Do you like to stick out or to fit in? The teacher tells your class to dress in black, but this is not you, so you come in red—the red umbrella amid a sea of black ones. Or maybe you decide to buy the white car, for it is common and not flashy. Some of us are definitely more the blend-in type, while others prefer to be different, to make a statement. At times, blending in or being unique is not just a matter of taste but of survival. A zebra blending in with the herd saves it from the lion. If everyone gets a C but you score an A, this puts you ahead of the pack for better things. The benefit of fitting in or sticking out depends on the situation and who you want to fit in with or stand out from. In Psalm 28, the psalmist finds himself in a time where being lumped in with one group is deadly, and so he pleads to be a gracious exception.

When you bow your head to pray, every time someone says, “let us pray,” you might feel at least a tiny twinge of anxiety. A gentle whiff of doubt lurks in the background, and sometimes this doubt is anything but gentle. This suspicion amounts to: Is God listening? Will the Lord answer my prayer? Does the Almighty, who is constantly managing the limitless cosmos, pay attention to little old me? We say that prayer is a conversation with the Father, but in practice, it feels like a monologue. Prayer is the one time you can talk to yourself, and others will not think of you as being odd. For, at least verbally, especially in the church age, the Lord does not talk back to us. God can communicate in other ways, but he is not heard in our ears. Amid the conversation of prayer, the Lord is quiet, and the psalmist feels the awkwardness of this like bags of sand. He is being crushed under the uncertainty, wondering if God is paying attention. So as he cries out to Yahweh, he begs him not to be deaf. “Please don’t be silent to me!”

The silence of God is actually a key theme when it comes to prayer; it is a fully formed principle within our so-called doctrine of prayer. Throughout the Psalms and in other parts of Scripture, God is often silent to our prayers; we regularly limp along under the burden of the Lord’s silence. Such silence is thorny, for it can be read in so many ways. We are prone to judge silence shallowly as only negative. Silence is oppressive, weak, or rude—it can be these things, but it can be so much more. Quiet can be the muscular side of self-control: when foolish gabbing surrounds you, wisdom has the fortitude to remain quiet, not to stoop down to the silly conversation or the vacuous insults.

At other times, silence can speak more powerfully than words. When your friend is weeping at a funeral, a quiet hug is way better medicine than a pious cliché. Silence can also express peace and contentment; all is well; everything is in its place. To speak would only ruin the moment. The Lord’s silence, then, can be a mark of his sovereign control, his wise order. At other times, though, the Father’s silence can herald horrible news. The silent treatment expresses anger, rejection, and displeasure. No response can spell the punitive action of judgment, of being forsaken, disowned. And this is what the psalmist is desperately pleading not to be the case. He is in dire straits; his life depends on God answering. Will Yahweh remain deaf and let the psalmist perish as judgment? Will God be mute to his needs?

The urgency of the psalmist is bursting at the seams. He is crying out for mercy. His pleas are requesting the powerful grace of our Lord. In fact, so intense is his need that his hands reach out to the Holy of Holies (verse 2). Lifting up one’s hands is a common posture of prayer, and the psalmist’s hands extend literally to the Holy of Holies of the sanctuary. He aims his prayer not at the bronze altar, nor at the golden incense altar, but at the very ark over which Yahweh is enthroned in glory. What is the significance of this?

Well, this is correlated to the dangerous effects of sin. Under the law, when you sinned, some of these sins defiled the outer altar of bronze. Other, more serious sins offended God’s holiness in a deeper fashion and so profaned the incense altar. Then, the most grievous transgressions reached all the way into the Holy of Holies to stain the ark. Moreover, where a sin left its stain was the metric for judgment. Defile the bronze altar and judgment was serious; profane the incense altar and punishment was sweeping. Pollute the ark, and wrath would be catastrophic. Additionally, while the bronze altar sins punished the individual, ark defilements unleashed corporate judgment, the whole people being flooded with plague and curse.

As the psalmist prays towards the ark, corporate judgment is very much on the menu. He says, “If God is silent to him, he will become like those who go down to the pit.” To descend into the pit of Sheol is to die; even more so, it is the cursed death to be forsaken by God in the afterlife. God’s silence means a one-way ticket to Sheol—do not pass go, do not collect $200. Yet, this descent into Hades is a group activity. A whole group is being swallowed up by the pit. Presently, those consigned to the pit have the psalmist penned in; they count him among their number. The psalmist fits into a group he does not want to be in. He needs his membership revoked. Now is the time for him to stick out.

The corporate nature of the judgment is further seen in verse 3: “Don’t drag me off with the wicked.” Let me not be swept away with all the rebellious sinners. God’s wrath is hauling off a large body of evildoers. Judgment rushes in like a tornado that demolishes the entire neighborhood of sinners. All sinners will perish; the whole lot of them will be blown away. And so, the psalmist prays to be the exception; he begs to be separated from the group. May he be that one lone house standing after the tornado levels the whole block. He pleads for grace. And this is the master talent of grace, to exempt one from punishment.

Yet, before he adds to his requests, the psalmist elaborates a touch on these evildoers. He pinpoints a few of their transgressions. These wicked performers of evil are sinister, for they are friendly. They speak peace to their neighbors. They wave at you from the driveway, ask about your day, wish you well, and offer to pray for you. They are super nice and very polite, but they do not mean it. Beneath that velvet glove handshake is an iron fist and sharp claws. The beating heart within them throbs with evil. The insincere politeness is a honey trap to enslave and exploit. An evil heart seeks your harm, to use and abuse, be it to kill, rob, or take advantage of. In one sense, this equals one of the worst types of wickedness. If a foe openly dislikes you and declares their animosity, then you know what to expect, how to be on guard, and when to defend yourself. But if the foe is the friendly, apple-pie-sharing neighbor who is plotting your destruction, then you are lured in unawares and unprepared. They gave you warm brownies with a smile; how were you supposed to know they were poisoned? The Evil One masquerades as an angel of light, and these evildoers are his kids.

But, there is another wickedness they champion. “They don’t understand the works of the Lord” (v. 5). This has nothing to do with mental slowness; rather, they disregard and reject the deeds of Yahweh. By his works, we learn about our God. His actions display his glory; they call us to humility and fear of the Lord. His marvels wow us with the Lord’s mercy and redemption. Yahweh’s judgments warn us about the wages of sin. But these evildoers pay none of God’s deeds any mind. Scoffing at his holiness, laughing at his justice, despising his fidelity, such is their deliberate and hateful ignorance of God’s works. These two infractions add up to violating the two great commands. Their politeness is the veneer of hating their neighbor; their despising Yahweh’s ways equals loathing God.

With this, the predicament of the psalmist is made clear. The ungodly surround him, and he is terrified of being swept away with them. With the problem set forth, we will turn to the solution in the second half of Psalm 28.

©Zach Keele. All Rights Reserved.

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Post authored by:

• Zach Keele

  

  Rev. Zachary Keele grew up on a ranch in a small town named Crawford, Colorado. He attended Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania and received his Master of Divinity from Westminster Seminary California. He has served as the pastor of Escondido OPC since 2006.

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