Psalm 62. Now this psalm in many
ways seems pretty obvious in its meanings, but really there's
a depth always to scripture that we want to understand. And so
let's read through it together and then I will try to give you
some background here that for me was very enlightening and
helpful. Psalm 62, it says, truly my soul
waiteth upon God. From him cometh my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation. He is my defense. I shall not
be greatly moved. How long will you imagine mischief
against a man? You shall be slain, all of you,
as a bowing wall, shall you be, and as a tottering fence. They
only consult to cast him down from His Excellency. They delight
in lies. They bless with their mouth,
but they curse inwardly. Selah. My soul, wait thou only
upon God, for my expectation is from Him. He only is my rock
and my salvation. He is my defense, I shall not
be moved. In God is my salvation and my
glory. The rock of my strength and my
refuge is in God. Trust in Him at all times. You people, pour out your heart
before Him. God is a refuge for us. Selah. Surely men of low degree are
vanity and men of high degree are a lie to be laid in the balances,
or to be laid in the balance. They are altogether lighter than
vanity. Trust not in oppression and become
not vain in robbery. If riches increase, set not your
heart upon them. God has spoken once. Twice have
I heard this, that power belongeth unto God. Also unto thee, O Lord,
belongeth mercy, for thou renderest to every man according to his
work. All right, so that's the entire
psalm. And you can see why it's such a dear psalm to us, because
over and over again in this psalm, four times in fact, God says
that he is our salvation. God is my salvation. In verse
one, from him cometh my salvation. So that's the first thing to
observe. And it also tells us emphatically to trust in the
Lord. In verse eight especially, trust
in him at all times, you people, pour out your heart before him.
God is a refuge for us. So in that, in that we see that
by entrusting God, we have this great exhortation from the Lord
Himself to pour out our hearts before Him. And really, that's
what this psalm is doing. It's the psalmist pouring out
his heart to God. And he repeats this over and
over again, that God is his salvation, his trust, his defense, his rock,
his strength, his expectation. And we see this in this psalm
repeatedly and with great emphasis. So for those reasons, it's a
very dear psalm. Now, one thing that may not be
obvious, but we do see this in, for example, in verse two. See
in verse two, it says, he only is my rock. and my salvation. So that word only is featured
in this psalm. In fact, if you look at verse
2, it says he only and then also in verse 4, they only consult
to cast him down. In verse 5, my soul wait thou
only upon him. And verse 6, he only is my rock. So four times the English word
only is used and it's the same Hebrew word that's translated
only. So that one Hebrew word is translated
four times, only, as the word only in the King James Version.
But also, it turns out, there are two other places that Hebrew
word is used and translated in this psalm. In verse one, truly
is the word that's also translated, only, in those verses that we
just looked at. And then, in In verse 9 it says, surely men
of low degree, and that means also it's the same Hebrew word
only. So really six times in this psalm,
the word that is translated only four times, the same Hebrew word
is used six times. And it is for that reason that
Charles Spurgeon, I think the first person and others after
him, have called this the only psalm. It doesn't mean that it's
the only psalm that's written in scripture. It just means it's
the psalm that emphasizes that God only is our salvation and
our trust and so on, our defense, our rock, our expectation, our
strength. And so, since the Lord alone,
as we would say, or exclusively is this, it shows us that that's
an appropriate title for this psalm, the only psalm, because
it emphasizes the exclusivity of God as all of our salvation. Now one thing that this psalm
doesn't give in the title that some of the psalms do is the
background, the historical background for this psalm. But really it
actually is implied in such verses as verse four. It says, they
only consult to cast him down from his excellency. So historically
there was a time when there were men who consulted together to
cast David down as the king, because he obviously is the one
who wrote this psalm. And we also would expect that
in verse 4, that they only consult to cast him down from his excellency,
refers also to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the anointed,
the king. which David was a type of him. He was, David, in God's testimony
of him as the one God had chosen to be king, the one God had anointed
to be king, the one who was a man after God's own heart, the one
who was made king over his people Israel to rule over them for
their salvation and to bless them. and to shepherd them as
a shepherd does his flock to protect them, as David did his
own father's sheep and protected them from the bear and the lion,
those two occasions when he went to battle with Goliath. And so
we see that in this Psalm, when he speaks in verse four, they
only consult to cast him down from his excellency Historically,
it would be speaking of a time when David himself was threatened
to be removed from his kingdom as the king in it. And that would
be a prophecy of scripture referring to the Lord Jesus Christ, when
men would try to remove him from being king. Now, those two points
of history occurred in scripture. The first, David's experience
occurs when his son Absalom and those with Absalom tried to remove
David from being king in Jerusalem, and they actually tried to kill
him. And then the second historical event, which that pointed forward
to, of course, would be the Lord Jesus Christ, when the Jews,
and consulted together and made a compact or contract with Judas
to betray Christ into their hands and they would take him and they
would try him, falsely accuse him and against their law, their
own law, would put him to death with the help of Herod and Pilate,
the Gentiles and the soldiers and the Sanhedrin and the high
priest, All the Jews were insistent and together came against Christ
for that reason. So, because of those two events,
now, David's own experience at the hand of his son Absalom and
Christ in fulfillment of that, and his own betrayal by Judas,
which is spoken of in Psalm 109, we can understand the background
of this Psalm as being that, that David was the object the
conspiracy against him by his son Absalom. Now, if we understand
it in that way, then it is very helpful to understand this psalm.
And that's spoken of actually in 2 Samuel chapter 15 and 16
and even in what follows. And if we read that, and I debated
with myself whether or not to just read those two chapters
together, but I'm not going to because it would take quite a
bit of time, but I would encourage you to read those two chapters
and the chapters that follow. That whole event that occurred
when, and I'm going to refer to it, but I won't read all of
it with you. That whole event when Absalom
came against his father to overthrow his father as king and to take
the place of king in Jerusalem, and then to seek his father's
life and to kill him. That was Absalom's intent. And so that helps us to understand,
look at Psalm 62 in verse three. He says, how long will you imagine
mischief against a man? You shall be slain, all of you,
as a bowing wall shall you be, and as a tottering fence. And then the next verse, they
only consult to cast him down from his excellency. They delight
in lies, they bless with their mouth, but they curse inwardly,
Selah. All right, so let's summarize
what happened in 2 Samuel chapter 15 and 16. It turns out that Absalom was
a handsome man. There was a time in scripture
where he was very vain. He had his hair weighed. That seems like something that
people in Hollywood would do. they would weigh their hair or
something crazy like that. Absalom weighed his hair every
year. And so he was obviously good
looking. And so for that reason, being attractive, the people
would naturally favor him. He was the king's son. He was
the third son born to David. The mother of Absalom was actually
the daughter of the king of Syria, so Absalom's grandfather was
the king of Syria. It kind of shows you his roots,
if you will. It turns out also that Absalom
was never appointed by David to any office as a ruler in Israel,
and you can guess why. There was a point in time when
Absalom killed his own brother Amnon, because Amnon raped Absalom's
sister. So he had a, it was a family
with many serious issues. And Absalom seemed to be at the
forefront of those issues. And Absalom would do this. He
had it in his mind, he had this intention that somehow he was
going to win the hearts of the people of Israel over to himself.
And so what he decided he would do, and he did this, is every
day he would get up and meet the people as they were coming
into the gate to see the king, which would be King David, his
father. when they were coming to him for judgment in any matter,
Absalom, David's son, would meet them first and he would interpose
himself and he would greet them and he would say, what city are
you from? And they'd say, well, we're from
one of the tribes of Israel. And then he would proceed having
engaged with him in conversation, he would proceed to say, what
is the issue that you've come to the king for? And they would
give him some summary statement of it all. And he would say,
well, I'm sure that your issue is just and right. And if the
king had someone to take care of these things, if he had placed
someone in position to do this, like myself, then I would certainly
judge things right for you. And then, of course, when the
people came to, he would also ingratiate himself to them. They
would bow to him as deserving the respect of the king's son,
and he would immediately take them up by the hand, and he would
embrace them and kiss them. So he was a pretender, a hypocrite
of the first order. He designed evil by doing these
things. He was good looking. He made
the people feel like they were welcome with him. He would embrace
them and kiss them. And then he would claim that
he really deserved to be ruling on behalf of the people of the
kingdom and judging matters because he would set things right and
the people would favor him if he had just had an opportunity
to do that. And then the other thing that
he did is that he got chariots, a bunch of chariots, I can't
remember how many, and 50 men to run before him so he made
himself seem like an important person by the outward show of
this pomp of being the king's son with these chariots and these
50 men running before him. Okay, so this went on for some
time. And after a while, Absalom had gained enough of a momentum
in this way that he came to King David. He was always He was always
suspect when you read the scriptures about Absalom. David seemed to
always hold him in suspicion, especially after the way he murdered
his brother Amnon. But in any case, Absalom came
to King David and asked his permission to go to Hebron. Now Hebron is
the first place that David himself was appointed king. And so Absalom
said, I had made a vow to the Lord when I was in this place,
actually was in Syria, but I want your leave so I can go to Hebron
and fulfill my vow to the Lord. Well, he didn't probably have
a vow to the Lord. He said that he vowed to serve
the Lord, and if the Lord did such and such, then he would
serve him, but no doubt it was a complete made-up story. He
probably had no intention of serving the Lord. He was openly
wicked in these things, but he pretended to be a well-favored
and an honest man. He was treachery. He was very
treacherous. And so he went down to Hebron
after King David gave him leave to go and basically said, go
in peace. He said, he went down to Hebron
and while he was in Hebron, he sent out messengers to tell the
people, now when you hear the trumpet blow, then know this
and say that Absalom reigns in Hebron as the king. And so he
really had prepared the people to expect there would be an event
when he himself would take over the kingdom of Israel as the
king. He was the king's son, he had
garnered the authority the affections of the people and their respect.
And so when he went down to Hebron, he didn't just go by himself,
but he took 200 men with him from Jerusalem. Now those 200
men were under the, they went down there under the expectation
that Absalom was going down there to sacrifice and to fulfill his
vow. And so they were probably naive,
really, of why they were with him and supporting him. But when
they got down there, they realized that things were not at all like
they expected, and that Absalom had this intention of displacing
David as the king. Word got back to David about
what Absalom was doing in Hebron, and when David learned about
this, he left Jerusalem. Now, the people who were with
David, and they were not a large group, I mean, by any comparison
to all the people in the kingdom, But there were a few hundred
and among them were these men who were called the Karathites
and the Pelathites and they were like in his guard, his protective
service, like the secret service. There were about 600 of them.
And then there were also the women and the children and other
leaders in his company like Joab the captain and his brother Abishai
who were very well-known and very capable men. And there was
also Zadok the priest and those with him. And so these people
left Jerusalem with David. They told him before they went,
we're ready to do whatever you want us to do for you. But David
said, we're gonna leave. We're gonna leave and we're gonna
go outside of Jerusalem. Now in the process of leaving,
David and the people with him crossed over a brook, a small
running water, but it was really only running in the wintertime
and so it was kind of dark water and it was actually a place where
a lot of things just flowed into it that were animal excrement
and blood from animals slain and it was just mixed with bad
things in the water. It was called the Brook Kidron
or Kidron. I'm not sure how to pronounce
it. And so when they left Jerusalem, they had to cross that brook,
and they went up the Mount of Olives, it turns out. And you
can read that in 2 Samuel 15, verse 30, that they went up the
Mount of Olives, and they also crossed over the brook Chidron.
Now, in the process also of leaving Jerusalem, there were those who
came with David who were loyal to him. And one of them was a
man named Ittai, Ittai, I-T-T-A-I. And so Ittai, being loyal to
David and also the captain really over this group of men who were
like his personal guard, these 600 men, David told Attei, he
says, now don't you come with us, you go back to Jerusalem,
you know, I've got to be out here by myself. And Attei protested,
he said, no, no. He says, I will, whether in life
or in death, I will be with you, with you the king. It's very
moving when you hear these things, when you read them in scripture,
so I encourage you to go back and read those in 2 Samuel 15
and 16. So there was a Tai, who was supportive
of David and stayed with him, and then David also sent back
Zadok, the priest, to carry back the Ark of God, because they
had brought it out. of Jerusalem. He said, no, you
take it back because if the Lord is pleased with me, he will bring
me back to Jerusalem. He will bring me back to worship
him in the presence of God where the ark is. But if not, then
let him do what seems good to him. So David resigned himself
to be content with whatever God wanted him to do. In fact, there's this almost
unexpected behavior in David when he left Jerusalem because
he had capable men with him, not thousands, but he had capable
men with him. It seems as if he could have
made some kind of a stand and protected the capital city and
the kingdom there. But he chose not to. He submitted
to whatever God was doing in Absalom's conspiracy and treachery. And he left Jerusalem with these
people. And he was resigned to do whatever
God would have him to do in this process. As he crossed the brook
Chidron, as he ascended the Mount of Olives, as he did all these
things, he was in the wilderness, really. and these people were
with him. And the people were very sorry.
In fact, the king went barefoot. He was mourning and he went barefoot. The people were doing whatever
he was doing. They were crying too. He was
at a very, very low point in his life. And that's where this
song comes from. And there were other people too
in this process that are worth mentioning. As I mentioned, Absalom
had contrived, had schemed for years now. It's estimated it
was four years. But for some time he had been
plotting this and getting the favor of the people through his
behavior, through his looks, through this pomp of having chariots
and men running before him. through the way he treated them
who were coming for judgment to the king, and all these things. Absalom also had gotten the support
of Ahithophel. Now Ahithophel, according to
what I read, was the grandfather of Bathsheba, and he was renowned
because he was supposedly the wisest counselor in all the land.
And he was David's counselor and David's friend. But Absalom
had gotten Ahithophel to come to Hebron and give him counsel. Ahithophel was not ignorant.
He was very wise. He knew exactly what he was doing.
What he had done was he had gone to Absalom at Absalom's request. and had plotted together or given
counsel together with Absalom how to overthrow King David and
how to establish Absalom as king. And that's what Ahithophel did.
And it was a great conspiracy, a great plot on Ahithophel's
part also with Absalom. But not only Ahithophel, there
were other people, other actors in this scene where David is
going away from Jerusalem. One of them was named Ziba, Z-I-B-A. Ziba was formerly a servant of
Saul. But if you remember, after Saul
died, David wanted to find out if any of Jonathan's children,
if Jonathan had any children who were still alive. And David
found out that Mephibosheth was alive. And so, because of his
oath and promise to Jonathan, his love for Jonathan, David
sought out Mephibosheth, called Mephibosheth, and he appointed
Ziba, who was a servant of Saul, to take care of Mephibosheth
and all of his property. And he told Ziba that Mephibosheth
would always sit at the king's table. So that was Ziba. Now at the time when King David
was leaving, Ziba appears, seemingly out of nowhere, and he brings
with him mules to ride on, and food, and wine, and David asked
him, what are you doing, Ziba? Well, I brought all these things
for, the wine is for the weak and those who are Overcome and
the the food is for the men and the mules are for people to ride
on and so on so he's He's schmoozing as we used to say at work He's
schmoozing with the king and he says where and David asked
Ziva at this time. Where is your master? Mephibosheth
and he said oh Mephibosheth, oh, he stayed at Jerusalem because
when he learned that Absalom was coming, that you were leaving,
that he said, oh, finally, you know, now the kingdom will be
restored to me as it should have been in the beginning, because
he was obviously Jonathan's son who would have been the grandson
of King Saul. So Ziba lied about Mephibosheth and really He slandered
him to the king in order that the king would think lower of
Mephibosheth and believe Ziba. Ziba was a liar from the beginning. He always was a conniving little
weasel. And so Ziba was another actor
in this scene. And then there was another man,
the last man I'm going to mention was called Shimei. Shimei was
a man who also was of the household of Saul, so that after Saul died
and David was made king, Shimei lost what he thought was his
by right. And he comes while David is leaving
with all of his men, these mighty men that were with David, Joab,
Abishai, and the Pelothites and the Charithites, these men who
are well capable of war. Shimei audaciously comes and
he curses David in the sounding of the ear, the hearing of the
people, and he casts stones at David and dust in the air. And
one of David's men, Abishai in particular, he said, let me go
over and kill him. And David said, no, no. God sent Shimei to curse me. Let him curse. So, and then he
also said this, who can tell if the Lord will turn his cursing
into a blessing? So, I really encourage you to
read those two chapters, 2 Samuel 15 and 16 and even beyond, because
in them what you see is this total submission of David to
the will of God, he was content. He rested in his confidence in
God. So much so that even when he
was in the midst of his people, shamed, cursed, and And he even
said, send the Ark back. And he left without a fight.
And he walked barefoot. All these things were a sign
of great distress of soul. on David's part. And so you can
see that, and if you take the information from 2 Samuel 15,
that David went barefoot, that he went up the Mount of Olives,
that he crossed the Brook Kidron, and you overlay that with what
the New Testament says that happened to the Lord Jesus Christ when
he went into the garden of Gethsemane, and when he left that garden
apprehended by the soldiers, he went into the garden with
just his disciples. Just a few. And he left that
garden. And when he was there, the soldiers
came to take him in John chapter 18. It says that he crossed the
brook Chidron, the same brook that David did. He was at the
Mount of Olives when he was in the Garden of Gethsemane. And
that word Gethsemane means oil press. So it was the place where
the wrath of God was pressing upon the Lord Jesus Christ when
he was bearing the sins of his people. And he was experiencing
all of that. And when the soldiers came, Christ
took protection. He took the needs of his disciples
above his own. And he says, if you seek me,
then let these go their way in John 18, verse eight. So take
these two events together and see that the second event of
Christ going into the garden, suffering in His soul, pouring
out sweat like drops of blood and telling His Father, Father,
if it's possible, remove this cup from me. The cup of our sins
being made His and Him owning them before God and feeling the
weight of God's wrath and the forsaking of God in His soul.
The lowest point, obviously, when he was under that suffering
of wrath at God's hand for the sins of his people that began
in the garden and went on through the cross and in his death and
is being put in the tomb. All of that parallels what we
read, what we talked about from 2 Samuel 15 and 16. And this psalm, Psalm 62, was
written out of that context. And so when we read this psalm,
it adds a significant weight to it, doesn't it? Because there
was no greater time in David's life's experience that he was
at a low point than this time. This was the lowest point. Why
did Absalom come against him anyway? Why did God allow that?
Well, if you remember in 2 Samuel 11, it was because that David
had committed this horrible sin that he committed adultery with
Bathsheba and then killed Bathsheba's husband to hide it. with all
the other sin that went in the process and he hid this for a
long time before Nathan the prophet came at God's sending and told
David what his sin was and David confessed that he had sinned
and God forgave him his sin. That's the reason Absalom came.
That's the reason that God designed this. It was to show that God
was not going to allow David's open sin to receive any approval
by God, but that what he did was wrong. And so the weight
of that knowledge was upon David when Absalom determined to overthrow
the kingdom. And that's why David left Jerusalem
without a struggle. That's why he went barefoot.
That's why he was mourning as he went. That's why he refused
Ittai and his men to accompany him and try to get them to leave.
But they wouldn't because they were so loyal to him that Ittai,
like every believer, told David, whether in life or death, I will
not leave you. I'm yours. And so we see the
faithfulness not only of Attei and the Pelothites and the Carothites,
but also the priest, Zadok, and I think Abiathar, the high priest.
So these men were faithful to David and his soldiers were faithful
to him. The people were faithful to him. And yet David himself
is at this low point of humiliation because that parallels the Lord
Jesus Christ in his humiliation. Now David was with his people
and with his people he suffered the ignominy of this reproach
of his own son rising up against him and overthrowing his kingdom
and all that went with that. Ahithophel betrayed him, his
friend, his counselor betrayed him. And this man Shimei, who
was nothing, he was what you would
call the lowest of the people, he's allowed to come out and
curse the king without a fight against him. And David accepts
his cursing from God and says, Let him curse. God sent him to
curse. It may be that God will turn his cursing into a blessing.
And then Ziba, the weasel that he had to put up with this man
who slandered the one that he had covenanted for, Mephibosheth,
in order to bless Mephibosheth for Jonathan's sake. All these
things were come to a point and to teach us what the Lord Jesus
Christ suffered for his people. Now, I'm giving you kind of a
big brush overview of the background of this psalm so that when we
look at it, we can see these things in it. And I wanna do
that right now before we get too much further so that we can
first, as we just walk through this psalm, see how it correlates
to these things and adds weight to what we just talked about.
He says in verse 1, and I'm going to change the word truly to only,
because that's the Hebrew word. Truly is okay, because we truly
do wait. My soul truly does wait on the
Lord, but only. In other words, my soul waits
only on the Lord. That's what it can also mean.
And the word wait here, As I was thinking about this, you know
how you wait for things and we wait for the bus to arrive, we
wait for someone to give us a call. We wait for things and we know
that we can't do anything about it. We're waiting. I'm waiting
for my car to get repaired, and they got to call me up, and I'm
waiting for them to call me. I'm waiting for, you know, we
wait for the baby to be born, whatever it is we're waiting
for. Here David is waiting on the Lord, and the word here,
waiting, also means in silence. So he's saying, really, either
only my soul waits upon the Lord, or my soul waits only on the
Lord, or he also says, only in silence my soul waits on the
Lord. And both of those can be helpful
to us, because we see that the word silence, it brings with
it, not that David wasn't saying anything, in his heart or in
his words to God. It wasn't like he wasn't praying
or making a supplication. What it's saying here that he's
not protesting against. He's submitting to the will of
God, even though he has no way of seeing in this trial that
he's going through, which again was brought upon him by God because
of his sin as a consequence of it. There's no way that he can
see how God is going to be glorified in this, and so he's waiting.
He's waiting. How is God going to do this?
How is he going to save me? I don't know, but I'm going to
wait. I don't have anyone else. Only
God. I'm waiting only on Him. I'm
not going to make it happen. I'm not going to try to get things
going like King Saul did on so many occasions. I'm going to
wait. I'm going to wait. And this word wait is just another
word for trusting. And fact in scripture says that
whoever waits on the Lord, he shall rise up like wings of an
eagle. He will run and not be faint
because his strength is in the Lord. Whoever waits on the Lord
is not going to be put to shame. They're not going to be confounded.
Scripture is replete with these statements of saying that the
one who waits on the Lord will not be disappointed in his trust. So here we see David at the lowest
point, knowing it was circumstances that came upon him because of
his sin, confessing there's only one thing. In spite of all that
I am now experiencing, I have only one salvation, it's the
Lord. And so he says, truly or only
my soul waits upon God, from him cometh my salvation. Salvation
comes only from God. And when it comes from God, we
know that it originated from him. When God determined to send
his son into the world to redeem his people from their sins, then
salvation came only from God, didn't it? When the Lord Jesus
Christ was sent into the world, and He took on the body that
God prepared for Him, and in that body did the will of God
by offering Himself in sacrifice, then by God came our salvation,
didn't it? When the Lord Jesus Christ went
into the wilderness and for 40 days and 40 nights was without
food and water and was then tempted by the devil and overcame the
devil's temptation by trusting as a man in whatever God said,
He overcame the devil, then came from God our salvation. And when
Christ arose from the dead, ascended to his throne and sent his Holy
Spirit into the world in order to call his people by the gospel
to give them life from the dead, to birth them as God's sons and
create them in Christ, then from God came our salvation. And in
every circumstance of our life, especially in those things where
this parallels what David experienced here, where trouble of the worst
kind comes to us, and because of our sin, then from God comes
our salvation. Throughout the believer's life,
there's a continuous, from their birth to their death, there's
a continuous coming of God as our salvation, isn't there? Isn't
there? In fact, all of our life seems
to be a preparation for that great trial of meeting God in
judgment, doesn't it? When we first heard the gospel,
what did we think? What was our first love? As Revelation
2 says about the church of Ephesus, they lost their first love. What
was our first love? Wasn't it the good news of what
Christ had done for us to save us from our sins and that we
had nothing to bring and He did everything and God accepted us
in Christ for His sake? Wasn't that it? Wasn't it the
gospel? And so when we heard the gospel from God came our
salvation, didn't it? And every day that we live, God
is tempering our faith with trials and causing us to know again
and again, repeatedly, that we ourselves deserve nothing from
him, have nothing, and we need to find our all in Christ, and
then from God comes our salvation, doesn't it? So it's always from
God that our salvation comes. It's only from God that our salvation
comes, and it comes at all times to us. And as I said, it's preparing
us for that final event when our body is going to die and
then we meet God in judgment. And then we will be prepared,
won't we? Because just now, even in our
experience, we're being taught from scripture that judgment
is not a terror to God's people. Jeremiah in Jeremiah 17 said,
be not a terror unto me, O Lord, for you are my hope. in the day
of trouble, in the day of evil. So the Lord is our hope. Christ
is our answer. And we trust that what he did
is everything God will require of us in judgment. And so we
look to him and we say, only in Christ is my salvation. And
so you can see the increase of the comfort and the assurance
that these words bring, don't you? In this, truly my soul waits
upon God, from him cometh my salvation, or only from God,
only upon God does my soul wait, and it waits in silence, from
him comes my salvation. I'm waiting. I'm waiting. Lord,
save me. I cannot deliver myself. I don't
know what to do. My eyes are upon you, as Jehoshaphat
said in 2 Chronicles 20, verse 12. And our eyes are upon you. We're expecting, we're waiting
for you to deliver us. The battle is the Lord's. We
can't fight in this battle because the enemies are too great for
us and ourselves are without strength, okay? All right, and
then he says in verse two, he only is my rock and my salvation,
he is my defense, I shall not be greatly moved. Because the
Lord is my rock? What is a rock? When you think
of a rock, if you look in verse, not only in this verse, verse
two, but look in verse seven, in God is my salvation and my
glory, the rock of my strength. Do you see that? So the rock
signifies or represents strength. Can you break a rock? No, they're
too hard. Can you crush it? No. The person
standing on the rock, even though the person is trembling, does
the rock tremble? No. The rock is solid. It's solid
as a rock, as you often hear that expression. Jesus himself
said, if you build your house on the rock, then when the storms
come, the house will stand. Because it's the rock that's
solid. Jesus Christ alone is the foundation of his people.
He's the rock. He's the stone of stumbling,
but he's also the the cornerstone of the building. Everyone in
God's kingdom is built on Christ, the rock. He's the rock, isn't
he? And so you see that he only is my rock and my salvation.
He is my defense. And that brings to our mind the
word justification. He's my justification in judgment. I shall not be greatly moved.
It doesn't matter. In David's case, it doesn't matter
what Absalom and Ahithophel and Shimei, whoever it is, is saying
against me. God is my defense. And he's going
to just sit there and let God defend him. If he's pleased to
bring me back, to let me worship in Jerusalem, then that is good. But if not, then let him do what
seems good to him. And he was dependent upon God
to turn the curse into the blessing. And that's exactly what God did
at the cross, didn't he? And then he says, in verse three
and four, you can see that these words obviously apply historically
to these men who were gathered together against David. He said,
how long will you imagine mischief against a man? Really? You're coming against a man.
I'm nothing. But I'm the Lord's man. And so
by coming against me, what are you coming against? You're coming
against the Lord. You see, God's people are the
apple of his eye with Christ, aren't they? And as I was trying
to show you the picture of our new grandchildren earlier, one
of the things you notice about grandchildren, two things, is
they absolutely seem helpless. They can't do anything. And they're
very vulnerable, and so you're very, you treat them like they're
just a piece of china, you know, so delicate. If anyone comes
near you, you kind of put your arm in front of them, and if
a child reaches out, you put your hand between the child and
your baby. You're very protective, because
they're an infant. They cannot protect themselves.
The Lord says, whatever you do to one of the least of these,
my brethren, you do it to me, you see. Like an infant under
the protection of its mother and father, even much more the
Lord is to his people. He protects them. He's their
defense. And so he asked this question,
how long will you imagine mischief against a man? Because when you
imagine mischief against me, you're going to have to face
the Lord himself because he appointed me here. David didn't seek the
king. the place of king. He was a shepherd. Samuel came to him. God sought
him out. God chose him. God brought him
and gave him that role. And so the Lord Jesus Christ.
He didn't make himself a high priest, as it says in Hebrews
chapter five, but God called him and anointed him and made
him so. And so it is with God's people.
We are the chosen people. by God in Christ. God has chosen
us to salvation in Him. He's chosen us. Paul said in
2 Timothy chapter 2 verse 10, I do everything for the elect's
sake that they might inherit eternal glory. So it's for our
sake. And so David is saying, look,
why do you imagine mischief against a man? Remember, the Lord put
me here. You shall be slain, all of you,
as a bowing wall shall you be and as a tottering fence." It's
certain that bowing wall is going to fall down, and that tottering
fence. It's certain that it has no strength. It's not going to
last. You can be certain that all those
who come against the Lord's infants, they're going to be destroyed.
He says in verse 4, they only consult. to cast him down. You can hear Ahithophel in that,
can't you? Absalom and Ahithophel and all the men in Absalom's
new council and administration, they're all consulting, how are
we going to kill David? How are we going to lock in the kingdom? They delight in lies. That sounds
like Absalom. They bless with their mouth,
but they curse outwardly. Ahithophel, he was David's friend,
just like Judas was Christ's friend, and yet he betrayed him.
And so you can see the parallel here, can't you? David experienced
this low point because of the consequences of his sin brought
by God upon him. And it was at the conspiracy
led by Absalom, with the betrayal of Ahithophel and the men that
were with him. And so the Lord Jesus Christ
experienced that low point of humiliation, unbelievably, infinitely
great humiliation. and suffering in his soul and
openly at the hand of the Jews, like Absalom, and the betrayal
of Judas, like Ahithophel, as Psalm 109 says, and even by the
hand of the soldiers in John 18 that came into the garden,
and those that hit him in the face, and the high priest that
mocked him and hired people to lie against him, And then they
got Pilate to condemn him and let them do whatever they wanted
with him. That was extreme conspiracy,
wasn't it? And yet, they're all going to
be slain, because the Lord rules. Alright, he says in verse 5,
My soul... Oh, I want to point out something
here in this psalm too, and we'll get to this more in detail. This
is actually part one of our two-part series on this psalm. But you
see this word selah, or selah, however you say it? And I just
learned this as I was studying this psalm. It's actually an
instruction. It's not really meant to be verbalized
when you read. It's an instruction like a musical
rest or something like that. I don't know music, but my wife
has taught me enough to recognize things like quarter notes and
half notes and whole notes and dotted notes and rests and things
like that, so that I can kind of see when I'm trying to sing
that I'm supposed to rest right here and Denise did it. No, I
forgot and I didn't see that. But OK, so now I'll stop. But
here, what this is doing here is it's an end on a thought,
the word Selah is saying, it's like an outline. The first four
verses, from verse one to the end of verse four, form the first
section of the Psalm. You see that? And it ends with
Selah. Consider these things. Think
about it, meditate on it. Stop. Pause for a moment before
we go on. The second section begins with
verse 5, and if you notice the word Selah appears at the end
of verse 8. This is the second section. From the beginning of
5 to the end of 8. And then the last section begins
at verse 9 and ends at verse 12. So it's like what we would
do in our hymns. We would have the first stanza,
the second stanza, and the third stanza. And so that's the way
this psalm is organized. And it's done that way for a
reason, which we'll get into next time. But before we finish
tonight, just look at verse five. My soul wait thou only upon God,
for my expectation is from him. Expectation means I'm waiting,
expecting him. I'm expecting him to act. And
whatever he does is right. And I will submit to him. And
I'll be content with whatever he decides. But know this, that
I'm depending upon him to save me, to defend me, to be my rock,
to be my strength, to be my hope. That's what he's saying here
in this psalm. He looks to God and doesn't look anywhere else
because he has nowhere else to look. And in looking to God,
he's looking to the Lord Jesus Christ because God is pleased
to be our salvation, our defense, our rock, and our hope, and our
strength only in the Lord Jesus Christ. We cannot come to God
except by Him. In fact, in coming to Christ,
we're coming to God. He says in Acts 20, 21, faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ, repentance toward God, faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ. And throughout scripture, it's
the same thing. Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord,
which is the Lord Jesus Christ, shall be saved. There's no other
name under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved.
God has set him forth to be a prince and a savior, to give us repentance
and the remission of sins. So these things are said in the
psalm with great emphasis, and there's a certain amount of repetition
because of the importance of these things, and I want to try
to get into some of this in more detail with you next time. Take
a look at those two chapters in 2 Samuel, and you can keep
reading chapter 17 also in 2 Samuel. I'm going to be looking at them
again myself, and also in Matthew and the other Gospels in chapters
26 and 27, where the Lord Jesus, in John chapter 18, where the
Lord Jesus went across that brook Kidron or Kidron And he was on
the Mount of Olives, and he was in the Garden of Gethsemane,
because all these things are going to bear weight on the interpretation
of this psalm. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for
your mercy towards us in the Lord Jesus Christ. Truly, our
soul does wait upon him. And we learn here, in considering
David, that as a man, he had nowhere else to look. He was
a sinful man. And he deserved more than he
was receiving at your hand from his own son, the treachery of
his own son, Absalom, and those who had pretended to be faithful
to him and loyal but were not. And just so much and infinitely
more, the Lord Jesus Christ experienced the same treachery because of
our sin. He was turned over to suffer
humiliation and sorrow of soul so that he became a sin offering
because our sin was put on him. And He owned it. He owned it
before God and entered into the court of God in order to obtain
our eternal redemption with His own blood. What a Savior. Help
us to see Him and trust Him only and find our expectation in Him.
In His name we pray, amen.