Latest / Reformed Thinking / When Words Become Weapons, God Becomes Defense (Psalm 64) | Charles Spurgeon

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When Words Become Weapons, God Becomes Defense (Psalm 64) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome back to Reform Thinking. I'm so glad you're here with us
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today. We are opening up a book that
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has been sitting on my desk for weeks and honestly, it's a
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little intimidating just looking at the size of it.
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We are cracking open the treasury of David.
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It is a mammoth work. I mean 7 volumes. 7 volumes of
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what a lot of people consider to be the greatest commentary on
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the Psalms ever written. And the author is, of course,
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the Prince of Preachers himself, Charles Haddon Spurgeon.
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But we aren't trying to tackle the whole library today.
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We're zooming in. Weigh.
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In on a single text we are looking at Psalm 64.
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Which is a very specific choice. It is.
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It's not one of the comfortable. Ones no, it is not.
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This isn't the Lord is my shepherd.
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This is gritty, this is dark, but it leads us to a picture of
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God that I think we really need right now.
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We're going to look at the safety of the believer when the
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world feels like it's closing in, and we're doing it through
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Spurgeon's lens. And we should probably clarify
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for everyone listening what the Treasury actually is, because
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Spurgeon didn't just sit down and, you know, write 7 volumes
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of his own opinions from scratch.
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Right, he was more like a curator.
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He was a collector, a master collector.
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He went through centuries of church history, the Church
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Fathers, the Puritans, medieval theologians, and he just
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handpicked the best insights on every single verse.
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So when we read Psalms 64 today, we're not just hearing from
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Spurgeon. No, not at all.
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We're going to be hearing from men like John Dunn, the poet
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Augustine, John Trap, Jeremiah Burroughs.
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It's like a great cloud of witnesses, all gathered around
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this one prayer of David. It's a fantastic shortcut to
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being well read. Really.
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You get the best of the best all in one place.
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So let's set the scene for the Psalm, Psalm 64.
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What is the context here? Well, the superscription is
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simple. It just says the Psalm of David.
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That's it. But the content, it just screams
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conflict. Spurgeon notes right at the
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beginning that David's life was basically one of almost constant
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warfare. Yeah, that's true.
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It was very, very rare for David to write a song that didn't
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mention an enemy somewhere. He was a man of blood.
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In a way, the Lord even said so. He was.
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I mean, think about it. He fought lions and bears as a
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kid. He fought Goliath.
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He was haunted by Saul. He fought the Philistines and
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men in the deepest tragedy. He fought his own son, Absalom.
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Conflict was just the air he breathed.
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It was, and Spurgeon points out that in this specific Psalm,
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David's thoughts are almost entirely consumed by the cruelty
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and craftiness of the men trying to destroy him.
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So the mission for this deep dive is pretty clear.
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We need to unpack this prayer. We need to look at the anatomy
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of fear, the very specific weapons the enemy uses, which
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Spurgeon gets really descriptive about.
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Oh, he does. And then the best part, we get
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to see the sovereignty of God stepping onto the battlefield.
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Spurgeon calls him the Divine Archer.
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I love that title, The Divine and Archer.
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It suggests that while the wicked have their bows and
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they're good with them, God has a better one.
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He definitely does. OK, so let's get into Section 1,
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the voice of prayer. The Psalm opens with Hear my
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voice, O God, in my prayer. And we should stop there for a
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second, because Spurgeon does. He just latches onto that one
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word voice. Hear my voice.
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It seems simple enough. It seems like a throwaway
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detail, doesn't it? Of course he's using his voice.
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But Spurgeon, being Spurgeon, asks A theological question
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here. Why does David specify his
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voice? I mean, does God need acoustic
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vibrations to hear us? Does he have ears in the human
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sense? And we know the answer to that
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is no. God is omniscient.
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He knows what we're going to ask before the neurons even fire in
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our brains. Correct.
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Spurgeon calls it mental prayer, and he says it's fully heard by
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God. God weighs the spirits.
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You do not need to make a single sound to reach the throne of
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grace. But, and this is his point,
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using your voice is often for your benefit, not for God's.
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How so? What does that do for me?
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Well, think about the nature of the human mind.
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We're so easily distracted. If you try to pray silently for
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10 minutes, what happens? Be honest.
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Oh, I started thinking about lunch.
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Or I remember an e-mail I forgot to say my grocery list.
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Your mind just wanders. It's untethered.
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Spurgeon suggests that the physical act of Speaking, of
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forcing air through your vocal cords, articulating words,
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hearing your own voice with your own ears, it constrains the
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mind. It puts fences around your
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thoughts. It anchors the prayer in
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reality. It makes it concrete.
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It does. It gives it a channel, it
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focuses your devotion and keeps you from drifting off into 1000.
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Other things. OK, that makes a lot of.
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Sense. But being the balanced
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theologian he is, Spurgeon immediately flips the coin.
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He doesn't want us to become legalistic and think we must
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speak out loud to be heard, so he brings in this amazing
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counterexample from the book of Exodus.
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The story of Moses at the Red Sea.
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Yes, and I want you to just picture that scene for a moment.
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The Israelites are trapped. The Red Sea is in front of them,
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this massive, impossible barrier.
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Behind them you have the dust cloud of Pharaoh's Chariots.
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The most powerful army on earth is coming to slaughter them.
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And the people are losing it. They're panicking.
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Total panic, screaming, chaos, crying out against Moses, and
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there stands Mises. Now, if you read the text and
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Exodus carefully and never says Moses spoke a word out loud,
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he's just standing there, you know, in the silence of
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leadership, trying to hold it all together.
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But then God speaks to him. And God asks him a really
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strange question. Why cry is thou unto me?
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Why are you crying out to me? But wait a minute.
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Moses hadn't said a thing. His lips were sealed.
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So his heart was screaming. That's the paradox Spurgeon just
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loves, He says that the prayers, which are unheard on earth may
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be the loudest things in heaven. The silence of a believer who is
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so traumatized or so overwhelmed that they can't even form words.
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That silence rings like a bell in the ears of God.
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That is incredibly comforting because there are times there
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are seasons when you are so beaten down you literally can't
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find the words to say. And God hears that frequency
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perfectly. But here in Psalm 64, David is
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choosing to speak. He's choosing to use what
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Spurgeon calls his battle axe. That's what he calls prayer
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here, a battle axe. Yes.
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It's not a pillow, it's a weapon, he says.
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David uses prayer as his all-purpose tool, his primary
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weapon. He uses it against inward sin,
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against outward wrath, against domestic rebellion, against
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foreign invasion. It's his go to for survival.
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And that brings us to the specific request he makes in the
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second-half of verse one, right? Preserve my life from fear of
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the enemy. I want to just highlight that
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word fear. I noticed that too when I was
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reading it. He doesn't say preserve my life
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from the enemy, he says from the fear of the enemy.
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And that is a massive distinction.
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You can be physically safe sitting in a locked room,
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completely out of reach of your enemies, and yet be utterly
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destroyed by the fear of them. It's the psychological warfare
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aspect of. It it's the dread, it's the
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anxiety that wakes you up at 3:00 AM.
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It's the terror. Spurgeon points out that we need
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protection from the idea of harm just as much as, if not more
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than, the harm itself. Terror can paralyze a man long
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before a sword ever touches him. It reminds me of that saying
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that we suffer more in imagination than in reality.
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So true, and Spurgeon gives us a prescription here.
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It's a very puritan sounding phrase, he says.
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With all our sacrifices of prayer, we should offer the salt
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of faith. The salt of faith.
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What does he mean by that? Salt was a preservative.
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It was also part of the Old Testament offerings.
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His point is that you have to believe that God is actually
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capable of protecting you. That belief, that trust, is the
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salt that makes the prayer effective in your own heart.
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It's the only thing that quiets the fear.
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If you pray but you don't trust, you're just worrying with your
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eyes closed. You're just verbalizing your
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anxiety, you haven't actually handed it over.
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Now there's a linguistic note here from John Trapp.
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He was one of those English Puritans who just had a way with
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words. He comments on the word life.
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Trap is fantastic, a master of the pithy comment.
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He points out that the Hebrew word here is actually plural.
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It's lives. Preserve my lives.
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Right, which sounds odd in English, but Trap argues that
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this covers the many faculties and revolutions of a person's
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existence. You have your physical life,
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yes, Your heartbeat and your breath, but you also have your
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spiritual life. You have your domestic life,
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your family, you have your civil life, your reputation, your
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standing in the community. That makes a lot of sense
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because when an enemy comes after you, they rarely just want
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to kill your body. They want to destroy your name.
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They want to ruin your family. They want to dismantle
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everything that makes you, you. They want to wipe you off the
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map entirely. So the prayer is comprehensive.
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Lord, protect my lives, all the different spheres where I exist.
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And that's a great transition into verse 2, where David asks
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for a specific kind of protection, a hiding place.
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He says hide me from the secret counsel of the wicked.
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This sets up a contrast that runs through the whole song.
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You have the secret counsel of the wicked versus the secret
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Providence of God. It's like a spy novel.
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Counterintelligence. In a way, yes, the wicked have
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their counsels of malice. They're in their dark room,
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plodding, whispering, scheming. But David appeals to God's
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counsels of love. He asks to be hidden in God's
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secret place, to be brought into a better conspiracy, and
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Spurgeon makes an observation here that I think goes against
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our natural instincts. What's that?
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He says it's a good thing to conquer your foes.
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We all want to win the fight. But he says it is a better thing
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to be screened from all conflict entirely.
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Speak hidden from the strife. To be so tucked away in God's
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Providence that the battle doesn't even reach your
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doorstep. That's a fascinating shift in
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perspective. Usually my prayer is God give me
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the strength to beat this guy or God help me win this argument.
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Right. And Spurgeon is suggesting a
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higher prayer. Might God hide me so well that I
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don't even have to argue? He says.
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God knows how to make quiet. He is more than a match for
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their deep laid plots. It creates this image of the
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believer in a bunker or maybe a high tower, while the enemy is
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running around on the ground floor just completely lost
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trying to find them. And failing the noise and the
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insurrection of the workers of iniquity, as the King James
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Version puts it, it's all happening outside the walls.
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But inside there is peace. But outside those walls, things
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are getting pretty scary. And this brings us to Section 2,
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The Arsenal of the Wicked versus 3 and 4.
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And I have to say, the imagery David uses here, and that
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Spurgeon unpacks, is visceral. It is.
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It is not abstract at all. Verse three who wet their tongue
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like a sword. Let's talk about that word wet.
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It's an old English word we don't use much, but it means to
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sharpen. But it implies a process,
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doesn't it? It's not just sharp.
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It implies friction. It implies time and effort.
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Spurgeon notes that this isn't a sudden outburst of anger.
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This isn't someone losing their temper and traffic and yelling
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something they regret. 5 minutes.
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Later this is premeditated. This is cold blooded
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preparation. He compares it to a warrior
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sitting by the campfire the night before a battle, taking
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out his whetstone and grinding it against the metal of his
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sword. Shuck, Shuck, He's feeling the
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edge with his thumb. He wants to make sure that when
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he swings it, it cuts deep. That is a terrifying image.
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When you apply it to speech. It means the slanderer is
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sitting at home alone, rehearsing the lie.
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They're refining the phrase. They're workshopping it.
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They're asking themselves, how can I say this in a way that
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does the most damage? How can I twist this truth just
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enough to make it a lethal falsehood?
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Spurgeon says. They rub the lie against their
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malice until it is razor sharp. The goal is to wound desperately
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to kill the honor and reputation of the victim.
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And then David immediately switches the metaphor.
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He moves from the sword to the arrow and bend their bows to
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shoot their arrows. Even bitter words.
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And the difference is critical. The sword is a close range
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weapon. If you're going to slash someone
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with a sword, you have to look them in the eye.
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You have to be in the same room close enough to see the damage.
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But the arrow. The arrow is for distance.
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Slander is the original long range weapon.
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You can destroy a man's reputation in a city you've
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never even visited. You can ruin a woman's life from
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behind a keyboard, anonymously, from thousands of miles away.
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Spurgeon talks about how the Orientals, as he refers to the
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culture of the Bible, practiced insult and nicknaming almost as
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a fine art. He does.
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He notes that in that cultural context, sarcasm and verbal
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abuse were highly developed skills.
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But then he warns his readers, And this is very relevant for us
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in the West, not to feel superior because we are more
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polite. Right, he says.
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Our manners might be more refined, but the less apparent
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venom causes just as much pain, if not more.
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It's the innuendo, the shrug, the whisper.
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It's the polite assassination. This is where he uses that crazy
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illustration. He describes visiting a museum
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in Venice. Yes.
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The instrument of the Italian tyrants.
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He talks about seeing these glass cases filled with all
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sorts of medieval weapons, and among the broadswords and maces
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he saw these tiny little needles.
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Needles like sewing needles. Very similar.
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They weren't these big intimidating weapons.
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They were delicate, but they were designed to be shot from a
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mechanism like a blowgun, and they were dipped in deadly
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poison. So you.
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Wouldn't even see it coming. It would feel like a mosquito
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bite, a tiny prick, but it was death.
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Spurgeon compares that to the polite gossip of our society.
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It isn't a loud shouting match. It's a tiny needle.
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It's a whispered comment at a dinner party.
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Did you hear about so and so? It's a little shrug, a raised
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eyebrow, and the. Poison enters the system.
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And the reputation dies a slow, agonizing death.
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He says the less apparent venom is often the most deadly.
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We tend to think of wickedness as loud, violent crime.
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But here in this Psalm, the wicked are the gossips, the
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quiet destroyers. And who are they shooting these
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poison needles at? Verse 4 tells us they shoot in
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secret at the perfect. OK, this brings up a theological
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issue. We're reformed.
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We believe in total depravity. We believe that there is none.
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Righteous. No, not one.
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So who is the perfect? David can't be calling himself
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perfect. We know about Bathsheba, we know
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his history. He was far from it.
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Spurgeon makes the crucial distinction.
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He says, first and foremost, this applies perfectly to
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Christ. Jesus was the only truly perfect
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one, and he was the ultimate target of slander.
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They called him a glutton, A drunkard, A blasphemer, a friend
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of sinners. But it also applies to the
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believer. Yes, in a different way,
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Spurgeon says. Believers are relatively
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perfect, meaning they are sincere, they are upright, their
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standing is perfect because they are closed in the righteousness
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of Christ. But here is the tragedy, and I
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think every Christian needs to hear this.
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Your uprightness does not protect you from slander.
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In fact, it provokes it. Because darkness hates light.
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That's it. If you are upright, you stand
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out. Your life is a quiet rebuke to
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the world around you. And because we aren't absolutely
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perfect, because we still have flaws and make mistakes, the
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enemy seizes on those flaws to discredit our general
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uprightness. They find the chink in the armor
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and drive the sword in. And the method they use is pure
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cowardice. Shoot in secret.
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They won't fight in the open field.
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They're snipers. They skulk in the bushes and
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notice the timing. Suddenly, do they shoot at him?
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It's an ambush. It is like a wild beast pouncing
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from a hidden place. They give the victim no chance
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to defend himself. You wake up 1 morning and your
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reputation is in shreds and you didn't even see the Archer.
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You don't know where the arrow came from.
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Spurgeon gets incredibly heated here.
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You can feel his blood pressure rising as he writes this
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commentary. He says an open liar is an Angel
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compared with this demon. That is a strong statement.
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An open liar is an Angel compared to a secret slanderer.
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Why does he say that? What's the distinction?
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Because you can confront an open liar.
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If someone stands in the town square and yells a lie about
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you, you can stand up and debate them.
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You can present evidence. There's a chance for truth to
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win in the court of public opinion.
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But the secret slanderer is like a snake in the grass.
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They bite and then they disappear.
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You can't fight what you can't see.
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You're just left with the poison.
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You are, Spurgeon says. The devil himself might blush at
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being the father of such base offspring.
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That's vivid. Now there's another breakdown of
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this weaponization of the tongue here.
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It's from Jeremiah Burrows. He was a cured and preacher.
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Yes, a member of the Westminster Assembly.
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A theological heavy hitter. And he classifieds the tongue
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into 3 distinct weapons, the razor, the sword, and the arrow.
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It's a brilliant taxonomy of malice.
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Let's walk through it because it's so practical.
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First, the razor. A razor implies shaving, getting
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close. It implies taking off every
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little hair, Burroughs says. This is the critic who notices
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peccadilloes, small infirmities, tiny faults.
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This is the person who shaves you close.
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They don't make a big outrageous lies, they just highlight every
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tiny flaw that a loving person would overlook in grace.
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This is the person who says, well the pastor sermon was good,
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but did you notice he mispronounced that one Greek
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word? Or she's a faithful mother, but
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her car is always dirty. That is the razor.
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It doesn't kill you with one blow.
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It strips away your dignity by focusing on the irrelevant.
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It bleeds you to death with 1000 tiny cuts.
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OK, so that's the razor. Then there's the sword.
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The sword, Barrow says, ruins deeply, but it is near at hand.
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This is the direct attack within your circle, the open insult,
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the angry confrontation at the office, the fight with a family
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member. It's painful, but at least you
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know who's holding the weapon. And finally, the arrow.
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The arrow hits at a distance that's spreading rumors to
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remote places where you cannot defend yourself.
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It's sending the anonymous e-mail to the boss's boss.
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It's posting the negative review online.
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It's talking behind someone's back to people they'll never
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even meet. So you've got a complete system
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of destruction, close range, medium range and long range.
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Exactly. And that leads us right into
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Section 3. We move from the weapon itself
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to the war room where the weapons are being planned.
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Verses 5 and 6 The conspiracy of evil.
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Verse of five says they encourage themselves in an evil
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matter. This is the psychology of the
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mob. And Spurgeon points out a really
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sad contrast here. He says good men, godly men, are
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often discouraged. It's true in the church, in
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ministry, you see it all the time.
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We get downhearted so easily. We second guess ourselves.
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We struggle to keep our spirits up.
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But the children of Darkness, Spurgeon says they are wise in
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their generation. They cheer each other on.
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They validate each other's malice.
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They egg each other on to greater evil.
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It's an echo Chamber of wickedness.
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It is. If one of them starts to feel a
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twinge of conscience, the others immediately squash it.
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No, no, you're right to be angry.
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He deserves it. Tell us more.
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The text says they commune of laying snares.
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They pull their experience into a common fund of hatred.
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One person's bitterness fuels another's.
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And they operate into this fundamental delusion.
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The text says. They ask who shall see them?
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This is the practical atheism of the heart.
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They might profess to believe in God on Sunday, but on Monday
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they live as if he is blind and deaf.
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They think because they are whispering in a dark room no one
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hears. But history proves otherwise
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time and time again. Spurgeon brings up a very
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British example here to make its point, the Gunpowder Plot.
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Guy Fawkes, right? The plot to blow up Parliament
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in 16 O five. It was deep, it was dark, it was
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incredibly secret. The conspirators took oaths of
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silence. They thought they had covered
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every single track. But it was exposed.
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It was laid bare at the 11th hour by an anonymous letter,
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Spurgeon says. This is a pattern in history.
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The stones of the field cry out. Great plots are usually exposed
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because truth has an ally in reality itself.
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You can't build a fortress on lies.
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The foundation always cracks. Someone talks, someone gets a
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conscience. He quotes that line from
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numbers. There is no enchantment against
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Jacob. Meaning you can use all the dark
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magic and secret plotting you want against God's people, but
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there is a sovereignty check. If God decides to expose you,
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the toils of the net are broken. The scheme falls apart.
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But man, they try hard. Verse 6 says they search out
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iniquities. This is the diligence of malice.
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This is one of Spurgeon's most cutting observations.
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He says they show as much avidity, which means eagerness
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to ruin a good man, as explorers searching for buried treasure.
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Imagine if they put that energy into something good.
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That is the tragedy of the fallen human nature.
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They will work harder to go to hell than some Christians work
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to go to heaven, Spurgeon says. They cry Eureka.
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I have found it when they finally discover a new method of
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vengeance, a new lie to tell. He uses the image of the
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Inquisition here to talk about the skill of evil.
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He does, and it's a chilling point.
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He talks about the instruments of torture.
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If you look at those devices historically, the rack, the Iron
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Maiden, the thumb screws, they reveal A profound, a dark level
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of engineering. Someone had to sit down and
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design those things. Someone sat down with blueprints
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and did the math on how to cause the maximum amount of pain
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without killing the victim too quickly.
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It reveals the skill of a human mind when it's bent toward
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cruelty. We are creative beings made in
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God's image, but when we are cut off from God, that creativity
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can turn demonic. So the believer is in a very
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dangerous spot. We are being hunted by skilled,
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diligent, cooperative enemies who have weapons ranging from
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razors to poisoned needles. And if the believer were left
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alone, their condition would be hopeless.
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It would be utterly desperate. That's what Spurgeon calls the
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moan of unbelief. Reason looks the situation and
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says I'm finished. They are too strong.
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They are too smart. Their conspiracy is too deep.
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But Faith sees something else, and that is the huge pivot in
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Section 4, the divine retribution.
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Verse 7 starts with one of my favorite words in all of
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Scripture. But.
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But God. 2 words that change everything.
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But God shall shoot at them. The great reversal.
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The imagery here is poetic justice in its purest form.
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The enemy has a bow. They've been bending it, they've
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been preparing their bitter words, but they forgot that God
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also has a bow. The Divine Archer takes the
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field. And notice the comparison.
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The wicked have to wet their tongues.
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They have to plan, they have to commune and encourage each
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other. It's hard work being that evil.
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But God, the text just says God shoots.
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And the timing is key suddenly. Yes, just as they plan to
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surprise the Saint, suddenly do they shoot at him.
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God turns the tables. They are the ones who are taken
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unawares in the middle of their plotting.
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In a moment of their triumph, the arrow arrives.
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Spurgeon notes the efficiency of God's judgement. 1 arrow from
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God is enough. He never misses his mark.
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It reminds me of that scene in Indiana Jones where the guy
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comes out and does all the fancy sword moves and then he just
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looks tired, pulls out his gun and shoots him.
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That is the very apartment if modern illustration.
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The wicked make a great show of their power.
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All this wedding and planning and God's action is simple,
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sudden and final. Then we get to verse 8, which
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describes the weapon of their destruction, and this is just
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beautiful in its irony, their own tongue to fall upon
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themselves. This is so fascinating.
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God doesn't need to create a new weapon to destroy the wicked.
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He doesn't need to call down fire from heaven every time He
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just uses their own weapon against them.
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He turns their strength into their weakness.
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Their words return to condemn them.
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Spurgeon notes the physics of this metaphor.
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He says the tongue is, physically speaking, a light
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member of the body. It weighs almost nothing.
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Just a few ounces of muscle, right?
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But when it falls on a man in judgement, it falls heavy as
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lead. Their own lies, their own
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slanders, their own bitter words come crashing down and crush
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them. There's a quote here from Joseph
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Carroll, another one of those heavy theologians Spurgeon dug
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up. He says a man were better to
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have his house fall upon him than his tongue.
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Think about that. That's an incredible statement.
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If your house falls on you, it kills your body.
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It's a tragedy, but it's over. But if your tongue falls on you,
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if your own lies and slander come back to haunt you, it
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destroys your soul. It destroys your reputation
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forever. It leaves you in a state of
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living shame. It's the boomerang effect.
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You throw the slander out and it just swings right back around
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and hits you in the face. Virgin even quotes Shakespeare
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here, which I love. I saw that from Macbeth.
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Yes, he references the bloody instructions which, being
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taught, return to plague the inventor.
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It's the concept of the poisoned chalice.
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You mix the poison for your enemy, but divine justice
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commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice to our own
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lips. We see this in politics all the
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time. Someone starts digging up dote
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on an opponent and in the process they're on dirty laundry
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gets exposed. That's it.
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The trap they laid for others becomes their own snare, and
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when that happens, when the slanderer is exposed and
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destroyed by their own lies, there is a public reaction.
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Verse 9 says And all men shall fear.
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It's undeniable at that point. The judgement is so clear, so
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public, that even the most illiterate, as Spurgeon puts it,
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can understand the lesson. He compares it to the Red Sea
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again, when Pharaoh was overthrown, the news spread and
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the Canaanites trembled. They didn't need a theology
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degree to understand that God was fighting for Israel.
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And Spurgeon says they sit and see secretly, but the punishment
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is wrought before the face of the sun.
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The secret plot becomes a public spectacle.
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God turns the lights on and everyone sees the cockroaches
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scatter. And that leads us to the final
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state of affairs in Section 5, the outcome for the believer in
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verse 10. The righteous shall be glad in
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the Lord. Now we need to be very careful
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here. Spurgeon and the other
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commentators are very clear on the nature of this joy.
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It's not schadenfreude. It's not taking pleasure in
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someone else's misery. Exactly, it is not haha, I told
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you so. It is not a selfish, sensual
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gloating over the enemy's pain that would make us just as
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wicked as them. So what is it then?
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It is gladness in the Lord. It is a rejoicing that justice
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has been upheld. It is the relief of seeing the
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moral order of the universe affirmed and restored.
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When a tyrant falls, the people rejoice, not because they love
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death, but because they love liberty.
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This is a joy in the character of God.
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The verse also says they shall trust in Him.
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Because the observation of Providence increases faith.
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When you see God intervene like that, when you see the divine
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Archer take the shot and hit the bullseye, your trust for the
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next battle is strengthened. You realize, OK, God really does
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have this. Now I want to spend a minute on
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this phrase here, the upright in heart, because John Donne, the
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great poet and preacher, has a note on this that is just, well,
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it's geometry, but it's beautiful.
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Oh this is marvelous. I love when Spurgeon pulls in
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Dun Dun. So the word for upright in
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Hebrew is Josh. It implies a direct plane way, a
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straight line. We use the same idea when we
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talk about a straight shooter or a straight arrow, someone who is
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honest and direct. OK, simple enough.
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But Dunn gets into the geography of it.
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He says look at the Earth. The Earth is round.
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It's a sphere, right? Therefore, geographically
26:57
speaking, no step you take on the surface of the Earth is
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truly a straight line. Every step you take is actually
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the arc of a massive circle. You are always walking on a
27:06
curve. Because of the curvature of the
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Earth. I'm with you.
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OK, so Dunn applies the spiritually.
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He says, look, we are human. We live in a fallen world on a
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curved spiritual plane. We have infirmities, we have
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variations. We're like a compass that
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doesn't point to true north perfectly because of all the
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magnetic interference around it. We wobble, we deviate from the
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path. We wobble, We aren't perfect,
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But Dunn argues that he who comes as near to uprightness as
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possible, he whose heart intends to go straight, whose general
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trajectories towards God, even if he stumbles, he is the
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upright man. That is so helpful because if
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upright meant morally perfect without any deviation, then none
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of us would qualify. We would all be disqualified
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immediately. But God looks at the heart.
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Is your heart just shar? Is it set on the straight path
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even if your feet stumble on the curve of this world?
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And for those who are upright in that sense, the text says, they
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shall glory. The etymology here is key.
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The Hebrew word is halal. Which is where we get the world.
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Hallelujah. Praise.
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Yeah, halal means to shine out, to be clear, to be brilliant.
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So when it says they shall glory, it doesn't mean they are
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boasting about themselves. No, not at all.
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It doesn't mean they're strutting around saying look how
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great I am, I survived. It means they shine with a holy,
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reverberating admiration of God. They reflect his light.
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They become like mirrors showing forth His glory.
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Spurgeon says it is a praise they shall receive for having
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served God. Yes, it's a communal thing.
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The victory of 1 oppressed St. is the victory of all upright
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men. When one stands, we all shine a
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little brighter. We share in the glory of God's
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vindication of His people. Spurgeon ends this whole section
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with a bit of a warning. Or maybe an admonition is a
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better word. It's a very practical point.
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He brings it right back to our prayer life.
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He says the best way to benefit others, to help the church, to
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help your family, to help the world is to be earnestly
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prayerful for ourselves. That sounds counterintuitive.
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We are always taught to pray for others, to be selfless.
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And we should. Of course we should, but
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Spurgeon's point is about structural integrity.
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He says our godliness puts weight and substance into our
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testimony. If I want to help you, the best
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thing I can do is first ensure that I am walking closely with
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God. If I am preserved, if I am holy,
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if I am safe in that secret place, then and only then am I
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in a position to be useful to you.
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It's the oxygen mask principle on an airplane.
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Put your own mask on first before you try to assist others.
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Precisely. If I pass out, if I fall into
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sin or despair because I neglected to pray for my own
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preservation, I am no good to you or anyone else.
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I become a liability to the body of Christ, not an asset.
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So praying preserve my life isn't selfish.
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It can be an act of service to the whole church.
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That is a really solid place to land.
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It validates the need for personal spiritual survival.
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It does. It's foundational.
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So we have traveled quite a distance in this deep dive.
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We started with the secret whispers of the enemy, the
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plodding in the dark room. We look at that terrifying
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arsenal, the wedded sword, the long range arrow, the poisoned
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Venetian needle. We saw the conspiracy of the mob
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cheering each other on in their evil thinking no one could see
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them. And then the pivot.
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But God, the divine Archer steps in, the sudden arrow of God that
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turns their own weapons back on them.
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Ending in the gladness of the Saints, the shining out of the
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upright and heart. What is the one thing you want
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the listener to walk away with today?
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If they forget the Venetian needle and the geometry of John
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Donne, what should they remember from Psalm 64?
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I think it's the concept of the safe house.
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We spend so much energy trying to build our own defenses.
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We try to out argue the slanderer, we try to outmaneuver
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the plotter, we try to be smarter than the mob.
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But David doesn't do any of that.
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He just prays. He prays to be hidden.
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The safe house for the believer is not in our own punning or our
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own counter attacks. It is in the secret place of
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God's Providence. We hide in him.
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We let him be the Archer, we stand still like Moses at the
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Red Sea, and let the salvation of the Lord unfold before our
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eyes. And we let the salt of faith
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cure our fear while we wait. That's it.
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You know, that thought from Spurgeon earlier is going to
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stick with me all week? That an open liar is an Angel
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compared to a slanderer. It really reshapes how we view
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polite gossip in modern society. We tend to think the loud, brash
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Sinner is the biggest problem, but maybe the real danger to the
31:30
church is the quiet, polite whisperer in the corner.
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It forces us to examine our own conversations.
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Are we using the razor on people?
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Are we shooting arrows from a distance with our keyboards?
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Or are we striving to be the upright, the Jashar who shine
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with the glory of God? A heavy question, but a
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necessary one. Thank you for walking us through
31:50
this. And thank you all for listening
31:51
to this deep dive into Psalm 64. This has been reformed thinking.
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Until next time, trust in the Divine Archer.