God

Psalms 62:1-12

God Alone!

Psalms 62:1-12, Truly my soul silently waits for God; From Him comes my salvation. 2 He only is my rock and my salvation; He is my defence; I shall not be greatly moved. 3 How long will you attack a man? You shall be slain, all of you, Like a leaning wall and a tottering fence. 4 They only consult to cast him down from his high position; They delight in lies; They bless with their mouth, But they curse inwardly. Selah 5 My soul, wait silently for God alone, For my expectation is from Him. 6 He only is my rock and my salvation; He is my defence; I shall not be moved. 7 In God is my salvation and my glory; The rock of my strength, And my refuge, is in God. 8 Trust in Him at all times, you people; Pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us. Selah 9 Surely men of low degree are a vapor, Men of high degree are a lie; If they are weighed on the scales,

They are altogether lighter than vapor. 10 Do not trust in oppression, Nor vainly hope in robbery; If riches increase, Do not set your heart on them. 11 God has spoken once, Twice I have heard this: That power belongs to God. 12 Also to You, O

Lord, belongs mercy; For You render to each one according to his work. The setting of Psalm 62 is “according to Jeduthun.” Jeduthun is thought to be one of David’s chief musicians. It’s clear that the condition of David, who is singing this Psalm is in danger or under attack but placing full confidence in God. It is likely that David wrote this Psalm when he was fleeing his son Absalom who was trying to overthrow the throne.

Psalm 62: Thoughts of confidence and trust predominate in this psalm, making it a “psalm of confidence”. The expressions of trust found in (V 1-2 and 5-7), are rich with figures that picture the absolute stability of being found in God.

At least five nouns describe God’s protection: “rock, salvation, defence” (V 2), “glory”, and “refuge” (V 7). The lament (V 3-4) again concerns his enemies. However, from his confident position he is able to exhort others to trust in the Lord (V 8-12).

There is scarcely another psalm that reveals such an absolute and undisturbed peace, in which confidence in God is so completely unshaken, and in which assurance is so strong that

not even one single petition is voiced throughout the psalm. Of course, David experienced this peace through prayer, and he exhorts God’s people to pour out their hearts before Him (V 8). All of us want to have this same peace that David had in this crisis. At the heart of his peace is his confident trust in God alone.

1. Composure. In threatening times, you can be at peace if God is your salvation and refuge (V 1-4). While David begins with his calm waiting on God (V 1-2), it’s helpful to work our way back by looking first at the fierce enemies that were threatening him.

• a) When you are under attack.

V 3-4, How long will you attack a man? You shall be slain, all of you, Like a leaning wall and a tottering fence. 4 They only consult to cast him down from his high position; They delight in lies; They bless with their mouth, But they curse inwardly. Selah

Some think that David wrote this psalm in the context of Absalom’s rebellion, but we can’t know for sure. The attacks seem to have been prolonged, as seen by David’s cry. “How long?” They were counselling together how to thrust him down from his role as king by assassinating him. They were spreading falsehoods and using flattery, telling him that he was a great king, while inwardly cursing him.

Hopefully you will never have anyone plotting to kill you! But if you are in any kind of leadership position, whether in the church or in business, you will have times when you are under attack. You will be criticized and slandered.

I have known pastors that left the ministry because they couldn’t handle the criticism that inevitably goes with the job. But the Bible never promises exemption from such attacks. Rather, it shows us what to do when you are under attack.

A bowing wall and a tottering fence are both just about to fall. This is not just speaking of David’s opponents, but ours as well.

When a person starts to plot against someone else, he is about to come to a great fall himself. David in the verse above, has founded upon the Rock, now he can come against the enemy with confidence. He is being established upon the Rock, says to his opponents, your wall is crumbling and about to fall and your fence is falling down. He goes even further and tells them of their doom. He says you shall be slain.

“They delight in lies”. In making and in spreading them, in order to hurt his character, and give his subjects an ill opinion of him. And thereby alienate their affections from him and weaken their allegiance and obedience to him.

“They bless with their mouth”. Saying, God bless the king, or save the king. “But they curse inwardly”. They curse the king in their hearts, and when by themselves in private, when they imagine nobody hears them.

Ecclesiastes 10:20, Do not curse the king, even in your thought; Do not curse the rich, even in your bedroom; For a bird of the air may carry your voice, And a bird in flight may tell the matter.

This is speaking of two-faced people. They pretend to be a friend, when in fact they are being friendly to try to get any piece of information they can blow out of proportion and cause you trouble with. They delight in lying.

They, while pretending to be a friend, are trying to tear down the work that you have done. They try to flatter you with their fancy words, while all the time they hate you in their heart. They would do or say anything that might destroy you.

“Selah”, then of course, we are to pause and think on these things.

• b) Make God alone your strength.

V 1-2, Truly my soul silently waits for God; From Him comes my salvation. 2 He only is my rock and my salvation; He is my defence; I shall not be greatly moved. “silence” The silence intended is composed submission of the believer, in the exercise of which he accepts in the promises of God, gives place to his word, bows to his sovereignty, and suppresses every inward murmur of dissatisfaction.

The key word there is submission.

Isaiah 40:31, But those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.

When difficult things happen to us, we can either angrily complain to God, “I don’t deserve such treatment!” Or we can submit to Him, agreeing with His promises, giving supremacy to His Word, bowing before His sovereignty, and suppressing our tendency to grumble.

I can’t think of a more remarkable demonstration of this than that of Job. When God inexplicably took his possessions, his ten children, and his health, Job humbly proclaimed.

Job 1:20-11, Then Job arose, tore his robe, and shaved his head; and he fell to the ground and worshiped. 21 And he said: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord.” While the rest of the book of Job shows how he wrestled through his pain and his complaints against God, by the end of

the book we find Job again in a posture of worship, bowing before God’s sovereign hand.

Job 40:4-5, “Behold, I am vile; What shall I answer You? I lay my hand over my mouth. 5 Once I have spoken, but I will not answer; Yes, twice, but I will proceed no further.”

1 Peter 5:6, Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, So, humbling yourself under the mighty hand of God is a key element in experiencing God’s peace when you are under attack.

Isaiah 12:2, Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid; ‘For Yah, the Lord, is my strength and song; He also has become my salvation.’ ” In this context, salvation refers to God’s deliverance from David’s enemies.

God being the only source of our salvation from sin and judgment. “God is my rock and my salvation.”

I said at the outset that most of us cannot relate to this psalm because we have never been in the desperate situation David was in, where fierce enemies threatened our lives.

2 Samuel 22:2, And he said: “The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer;

The Rock spoken of here, is the One we Christians call Jesus. He is the Rock that we must build upon if we are to stand when the wind of false doctrines come. Jesus said, a house built upon the sand will not stand when the rains come.

Matthew 7:24-27, Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: 25 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. 26 “But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: 27 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.” While that’s true physically, it’s not true spiritually.

The Bible teaches that we all were born spiritually dead into Satan’s domain of darkness (Ephesians 2:1).

We were in danger of eternal separation from God if we should die in that condition.

How did this change?

Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” If God alone is your salvation from eternal death, if He raised you from death to life and gave you the faith to believe in Jesus Christ, then you also can take refuge in Him from less threatening trials.

Romans 8:31-32, “What then shall we say to these things? If

God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?” So, if you know God as your only source of salvation from sin, then when problems hit, submit yourself to His sovereign hand and trust God alone as your salvation and refuge from the problems.

2. Composure reaffirmed. When God is your only source of salvation, you can rest secure in Him.

V 5-7, My soul, wait silently for God alone, For my expectation is from Him. 6 He only is my rock and my salvation; He is my defence; I shall not be moved. 7 In God is my salvation and my glory; The rock of my strength, And my refuge, is in God.

In V 5-7, David repeats what he already said in V 1-2, with a few variations.

Why does he do this? In V 3 & 4, he has been thinking about his enemies and the extreme threat that they represented. So, he may have been a little bit shaken. Our minds can never be expected to reach such perfect composure as shall prevent every inward feeling of uneasiness.

We never reach a place of perfect composure, where severe trials don’t affect us. So, we must fight to regain our peace in God.

• a) Repeat the truth.

In the wake of attack from the enemy just repeat the Truth about God.

First, David talks to himself (“My soul”). They say that talking to yourself is a sign of senility, but the Bible often tells us to do this very thing.

Psalms 42:5, Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him For the help of His countenance.

Psalms 42:11, Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; For I shall yet praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God.

Psalms 43:5, Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; For I shall yet praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God. He goes on to explain that rather than just going along with the thoughts that come to you in the morning, which bring back all the problems of yesterday, you have got to take yourself in hand, preach to yourself, and question yourself. You ask yourself, “Why are you cast down?”

Then you exhort yourself to hope in God. Then you must go on to remind yourself of God, Who God is, and what God is and what God has done, and what God has pledged Himself to do.

Then having done that, end on this great note:

• defy yourself,
• defy other people,
• defy the devil, and
• the whole world.

For I shall yet praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God. That’s exactly what David does in Psalm 62. He piles up description after description of who God is. After telling himself to wait in silence for God only (V 5).

5b-6, “for my hope is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I shall not be moved.” This time he does not say, “I shall not be greatly shaken” (62:2), but he advances to, “I shall not be moved” at all!

Then he goes over it again V 7, “On God my salvation and my glory rest; the rock of my strength, my refuge is in God.” Don’t miss the pronoun my (9 times in V 5-7!). Also, God is either directly named or referred to with the pronouns Him or He five times in these verses.

Salvation is in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Acts 4:10-12, let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole. 11 This is the ‘stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.’ 12 Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” David knew God personally as his hope, his rock, his salvation, his stronghold, his strength, and his refuge. If we want His peace in severe trials, we must know God personally and experientially as our God and remind ourselves of who He is. David is fighting here, while under these life-threatening attacks, to put these comforting truths front and centre in his mind.

We say we are trusting in God alone, but then we quickly scheme how to deliver ourselves, rather than waiting on Him! It’s not that it’s wrong to think about how to get out of a difficult trial, or to use methods to do so.

In fact, more often than not we should use plans and methods in dependence on Him. But it’s wrong to give God a token nod of trust and then set Him aside while really, we trust in our schemes and methods. Rather, with David we must fight to make God our only source of deliverance.

V 6, “He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold. I shall not be shaken”. David demonstrates his increased confidence in the Lord.

• If we trust in plans and methods, we will fail.
• But if God only is our rock, we will stand firm.
• b) Become an Example to follow.

Use your peace through trials to encourage others to trust God and make Him as their refuge in times of troubles. David can’t contain the joy of knowing God as his salvation. V 8, “Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us.”

David isn’t giving out pat! He is telling us how he endured this terrible attack on his life by these fierce, cunning enemies. He trusted in God. He poured out his heart to God. He took refuge in God. He is asking us to do the same.

What God was to David in his extreme trial, He can be to you in your crisis. How does pouring out your heart to God (V 8) fit with waiting silently for Him (V 1, & 5)? Obviously, they are not contradictory. Waiting silently for God only, as we have seen, is to put our hearts in submission to His sovereign love in the face of trials that seem to contradict either His sovereignty or His love. It’s an attitude of trustful submission.

Pouring out our hearts is to unburden ourselves in prayer, where we empty all our anxieties and confusion and pain onto the Lord, while still remaining in submission to His sovereign love.

1 Peter 5:7, “casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.”

We show much anxiety in seeking to escape our troubles without God. The answer is to pour out our hearts before Him, taking refuge in Him, because He cares for us. David has shown us that we can be composed or at peace if God alone is our salvation and refuge.

He has reaffirmed it, showing that it is usually a battle to get to this place and remain there in the face of difficult trials. 3. Contrast. David concludes showing us what not to trust and repeating again who to trust.

V 9-12, Surely men of low degree are a vapor, Men of high degree are a lie; If they are weighed on the scales, They are altogether lighter than vapor. 10 Do not trust in oppression, Nor vainly hope in robbery; If riches increase, Do not set your heart on them. 11 God has spoken once, Twice I have heard this: That power belongs to God. 12 Also to You, O Lord, belongs mercy; For You render to each one according to his work.

In the first stanza, David looked at his enemies primarily in relation to himself, so that he was acutely aware of the danger that he was in. He was like a leaning wall. Here, he looks at them in relation to the powerful, loving God, who is his stronghold. By comparison, these supposedly dangerous men are “lighter than breath”.

• a) Don’t trust Men and Riches.

V 9,“Men of low degree are only vanity, and men of rank are a lie; in the balances they go up; they are together lighter than breath” By implication, don’t trust in men, whether in men of low degree (thugs who can knock off your enemies) or high degree (men of influence or power), because you are putting your hope in thin air!

Also, David goes on to say that we should not put our trust in oppression or vainly hope in robbery.

Job 7:16, I loathe my life; I would not live forever. Let me alone, For my days are but a breath. V 10, Do not trust in oppression, Nor vainly hope in robbery; If riches increase, Do not set your heart on them.

Even if you gain riches through legitimate means do not set your heart upon them. As you must not trust in any other men, so neither must you trust to yourselves, nor to your own wit, or industry, or courage. By which you may oppress others, and so think to secure and enrich yourselves.

Most of us probably aren’t tempted to use oppression or robbery to get out of our trials, but we may be tempted to trust in money.

Proverbs 11:4, “Riches do not profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death.”

1 Timothy 6:17-19, Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy. 18 Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, 19 storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.

• b) Trust in God Alone!

Trust in God power, love, and His justice.

V 11-12, “Once God has spoken; twice I have heard this: that power belongs to God; and lovingkindness is Yours, O Lord, for You recompense a man according to his work.” The “once, twice” language is a common Hebrew poetic device.

Here it probably means that God repeated the answer or impressed it upon David more than once to drive the point home. To some God speaks twice and they will not hear once but to others he speaks but once, and they hear twice.

Make sure that you hear twice God’s answer for how to deal with threatening problems. First, God is powerful. Second, He is loving. Therefore, He will justly judge all our enemies. If anyone opposes God’s power and resists His love, he will know His justice.

2 Chronicles 20:6, and said: “O Lord God of our fathers, are You not God in heaven, and do You not rule over all the kingdoms of the nations, and in Your hand is there not power and might, so that no one is able to withstand You?

Satan always attacks either or both truths when we face trials. He tempts you with the thought that if God is all-powerful, He could have prevented these trials. So, He must not love you. This is whereby faith we must join Joseph, who told his brothers who had sold him into slavery.

Genesis 50:20, But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive. By faith, affirm both God’s power and His love.

Conclusion

C Section story. Even though it was in the power of God to destroy us from the face of the earth, God was merciful to us and sent us a saviour. Jesus Christ the righteous. The only work necessary to be saved is found.

Romans 10:9-10, that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from

the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. When we stand before Jesus on judgement day, the sweetest words we could possibly hear is, “Well done, good and faithful servant”.

How does this Psalm apply to them? Is it wrong to take medication to control the anxiety? Why is it important to keep in mind that the goal is not our peace, but God’s glory? Where is the proper balance between trusting in God alone versus using plans and methods for deliverance?