Psalm 140

August 02, 2024

1 Deliver me, O Lord, from the evil man: preserve me from the violent man;

2 Which imagine mischiefs in their heart; continually are they gathered together for war.

3 They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent; adders' poison is under their lips. Selah.

4 Keep me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked; preserve me from the violent man; who have purposed to overthrow my goings.

5 The proud have hid a snare for me, and cords; they have spread a net by the wayside; they have set gins for me. Selah.

6 I said unto the Lord, Thou art my God: hear the voice of my supplications, O Lord.

7 O God the Lord, the strength of my salvation, thou hast covered my head in the day of battle.

8 Grant not, O Lord, the desires of the wicked: further not his wicked device; lest they exalt themselves. Selah.

9 As for the head of those that compass me about, let the mischief of their own lips cover them.

10 Let burning coals fall upon them: let them be cast into the fire; into deep pits, that they rise not up again.

11 Let not an evil speaker be established in the earth: evil shall hunt the violent man to overthrow him.

12 I know that the Lord will maintain the cause of the afflicted, and the right of the poor.

13 Surely the righteous shall give thanks unto thy name: the upright shall dwell in thy presence.

The Point: 

While facing the most violent and insidious attacks possible, we must believe that the Lord will never abandon His own afflicted saints. 

How do we feel in the recitation of this Psalm? 

The Christian is regularly surrounded by forces that are more powerful than he is. Make no mistake—they are bent on his destruction. The man or woman of faith who realizes this will have mixed emotions. He is constantly tempted to be anxious or stressed. When we realize that our final state, our survival, and our salvation are always in the hand of God, then we return to thanksgiving. Gradually, as the psalm progresses, we gather strength and find the faith to pray with increasing confidence.

What does this Psalm say? 

Verses 1-5

The situation is perilous; of this there is no doubt. The psalm breaks out with a cry for help. Whether these are physical threats or spiritual threats, it is hard to say. But the psalmist realizes that he is in trouble, and he is surrounded by enemies much larger than himself. 

At this early stage in the psalm, the psalmist is on the defense and prays “defensively.” He will shift towards taking the offensive in prayer later on in the psalm. For now, he prays that God would preserve his life from the violent man who is determined to destroy him. 

We all live in this “present evil world.” Therefore, we can count on malignant forces forming evil machinations against us. To ignore this fact is itself a danger to any who would live the Christian life. There is no way that, of ourselves, we could out-maneuver, outwit, or outlast the powerful forces lying in wait to deceive. For we know that “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world.” (Eph. 6:12,13). We cannot possibly understand the dark deceptions of the most insidious devils in the universe. We don’t think like them, so how can we oppose them? Thankfully, our God is both omniscient and omnipotent. He knows the hearts of men, their purposes, their ill motives, and their twisted ways. He can and will thwart their plans. Of course, the wicked will never get the best of God or the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Though this church may be infiltrated by the most duplicitous hypocrites, and though it be persecuted by the most vehement opponents, these enemies can never prevail against the King of kings and the Lord of the Church!

Though this world with devils filled should threaten to undo us,

We will not fear for God has willed His truth to triumph through us! 

That which is wicked is best defined as “proud” (vs. 5). Where there is pride, envy, and strife, surely there will be “every evil work” (Jas. 3:13, 14). Therefore, it is not that difficult to identify where the wicked lurk and the snares they lay for the believer. Their pride will always yield slander or flattery, and every other evil work. 

Verses 6-7

Now the psalmist claims a covenant relationship with God. Referring to God by His covenant name, Yahweh, David proclaims, “You are my God.” This is the only basis upon which we may be sure that God will hear us and answer our prayers. If we are in covenant with His Son, Jesus Christ, we may refer to Him as Father, and He will treat us as His true children. This father-child relationship is assumed in Christ’s Sermon on the Mount. “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matt. 7:11).

David also reviews the many times in the past in which God has been there for him, protecting him in the day of battle. He realizes God’s salvation to be a powerful thing, as he refers to “the strength of Your salvation.” He thinks of the Lord as covering his head like a helmet in battle. It is a helmet made of impenetrable elements that will protect the most vital parts of the human frame. After years in the battle, the warrior becomes familiar with this piece of armor and fully relies upon it to protect him. The spiritual battle is no different. We come to rely upon God as our chief defense. 

Verses 8–11

This portion of the psalm gradually moves towards petitions that engage a more offensive battle. First, David prays that God would withhold any privilege or advantage from the wicked. All success in every endeavor is in the hand of a sovereign God. Should the wicked be successful in persecuting the righteous, it is only because God has given them that edge (as He did for Satan when the devil set out to persecute Job). The major concern, however, is not our protection. It is God’s glory. When the wicked gains advantage over the righteous, and when they sense that they can blaspheme God with impunity, inevitably they will think they have supremacy over God Himself. They are emboldened and increasingly arrogant in their rebellion. Prime time television programs present Christ as a homosexual. Pastors who condemn these egregious sexual sins are treated as pariahs. God’s name is taken in vain everywhere, and man glorifies himself in the media almost constantly. The psalmist’s concern is that in their arrogance, they fail to give God the glory due His name. He insists that there must at some point be an end of their arrogance and a return to the glory of God. 

Verses 9 and 10 bring out imprecations in even more aggressive tones. It appears that David is praying that his enemies be cast into hell fire. Does he wish this for men like Absalom, Doeg, and Saul? Certainly, we can apply such curses to the evil spirits that obviously infected Saul and others. In fact, our human opponents would never be so powerful were it not for the prince of the power of the air and the “spiritual forces in heavenly places.” This is what empowers them, fortifies their towers of influence, and threatens believers with such spiritual, mental, and political force. Fundamentally, this is what we want God to destroy in hell fire forever…and He will (Matt. 25:41). 

David does not want the wicked to gain a foothold. They seem to flourish for a little while, but their political position is always tenuous. They slip and fall quickly, as in the case of Haman, Ahab, Herod, England’s King John I, and Germany’s Adolf Hitler. The wicked promulgators of eugenics and genocide, like H.G. Wells, Margaret Sanger, Thomas Huxley, and others, are falling out of favor only a generation or two after their deaths. They were adored as progressives in their day, but not so much now. The same thing will happen with the tens of thousands of political and cultural leaders who have embraced sexual perversion, abortion, abortifacient birth control devices, feminism, Marxism, and other “liberal” ideas and immoral lifestyles. In a hundred years, history will look upon the entire Western world with its progressive, godless agenda as a complete disaster. Perhaps they will move on to a new set of lies. But, as for the old set of lies, they will burn into an ash heap of ignominy and shame. All the major news networks that mocked Christians, all the liberal university elites that led the modern apostasies, all the politically-correct print media sources, all the government-funded abortion promoters, and all the atheist legal attack groups will be gone. “Let not the evil speaker be established in the earth.” 

David speaks up with ever-increasing confidence, when he says, “Evil shall hunt down the violent man to overthrow him.” One day there will be an end to the unmitigated violence against the unborn. A violent society that kills relationships and uses a hard-edged violent language in common parlance will not survive. The violent spirit that embraces sexual nihilism and vengeful blood-soaked films and games will come to an end. The cruel violence of terrorism displayed on the front page of the news almost every day will eventually come to an end. At some point, the earth will tire of it. More importantly, God will tire of it. And it is not unusual for the violent to meet a violent end at the hands of evil forces. 

Verses 12-13

The psalm closes with a firm statement of faith. God’s people cannot allow themselves to believe for a moment that these evil powers will succeed. As sure as there is a God in the heavens, He will come to the aid of the afflicted and the poor. They will be exempted from His judgment upon the earth. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” God will maintain the cause of those persecuted for righteousness sake and those subject to false accusations and mockery from the mainstream media or academia. Jesus Christ tells us that the meek shall inherit the kingdom of God. May we all be found in their number! 

The last verse offers the most comforting reminder of all. Throughout the years of our lives and into eternity, we will only find more reasons to thank God for His goodness, His mercy, and His salvation. There is no higher honor than to dwell in the presence of God .

How do we apply this Psalm to our lives? 

Faith must lead us from a merely defensive posture to an offensive posture in spiritual warfare. We must believe that “greater is He that is in us, than He that is in the world.” As long as we are in Christ, and His Spirit dwells in us, we can be sure that the enemy has no power over us. When we are under attack either spiritually or physically, we pray that God would defend us. But we want more than this. We want the destruction of all evil, an end of all wickedness and violence forever. So let us pray with faith that this would happen. 

How does this Psalm teach us to worship God? 

We are aware of the evil that men do, and the wickedness that sometimes prevails around us. As with this psalm, it is appropriate for us to mention these realities in our worship, but we don’t leave it there. We pray for God’s deliverance, but we don’t leave it there. We end our prayer with a note of confidence that God will overcome all evil. 

Questions:

1. What is the situation in which David finds himself while he writes this psalm? In what situation might we be inclined to pray this psalm? 

2. How do we know that David understands himself to be in covenant relationship with God? 

3. What are the enemies that Paul is referring to when he prepares us for battle in Ephesians 6? 

4. Give several examples of wicked and violent leaders who flourished for a while but who God later cut down.

5. Why is the believer so concerned that the wicked be stopped in their violence and pride? 

Family Discussion Questions:

1. Do we pray both defensively and offensively? Or do we err on one side or the other? 

2. How do we view the attacks that come our way? Are we aware of the spiritual aspect, or are we merely focused on the physical elements?