PSALM 55 - The Burden of Bitterness

Introduction

We’ve noted a couple of times already that as we have been going through this series of Psalms that they are all coming from times in David’s life when he was either on the run or being betrayed to his enemies, or crying out to God because of his sin—sort of “The Outlaw Years”, if you will. Last week in Psalm 54 we saw David calling out to God because of the betrayal of his own tribesmen (Ziph and Maon, the towns where the action took place—were all members of the tribe of Judah.) And a couple weeks before, in Psalm 52, we saw David’s reaction when Doeg the Edomite betrayed him (and Ahimelech the priest) to Saul.

And in both of those psalms, David sings with a sense of confidence and strength in God’s faithful protection—he rejoices that God will break down his enemy, uproot him from his tent (Ps. 52:5), that God is his helper and upholder of his life, and that he will offer sacrifices of joy and thanksgiving for God’s faithful protection (Ps. 54:4-7).

But when we turn to Psalm 55, we find a very different tone in David’s song, don’t we? Once again, David is crying out to God to deliver him from his troubles:

Psalm 55:1 (ESV)

1 Give ear to my prayer, O God, and hide not yourself from my plea for mercy!

But this time, things are different—instead of the joyful confidence in God’s protection, David is shaken by the attack he has suffered:

Psalm 55:2–3 (ESV)

2 Attend to me, and answer me; I am restless in my complaint and I moan, 3 because of the noise of the enemy, because of the oppression of the wicked. For they drop trouble upon me, and in anger they bear a grudge against me.

Instead of a confident song about how he is “planted like a green olive tree in the house of God” (Ps. 52:8), David is terror-stricken over what has happened:

Psalm 55:4–5 (ESV)

4 My heart is in anguish within me; the terrors of death have fallen upon me. 5 Fear and trembling come upon me, and horror overwhelms me.

As we read further down we find out what happened that has caused David to be so undone:

Psalm 55:12–14 (ESV)

12 For it is not an enemy who taunts me— then I could bear it; it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me— then I could hide from him. 13 But it is you, a man, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend. 14 We used to take sweet counsel together; within God’s house we walked in the throng.

David is so crushed and grief-stricken in Psalm 55 because he has been betrayed by a close, dear friend. Doeg the Edomite was a foreigner, and his tribesmen from Ziph and Maon were distant cousins—being attacked and threatened by them was nothing he couldn’t handle.

But this—this was a betrayal and an attack by someone David loved and cherished, someone who was a dearly-loved part of his life. And that was a burden that threatened to crush David’s spirit. (It is possible, but not for certain, that this Psalm was written after David’s senior advisor Ahithophel betrayed David and sided with his rebellious son Absalom in his attempt to overthrow David’s kingship. That story is found in 2 Samuel 16.)

There is a peculiar danger that accompanies such betrayal. It’s easy to shrug off attacks and betrayals from strangers or from people outside your life. But when that attack comes from someone who you trusted to love you and protect you and cherish you, your heart can well up with bitterness and resentment against them.

Some of you know this first hand—you know this bitterness well because you are carrying it around inside you. Some people harbor years-long bitterness against their mother, their father, their sister or brother, their spouse (or ex-spouse). The wounds that you received at the hands of someone who should have protected and cherished you still linger in your heart, and that pain and anguish has settled into bitterness and resentment.

But just as we read from Ephesians 4 earlier in our worship, bitterness has no place in the life of a Christian. Hebrews 12:15 warns us

Hebrews 12:15 (ESV)

15 See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled;

Bitterness defiles; bitterness poisons; bitterness will crush you if you do not deal with it. If you are carrying around the burden of bitterness in your heart today, you need to see what David writes here in Psalm 55. Because for all of the pain and anguish and anger David experienced in this betrayal, he never succumbed to bitterness over it. Instead, David turned it all over to God. This is what he says in verse 22:

Psalm 55:22 (ESV)

22 Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.

And so I want to help you get out from under that bitterness today—I want you to see that

Bitterness is a BURDEN that will CRUSH you unless you CAST it on the Lord

When David was cut to the heart by betrayal from his closest friend, it completely overwhelmed him. But his first response to that pain was not to lash out at his betrayer—when that horror overwhelmed him, the first thing that he did was to cry out to God. And this is the first way that we cast the burden of our bitterness on Him:

I. Give your ANGUISH to God (Psalm 55:1-8)

David immediately cries out to God to deliver him from his pain:

Psalm 55:4–5 (ESV)

4 My heart is in anguish within me; the terrors of death have fallen upon me. 5 Fear and trembling come upon me, and horror overwhelms me.

The pain and anguish and betrayal that you have suffered is real, and it is intense. But the first thing that you see here is that

You must not FEED on your PAIN (vv. 1-5)

You’ve seen what happens to people who feed on that pain, who go back to it over and over again, who are always re-living the terrible things that have happened to them. And of course it is important to recognize and acknowledge those wounds—we will see further down how God gives us grace to recognize the reality of how we have been wounded without letting those wounds dominate our lives.

Notice in these opening verses that David had no desire whatsoever to hold on to that pain, to re-live it or internalize it. He wanted rid of the restlessness and moaning and anguish and horror of it. If you hold on to the pain of your betrayal, if you feed on it and internalize it and chew on it over and over, it will rot your heart out, won’t it? People can become physically sick with bitterness—David didn’t want to hold on to it, he wanted God to rescue him from it!

Another temptation that we can encounter when dealing with the pain and anguish of betrayal by someone we love is the temptation to “check out”—to just walk away from all of it, to refuse to deal with it or acknowledge it. There seems to be a hint of this in verses 6-8:

Psalm 55:6–8 (ESV)

6 And I say, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest; 7 yes, I would wander far away; I would lodge in the wilderness; Selah 8 I would hurry to find a shelter from the raging wind and tempest.”

David says, “I just want to get away, I just want to not have to deal with this, I don’t want to have to face what happened.” But as tempting as it might be to just “walk away” and try to ignore the pain,

You must not ABANDON your POST (vv. 6-8)

When that pain and anguish of betrayal is fresh, it can feel like you have been disconnected from reality—like you are moving in a dream, and that you will wake up soon and everything will be back the way it was. In his own way, David is saying the same sort of thing here—if only he could find himself in another reality (become a dove in the wilderness) he could be free of the pain he is going through. But instead of “checking out”, he turned to God for help.

If you try to bear the burden of your anguish by yourself, it will turn into bitterness, and it will crush you. The only way you can be free of it is to do as David did—cry out to God and give Him all of that anguish! And when you cast all of that anguish on Him—when you give it up to God—you will not be able to sin with it anymore!

Cast the burden of your bitterness on God—Give all your anguish on Him, and

II. Give your ANGER to God (Psalm 55:9-15)

Just as David turned his anguish over to God, here in the following verses we see him doing the same thing with his anger. It is entirely appropriate to be angry when you are sinned against by someone close to you—but what you do with that anger is crucial. If you cling to it and feed it and justify it and grow it in your heart, it will fuel that bitterness until it consumes you. David’s words in verses 9-11 show us that turning your anger over to God includes

Your desire for JUSTICE (vv. 9-11)

Psalm 55:9–11 (ESV)

9 Destroy, O Lord, divide their tongues; for I see violence and strife in the city. 10 Day and night they go around it on its walls, and iniquity and trouble are within it; 11 ruin is in its midst; oppression and fraud do not depart from its marketplace.

Notice that David doesn’t say he’s going to take matters into his own hands; he calls on God to bring justice on his enemies in His timing. It’s interesting to note that David calls on God to “Destroy, O Adonai, divide their tongues—he has been wounded by his friend’s treacherous words, and so he asks God to remove their ability to hurt him further. (It’s the same phrase that we read in Genesis 11 in the story of God dividing the tongues of the people building the Tower of Babel—David is comparing his betrayer’s wickedness to the prideful rebellion against God that He judged by confusing their languages.)

When the person who sinned against you seems to have gotten away with it—when it seems as though they have had no consequences for their betrayal—it is easy to succumb to bitterness—but David turned his desire for justice over to God so that he would not sin by it.

And in verses 12-15 we see another element of David’s anger that he turned over to God:

Psalm 55:12–15 (ESV)

12 For it is not an enemy who taunts me— then I could bear it; it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me— then I could hide from him. 13 But it is you, a man, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend. 14 We used to take sweet counsel together; within God’s house we walked in the throng. 15 Let death steal over them; let them go down to Sheol alive; for evil is in their dwelling place and in their heart.

David pours out his pain to God over the treachery of his friend towards him—see here that you must turn over to God

The pain of your BETRAYAL (vv. 12-15)

If I asked you what you had for lunch the first Wednesday in June, would you be able to tell me? Probably not (I don’t remember what I ate for lunch yesterday…) But someone who is in the grip of bitterness can remember every single detail of what they were eating for lunch the day they were hurt. Bitterness remembers details—word for word conversations, what the weather was like, what they were wearing—twenty or thirty years later, every detail is as sharp as if it were yesterday.

You can hear this in David’s words in these verses—he remembers the “good old days” when his betrayer was his closest friend. They went to worship together, they enjoyed sweet fellowship with each other. But then his pain and anguish flare up again in verse 15, calling on God to “let death steal over them, let them go down to Sheol alive...” But see again: David is not saying this as a way of nurturing a root of bitterness—he is turning this pain over to God in prayer! By crying out to God with this pain he is giving his anger to God so that he doesn’t sin with it!

If you hold onto your anger and betrayal, it will turn into a burden of bitterness that will crush you. You must cast that burden onto the LORD—give your anguish to God, give your anger to Him. And in the remaining verses of Psalm 55 David shows you that you must

III. Give your ATTENTION to God (Psalm 55:16-23)

Look at verses 16-19:

Psalm 55:16–19 (ESV)

16 But I call to God, and the Lord will save me. 17 Evening and morning and at noon I utter my complaint and moan, and he hears my voice. 18 He redeems my soul in safety from the battle that I wage, for many are arrayed against me. 19 God will give ear and humble them, he who is enthroned from of old, Selah because they do not change and do not fear God.

When you turn over your anguish to God and give Him your anger over your betrayal, you are then free to

Dwell on His FAITHFUL PROTECTION (vv. 16-19)

The reason that a bitter memory is so sharp is because you keep sharpening it! By remembering and recalling and dwelling on that betrayal constantly you keep deepening the cuts that it makes in your heart. But when you turn all of that over to God—when you offer up your anguish and anger to Him—you can dwell instead on God’s faithfulness to you.

Notice how David says in verse 17, “Evening and morning and at noon I utter my complaint and moan, and He hears my voice!” Instead of constantly revisiting his betrayal, David instead constantly revisits God’s faithfulness to him! And notice something else—for the first time in this psalm David refers to God by His covenant Name, YHWH: “I call to God, and YHWH will save me!”

You cannot see God’s faithful protection for you and His everlasting love for you—His care and His redemption and His mighty arm for you—while you are constantly sharpening the painful memories of your bitterness. You have to give that bitterness over to Him. Cast that burden on YHWH, and He will sustain you.

Dwell on His faithful protection and

Count on His PERFECT JUDGEMENT (vv. 20-23)

Look at verses 20-23:

Psalm 55:20–23 (ESV)

20 My companion stretched out his hand against his friends; he violated his covenant. 21 His speech was smooth as butter, yet war was in his heart; his words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords. 22 Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved. 23 But you, O God, will cast them down into the pit of destruction; men of blood and treachery shall not live out half their days. But I will trust in you.

Once again David revisits the way his friend sinned against him—his betrayal, his treachery, his lying words, smooth as butter. But see now, after he has laid all of that anger and hurt before God, he is able to remember that hurt without bitterness! He says, “Yes, they hurt me—they lied to my face, they betrayed me and broke their oath—but my hope is in God who will sustain me! Remembering that attack no longer causes him to flare up in anger, it causes him to reflect again on the faithfulness of God!

When you turn that burden of bitterness over to God, He begins to soften the sharp edges of your memory; He begins to wash away the pain and the hatred and the anger until He transforms that memory into a reminder of His goodness to you!

David remembers what happened, and he trusts in God’s perfect judgment—God will punish the blood and treachery of violent, wicked men. David knows that God sees and remembers, and God will make all of it right someday. And so the last word in this Psalm—a song so full of pain and anguish and anger and injustice and betrayal and treachery—is not “Look what he did to me, God!!” but “I will trust in YOU!”

If you hear David’s words in this psalm today and you recognize the ugly root of bitterness in your life, this is what God is calling you to—stop sharpening those bitter memories by saying “But look at what she did to me! Look at how he hurt me!” Because God will call each person to account for their sin—they will answer to God someday for the way they sinned against you. And that means you will answer to God someday for your sin of bitterness.

Because when you stand before God someday, you will see that your bitterness is not about how they sinned against you. Your bitterness is about how you are sinning against God. By holding on to that pain, refusing to let go of that anger, sharpening the details of their actions, constantly reliving and piling up hatred against them you are demonstrating that you don’t believe God will deal with them.

You are putting yourself in the place of God, saying that His judgment against them isn’t enough, that you need to add your judgment and punishment on top of His, that he doesn’t know how to make it right, that He does not offer you a refuge, that He does not hear your cries, that He is powerless and impotent to deal with the way you have been sinned against. Your bitterness against the one who has sinned against you is revealing your heart of unbelief.

And so the only remedy you have today is to cast that burden of bitterness before the LORD. You need to bring that sin—the pain, the anger, the hurt, the brokenness, the ruined relationships, the festering hatred and resentment, all of it—to the foot of the Cross and leave it there.

And don’t you dare bring it to God saying “But look at what he did to me!” Because you are bringing this sin to the One who was betrayed by His close friend more horribly than anyone could ever betray you. Jesus Christ suffered and died on that Cross having been betrayed by His friend—and He died there without a hint of bitterness.

And because Jesus died on that Cross free from bitterness you can be free of it today. You can lay down all of it, confess it and let go of it once and for all. Offer up your anguish, offer up your anger, turn your attention to His sacrifice for you and let Him soften the sharp edges of your bitter memories, let the blood of His sacrifice cleanse the rot of that bitterness out of your heart, let Him pull it up by the root. He will wash your poor bitter spirit and replace your brooding on your past pain with delight in His present faithfulness, He will restore you and sustain you. Cast the burden of your bitterness on Him, and He will sustain you, He will never permit you to be moved. Come and confess your sin, come for freedom from your bitterness to the Cross of Jesus Christ!

BENEDICTION

1 Peter 5:10–11 (ESV)

10 [And now may] the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. 11 To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

What are some ways that our pain over someone’s sin against us can lead us into sin? How does David deal with the anguish he experiences over his close friend’s betrayal in this Psalm?

How does David express his anger over the betrayal he suffered? How do you handle the anger that you have experienced during times when someone close to you has sinned against you? What does this psalm teach you to do with that anger?

In verses 6-8 David says he wishes he could “wander far away” from the pain and anguish of his betrayal. Have you ever felt the urge to simply ignore or deny or avoid dealing with the pain of someone who has sinned against you? Read verses 16-18 again. Where does David say you are to look for your refuge?

Spend some time this week examining your own heart for signs of bitterness that you are carrying around. If you have not done so, bring that situation before God and confess that sin to Him. Pray for His healing of your bitterness, and ask for His Spirit to guide you toward practical steps you can take to uproot that bitterness from your life.