Psalm 35 - Gloating Isn’t Allowed

Podcast Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

Welcome back to Tabernacle Talk. Today, we are in Psalm 35. After this Psalm, we only have six more to go until we complete Book One of Psalms.

And just as a very small reminder, there are five books in the Book of Psalms. So there's books one, two, three, four, and five. They are not all the same length.

So it's not one through 30 is Book One, 31 through 60 is Book Two. That would be nice if it was that specific way, but it's not. It's kind of grouped together in some settings.

And kind of how Psalms is patterned is kind of like a new Pentateuch, a new Torah, a new law. So just like at the beginning, you have Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

Those first five books that kind of are God's declarations to Israel, saying, here's who I am in relation to you.

These books of Psalms are kind of patterned in a response that would say specifically from these people that were coming back from the exile after Babylon, is they're compiling many of these songs that have kind of been passed down through the

centuries after David. I think there's even a psalm or two from Moses in Psalms. And they're now responding to God saying, here is our response to you.

You have made yourself known and your relationship with us, and now we are saying that we are your people, and we're following you even in these difficult times.

I also want to mention just because I really enjoyed it, got here just a very, very small, handy size Bible printed by Holman. And this is the CSB Compact Bible. So if you're like, man, I want something for the car.

I want something that can really be beat up. This little Bible is a great option for you. We are in Psalm 35 today, and the inscription says, A Psalm of David.

He says, Oppose my opponents, Yahweh. Fight those who fight me. Take your shields, large and small, and come to my aid.

Draw the spear and javelin against my pursuers, and assure me I am your deliverance. Let those who intend to take my life be disgraced and humiliated. Let those who plan to harm me be turned back and ashamed.

Let them be like chaff in the wind, with the angel of Yahweh driving them away. Let their way be dark and slippery, with the angel of Yahweh pursuing them. They hid their net for me without cause.

They dug a pit for me without cause. Let ruin come on him unexpectedly, and let the net that he hid ensnare him. Let him fall into it to his ruin.

Then I will rejoice in Yahweh. I will delight in his deliverance. All my bones will say, Yahweh, who is like you, rescuing the poor from one too strong for him, the poor or the needy from one who robs him?

Malicious witnesses come forward. They question me about things I do not know. They repay me evil for good, making me desolate.

Yet when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth. I humbled myself with fasting, and my prayer was genuine. I went about mourning, as if for my friend or brother.

I was bowed down with grief, like one mourning for a mother. But when I stumbled, they gathered in glee. They gathered against me.

A silence I did not know tore at me and did not stop. With godless mockery, they gnashed their teeth at me. Lord, how long will you look on?

Rescue me from their ravages. Rescue my precious life from the young lions. I will praise you in the great assembly.

I will exalt you among many people. Do not let my deceitful enemies rejoice over me. Do not let those who hate me without cause wink at me maliciously.

It's tricking them. For they do not speak in friendly ways, but contrive fraudulent schemes against those who live peacefully in their land. They open their mouths wide against me and say, Ah ha, ha ha, we sought.

You sought, Yahweh. Do not be silent. Lord, do not be far from me.

Wake up and rise to my defense. To my cause, my God and my Lord. Vindicate me, Yahweh, my God, in keeping with your righteousness.

And do not let them rejoice over me. Do not let them say in their hearts, Ha ha, just what we wanted. Do not let them say we have swallowed him up.

Let those who rejoice at my misfortune be disgraced and humiliated. Let those who exalt themselves over me be clothed with shame and reproach. Let those who want my vindication shout for joy and be glad.

Let them continually say, Yahweh, be exalted. He takes pleasure in his servant's well-being. And my tongue will proclaim your righteousness, your praise all day long.

Here we have another one of these dear Psalms that David writes with the thought of God, people are against me, and I need you to vindicate me. I need you to be the one that cares for me because people are not.

One thing as we were reading through that I noticed time and again is David's response to others' hardships versus their response to his hardships.

And certainly there can be some thoughts made about Jesus in this psalm and how he cared for people, he healed people, he taught people the Word of God, he loved them, and yet when it came time for kind of his trial, that they did not love him back,

that they were not people that were speaking up for him and defending him, but instead they were the ones yelling crucify him, they were the ones hitting him, they were the ones abandoning him, they were the ones that said, ah, let's see, he's

calling for Elijah, let's see if Elijah comes and helps him out. They were the ones saying, he has helped others, let's see if he can help himself. There was just this glee at the downfall of Christ, and here is David's describing, hey, when I'm

going through downfall, these people are happy about it. And I can think of our Lord's words when he's dealing with the sons of Zebedee, the sons of thunder, James and John, where they go into a city and they are not received.

Their message of Jesus as Messiah is rejected, and so they go back to Jesus and say, hey, call down fire and brimstone on them, just like what God did to Sodom and Gomorrah. That's what we want you to do to this place.

And Jesus tells them, you don't know what kind of a spirit you are talking with. That is the role of, in Scripture, the Satan. So normally we think of Satan as a kind of proper name, like, hey, there's Jesus, there's Peter, there's Satan.

But the word there is the Satan. It's the accuser. It's someone that's in a particular role.

And as that's fleshed out through all of Scripture, then we'll see even Jesus reference, I saw Satan fall like lightning.

Then these type of spiritual beings that are against God and against God's people that are currently working in the spiritual realm, you can look at Daniel 7 and see some of that.

But as they are working, one of their things that they do is they accuse mankind before God that we can see when the Satan does that in Job 1 and 2, where he tells God, hey, if you were to take away all of the blessings from Job's life, or if you

were to take away Job's health, then he would curse you. He's not really for you. The Satan is the one that would accuse you and bring your faults before God and say, hey, he is deserving of justice.

He's worthy of condemnation being poured out on him.

And so when we have a glee, when we have a delight, when people experience calamity, when people experience death, we're kind of siding with the very worst of the anti-God enemies because God is for life.

All of us would realize that on one extent or another, but God is not thrilled when he has to exact justice. Over and over and over again, throughout the Old Testament, you can read about the fact that God wants to show mercy.

He wants to save as much life as possible, and he will be holy, he will be just, he will judge evil, but he would much rather show mercy than exact judgment.

And you can see that even all throughout the book of Joshua, where time and time and time again, the children of Israel, the ones that were supposed to be executing God's justice, were the ones that were failing.

And so as a result, they were the ones that were being judged by God. You can think of Achan and the city of Ai and everything that happened there.

Whereas the people that were supposed to be under condemnation, the people that were supposed to be judged, like Rahab the harlot and her family and the Gibeonites, and I think there's one other group of Canaanites or Gentiles in the book, that you

have those people that they turn to God, like they believe what God said. And so they turn to him, and God welcomes them in and he embraces them. So we should never be gleeful about the death or calamity that other people experience.

Solomon has one of his Proverbs that he mentions. He says, don't be happy, don't rejoice when your enemy undergoes destruction or calamity or loss. He says, don't rejoice in that.

He says, because God might turn away the calamity from your enemy and might put it on you because of the exact same things that we've been reading over and over and over again in Book 1 of Psalms, which is God, take the evil that people are trying to

put on others and make it fall back on themselves. And a heart of gleeful happiness at destruction and calamity is a devilish opinion to have. We should never be happy for people to die.

We should never be happy for people to lose loved ones or to experience just devastation. We would never want them to behave that way with us, and so we should not do that to others.

So that was kind of one thought that I had all throughout as David talks about that. What is your response when your ex is going through a difficult time, when that boss that cheated you out of something, when he kind of gets his?

What is your reaction? Is your reaction a heart of, man, I am so glad that God has not dealt with me according to my sin, but that he's given me grace, and so I'm going to love, I'm going to extend grace to this other person.

I've seen one Bible teacher online that has gotten just an unreal amount of hate from other people, and they still have a love for others, and I've seen them express grace in their comments, in their interactions with people that are just being

completely vitriolic against them, and that they're saying, okay, I know that this person, even though they're attacking me right now, they're not my enemy. Satan is my enemy. The devil is my enemy.

And so I can treat this person with love, and I can realize that this path that they're going down, it's not sustainable, and there will come a day when the people that love kind of dogpiling on with this person, when they will turn on them.

And I've seen that happen time and time and time again, where people that make their living on just trashing and destroying other believers over preferential issues, eventually they get to a spot where they disagree with someone else on a

preferential issue, and then they get dogpiled on. They get outcast from kind of the in group. And I've seen that happen over and over and over again.

And for myself, I want to have a heart that says, I'm not going to rejoice in the downfall of this person.

Kind of personal anecdote, back in maybe beginning of 2018 or 2019, I was in a men's singing group, and we had gone to this one state, and we were there for the whole month.

We were singing in Christian schools and churches and trying to recruit students for the college. And we had had one day where we had just put in a ton of work. We got to the church.

We were going from a Christian school that morning to this church that evening. And so we sang in the church service. Then they had us go over with the teens and had a teen service.

And we sang there and played there and worked there. And it was a lot of work. It was a long day.

Well, fast forward a month or two, and this one individual, the pastor of the church, had called the vice president of the college that we had been repping and said, oh man, like these guys were super lazy. They didn't do anything.

They this and that. And we were just kind of blown away that he would say that after all of the work that we had put in. And then a couple months later, heard that he had passed and was now with the Lord.

And this was one of those instances in which I needed to change my natural fleshly reaction, which was, yeah, that's what he gets. You know, you're a jerk to people, and you got yours. Well, that's not a godly attitude to have.

That's not a Christian attitude to have, sure. Like, I could justify, you can't see it if you're listening to the audio podcast, but I'm putting air quotes. You can justify those actions by saying, oh, well, he was mean.

And so, you know, it's not like you trashed him online or called his people and trashed him to them.

But that attitude, the intents of my heart were not in line with the Word of God, that I was not expressing what David here expresses of when other people underwent calamity. I cared for them. I cried for them.

I had a heart posture that had love for them. Maybe nowadays I sent them a text. I gave them a gift card.

I sent them a card. I posted on their Facebook, hey, praying for you during this time. If you need anything, call me.

Let's be those that extend God's love and forgiveness to others, not those that would seek vengeance on our own terms. If God wants to judge someone, that's completely his right as the sovereign Lord of all.

For our part, let's be those that would forgive and would love and would care for others who are going through difficulties. It'll be hard, but it's putting into practice what Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount.

Love your enemies, pray for those who hate you, and bless them that use you and that persecute you.

He says, if you do that, you're going to be like your Father who is in heaven, who for all the times that we failed him, he hasn't cast us off, he hasn't condemned us, he hasn't judged us, but he has sustained us by his grace and given us life, given

us everything that we have. So hope that'd be a challenge to you today. I know my heart needed that reminder today from God's words. So thank you for tuning in.

Next week, we are in Psalm 36.