Sunday Sermon explores Psalm 43, interpreting David's lament not as a plea for mere vindication against enemies but as a profound desire for restoration to God's presence. The speaker argues that true faith thrives despite mistreatment, contrasting David's hope with Judas's despair and emphasizing that God vindicates only those whose conduct remains righteous enough to clearly manifest His glory. Ultimately, the message urges believers facing delayed deliverance to stop mourning, preach hope to their own souls by recalling past faithfulness, and anticipate future restoration, all while promoting an upcoming conference on Theonomy and Postmillennialism. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Praying Faithfully For God's Glory00:03:41
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This morning we're continuing with our series through the Psalter.
Last Lord's Day, I preached through Psalm chapter 42.
This Lord's Day, by God's grace, I will seek to preach through Psalm 43.
Again, our text is Psalm 43.
Would you join me in standing for the reading of God's word?
I'll read our text for us in its entirety.
When I finish, I will say, This is the word of the Lord, at which point I would appreciate if you would respond by saying, Thanks be to God.
One final time, our text for this morning is Psalm chapter 43.
The Bible says this Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people.
From the deceitful and unjust man, deliver me.
For you are the God in whom I take refuge.
Why have you rejected me?
Why do I go about mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?
Send out your light and your truth.
Let them lead me.
Let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling.
Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy, and I will praise you with the lyre.
O God, my God, why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, my salvation and my God.
This is the word of the Lord.
All right, please be seated and join me as I pray one final time.
Father God, I pray that you would equip and empower me by your grace and by your Spirit to preach your word faithfully.
Faithfully.
Not carefully and not merely courageously, but faithfully.
For in the faithful preaching of your word, we can be sure that the faithful preacher will be a careful preacher.
And all the ways he ought to be, and the faithful preacher will be a courageous preacher in all the ways he ought to be.
So, Lord, help me to preach your word faithfully.
As you said through your prophet Jeremiah, let the one who has a dream tell his dream, but let the one who has my words preach my word faithfully.
Father, help me to do that for your glory and for the good of your people.
I pray that indeed through the preaching of your word, That your people would arrive at a greater, better, more accurate, more biblical, more faithful understanding of who you are, of what you've done, and what it is that you require from us as a right response.
But Lord, we pray that this knowledge would not serve as an end in itself, but as a necessary means propelling your people into love.
That our minds would be filled with the right knowledge of you, so that our hearts might be propelled with the right love for you.
And that in our love for you, we would fulfill the very thing that Jesus promised of all those who love you that is, that if we love you, we will obey.
And so, Father, I pray that we might know you through the preaching of your word, so that we might come to love you by the power of your spirit, so that we might come to obey you as a testimony and a witness in this earth that you are the God in heaven who judges both the living and the dead, and that the nations and the peoples would stand in fear.
David Thriving In His Worst Situation00:05:48
We pray, Lord, that you would do these things for the good of all those you're saving across the globe, in our city, and even in this room, especially among our children.
But we also pray these things, most of all, for your glory.
To you be honor and praise and glory forever and ever.
Amen.
By way of introduction, I've written the following Psalm chapter 43 is a continuation of Psalm chapter 42.
A breath is not even hardly taken in between these two psalms.
We should understand them as really one singular song or one singular prayer.
Psalm 42 and Psalm 43.
David is continuing.
To grieve over the fact that he has been effectively cut off from Israel, the people of God, and by proxy, or by way of consequence, in being cut off of the land of Israel and the people of God, he has been effectively cut off from the tabernacle, the place of the dwelling special presence of God.
So, David, naturally, or we should say supernaturally, as one who is a lover of God, with a man whose heart is after God, he longs for both the people of God and the praise of God.
And due to his deprivation of the people and praise of God, David laments and desperately longs for the presence of God.
The special presence of God that inhabits the praise of the people of God.
This is David's greatest sense of loss that we see in Psalm 42 and Psalm 43.
We might say, we should say, that far greater than David's desire to see the downfall of those who've betrayed him.
Far greater than David's passion and zeal for the Lord to vindicate him in the case of his enemies, to bring those low who have chosen to oppress him.
Far greater than any of that, David simply longs to be restored to the God he loves.
His love for God far exceeds his hatred of his enemies, which is a convicting thing.
So too, we should love God far more.
Then we feel any sense of frustration or anger towards those who hurt us.
It's a dangerous thing.
It's a dangerous thing when your hatred of those who harm you begins to cloud and cover your love of God.
This never happens in Psalm 42 and Psalm 43.
David was a man like you and I, a man after God's own heart, but also a sinner.
In need of the grace of God.
And so there may have been times, occasions, there likely were, in David's life where his bitterness, his rage, his anger towards his enemies did for a moment cloud and inhibit his sight of affection toward God.
But in the writing of these Psalms, inspired by the Holy Spirit, that is not the case.
There may have been moments where David was contemplating and fixating and obsessing in his thoughts, in his mind, in his emotions, and his heart more on his desire to see his enemies fall.
Than his desire to be restored to the God that he loves.
But that's not, although that may be the case and very likely is the case, that there were moments like that.
Those are not the moments that we see in the text.
In this text, in Psalm 42 and Psalm 43, what we see is David at his best.
And it's funny because many scholars, biblical scholars, and commentaries would say that in the Psalms, one of the beauty of the Psalms is that we see David at his worst.
And I know what they mean by that, and I think that's essentially, generally true.
That we don't just see the mountaintops, but we see the psalmists, whether it be Asaph or King David, we see them in the valley, the valley of the shadow of death.
We see them in moments of weakness, moments of difficulty, moments of great trial.
And so it is true that one of the beauties of the Psalms is that we not only see them in those glorious mountaintop moments of life, but we do in fact see them at their worst.
But I think what we should say is that we see them at their worst situations, in their worst moments.
Circumstances in those worst seasons, but we do not see, at least in these two Psalms, we do not see David at his worst morally.
We see David in one of his worst situations, but we see him thriving as a Christian should in terms of his heart posture in the midst of that difficult situation.
So we see David at his worst time, but not his worst heart.
We see David with a heart truly after God's.
In a situation that would tempt any of us to despair.
And yet we see David in these two Psalms not giving way to despair and also not giving way to jealousy, to envy, to rage, or to bitterness when it comes to the wickedness of his enemies.
Psalm chapter 22, verse 3 says this: Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.
That's what we read to begin our worship service this morning.
The Unique Presence Of Christ00:04:34
That is David's greatest desire.
That is what David longs for most of all.
David's greatest desire is not for God to set the record straight in the case of his enemies, that their wickedness and deceitfulness, which is what he explicitly mentions, right?
Save me, vindicate me from not just the wicked man, but specifically the deceitful and unjust, unfair man.
These are the two qualities that David chooses to highlight, to emphasize.
The man who is oppressing me, the man who has committed injustice towards me, he has two characteristics that are most notable.
He is deceitful and unfair.
What he's doing isn't fair, and he's content to do it because he is deceitful.
And yet, David's greatest desire is not for the deceitful and unfair, unjust man who has wronged him to be brought to justice.
Although that is one of his desires, most certainly.
But his greatest desire is that he would be restored to Israel, the people of God, and the praise of the people of God, and the presence of God that inhabits the praises of his people.
David longs to be restored to the special dwelling presence of God.
This is not merely an Old Testament principle, as I preached last week, but to remind you, Matthew chapter 18, verse 20, Jesus himself says, For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them.
Jesus, spiritually present in a special way when two or three followers of Jesus, baptized disciples of Jesus, gather together in his name.
Jesus, therefore, we might say, the Spirit of the risen Christ, who is always present with every believer by virtue of the Holy Spirit, right?
If you are in Christ, if you're a Christian, you're a new creation.
And your body is not your own.
It's been bought with a price.
That's 1 Corinthians chapter 6.
It is a temple now of the Holy Spirit whom you have received.
And the Holy Spirit, one of his chief ministries, the indwelling ministry of the Spirit, is to exude, to manifest, to make known the Spirit of the risen Christ.
So if you're a Christian, your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.
You have the Holy Spirit.
If you have the Holy Spirit, the Spirit exudes the Spirit of the risen Christ.
Meaning, if you are a Christian, even if you're in complete isolation with not another Christian in sight, you have with you at all times.
The presence of Jesus.
So, what is Jesus saying then?
Why say this in Matthew chapter 18, verse 20?
Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them.
Because we know theologically that Jesus could also say, where one is by himself in complete isolation in my name.
So long as that one has been saved by grace through faith in me, they are a temple of the Holy Spirit.
And if they have the Holy Spirit, they have the Spirit of the risen Christ.
So, Jesus could just as truthfully say, where there is one, there I am among him.
So then, why?
Why does he say, where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them?
What he means is this He's not saying that if one Christian is in isolation, that the spirit, then, the spiritual presence of the risen Christ is now absent.
That's not what he's saying.
Because we know that Christ is present with every believer, even when that believer is on their own.
So, what he's saying is, there I am among them when two or three gather together in my name in a special way.
That there is a unique presence of Christ.
That is only made available when brothers and sisters in Christ gather together in his name.
This is what David longs for.
It is not only an Old Testament principle, but a New Testament principle reiterated by Christ himself in Matthew chapter 18.
And therefore, this special presence of God, this special spiritual presence of God made available only to the people of God when they gather together corporately and praise him, should be not merely the longing of David's heart, but the desperate.
Deep desire of our hearts as well.
Of our hearts as well.
Preaching To His Own Heart00:04:44
The purpose of Psalm chapter 42 and 43, which are prayers of David, which were later used as corporate songs by the sons of Korah, was to lift David's soul from its downcast state.
Meaning, the purpose, the intention, one of the goals that David was seeking to achieve when he was.
Praying these psalms or singing them as psalms to the Lord, and when he was writing them under the inspiration of the Spirit, one of the things that he was seeking to achieve is to lift his spirits, as it were, to bring himself from a state of despair and unbelief, doubt, and grief, to a state of hope, a state of confidence.
These psalms are David's weapons.
If you will, that he uses to wage a war against his own temptation to pity, his own temptation to be bitter, his own temptation to be grieved to the point of complete and utter despair.
David was grieving the loss of God's special presence because he was separated from the worship of God in the assembly of his people.
And David, not only that, but he was enduring.
The oppression of his enemies who relentlessly taunted him in the midst of his pain.
It's like the old expression, you know, don't kick me when I'm down.
It's the one two count.
It's a combo, not just a singular pain that's inflicted.
The first is that David is severed from the special presence of God that inhabits the praises of his people.
So, number one, David is cut off from the God that he loves, in a sense.
But then, number two, in that state of loneliness and isolation, A feeling of separation from the special presence of God, David is now being attacked and taunted and mocked relentlessly by his enemies.
So, one, cut off.
Two, mocked by his enemies.
They're kicking him while he's down.
In Psalm 42, we see that the enemies of God and the enemies, therefore, of David, they taunted him all day long, all day and all night by saying to him, Where is your God?
A rhetorical question to be sure.
An insult, mockery.
Where is your God?
Either he doesn't exist or more likely he does exist, but he has abandoned you because you are a great and utter failure.
Like Job's wife who says, Job, curse God and die.
All right, what a spouse.
What a helpmate.
Likewise, The enemies of David are doing the same.
Except I'm a little bit more sympathetic towards them than the wife of Job, who should have done a better job.
So David is not only separated from the presence of God, but he's being taunted and mocked by his enemies.
He's being kicked while he's down.
And everything in him is tempted to despair.
And so he utilizes prayer, he utilizes praise.
These songs, these prayers, in order to plead his heart from a clot to a flame, as the Puritans used to say.
He's preaching to himself.
He's crying out to God.
He is praying, certainly, to be sure.
There are portions of Psalm 42 and Psalm 43 where the audience that the language is directed towards is God.
So, therefore, it is prayer.
It is David speaking to God.
But there are moments where David is no longer speaking to God, but rather he is speaking to himself.
Why so downcast, O my soul?
In those moments, David is no longer praying.
David goes from praying to preaching.
He goes from praying to God, requesting and petitioning his help, to preaching to his own heart, that is, combating and contending with the feelings of despair.
This refrain, this particular refrain, we might call it the chorus of this song Why So Downcast, O My Soul?
It's repeated specifically three times.
Finding Hope In Past Deliverance00:03:53
The key is found in the word again.
This word again is profound.
David says, Why so downcast on my soul?
Why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God.
Don't despair, but hope.
Hope in God.
Why?
This little word for tells us that he's about to give the reason for his hope.
Why should you hope in God rather than despairing in your circumstances?
Because I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.
The word again, it implies, it reveals to us that David had praised God in his special presence before.
And because, precisely because David had praised God in his presence before, that is the basis of his confidence and hope that he will praise his God in God's presence again.
Why?
Because if it's ever occurred once, it is promised.
That it will occur forever.
He who began a good work in you will be faithful to carry it to fruition.
He's the author and the finisher of our faith.
Meaning, in moments of despair and doubts, one of the tools at our disposal is to look to the past in praise and remembrance of what God has done, those sweet moments in the presence of God, and know with confidence, with hope, and assurance that if we have experienced the presence of God before, Then we are promised to experience the presence of God forever.
Judas didn't have a single moment, I'll use him as a case study.
Judas did not have a single moment of the sweetness of fellowship and communion with Christ.
Although he was with Christ in his earthly ministry for several years, there was never any moment of real heartfelt union.
And communion between Christ and Judas.
And so when Judas recognizes what he has done, that he has betrayed the Son of God into the hands of evil men for 30 pieces of silver, what is his solution?
What does he do?
He gives in to despair.
He hangs himself.
Why?
Because there is no hope in God.
Because the basis of David's hope in God.
And the basis for your hope in God, brothers and sisters, is that God has met me once, so he has promised to be with me forever.
See, Judas couldn't look back and remember moments of communion with Christ, not in any real spiritual sense.
And therefore, he had no basis, no promise, no guarantee, no assurance that he would have communion with Christ in the future.
But for the people of God, we can look back and remember, we can look back in praise.
God for those times that He has been near us.
And if we can remember even a single time of the special presence of God with us, then we can be confident that we will dwell in His presence forever.
Because God doesn't start projects that He doesn't intend to finish.
God is not like so many of you.
God doesn't do anything at all unless He's going to do all of it.
He doesn't start something and then give it up.
Living With Plain Integrity00:15:26
What God begins, he finishes.
In that sense, you might say, I'm a man after God's own heart.
A little bit of a brag here, but there's really only two or three things that I do in life.
People complain all the time, my wife being a chief example, that I don't have any hobbies.
It's like there's only two or three things you like.
Yeah, because whatever I'm going to do, I'm going to do it.
So I do two or three things all the way, and everything else is utterly and entirely neglected.
Exercise would be a great example.
So, all right, here we go.
Verse 1 of our text, Psalm 43, verse 1 Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people from the deceitful and unjust man.
Deliver me.
The term vindicate, this is important.
In the King James, and I believe that this is the better translation in this particular context, is rendered judge.
Not vindicate, but that David actually begins this psalm, Psalm 43, the very first word, by saying, Judge me, O God.
In other words, David is pleading with God to deliver him from the hands of the ungodly, his enemies, but not before first submitting himself to God to be examined.
So before David calls out for the judgment of his oppressors, he submits himself humbly to his own judgment Judge me, O God, and then judge them.
It's what Job cries out to God.
He said, Will the God of all the earth not be just?
And for God to be just means, in the case of vindicating one party, exonerating the one, and indicting and judging the other, it implies, it assumes as a necessity that the one person who is calling upon the vindication of God must be innocent.
And David recognizes this.
In other words, what David is saying is this David is not presumptuous, he's not pridefully assuming.
That God would punish his enemies if David himself is just as guilty as his enemies.
When we ask for deliverance, when we ask for vindication, when we ask to be exonerated, when we ask for the God of heaven and earth to do justice, we better be certain beforehand, in the first case, that we ourselves are blameless.
Now, no one but Christ is blameless in the truest sense, but what I mean is blameless in the circumstance.
In the circumstance in question, in the situation at hand.
Job used this language.
He said, I'm righteous.
He said, I'm blameless, God.
There are a few figures in Scripture that are painted as blameless.
No fault, no downfall, no failure is ever described of them.
Daniel would be an example.
Joseph would be an example.
In the case of his brothers, he says what they meant for evil, God meant for good.
Joseph is held up, he's heralded as someone who is blameless.
And Job would be another example.
So there is a way for you and I, who are sinners, only saved by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ, to be blameless in the sight of God in specific cases.
What we're talking about is conflict.
Conflict.
There is a way for the Christian, for the follower of Christ, in a particular conflict between two parties, to be able to say to God with a humble and reverent posture, with the fear of God, with fear and trembling, to be able to cry out to God for justice and to say, Judge me first.
God, I want you to judge my oppressors.
I want you to judge those who have wronged me.
I want you to judge my enemy.
But I first submit myself, in all fairness, I first submit myself to be judged by you.
Judge me first, then judge them.
There is a way for the Christian to do this.
This is exactly what David is doing.
David is saying, Judge me, and then judge them.
Now, what I want you to understand is that that is a serious request.
And it's a request that I think many of us, including myself, That many of us, including myself, should not make.
We should not ask God to judge others unless we are first willing to submit ourselves to his judgment.
And we should not ask God to judge us and then judge them unless we have really conducted ourselves in that particular situation in a righteous manner.
I like what John Calvin says in his commentary.
On this verse, he says, It is vain for us to expect that God will avenge the injuries and wrongs which are done to us unless our own integrity be so manifest, meaning it's so obvious, so evident, so visible, as to induce God to be favorable to us against our adversaries.
In other words, to break that down, when we cry out, we petition God, we request His deliverance and His vindication.
To exonerate us and to condemn our oppressors, our enemies, we need to keep in mind that the Lord of all the earth only ever does that which brings him glory.
So you might think about it like this If God were to give me what I so desperately want, if God were, in fact, to set this particular record straight, this conflict, not all of life, because in all of life, all of us have fallen short of the glory of God and sinned, but in this instance, In this particular case, this situation between me and my enemies, this conflict,
if God were to rip back the veil and to make it evident what actually has taken place, if God were to vindicate me, if God were to grant my pleas for justice and to exonerate me and to indict my enemies, have I conducted myself in this particular situation with enough integrity?
That God's vindication of me and indictment of them would look like justice to everyone else who is watching.
Would it bring him glory?
Would it bring him glory?
That's what Calvin is saying.
It is vain for us, it's pointless, it's futile, it is foolish for us to think for a moment that God would avenge us for the injuries and wrongs we've received by others.
If our integrity is not so plain, so manifest, so visible, that if God and when God delivers us, when God exonerates us and indicts our opponents, our enemies, that to all those looking on, to the third party watching, that it wouldn't be so plain to them that what God has just done in exonerating us and indicting them, it needs to be.
That there's so much integrity in our case that if God were to do that, it would be plain to everyone else on the sidelines watching that what God has just done in our vindication was, in fact, the just thing to do.
Did you know one of the reasons that God does not vindicate people in this life is because even though someone was legitimately wronged by someone else, they have conducted themselves in that particular conflict so poorly,
they have so muddied the waters that even though they were actually wronged, They have responded to being wronged so poorly and with such shallow character and so muddied the waters by their poor response to being wronged that if God were to vindicate them and indict those who wronged them, it would not be clear enough to everyone who is on looking that what God just did was in fact just.
Does that make sense?
If you want to be vindicated.
And I'm preaching to you, and I'm preaching most notably to myself, like most of my sermons, but especially this one.
This is something that I've been thinking about a lot, something that I've been praying about a lot.
I've been thinking in the ways that I feel over the course of my life that I've been wronged, or perhaps that I've been betrayed, or that I was mistreated.
If God were to set the record straight, if He were to bring my opponents low and exalt me, as the Proverbs say, that He He brings low the proud, but he exalts the humble at the proper time.
Have I conducted myself in moments of unfair, unmerited conflict?
Have I conducted myself with enough integrity, enough honor, enough character to where if God were to shine his light of truth and expose that situation, would it be clear to everyone else looking on that if God were to exonerate me and indict them?
That what God just did was, in fact, the right thing to do?
Or have I so muddied the waters by my own poor response to being wronged that for everyone looking on, if I were exalted, if I were the humble who is exalted and they were the proud who were brought low,
that even though I was legitimately right on the whole, on the surface, with a particular conflict in question, My response to that conflict has been so poor that if I were to be exalted by the Lord and they were to be demoted by the Lord, because my response has been so poor and so muddied the water, that people looking on would say, I don't know if this is God's doing.
This party is being exonerated and exalted, and this party is being indicted and brought low, but I don't know if God's actually doing this because it doesn't look just.
Because this guy who's being exalted right now doesn't really look any more morally just.
Righteous than this party that's being indicted.
In other words, we might say it like this if you want to tempt the Lord, as it were, but to tempt the Lord into answering your pleas for vindication and justice, respond to that injustice righteously.
The more you uphold yourself with integrity in the midst of being mistreated, the more tempting of a case you become for God to set the record straight.
David was a tempting case.
And that's why David can say in the beginning of the psalm, before saying, Judge my enemies, David with confidence and a clear conscience can say, And first, feel free to judge me.
Have at it.
I'm blameless.
Judge me, O God.
You decide.
You, O great judge of heaven and earth, you judge me first.
Start with me.
And then you determine, O God, whether or not my case is.
Is conducive to glorifying your name.
Look at me, look at the situation, but look at me and the way I've conducted myself in the midst of the situation, in the midst of mistreatment, in the midst of oppression.
Look at me, judge me, and then you determine that if you were to vindicate me, if you were to do justice with this particular situation, if it would not clearly manifest your just glory.
And David is confident.
That he has conducted himself righteously enough.
Although a sinner, saved by the grace of God, so not truly blameless as Christ is, but blameless like Job, blameless like Joseph.
David is convinced I've been blameless enough.
I've conducted myself in this situation with enough integrity, enough character, to where if God vindicates me to all those on looking, it'll be clear that God is the one who is actually doing it.
And that what he is doing is actually fair.
It is just.
If you want to be vindicated, I really believe one of the best ways to do it is to conduct yourself in such a way that God cannot resist, as it were, that God cannot resist vindicating you.
Because you have conducted yourself with such integrity that if God does vindicate you, it'll be one of the clearest examples of his justice.
Your oppressors have been so clearly wrong, and you have been so clearly righteous that for God to rip off the veil and reveal that, to set the record straight, will be a clear example of His deliverance and His justice, His vindication of the righteous.
One of the reasons God doesn't vindicate His people is because God vindicates the righteous.
And sadly, God's people are not always righteous.
That doesn't mean they're not righteous.
In the positional sense of justification, the righteousness of Christ that we spoke of earlier, that's received by grace through faith alone.
But what I mean is that in the instance in question, in the particular conflict, they have not conducted themselves with sufficient progressive righteousness to where God's deliverance would be seen as the God who delivers the righteous.
It's not clear.
That's not God's fault.
That's not God's failure.
That's ours.
Waiting On Vindication Without Despair00:15:18
Verse 2 says this David clearly demonstrates his awareness of the reality that the enemy was only able, only capable of afflicting him if the Lord allowed it.
Although David has been faithful to seek refuge in God, his enemies continue to prevail over him.
However, David recognizes that the chief problem is not God's allowance.
Of the oppression of his enemy to continue.
But the real problem is David's own allowance of his heart to go about mourning, to continue mourning.
The problem is not the continuing oppression of his enemies.
The problem is the continual mourning of his own heart.
David begins in Psalm 43 by pleading for God's vindication from the cruelty of his enemies.
But in the verses which immediately follow, David reveals that his deepest desire is simply to be near to the God that he loves.
If his enemies continue to prevail, but God's presence is restored, that will be enough.
Let me read the verse once more Psalm 43, verse 2.
For you are the God in whom I take refuge.
So then why have you rejected me?
Why do I go about mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?
Essentially, what David is saying is this He's saying, I am taking refuge in you.
I'm not failing to take refuge in you.
I am running to you as my only salvation, my only refuge, my only shelter.
I'm doing that, God.
And another thing that David's assuming here, what this text implies, is that he is implying, he's assuming that David is being faithful to run to God as refuge.
And he's also assuming that God is sufficient to be.
A refuge.
So he's saying, I know that you are a strong tower.
I know that you are an impenetrable fortress.
I know that you, oh God, are a sufficient refuge and that you are such a secure refuge that if anyone runs to you, they cannot be harmed.
So I know that the problem is not your ability to defend, your ability to be a refuge, but I also know the problem is not my lack of willingness to run to you, to go to you as a refuge.
I have gone to you as a refuge, and you are a sufficient and capable refuge.
So then David concludes You must have rejected me.
I know that you are a refuge, and I know that I am going to you as a refuge.
The problem must be it can't be that you're not a strong enough shelter, and it also cannot be that I haven't gone to you as my shelter.
I know I'm going to you, and I know that you are capable.
So it must be that I have run to the God who is the refuge, and the door has been closed.
And that you won't let me in.
It must be that you've rejected me.
It can't be that you are not a sufficient refuge, and it can't be that I'm not running to you as refuge.
It must be that you are unwilling, not unable, but unwilling to be my refuge.
Why?
He continues, because I'm still mourning.
And I'm still mourning, he says, he puts the onus on the enemy.
He says, I'm still mourning because I'm still being oppressed.
I am still experiencing the oppression of my enemy.
So I know that you could be a refuge.
You're able, if you were willing.
And I know that I want you to be my refuge.
I am going to you.
And yet I'm still miserable.
I'm still grieving.
I'm still mourning all day and all night because I'm still being oppressed by my enemy.
I am obviously not secure.
I am obviously not safe.
I am obviously not within the boundaries of your refuge because the enemy is still harming me, the enemy is still oppressing me, and I'm still mourning.
And that's the surface level meaning of verse 2, what David's getting at.
God is a refuge.
I am running to him.
I want him to be my refuge, but he has rejected me.
It's not that he's unable to protect me from the harm of my enemies, he is unwilling to protect me.
He has cast me out.
He has closed the door on this fortress and won't let me into safety.
And I know this because I'm still grieving, I'm still hurt, and my enemies are still oppressing me.
And in essence, what David is saying is this I'm trying to move past this.
I don't want to mourn all the time.
I don't want to grieve all the time.
I don't want to be bitter.
I don't want to be angry about this anymore.
I want to get over it.
But I'm still mourning because they're still oppressing me.
I've moved on.
I'm trying not to think about it.
But then I hear another development in the story another slander, another lie, another mocking, another taunting.
They keep doing it.
And I keep mourning.
And you could make it stop like that.
So it must be that you've rejected me.
It cannot be that you're unable to protect me from this onslaught.
Therefore, it must be that you are unwilling.
You must have rejected me.
But what I want to point out, in addition to all that, is that David's real problem, if there is any failure on David's part that he confesses, that he allows us to see into in this particular psalm, it's not.
That he doesn't go to God as refuge, and it's not certainly that he doesn't believe and trust that God is able to be a refuge.
And it's not even the sense that God has rejected him.
You might say, well, that's David's fault.
That's his failure.
His failure is that he perceives that God has rejected him, but God doesn't reject his people.
But David actually perceives correctly in the sense that he really has been cut off from Israel, and therefore really has been cut off from the people of God, the praise of God, and the tabernacle with the special presence of God.
So, David's actually not wrong in his perception of this feeling of rejection.
He has not been rejected in the utter sense, the ultimate sense, the eternal sense, but there is a sense in which David has been rejected.
So, his failure is not that he doesn't trust God as refuge.
If he didn't trust God as refuge, he wouldn't go to him as refuge.
And David clearly in the text is going to God as refuge.
So, he properly sees God as refuge, and he's properly running to God, wanting God to be his refuge, and he's not even wrong about this perception of a sense of being rejected by God.
And he's also not wrong when he says that my enemies are still attacking me.
They're still oppressing me.
David's not being dramatic.
He's not being emotional or extreme.
His enemies really were oppressing him and taunting him and continuing in their mistreatment of him.
So, where's the flaw in verse 2?
If there's any moral flaw, any failure on David's part, the failure is this.
Not that his enemies go on oppressing him, because that was true.
That's a true statement.
The flaw is when he says, I go on mourning.
It's not that his enemies go on mistreating.
The failure is that David goes on mourning.
And that's the very failure that David quickly remedies.
He quickly corrects in verse 5 of our text, where he says, Stop mourning, David.
Stop being so downcast, O my soul.
Stop throwing a pity party.
Stop grieving.
Stop despairing.
Soul, get it together.
Snap out of it.
Hope is.
In God.
And notice, David's solution, his remedy to the problem of his continual mourning is not merely the exclusive solution of saying, God, I cannot stop mourning unless you first stop the oppression.
Right?
If you want me to stop mourning, God, you've got to stop my enemies' mistreatment of me.
So if you want me to stop mourning, stop grieving, make them stop mistreating.
That's, see, that is the problem.
That's the tension of verse 2.
The solution is laid out for us in verse 5.
And notice in verse 5, it's different than verse 1 where he's calling out for God to vindicate him.
But he concludes that the psalm, the prayer, it climaxes in no longer David calling out and pleading for vindication, exoneration, and deliverance from his enemies.
No, David, he starts with saying, God, deliver me, vindicate me, do justice.
And then he says, You're not doing that.
You're not being my refuge.
I feel as though I've been rejected and I'm still mourning.
Because they're still oppressing and mistreating me.
And then in verse 5, David finally comes to the conclusion.
He says, So if you won't set the record straight, I know eventually one day, if not in this life, then in the life to come, I know eventually everything will be laid bare.
All the truth will be revealed.
So one day you'll set the record straight.
One day you will vindicate me.
If not in this life, then in the life to come.
But David essentially, his conclusion of verse 5 is this But if you're not going to vindicate me now, Then the solution ultimately isn't for you to stop the oppression of my enemies.
The solution is for me to get control over my emotions and to stop my grieving.
And I do that.
The antidote to a despairing soul is hoping in God.
Hope in God.
For I will, not just I will praise Him, and you've got to see, and this is why I've labored the point, you've got to connect people of God and praise of God with presence of God.
So, when David says, I will praise him, what he's talking about is, I will be near to him.
I will be with him.
I will be in his presence.
So, David says, All right, if you're not going to stop the oppression of the enemies, if you're going to vindicate me one day, because I really have been blameless in this situation, that's why he has enough confidence in the beginning of verse 1 to say, Before you judge them, go ahead and first judge me.
So, David's saying, I've been blameless, and therefore I will be vindicated.
It's not a matter of if, it's just a matter of when.
But it appears as though you're not willing to vindicate me now.
You're not willing to protect me from the onslaught of my enemies as a refuge now.
They're still oppressing me.
The man of deceitfulness, the man of injustice, the one who is unjust, unfair.
What he's doing is unfair.
It's mistreatment, unfair treatment of me.
And he is deceitful, meaning he's getting away with it in the sight of the general population.
The masses are looking on and they don't see that what this guy is doing is absolutely unfair.
They have no clue.
They think he's the hero.
They think Absalom is a good guy.
They think Absalom is the man of the people, the faithful one, the hero who stayed with them, loves Israel, is going to care for Israel, and that I'm somehow the old king who really always was a problem and always really wasn't for the people, and the real narrative has finally surfaced and I've been banished and exiled.
That's how David feels.
And he's saying, that's not true.
I'm not a sinless man.
No one is sinless but Christ.
But in this particular conflict in question, I have been blameless enough.
Enough to where I can go to God with confidence.
And it takes confidence to go to a thrice holy God and say, Judge me.
David has that much confidence.
He has been, therefore, that innocent in this particular matter.
And so, therefore, because he truly believes that he has been blameless enough to call down the judgment of God on himself.
Because of all that, then we know that David has confidence because God is just and always will do justice.
We know that David must have confidence, therefore, that it's not a matter of if God will vindicate him, it is simply a matter of timing.
It's simply a matter of when.
But then David is still left with this issue what am I going to do in the meantime?
I know I was blameless, I know they have been unfair, unjust, and deceitful.
And I know that God is just and He will not allow unjustness under the guise of deceit to fly under the radar indefinitely.
He is the just God who will bring all unjust things to light eventually.
So, David's like, I know that I'm the innocent party in this situation.
I have enough confidence of that to where I can say, God, judge me first before judging my enemies.
And I know that God is just.
So, I know that my enemy is evil.
I know that I am innocent.
And I know that God is just and will bring this to light.
And yet, my mourning continues because the oppression of my enemies continues.
And so I know by providence, right, by the natural surrounding situations that God has sovereignly allowed, that is His providence, God has answered my prayer for vindication.
My first prayer was judge me and judge them.
Vindicate me.
Deliver me.
Exonerate me and condemn my oppressors.
That's my first prayer.
But through providence, God has given me an answer to that prayer.
The fact that the oppression of my enemies continues is God's providential answer to my prayer for deliverance.
And what is that answer?
No.
God's answer is no.
And not an indefinite, eternal no.
No, I will never vindicate you.
No, I will never give you justice.
No, I will never set the record straight.
But we should say more particularly, rather than the answer being no, the answer is not yet.
Not yet.
So then David has one thing left to do.
He needs to get a hold of himself for the present.
While he waits for the vindication of the Lord, he needs to get his emotions in check.
He needs to get a hold of his heart, get a hold of his soul, plead his heart from a clot to a flame.
See, David realizes okay, the prayer is done.
There's only five verses in our text.
It starts with a prayer God, vindicate me.
God's answer that we see in verse 2 is not yet.
So then David properly, theologically, accurately concludes okay, then I've made my request.
I have received God's answer, at least for the present, for this season, for this time.
Pleading From Clot To Flame00:04:59
So then now what do I do?
I don't need to talk to God anymore.
It's time for me to stop praying to God and start preaching to myself.
Stop it.
Stop it, Joel.
Stop it, heart.
Stop it, soul.
Stop being bitter.
Stop being angry.
Stop despairing.
Stop being downcast because all those emotions, all those feelings actually make a statement about what I believe to be true of God.
If I despair, what I am essentially saying about God, I'm making a statement.
About the God of heaven and earth.
If I despair, what I'm saying about God is that He is not a faithful God.
But he is.
And if he is, and if he eventually sets all records straight, then what would a person who really believes that to be true act like in the meantime?
Hopeful.
Not despairing, not downcast, hopeful.
That's the text.
All right, let's go ahead and pray.
Father God, we thank you for your word.
We thank you that you give us clear answers in your word.
If we're willing to do the work, to diligently study your word, to exegete the text, to draw out of the word the riches that are placed there like a mine.
Your word is like a mine that's filled with diamonds and gold.
And if we're willing to do the work, it's not always easy, but to go down deep into the mine and chip away at the rock and to bring out, to excavate the truth and the meaning.
By doing that, by your grace, by the revelation and the illumination that your Spirit mercifully provides, we can find answers to all of life's most difficult seasons, trials, situations.
And so, even the trial, the difficult challenge of mistreatment, oppression, betrayal, You provide answers.
And I believe that by your grace and the preaching of your word, you've provided an answer for us today.
The answer is to know that you are just, that you will eventually set the record straight, and that in the meantime, our chief problem is not that the oppression of our enemy continues, but that our heart mourning and despairing is continuing.
And that what we need to do to combat, A despairing soul, a downcast heart, is to hope in God.
If we've praised you once, if we've been near you, communed with you and your presence once, then we are promised and guaranteed that it will happen again.
So the reality is that all of our hearts longing, chiefly for your presence and secondarily for justice, all of those longings.
Will be fulfilled.
It's not a matter of if, it's only a matter of when.
So the question is how will we conduct ourselves in the meantime?
Let us, Lord, through the eyes of faith, look back and remember your faithfulness, the sweetness of your presence, and with the eyes of faith, look forward and hope, Christian hope, confidence that you will restore all those things and more.
We praise you because you are worthy.
It's in Jesus' name that we pray.
Amen.
Oh, hi, I didn't see you there.
Thanks for sticking around.
I've got an important announcement to make.
That's the Theonomy and Postmillennialism Conference 2023, May 5th, 6th, and 7th, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
Theonomy and Postmillennialism.
We've got the speakers that we've already had lined up.
That's Dr. James White, Dr. Joseph Boot, Dr. Gary DeMar, non doctor Pastor Joel Webbin.
But we also have a bonus speaker, and that is Dale Partridge.
From Real Christianity.
Perhaps you've heard of him.
If not, you should start listening to his podcast.
It's fantastic.
Dale Partridge is going to be joining our team.
We're going to have live panels on Friday night and Saturday night where you'll be able to write in questions and get them answered.
We're also going to have a catered barbecue, Texas style barbecue meal on Friday that's a part of your registration fee.
Announcing The 2023 Conference00:00:12
All that is covered.
So you need to get that.
This is how you do it.
Go and register right now at rightresponseconference.com.