Psalms 59:1-17

Deliver me from mine enemies, O my God.

Revelations of the good and bad in human nature

I. The enmity of man towards man.

1. From the description that David here gives of his enemies, we learn that--

(1) They hated him with a deadly hate. They sought nothing less than his life; they were “bloody men.”

(2) They hated him without a cause. “Without my fault.”

(3) They hated him with furious rage. They are represented as furious beasts of prey, as ravenous dogs, as malignant slanderers, whose words are cutting as a “sword,” from whose mouth belches the lava of abuse.

(4) They hated him with persistent effort. They watch in the day, wait in ambush, return at night, and thus on until their fiendish purposes are attained.

2. The fact that men are thus enemies to men--

(1) Argues human apostasy. At some time or other there has happened in human life a moral earthquake which has riven the social body into pieces.

(2) Reveals the need of Christ. He reconciles man to man by reconciling all men to God.

II. The appeal of selfishness to heaven. What merit is there in such a prayer as this? Can it ever meet acceptance with that God who willeth not the death of a sinner, and who is not “willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance”?

III. The confidence of piety in God. Despite all the imperfections of David’s character, the root of the matter was in him. “I will sing aloud of thy mercy,” etc. Perfection of character is only gradually reached. “The acorn,” it has been said, “does not become an oak in a day; the ripened scholar was not made such by a single lesson; the well-trained soldier was not a raw recruit yesterday; it is not one touch of the artist’s pencil that produces a finished painting; there are always months between seed-time and harvest; even so, the path of the just is like the ‘shining light’ which shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” (Homilist.)

God’s defence of His persecuted people

A lady was wakened up by a very strange noise of peeking against the window-pane, and she saw a butterfly flying backward and forward inside the window-pane in great fright, and outside a sparrow pecking and trying to get at it. The butterfly did not see the glass, and expected every moment to be caught; and the sparrow did not see the glass, and expected every moment to catch the butterfly; yet all the while the little creature was as safe as if it had been three miles away, because of the glass between it and the sparrow. So it is with the Christians who are abiding in Christ. His presence is between them and every danger. It really does seem that Satan does not understand about this mighty and invisible power that protects us, or else he would not waste his efforts--like the sparrow, he does not see. And Christians are often like the butterfly, and do not see their defence, and so are frightened, and flutter backwards and forwards in terror. But all the while Satan cannot touch the soul that has the Lord Jesus between itself and him. (Christian Age.)