Latest / Reformed Thinking / Surely There Is a God Who Judges the Earth (Psalm 58) | Charles Spurgeon

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Surely There Is a God Who Judges the Earth (Psalm 58) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome back to Reformed Thinking.
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  I am glad you're with us today. We are pulling a specific file
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  from the archives that, if I'm being honest, might scare a few
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  people. We are opening up Psalm 58, and
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  we are analyzing it with the help of the man often called the
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  Prince of Preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, using his
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  massive commentary The Treasury of David.
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  It is good to be here, and you are right to use the word scare.
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  We are venturing into territory that, well, most modern
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  lectionaries and polite Sunday services actively avoid.
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  We are dealing with what theologians classify as an
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  imprecatory Psalm. Imprecatory.
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  That is the polite theological term for praying for God to
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  smash your enemies in the face. It's.
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  Pretty much, yeah. Essentially, the word comes from
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  the Latin imprecatio, which means to invoke evil or a curse.
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  These are the passages where the psalmist doesn't just ask for
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  deliverance, he asks for judgment.
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  He asks for teeth to be broken, for enemies to dissolve like
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  snails, for God to well, wash his feet in the blood of the
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  wicked. Which brings us to the tension
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  right out of the gate. We live in a culture that
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  prefers the gentle Jesus, meek and mild imagery.
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  We like the Beatitudes. We struggle with the God who
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  breaks teeth. So before we even read the text,
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  what is our mission here? Why are we dragging this up?
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  Our mission is to reclaim a robust theology of justice.
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  I mean, if we want to understand the holiness of God, we cannot
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  pick and choose. Spurgeon argues that these
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  Psalms teach us about the reality of human depravity, the
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  necessity divine judgment, and, crucially, how a Christian
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  should respond to judicial tyranny.
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  And we should clarify for you, the listener, we are approaching
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  this as two people who hold to the Westminster Confession.
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  We take the text seriously. We believe this has inspired
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  Scripture, not just David having a bad day and, you know, venting
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  his spleen. That is the starting point that
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  has to be This isn't a tantrum, it's a lawsuit.
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  It is a theological argument presented before the High Court
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  of Heaven. So let's unpack this lawsuit.
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  We have to start where Spurgeon starts, which is the title, the
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  superscription. I feel like 90% of Bible readers
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  skip the little bold text before verse one, but Spurgeon seems to
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  think there is gold there. There is absolute gold there.
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  The title contains the phrase altshift.
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  Altashift, That sounds ominous. What are we looking at?
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  It translates to destroy, not. It is a solemn pronunciation,
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  and Scurgeon points out a sharp irony here.
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  The Psalm itself is full of destruction.
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  It calls for the annihilation of the wicked, and yet the banner
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  flying over the Psalm, over the head of the godly, is destroy
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  not. So while the world falls apart,
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  the remnant is preserved. That is the implication.
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  It sets the stakes. Judgement is coming, but there's
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  a boundary line that judgement cannot cross regarding God's
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  people. But there's another word in the
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  title that gives us the setting mictum.
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  Mictum Spurgeon translates this as a golden secret right?
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  Or an engraving. Yes, engraving is the literal
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  route, and this leads to some fascinating speculation about
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  where David was when he composed this.
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  Because he wasn't sitting at a mahogany desk in Jerusalem.
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  No, not at all. The context implies David is on
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  the run. He is an outlaw.
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  He is hiding from King Saul's administration.
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  He is likely living in the limestone caves of Ingetty or a
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  Dulum. Spurgeon loves the idea of
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  victim as an engraving because it suggests that perhaps David
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  literally scratch these words into the stone walls that cave
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  while he hid. That is such a vivid image.
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  You have this fugitive, haunted by the government, sitting in
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  the dark, carving his appeal into the rock.
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  It suggests permanence. He wanted this recorded not just
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  on parchment that could burn, but in stone that would last.
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  And that permanence stands in contrast to the people he is
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  writing about, the wicked judges.
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  He's carving truth into rock while they are speaking lies
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  into the air. Let's talk about those targets.
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  You mentioned Saul's administration.
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  This isn't just about random bandits or, you know, personal
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  enemies, is it? No, and this is key to
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  understanding the anger in the Psalm.
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  David is addressing the congregation, or more
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  specifically the Elim, the judges, the Princess, the
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  magistrates. These are the people who held
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  the legal authority in Israel. So this is a courtroom drama.
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  It is, but the tables are turned.
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  Usually the judges sit on the bench and the accused stands in
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  the dock. Here David the outlaw puts the
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  judges themselves on trial before God.
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  He acts as the prosecutor. Let's look at the indictment
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  then, verse one. Do ye indeed speak
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  righteousness, O congregation? The Hebrew was a bit tricky
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  here, and Spurgeon dives into it.
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  It can be read as are you dumb or are you silent?
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  Spurgeon latches onto this idea of silence.
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  He asks why were these magistrates silent?
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  Silent about what? Silent about David's innocence.
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  These men knew David. They knew he was a patriot, They
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  knew he had saved Israel from Goliath, and they knew Saul was
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  going crazy with jealousy. But when Saul signed the warrant
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  for David's arrest, what did these judges do?
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  They said nothing. Silence.
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  And Spurgeon argues that this silence was their sin.
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  We often think of sin as the bad things we do, the sins of
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  Commission. But here the sin is what they
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  didn't do. Silence has complicity.
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  That hits hard. Silence gives consent.
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  That is the legal principle. If you are in a position to
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  defend the innocent and you say nothing because you value your
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  job or your neck more than the truth, you are an accomplice.
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  You are guilty. So they are guilty of passive
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  injustice, but David doesn't let them stay passive for long.
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  In verse 2, he moves to their active malice in heart.
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  Ye work wickedness. This is where we get a fantastic
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  image from one of the old Puritan Spurgeon quotes a man
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  named Joseph Carroll. He describes The Human Heart as
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  an underground shop. An underground shop that sounds
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  industrial. It is think of a blacksmith's
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  forge or a carpenter's workshop, but hidden in a cellar away from
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  the light, Carol says. The heart is where the evil is
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  forged. It is where the hammer hits the
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  anvil. So they don't just stumble into
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  wickedness. That is the point.
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  We tend to excuse people by saying, oh, they just lost their
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  temper or it was a crime of passion, David says no, These
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  judges went down to the workshop of their hearts.
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  They designed this persecution. They fitted the pieces together
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  in the dark. They manufactured the live
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  before they ever brought it out into the sunlight.
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  That connects directly to the Reformed understanding of
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  nature, doesn't it? The action follows the nature.
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  You don't accidentally build a complex machine of persecution,
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  you design it. And notice the next phrase.
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  Ye weigh the violence of your hands.
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  The merchant metaphor. Yes.
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  Picture a merchant with his scales.
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  He is weighing out saffron or gold.
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  He is precise. He is careful, David says.
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  These men weigh their violence. That is chilling.
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  It implies they are smart about it.
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  It implies cold calculation. They aren't running wild in the
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  streets, they are determining exactly how much violence they
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  can get away with. They're wise in their villainy.
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  They don't want to ruin their own position by going too far,
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  so they measure out just enough cruelty to destroy David without
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  bringing the whole Kingdom down on their heads immediately.
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  It is institutionalized bureaucratic evil.
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  It's the banality of evil. It is the most dangerous kind.
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  Which brings us to the source of this evil.
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  We are moving from the specific judges of Saul's time to the
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  nature of humanity itself. Section three of our discussion
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  the doctrine of total depravity. Verse 3 says the wicked are
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  estranged from the womb. This is a proof text for
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  original sin if there ever was 1.
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  Spurgeon is adamant here. He challenges the listener.
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  We do not become sinners by sinning.
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  We sin because we are born sinners.
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  Estranged from the womb? It doesn't say estranged from
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  the Angel accountability or estranged once they started
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  hanging out with the wrong crowd.
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  No, as soon as they are born, the separation from God is there
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  at the start. And note the specific fruit
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  David mentions first. It isn't murder, it isn't theft.
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  It's lying, speaking lies. Spurgeon calls lying the devil,
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  sin. It is the signature of the
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  serpent Jesus called Satan, the father of lies.
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  And Spurgeon makes a very practical observation here.
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  Anyone who has children knows this truth.
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  You do not have to teach a child to lie.
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  No, you definitely don't. You have to teach them to tell
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  the truth. Correct.
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  Before a child can even articulate words, they practice
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  what Spurgeon calls little deceptive arts.
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  They fake a cry to get picked up.
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  They hide the toy they broke. Deception is instinctive.
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  It's the first evidence that the nature has fallen.
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  It really knocks the blank slate theory of humanity out the
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  window. We aren't born neutral.
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  We are born with a bent toward deception.
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  And this leads David straight into the soap and imagery in
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  verse 4. Their poison is like the poison
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  of a serpent. The metaphor shifts from the
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  workshop to the wild man is not just a corrupt merchant, he is a
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  venomous beast. No.
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  Is this just poetic language or is there a theological
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  distinction here? There is a vital distinction
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  Spurgeon draws between corruption and eruption.
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  The poison in the sack under the snake's tongue.
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  That is the corruption. That is the nature.
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  When the snake bites and the venom comes out, that is the
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  eruption or the actual sin. But the snake is deadly even
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  when it isn't biting. Because the poison is always
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  there. Right.
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  A cobra is a cobra even when it's sleeping.
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  A Sinner is a Sinner even when they're being polite.
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  The nature is deadly. But then David gets specific
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  about the kind of snake he talks about the deaf adder.
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  This sounds like a nature documentary.
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  What exactly is a deaf adder? This is fascinating Natural
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  History. He is referring to the cobra or
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  the ASP and the ancient practice of snake charming.
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  Which I think we have all seen in cartoons or movies.
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  But it was a real thing, right? The flute player and the cobra
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  in the basket. It was and is real.
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  The charmer uses sound, music, chanting, rhythmic tapping to
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  pacify the snake. The idea is to mesmerize the
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  beast so it doesn't strike, but David describes a snake that
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  stoppeth her ear. Now obviously snakes don't have
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  hands to plug their ears. No, and biologically, snakes
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  hear through vibrations in the ground and jaw.
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  But the metaphor here is about willfulness.
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  The charmer represents the gospel.
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  It represents the preacher, the law, reason, the voice of God.
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  The deaf adder is the reprobate Sinner.
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  So the Sinner isn't physically deaf, they can hear the words.
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  They hear the physics of the sound, yes, but they're
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  willfully deaf to the meaning. They shut their minds.
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  Spurgeon laments this, he said. You can use logic, you can use
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  pathos, you can use the most moving music of the gospel.
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  You can preach like Whitefield or Edwards, but unless the arm
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  of the Lord is revealed, the Sinner will not come.
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  They refuse to be charmed. There is that story Spurgeon
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  quotes from Chateau Brion. It is such a vivid illustration
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  of this the Canadian flute player.
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  Yes, it recounts A rattlesnake entering a camp in the Canadian
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  wilderness. Everyone is terrified, but a
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  Canadian musician steps forward with his flute.
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  As he plays, the snake changes. It uncoils.
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  The rage leaves its eyes. It becomes almost hypnotic
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  following the music, swaying to the rhythm.
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  It is charmed. It is pacified.
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  It is the beast yields to the music.
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  But David says the wicked judges, and by extension the
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  hardened Sinner, are worse than that rattlesnake because the
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  snake yielded. The beast had no reason, yet it
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  responded to the charm. The Sinner has reason, has a
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  conscience, has the offer of eternal life, and yet says no,
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  the beast is more reasonable than the unregenerate man.
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  And that is a humbling thought, that a rattlesnake has more
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  sense than a Sinner rejecting Christ.
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  And there's a warning in the snake charming metaphor too.
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  Spurgeon mentions that sometimes the charmer gets bitten.
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  If the snake refuses the charm, the charmer dies.
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  It is a warning to those who trifle with sin, thinking they
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  can manage it or talk it down. You cannot negotiate with a
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  fallen nature. Eventually, the nature of the
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  beast asserts itself. So we have established the
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  corruption. The judges are venomous,
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  willful, deaf to reason. They are manufacturing evil in
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  the dark. Now David stops describing them
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  and starts praying against them. This is the imprecation verse 6.
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  Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth.
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  He shifts metaphors again. Yeah, we go from the snake to
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  the lion, break out the great teeth of the Young Lions.
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  That is graphic smashing the grinders.
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  Why such violence in the prayer? It is a prayer for disarmament.
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  David is a realist. He knows these men probably
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  won't be converted. They are deaf, so if they cannot
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  be saved, he prays that they would be disabled.
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  Like pulling the firing pin out of a gun.
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  Correct. If the lion has no teeth, it
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  cannot tear the prey. David is praying for the
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  church's protection. He is saying, Lord, if they
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  insist on attacking your people, take away their power to do
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  harm. It is actually a prayer of mercy
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  for the sheep. You cannot have safe sheep if
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  the wolves have sharp teeth. And then we get to one of my
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  favorite oddities in the Psalms, verse 8.
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  As a snail which melteth, Yes. The melting snail This is 1
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  where we had to put on our ancient science hats.
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  Right, because my garden snails definitely don't melt, they just
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  eat my lettuce. True, this is phenomenological
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  language describing things as they appear to the observer, or
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  based on ancient folk wisdom. The belief was that the slime
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  trail the snail leaves behind is its own substance, its own life
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  force. So the further it walks, the
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  more of itself it leaves behind on the pavement.
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  It basically walks itself to death.
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  It dissolves as it moves. Precisely.
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  And while the biology is incorrect, the theological truth
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  is on point. The wicked destroy themselves by
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  their own malice. Their slime, their sin, their
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  plotting, their energy spent in hatred is actually draining
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  their own life. They expend their strength and
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  rebellion until there is nothing left.
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  They dissolve as they go. It's the idea that sin is self
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  cannibalizing. It is.
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  Every act of evil takes a piece of the sinner's soul.
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  And then David adds another curse, one that is very heavy to
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  read, like the untimely birth of a woman that they may not see
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  the sun. Spurgeon calls this the curse of
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  being an abortion. It is a stark statement.
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  David is saying it would be better for these men to have
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  never existed or to have died in the womb than to live a life
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  that never sees the Son of God's grace.
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  It reminds me of what Jesus said about Judas.
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  It would have been better for that man if he had not been
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  born. That is the one.
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  A life spent in opposition to God is a wasted life.
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  It is a grim reminder of the potential for human wreckage.
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  If you live your whole life fighting your Creator, you are,
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  in a spiritual sense, formless and void.
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  You never reach the purpose for which you were made.
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  The imagery just keeps coming. Verse 9 we have the snail, the
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  untimely birth, and now the cooking pot.
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  Before your pots can feel the thorns.
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  This is one of the most difficult verses to translate in
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  the Hebrew, but Spurgeon breaks it down using desert imagery.
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  Picture a caravan traveling through the Middle Eastern
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  wilderness. They are hungry, they stop to
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  eat. They gather thorns, brambles to
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  make a quick fire under a. Pile thorns burn hot and fast.
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  They do, they crackle. It's a flash in the pan type of
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  heat. The wicked are like that.
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  They have their pot, their plans, their plots, and they
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  light the fire of their malice. They think they're about to have
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  a feast. They're rubbing their hands
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  together, anticipating the kill. They're getting ready to cook
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  their victory dinner. But before the pots can feel the
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  thorns, before the water even gets warm, a whirlwind strikes.
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  A desert storm. Yes, it sweeps everything away.
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  The fire, the pot, the meat, the wicked man, it is all gone in an
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  instant. That is the suddenness of God's
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  judgement. It is.
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  They are cut off in the very active planning, and Spurgeon
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  notes the distinction of green and dry in the text.
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  God takes away both the green thorns and the dry ones.
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  Meaning what? The young sinners and the old
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  Harden centers. When the whirlwind of judgement
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  comes, it doesn't discriminate based on age or experience.
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  If you are outside of Christ, you are swept away.
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  It disrupts their party. Just when they think they have
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  won, the table is flipped. And this leads to the reaction
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  of the godly. And this is Section 5, the
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  vindication, verse 10. The righteous shall rejoice when
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  he seeth the vengeance. OK, here is where it gets really
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  interesting and really difficult for modern people.
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  We are told to love our enemies. We are told to pray for those
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  who persecute us. How can we rejoice in vengeance?
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  Is this David just being petty? Is this bloodlust?
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  We have to be very careful here, Spurgeon is clear.
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  This is not personal malice. This is not sadism.
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  We do not take pleasure in the suffering of a human being as a
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  human being. So what?
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  Are we rejoicing in we? Rejoicing in the vindication of
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  right. It is sympathy with God's
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  holiness. Think about the end of a
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  terrible war. When the Nazi regime fell, the
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  world rejoiced. Not because they love seeing
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  young German soldiers die in the mud, but because a great evil
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  was stopped. The concentration camps were
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  open. Justice was done.
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  It's the Hallelujah of Revelation 19.
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  That's it. In Revelation, the great
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  multitude in heaven shouts Hallelujah, because Babylon has
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  fallen. They say true and righteous are
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  his judgments. If we cannot rejoice in justice,
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  we don't love justice as much as we think we do.
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  If you love the victim, you must hate the victimizer's actions.
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  But the imagery is so graphic, He shall wash his feet in the
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  blood of the wicked. That sounds barbaric.
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  It sounds that way to our sensitized ears, yeah, but it is
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  a metaphor of total victory and subsequent peace.
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  Spurgeon uses a story about the Waldensians, the followers of
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  Peter Waldo, who were terribly persecuted in the Middle Ages.
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  The Waldensians were slaughtered by the thousands and the Alps.
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  They were, and the story goes that a Waldensian leader saw one
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  of their great persecutors, a man who had tortured and killed
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  many of their brethren, struck dead by a sudden judgement of
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  God. And the text says he washed his
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  hands in the blood. Literally.
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  Metaphorically, he didn't go touch the corpse, the story
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  says. He immediately gave alms to the
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  poor and instructed his family in the fear of the Lord.
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  That's unexpected. The washing was a cleansing.
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  He saw judgement and it didn't make him arrogant.
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  It made him want to be cleaner. It made him want to be holier.
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  He saw the end of the wicked and said I must make sure I'm not
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  like him. So it wasn't ha ha take that it
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  was God is real, judgement is real.
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  I need to walk in righteousness. And it brings refreshment to the
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  weary St. because it signifies the end of the conflict.
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  The battle is over. You can take off your boots.
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  You can wash your feet. The enemy is no longer a threat.
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  It is the relief that the universe is actually moral.
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  And that is the final verdict in verse 11.
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  So that a man shall say, verily there is a reward for the
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  righteous. Verily, it is the inescapable
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  conclusion. When God finally acts, atheism
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  is silenced. Spurgeon says that even the most
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  ignorant man, the man who never opened a Bible, will be
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  compelled to look at the destruction of the wicked and
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  say there is a God and he judges the earth.
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  It answers the doubt we all feel sometimes.
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  You know when you see the wicked prospering, getting rich,
• 18:35
  getting away with it, you wonder, does it pay to be good?
• 18:37
  Is the game rigged? That is the perennial question,
• 18:40
  this question of Psalm 73 as well.
• 18:42
  And this Psalm answers it with a thunderous yes, there is a
• 18:48
  reward. We are not forsaken.
• 18:51
  The judge is seated. He hasn't left the building.
• 18:53
  He is just gathering the evidence.
• 18:55
  And when the gavel falls, it falls hard.
• 18:57
  It is a comfort. It is the ultimate comfort.
• 18:59
  If there is no judgement, there is no hope for the victim.
• 19:03
  But because there is a God who judges the earth, we can endure
• 19:06
  the silence of the unjust judges now, knowing the great judge
• 19:09
  will speak later. So we have gone from the dark
• 19:12
  workshop of the human heart, through the venom of the
• 19:15
  serpent, the breaking of the lion's teeth, the sudden
• 19:18
  whirlwind in the desert, all the way to the final victory of the
• 19:21
  righteous. It is a sweep of history.
• 19:23
  In 11 verses it is. And it leaves us with a choice.
• 19:26
  What? Choice is that.
• 19:27
  The choice of the adder? Spurgeon asked this haunting
• 19:29
  question. Who would imagine that a
• 19:32
  reasonable soul should act so much against sense and reason?
• 19:35
  Why would you choose the poison? Why would you stop your ears to
• 19:38
  the music that could save you? It is the question that leaves
• 19:40
  us staring at the necessity of grace.
• 19:43
  It does, because if the adder is deaf by nature, no amount of
• 19:47
  flute playing will fix it. We can debate apologetics all
• 19:49
  day, but unless God changes the nature, we remain deaf.
• 19:53
  The ear must be miraculously opened.
• 19:55
  And that is why we do this, because without that sovereign
• 19:58
  grace, we are all just deaf adders walking into the fire.
• 20:01
  Amen to that. Thank you for joining us on this
• 20:04
  deep dive into Psalm 58. It is heavy stuff, but it is
• 20:06
  necessary stuff. We will see you next time on
• 20:09
  Reformed Thinking.