Psalm 3 - Salvation belongs to the LORD

Bible

Psalm 3 ESV

A Psalm of David, when he fled from Absalom his son. 1 O Lord, how many are my foes! Many are rising against me; 2 many are saying of my soul, “There is no salvation for him in God.” Selah 3 But you, O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head. 4 I cried aloud to the Lord, and he answered me from his holy hill. Selah 5 I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the Lord sustained me. 6 I will not be afraid of many thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around. 7 Arise, O Lord! Save me, O my God! For you strike all my enemies on the cheek; you break the teeth of the wicked. 8 Salvation belongs to the Lord; your blessing be on your people! Selah

Let’s pray: Lord, please help us to hear your word in this Psalm, so that we might live it out each day. In Jesus name, Amen.

The Story of David

The first Psalm after the two introductory psalms is a powerful testimony to the reality of God’s saving power. In a way, that’s also an introduction to the rest of the Psalms.

However, unlike the first two psalms, this psalm has a very specific historic context. Its title says that it is a Psalm of David, when he fled from Absalom his son. The details in the psalm’s poetry fit the historical context perfectly. In fact, this psalm is traditionally known as a morning psalm. Based on the words of verse 5--that David slept and then awoke--it is traditionally believed to refer to the day after David fled from Jerusalem; the day after Absalom claimed the kingship of Israel for himself.

Given the precision of this historical context, then, it’s worth looking at the details.

Now, you all know about King David, the second king of Israel. You know the story of his humble beginnings. He was the youngest son of Jesse, a shepherd. And yet he was the one chosen by God and anointed by Samuel, the last judge, as a seal on God’s rejection of Saul’s kingship. Despite David’s humble position, he was obviously talented, because he was recruited into Saul’s court to calm his spirit with his music. The record makes no mention of how David felt about this, but later we see how faithful David was to the authority Saul carried as king, so we can be sure that he served faithfully. David was the one man in Israel who stood up to Goliath, and this brought him to the attention of the whole nation, and eventually attracted Saul’s jealousy and hatred.

For maybe a decade, David was a fugitive, with a small band of powerful soldiers. But David trusted God through this time, and eventually, Saul died, and, at thirty years old, David became king of his tribe of Judah and, seven years later, king over the whole of Israel. David was a powerful king who trusted in God, and so he took the hill fortress of Jerusalem, suppressed the Philistines, and built an empire that captured the key crossroads of the ancient world. He also brought the centre of Israelite religion, the ark of the covenant, to Jerusalem.

But David was far from a perfect man. In the books of Moses, the Law of Israel, there were seven laws relating to the king: he would be appointed by God; he must be an Israelite, not a foreigner; he must write out a copy of the Law for himself; he must not get lots of horses for himself (Solomon ignored that one); he must not return the people to Egypt; he must not acquire excessive gold and silver for himself (Solomon broke that one, too); and finally, he must not acquire many wives for himself, in case they turn him away from God (Solomon totally stuffed that one up).

You might wonder how Solomon, who was supposed to be so wise, got so much wrong!

Well, his dad, King David, was not too careful with that last law, either. Look at this family diagram. David collected wives like trophies. You know of how he murdered Bathsheba’s husband Uriah, one of his faithful champions, in order to cover up his adultery. But the sordid story of Tamar, Amnon, and Absalom reveals how poorly David managed his family.

Tamar, Amnon, and Absalom

Tamar was apparently a beautiful young woman, and her half-brother Amnon, David’s firstborn son (and so heir to the throne), fell in love with her. He plotted a way to get Tamar alone, involving his father, who dopily went along with the scheme, and then Amnon raped her, and then discarded her like rubbish. Absalom, her full brother, was left to care for a desolate Tamar. The author of Samuel speaks of David’s reaction like this:

2 Samuel 13:21 ESV

21 When King David heard of all these things, he was very angry.

But that’s all David does. Absalom, on the other hand, nurses a great hatred against Amnon, and two years later, again with David’s unthinking compliance (he is completely oblivious of his childrens’ emotions), Absalom invites Amnon to a party and slaughters him. David obviously identified somehow with Absalom, because he wanted to reunite with him, despite his horrible actions, but when Absalom wangled his way back into court, David gave him the silent treatment.

Eventually, Absalom got David to meet with him, and from there he started campaigning to be king. Eventually, he went to Hebron, the town where David was crowned king of Judah, and had himself crowned.

When David heard of this, and all the allies that Absalom had gathered against him, he fled his palace. On the way down towards Jericho, one of Saul’s descendants threw stones at David:

2 Samuel 16:7–8 ESV

7 And Shimei said as he cursed, “Get out, get out, you man of blood, you worthless man! 8 The Lord has avenged on you all the blood of the house of Saul, in whose place you have reigned, and the Lord has given the kingdom into the hand of your son Absalom. See, your evil is on you, for you are a man of blood.”

How many enemies?

This is the context for the first stanza of Psalm 3:

Psalm 3:1–2 ESV

1 O Lord, how many are my foes! Many are rising against me; 2 many are saying of my soul, “There is no salvation for him in God.” Selah

David is in a bad way. And the truth of the matter is that some of it is his own fault! How bitter that must have been!

Have you ever been in a situation where you felt like crying out, “How many enemies can a person have!” Do you know what an enemy is? They are someone who has placed themselves against you, who is working against you in some way. It is their actions, not your attitude, that makes them your enemy. Perhaps you’ve had a jealous or ruthless co-worker who has undermined you. Or perhaps a family member built up a grudge and tried to turn others against you. Maybe a friend turned against you and tried to turn your other friends against you, too. It can even happen in church, where someone turns against you for some reason and builds a campaign against you. How bitter is this betrayal!

Two years ago that happened to me. Brothers and sisters in church became my enemies, to my great distress. I felt like saying, with David, “I have so many enemies; so many are against me. So many are saying, ‘God will never rescue him!’” What could I do? How had I contributed to this? Was God still with me?

The strange word in the Psalm here, “selah,” is some sort of musical notation. No-one knows for sure what it means, but perhaps the best guess is that it calls for a pause. So let’s pause for a moment and:

Think about the times when we have had enemies rise up against us.

How did we feel?

What did it do to our relationship with God?

How did we respond?

[Wait]

God is our shield

Psalm 3:3–4 ESV

3 But you, O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head. 4 I cried aloud to the Lord, and he answered me from his holy hill. Selah

David’s response is to recognise God’s faithful protection. David has so much trust in God’s faithful love that, when the priest Zadok meets him, carrying the ark of the covenant, God’s presence amongst his people,

2 Samuel 15:25–26 ESV

25 Then the king said to Zadok, “Carry the ark of God back into the city. If I find favor in the eyes of the Lord, he will bring me back and let me see both it and his dwelling place. 26 But if he says, ‘I have no pleasure in you,’ behold, here I am, let him do to me what seems good to him.”

Have you ever experienced that complete abandonment to God’s will? You know, Muslims, and middle-eastern Christians, often talk about “if it’s God’s will.” But for Muslims this is often a fatalistic statement—Allah will do as Allah wills, regardless of anything we do. But David’s trust in God was more hopeful than that.

Psalm 3:5–6 ESV

5 I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the Lord sustained me. 6 I will not be afraid of many thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around.

David was so calm, so at peace with God’s protection, that he slept soundly. In sleep we are at our most vulnerable, and so when we are threatened, worried, or frightened, we struggle to sleep. And yet David sleeps soundly, unafraid of the hordes who threaten him, because he trusts that God is his shield.

Jesus our refuge

You know, this is not just something that David can achieve. I have found that when my enemies are gathering against me, whether it be at work (which has happened a few times) or in church (only once, praise God), I sleep soundly. Why? Because I know that, even when I am not perfect, even when my actions may have been a catalyst or more, God is still my shield and refuge.

You know when I don’t sleep well? When I’m sure that I’ve hurt someone—when I’ve made myself an enemy of someone! That’s when I struggle to sleep!

Remember, as Christians, we have such a greater promise from God than David was aware of, because we know Jesus Christ. We know how God has paid for our sins by dying on a cross for us! We know how God has risen again so that we, too, might rise to new life! We know how Jesus has sent his Spirit to give us power over sin and death! As Paul says,

2 Corinthians 1:20 ESV

20 For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.

Loving our enemies

Because we have so much more reason to trust in God, we don’t need to join David when he says,

Psalm 3:7 ESV

7 Arise, O Lord! Save me, O my God! For you strike all my enemies on the cheek; you break the teeth of the wicked.

What do we do instead? [Wait for answer.]

That’s right,

Luke 6:35 ESV

35 But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.

By the way, those “ungrateful and evil” that God is kind to? That’s us!

God’s love

But we can join David in his final, triumphant cry in this Psalm:

Psalm 3:8 ESV

8 Salvation belongs to the Lord; your blessing be on your people! Selah

Now today is Valentine’s day. This is a big deal in our culture. Do you know why? Because people need to be loved—they need to feel protected. And they need this more than ever in our culture because we no longer, as a culture, feel loved and protected by God. We have made ourselves into his enemies. We deliberately rebel against him and mock him, just as Absalom did against David, except unlike Absalom we have no neglect to complain of.

But the point of Psalm 3 is that our true protection, the only real refuge of love for us, for anyone, is in the arms of God. We can turn to a handsome hunk or a sexy spunk to fulfill us, but we’ll never be satisfied. As David says in another Psalm:

Psalm 36:7 ESV

7 How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings.

Each day, including Valentine’s Day, let us not seek our ultimate refuge in the things of this earth, even other human beings, but rather in our loving, faithful God. Let’s make God our #1 priority, so that each morning when we awake we can say with David, “the Lord sustains me.”

Let’s pray:

Thank you Lord for your steadfast love. Please help us to have the same certainty and confidence as David, even when we are under attack. Help us to sleep soundly in your arms and sustain us in your love. In Jesus’ name, Amen.