Psalm 55

So let me add my welcome.

I'm Peter.

I'm one of the leaders, one of the other leaders here at City, and it's my honor uh to be speaking to you today from Psalm 55.

Let me pray uh again and then we'll get into it.

I might also bring this up.

Okay, let's pray.

Father, yes, we do thank you that we can uh be together.

Thank you for um the fact that we're in person, um, that we can meet together like this.

Thank you for your words, that you have revealed yourself uh to us.

Thank you for the Psalms, uh taking us through um so many uh emotions, the range of uh human emotions, uh the ups and downs.

And as we look today at Psalm 55, uh would you speak to us?

Um, help us uh to understand what you're saying to us and may it affect um our lives and change us to be more like your son.

Uh we pray.

Amen.

So um I wonder, like, have you seen The Lord of the Rings?

I'd say a lot of people have.

My wife hates when there's a quote from The Lord of the Rings uh in the sermons.

Um she thinks that she's not even here, this is so bad.

Uh she thinks she thinks that Frodo is uh that small green fella from Star Wars, you know, Yoda.

Um but anyway, sorry, sorry.

I should yeah, I shouldn't have said that.

Anyway, at the end of the trilogy, at the end of the Lord of the Rings, Frodo and Sam they complete their quest by bringing the one ring uh to Mount Doom, where it can be destroyed.

They've gone, they've traversed the harshest of landscapes, escaped the deadliest of creatures, and at one point Sam, Frodo's friend, even thinks that that Frodo is dead.

And after they give absolutely everything, they're now lying on the side of a volcano with lava spewing out all around them and rocks shooting up into the air.

They've saved the world, but it looks like the end for them.

Then just in the nick of time, you see these giant eagles coming and they take them away to safety.

And if you're like me, that didn't faze you.

You're just like, oh, right, fair enough.

It goes, it it you just trust that the story goes there and that's fine.

But there's one corner of the internet, and maybe some of you are there too, where they're like, wait a minute now, that has to be a plot hole.

If the Eagles just swooped in to save them at the end, why didn't they just take the ring from the beginning, from the Shire, and bring it all the way to Mount Doom?

Or take Frodo with the ring to Mount Doom?

That would have saved about eight and a half hours of just a regular movie, not even the extended edition.

And there's plenty of Reddit threads and YouTube videos that claim to have settled uh this apparent plot hole, so you can go there afterwards.

I'm not getting into it now, and I've probably stoked some fires for people in here, um, but yeah, we're not getting into that today.

But there are times in our lives though when we just want to fly away, isn't there?

Times when we wish the eagles would just come, allowing us to bypass all difficulties and fly us out of danger.

Yet God doesn't allow that to happen in the same way that Tolkien, the author of Lord of the Rings, he doesn't allow that to happen either.

And why is that?

Well, it's because of who it makes our heroes out to be.

The suffering changes them.

As much as we'd want God to just swoop in and take us away, he preserves us in the situation.

I've not quite wished for giant eagles to take me away to safety, but I've felt it.

I've wanted to abandon ship because of the storms that are raging around me, because of difficulties and hardships, friendships turning sour, oppression and injustice.

And this is where David is at, and this, Sam.

If last week's sermon was about being betrayed by a community, community, this one is about being betrayed by a close friend.

So, yes, your heart, like mine, is probably going to be heartbroken as we as we consider this.

So let's uh let's get into it and look first at where do you run when the storm rages.

In the Psalm, we're immediately struck by a barrage of David's negative emotions.

If you just glance there, um, if you have it open, I should have said that.

If you have uh your Bible or it's on a phone on your phone, uh have Psalm 55 open.

Because in those first um eight verses, especially, he yeah, we just have this so many negative emotions.

He's moaning constantly, he's suffering terribly, he feels surrounded.

The way he describes how he's feeling is awful.

And he makes this plea for mercy.

He's restless in his complaint, he's feeling oppressed by wicked people.

The noise of the enemy surrounds him.

People are angry towards him, they bear a grudge against him, and they drop trouble on him.

His heart is in anguish, he fears for his life.

Horror overwhelms him, and he just wants to escape.

He just wants to find a place to hide, to get protection from all that's going on around him, and to be removed from the onslaught of things coming in on him.

Again, I can relate to David to being in situations where you just moan because you can't express in words what's going on.

So you just groan in pain and frustration.

And what do you do in those situations?

Where do you feel like running?

You want to run far away when the storm rages.

David, too, feels like flying far away.

Look at the description in verses 6 to 8 with me.

Oh, that I had wings like a dove, I would fly away and be at rest.

Yes, I would wander far away.

I would lodge in the wilderness, Selah.

I would hurry to find a shelter from the raging wind and tempest.

David wanted to go to a deserted place by himself and he wanted to hurry there.

Other places in the Psalms, David uses this word hurry to ask God to come quickly to his aid.

Here, however, David feels like hurrying away himself.

He's not asking God to hurry.

He's saying, I want to get away to safety myself as quickly as possible, not waiting on the Lord.

There's a restlessness in these verses.

David has mixed emotions.

He can't sleep.

He feels weighed down by the slander and injustice of the situation.

And isn't this how we feel in similar circumstances?

It's not pure anger, it's anger mixed with sadness.

It's the kind of situation that makes us lie awake at night playing conversations over and over in our minds.

It's exhausting.

Who wouldn't want to fly away?

But David knows a better way.

He knows someone who hears above the noise of the enemy.

He goes to the one who actually brings about justice.

Likewise, when we just want to fly away, there is a better way.

There is one who hears us and who deals with the trouble and hardships pressing in on us.

So instead of running away and hiding, David stays and makes his plea to the one who can put an end to the wickedness around him.

And David has two other reasons for staying.

He has two main motivations.

So we're going to look at those motivations now.

The first one, he loves people and the city.

The second one, he loves God.

So he loves people and the city, number one.

You see, what's going on here affects everyone.

David is the king.

Last week we saw that he was hiding before he was the king.

He was uh King Saul was still king.

But David is the king now, and he has responsibilities.

There's violence and strife in the city.

Day and night, the wicked people they go around on its walls, and iniquity and trouble are within the city.

The wickedness of these people is causing the downfall of the city, and David cares about it.

The sin and trouble that they cause not only affects him, but it affects the whole city.

So he doesn't get swallowed up in self-pity.

Rather, he seeks to love others, and he seeks to love the city.

Let's continue to look a bit at what the sin of these people is doing.

It's pervasive.

It's within and without.

It's surrounding them.

We start to get a picture as well of who is doing this as we read through.

We get some hints based on David's description of what's happening.

So the violence and strife is in the city.

Iniquity and trouble are within.

This isn't coming from outside.

The language is pointing us towards the fact that this person or these people, they're known.

David actually confirms this in verse 12 if we read down further, but we'll get onto that in a moment.

So think about it.

The walls that were meant to be keeping danger out, they're now a trap instead.

The wicked go around on its walls, and instead of being there, those people being watchmen on the walls looking out, these people are looking down into the city, wanting to devour it.

And it's constant too.

It's day and night.

It's causing ruin in society.

Not only in the city, David talks about it in the marketplace, too.

That's where people trade and do business.

They work and spend their day there.

It's a focal point, it's at the heart of the city.

But despite David's own feelings, he stays because he sees what their wickedness is doing to all those around him.

He puts others before himself and considers their interests ahead of his own.

That's the other person-centered love, right?

He doesn't flee and abandon the people and nation that God has made him king of.

And we need to do more of this, don't we?

I know I do.

When things get tough, or even just a little bit busy or stressful, I so easily forget about those around me.

I go into me first mode.

Maybe that's the same for you.

And what kind of city do you think we'd have if we did love others and our city as we ought?

So David loves people and he loves the city.

Next, he loves God.

David not only stays because of the widespread problems and hardship caused by the sin of these people, he stays because these wicked people despise the Lord.

And he loves his God.

David uses a curious phrase in verse 15, if you have a look.

So verse 15, let them go down to Sheol alive.

This comes, well, Sheol first, you might know, is um the word used in in throughout the Hebrew uh part of the Bible, the Old Testament, for uh hell.

Where the dead go.

This comes from a story back in the book of Numbers, Numbers chapter 16.

Numbers 16 · chapter mention

There's an account of um a rebellion against Moses and his brother Aaron.

The people of God were out in the wilderness and they were grumbling, and some men, um, they were led by uh a man named Korah.

They wanted authority for themselves.

They questioned the authority that God had given to Moses.

In fact, in that chapter, we're told that they despised the Lord.

So, in order to show that their sin, uh in order to show their sin for what it was, we read that Moses uh said the following in Numbers 16, 30.

If they go down alive into Sheol, then you shall know that these men have despised the Lord.

And that's exactly what happened.

It's a really dramatic account.

The ground opened up and swallowed those who despised the Lord and rejected him.

And the reason David quotes this story and calls on God to let them go down to Sheol alive, from verse 15 in Psalm 55, is because of the nature of what they're doing.

He knows that the effect of their sin won't just stop with their removal.

Everyone needs to see that they rejected God and despised him.

David stays because these wicked people despise the Lord whom he loves.

Again, we do do we just flee when things get tough?

Or do we stay in the face of trouble, adversity, mocking, and even persecution for the sake of God's name and honor?

Loving God, loving people, and loving Dublin will mean, if it hasn't already, that we don't merely follow our desire to flee when the storm comes.

We endure hardships and troubles for the sake of others, for the good of those around us.

So we've seen that David is in anguish because of what's going on.

And he wants to get away from everything, but he stays because he loves God and he loves God's people.

He doesn't run away or even just stand by because the perpetrators are causing violence to the people and they despise the Lord.

But we can see that there's a bit more than this, it's a bit more than a regular storm.

David uses such strong and highly emotional language throughout the Psalm, but especially at the start there in the first eight or so verses.

There has to be something more going on.

It seems like the storm is more like a hurricane.

So where do you run when the storm is actually a hurricane?

Verses 12 to 14, they're heartbreaking.

Those people, or probably the person who is causing such ruin, is not from outside, they're not invaders from another land, as we've been, as we alluded to earlier.

It's not even an acquaintance, though.

David describes him as my familiar friend.

This is someone who David trusts and has known probably for quite a while.

He's someone who David considers a companion and probably someone who's guided him in many, many ways.

He's someone David has gone to for advice, a friend David considers his equal.

And not only is he a close friend, but he says that they used to take sweet counsel together, and they spent time in God's house worshipping God together.

I'm sure David asked him what he thought were the best tactics in a battle, or maybe he asked him for his thoughts on the best way to protect the city.

But David would have trusted this man with more than just things concerning the kingdom.

They would have had deep and personal conversations.

They would have talked together about God's love and faithfulness.

They would have sung praise to God together in the temple.

David should have been able to rely on this friend.

They should have been working together to serve God and his people.

How utterly heartbreaking, then, for David.

His close friend, someone he had confided in, a man who would have stood beside him in the past, has betrayed him.

And this is compounded then if you look further in verses 20 and 21.

David realizes that his friend was like this all along.

Even while there were close friends, even while David confided in and trusted him, war was in his heart.

As his friend spoke, it seemed that the words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords.

David listened to his friend's advice and took it on board.

He went to him for counsel and thought he had a true friend, someone who had his interests at heart.

But David sees that the man he thought was a friend actually had no regard for him.

In fact, David realizes that evil was in his heart.

And this explains why David was so distraught.

He's been betrayed by someone so close to him.

He looks back at their entire relationship and sees everything through the lens of this betrayal.

Instead of sweet counsel, there are broken promises and a violated covenant.

No wonder David feels overwhelmed.

No wonder he wants to get away.

This week, as I thought through what this must have been like for David, it broke my heart.

It felt, and still feels now, just so heavy.

And many of you may have experienced such betrayal or the breakdown of a close relationship, one where you regularly confided in the other person and served God alongside them.

And so you're right here with David in some of the worst emotions humans can go through.

I'm thankful that I don't have much first-hand experience of this, but I know how awful it is.

And I pray, we pray that God would spare us this, that He would keep us united in Christ.

So whether you've experienced betrayal like this or not, pray for unity.

And know that if and when the storm storms like this come, that we go to the one who hears above the noise of the raging wind and tempest.

So what does David do in this situation?

Is there much we can glean from his response to this raging tempest?

What's in a storm response plan?

We've already seen that David stays in the midst of all this trouble and violence and betrayal.

He doesn't allow his feelings, however genuine, he doesn't allow them to overwhelm him.

He feels them.

You can see that in the Psalm.

He doesn't allow them to overwhelm him.

But let's look in more detail at what he actually does.

He doesn't just hang around for the sake of it.

He fights.

He's waging a battle.

That's in verse 18.

We looked already at his motivations for this.

He sees what's going on around him, what's happening to the people that he loves and serves as king, and he also sees the disregard for God that these people have, and he does something about it.

He doesn't just stand idly by.

Now David knows that he can't win in his own strength.

Rather, he relies on God, and that's clear throughout the Psalm, isn't it?

Remember, he wanted to hurry and find shelter himself, but he didn't just go his own way.

Numerous times God calls on, or sorry, David calls on God to act.

He asks God to bring about justice, to remove the evil that's causing violence and strife in the city.

David knows that God is the one who can do this.

David fights the battle, but he entrusts the war to God.

He trusts the Lord with the outcome.

This is key.

He fights the battle, but he entrusts the war to God.

It's good to note here how David frames his request for justice.

He recalls times in the past where God has brought about justice before.

In asking God to divide their tongues in verse 9, David is remembering how God dealt with sin at the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11.

We already looked at how God acted when there was a rebellion against Moses, how God removed evil.

David knows the character of God to act justly and to deal with sin, and he asked God, who never changes, to do the same now, to do the same in his situation where he's at.

So when you pray, pray like David.

Ask God to bring about justice.

Ask him to thwart plans for evil.

Ask him to put an end to oppression and fraud in the marketplace and to remove violence and strife in the city.

It's also worth noting the contrast here between David's use of time and the wicked people.

He prays a lot, evening, morning, and at noon.

He's constant in his prayers to God.

In contrast, they go around on the city walls day and night looking to do evil.

David's integrity, his honesty, and his persistence in coming to God in prayer are completely contrary to the wicked man, whose words are deceptive and cover a war of heart, sorry, a heart of war and destruction.

In that fight, we need to pray constantly.

Like David, we rely wholly on God and entrust the battle to him.

And it's in this section in verses 16 to 19 that there's a real shift in the tone of the Psalm.

David, with all that's going on, with all that he's feeling, makes his request to God and has confidence in him.

He knows that the Lord will save him.

He knows the Lord God as his Savior.

What a comfort for David to go from being betrayed by a close friend, discovering that this man was never as he thought, to having his voice heard by God and having his soul redeemed in safety.

This word here, safety, can be translated peace.

It's from the Hebrew word shalom.

God restores peace for David's soul in the midst of all these hardships.

David then turns to us, the reader in verse 22.

He counsels us to cast our burden on the Lord as he has done.

When you're overwhelmed, when you just want to escape, when someone hurts you, when trouble comes upon you, entrust those situations to God.

And that's no trivial thing.

David tells us to do this in the context of his most heavy burdens, the betrayal of a close friend.

David tells us to cast our burden on the Lord and he will sustain us.

David still fights, as we just said, but it's God who sustains him.

God doesn't remove David from the situation like David wanted to do himself.

Rather, he sustains him in the battle.

David is confident that God will not allow those who cast their cares on him to be moved.

We can, like David, trust God to sustain us in the battle.

This is in contrast to how God will cast the wicked down into the pit of destruction.

We know that God will bring about justice in his good timing, that all wrongs will be made right.

God will deal with all sin and wickedness.

Men of blood and treachery will be cast down into the pit of destruction.

We know that he restores peace to our souls and that he saves us.

In the midst of suffering, trouble, hardships, injustice, and even the worst of betrayals, no matter what people throw at us, we can throw it at God.

Cast your burden on the Lord.

He will sustain you.

Finally, let's look forward to one of King David's offspring, to Jesus.

He endured the fiercest storms, didn't he?

He was betrayed with a kiss by Judas, a companion, a familiar friend, someone he would have spent a lot of time with.

As Jesus carried out his ministry, Judas was alongside him.

As Jesus preached, fed the hungry, and taught, Judas was there with him.

Judas served people with Jesus.

He was one of the disciples.

And Jesus went through the horrors of his betrayal, arrest, trial, and crucifixion.

And he could have saved himself.

Getting far away from the terrors of death to be at rest.

Yet he stayed.

People even shouted him to save himself, didn't they?

They mocked him and said that if he really was the king, he should come down from the cross.

But he didn't put himself first.

He stayed because he loved outside himself.

But this isn't just a great example.

Because if it was merely something to strive for, a goal or a target, then we'd be in trouble, wouldn't we?

You see, the problem is me.

It's that my heart isn't motivated to love God or to love others.

I don't just feel like fleeing when things get difficult.

I actually run away.

And I know it's the same for you and your heart.

We don't live or love perfectly in and of ourselves.

We put our own interests first.

We love ourselves more than we love others, and we reject God's good authority.

That's the disposition of our hearts.

So I can't truly follow the example of Jesus or even David's example in this Psalm.

I can't love God, love people, and love city as I ought.

What do we do then?

Where can we run?

We run to Jesus.

We run to the one who endured the fiercest of storms.

And I have two reasons here that we do this.

Firstly, he enables us.

He enables us by giving us new hearts.

And secondly, he went down into the pit for us.

So we run to the one who endured the fiercest of storms because he enables us and he went down to the pit for us.

Our hearts, as we just acknowledged, don't place others before ourselves, or they don't put God first.

But Jesus gives us a renewed heart and new motivations.

He changes our heart.

He enables us to love outside of ourselves.

Instead of only looking out for self, being predisposed to abandon those around us when difficulties arise and placing ourselves above God, he causes us to be like him, to love others, to love God, and to serve one another in humility.

In fact, Jesus takes us from being selfish, me first people to those who love their brothers and sisters and care for them.

He makes us people who revere and love God rather than despise him.

Run to him, run to Jesus, because he enables us to love outside of ourselves.

And not only that, but Jesus went down into the pit of destruction instead of those who deserved it, like you and me.

When we truly look at our own hearts, we see that it's not just that we run away.

We actually cause hurt and pain to those around us.

We speak lovely and kind words to people, yet harbor anger towards them in our hearts.

In placing ourselves first, we put others down, whether it's with our families, our friends, in work, or amongst our brothers and sisters here, we realize that we're not David in this Psalm.

We're the ones who cause violence and strife.

We are all, as the Psalm says, men of blood and treachery.

We all deserve to go down to Sheol alive.

We're all traitors who've despised the Lord, rejecting his authority and making ourselves the rulers.

Even David, he was a sinner and betrayed one of his friends sometime after he wrote this Psalm.

David killed Uriah, one of his top military men, in order to cover up that he had slept with his wife.

David was a man of blood and treachery.

In verse 23, when he assures us that God will cast them, that's the men of blood and treachery, down into the pit of destruction, he assures us that justice will come.

David didn't realize that he was talking about himself.

When he spoke of what God would do to his betrayers, he didn't realize he was that betrayer.

And in our position of being those who've committed treason, those who've sinned against God and against others, even to the point of betraying our friends, it's not good news that God will carry out justice, that death would steal over us.

Yet Jesus took that on himself because he loves outside of himself.

Jesus has saved us.

He went down into the pit as a substitute for us and rose from the grave, defeating death.

That's good news.

Instead of being destroyed, we're saved by faith in Jesus.

Instead of being cast down into the into death, we're given life by faith in Jesus.

Praise God.

Run to him because he was cast down into the grave for us.

So justice has been served, as David has been assuring us throughout the Psalm.

Jesus has taken the wrath of God for us.

Unlike those who might betray us, God stays the same.

All the things David says about God in this Psalm will always be true.

He hears us, he sustains us, and we can trust Him.

We don't need to worry that Jesus might betray us.

He is faithful.

He died that we might live.

So in the fiercest of storms, run to Him.

Let's pray.

Lord God, thank you.

Thank you for this Psalm.

Thank you for Jesus who went down into the pit of destruction for us.

We deserve to be cast down.

For our treachery, for our sin, for our desire to put ourselves first, for just to flee when things get difficult.

Thank you that we can run to Jesus, that he went through the fiercest of storms.

And not only that, but yeah, that he went down to the pit for us, taking our place so that we might live.

Would you help us to be those who love outside ourselves?

Thank you for our changed hearts, that you've given us hearts that can love people, that can love God, can love our city.

Would you help us to do that?

Amen.