Psalm 9
Notes
Transcript
Big Idea: God’s triumph is certain, even when the wicked seem to win.
In Psalm 9, we find two realities.
God’s triumph of the wicked
The wicked’s temporary triumph that is temporary, fragile, and doomed.
And in this Psalm, David thanks God and praises Him for His actions and His character.
He sees his own story as a small window into God’s greater story of justice and rescue.
I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds. I will be glad and exult in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.
David begins not with complaint but with gratitude.
He looks back before he looks around.
His praise is deliberate: he recounts, he rejoices, he sings.
Question:
Why is remembering God’s past faithfulness the key to endure present hardship?
Question:
Why is remembering God’s past faithfulness the key to being able to give thanks whole heartedly, and not half-heartedly?
When my enemies turn back, they stumble and perish before your presence. For you have maintained my just cause; you have sat on the throne, giving righteous judgment.
Here David shifts from future praise to past victory.
He’s remembering real deliverance from God in his past.
When enemies turned to attack, they fell…
not because David fought better,
but because God showed up.
“Before your presence” means their downfall came simply because God entered the scene.
No sword was sharper, no defense stronger, than the sheer reality of God being there.
David calls his struggle a “just cause.”
He doesn’t claim moral perfection,
but he knows his situation is righteous because it’s aligned with God’s purposes.
“The Lord maintains it,” David says.
He takes David’s side because David stands within His covenant.
And from His throne,
God renders perfect judgments.
The picture is of a courtroom where God is both Judge and Defender.
David’s vindication doesn’t come through revenge or reputation;
it comes from God’s verdict.
This is where worship and warfare meet.
Our confidence isn’t in how right we feel but in how just God is.
That’s what gives David peace before the battle is even finished.
Question:
What does it reveal about our hearts when we expect God’s justice to rest on our own merit rather than His character?
You have rebuked the nations; you have made the wicked perish; you have blotted out their name forever and ever. The enemy came to an end in everlasting ruins; their cities you rooted out; the very memory of them has perished. But the Lord sits enthroned forever; he has established his throne for justice, and he judges the world with righteousness; he judges the peoples with uprightness.
In these verses David makes it sound like God’s judgment has already come.
But you have to look around to see that this is fully true.
Not yet at least.
So what is this?
The past-tense verbs here are what scholars call prophetic perfects.
David speaks of the future as if it’s already finished.
Why?
Because God’s justice is so certain that it’s described as something that’s already been accomplished.
So yes, wicked earthly powers rise and fall,
but the Lord’s throne remains.
Empires crumble;
His rule never fades.
Question:
How does knowing God’s justice is certain change the way we face our fears?
The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.
Here David turns from the global to the personal.
The God Who judges nations also shelters the weak.
He is not distant or detached;
He is near to those crushed by evil.
This echoes what we will see next time in Psalm 10:
“Why do You stand far away?”
But the answer comes here:
He hasn’t left.
He’s a refuge when life caves in.
Question
Why does God sometimes seem silent, and how do we keep trusting when He does?
Sing praises to the Lord, who sits enthroned in Zion! Tell among the peoples his deeds! For he who avenges blood is mindful of them; he does not forget the cry of the afflicted.
David calls others to join him now.
Praise naturally overflows into witness.
Those who know God’s justice can’t keep quiet about it.
Verse 12 uses the word “avenges,” literally “seeks” or “requires.”
It’s the same Hebrew word the wicked deny in Psalm 10:13 when they say God “will not require it.”
But He will.
He sees every wrong and will require justice.
And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.
And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.
Thus Joash the king did not remember the kindness that Jehoiada, Zechariah’s father, had shown him, but killed his son. And when he was dying, he said, “May the Lord see and avenge!”
But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, so that the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any one of them, that person is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman’s hand.
Group question:
As Americans, we don’t tend to find joy in God’s justice. Why is this wrong and why should a God of justice be a source of joy and motivation for us?
Be gracious to me, O Lord! See my affliction from those who hate me, O you who lift me up from the gates of death, that I may recount all your praises, that in the gates of the daughter of Zion I may rejoice in your salvation.
After all that confidence, David finally brings ups his hardship to God.
But notice how long it’s taken David to get there…
He’s halfway through his prayer to God before it even comes up…
Because his eyes were first fixed upward on God’s glory before he spoke of his pain.
That order matters.
Why does it matter?
Praise steadies prayer.
David pictures two gates:
the gates of death and the gates of Zion.
One leads down into despair;
the other opens into worship.
And it’s by God’s grace that he expects to rise and walk through Zion’s gate again.
Question
When life feels like the gates of death are closing in, what helps you keep walking toward the gates of praise instead?
The nations have sunk in the pit that they made; in the net that they hid, their own foot has been caught. The Lord has made himself known; he has executed judgment; the wicked are snared in the work of their own hands. Higgaion. Selah The wicked shall return to Sheol, all the nations that forget God. For the needy shall not always be forgotten, and the hope of the poor shall not perish forever.
In these verses David returns to the theme of what I call the UNO REVERSE card.
And his point is that the traps of the wicked backfire.
Sin always caves in on itself.
That phrase “return to Sheol” is chilling.
It means death is their native land.
But not so for God’s people.
The poor in spirit will not be forgotten.
Their hope lives because their Redeemer lives.
Group question:
Why are we so easily deceived that sin doesn’t lead to a cave in and how can we avoid falling into this trap?
In the cross, this pattern of sin’s reversal finds its ultimate peak.
Evil plotted its own victory, but the pit it dug became its grave.
Christ triumphed by bearing the very judgment evil deserved.
Which defeated evil, sin, and death.
Arise, O Lord! Let not man prevail; let the nations be judged before you! Put them in fear, O Lord! Let the nations know that they are but men! Selah
This is David’s closing plea.
He knows how easily we forget who we are and Who God is.
The word for “man” here emphasizes human frailty: dust, breath, temporary.
Apart from God, humanity is small and self-deceived.
But under His rule, justice and mercy meet.
As we already saw:
Psalm 8 called mankind crowned with glory and honor.
Psalm 9 reminds us that glory only lasts when it’s grounded in God’s throne.
And apart from God,
We just dust…
Our lives are but a vapor.
Group question:
How does remembering our frailty free us to trust God more deeply?
Psalm 9 invites us to see the world as it really is:
The wicked may seem to win,
but their victories are short-lived.
God reigns forever.
He sees the oppressed,
He rights wrongs,
and He remembers the cries of His people.
And in Christ, this Psalm finds its fullest voice.
The cross looked like defeat
but was the throne of justice and mercy meet.
And the empty tomb is proof that God’s triumph is not only promised,
it’s already begun.
Final group prayer prompts
Praise God for specific ways He has shown Himself just and merciful.
Pray for those crushed by injustice, that they would find refuge in Him.
Ask for a renewed confidence that His justice will prevail.
But the Lord sits enthroned forever; he has established his throne for justice, and he judges the world with righteousness; he judges the peoples with uprightness. The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.
