Latest / Reformed Thinking / When the Foundations Shake, the Lord Remains (Psalm 11) | Charles Spurgeon

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When the Foundations Shake, the Lord Remains (Psalm 11) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reformed Thinking. This is our deep dive where we
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  take historical and theological source material, all the
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  commentaries, all the research, and we try to bring the core
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  ideas straight to you. Yep, the goal is to cut through
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  some of the, you know, the dense academic language and just get
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  to the good stuff. And today we are getting into a
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  really a really gripping piece of scripture, Psalm 11.
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  We are an many of the sources we've been looking at, they
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  actually call it the song of the Steadfast the.
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  Song of the Steadfast. I like that.
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  It's good, isn't it? And they send so much time just
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  pulling apart. David's well, his calm and his
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  courage in a situation where literally every instinct and
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  everyone around him was just screaming run.
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  And that's the thing, right? That conflict between what seems
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  rational, what your survival instinct tells you, and what
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  your spiritual certainty tells you.
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  That's why this is so interesting.
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  So our mission today is to figure out why David refused
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  what seemed like the only sensible advice he was getting
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  to hide. We're going to stick to the
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  theological arguments, you know, the heavenly anchors that kept
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  his faith solid when the actual structures of his society were
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  just crumbling. And we'll follow the structure
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  of the Psalm itself. So first we'll look at the
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  crisis, the the temptation he faced in verses one to three.
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  And then we'll make the same pivot David does and look at the
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  arguments for courage in verses 4 through 7, which are all about
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  the unshakable reality of God's character.
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  OK, let's start there. Then let's set the scene.
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  How bad was the danger David was actually in?
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  Well, it was life and death. This isn't just, you know, some
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  political friction. This is King's Hall, a paranoid
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  and violent king actively persecuting him.
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  The sources have that line about Saul hunting David as a
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  Partridge upon the mountains. Yeah, and that analogy tells you
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  so much. How so?
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  Well, think about how you hunt a Partridge.
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  You chase it, you drive it from cover, you wear it down over
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  rough terrain until it's just exhausted and has nowhere left
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  to hide. So it's relentless, it's
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  targeted. It's designed to completely
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  destroy him. Absolutely.
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  David was living in caves in the wilderness for years, constantly
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  on the move, never knowing if he was safe.
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  And it wasn't even an open, honest fight.
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  That's what makes the advice from his friends so
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  understandable. No, it was treacherous.
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  The Psalm says the enemies had the bow bent and the arrow
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  fitted to the string. Ready to go?
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  Ready to go and the goal was to shoot Priviley in secret at the
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  upright. So we're talking about ambushes,
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  betrayal. Exactly that phrase, shoot
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  priviley, points to how rotten Saul's court was.
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  It was full of spies and people looking to get ahead by
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  betraying David. The danger wasn't from an army
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  on a battlefield. It was from a knife in the back.
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  Or a false accusation, A legal trap.
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  It was aimed at the upright in heart, the people trying to live
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  honestly. The sources we looked at call
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  this whole thing an unequal combat.
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  And it was. I mean, you have Saul with the
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  entire government on his side, the army, the authority, the
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  political machine. All of it pitted against what?
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  David's naked innocence. Right when the very system of
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  law is trying to kill you, the power imbalance is, well, it's
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  absolute. It really makes you wonder, you
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  know? What's that?
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  If the state itself has gone rotten and wants you dead, how
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  long can naked innocence actually hold out?
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  And that kind of thinking, that political reality, that's the
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  soil where the advice to flee starts to grow.
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  It is which brings us to the pressure from his own people,
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  his friends. Who are giving him what the
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  sources call the advice of cowardice?
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  Which sounds harsh. I mean, isn't telling your
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  friend to run when he's outnumbered just good sense?
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  That is the central question, isn't it?
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  And the sources argue that this advice was it was disguised, it
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  came under the garb of friendship.
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  It used plausible logic. Totally plausible, they tell him
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  Flea is a bird to your mountain. In other words, use these
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  pusillanimous expedients, these small, timid strategies.
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  Yeah. If you're a defenseless bird and
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  the hunter is setting a trap, flying away seems like the only
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  smart thing to do. It's just worldly wisdom.
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  But the sources say there's something else going on
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  spiritually. They do.
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  They call it a stratagem of distrust.
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  A what? A.
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  Stratagem of distrust. The idea is that when the devil
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  can't get a believer to fall through obvious sin, he'll often
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  use people who mean well, his friends, his friends to argue
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  him out of his confidence in God.
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  So if David runs, it's not just moving from 1 cave to another.
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  It's a spiritual act. It's a surrender.
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  It's a breach of duty. It would be a public declaration
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  that he doesn't actually trust Jehovah to be his refuge.
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  So he'd be abandoning his post because of, what's the phrase, a
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  drizzling mist of danger? Forgetting the sun is right
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  behind it. Yeah, his friends are looking
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  only the facts on the ground. Saul is strong, David is weak.
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  The system is broken. So logically you run.
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  Which brings us to their big closing argument.
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  The giant objection you called it.
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  Yes. From verse three, if the
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  foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?
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  And that's. Not just them being dramatic.
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  They believed they were stating a fact, a cold, hard truth about
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  the total collapse of their society.
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  They were. The foundations here means the
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  institutions, the ordered structures that give a nation
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  stability and a moral compass. And when they're gone, all you
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  have left is rubble. So our sources breakdown 2 main
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  foundations that were destroyed under Saul.
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  They do. Let's start with the first one,
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  the legal ruin. OK, so the foundation being
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  destroyed here is the laws and constitutions, the whole idea of
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  the rule. Of law.
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  By the end of his reign, Saul was the law.
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  There was no other standard. It was just his erratic will.
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  The sources describe his government as being run by
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  Moody, cruel wit and arbitrary tyranny.
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  Think about what that means. The person who is supposed to
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  uphold the law is the one breaking it constantly.
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  Justice itself as a concept was just gone under Saul.
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  So a righteous person couldn't appeal to a judge or a court or
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  some written code. There was nothing to appeal to.
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  Imagine that for David. He can't get a fair hearing.
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  He can't hire a lawyer. The laws about kingship or
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  inheritance mean nothing because Saul's personal paranoia trump's
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  everything. Justice was absorbed by a raging
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  flood of cruelty. I thought that was a powerful
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  image. It is because when that happens,
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  the righteous man is helpless. His hands are tied.
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  The entire legal ground has been washed away.
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  So if the courts are corrupt and the state's power is turned
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  against you, yeah, the argument to flee starts to sound
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  incredibly convincing. And that was just the first
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  collapse. There was a second one, and it
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  was maybe even more terrifying for them.
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  The religious ruin. Right.
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  And this foundation was shaken by a specific horrible event in
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  their history, the massacre at Knob.
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  We really have to grasp the scale of this.
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  This wasn't just a random act of violence.
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  This was Doeg the Edomite on Saul's orders, killing Ahimelech
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  the high priest. And 85 other priests with him.
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  85 He basically wiped out the authorized center of religious
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  life in Israel. It was a direct attack on the
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  spiritual infrastructure. The priests were the ones whose
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  lips shall preserve knowledge. They were the keepers of the
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  covenant, the teachers of the law.
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  They were how you sought God's guidance through things like the
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  Urim and Thummium. So by killing them, Saul wasn't
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  just killing men, he was trying to sever the connection between
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  Israel and God's guidance. He'd already destroyed the civil
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  law, and now he was attacking the Covenant law.
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  The visible structure of their faith had been, I mean, it was
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  decapitated. So for a faithful Israelite,
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  this would feel like an earthquake, where both the
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  government and the church have become sources of chaos, not
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  order. Exactly.
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  You've got these dismal days of national confusion.
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  Everything that was supposed to be solid law, government,
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  religion, it's all been uprooted.
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  The righteous person feels paralyzed.
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  There's no moral or legal ground left to stand on.
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  And the advice to just run? Get out while you can.
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  It sounds inescapable. It does.
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  It absolutely does. If you only look at what's
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  happening on Earth, the advice is perfect worldly advice.
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  But David does something else. He does something radical.
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  He refuses to accept the premise that earthly ruin means final
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  ruin. He completely changes his frame
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  of reference. And that's the big transition in
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  the Psalm, right? He stops looking at the rubble
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  around him, and he starts borrowing his light from heaven.
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  Yes, he fixes his mind on the great central orb of deity.
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  He moves from the chaos on the ground to God's unchanging
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  reality in heaven. In this reality, it's built on 4
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  theological pillars or anchors. It is.
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  And the first one is a direct response to the advice to run to
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  a mountain for safety. The first pillar is God's
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  universal presence and his intercession.
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  So David says Jehovah is in his holy temple.
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  And that's the key, his friends say.
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  Flee to your mountain, David says.
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  In effect, my God is in his temple.
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  So God isn't tied down to one place on earth that can be
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  destroyed like the priesthood at Knob was.
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  He's present everywhere. And the sources point out that
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  by saying temple, David is making a claim that God is the
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  God of the dangerous valleys and battle planes just as much as he
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  is the God of the safe hills. So if God is right there with
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  him in the danger, why would he run to some lesser refuge like a
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  cave on a hill? It's illogical.
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  Why trade the infinite safety of God's presence for the very
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  finite safety of a hiding spot? But why the word temple?
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  Why not just say God is everywhere?
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  Does the word temple add something specific?
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  It does. It points to mediation.
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  The sources immediately connect this to Jesus Christ, the
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  ultimate high priest. David is looking beyond any
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  earthly building to the heavenly reality.
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  So Christ is in the heavenly temple, pleading his precious
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  blood. Right.
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  And that changes everything for David, because if the great
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  intercessor is active in heaven, then no secret plots all comes
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  up with no clever trap. Nothing can be devised that the
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  high priest won't discover and ultimately defeat.
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  And that intercession is what keeps faith from failing.
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  So even though the foundations on Earth are gone, the
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  connection to the source of stability above is perfectly
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  intact. The lines of communication are
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  open. So presence is the first anchor,
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  what's the second? It's the logical next step.
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  Absolute sovereignty, David declares.
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  Jehovah's throne is in the heavens.
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  This is him appealing to a higher court.
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  The king on earth, Saul is a tyrant, but the king in heaven?
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  Is the world's great emperor. His throne is in the heavens,
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  which means it's above and in control of everything happening
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  on earth. So the theological point here
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  from the sources, is that nothing in heaven, on earth or
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  in hell happens without God either ordaining it or at the
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  very least permitting it and over ruling it for his purposes.
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  Exactly. Saul's rage might be loud, but
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  it's not supreme. It's on a leash.
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  So the persecution isn't just random meaningless chaos, it's
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  it's controlled chaos. It's disciplined, it's
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  regulated, it has limits, and because David understands that,
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  he sees there's no real need for a cowardly retreat.
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  So instead of running, he can actually stand his ground.
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  He can salute God as Jehovah Nisi, the Lord, my banner.
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  And raise the shout of war. His courage isn't just him being
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  brave, it's the logical conclusion of his theology.
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  It's based on who's actually in charge.
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  There's that great analogy of the ship that the commentators
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  use. Oh.
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  It's perfect for this. David's friends are looking at
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  the visible parts of the ship, the masts, the sails, which are
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  like the government and religious offices.
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  And they see them getting torn apart by the storm.
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  So there's shouting abandoned ship, right?
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  But David refuses to unanchor his ship.
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  He's not going to run because of a drizzling mist.
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  He trusts in the ship substantial of God's presence.
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  He understands that the real stability isn't in the parts you
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  can see, it's in the unseen hull.
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  He stays close to the keel. The keel is the spine of the
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  ship. It's underwater.
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  You can't see it, but it's what keeps the whole thing stable.
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  So when Saul destroys the visible masts of the Kingdom,
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  David just clings tighter to the invisible, unshakable keel of
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  God's sovereignty. His safety isn't based on the
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  condition of the government, not at.
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  All it's a total reversal. Man looks at the rubble and sees
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  only ruin. David looks up, sees the true
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  king is still on his throne, and that makes the earthly chaos not
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  irrelevant, but manageable. OK, so if God is present and
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  sovereign, how does he actually interact with what's happening
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  with the oppressed and the oppressors?
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  Well, that brings us to the third pillar, the divine
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  inspection, the nature of the eternal watcher, the.
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  Line in the Psalm is striking his eyelids.
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  Try the Children of Men. It sounds so precise.
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  What's the meaning behind God having eyelids?
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  It suggests a kind of intense, focused watching that's way more
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  than just a casual glance. OK, think about what we do when
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  we want to see something small or distant very clearly.
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  We squint, contract the eyelids to focus whistly and accurately
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  on one tiny object, and it blocks out everything else.
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  So God. Isn't just generally aware of
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  the universe. He's squinting, focusing on
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  David, the individual being hunted, and on Saul the tyrant
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  plotting against him. It's a singular focus.
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  That's it. God is looking at David's
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  suffering and his enemy's secret plans as perfectly as if there
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  were no other creature in the universe and for.
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  David, who is being hunted privily in secret.
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  That has to be a huge comfort. Immense.
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  It means his suffering isn't being missed and his enemy's
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  schemes aren't hidden the sources.
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  Go even further with this. They say God's observation is
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  like anatomizing the soul. That sounds invasive.
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  It's surgical. It means God is looking at the
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  very entrails of the soul. He's not just seeing actions,
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  He's prying into the reasons, the motives, the goals behind
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  the actions he sees. Right through the fig leaves of
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  outward profession, right through the.
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  Tricks and slights of false religion so Saul can claim he's
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  persecuting David for the good of the nation.
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  But God sees the envy and the Moody, cruel wit that's really
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  driving him. God sees the nakedness of
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  duties. It's the ultimate.
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  Court of Appeal when earthly justice is gone because the
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  judges are bought or the evidence is fake, God's
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  inspection is the one place where the truth is always seen,
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  and it's. Totally impartial, Exhaustive,
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  but this. Intense gaze this trial, it
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  works differently for different people, right?
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  It has a dual function. It does.
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  For the righteous like David, it's not about destruction, it's
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  about purification, the commentators.
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  Say the Lord triath the righteous, He does not hate
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  them, but only tries them. So the trial.
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  Is actually an act of love it's like a touchstone or refining
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  fire that separates the gold or dross in a believer's character
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  and if the. Rageous person stays put when
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  the foundations collapse, they're willingly entering that
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  fire. What's the benefit of that?
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  The sources. Say these trials are the channel
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  of many blessings. They make you holy.
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  They take abstract ideas about God and make them real.
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  The promises in Scripture which maybe you took for granted,
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  suddenly become sweet and prayer.
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  Gets new life. Because the trial forces you off
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  of your own strength and onto the anchor of who God is.
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  So if David. Had run to that mountain, he
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  would have dodged the very process that was meant to deepen
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  his faith and get him ready to be king.
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  He would have. But that same intense gaze that
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  refines the righteous person, it does something very different to
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  the wicked. It's a.
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  Judicial exposure, yes. For them, God's eyelids are like
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  a judge looking down at a criminal in the dock.
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  The judge is reading the characters of his wickedness
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  printed in his face. He's gathering.
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  The evidence for condemnation and to make sure.
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  That no evil, no matter how secret or clever, can escape the
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  eye of justice. The guilty want to hide, but the
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  judge is focusing on them with this deliberate, meticulous
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  intensity. So understanding.
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  That distinction, that his own suffering is temporary and
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  purifying while Sauls success is just camouflage for his coming
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  judgment. That's a huge part of what David
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  stays. It is.
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  Why would you feel the people who are already under divine
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  investigation, whose case file for condemnation is already
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  being prepared they might win. In man's court for a while, but
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  they can't fool the eternal judge.
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  And that leads right into the final pillar of David's
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  confidence. Right into pillar. 4A deep
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  confidence in God's moral nature, which makes justice
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  unavoidable. David's final point is the
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  righteous Lord loveth righteousness, it sounds.
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  So simple. But when your whole world has
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  collapsed, legally and morally, that statement is.
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  It's radical. It is.
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  It's saying that justice isn't just something God does, it's
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  essential to the very being of God.
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  He couldn't. Not be just to fail to defend
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  what's right would be to deny himself.
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  That's it. If the highest being in the
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  universe is defined by justice and holiness, then the whole
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  cosmos is bent toward correcting the wrongs done by men like Saul
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  and that. Certainty is what allows David
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  to stay put. He knows judgment is delayed,
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  but it is absolutely fixed. And that leads to the
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  description of what's in store for the wicked, the judgment.
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  Reserved for those God hateth, which here means the violent,
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  the oppressors, and it begins in a.
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  Strange way with what the sources call a reign of snares,
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  it's a. Terrifying concept.
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  It means God often allows wicked people to have worldly success,
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  to get wealthy, to have power. But these things aren't
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  blessings, they're traps. The prosperity itself is the
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  snare. Yes, they're.
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  Meant to fatten them up against the day of slaughter.
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  The comfort and success that violent people get in this life
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  is the very thing that keeps them from ever thinking they
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  need to repent. They're good.
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  Things are a bitter sarcasm. So Saul's throne, his power, his
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  temporary success in chasing David, all of that is actually
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  part of his condemnation. It lures.
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  Him deeper into his pride and his false sense of security,
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  which just makes his eventual fall that much worse.
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  The snares isolate the wicked from any chance of escape.
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  And when? That time for accounting finally
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  comes. Their ultimate portion is
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  delivered the horrible Tempest. That's their.
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  Entailed estate, their inheritance, the language.
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  Here is so graphic. A fiery deluge of snares, fire
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  and brimstone. We are talking about the eternal
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  consequence of fighting against a righteous God.
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  The commentators. Compare it directly to the
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  destruction of Sodom, but, you know, lasting forever.
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  They also use the image of the Simum wind from the desert.
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  That's a powerful. Picture what is that?
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  It's a. Sudden, hot, poisonous whirlwind
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  that just scours the life from the landscape.
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  It leaves nothing behind but death, so it's total.
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  Overwhelming. No escape total.
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  And the final image is of a cup of torment that the wicked have
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  to drink. And not just drink, but wring
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  out the very dregs the sediment at the bottom.
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  They have to. Consume every last bit of God's
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  wrath a cup. Of misery, but not a drop of
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  mercy. The full price of justice has to
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  be paid. And the contrast.
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  With the upright is what gives David his final note of courage.
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  The Psalm ends his countenance stuff.
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  Behold the upright so while. God looks at the wicked as a
• 18:52
  judge gathering evidence. He looks at the.
• 18:54
  Upright with complacency, with delight.
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  Yes, it's not. Just a passive look.
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  It's act of favor, it's approval because.
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  God sees his own image in them, the reflection of His own
• 19:06
  holiness and the person who chose to stand firm, who refused
• 19:10
  to use carnal expedience or take crooked byways to save his own
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  skin and knowing. That that you have the personal,
• 19:17
  active approval of the sovereign of the universe.
• 19:19
  That cements David's resolve. He'll take the hardship because
• 19:24
  walking the straight path guarantees communion with him in
• 19:27
  glory, the short. Term loss is nothing compared to
• 19:29
  the long term game. Nothing.
• 19:30
  So David's choice to stay? It wasn't a military calculation
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  at all. It was entirely theological.
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  Completely it. Was anchored in these 4
• 19:37
  certainties, presence, sovereignty, omissions and
• 19:41
  justice and when the. Foundations that men build their
• 19:43
  laws, their religious structures when those fall apart, the
• 19:47
  righteous person can appeal directly to the throne of God,
• 19:50
  his true. Refuge isn't a mountain on a map
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  that can be surrounded. His refuge is the unshakable,
• 19:56
  eternal mountain of God's own character.
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  That's the only bedrock that holds which really.
• 20:01
  Brings us full circle back to the beginning.
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  That core temptation David was facing was, as the sources put
• 20:07
  it, the temptation to shun a trial and in.
• 20:10
  Doing so to miss the blessing that God had wrapped up inside
• 20:13
  of it. So here's a.
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  Final thought to leave with you. Consider this the trials that we
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  are tempted to run from. Maybe it's a crisis at work, or
• 20:20
  some kind of social pressure, or seeing our own cultural
• 20:23
  foundation start to shake. What if those are God's chosen
• 20:27
  channel of many blessings? What if they?
• 20:29
  Are the very refining fire the touchstone intended to prove the
• 20:33
  substance of our faith? You choose flight over
• 20:36
  steadfastness. You might dodge the immediate
• 20:38
  pain, but you might also be sidestepping the very spiritual
• 20:41
  refinement that God intends for your soul.