Psalm 59 - Our Mighty Champion

INTRODUCTION:

Interest:

We are probably all familiar with the image of the medieval knights. The knights in medieval times would not only lead the armies of a kingdom, they would also serve as the champions for kings or queens. Knights would partake in contests involving things like jousting and sword fighting while representing their king or queen. When the knight won his competition, the king or queen was granted a symbolic victory…the glory was shared between the champion and the one he championed—the king or queen.

In our modern times, I think sports teams have somewhat replaced the symbolism of knights. The teams serve as our symbolic champions so when our sports teams win, we claim that we have won. Of course, as Detroit Lions fans, we’re a bit lacking in the pride-in-our-champion department. Worse yet, those whose champions are college football teams are without their champions at all this year. There is much mourning throughout the country in the inability to cheer on representative champions this fall, those who fight for glory on our behalf.

Involvement:

As believers, though, we have an ultimate Champion—a capital-C Champion—One who fights on our behalf. This morning we are going to contemplate our mighty Champion.

Context:

The superscription of our psalm this morning, Psalm 59, ties this psalm of David to a specific event when David had to flee from the soldiers of King Saul in the middle of the night. The event is recorded in 1 Sam 19:11–17. David’s wife, who happened to be Saul’s daughter, Michal, warned David of the danger and helped him escape through a window in the middle of the night.

The issue with this event serving as the backstory to this psalm is that there is nothing in the psalm that would seem to connect in any way to this event other than a general sense of urgency created by danger. In fact, our psalm is written as much from a national perspective—Israel seems as much at risk—as the psalmist himself. There are wicked men attacking the psalmist, but there are also surrounding nations attacking Israel.

Application

Wicked people are attacking. Evil is threatening. God’s people are oppressed. God’s people are hated. God’s people are in danger. These are becoming rather familiar themes as many of the psalms that we have looked at have sounded forth these concerns. Of course, they are also rather familiar themes because they describe the realities of life that God’s people face. I know that as I have been studying these various psalms over the past several months, these themes have resonated with me. I also know from statements that many of you have made that these themes have resonated with you as well. While the themes are familiar, the encouragement and challenge of each psalm remain fresh, coming to us uniquely with God’s inspired power time and again in our moment of need.

Preview:

This morning we are going to work our way through this psalm, discovering our main idea as we go. We will split the psalm into two sections.

Transition from introduction to body:

In the first section, verses 1–10, we discover that…

BODY:

I. God is unmoved by the wicked, vv. 1–10

God is unmoved by the wicked. In order to see this idea develop, let’s break the first 10 verses into two section.

As I have already indicated, David writes this psalm from the position of one who is under attack by wicked people. Individuals are out to get him, and nations are out to get his nation. He himself, feels helpless. So, what will he do? The same thing that we have seen him do so many times before; he will cry out to God.

Transition:

As he does, we are reminded once again that…

A. The wicked cause us to cry out to God, vv. 1–5

I trust you have your Bibles open to Psalm 59 by now; let’s read the first five verses…<read Ps 59:1-5>.

“Deliver me,” “set me on high” or “protect me” as some versions translate it, “save me”’; these are urgent cries to God because our writer’s life is in real danger. They want his life. They are eager to shed his blood. With military-like precision, they have plotted how they will ambush and destroy him. His cry is not a tentative cry; it is an urgent insistent cry.

Application

Now, I am pretty sure that, with the exception of a few of you who have served in active military engagements, none of us have had people literally trying to kill us. We have not had to fear people plotting ways to take our life. But we probably have all experienced various levels of animosity from others. We may have experienced situations where others have tried to pin the blame on us for a failed project or someone who tried to make us look bad to our boss so that they would become the boss’ favorite. We may have family members who refuse to talk to us in a civil manner. We may have had misunderstandings with a former friend so that now that person will immediately walk the other way if they see us coming. We may not have experienced the degree of hatred that David is writing about here, but we probably have some experience with the type of hatred he is writing about and, for that reason, can relate to him.

The circumstances that David faced caused him to cry out to God for help. Have you found yourself doing the same thing? Crying out to God to rescue you from the plots that others are launching against you? From the barbs that they are constantly throwing at you?

One important thing to notice is that David is able to protest his innocence, protest it before God. There is no justification whatsoever for the hostility he is facing; David has not done anything to generate it, he is guilt-free.

Yet, in spite of his innocence, he feels as if God is asleep at the wheel. In David’s mind God is supposed to make sure that the wicked make no headway in His universe and that the righteous—like David—have a nice, smooth ride through life. So where is God? Why isn’t God helping him? In fact, why isn’t God punishing all the nations that are against Israel. It is time for God to wake up!

Application

Do you ever find yourself thinking things like that? “God, wake up! You have obviously fallen asleep and Your universe is veering into the ditch!” Of course, we would never admit thinking like that, would we? Still, here is David, under inspiration no less, not only thinking such thoughts, but writing them down! What we can take always from this is that being on the receiving end of wickedness, in all its various forms, should cause us to cry out to God. Sure, we should do a self-check and make sure that we are not suffering because of wrongs we have committed; we need to make sure that we are truly innocent. Nonetheless, we should expect that we will experience hostility in this world because God is going to allow such to happen. He allows it to happen because it causes us to cry out to Him, to cause us to cry, “deliver me…protect me…save me.” Being on the receiving end of wicked attacks is used by God to cause us, His people if we know His Son as Savior, to cry out to Him.

Transition:

In verses 1–5 we discover that the wicked cause us to cry out to God. In the rest of the first section, verses 6–10, we discover that…

B. The wicked cause us to wait for God, vv. 6–10

Read along with me…<read Ps 59:6–10>.

Verses 6 and 7 are unexpected as the wicked are compared to dogs that terrorize the streets of the city at night.

Illustration

Now, I want to make sure that you are not picturing Fido, your faithful furry friend, when you read this verse. Dogs in Israel were not family pets; they were scavengers. They were at least half-wild. Think about some of the packs of mangy dogs that roam the abandoned areas of Detroit. A year ago, a 9 year old girl was killed by three dogs that attacked her. Adults have been attacked and seriously injured by semi-wild packs of dogs as well.

That is the image that David is provoking here of the wicked; they are viciously out to harm him. They even go so far as to challenge God’s sovereignty by asking “Who hears?” The implication is that they do not believe there is anyone who hears them, certainly no one who will take any action to curtail their wicked activities. They are denying God.

“But.” What a powerful word! “But You, O Lord, laugh at them.” What an amazing contrast. The language in the Hebrew is most emphatic as verse 8. God is completely unmoved by what the wicked things. He looks at their boasts with derision. He scoffs at both the individuals and the nations. To Him it is all the same; none of those who try to defy Him have any chance.

This is the core reality that David clings to. Regardless of what he is experiencing, he knows that God is unshaken. So, David is going to cling to God as his refuge. He is going to trust in God’s lovingkindness—God’s covenant loyalty—He is going to wait for God. David anticipates that God will be victorious. While his enemies are watching for him, David is watching for God.

Application

Friends, can you say the same? Are you watching for God? Are you waiting with complete confidence for God that God will be victorious? Are you clinging to God’s strength? God’s character? God’s lovingkindness?

Illustration

Sometimes I think we are too much like kids who help plant the garden for the first time. Dad or Mom carefully explain that we will put these small seeds into the ground and then they will become carrots or beans or peas or whatever. The child is all excited to help grow something that she really likes, fascinated to consider that it might come from the ground rather than a plastic bag. She helps to carefully place the seeds in the ground and with help covers them with dirt. She watches as the newly planted garden is watered. And then the next morning she is stunned that there are no vegetables to be found.

We cannot let the amount of time that we are waiting for God to act cause us to doubt that He will. We must learn to wait with confidence. The rebellion that is occurring in the world all around us has not shaken God at all. If we could see His reaction to mankind’s rebellion, we would see the same thing that was revealed to David, God mocks mankind’s wicked efforts to displace Him. We can truly wait on Him because He is our strength; He is loving; and He is going to be victorious.

Transition:

God is unmoved by the wicked. And because of that the wicked cause us to cry out to God and to wait for God.

Remember, I said that today we would work at discovering our main idea as we went. When we look at what we have discovered in the first 10 verses, we can begin to summarize our main idea as The wicked have no power to shake God. Despite their best efforts, God is not shaken. The wicked have no power to shake God.

As we move into the second section of this psalm, the parallel idea that we find is that…

II. We should be unmoved by the wicked, vv. 11–17

Not only is God unmoved, neither do we need to be. We should be unmoved by the wicked.

Transition:

Again, I am going to split the second section of the psalm into two parts. In verses 11-13 we again learn from David that…

A. The wicked provide a lesson in God’s justice, vv. 11–13

Justice is a frequent concern for David…as it is for most of us, especially when we are on the receiving end of injustice. We are probably ok if a bit of injustice is allowed when we are the ones who wrong someone else, but we certainly want justice to apply when we are wronged.

Let’s read these verses…<read Ps 59:11–13>.

Verse 11 is even more unexpected than verse 6 was. David has been calling out for God’s help, but now he suddenly asks God to not judge the wicked people too quickly. Now, it isn’t that David wants to be sure that they suffer sufficiently for their evil deeds…no, he will leave the actual just sentence for the wicked up to God, as he should…what David wants is for the punishment to not happen so quickly that other people fail to learn about God’s justice from the punishment. He wants the people of Israel to learn of God’s justice from the example made of his enemies. He wants the nations around Israel to learn from their punishment. In fact, David wants people to the ends of the earth to learn about the power and justice of God through the example created by God’s punishment of David’s wicked foes. Ultimately, David does call for the destruction of the wicked; he knows that justice demands such. But he wants it to happen at a pace and in a way that will teach many about His God.

Illustration

Have you ever seen someone get tripped up by their own lies? They weave such a network of lies, piling one lie on another that eventually the entire scenario that they have attempted to present as the truth comes crashing down. It usually doesn’t happen as neatly as Perry Mason was able to bring it about whenever he had the guilty person on the witness stand, but it does happen fairly often. People bring disaster on themselves through too many lies…lies that become increasing elaborate as they try to cover one lie with the next.

This is the idea of what David is calling on God to arrange in verse 12. He wants God to arrange it so that the wicked get tripped up by their own wickedness. That their downfall can be traced to their own pride, their own mechanisms through which they attempted to harm others in their wickedness. David wants this to happen because he knows that when God makes such arrangements on behalf of David and the nation of Israel, God is the One who is ultimately magnified because His fame as a just God spreads.

Application

That should really be our motivation to see God work justice as well. We should not want those who bring evil upon us to suffer because they have wronged us. In fact, the NT makes it pretty clear that we should want the exact opposite for individuals; we should hope that they might find grace and mercy from God much as we have. The NT reminds us that whatever wicked deeds anyone has ever committed toward us is far less significant that the wickedness that we ourselves committed against a holy and just God when we rebelled against Him through our own sinful actions. Yet, God sent His Son to die for our sins. When we accepted Jesus as our Savior, God forgave us for our sins. We should hope that those who commit wicked actions against us will find the same forgiveness by repenting before the same Savior. We should hope it so much that we are always willing, eager even, to share the Gospel message of forgiveness through Jesus Christ with them.

At the same time, though, we should also anticipate that when God brings justice upon the unrepentant wicked it will provide a lesson for all. God’s justice will be on display, and our desire should be that to the ends of the earth, people will marvel at the justice of God.

Illustration

I remember hearing a friend who is the pastor of another church talk about the painful experience that he had of exercising church discipline…that is officially removing from church membership…his own daughter who was engaging in an immoral relationship. He desperately hoped that God would mercifully draw her from her sins and to salvation. But he also was convinced…as hard as it was to consider…that even if God did not draw her from her sins and she was confined to an eternity in hell, he was convinced that her judgment would serve to display God’s justice to the world. And for that reason, he knew that he would still praise God, even as he grieved for his own child.

Transition:

The wicked provide a lesson in God’s justice. We need to recognize that truth and because of that, refuse to be moved by the wicked.

In the last four verse, we also learn that…

B. The wicked provide a reason to praise God, vv. 14–17

Let’s read the final verses, picking up at v. 14 in your Bibles…<read Ps 59:14–17>.

In verse 14, the words of verse 6 are repeated, but the differences of verse 15 to verse 7 convert them into a fresh description of the enemies. Whereas in the first section of the psalm the enemies were ravenous, vicious and fearsome, this time they are now rather pathetic. They are pictured as hungry beasts in constant search of food. They are not mighty. Such is the end state of the wicked.

So what should the child of God do while the wicked are prowling around? Praise the Lord! The “but” of verse 16 is just as emphatic in the Hebrew as that of verse 8, “But as for me, I shall sing…” We can’t see it in the English, but David uses three different Hebrew words for “sing” in verses 16 and 17. He does this to emphasize that singing is the proper response of the believer in the face of wickedness. The believer considers the wicked and their attacks and chooses to praise God.

Why? Why would we possibly praise God when the wicked appear to have the upper hand in life? There are three reasons given as the answer to that question: God’s strength, God’s lovingkindness, and God’s stronghold. During times of adversity, the believer hangs on to these eternal characteristics of God and continues to praise Him.

In fact, there is a wonderful poetic contrast created in these final verses. Notice when the wicked are pictured as prowling around in verse 14. When is it? Evening. Now, look at the contrast of when David will praise God in verse 16. When? In the morning. The image that David is creating is that the righteous will sing praises to God after the danger has past—he will sing in the morning because the danger of the night did not destroy him.

The very final word in the psalm is the word “lovingkindness”—God’s hesed, His covenant loyalty to His people. At the end of the psalm David is, of course, still surrounded by his enemies. His life is still being sought. And the same for Israel; there are still enemies all around who are seeking to destroy the nation. But that does not matter, because in God there is strength. In God there is a refuge, a stronghold for the righteous. In God there is covenant faithfulness, lovingkindness. Nothing can change that; That is the real reality and that is what causes the righteous man…and woman…to praise God. God is the Champion of the righteous; and He is unbeatable!

Application

Believer, I don’t know what you might personally be facing at this moment. I don’t know what particular wickedness may be surrounding you or attacking you. I don’t know if there are people trying to beat you down, destroy you in different ways so as to tear you down. I don’t know if the wickedness of our society is starting to wear you down to the point were you too feel like there are a pack of dogs nipping at your heals. But I can assure you that you have a mighty Champion in your God. He has already conquered the your greatest foe, sin and death, through His Son, Jesus Christ. When the morning comes after the darkness of your personal wicked night, you will be standing because your Champion in fighting for you. The wicked cannot ultimately undo you. You do not need to allow them to shake you.

For that reason, you can praise God today. We have a reason to praise our God; He is our mighty Champion. Are you filled with the spirit of praise today? Have you allowed the truth of your God to shift your focus so that you are able to sing praises to Him from a heart overflowing with joy and confidence? God is your strength, your stronghold, the One who will always show you lovingkindness.

Transition from body to conclusion:

We should be unmoved by the wicked. That is the idea found in the second half of this psalm. The wicked provide a lesson in God’s justice and they provide a reason to praise God.

If we add this idea to the main idea we discovered in the first part of the psalm we come up with a full idea from this psalm: The wicked have no power to shake God or His people.

CONCLUSION

The wicked have no power to shake God or His people.

We don’t need a medieval knight to fight for us serving as our champion. We don’t even need a sports team to represent us as our champion. We have a mighty Champion—our God. And for that reason, The wicked have no power to shake God or His people.

The basic ideas of both sections of this psalm are great lessons. God is unmoved by the wicked. We must never let temporary appearances cause us to doubt this truth. We should be unmoved by the wicked. We must never let temporary difficulties cause us to doubt our God. Our God is our mighty Champion.

The wicked have no power to shake God or His people.