The Bible Study Hour

Guest (Male): When we are attacked, do we bring our case to God and ask him for justice? The arrows of our enemy may come at us suddenly and take us by surprise, but today on the Bible Study Hour, Dr. James Boice assures us from Psalm 64 that God, our defender, will return those arrows just as suddenly. Our part is to simply call on him, as David did.

Welcome to the Bible Study Hour, a radio and internet broadcast with Dr. James Boice, preparing you to think and act biblically. David reminds us that the swords and arrows of evildoers are their tongues and the words that come from them. But in their pride and their rush to harm us, our enemies have one fatal flaw: they forget about God. Turn to Psalm 64 as we see how God deals with the enemies of the believer.

Dr. James Boice: We're back to our study of the Psalms, as you know, and I invite you, if you have a Bible with you, to turn to Psalm 64. This is the second book of the Psalms. There are five of them. We finished the first book a long time ago, and now we're making progress in the second book. The first two books of Psalms contain a lot of psalms of David. This is another psalm of David, and we're in a block of psalms that are by David. I wonder if you've ever noticed—probably you haven't thought of this before—but I wonder if you've ever noticed that it is very seldom in one of his psalms that David fails to mention his enemies.

Now there are exceptions, of course, but not many. And his references to enemies sometimes occur in the strangest places. Psalm 23, for example. We think of Psalm 23 as that great psalm of David extolling God as his faithful and true shepherd. And it is. But verse 5, you remember, it says, "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies." The fact that David mentions his enemies so often gives some idea of how many enemies he had and what it was like for him to be the king of Israel.

Now I said we're in a block of psalms by David. The block began with Psalm 51. With the exception of that psalm, which is a psalm of repentance and an inappropriate psalm for David to be mentioning his enemies, every single psalm from that point up to this one mentions enemies. Now that's going to change. The next one won't do that, and on through the end of the second book of the Psalter, there are different themes that are developed. But thus far, he's mentioned enemies again and again.

Now when we study that to see what he says about his enemies, and when we study what he says about them in Psalm 64 that we're looking at now, we're able to learn something about the wickedness of the world and have some insight into those who are our enemies, if we have them. And also something about trusting God. Because the point of it all is that although David had many enemies—crafty enemies, shrewd enemies, hateful enemies—he always brought his burden about them to God. Those are the two great themes: the enemies and God.

Now we've seen it in the last psalm as well, and we see it again here. In the last psalm, Psalm 63, the focus was on God. And although David mentioned his enemies, they had a subordinate place. In this psalm, he is going to mention God, but the emphasis is upon the enemies. Nevertheless, they're both saying the same thing, and you see it when you get to the end. Because the ending of Psalm 63 was this: "But the king will rejoice in God; all who swear by God's name will praise him, while the mouths of liars will be silenced." And this psalm, the next one, concludes saying almost the same thing, though in different words: "Let the righteous rejoice in the Lord and take refuge in him; let all the upright in heart praise him."

Well, David was surrounded by enemies. But he does the only thing he can do, and that is to call upon God. One of the great commentators on the Psalms, Alexander McLaren, applied the lesson this way, saying, "However high and closely encircling may be the walls that men or sorrows build around us, there is always an opening in the dungeon roof through which heaven is visible and prayers may mount." We would be very wise, each of us, if we'd learn that lesson.

Now the key word in this particular psalm is "suddenly." You find it twice. It means unexpectedly or without warning, and it's used in the two main sections of the psalm. The psalm begins with a title line explaining what David is doing, and then there's a part that deals with the wicked, that is, those who are his enemies. And they are said, in verse 4, to shoot at the righteous suddenly, without fear. And then there's a second part of the psalm that tells what God is going to do. And it says that God is going to shoot at them suddenly. Verse 7: "But God will shoot them with arrows; suddenly they will be struck down."

Now that is intentionally parallel. The word "suddenly" itself would be a clue to that, but if you missed that, certainly the imagery of shooting with arrows makes it clear. The wicked shoot at the righteous with arrows suddenly; God's going to shoot at them with arrows suddenly. But you get the idea. That's how it goes. It's a way of saying that there's something like poetic justice, and the wicked are going to perish by their own weapons.

Now I said that the psalm begins with a sort of title verse, and that's what verse 1 really is: "Hear me, O God, as I voice my complaint; protect my life from the threat of the enemy." When we use that word "complaint," we usually use it in a negative sense because we talk an awful lot about complaining and we don't like people who complain. But that's not the way the word is used here. It's used in a technical sense, almost a legal sense. It really refers to what we would call a formal allegation. In a court of law, a complainant is one who brings an accusation. He's looking for legal redress. And that's the way David is using the word here. He brings this formal complaint to God about the wicked, and he's asking God to intervene, which is what God does.

Now we have to ask the question—we want to apply this all the way along—and the question is: do you bring your case to God when you're unjustly attacked, as David describes himself as being? Most of us don't do that. When we're unjustly attacked, if we know about it, we generally retaliate. We try to fight back in kind. Now we know we shouldn't do that. God tells us that we're not to do that. He says, "It is mine to avenge; I will repay." Those are the words of God. We're not called upon to retaliate. Moreover, we're called upon to do the exact opposite. Paul says in Romans, "Don't visit evil with evil, but rather return evil with good." So that's what Christians are called upon to do. And David, of course, did that as well. He didn't attack his enemies himself; rather, he brought his complaint to God.

Now you see the problem, of course, is that these complaints are behind his back. It's complaints of words and slanders and innuendos. There's no real defense against that kind of attack. And so David brings it to God, and it's what we ought to do. We ought to bring everything to God. You know, Peter, writing in his first letter, was writing about the cares and worries that get us down and distress us, and he says, "Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you." Well, here's David. He has a lot of anxiety about the things he's going through, but he brings it to God, and he finds that God is not deaf to his prayer.

Now I said a moment ago that the psalm spends most of its time speaking about the wicked. The emphasis is there. And so it provides us with an analysis of this particular kind of wickedness. There are all kinds of wickedness. But this is a particular kind of evil or wickedness that David was struggling against, and we find these verses especially, verses 2 through 6, analyzing it. Well, what we find it doing is this: it teaches us about the nature of the evil—that's the first thing; secondly, the weapons that these evil people use; third, their methods; fourth, their plans; and fifth, their pride, which is what stands behind what they're doing and also is the result.

Now let's just look at it. First of all, verse 2, it refers to the nature of their wickedness: "Hide me from the conspiracy of the wicked," is what David says. Now that word "conspiracy" is interesting. What it really means, if you take the derivation of the English word, is for people to put their heads together and breathe in and out with one another. Because "con" means "with" and "spiracy" is from "spiro" or "spiritus," it means both "breath" and "wind." So when people put their heads together and are breathing in and out together, they're conspiring. That's where the English word comes from. Now it can be for a good or a bad purpose. But generally, when people are doing that, it's for a bad purpose, and that's what's going on here.

Now these people who were doing this to David were not foreigners. You see, foreigners don't have to do this sort of thing secretly. They just hold a big war council and say, "Let's go get David." That wasn't what was happening. He's talking about people that he knows, people that are there in the court, people who greet him day by day with a smile and with flattery, but as soon as they get out of his sight, put their heads together and say, "What can we do to bring poor David down?" We know as we read the story of David's career in the historical books of the Old Testament, but some of those people were even within his own family—his son Absalom, for instance. We saw that story. A very sad thing. You know, nothing affects us so much or gets us down so much as someone who's close to us attacking us. You kind of expect it from people on the outside. They don't owe us anything; we don't really owe them anything, we think. But when it's somebody close to us that does that, then it really does get us down.

Now sometimes it makes people bitter. But David didn't allow that to happen to him. He could have been bitter. He could have said, "Look, the only reason these people have their position is because I'm king and I've given them the position. The only reason these people have any security here in Jerusalem is that I'm a great general and I've been able to drive out all the enemies." And here they are turning against me. He could have gotten very hard and bitter about that, as we sometimes do. But David didn't do that. You read all through the Psalms; you do not find bitterness in David. You find distress, coming to the Lord to say, "What in the world am I going to do? God, help me in this situation," but not bitterness. And the reason is just that: he brings it to the Lord.

So we talk about the nature of this wicked assault; it has to do with this conspiracy. Now second, verse 3, talks about their weapons. And what are their weapons? Their weapons are words. These people sharpen their tongues like swords and aim their words like deadly arrows. Now that theme's been developed in other places. And as you begin reading through the Psalms, if you're alert to it, you find it again and again. You recognize that this is what David faced all the time. You see it in Psalm 52, for example, part of this section. In Psalms 57 to 59, in Psalms 57 and 58, David even compared the words of his enemies to arrows that are shot at him secretly from hiding, exactly as he does here.

Obviously, this is something that David was very much afraid of, hardly knew how to deal with it. You see, if it was an enemy attacking him head-on, well, he knew how to deal with that. He's not only able to do it in a military sense—he knew how to direct the army and how to protect himself and how to wage an assault—but he even knew how to do it in terms of administration. He could deal with divisions and all that sort of thing. But when this was going on secretly, by words behind his back, well, he really didn't know how to handle that. And words can be very destructive; you know that. It happens today. You sometimes read about a political career being utterly destroyed because somebody has reported what are called unconfirmed rumors. Or sometimes it's information supplied by "someone who is close to the source but declines to be identified." That sort of thing, you see, can absolutely destroy a career.

James the Apostle understood that. The Lord's brother, he wrote about it in his letter. Some of his harshest words had to do with words. He says, "You know, a word's a little thing, but it really is very, very dangerous. The tongue is a little thing, but the tongue is very, very dangerous. And the words that are spoken casually or in malice are like a fire that burns. That little spark can set a whole forest fire ablaze." And so he says be careful what you do. The way you speak should reflect your relationship to God, and you should not be harmful by your words.

Well, when we think about the harm that words do, let's not forget that words are also the weapon of the Holy Spirit, and words do good. The prayers of the righteous are effective according to James, the same book I just quoted from, and the prayers are expressed in words. Or again, you talk about the words of God. They are extremely effective. How about that great text in Isaiah 55? We sometimes use it as a call to worship when it's raining or snowing outside—at least occasionally I do. "As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth. It will not return to me empty but will accomplish what I please and achieve the purpose for which I sent it."

Now the words of the wicked are like a fire that destroys; the words of God are like rain that waters the earth and causes it to be fruitful. That's what the Bible says. Now we're called upon in Scripture to fight the Lord's battles. But let's remember that when we do that, our words are our weapon—not the weapons of the world. What are the weapons of the world? Well, money and power and pressure and wealth and such things. But our weapons are words, and they're words that are to be spoken truthfully and gently, depending upon the Holy Spirit to bless them. Remember that in the book of Revelation, it's said of the saints in their warfare against Satan that they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.

You see, if you and I speak what we know of Jesus Christ, what we've learned in the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit honors that. And the same God who spoke words to bring all of the universe into being will bless those words to bring forth spiritual life in the lives of some who don't know him. So we counter the evil words that do great harm with the words of the spirit that do great blessing. Verse 4 in this psalm talks about the methods that these people use. And the secret of their method was its suddenness. They shoot from ambush at the innocent man; they shoot at him suddenly without fear.

Now that's particularly effective against the innocent, just because the innocent person is innocent. A guilty person might be on guard; probably would be on guard. You don't catch him off-guard quite so easily. But the innocent person isn't expecting anything. And here, suddenly, you see, the attack comes against him. Now that's the first point in the psalm where that key word "suddenly" occurs. It's going to be there again in verse 7. The idea is strike suddenly when your enemy's least expecting it. Now that works very well in military campaigns. The Romans were certainly well known for being able to do this. Julius Caesar used that tactic very effectively in Gaul. You know, if you thought your enemy was a hundred miles away and then suddenly he shows up on your doorstep, it catches you off-guard. And the person who can move troops around that quickly to bring a sudden assault is often victorious, which is what Caesar was.

So you ask the question: who can protect you from an enemy like that? An enemy who is plotting behind your back, doing it secretly together with other people, and then suddenly strikes when you least expect it? Who can protect you from the arrow that flieth by night or the terror that lies hidden? There's only one answer, and that is God. And of course, David knows that. And so he lays it all before God. It's what the psalm is all about. Verse 5 talks about the plans of the wicked. Now the word "encourage" in that verse is actually a bit stronger than the English word suggests. You see, the English word suggests bucking one another up. That's what "encourage" means. It means to take courage and push a little bit of courage into the other person. Encourage him. The word in the Hebrew actually means more than that. It actually means strengthening the other person with this particular goal in mind of hardening him or her in that one's evil purposes.

Charles Spurgeon had an interesting comment at this point. He said, "Good men are frequently discouraged and not unfrequently discourage one another. But the children of darkness are wise in their generation and keep their spirits up, and each one has a cheering word to say to his fellow villain." Well, if the wicked can do that to one another, why can't we do it as Christians, encourage one another? Particularly when we see somebody else under attack. Unfortunately, sometimes we often join in it, and we become, as Spurgeon says, a cause of their discouragement rather than actually lift them up.

The last phrase of verse 5 is an indirect question. They say, "Who will see them?" The way that reads, it sounds like it refers to their snares. They hide their snares and then they say, "Who will see them?" It is probably the case that it is simply an indirect way of their saying, "Who will see us?" In other words, it's not the plots but it's the people themselves that are in view. They work secretly in the dark. They don't think anybody can see them. And so they say, "Who's ever going to find out about this?" But what they've forgotten about is God. God who sees everything. God sees them, and he's going to reply, as we find out in just a moment.

Verse 6 talks about their pride. The last thing said about the wicked in this verse is that they think they have devised a perfect plan. In other words, they're proud in their devisings. They say, "Who could ever work out a scheme as perfectly as we've done it? Nothing's going to upset our scheme; certainly going to work. We're going to bring David down." They look down on everybody else. They say, "We're smarter than the other people. They're foolish. They're stupid. They're dumb." And what they don't understand is that they're really the foolish ones because they have forgotten God. You see, the Bible says anybody who leaves God out of his calculations is the real fool. You find it in Psalm 14, 53. We've already looked at those. The fool is the one who says in his heart, "There is no God," or because that's really practical atheism what he's really saying is, "God doesn't see me." But of course, God does.

This section ends with verse 6. But the last phrase is a little bit of an aside. In my Bible, they put parentheses around it because it's really a comment by the Psalmist on the nature of man and the terrible evil that's within him: "Surely the mind and heart of man are cunning." Now the word "cunning" in our translation is an interpretation because in Hebrew the word is actually "deep." That doesn't translate very well if you say, "Surely the mind and heart of man are deep," which is why they've changed it to "cunning." But the idea is that men in their wickedness possess almost a bottomless pit of evil—almost an infinite capacity of doing harm to other people. That's not the way we tend to look at the human race. The human race doesn't want to look at itself that way. We certainly don't look at ourselves that way. But that's the way God sees us. You know Jeremiah said, "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" And in Romans 3, those great verses, Paul says that all have turned away, all have become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.

Well, that's the evil. It's an analysis of their plans, the nature, their methods, and their pride. But now notice verse 7: "But God will shoot them with arrows; suddenly they will be struck down." You know 1 Thessalonians 5:3, it says this: "While people are saying peace and safety, destruction will come on them suddenly as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape." That is exactly what we've got here in Psalm 64. You see, for five verses, the wicked have been hatching their plots against David. They've done it secretly, cunningly, mutually bucking one another up and with encouragement. And they have finally reached the point of congratulating themselves on their efforts, saying, "We have devised a perfect plan; nobody's going to see us." But suddenly, just when they think they have succeeded brilliantly, God shoots at them from his hidden position, and they're struck down. You see, he has had them in his sights all along. They haven't seen him, but he's seen them. And suddenly he shoots at them. And it doesn't take a quiver full of arrows to do it. One arrow is enough, and suddenly they're swept away.

Now if you look at the psalm carefully, you'll find that the psalm structure reflects what the words are saying. If there's anything I have been surprised with of my study of the Psalms and have learned, which I certainly never knew before, it's how directly the structure of these psalms reflect the content. Notice that you've had a long section here dealing with the plotting of the wicked. Wickedness takes a long time. It's not so easy to do. And here's what these people have been doing from verses 2 to 6; they have been plotting and hatching what they finally say is the perfect plan. But then suddenly, in a verse and a half, God shoots at them, and they're immediately brought down. It's hard to read that without thinking of a great example of it in the Old Testament. It's the story of Haman and Mordecai in the book of Esther. Haman was a Jew—he worked in the court of Xerxes, the King of Persia. And Haman was a high official in the same court. Haman was so close to the king that he gave himself airs, and he liked it when other people would bow down to him, almost as if they were bowing down to the king. Mordecai wouldn't do that. That was against his understanding of proper behavior as a Jew. And so Haman hated Mordecai. Decided that he'd just do away with him, get rid of him. And so he hatched a nasty little bit of anti-Semitism.

He approached the king and he said, "You know, king, I have uncovered here because I'm concerned about your well-being a race of people who don't pay any attention to the king's decrees." What he really meant is Mordecai won't bow down to me. But they don't pay any attention to the king's decrees, he said. And so he got the king to enact a law whereby on a certain day all the people of the kingdom were authorized to rise up, kill the Jews, and take their property. Very attractive thing to do if you didn't care about the Jews; you enriched yourself at their expense. Well, what he didn't know is that Mordecai had a niece—her name was Esther, and she had been taken into the palace. They didn't know she was a Jewess. And she had won the favor of Xerxes, the King of Persia, and she had been chosen as his queen. So she had access to the king. She had been chosen by God and placed there for this very moment. And so when Mordecai made known to her what was going on, got her to intervene, she did it. And she did it like this: the king, Xerxes, and Esther the queen, and Haman, the highest official, were having dinner together on one occasion. And while they were sitting there in Haman's presence, Esther told the king that there was a plot against her and her people. "Somebody is trying to get me killed," she said. The king was outraged that anybody would try to do that against his queen. He said, "Where is the man who has dared to do such a thing?" And Esther simply leaned over the table and pointed to Haman, and she said, "The adversary and enemy is this vile Haman."

Well, 1 Thessalonians 5:3: "While people are saying peace and safety, destruction will come on them suddenly as labor pains on a pregnant woman." Haman must have been struck with terror, like a man turned to stone. He was exposed, suddenly, and there was no escape. The king was furious, and that very day, Haman was hanged upon the gallows that he had prepared to hang his enemy Mordecai. Poetic justice? Yes, poetic justice, but also swift and certain justice, which is what David says in the psalm is going to come upon the wicked. It's going to come eventually upon everyone who despises the offer of God's grace in Jesus Christ. Well, we come to the end, and the last two and a half verses very simply sketch three lessons that are to be drawn. First of all, the wicked will be exposed so that those who are watching from the sidelines will shake their heads in scorn. Last part of verse 8. Secondly, people will be directed to fear God and ponder what he has done. Verse 9. Now that does not always happen. Sometimes the wicked fall, especially in our godless age, and people don't think about God at all. They just say, "Had it coming to him," or something like that. But sometimes people are directed to God and they stand in awe of God and his justice, not only at the end of history in the final judgment, but within history as well. So there's that lesson. Thirdly, the righteous are told to rejoice in the Lord and take refuge in him. Verse 10.

And of course, that's what David has been doing. You see, as you read the psalm, the judgment upon these evil persons is still future. You read the verbs; you find David saying God will shoot at them suddenly, they will be struck down, people will look on and shake their heads in scorn. And yet in verse 10, the righteous are called upon to rejoice, not in some future day, but to rejoice right now. Because that's what God is like and justice will be done. It takes faith to trust God like that and look ahead to the future destruction of the wicked. But that's a true faith, and it's that kind of a faith that wins the victory. Our Father, we thank you for this psalm, that it has been our privilege to study this psalm that deals with a sober theme—the destruction of the wicked. We tend to relate it to our enemies, but it's a sobering thing to realize that justice is done in the moral universe ruled by a holy God. And so we ask that if there are those who are not trusting in Jesus Christ, who have not fled to him for refuge against that great day of terrible judgment, that they might be led by understanding who you are to do that and to do it now. And for those who are suffering because people have been unjust to them, who've attacked them, perhaps because of their righteousness, because they stand for truth, because they're identified with Jesus Christ, we pray that you'll strengthen the faith of such ones and give them and us ability to strengthen one another so we might not be discouraged but rather in faith look to you not only to bring justice but also to preserve those who are afflicted and to do it even now. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Guest (Male): Thank you for listening to this message from the Bible Study Hour, a listener-supported ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. The Alliance is a coalition of pastors, scholars, and churchmen who hold to the historic creeds and confessions of the Reformed faith, and who proclaim biblical doctrine in order to foster a Reformed awakening in today's church. To learn more about the Alliance, visit AllianceNet.org. And while you're there, visit our online store, Reformed Resources, where you can find messages and books from Dr. Boice and other outstanding teachers and theologians. Or ask for a free Reformed Resources catalog by calling 1-800-488-1888. Please take the time to write to us and share how the Bible Study Hour has impacted you. We'd love to hear from you and pray for you. Our address is 600 Eden Road, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 17601.

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