Psalm 52 - When Evil Actions Are Considered Good

Well, hello and welcome back to Tabernacle Talk. My daughter is knocking at the door today, and we are in Psalm 52.

And the inscription for this Psalm reads this, for the choir director, a masqueal of David, when Doeg the Edomite went and reported to saul, telling him David went to Ahimelech's house.

So Lord, well, and this will be a much shorter story than the story of David and Bathsheba yesterday. We'll do so because it is a shorter story.

So as David is on the run from saul, he comes to this one place where there's some priests, and there is the priest Ahimelech.

And one of the kind of like shepherds in the area, one of the overseers of the different shepherds in the flock itself, Doeg, the Edomite, these would have been some of the people descended from esau, Jacob's older brother.

And so it was, you know, distantly related to the children of Israel. But these were people that time and time and time again, like they didn't follow the Lord, they didn't worship him.

And they took almost every opportunity to be able to steal from and rob and do wrong to Israel. We went over the book Obadiah. I don't remember how long ago that was.

I know it was within the last two months. But the book of Obadiah dealt with this people group and what they ended up doing to Israel as Israel was attacked and either with Babylon or with another point in Israel's history.

So here's this person and he's living in the land of Israel and he takes opportunity to go and tell King saul, hey, here's where David is.

Now this had a horrible event that took place as a result that there were several troops that were sent to go and try and kill these people, kill David and kill some of these priests and Levites that were here.

They were unsuccessful, but Doeg ended up doing it himself and murdered several priests. And a Himalayan son fled to David and told him about it.

And so this is kind of David's response to people pursuing him, wanting to murder him, wanting to do him wrong. And it's his call for God's justice.

It's his call for Doeg to like look at his own soul and what he's done and what the consequences of it are going to be. So let's dive in.

One of the things I love about the Psalms, these are not things that like most of us would think about singing about, but this is what the Children of Israel did. When there was something in their life that went on, they sang about it.

They wrote songs about it. And so then they could remember what God had done, how God dealt with evil. And so I think that's a very valuable thing that we can think about.

Verse number one says this, why boast about evil, you hero? So here he's specifically speaking to the fact that Duhigg thought he was doing something heroic or good by helping out the king.

But all he had succeeded in doing was pursuing injustice and murdering those that worshiped God and followed God. And so he says, why are you boasting about evil? He says, God's faithful love is constant.

He says, like a sharpened razor, your tongue devises destruction, working treachery. You love evil instead of good, lying instead of speaking truthfully. Salah, our words are one of the things that can get us in the absolute most trouble.

I think of James Chapter 3, which is kind of a huge topic on this, where James says this, not many should become teachers, my brothers, because you know that we will receive a stricter judgment.

There is greater accountability for those that use their words to say, this is what God says, or this is what you should do in light of your relationship with God. Verse 2, he says, for we all stumble in many ways.

If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is mature, able also to control the whole body. He says, if we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we direct their whole bodies and consider ships.

The very large and driven by fierce winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So too, though the tongue is a small part of the body, it boasts great things.

Consider how a small fire sets ablaze a large forest, and the tongue is a fire. The tongue, a world of unrighteousness is placed among our members. It stains the whole body, sets the course of life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.

Every kind of animal, bird, reptile, and fish is tamed and has been tamed by humankind, but no one can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil full of deadly poison.

So this is how James describes the tongue many centuries after this Psalm, and David here tells Doeg, this is what you're doing. You are in the name of like pretending to be a good person or a fine upstanding citizen. You are lying.

You are spreading destruction and treachery. You're leading to the murder of others. And he tells him basically, Say love, think about what you have done and the wickedness.

Verse number four, you love any words that destroy you. Treacherous tongue. How are the words that you say to others?

Are they words that build up? Are they words that tear down people? Do you make other people think poorly about others?

Do you try and ruin other people's relationship with a person just because of your problems with them? We should never love words that destroy, that tear down.

Certainly, there are times when there is a need to speak truth and sometimes truth doesn't always like feel good to another person, but we must realize that even following Jesus' example, his biggest like words were for those that absolutely refused

to be reasoned with and that even in his judgment, there was still like forgiveness and grace offered, that though he preached often against the Pharisees and the Sadducees, he welcomed Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea to be those that would follow

him, even though they were Pharisees, that even in our judgment, we need to realize that these other people are image bearers of God and God absolutely values his people, his children, those that he has made in his image. So let's have that care for

others when we speak about them. Then verse number five, he says, This is why God will bring you down forever. He will take you, ripping you out of your tent. He will uproot you from the land of the living, Salah.

Now, just at a casual read, we go, Oh man, that seems really harsh. This was exactly what Doeg did to those whose entire job was caring for people in the way that God had set up and that they worshiped God. Like that was their job.

These were not people that were involved in any way in like, you know, a political coup or something. And Doeg went and murdered them.

And so David says, what you have put out on others is going to come back to you that just as you killed others in their home, God's going to make it so that you are slain in the same way.

Verse number six, the righteous will see and fear and they will derisively say about that hero, about that person who thought that he was doing such great things by his evil.

Here is the man who would not make God his refuge, but trusted in the abundance of his riches, taking refuge in his destructive behavior. Here was a person that he cared about what he could get out of his actions.

He didn't care about what was right and wrong. He cared about what would make him a buck. He cared about what would maybe endear him to the king and get him ahead in this land.

And here David says that the righteous people will see what God does to you and they will recognize that this is what happens when we don't take our refuge in God, when we don't trust him, when we don't follow him, we can only find destruction and

death. But then David says in verse number eight, but I am like a flourishing olive tree in the house of God. I trust in God's faithful love, his chasad, forever and ever.

I will praise you forever for what you have done in the presence of your faithful people. I will put my hope in your name, for it is good. Here, I think it's so interesting that David says this because this was not like his current experience.

Like he had taken refuge with these priests because he was in danger of his life being taken. And then he fled away, and the people that he had stayed with, they were murdered. And David is still on the run.

Here he is not saying this from a place of safety. When he says, I'm a flourishing olive tree in the house of God, he's not saying this because his life is hunky-dory. He's saying, God, if I'm with you, there is safety in your presence.

He says, I trust in your faithful love forever and ever. He says, even if the here and now is difficult, I'm still going to trust in you because your love doesn't give up.

Think of the old song, your love never fails, it never gives up, it never runs out on me. And obviously a lot of those themes taken from the Psalms.

And I think here, that's what David's thinking, that, Lord, it might be that saul eventually gets me, or Doag, or someone likes him, like him gets me. But I believe in you.

I believe that you will, maybe if it's not in this life, at least in eternity, I am yours.

And frankly, I think David had believed that what God had promised him when he was just a young boy working with saul, playing the harp, when God had said, You are going to be the next king of Israel.

I think David had that belief of God's going to be faithful to his promise. And he says, So even though there is danger and murder and hunting, I'm going to trust in God's promises. Do you trust in God's promises today?

Do you trust that as you are faithful to come to him, that he will forgive you, that you don't have to wallow in your shame and your grief, but that you can turn to the Lord and experience forgiveness and receive joy, just as David did in the last

psalm? Do you believe that God will work through his local church, that the gates of hell will not prevail against it, that as we follow him, we can find that new life and joy and see people accept Christ and be discipled and baptized?

And do you believe that you can see those incredible things in your life today? David had belief that what God had said, he was going to be faithful to do. He trusted in God's faithful love forever and ever.

Verse number nine, he says, I will praise you forever for what you have done in the presence of your faithful people. He says, I will put my hope in your name, for it is good.

He needed a place to put his hope because he couldn't put it on his circumstances. The circumstances were not good, so David couldn't put his hope there.

David couldn't put his hope in people because whether it was Doeg or whether it was saul or whether it was some other countrymen or whether it was maybe Anna Bimalek or the priests, those people would either let him down or pass.

They weren't powerful enough to be able to give him safety. And so he put his hope in the name of God, in God's authority, in God's power. And that's where we need to put our hope today.

I love there's a song, I Set My Hope on Jesus. And it's a song for those that have kind of been struggling with their faith. I'll probably link it in the show notes here just because I love it.

But the chorus says, I set my hope on Jesus, my rock, my only trust, who set his love upon me first. I put my hope in Jesus.

And I'm thankful that we can put hope in the name of the Lord, because the name of the Lord, as Proverbs would say, is a strong tower. The righteous run into that tower and they are safe. We can find refuge in God.

When we don't know how to fight life circumstances, we can run to him and say, God, give me wisdom. Give me patience. Help change me or change my circumstance.

And I'm thankful that he will answer those requests. I also want to mention, just as it relates to Doag, we can all deceive ourselves into thinking that we are doing right because it is right in the eyes of people.

But let us always go back to the Word of God to determine right and wrong. Let's not just say, okay, well, you know, this presidential candidate and his vice president say that this is okay, and so we're going to be good with it.

Or let's not just say, hey, like these Hollywood people think that this action is good. And so we're going to we're going to listen to them. It doesn't really matter what God's word says.

We're going to go with, you know, with pop culture on issues of right and wrong. Let's turn to the Lord to determine what is good and what is bad. That will put us at enmity with this world.

And it might be that like Abimelech and the priests, that we might pay a price for standing for what is right, for standing on God's word. But we would rather, as the apostle said in the Book of Acts, we'd rather obey God than obey people.

And I would encourage you, like, stay firm on the word of God. Even if it's not always popular, God's word is a safe place to put our hope, to put our trust in. Thanks for tuning in.

Tomorrow we're going to be looking at Psalm 53. It is not one right off hand that I'm super familiar with, so I'm excited to dive into it with you all tomorrow. Thanks for tuning in.