The wicked have waited for me to destroy me:
But I will consider thy testimonies (Psa 119.95).
Your mind must be absolutely fixed on God and his Word to pass through this brief time of your earthly sojourn well. The more distracted by dangers around you, the more apt you will be to lose your way, succumb to fear, and desert your charge.
The psalmist was acutely aware that he lived amidst enemies, many secluded, and all set upon his destruction. Someone said, “It is not paranoia if everyone is really out to get you.” Maybe so, but there are certain brave souls, though surrounded by enemies, who are still not paranoid (i.e., extremely fearful), but calm, trusting, and fearless. They did not become courageously faithful by obsession with the hostile crowd. Rather, they look to God, hearing his Word, and putting it into practice—however lonely they may find themselves as saints.
MY REAL VULNERABILITY
Even though he was a great king—and we might even say especially because he became a great king—David was vulnerable, assailable, open to being attacked and damaged. Even from his youth he lived among lions and bears. “And David said unto Saul, Thy servant kept his father’s sheep, and there came a lion, and a bear, and took a lamb out of the flock: and I went out after him, and smote him, and delivered it out of his mouth: and when he arose against me, I caught him by his beard, and smote him, and slew him” (1 Sam 17.34-35). Goliath was evidently the first armed pagan to confront David, and countless thousands more came behind him. Israel’s wicked king Saul opposed David, along with certain ungodly miscreants like Doeg the Edomite (1 Sam 21-22). Even from within his own household violent animosity arose against David, as his beloved son Absalom instigated a deadly conspiracy to capture the throne for himself.
In these perilous circumstances he wrote, “The wicked have waited for me to destroy me.” David’s enemies were “wicked,” a word in the original Hebrew which means evil and unrighteous, with a focus on the guilt of violating a standard. Of course that standard was the righteous God and his righteous will for man revealed in Scripture. “Wicked” here is a legal term referring to malicious, violent, cosmic criminals—very, very bad people.
These “waited” for David, not “staying in one place until something happens,” but “lying in wait,” like lions briefly crouching, eyeing their prey, ready pounce lethally with sharp claws and teeth at the most opportune moment.
David also fully realized his enemies were not out merely to annoy him, or to circumvent his wonderful plans, but to “destroy”—annihilate, exterminate, and wipe him out—so the sense of the original. They were intent upon nothing less than his violent and humiliating death.
Further, David was really and truly vulnerable to their malevolent designs. He did not know beforehand if they would be perpetually frustrated by Providence. Many good and godly men had been murdered by persecutors before him, and many of his fellow soldiers had been killed also as the wicked tried to get through them to David.
Humanly speaking, David had chosen the path of this real vulnerability. God had personally called him to take a public stand for the glory of Jehovah and to shepherd his people Israel, and David responded with reverent obedience. He knew that while serving God was dangerous, opposing him would have been even more dangerous. While huddling with faithless cowards had its rewards, fighting the good fight to the bitter end would be crowned with eternal life.
King David was, in these respects, a type of his greater Son to come, Israel’s Messiah Jesus, whose glorious reign would know no end—but not before he was thrown to ferocious, lionlike thugs to be mauled and torn limb from limb, so to speak. Our Lord Jesus Christ, in God’s eternal plan, first suffered the cross before entering upon his triumphant glory (cf. 1 Pet 1.11), and that established the cross-before-crown pattern for all his disciples, whether they lived before or after him.
When we first hear the gospel and realize it will involve persecution, our fear of man paralyzes us from following this valiant Savior unless God’s grace radically makes us courageous. We must yield to real vulnerability if we would live as real Christians.
Christ said, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” So the cross not only brings Christ’s life to an end, it ends also the first life, the old life, of every one of His true followers. It destroys the old pattern, the Adam pattern, in the believer’s life, and brings it to an end. Then the God who raised Christ from the dead raises the believer and a new life begins. This, and nothing less, is true Christianity. . . . We must do something about the cross, and one of two things only we can do—flee it or die upon it (A. W. Tozer).
We can only account for such courage on spiritual grounds. Throughout church history it has been found not only in strapping, strong men, but also in little children and delicate women. God only knows how many such have rather been burned at the stake than to recant of their faith and renounce Christ! You can find many moving testimonies about them in books like Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, and every now and then we see the same indomitable spirit in brethren of our own generation who pay the ultimate price for the sake of representing Christ to a hostile world.
MY RESOURCE FOR VALOR
This verse does not leave us guessing about David’s inspiration to persevere, for despite crouching enemies, he confessed to the Lord, “but I will consider thy testimonies.” Of course by “thy testimonies” David is referring to Holy Scripture. David was a Bible-saturated man, the blessed man whose delight was in the law of the Lord, meditating in it day and night, and experiencing the prosperity of constant spiritual life from God, like a tree ever green by streams of water, bearing fruit in its season (Psa 1.1-3).
A reader of the English Bible may mistakenly import a false idea here on account of the word “consider,” since one definition is “to think carefully about, especially in order to make a decision.” It can have the connotation of withholding commitment to what is being considered until the end of the time for considering, at which point a decision is made and we move on to think about other things.1
David had in mind something else completely. The specific word and particular form he used means to “look closely, see with the eyes and have perception and judgment about what is seen.” It is also used in 1 Kgs 3.21 of the mother whose live baby was switched for a dead one: “And when I rose in the morning to give my child suck, behold, it was dead: but when I had considered it in the morning, behold, it was not my son, which I did bear.” These may have been very young infants, similar in appearance, and she would have expected hers to be with her and alive in the morning, but a close examination made her realize the shocking reality.
So David’s resolve is to keep looking closely at God’s Word with the spiritual help that made it transformational. It is not the mere perfunctory reading of Scripture, or inattentive hearing of sermons, or even the unaided intellectual study of the words of this Book, that embolden vulnerable saints to be and remain lion-hearted for God! Rather, he strengthens us in the midst of dangerous enemies by speaking to our souls in his living Word. By the Scriptures he informs, warns, promises, guides, heals, assures, and inspires us. Yes, we will be despised and opposed by many—not for our vices but for our virtues. Yes, our good reputations may indeed be lost by slander. Yes, we may have to swim to heaven through a river of blood! But whatever God ordains, it will be less than Jesus suffered before us, and the worse it is, if we will remain faithful, it will only increase the glory we share with him. “If we suffer, we shall also reign with him” (2 Tim 2.12).
Few have pored over Scripture more than John Calvin, and in his life he exhibited this heaven-sent courage. He was just like David of old, running toward the massive and armed Goliath.
In an epic encounter, Philibert Berthelier, a prominent Libertine, was excommunicated because of his known sexual promiscuity. Consequently, he was forbidden to partake of the Lord’s Supper. Through the underhanded influence of the Libertines, the City Council overrode the church’s decision, and Berthelier and his associates came to church to take the Lord’s Supper with swords drawn, ready to fight. With bold audacity, Calvin descended from the pulpit, stood in front of the Communion table, and said, “These hands you may crush, these arms you may lop off, my life you may take, my blood is yours, you may shed it; but you shall never force me to give holy things to the profaned and dishonor the table of my God.” Berthelier and the Libertines withdrew, no match for such unflinching convictions.2
We must recognize that if we are true Christians, we deliberately make ourselves vulnerable to all kinds of trouble, and that grace coming through the spiritual consideration of Scripture will prove sufficient for us. If only we have ears to hear, we will know the courage to remain faithful before many enemies, as Jesus did. The Bible is the empowering Word for the vulnerable.
Notes:
1. “Consider” can also mean “look at attentively” (SOED), so it is an excellent and accurate translation choice here.
2. Steve Lawson, The Expository Genius of John Calvin, 16.
All rights reserved