Psalms 28

3 Do not drag me off with the wicked, with the workers of evil, who speak peace with their neighbors while evil is in their hearts.

Consider the example God has given us to be a mirror for our own soul. Do you, (v1) call out to God and rely on him as if he is the only hope – after all if HE ignores you you will go down. Do you, (v2) worship him and pray to him with your very body, looking boldly into his holiness for help? Do you, (v3) live unlike those around you, diligent to remove evil from your heart, is it actually disappearing? Can you, (v4) say to God that your deeds are unique?

They can only be unique if you started correctly. Starting as one who is not double minded but trusts only in God, knowing if he is not there you are dead. Worshiping him in every capacity you have been given? Do not go pass verse 2 and act in 3 and 4 if you cannot. Work out your salvation, knowing you must be separated to be kept from the pit, or it may be that you will be dragged off with the wicked.

Blessed be God who has called you and built you up to endure in peace and in joy of his strength.

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Psalms 31

Consider David’s life. As an overview we may simply recall the greatness in which he is remembered. But his life was not a light filled glory at all times, rather inwardly it was so for him.

He was chosen from the field, elevated to greatness in the kingdom, demonstrated great faithfulness. Chased and saved from having to figure out if he was going to kill his own kin in a Philistine/Israelite war. Upon obtaining the kingdom he sins horribly which cascades one disaster after another. Children dying, children killing children, children usurping him, people revealing they really are not with him but his power.

Image the distrust and strain to maintain the kingdom and the constant vigilance required of him. It would drive a person to anxious despair…. As we get a glimpse in the psalm.

V1 deliver me!

V2 be a refuge for me!

Among all the traps people lay out for him, he somehow is spared; God pulls him out v3).

v11 He is an reproach to his neighbors

But while those who have no hope outside themselves would be in despair David knows his savior and has hope (14-17): I trust you O Lord; Your are my God; Rescue me! Look upon me in love, don’t let me fall to shame and go silently to Sheol.

What an example to recall. We should be calm in the midst of a storm. The Lord loves his saints, and will preserve them. “Be Strong” for we have abundant strength behind us, “take courage” for there is none greater than our hope.

Live by Faith

The Lord is my light and my salvation;
Whom shall I fear?

The Lord is the defense of my life;
Whom shall I dread?

When evildoers came upon me to devour my flesh,
My adversaries and my enemies, they stumbled and fell.

Though a host encamp against me,
My heart will not fear;

Though war arise against me,
In spite of this I shall be confident (Psalm 27:1-3).

David asks two rhetorical questions in light of his trust in the LORD:

Whom shall I fear?
Whom shall I dread?

Then he punctuates the thrust of his rhetorical questions with two declarations of trust in the LORD:

My heart will not fear.
I shall be confident.

Paul does something very similar in Romans 8:31-39. He asks a series of rhetorical questions in light of his trust in the LORD:

If God is for us, who can be against us?
How will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?
Who then is the one who condemns?
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

After this series of rhetorical questions, Paul then makes two confident declarations:

In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Whether in the Old Testament or in the New Testament, whether it is the testimony of David or that of Paul, believers can always be confident in the LORD!

Friends, what are you facing today that seems difficult, challenging, perhaps even overwhelming. Pause your anxious thoughts and consider whom you are trusting. Is He weaker or stronger than your troubles? Is He in control or are your troubles in control? Will your troubles define your end or will He define your end? Finally, will your troubles take you out of His great and eternal promises in Christ?

I'm not simply writing here about having a right perspective on things. I'm not simply encouraging you to think pleasant thoughts and pretend that things are better than they are. No, David's troubles were very real. Paul suffered very real persecution. These men of God were not comforted by imaginary expectations. No, they found strength in a very real hope and in very certain promises and in a true, living and powerful God.

Their trust in God was just as real and intense whether they experienced blessing or hardship, whether in good times or in hard times. God was no rabbit foot or astrological sign to call upon when the need arose. No, those who trust in the Lord can trust Him regardless of their circumstances or outcomes, whether He delivers them from the fiery furnace or He does not.

We are confident in the Lord not because He is at our beck and call but because He is not. He is not subject to the whims of men or of angels or of any other created thing. So, His promises to us also cannot be thwarted by any person or power. They are as true. reliable, and unchanging as He is true, reliable, and unchanging. 

Friends, we have such a great God, who has given us such powerful promises in Christ. In Him we trust and hope. So, we will not, indeed we cannot, be moved. This is why Paul can so confidently command, "Don't be anxious about anything!" (Philippians 4:6).

In Psalm 26:4-5 we read, 

I do not spend time with liars
    or go along with hypocrites.
I hate the gatherings of those who do evil,
    and I refuse to join in with the wicked

In this and numerous other psalms David makes a stark distinction between believers and unbelievers, referring to unbelievers by their prevailing moral characteristic. So here they are called "liars," "hypocrites," "those who do evil," and "the wicked." David not only makes this distinction, but he also repeatedly affirms the need for believers to disassociate from such unbelievers. So he writes in Psalm 1:1,

Blessed is the one 
    who does not walk in step with the wicked 
or stand in the way that sinners take 
    or sit in the company of mockers.

Somehow it has been taught that we are more "enlightened" now, so that we do not need follow such directives.  All that matters is faith and not the company we keep. Yet, we read from Paul,

Bad company corrupts good character (1 Corinthians 15:33).

We are also told,

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?... Therefore, 

“Come out from them 
   and be separate,
   says the Lord.
Touch no unclean thing,
  and I will receive you." (2 Corinthians 6:14-15,17).

Notice that is not simply an Old Testament command but a New Testament one. Even among believers, when Paul is encouraging the Corinthian believers not to divide over personalities, he recognizes that doctrinal and moral differences do exist:

No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God’s approval (1 Corinthians 11:19).

Paul never encourages unity in spite of truth but a unity in line with the truth (cf. Ephesians 4:11-15), that the believing community will discern what is right and good, that is, what pleases God, and coalesce around this. However, when there are such differences or violations of truth or moral principles, the church is expected to judge its members. So Paul writes,

What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you" (1 Corinthians 5:12-13).

Therefore, dear friends, let us be mindful of the company we keep, both as individuals and as members of a local church. Let us not be afraid to confront wrong teaching and moral failure within the church, as the Scriptures teach, and let us be careful to separate ourselves from the moral and spiritual compromises of unbelievers. 

Friends, in Psalm 31:4-5 we read,

 Pull me out of the net which they have secretly laid for me,
         For You are my strength.
 Into Your hand I commit my spirit;
         You have redeemed me, O LORD God of truth.

There is a familiar theme that sometimes gets missed. It is the theme of suffering and deliverance. Everyone knows that God is all-powerful and able to deliver from all kinds of evils; however, He does not always do so or do so immediately. Here David asks God to pull him out of the net in which he is caught. Notice that God allowed him to be caught in the first place. Before God allowed Job to be blessed, he suffered much and permanently lost all his children. Israel suffered four hundred years of Egyptian slavery -  many generations - before experiencing God's deliverance. Even if we were to say that all of this suffering was because of sin in the world, how are we to understand God's allowance of it?  And why wouldn't He intervene sooner than He often does? And while we read of the deliverance of some, how about the many, even the righteous, that are swept away with the wicked? Was every single person in the great Tsunamis of our day wicked?

May I suggest two things that might give us perspective? First, God is sovereign. This is what we also learned from the Book of Job. He does whatever He pleases, and except for the limitations He places upon Himself (e.g. He is totally truthful and completely faithful to keep His promises), He is the only One with the complete freedom of will to act independent of any external influence. That is why it is a mistaken notion to argue, as some do, that the chief message of the Bible is the salvation of man. The chief message of the Bible is the glory of God. And God is glorified in both the condemnation of many as well as the salvation of a few. This is why we are called to "work out our salvation with fear and trembling..." because God would have been just as right to condemn us as to save us, except for His promise of grace to us in Christ. Therefore, rather than trying to explain as "mystery" or some other contorted explanation of why God condemns many, or even why He does not give everyone the same opportunity for salvation, could we not just acknowledge that God is sovereign as Creator to give some life and to take life from others, and as Redeemer to save some and to condemn others. And as long as we don't presume that some are "worthy" of salvation, whether it be a Ghandi, an infant, a mentally-handicapped man or someone in the far reaches of Africa that never heard of Jesus, then this is not such a hard truth to embrace. After all, David, speaking by the Holy Spirit, wrote "In sin did my mother conceive me." And Paul wrote, "No one is righteous, not even one." Every person, by virtue of their common humanity, enters life "condemned," "dead in their tresspasses and sin." Therefore, no one enters life as an innocent person. All begin guilty and worthy of condemnation. As hard as this might be to accept, this is what the Bible teaches. Let us, then, be thankful that we are saved, completely humbled by the fact that we do not deserve it, we did not earn it, and we would not have sought it or accepted it except by God's overpowering grace.

Second, eternal outcomes subsume temporal experiences. Paul wrote, "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us" (Romans 8:18). The argument of Hebrews 11 is that all of the people of faith in the Old Testament believed in spite of the fact that they did not receive the promises God made to them in their lifetimes. This chapter culminates in Jesus in Hebrews 12, who "for the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." All this is to say that while we can pray for deliverance, healing, and help in this life, our hope should continually move our attention to heaven. We have a much clearer revelation in the New Testament than the servants of the LORD in the Old Testament. Israel of the Old Testament had a hint of heaven but their reality was still very much earth-bound. Do you notice the vast difference in response to suffering? While the Psalms and other OT books emphasize earthly deliverance, we read in the New Testament...

That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Corinthians 12:10).

What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ (Philippians 3:8).

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you (2 Corinthians 4:7-12).

Friends, while you read the Psalms and seek application to yourselves, don't forget the even larger perspective that you gain from New Testament revelation. You know now that it is not for this life that your living. You know that for you this world is predominantly characterized by persecution and suffering, but your hope is in heaven. While you pray for your businesses to succeed, the sick to get well, and life to just "work out" for you and others, remember that this is not the main thing. Everything in this life and world are passing away. Pray and be even more concerned for the things that are eternal, the things that pertain to Christ and the glory of God.

When what we dread in our lives rises against us, we become fearful and disheartened.  We ask God to take that away instantly as if that were the solution to our suffering.  On the contrary, here in Psalm 27, David asks God, when faced by challenges from his enemies, for him to dwell in the house of the Lord.  I think about what God's answer was to Job's complaints in his agony; it was God Himself who is sovereign over everything.  David had the right mind during his tribulation.  God Himself is the one we ask for and seek in the day of trouble.

27:10 - Even if my father and mother abandon me,

      the Lord will hold me close.

I really like this verse.  Even if the ones closest to you, the ones who you think would never leave your side do, Lord will not!

27:11 - Teach me how to live, O Lord

I remember praying this prayer when I was 8/9.  Ravi Zacharias wrote a book called The Grand Weaver. Its about God's intricate design, inique to each life.  Its easiest looking back to see how God has worked, and left a perfect pattern in your life.