THE GREEDY APPETITES OF THE WICKED ~ Psalm 35

Back in verse 21, David states in contrast to those who are quiet in the land (implying the righteous), his enemies had opened their mouth wide against him and said, “Aha, aha, our eyes have seen it!” Enemies must scream and shout their lies to get the attention of anyone who will listen—usually anyone who loves to see some dirt flung onto others so that they might feel better about themselves. Loud, obnoxious enemies must distract with their exaggerated claims because they do not have the truth on their side. Truth stands on its own…hence the saying, “Time will tell,” or, “The cream always rises to the top.”  Now, David is saying in verse 25: Do not let them say in their heart, “Aha, our desire!” Do not let them say, “We have swallowed him up!” They begin by spewing their lies far and wide, loud and clear. In their smug arrogance, they end up convincing themselves that these lies are true.

This phrase swallowed him up is interesting. It means to devour, to destroy, to cover, to engulf, to eat up with the idea of eagerness and greediness. It is used of men eating greedily and of beasts. Just as the lions swallow their prey in verse 17, the wicked attempt to devour the righteous. Their goal is always an attempt to imprison the soul of the one who is truly free.

Psalm 14:4-6—Do all the workers of wickedness not know, who eat up my people as they eat bread, and do not call upon the Lord? There they are in great dread, for God is with the righteous generation. You would put to shame the counsel of the afflicted, but the LORD is his refuge.

Spurgeon says of this verse: Disappoint them of their prey when their mouths are ready to swallow it. Saints are too dear a morsel for the powers of evil; God will not give his sheep over to the wolfish jaws of persecutors. Just when they are tuning their pipes to celebrate their victory, they shall be made to laugh on the other side of their mouths. They are all too sure, and too boastful; they reckon without their host: little do they dream of the end which will be put to their scheming. Their bird shall be flown, and they themselves shall be in the trap. The prayer of this text is a promise. Even before the lips of the wicked can frame a speech of exultation, they shall be disappointed; their heart-speech shall be forestalled, their wishes frustrated, their knavish tricks exposed. Reference: The Treasury of David, by Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Published by Guardian Press, 1976, Vol. II, Page 161. (See also Psalm 124:3)

Was the following verse in David’s mind when he used this phrase? Rising up against God’s appointed leader over Israel, Numbers 16:30-33 records for us what happened when Korah rebelled against Moses. Disobedience to Moses’ commands was spurning the Lord. “But if the LORD brings about an entirely new thing and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that is theirs, and they descend alive into Sheol, then you will understand that these men have spurned the LORD.” As he finished speaking all these words, the ground that was under them split open; and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, and their households, and all the men who belonged to Korah with their possessions. So they and all that belonged to them went down alive to Sheol; and the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly. God will not be mocked, and He does not look favorably upon those who diss His obedient children.

Proverbs 1:10-16, speaking of the wicked—My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent. If they say, “Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood, let us ambush the innocent without cause; let us swallow them alive like Sheol, even whole, as those who go down to the pit, we will find all kinds of precious wealth, we will fill our houses with spoil; throw in your lot with us, we shall have one purse.” My son, do not walk in the way with them. Keep your feet from their path, for their feet run to evil and they hasten to shed blood.

Sometimes the Lord uses the enemies of His people to swallow them up. In Lamentations 2, God is angry with his own people. Lamentations 2:2—The Lord has swallowed up; He has not spared all the habitations of Jacob. The Lord has become like an enemy. He has swallowed up Israel; He has swallowed up all its palaces, He has destroyed its strongholds and multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and moaning. (verse 5) All your enemies have opened their mouths wide against you. They hiss and gnash their teeth. They say, “We have swallowed her up! Surely this is the day for which we waited; we have reached it, we have seen it.” The LORD has done what He purposed; He has accomplished His word which He commanded from days of old. He has thrown down without sparing, and He has caused the enemy to rejoice over you; He has exalted the might of your adversaries. (verses 16-17) This is why when my family’s scandal began, I immediately began judging myself. Was this the Lord’s response to sin in our lives? This introspection was an agonizingly long process. While I could acknowledge that there were things of which I was guilty of before God’s eyes, those things for which I did seek repentance, I believed with all my heart that I was not guilty of breaking any laws of the United States of America. David does not stand before the Lord pleading for Him to judge him according to God’s own righteousness before first examining himself in this trial. 1 Peter 4:17 says: For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?

The plea is this: Let the wicked not feel as though evil has triumphed. Let them not believe God looked on their cause with favor. Do not let them believe God has supported their cause because they are right.

Let those be ashamed and humiliated altogether who rejoice at my distress; Let those be clothed with shame and dishonor who magnify themselves over me. (Psalm 35:26)

Psalm 109:29—Let my accusers be clothed with dishonor and let them cover themselves with their own shame as with a robe.

David was being accused of something he had not done. His enemies were pointing fingers at him trying to expose him for the fraudster they wanted people to believe he was. Because David was a man who desired to walk in his integrity, the distress this caused his soul was overwhelming. He had not sinned. He was robed in the righteousness of his Lord; his accusers were not. One day the proud robe of honor they wore now would be stripped from them; the only robe that would fit them then would be the robe of shame and humiliation. The fact that they were rejoicing over the apparent success of their schemes to bring him down added to the depth of their depravity and David’s agony.

Whether it is just the accusation of sin or sin itself, one temptation to respond in the flesh is the same. When we are falsely accused and are forced to deal with the realities of people dismissing our testimony as credible, sometimes the response of our flesh is to run and hide. The reaction of my family back in 2006 was to go into self-lockdown mode. We stayed in our home with little interaction in the community for five and a half years. No one can convince me that “innocent until proven guilty” is anything but a feel-good sentiment written down in the pages of the Constitution. The sad reality is that the majority of the people want it to apply to themselves, just not the rest of the people. Have no doubt, someone in this country is indicted, tried, and convicted by the news media—who have the power to sway public opinion—long before due process of law plays out. Shame and humiliation is the goal. And it only gets worse.

Taken into custody, I knew shame and humiliation I could never have imagined. I know intimately the stigma and social exile thrust upon anyone who wears the label of convicted felon. For the most part, the general public sees convicted felons as dirty, disgusting, and undesirable. Even in some Christian circles the thought seems to be, “I will have a ministry to them, but I will keep them at arms’ length. I don’t actually want to have an intimate relationship with them.” Thankfully, this is not the attitudes of everyone who names the name of Christ. Just like David, if I had believed I deserved to wear that label for a crime I did commit, I would have faced that shame and dealt with it through the cross of Christ.

We were created for unity and communion with others. The whole prison experience is designed to separate. There are those on the “inside” and those on the “outside”. Isolated and distanced, nothing is normal. “Everyone” or “belonging” is no longer in a prisoner’s vocabulary. There is no “us” on the inside. Social distancing should never be the new normal…unless you are in prison.

When I was released from prison, my father helped me get a job at the only grocery store in our small town. I needed to go back there to face the shame and humiliation that had been heaped upon me. When the owner interviewed me, he asked me one question: “Do you want to be visible or invisible?” I closed my eyes and softly said, “Visible.” And he put me in the front of the store as a cashier, and I faced my public. I will never forget one elderly lady who confronted me my first week working there to ask for my forgiveness. I was a bit taken back because I didn’t know her at all. She didn’t even look familiar to me. She said she realized that she had judged me wrongly, that she had been one of my “accusers” who had jumped on the media bandwagon. I hugged her and forgave her on the spot. What a beautiful gift the Lord gave me in this dear woman. I had that same reaction from several different people in the year I worked there. For the most part, people welcomed me with open arms as they watched me closely. In retrospect, we should have thrown ourselves into our community when we were first indicted.

You will remember what happened when Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden. When they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, they hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Their sin had exposed their nakedness.

David was not hiding himself from the Lord, he was turning to the Lord crying out to him in his distress. Robed in the righteousness of Christ, he was not naked and exposed because of his sin. If he had been guilty, he would have cried out to the Lord for mercy and forgiveness and asked the same from anyone whom he had offended or sinned against.

David said his enemies had magnified themselves over him. The word magnified means to grow up, to become great or powerful, or to nourish. First, they had devised an evil plot making false accusations based on lies about him. Then, they fed on those lies nourishing their own proud egos. The only logical conclusion they can come to in their faulty reasoning is that they are better than others. David’s enemies had vaunted themselves over him in their own strength and power. They did not take the Lord into consideration in their actions at all. The proud are delusional, and their reality is distorted. What they cannot see is that even though they might be clothed with honor in this life, the righteous are clothed with the righteousness of Christ forever. The wicked may be rejoicing now, but their rejoicing will turn to weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth.

The sole desire of David’s heart is to magnify the Lord in all he does. Attempting to magnify themselves over David is ultimately attempting to magnify themselves over God. They seek to make themselves great by humbling and destroying David. They hope to rise in some way upon David’s ruin. The reality is that God resists the proud and but gives grace to the humble.