Sermon Tone Analysis

If you spend any time in the Psalms—say, for instance a “Psummer in the Psalms”—you will see the righteous contrasted with the wicked over and over again.

It’s usually those titles—righteous and wicked—but here in Psalm 11, there’s a word that’s only shown up once before (in Psalm 7)—it’s the word upright (Hebrew: yashar).

“Upright” is parallel to “righteous”.

When upright is referring to people, it’s best translated “just” or “righteous”.

But upright has a nice ring to it.

God is the standard of uprightness for His people:

God is upright, righteous, just.

Those who believe in Him should be upright in heart:

In our daily walk, we are to demonstrate that we are walking on the narrow road.

God is upright.

His people are to be upright.

Here in Psalm 11, another psalm of David, we notice (again) the contrast between the wicked and the righteous (or, for our purposes, the upright).

We see here that the upright have a filter, they have vision, they have hope.

FILTER: The Upright Listen to the Lord (Psalm 11:1-3)

As in most psalms, we don’t know what’s going on here exactly.

There’s no description in the title like there is in Psalm 3.

So we’ve just got to work with what we’ve got.

As we’ve seen in other psalms with a similar title, all we can be certain of is that this is a psalm of David and that it’s meant to be used in public worship.

This is here to show the people of God how to respond when the world is collapsing in around them.

David clears his throat and begins to sing:

David sings about his position—the place where he is safe.

He has said this before (i.e.

Psalm 7:1).

He means it.

He knows it to be true: In the Lord I take refuge.

David has run for dear life, over and over again, straight into the arms of God.

He knows that salvation is in the Lord; salvation is found only in God.

So David is asserting himself and asserting his belief that he is safe with the Lord—In the Lord I take refuge.

Here is David’s anchor.

The foundations are being destroyed, but this foundation remains.

And then David is asking some unnamed interlocutor, David’s asking someone: “How can you say to me...”

It’s like, “This I know to be true, so why are you trying to convince me of something else?”

The quotation marks help us to see what this other person is saying.

From the last part of verse 1 (v.

1c) to the end of verse 3, someone is giving David some advice.

And here’s the thing: it’s not horrible advice, not on the surface.

In fact, it sounds like pretty good advice.

“Run, run away and never return!”

Well, okay, that’s the advice Scar gives to Simba in The Lion King, but it’s really pretty similar to the advice David receives here.

Someone is telling David to run away, to flee, and quick.

The wicked have their bows ready, their arrows are touching the string and are ready to fly; they are poised to shoot the upright.

The world is caving in—run, run away, and fast!

If the wicked are truly after you, if they are armed and dangerous and coming your way, advice to run and hide, to seek shelter is not bad advice.

It’s good advice.

But what’s happening here is that David is being advised by others to find salvation somewhere besides in God.

Thankfully, the faithful man has a filter.

He knows well enough to let the voice of the Lord drown out the other voices.

He knows enough to listen to the Lord, over and above his well-meaning friends and family.

FILTER: The Upright Listen to the Lord (Psalm 11:1-3)

Do you have this filter?

Do you have a filter like David?

Are you more accustomed to listening to the Lord or listening to others?

What informs you?

What voice do you listen to most often?

I know a lot of believers who listen more to what Oprah and Dr. Phil have to say, or they listen more to the writings of some silly child author claiming to have gone to heaven than they listen to what the Lord has clearly said.

There are so many voices in the world—not just those of our friends and family—so many voices giving us even seemingly good advice.

Sometimes, it’s so subtle we miss it.

Here in Psalm 11, the danger doesn’t come from a fire-breathing, faith-destroying ogre, but from someone close to David.

Verses 1c-3 is not the advice of the wicked or of a hypocrite or of an agnostic/atheist seeking to destroy you, but to help.

Sometimes, like here with David, good advice from good people may still be advice contrary to the Lord’s word and will.

I hesitate to give too many personal illustrations, but a personal illustration is all I have here.

After I graduated college, I was an associate pastor at a church of 800-900 people.

About a year after I got there, things started to go downhill.

The church was fixin’ to split, and I was caught somewhere in the middle.

The problem didn’t center around me directly, but I had a choice to make.

I decided to resign, to leave quietly.

Several friends from the church and a handful of men from my college, including the president, suggested I plant a church there in the area.

A handful of the church members approached me and said they would support me however and if I planted a church there would immediately be 150-200 members.

Man, was that tempting.

And it wasn’t bad advice, really.

It was advice from faithful people seeking to start a Christ-centered, Bible-believing church.

In the end, by the grace of God, I realized that starting a church would be a little petty and it would only serve to further fracture Christ’s Church; it would cause hostility and trauma and probably harm to the name and work of Jesus.

At that moment, my filter was working—filtering out what was merely good advice from what was God’s will.

What informs you?

To whom do you most regularly listen?

David is able to filter what he’s being told and come up with what has always been the truth: In the Lord I take refuge…“I’m safe with Him.

He’s got my back.

I don’t need to flee to the mountain.

I don’t need to fly away.

I’m going to hang out right here, safe and secure in the arms of my Deliverer.

And I’m going to be just fine.”

The filter of the upright teaches them to listen to the Lord.

How do we listen to the Lord?

We have to know the Lord, we have to know how He operated in the past to understand how He operates in the present.

We need to know what He has said; we need to know His character.

How can we do this?

We read His Word.

We assemble with His people—people who listen to Him over other voices.

We seek out His will in Word and in prayer.

The upright—those who walk with God and follow His ways—listen to the Lord; that’s their filter.

VISION: The Upright Focus on the Lord (Psalm 11:4-7)

After the advice of David’s friend, we have a sharp contrast of focus.

David’s friend is telling him to look at the wicked (v.

2)—“…look, the wicked bend their bows...” he says.

Instead of gazing at the wicked, David turns his sight to the Lord.

Do you see what David sees?

It’s quite a picture: The Lord is in place.

He is seated on His throne.

He’s in charge, as always.

The Lord Yahweh is not removed from the situation; He is ruling over the situation.