Broken Bows and Slaying Swords, Pt. 2 (Psalm 37:12-15)

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Psalm 37:12-15 and the Wicked’s Violence Against the Righteous

Psalm 37 we're gonna read together verses 12 through 15. The wicked plots against the righteous. And gnashes at him with his teeth. The Lord laughs at him for he sees his day is coming. The wicked have drawn the sword and bent their bow to cast down the afflicted and the needy.

To slay those who are upright in conduct. Their sword will enter their own heart and their bows will be broken. And this is the passage that we started last week. We got partway through it looked at verses 12 and 14.

To consider together the description there of the wicked and their violence against the righteous today. We are looking at verses 13 and 15 and we're taking them in that way 12 and 14 and 13 and 15. Not just because we're grouping odd verses together and even verses together but because there's a pattern here in this chunk of the psalm that that is unfolds here and the intention of the author is to restate in verses 14 and 15 what he says in verses 12 and 13.

So verse 12 Makes the statement about the plotting of the wicked and the anger of the wicked. Then verse 14 unfolds that a little bit gives more detail. The wicked have drawn the sword and bent their bow to cast down the afflicted and the needy and to slay those who are upright in conduct.

And then verse 13 describes God's response to that his judgment, which is the Lord laughs at them. Verse 15 adds more detail to that. So there's this alternating pattern in the psalm and we are grouping together Verses 12 and 14 because they both describe the pernicious plans of the wicked and we saw there last week the anger and the hatred.

The violent intent and hostility of the wicked toward the righteous. We saw that last week that that war that hostility goes back to the garden and it is really a tale. That is as old as time itself. The war that is unfolding between the seat of the woman and the seat of the serpent.

That is really the tale of all of Scripture. We saw in those verses 12 and 14 that the wicked have not only violent hatred and hostility towards the righteous. But they also have the means to carry out their nefarious ends.

They have drawn their sword. They have bent their bow. They are ready to draw blood ready to destroy. So their anger and violence is not just a pipe dream it's not just something that they hope for it is actually something that the wicked have within their means to inflict on the righteous.

We saw there that the righteous are their target. The wicked go after the vulnerable and those who are without the means to defend themselves in order to destroy and to despoil the righteous. And then we saw that the central idea of this part of the psalm these four verses is that God in his judgment on the wicked will turn the evil of the wicked and all of their plots and intentions back Upon their own heads.

There is a poetic justice that is to come and that's what these four verses are describing. So verses 12 and 14 the pernicious plans of the wicked and now we pick it up almost like this is part 2 of last week's Sermon, which it is with the poetic punishment on the wicked in verses 13 and 15.

Let's read verse 13 and 15 together and notice how verse 15 Repeats and gets added detail. I should say it doesn't repeat. It gives added detail to what we find in verse 13. Verse 13 The Lord laughs at him that is at the wicked for he the Lord sees that his the wicked his day is coming.

Verse 15 their sword will enter their own heart and their bows will be broken. Psalm 13 describes God as laughing at the wicked now. You remember this is not the first time that we have seen this in this time that we have spent in the psalm.

We saw this back in Psalm 2 verse 4. He who sits in the heavens laughs. He scoffs at them. This word for laugh in verse 13 is the same word used for laughter back in chapter 2. Psalm 2 verse 4 Describing how the Lord responds to the wicked of Psalm 2.

In verse 4 the word translated laugh here describes mockery and derision. It means to make sport of Someone or to hold them in ridicule. Now that might make you slightly uncomfortable to think of God doing that to the wicked.

But I want to briefly lay out for you the case that this is entirely justified and entirely righteous mockery and derision. This is the judgment upon the wicked. Now there are. There are different kinds of laughter and we recognize this.

I mentioned these. I kind of expanded on this a little bit in Psalm 2. There are different kinds of laughter. There is the laughter that finds something funny because something is unexpected like the punchline of a joke or a Situation that unfolds that has a certain note of irony in it or we see something that kind of catches us out of the blue.

And so we laugh at that because it's it's kind of humorous. That's one kind of laughter. There is another kind of laughter. That is a coping mechanism. You laugh at something that is not necessarily funny.

We wouldn't find it humorous, but in order to cope or to vent. Sort of something inside of us. We sort of laugh at it as a way of just coping with reality when reality gets tough. Or sometimes we laugh to relieve tension or we laugh because we are nervous or anxious.

There is a nervous laughter kind of a you don't know what's coming that kind of a laughter. You're not sure. What's what's happening. Somebody gives you a gag gift. You're not sure. What do you see coming?

So you kind of laugh nervously at it, but none of that is the kind of laughter that God has with the wicked. He's not surprised by what they're doing. He certainly doesn't find it humorous. Oh. The wicked are oppressing the righteous.

They're trafficking people. They're oppressing people. They're stealing things. They're they're looting. They're murdering. They're going to war. They're heaping up their possessions and just spoiling the righteous.

Isn't that funny? I didn't see that coming. That's not the kind of laughter nor is it God coping with reality or relieving tension? Nor is this a nervous or anxious kind of laughter. This is the type of laughter that is what it is described as here a scoffing and a derision.

The Lord holds them in contempt in the sense that he makes sport of them or mocks them. Consider if you would going back to Psalm 2 not turning there. But I mean if you were not here for the messages on Psalm 2 and this is something that perplexes you.

How can God laugh at the wicked go back to that Psalm and watch how we unfolded this? This is this is a just God for God to scoff or deride or to ridicule those who have scoffed at and derided and Ridiculed his truth and his son and his kingdom and his righteousness and his law that is entirely just entirely righteous entirely appropriate.

I Would say to you if your view of God does not have room for that kind of theology you have a small God. You need to understand that this is in fact God doing to the wicked the very thing that they have done to the righteous to his people and to his truth and God is Simply turning back upon their own heads the very thing that they deserve and warrant for what they have done.

This is justice of God inflicting upon them what they have inflicted upon him and upon his people. Psalm 2 the parallels here are quite striking because in Psalm 2 we see Something similar happening that we have happening in Psalm 37 namely the wicked are plotting against the righteous.

Raging in their hatred and their animosity and enmity against God and his people to persecute through violence to cast off to throw down. To destroy to despoil people. In fact Psalm 2 verses 1 through 3 says why are the nation's in an uproar and the people's devising a vain thing?

Remember what Psalm 12 37 look at verse 12 says the people's plot or the wicked plots against the righteous. You have the same kind of Plotting in Psalm 2 but in Psalm 2 it is not the wicked generally speaking in Psalm 2.

It is the rulers and the and the leaders and the kings of the earth. Who are doing this plotting against the Lord and against his anointing verse 2 the kings of the earth. This is Psalm 2 the kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointing.

There is a a plotting and a planning. There is a Particular target that is in view namely the Lord his truth his kingdom his law his word his righteousness and his anointed. Which is the king that would come from David's line?

They're really persecuting or prosecuting Christ in Psalm 2 and so that's the activity of the wicked there. It is obviously a violent angry rage filled rebellion going on in Psalm 2 as described in verse 3.

Let us tear away their fetters and cast away their cords from us. There is this rash this rash. Thrashing about casting off restraint in almost a violent way that is described in Psalm 2. So the psalmist in in Psalm 37 describes that type of rebellion anger violence and hostility.

And then he says in verse 13 the Lord laughs at him for he sees his day is coming. In Psalm 2 the psalmist describes that same type of violent anger and hostility and rage against the Lord and his truth and The response in verse 4 of Psalm 2 is the Lord laughs in them.

He who sits in the heavens laughs not because he finds it humorous not because he's relieving nervous tension. But Psalm 2 verse 4 says the Lord scoffs at them. This is a scoffing laughter. Consider also Psalm 59 verse 8, but you will Lord laugh at them.

You scoff at all the nations. This is an appropriate response and Notice how appropriate this response is. Let me back up a second. There is an intentional Mirror of of the act with the response in this passage.

What is the act. The act in verse 13 is the wicked. Gnashing their teeth at the righteous. I say that gnashing their teeth. You can you can see the jaws clenched and the mouth shut and the teeth grinding.

You can see the anger and the hostility in the countenance of the wicked through that description. The Lord's response is to laugh at them. Which highlights the countenance and the face of the Lord not that the Lord has a face not that he has a mouth.

But the idea of God laughing puts in your mind the picture of somebody laughing with their with their mouth and with their face. So the wicked gnashing their teeth the Lord. Laughing at that you see the contrast there in those two images.

It's an appropriate imagery an appropriate response. The wicked use their tongues as swords and gnash at the righteous and the Lord uses His mouth to condemn the wicked and to laugh at them and that in fact is their judgment.

Yahweh laughs at the wicked. Now if you are the righteous You are suffering at the hands of the wicked. You might be thinking to yourself Jim it's it's it's great that the Lord laughs at the wicked. But I would like him to do something more than just laugh at their wickedness.

In fact Calvin in his commentary on on this passage says the fact that God doesn't seem to be doing anything to counter the wickedness of the wicked and Appears to us only to be laughing at it. Tends to bring us little comfort and little consolation as we reflect upon what the wicked do to the righteous, right?

You might you might wish why doesn't God do something move rise up and to defend the righteous? Rise up and destroy the wicked even now I mean laughter seems like an inadequate response given the reality of their evil.

It feels as if God should come forth armed for our defense to Himself come out with his sword drawn and his bow bent and all of the armies of heaven to defend the righteous Whom he loves and whom he has died for.

So the imagery that he sits in heaven and merely laughs at the wicked Would tend to conjure up within us this desire to see him do far more than simply laugh at them. The fact that God is waiting in that Laughing and waiting to deal with the wicked is what tries our patience in a in a difficult world.

That's what is that is what is difficult for the righteous to deal with. It's it's the Habakkuk problem. Lord, this is what I see going on around me. No justice in the land. The wicked just flourishing in all that they do.

The Kings are promoting immorality and wickedness. People turn against your law. The priesthood is corrupt. The monarchy is corrupt. The people are corrupt. I feel like I'm the only righteous one in all of the land and I cried to heaven and you seem to be silent.

You seem to be doing nothing. You're just waiting and waiting for what that's the that's the angst of Habakkuk chapter 1. It's also the angst of Psalm 37. Why is there Psalm 73? Why is it that the wicked prosper and the righteous seem to have nothing and God seems to do nothing in this and and there?

Seems to be this this reality in our world where this this happens for the wicked and This is happening to the righteous and God seems content with that Circumstance for both the righteous and the wicked and we want God to do something more than simply laugh at it and again, he's not.

It helps us if we remember that the laughter is not finding it humorous. The laughter is itself the certainty of their judgment. Notice what verse 13 says he sees his day is coming. God laughs at them because God Sees the day of the wicked is coming upon them and from God's perspective It is not a long time for us.

It feels like a long time from God's vantage point. It is not and listen brethren when I promise you something. There will come a time when you will look back upon this time and you will say, you know.

It wasn't that long after all. It felt like a long time in the moment.

But boy.

Those events unfolded quickly like that and my suffering was not really that much. My suffering was not really that long.

There's a whole lifetime.

But you're gonna be dead a lot longer than you will be alive here now eternally speaking in terms of resurrection. You're gonna be alive a lot longer than you will have been dying. You understand that but I mean when you die you're going into eternity and you're gonna look back upon this life.

And you're gonna realize that the Lord laughing at them was just the Lord preparing for their judgment. That is what the psalm is teaching. The Lord laughs at him for he sees his day is coming. His day of judgment and the destruction of the wicked and given the the parallelism of the passage verse 15 describes that judgment.

We're not there yet. But the plans of the wicked are destined to fail they cannot succeed his their triumph is temporary and the resistance is futile because the wicked have an Appointed day and this is how Paul wrapped up his sermon on Mars Hill in Acts chapter 17.

God has overlooked the times of ignorance in the past but now he is declaring to all men everywhere that they should repent because he has fixed a Day upon which he will judge the world in righteousness and he has furnished proof to all men by raising that judge from the dead.

That's Acts 17 30 and 31. God has fixed a day that day is coming. It is Unalterable, it cannot be delayed and every day that we live brings us one day closer to that final day but it is certain the judgment and the execution of justice upon the wicked and the exaltation of the righteous is as fixed and certain as anything could be fixed in certain and therefore God is able in his judgment to laugh at the wicked and While we wait for the wicked to be cut off and the righteous to inherit the land that is the repeated promise of Psalm 37.

Remember, so while we wait for that to happen the wicked plot and scheme they plan destruction and unrighteousness. And seek to overthrow the righteous and to destroy them. But the wicked might as well plan to put out the Sun with a cup of water because it will be just as effective.

They can't do it and they won't do it. So everything that they have plotted will eventually come to nothing and the wicked do not see just how close they are to ruin. That's one of the underlying implications of the passage.

The wicked don't see just how close they are to ruin. They are sinners in the hands of an angry God plotting against God's people and there is barely a hair's breadth between them and their eternal damnation and they march along in their folly and Rebellion acting as if they are the the rulers of time and eternity and every breath that the wicked take they take by nothing less than the bare permission of a God who is long-suffering and patient with them and every heartbeat that is theirs is the only thing that separates them from everything they have and instantaneous and eternal loss.

It's the only thing between them and eternal destruction. And once that day has arrived all their evil will turn back upon their own Heads, it will return to their own pate as the scriptures say. Now this is what this returning back upon them is what we would refer to as poetic justice.

Matthew Henry says this men have their day now but God will have his day shortly a day of recompenses a day which will set all to rights and render that Ridiculous, which now passes for glorious. That's a great phrase.

God will render that ridiculous which now passes for glorious when he makes everything, right? This is poetic justice. Verse 15 says their sword will enter their own heart and their bows will be broken.

Now given the parallel structure of this. This part of this Psalm 12 and 14 are paralleling one another. 13 and 15 parallel one another. Verse 15 I think is the explanation of the kind of judgment that is coming that is mentioned in verse 13.

For God sees his day is coming. What is that day verse 15? Their sword will enter their own heart and their bows will be broken. The symbols the bow and the sword in the bow are the symbols of their strength.

Symbols of their their military prowess their ability to do harm their violence. Their might is being crushed here in verse 15. The tools of their oppression are brought to nothing and their violence is inflicted upon them.

Judgment here is described as the undoing or the reversal of their plots. Remember verse 12 says the wicked plots against the righteous and gnashes at him. No, sorry verse 14. The wicked have drawn the sword and bent their bow to cast down the afflicted and the needy and to slay those who are upright.

In conduct their sword will enter their own heart and their bows will be broken. So verse 15 is the reversal the undoing of verse 14 the wicked have drawn their sword. They have bent or walked back their bow stretched it out.

And they are ready and aiming at the righteous and the judgment that is mentioned in verse 13 is turned is that judgment which turns those instruments right back upon them so that their sword pierces themselves.

Not the righteous and the way and their bow is ultimately broken. This is the judgment the total destruction of the means that they use to oppress the righteous. Their sword enters them and their bow is broken.

Now.

If you've ever had a bow break on you in the middle of pulling it back and stretching it back. You know that that in itself can be very painful, right? When I was a kid, I used to shoot a slingshot all the time and it had the Surgical rubber that we used for the bands on the slingshot made it out of a tree.

It wasn't one of the slingshots that you get that sort of wrap around your wrist come up. You hold on to it that can never leave your wrist. We just. Those were for sissies and pansies none of none of my friends ever shot those things.

We we mocked and ridiculed scoffed at and laughed just like God laughs. So the way we scoffed at and laughed at the kids who use those we had the chunks of tree that we held in our Hand and we made our own slingshots and I was wicked good with that slingshot.

Because used to go practice all the time we could go back in my day. You could go to the landfill and you could run go down into everybody's garbage and pull their stuff out and shoot. Shoot stuff rocks and marbles at it and and shoot them with the guns.

You can throw bottles up and shoot them out of the sky with your shotgun. We lived in a good country once. We lived in a great country once. Never forget what they have taken away from you. Though that was great because you could do your target practice and your Christmas shopping all at the same time in one place.

It was a great time to be alive. But with that slingshot. You would pull that back and if that surgical tubing broke it would in an the twinkling of an eye. It would twist that in your hand pull it out of your grip and that chunk of wood would come hurtling back at your head.

Before you could even blink and it happened quite frequently when I was a kid. Quite frequently I use that thing constantly and always tried to get more out of that surgical tubing than anybody should have gotten out of that surgical tubing.

So if that happens with a slingshot, that's the type of destruction that's the type of thwarting and Judgment that is pictured here. They step it back and when that bow breaks it crushes in on them. They get the effects of that.

They are the one who is wounded by that. They are the one who is destroyed by that that is poetic judgment. The very thing that they sought to do to somebody else comes back upon them when God destroys the wicked.

This notion of poetic judgment is sprinkled all the way throughout scripture. Obadiah 15. I call Obadiah the prophet of poetic judgment. I borrowed that from somebody somewhere. I'm not sure who it was.

Obadiah 15 says for the day of the Lord draws near on all the nations now. Listen to this as you have done it will be done to you your dealings will return on your own head. That's poetic judgment now.

Obadiah is Pronouncing judgment against the Edomites and the Edomites if you read Obadiah understand the context of it mentions this. The Edomites which was came from Esau. That was Jacob's brother. They stood back and and Kept and allowed the invading armies to come in and despoil God's people the Israelites and they actually sat there and kept the Israelites from escaping that.

They hedged them in as it were and rejoiced in their judgment. And so the Lord in the book of Obadiah says what you have done is going to come back upon you and guess what? That's exactly what happened in in that time period.

Psalm 7 verse 14 to 16. We read that at the beginning of the service behold. He travails with wickedness. He concedes mischief and brings forth falsehood. He has dug a pit and hollowed it out and has fallen into the hole which he has made digs the pit and he falls into the pit that he digs.

Psalm 7 verse 16 is mischief will return upon his own head and his violence will descend upon his own pate. Psalm 35 verse 7 for without cause they hid a net for me. Without cause they dug a pit for my soul.

Let destruction come upon him unawares and let the net which he hid catch himself and into that very destruction.

Let him fall.

The wicked sets the trap. Intending to ensnare the righteous and the psalmist prayer is let the wicked fall into and be caught in the very trap that they have Set for someone else. Psalm 10 verse 2. In pride the wicked hotly pursue the afflicted.

Let them be caught in the plots that they have devised. Do you hear it? It's sprinkled all the way through Scripture. So Israel sins and they commit iniquity and idolatry and and bow down to their idols and the Lord says, all right.

You like idols? I'll give you idols I'll come in and destroy you with a nation and I'll send you off to worship all those idols in a place where I am Not known and you're surrounded with nothing but idols.

That's poetic justice. And Then to the Babylonians who did that the Lord says to the Babylonians you like violence.

Well.

I'm raising up a nation far more violent than you the Medes and the Persians and they're going to come in and they're going to Destroy you and then to the Medes and the Persians. He said you like violence.

I'll tell you what. I got a nation more violent than you that's going to come in and they're going to destroy you. This is the cycle of justice all the way through the Old Testament and I promise you it is the very kind of justice that is going to fall upon the wicked if they will not repent in The ultimate sense God's judgment upon the wicked.

He visits upon them the very things that they have sought to do to the righteous. So they seek to take from the righteous what they have in their lives and God's judgment is to take from the wicked. Not only their lives but to remove from them everything they have ever enjoyed.

They intend to rob others and they ultimately will lose everything. They are cut off and the righteous inherit the land. Even though the wicked have desired to cut off the righteous and take all of their land and all of their stuff.

The wicked seek to establish their own kingdom and in short they suffer all of that loss for they miss the real kingdom. They want to exalt themselves. Be remembered have a reputation. Have their own little fiefdom their own little kingdom and ultimately they will be forgotten.

That is the promise of Scripture. Now the reality is that sometimes in this life, this is true. The wicked do triumph over the righteous that happens and sometimes in this life the wicked kill persecute cast down destroy oppress and Take everything from the righteous.

This psalm is not suggesting that that will never happen to the righteous. Because that would be unrealistic. The psalmist is not describing that instead He is pointing to the ultimate triumph of God's judgment over the wicked and God's exaltation of the righteous.

For the psalmist continually says yes the wicked do this. But in the end the righteous will inherit the land and the wicked will be cut off. So this is a temporary Situation that we have going on in this world.

Ultimately all of this is going to be reversed a Couple weeks ago when Jeff Miller was preaching he talked about eschatological reversal and he made a statement that I have to correct. But it's a correction that I think Jeff would agree with.

He made the statement that eventually God's gonna flip everything upside down. I would correct that and say eventually God's gonna flip everything right side up. It's all upside down right now. Alright, and so we're we're hanging upside down and when you're hanging upside down, everything's upside down.

Everything looks right side up. But eventually God is gonna flip all of it right side up. When he cuts off the wicked and the righteous inherit the land that is the promise of this psalm. In the meantime while we wait for their day to come.

We are called to trust and wait patiently and I would just remind you of what we have already studied in this psalm. Look at verse 5. Commit your way to the Lord and trust also in him. He will do it. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your judgment as the noonday.

Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him. Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way. Because of the man who carries out wicked schemes look down at verse 9 for evil doers will be cut off. But those who wait for the Lord will inherit the land.

Trust in the Lord wait patiently for him. Do not fret wait for the Lord. You will inherit the land. Now sometimes this poetic justice happens in this life. I've given you a couple examples from the Old Testament.

Let me give you a couple more. Do you remember Balak hired Balaam to go curse?

The.

Israelites. And what happened. He got up there and spoke and ended up cursing Balak blessing the Israelites. Right, that was a judgment that was the reversal of what Balak had hired Balaam to. Do you remember Haman Mordecai?

Haman thought to himself How can I glorify it myself before the king and all of the people? Came up with this great scheme when the king asked him What shall I do to the man whom I want to honor. And and Haman thought well who would the king want to honor more?

Than me, of course. So he gives him this whole this whole thing and then the king says, all right do that to your. The person that you hate to Mordecai and so Haman had to do that. And then you remember what happened that Haman went back that very night and said to his wife Here's what the king made me do and his wife said.

Oh, oh. Yeah, you've got it coming. If you started to fall your destruction is certain.

And.

Eventually the very gallows that he built to hang Mordecai on he and his family were hung from those gallows. That's poetic justice. Nebuchadnezzar strutted about on the rooftop of his palace standing up over everything that he had built and he said look What I have built for my glory and God says you are not going to stand over what you have built.

You are gonna be under what you have built and makes him walk on his hands and knees eating grass for seven years that is a poetic switching of the roles and Rather than being in his glory and in his dominion and in his sovereignty.

All of the stuff that he gloated about was instantly stripped from him and he was given nothing. Belshazzar descendant of Nebuchadnezzar. I think it was think Belshazzar was Nebuchadnezzar's grandson Belshazzar used the instruments of God to to participate in a drunken orgy inside of the inside of his own palace while the Medes and the Persians were outside of the gate finding a way to get inside of the city and meanwhile he is flaunting the God of Israel and Cursing the God of Israel and engaging in all kind of immorality.