"Surely God will bring you down to everlasting ruin…”
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Why do you boast of evil, O mighty man?
The steadfast love of God endures all the day.
Your tongue plots destruction,
like a sharp razor, you worker of deceit.
You love evil more than good,
and lying more than speaking what is right. Selah
You love all words that devour,
O deceitful tongue.
But God will break you down forever;
he will snatch and tear you from your tent;
he will uproot you from the land of the living. Selah
The righteous shall see and fear,
and shall laugh at him, saying,
“See the man who would not make
God his refuge,
but trusted in the abundance of his riches
and sought refuge in his own destruction!”
But I am like a green olive tree
in the house of God.
I trust in the steadfast love of God
forever and ever.
I will thank you forever,
because you have done it.
I will wait for your name, for it is good,
in the presence of the godly.
Scripture: Psalm 52:1-9
Sermon Title: “Surely God will bring you down to everlasting ruin…”
This is our week in Book Two of the Psalms, made up of Psalms 42 through 72. We find here a mix of authors—the sons of Korah, Asaph, David, Solomon, and then several with no title or author. The ESV notes, “Once again, lament and distress dominate the content of these prayers, which now also include a communal voice.” Ernest Lucas also points out that the dominant name of God is not Yahweh as we heard in Book One but Elohim.
Before we read, there’s some background that it’s good for all of us to be on the same page about. The title lines of Psalm 52 tell us this: “For the director of music. A maskil of David,” and you likely have a footnote telling you this is “probably a literary or musical term.” When Doeg the Edomite had gone to Saul and told him: ‘David has gone to the house of Ahimelech.’” What is that about? Who were Doeg and Ahimelech?
If we go back to the book of 1 Samuel, we meet the first king of Israel; we meet Saul. But in 1 Samuel 15, we’re told the LORD rejected Saul as king because he had rejected the LORD’s word. Then we read God sent Samuel to anoint David as king. Even though that was done, Saul was still allowed to rule for a time. We’re told next about a variety of roles that David played in Saul’s life: a calming servant, a national military champion and hero, David was Saul’s son’s best friend, and Saul even gave him his daughter in marriage, making him his son-in-law. Sounds like they have a great relationship; yet David was his enemy, who he tried to kill a number of times.
This is where Doeg comes in. In 1 Samuel 21, David was officially on the run and he went to Ahimelech, who was the priest in the town of Nob. David used a bit of deception to explain why he was there, but before taking off again, David asked for and received bread and Goliath’s sword. But we’re also told these two men weren’t alone. Verse 7 tells us, “Now one of Saul’s servants was there that day, detained before the LORD; he was Doeg the Edomite, Saul’s head shepherd.”
As you can imagine, Saul was not pleased that David, his enemy, was not captured. In 1 Samuel 22, we read that Saul had heard where David and his men were, but that led him to question the loyalty of his own men—were they in his camp or in David’s camp? Our friend Doeg was there, and he realized this was a good time for him to spill the beans. In verse 9, he chirped up, “…‘I saw the son of Jesse come to Ahimelech son of Ahitub at Nob. Ahimelech inquired of the LORD for him; he also gave him provisions and the sword of Goliath the Philistine.’”
Saul wasn’t happy. He sent for Ahimelech and his whole family, and asked why he was conspiring against him. Ahimelech responded, “‘Who of all your servants is as loyal as David…Was that day the first time I inquired of God for him? Of course not! Let not the king accuse your servant or any of his father’s family, for your servant knows nothing at all about this whole affair.’” “I don’t know what’s going on. I thought you guys were good and together.”
Well, cooler heads did not prevail here. Saul called for Ahimelech and his family to be killed, specifically saying, “‘…Kill the priests of the LORD, because they too have sided with David.” Saul’s main men wouldn’t do it, so he turned to his head shepherd Doeg, and had him kill them and 85 priestly workers and all the people and all the livestock of the town of Nob. Abiathar, Ahimelech’s son, fled to join David and told him what happened. David took responsibility—1 Samuel 22:22-23, “‘That day, when Doeg the Edomite was there, I knew he would be sure to tell Saul. I am responsible for the death of your father’s whole family. Stay with me; don’t be afraid; the man who is seeking your life is seeking mine also. You will be safe with me.’” Based on the title of Psalm 52, those were the events David had in mind when he penned the following words.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, the days we’ve been hearing about feel like a completely different world from the one we live in. All this talk of enemies and running away to stay hidden from someone who’s hunting you—that’s not something that many of us have too much experience with. That’s especially the case when the one running is not a criminal who has done wrong or the soldiers or commanders of another country’s army, but the man being hunted is the most righteous person in the account. Not only that, he’s the one anointed by God to be his people’s king. Hearing about the slaughtering of a man, his family, and their town, maybe we think of how that happens from time to time in other parts of the world, but it’s not something we spend much time considering in our own communities. Yet these kinds of events are not uncommon in the pages of Scripture. The details may be different, but someone’s life being in danger is not so uncommon.
That being said, what we’re focusing on today in this psalm is not primarily the actions, but rather the mindset, the perspective, David’s desires for what he wanted God to do. Part of that comes with that understanding that we find throughout psalms and in other parts of Scripture a seemingly clean-cut, black-and-white, evil side and righteous side, there are those who are with the LORD and those who are against him. One of the things that’s unique here and in other psalms, though, is the mocking and laughing. That’s our first point today: what’s going on with all the mocking and laughing in the Psalms?
Last week, we were in Psalm 40—if you have a Bible open, you can look back there to verses 13 through 16. We read how David spoke of himself with those who seek and praise the LORD, but he’s also recognizing those who sought to take his life, who desired his ruin, who say to him, “Aha! Aha!” That expression is a mocking, a scoffing; it’s like they’re saying, “I got you!”
That’s not the only time we come across that. Back in Psalm 35, he used the same words regarding those who gloated over him, those he described as his enemies, “who hate him without reason.” Verses 20 and 21, “…They do not speak peaceably, but devise false accusations against those who live quietly in the land. They gape at me and say, ‘Aha! Aha! With our own eyes we have seen it.’” He follows that with, “O LORD, you have seen this; be not silent. Do not be far from me, O LORD.” Another place we find “Aha!” is in Ezekiel. In Ezekiel chapters 25, 26, and 36, we read of the Ammonites, Tyrians, and the captors of God’s people saying “Aha!” There they’re mocking or laughing over God’s sanctuary in Israel that had been desecrated, the land which had been laid waste, but then that’s followed by God’s judgment on them being foretold.
I don’t think any of this is all that surprising. If we pit God’s people versus not-God’s people, we can understand not-God’s people making fun of those who we hopefully side with. In the sinful nature of humanity, we want to look down on others; we want to point out and make people think of their flaws to lift up ourselves. Throughout the Old Testament, when “Aha!” is used, it’s always an expression of the unrighteous.
But then we come across passages like our psalm today, where we read in verse 5 and following this hope that God would bring the psalmist’s enemy “down to everlasting ruin…snatch you up and tear you from your tent…” Then David goes on to say, “The righteous will see and fear; they will laugh at him, saying, ‘Here now is the man who did not make God his stronghold but trusted in his great wealth and grew strong by destroying others!’” I imagine at least some of us have a conflict going inside of us when we read that. On one hand, we like the idea of the enemy—especially in this case, the one who killed the priest and his family and all the rest—we like him getting what we believe he justly deserves. We find some delight and satisfaction in that prospect. Yet maybe we also hear our parents’ voices or a teacher who taught us not to laugh at or make fun of other people. What is going on here?
Listen to how this Hebrew word, which we have translated as laugh in verse 6, shows up elsewhere in the Psalms. In Psalm 2, speaking of the nations conspiring and peoples plotting in vain against the LORD, the psalmist writes, “The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the LORD scoffs at them. Then he rebukes them in his anger and terrifies them in his wrath…” In Psalm 37, in response to the wicked plotting against the righteous, we read, “…The Lord laughs at the wicked, for he knows their day is coming.” One more, in Psalm 59, another psalm which the title tells us it regards Saul sending men to kill David, “See what they spew from their mouths—they spew out swords from their lips,” similar to razors in Psalm 52, “and they say, ‘Who can hear us?’ But you, O LORD, laugh at them; you scoff at all those nations.”
It’s not just people who are on the righteous side, but according to David, God laughs at the wicked—and we heard twice, that he scoffs at them. What are we to make of that? Is this just David’s ideas, his thoughts about God, or is God telling us something about himself? So often today, Christians want to emphasize God’s love and his desire to save everyone—so much so that the image one can produce in their mind is of God being rather disappointed that not all are saved. That very much seems to be at odds with a God who laughs at people who are destructive.
Here’s how a couple theologians and pastors have dealt with the “laughter” of the godly. In his commentary, John Calvin writes, “[The godly] would laugh at [the ungodly’ s] destruction, yet not in the way of insulting over them, but rejoicing more and more in the confidence of the help of God, and denying themselves more cheerfully to the vain pleasures of this world…We have seen that David was enabled, by the exercise of faith, to look down upon the worldly grandeur of Doeg with a holy contempt.” So, David wasn’t sinning in his language, according to Calvin, he’s simply desiring for God to do what he believes God has promised to do.
Similarly, James Boice writes, “It is the lesson drawn from God’s judgment that keeps the laughter of the righteous from being what we would call mere selfish delight at the fall of some mighty enemy. This is not mockery at another person’s misfortune. It is satisfaction at the rightness of things when God intervenes to judge those who have done great harm to others. We have to be careful at this point, of course, because we are sinners too, and it is fatally easy for us to forget our own evil when we see how others are brought down and find improper satisfaction in it.”
With all this, it’s also helpful for us to understand the Hebrew word, “sahaq,” which is the word for laugh in these psalms, is also translated elsewhere as to celebrate or revel or rejoice, though it can also be used as to scorn or mock. There is a delicate balance, especially in the Old Testament, of how God’s people can celebrate what God can do and should do when people neglect him and rebel against him and dishonor him. When people find joy or pleasure in persecution, the LORD’s vengeance on evil is something that can be celebrated and looked forward to.
That brings us to our second point, and there are only two this morning: our desire for God’s justice should not interfere with the love we’re called to have for our enemy. Perhaps you’ve heard of the folk song, “Run On for a Long Time.” It’s been covered many times and goes by various names. I’m most familiar with Johnny Cash’s version, which is called, “God’s Gonna Cut You Down.” Without repeats, part of it goes, “You can run on for a long time…Sooner or later, God’ll cut you down…Go tell that long-tongue liar, go and tell that midnight rider, tell the rambler, the gambler, the back-biter, tell them that God’s gonna cut ‘em down.”
When we read God’s word and when we look at peoples’ lives, it can be so easy to place labels on them. We divide people into us and them, into the godly and ungodly, the righteous and the wicked. Having made those distinctions, we get satisfied with where we stand. It can be very easy to preach judgment on everyone who’s not like us or with us. Sometimes we can be so convinced of this that we don’t want to rescue or offer any help to those we’ve judged.
Remember this instruction or rebuke from Jesus, though. Matthew 5:44-47, “‘…I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?’” We are called to love our enemies and pray for our persecutors.
Perhaps you’re still thinking, “But what about David?!” David, despite having his life in mortal danger countless times and having opportunities to kill Saul, did not do that. David was “conscience-stricken for having cut off a corner of [Saul’s] robe” and confessed that to him in-person. When the news came that Saul and Jonathan had died, we read in 2 Samuel 1 that he tore his clothes, “mourned and wept and fasted till evening for” both of them. Why would he do that? Because he considered Saul—who opposed him—the LORD’s anointed. In the second half of that chapter, you can find his lament for their deaths. Despite all that he had to endure, unjust as it was, witnessing evil and destruction and deceit and harm—David loved his enemy and prayed for him.
Brothers and sisters, we can know and testify to the truth of what God has promised to do for the righteous and the unrighteous, for the unredeemed and the lost. We can do that while also loving those who hate us and who we struggle with. We can know and preach what sinners deserve, while desiring the riches of Christ to be had by all who may turn to him. We can and we must live as David confesses at the end of our psalm, “…I trust in God’s unfailing love for ever and ever. I will praise you forever for what you have done; in your name I will hope, for your name is good. I will praise you in the presence of your saints.” As we heard from Calvin and Boice, our joy, our satisfaction, our delight can’t just be in the downfall of the wicked, the unrighteous, unrepentant sinners. No, our delight is in the LORD, the one alone who saves sinners, including us.
As we approach this table in the moments ahead, we’re reminded of another innocent person who was unjustly being sought out by leaders who wanted to put him to death. While he was truly and perfectly innocent, he—Jesus—went to the cross bearing the sin and guilt of every person who God loves and redeems. He was and is a king in the line of David. He experienced the arrest, the flogging, the mocking and being spat on, he carried the cross and was nailed to it and continued to be insulted the whole time. He suffered all the agony, expressing that he was forsaken by God, and yet still he prayed “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing?” He fully knew what he was doing, that this is what he had came for. He had ministered, even through rebuke to his enemies during his earthly life. Yet his desire and his commitment was that his Father’s will be done. He died for us who were once his enemies, that we don’t have to die an eternal death. He rose to give us new life and that we might praise him with all our life forever. Amen.