We considered the first stanza of David’s “song” in our previous devotion. Facing the fire of an unrelenting opposition we heard in his blessed refrain, a resolve of faith: “When I am afraid, I will put my trust in You;” a resource of glad reliance: “In God, whose word I praise, in God I have put my trust;” and a renewed reasoning: “I shall not be afraid. What can mere man do to me?”
Whereas the first stanza was bracketed with earnest petitions for divine help, the second stanza of this psalm (vv. 8-13) is “ racketed” with confident assertions of divine concern and care: “You have taken account of my wanderings . . . You have delivered my soul from death.”
I will “jump ahead” to David’s wonderful assertion in the second line of verse 9, for everything that he writes in this second stanza is influenced by it.
“This I know, that God is for me.”
The Great Assertion.
“God is for me.”
Whereas in much of the first stanza all that David could see is men against him, now in this stanza he is absorbed with the fact that God is for him. “God is for me, though all may be against me.” “Though all things appear to be against me, this I know, that God is for me.” This is the great encouraging, invigorating reality for David. We hear its NT counterpart in Romans 8:31, “If God is for us, who is against us?” J. I. Packer wrote, “’God is for us’ is in truth one of the richest and weightiest utterances that the Bible contains” (Knowing God, 262).
“’God is for us’ is in truth one of the richest and weightiest utterances that the Bible contains.”
It could be rendered, “God is to me,” i.e., to me a Helper, a Shield, a Redeemer and a Reward. All that He is, He is to me. Whichever way we understand it, it is all wonderful. It is this reality, this faith-wrought realization that permeates, yea perfumes, this second stanza. See how this truth “plays out” in this stanza:
Because I know “God is for me,” I know that He knows my trial and my tears (v. 8).
“You have taken account of my wanderings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in Your book?” I know that He is mindful, interested in, and intimately concerned with what happens to me, that He watches all my ways and numbers all my hairs. He has not overlooked or forgotten me in my need.
Because I know “God is for me,” I can be confident that “my enemies will turn back in the day when I call” (v. 9a).
I am confident that I can call upon Him in every situation, every need, every challenge, great or small.
Because I know “God is for me,” He will be the declared glad object of all my trust and confidence (vv. 10-11).
Here the blessed refrain is sounded again. Indeed, it is “doubled” in verse 10. “In God, whose word I praise, in the LORD, whose word I praise.” It is not out of his circumstances that he has formed the conclusion that God is for him. It is not public opinion. Nor is it his own sense of sin, guilt and weakness that forms his conclusion of reality. None of these are trustworthy. It is the word of God which has brought the wonderful revelation to him that God had promised to be his God and, thus, is for him. The refrain of verse 4 is sounded again. “In God I have put my trust, I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me?” Yea, what can he do, if God is for me? He is the One who has saved me and strengthened me and sustained and supported me in the past. He has always proved faithful.
Because I know “God is for me,” I am filled with desire to please and to thank Him (v. 12).
I am brought to remember the multitude and magnitude of His delivering mercies in which He has “delivered my soul from death” and “my feet from stumbling” (v. 13a-b)
Because I know “God is for me,” I am confident that I will be able to “walk before [my] God in the light of the living” (v. 13c-d).“
You will keep me and support me so that I can continue to faithfully, abundantly live out my life in your gracious presence according to your precious word.”
With Paul, we may say, “If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things,” i.e., all things needful for life and godliness in this day and for the age to come (Rom. 8:31-32).
Blessings in Christ.
