THE RIGHTEOUS SHALL LIVE BY FAITH ~ Psalm 35

Jesus said, ”He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters.” (Matthew 12:30) We are either born in Adam or born again in Christ. We are either servants of God living to promote His kingdom as we seek to walk according to the Spirit, or we are servants of Satan living to promote his kingdom as we seek only to live according to our fleshly desires and appetites. While David was not sinless, he was on the Lord’s side! His enemies were not. They may even have been religious, but he knew the Lord.

Let them shout for joy and rejoice, who favor my vindication; and let them say continually, “The LORD be magnified, Who delights in the prosperity of His servant.” And my tongue shall declare Your righteousness and Your praise all day long. (Psalm 35:27-28)

In the preceding verses, David has made his complaint that the wicked had opened their mouths wide against him. Here, we see him longing for the day when, because of his vindication, the righteous would open their mouths wide shouting for joy and rejoicing. That occasion would lend itself to a greater opportunity to magnify the Lord together.

The battle belongs to the Lord. Spurgeon said, “There is a day coming when shouts of victory shall be raised by all who are on Christ’s side.” The battle is going to turn. There will be shouts of praise…not for David’s praise, but for God’s honor and glory. David did not want his enemies to win giving them a false sense of assurance that God was on there side. Here he asks the Lord to let his friends see that God is on his side. He has claimed the Lord as his own and he knows he belongs to Him. “Lord, let them see how You respond to your own children.” “Let the Lord be magnified as His people gain a greater revelation of God’s characters.” David’s deliverance and vindication would greatly encourage the whole congregation! We should all rejoice in the ministry successes and the victories of our brothers and sisters in Christ, for we are one body. The whole body benefits when one of God’s children is victorious.

Deliverance would be a memorial for David, but also for the people to look back on to encourage them when they needed to remember the Lord’s faithfulness to them. Psalm 70 sounds like an abridged version of Psalm 35 and many others like it. O God, hasten to deliver me; O LORD, hasten to my help! Let those be ashamed and humiliated who seek my life. Let those be turned back and dishonored who delight in my hurt. Let those be turned back because of their shame, who say, “Aha, aha!” Let all who seek You rejoice and be glad in You; and let those who love Your salvation say continually, “Let God be magnified.” But I am afflicted and needy; hasten to me, O God! You are my help and my deliverer; O LORD, do not delay.  It is called a prayer for help against persecutors. It is for the choir director, so it was intended to be sung by the congregation. It also says that it is a Psalm of David for a memorial. I think it would be helpful to sing these types of songs again together as a body at times. I remember a song I learned as a young child in youth choir entitled, “Unto Thee O Lord”. Its lyrics mimic Psalm 71.

Our whole walk of faith, we set up memorials of God’s faithfulness that we can look back upon and remember. These memorials encourage us and strengthen our faith when God appears to be silent or when we must wait on Him. The Lord favors those who fear Him, those who wait for His lovingkindness. (Psalm 147:11)

And my tongue shall declare Your righteousness and Your praise all day long. (Psalm 35:28)

Back in verse 9, David anticipated the time when his soul would be able to rejoice in the LORD and exult in His salvation in deliverance. Now, this praise includes that of the congregation. Because he knows that God is faithful, he anticipates this time of great celebration as a time when they can magnify the Lord together.

Even though Psalm 35 has been “my Scripture” since 2006, I have lived in the Psalms since 2001. They are a continual source of comfort, encouragement, and strength for me. A pastor friend gave me Psalm 37:23-24 in 2011 right before we went to trial. It reminded me of my children when they first were learning to walk. The verse immediately following is one that had been in my mind for decades before that. The steps of a man are established by the LORD, and He delights in his way. When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong, because the LORD is the One who holds his hand. I have been young and now I am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his descendants begging bread. All day long he is gracious and lends, and his descendants are a blessing. (Psalm 37:23-26) From cradle to gray hair, the Lord is faithful.

The psalmist’s words in Psalm 71 remind us a lot of those of David’s in Psalm 35. You can look at it on your own, but I want to mention the fact that he uses one word repeatedly. It is the word continually. It means always and forevermore. In verse 3 he says: Be to me a rock of habitation to which I may continually come. In verses 5-6 he talks about how the Lord has been his confidence from his youth. He affirms His faithfulness in sustaining him from his birth taking him from his mother’s womb. It ends with: My praise is continually of You. With the same idea, he says in verse 8: My mouth is filled with Your praise and with Your glory all day long. In contrast to his enemies, he says in verse 14: But as for me, I will hope continually, and will praise You yet more and more. In verse 15 he says: My mouth shall tell of Your righteousness and of Your salvation all day long; for I do not know the sum of them. I could never exhaust this theme of the blessings of Your salvation, for they are far too numerous. I love verses 17-19: O God, You have taught me from my youth, and I still declare Your wondrous deeds. And even when I am old and gray, O God, do not forsake me, until I declare Your strength to this generation, Your power to all who are to come. For Your righteousness, O God, reaches to the heavens, You who have done great things. O God, who is like You? Complete confidence and trust in God is seen in the mature man of verse 20: You who have shown me many troubles and distresses will revive me again, and will bring me up from the depths of the earth. Verses 22-24 speak with confident hope in the fact that the psalmist will continue to praise Him in the days to come.

The Lord shows all His servants many troubles and distresses. In reference to his trials, the psalmist says this: I have become a marvel to many, for You are my strong refuge. John MacArthur says of this verse: People are amazed at this person’s life, some interpreting his trials as God’s care, and others as God’s punishment. I have had more friends than one question their own faith when talking to me about my trials. They say things like this: “I know God allows/sends trials for the good of His children. I have not experienced trials anything like yours. I have not suffered as you have suffered. Am I saved?” The first time I heard this, I was kind of shocked. My answer is never to flippantly assure anyone their faith is real. They must do the hard work of examining themselves in the light of God’s Word to make certain of their salvation. I do tell them that none of us knows when the next major trial is just on the horizon of our life. Listen, Beloved, we are all in the midst of Covid-19 right now with a lot of other political unrest overwhelming our nation. We all experience death, disease, and heartache in our relationships. The real question is this: Is what you know about the Lord sustaining you as you stand firm on His promises? Will it continue to do so even if the fire gets hotter?

I do not mean to trivialize anyone’s suffering, so I want to say this in love. Children cry about a lot of petty things. We comfort them as if they are experiencing the hardship of their little lives because it is so upsetting to them. I remember a friend once getting frustrated after a prayer meeting at church. This friend had known a lot of suffering in his life. When I asked what was wrong, he said, “I’m tired of hearing prayer requests for every little hangnail everyone has. I wish the church, in general, would grow up! Yes, God cares about all that concerns us, but we need to be praying for the big things of the faith!” I get that, yet we do have to keep in mind that believers are at different maturity levels in their walks. With that said, the goal should always be to grow up, however!

I have had opportunities on several occasions to talk with older people to encourage them to spend more time in the Word or to join a Bible study. It pains me when their response is something like this: “I know I’m saved. It’s great you want to study the Bible, but I know all I need to know.” That would be like meeting the person you are going to marry and spend your entire life with, and after that first meeting you say, “I’m good now. I do not need to get to know you any better. Hey, we might spend a little time together in a crowd once a week or so and even say a few words to one another, but I’m good.” The Lord, our covenant partner, knows us so intimately that there is nothing He doesn’t know about us, and yet He continues to love us with His steadfast love. Why would anyone who confesses to be His not want to continue to get to know Him better?

In these psalms and similar lament passages, we see the author drawing from his core what he believes in order to stand firm and to walk forward in faith. He uses his theology, what he believes, as the launch pad for all his hope. No matter what the Lord takes him through, he dares to keep on hoping. And this is very important: Lament dares to hope WHILE life is hard, not just after the trial is over. Any of us may enter a trial that may not end in this life. God is still good! This is how we learn to walk by faith. My husband made me a locket with the verse Romans 1:16-17 engraved on it. He had one made for my mom, his mother, and several of his aunts. Ironically, this was one of the few jewelry pieces federal agents did not care to seize. “The righteous shall live by faith” is found three places in Scripture (Habakkuk 2:4; Romans 1:17; and Galatians 3:11). Christians are saved by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8-9), and we walk or live in faith (2 Corinthians 5:7).

Fear in these unsettled times is real. We do not live through suffering by what we see or feel, but what we believe…what we know to be true. Hope does not come through a change of circumstances. We do not walk by sight—what we see may look daunting and hopeless. And it may be hopeless in a temporal sense. We walk by faith knowing that there is a story unfolding we cannot see. Eternity will never prove that hope in God in this life was a waste.

When I was little and bad things happened in our country, I watched the shaken responses of adults around me and thought, “It will be okay. America always bounces back because we’re America!” That is hope misplaced. America just might not bounce back one day. God is still on His throne and worthy of all praise, as Habakkuk and other prophets confessed. Psalm 35 and others are prayers of faith despite our fears.

The praises in this life will build in a grand crescendo as they continue into eternity where at long last all wrongs will have been made right and the righteous of all generations will magnify the Judge forever. Like the Hallelujah Chorus says, The Lord God omnipotent reigneth. The kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever. King of kings, and Lord of lords, He shall reign forever and ever! Hallelujah!

We end our look at Psalm 35 as David did—with eyes of faith and hope in the God who delivers His people from all their afflictions.