We read God’s Word which will be from Psalm 10 this evening. You’ll find this on page 451 of your pew Bible. Let’s go to the Lord in prayer.
Father, speak to us. Indeed speak. Your servants are gathered to hear. We live from Your Word. Open it to us now. Let our hearts be quiet before You and ease the distractiveness of our minds. Help us wait for Your Word. Thank You, our Father. We pray in the name of Your Son, the Lord Jesus. Amen.
Psalm 10:
“Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?
In arrogance the wicked hotly pursue the poor; let them be caught in the schemes that they have devised. For the wicked boasts of the desires of his soul, and the one greedy for gain curses and renounces the Lord. In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him; all his thoughts are, ‘There is no God.’ His ways prosper at all times; your judgments are on high, out of his sight; as for all his foes, he puffs at them. He says in his heart, ‘I shall not be moved; throughout all generations I shall not meet adversity.’ His mouth is filled with cursing and deceit and oppression; under his tongue are mischief and iniquity. He sits in ambush in the villages; in hiding places he murders the innocent. His eyes stealthily watch for the helpless; he lurks in ambush like a lion in his thicket; he lurks that he may seize the poor; he seizes the poor when he draws him into his net. The helpless are crushed, sink down, and fall by his might. He says in his heart, ‘God has forgotten, he has hidden his face, he will never see it.’
Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up your hand; forget not the afflicted. Why does the wicked renounce God and say in his heart, ‘You will not call to account’? But you do see, for you note mischief and vexation, that you may take it into your hands; to you the helpless commits himself; you have been the helper of the fatherless. Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer; call his wickedness to account till you find none.
The Lord is king forever and ever; the nations perish from his land. O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted; you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more.”
The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever.
What is the muck? “Surviving the Muck” is what I called this sermon. What is the muck? Is it the things God does that we can’t understand or explain, the things that we don’t desire or want to face or endure? The things that keep us up at night. The things that make us ask, “Why, God?” just like David is asking. “Why?” Muck comes in all types and descriptions. Sometimes it’s multi-layered and complex. Sometimes it is very straightforward. It is always exasperating. It is sometimes maddening. But it’s all to be survived and it’s to be survived in reference to God for those who are God’s people. God is working at something. Our question is, “How do we hold on until it’s done, until He is done? How do we hold on until He is done?” Certainly Psalm 10 gives us some help. Certainly we can see David goes to God in prayer. Certainly we can see that David has spent time reflecting on the Scripture and what the Scripture has to say about God. We’ll pick that up as we walk through the psalm together. We’ll see that David has made some assertions about God’s character that came from God’s Word, that came from God’s revealed truth about Himself. So certainly the Scripture is key to holding on. I think David helps us see the kind of praying that helps us in surviving the muck. And that’s an important thing to recognize. What’s the kind of praying that we do? I think David gives us some help here in Psalm 10.
And I think it’s important that we define the actual nature of the muck. There are different kinds of muck, aren’t there? There is the kind of muck that is related to a bad diagnosis. There is the kind of muck that is related to family tension. There is the kind of muck that is related to a failing business. The muck that David has in mind – and this is important for us to keep straight as we walk through the psalm together – is what happens in his gut when he sees the ones who are wicked and have power, pursue and victimize the helpless and the weak and the powerless. It troubles his soul. He can’t get past it. He struggles with God’s apparent inaction. He struggles with the absence of justice for the victims of the wicked man’s crimes and the way the wicked man seems to prosper and flower as a result of his wickedness. That’s the muck that David has specific reference to as he responds to God in Psalm 10.
Now the scholars will tell you that psalms 9 and 10 really are a pair, a matched set. In some versions or in some fellowships they are the same. It’s just one psalm. But there seems to be enough distinction in Psalm 10 that it needs to be off on its own, a separate psalm. But we gain a lot by looking at them together, reading them together, thinking of them together. David is praising God in the heart of Psalm 9 for His greatness, His goodness, and His loving care. Yet in Psalm 10, there is that strong note of lament, that strong note complaint, again, related to what he sees happening around him and God’s apparent inaction. Let’s talk about the makeup of the psalm. David is going to offer a complaint. He is going to offer a description. He is going to offer a request, two requests actually, and then he is going to circle around and come to some important affirmations. So complaint, description, request and affirmation. I think those are the categories that we’ll walk through tonight as we look through this psalm together.
Complaint
Let’s start with the complaint, where David starts. “Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” Let’s make the obvious point – David is praying. Let’s not miss that. Let’s not breeze right past that. David is praying. His complaint doesn’t drive him away from God; it takes him to God. Time and again in the Scripture, we find God’s people fleeing to Him in their perplexity. That’s so important and we can’t spend enough time on that point. Because time and again it seems I have people talking to me in their perplexity and I find in my own heart the same thing. I run away from God. I run away from my relief. I run away from my help. I run away from the answers that I say I am seeking. Here is David whose perplexity, whose complaint drives him to God. Think about Psalm 73. “Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped, for I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.” That’s the first couple of verses of Psalm 73. And Asaph goes on to explain from there all the terrible things he saw – I say the terrible things – all of what he would describe as the terrible prosperity of the wicked. And he says, “It was in worship, when I went to the house of the Lord, that I saw therein their end.” He drew to God, drew himself to God, drew near to God in the time of His perplexity, in the time of his brokenheartedness, in the time of his troubled mind. He drew near to God. Think about Psalm 13. “Will you forget me forever?” David is saying, and yet he is saying that as he is fleeing to God. “Will you forget me forever? Come to my attention. Come to my aid.”
Think about Elijah at Sinai after the great stand-off between Yahweh and Baal on Mount Carmel and Elijah runs out of fear for his life because Jezebel has threatened to kill him. “I’ve been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, they have thrown down your altars, they have killed your prophets with the sword. And I, even I only, am left and they seek now my life to take it away!” It’s a terrible time. He can’t put those pieces together. “If I’m gone, you have no more mouthpiece. You have no more mouthpiece to these people and they are ready to kill me!” In his perplexity, in his brokenness, in his complaint, he runs to God. He doesn’t run away from Him. He flees to Him.”
Think about Peter. John chapter 6, one of the more perplexing teaching times of Jesus’ ministry, throngs of followers. And Jesus engages in some of this very graphic and very hard teaching to those followers. “You’ve got to eat My flesh and drink My blood.” And by the end of John chapter 6, all these followers are leaving Jesus in droves; they can’t get away fast enough it seems. And Jesus turns to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away too?” And it’s Peter who says, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life and we believe and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.” Do you think Peter understood what Jesus was talking to those people about? I don’t think so. I don’t think he did, not at that point. In his perplexity and in what must have been some sense of upheaval – “Where are all these people going? We were in the middle of everything here and now all of a sudden it’s just us. What happened to the people? What happened to the followers? What broke here, Jesus? What broke here?” In the midst of his perplexity – “You have the words of life.”
And so let’s learn here, as David makes his complaint, we flee to God in our perplexity, in our trouble, in our unsettled nature about the muck, about the things we see God doing we don’t understand and we don’t want to see; we don’t want to deal with, we don’t want to endure. And yet, they are there in front of us and we look for evidence of His work and we don’t see it and we don’t see Him – we flee to Him. And in fleeing to Him, David really makes a very stark complaint, doesn’t he? “Why do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself?” David is speaking in the language of perception. “This is what I see.” He’s troubled by the Lord’s apparent inactivity, His apparent aloofness in the trouble that he is about to describe here in these next several verses in some detail. He wants to see God work. Particularly, he wants to see God vindicate the weak and the helpless in delivering justice to the wicked ones, that he can point out, he can recognize. He wonders why God is not recognizing them. He wants to see some smiting going on, some good old smiting. Do you ever feel that way? Do you ever wonder why you don’t see any more smiting? Do you ever watch the news and you just want to say, “Smite them! Smite them!” Do you ever deal with somebody in business who is just crooked and you just want to say, “Smite him! Smite him!” You wonder, “Where’s the smiting supposed to be?” David’s looking for some smiting.
I do want to note that David’s complaint comes as a question. Do you see that? There is no finger-wagging here. There is not even an accusation here. There is not an assertion, “You owe us better.” No, it’s a question. “Why? Why?” It’s a question. It’s clear. It’s unambiguous. You can’t get much clearer than what David has said here. “You stand far away; you hide yourself in times of trouble.” But it’s humble. He is approaching God as a humble man looking for real comfort, looking for real solace, looking to understand “Why God, You work as You do? It’s not understandable to me as I see what happens around me.”
Description
So he makes that complaint and then he goes into this elaborate description. This is nine verses, ten verses of description here where David is saying, “Here is the problem.” And he makes a summary statement here in verse 2. “In arrogance, the wicked hotly pursue the poor. Let them be caught in the schemes that they have devised.” And so the rest of that section really is unpacking that statement of affairs that the wicked hotly pursue the poor.
How do they do that? What does that look like? That’s verses 3 to 11 right there that unpacks what David is describing as the problem. Why is that important? We are talking to God here. God really knows better than David what’s going on, I would think, and I think David probably understands that. So why is it important to make this elaborate, full description? I think it’s important for David, I think it’s important for us when we pray to pray fully, to explain fully, to say everything that we understand about a situation, a need, a problem, to understand or to describe the muck as clearly as we can it helps us. It helps us because our thoughts are a jumble. David is clearly emotional about this situation. Our thoughts are a jumble when we are emotionally engaged, when our guts are stirred up. And I hope as we deal with muck, our guts are stirred up. It’s not a very academic thing; it’s a personal thing and we are aroused, we are angry, we are sorry, we are bitter. It’s hard. And so it’s important for us to be as expressive as possible. So our desire is for God to work. Our desire is for God to move in ways we can see and understand. Sometimes we don’t even know what we’re looking for, let’s be honest. Sometimes we don’t know what we are looking for in a situation until we begin to express, “This is what I see. This is what I understand.” This is good for us. It’s good for David to lay it all out and to have to think it through, to have to think it through with expression, to have to think it through in detail, to have to think it through – “B follows A, C, D, E.” To think it through that carefully and logically. It’s good for us, it’s good for David; it’s what he’s doing here.
I think it’s interesting as we read through these verses David uses the term, “the wicked,” five times in this psalm. The Hebrew word describes “the wicked” as “morally wrong.” Those who are guilty of violating of God’s law and are condemned by it and for it. And look at the abundance of the “pride words” that are related to the wicked here. Verse 2 talks about arrogance. Verse 3 talks about “the wicked boasts.” Verse 4, “the pride of his face.” And then there are prideful assertions. Verse 3, ‘the wicked renounces the Lord.” Verse 4, he says, “there is no God.” Verse 6, “I shall not be moved. I will never see adversity.” Verse 11, “God has forgotten.” Verse 13, “You will not call to account” – all those prideful assertions, the wicked in all he does – David is telling us, the wicked places himself at the center of the universe. All things relate to him and all his desires deserve to be met. They are his boast. If you’re not helping him, you are in the way and he will run you down to get what he wants. He himself is the ultimate standard for all right and wrong. There is no one in his mind to call him to account. He is the measure of all things. He is greedy. David references that in particular. He is greedy because tangible things are the expression of his power.
Note verse 5. “His ways prosper at all times.” Things always appear to break for him. Things always appear to go his way. He seems to have no check on his advance or his success. He says, “I shall not be moved; throughout all generations I shall not meet adversity.” He blows off, he puffs – can you see that? He puffs at his rivals. But catch the second line of verse 5. “Your judgments are on high, out of his sight.” Here is the first hint that David recognizes there is something larger happening here than what he perceives. God is preparing His judgment out of the sight of the wicked who can’t see, even as he scoffs and he sniffs, “There is no God. There is no God,” God is busily preparing His judgments. We’ll come back to more of that later.
That’s who David is talking about when he’s talking about the wicked. Who are the poor? Who are the poor David is referring to? Two words in the psalm are variously translated as the poor. One means “needy, lowly, humble, people of lesser resources and no power.” Then there is a word that is translated “helpless” here in the ESV. That Hebrew word indicates a person’s condition that is really truly wretched – homeless, ill, no way to earn income, left to survive by begging, no resources and no one to undertake for them. As David watches the wicked ones who have power pounce on the poor and the helpless and the image that David uses in this psalm – they are like robbers, robbers stalking the roadways. Or they are like a lion hiding in ambush. “In hiding places he murders the innocent, his eyes stealthily watch for the helpless. He lurks in ambush,” verse 9, “like a lion in his thicket.” I want you to notice what David indicates about the hidden nature of wickedness. There is an openness in terms of the boasting or the arrogant speech. David references that several times in the psalm – the boasting, arrogant speech of the wicked – but their nastiest work is hidden while they lurk in ambush, murdering in their hiding places.
What’s the gain for the wicked here since these are the poor and even the helpless who are worse than poor, poorer than poor? What’s the gain for the wicked? What could possibly the poor have and the helpless have that they want? The wicked – let’s understand this – the wicked consumes for his own advancement, perhaps for his profit, certainly for his protection, and always because he can. Always because he can. He has the power. That’s what irks David and troubles him so deeply. The wicked man has the power. The poor, the helpless, the afflicted, the lowly, the needy – they are fodder. So David, explaining all that to God, laying that out, bearing his soul, unburdening his soul in prayer, comes to God to make requests. He makes two requests.
Requests
He says, first of all, verse 12, “Arise, O Lord, O God, lift up your hand; forget not the afflicted.” It’s important to note that as David is praying he uses two names of God here. One is God’s covenant name, Yahweh, as he makes his request. The other is Elohim. We’ll talk about those. The name, Yahweh, is tied to God’s steadfast love and His faithfulness, to the eternal covenant promise that God makes – “I shall be Your God and you shall be My people.” The name by which God reveals Himself as the redeemer of His people. But He also uses this name, “El” – “Yahweh El,” is how it’s written in the Hebrew text. And “El” is a contraction of the name, “Elohim.” Elohim is the name by which God reveals Himself as the God of power and might. God the Almighty One. We might say, “God the Father Almighty.” So David appeals to God. He makes his request. He appeals to God, the all-faithful, the all-powerful, that He would not forget the afflicted. David is saying, “Remember your promises, Yahweh. El, bring Your power to bear on their behalf.” David’s understanding of God is built around what he knows of His character. He knows God’s names and he appeals to God on the basis of the names that God has used to reveal Himself and to reveal His works to His people. Remember Your promises. Bring Your power to bear on their behalf.
His second request, around verse 15, “Break the arm of the wicked and the evildoer. Call his wickedness to account till you find none.” David is asking the Lord, obviously, to break the power of the wicked, to bring him into full judgment. “Let not a nanoparticle of his wickedness, God, be ignored. He must pay for all of it! He will be consumed,” is David’s prayer, “for the full extent of his wickedness by the full expression of God’s judgment.” Let me say that again. David is asking that the wicked will be consumed for the full extent of his wickedness by the full expression of God’s judgment. That’s why the cross had to be so horrible. Think about that. That’s why the cross had to be so horrible, because what David is asking for is the expression of the judgment of God we find consuming His Son as the price to be paid for sin. God’s judgment is a searching judgment. He pours it out and it is active and it is working till He finds no more wickedness to punish. That’s why we say Jesus saves to the uttermost, because He endured the uttermost expression of God’s judgment for sin. That’s why He is a sufficient Savior. That’s why He can say, “It is finished. It is done. It is complete. It is paid.” That’s why He is a sufficient Savior, because He endured that kind of judgment from God. “Call his wickedness to account till you find none.” He drank the cup of God’s wrath to endure the full expression of God’s judgment against the full extent of our wickedness.
Before we go further. Let’s just step back a second and remember who we are talking about here. Let’s remember who wrote this psalm. A man who is much like the wicked in some ways that he describes. A man who needs a Savior. A man whose hands are not clean. A man who took his friend’s wife and then had his friend killed in the battle. Sent word to his commander of forces, “Put Uriah the Hittite in the front and then in the heat of battle withdraw from him. We’ll let the Moabites kill him.” That’s exactly what he did. It’s as though he killed Uriah the Hittite with his own hands. The wicked that he’s described in such detail and to such degree, David might well have been looking in a mirror.
We can’t pray that prayer without recognizing our own status at one time as God’s enemies. We can’t pray that prayer without recognizing it was Christ who brought us near. It was Jesus who brought us near. We sing a hymn I love. I almost requested it tonight. I seem to request it every time I preach so I gave you a break. But it’s hymn number 172, “Let Us Love and Sing and Wonder.” Let me read the second stanza to you. “Let us love the Lord who bought us, pitied us when enemies; called us by His grace and taught us, gave us ears and gave us eyes.” That’s what the wicked don’t have. They don’t have ears. They don’t have eyes. They cannot hear and they cannot see the truth of God until the Savior gives them to us. That’s who we were. We were deaf and blind. We were deaf and blind until Jesus brought us near – “gave us ears and gave us eyes” to hear the truth, to see the truth, to respond to Him in repentance and faith. So let’s remember that as we pray, “God, break the arm of the wicked and the evildoer!” Let’s remember that that was us; that we were God’s enemies before He brought us to Himself and the work of His Son. Yes, we need to pray, we need to pray that God would break the power of the wicked and the evildoer, yes we do; that’s David’s recommendation to us. David’s also got to see in his face the man who took the wife and the life of his friend, Uriah. He needs a Savior too. You need a Savior. I need a Savior. We need a Savior. It creates humility. It creates humility for us as we pray for justice from God, let’s never fail to pray for justice from God, but let’s do so as men and women who know a Savior took my justice, the justice due me fell upon another. The righteousness I stand before God in is His and not mine. The eyes I have, the ears that I have, came from another. It came by the work of another who drew me to Himself when I was looking the other way.
One other thing as we look at David’s request. He knows – let me go back – I want you to notice verse 14. Verse 14, “But you do see, for you note mischief and vexation, that you may take it into your hands.” These two requests that David makes bracket this one assertion right here. There’s an expression of confidence that David is not simply engaging in wishful thinking. He knows God’s character. He knows God’s ways because he has studied God’s Word. He knows that God is faithful to His promises and to His people. He knows that God doesn’t stand aloof from trouble but he takes – I want you to catch this image – takes mischief and vexation into His hands. He takes it. What does Romans 8 say? “To cause it to work for good.”
Affirmation
Well briefly, let’s look at one last section. The last and I think it’s a crucial section – the affirmation of verses 16, 17 and 18. “The Lord is king forever and ever; the nations perish from his land. O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted; you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more.” David began his prayer asking hard questions – “Why do you stand aloof? Why do you hide yourself in trouble?” But he concludes with these clear expressions of faith in God’s goodness and the rightness of God’s ways. That’s important. That’s important. He starts troubled. He may still be troubled. He certainly doesn’t understand any more than he understood before, but he is expressing his confidence – and that’s so important – he is expressing his confidence that God’s ways are right, that God is King forever and ever, that He does hear the desire of His afflicted people, that He does strengthen their hearts even in their trouble, that He does incline His ear. That is, He bends down to hear. That He will do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed. That’s so important. It’s so important for you and me as we bear our souls and say sometimes some hard things about what we see around us and hard pleadings. “God, will You do something? God, will You work? God, will You speak? God, will You move?” – to circle back around and say, “I know Your ways are right. I know that You do all things well. I know my confidence is in You and You only.” We have to make those affirmations. We have to say them.
I think if you look back over your life and your life with God, I think you find yourself making this observation – that what God has done in your life, in so many ways, is to teach you to trust Him. I think if there is one lesson He has been pounding into my head and heart for the years that I have walked with Him it’s, “Do you trust Me?” I think that’s part of David’s struggle here. Everything he sees is not pointing him towards trust. He bears his soul before God, makes these requests, and turns to say, “You will incline Your ear. You will do justice.” He comes to these affirmations. Let’s not fail to make these affirmations. “I believe You. I trust You. Help my unbelief. Strengthen my faith. I trust in You.”
Well David doesn’t understand, necessarily, but he knows that God is good. You and I may not understand, but do you know that God is good and intends to do good with you and for you. Amen. Let’s pray.
Father, thank You for Your ways and Your Word. Thank You for the truth of Your Word to us. Hide it in our hearts. Teach us, our Father, to trust You. Teach us to define that trust. Teach us to give ourselves to it for our good, for Your glory. Thank You for Your kindness. Go with us this evening and the days of this week. Draw our minds and our hearts back to You again and again and again, for Jesus’ sake.
And all God’s people said, “Amen.”