Hello, you're listening to Let the Bible Speak. Let the Bible Speak is the radio ministry of the Free Presbyterian Church. Stephen Pollack is the pastor of Free Presbyterian Church of Malvern, Pennsylvania. The church is located at the junction of 401 and Mallon Road. Thank you for joining us today as Dr. Pollack opens the Word of God and lets the Bible speak. The Bible is turned again to Psalm 11. Turning to Psalm 11. Again, this is the Word of the Lord. It is the chief position, the Psalm of David. In the Lord put I my trust. I say you to my soul, flee as a bird to your mountain. For lo, the wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string, that they may privilege shoot at the upright in heart. If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? The Lord is in his holy temple, the Lord's throne is in heaven. His eyes behold, his eyelids try the children of men. The Lord trieth the righteous, but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth. Upon the wicked he shall reign snares, fire, and brimstone, and an horrible tempest. This shall be the portion of their cup. For the righteous Lord loveth righteousness, His countenance doth behold the upright. The opening words of this psalm present the issue before us this evening. In the Lord put I my trust, how say you to my soul? What you're seeing here is again another occasion in the experience of the psalmist where troubles are trying his trust. Again, it's often the case, troubles do indeed test our trust and confidence in the Lord. As in previous psalms in this short series so far, the psalmist has a very particular cause for grief. His life is threatened. The wicked, verse number two, they bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string. Again, things are ready in place to end the life of the psalmist. His enemies lined up against him. Now, we're not told the particular occasion of this psalm, but there are many who suggest it's from his early life and during his time in the royal court when Saul was out to draw blood. Whilst, again, there are arguments for that, I'm not personally entirely convinced, for we understand in that narrative he does actually flee from Saul. And the setting here would suggest that this action of fleeing would be wrong. I put my trust in the Lord. How can you say flee to the mountain? But however that may be the case or not, we certainly can leave that aside and remember the very simple truth that troubles do indeed test our trust in the Lord. Troubles present us with occasions when we may fall into unbelief. Again, you see that in several instances in the Word of God, but perhaps very vividly you see it over in Mark 4. Turn across to Mark 4 to see this in the teaching of the Lord. I mention Mark 4 because there are two separate instances in Mark 4 where you see this principle worked out of the trials of the believer being a means to test their faith. Mark 4, and the verse number 16 gives us some of the Lord's explanation of the parable of the sower. And there were those in verse 16 who were on stony ground, who when they heard the word immediately received it with gladness. And there's a responsiveness, there's an outward profession of faith from the hearing of the word of God. And it continues in verse number 17, And have no root in themselves, and so endure for a time. Afterward, when affliction or persecution arises for the word's sake, immediately they are offended. If you know, again, the language of offended in the scriptures, that means one who stumbles and falls. So they're making a profession of faith, they're walking in that faith, and then the troubles come, and what happens? They fall and they stumble, proving just again the Lord's words. That's what you see is when troubles arise, afflictions or persecution, what happens is there's a danger and a trial to our faith. And then later on, the very same chapter, we find the disciples, and they're in a great storm of wind. Verse number 37. There arose a great storm of wind. Again, we find the disciples and they're in trouble. And they asked the question, Master, carest thou not that we perish? In their affliction, in their adversity, in their trial, they begin to falter in their faith. So much so, the Lord says to them in verse 40, why are ye so fearful? Why is it that ye have no faith? Again, it's a crisis point. The troubles that they're encountering bring their faith into crisis, and it's a make-or-break situation. It's often the case for the child of God. Again, by God's grace, many of God's people look back upon their trials and recognize that they were strong in faith in those occasions, but that's because of God's grace. But as those troubles break upon us like the waves in the sea, so we find ourselves at a crisis point, and we ask ourselves the question, will I continue to believe? or will I give up? And so we see again in the scriptures this principle writ large in the word of God that these times of trouble and affliction do indeed test our trust. And so let's begin to look at that in this psalm by beginning to consider the danger that we confront in our trials. As I said, David is here in trouble. Clearly, his life is threatened. You will note in verse number 2, it says, "...they may privily shoot at the upright in heart. The danger he faces in it is imminent, and it is hard to spot and avoid." Again, over in Psalm 10, in the verse The verse number eight, it described in a similar way, that the wicked sitting in the lurking places of the villages, in the secret places doth he murder the innocent, his eyes are privily set against the poor. So the trouble faced here is, if you like, it's condescended, it's behind the scenes, hard to know exactly where the trouble's going to come from. But he recognizes the trouble is going to really confront him speedily and at the very danger of his life. Again, I think this pictures, it pictures, I believe, our spiritual warfare. The devil, that lying who goes about as a lion to devour, he's seeking to destroy us, and yet he does so with the wiles of the devil, using subtlety and deception, the weapons the devil employs. Let me just be very, very clear. you may face a serious attack of the devil tomorrow, and you cannot today guess where it's coming from. It happens in Christian experience. We can get easy in our beds of ease and assume all is well, and then out of nowhere comes this devilish attack, and we find ourselves in great trouble and peril. Privily, the wiles of the evil, we must always be watchful, but not only watchful in the sense of, well, can we see the evil coming? But at times, it's not so much that we're watchful because the attack comes without us seeing it. And so the necessity is of a proper responsiveness and being forearmed and aware and able to deal with such an attack when it comes. Now, given such danger, there are people clearly advising David that he should flee. That's what's being said here. They are saying to him, flee as a bird to your mountain. Now we're not told where this advice has come from friend or foe. It may well have been coming from friends who cared for David and thus sought to give him wise counsel to preserve his life. Obviously, it is not always wrong to flee. And you go back to 1 Samuel 19, you will see that at a time, and I referred to this, at a time in David's time in Saul's court, he does that very, very thing. 1 Samuel 19, verse number 10, And Saul sought to smite David even to the wall with javelin, but he slipped away out of Saul's presence, and he smote the javelin to the wall, and David fled. and escaped that night. Also verse number 12, Michael let David down through a window and he went and fled and escaped. Verse number 18, so David fled and escaped and came to Samuel at Ramah and told him all that Saul had done. And there's no sense that Samuel gives him a rebuke. The sense in which David is wrong in fleeing in that particular occasion. You think even the language of our Lord, when the Lord is warning the Jewish people in the first century of the coming incursion of Rome upon Jerusalem in AD 70, he says, let them which be in Judea flee unto the mountains. The Lord himself instructs that at times it is wise and prudent to flee. We've also got the situation with Paul. The disciples take him by night. He's come to faith. He's in Damascus. And they take him by night, and they let him down by the wall in a basket. He flees from his enemies. And yet, if we keep our minds upon Paul, at other times he stands his ground and faces the consequences. Again, there were those who were fearful for him going to Jerusalem. And he says to them, what mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? They're his believing friends. They love him, and they want to warn him, if he goes to Jerusalem, he's going to be in trouble. And he says to them, but I am ready, not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. And when he would not be persuaded, we ceased, saying, the will of the Lord be done. Look, involved in that, we even look, that godly look was prepared to persuade Paul not to go to Jerusalem, and yet he stands fast and face the consequences. So how do we understand this? Well, here in Psalm 11, we certainly get the impression that to flee would be wrong. He's basically saying, in the Lord put I my trust. How can you say this to me? How can you tell me to flee when I'm putting my trust in the Lord? Well, we can, I think, see some things in this passage that indicate why it would be wrong to flee at this time. Without knowing the details, it seems to be the case that the psalmist was convinced that if he fled at this time, it would be a display of doubt. In the Lord, put on my trust. There's a contrast here, again, between his trust in the Lord and this instruction, this counsel to flee. To flee, it would seem, would be to doubt God's faithfulness in preserving his anointed. Now, leaving aside Using this particular text to form ordinations and temporal trials, it is clear we must not flee the devil but resist. You understand what I'm saying there? You can't take this text. and then use it to really give you clear direction as what you may do in a particular situation. Maybe right to flee, maybe right to stand. This text is not going to determine your decision in that regard, but if we see it as a picture of spiritual warfare, then it is a good reminder to us that we must not flee the devil, but resist. You know, as Bunyan pointed out in Pilgrim's Progress, there was no armor given for the back. And thus he was to resist Apollyon in the recognition that Apollyon would flee. We must not flee from the devil. So what does that fleeing look like? It looks like giving up on the Lord. The devil comes, and we leave aside the weapons that the Lord gives us. We leave aside the gospel armor. We leave aside the use of the sword of the Spirit. And we turn on our heels, and we run away. And in essence, the devil is standing before us in our walk with God. And we're saying, I'm not going through that pathway. I'm going to go turn, and I'm going to turn my back away from the Lord. That's what it looks like to flee the devil. It is to distrust the gospel. It is to feel, to use the gospel armor to defend our souls. And so, if the case may be, in your life, when you're confronted with the temptation to flee, it is never, ever right to flee the things of God. It's never right to give up on church and Bible reading and prayer. It's never right to flee in those terms. To do so is to indicate doubt. If you stand fast in the way of obedience, standing fast in the way of truth, God will indeed preserve you no matter what may happen to your life. Therefore, it can be a display of doubt when we flee from the devil's attacks. I think also in this case, not only is this a display of doubt if he was to flee, such a display would also include discouragement. Verse number three is what we might term an enigmatic verse. If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? The verse can mean several things. It could mean the foundations are actually destroyed. Or hypothetically, that they can't be destroyed. The idea someone would say, well, there are biblical foundations in terms of God that cannot be destroyed. This is a hypothetical verse. Therefore, some suggest the righteous, well, if they are destroyed, they can do nothing. Or if not destroyed, then they can do anything. I've read a few things in the last couple of days, and people go in all those different directions. Different, if you like, the combinations of thoughts in the text. I think, though, if we see this whole section, verse 1 to 3, as the language of David's friends, or perhaps foes, I think they are seeking to discourage him. And they are suggesting that things are so bad, nothing more can be done but to flee. If the foundations are gone, then all is lost. Spurgeon takes this perspective that is again a temptation to discouragement. He says this, it was equally correct that the very foundations of law and justice were destroyed under Saul's unrighteous government. But what were all these things to the man whose trust was in God alone? He could brave the dangers, could escape the enemies and defy the injustice which surrounded him. When prayer engages God on our side, and when faith secures the fulfillment of the promise, what cause can there be for flight? There is no such word as impossibility in the language of faith. so I think what you're seeing here is, again, it's a temptation to flee in the sense of, there's nothing I can do to fix this situation. And that's a genuine attack the devil uses against the people of God. It is this idea that it's just time to give up—to give up on church. take out on praying or seeking for the good of the nation, or even to give up on our personal walk with God, we get to the point that things are too bad, they've gone too far, they're beyond recovery, and there is no point of any other action. I may as well just flee. It's a common temptation. You find some, even in the church, in the West church, and they fall into some very, very grievous sin. And they would say, well, I've destroyed the very foundations of my faith and testimony. I've acted so badly, so wickedly. There's nothing more I can do. I'm done for. I'm lost. And there is no thoughts of what God can do. There are those in the church, and they get to the point where the church is hopeless. You know, look at the state of the church. What hope is there of any recovery? Or, of course, there are those, and they look at the nation, and they see the nation, the foundations are destroyed. The Bible's out of the schools. There's no thought of God in all of their eyes. Therefore, it's time for us to flee the world, to stop engaging with this world and just flee and live in our own hell until the Lord returns. All must be lost. That's the spirit here. It's a very dangerous spirit. A display of doubt that would encourage discouragement and would likely also involve disobedience. Again, I'm surmising to some degree here because I don't know the exact details, but I do believe there are clear evidence in the text to suggest this thought. Again, you'll see in verse number four that the psalmist refers to the Lord loving the righteous, trying the righteous. Indeed, verse three referring to what the righteous can do. It seems to me the fact that David trusts that the Lord will undertake for the righteous. He will undertake for those walking in the fear of the Lord. It implies that he was thinking that fleeing would have involved some form of unrighteousness. So he's got some command in his mind, and he thinks to himself, if I flee, I'm going to violate the command of God. I don't know which one, but that seems to be the case, that he's only going to be righteous before God if he stays and does not flee. Not clear, but in some sense, was he going to relinquish his calling from God? And so this crisis that he faces, the danger in this attack, is that he would end up in doubt and discouragement and disobedience. That's the devil's aim in our spiritual warfare, that we doubt God, that we discourage the things of God, and then disobey the will of God. That's the devil's aims. And he seeks to do that privily. And so it must be a resolution in our souls to test all of our decisions by the Word of God, to take heed to the counsel we may receive. Even our friends may tell us to act in a way that would be to violate the will of God. You see, a seemingly expedient pathway may not be the pathway the Lord has. It looks easy to flee and to escape, to serve, to save his life, but that was not the Lord's will. Thus, it was important that he was willing to stay and suffer for righteousness' sake. And so, it's in general terms. How do you learn from this? Be aware of the devil's devices and seek by God's grace to stay in the will of God and not to succumb to doubt and discouragement and disobedience. And so if that's the danger that is faced in the trials, what about the declaration of trust that follows? Because verse four to seven is a wonderful ringing endorsement of the faithfulness of God. Now we've seen the dominance of this theme in the Psalms, that David finds himself putting his trust in the Lord. But again, I ask the question, if we're gonna trust God, what is God like? Do we know our God? And what you see here in these sections is really that David's trust is in the character of God. There are three attributes that stand out, his justice, his love, and his grace. But yet, these things don't come from David like a systematic theology. God is just and defines that. God is love, defines that. God shows grace and defines that. Rather, it's a living and breathing experience of God. And so he knows the truth, but he's so comfortable with the truth, he's so close to God, that these truths, they just revolve around his mind. And so at times he goes from justice, to love, to grace, and he runs these about in his mind as he wrestles with God in this time of trial. Clearly justice is here. The Lord is in his holy temple. The Lord's throne is in the heaven. The Lord trieth the righteous. Verse number seven, he loveth righteousness. These are terms of justice. Justice established like God's eternal throne and executed regarding the righteous and the wicked. His love is also seen here, as we will see, and as grace in verse number 7, in his countenance beholding the upright. And so we find him interacting with God in this living, dynamic manner. He reminds himself, first of all, that God always does what is right. The Lord is in his holy temple. The Lord's throne is in heaven. And again, it's a declaration that God does what is right. Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire, and brimstone. He understands that he is suffering as a righteous man at the hands of the wicked, but God will indeed do what is right, therefore I can trust him. You know, if God could change his mind regarding you and your state, you have no foundation to trust him. But because your right is in Christ Jesus, that cannot change. You can trust God for your tomorrow, no matter what happens. And you have the certainty that you do not need to flee or to fear the wicked. Rather, they ought to fear the coming wrath of God upon them for their sin. Again, verse six is a fearful display of God's justice upon the wicked for their sins. Snares and fire and brimstone and horrible tempest, that's their portion. So God does what is right. God always, secondly, treats me in love. Verse five is really subtle, but very interesting. The Lord trieth the righteous, but the wicked in him that loveth violence his soul hateth. So there are two parts there that are in contrast. And what are the two verbs that are in contrast? The first part, the verb to try, to test. And the second part, it is the verb to hate. See the difference here in the contrast? The Lord trieth the righteous but hates the wicked. That's the contrast. And so the implication is, for whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. Hence, in trials, when tested with doubt, we need to remember the Lord refines but never rejects the righteous. In our trials, it is not a matter of God's rejection, but of God's refining work. Blessed is the man that endured temptation, for when he has tried, he shall receive the crown of life," James 1 and the verse number 12. The Lord always treats us in love. Even our trials come from a God that loves us. God always does what is right. God always treats me in love. And thirdly and finally, God smiles on the righteous in his grace. Verse 7, the righteous Lord loveth righteousness. His countenance doth behold the upright. The God who loves righteousness loves all those who are righteous in his sight. Righteous, of course, because of Christ's perfect righteousness, but also righteous in their obedience. These are souls who are righteous in justification and also sanctification. And so you could look at verse number seven and think to yourself, is it just describing God's omniscience? That as verse four says, his eyelids or his eyes behold, is verse number seven saying the same thing? His countenance beholds? But no, it's a new thought, it's an additional thought, and it has the sense of the Aaronic Blessing. Here are the eyes of the Lord over the righteous. You see, the language of Psalm 11 is, I believe, used by Peter in 1 Peter chapter 3. Turn across there, and we'll finish with this. 1 Peter chapter 3, you see that it seems to be the case that Peter is using the language of this psalm. Verse number 12, he says this, "'For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers. But the face of the Lord is against them that do evil. Now, whilst it may not be a direct quotation of the psalm, and there are other portions of God's Word that also feed into this, you see the similarity. The Lord's eyes are upon the righteous, but against them that do evil. And so if that combines the thought, verse number 7 says, not to be against them, but to be for them. His face is for the righteous. He looks upon us with fever. The eyes that are too pure to behold iniquity can look upon the upright and pour grace upon grace in all of their trials. Hence, whatever trial may be, and the temptation to run away, trust in God. He does what's right, He always loves, and He smiles on us with righteousness and grace. Therefore, In the Lord put I my trust. How could you possibly say that I should flee as a vulnerable, defenseless bird? I am strong in the Lord. I am safe in the Lord. I am not defenseless. I am not hopeless. And thus, though things may seem terrible in my life, in my home, in my church, though the foundations seem to be completely destroyed, yet as a righteous man in the strength of God, I can do much. Thank you for taking the time to listen to this episode of Let the Bible Speak from Malvern Free Presbyterian Church. If you'd like more information about the gospel or the church, please call 610-993-3170 or email malvernfpc at yahoo.com. We extend an invitation to all to join us as we worship the Lord each week. You will be made very welcome. The church is situated at 80 Mallon Road, Malvern, Pennsylvania, at the junction of 401 and Mallon Road. We meet for worship on the Lord's Day at 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. A Bible study and prayer meeting is also held on Wednesday evening at 7 p.m. We preach Christ Crucified.