Psalm Devotional
From Defeat to Victory
Written by Gordon Keddie. This devotional was first published in the August 2009 issue of The Reformed Presbyterian Witness.
C.H. Spurgeon aptly describes Psalm 76 as “a paean [song of praise] to the King of kings,” for it celebrates a great victory in battle for God’s people. It could fit with David’s conquest of Jerusalem or with the destruction of the Assyrians three centuries later.
There is a certain timelessness in this song that reaches beyond the event that occasioned it, such that it has the widest application to all kinds of struggles, both temporal and spiritual, in which God’s will prevails for His people. It is about giving God glory for turning defeat into victory, on our road from here to eternity. It does so along four distinct lines.
First, God is glorious in making himself known to His people (vv. 1-3). His self-revelation is a glorious condescension to hell-deserving rebels. And it is about personal and saving knowledge, not mere ethnic or cultural heritage (v. 1).
Mention of Judah recalls His lordship (Gen. 49:10), and mention of Israel (“prince with God”) recalls His covenant mercy. Salem and the tabernacle, and Zion as His dwelling place, emphasize His amazing grace in providing sacrifice for sin to reconcile His people to Himself, so that He is present with them all the time (v. 2).
This language points to Jesus Christ, who is “a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek” (Ps. 110:4), the king of Salem, who met Abraham after his battle with the five kings. God also reveals Himself in breaking the arrows, bow, shield and sword of their enemies in first bringing His people to Jerusalem and then sustaining them there (v. 3). It is to the glory of God that He should make those who are “not a people” to be “now the people of God” (1 Pet. 2:10).
Second, God is glorious in doing great things for His people (vv. 4-6). He is “more glorious” than the “mountains of prey” (v. 4). The writer Charles Kingsley, sailing up the Rhine, was surprised to be reminded of his “favorite psalm about the hills of the robbers” by the ruined castles above the river. However impressive God’s enemies may seem, He is infinitely more glorious! He is so much more powerful that seemingly invincible foes are overthrown by His mere “rebuke,” as illustrated by the fate of Sennacherib’s army before the walls of Jerusalem (Ps. 76:5-6; 2 Kings 19:35-37).
Third, God is glorious in judgments past and future (vv. 7-10). When God’s righteous anger is applied to human events no one can stand in His presence (v. 7). Leaders fall, empires collapse and cultures crumble. When God delivers “the oppressed of the earth,” the world is silenced. Mouths are stopped, minds are boggled and hearts quail with awe of what God has done. If a godly man like Job has to put his hand on his mouth when God speaks to him, how much more the wicked when God shatters their illusions (Job 40:4; Micah 7:16)!
The key is in verse 10: “Surely the wrath of man shall praise You.” The fire of sinful human anger can burn very hot and often seems to roll inexorably over lives, homes, communities and nations. Where is there any relief, any hope? The answer is God’s sovereign reversal of the worst that wickedness can do. The cross of Christ was supposed to be Satan’s victory, but it was the very means of transforming the world forever. The wrath of Saul the Pharisee is turned on the Damascus road to his conversion to Christ and results in his ministry across the Roman world.
The psalmist assures us that God will “gird” Himself even with “the remainder of wrath”—that is, with that wickedness from which we see no possible redeeming results. In God’s righteous judgment, this too will declare His glory, for every scrap of human wrath will in the end have “loser” written all over it!
Fourth, God is glorious in the worship of the nations (vv. 11-12). The Lord calls us to commit ourselves to Him—”make vows and pay them”—and follow after Him with “presents to Him who ought to be feared” (v. 11). He also promises us that all earthly powers will be humbled before Him (v. 12). How prone we are to defeatism! We see sin’s wreckage everywhere and think it is irreversible. Persecution of God’s people especially grieves us. “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?” we cry, but, unlike Elisha, we don’t really expect an answer. We ought to remember with Ebenezer Erskine, that, “The gospel, like chamomile, the more it is trodden down, the more it spreads.”
