From Complaint to Confidence: How the Lord Fixes Our Perception (Psalm 10)

Introduction

If you have your Bible with you, please turn with me to Psalm 10.

When I worked at Chic-fil-a, I was excited to step into a director (manager) position.

It meant better pay, secure hours during the pandemic, but also more responsibility.

One of the biggest responsibilities I shouldered was… you guessed it… dealing with people.

And we all know what kind of “dealing with people” I mean.

Very few interact outside of their basic order unless there is a problem that they feel needs to be addressed.

Dealing with these unhappy customers with a smile and a “my pleasure” became second nature.

However, it didn’t mean that I enjoyed it!

I learned really quickly why many companies regulate their “complaint department” to a small box in the corner.

If we are honest, we all have a mixed range of emotions when it comes to complaining.

On one hand, we heartily agree with the idiom “no one likes a complainer”.

Our kids expressing their boredom grates our nerves when we look in their rooms at all the books and toys available.

Our co-workers complain about the new policy, management style, or the new guy.

On the other hand, we appreciate the opportunity to blow off the steam of frustration by venting them to someone we trust.

We complain when difficult times arise.

We complain when we’re sick.

We complain when we’re hungry.

It doesn’t really make us feel better, but it at least appears to keep the lid from blowing off the top.

In Scripture, there are plenty of examples of complaining.

And most of them are in the negative.

The children of Israel complained so much in the wilderness that it passed out of the realm of “complaint” and into that of “grumbling” against the Lord and His appointed leadership.

Paul instructs the church in Philippians 2 to “do everything without grumbling or complaining.”

But not all complaining is created equal.

Not all complaining results in the consequences of God’s displeasure and righteous wrath.

The prophets complained to the Lord out of the deep personal grief and pain they felt (in Jeremiah chapter 20 and Micah chapter 7 for example).

It is with this in mind that Scripture challenges us to confront and adjust our perspectives today in Psalm 10.

As we dig in this evening, we are going to see 4 main ideas expressed in our text.

Complaint (v 1)

The Pride & Persecution of the Wicked (v 2-11)

The Prayer of the Poor (v 12-15)

Confidence (v 16-18)

But first, a bit of context...

Context

Psalm 10 has no superscript detailing the author, setting, style, or content.

The shared language and imagery have some theologians arguing that Psalm 9 and 10 are really one work.

There is also an imperfect acrostic that spans both Psalms that further lends slight credence to this theory.

However, there are major distinctions that point to the necessity of their individual treatment.

Whereas Psalm 9 is rife with thanksgiving, Psalm 10 is unmistakably a lament.

While Psalm 9 rejoices in the Lord’s justice from the perspective of His people, Psalm 10 cries out for that justice to be realized.

Thematically, Psalm 10 continues in the vein set forth in the 1st chapter, a theme that we will see time and again as we continue through these inspired songs.

The contrast of the wicked with the righteous.

Before now, every time that the wicked have been referred to, it has been a matter of praise and rebuke.

Praise that the Lord is in control of circumstances.

Rebuke and sadness at the wickedness found within the Psalmist’s own heart.

In Psalm 10, this contrast is so vivid because 10 of the 18 verses focus on the perspective, heart, and motivations of the wicked.

They don’t get a mere nod, they get full open heart surgery with the results laid bare before us as God’s people.

The wicked, who were sinking in pits of their own making, are making the Psalmist question the presence of God.

Let’s dive in!

If you are able, please stand with me in honor or God’s Word.

Psalm 10 ESV

Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? In arrogance the wicked hotly pursue the poor; let them be caught in the schemes that they have devised. For the wicked boasts of the desires of his soul, and the one greedy for gain curses and renounces the Lord. In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him; all his thoughts are, “There is no God.” His ways prosper at all times; your judgments are on high, out of his sight; as for all his foes, he puffs at them. He says in his heart, “I shall not be moved; throughout all generations I shall not meet adversity.” His mouth is filled with cursing and deceit and oppression; under his tongue are mischief and iniquity. He sits in ambush in the villages; in hiding places he murders the innocent. His eyes stealthily watch for the helpless; he lurks in ambush like a lion in his thicket; he lurks that he may seize the poor; he seizes the poor when he draws him into his net. The helpless are crushed, sink down, and fall by his might. He says in his heart, “God has forgotten, he has hidden his face, he will never see it.” Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up your hand; forget not the afflicted. Why does the wicked renounce God and say in his heart, “You will not call to account”? But you do see, for you note mischief and vexation, that you may take it into your hands; to you the helpless commits himself; you have been the helper of the fatherless. Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer; call his wickedness to account till you find none. The Lord is king forever and ever; the nations perish from his land. O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted; you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more.

Prayer

Exposition

Psalm 10 opens with a complaint.

Complaint (v 1)

A question is raised in protest.

“Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?”

The Psalmist is feeling the absence of God’s presence based on his circumstances.

We’ve all been there.

Hard times arrest our focus,

consume our thoughts,

and strain our relationships.

Now, is God far away?

What does the whole of Scripture tell us?

Psalm 34:18 ESV

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.

Psalm 145:18 ESV

The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.

James 4:8 ESV

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

These questions remind us that the Psalms are filled with emotional expressions as well as inspired truth.

Here the Psalmist is not writing a theological treatise, but offering up an outcry from the depths of his soul.

Even though God has not abandoned His people, that is how the it feels at the moment.

Just because we understand God’s presence to be never-ending with His people, that does not mean we are invincible against the weight of despair.

We have to remind ourselves often that our feelings are fallen.

They can be manipulated.

They can be overwhelmed.

They can be seemingly insurmountable.

And sometimes we just have to hunker down and deal with them, or simply let them pass, reminding ourselves from God’s Word that we are not alone.

The turn of phrase “in times of trouble” is an echo of the preceding Psalm that speaks into this feeling of abandonment.

Instead of a lament questioning God’s presence, Psalm 9 uses this wording to express exactly who God is.

Psalm 9:9 ESV

The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.

But what is the Psalmist complaining about?

Why is he feeling distance from His steadfast God?

Well...

The wicked have arrogantly risen up against the righteous.

Many times already we have seen that the wicked in the Psalms refers to a threat from without.

From the pagan nations surrounding Israel.

But the wicked here are wealthy Israelites who are oppressing the righteous and defenseless poor in the land.

They have trampled on the righteous without remorse.

How could they do such a thing?

This is where our open heart surgery begins.

The Pride & Persecution of the Wicked (v 2-11)

We read verse 2-11 and see that the pride and greed of the wicked fuels everything that they do.

Their arrogance is two-fold.

On one hand, they pursue the poor thinking that it is their right to do so.

They are after their own gain and will let nothing stand in their way.

We’ve seen this a hundred times in corporate America.

Maybe some of you business owners have a experienced it first hand.

John Calvin once said...

Pride is the mother of all wrongs; for if a man did not through pride magnify himself above his neighbours, and through an overweening conceit of himself despise them, even common humanity would teach us with what humility and justice we ought to conduct ourselves towards each other.

John Calvin

But his arrogance doesn’t stop with his fellow men, it actually starts with the wicked man’s relationship with God.

Verse 4 tells us that “in the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him; all his thoughts are, ‘There is no God.’”

I love it when a passage draws us a picture of what we should see as we are reading!

The pride of his face denotes a... quite startling... bodily posture of arrogance.

Nose high in the air.

Chest puffed out.

As he thinks, “God can’t touch me!”

This arrogance towards heaven fuels cruelty on earth.

Apart from arrogance, we also see a posture of greed in the heart of the wicked.

His heart is set on his own desires and he boasts in them.

James Hamilton speaks of wickedness and sin rightly as a “worship problem”

Sin is a worship problem. Wickedness is a worship problem. We are created to boast over the desire of our souls. The souls of the wicked desire what will never satisfy them, and they boast in what is not worthy of their praise.

James M. Hamilton Jr

The Lord, His works, and His ways should be the desires of our hearts!

The wicked man takes the boasts that should be directed towards the Lord alone, and pours them out at the alter of wealth and profit.

His desires rule Him.

He takes wealth, that is meant to offer a sense of security and safety, and makes it his god as he runs ram-shod over anyone in the path of his pursuit.

He is in such opposition to God that he blesses what God has cursed and renounces that Lord.

His oaths are based in deceit, treachery, and oppression.

It seems like he is prospering with no consequences in sight.

Going through the list of what the wicked does in his arrogance and greed adds to the repulsiveness.

We see that...

He lurks and sits in premeditated ambush (v 8 & 9).

He murders the innocent (v 8).

He watches for the helpless (v 8).

He seizes the poor in order to devour them (v 9).

This entire picture is that of a lion, a beast of prey.

Lurking in the brush for unsuspecting prey in order to consume and sustain itself.

As soon as it can sink its teeth into flesh, the prey is ravaged and dragged off.

And, as the wicked raise their gore soaked faces in glee at the mistreatment of the helpless, we once again see the dark state of the wicked heart.

The phrase “He says in his heart” appears 3 times in this chapter (in verses 6, 11, and 13).

Verse 6 shows that he is dependent on his own strength and sees no possibility of opposition to his march of terror.

In verse 11, he mocks God by attributing limitations to Him.

In his mind, God has a feeble memory and is blindly indifferent to his actions.

And verse 13 culminates these erroneous convictions by introducing the idea that God is either indifferent, unwilling, or unable to intervene.

In the face of these attitudes, the righteous poor have but one course of action.

Pray.

The Prayer of the Poor (v 12-15)

In verses 12-15 we see this prayer.

They cry out!

The puritan theologian Matthew Henry said...

Passionate and satirical invectives against bad men do more hurt than good; if we will speak of their badness, let it be to God in prayer, for he alone can make them better.

Matthew Henry

We could scream until we are blue in the face,

We could mount the steps of every courthouse,

We could take up the cause of our own oppression upon our shoulders.

But only God can do anything about it.

So, we pray.

Our passages doesn’t just show us that we should pray, it shows us how to pray!

The Psalmist calls for the wicked to run headlong into the wall of God’s just wrath in verse 15.

Breaking the arm offers the picture of an enemy soldier about to strike a downed opponent.

At the last moment, one of the defenseless victim’s comrades steps in and shields his brother in arms from the blow in such a way that the enemy is staggered.

His arm is broken

And he will not be fighting or causing any more damage.

Wickedness is not defeated with a sword.

It is crushed with a prayer.

While Psalm 10 begins with a hearty complaint, it concludes with a definitive declaration of confidence!

Confidence (v 16-18)

God’s goodness is remembered by reiterating a line from the song Moses led the Israelites in after the crossing of the Red Sea.

Verse 16 opens with a statement that is almost identical to Exodus 15 verse 18.

Exodus 15:18 ESV

The Lord will reign forever and ever.”

His eternal reign is what gives God’s people the confidence to carry on in the face of certain opposition.

As Satan amasses His forces against the Kingdom of the Son, they are fighting a loosing battle.

In direct response to the inner sayings of the wicked...

The Lord does hear.

The Lord does strengthen.

The Lord does save.

Application

As we conclude our time in Psalm 10, I would like to specifically direct our attention to 4 specific applications.

First...

Your complaint is simply a matter of perspective.

Throughout The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, Tolkien had the good wizard Gandalf disappear again and again in situations that seemed to be ideally fit for his skill set.

Trolls have bound and gagged the party of dwarves? Yep, Gandalf is gone.

Goblins surprised the company and drug them down to heart of the mountain? Wait… where’s Gandalf?!

Frodo just finds out that he might have a magic ring that holds the fate of the entire world in the balance? GANDALF!!! (Oh, he’s off doing research)

So often, I’m afraid that we have a Gandalf view of Almighty God.

We’re staring trolls in the face wondering, “Where did God get off to?”

A friend of family member has a new cancer diagnosis. Where is God?

You are being laid off with no idea how you will make ends meet? Where is God?

A close relationship is falling out in the worst possible way? Why, Lord?

The opening verse of this Psalm shows God’s people that we do not have to sit on our complaints.

We do not have to settle for feeling far from God.

Now, we shouldn’t be flippant or irreverent, but the Lord saw fit to record this dissatisfaction in His Word.

We don’t have to bottle it up and wait for the inevitable explosion!

We can lift our voices against the injustice surrounding us because we know that it is not part of God’s perfectly created order.

It is a product of sin.

Of pride and greed.

But, as we lift our complaints to the Lord, we also have to realize that our perspective is not perfect.

The Lord is near to His children whether we feel it or not...

If you feel far away, or maybe you are far away, according to Scripture...draw near to God through Christ.

Ephesians 2:12–13 ESV

remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

His blood is the only thing that will repair your wicked heart, arrogant spirit, and selfish desires.

Know that your complaints are heard, your needs struggles are seen, but your perspective is skewed.

Secondly...

This world does not operate by our definition of justice.

As we go through this life, there will be times that it seems like evil is winning.

That the big bad is coming out on top.

That the defenseless, righteous man, woman, or church might be getting used as a punching bag.

It is a tangible example of God’s grace when the picture perfect ending comes to fruition.

Evil corporations put in their place

Murders sentenced

Abusers silenced

Order restored

But these are mere shadows of what will be unending reality in Christ’s established Kingdom.

The current reality though is that....

One evil will be replaced by another.

Justice will be averted through the schemes of the wicked.

Sentences will be dodged by the corrupt.

When it comes to dealing with the world, don’t expect fallen men to act like saints.

Pray for them because they are living out their days in opposition to the only God who can redeem their souls.

As long as we are alive, we can expect more of the same.

But...

There is hope!

And it’s not found in seeing the just desserts of the wicked meted out.

This leads to our third application...

Leave the wicked to the Lord.

It is easy to rage against the system.

It is simple to find oppression at the very roots of our society.

It is debilitating to think that we are forgotten.

But we must leave the wicked to the Lord.

We must pour out our frustrations, our complaints to the only one who can do anything about it.

Because the Lord does see.

He does hear.

And He does not forget.

Amos 8:4 -7 says

Amos 8:4–7 ESV

Hear this, you who trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end, saying, “When will the new moon be over, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great and deal deceitfully with false balances, that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and sell the chaff of the wheat?” The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: “Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.

The Lord takes our defense into His own hands and shields us from the thrust of wickedness in such a way that the eternal arm, the eternal effects, of persecution and opposition are shattered now and forever.

Trusting Him can only be done through humility.

Humble yourself.

We don’t like it when we can’t fix something.

We get grumpy with DIY projects and home renovations when we don’t have the expertise to figure out what needs to be done.

What makes us think that we are going to rid the world of wickedness?

The final part of leaving the wicked to the Lord is humbly acknowledging our inability and proclaiming with the Psalmist, “The LORD is king forever and ever.”

He is the one who hears.

He is the one who will strengthen our hearts.

He is the one who will do justice.

Our defender is king forever and ever.

God Almighty.

While the opposition is dust-born man.

Our complaint, which can seem to be an ongoing noise in our minds, can be turn to quiet confidence as the Lord lovingly, patiently corrects our perspective.

Pray

Great God, we leave ourselves in your hand; to You we commit Your church afresh. Arise, O God, and let the people of the earth--- creatures whose existence is but a day---be broken before the majesty of Your power. Come, Lord Jesus, and glorify Your people. Amen and amen.

Charles H. Spurgeon (paraphrased)

Conclusion

As the musicians return to lead us in one more song this morning, this is where we turn the knife upon ourselves.

The open heart surgery the Psalmist so daftly performed on the wicked needs to be replicated in us.

You may be here today in the midst of a trying time where God feels distant and your problems ever-present.

If you have been called to Christ, raise your voice and open your eyes.

He has not left you.

And He never will.

He will lovingly fix your perspective.

If you do not know Christ as your Savior and Lord, your complaints against injustice are echoing around because your sin has placed you in the other camp.

Your felt distance from the Lord is a reality.

Your wickedness has put you at odds with the holy God of the universe.

But, He is ready and willing to see you put your faith in Him.

The blood of His only Son was shed so that you could draw near.

Your perspective can be eternally changed.

I encourage you, don’t leave this room until you talk to someone.

You can talk to me, Pastor Michael, one of our deacons and we will gladly tell you more about the Lord who is king forever and ever.

Let’s stand and sing together!