By Martin Morrison
“I know you will understand”, said the message on the kitchen table. Well of course you don’t. Your heart is pounding. Your mouth is dry. The thought of your betrayal is raw in your stomach. You invested all those years in the relationship, and now it’s gone with the stroke of a pen.
Betrayal by someone you trusted is a bitter pill to swallow. Betrayal by your own kith and kin is more like a rock to swallow. Psalm 3 was written by King David when Absalom his son orchestrated a coup against his own father and nearly pulled it off.
2 Samuel 15:1 – 14 is the background. Perhaps it would be good to read it right now. In 2 Samuel 14:25 – 26, we meet Absalom the first metro-male in ancient Israel. 2 Samuel 15: 1 we meet the original David Beckham or Kanye West. He is very concerned about his image, the trappings of power, the flashing blue lights. It was all premeditated, working the crowds, ingratiating himself with the people. Four years pressing the flesh, kissing babies and opening old-age homes. In fact he had become immensely popular. Voted the prince most likely to succeed. By verse 10, Absalom reckoned that he had kissed enough babies. His premeditated plan was ready to roll, “As soon as you hear the sound of the trumpet, then everyone say, Absalom is King at Hebron”.
A New York Times article reported a court case in which a seventeen year old teenage girl called Kristi Koslow was found guilty of murdering her step-mother, Karen Koslow a forty year-old oil heiress. The mother was killed and the father survived the slashing of his throat. Kristi’s boyfriend was the co-accused and responsible for the actual murder. The prosecutor called Kristi, “a woman consumed by hate”. Unsurprisingly, the motive was to inherit the fortune. Both accused were given life sentences.
Well, 2 Samuel 15 is not all that different. It makes your stomach turn. A beloved son, who wants to do away with his father. “O Lord, how many are my foes! Many are rising against me; many are saying of my soul, there is no salvation for him in God”, Psalm 3:1 – 2. David didn’t need CNN or BBC to tell him that he was in deep trouble. It was a revolution, a major revolution.
Verse six tells us that Absalom had drawn in tens of thousands. Public opinion was clearly behind the young metro-male crown prince. Even the experienced political commentators in the Sunday papers shook their heads, “Not even God can get David out if this one”, verse 2.
I guess, in one way or the other, we have all been there. Perhaps you are there today. There’s been a major reversal in your fortunes. Perhaps the COVID has broken you, wiped you out. Perhaps your spouse has run off with your best friend. Perhaps a business partner has run off with your life’s work and savings. Perhaps an act of corruption has destroyed your business, your livelihood. You lie awake at night and say to God, “I can’t believe this. I’ve been destroyed; I’ve been dropped; How many are my foes. How many rise against me. My heart is racing; I can hardly breathe. I can’t sleep. I’m stunned”. So what to do? David mentions at least three things to do in Psalm 3.
Firstly, there is a time and place for justice. There is a time and place when we as believers are to look for the full force of the law to come into effect. “Arise, O Lord! Save me, O my God! For you strike all my enemies on the cheek; you break the teeth of the wicked”, verse 7. What we have here is Hebrew idiomatic language. David is asking God to see that justice is done, that law and order be re-established. David is not taking revenge. David is not taking the law into his own hands. David is not repaying evil for evil. No, he is asking God to see that justice is done.
For the believer, there is a very distinct difference between revenge (which God forbids), and seeing that the State administers justice. And if not the State then knowing that God will surely see that perfect justice is done on the last day.
When an injustice has been done, it is not unchristian for us to lay a charge, to open a case, to report the matter to the police. In Acts 22, when Paul was arrested in Jerusalem for preaching the Gospel, when the Roman soldiers were about to flog him, he appealed to his legal rights, “You cannot flog an uncondemned Roman citizen”. In Acts 25, when he appeared before the Roman Governor Festus, he appealed to his right to be heard in a court of law in Rome by Caesar himself. There are obviously times for us to report the matter to the police, or demand our rights, or seek for justice or prevent some major injustice. Christians are not meant to be soft on justice.
Just by the way, this does not exclude your responsibility to personally and subjectively forgive the person. This is not a contradiction at all. Christians are not soft on justice. When a crime has been committed, then we have a duty to alert the State to see that justice is done. That is our objective duty. At the very same time, we have a subjective duty to forgive the person for the wrong they have committed against us, “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”, Matthew 5: 44. There can be no question that David forgave his son, even before he died fleeing David’s army, “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would that I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!”, 2 Samuel 18:33.
Secondly, David remembers that God is sovereign. “The Lord sustained me, I will not be afraid of many thousands of people who have set themselves against me all round. Salvation belongs to the Lord”, Psalm 3:5 – 6, 8. We don’t have to live in fear. We don’t have to live with superstition or unnecessary anxiety. God watches over us. God sustains us; God will deliver us. The son of David, the Son of God, promises us that he will never leave nor forsake you, “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age”, Matthew 28:20.
Thirdly, David remembers that God is a God who answers prayer. In Psalm 2:6, Zion is God’s holy hill. Zion is situated in Jerusalem, just outside the Old City, now often called the Temple Mount. Zion is where David was installed as King. Zion is often used in Scripture as symbolizing the presence of God. In Psalm 3, King David has been dislodged from his throne, from the holy hill, from Zion, by Absalom. However, Absalom has not dislodged God from the holy hill. God is still on the throne. God is David’s shield. God will vindicate David. God answers prayer, “But you, O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head. I cried aloud to the Lord, and he answered me from his holy hill. I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the Lord sustained me”, Psalm 3:3 – 5.
Of course, Zion was also the place where the son of David died on a wooden cross. At Zion, we see the extraordinary grace of God in dying for his enemies. At Zion, we also see the extraordinary power of God as he raises Jesus from the dead.
What do you do, when everything has fallen apart, you can’t sleep, you can hardly breathe. You go to your room; your close the door; you read the Scriptures; you reflect on the greatness of God, the power of God, the love of God, the grace of God, the faithfulness of God, the cross of God on Zion. That is your rock, your refuge, your foundation.
Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn, the Russian novelist and Nobel Prize winner, was sentenced to eight years hard labour in Siberia from 1945 – 1953, for opposing the Soviet regime. During hard labour he spent months breaking rocks and moving them. One day, filled with desperation and almost suicidal, he just sat down and stopped working. The tension was tangible. Solitary confinement or worse was the expected result. And then another Christian, walked by and drew a cross on the sand in front of him. Just a cross. And he stared at that cross and once again, hope stirred within and he went back to work.
You see, the cross on the holy hill, gives us hope that suffering is not the last word. The cross gives us hope that sin and evil is not the last word. The cross gives us hope that injustice is not the last word. No, God will ultimately triumph over all his enemies.