"I trust in God’s unfailing love for ever and ever"
[Psalms 52]
"I trust in God’s unfailing love for ever and ever"
Psychologist Larry Crab said: ‘We long for relationships. And because we long for it, we get hurt.’ It is our human instinct to long for a relationship, but it is also our instinct to avoid the relationship if we get hurts in that relationship. And because of our hurts, even our wholesome longing for deep relationships can be extinguished. In other words, the hurts within us in the relationship can make us either not pursue an intimate relationship or hesitate that relationship.
How is your heart in this Suffering Week? Personally, as I start this Suffering Week, my heart is little bit painful. The cause of suffering in my heart is due to my imperfect love. In other words, my heart is heavy, painful, and distressed because of the love of human which fails and is bound to fail. But for some reason, this heaviness, pain, and distress make me to meditate on Psalms 52, making me more and more dependent on God's unfailing love. I meditate on and hold onto the word of Psalms 63:3 that God gave to me before my first baby Charis died: “Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, My lips will praise You.” As I meditate on Psalms 52 and as I show Charis’ pictures to my youngest daughter Karis, I also meditate on God’s eternal and unfailing love.
If we look at Psalms 52:8, this is what David confesses and determines: “But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God; I trust in God's unfailing love for ever and ever.” I would like to receive the grace that is given by meditating on three things about the life of the believers who trust in God’s unfailing love for ever and ever.
First, those who trust in God’s unfailing love for ever and ever see and fear.
Look at Psalms 52:6a – “The righteous will see and fear ….” What should the believers see and fear? We must fear God when we see God punishes sinners. However, we seem to lack such awe and fear toward God. What is the cause? I think it is because of the inability to distinguish between the forgiveness of sin and the consequence of sin. In other words, we tend to believe that if we repent, not only our sins are forgiven, but also the consequences for our sins as well. Pastor John Owen said in his book “Sin and Temptation”: ‘… It isn’t correct to think that even if we sin, we can always be forgiven by grace.” We are abusing grace. We cannot say that it is the right attitude of faith to commit sin and not take it seriously. We believe and trust in God who forgives our sins rather than think that our God punishes our sins. That’s why there is lack of fearful heart even after we commit sins without fearing God.
I think the forgiveness of sins and the consequences of sin should be separated. I looked for an example in David. David confessed and repented his sins when he heard the prophet Nathan’s rebuke. So his sins were forgiven. However, as the result of his sins he committed, David suffered the consequences of his sins such as his and Bathsheba's first baby died, rape and murder in his house, and coup. Another example can be seen in the relationship between David and Shimei. When David was running away from his own son Absalom, Shimei cursed David and threw stones at him (2 Sam. 16:5-6). At that time, one of David's generals Abishai went and tried to kill Shimei, but David stopped him from doing so (vv. 9-10). Later, when Absalom died and David was returning to Jerusalem, David forgave Shimei when he came to meet David. But before he died, David told his son Solomon, “do not let him go unpunished” (1 Kgs. 2:8-9). This shows that the forgiveness of sins and the consequences of sin are separate.
The sinner in Psalms 52 is a man named "Doeg." Doeg, the Edomite, was the man who saw priest Ahimelech helping David when he was running away from King Saul and reported to King Saul. As a result, at the order to King Saul, Doeg killed 85 priests (1 Sam. 22:9-18). As we consider the sins of Doeg in three ways, we must learn not to commit the same sins as Doeg did as we fear God.
(1) Doeg’s sin was a sin of boasting himself. In other words, his sin was pride.
Look at Psalms 52:1 – “Why do you boast of evil, you mighty man? Why do you boast all day long, …” If proudly boasting of good is evil, how evil is it to be proud of evil? (Park) It is truly sharp meditation. It means even if we proudly boast goodness, it is evil. But how evil is that when the wicked boast of their evil (or evil plan)? We must be on guard against the sin of pride. We must be far away from pride. And we must listen to Jeremiah 9:24 – “but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things," declares the LORD.” We must boast of knowing God. Realizing that God is the one who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness, and boasting that God, we can also say that we are proud of our failure to exercise lovingkindness, justice and righteousness. So Apostle Paul said, “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord” (1 Cor. 1:31). What should we boast in the Lord? Is it not our foolishness and weakness? Why should we boast our foolishness and weakness? The reason is “so that no one may boast before Him” (v. 29).
(2) Doeg’s sin was a sin committed with his tongue.
Look at Psalms 52:2-4: “Your tongue plots destruction; it is like a sharpened razor, you who practice deceit. You love evil rather than good, falsehood rather than speaking the truth. Selah. You love every harmful word, O you deceitful tongue!” When David said that the sinner's tongue was “like a sharpened razor,” what is “razor”? Unlike other knives, isn't razor very sharp that cuts fine things like hair? That is what the evil tongue is. The evil tongue is to slash the other person’s heart. The sinner lies with his tongue and pours out every hurtful word from his mouth. We have to be careful with our tongues. We must hear the words of James 3:9-10 and obey: “With it (tongue) we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God; from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way.”
(3) Doeg’s sin was murder.
As the Bible says in 1 Samuel 22:18, Doeg killed 85 priests. He killed God's servants, the priest, carelessly. Although we may not kill like Doeg. But based on the word of 1 John 3:15, we can commit countless murders when we hate others. We must keep in mind that when we commit this kind of sin, God will disciplines us. We must get rid of the illusion and justify ourselves that if we repent, we will be forgiven and will not be disciplined. Those who trust in God’s unfailing love for ever and ever fear God.
Second, those who trust in God’s unfailing love for ever and ever make God their stronghold.
Look at Psalms 52:7 – “Here now is the man who did not make God his stronghold but trusted in his great wealth and grew strong by destroying others!” Those who are violent and who love evil rather than good are those who trust in the abundance of their wealth rather than God and grow strong by destroying others. Why? It is because they believe that money is power. However, those who believe that money is power are truly foolish and poor people. The reason is because money will ruin them. Those who pursue money will perish with money, and those who follow God will live because of God. In Psalms 73, the psalmist Asaph saw the prosperity of the wicked and was envious of the arrogant in contrast to the suffering of the righteous and his temps had almost slipped (Ps. 73:2-3). But when he went into the sanctuary of God, he perceived their end, that is, destruction in a moment (vv. 17-18). So he confessed “I was senseless and ignorant; I was like a beast before You” (v. 22). We need to know that trusting in money is like trusting on a spider’s web (Job 8:14-15).
We desperately need to realize how powerless, helpless, and incompetent we are. Too much power is the problem. That’s why there are countless times when we trust in our own strength to speak and act as we please. Self-standard, self-thought, self-stubbornness, self-assertion, etc., everything is so self-centered. Therefore, we must be weakened little bit even through adversity or suffering. Then we will trust in the power of God. So Apostle Paul boasted about his weaknesses “so that the power of Christ may dwell in me” (2 Cor. 12:9). It is because “power is perfected in weakness” (v. 9).
Only God is our stronghold and our strength. Those who trust in God’s unfailing love for ever and ever boast about knowing God. They trust in God because they know that He is their strength. So David confessed in Psalms 18:1-2: “I love You, O LORD, my strength. The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” We must keep in mind that it is our strength to quietly trust in God who is our strength and our stronghold (Isa. 30:15).
Third and last, those who trust in God’s unfailing love for ever and ever praise God forever.
Look at Psalms 52:9 – “I will praise you forever for what you have done; in your name I will hope, for your name is good. I will praise you in the presence of your saints.” Why did David say that he would thank God forever? The reason is because what He had done (v. 9). In other words, David forever thanked the Lord in front of the Lord’s saints because the Lord punished the violent, the wicked man who boasted of evil and practiced deceit with his tongue that was like the sharpened razor.
God is just and holy God who punishes the wicked. Those who tried to kill David, either Doeg or Saul, were eventually punished by God. So David said, “Surely God will bring you down to everlasting ruin: He will snatch you up and tear you from your tent; he will uproot you from the land of the living. Selah” (v. 5). There are two things David said regarding God punishing the wicked:
(1) The word “tear you from your tent” means that God makes the place where the wicked thought they were safe unsafe.
Here, the tent that the wicked considered safe can be “his great wealth” that the wicked trusted in. However, in punishing the sinner, God can destroy all of his wealth, making him unsafe. Look at Haggai 1:6 – “You have sown much, but harvest little; you eat, but there is not enough to be satisfied; you drink, but there is not enough to become drunk; you put on clothing, but no one is warm enough; and he who earns, earns wages to put into a purse with holes.”
(2) It is the word “he will uproot you from the land of the living”.
This means that God will perish entirely through His retribution for atrocities (Park). But the righteous, that is, those who trust in God forever, are “like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God” (v. 8). The saints who trust in God are like the olive tree, that is, evergreen trees, in the house of God that is steadfast and strong forever. As if evergreen trees remain green trees even in cold winter, we thank God in the house of God because we saints live in a taste of God's unchanging goodness and unfailing love despite any adversity and persecution.
We experience the great unfailing love of God in the midst of extreme suffering. The greater and deeper the pain, the greater and deeper we experience God's unfailing love. Speaking of extreme pain, we cannot help but think of Jesus, who came in human body and died on the cross. When we think of Jesus, who suffered the greatest suffering as a human being on the cross, we realize the perfect love of God that was revealed to us through His death. God the Father, who punished Jesus who is sinless, humble and meek, why did Heavenly Father crucify Him to death? It is for our salvation. How did Jesus, the Power, become the Powerless and hang on the tree of the curse? It is to forgive all our sins. In the end, God the Father saved us by judging the Son Jesus on the cross. So how can we not praise and thank God? We must thank and praise the Lord forever.
Earnestly praying for trusting in God’s unfailing love for ever and ever,
James Kim
(Staring this Suffering Week with heavy heart due to my imperfect love, while trusting in God’s unfailing love for ever and ever)