If the foundations are destroyed,
What can the righteous do?
I always thought these words from Psalm 11:3 were a pessimistic cry of despair – similar to those found on the lips of the same Psalmist in the opening lines of the surrounding Psalms. Eg.
Why do You stand afar off, O Lord?
Why do You hide in times of trouble? (10:1)
Help, Lord, for the godly man ceases!
For the faithful disappear from among the sons of men. (12:1)[1]
How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever?
How long will You hide Your face from me? (13:1)
But re-reading Psalm 11 recently, and with the help of comments by Dale Ralph Davis[2], I was encouraged to discover this Psalm is full of hope. From the word go, in v.1: “In the Lord I put my trust”, his faith does not waver.
It is his well-meaning friends who are telling him to “give up”.
They are the ones telling him:
“Flee as a bird to your mountain.
“For look! The wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow on the string, that they may shoot secretly at the upright in heart.
“If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?”[3]
But David will have none of it. Instead, he rebukes them: “How can you say [that] to my soul?”
The Counsel of Friends
It is good to have friends in a time of need. I think these were genuine friends: they obviously distinguish themselves from the “wicked” (v 2) all about them and mean well.[4]
But not all “friends in need” are “friends indeed”. The Bible warns against heeding the counsel of false ‘friends’.
One such we read of in 2 Samuel 13:3, “Amnon had a friend”. But this friend’s counsel was self-serving and cruel. When it all falls apart and Amnon gets what’s coming to him, his ‘friend’ is the first to dissociate himself from him. (See further here)
Rosaria Butterfield had a similar experience:
“I have met Satan more than once in the last two years disguised as a brother or sister seeking Christian unity and peace, often twisting God’s truth with heartfelt personal experience.”
She recounts how a woman on the counselling staff of a well-respected church once met with her in order to make one simple request, saying: “Rosaria, I want you to change your message.”
Rosaria asked her what she ought to change in her message. This ‘Christian’ woman counsellor replied: “Tell people that it is only in your opinion that homosexual practice is a sin.”
Rosaria answered her:
“I responded by letting her know that I am not smart enough to have this opinion, but that this is the position the inspired and inerrant Word of God upholds… I told her that changing my message would involve denying the plain meaning of Scripture, the testimony of the church, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and the gospel.”[5]
That does not seem to be the case in Psalm 11. Instead, those whose counsel to David is: “Flee. All is lost. Save yourself”, seem to genuinely care for him.
“The source of this advice makes it so subtle. This advice is coming from someone who cares about you (as these cared for David’s security), not from some obvious opponent… They were folks who cared about him, who wanted to be by his side, wanted to support him. Verses 1c-3 is not the advice of the wicked or a hypocrite or of an agnostic seeking to destroy you but of a Christian friend seeking to help.”[6]
But:
“It is basically opposed to faith. That’s the problem with the counsel of verses 1c-3 – pious, sincere, caring, concerned, and therefore, plausible. How this calls for the believer’s discernment!”[7]
Yes, sometimes:
“The love of your friends will often create your most subtle temptations.”[8]
The Response of Flight
David does not dispute the facts: “the foundations are destroyed”. We too (unless we are blind) cannot dispute the fact that the moral “foundations” of our society have been steadily eroded over the last two generations until they are now destroyed.
What David does dispute is that there is no hope; that now all we can do is lament: “What can the righteous do?” What he does dispute is his friends’ well-meaning advice that the only solution is to give up and “flee to the mountains.”
This has been the reaction of many Christians down through the centuries.
In some cases that has meant to flee to a monastery and hide yourself away from the world – which, of course, never works because, cloistered in a monastery, you take the world with you: the world is in your heart.[9]
For others it has meant circling the wagons against the world to maintain doctrinal and moral purity in the church – but ignoring the Great Commission to: “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.”[10]
Behind the response to flee is a basic assumption:
“It assumes that safety is all-important. Self-preservation is important, but when I assume it is all-important I have made it an idol… We have probably crossed the idolatry-line when we think we should take no risks. It is possible to make such an idol of security that you prize it more than God. The first line of this psalm says that in Yahweh I am as safe as I ought to be.”[11]
The Response of Faith
But the answer to timidity and despair is not to step out boldly where angels fear to tread and seek to overpower the world by worldly methods – whether (as was once the case) by the Conquistadors’ sword and the brutality of the Inquisition; or whether (in more recent times) by putting our hope in change through the exercise of worldly political power.[12]
The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.[13]
No, the answer is in the Lord.
David sets the tone for the whole Psalm in his opening words: “In the Lord I put my trust.”
This is how he responds to the implicit lack of faith in his friends’ plea to flee:
The Lord is in His holy temple,
The Lord’s throne is in heaven…(v.4)
“David reveals the secret of steadfastness in his chaotic world… Everything depends on your vision; you can either look at the wicked (v.2a) or place your eyes on Yahweh (v.4). Despair is managed by keeping Yahweh himself at the centre of your vision: ‘Yahweh is in his holy temple; Yahweh – his throne is in the heavens’ (v.4a). That is all that anchors you when the foundations turn to slime.”[14]
“What can the righteous do?”
The righteous can begin by looking first and foremost to their relationship with the Lord.
“There are many who are interested in safety, but only saints care about fellowship. The genuine disciple doesn’t want only protection from God but communion with God. And such full and final communion is David’s assurance here.”[15]
The Lord is righteous,
He loves righteousness;
The upright will behold His face. (v7)[16]
“If the first line of the psalm showed where the believer’s safety lies, the last line shows where his heart should be. God as ‘refuge’ may be sought from motives that are too self-regarding; but to behold his face is a goal in which only love has any interest.”[17]
Notice the stark contrast here:
The Lord tests the righteous,
But the wicked and the one who loves violence the Lord’s soul hates.[18]
Upon the wicked He will rain coals;
Fire and brimstone and a burning wind
Shall be the portion of their cup.
The Lord will judge the “wicked”: the same “wicked” who “shoot secretly at the upright in heart” and caused your friends to despair and advise you to get going while the going is good!
Yes, it may be that “the foundations are destroyed”. It may well be true that “the faithful disappear from among the sons of men” (12:1); that “vileness is exalted among the sons of men” (12:8).
But, the Lord sees all: the righteousness of the righteous, as well as the wickedness of the wicked:
His eyes behold,
His eyelids test the sons of men. (11:4)
God is near. He sees.
Don’t despair. Don’t give up.
God is near. So:
Don’t Give Up
1. It may be, not so much the society around you, but the state of the Church itself that is such a discouragement. You see churches folding, others given over to entertainment, and still others moribund and declining.
You see pastors abandoning their churches at an alarming rate and fleeing to the mountains. (See further here)
Don’t despair. “The Lord is in His holy temple, the Lord’s throne is in heaven.”
Christ is on the throne: “I will build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”[19]
2. Maybe it is your own ministry in your local church you are finding difficult, and your friends are telling you, “Give up. Flee. What can the righteous do?” And yes, there may be a time to flee – though, not usually; usually we are too ready to flee.
Ralph Davis tells of a time a seminary student, a youth worker, came to see him looking for help with a queasy church situation, where there was conflict and dispute. “He seemed minded to leave his post. What did I think?” He says:
“Since my own philosophy of ministry is that no problem in the church is so severe that it can’t be run away from, I tended to agree with him. Fortunately, he spoke with another faculty member, who advised him to stick it out. As it turned out, that was the right advice.”[20]
Don’t give up:
God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.[21]
3. It may be that you have lost heart when it comes to sharing the gospel with others. The society around has moved so far from the foundations of the Bible; Christianity itself has such a bad smell that, unless you are prepared to acknowledge up front you are travelling along with the values of that society, you don’t even get a look-in with the gospel.
You are ridiculed, and labelled a “hater”. What can the righteous do?
Don’t give up:
Walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, redeeming the time. Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.[22]
4. Maybe it is you. You are ready to give up because you feel yourself crumbling.
“Do you ever feel like quitting? Do you ever find yourself somewhere along the line saying, ‘You know, maybe I ought to make a run for the border. Maybe there is a place for just lying down in the grass.’ In the great cross-country run, if you like, of the Christian faith, do you ever wonder if you’re going to make it to the finishing line? And if so, how will we make it to the finishing line? How will we be able to breast the tape, run right through, continue to the end?”[23]
Don’t give up:
Be confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.[24]
[1] Psalm 12 even concludes on a further pessimistic, even if realistic, note regarding “the sons of men”: “The wicked prowl on every side, when vileness is exalted among the sons of men.” [2] Dale Ralph Davis The Way of the Righteous in the Muck of Life Psalms 1-12. [3] I recognise that the NKJV ends the quote at v 1. But many translations (HCJB, ESV, NASB, NIV, TEV, NLT, JB) more naturally see the advice of David’s well-meaning friends running through to the end of v 3. [4] Davis notes: “Of course, [David] could be summarizing the rising thoughts of his own heart, but I think it more likely these are friends and associates speaking.” [5], Rosaria Champagne Butterfield. Openness Unhindered: Further Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert on Sexual Identity and Union with Christ (p. 62) [6] Davis [7] Davis [8] H. L. Ellison, cited by Davis [9] Eg. Mark 7:18-23 [10] Mark 16:15 [11] Davis [12] While I do believe we should use the freedoms we have (as Paul did in Acts 16:37, 22:25), to exercise our civic duty as responsible citizens of society (1 Peter 2:13-17) to bring about change, where possible, for the good of society – yet, in the end, this is not where our ultimate hope lies. [13] 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 [14] Davis [15] Davis [16] I am following what I think is the most common translation of this last line in v.7, rather than the alternative: “His face beholds the upright.” [17] Derek Kidner, cited by Davis [18] Davis comments: “You may need to revise your theological clichés, about God hating the sin but loving the sinner! He hates, so he will rain down a raging retribution (verse 6). Yet Yahweh ‘loves’ (v. 7) — ‘he loves righteous deeds.’ He hates, he loves. As in Psalm 5, you see bow ‘alive’ he is?” [19] Matthew 16:18 [20] Davis [21] 2 Timothy 1:7 [22] Colossians 4:5-6 [23] Alistair Begg on Jude 1:24 https://www.truthforlife.org/resources/sermon/amazing-grace-01/ [24] Philippians 1:6