That the Nations May Know Themselves to be but Men - Psalm 9:19-20
(Read Psalm 9:19-20) We live in a nation of NO FEAR. We’ve all seen the bumper stickers, we’ve all read the T-shirts. NO FEAR! It’s not just an American slogan. It’s an American state of mind. I would have no problem with it being the slogan or our military. I would have no problem with it being the slogan of the Westland police force. Well-trained men and women with the experience and weaponry to back up a slogan such as NO FEAR. But NO FEAR is the slogan seen on the bumper sticker of a car carrying teen-agers who have no fear, no respect, and no honor for their parents. Teen-agers who have no concern for the authority of their teachers in school. It is the slogan of many an adult who also have no use for any authority in their lives. They’ll cuss out the police officer who pulls them over for driving 45 in a 25. They’ll be found in contempt by the court that later tries them. They’ll have no respect, no use for the church, the Word of God or the man of God. No fear of the God who can, must and will judge them one day.
I would have to say that the very best word that I could come up with to describe the sin that this NO FEAR frame of mind entails is the word pride. Pride is nothing new; someone just came up with a slogan to fit it. Another word would be arrogance. Pride and arrogance always come with a price. Matthew 23:12 says And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased, and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted. Abased means brought low or humiliated. Over and over in the Old and New Testament we’re told that God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Pride and arrogance have always been a problem for mankind but will grow in the last days. Romans 1:30 says Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents… 2 Timothy 3:2 says For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy…
This sin is nothing new, just a new slogan and so many are proud to wear it as some sort of badge of courage. It comes with a price. The 9th Psalm, written by David, comes with an introduction in my Bible. The little scripts were added later; few if any came with the original writings. But they are little scripts added to help us better understand the context of the Psalm. The 9th Psalm is introduced as To the chief Musician upon Muth-labben, A Psalm of David. The word Muth-labben means death of the son.
My recollection of the Scriptures brings to my memory the death of three different sons during his lifetime. There was his infant son, born to him by Bathsheba. David in his pride went upon the housetop to survey his kingdom. While his men were out at war, where he should have been, he had stayed home. While there he spotted a young woman bathing. Her name of course was Bathsheba. David inquired as to who she was and found out that she was Uriah’s wife, one of his brave men who were off fighting for him. In what is perhaps one of the greatest stories of pride and arrogance, David has Bathsheba brought to him. He commits adultery with her and then she is found to be with child. Somebody should have just made up a big old NO FEAR bumper sticker and put it on David’s chariot. His pride and arrogance goes farther as he then tries to hide his sin by bringing Uriah home from war. When that doesn’t work, he has Uriah killed. He orders his commander to send Uriah to the front lines. David then takes Bathsheba as his wife.
But pride and arrogance have a price. Unconfessed sin and an unrepentant heart in a child of God must be dealt with. It is decreed by the prophet Nathan that this child must die. David’s heart is broken. As he weeps and mourns for his child perhaps he writes this psalm. But we look back and see in verse one that David is praising God. I will praise Thee Oh God with my whole heart. When we are humbled by God we are brought to a point where we can once again look up to God and praise Him for who He is. We get so high and mighty sometimes, full of pride and arrogance and when we do so we worship ourselves. God brings low the proud but gives grace to the humble.
David had another son named Amnon. His story takes place in II Samuel 13. Amnon had a half sister named Tamar whom he lusted after. He finally took her by force. Tamar had a brother named Absalom. Absalom found out what happened and went to their father, King David. But King David was too busy being king to be a father. He was proud of his title of king. He’s worked and fought hard to get to where he is now. Too proud to deal in such trivial matters as taking care of problems with the children.
But pride and arrogance have a price. Absalom kills Amnon. (Read II Samuel 13:30-31) David’s heart is broken once again. He’d been too busy to be a father. His heart had been filled with too much pride and once again he must weep over the loss of a child. Perhaps this is the point at which he wrote the 9th Psalm. He fears that perhaps Absalom has killed all of his sons. But as word comes that the rest are all safe perhaps he pens the words of verses 9 and 10. Humbled once again by God, he can lift his voice up in praise to his maker, to His God.
Absalom now rebels against his father. Beginning in II Samuel 14 we see the account, the record of all that happens. David’s pride kicks in once again. His son has done wrong but rather than punish him as he should have he simply banishes him. At the urging of his advisors he allows his son to eventually return. Isn’t it amazing how quick we’ll be to point out someone else’s sin but how easily we‘ll ignore our own? We want to be proud of our children. In our eyes it seems that they do no wrong. But when we cover their sin, when we don’t apply the correction that is needed because of our own pride, there will be a price to pay. Much goes on here as David is forced to flee from his own home by his son. But in the end, Absalom is dead. And once again David mourns. Pride and arrogance always have a price.
Perhaps now David pens this 9th Psalm. David cries for judgment in this Psalm for those who have misled his son and for those who have turned their backs and become his enemies. He cries out to God in the humble state that he once again finds himself.
That is the instruction of God. 1 Peter 5:6 Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God that He may exalt you in due time. James 4:10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and He shall lift you up. Proverbs 16:18 Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
Oh but you say I thought David was a man after God’s own heart? David was a man after God’s own heart. And David was a man… Put them in fear O Lord that the nations may know themselves to be but men. Even the greatest of men, even the best of women, even the godliest among us deal with pride and sometimes arrogance. We’d never be so blatant as to put a bumper sticker on our car. We might now wear it as a badge. But we still have pride. We still have our arrogance.
Remember that man you saw last week walking, no staggering down the street? The one with the brown paper bag covering up the bottle that he was carrying? And you remembered back to your days in high school. You remember the group that liked to party. You were the son or the daughter of a good Christian family and were laughed at because you wouldn’t come to the party. And they joked and told their stories about getting drunk and carrying on. And now you proudly say to yourself, he was probably one of those. I guess he finally got his.
Remember the one you saw down on the street corner with the sign asking for money for food? His clothes were torn and dirty. A shopping cart sat nearby with all of his worldly goods in it. You remembered back to a time when you were ten or twelve and you took that first paper route. You remember the kids that wouldn’t work. Their parents gave them an allowance. You went on to that job at McDonalds and worked your way through high school. Meanwhile you still remember that same group that wouldn’t work. They always wanted to hang out while you were working. And you went on and worked your way through college and got a good job, meanwhile that group was still just hanging out. And proudly you think, surely he was one of that group. I guess he finally got his.
Maybe it was the young lady who came to service one day with three or four kids in tow. No father in sight. You went forward to pray with her only to find out that these children were from different affairs that she’d had, different love interests. Though you prayed with her and showed an interest in her needs in the back of your mind you remembered those girls in school that always had the interest of all the boys in town. They dressed in such a way as to catch a young man’s eye. Stories circulated about their activities when they went on dates. And though as a Christian you know you should care about that young lady, somewhere inside of you is that pride that says I guess she got what was coming to her.
We’ve all done it. As Baptists we’re programmed for it. Take a group of our teens out one night. Just drive them down the street. Listen and observe the comments that they make about their fellow teenagers, about men and women they see on the streets. We judge and condemn in our pride failing to stop for much more than a moment to consider their souls. Surely they’ve gotten what they deserve. Oh but don’t you know that there but by the grace of God go you and I? We are all men and women like David, with passions and lusts and greed capable of just as great a sin. But God has worked in our lives, transforming us into new creations by His grace, by His power. He died on the cross so that we could have new life and He died on the cross for each one of them that we look upon with such pride and arrogance.
We talked Sunday night about phileo love and agape love. Christ didn’t die for the world because of a phileo love. It wasn’t because the world would first love Him. It wasn’t because of any merit of my own that Christ died for me. That’s what phileo love is, it is love because of. Jesus Christ just loves me, He agapes me. And he loves these which we from time to time look down upon and judge.
Today I would ask you to consider this issue of pride. It may be like David, that in pride and arrogance you have continued on with life, ignoring sin, ignoring the judgment that must fall, going on as if nothing is wrong. Many of our families are falling apart as a result of it. Maybe it’s a self pride, a condemning pride as you look upon the needs of others, not in love but condemning them to what you feel they deserve. I call on you this morning, right where you stand to ask God’s forgiveness and to ask Him to help you love them, to agape them as He loves.
