Psalm 17

₀₆          I call upon You O God,

for You will answer me.

                        Incline Your ear to me,

                                    hear my prayer.

⁰⁷          O Savior, display Your steadfast love,

of those who seek refuge at Your right hand,

from their adversaries.

⁰⁸          Keep me as the apple of Your eye;

hide me in the shadow of Your wings,

⁰⁹                      from the wicked who assail me.

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The Apple of Your Eye

For the Lord’s Day:  the 29^th of February 2004

Introduction:  As you listened to the ordering of the words in these few verses, you should know that I am indebted to the older translations to clarify the verbosity of several modern translations.  I have also included the first line of verse nine in the context of the reasoning in verse eight.  Please, there is no great transformation of meaning here, but only recognition of ongoing poetic license in making the original Hebrew poetry understood in our day and time.

 

I am reminded of the lack of subtlety of Joseph’s claim to pre-eminence within the tribe of Jacob, whereby he claimed a primacy of affection that was already well known amongst his brothers.  However much the siblings were willing to tolerate the preference of their father, the overweening bearing of the young Joseph rankled them enough: to take drastic action to humiliate the Apple of their father’s eye.  And so, the young Joseph was transported to slavery in Egypt and the famous “tartan” coat was bloodied up to convince Jacob of Joseph’s demise.

 

How contemporary is that same jealousy – in the ongoing saga of Mel Gibson’s passionate plea for the worldly to consider the same Christ who rescued him out of the twentieth century darkness and into the brilliant light of Christ.  Heady stuff indeed for the Media and all their associates to consider, let alone even have a chance of understanding!  And whether or no – the older brothers of biblical religion are willing to admit it or not:  many of the more extremist cultic Judaists do seem to demonstrate a jealous rage because we claim to worship their very own Messiah.  Of course, it is not only any powerful Jewish lobbyists, but more importantly the same cultic atheistic opposers of God in general who are raising the most alarms about any possibility that Jesus Christ could be taken seriously in this twenty-first century.

 

It is in these several examples before us (envy, jealousy and rage), that we can begin to consider the section of divine poetry before us today.  David’s opposers are real indeed – we just do not know their names or circumstances in the context of this psalm.

 

Development:  In verse six, David begins with a double invocation, and the repetition should demonstrate for us the intensity of his longing for divine recognition, understanding and reaction.  “I call upon You O God, for You will answer me,” reads the first invocation.  And in these words we sense that David’s confidence in the Lord is deep indeed.  We sense in these words that David anticipates, as every child does – that the Father’s love is firm and foundational.  And in that “blessed assurance” as the old hymn goes, God will certainly hear and act to demonstrate His divine love, mercy and ongoing care.

 

Calvin demonstrates more confidence in this, than we can find in today’s contemporary church:  David, he writes: “here encourages and animates himself to call upon God, from the confident hope of being heard, as if he had said, Since I call upon thee, surely, O God, thou wilt not despise my prayers.  Immediately after he beseeches God to bestow upon him the blessings of which he told us he entertained an assured hope.”

 

And how much, we in our time must earnestly desire also: some vivid and obvious outpouring of God’s grace and a real demonstration of His power!  Rebellious jurists and mayors, in this country blatantly demonstrate their power to ignore any rule by law and thereby undermine the foundations of civilization.  And the proper guardians of public morality only wring their hands and beg the same courts who have brought us to this sad demise: to please, please set the moral clock and compass to which we have been accustomed: back to where it once was.

 

Do we fathom the most obvious answer to our begging?  The elected officers of Humpty Dumpty’s thoroughly modern court – don’t even want to discuss the problem, let alone loose any votes by actually doing something about the legal problems which have finally hatched from the bad intellectual and moral breeding common for these last fifty to a hundred years!  There will be precious little comfort and help in and through contemporary politics.  Therefore, it behooves us all the more to imitate David’s intense desire for the Lord God and Creator of all the earth to act definitively in our day and time.  And so we see in David’s intense plea a better begging on our part: “Incline Your ear to me, hear my prayer.”  Instead of counting upon the worldly powers, David knew better and took his case to the highest court of heaven.  He addressed the Lord God Himself and begged Him to hear his case.  May we listen and learn all the more to do the same in our age.

 

“O Savior,” David continues:  “display Your steadfast love, of those who seek refuge at Your right hand,” and thereby we may paraphrase: rescue your people “from their adversaries.”

 

 Delitzsch shares Luther’s translation of this precious verse:  “Shew Thy marvelous loving-kindness, Thou Saviour of those who trust in Thee, Against those who so set themselves against Thy right hand.”

 

Do we sense the fierce rage of the worldly against the cause of Christ our King?  David, whose historic regency – merited the same rage, knows full well where His foes are coming from.  David Limbaugh, a less famous brother, has written a bold book detailing the contemporary persecution of Christians and our culture.  And repeatedly in the last few weeks, brother Rush has raised the same hew and cry that we all live in desperate times and it is time we all learned that the enemies of Christ would bury us all, Church included if they could sense the opportunity.  Shawn Hannity, another defender of conservative culture, is even now touring the nation with a book entitled Deliver Us from Evil.

 

Yes, the proverbial Paul Revere’s of today are on the road, and they are shouting a severe warning – but will anyone listen?  I for one have waited all my life to see a media clarion call for righteousness, decency and the American way of life under God.  Can we at least pray David’s prayer here in these verses and then hope in the sincerity of faith that God can and will do what we poor and helpless humans cannot and have not been able to achieve for the last three generations?

 

Application:  While we wait for God’s answer in these things – we may be encouraged by the last verses of prayer before us today.  You see, we can never, as mere humans, know when the gospel is in season and thereby realize the great things that God can do in and through the ongoing providence of history.  And if the time is neither pregnant nor ripe for action – we may be assured even as David was – that in the Lord’s notice of us: thereby we are safe and secure no matter what on earth comes to be!

 

Notice carefully therefore, the last verse and a half that I have included in this section:  “Keep me as the apple of Your eye; hide me in the shadow of Your wings, from the wicked who assail me.”

 

When we are talking intimately to someone; that is: face to face (and by that, I mean up real close), we may see our own reflection in the pupil of the other person’s eyeball.  This pupil is the apple in question here.  But even a closer confidence is suggested by the Hebrew words.  Keep me close Lord because you love me, just like a mother bird who tucks here young ones up under her wings close to her heart.  Yes Lord, David is saying: Keep me close to Your heart as well, and protect me from the wicked ones.  These others are almost feline in their wanton willingness to pounce upon the Lord’s precious possession: the elect of every time and place.

 

One summer, when the boys were little, we hatched three baby chicks in the barn.  Several of the cats took great delight in watching their antics through the wire.  It was almost as if Sylvester and Tweety had taken up residence in the barn.  One day, a little chick got out and was chirping all over the barn as one of our bad old puddy tats scurried to invite him to dinner.  The Tom Cat only backed off when confronted by a power greater than himself!  So, it is in a similar situation here where David requests divine intervention from the One who is the final power in all things on heaven and earth.

 

In the late Nineteenth Century, the most powerful man on the continent observed that in all his political dealings one thing was certain:  “Man proposes and God disposes.”  His name was Otto von Bismarck.  Sadly, his most influential student, the young Kaiser Wilhelm II did not agree to his political master’s understanding of all things.  The old man of Germany was retired, not by divine will, but the new Kaiser’s whim.  Along with the old man went the soundness of his political savvy.  In another century the brash middle aged Kaiser proposed a war to strengthen his hand.  But divine providence disposed of him and removed him from kingdom and empire.  The continent of Europe has never been the same as it once was.

 

I am not certain what is going on in our day and time.  In another year, a serious movie with religious affections was panned and pummeled by the media lights and critics.  As a result, the beautiful movie that studied the civil war realities in: Gods & Generals never had a chance to win the audience that it fully deserved.

 

Now, being enriched as a culture with three stunning movies show casing the Tolkien classics and a sudden media storm about making public the life of Christ, it appears that the times are a changing?  The worldly wicked are making their move to legitimize the most perverse of human relationships, the nation is hopelessly divided between themes of righteousness that exalts any nation and the perversity of having and doing anything and everything one’s own way.  How then will God dispose the day?  Let us pray all the more for David’s fondest desire:  that God will act in history and accomplish all of the good things that we are unable to bring about.  And if not now, may we pray that all heaven might break loose and the Lord return – even as God wills every endeavor and opportunity.  Amen.

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PREACHING RESOURCES

Calvin, John:  Commentary on Book of Psalms.

Delitzsch, F:  Commentary on the Old Testament – Psalms.

Spurgeon, C.H:  Treasury of David.

The Westminster Confession & Catechisms.

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