As we saw in part one of this series, Psalm 10 is a lament about how God seems to be standing far off from his people even as the wicked succeed in their evil. While the psalm recounts how the wicked conduct themselves with such devotion to unrighteousness, it also reminds us that hope is not lost. The truth is that God has always sworn to uphold his own. So, this series continues to develop the point of Psalm 10—that God is near to his people even when we do not feel like he is.
The opening line of Psalm 10 reveals David’s heart. He felt like God stood far away as he suffered through trial: “Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” (v. 1) We may not be as familiar with situations where enemies plot our demise. All the same, we can sympathize with how the uncertainty in trouble can be overwhelming and leave us feeling as if God is not being attentive to our plight. Yet, the whole sweep of Psalm 10 teaches us that, even when we must bring those raw emotions before God, we must also pray in light of the truth that we know about him.
General Considerations
How do we bring the concerns arising from this psalm into our own prayer life? David was clearly disturbed because God did not seem to be responding to the situation. So, he called out, “Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” (v. 1). In other words, “God, where are you as all this difficulty erupts around me?”
This brings us back to that response, “we’ll see.” It seems like God is standing aloof. It seems that in response to David’s request for help amidst real need, God is saying “we’ll see.” In that respect, we can certainly find ourselves in situations similar to that which David faced. It is unlikely that most of us will face someone hiding to plot our murder in an ambush. But it might well be that we go up against things that feel just as overwhelming. It may be that people are against us in some way or another—perhaps at work or in family controversy or in some other relationship that we have. We can easily feel like others are set against us to achieve the end of us.
I preached Psalm 10 the Sunday directly after the attempted assassination of presidential candidate Donald Trump. Although I had struggled to see exactly how to get the message of Psalm 10 to resonate well with the concrete experiences of life for the people in my congregation, those events and the responses to it brought new clarity as I went into the pulpit that Sunday. I was struck by how it felt like a political statement to pray in sadness over an attempted murder and to mention the event. Even as I tried to formulate some sort of application on the fly—which is not my usual practice—I was left reflecting upon how the events and aftermath revealed how rotten many aspects of the culture around me must be if I felt like I was being political to oppose assassination. Regardless of our political preferences, opposition to murder ought to be a non-partisan issue.
So, Psalm 10 might fit more readily into our modern circumstances than I once assumed. The lament over the wicked plotting to ambush and murder someone seems less removed from known American life than it did not long ago. But even the responses to such an event demonstrate how lamentable it is to be surrounded by wickedness. The fact that anyone would be reluctant to denounce assassination just because the potential victim was not their supported candidate is telling that we have lost a broader sense of right and wrong. If murder is a justifiable means to get the society you want, what kind of society are you striving to get? At the same time, was so much of the outrage about the attempted assassination just because the potential victim was someone’s preferred candidate? Would it have been easier for many to stomach the events, would there have been a tense emotional cloud hanging during the Lord’s Day for many Christians if it had not been the purportedly conservative candidate who was nearly killed?
The perspective Psalm 10 lends regarding the wicked pressing hotly in their ways is perhaps less “over there” and more “right here” than we might assume by reading the raw words. With some thought, we see we have the same need to lament widespread evil around us and to seek God to address it.
Three Specific Applications
We should also learn three things from Psalm 9 to help us pray about these overwhelming situations when we may feel like God is not committing himself to act on our behalf. First, we should see Psalm 10 in connection to 9. Some scholars even think these two psalms were originally one song. Whether that connection is true or not, God ensured that these two psalms ended up next to one another in the final arrangement of the Psalms. Hence why I have been presuming in these articles that David authored Psalm 10 even though it lacks a superscript to that effect.
Why does that link between Psalm 9 and Psalm 10 matter? In my previous Saturday Psalms series, I explored how Psalm 9, though also written in troubled times, is full of confidence. Here in Psalm 10, that confidence cracks somewhat. What that tells us as we hold the developing point of the Psalter together is that having confidence in the Lord and his promises does not mean that we can never falter. We are meant to bring our confident prayers to God. We are also meant to bring our confused and troubled prayers to God.
Second, we ought to pray in light of how we view the troubles that face us. The whole section of lament in verses 1–11 shows us that we ought to recount to the Lord the things that weigh heavily on us. We do not ignore them. We bring them to the Lord even as we express confusion at why God seems not to be acting. We should bare our souls to God. When we feel like God is standing far off, we should tell him that and bring that burden to him.
Third, we also learn from Psalm 10 that, even though we should bring our perception of our troubles to God, we also must pray to remind ourselves of truth. Verses 12–18 are that turning point where David prays for God to come to his aid. David fuels those prayers with reminders about what he knows God to be like and what he trusts God will do. He calls out for God to arise and remember his struggling people. Then he reminds himself that it is foolish for the wicked to act as if God will not hold them to account, saying to God, “Why does the wicked renounce God and say in his heart, ‘You will not call to account’? But you do see, for you note mischief and vexation, that you may take it into your hands; to you the helpless commits himself; you have been the helper of the fatherless” (vv. 13–14).
With this assurance, he asks God to break the arm of the wicked, representing the undoing of their strength. He closes with praise for God as king, the one who rules all things. The Lord will reign forever. The Lord will hear and help his struggling people. The Lord will strengthen his downtrodden. The Lord will do right to all who need him and call to him rightly. The lessons in Psalm 10 model for us how to bring our whole selves both in despair and need for confidence before the Lord.
Conclusion
The wicked seem to be prospering as David seeks God in prayer, but David also knows that it is ultimately foolish for the wicked to live as though God will never hold them to account. It seems as though they are getting away with all their unrighteousness at the moment. It seems as if God is indulging their pretense that he does not exist and will not judge the wicked. That perception, however, is not the ultimate truth. So, David prays with the purpose of reminding himself of the ultimate truth that this pretense will catch up with the wicked. God will act and he will do so as the truly righteous king who always comes through for his people.
© Harrison Perkins. All Rights Reserved.
You can find this whole series here.
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