Sermon(Ps 34): God, the protector of the weak and the supporter of the righteous

The original Korean text: https://blog.naver.com/stevision/50025256464

 

>> .... 4 I sought the Lord, and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears. 5 Look to him, and be radiant; so your faces shall never be ashamed. 6 This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles. 7 The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them. 8 O taste and see that the Lord is good! Happy is the man who takes refuge in him! 9 O fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no want! .... 15 The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous, and his ears toward their cry. 16 The face of the Lord is against evildoers, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. 17 When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears, and delivers them out of all their troubles. 18 The Lord is near to the brokenhearted, and saves the crushed in spirit. ... 20 He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken. .... (Ps 34) <<

 

My brethren, do not abhor or hate others without cause. Do not ostracize or isolate someone in your group or company without cause. In particular, don't do him any harm. “You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall not afflict any widow or orphan. If you do afflict them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry; and my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless. (Ex 22:21-24)” This is a commandment God gave Israelites when they first met him and made a covenant with him at Mount Sinai after the Exodus. When the Israelites said they would accept the God as their God, he gave them a commandment, 'You shall live such and such a life.' God gave them a strict order that they should not strike strangers living in Israel or rob them of money because they didn't have protectors, or that they especially should not bother widows or orphans. So if you want to live until your life span, you must not bother the weak.

 

Today's passages are David's poem that he wrote when he was driven out from the neighboring country to which he had fled from king Saul. David had been chased by king Saul, and he no longer bore that situation and went to Achish the king of Gath. But the chief officials of Gath complained to Achish, saying that David couldn't be their ally. Perceiving the sinister atmosphere, David feigned himself mad in order to live. He muttered while letting his spittle run down his beard. Achish, seeing David's shabby appearance, expelled David, saying, "Do I lack madmen, that you (his men) have brought this fellow to play the madman in my presence?" There was king Saul seeking to kill David in his homeland, and there were unfriendly people also in the country to which he fled from Saul. David dead-ended. He could do nothing, so David's heart grew bitterer and bitterer against Saul. David proclaimed, "Evil shall slay the wicked; and those who hate the righteous will be condemned. (v. 21)" David was a faithful servant of Saul, but Saul hated him and would do anything to kill him. David had never sinned against Saul, but Saul, blinded by greed, hated him and tried to kill him. Saul hated David, a righteous man. God, knowing everything, fulfilled David's outcry uttered with a deep sigh, "Those who hate the righteous will be condemned."

 

If a bone of a man is broken ....? He will become a cripple for life and will not be able to function as a human being, or will die before long. A broken bone means that there is a fatal wound. God breaks the bones of those who wickedly and incessantly bully the righteous. God makes them real disabled persons now. He makes them the disabled who can't act as a normal person, so that they can’t harass others, and personally experience the life of the weak (by becoming the weak). God broke the bone of the house of Saul who continually gave the righteous man David a hard time. His house was destroyed completely by God's wrath.

 

When I was an immature lad, I, with my friends, assaulted other lads from other village for no reason except 'for fun'. However on another day I was beaten by others exactly twice as much as we beat the lads. How severe God's punishment was at that time! And I saw the misery of those who hated me without cause. In fact, I seemed rude or impolite to others. There was a reason for that. My father passed away even before I was one year old. So I was the youngest son, and didn't lived under the authority of father, so that I didn't know how to be polite to aged people. I lived as the youngest son freely, not knowing the rigorous world. I sucked my mother's breast until I was five years old. Of course, there was no milk in the breast in the fifth year, but I did so just because I was happy when I sucked one breast while touching the other. But one day, a relative rebuked me, saying, "You've grown up enough not to suck the breast!" The relative's finger was put into the nostril (so it became dirty), and the relative motioned as if to make the breast dirty with the finger. I didn’t suck the breast after that day. How might I have been indulgently brought up, seeing that I sucked mother's breast until five years old? (When I was a middle (or high?) school student, I sent a Christmas card to the pastor in charge of the church, in which was written the benediction(!), "Merry Christmas! May the grace of the Father, the Son and the Spirit be with you!" I didn't know what the saying meant. What an impolite behavior! But it was my natural deed at that time.) I guess that I, an elementary school student, was not so courteous to the adults of the neighborhood. Maybe some of them hated me, an impolite kid. Two grown-up people stared at me with eyes full of hatred and gave me abusive words. Actually I didn’t do them harm. Nevertheless they hated me. Some time had passed, and one of them died of cancer in his middle age; his wife brought in another man even before he died. The other man's wife was possessed by an evil spirit and killed herself; his sons suffered from the possession of evil spirits, too. Perhaps the misery of the two men might not be the punishment for the hated for me. But we can say that their hatred for me without cause was the result of their everyday mental attitude. Their hatred for me was one example of their wicked heart hating others without cause. My brethren, do not hate your neighbors without reason. In particular, do not hate God-fearing people or servants of God. Your bone could be broken (beyond healing)! "The face of the Lord is against evildoers, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. (v. 16)"

 

However God is a reliable protector and helper of the weak such as widows and orphans. The reason is that God is compassionate (Ex 22:27). Are you one of the weak in the world? Don't be afraid of the strong wicked people around you, but look to God, your strong protector. Seek his help diligently. "Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation. (Ps 68:5)" "This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles. (v. 6)" Hallelujah! Amen!

 

God is also a sure supporter of the righteous. The righteous live, seeing the shining face of God. When you plant seedlings close together, they strive to grow up as high as possible. The plant that grows up a little higher than the other plants receives the sunlight most, so it grows fastest. It grows up highest, so it receives the sunlight most; it receives the sunlight most, so it grows fastest. Therefore at first they had all about the same height, but after a few months, several plants have grown up higher and higher while others suffer sluggish growth below them. The same is true of the righteous and the wicked. "Look to him, and be radiant; so your faces shall never be ashamed. (v. 5)" The righteous are willing to love and look to God so that they can receive his grace. These grow upward faster than others. They monopolize the radiance of God. The sunlight enables trees to grow. The radiance of God makes believers' faith grow. That radiance is the grace of God, his help and his guidance. The righteous love the righteous God, seek his grace eagerly, and receive a lot of light from him. Thanks to the light of God, they grow the more, so they like the God the more and seek him the more. God's abundant grace comes to those men the more. The wicked dislike God, so they can't receive his grace and fall into a vicious cycle of curse. There are lots of people in the world. He who realizes the goodness and mercy of God early in his life and holds on to him will achieve the surest success in life. So I can understand God even if he does not rebuke those who are lazy in serving God, because the number of the blessed who are to be the head is limited while there are so many believers in the world. I think that maybe God says, "You don't want to be blessed? If you don't want to, do not be blessed! Also so many believers other than you want to be blessed. It's really troublesome for me to decide who must be the beneficiary of my best blessing, for only a few believers can be the beneficiaries. Do you live a Christian life for others’ sake? If you don't want to receive the blessings, I do not force you to serve me. You don't want to be in the choir? Then quit! You don't want to be a Sunday school teacher? Give it up!" God is pleased to hear also the chorus without the tenor part. Don't be too haughty because you are the only tenor of the choir of your church, a very small church. If you're absent from the choir, all the blessings you are to receive will be granted to the choir conductor who is upset because of you. Even if you no longer want to be a teacher of the Sunday school, God raises all the children in some way or other. Instead your pastor and your superior will receive what you're to be blessed with, if you are lazy in your duties and make them upset after you have been appointed as a teacher. What I want to say to Esau is this: "Esau, do you wish to be blessed by God when you have belittled the blessing of God, thinking it just to be worth just a bowl of pottage of lentils?" And the most precious thing in the world is what God has entrusted to me. That's the fountain of all blessings. Young people and college students! Make sure to participate in the choir and the Sunday school. That is more valuable to you than 100 100-year-old wild ginsengs. Do not seek joy only in playing around after the Sunday worship service. Seek your joy in the Sunday school and the choir. The righteous love God and seek his grace eagerly, while God turns his face to the righteous and becomes their sure supporter. "The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous, and his ears toward their cry. (v. 15)"

 

God keeps the life of the righteous to the end. He never lets them starve to death. "O fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no want! The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. (v. 9-10)" God never allows the wicked to do the righteous harm beyond recovery. The wicked may persecute the righteous. But they can never break the bones of the righteous. "Many are the afflictions of the righteous; but the Lord delivers him out of them all. He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken. (v. 19-20)" My brethren, how many times did Saul pursue David to kill him? But he couldn't break David's bone. God sends his angels to protect his children. "The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them. (v. 7)" My brethren, do not succumb to the wicked and be their servants when they persecute you, but flee to God and taste his goodness (v. 8). Today's biblical text Ps 34 plainly tells who are the blessed. "Happy is the man who takes refuge in him (God)! (v. 8)" My brethren, take courage and have hope. God is a reliable protector and supporter of weak and poor people. God will be your strength, righteousness and hope if only you becomes a righteous man fearing God.

 

In the days of the Exodus, God said to Israelites that they must slaughter the sheep of the Passover and eat it, but must not break its bone (Ex 12:46). This paschal lamb represents the Savior Jesus Christ who was crucified on the cross, who bore the sins of the world. Jesus' bone could have been broken, but not one of his bones was broken by God's providence (Jn 19:36). The wicked may persecute the righteous, but they can't destroy their righteousness, their final dignity. However strong the wicked may be, they can't do any harm to the spirits of the righteous. They can kill the flesh of the righteous for a while, but not the spirit of them. Evil cannot conquer good, nor can the wicked conquer the righteous completely. There are things that can't be broken. Who can break God's will? Who can break the love of God for us? "For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom 8:38-39)" Who can destroy the integrity of the faith of those who love and revere the God? However it would be a pity indeed if we break our bones ourselves even if God want to keep us whole without any broken bones. My brethren, do not break the pride of your faith because the world is so hard. Offer the tithe honestly. Keep the Sabbath, or the Lord's Day piously. Do not bow to idols. Do not break your own bones yourself!

 

I pray that God may send angels to you to keep you like the apple of his eye.

 

Chong Tack Kim

                            - Dongtoma Sunshine Church -