Psalm 11

There’s a word that I keep hearing everywhere I go. I hear it on the news, on the radio, and at the coffee shop. Everywhere I go, I hear the word unprecedented. It seems like everything that is happening in the world right now is unprecedented. We’ve got an unprecedented public health crisis, an unprecedented political division, unprecedented inflation, unprecedented Russian aggression, unprecedented gas prices, unprecedented heat wave, unprecedented departure of teachers and healthcare workers. The list goes on and on. If the word on the street is to be believed, we’re living in unprecedented times.

And how do people respond to this long list of unprecedented situations? Would you say that our culture is responding well? And maybe before we answer that, we need to first decide what a good and healthy response would look like. In my opinion, a healthy culture response to unprecedented situations would be an increase in cooperation across the board in order to tackle the various issues that arise from these extraordinary circumstances. You’d see a coming together as people set aside their differences in the interest of constructive action. There’d be swift action and a greater flexibility as we collectively adapt to new situations. As a society we’d be more inclined to share one another’s burdens and take special note of the most vulnerable who tend to bear the brunt of crises. In these ways and many more, we would find a sense of stability even in the chaos of the unknown.

So again, in these unprecedented times, how would you rate the health of our cultural response? Has it been healthy? I don’t think so. Rather than finding a sense of stability and resolve, I would say that we have largely fallen into the grips of panic.

Every one of us has felt this cultural panic. There is a sentiment that is on the rise that says that the sky is falling. But it’s not just a national sense of panic that we’re facing. In the everyday circumstances of our lives, we face real situations that cause us to panic - that cause us to reel - that trigger our fight or flight responses, when we feel as though we’ve lost all footing in life and are falling headlong into the unknown.

What do we do in times of panic? How can we find stable footing that keeps us grounded in the midst of unprecedented times? That is precisely the question that Psalm 11 seeks to answer. In this psalm, King David is facing crisis and panic in his own court. David’s counselors have come to David in panic, urging him to flee. But David does not give in to the panic and fear. Instead, he gives us two reasons to not fall into panic. A reason for the mind, and a reason for the heart.

So turn with me to Psalm 11.

“In the Lord I take refuge; how can you say to my soul, “Flee like a bird to your mountain, for behold, the wicked bend the bow; they have fitted their arrow to the string to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart; if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?”” (Psalm 11:1–3, ESV)

So like many psalms, no one knows for sure what situation has prompted this poem, but we can draw some general conclusions. David is King of Israel, and there is apparently grave trouble at hand. His enemies are strong and they are close by, to the point that David’s counselors fear for the King’s personal safety. “Flee like a bird to your mountain!” Get out of here!

But the danger goes beyond David’s safety. In verse 3, the counselors warn, “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” They aren’t talking about the foundations of a building, they are referring to the foundations of society. The social order itself is at risk - and if that falls…what could anyone, even someone as powerful as the King, do?

But David knows that the absolute worst thing that he could for his people during such an unprecedented and precarious time was to flee to the mountains. So he stays put. He doesn’t panic. And the rest of the psalm is his explanation for how he can be so stable in the midst of panic all around him. He gives us two reasons, both of which are found in verse 4.

The counselors say in verse 3...

“if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?”

To which David responds:

The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord’s throne is in heaven.

This is a reason for the mind and reason for the heart to not give in to panic. Let’s first talk about the reason for the mind: The Lord’s throne is in heaven.

Contrary to popular sentiment, the Bible does not speak of heaven as place far removed from the earth. When David says that the Lord’s throne is in heaven, that is not a statement about God being removed and distant from the happenings in the world, it’s actually the opposite - it’s a statement about God’s nearness. In the Bible, heaven is intimately connected to earth because it is the control room for earth.

Think about the last time you flew in a plane, for those who’ve had the fortune of doing so. The cabin of the plane is like the earth, and the cockpit is like heaven - it’s where the controls for the plane reside. So when we say the pilot is in the cockpit, that’s a comforting thought. It means someone is at the controls of the plane, guiding it to its destination.

In the same way, the fact that the Lord’s throne is in heaven is a comforting thought, because it means our God is at the controls, guiding creation to its destination. God is in control.

You see, we, being modern people, are like the child riding in the car with a plastic steering wheel. Have you seen those? It’s this plastic steering wheel that you can strap to the back of one of the front seats, that lets the kid sitting in the back seat pretend to steer the car.

We are like that kid, except we forget that we’re pretending. We actually believe that we are in control of where the world is going. Which means, when the world seems like it’s out of control, then it is truly out of control. If we can’t predict what’s going to happen, if we can’t develop solutions and strategies, if we can’t orchestrate the affairs of the world, than no one can and the world is spiraling out of control, and the appropriate response is to panic.

However, our steering wheel is a toy. We are not, have never been, and never will be in control. God is in control. He has always been in control, and he will always be in control. He has a plan, and he will bring it to fruition. The Lord’s throne is in heaven.

Now this will only be a comforting thought if we approach our lives with a little humility.

Tim Keller tells the story about the time his family moved from Philadelphia to plant a church in NYC. One of his kids, who was about five years old at the time, was having a really difficult time with the thought of leaving all of his friends and moving to a completely new place. And Keller remembered how difficult it was as a grown adult to console his five year old, because he struggled to find a way to communicate the benefit of the move in the long run to his little boy. Yes it’s painful to leave your friends, but the opportunities we will have as a family, the great things we’ll be able to do, the new experiences we’ll be able to have - things will turn out alright even though it doesn’t seem that way now.

Well the difference between us and God is infinitely greater than between a forty year old man and his five year old son. And so when things are happening in our lives that don’t make sense and truly seem to have no redeeming value - when things seem out of control; God reminds us that there is a plan. He is in control. And even if we struggle to see it, in some way, in the long run, God is working everything out for his glory and our good.

But there is no comfort in the idea that God is in control unless we humble ourselves to the point that we can say that we are a child; and there are things that will not make sense to us, because there are things that God knows but we don’t. But if we are willing to humble ourselves, the idea that God is in control at all times and in all places - that is something that can truly give our minds peace in unprecedented times. It is a reason for our minds to not give in to panic and fear.

Now, let’s talk about the reason for the heart, which is that the Lord is in his holy temple. Now, the temple was the place on earth where you could have fellowship with God. The temple in Jerusalem was where God’s presence dwelt, so going up to the temple was going up to the very presence and glory of the Lord. In Psalm 27, David says that he goes to the temple in order to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord. The temple was the place where you could have fellowship with the One who is in control of all things.

But the reality for David was he couldn’t actually have true, unimpeded fellowship with the Lord. He could not see the glory of God. He could not be in his presence, because that was beyond the veil in the Holy of Holies, which was a place in the temple where only the high priest was allowed to go and only on one day of the year, when he made a sacrifice to atone for the sins of Israel one Yom Kipor. So, really, the average Israelite, and even David himself, did not have open access to God’s presence.

It’s more like those days in the early part of the pandemic when Melanie and I had window dates with her mom. Peter was just born, but we didn’t know if it was safe to be around one another, so we’d put a chair outside our backdoor, and Melanie’s mom would sit outside, while we sat inside. Were we together? Sure! Did we have fellowship? Sure! Was it the same as being in the same room where we could hug and touch and truly be with one another without reservation? No! There was something that came between us.

In this case it was a piece of glass. In the case of the Old Testament worshippers, it was their sins. They could not come into the presence of God because of their sins. They could not feel the fullness of his glory and love because they were marred and stained by sin. In Exodus, Moses asked to see God’s glory, and God said, No! It will kill you!

But something changes as we come to the New Testament. Something changes with the arrival of Jesus, who the author of Hebrews says is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. Whereas Moses could not see the glory of God, John says concerning Jesus, that we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. He writes in his first letter that this one who is the radiance of the glory of God, we have seen him with our own eyes, we have looked upon him, we have touched him with our own hands!

How can it be that we can do what Moses and David could not? Well, in John 2, Jesus goes to the temple in Jerusalem, and he throws out the money changers who were extorting the vulnerable, and when asked what sign he could show to explain his actions, he said this, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” No one knew it at the time, but he was referring to his body, which would be destroyed, and then in three days time, raise to life again.

What Jesus meant was that he is the temple. He is the place where heaven and earth meet. He is the place where God and humanity are connected. He is the high priest, and he is the final sacrifice. Because he has paid in his body for our sins, the veil in the temple is torn in two. There is nothing that can separate us from God. We can have full and total access to his love, his grace, his power, and his presence. Through prayer, through faith in the gospel, through Scripture, and through the community of Jesus. We can actually know the fullness of God’s presence, because the Lord is in his holy temple, and his temple is Jesus Christ.

This is the reason for the heart that we can stand firm and steadfast, even when the world around us is panicking. Because we can have intimate fellowship with the One who is in control of all things, through Jesus our Lord. The Lord is in his Holy Temple, who is Jesus Christ.

So yes, we may be in unprecedented times. But it only affords us an incredibly opportunity to witness to the world and demonstrate the truth of the gospel to our neighbors. As they see the your steadfastness and calm demeanor - it will draw a sharp contrast with the unbelieving world. Everyone is looking for a firm footing right now. You have that firm foundation that you can share with them, because you know that the Lord’s throne is in heaven, and that he is in his temple. If you rest in the fellowship you have in Christ, and trust in the sovereign reign of God - you can face anything in this life.

Pray with me.