Let us sing of God’s strength.
[Psalms 59]
Today I had a time to meditate on Job. As I meditated on the story of Job again, I thought about how Job felt when Satan and the mighty struck Job under God's sovereignty. Although when I think about Job who suffered severe pains such as, loosing all things, all children died, I can't imagine what he went through. But when I think about Job’s friends, I can identify with them. That is, Job's friends tried to comfort Job, but in the end, as Job said, they were "Sorry comforters" (Job 16:2). When I see myself, I think about how many times have I been a sorry comforter to those suffering people whom I have tried to comfort with good intention. I thought about what Job himself was like. Job's friends were friends who knew nothing about what Job was going through. So instead of comforting Job, they even added more suffering to Job. Job, who was in such affliction, couldn’t even himself realize everything that was happening to him under God's sovereignty. He was also suffering excruciatingly in many ways in the midst of ignorance. I wonder what I could do for Job if I had been a friend of Job. I think about what I can do as I look at my brothers and sisters in Christ who are suffering from the extreme dangers of life due to the dark forces of Satan. Things that are happening in God's sovereignty, we have no choice but to ask God to save them and deliver them, as we look only to God and seek His mercy. In particular, I confess that I have no choice but to rely on God's power as I feel and see that human incompetence continues to come through due to extreme pain. In the midst of that, I remembered that in the prayer topic that our church prayed at the beginning of this year, based on the book of Acts, we had been praying for four powers: the power of prayer, the power of the Holy Spirit, the power of the Word, and the power of love. As I pray for these four powers, I would like to unite these powers together and call them the Power of the Holy Spirit. So, what is the power of the Holy Spirit? There are three ways to think about it: (1) The principle of the power of the Holy Spirit is the Power of the Word of God, (2) The pattern of the power of the Holy Spirit is the love of Jesus, and (3) The power of the Holy Spirit is the Power of Prayer.
In Psalms 59:16, 17, the psalmist David said in determination, “I shall sing of Your strength ... ” (v. 16) and ““O my strength, I will sing praise to You …” (v. 17). What is the power of the Lord, so David determined to sing the power of the Lord? I would like to meditate on four things under the heading “Let us sing of God’s strength.” Therefore, as we experience the power of the Lord in our lives, I hope and pray that we, like David, will be able to sing (praise) the power of the Lord even in any difficult and painful situation.
First, God’s strength is power of protection.
Look at Psalms 59:9, 16b, 17 – “Because of his strength I will watch for You, For God is my stronghold. … For You have been my stronghold And a refuge in the day of my distress. O my strength, I will sing praises to You; For God is my stronghold, the God who shows me lovingkindness.” What I feel more and more these days is that we humans are very fragile. We are truly fragile vessels that cannot live day by day and moment by moment without God's grace. In particular, without God's protection, we are easily perverted, quickly fall down and become discouraged, and are inevitable to quickly leave God (the word of God) and betray Him. For example, if God doesn’t protect our hearts, it is too easy for us to commit the sin of disobedience due to the disbelief of our hearts because we are pushed and lost by Satan's power in the spiritual battle. Especially when we are faced with a difficult or fearful situation, if God doesn’t protect our thoughts, feelings, and will, we are controlled by that situation and are bound to suffer in fear. What was the situation in which David was facing in Psalms 59? He was being pursued by King Saul’s people. King Saul's people were David's enemies, evildoers, and men of bloodshed (vv. 1-2). They ran to David (v. 4) and howled like a dog and went around the city (vv. 6, 14). David repeatedly described enemies following him as howling like dogs and going around the city. Just imagine. What do we do when we think that (bloody) hungry dogs howling around us and eventually discovering and following us? Won't we run away? Won’t we escape to save our lives from those hungry dogs? David was pursued like the dog and ran away from King Saul’s people and ran to God who was his stronghold.
Dr. Yoon-sun Park said: ‘Looking at the Lord is the only way to live. If we look everywhere, we will only be confused by the temptations and threats of this world, and if we look at ourselves, we will only be discouraged. But when we look to the Lord, we are glad and happy. The reason is because He is like a “stronghold” and is our refuge, and He gives salvation to those who look to Him’ (Park). I think it's a really reasonable view. If we look all around us, it can be distracting. And when we look at ourselves, we may even experience spiritual depression amid discouragement. However, we who pray to the God of salvation with the assurance of salvation as we long for the protection of the Lord, who is our stronghold, and flee to Him.
Therefore, we will experience the Lord's protective power. Then we will be able to sing this hymn to God: “Throu' days of toil when heart doth fail, God will take care of you; When dangers fierce your path assail, God will take care of you. God will take care of you, Through ev'ry day, O'er all the way; He will take care of you, God will take care of you” (Hymn “Be not Dismayed Whate’er Betide”, verse 2 and chorus).
Second, God’s strength is the power of love.
Look at Psalms 59:10 – “My God in His lovingkindness will meet me; God will let me look triumphantly upon my foes.” We are those who live by the power of God's love. In particular, it is us the believers who endure more and more with God's lovingkindness in difficult situations, and overcome them. As I meditated on God's love, I remembered prophet Jonah. Although he went down into the deep sea while being in the great fish because he disobeyed God’s command, yet he looked at the temple of God again. Likewise, we look to God again in the midst of deep pains and sufferings. By doing so, we the believers experience God’s lovingkindness deeply. We are the believers who experience God’s love in our deep pains and sufferings. One of the gospel songs that I sang from time to time is the song “Power of Love”. The lyrics of verse 1 is like this: “Lord I come to You/ Let my heart be changed, renewed/ Flowing from the grace/ That I've found in You/ Lord I've come to know/ The weaknesses I see in me/ Will be stripped away/ By the power of Your love.” Looking at this lyric, when I think about when I usually experience God's great love, I admit that I experience God's great love when I realize how weak I am. I confess that I am strong when I am weak. In Psalms 59:10, David was convinced that God would accept him with His lovingkindness. Look at verse 10: “My God in His lovingkindness will meet me; God will let me look triumphantly upon my foes.” Here, ‘God will meet me’ means ‘He will come for me in time’ (Park). In other words, David took refuge in God, who is the God of salvation and the stronghold, protecting David in the day of trouble, because he was convinced that the Lord would come to him and help him in God’s perfect time. In other words, David assured that the Lord would come to him and help him in the time of God when he took refuge in Him, the God of salvation and his stronghold who had been protecting him in the day of trouble. In this assurance, David endured in all adversity and suffering, as if in the valley of the shadow of death. I think this is the perseverance of the saints. However, even the perseverance of the saints is due to the lovingkindness of God. The reason is because God’s endurance and heartache in coming to us is greater and more desperate than our endurance in going to God in all adversity and suffering. Those who know this love of God wait for the Lord's help as they endure in pain and adversity with the power of God's love. What's interesting is the contrast between verses 15 and 16. In these two verses, while David's enemies were wandering about for food and growling if they weren’t satisfied (v. 15), David determined to sing of the Lord’s strength and to praise His lovingkindness in the morning (v. 16). Here we can learn two lessons: (1) The first lesson is that while the wicked wander for food, but in the end they aren’t satisfied, the righteous are satisfied with the Lord’s strength. (2) The second lesson, while the wicked stay up all night because they can't get full, the righteous sleep at night even in the situation of persecution and death, and sing of His lovingkindness in the morning. What is the reason? The reason is because David was able to fall asleep because of the Lord’s loving kindness, and was able to face the new morning with the Lord.
As we experience the power of God's love, we will be able to sing the rest of the second verse and the chorus of the gospel song, “The Power of Your Love”: “Lord unveil my eyes/ Let me see You face to face/ The knowledge of Your love/ As You live in me/ Lord renew my mind/ As Your will unfolds in my life/ In living every day/ By the power of Your love/ Hold me close/ Let Your love surround me/ Bring me near/ Draw me to Your side/ And as I wait/ I'll rise up like the eagle/ And I will soar with You/ Your Spirit leads me on/ In the power of Your love.”
Third, God’s strength is the power of justice.
Look at Psalms 59:11 – “Do not slay them, or my people will forget; Scatter them by Your power, and bring them down, O Lord, our shield.” David asked God not to kill his enemies quickly but to make them suffer for the price of their sins, so that the people would remember that sinners must be punished (Park). However, for some reason, they seem to forget that the wicked must be punished. What is the reason? I looked for the answer in Psalms 50:21 – “These things you have done and I kept silence; You thought that I was just like you; ….” Even after sinning, the wicked continue to commit even greater sins without fear because God is silent and nothing happens to them. In other words, the wicked don’t know that God is just God. They are mistaken in thinking that God does injustice with them. But God is just God. He is God who has the power to scatter and humble our enemies. David asked that God, “Awake to punish all the nations; Do not be gracious to any who are treacherous in iniquity” (59:5). Obviously, our just God made David see “triumphantly” upon his foes (v. 10). And he prayed to God like this: “Destroy them in wrath, destroy them that they may be no more; That men may know that God rules in Jacob To the ends of the earth” (v. 13).
Fourth and last, God’s strength is the power of salvation.
Look at Psalms 59:1-2: “Deliver me from my enemies, O my God … Deliver me from those who do iniquity And save me from men of bloodshed.” As I meditate on the psalms, I feel that David the psalmist prayed to God with assurance of salvation. In other words, David believed that God would deliver him at the crossroads of life and death due to his enemies who threaten his life, whether his enemies was Saul or Absalom, while he had not yet experienced God's salvation, and cried out to God for His gracious salvation. That was why David decided to sing the power of the Lord (of salvation). How can we determine to sing to the Lord in such a crisis situation? How could Paul and Silas praise God, knowing that they would be executed the next day in prison? (Acts 16) This is different from the argument of Pastor Sung-Geon Hong, who serves at Youth With Mission. Pastor Hong says that praise means praising what God has done to us. In the case of Apostle Paul and Silas in Acts 16, and David in Psalms 59, they praised God even though they had not yet experienced God's salvation. How can we explain this? We can try two explanations: (1) Paul and Silas, or David praised God because they experienced with faith that God's work of salvation had already begun, or (2) As worshipers, they knew and believed in the truth that God is God (for example, the God of salvation), so they could praise God even when they were not delivered. I think David’s situation in Psalms 59 was a bit more valid for the second explanation.
If David had focused on his resentment, he would not have been able to praise God's saving power in faith. David’s enemies had set an ambush for David’s life and launched an attack against him, not because of his transgression or his sin (v. 3). In fact, David had no transgressions, but his enemies ran to David and prepared to attack him (v. 4). Even in this unfair situation, David longed for and prayed for God's saving grace. He hoped for God's help and asked for the Lord to arise Himself and see (v. 4). Therefore, we should focus on God rather than on our unfair situation. And we must believe that our God is the God of salvation who delivers us from that unfair situation. We must ask the God of salvation with assurance of salvation. Then we will be able to sing the chorus of the hymn “My Soul in Sad Exile”: “I've anchored my soul in the ‘Haven of Rest,’ I'll sail the wide seas no more; The tempest may sweep o'er the wild stormy deep; In Jesus I'm safe evermore.”
The more I live in this world, the more I feel that this world is a world of sorrows and hardships, sins and deaths. That’s why I like to sing that hymn “My Soul in Sad Exile”. And when I sing that hymn, I meditate on the saving grace of the Lord. I also pray with my heart for the protection of the Lord. As we live in this world, how can we live in anxiety without the protection of the Lord? We must enjoy the blessing of experiencing God's deep love even in the midst of deep despair and suffering. We must endure in this sinful world while believing in the power of God's justice. In the midst of that, we should be grateful and praise the Lord's saving grace. Let us praise the God’s strength of protection, of love, love justice and of salvation until our last breath in this earth.
With prayerful heart that wanting to give glory to God through praise, being raised as a true worshiper before God through His strength,
James Kim
(While listening to the Korean gospel song “The Lord’s Forest” at dawn on Thursday)