When the Curse Comes Close
Psalm 108,
My heart is steadfast, O God!
I will sing and make melody with all mybeing!
2 Awake, O harp and lyre!
I will awake the dawn!
3 I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples;
I will sing praises to you among the nations.
4 For your steadfast love is great above the heavens;
your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.5 Be exalted, O God, above the heavens!
Let your glory be over all theearth!
6 That your beloved ones may be delivered,
give salvation by your right hand and answer me!7 God has promised in his holiness:
“With exultation I will divide up Shechem
and portion out the Valley of Succoth.
8 Gilead is mine; Manasseh is mine;
Ephraim is my helmet,
Judah my scepter.
9 Moab is my washbasin;
upon Edom I cast my shoe;
over Philistia I shout in triumph.”10 Whowill bring me to the fortified city?
Who will lead me to Edom?
11 Have you not rejected us, O God?
You do not go out, O God, with our armies.
12 Oh grant us help against the foe,
for vain is the salvation of man!
13 With God we shall do valiantly;
it is he who will tread down our foes.
A couple months back, our main drain backed up into our laundry room, which is actually strangely normal for our street. A lot of our neighbors deal with tree roots in their drain lines that have to be cleared out once a year. We’ve done that for years now. But this year was different.
In the spring, we noticed the line backing up again, and so we had our guy come out, and he cleared the drain like he had many times before. But just three months later, the laundry room flooded again. Frustrating. So we bring out a different guy. This guy has a camera. And so when he’s done, we can see that the drain is actually clear this time. Wonderful. A couple hours later, though, we run the washer and there’s more water in the laundry room. We bring the camera guy back, and he confirms the main drain is clear. But we see that the floor drain in the laundry room is badly clogged, and so he clears that one. As he does that, we run the washer again, and realize that the sink drain is also clogged. So, if you’re counting, we had not one, not two, but three clogged drains.
As I studied Psalm 108 this week (and did a couple loads of laundry), all those clogs came to mind again, because they’re a picture of verse 12:
“Oh grant us help against the foe, for vain is the salvation of man!”
The salvation of man is like a horrible triple clog, flooding the house over and over and over again. Every time you clear one clog, another one appears. If we trust in man to deliver us, heal us, satisfy us, we’re just asking for more dirty water. But our hope is not in man (even men with special cameras). No, our hope is in God and his steadfast love, and that’s what Psalm 108 is all about.
It’s a psalm of David, and David is feeling the pain of the curse again.
The world isn’t how it should be, and the curse is coming in close again. David’s battling enemies at the gate again. He’s pleading (again) with God for relief and deliverance, and as he pleads he takes five big steps in the psalm. And those five steps are my sermon this morning.
1. We Groan
When the curse comes close, step 1, we groan. We don’t know what situation caused David to write this psalm, but we know he was struggling to see where God was and what he was doing. The psalm opens with loud praise and confidence — “I will sing and make melody with all my being!” — but it doesn’t stay there. . . . By the time we get to verses 10–11, he says:
“Who will bring me to the fortified city?
Who will lead me to Edom?
Have you not rejected us, O God?
You do not go out, O God, with our armies.”
God, we’re going out against our enemies and it feels like you’ve rejected us. It feels like you’ve tossed us to the wolves and walked away. Where are you?Why aren’t you helping us?
And before we go any farther, we know this feeling, don’t we — persistent conflict somewhere in our family, frustrating dynamics at work that linger over months and months, a friend who keeps disappointing us even after hard conversations, piles and piles of doctor visits (and the problem still won’t go away)? God, where are you? God, you promised a peace that surpasses all understanding, but I’m not feeling peace right now. You promised healing, but I’m not experiencing healing. You promised victory over this sin, but I’m not winning yet. No, I’m feeling anxious, attacked, tired, and defeated. This is our home because of sin.
We all taste the bitterness of the curse all the time, with all five senses (some of us maybe tasted it this morning, just to get to church). How much of life while we wait here on earth feels a little like we’re somewhere between clogs two and three? God, why is there so much water! You know what I have to do today. You know that I’m trying to serve you and honor you and glorify you. Clear these pipes already! I thought you loved me. I thought you knew what I needed before I asked. Why am I still dealing with conflict and temptation, sickness and weakness? That’s not the world you promised me when I chose to follow you.
David’s groaning here, and he’s not wrong to groan. This world isn’t what it should be — what it will be. And God wants us to feel that. That’s the purpose of the curse. He wants us to feel how wicked and destructive sin is. . . . So where are you feeling the crippling consequences of sin?
Where do you feel like God has rejected your prayers and pulled back his support? We should groan. David’s feelings here are legitimate and important, and it’s good for him (good for us) to express them to God, but those feelings also aren’t a complete picture. David knows that, and that leads us to the second step.
2. We Praise
When we experience the curse along our way to glory, we groan. And we’re right to groan. But we don’t only groan. No, we groan and, second, we praise. Even under the curse and all the consequences of the curse, we praise God. David could praise God even while he felt abandoned by God because he knows reality is so much more than what he feels — more than what he can see from his very limited human perspective. This is where the psalm begins, verses 1–4:
“My heart is steadfast, O God!
I will sing and make melody with all my being!
Awake, O harp and lyre!
I will awake the dawn!
I will give thanks to you, O LORD, among the peoples;
I will sing praises to you among the nations.
For your steadfast love is great above the heavens;
your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.”
It feels like God is not loving and not faithful right now, but David knows better than that. He knows that God’s steadfast love has not come to an end and that his mercy is still new again this morning — even in disappointment and defeat. His God is not any less God in the valley.
He says, “Your steadfast love is great above the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.” I can only see so much down here on earth, God, and it looks pretty dark and bleak where I am, but your steadfast love stands high above all I can see. Your faithfulness reaches as far as I can imagine (and even farther than that). Reality is far bigger than my feelings, like galaxies bigger than my feelings (that’s why he’s reaching for “heavens” and “clouds” here).
I experienced this on a flight with our family recently. It was overcast and rainy when we took off and started climbing, but pretty soon, what happened? We broke through the clouds, and (you’ve seen this) I saw the sun shining strong and bright, blue sky as far as I could see. It was a whole different world up there. . . . But it wasn’t. It was the same world above the clouds as it was below the clouds. We just can’t see above the clouds most of the time. If you go high enough, though, it’sall sun. And that’s how it is with God’s love for you. It may be pretty miserable here beneath the clouds right now, but just above all the clouds you can see, it’s all sun. His steadfast love is great above the heavens, his faithfulness reaches to (and through) the clouds. Don’t measure his love or faithfulness with your eyes and your trials. The truth is you can’t see very much from where you’re sitting. David praises what he knows about God even when he can’t see his faithful, loving hand.
In this case, in this moment of groaning, David reached for praise from another season of his life. He borrowed from two earlier psalms for this new trouble (whatever it was). Nothing in this psalm is new. Verses 1–5 are from Psalm 57, where David praises God after God delivered David from the cave with Saul (this is 1 Samuel 24). Remember that David was hiding in a cave, and Saul was hunting him to kill him. Saul actually went into the cave where David was (terrifying for David), but he didn’t know David was in there. In the darkness, David sneaks up and cuts off a piece of Saul’s robe and shows it to him later to prove his loyalty. God delivered David that day from great danger — steadfast love above the heavens, faithfulness to the clouds. And now with this new trouble, David reached back for the song he wrote outside that cave.
And then the second half of Psalm 108, verses 6–13, are from Psalm 60, where David expresses some distress in battle, but this time, he leads God’s people to victory over Edom, wiping out 12,000 soldiers in battle. With God’s help, they did valiantly that day. And as David reaches back for old praise in these news trials, he teaches us to do that. Learn these psalms well enough, Cities Church, that you can grab them when the curse comes close to you. And when God answers your prayers, praise him. Write them down. Memorialize them in some way. Write a new song, like we talked about in Psalm 98. And then hold onto those answered prayers for days when the curse comes close again and God hasn’t answered yet.
3. We Ask
So, we groan, feeling the awful weight of sin and all its consequences, and we praise, remembering that God’s love and faithfulness are so much bigger than all we feel and fear. David teaches us, third, to ask. We ask God to end the curse and make good on his promises.
Notice, David doesn’t remember God’s promise and stop asking. No, he hears the promise and it emboldens him to ask even harder. God, you promised to deliver us, and so deliver us! God means, for now, to make war on the curse through our asking. One day soon, he’ll wipe out the curse — all of his enemies everywhere. But for now, he chooses to defeat the curse a prayer at a time. Here’s how David asks in Psalm 108, verses 5–6:
“Be exalted, O God, above the heavens!
Let your glory be over all the earth!
That your beloved ones may be delivered,
give salvation by your right hand and answer me!”
Deliver us, God! Give salvation by your right hand and answer me! That’s the first prayer. I have prayers like this in our life, prayers that just won’t give. Why won’t you answer me, God? . . .
One great reason God makes us wait in prayer is because he wants us to keep praying. Why would God make me wait so long? Because he knows some of us would stop praying if we got what we wanted — and it’s far more important that we stay on our knees in faith than that we have some temporary relief or comfort in this life. He loves you too much to let you feel like you don’t need him.
“Deliver me” isn’t the only prayer, though, or the highest prayer. No, the highest prayer comes in the verse before, verse 5:
“Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth!”
Praying saints like King David can keep praying the same prayers, sometimes for years, because they want something more than they want relief or healing or deliverance. They want God to be glorified! They want his truth and beauty and worth to be seen and enjoyed all over the earth. And they want him to do whatever he needs to do for that to happen. And, Scripture is clear, that might mean we suffer for a little while. It might mean we suffer for the rest of our lives.
That’s the apostle Paul’s thorn, right? Lord, take it away, take it away, take it away — three times he asks — but not my will, but yours be done. And God doesn’t take it away — not because he’s rejected or abandoned Paul. His steadfast love stands above the heavens, and his faithfulness to the clouds. No, he leaves the thorn for now, because God is more concerned with his glory running out into the world through us, for the eternal good of others, than he is with providing some short-term comfort for us now. He’s doing something wonderfully, eternally glorious in all our trials. We just can’t see it yet. But we can ask. And God wants us to ask and keep asking, like David does here.
4. We Trust
When we feel the curse, we groan, we praise, we ask, and, fourth, we trust. We hold on hard to what God has promised to do for those who love him. Listen to David cling onto a promise, verses 7–8:
God has promised in his holiness: [He doesn’t lie!]
“With exultation I will divide up Shechem
and portion out the Valley of Succoth.
Gilead is mine; Manasseh is mine;
Ephraim is my helmet,
Judah my scepter.
Shechem, Succoth, Gilead, Manasseh, Ephraim, Judah — these are all places within the promised land, the land that God promised to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all of Israel after them. Israel’s living in the land by now, but it’s still under constant attack. And so David is saying, “God, you said! Gilead, Manasseh, Ephraim, Judah — those are yours, and you promised to give that land to us. So why does the land feel so fragile? Why do the enemies feel so powerful? Still, he holds onto the promise. You said, and I’m going to trust you.
And God didn’t promise only the 8,000 square miles of land on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea. No, he promised to take every land for his glory. That’s what the next verse is about, verse 9. God goes on,
“Moab is my washbasin;
upon Edom I cast my shoe;
over Philistia I shout in triumph.”
Now we’re outside of Israel. These are Israel’s surrounding enemies. And God says, “Oh they belong to me too.” And David believes him. Even when it feels like the Moabites and Philistines have the upper hand and are taking ground, David remembers what God said and he truststhe promise. He keeps looking to God for salvation.
He looks to God for salvation, and (next verse) he refuses to look to man. Again, verse 12:
“Oh grant us help against the foe, for vain is the salvation of man!”
David knows this temptation all too well. He knows that when the curse is pressing in, and the opposition is intense, and it seems like God has rejected and abandoned him, there will be a terrible pressure to turn and trust in man — to trust in himself and his armies and other armies. If God won’t help me, then I’ll try something else. Have you felt that temptation? God’s way isn’t working, and so I’m trying my way.
We don’t talk this way, of course. We’d never say to each other, “Oh yeah, I’m actually trying out the salvation of man. I’m expecting someone else to save me now.” We don’t talk like that, but oh we act like that sometimes. Don’t we? We might say God is our Savior, but so much of what we say and do points to a different savior (often to ourselves). We skip time in the word because we’re too busy right now. We slip in and out of church because we’ve got somewhere else to be. We work and work and work and rarely pray. We ask ChatGPT instead.
David knew that the salvation of man saves nothing. It accomplishes nothing. It is vain. And he knew he (and we) needed to be reminded that man cannot save. Only God can save.
5. We Tread
We do not trust in man — certainly not ourselves — no, we trust in God. And when we trust in him, we will do valiantly. We don’t use that word often (at least I don’t), but we should. When we feel the curse, we groan, we praise, we ask, we trust, and finally, we tread. Oh we will tread down all the forces of evil and consequences of evil. Verses 12–13:
“Oh grant us help against the foe,
for vain is the salvation of man!
With God we shall do valiantly;
it is he who will tread down our foes.”
Vain is the salvation of man, but sure is the salvation of God. With God, we shall do valiantly. We shall prevail against all our enemies. For David, that meant Moab and Edom and Philistia. If God is with us, we have nothing to fear and we cannot lose. No matter how bleak it gets, we can take courage and know that we will outlast every enemy of God. Because God himself will tread down our foes. “With God we shall do valiantly; it is he who will tread down our foes.” And when he treads, he treads with sovereign, unrivaled power. That’s what he just said in verse 9:
“Moab is my washbasin;
upon Edom I cast my shoe;
over Philistia I shout in triumph.”
Those enemies that seem so massive and powerful to you right now? They’re are a bucket for my feet. They’re a plastic bin for my sandals. We don’t talk about Moab or Edom or Philistia today. They don’t seem so big anymore, do they? The Philistines vanished as a people 2,500 years ago. Think about that. Israel fought the Philistines for two or three hundred years. For all that time (the entire history of the United States), these were the terrible giants bearing down on them. Where is God? What if they wipe us out? And then they’re completely gone, tossed out like water in a bucket. That’s true of every great fear you have today — war, disease, oil prices, artificial intelligence.
A.I. is my washbasin. . . . upon cancer I cast my shoe. . . . over Islam I shout in triumph.
The giants we most fear are as nothing to him. They’re water for him to wash his feet. And I don’t know about you, but the giants I battle most aren’t out there in the headlines — no, they’re in here. Pride. Selfishness. Impatience. Wrath. Envy. Self-pity. And God promises, I’m taking that land too. Whatever temptation looms over you. He says, “We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord,are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18). In other words,
Pride is my washbasin. . . . upon envy and bitterness I cast my shoe. . . . over lust I shout in triumph.
The salvation of man is vain. You can’t beat that sin alone. But with God, you can and shall do valiantly.
The King, the Cave, and the Conquest
David saw God tread down foes by the tens of thousands — Moab, Edom, Philistia, but he didn’t see him tread all his foes. And that brings us to the Table.
King David knew God would have his full and final victory, but he also knew that God’s people needed another King. A King who would take on flesh, sympathizing with us in our groaning — “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Who would praise the steadfast love and faithfulness of his Father, even in his darkest hour. Who would ask that the bitter cup of the curse be removed from him. Who would trust the Father’s word and will — “Not my will, but yours be done.” Who would be betrayed, condemned, crucified, and buried — and through it all, would do valiantly. On the cross, King Jesus tread down his enemies in awesome victory. That King, remember, was also rescued from a cave.
And while he has defeated the Enemy already in his death and resurrection, he will return and wash his feet with all his enemies. He’ll toss his glorified sandal on anyone who rejects him and stands against him. And on that day, he’ll bring us home, where the curse will never come close again.
