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Trusting God When Fear Surrounds You (Psalm 56) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

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  Reformed thinking. It is good to be here again.
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  Welcome back. We're back at the table today
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  and we're doing something a little bit different for this
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  deep dive. Oh, yeah, yeah.
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  We are pulling a very specific and I have to say a very heavy
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  volume off the shelf. We're opening up Charles
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  Spurgeon's The Treasury of David.
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  It's a classic, a monster of a book.
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  And for anyone listening who might not know, this isn't, you
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  know, just another commentary. Yeah, it's widely seen as the
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  magnum opus of the and they called the Prince of Preachers.
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  But we should probably say we are not trying to tackle the
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  whole thing today. No, that would that would take
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  us a lifetime. I think at least we're zooming
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  in. We're taking a really tight
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  focus on his exposition of just one single chapter, Psalm 56.
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  And it's a brilliant choice, I think, because Psalm 56 gets at
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  a psychological state that, well, it feels incredibly
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  modern. It does, even though it's
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  written, what, 3000 years ago? It's all about that intersection
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  of, let's call it high stakes anxiety and theological trust.
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  And to get that anxiety, you really have to look at the map.
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  I mean, the whole mission for us today is to unpack how a
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  believer is supposed to function when they are, and there's no
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  other word for it, absolutely terrified.
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  And David, who wrote this, he is terrified here.
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  The title of the Psalm itself places him in a city called
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  Gaff. And we cannot just gloss over
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  that name. Gaff isn't just some random
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  hound. No, it's the capital of
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  Philistia. It's the.
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  Hometown of Goliath, the. Context is everything.
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  So David is on the run from King Saul.
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  Saul is hunting him like an animal through the wilderness of
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  Israel. He gets so desperate that he
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  makes this calculation. He thinks maybe, just maybe,
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  I'll be safer among Israel's worst enemies than I am with
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  Israel's own king. So he walks right into death and
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  get this, he's carrying the sword of Goliath.
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  The very sword he used to kill their national hero.
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  He's hoping to find asylum there.
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  It just it sounds like a suicide mission.
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  It really does. Spurgeon points out that the
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  geography alone is just terrifying.
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  As you said, you're walking into the lion's den.
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  Holding the lion's tooth. Exactly.
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  It creates this, this intense pressure cooker.
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  And that's what Spurgeon analyzes so well.
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  He doesn't treat David like some marble statue, some hero, right?
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  He shows you a man who is sweating.
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  He's probably shaking and he's surrounded by people who have
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  every reason to want him dead. Before we even get into verse
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  one though, we have to talk about the title Spurgeon and the
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  other scholars he pulls from. They spend a good amount of time
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  on this Hebrew name. It's a bit of a tongue twister.
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  It is is Jonathilum rachokum. It's a mouthful, but the
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  translation sort of unlocks the whole feeling of the poem.
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  It translates to the silent dove in distant places.
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  That's such a striking image. A dove.
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  It is and spurs and draws a really sharp contrast here.
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  He points out there are two main doves, if you will, in the Old
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  Testament, OK, the name Jonah actually means dove.
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  So you have Jonah the prophet, and you have David the future
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  king, and both of them are doves in distant places, far from
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  home. But they could not react more
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  differently to being in exile. That's the point, Spurgeon says.
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  When Jonas the dove, there is a lot of noise.
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  A lot of complaining. A lot of complaining.
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  He runs from God. He gets angry at a plant.
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  I mean, he is a noisy, rebellious dove.
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  But David in the enemy's fortress, David is the silent
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  dove. And silent there means he's not
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  complaining. He's not murmuring against God.
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  He holds his peace, Spurgeon says.
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  The love of the dove takes over. He waits, And that silence
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  eventually breaks, not into complaining, but into praise.
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  The title also calls this a miktam.
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  We've seen that word before in the songs.
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  Yes, Miktam, Technically it implies something like an
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  engraving. You know, something made to be
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  permanent. But the church historically is
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  often translated as a golden Psalm.
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  So this is the golden mystery. That's how Spurgeon frames it.
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  He says This song gives us a kind of golden secret, how faith
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  actually works when it's under extreme pressure.
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  It's a master class and trust in God when literally everyone
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  around you wants to eat you alive.
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  Well, let's look at that pressure.
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  We're in segment 1, verses 1 and 2.
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  David opens with this plea that just feels so urgent.
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  Be merciful unto me, a God. It's the cry of a soul that has
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  just hit rock bottom. But look at the logic he's
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  using. Spurgeon loves to trace what he
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  calls the argument of a prayer. Why is David asking for mercy?
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  He says for man would swallow me up.
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  Right. He's setting up a contrast.
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  He's essentially arguing, God, you need to be merciful to me
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  because man has no mercy. It's like a balancing act.
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  If the world is cruel, heaven has to be kind.
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  Spurgeon puts it so well. He says, If thy justice has let
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  loose my enemies, let thy mercy shorten their chain.
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  That phrase swallow me up is so intense.
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  It's not defeat me or, you know, outsmart me.
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  It's consumption. That's the monster symmetry we
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  have to see, Spurgeon says. The enemy here isn't a rival
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  soldier, he's an ogre. A ravenous beast.
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  Exactly. They don't just want to win,
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  they want to make a meal out of them.
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  It implies total complete annihilation.
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  And it's relentless, the text says.
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  He fighting daily oppressive me. No Armistice, ceasefire.
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  It's a grinding daily thing. And notice the numbers.
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  They be many that fight against me.
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  Yeah, Spurgeon had a line about that.
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  A bit cynical, but probably accurate.
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  He said Wolves of the Church seldom come down upon us singly.
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  It's a harsh truth about human nature, isn't it?
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  Especially mob nature. Sinners are gregarious.
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  They hunt in packs. David is feeling the weight of
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  that. He is one man against an entire
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  city. But then in verse 2, he does
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  something really strategic. He pivots.
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  He goes for the high ground, calling God, O thou most high.
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  This is a critical shift in his perspective.
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  Let's think about the physical geography again for a second.
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  Gath is a fortress. The Lords of the Philistines are
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  literally looking down on him from their walls.
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  Or you can think of Saul sitting on his throne up in the Hill
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  Country. His enemies are in the high
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  places of earthly power. So they have the advantage,
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  terrain power, they're looking down on David.
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  They are, but David appeals to the most high.
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  He realizes that no matter how high up his enemies are, God is
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  higher. It's like a a vertical flanking
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  maneuver. Like calling it an air strike.
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  You might hold the hill, but my help comes from the
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  stratosphere. That's a good way to put it.
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  It's the countermeasure. When you feel small and you're
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  being oppressed by powers that seem gigantic, you appeal to the
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  one who makes them look like grasshoppers.
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  God's position Trump's their elevation every time.
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  This brings us to the second segment, then verses 3 and four,
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  and this is where the source material gets, I think, really
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  fascinating because verse 3 has a statement that seems to
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  contradict that heroic image we have of David.
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  I think I know what you mean. He says what time I'm afraid.
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  That admission is everything. He admits he's scared.
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  I mean, this is the guy who killed a lion and a bear with
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  his bare hands. We think of him as fearless.
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  But, Spurgeon points out, David isn't a brutish stoic.
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  He's not a block of stone. He has a high intelligence, he
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  can see the danger. He looks at the Philistines, he
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  assesses the probability of his own death and his brain tells
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  him this is a very dangerous situation.
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  So his fear is actually a rational response to the data
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  he's processing. It is, and this leads to one of
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  the most insightful concepts. In Spurgeon's whole analysis of
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  this Psalm. He talks about the idea of the
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  twilight. The twilight of the mind, yes.
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  Spurgeon argues that the Crandon mind often exists in this kind
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  of twilight state. It's not high noon, you know,
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  perfect blazing faith without a single shadow, right?
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  But it's also not midnight total black despair.
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  It's twilight. Both light, which is faith, and
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  darkness, which is fear, are present in the mind at the same
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  time. That is incredibly comforting
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  because I think a lot of us feel that if we have fear, it must
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  mean our faith is 0. Like they cancel each other out.
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  And Spurgeon argues the exact opposite.
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  He says it's a theological paradox.
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  It is entirely possible for fear and faith to occupy the same
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  mental space. The presence of fear does not
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  prove the absence of faith. The real question is what do you
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  do with that fear? And David gives the answer in
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  the very next breath. I will trust in me.
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  There it is, and here's the distinction Spurgeon draws
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  between what he calls unregenerate fear and gracious
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  fear. Fear without God.
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  Unregenerate fear that drives a person away from God makes you
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  hide like Adam in the garden. But gracious fear.
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  That kind of fear drives a person to God.
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  It's the instinct of a little child who runs to their parent
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  when the Thunder crashes outside.
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  And look at the time factor David brings in.
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  What time I am afraid. Why is that timing so
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  significant? Well, Spurgeon knows that faith
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  has to be exercised at the specific moment of the fear.
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  It's one thing to say you trust God when you're sitting in a
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  comfortable chair reading a book about His Providence.
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  It's another thing entirely when the sword is at your throat.
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  Right, David is saying. I am applying the antidote
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  directly to the wound right now. It's an active real time
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  response. It's I am afraid now, so I will
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  trust now. That is the conquering faith of
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  God's people, relying on God right when the alarm bells are
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  ringing the loudest. And that reliance brings him to
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  verse 4 where he says in God I will praise his word.
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  This is a subtle point and it's easy to just read right past it.
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  He doesn't say I will praise his deed.
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  Because the deed hasn't happened yet.
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  He's still in Gath, still in danger.
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  Correct. He praises the word.
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  He's praising the promise before the fulfillment has arrived.
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  He's trusting the promiser to be good for it, Spurgeon says.
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  This is the highest form of faith to sing about the rescue
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  before the lifeboat is even visible on the horizon.
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  And then you get this moment of defiance.
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  I will not fear what flesh can do unto me.
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  And notice the downgrade in the language there in verse one.
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  His enemies were these monsters ready to swallow him up.
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  Now they're just Flash. He stripped them of their their
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  supernatural horror. He's brought them back down to
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  size. He's realized their true nature,
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  their mortal flesh is like grass, and this creates A
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  boundary. Spurgeon is very clear on this.
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  They can wound the body. They can even kill the body.
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  But they can't touch the soul. They cannot touch the real
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  David. It makes you think of what Jesus
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  said in Matthew 10. Don't fear the one who can only
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  kill the body. Spurgeon makes that same
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  connection. If you are secure in God, the
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  absolute worst your enemy can do is just speed up your entry into
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  glory. The threat is completely de
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  escalated. But even with that theological
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  confidence, the day-to-day reality of living with these
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  enemies is just exhausting. Segment 3 verses 5 and 6.
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  It describes their tactics and honestly this feels like it
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  could been written about social media.
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  It really does. Every day they rest my words.
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  That word rest is so graphic in the original language, and
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  certainly in Spurgeon's mind, it brings up images of a torture.
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  Rack. They're torturing his words.
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  Yes, taking something David said, something completely
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  innocent or neutral, and putting it on the rack.
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  They're twisting it, pulling it, dislocating the joints of the
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  sentence until they can extract a meaning he never ever
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  intended. Spurgeon uses that old analogy
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  of the wolf and the. Lamb the fable Yes, the wolf
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  will always find a reason to eat the lamb.
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  If the lamb is polite, the wolf says you're mocking me.
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  If the lamb is silent, the wolf says you're ignoring me.
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  It doesn't matter what the victim actually says or does.
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  It doesn't. It's weaponized interpretation.
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  Spurgeon says that critics use colored glass.
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  They look at every single action of a good man and they see it as
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  evil because their lens is already tinted, he says.
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  Prayers are blasphemies if you choose to read them the wrong
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  way upwards. That's chillingly accurate.
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  You can say something totally innocent and someone who's
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  decided to hate you will twist it into a crime.
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  It's the tactics of malice. And notice the next step he
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  describes in verse 6. They gather themselves together.
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  The conspiracy and. The cowardice Spurgeon is really
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  hard on this point, he says. Malice is, at its heart,
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  cowardly. They're afraid to meet the hero,
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  man to man. The.
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  Hunt in packs. The hunt in packs or they hide
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  in ambush. They don't want a fair fight,
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  they want a lynching. And they mark my steps.
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  That's the imagery of a hunter tracking his game, or spies
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  conducting surveillance. They're just watching him,
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  waiting for any little slip up, waiting for him to stumble so
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  they can pounce. And the goal, he says, is they
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  wait for my soul. Those are the stakes.
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  They don't just want to embarrass him.
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  They don't want to win an argument against him.
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  They want his life. They want his total and complete
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  ruin. So David turns to the Court of
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  Appeal. This is segment 4 versus 7 and
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  eight. He asks a question that I think
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  every believer has asked. When they see bad people getting
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  away with things, shall they escape by iniquity?
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  It's the age-old problem of the prosperity of the wicked.
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  Can wickedness actually work as a shield?
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  Can you really cheat your way to safety?
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  David is struggling with the apparent success of his enemies.
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  And he prays for God to cast them down.
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  And here Spurgeon gets into something that, well, modern
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  Christianity sometimes shies away from.
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  And that's the comfort of the angry God.
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  How is an angry God comforting? That sounds like a
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  contradiction. Spurgeon argues that a
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  persecuted man finds a friend and an angry God.
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  When you're being haunted by wolves, you don't want a
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  shepherd who just smiles and says peace, peace.
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  You want a shepherd who has a rod and knows how to use it.
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  You want. Justice.
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  You want justice? David is appealing to God's act
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  of wrath against injustice. And then we get to verse 8.
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  And this is, for my money, one of the most beautiful verses in
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  the entire book of Psalms. Thou tellest my wanderings.
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  Tell us their means counts. It's mathematical.
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  God is keeping a tally of every single step the fugitive takes.
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  Spurgeon makes this great contrast between the confusion
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  of the person suffering and the the precision of the father.
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  That's a perfect way to put it. When you're running for your
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  life, or when you're in some deep trauma, you forget where
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  you've been. You lose track of time.
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  It's all a blur, right? But God isn't confused.
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  He records every move. He knows how many miles you've
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  walked in the dark. And then comes the metaphor that
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  just stops everyone in their tracks.
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  Put down my tears into thy bottle.
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  Now we need to correct a common misunderstanding here.
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  Spurgeon is really specific about the cultural context.
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  Right, because I've seen those little glass vials in museums.
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  They're called Roman lacrimatories.
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  People think that's what David is talking about.
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  They do. They imagine David is talking
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  about some tiny, delicate glass vial for a few dainty tears.
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  Spurgeon just completely rejects that.
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  He says no, David is not a Roman fashionista.
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  David is a Hebrew warrior out in the desert.
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  So what is the bottle he's talking about?
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  It's a wineskin, a large leather skin, the kind you would use for
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  holding gallons of water or wine.
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  Wow, that completely changes the scale of the image.
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  It does, doesn't it? The implication is that David
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  wept so much he needed a bucket. He needed a large leather and
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  bottle to hold all of it. This wasn't a few polite tears.
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  This was a flood of grief. And the request is for God to
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  store them. Just think about the tenderness
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  of that. Put my tears into thy bottle.
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  Store them as if they were a precious vintage wine.
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  God doesn't just wipe the tears away and forget them, He keeps
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  them. He values the sorrow of His
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  servant. And then he adds, Are they not
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  in my book? The Book of Remembrance,
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  Sprinton explains. This is like a royal register or
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  a chronicle. God doesn't just count the
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  steps. He records the griefs.
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  The sorrows are treated as real, tangible facts of history.
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  They're written down in God's permanent record.
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  It validates the pain. It's not God saying just get
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  over it. It's God saying this is written
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  down, this happened. It is, and because it's written
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  down, it will be addressed. It will be reckoned with which?
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  Gives David the confidence to pivot again.
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  Segment 5 verses 9 through 11. When I cry unto thee, then shall
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  mine enemies turn back. This is the mechanism of his
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  victory, the cry. Spurgeon calls it artillery.
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  Irresistible artillery. I love that phrase, he says.
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  The battle is won as soon as the report of the prayer is heard in
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  heaven. It's not that the prayer have to
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  convince God to help. The prayer is the signal that
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  releases the help that's already on its way.
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  And David says this I know. That's the certainty of it.
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  It isn't a guess. It's not why I hope God is on my
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  side. It's an axiom of his faith.
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  God is for me. And if God is for me, who can be
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  against me? And then we get the chorus
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  again. He repeats the line from verse 4
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  in verse 10 in God will I praise His word, but He changes the
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  names for God. He does.
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  He uses Elohim, which is God is the Judge, the Creator, the
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  great power, and then he uses Jehovah, the Lord, the personal
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  covenant, keeping God of mercy. Why the switch?
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  What's the point of that? Spurgeon says the believer
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  praises God under every one of his aspects, whether God is
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  showing his power in Thunder and justice, which is Elohim, or
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  he's showing his mercy and covenant love, which is Jehovah.
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  So whether the Providence feels like honey or like bitter herbs,
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  you still praise the word. It's a comprehensive trust.
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  It covers all the bases. And he finishes this whole
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  section with that final defiance in verse 11.
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  In God have I put my trust? I will not be afraid.
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  What man can do unto me? And he changes flesh to man
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  here, which is a slightly stronger word in the Hebrew.
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  It implies mighty men, but his resolve is fixed.
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  The fear is banished. Why?
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  Because the trust is present. The twilight is finally ending,
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  and the light of faith is taking over.
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  Which brings us to the final segment, verses 12 and 13.
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  And David starts talking about vows.
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  Thy vows are upon me, O God. This is an interesting turn
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  because often when people are in danger, you know, in the
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  foxhole, as they say, they make all these promises.
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  God, if you just Get Me Out of this, I'll go to church every
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  Sunday for the rest of my life. Right.
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  And then they get out and they immediately forget.
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  The human tendency is to forget the foxhole prayer as soon as
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  the shelling stops. But not David.
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  Not David, he says. Thy vows are upon me.
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  He's acknowledging the debt. He is eager to pay it.
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  I will render praises. The payment is praise.
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  He's not trying to buy God off or anything like that.
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  He's offering the sacrifice of Thanksgiving.
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  And then he lays out the logic for why he's so sure he's going
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  to be OK. It's in verse 13.
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  For thou has delivered my soul from death.
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  This is a classic logical argument.
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  It's an argument from the greater to the lesser.
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  Can you walk us through that? Sure, David is basically saying,
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  God, you've already done the really hard thing.
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  You saved my life. You delivered my soul from death
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  itself. That was the heavy lifting, so
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  since you already did the impossible, surely you'll do the
• 18:38
  necessary. Which is keeping his feet from
• 18:40
  falling. Exactly, If you save the car
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  from going off the Cliff, surely you'll fix the flat tire.
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  If God is invested enough to save the soul for eternity, He's
• 18:49
  invested enough to sustain the daily walk.
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  He's not going to let the feet stumble now.
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  And Spurgeon explains that word falling in a specific way, too.
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  It's not just, you know, tripping over a rock on the
• 18:59
  path. No, it refers to a thrust or a
• 19:01
  push. The enemy is actively trying to
• 19:04
  shove him. It's an attack on his character,
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  on his reputation, on his standing.
• 19:08
  David is praying. Don't let them push me into sin.
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  Don't let them succeed in pushing me into disgrace.
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  And the destination for all this, that I may walk before God
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  in the light of the living. This is the doctrine of the
• 19:22
  perseverance of the Saints coming through so clearly.
• 19:25
  What is the light of the living? Well, on the surface it just
• 19:27
  sounds like staying alive, not dying.
• 19:30
  And it does include that safety, liberty.
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  But Spurgeon goes much further. He says it is spiritual life.
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  It's the opposite of the darkness of the dead.
• 19:39
  It's walking in holy service, in act of communion with God.
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  So it's not just about surviving his time in Gath, it's about
• 19:47
  thriving in God's presence afterward.
• 19:49
  Correct. Look at the whole trajectory of
• 19:51
  the Psalm. It began in the ravenous jaws of
• 19:54
  the enemy that swallow me up Imagery.
• 19:56
  It ends in the light of Jehovah's presence.
• 19:59
  That's the journey from the belly of the beast to the face
• 20:02
  of God. And the vehicle that made that
• 20:04
  whole journey possible was trust.
• 20:07
  Active fighting trust. What time I am afraid I will
• 20:11
  trust. It's such a practical lesson for
• 20:13
  us, isn't it? We so often wait for the fear to
• 20:16
  go away before we try to trust. David trusts while he's afraid,
• 20:20
  and that is what makes the fear finally go away.
• 20:22
  That is the golden mystery of this victim.
• 20:25
  Before we wrap this up, there was one thought from Spurgeon's
• 20:27
  notes that really stuck with me. It was about that bottle of
• 20:30
  tears. It was a bit provocative.
• 20:33
  Oh, I think I know which one you mean.
• 20:34
  The one that connects the suffering of the believer to the
• 20:37
  suffering of Christ. That's the one he asks this
• 20:39
  question. If God bottles the tears of his
• 20:41
  Saints, if he treasures the tears of a man like David, how
• 20:45
  much more did he treasure the tears of Jesus?
• 20:47
  Right. I mean, Jesus wept over
• 20:49
  Jerusalem. He wept at the tomb of Lazarus,
• 20:52
  He wept in the Garden of Gethsemane.
• 20:54
  Spurgeon implies that those tears are bottled in the highest
• 20:57
  possible sense. They're infinitely precious to
• 21:00
  the Father, but there's a flip side to that bottle imagery
• 21:03
  that's that's quite sobering. And what's that?
• 21:07
  Spurgeon suggests that what are now bottles of tears will, in
• 21:10
  the end, be poured out. Poured out as what?
• 21:13
  As Vials of Wrath, the Book of Revelation talks about vials of
• 21:17
  wrath being poured out on the earth.
• 21:19
  Spurgeon is hinting that the collected tears of the
• 21:21
  persecuted Saints become the very measure of judgement
• 21:23
  against their persecutors. God remembers the grief, and he
• 21:27
  will balance the scales. So our tears aren't just wasted
• 21:30
  water, they're ammunition for justice.
• 21:32
  It's a terrifying thought for anyone who oppresses the
• 21:35
  innocent, but it's a massive comfort for the one who's doing
• 21:38
  the weeping. Your tears are not lost.
• 21:40
  They are counted, they are bottled.
• 21:42
  And one day they will be vindicated.
• 21:43
  That is a heavy place to leave it.
• 21:45
  The silent dove in distant places is never actually alone.
• 21:48
  Never. Well, thank you for joining us
• 21:50
  for this deep dive into Psalm 56.
• 21:52
  It has been a pleasure. And we'll see you next time on
• 21:55
  reformed thinking.