PSALM 83 - Surrounded!

Introduction

On December 22nd, 1944, the 101st Airborne Division of the US Armed Forces was dug in near Bastogne, Belgium. They had been surprised by a massive German offensive through the Ardennes Forest a few days earlier that had created a massive “bulge” in the Allied lines. Now the 101st, running critically low on ammunition, food, and cold-weather gear, found themselves hemmed in by German armored tank divisions and artillery units. A contingent of German officers and enlisted men, holding white flags, walked into the American position three days before Christmas to deliver a letter from the German commander to the commander of the 101st Airborne, Brig. Gen. Anthony McAuliffe. The letter read, in part:

The fortune of war is changing. This time the U.S.A. Forces in and near Bastogne have been encircled by strong German armored units… There is only one possibility to save the encircled U.S.A. troops from total annihilation: that is the honorable surrender of the encircled town. In order to think it over a term of two hours will be granted beginning with the presentation of this note. If this proposal should be rejected one German Artillery Corps and six heavy A.A. Battalions are ready to annihilate the U.S.A. troops in and near Bastogne. The order for firing will be given immediately after this two hours’ term. All the serious civilian losses caused by this artillery fire would not correspond with the wellknown American humanity. (Retrieved from https://taskandpurpose.com/history/us-army-nuts-bastogne-surrender/, accessed 06/27/2024)

The image of a people surrounded by their enemies threatening them with annihilation is at the heart of the psalm that is before us today:

Psalm 83:3–4 (LSB)

They make shrewd plans against Your people, And conspire together against Your treasured ones. They have said, “Come, and let us wipe them out as a nation, That the name of Israel be remembered no more.”

This psalm (the last one attributed to the great psalmist of Book III, Asaph), is a lament of God’s people who find themselves surrounded by their mortal enemies, on the brink of threatened destruction while (inexplicably) God seems to be completely silent and unconcerned with their plight:

Psalm 83:1–2 (LSB)

O God, do not remain at rest; Do not be silent and, O God, do not be quiet. For behold, Your enemies roar, And those who hate You have lifted up their heads.

God is quiet while His enemies roar; God is at rest while those who hate Him and His people are ramping up their threats of destruction. Once again we ask: Does this feel at all familiar to you today? This is the theme of Book III of the Psalms—teaching God’s people how to “sing in the dark”—how to trust God when it seems like all of His promises have failed; when His presence seems so far away and He seems so far removed from the power and authority and manifest might of the past—in the old days, He used to overthrow armies and stop the sun in the sky to give His people victory; nowadays we count ourselves blessed if we’re allowed to put up a Nativity scene in the town square!

Much like the 101st Airborne outside Bastogne in 1944, and much like Israel in Psalm 83, we find ourselves hemmed in on every side by enemies that will settle for nothing less than the complete annihilation of Christianity in this world. In a Time magazine article from 2016 entitled “Regular Christians Are No Longer Welcome in American Culture”, author Mary Eberstadt writes:

Some of the faithful have paid unexpected prices for their beliefs lately: the teacher in New Jersey suspended for giving a student a Bible; the football coach in Washington placed on leave for saying a prayer on the field at the end of a game; the fire chief in Atlanta fired for self-publishing a book defending Christian moral teaching; the Marine court-martialed for pasting a Bible verse above her desk... Activists have targeted home-schooling for being a Christian thing; atheist Richard Dawkins and others have even called it tantamount to child abuse. Student groups like InterVarsity have been kicked off campuses. Christian charities, including adoption agencies, Catholic hospitals and crisis pregnancy centers have become objects of attack… (Retrieved from https://time.com/4385755/faith-in-america/, accessed 06/27/2024)

And it can be plausibly argued that the situation has gotten even worse in the eight years since. How are we to live in a world where we are surrounded by such godless hostility towards our faith?

This is why we need to hear God’s Word here in Psalm 83—from one surrounded, threatened people to another, this is what I aim to show you this morning from this portion of God’s all-sufficient, authoritative, living Word:

Call with earnest EXPECTATION on God to EXALT His Name in the midst of His ENEMIES

We can identify at least three elements to the way we are to pray as we live in a world surrounded by adversaries to God and the Gospel—the first three verses of our text are characterized by

I. Our PLEA for God's PROTECTION (Psalm 83:1-3)

Psalm 83:1–3 (LSB)

O God, do not remain at rest; Do not be silent and, O God, do not be quiet. For behold, Your enemies roar, And those who hate You have lifted up their heads. They make shrewd plans against Your people, And conspire together against Your treasured ones.

Verse 1 is an accurate representation of our first response to being surrounded by those who hate us for our faith— “God—where are You? Are you seeing this? They are going to take us apart down here!” The psalmist pours out his heart to God, bringing before Him all of the threats and warnings that are being breathed out by the enemies of God’s people:

Psalm 83:2 (LSB)

For behold, Your enemies roar, And those who hate You have lifted up their heads.

But if you look carefully at this complaint, you will see that there is a real encouragement here—because as the psalmist pours out his plea before God, we come to understand that

God is the real TARGET of their HATRED (v. 2; cp. John 15:18-19)

“Behold, God—these are YOUR enemies that are roaring. These are the ones who hate You!” Christian, in the midst of a culture and a climate that expresses such venom against you (bigot, homophobe, transphobe, ignorant, racist, misogynist, etc.), it is vitally important to realize that they only hate you because you are a present representative of the God that they REALLY hate.

This is the same thing that Jesus told us, isn’t it? The night before He went to the Cross, He told His disciples,

John 15:18–19 (LSB)

“If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before it hated you. “If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.

Jesus was spending His final hours on earth with His disciples preparing them to live the rest of their lives surrounded by their enemies, and so His greatest encouragement to them was to realize that the world’s hatred of them was because the disciples loved Him! A few verses later, in John 16:33, Jesus reminds them,

John 16:33 (LSB)

“These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”

Christian, when you are surrounded by a hostile world that is threatening to destroy you, remember that you belong to One Who has already overcome that hostile world! Take courage in the midst of this seige, Christian, because

We are the real OBJECTS of God’s LOVE (v. 3; cp. Ps. 32:7)

See it there in the psalmist’s prayer in verse 3?

Psalm 83:3 (LSB)

They make shrewd plans against Your people, And conspire together against Your treasured ones.

Notice the basis on which the psalmist is crying out for God’s protection—not because he deserves it in and of himself, but because God has already set His Name on him! The reason that we have confidence that God will defend us isn’t because we are so worthy or so valuable in and of ourselves, but because He has set His Name on us!

The phrase in Hebrew that is translated “treasured ones” in the LSB and ESV versions can also be rendered “hidden ones” (as it is in the King James)—the idea is of something so valuable and precious that you keep it hidden away and safe. Beloved, in this hour when you are surrounded by hatred, suspicion and reviling from a world that just wants you gone, remember—you are God’s precious treasure, and He has placed His Name on you through the work of Christ! You can sing—and sing boldly!—with the psalmist:

Psalm 32:7 (LSB)

You are my hiding place; You guard me from trouble; You surround me with songs of deliverance...

When you are surrounded by God’s enemies, beloved, He hears our plea for protection—so cry out to Him in the midst of it, knowing that the hatred that is directed your way is because you are the most convenient target for their hatred of God. Remember that, even while surrounded by ridicule and threats and disdain of this dark hour that through faith in Christ Jesus, you are hidden away in the stronghold of the steadfast love of God Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth!

Psalm 83 is a prayer by God’s people to vindicate His Name when we are surrounded by adversaries—in verses 1-3 we make our plea for God’s protection, and in verses 4-8 we cry out in

II. Our PLIGHT amidst God's ENEMIES (Psalm 83:4-8)

The psalmist lays out the threats that are being made against him in these verses--

Psalm 83:4–5 (LSB)

They have said, “Come, and let us wipe them out as a nation, That the name of Israel be remembered no more.” For they have conspired together with one heart; Against You they cut a covenant:

Consider the threats that God’s enemies are making here in these verses; there is something vital that we must understand as we live in the midst of the same kind of opposition today:

There is no COMPROMISE with them (vv. 4-5)

We have been treated to the spectacle of the return of rabid, bloodthirsty (even, I am convinced demonic) anti-Semitism in recent years, with everything from simple-minded pawns on college campuses to deliberately evil powers in halls of power threatening the existence of the modern state of Israel with chants of “From the river to the sea...” This 21st Century version of “let the name of Israel be remembered no more” is an example of how God’s enemies have always hated His people.

It is vital to understand this dynamic, because there are a lot of Christians today who really do seem to be the philosophical descendents of Neville Chamberlain and his “peace for our time” strategy in 1938: “Just give Hitler the Sudetenland, and he’ll never ask for anything ever again...” We want to be winsome, we want to be accommodating, we want to get along with anyone.

But here is what God’s Word warns you about those enemies: They will not stop until they have eliminated your faith. You cannot say, “Well, I’ll just put my pronouns on my email signature—that will keep them happy”—no it won’t. “Well, I suppose it really doesn’t matter if Adam was a real person or not; I don’t want to look like I’m “anti-science” after all…” “Well, I know 1 Timothy 2 says that women are not permitted to teach or exercise authority over a man—but I don’t want to be labeled “misogynist”, so maybe it’s time for a Greek word study to show that Paul really meant women can preach...” You may think you’re gaining the approval of the world when you do these things so that they will listen to you as you “share the Gospel”—but all you are doing is showing the world that you don’t believe this Book yourself. And if you don’t really believe it, why should they?

There is no compromise with those who have said “Come, and let us wipe them out as a nation, that the name of Israel be remembered no more”. And verses 6-8 of our text go on to remind us that

There is no ESCAPE from them (vv. 6-8; cp. 1 Peter 4:12-14; Ps. 23:5)

The psalmist names several different people groups and nations in these verses that have set themselves against Israel:

Psalm 83:6–8 (LSB)

The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites, Moab and the Hagrites; Gebal and Ammon and Amalek, Philistia with the inhabitants of Tyre; Assyria also has joined with them; They have become the power of the children of Lot. Selah.

Some commentators have suggested that this psalm was written during the conflict in the time of King Jehoshaphat in 2 Chronicles 20, where several of these peoples are named (Moab and Ammon particularly). But there is no record in Scripture of all of these nations ever attacking Israel at once; so there is probably not an historical event tied to this psalm.

What is interesting, though, is that if you take a map and pinpoint where each of these nations is located, you will find that they completely surround the territory of Israel. The image here is of God’s people being completely surrounded by their enemies on every side.

Christian, see here that the people of God have always lived surrounded by enemies; Israel lived that way in the Old Testament, the Church has lived that way throughout much of church history, and even today around the world there are millions of believers who meet in secret, beseiged by cultures and governments that are ready to stamp them out of existence if they are discovered. It is only because of God’s extraordinary grace and mercy to us here in this nation for the last three hundred years or so that we have experienced a relative freedom from that reality—so much so that we now think something odd is happening to us because we see God’s people being hemmed in behind and before. But the Apostle Peter specifically charges us in his first epistle:

1 Peter 4:12–14 (LSB)

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you. But to the degree you are sharing the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.

Living surrounded by enemies and threatened with annihilation is not some strange or unnatural condition for God’s people—it has always been the way we live in this world! And your great hope in the midst of this seige, Christian, is that you have a Savior who sets his banquet table before you in the midst of your enemies (Ps. 23:5)! You are fed bread in the wilderness, honey from the rocks, pursued not by enemies and adversaries, but by goodness and mercy throughout all the days of your life!

This psalm is given to us to teach us how to sing in the dark—how to feast while our enemies are screaming for our destruction, how to delight in God as our fortress and deliverer and stronghold while completely encircled by our foes. We make our plea for God’s protection knowing that He is the real target of their hatred, secure in the promise that we are the objects of His steadfast lovingkindness. We are under no delusions about our plight—we face implacable foes who have pledged themselves to our elimination from this world, and they really do hem us in behind and before—and yet we rejoice! Because we know that, while we may have no escape from our enemies that surround us, they have no escape from the power of our God!

And so we turn from our plight amidst God’s enemies to

III. Our PETITION for God's EXALTATION (Psalm 83:9-18)

The psalmist can sing with confident assurance in the power of God to defeat His enemies because there is a long history of God defeating His enemies when they attack His people! In verses 9-12, Asaph hearkens back to the time of Deborah and Barak and Gideon in the time of the Judges:

Psalm 83:9–12 (LSB)

Do to them as to Midian, As to Sisera, and Jabin at the river of Kishon, Who were destroyed at En-dor, Who were as dung for the ground. Make their nobles like Oreb and Zeeb And all their princes like Zebah and Zalmunna, Who said, “Let us possess for ourselves The pastures of God.”

All of these references to King Jabin and Sisera, the Midianite princes and nobles, all come from times when Israel was virtually defenseless against her enemies—Sisera had 900 iron chariots—overwhelming military superiority over Israel—and the princes of Midian were sweeping in unopposed to plunder Israel every harvest. And yet these accounts stand as testimony to God’s power to

Save us in our HELPLESSNESS (vv. 9-12; cp. Judges 5:31)

When it came down to it, all of the cutting-edge military hardware of Jabin’s army and all of the tactical and strategic genius of Sisera was completely useless against the muddy flood plain of the Kishon River and a woman with a jug of warm milk in one hand and a tent peg in the other! The mighty princes of Midian—Oreb and Zeeb and Zebah and Zalmunna with all their splendor and power were helpless before a little band of men armed with nothing more clay pots, trumpets and torches, and led by the youngest son of the smallest family in the least-regarded tribe in Israel!

Christian—do you see how all of the vaunted might and power and influence of the enemies that array themselves against God and His people today is nothing more than a sham before His might? He can overthrow a military superpower with mud, milk and a mallet; He can throw armies into self-destructive fear with a few torches and trumpets! When His people—weak and beseiged and helpless as they are—put themselves into His hand to save them, He never fails to deliver them for His Name’s sake! So sing with the same glad expectation for God’s enemies today that Deborah and Barak sang in Judges 5:31

Judges 5:31 (LSB)

“Thus let all Your enemies perish, O Yahweh; But let those who love Him be like the rising of the sun in its might...”

Christian, see here in this psalm the great encouragement you have from God’s Word to call on Him with earnest expectation in the midst of His enemies—pray that He will exalt His Name as He saves you in the midst of your helplessness, and pray that He will

Drive them to saving HUMILIATION (vv. 13-18)

Psalm 83 begins with a description of the “helplessness” of God’s people against the foes that surround them, and ends with a description of the true helplessness of God’s enemies against His power:

Psalm 83:13–15 (LSB)

O my God, make them like the whirling dust, Like chaff before the wind. Like fire that burns the forest And like a flame that burns up the mountains, So pursue them with Your tempest And dismay them with Your storm.

All of their power and influence is nothing more than dust in the wind, nothing but fuel for God’s consuming fire. Like husks of wheat driven off the threshing floor by a stiff breeze, like a tree rooted on a mountainside unable to escape the firestorm that roars down upon it, the enemies of God are doomed to utter helplessness before His vengeance.

But notice how the psalmist ends his prayer—He asks God that in the humiliation and shame and disgrace of their helplessness before Him that they would turn to Him for salvation!

Psalm 83:16 (LSB)

Fill their faces with disgrace, That they may seek Your name, O Yahweh!

It is not enough merely to sing for joy at the humiliation of God’s enemies—God’s people will rejoice most greatly when God eliminates His enemies by turning them into His friends! To take an arrogant, powerful Nebuchadnezzar and not only humiliate him, but bring him to call on the Name of YHWH:

Daniel 4:34 (LSB)

“But at the end of those days, I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up my eyes toward heaven, and my knowledge returned to me, and I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever; For His dominion is an everlasting dominion, And His kingdom endures from generation to generation.

God is most glorified not by destroying His enemies, but by demonstrating His infinite grace and mercy and kindness to transform a bloodthirsty, murderous Pharisee seeking to wipe out the Christians in Damascus into a wholehearted and passionate follower of Christ who declared

1 Timothy 1:15 (LSB)

It is a trustworthy saying and deserving full acceptance: that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost.

And Christian, you know why it is the greatest glory of God to turn His enemies into His friends, don’t you? Because that’s who you used to be! The world that hates you now used to be your friend; the God you delight in now used to be your Adversary. 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 are some of the sweetest words in all of the Scriptures to you:

1 Corinthians 6:9–11 (LSB)

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

Christian, you have ground for great, enthusiastic, sure and settled hope and confidence in the midst of a hostile world because of what Christ has done for you! In the words of the old Heidelberg Catechism, your only hope in life and in death, your only hope in the midst of this world’s hostility is

...That you are not your own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to your faithful Saviour Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all your sins with His precious blood, and has set you free from all the power of the devil. He also preserves you in such a way that without the will of your heavenly Father not a hair can fall from your head; indeed, all things must work together for your salvation… (Heidelberg Catechism, Question 1)

What confidence is yours, Christian! What peace in the middle of threats, what steadfastness in the winds of trials, what joy in the presence of enemies that seek your destruction! Christian, when you live like this in the middle of a world where we are surrounded by such godless hostility towards our faith, your response to their threats will sound a lot like the American response to the German demands for their surrender in 1944. When the letter threatening the annihilation of the American forces by the Germans was read to the commander of the 101st Airborne, Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe, his first reaction was that he thought that they were wanting to surrender to him! Upon learning that the Germans were threatening to annihilate his troops unless he surrendered, Gen. McAuliffe drafted a formal reply, which I shall read to you in its entirety here:

To the German Commander:

NUTS!

The American Commander

When the Germans read the letter, they had to ask whether it was a surrender or not. After being assured that it was most definitely not a surrender, the German lieutenant in charge threatened, “We will kill many Americans. This is war”. His threat was received with a clap on the shoulder and a reply from one of the Americans who said, “On your way, Bud, and good luck to you!”

Beloved, that is how a Christian is to respond to the threats of the enemies that surround him! I am so tired of cringing Christians timidly asking a hostile culture permission to exist—it is so disheartening to see how many people are ducking and hiding and keeping their heads down like Gideon in his winepress threshing his wheat because he was afraid of the Midianites. Because you belong to a God who can throw those Midianites into panicked self-annihilation with the simplest of acts!

Look around you at the hostility and scorn that surrounds you, and respond like a Christian—turn to your Heavenly Father in prayer and say, “Do you see all this? Do you hear how much they hate You? Look at what they are doing, listen to their threats—Father, I don’t know how You will respond, I don’t know when, but I can’t wait to see how You do it!”

Remember, beloved—they only hate you because you remind them of your Savior; and none of their rage will inconvenience Him in the slightest!

Psalm 2:4–5 (LSB)

He who sits in the heavens laughs, The Lord mocks them. Then He speaks to them in His anger And terrifies them in His fury...

When you know you are safe in the refuge of your God, when you know you are treasured by Him and are sitting at the feast He has laid for you in the middle of your foes, when you know that you have been bought with blood so precious that God will never forsake what He purchased with it, you can answer all their threats to pass their laws and take away your rights and marginalize you and erase you from polite society with a cordial clap on the back and “On your way, Bud, and good luck with that!”

Jesus Christ shed His blood on that Cross to purchase your pardon while you still hated Him; there is no enemy who faces you now that He cannot do the same for! So pray earnestly for them—every one of them. Don’t stop with a prayer for their humiliation; pray that their humiliation will turn them to Christ!

The psalmist prayed that the mighty wind of God would blow His enemies away like chaff and the mighty fire of God would consume them like trees on a mountainside—but never forget, Christian, that God sent His mighty wind and tongues of fire on His people in Acts in order to equip them to conquer all nations by making all nations His disciples! So pray earnestly for our brothers and sisters in Christ who have gone out from us to wage the war of discipleship on those nations so that they will know that He alone—His name is YHWH—is the Most High over all the earth!

And if you are here this morning and do not know Christ as your Savior, can you see the gracious call that God has extended to you through these verses? Apart from Christ, you are nothing but chaff on His threshing floor blown by the wind; you have no more defense against His power than a Ponderosa pine helplessly rooted to the mountain as the wildfire roars down on you; there is no future for your opposition to Christ outside of shame, humiliation, disgrace and dismay that will go on forever:

Psalm 83:17 (LSB)

Let them be ashamed and dismayed forever, And let them be humiliated and perish,

apart from the refuge offered you through Jesus Christ! So will all of His enemies perish—but the righteous will shine like the sun. This is the day to abandon your opposition to Him while you still can. Drop your hostility, lay down your arms, and accept His terms of surrender—He will gladly forgive you, He will rejoice to cleanse and renew you, He will cast your transgressions into the depths of the sea and as far as the east is from the west. It doesn’t matter what you have done or what you have been; the blood shed on that Cross is sufficient to atone for all of it! He is waiting to transform you from His sworn enemy to His treasured friend when you come—and welcome!—to Jesus Christ!

BENEDICTION

1 Timothy 1:17 (LSB)

Now to the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION:

Write down something you learned from this morning’s message that is new to you, or an insight that you had for the first time about the text? ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Write down a question that you have about the passage that you want to study further or ask for help with: ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Write down something that you need to do in your life this week in response to what God has shown you from His Word today: ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________

ADDITIONAL NOTES: