THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION

Psalms: Living By Faith In God

LII. Responding To Treachery

(Psalm 52:1-9)

Introduction: (To show the need . . .)

Treachery abounds in today’s world, so we need to know how to respond well to it:

(1) Treachery is being leveled against the Supreme Court: “ . . . (T)he person who leaked the Dobbs v. Jackson decision has not been found,” creating “a serious risk that leaking controversial decisions to put pressure on justices will become the norm.” (“Furthermore,” Republican-American, January 18, 2023, p. 6A) Also, “(b)efore the decision was officially handed down, Justice Brett Kavanaugh was nearly assassinated, and Harvard Law School instructor Alejandra Caraballo . . . tweeted that the justices who voted in favor of overturning Roe should ‘never know peace again.’ If leaks continue and justices feel they must choose between the Constitution and their own safety, the Court will be damaged beyond recognition.”

(2) Treachery is being leveled against everyone who uses a gas stove: “A new study . . . concluded that a suspiciously precise 12.7% of childhood asthma cases are attributable to gas stoves. The study relied on findings from other papers that . . . arrived at widely divergent outcomes, didn’t account for other factors in households using gas stoves that might contribute to respiratory problems, and sometimes produced results that weren’t even internally consistent.” Still, “(a) headline in The Washington Post read, ‘Gas stove pollution causes 12.7% of childhood asthma, study finds.’ Yahoo News: ‘Gas stoves have given 650,000 U. S. children asthma, study finds.’ And so on . . . It is similar to the phrase ‘scientists say’ so often used in stories about climate change . . . If it can be asserted that ‘science’ has” found “that gas stoves are a major health hazard, that climate change is responsible for extreme weather, that young kids must wear masks during the pandemic – then any dissenters . . . can be marginalized for not ‘believing the science’ . . . For . . . self-styled champions of so-called science . . . (w)hy bother with the facts . . . when you can misuse the authority of science to . . . dominate?” (Rich Lowry, “No, you can’t ‘believe the science,’” Ibid.)

(3) Treachery is being leveled against the nation’s unity by progressives on a huge scale: Michael Barone’s piece, “Time for accountability on the Russia collusion hoax,” Ibid., January 23, 2023, p. 6A, told how progressives “blame [former President] Trump and many of his supporters for claiming . . . that the 2020 election was stolen and that the country would be better off if they confessed error and asked forgiveness” when “the country would be better off if” progressives would “confess error and seek forgiveness themselves for the persistent election denial of leading Democrats . . . going back to 2000 and very much including 2016,” Ibid. Amazingly, the January 6 riot by many Trump supporters was arguably a reaction to months of former riots by progressives!

(4) Treachery is being leveled against the American public by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer for the sake of profit: Steve Robinson, Editor-in-Chief of The Maine Wire, in his piece, “Pfizer Director of Research Spills Virus, Vaccine Secrets in Project Veritas Undercover Video,” January 26, 2023 (themainewire.com) reported, “Undercover video released by Project Veritas on Wednesday shows . . . Jordan Trishton Walker, Pfizer Director of Research and Development, Strategic Operations” stating, “‘One of the things we’re exploring is like, why don’t we just mutate it [COVID] ourselves so we could create – preemptively develop new vaccines, right? . . . Don’t tell anyone. Promise you won’t tell anyone . . . (Y)ou don’t want to advertise that you are figuring out future mutations.’” (We have printed out this story by Mr. Robinson of the conservative news outlet The Maine Wire and we have it on file!)

Need: So, we ask, “Though treachery abounds today, how can we respond well to it?!”

I. Psalm 52:1-9 records David’s response to lethal treachery that was practiced by Doeg the Edomite against Israel’s high priest Ahimelech, his family and an entire city of priests (as follows):

A. The introductory notes to the psalm, part of the Hebrew text (Biblica Hebraica, p. 1020), state that this psalm was David’s response to Doeg the Edomite’s telling Saul that David had come to the high priest Ahimelech.

B. 1 Samuel 21:1-22:19 gives the historical background, that when David fled from king Saul, he stopped by the tabernacle to ask the high priest Ahimelech for emergency provisions. Doeg was there, witnessing this event, but Ahimelech did not know that Saul sought David’s life, so he gave David the goods he requested. Doeg later informed Saul of this event, falsely implying that Ahimelech sided with David against Saul. Doeg’s words infuriated Saul, so he had Doeg kill Ahimelech, and Doeg slew the high priest and his city of priests.

II. Accordingly, David predicted God’s severe judgment on Doeg for his dreadful treachery, Psalm 52:1-7:

A. David critiqued Doeg for boasting of his evil deed when he was actually a disgrace to God, Psalm 52:1.

B. Doeg had plotted destruction with his words that were like a sharpened razor, deceiving and harming, v. 2-4.

C. David predicted that God would slay Doeg, that the righteous would realize that Doeg’s failure to make God his stronghold since he relied on the wealth he gained from Saul to commit his sin had cost him his life, v. 5-7.

III. However, in sharp contrast to Doeg, David told of God’s blessing in his own life, Psalm 52:8-9:

A. Opposite Doeg who was destined to die, David was a “thriving” (ra’anan, B. D. B., A Heb. and Eng. Lex. of the O. T., p. 947) “olive tree” (zayit, Ibid., p. 268) with a hardy, productive [an olive tree can grow where no other trees can, and it yields heavily with little care and culture, Z. P. E. B., v. Four, p. 528], long life, trusting God’s “loyal love” (hesed, Ibid., p. 338-339; H. A. W., T. W. O. T., 1980, v. I, p. 305-307) forever, Psa. 52:8.

B. David added that he would praise God forever and ever for what He had done in punishing Doeg and blessing him, that he would then “wait for, hope” (qawah, Ibid., v. II, p. 791; Ibid., B. D. B., p. 875) in God’s name for future blessings and praise Him since doing so was good, praising Him before other believers, Psalm 52:9.

Lesson: Though God would destroy Doeg for his treachery against the priests, David conversely trusted in the Lord and would enjoy a hardy, lively, fruitful, long life by God’s loyal love, and David would hope in Him for the future.

Application: (1) May we trust in Christ Who died as our Atoning Sacrifice for sin that we might receive God's gift of eternal life, John 3:16; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11. (2) In response to the treachery that we witness today, may we trust God to deal out justice as we rely on His loyal love toward us and hope in Him for His blessings in the future.

Conclusion: (To illustrate the message and provide additional guidance . . .)

God’s loyal love and hope for us are revealed in His Word regarding the issues in our introduction as follows:

(1) On the threat of progressives to the welfare of the Supreme Court and to the nation’s unity, (a) God in loyal love predicted in Revelation 3:21 with 7:17 that leaders full of intrigue would oppress people today, what He would allow to occur to drive people to find solutions and balm in Bible teaching churches. We thus use Scripture to provide the truth opposite false claims by progressives and we direct believers to apply Philippians 4:6-9 to find peace by committing to God in prayer what makes us anxious about increased lawlessness if the Supreme Court’s work is ruined, by thinking on edifying truths, and by following Paul’s example in living. (b) God gave us hope on this issue in predicting in Daniel 2:41-45 that Western Civilization nations in our latter days would be split in race and ideology, what would continue to exist after the rapture of the Church in the Great Tribulation. We should thus not fret over the threats we see to law and order today, but trust God to keep a workable degree of order in Western Civilization today.

(2) On progressives’ use of false science to condemn gas stoves for their alleged harm to the climate by way of their emissions, (a) Dr. Gilbert Plass of Johns Hopkins University, an expert on “the effect of carbon dioxide on the antediluvian and glacial climates,” wrote: “‘ . . . (T)he carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere was once much larger than at present . . . Higher temperatures than today . . . would have resulted from this higher carbon dioxide content.’” (G. N. Plass, “Carbon Dioxide and the Climate,” American Scientist, Vol. 44, July 1956, p. 313 as cited in John C. Whitcomb, Jr. and Henry Morris, The Genesis Flood, 1978, p. 310-311) Yet, mankind survived that era of a high concentration of carbon dioxide in Genesis 1-6! (b) Also, in Genesis 8:22, God promised after the Noahic Flood that He would sustain the earth’s climate as long as the earth existed that man might raise crops for food and survive on the earth for its duration! Man’s use of fossil fuels cannot keep God from fulfilling that verse or He would have blocked man’s use of fossil fuels long ago, so there is no need to fear for the climate over man’s use of fossil fuels!

(3) On pharmaceutical giant Pfizer’s Director of Research and Development, Strategic Operations admitting on an undercover video by Project Veritas that Pfizer is now exploring how to mutate the COVID virus to create new strains and preemptively develop new vaccines to counter those strains, all for apparent company profit, (a) we again note that we have often stated that God in His loyal love in Revelation 3:21 with 7:17 predicted that leaders full of intrigue would oppress people today, what God would allow to drive people to find solutions and balm in Bible teaching churches. Thus, in our Bible teaching Church, we researched and have documents on file showing that Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and even the Novavax COVID shots (with Novavax claiming it did not use aborted fetal cell lines to develop, manufacture or produce its vaccine), have each used aborted fetal cell lines to develop, or manufacture, or produce, or test their COVID vaccines. Exodus 21:22-23 prohibits abortion at any trimester, so we have alerted believers to this, and God has used that alert to protect them from being misled on the vaccines. (b) We thus hope in God to continue to guide us to avoid future abusive medical deception.

May we trust in Christ Who died as our Atoning Sacrifice for sin that we might receive God’s gift of eternal life. In response to the treachery we witness, may we trust God to deal out justice as we rely on His loyal love toward us and hope in Him for blessing.