The Steadfast Love of God
Download MP3Good morning. We are continuing our study of the life of David, and we are going to be in, mostly first Samuel chapter 21 and chapter 22. So first Samuel 21 22. But we are beginning our service, and we will get into later in the sermon in Psalm 52. So if you wanna, look in your worship guide, your worship guide has Psalm 52 printed in it, but, we're gonna spend some time in the the story behind the psalm in 1st Samuel chapters 21 and 22.
Jeffrey Heine:But we will begin by by reading from Psalm 52, a Psalm of David. And let us listen carefully for this is God's word. It begins with an inscription, to the choir master, a maskil of David, when Doeg the Edomite came and told Saul, 'David has come to the house of Ahimelech.' Verse 1. Why do you boast of evil, oh mighty man? The steadfast love of God endures all the day.
Jeffrey Heine:Your tongue plots destruction like a sharp razor, you worker of deceit. You love evil more than good and lying more than speaking what is right. You love all words that devour, oh, deceitful tongue. But God will break you down forever. He will snatch and tear you from your tent.
Jeffrey Heine:He will uproot you from the land of the living. The righteous shall see and fear and shall laugh at him saying, see the man who would not make God his refuge, but trusted in the abundance of his riches and sought refuge in his own destruction. But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever. I will thank you forever because you have done it.
Jeffrey Heine:I will wait for your name for it is good in the presence of the godly. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray together. Oh, Lord, whether we know it or not, our souls are desperate for you. So would you show us your love and grace this morning by drawing near to us through your spirit?
Jeffrey Heine:Breathe life into us and refresh our spirits that we might worship you and wait on your name. Jesus, you alone are our refuge. So strengthen us today to hope in you alone. So would you speak, Lord, for your servants are listening. We pray these things in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Jeffrey Heine:Amen. I grew up playing music. It wasn't always good music, but it was music. I started playing guitar when I was about 7 years old, and making music was a quick way for a painfully shy child to make friends. And a number of my friends that I played music with through the years are still in the music business today.
Jeffrey Heine:Obviously, I am not. But I've had friends that have gone on to, have a good bit of success in commercial music over the years with songs on the radio and in movies and TV shows. And I remember holding my breath as some old friends played on David Letterman for the first time. And I remember taping, just taping with a VHS, when a friend got a song on Grey's Anatomy. One peculiar thing about having friends whose music makes its way into popular media is that I knew what the song was about.
Jeffrey Heine:I knew the circumstances and the people for whom the songs were written. Because as their friend, I knew the joys and, most often, the sorrows that led to those lyrics being written. And over the years, some of those stories behind those songs were genuinely heartbreaking. So it can be weird to hear songs about real life events of people I know playing out on the speakers in a Target or in the back of a Kia commercial, both of which happened. The first time that this happened to me, though, it made me wonder about all the songs that I casually listen to in the car with the windows down, the songs that I enjoy all the while not knowing the real lives, the real stories behind the lyrics.
Jeffrey Heine:And I wondered if I would still like those songs, if I'd still be singing along, if I knew the story behind the song. Psalm 52 is a song written by David. The ancient scribal tradition attributes it to David, and that's what I read at the start of the psalm, that little inscription there before the psalm begins. And this tradition holds that it was written when David had been anointed the king of Israel, but he was not yet ruling as the king. The reigning king of Israel was king Saul.
Jeffrey Heine:And if you've been here at Redeemer during our study of the life of David, then you know that at first, young David was a beloved servant of Saul. He was his armor bearer. He soothed Saul's intense bouts of melancholia and paranoia by playing the harp for him. David eventually led Saul's armies into battle and was a victorious commander. David was so beloved by Saul that Saul gave David, his daughter to Mary, Michal, and thereby, David became the son-in-law of the king.
Jeffrey Heine:But in time, Saul started to become very suspicious of David and we know reasonably so. David was growing in popularity. And by now, rumors had likely spread that years back when David was still a young boy, he had been anointed the future king of Israel. And those rumors were true. The prophet Samuel had visited David's family, and the Lord had directed Samuel to anoint young David to be king.
Jeffrey Heine:It was a judgment against Saul and a promise of hope for Israel. And now Saul, particularly during his fits of mania, had grown to distrust and soon hate David. Saul had resolved to kill David, and on several occasions, he he tried. A few weeks ago, we looked at 1 Samuel, chapter 20. There we read that David confirmed through his best friend Jonathon, the son of Saul, that Saul was not relenting in his anger and was still determined to kill David.
Jeffrey Heine:This confirmation set David off on a multiyear journey living as a fugitive running from Saul and his armies. It's believed that he was on the run somewhere between 5 10 years, living in the wilderness. It's hard to keep an orderly calendar as a fugitive, so we don't know exactly how long he was on the run. But when when Jonathan confirmed Saul's intent to kill David, David took off. David fled to the city of Nob where a man named Ahimelech was serving the Lord as a priest.
Jeffrey Heine:Ahimelech was the great grandson of Eli, the priest who trained up Samuel. Ahimelech saw David approaching and was immediately worried. He was worried because David was alone, meaning not with Saul, not with the royal advisers in attendance. He wasn't in some big royal procession. And the scriptures say that Ahimelech, the priest, was trembling at the sight of David.
Jeffrey Heine:Much like, as you might may recall, the elders at Bethlehem, when they started trembling, when they saw Samuel approaching their town to anoint David? This speaks to the fear, this insecurity that has spread with the establishment of a king over Israel, fear of being on the wrong side of the king, fear of judgment. So to calm Ahimelech's reasonable suspicions, David lies to him. David tells Ahimelech that he was traveling on official business for the king and that he was just stopping by the city of Nob in the tabernacle for some provisions for the mission, some food, maybe some weapons. David was just calming Ahimelech's suspicions, so no real harm done.
Jeffrey Heine:Right? For the last 600 years, English speakers have called this tactic a white lie. A lie, sure, but with no harmful intent, which somehow makes the lying seem innocuous. Somehow, by considering it a white lie, we ignore the fact that it's still, you know, a lie. But David's white lie was enough to settle Ahimelech's fears.
Jeffrey Heine:But the only food that he had to share was this consecrated holy bread in the temple. This bread, sometimes called showbread, was made every Sabbath and placed before the presence of the Lord in the tabernacle on a solid gold table near where the menorah, the lampstand, was. And this practice was prescribed in the book of Leviticus. Each week, the priest would bake 12 new loaves of bread and remove the old bread that had been, before the presence of the lord, and the new bread was placed on the gold table. The old bread was available for the priest to eat, but only the priests because it was special, holy consecrated bread.
Jeffrey Heine:However, in compassion for David and under the assumption that David was still the beloved servant on a mission from king Saul, Ahimelech gave David and his men some loaves of the holy bread. Before David left, Ahimelech also gave David a sword, the sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom David had slain a few years prior, Which is strange, because when David killed Goliath, when he was trusting in the strength of the lord, he didn't need a sword. He didn't even wear armor. But now, on the run from Saul, David looks to armor up. Now if David was truly on a mission from Saul, then Ahimelech had just served the interests of a king and was helping David, therefore helping the king.
Jeffrey Heine:But since David was lying, Ahimelech was now aiding and abetting a fugitive of the king. But the truth, that real story, was not yet known. From the city of the priests, David and his men continued to live on the run, hiding from Saul and his armies. He fled to the desert, to the forests, to the caves. He hid in Gath and Adullam and Moab and Judah.
Jeffrey Heine:And over time, David's men grew in number from 200 to 400 to 600. We read in 1st Samuel chapter 22 that everyone who was in distress and everyone who was in debt and everyone who was bitter in soul gathered to David, and he became commander over them. All these men who had suffered under the rule of Saul gathered to David. You may recall when the people of Israel were begging God for a king so they could be like other nations. The Lord warned them how a king would bring this distress and debt and bitterness.
Jeffrey Heine:But the people did not listen. And now these downtrodden men have rushed to David's side. And Saul and his men are now hunting David and his men. Word made its way to Saul that David was able to get such a great head start in running as a fugitive because he was assisted by Jonathan, Saul's son. This would be heir to the throne had made promises, made a covenant with David, and now David was on the lamb.
Jeffrey Heine:He had betrayed Saul by signaling that Saul wanted to murder David. And as expected, as soon as Saul finds this information out, he is incensed once again. And once again, giant spear in hand, Saul calls all of his royal servants, his guards to attention. And in a furious rage, he cries out to his men. Let's look together at 1 Samuel chapter 22, verse 7.
Jeffrey Heine:Verse 7. Hear now, people of Benjamin. Will the son of Jesse, that is David, give every one of you fields and vineyards? Will he make you commanders of 1,000 and commanders of 100, that all of you have conspired against me? No one discloses to me when my son makes a covenant with the son of Jesse.
Jeffrey Heine:None of you is sorry for me or discloses to me that my son has stirred up my servant against me to lie and wait as at this day. Saul is quite pitifully rhetorically asking, did David, this poor kid of Jesse, did he promise you vineyards and fields? Did he promise you that you would be a commander of 1,000 and 100? No. He can't promise you those things, but I can promise you those things.
Jeffrey Heine:So why are you conspiring with him? Why are you helping this servant who has now turned against me? David can't make those promises happen, but but I can. Among the servants of King Saul that he was addressing that day, there was a man named Doeg. And Doeg was an Edomite, not an Israelite.
Jeffrey Heine:He must have defected from Edom and joined Saul, and now he has the role of the chief herdsman. And Doeg had special intel, special information about this saga and drama of David. You see, Doeg had been at the tabernacle in Nob on the day when David came to visit, the day that he lied to Ahimelech and received the holy bread and the sword of Goliath. So after hearing Saul raging about this betrayal of his son and the betrayal of all of his servants, Doeg speaks up. Verse 9.
Jeffrey Heine:I saw the son of Jesse coming to Nob, to Ahimelech, the son of Ahitub. And he inquired of the Lord for him, and gave him provisions, and gave him the sword of Goliath the Philistine. So Saul is now completely convinced that a full fledged conspiracy is at play. His son Jonathan is in on it. David is in on it.
Jeffrey Heine:And now the high priest, Ahimelech, he is in on it. They're all working together to bring Saul down. And in Saul's mind, everyone is against him. So Saul summons Ahimelech and every priest from the city of Nob, that's 85 men total, 85 priests were called to stand before him. And so Saul addresses Ahimelech in verse 13.
Jeffrey Heine:Why have you conspired against me, you and the son of Jesse, in that you have given him bread and a sword and have inquired of God for him so that he has risen against me to lie and wait as at this day. Then Ahimelech answered the king, who among all your servants is so faithful as David? Who is the king's son-in-law and captain over your bodyguard and honored in your house, is today the first time that I have inquired of God for him? No. Let not the king impute anything to his servant or to all the house of my father, for your servant has known nothing of all this, much or little.
Jeffrey Heine:Ahimelech responds to these accusations by Saul by saying, you've always honored David as a trustworthy servant. I was simply doing what I've always done, assisting the king's servant. But Saul does not care. He orders Ahimelech and every priest of the Lord to be killed on the spot. All 85 priests.
Jeffrey Heine:This verdict of Saul is a total rejection against the Lord to wipe out the priesthood. King Saul turns to his guards and he demands, verse 17, turn and kill the prophets of the Lord because their hand also is with David. And they knew that he fled and did not disclose it to me. But the servants of the king would not put out their hand to strike the priests of the Lord. So Saul turned to Doeg the Edomite and said, You turn and strike the priests.
Jeffrey Heine:The guards of the king would not raise their hands. They would not lift their swords against the priests of the Lord, these men who were anointed and called by God as priests. The guards refused the order of their king. But Doeg, without question, without hesitation, Doeg does as the king commands, and he slaughters the priests. Not only did he call, kill all 85 of the priests from the house of Ahimelech, but Doeg next leads an army of men to the city of Nob, the city of priests, and slaughters, the scriptures say, every man, woman, child, and infant.
Jeffrey Heine:The scriptures say that after that, those men also killed every ox, donkey, and sheep. Every living thing in the city of Nod, the city of priests, was killed. The 1st century Jewish historian Josephus recorded that Doeg and his men killed 385 people in Nob. But 1 man, 1, escaped the slaughter. It was the son of Ahimelech named Abiathar.
Jeffrey Heine:He was young and therefore not serving as a priest yet. And he ran from the massacre at Nob and fled to David. And once Abiathar found David, he told him that Saul had killed all the priests of the Lord and all the people at Nob. David replied to young Abiathar in verse 22. I knew on that day when Doeg the Edomite was there that he would surely tell Saul.
Jeffrey Heine:I have caused the death of all the persons of your father's house. Stay with me. Do not be afraid. For he who seeks my life seeks your life. With me, you shall be safe.
Jeffrey Heine:David confesses that he caused this great tragedy to occur. His deceitfulness, that harmless white lie to Ahimelech, brought destruction upon the priests of the Lord to all the inhabitants of Nob. And David knew that he had brought about this slaughter of the city of priests, And he asks Abiathar to stay with him and he promises him safety. And that is the story behind the song. That is the story that stirred David to write the words that by God's grace and his providence has been preserved for us for 1000 and 1000 of years as Psalm 52.
Jeffrey Heine:It's a song born of sorrow, of anger, and most importantly, of trust. So holding this story in our minds, let's turn our attention back to the words of Psalm 52. David opens the psalm by speaking directly to Doeg. He rhetorically asks in verse 1, why do you boast of evil, oh mighty man? The steadfast love of God endures all the day.
Jeffrey Heine:David mocks Doeg, calling him great. The Hebrew can be translated, oh hero. He says, oh, mighty hero, why are you boasting about your wickedness? Don't you know that the love of God endures forever? David is saying, for one day, you struck down the priest of God, and you were Saul's big hero for one day.
Jeffrey Heine:But God's faithfulness to his people is every day. God is faithful, and his loyal love is forever. David continues to call out the foolishness of the so called mighty man who is great only in his own eyes, saying in verse 2, your sharp tongue plots destruction like a sharp razor, you worker of deceit. You love evil more than good and lying more than speaking what is right. You love all words that devour, oh, deceitful tongue.
Jeffrey Heine:David calls Doeg out for his evil words, and we assume that David is referencing, at least in part, the words that Doeg spoke to Saul, which led to the murder of 385 lives. David says that the fool loves evil. The fool loves lying with words that devour. But even though he's calling out this wickedness of the fool, David still takes heart. David finds confidence and resolve for his desire of vengeance, his his desire for revenge is quelled by an understanding that God will bring his justice upon Doeg.
Jeffrey Heine:Verse 5. But God will break you down forever. He will snatch and tear you from your tent. He will uproot you from the land of the living. God will tear the fool up by the roots.
Jeffrey Heine:God will snatch him up and tear him out of the land of the living. God's righteousness is David's confidence. It's a confidence founded upon the supreme justice of God. David knows that no sin will go unpunished. And when that judgment happens, David says, the righteous will be watching.
Jeffrey Heine:He will be watching as the fool reaps the wages of his wickedness. Verse 6. The righteous shall see and fear and shall laugh at him, saying, see the man who would not make God his refuge, but trusted in the abundance of his riches and sought refuge in his own destruction.' David says, I will be with the righteous who will watch in the fear of the Lord and and his might, and and we will laugh at the fool who will not make God his refuge. The fool thought he was making a refuge. The fool was convinced that by trusting in his abundance of wealth, that he was making for himself a safe haven, a stronghold.
Jeffrey Heine:But in the end, the shelter that he constructed with the abundance of his wealth was a shelter of his own destruction. The second half of Psalm 52 shifts focus away from the fool and focuses on the community of the righteous. But before we move on, I think it's important for us to learn from the cautionary foolishness of Doeg. Doeg was an opportunist. We can derive that from the fact that he defected from his own tribe of people, the Edomites, to be this mercenary for Saul.
Jeffrey Heine:And when the Kingsguard refused to follow Saul's evil command to murder the priests of the Lord, Doeg jumped at the opportunity. Doeg would have been handsomely rewarded for his evil obedience to the king. We read in 1 Samuel 22 that Saul had promised riches, making them commanders of 1,000, giving them fields and vineyards. And Doeg would have profited off of his evil. So we cannot miss that we can be tempted in the same way.
Jeffrey Heine:We too are tempted to put our confidence in possessions, in positions, in people. We too are tempted every day to put our confidence in that which is not God. David is telling us that putting our trust in anything besides God makes us a fool, just like Doeg, Making anything that is not God our refuge is foolishness. And all foolishness will be judged by the Lord. And while we won't carry out atrocities like Doeg, we can be foolish like him in our thinking and our actions.
Jeffrey Heine:We too can foolishly search out our own ways of building a refuge that is not the Lord. Our reputation, our success, our possessions, all of these things fight to be our refuge. And our flesh wants to make our own way, our own safe haven. And the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that there's no refuge apart from him. There's salvation in no one else and there's no other name under heaven by which we can be saved.
Jeffrey Heine:So my brothers and sisters, we must ask ourselves humbly before the Lord, where is our refuge Really? Where are we truly putting our hope and our confidence? Ourselves, Our wealth? Our reputation? Our independence?
Jeffrey Heine:Our self expression? Or is your strong tower Christ alone? David sets this paradigm up between the foolish and the godly. And I can't help but wonder, why is it that he counts himself with the righteous? He just dragged Doeg for all this lying.
Jeffrey Heine:And yet, he is the one who caused and brought about all of this tragedy and suffering by lying to Ahimelech. How does he get to be on the other side of this paradigm? The only thing we can point to is what he confesses in verse 8. Let's look together. But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God.
Jeffrey Heine:I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever. I will thank you forever because you have done it and I will wait for your name for it is good in the presence of the godly. In contrast with the foolish Doeg stands the fugitive David. David's living on the run with nothing but some stale bread and the sword of a dead giant. And yet, David says that he is like the green olive tree.
Jeffrey Heine:He's running scared. He's fleeing from town to town, cave to cave, wilderness to wilderness. But David describes himself like a deep rooted olive tree that's growing and flourishing in the house of God. This deep rootedness is the outcome, the result of trusting in the enduring steadfast love of God. Though David is being hunted daily by this rabid mad king, he is flourishing in his soul because of the trustworthy steadfast love of God.
Jeffrey Heine:David trusts that in God's steadfast love, God will bring justice to bear. And as I said before, no sin will go unpunished. No injustice will go unaddressed by God. Every transgression that has ever been carried out in all of human history will be addressed by God. And he will address it either in the judgment of the transgressor or through the cross of Christ.
Jeffrey Heine:David trusts in that forever loyal love of God. And through the good news of the gospel, we have seen that the preeminent display of the steadfast love of God is the person Jesus Christ. That's what we confess together in our opening scripture from 1st John chapter 4. And because of Christ, nothing can separate us from this steadfast love of God. So what does our trust in the steadfast love of God look like?
Jeffrey Heine:Have you ever found yourself in a season of life in which you wondered if you were truly trusting in Christ? Have you wondered if Jesus alone is your true refuge? We talk about trusting in the Lord all the time as Christians. But what does that really mean? Every day, we are faced with temptations to build foolish refuges, like a refuge of our own destruction.
Jeffrey Heine:Just as much as I need to know what foolishness looks like, I need to know what real trust looks like. Foolishness is trusting in anything other than God. And righteousness is trusting in the steadfast love of God. So what does it look like? How do I know if I'm trusting like that?
Jeffrey Heine:At the conclusion of Psalm 52, after proclaiming his trust in the Lord, David says his trust is displayed in 2 actions, thanking God and waiting on God. Thankfulness and hopeful patient waiting display our trust as God as our refuge. Trust is displayed in many different ways, but David shows us 2 examples, 2 examples of how that trust is made manifest, how it's shown, our thankfulness to God and our hopeful waiting on God. Our trust isn't manifested in simple ease and comfort. It's manifested in praise, in worship, in thanksgiving, a heart that is comforted by the steadfast love of God even when we are heavy laden and we are weary.
Jeffrey Heine:A worshiping heart displays trust in the love of God. David declares, I will thank you forever because you have done it. David declares that he will forever praise god. And he suggests why. Because god has done it.
Jeffrey Heine:But what has he done? What has God accomplished? And when I read these words, I can't help, but my mind immediately goes to the words of Christ on the cross as he's breathing his last. And in his dying breath, he declares, it is finished. God has done it.
Jeffrey Heine:What we need most, the great refuge from our own sin and death, reconciliation with the Father, hope for eternity. It was accomplished by God through Christ on the cross. And our souls join with David in declaring, I will thank you forever, for you have done it. David goes on to emphasize a second way that our trust is made manifest, is shown and displayed. I will wait for your name for it is good in the presence of the godly.
Jeffrey Heine:We wait for the good name of God in the presence of the godly. David is describing an act of trust, waiting patiently, waiting expectantly on the name of God. That is the might and the strength of God. When we wait on the Lord, his timing, his will, his strength, his command, we are living out and manifesting through our actions the trust we have in the love of God. Our waiting shows that we trust because we're not hurrying up to step into God's shoes for him.
Jeffrey Heine:We're not trying to get the job done in our own timing or our own power, but waiting for God to show up and do it. For his power is that which is displayed in our weakness. Your resilient thankfulness and hopeful waiting testify to your trust in the love of God. For centuries, scholars have struggled to categorize Psalm 52. Some say that it's an imprecatory prayer, a prayer asking God for judgment on others.
Jeffrey Heine:But it begins by addressing the foolish mighty man, and it doesn't ask God to judge at any point. It just expects that he will. Others say that maybe it's a praise psalm because of the way that it concludes with these words of thankfulness and hope. There is a story behind every song, a story behind every verse and prayer. And when we hold in our minds the story behind this psalm, we see that David is a broken man.
Jeffrey Heine:He feels the guilt of his own sin. He feels rage at Doeg's wickedness. And in it all, he feels the steadfast love of God. And in response to that, in response to that love, he trusts. He trusts with thankfulness and with hope.
Jeffrey Heine:In our lives, our stories don't always fit into tidy categories. We can live in confusion and confidence, joy and brokenness. We can have sorrow, anger and hope all at the same time. But our rootedness, our flourishing, like a green olive tree in the house of the Lord, is made possible not by the strength of our trust but the strength of the one in whom we trust. He is our refuge.
Jeffrey Heine:And in our trusting, we praise the greatness and graciousness of our God. In our trusting, we wait patiently and with confident hope in our savior and king. And we don't wait alone. David says he waits in the presence of the godly. That means we wait together.
Jeffrey Heine:We encourage one another to keep trusting, to keep praising and hoping. Waiting together is one of the many reasons that we gather as a church family just as we have today. It's part of why the writer to the Hebrews warns Christians not to neglect the practice of gathering together in worship. We need one another. We are made to need one another, and we have been redeemed into the family of God to live together.
Jeffrey Heine:And part of our gathering is to wait together, to wait not idly but expectantly, to wait with hope, confident hope in the love of God. And we need one another to remind each other the great story of the gospel because Jesus' story rewrites the lyrics of our lives, because his story triumphs over everything, over all evil, over all foolishness, and even over us. And he does so with his steadfast love forever. Let's pray. Lord, would you draw near to us by your spirit and your steadfast love?
Jeffrey Heine:Help us to consider our own trust or the lack thereof or strengthen our trust that we might hope in Christ alone and that we would see the evidence of that trust in our gratitude, hearts of gratitude, and hearts that wait on the Lord. Help us, Lord. Cultivate in each one of us thankful hearts and hopeful hearts that trust in your love. We pray these things in the name of Christ, our king. Amen.
