Reflections on Psalm 4
Psalm 4: The Text
Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness!
You have given me relief when I was in distress.
Be gracious to me and hear my prayer!
O men, how long shall my honor be turned into shame?
How long will you love vain words and seek after lies?
But know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself; the Lord hears when I call to him.
Be angry, and do not sin; ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent.
Offer right sacrifices, and put your trust in the Lord.
There are many who say, "Who will show us some good? Lift up the light of your face upon us, O Lord!"
You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound.
In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.
Framework
An important reminder when looking at the Psalms is that they build on one another. Psalm 1 established the preeminence of the Scriptures as the foundation for wisdom, righteousness, and fruitfulness. Psalm 2 calls for the nations plotting against God's authority over them to trust in and submit to the Lord's King. Psalm 3 testified to God's people trusting in God even in the face of vast enemies. So, while Psalm 2 gave us a sweeping picture of God's work in history to conquer the nations and Psalm 3 called upon God to break the teeth of his enemies, Psalm 4 will give us a picture of how Christians should speak to their enemies.
Psalm 4 should likely be paired with Psalm 3, with the 3rd Psalm used as a morning prayer and the 4th as a prayer to end the day (it is quoted during evening prayer in the Book of Common Prayer). Both Psalms presuppose the Christian is surrounded by enemies who have no regard for the word nor the glory of the Lord, and so they refuse to honor Christ, God's King.
How the Psalm is Organized and Some Observations
V. 1 - Calling Upon God
David bases his present prayers on God's past faithfulness. God had answered his prayers before, so David called upon him again to be gracious to him and hear his prayer.
V. 2-5 - Speaking to Those Who Hate the Word of God
David now speaks to his persecutors, to his enemies, and gives us a model for speaking to our enemies:
He names their fundamental sin: They deride what he glories in. They reject what he honors. David has told us in chapter 3 that the Lord is his honor and glory. He has told us that his delight and glory are in the law of God. These people reject the glory of the Lord; they treat what is most honorable with shame—calling what is good and what is evil good.
He again declares God's promises and the authority of God's king. God sets the godly apart. Those who trust in God are made holy by God. He hears their prayers. He cares for them and protects them. God's authority and his covenant grace are the central message of David's response to the rebellion of his enemies.
In the light of this grace, he offers wise and godly counsel to his enemies: Cease your rebellion against God. "Be angry" acknowledges what is plain: you do not like the authority of God. You do not like the kindness of God towards me. But instead of that anger leading you further into sin and, therefore, destruction, consider it. Consider the folly of your anger at God at the rejection of his word and his king. God's authority and law make you angry, but instead of continuing your sin, take a break. Lay down. Consider these things in the silence of your bed. Reflect on the good authority of God. Reflect on his grace towards those who are his.
V. 6-8 - Godly Counsel rejected, God's King refused, yet God's people delight in God's favor and rest in his promises.
David's enemies' response is to question God's goodness. "Who will show us some good?" explicitly denies the excellent counsel just given them.
David then prays the blessing of Numbers 6:26 - a blessing of grace and glory - that God would show his face to God's people. In front of God's enemies and their continued rebellion against Him and His word, David asks that God's people would see again, in God's acts on their behalf the faithfulness and glory of God. This is not simply a prayer for the defeat of his enemies, but something more - namely, that God would be seen and known as *their God* and as gloriously faithful to them. This is seen especially in the joy of God's people, not merely in abundant crops and good wine, but in the peace that comes in God's saving grace towards his people - protecting and revealing himself to them.
-The Psalm ends with a simple act of faith: God's people, fully trusting in the provision of God over their enemies, can sleep safely, for it is God who keeps them safe.
Living in the Light of this Psalm
We should not be surprised when the ways of God are dishonored and mocked. We should not be surprised that we have real enemies who do not love and trust the words of God. But how do we respond to these enemies? Jesus commands us to love our enemies, and this Psalm shows one fundamental way we are to do so. It is not by softening the hard edges of God's word. It is not by trying to find common ground. It is by doubling down on the promises and goodness of God. It is by reasserting God's great authority and holiness, pointing out the folly of man's anger in the face of this authority, and then giving counsel: Stop sinning. Stop your rebellion. Consider the holiness of God, the authority of God, and the grace of God. Be silent and consider these things again. Repent of your sins. Take refuge in the God who reigns and keeps his promises to bless his people and forgive their sins.
The Psalm does not give us a grand picture of God's enemies turning from their rebellion and listening to such counsel. The counsel is discarded as soon as it is provided. But the Psalm teaches us how to live in such times as ours - when God's law is mocked and rejected when God's king Jesus is derided and his ways abandoned and castigated as hateful, arrogant, or worse. It calls God's people to pray for deliverance, to stand faithfully and joyfully in the truth, calling for the repentance and salvation of these same enemies, and for God's people to find peace and rest in the promises of God, given to us in Christ - that he will, indeed rule all the nations, bless all who take refuge in him, and in the end silence his enemies.
Psalm 1: The Blessed Man and The Law of God
Psalm 1
Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law, he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.
The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
for the Lord knows the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.
1 - Setting up How to See and Pray the Psalm (Background)
This Psalm is an interesting one in that it is a wisdom Psalm. It sets out to tell us something about how the world is rather than being a straightforward prayer. It isn’t designed primarily around praise or petition (wherein we ask God to do particular things). It is here to teach us about the world and how to live in it. All the Psalms do this implicitly while doing other things, but Psalm 1 does it explicitly. It is fascinating, too, that this is the Psalm chosen to open this whole book of songs. It sets out a paradigm for this collection of songs, namely, to delight in and meditate on the Law of God. The Psalms are how God’s people set their minds on God’s words - applied in myriad ways. When we come to other Psalms, we find ourselves learning how to speak in the presence of God, but Psalm 1 establishes the world in which that sort of prayer or song takes place.
Which is an important point in and of itself. This isn’t describing some idealized world or Christianized version of the world we should seek to live in; rather, it describes the world everybody lives in - whether they believe it or not. When the Psalmist opens by declaring a blessing on a man who does certain things and doesn’t do other things, he isn’t wishing for that blessing but simply stating a fact about the world that God has made. This is the blessed man. This is what a blessed man does and doesn’t do. We tend to live in a world where we pretend to be little gods, deciding what sort of world we live in for ourselves and describing the blessings we want and don’t want. But the wisdom of the bible is to describe the world as it actually exists - and you can either conform to that wisdom or rebel against it - but we don’t get to change how the world actually *is.*
2 - Observations
Notice the progression in the first section of this psalm: The blessed man doesn’t walk, stand, or sit with the ungodly. The Psalm begins by establishing an antithesis in the behavior of the one who is blessed and the life of those who disregard or scoff at the Law of God. This flies in the face of how we moderns tend to view the world. We do not add Christianity as a supplement to how we live - say we generally accept how a secular culture sees the world, simply tacking on a bit about grace and sexuality and maybe kindness. The Law of God speaks to all of life and is a claim to all aspects of our life in the world. Here is a loyalty to God and his word that sets us apart from what is accepted as usual ways of living by the world. What is the *way* of your living? It is speaking in a very general way about every single part of our lives - not merely some religious aspect of life, but every part of it. Marriage, children, work, worship, other relationships, politics, leadership - there isn’t any part of life outside the scope of what Psalm 1 is about.
It’s also crucial to see that it only offers us two options. There is the wicked and the godly. There is no neutral way of being in the world. We don’t like this. In every area of life, there is a way that accords with godliness, and there is a way that is wicked or ungodly. There is a way that will lead to life and flourishing and fruitfulness (in its season), and there is a way that leads to perishing and being blown away like chaff.
One more observation before we look at the critical distinction in the Psalm - the way the Psalmist uses the language of knowing and judgment in verses 5 & 6. God knows the course of the righteous. This isn’t merely a kind of cognitive awareness - this is covenantal language. The righteous ones belong to God. He keeps them. He protects them. He loves them. The alternative to this knowing is to perish, to face destruction. The contrast is between those who will be unable to stand before God the judge and those who not only can stand before God the judge but are also known by Him - they are his.
So what marks these two very different sorts of lives: The unblessed man, or the wicked man, is the one who lives according to the counsel or the wisdom of the ungodly. He is the one who lives in the way of those who have rejected God’s law, who do not do what God says, who do not believe what God says, and who do not recognize God’s authority. The blessed man is the one who meditates on the law of God and delights in the law of God. One learns how to understand life and wisdom and marriage and sex and politics and money and friendships from those who disregard what God has said to us in his law, and the other learns these things from God himself through His law.
One will know only fruitless destruction and judgment. The other will know life and fruitfulness and will be known by God.
3 - Applications, or How to Live in the Light of this Psalm
The most obvious thing this Psalm leads us to do is to meditate on God’s words. To learn to love and trust and obey God’s words. But we must do so as those seeking to see everything in our lives and the world through the lens of God’s law. There is no arena where what God teaches us there is not relevant. It offers us wisdom in all of life, our business dealings, civic issues, social issues, and our worship among God’s people. Do not let any part of your life be siloed from the instruction of God. You should seek the Lord’s counsel - from his word in every difficulty, relationship, and business deal. Parents’ do not let any part of your children’s lives be siloed from the instruction of God - their education should be saturated with God’s law, and your home should be rooted in God’s book. May your life be planted by this stream of water and bear the fruit that such a life is promised to return.
Next week, we’ll consider Psalm 2. But for the remainder of this week, I want to encourage you to read this Psalm, pray this Psalm, and memorize this Psalm.
Introduction to Reflections on the Psalms
One of the more remarkable claims made in Chapter 1 of the Westminster Confession of Faith is this:
"The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture..."
The phrase in this perhaps most neglected in our day is the "...an life" - a phrase repeated in the chapter's discussion of what the Scriptures are good for. In other words, the Bible sets out what is necessary to know in all things. This is a universal claim. It applies not only to piety, to some religious sphere, but to worship, work, parenting, and politics - to everything under the sun. In the church we have, for too long neglected the Psalms as a songbook and an instruction manual. There is a whole world in these prayers and songs that the church has simply ignored. To sing all the Psalms in the gathered worship of the church does more than simply provide an emotional outlet for God's people (which is what, it seems, we've made worship to be), it is instruction in how to think and act in the world in addition to singing the songs God has instructed us to sing.
At Trinity our hope is to reclaim the Psalms as a songbook for the church in our gathered worship, and we also want to understand what it is we are singing. The Psalms regularly conflict with our assumptions about how the world works and our place in it. The Psalms regularly conflict with our assumptions about what God is up to in our lives and in the world. Therefore we should sing them, and we should think about what we're singing. To that end, not only will we continue to sing the Psalms on Sundays when we gather, but we are going to offer weekly reflections on the Psalms and encourage you to spend time each week reading through and observing what the Psalms actually say. The hope is that our singing on Sundays will be filled with clear thinking about the words God has given us to sing.
Each week we'll be posting a reflection on a single Psalm here. We'll have a written blog, a video and a podcast episode. We'll post these on Mondays starting with Psalm 1. The goal is that you'd spend that week reflecting on the Psalm we post about and we'll be trying to sing those Psalms in worship when we can. Our hope is that the Spirit of God would be building in us a faith that trusts these songs and prayers and that he might teach us to believe every word of them and obey every word of them. God has been kind to give us this song book, not leaving us to our own whims in worship, but graciously calling us to worship Him and to show us how to worship Him.
We'll see you here every Monday, and feel free to share these posts and talk about them with your family, your roommates and others in the church.