the end of King Saul. But during the time period between David’s anointing and Saul’s death, Saul is trying to kill David. Now typologically, or analogously, Saul is like Satan in this sense and David is like Christ in that Satan is the god of this world and Jesus Christ has been anointed as the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings. But right now, at this point in history, Jesus Christ is not seated on His throne in the ultimate sense. He will in the millennium, now He’s seated at the Father’s right hand, etc. yes. But in ultimate final eschatological sense Christ is not there. And Christ’s body isn’t there, you see, we’re part of Christ. And this is why these Psalms strike you always, you may be a very new believer, but I’m sure if you read the Psalms the one thing that impresses you about the Psalms is that they speak to you spiritually. There’s a spiritual message always in the Psalms.

Have you ever asked yourself why does this portion of the Bible always speak this way to me? Why is it I can always go to the Psalms and seemingly I can find something. The reason is that you are in union with Christ who is in exactly the same position David is, in that you are part of the body of Christ, and you are vagabonds on the earth hounded in the same way that David was hounded by Saul. You have no home, you have been anointed to rule, but you, as it were, are kings without a throne. And so therefore positionally in history you are in the same situation as David and thus David’s spiritual battles are very much analogous to your spiritual battles and mine.

Now here observe what happened. David arose and he’s fleeing for fear of Saul, now in the analogy we don’t stretch it 100%, Christ is not afraid of Satan, but I want you to notice that David has to move away from Saul, Saul is persecuting him, and he “went to Achish, the king of Gath.” And you watch the name because liberals say ha-ha, mistake, and so on here because this says Achish and the Psalm says Abimelech, so there’s a mistake, the fundies are wrong. We’ll see how wrong the fundies are in a moment. Verse 11, “And the servants of Achish said unto him, Is not this David the kind of the land? Did they not sing one to another of him in dances, saying, Saul has slain his thousands and David his ten thousands?” In other words, the Philistine intelligence system reports hey, do you know who just walked in the city? David, and David’s the guy that just clobbered them and so they are upset about this, obviously, and David, verse 12, “And David laid up these words in his heart, and was very much afraid of Achish, the king of Gath.” Now David just doesn’t panic, somewhere after verse 12 and the beginning of verse 13 David did something that he’s going to explain in Psalm 34; he met a fearful situation but he didn’t panic, he eventually went to the Lord, he ironed it out before the Lord and he dealt with the situation.

He came up with an ingenious plan. Verse 13, this is a plan which, by the way, is still used of prisoners of war in enemy camps; it is used to avoid interrogation, it is used to get them out of various situations and it is a situation that is repeated again and again down through history and soldiers in survival training are generally told to employ one of these methods. And during the Korean war many of our GI’s feigned, pretending they were homosexuals and they found out the North Koreans couldn’t stand homosexuals so they’d isolate them and let them alone. So this way the American POW’s just pretended they were homosexuals for a week or two and found themselves having a nice vacation off in a compound all by themselves and didn’t get interrogated or anything, some of them, now some of them did. But they found out that this was a technique that worked in some of the Orientals because they couldn’t stand this kind of behavior. So they just grossed them out and they found out the Orientals left them alone. This was used by David, he used the same tactic.

Verse 13, “And he changed his behavior before them, and feigned himself mad in their hands, and scrabbled [made marks] on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle fall down upon his beard.” Now how’s that for a passage, for all you tender-hearted souls. Doesn’t that make a good image, think of all that spit drooling down the beard. And [14] “Then said Achish unto his servants, Lord Jesus Christ, ye see the man is mad; wherefore, then, have ye brought him to me? [15] Have I need of mad men, that ye have brought this fellow to play the made man in my presence? Shall this fellow come into my house?” And he threw him out. So David escaped, it’s a very clever plot. Now watch what happens, he goes from the frying pan into the fire.

1 Samuel 22:1, “David, therefore, departed from there, and escaped to the cave, Adullam; and when his brethren and all his father’s house heard it, they went down there to him. [2] And every one who was in distress, and every one who was in debt,” now look at this, how would you like to have these guys for roommates, “and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him; and he became a captain over them: and there were with him about four hundred men.” A real choice beginning for an army, and this is the crowd that Psalm 34 is directed to. It is directed to a bunch of beat up believers who are filled with self-pity, who are filled with maligning, criticism, etc. This is written to discouraged believers and David had four hundred of these guys and not only does he have four hundred, he’s living in the same cave with them. So the groans and the complaining and the moans echo up and down the cave, so all night all David hears is oh, I don’t like this, I owe a thousand dollars to so and so, and this goes on all night. So you can imagine the sweet environment has where he can begin to plan how he’s going to run the kingdom with four hundred people like this.

Well obviously being a good leader, David recognized the first thing, we’ve got to straighten out the mental attitude of these people. And so he composes Psalm 34, and Psalm 34 is the instructions he gives to the beat-up believers that we have just seen. So with that background let’s turn back to Psalm 34 and I think it’ll mean a little bit more to you.

First of all we have immediate attack by the liberals in the Psalm heading. They say aha, there’s a mistake here because it says “when he changed his behavior before Abimelech,” and they say Abimelech was the Philistine king back in Abraham’s time, not in David’s time, so there’s an error in the text of God’s Word. However, upon closer inspection, which is always the solution to most of these problems, it turns out that Abimelech occurs several times in Genesis and it can’t be the same king. And furthermore, when you break the word down, “Abi,” and “melech,” do any of you know enough about transliteration, have seen these in Hebrew words and know what those two words mean? Ab, Abraham, what is Ab, what do you think it means? Father, and “melech,” that’s king, and it appears that Abimelech is not a personal name, it’s a title. And it was a Philistine title of a Philistine king who was just known as the king-father. And so like the Egyptians called their king Pharaoh. So this is something that you want to understand, it just says Abimelech here, in order to prove a contradiction exists you have to prove that Abimelech is a personal name. And it has all the earmarks of a category or an office; it’s not a personal name.

All right, verses 1-3, remember now, visualize the cave; he’s wiped his spit off the beard so we don’t have that but he has four hundred of these people moaning and groaning and griping and complaining in the cave. “I will bless the LORD at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.” Now you can obviously see why he wants this kind of thing to go on, and notice the stress because in the original languages the stress in verse 1 is not on the praising, the stress is on the continualness of the praise. So what David is saying, men, here’s what you should be doing instead of griping. And notice he stresses not in his heart, notice what he says, “His praise shall be in my mouth,” that means all the praise, he is actively saying something verbally so that others can here. Now why is the stress on this, rather than “I will praise the LORD with my heart and with my mouth.” The emphasis here is more on the mouth than usual? Because he’s in the cave with all the rest of the guys, that’s why. Now David is a picture of a strong believer because when you are in a group of other believers who are whining, who are full of self-pity, who are just miserable, it is very easy for you just to slip right in with them. And David is one against four hundred people… one against four hundred and he is going to move them over to his position but he isn’t going to allow himself to be moved to their position.

Verse 2, “My soul shall make her boast in the LORD,” the soul, obviously, is the mind here and the word soul includes mind in the outward manifestations, “shall make her boast in the LORD; the humble shall hear of it, and be glad.” Now the humble refers to those four hundred men that entrapped in the cave with David. He says I am going to make my boast in the Lord, in other words David knows enough that he can’t run an army of four hundred people like that, and so he says I am going to take my position and I’m going to trust the Lord in it and I’m going to let everybody know it. And so I am going to “boast in the LORD; and the humble are going to hear this,” because I’m going to do this. All they’re doing all day long is gripe, gripe, gripe, gripe, so what I’m going to do all day long, I’m going to sit down and rehearse the acts of God. And so if they want to complain then they’re also going to get a simultaneous continual message of the Word of God. If David had a cassette recorder it would have been on all day, I’m just going to go over and over and over and over the Word. And so we’re just going to have a verbal battle, one side is four hundred men griping and one man saying the Word of God over and over and over and over.

And then he asks them in verse 3 to join with him. This is an invitation to get straightened out given to these believers. “Oh, magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt His name together.” I’m not going your way, he’s saying, so you’d better come my way. I’m not bending to go along with the group. And so he invites them to “exalt His name.” Now “exalting His name” in the Hebrew is an expression that refers to divine essence, that God is sovereign, God is righteous, God is just, God is love, God is omniscient, God is omnipresent, omnipotent, immutable and eternal. Those are the attributes of God and together they constitute his name, because a man’s name is what he is. So when it says I am going to “exalt His name” and I ask you to exalt His name with me, David is saying let us praise God for who He is.

Now beginning in verse 4, and in verse 4 we move to the second section. Remember the Psalm starts, verses 1-3; now the second section, verses 4-10, David exhorts the downcast to become joyous and to learn to trust Yahweh because of the revelation of Yahweh’s character in David’s life. David is not so naïve to think that these people are going to trust the Lord right away. This is why there’s a statement which we will get to next week, but still I want you to see it, verse 8. Now often times you hear that repeated by Christians, “Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good;” but when we do a word study on that you’re going to be amazed to see what that’s really talking about. “Tasting” and “seeing” that the Lord is good means there has to be a prolonged time in which you see a little bit of the Lord and you respond, and you see a little bit more and you respond, and you see a little bit more and you respond. He’s talking about a sequence of responses, that you grow, and this is not a one-shot thing, this is a gradual thing, you have to develop a taste.

Now in verse 4, we’re going to divide verses 4-10 into several sections; verses 4-5 and the other verses 6-10. Now in verses 4-5 we have his exhortation to become joyous. Verses 6-10 is his exhortation to learn to trust. And I want you to notice in verses 4-5, in the outline I’ve tied the introductory summary into verse 5. Verses 4 states a principle, verse 5 is the application. Verse 6 is the principle, verse 7 reiterates it, and then verses 8-10 are the application. So see how he states a principle, and then do something about it, don’t just sit there, apply it, this should mean this in your life. So verse 4, “I sought the LORD, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears. [5] Look to Him, and be like Him, stop letting your faces be ashamed,” he’s saying to these men.

So verse 4 is the act, verse 5 is the application. Notice again about verse 4, “I sought the LORD, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.” David, in verse 4, illustrates a principle that attitude in a person’s mind cannot be changed by auto-hypnosis. He’s got a mental attitude problem here, with four hundred people gripe, gripe, gripe, gripe. Now how is he going to change their mental attitude? It is not going to be by [can’t understand word], when you get up in the morning and shave say this is a beautiful day, it’s all dark and black in here but it’s beautiful outside, it’s a beautiful day and go through this routine 25 times as you’re shaving. If you haven’t performed a tonsillectomy by the time you’re done then you will be of a joyous mental attitude.

Now verse 4 shows that when he dealt with changing believer’s attitudes he began with what was true and he didn’t go through some psychological hocus pocus. He went directly to find out what is the truth and he started there because that is where all mental attitude changes must start, not on what somebody thinks. This is not a rah-rah session in the cave; this is a consideration of the facts and what is the truth, so he relates in verse 4 what he did back in 1 Samuel 21, and he says, “I sought the LORD,” and the word “sought” is darash, and darash means it takes effort to seek. So this immediately tells us that between verses 12 and verse 13 in 1 Samuel 21 there was a lot of prayer, it did not come easy to David when he found himself inside the city and found himself spied on and he knew that the king was going to kill him. And he was afraid; the Bible makes no bones about it, David responded like anybody normally would have responded in that situation. His response is fine.

All right, let’s study David’s response. Here’s the situation and here’s David’s response. Now how is David going to respond; his first response is one of fear because he’s afraid for his life, that’s normal. But it’s not going to be normal as far as David is concerned because immediately he [can’t understand word/s], he seeks God in that situation to find out what it is the Lord wants for him then. And so when he responds to the situation he’s going to plug in divine viewpoint framework and +R learned behavior patterns and one of the +R learned behavior patterns that he’s got going for him is prayer, because as a young shepherd boy he developed a fantastic prayer life. And so it’s almost reflex action, when he’s involved in a situation, boom, right into prayer.

And so immediately he goes to seek out what the Lord wants him to do in that situation. Now this immediately, of course, solves most of his problems because this will face you with the truth of 1 Corinthians 10:13, that “no testing has taken you but such as is common to man, and God will not allow you to be tested above that which you are able.” Don’t look at me that way, I didn’t put it in there, God put it in there, and that’s the way it is and that means that no one of you can ever say that you face a problem too great for me, I don’t have any resources to fight this problem, I’m at the end of my rope and all the rest of it. If you’re at the end of the rope you’re dead, you’re hanging. But there’s no business being at the end of the rope as far as a Christian is concerned because we have that promise. Now if you don’t accept that promise then you have some very serious theological difficulties because it shows basically that you do not trust God’s character.

So David does trust God’s character and he knows that even this situation inside the Philistine city, God has a way, so he steps right out, 1 Cor. 10:13, the truth of it, and he says now look, here I am, I’m surrounded by enemy soldiers, the thing looks grim, I have no friends inside this thing, now what do I do. Well, I know that Jehovah has anointed me as king of Israel; I know that no testing is going to overtake me for which my God has not made adequate provision. So now Lord, where’s the adequate provision, I’m looking. And so darash means that he takes time out and begins to hunt, in prayer, for those divine provisions to meet the situation. And as a result, instead of a response to the situation in fear he is going to have one of trust. And what makes the difference? Going to the Lord, getting oriented in the middle of the situation.

Now there’s a little problem here that often comes up in trying to apply what David’s doing, and David licks this problem, and yet I know, myself included, we all have this weakness, and here’s the situation. Situations come into our life and we think that we don’t have time to take time out to solve the thing. A real critical thing comes up and instead of just dropping what we’re doing and getting straight with the Lord on this thing, we get rushed, and the longer we allow ourselves to not go to the Lord in prayer about this thing, the more into the problem we get until finally down here we’re surrounded with a mess. And Satan would always have us do this, you haven’t got time now, don’t stop now, come one, come into the problem and really get clobbered. That’s essentially what he’s saying. So David knew enough, he was sensitive enough spiritually so he could sense that he was getting into some hot water here, and he’d better just get this thing straight. So that’s all wrapped up in this darash, “I sought the Lord.”

And we know it was prayer that was one of his major tools because the next verb is, “and He heard me.” Well if God heard him obviously he was asking, he was pleading, he was petitioning; somewhere inside verse 4 is an individual lament Psalm, if one could be written it would be written out of the experience of verse 4. “… and He delivered me,” notice verse 4, “from all my fears.” Notice that he doesn’t say He delivered me from the king’s grip. Now you just read 1 Samuel 21, you saw how David was just booted out, didn’t you. Now he’s not referring to that as God’s deliverance; true in the sovereignty of God God worked through letting the king get him out of it, but I want you to see something, and this is very important, in verse 4 when David thinks of deliverance he’s thinking of deliverance up here right at this point; “He delivered me from my fears,” and when I got rid of my fears then I could cope with the situation. So it was a mental deliverance, a mental attitude of fear. And then also included, of course, is what he was afraid of. But I want you to see the emphasis because he’s trying to use this experience, which just happened, to tell these guys in the cave, now look, I just had an experience in Gath and I what to tell you about it, and this is the way my God works so let’s get straight.

Then in verse 5 we have a problem, are these verbs indicative or imperative. Now it’s a big long discussion, I’ll give you in summary the reasons. And let me just show you, because this might be a little education on what the Hebrew verbs look like, the two that are messed up here so you can see what’s happened. Now this is one verb as the indicative; now I’m going to draw you what the imperative looks like. That’s the difference, and the only difference between them is a dot and a line. And you can see the problem and why it might be likely that these texts would confuse here. As a matter of fact, some Hebrew manuscripts have this, some Hebrew manuscripts have this. And the text doesn’t help you so you’ve got to go to some other criteria. And there are a number of things; and I am going to take verse 5 as imperative on the basis of the form of the Psalm. And I say that the form of the Psalm requires an imperative at this point. The indicative at this point just screws up the whole Psalm.

So “Look up to Him,” in other words, verse 5 now is the exhortation to apply what has happened in verse 4. He says you know this, this happened to me, God delivered me from all my fears, so now you look unto Him, because where are they looking right now? Where are these four hundred people looking? They’re looking at how much they owe somebody; they’re looking at all the people that were not nice to them? And that’s not the issue, the issue is how you deal with the situation as unto the Lord. So, “look unto Him, and be enlightened,” he says. The idea is of reflection off of the face, he says visualize God up here as a great life, and if you guys will just get your eyes off this dank dark cave and look at Him then your face would be enlightened. And there’s a play on words here; the idea is that they are going to be enlightened because the light of the Lord is going to reflect off their face, but the other word is enlightened face means a happy countenance. It’s an idiom for a happy countenance.

And so he’s saying if you will look to the Lord, you know what, your mental attitude is going to shift overnight; you can change the entire way you act. And he says it’s going to be fantastic because a person who is on negative volition, their mind is at odds with their conscience, with the result that their mind is trying to put fig leaves over the conscience, with the result that the conscience says okay, I’ll get you, and sets up all sorts of responses in your body, physiological responses. Your conscience switches on hormones and everything else and your body actually begins to feel it. As one man said, when you sin you feel it physically, and this is the thing, that people are going to be physically upset by this. So he said look, just look to the Lord and then you’ll have the opposite reaction; you’ll have a pleasantness and a physiological response the other way.

Verse 6, “This poor man,” now verses 6-10 is another section and we have time to deal with two verses. Verse 6, verse 7, and then verses 8-10; I’m going to compare these with verses 4-5. Verse 6 corresponds with verse 4; verses 8-10 correspond with verse 5, because verse 4 is a declaration, verse 5 is an exhortation; verses 6 is a declaration; verses 8-10 is an exhortation. Verse 7 is put in between because verse 7 is descriptive praise, it’s a summary of the theological principle. So you saw verses 4-5, how they hooked together; verse 4 was a description of what happened, verse 5 is okay men, apply it.

Now verse 6, he’s saying, “This poor,” notice how he addresses himself, “this poor man,” the reason he does this is because David identifies with his people. If you will think of Jesus Christ being the greater David, Christ is saying to you believer, when you come to Him with all your problems like these people come to David with all their problems, Christ would say don’t you think that I suffered more than even that on the cross for you? And if I had to go through the suffering of Gethsemane and dying on the cross for you, you don’t have to face anything like that. So don’t think that you’re out from under all care of God and that you’re going to have some big problem in your life that’s going to be so big that you can’t handle it. There is no problem in your life that is so big that you can’t handle it. The only problem may be that Satan would convince you that it is, in which case you failed to appropriate grace and deal with it and it does become big. But even then, even having let it become big, there is still no problem too big for God’s grace. And that’s the message that David is saying. He’s saying look, you four hundred men have your problems, but look at this poor man, just look at me he says; look at me.

“This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him, and [the LORD] saved him” notice the emphasis, “out of all his troubles,” ALL, a-l-l, the second time this occurs. Notice now he said it in verse 4, “all my fears.” Verse 6, “all my troubles.” So he’s emphasizing the completeness of the deliverance. Now he says look, if this is not auto-hypnosis and this thing really works, then it’s going to work for you guys as well as it worked for me. And if it doesn’t work it’s not God’s fault, it’s your fault because you haven’t gone to Him like I did. I cried and He heard me.

Then in verse 7 he makes a statement, and here’s where we have descriptive praise. This is a theological truth, that David is now going to teach these men who are going to be soldiers shortly, who are right now miserable, horrible examples. No draft board ever faced a motlier group than David is facing here and the army does wonderful things to some of these characters, and David is going to do something very wonderful for these four hundred people. So in verse 7 he teaches them the general principle that applied in verse 6, and therefore should apply in the future, verses 8-10. So verse 7 is, as it were, in the center. Verse 6 looks back to a previous application of the truth; verses 8-10 look forward exhorting them to apply the same truth in the future; it worked I the past, God is the same yesterday, today and forever, why can’t it work in the future in your life.

And this is the truth that David teaches: “The angel of the LORD encamped round about them that fear him, and He delivers them.” There’s a bunch of stuff packed in this phrase. The first thing is this is not past tense; in the Hebrew the word “encamped” is a participle and it means action that goes on and on and on and on and on. The idea is that “the angel of the Lord constantly encamped round about them that fear him.” So this is going on and on and on and on; this is an ever enduring principle. So the first thing to understand is the continuity; does this continuity relate to anything else that we have seen in this Psalm. Where did we see the theme of continuity before. Verse 1 wasn’t it. Do you see how the continuity of verse 1, which is an action, a behavior pattern that he is establishing is grounded on doctrine? What is the doctrine? This truth in verse 7, because David knows that “the angel of the LORD constantly encamps,” therefore, he acts like He does act in verse 1.

Now this is important. Don’t read this Psalm like probably so many of you are reading it even now, oh that’s a sweet thought, and that sweet thought will get me out of a jam. No, you’ll be in jams and sweet thoughts won’t get you out any time; sweet thoughts will do nothing but make you nauseated. In fact, you’ll be in situations in life where you don’t have any sweet thoughts because you don’t have any thoughts; the shock is too much sometimes in the trials of life to even think. But if you know verse 7 is not just a sweet thought but is literally historically valid this moment in history, that “the angel of the LORD,” and we’re going to identify Him in a moment, “constantly encamps round about them that fear,” then you can respond, verse 1. But may I suggest to you don’t even bother trying to mimic David in verse 1 if you don’t believe verse 7; forget it, because you can’t do it; it’ll be pseudo, from Satan. But you can’t respond to life like verse 1 unless you first know the truthfulness of verse 7.

Now who is “the angel of the Lord.” God is a Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. “The angel of the Lord” in Genesis 16:7-13 is declared to be Jehovah; so He’s declared to be God, angel of Yahweh. All right, if the angel of Yahweh is God, which personality of the Trinity if the angel of Yahweh. Well, it turns out that the angel of the Lord in Genesis 16 we know is God, that’s equal to Yahweh, but in Zechariah 1 he’s different than Yahweh, because the angel of the Lord turns around and talks to Jehovah. So the angel of the Lord is not the Father because of Zechariah 1, yet He must be either the Son or the Holy Spirit. All right, John 1:18 says that the only person that has ever seen the Father is the Son. And then finally we have Malachi 3, “Behold, I will send My messenger,” that’s God speaking, “and he will prepare the way before Me.” Now the messenger who will prepare the way is John the Baptist. And he will prepare the way before Me,” that’s the Lord. “And the Lord, whom you seek, shall suddenly come to His temple,” and it means to come in a great haste, Jesus did that in John 2, he walked into the temple and overthrew the moneychangers in fulfillment of this prophecy, He will suddenly and in a catastrophic way come to his temple, “even” and here’s the apposition, “the angel of the covenant,” the word “messenger” is angel, “the angel of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts.” So it is the Lord, and the messenger of the covenant which is historically Jesus Christ.

Now, what about the angel of the Lord encompassing us; tremendous truth. The angel of the Lord is Jesus Christ, let’s trace the theme of David. David has taught us this principle, that the angel of the Lord constantly encamps round about them that fear him. Now let’s test this and see if this fits other Scriptures. So let’s start by going back to 2 Kings 6:13, this is back in the time of Elisha. “And he said, Goad n spy where he is, that I may send and fetch him…. [14] Therefore sent he there horses, and chariots, and a great host; and they came by night, and compassed the city, was risen early, and gone forth,” that’s the enemy soldiers, an army threatens Elisha. [15] And when the servant of the man of God,” see, Elisha and his servant are sacked out in the motel, the servant gets up first and he opened the blinds and he looks out, oh, we have visitors, on the north, south, east and west and they don’t look too friendly; this is an army out there, and so the servant reacts. “…behold, an army compassed the city, both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master! What shall we do? [16] And he answered,” this is Elisha, “Fear not,” because now he is applying the truth that David uses in verse 7, “Fear not; for they that be with are more than they that be with them. [17] And Elisha prayed, and said, LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw; and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.” And that is the angelic protection that is given believers in history; the prophets knew this, and they knew that unseen to human perception, all around, the believer in Jesus Christ and in the Old Testament dispensation were these angelic forces.

Now come to the New Testament to show you how the angel of the covenant, who is Christ, performs the same way. Matthew 18:20, the same theme because it’s the same person. What Jesus Christ did for David in the city of Gath, Jesus Christ is doing for us today. So He says in Matthew 18:20, “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there I am in the midst of them.” Did you ever think of that in your prayer group, that Jesus Christ is in the midst of you, when two or three are gathered together in My name, that if, as it were, you could see, He would be there. You say how can He be at many different points in space? Because He’s God. But He is there in a special sense, not just in a general sense of omnipresence. I do believe that probably what he means here is that the angels under His command are there, just as we have seen in 2 Kings. So next time two or three of you gather together to pray, make sure that you’ve got enough room, you may have visitors.

Finally Matthew 28, the last words of Christ, the great commission. And injected in the great commission is the same theme, the angel of the Lord will encamp about them that fear Him, because in verse 18, “And Jesus said,” he spoke to the disciples, “saying, All authority is given Me in heaven and in earth.” That was the handover; verse 18 announces that Christ is now in command of the elect angels. “All authority” has been given, now the demon powers must respect His authority but they’re not directly under his command because they’re in rebellion. But here, “All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth. [19] Go ye, therefore,” now this says “therefore” in verse 19, what is the implication; if verse 18 isn’t true then verse 19 can’t occur, so you can’t have the great commission and you can’t operate as believers unless verse 18 is first true. If Christ has all power, then and only then, “Go…teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, [20] Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you;” and includes more than the gospel message, that includes everything in the Word of God. Do you realize that Bible teaching is part of the great commission; that may shock some of you, prophecy is part of the great commission because what does it say, “teaching to observe ALL things, whatsoever I have commanded you.” And then notice this phrase, and to understand this phrase remember the truth we’ve learned in Psalm 34, “lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”

Now that is the truth of the angel of the covenant in our generation, “I am with you.” That’s the signal that we can pick up that truth in Psalm 34 that we’re learning now, the truth that David spoke to the men in the cave, that the angel of the Lord compasses about, so I can praise Him continually and I don’t have to sit and be with four hundred griping believers.

Father, we thank Thee for this time together…..