Psalm 11
Date: March 17th, 2023
Speaker: Samuel Crites
Scripture: Psalm 11
Exegetical Outline
MIT: David takes refuge in the Lord and scorns the foolish taunts of the wicked.
1-3: David scorns the foolish threats of the wicked.
4-7: David responds to the taunts of the wicked by trusting in the Lord.
4: The Lord is on his throne and sees the schemes of the wicked.
5-6: The Lord uses the wicked to test the righteous, but also judges the wicked for their violence.
7: The Lord loves the righteous.
MIS: God tests the righteous so they can behold his face in the Person of Jesus Christ.
God is our confident refuge in the midst of suffering. (1-3)
God refines the righteous through the persecutions of the wicked. (4-7)
The wicked behold destruction. (4-6)
The righteous behold God. (7)
Introduction:
Is suffering meaningless? Do the struggles of this life actually matter? Life is difficult. We get up every day and work for our meals. We work to put a roof over our heads. We work to provide for our families. We toil and struggle and strive and it can all be taken away in an instant. A fire, a disease, a home invader could all destroy our efforts in an instant. The stock market could crash, a hurricane could hit, or a friend could betray us. What is the purpose and meaning behind the trials and struggles that we face in this life?
Today, in Psalm 11, David is going to help us consider these questions. Let’s read Psalm 11 together.
Psalm 11
11 To the choirmaster. Of David.
1 In the Lord I take refuge;
how can you say to my soul,
“Flee like a bird to your mountain,
2 for behold, the wicked bend the bow;
they have fitted their arrow to the string
to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart;
3 if the foundations are destroyed,
what can the righteous do?”
4 The Lord is in his holy temple;
the Lord’s throne is in heaven;
his eyes see, his eyelids test the children of man.
5 The Lord tests the righteous,
but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.
6 Let him rain coals on the wicked;
fire and sulfur and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup.
7 For the Lord is righteous;
he loves righteous deeds;
the upright shall behold his face.
This life is full of trial and suffering. If you have followed Jesus for very long, you know that it will cost you. It might cost you because you have to give up things that your friends that do not follow Jesus get to enjoy. It might cost you a friend or a relationship with a family member. It might cost you your health or financial prosperity. I do not know how it will cost you, but I guarantee you this: it will cost you. There will be a price to follow Jesus faithfully.
The question that Psalm 11 implies and that David answers is: is it worth it? Do you get anything out of the persecutions, the pain, and the suffering that are guaranteed to come if you faithfully follow Jesus? The answer that Psalm 11 gives is yes. Yes, there is a great gain when a follower of Jesus sacrifices to faithfully follow Jesus. The main idea of our sermon is this: God tests the righteous so they can behold his face in the person of Jesus Christ.
We will see this in two ways throughout Psalm 11. First, when tests come into our life, God is our confident refuge in the midst of suffering. When persecution and suffering enters our lives, it is not unforeseen. It is not purposeless. And it is not without reward. Every instance of the wicked taunting, persecuting, or causing the righteous to suffer is an ordained test by God that he will ultimately bring us through. Our attitude in the midst of the trial should be one of boldness and confidence. Confidence that no matter what happens, our good God is sovereignly working this horrible situation for our ultimate benefit. Even if the trial were to ultimately be the end of our mortal life, we serve the living God who has preceded us to the grave. Though he died, he is alive again, forevermore, and he holds the keys of Death and Hades. Not even death is a barrier to the refuge offered by our God. We can be as confident as David is in verses 1-3 because our God is a refuge, a refuge that has conquered death, the devil, and the grave.
The second way that Psalm 11 teaches us that God tests the righteous so they can behold his face is that God refines the righteous through the persecution of the wicked. It is so clear in Psalm 11 that God ordains the persecutions of the wicked in order to test the righteous. At the core of his being, he hates the evil that the wicked commit against his people and he will hold them accountable for the evil things that they do, but he does bring the wicked upon the righteous in order to refine them. Through the persecutions of the wicked, he slowly burns away the attachments and affections that his people have for this world and makes them more holy so that they can grow in deeds of righteousness and look upon his glory in the face of Jesus Christ. Psalm 11 teaches us that God refines the righteous through the persecutions of the wicked.
This psalm only makes sense if we understand that our God is absolutely sovereign and absolutely good. He is light and in him is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5). He ordains tests and trials for the righteous so that they can be refined, so that they can grow in holiness and righteousness. The ultimate prize, what makes it all worth it in the end, is that we get to see him. As the pain and sufferings of this world make us turn our gaze toward heaven, we will see him. The author and perfector of our faith, standing next to the Father, full of grace and truth. We will behold his beauty and the splendor of his grace and we will be like him in life and in death. Psalm 11 teaches us that God tests the righteous so that they can behold his face in the person of Jesus Christ.
God is our confident refuge in the midst of suffering.
Let’s look at the first three verses and see how, when trials come into our lives, God is our confident refuge in the midst of the suffering. Let’s reread verses 1-3:
Psalm 11:1-3
11 To the choirmaster. Of David.
1 In the Lord I take refuge;
how can you say to my soul,
“Flee like a bird to your mountain,
2 for behold, the wicked bend the bow;
they have fitted their arrow to the string
to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart;
3 if the foundations are destroyed,
what can the righteous do?”
As we open up Psalm 11, we are jumping into the middle of a conversation. David is responding to something that was just said to him. We don’t know exactly who he is talking to, but it would seem that there are two options.
The first is that David is speaking to an advisor that is either outright evil or who is so fearful that they are giving David terrible advice. Given the context of Psalm 10, we know that the wicked are two faced and they lay traps for the righteous in the dark. This could mean that David is dealing with an advisor that is publicly for him but is actually secretly against him. He is purposefully trying to get David to doubt God and flee.
The second option is that David is speaking directly to the enemy, responding to his taunts about what he is going to do to David. This enemy is publicly taunting David and attempting to demonstrate the overwhelming strength of their military might. Before the enemy attacks David physically, he is attacking David emotionally.
Whether it is the former or the latter, David is conversing with someone that is attempting to get him to flee before his enemies. They want him to lose heart, not trust in God, but flee what appears to be some inevitable doom that is threatening him.
What is important to see is not only what David says, but how David says it. It is so easy for us to read Scripture and whitewash it of the emotion with which it was written. However, I want you to attempt to hear the tone of David’s voice as he writes verses 1-3 in Psalm 11. His voice is full of disdain and derision. The idea that he would flee from the might of men and abandon his trust and hope in God is repugnant to him. He cannot believe that this person would suggest that he flee like a bird at the threat of his enemies. His trust is in God, not the strength of men.
His response makes me think of another Psalm that David wrote. Listen to what David wrote in Psalm 20:6-8:
Psalm 20:6-8
6 Now I know that the Lord saves his anointed;
he will answer him from his holy heaven
with the saving might of his right hand.
7 Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.
8 They collapse and fall,
but we rise and stand upright.
Clearly David and the person with whom he is conversing put their trust in different things. The interlocuter’s trust is in the strength of men. He sees the might of the enemy as a very real and present threat to David’s wellbeing. It is not just that the wicked man is strong, he is also devious. He sneaks through the dark and shoots at the righteous from the protection of darkness. He lies in wait to attack when the righteous thinks they are safe, when they will least expect it.
David, on the other hand, takes refuge in the Lord. Which, from a human perspective is crazy. David’s trust is in an invisible spirit that his enemy cannot see, but David has such confidence in his God that it is offensive for this person to even suggest that he flee. David does not trust in chariots and horses. He trusts in the name of the Lord his God.
So the question we must ask is who has a greater reason to be confident, the enemy that has the overwhelming strength of arms or David who takes refuge in an invisible Spirit that has supposedly promised to rescue him from his enemies? If David was able to answer this question for us this morning, I think this is what he would say, “If you knew the God I know, you would be as confident as I am that if I trust him, it will not end in my shame, but my deliverance.” Our confidence in the deliverance of our God is directly proportional to our knowledge of who he is and what he has promised that he will do. David’s knowledge of who God is and what God has done is the source of David’s boldness and confidence when threatened with real, imminent bodily harm from his enemies.
So if we want to be as confident as David is in the face of persecution and suffering, we must know him like David knows him. David teaches us two things about God in Psalm 11. This is still point one, but these two things actually come from the second half of the psalm. Look at verse 4:
Psalm 11:4
4 The Lord is in his holy temple;
the Lord’s throne is in heaven;
The first thing that David says about God is that God is sovereign. The sovereignty of God describes the way in which God makes his will manifest on the earth. Psalm 115:3 says:
Psalm 115:3
3 Our God is in the heavens;
he does all that he pleases.
The sovereignty of God describes how the self-existent God brings his desires to bear upon the earth. As an all-powerful, all-present, and all-knowing being, there is no one and nothing that can prevent him from accomplishing exactly what he has chosen to do. Daniel 4:34b-35 says:
Daniel 4:34b-35
for his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
and his kingdom endures from generation to generation;
35 all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing,
and he does according to his will among the host of heaven
and among the inhabitants of the earth;
and none can stay his hand
or say to him, “What have you done?”
For David, this is a source of great confidence and boldness. When he says in Psalm 11:4 that God sits in his holy temple on his heavenly throne, he is saying that the power in my corner is greater than the power in your corner; the might of my God is greater than the might of your bow. It is not unreasonable for David to have such confidence because David’s God is the one true God that is sovereign over all things and there is nothing and no one that can stay his hand or even challenge him to ask why he does one thing or another. If God decides to fight for David, David will not lose.
But this is not the only thing that David says about God in Psalm 11. Look at first half of verse 7.
Psalm 11:7
7 For the Lord is righteous;
Not only is David’s God sovereign, with all the powerful implications that entails, he is also good, he is righteous in all that he does. It would be no comfort to merely have an all-powerful God if that God turned out to be malevolent. David’s confidence is not just founded on God’s sovereignty, it is also founded on his goodness. Petrus van Mastricht, whose book, Theoretical Practical Theology, Jonathan Edwards recommended as the most important book for Christians to read except for the Bible itself, van Mastricht said this about the goodness of God:
Petrus van Mastrricht, Theoretical-Pracitcal Theology, Vol. 3, pg. 325
If [the goodness of God] is considered as communicative of a good from pure propensity or good will, it is designated as love, grace, and mercy. If it is considered in that communication as acting as if according to a certain rule, it is called righteousness. Finally, if it is considered as corresponding to the rule of acting that it prescribed to rational creatures, it is denominated as holiness.
What van Mastricht is saying is that we experience the goodness of God in many different ways. We might call it his love when we think about how he relates to his people. We might call it righteousness as we consider the way in which he acts. We might think of it as his holiness when we measure him against how he has commanded us to live. In all these ways, what we are actually experiencing is God’s goodness. He is inherently good and he is the inherent good in all things. If we can say that anything is in any sense good, it is because that thing has found the origin of its goodness in God. This is why Jesus Christ himself says in Mark 10:18 that no one is good but God alone. God is not only good, he is the ultimate good in all that is good.
The sovereignty of God and the goodness of God work together in David’s life to bring him great confidence in the face of the physical threats of his enemies because if God is sovereign, nothing can come into his life that God has not willed to take place, and God wills nothing that is not for the good of his people. He always does right, and all of his deeds are righteous. When David takes refuge in God, he is sheltering under the sovereign power and benevolent righteousness of the God that would only ever do good to his people.
So as David faces down the person that he is addressing at the beginning of Psalm 11, his boldness and confidence is not irrational. In fact, it is super rational, because it’s reasonableness is established upon the character of a being that is above human comprehension. David’s reaction is a model for us because he shows us the deeper foundation that is required to have confidence in the face of persecution and suffering. If you do not know the sovereign and benevolent God that David knows, you will never have the boldness and confidence to face down suffering and persecution that David has. God, and God alone, is our confident refuge in the midst of suffering.
God refines the righteous through the persecutions of the wicked.
Which brings us to the second point of our sermon. God is not only our confident refuge in the midst of suffering and persecution in our lives, he is the one that ordains them for our good. The second thing we learn in Psalm 11 is that God refines the righteous through the persecutions of the wicked. Let’s read verses 4-7 again.
Psalm 11:4-7
4 The Lord is in his holy temple;
the Lord’s throne is in heaven;
his eyes see, his eyelids test the children of man.
5 The Lord tests the righteous,
but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.
6 Let him rain coals on the wicked;
fire and sulfur and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup.
7 For the Lord is righteous;
he loves righteous deeds;
the upright shall behold his face.
What David teaches us in Psalm 11 is simple to understand but challenging to accept. He clearly says that the persecutions and sufferings that the wicked cause in the lives of the righteous are ultimately ordained by God as a test to refine the righteous, meaning, that in the long chain of causes that cause pain and suffering in the lives of the righteous, God is the beginning of that chain. He is the first cause. It is not as if God is merely waiting for bad things to happen in our life and then he makes the best use of them. He is actively ordaining every persecution, suffering, trial and struggle that we experience in this life.
You can immediately feel why this is challenging to accept, because it sounds like I just said that God is responsible for the evil that the wicked commit against the righteous. Since he ordained it, it is his fault. But that is not what the text says. Look at verse 5-6.
Psalm 11:5
5 The Lord tests the righteous,
but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.
6 Let him rain coals on the wicked;
fire and sulfur and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup.
Verse 5 says that God ordains the test, but he hates what the wicked do in the testing. In fact, verse 6 says that God not only hates it, but that he will hold them accountable for all the evil they do in being used by God as a test for the righteous.
D.A. Carson calls this reality compatibilism. He says that Scripture teaches the compatibility of two seemingly incompatible realities exist at the exact same time. The first is that God is absolutely sovereign over all things. Nothing happens outside of the active execution of his will. And, at the same time, human beings are absolutely accountable for all of their actions. Though God might ordain their actions, they are still responsible for the evil that might result. To make sense of this, Carson explains that Scripture teaches there is an asymmetry between the responsibility God has as the cause of good and the cause of evil. God is ordains good and he is absolutely responsible for all the good that takes place and he ordains evil and he is not responsible for the sin that takes place.
The perfect example of this is the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. There is no more heinous and evil act that has ever been committed in all of history than the murder of the Son of God at the hands of evil men. To get to the bottom of who is responsible for this heinous act, the question we should ask is who put the Son of God to death? Listen to what Luke recorded in Acts 4:27-28:
Acts 4:27-28
27 for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, 28 to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.
Who ordained the murder of the Son of God? Acts 4 says it was ordained by God and carried out by Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Gentiles and the people of Israel. God ordained the crucifixion, it could have happened no other way, and the people are responsible for the sin they committed against the Son of God.
This is what we see taking place in Psalm 11. God ordains that his people should be tested by the persecution of the wicked, and, at the same time, he is right to judge them for their evil deeds. He is righteous and everything he does is righteous. So he rightly reigns down fire and sulfur on the heads of the wicked because they have done evil against his people.
The question we should ask is, to what end? Why does God cause calamity and suffering to come into the lives of his people? What is his purpose? We see in verse 5 that God tests the righteous and we see the reason why at the end of verse 7.
Psalm 11:7
7 For the Lord is righteous;
he loves righteous deeds;
the upright shall behold his face.
God refines the righteous through trials and sufferings so that they can behold the glory of his face. He uses trials and the persecutions of the wicked to make his people more holy so that their vision will be corrected and they may perceive his beauty and splendor.
Now some of you might be thinking to yourself, that doesn’t sound so great. I am going to endure suffering for my entire life as I strive to follow Jesus and the reward I get at the end is a vision of God? Where are the mansions or the street of pure gold or maybe a planet or two to rule? What is so great about getting to behold the face of God?
It may not seem like it initially, but seeing the glory of God is the greatest experience possible in the universe. With the time I have left, I am going to give you three passages of Scripture that demonstrate that beholding the face of God is the pinnacle of all human experience and end for which we were created.
First, to see the face of God is be in his presences and in his presence is joy inexpressible. Look at Psalm 16:11 with me:
Psalm 16:11
11 You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
To be in the presence of our God is to be in the presence of life, to be in the presence of pleasure and joy. To behold God’s face is to have everything you have ever desired be satisfied, everything you have ever wanted be given to you, to experience a joy that is inexpressible and pleasures that will never end. This have been referred to throughout Church history as the beatific vision. The beatific vision is the telos, the ultimate end, toward which all men were created. It is the meaning of human existence because in his presence is life.
Second, when we behold his face we will be transformed into his perfect likeness. We cannot see him now because we are not like him. He is holy and we are not. In the Garden we lost the ability to commune with him. Even now, as believers, we are not yet able to see him like he intends. We have begun the process, but we have yet to experience its completion. Listen to what John taught us in 1 John 3:2-3:
1 John 3:2-3
2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.
To enter his presence and behold his majestic splendor is not only the pinnacle of human purposed and experience, it is also transformative. To experience the full splendor of God’s beauty, we cannot be as we are. We must be transformed, but notice how John says we will experience that transformation. John is so explicitly clear. We are transformed to be like him by seeing him as he is. When we finally are able to behold the unadulterated, unveiled, transcendent beauty and majesty of God, all the imperfections, all our sin and frailty, will be burned away in the radiance of his brilliant glory.
Third, when we see God, we not only get to experience him, we will not only be transformed into his likeness, but we will also come to a perfect knowledge of ourselves. Listen to what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:12:
1 Corinthians 13:12
12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
To see him is to know him and to be fully known by him. In the light of his perfect majesty, we not only perceive him, but we perceive ourselves. All of our inadequacies will be exposed, all of our insecurities erased. In the perfect light of his divine effulgence, we will be able to see ourselves as we have never seen ourselves before. We will find a belonging and purpose because every secret, everything that has prevented us from intimacy in this life, will be exposed and we will be able to accept ourselves and others. We will find belonging, purpose, and meaning in his presence that we have never known before.
This is what God is promising us in Psalm 11. In that moment when we are transformed and the work that Christ began on the cross is completed, and we put off what is mortal and put on immortality, we will realize that that process of glorification that we just experienced was not actually a single event that took place in the moment when we finally beheld his face. We will understand that the process of glorification was actually the process of sanctification that he has been working in us through every trial, every suffering, and every pain that we have experienced in this life. We will understand that the holiness that is required to stand in the presence of God was both an instantaneous conversion and a slow process of metamorphosis.
Conclusion
As we conclude, Psalm 11 teaches us that the trials and sufferings that we experience in this life are the fire that God has purposefully put us in in order to burn away the dross of worldliness in our lives and to redirect our affections away from the lesser loves of this world toward the perfect love that only exists in the presence of God. Like Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:17-18:
2 Corinthians 4:17-18
17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
When you lose your job or have to work three jobs in order to keep your family financially stable, it is to remind you to be appreciative for what God has given and to steward even the meager resources you have for his kingdom. When you get a hip replacement that doesn’t go right and you spend months and months in constant pain, forever limited in your mobility, it is to remind you that God is the only one that can truly heal the body and that healing is yet to come. When you feel so alone in a new town and you don’t feel like you have any friends or community, it is to remind you that when everyone else fails you God will always be with you. He will never leave nor forsake you.
God is using all of the storms, all of the disappointments, all of the failures in our lives to lift our eyes away from this temporary world to a place of eternity, to a place where we belong, to a place where our sin will no longer plague us. He is sovereignly ordaining them to purify and refine our faith so that we can fix our eyes on Jesus.
Like Peter when he stepped out of the boat, the waves of suffering and pain that we experience in this life are not meant make us look down, lest we sink. The are meant to make us look up into the face of Jesus Christ. In his face, there Peter found faith, there Peter understood his inadequacies, and there Peter was transformed from a belligerent fisherman that Christ found on the shores of Galilee to the faithful rock upon which Christ built his Church.
Our good and sovereign God ordains trials and persecutions in this life to purify his people so they look up, in faith, into the face of Jesus Christ, and behold the glory of his majesty that gives meaning and purpose to their existence. Be confident, brothers and sisters, though you experience a light, momentary affliction now, it is for your good and it has been put into your life by a Father that knows you. He knows not only what you need but what you can handle, and he is working in you an eternal weight of glory that is yet to be revealed. When we look on his face, the face of the one who was dead and is now alive, the one that was slain and now is resurrected, we will be like him and we will experience joy inexpressible and pleasure unending.
Let’s pray.