Praising Even In The Pit | Psalm 34
Praising Even In The Pit | Psalm 34
INTRODUCTION
Psalm 34 – Of David. When he pretended to be insane before Abimelek, who drove him away, and he left.
Individual Thanksgiving
1I will extol the Lord at all times;
his praise will always be on my lips.
2I will glory in the Lord;
let the afflicted hear and rejoice.
3Glorify the Lord with me;
let us exalt his name together.
4I sought the Lord, and he answered me;
he delivered me from all my fears.
5Those who look to him are radiant;
their faces are never covered with shame.
6This poor man called, and the Lord heard him;
he saved him out of all his troubles.
7The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him,
and he delivers them.
8Taste and see that the Lord is good;
blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.
9Fear the Lord, you his holy people,
for those who fear him lack nothing.
Individual Thanksgiving
10The lions may grow weak and hungry,
but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.
11Come, my children, listen to me;
I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
12Whoever of you loves life
and desires to see many good days,
13keep your tongue from evil
and your lips from telling lies.
14Turn from evil and do good;
seek peace and pursue it.
15The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous,
and his ears are attentive to their cry;
16but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil,
to blot out their name from the earth.
17The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them;
he delivers them from all their troubles.
18The Lord is close to the broken hearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
19The righteous person may have many troubles,
but the Lord delivers him from them all;
20he protects all his bones,
not one of them will be broken.
21Evil will slay the wicked;
the foes of the righteous will be condemned.
22The Lord will rescue his servants;
no one who takes refuge in him will be condemned.
Acrostic Psalm
This is an acrostic Psalm. That means that every verse begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. That was done we think probably just to help promote memorization
Structure of Psalm 34
V1-9: Individual Thanksgiving.
V10-22: General Characteristics of Wisdom.
Title
Scholars have difficulty with the title which says, “When he pretended to be insane before Abimelek, who drove him away, and he left.”
The title alludes to the event described in more detail in 1 Sam. 21:10-15. David feigned madness in the presence of Achish, king of Gath. But the use of the word “Abimelech” may be a scribal error.
Outline of Psalm 34
V1-2: The Psalmist is boasting in the Lord.
V3: Glorify the Lord. Public declaration of God’s greatness. Makes others aware of God’s greatness. Acknowledgement of God’s glory and majesty.
V4: Confidence in God’s ability to answer prayer.
V6-9: Psalmist’s experience of God’s deliverance. V7‘This poor man.,” His testimony. Psalmists have experienced God’s direct delivering power in battle, inviting others to taste and see.
V10-11: The Psalmist speaks of the fear of the Lord. Fear of the Lord delivers and provides for every need. The self-sufficient predators of this world would lack, but the God-fearing would have all their needs met.
V12-15: The Psalmist teaches the fear of the Lord here. It involves both speech & action.
V16-22: Contrast and the righteous and the wicked.
Righteous blessed and protected. Evil is eliminated.
The Lord’s salvation and help to the righteous. Broken-hearted, spiritually crushed, many afflictions. The Lord’s presence is within this crisis.
HF: Today, we will look at the first three verses and try to expound the Psalm.
Psalm 34
1I will extol the Lord at all times;
his praise will always be on my lips.
2I will glory in the Lord;
let the afflicted hear and rejoice.
3Glorify the Lord with me;
let us exalt his name together.
- Thank God At All Times.
- Glory In The Lord, Not In Yourself.
- Invite others to glorify the Lord.
Thank God At All Times
Psalm 34:1
I will extol the Lord at all times;
his praise will always be on my lips.
At all times I will extol the Lord. In good times as well as in bad times.
Good Times
You know, it is not easy to worship God genuinely in good times. Things are going very well when you pass your exam, when the bills are paid, and your relationships look healthy and enjoyable. It is exceedingly easy at such times in our lives to get into a mode of self-congratulation and self-satisfaction when everything is going well.
It is easy to give thanks to our job and family but not necessarily be thankful to God. Many people do not genuinely give thanks to God when things are going well in our lives. God aware of this tendency in human hearts warns us through Moses in Deuteronomy 8 about such a person.
The Israelites were living off the manna in the wilderness in absolute deprivation. Israel in their time of need looked to the Lord. If they needed water they had to cry out to the Lord and water came from the rock. God would give them manna in the morning. They were very much aware of God’s involvement in their lives.
But in Deuteronomy 8 see what the Lord says:
Deuteronomy 8:10-18
10When you have eaten and are satisfied (perhaps describing many of us here), praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. 11Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. 12Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, (you have the perfect job that you always wanted. You are in that career path that you dreamt about)
13and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, (you have a brand new computer and a great phone and that dream home and the camera and raise in job and so on) 14then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
17You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” 18But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today.
Every good thing we have, we have only received as a gift.
Most of us flatter ourselves and say that our gifts are our rights and our accomplishments are a tribute to our hard work and effort. But if we take an honest assessment of the situation, then our lives are utterly fragile, hanging by a thread. All it takes is one microscopic virus to bring us down.
Paul wrote to the Corinthians who were very much full of themselves and arrogant.
1 Corinthians 4:7
For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?
Psalm 34:1
I will extol the Lord at all times;
his praise will always be on my lips.
How do you do in good times? You are feeling healthy, happy, full of the joy of the Lord.
Bad times
How about in bad times? How do you do in bad times?
The Apostle Paul reinforces this point in 1 Thessalonians.
1 Thessalonians 4:16-18
16Rejoice always, 17pray continually, 18give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
It is not that you have bad going on in your life and you just say and behave that nothing bad is happening. No that. The Bible unmasks evil for what it is:
Romans 8:28
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
God works all things together for the good. That is the principle that allows us to give thanks not for all circumstances, but in all circumstances. God can take not just the good things and work them together, but even the tough things, the hard things, the crushing disappointments and work them together for good, to make you the man and the woman that he intends.
Whatever anxieties we may face in this life, we know that God is in control. God knows what he is doing with the tests of your life.
Context of this Psalm
David provides the context for this lesson in our Psalm. I told you earlier about the title and what it probably can be.
How many of you have had a failure in relationships? You were looking to marry someone and somehow the marriage did not happen? Or your loved one went away either because of death or separation. That was David’s situation.
David, King’s Enemy
David had been a successful warrior. He had risked his life in support of King Saul’s empire. He was so successful that Saul was jealous of him. So David becomes Saul’s public enemy #1. Saul targets David. Saul had given orders to Jonathan and all of his attendants to kill David if they ever got a chance. He himself had attempted to kill David, in 1 Samuel 19.
David cheated
David was supposed to marry Saul’s older daughter, Merab if he won over the Philistines and Saul thought that David would die in the battle. He won the battle but Merab was given in marriage to another man, Adriel.
Now Michal the other daughter of Saul was in love with David and Saul promised to get them married after giving him the task of killing another 200 Philistines. David did the work and Saul finally got Michal and David married but Saul plotted to kill David as he was with Michal. Saul sets an ambush for David and David escapes only by the skin of his teeth through a window in the bedroom while Saul’s men come in and find out that David is not there. Surely thereafter, Saul gives his daughter, Michal to another man, just to be sure that David cannot have her. He had been through tough times, and bad times.
David, the most wanted
David is now the most wanted man and hunted after. He is on all the posters. He is fleeing from Israel and in the end, flees from his countrymen Israel to his enemies to the city of Gath of Philistines. It was just like jumping from the frying pan into the fire there.
See David’s Perspective
Psalm 34:19
The righteous person may have many troubles,
but the Lord delivers him from them all;
He adjusts our strength to the battle
Psalm 18:33
He makes my feet like the feet of a deer;
he causes me to stand on the heights.
David has feet like that of a deer that allow us to negotiate deep and steep ravines and cliffs. God adjusts our strength to the battle, adjusting the battle to our strength to deliver us in all of our battles and all of his afflictions. So David gives thanks.
David is not bitter with his life despite these situations. In fact, far from singing the blues, we hear him singing praise.
David sings:
Psalm 34:12
Whoever of you loves life
and desires to see many good days,
He is basically saying, “I will trust in the Lord. I am not bitter against life.” He is not drawing all the wrong conclusions and is angered by his discouragement over having been beaten up and kicked in the teeth by Saul.
Psalm 34:14-15
14Turn from evil and do good;
seek peace and pursue it.
15The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous,
and his ears are attentive to their cry;
David has a wonderful hope. Apostle Peter quotes this Psalm: 1 Peter 3:10-12
David says, “I will thank God at all times.”
Glory In The Lord, Not In Yourself.
Psalm 34:2
I will glory in the Lord;
let the afflicted hear and rejoice.
David boasted in the Lord. We do not glory ourselves, but we glory in the Lord. For all the blessings, for all the things that God is doing through us, for our family, for our job, for our health and everything, we boast or glory in the Lord. David boasts in the Lord. He is rejoicing and praising in what God did through him, not what David did.
In fact, he is ashamed of his work to escape and go to the Philistine camp. He has nothing to boast about. What he adds, what he works does not help but only brings reproach to the name and endangerment to the lives of others.
Psalm 34:2
I will glory in the Lord;
let the afflicted hear and rejoice.
David’s self-glory and self-confidence lead to his fall.
David goes to Nob, to Ahimelek the priest and he lies to the priest.
1 Samuel 21:1-3
1David went to Nob, to Ahimelek the priest. Ahimelek trembled when he met him, and asked, “Why are you alone? Why is no one with you?”
2David answered Ahimelek the priest, “The king sent me on a mission and said to me, ‘No one is to know anything about the mission I am sending you on.’ As for my men, I have told them to meet me at a certain place. 3Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever you can find.”
Because of this white lie, Saul orders the murder of the priest and 85 other priests and all the men, women, and children of the city of Nob, all because of David’s lie.
David asked Ahimelek the priest for a sword
1 Samuel 21:8-9
8David asked Ahimelek, “Don’t you have a spear or a sword here? I haven’t brought my sword or any other weapon, because the king’s mission was urgent.”
9The priest replied, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the Valley of Elah, is here; it is wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you want it, take it; there is no sword here but that one.”
David said, “There is none like it; give it to me.”
Ahimelek handed David the sword of Goliath which was a reminder that the God who gave him victory over Goliath can give him victory over Saul and all his enemies, trust in the Lord no matter what the circumstances. His own words against Goliath:
1 Samuel 17:45-46
45David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. 47All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.”
David want to take comfort in the sword of Goliath, when it had done Goliath little good.
The sword of Goliath was a trophy to point everyone to God. The battle is the Lord’s. He is enough.
1 Samuel 22:16-19
16But the king said, “You will surely die, Ahimelek, you and your whole family.”
17Then the king ordered the guards at his side: “Turn and kill the priests of the Lord, because they too have sided with David. They knew he was fleeing, yet they did not tell me.”
But the king’s officials were unwilling to raise a hand to strike the priests of the Lord.
18The king then ordered Doeg, “You turn and strike down the priests.” So Doeg the Edomite turned and struck them down. That day he killed eighty-five men who wore the linen ephod. 19He also put to the sword Nob, the town of the priests, with its men and women, its children and infants, and its cattle, donkeys and sheep.
David could have concluded, “It is a good thing I lied, it actually helped me escape.” Instead he concludes:
Psalm 34:13
keep your tongue from evil
and your lips from telling lies.
It did me no good. God saved me not because of my strategy, not because of my lie but in spite of it.
David goes to Achish and acts like a madman
Likewise, later David leaves Nob and flees to Achish, king of Gath. He goes there acting like a madman. By the way, where did he learn how to imitate like a madman so well? He was taking care of a madman, Saul when the evil spirit came upon Saul. So here is David, in a self-condemning gesture imitating the very king from whom the Holy Spirit had been taken in order not to be placed upon David. David is imitating Saul to work and escape.
1 Samuel 21:13
So he pretended to be insane in their presence; and while he was in their hands he acted like a madman, making marks on the doors of the gate and letting saliva run down his beard.
So what is David doing? He is acting like a madman, letting saliva run down his beard. An utterly humiliating gesture.
What does David say in the Psalm?
Psalm 34:4-7
4I sought the Lord, and he answered me;
he delivered me from all my fears.
5Those who look to him are radiant;
their faces are never covered with shame.
You do it God’s way, and there will be no spit on your face. God delivered him despite his foolishness, despite his mistakes, despite his human failures; not because of him.
Now, David has learnt his lesson and he says:
Psalm 34:2
I will glory in the Lord;
let the afflicted hear and rejoice.
What does your praise look like?
- At all times.
- Boast in the Lord. Give him the credit, where credit is due. That which you contributed, count it spit.
- Come glorify the Lord with me.
Invite Others To Glorify The Lord.
Psalm 34:3
Glorify the Lord with me;
let us exalt his name together
After Nob, after Gath; David went to a cave at Adullam and all the most needy of the land came to join him there.
1 Samuel 22:1-2
1David left Gath and escaped to the cave of Adullam. When his brothers and his father’s household heard about it, they went down to him there. 2All those who were in distress or in debt or discontented gathered around him, and he became their commander. About four hundred men were with him.
Psalm 34:23
I will glory in the Lord;
let the afflicted hear and rejoice
Why did the afflicted and distressed come to David in the cave of Adullam? They were living like cavemen or like animals.
- Is it because of their high-class accommodation?
- Is it because of their new building project?
- Is it because they have enough parking facilities and a lot of happens around?
- Is it because David has a life at ease, not it is all depravation here?
- Were people going to David because he could give them grains and fields? No. That is what Saul was thinking
1 Samuel 22:7
He said to them, “Listen, men of Benjamin! Will the son of Jesse give all of you fields and vineyards? Will he make all of you commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds?
Why is everyone wanting to go to David? Those in distress, squeezed, crushed by the circumstances of life, those in debt in over their heads, those who are discontented and bitter of soul are going to David. Why are you all going to David?
David has been there. It is the acceptance that they felt in David’s fellowship.
1 Samuel 22:20-23
20But one son of Ahimelek son of Ahitub, named Abiathar, escaped and fled to join David. 21He told David that Saul had killed the priests of the Lord. 22Then David said to Abiathar, “That day, when Doeg the Edomite was there, I knew he would be sure to tell Saul. I am responsible for the death of your whole family. 23Stay with me; don’t be afraid. The man who wants to kill you is trying to kill me too. You will be safe with me.”
It is the same picture of the church. The church, the hospital for the broken hearted, needy, poor in spirit. It is place where you come and you are accepted. Why is it that in the church people are open and want to come to meet their challenges and share their stories? Because we are like those who are gathered around David. We are those who know that here we will be accepted with the acceptance that Christ has accepted us.
Hebrews 4:15-16
15For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. 16Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
Finally why they come: Because David pointed them to the Lord.
Psalm 34:4-9
4I sought the Lord, and he answered me;
he delivered me from all my fears.
5Those who look to him are radiant;
their faces are never covered with shame.
6This poor man called, and the Lord heard him;
he saved him out of all his troubles.
7The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him,
and he delivers them.
8Taste and see that the Lord is good;
blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.
9Fear the Lord, you his holy people,
for those who fear him lack nothing.
David was miserable on the outside, but his heart was bursting with joy. Our faith is a taste and see faith.
Psalm 34:8
8Taste and see that the Lord is good;
blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.
Transition:
David has seen the goodness of God At All Times.
He boasts In The Lord, Not In Yourself.
David Invites others to glorify the Lord.
There is an invitation to come to this Lord:
Psalm 34:11
Come, my children, listen to me;
I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
What does this God offer? Life and goodness.
Psalm 34:12
Whoever of you loves life
and desires to see many good days,
The righteous come to the Lord, v11
The righteous take refuge in the lord, v8
And The righteous seek the Lord, v10
The Promise for the Righteous; v15-16
Anthropomorphic metaphors regarding the eyes, ears, and face of the Lord.
- That the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous.
- The ears of the Lord are attuned to the needs of the righteous.
- The face of the Lord is turned against the wicked in a judgmental
God is aware in a sentient way of what transpires on earth. It promises that God is responsive to the suffering of the needy.
When you come to the Lord you realize:
The Lord is Good, v8
We will turn from evil and do good, v14
We will see Good, v12
But this cannot be reduced to a formula that you do good and you will see good. Even when the righteous go through difficult times, we have the presence of God and it will turn for our good.
Righteous blessed and protected. Evil is eliminated.
Psalm 34:19-22
The Lord’s salvation and help to the righteous. Broken-hearted, spiritually crushed, many afflictions. The Lord’s presence is within this crisis.
So do good, because evil itself will kill the wicked. The righteous do not need to return harm for harm, because, as they will be caught in their net.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, Psalm 34 beautifully unfolds David’s journey from desperation to devotion. Amidst life’s challenges, he found solace in praising God, boasting in His deliverance, and inviting others to join in glorifying the Lord. This psalm reveals a taste-and-see faith, encouraging us to seek refuge in the goodness of God.
APPLICATION POINTS
Embrace a lifestyle of gratitude
Embrace a lifestyle of gratitude, praising God not only in abundance but also in adversity. Acknowledge His sovereignty, trusting that He works all things for your good.
Boast in the Lord.
Shift your focus from self-glory to boasting in the Lord. Recognize that your achievements are a result of God’s grace. Humbly acknowledge His role in every success.
Invite Others to Glorify God
Extend an invitation to others, especially those in distress, debt, or discontent. Create a welcoming environment where people can experience the acceptance and love found in the fellowship of believers.
Turn from Evil to Do Good
Embrace a life of righteousness by turning away from evil and actively pursuing goodness. Let your actions align with the fear of the Lord, reflecting the transformative power of God in your daily choices.
May the lessons from Psalm 34 inspire a deeper connection with God, fostering a community where thanksgiving, humility, and righteousness abound.
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