Dennis Tuuri

# Psalm 52: Anticipatory Thanksgiving Sermon Transcript
## Pastor Dennis R. Tuuri | November 24, 2013

It’s one of my favorite things of the Thanksgiving season is we get to sing that fuguing tune which I think is lovely and wonderful catching the spirit of Psalm 65. And you know, I—we had to pay the pianist to make that mistake just so you would feel better when you made your mistakes. It’s okay. You know, it’s interesting, you know, you always think about Psalm 65 in terms of all the natural stuff being going on, that it’s really supernatural—God walks and things spring to life, etc.

But the very beginning of it, of course, puts that in a little different context and it puts it into a context of the sort of distresses over our sins and the sins of others that constantly are part of our lives. And I’m going to return to that theme which we really talked about last week in today’s sermon on Psalm 52, and I’m going to try to do, you know, two almost competing things. One is to talk about the significance of thanksgiving in the moment for the present, in spite of all the difficulties, and the second is to give God thanks for the future. And the bridge, the link between those two I think has to do with stewardship.

So, and I think that both all these things are found in Psalm 52. So if you could stand hand for the reading of God’s word, which will be Psalm 52. You can follow along on your handouts today. I have it laid out in a particular way. Please forgive me if those indentations and stuff throw you off, but I—it helps me to organize what’s happening in a particular text, frequently to do that. So Psalm 52, and we’ll begin by reading, of course, the inspired title of the psalm.

This is a sequence of psalms that have titles, and these titles have to do with conflicts. There’s a section of Psalms here that this is found in. The center one is conflict with the Philistines. On either side of that are conflicts with Saul, and this has to do with one of the other things—conflicts with Saul. But this is a series of such titles that are quite important. So we begin reading Psalm 52 with the title: “To the choirmaster, a maskil of David, when Doeg, the Edomite, came and told Saul, ‘David has come to the house of Ahimelech.’”

Why do you boast of evil, O mighty man? The steadfast love of God endures all the day. Your tongue plots destruction, like a sharp razor, you worker of deceit. You love evil more than good, and lying more than speaking what is right. Selah. You love all words that devour, O deceitful tongue. But God will break you down forever. He will snatch and tear you from your tent. He will uproot you from the land of the living. Selah.

The righteous shall see and fear and shall laugh at him, saying, “See the man who would not make God his refuge, but trusted in the abundance of his riches and sought refuge in his own destruction.” But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever. I will thank you forever because you have done it. I will wait for your name, for it is good, in the presence of the godly.

Let’s pray. Father, make us a thankful people for our today’s certainly, but also for our tomorrows, knowing that your great steadfast love undergirds our lives in the created order. Bless us, Father, with an understanding of this psalm that it might inspire us this week to higher praises to you and thanksgivings as we move toward our national celebration of thanksgiving on Thursday. And then help us also see that a necessary part of our thanksgiving is a proper stewardship to you of the resources that we give you thanks for. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Please be seated.

So last week we dealt with a portion of scripture from the son of the one who writes today’s text—and Solomon, you know, knew what happened to his father. He knew the events that this psalm talks of—Doeg the Edomite and the slaughter of 85 priests at Nob conducted by him. We’ll get to that in a moment. I don’t know. It’s hard to say, but this could have been behind what we read last week in Ecclesiastes, that in the places where justice should be—including civil government and the king in the case of Solomon’s time—in that place there is injustice. This is typically the case, and who knows if he wasn’t thinking of King Saul at the time and the tremendous injustice that this psalm references. The history of this psalm talking about that—and Solomon, I’m sure, growing up in his father’s court and seeing wickedness, seeing his own father’s—not seeing, but knowing of his own father’s sins as well—his experiences were in part based on those sorts of things including the story of Saul and David.

And Solomon’s text last week was sort of a “What is God doing? What is happening? Why does he let this go on?” There’s a song by Muse and one of the lyrics in it is—I don’t remember it exactly, but it’s something like—”Come walk with me through the I don’t know history and I’ll show you a god who falls asleep on the job.” That’s our experience. In fact, it’s interesting because into our experience, God in his inspired word tells us at times to say, “Awake, awake. Put on strength, God, and deal with your enemies.” It is, it is our experience that God is asleep at the switch. And so we talked about that last week and the proper response to it.

And this psalm is also an indication of what appears to be an act of God. And yet a steadfast trust is our response to that. That God is working through things at his own speed, in his own way. And so David responds in this psalm, you know, to some rather horrific events that were going on. And so this is a good, you know, sequel to what we talked last week—a specific instance of injustice and looking at the psalmist’s response to that, looking at David’s response, and modeling ourselves after the greater David, the Lord Jesus Christ, whose life certainly was a picture of this—is ultimately, I think, the emotional and prayerful response of Christ to the great injustice that occupied Jerusalem at his time as well.

So what I want to do first is just briefly kind of look at the thing. I hadn’t planned to do this when I began, when I actually chose this particular text for today. What I was really interested in was the last verse—that God is thanked by David in spite of the tenses here showing that the judgment hasn’t happened. David is trusting on the judgment on Doeg, but he thanks God in the present for the future.

And so this title—”Anticipatory Thanksgiving”—he’s giving thanks not for what he wishes and hopes will happen, but for what God will surely bring to pass. He’s anticipating the judgment of God. And in that anticipation, this gives him thanksgiving in the present. And so I wanted us to have that sort of assurance as we go through whatever difficulties—personal, national, ecclesiastical—we go through or are going through this week, that it might inform our thanksgivings—anticipatory thanksgiving.

So I intended just to look at the last verse, but you know, if you’re going to understand the last verse, you got to understand the rest of the psalm, and that leads to an understanding of the history. So there’s a lot involved here. And I like to structure these texts, as I said, and I think it helps to sort of see movement, where the psalm is going, what are some of the themes that should jump out.

So often we just read straight through a text without trying to maybe do a simple outline or what’s happening, what’s the movement? And I think we miss a lot as a result of that. Thanks again to my wife, Christine, who gave me a few pointers as I developed this with her—particular sort of microstructural analysis that she does.

Okay, so for instance, we move at the beginning. The inspired title gives us necessary information, but I’ve added “for worship” as well. In order to understand what the psalm’s about, you need to know the story of Doeg. But that also, this necessary information is for worship. Worship is mentioned at the beginning and end of the text. The text brackets for worship. Now, how, where is that? Well, it’s to the fact that this is “to the choirmaster”—this is a psalm for worship. And then at the end, his thanksgiving is done before, in the presence of the people of God—these convocative worship.

So worship is sort of the beginning and the end, and so this psalm helps inform our worship, and those are the kind of the bookends of what the psalm is doing. He begins at the house of Ahimelech, describing the house of Ahimelech. Now Ahimelech was a priest and his house is his descendants. I think his great-grandfather might have been Eli. So he’s of that line of priests. Greece, and the priestly city of Nob is where these guys now lived, and 85 of his family were destroyed, one surviving. But so there’s this house of Ahimelech at the beginning, and then at the end we have a reference to the house of God, right? In verse 8: “I am like a green olive tree in the house of God.”

So there’s these connections and things at either end, and a green olive tree in the house of God. Well, there were olive trees in the house of God in the tabernacle and in the temple—the olive is of course a predominant theme, and there’s olive trees that guard, so to speak, the holy of holies, etc. So there is this bracketing again of worship both through the reference to the choirmaster and to praise in the context of the people of God, but also in these references to the house of Ahimelech.

And one thing we can immediately apply that to is that our houses that we gather in for thanksgiving on Thursday should be seen as parallel to and reflections of the house of God—that we’re all priests before Christ and our house should have that. And into our house will come difficulties, trials, and tribulations. The house of Ahimelech was a receptors of great evil and injustice, although there is maybe some following through of punishment upon Eli and his descendants as well, but that’s another day.

So then I think the next—after the title—we have a summary statement at the beginning. And if you get this summary statement, you sort of get the psalm. And the summary statement is: “Why do you boast of evil, O mighty man?” So he’s going to talk about Doeg, I think directly, maybe indirectly—Saul who commands Doeg. “Why do you boast of evil?” The proper response is: “The steadfast love of God endures all the day.” So what undergirds the call on evil people to repent is the steadfast love of God, which will endure.

This is the same thing that drives our thanksgiving in the present. It’s a manifestation of the steadfast love of God, no matter how much it doesn’t seem like that. And it anticipates the future. Our thanksgiving for the future is anticipatory, but real thanksgiving for the way things will get better, because God’s steadfast love endures forever. Now, he doesn’t say his sovereignty endures forever or that his will endures forever or that his anger endures forever or that his wrath endures forever. Those things are present in the psalm. But the undergirding thing to respond correctly to the sorts of trials and difficulties we have, I think the platform for everything is the person of God and specifically the steadfast love of God—his covenantal expressions of steadfast adherence to his covenant of love with you—and this will endure forever.

So, so that’s sort of the deal. When we have troubles and trials, we do like Solomon did in Ecclesiastes. We say, “Well, God will judge all things.” And underneath that judgment, we know that—not because, you know, of some rationalistic or mechanistic way of looking at things, yin and yang or cause and effect—but we look at the prime cause, which is that God is love, and that his steadfast love endures forever. And that can sustain us in the moment. And that gives us that bright hope for the future that we frequently sing about.

So that’s the summary statement, I think, and it sort of matches up at the bottom with the saints’ confession at the bottom, about Doeg’s blessing rooted in trust. This same phrase—as my wife pointed out to me (I didn’t catch it)—”steadfast love of God” is repeated in verse 8: “But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. Why is he established like that, and not just established but thriving? Because I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever.”

And you know, like so many portions of scripture, and I know this may seem a small thing to you, but to me it’s always encouraging that he begins with a lament or complaint about a situation, or at least a recording of the incident. But by the end of the text, Doeg is gone. The wicked are absent. The wicked are taken away by God. They’ve been uprooted. Now, that’s the movement of history. You know, we see in the middle of history injustice. But the movement of history is the movement of this psalm. At the end of the day, the wicked just sort of disappear into the ether because of the judgments of God. In the middle, the wicked disappear. That’s the anticipatory thanksgiving we have for God—is for that fact that the future is a future where the wicked disappear, either through repentance and becoming the righteous or through the judgments of God.

I think that’s quite significant, and it gives me again that bright hope for the future. So those sentences sort of, you know, bracket because of the steadfast love of God. And I, we can’t really stress that too much, of course—that the character of God is what undergirds these things. And hopefully every Lord’s Day, you know, when we sing the songs we sing and when we recite the responsive readings and when we hear the scriptures spoken and when we hear the sermon preached and when we come to this table, we recognize we’re in God’s house of love, that he is administering his steadfast love to us and assuring us of his steadfast love so that our days are bright—painful, but undergirded by a confidence in God that gives us the ability to thank him for the present and to thank him for a better future as well.

Okay, and then moving in from that, then on the other side of that, is the text about Doeg’s specific sin. And so he begins by talking about enjoying sin. “Your tongue plots destruction, like a sharp razor. You worker of deceit. You love evil more than good, and lying more than speaking what is right. Selah.” I think Selah is meditate. So you kind of meditate at the middle. Wow. So the reason his tongue is filled with evil and deceit is because he actually loves that stuff. When you practice wickedness for a period of time, you begin to love it. And so Doeg is one who loves that stuff.

“You love all words that devour, O deceitful tongue.” So the brackets there are tongue. So the description of Doeg’s sin at the beginning of the psalm is his tongue. Now that’s a funny thing, because—if, okay, we should talk a little bit about the story of Doeg, right? You may not know your Bibles within that particular story. So yeah, let’s just briefly mention what happened.

So David is realizing now that Saul is after him. Jonathan has warned him. David is fleeing Saul. David’s been ordained king, but of course Saul is the king de facto, and so David flees from him. And as he flees, he goes to Nob, which is north of Jerusalem about five miles, maybe or something, and this is where the priests live. And he stops there. Now he had to leave quick, right? Going out of town without proper provisions. He stops at that house and the text originally tells us that he asked for bread. And Ahimelech kind of freaked out by David showing up without an official emissary or whatever. He knows something’s wrong and he’s frightened.

And David to the head priest of the group of priests that were there, whose name is Ahimelech, says, “My father is king.” And so David asks for bread for him and his men that are with him. And the priests say, “Well, all we have is the showbread, but that’s only can be eaten by holy people, right? And so you have not just be clean, but you have to be holy.” And David says, “Well, my men are holy. Haven’t had sexual relationships.” And the word that David uses is not that they’re clean in a ceremonial sense, but that they’re holy. So David is on some sort of mission from God here that imputes holiness to these men. So in other words, David isn’t taking—he’s not sinning, I don’t think, by eating the showbread.

So in any event, he gives the priest gives him five loaves or whatever he’s got. And then David asks for a sword. And so the priest says, “Well, I do have the sword of Goliath here, as a matter of fact, that you took from him after you killed him. And I’ve got it wrapped up, and here it is.” And David says, “Great. There’s no other sword like that. I’ll take it.” And then the text tells us that David leaves, then, and goes to Gath, or heads down to Gath, which is an ironic thing, right? Because Gath is where Goliath is from, right? He’s going to Goliath’s hometown where enemies of God exist. And he’s got the sword that he took off Goliath’s dead, decapitated body. It’s sort of funny. What is David thinking? Well, it’s trusting in the everlasting love of God, I suppose.

So, but in the middle of this account, as it’s given in 1 Samuel 21, another fact is that there’s a guy there named Doeg, the Edomite. Okay? And that should render all kinds of associations to us. The Edomites are the descendants of Esau. Okay? And Esau was the one who battled with Jacob. And while Esau may or may not be converted later in life, there are evidences both ways—his descendants become perpetually the enemies of Israel. And so there’s always warfare between the Edomites and Israel that will culminate, by the way, in Herod killing Christ. And Herod being an Edomite king—Idumaean is the word in the King James—but it’s the same thing.

So this battle that’s been going on between the Edomites and Israel, reference to bread, for instance—when Israel comes out of Egypt at the Passover, they want to, you know, get provisions from the Edomites and they won’t give them bread. Well, in any event, so Doeg, the Edomite, who is one of the chief managers of men for King Saul, and he overhears this. He’s there. And so he goes back to Saul, and Saul tells his men—”Hey,” and his men tell him, “Well, David’s run. We can’t kill him now. He’s taken off.” Saul gets completely furious.

Saul is sitting in Gibeah, which is not that far from Nob, and he’s sitting there with a spear in his hand. And by this point in Saul’s life, you get the impression that the guy is sleeping with a spear under his pillow. He’s paranoid. He’s going crazy. He thinks there’s conspiracies everywhere. And he thinks that, you know, there’s this conspiracy to let David out of my hands, and you know, are you guys not going to do anything about this? Where is he?

And so Doeg says, “Well, I know where he is. I saw him at least a day ago or whatever it was. He was at Nob, and Ahimelech gave him counsel, and Ahimelech—” doesn’t question this—”gave him counsel, bread, and a sword.” And so Saul goes nuts and assumes immediately that Ahimelech and the priests are conspirators against him as well, helping David. Nothing was that was not the truth. When David went to Ahimelech, he was on a mission for the king. In other words, Saul. So Ahimelech thought that David was doing Saul’s business, or at least that’s what David said to him. Whether he believed it or not, I don’t know.

So, so Saul gets all upset and wants to, you know, kill David. And now he gets mad at Ahimelech and the priests and he says, “Go bring those guys here.” So the priests, 85 of them, come to Saul. It’s not that far. And they give their story. And Ahimelech said, “No, no, no. He said he was on a mission from you. You know, he—as far as we knew—there was no problem with you and David. He was your strong right-hand guy. He’s your son-in-law, after all.”

Well, Saul gets furious and wants to kill the priests. And he tells his men, “Kill all the priests.” And men say, “These are Yahweh’s priests. We’re not going to do it.” But Doeg, the Edomite, steps up and he says, “I’ll do it.” And he does. He kills 85 priests that day. Not only does he kill 85 priests, he then goes to Nob, the city of the priests, and conducts what is essentially holy war—although it’s unholy war—by killing men, women, children, babies, cows, sheep. He slaughters the city of Nob.

That’s Doeg. So, so you know, it’s a horrible incident. It should put us in mind, you know, of Herod and Jesus being threatened by Herod and Herod destroying the massacre of the innocents. And there’s all these themes that sort of redound and kind of explain one another in the scriptures. So, this is anticipatory of an actual Edomite king doing the same thing with Jesus. But this is what happens. This is the historical incident that David’s talking about.

One descendant, Abiathar—”My father is great”—gets away, goes to David, says, “Well, they’ve killed all the priests.” David blames himself for what’s happened. He said, “I saw Doeg. I knew that guy was going to do this. I’m really sorry.” And then he says, “You can come with me. You’ll be safe with me.” Which if I’m Abiathar, I don’t know. Oh, I don’t know if I’m doing that. So, but in any event, that’s the story. And so, this is a psalm written in response to that story. Okay? And specifically, the psalm is talking about Doeg doing these horrific murders.

So, those murders aren’t spoken about here. Doeg’s sin is articulated instead as lies or deceit with his tongue. And you think, well, how did he lie? Did he lie? Well, yes and no. No, what he said was true. As it turns out, David did seek counsel from the priest. He did ask for bread, and he did get a sword. Those things were all true. But Ahimelech—didn’t tell the rest—or excuse me, not Ahimelech—Doeg didn’t tell the rest of the story—that David, to get these things, had told the priest that he was on a mission from the king.

He withheld the piece of evidence that would have calmed Saul down—perhaps to the best you can calm down a paranoid king—that would have calmed the paranoid king down. Instead, he gives him selective information, not giving him the whole truth and nothing but the truth, right? He gives him selective truth. He positions the truth. He takes certain truthful things, puts them in a particular package that he delivers to the king that is surely going to result in the king’s paranoia increasing and his destruction of the priests.

So, Doeg leads to that, and that’s why he gladly volunteers to pull it off. His plot has succeeded. He’s going to paint the priests in the worst possible light, and as an Edomite, he’s going to kill all these priests of Yahweh. So that’s, I think, why his sin of tongues is talked about here.

One other thing about Doeg: his name means fearing. He’s a fearful man. Now he’s a blustering, you know, guy that’ll go kill 85 priests, but his name means fearing. And that’ll be interesting too when we look at the pair to this—these set of designations of Doeg’s sin.

Now what’s important here for us is to recognize—and I mentioned this a couple weeks ago—Adam did the same thing when God goes to Adam. “Why did you break my word?” Adam says, “Well, the wife you gave me gave it to me, and I ate.” All truthful statements. But truth in the duty of sin is not really the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The truth is, I ate. I disobeyed you. Please forgive me. But, you know, you can point to other people’s faults as a reason for your sin. And that’s not good. It’s not good enough.

Kids do this all the time. They position the truth. They’ll tell you certain portions of the story. And unfortunately, we as adults do the same thing. We use truth, which is a God-given reality, in the service of covering ourselves, hurting other people, you know, taking care of our fears, perhaps. We employ truth in an ungodly way.

And so this story of the horrific massacre of the priests and holy war against God’s people—this story is one that says that these things, as his sin is articulated, it is the positioning of truth that is the reason for everything. That’s his sin. That’s his sin. Now what that should do to us is to make us more careful about our speech, to make sure we don’t do the same thing. We have the same sinful nature that Doeg has and we have the same—and sometimes the same fears—and we can to attain safety for ourselves and refuge, we can use partial truths, positioning the truth in a way that gets what we want but doesn’t really get at God’s truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Hopefully I made clear—but it’s very important to see that Doeg’s sin is one of speech.

Now, after the center of the text, we have a statement of Doeg’s sins, right? So if you look on your handout again, the matching section here to Doeg’s sins is his sins as talked about from the perspective of the godly. So in the middle of this is God’s judgment, the godly’s response. This is sort of part of their response. The godly say, “See the man who did not make God his refuge, but trusted in the abundance of his riches and sought refuge in his own destruction.”

Now, this tells us maybe a deeper psychological thing going on that prompts one to position the truth in an ungodly way. And what this says—doing, you know, requires an acknowledgement of God’s steadfast love undergirding everything. But it also says that because of God’s steadfast love, he will at times move in anger and he will move in judgment. And we’re supposed to rejoice about that, because if he doesn’t do that, he’s not loving us.

From one perspective, his sin is lying. But the lying, the impartial truth, the incomplete truth, is because he’s refused to make God his refuge. He wants favor with the king. He wants to protect himself with Saul. He trusts in the abundance of his riches as well. You know, if you don’t want to make God your refuge, something else has to be your source of safety to relieve your fears. And he wants more position, power. He wants more money. He wants the abundance of goods. Okay? And so, Doeg is this picture to us of somebody who in his fear ends up turning not to Christ, not to God, but rather to his own means, including riches, to establish himself.

So underneath sinful actions frequently, commonly, according to Hebrews 2, is this fear of death that holds us bondage to certain kinds of sins. And that’s why thanksgiving is so important, because thanksgiving is an assertion of the steadfast love of God for all the things he’s given to us. It’s making God our refuge. It’s making God our refuge. And when we don’t make God our refuge, we’re going to try to find some other way to take care of ourselves. We’re going to be fearful people, you know.

So, in terms of looking at Doeg as an anti-model, you know, we want to—we want to make God our refuge. Making God our refuge removes our fear, makes us less suspicious of everyone around us, right? Less paranoid. Doeg and Saul are both paranoid, we would say, in modern-day terms. They’re fearful of what’s around them. And that’s because they don’t make God their refuge. And the end result of that—they end up using their tongues to do wicked evil things. You have orders to slaughter people and then to create that situation and then to go and carry it out.

So we’re given an analysis of Doeg’s sin that is both obvious on the face—what he did wrong—but also it gets us to the motivation of his actions as well. And this serves as an antithesis to the godly man, to David, who makes God his refuge, who trusts in God because he knows that God has steadfast love for him eternally.

One other component of this psalm is the very center, of course—the center of the psalm. And so if this is what’s guiding this—if this is what’s leading us up to anticipatory thanksgiving, all these elements finally conclude in David saying he’s going to thank God because God has accomplished it. Well, God hasn’t accomplished it. You know, at the point here it says—well, let’s look at the judgment section, the middle: “God will break you down forever. He will snatch and tear you from your tent. He will uproot you from the land of the living.”

So, he’s saying that God hasn’t done it. He will do it. And the fact that God will do it means that in one sense, he has done it, right? He’s accomplished it. And so, our thanksgiving, our anticipatory thanksgiving, is based upon the sureness of God’s eternal love acting in particular ways to give us refuge, to keep us from lies, to keep us from sin through desiring the abundance of goods, etc.

And then finally, here at the middle, what is our delight? Our delight is that God will do these things, because the righteous man’s response to this is three-fold. So the three-fold response to the story of Doeg and knowing that God will judge him is this: The righteous shall see. So we look at God’s actions in history to destroy particular people, his removal of them through death, excommunication, whatever it is. What’s the response to that? We are supposed to discern what’s happening. The righteous will see what’s going on. And it doesn’t just mean he’ll observe it like a camera. You’re not a camera. You’re a camera with brains. And when things happen around you, you’re not just—it doesn’t talk about literally just seeing them. It means discerning from them the message.

We will see that God’s judgments are in the earth. Now, that gives us hope for the future. That gives us anticipatory thanksgiving, knowing that. But it also gives us something else, and that’s the second response. It gives us a proper fear of judgment against us. The righteous will discern what’s happening. You know, that’s so difficult in our day and age. We live in a day and age when Christians don’t want to discern judgment at all. They don’t want to talk about judgment. They don’t want to make judgments, evaluations, and they sure don’t want to say, “God, judge that person.” We will run from that.

You know, now there are some, you know, groups out there that won’t, but by and large, you know, the body of Christ runs away from such an assertion as fast as it can go. But to David, it’s the beginning point of the proper response to God’s judgments. Surely, judgments to come on the wicked. He doesn’t avoid it. In fact, he embraces it. He discerns it.

Now, what does that leave David to do? It leads him to fear. If we know that God’s actions are in history, judging people that give the position the truth, for instance, judging people who don’t take care of their fear at the foot of the cross, but rather take care of their fear through building wealth or some other idol, right? If God’s response to that is temporal judgments, then that’s going to make us fearful. A properly fearful of God—not paranoid fearful like Doeg and Saul—but properly fearful of the righteous God who will judge us should we abandon him and move away.

Because the church doesn’t want to see what’s happening in the world and discern it with biblical eyes and say, “God is at work judging mankind, judging particular individuals for their sins.” Because man won’t do that, he doesn’t fear. And because men don’t fear God today, they commit all kinds of atrocities, both sins of commission and omission. And I’m saying us as well. The answer—part of the answer to our sanctification, to our desire to serve God, to get rid of our sins—is fearing God. And fearing God here follows properly discerning God’s temporal actions in history, right?

That’s the response of the godly to somebody like Doeg. We should have been happy when Osama bin Laden was killed. That’s that’s the next response, right? “Fear and shall laugh at him.” Christ has him in derision. There’s nothing wrong. You can improperly laugh at something because you love violence and think it’s stupid or “Boy, he really had it coming,” and I don’t—not recognizing the grace of God and the mercy of God that you’re supposed to extend to others. It’s not talking about that. But there’s a proper sense of joy when God’s judgments come.

Anticipatory thanksgiving doing, you know, requires an acknowledgement of God’s steadfast love undergirding everything. But it also says that because of God’s steadfast love, he will at times move in anger and he will move in judgment. And we’re supposed to rejoice about that, because if he doesn’t do that, he’s not loving us. If Jesus loves the bride of Christ and people spit on his bride, he will do something about it.

Now, he may not do it when we want him to or in the way we want him to. But he shall surely, because of his love, exercise at times his anger and his wrath. And we’re supposed to see that, understand it, and believe it. Thank God for the future judgments that are coming. And we’re supposed to, as a result of that, be properly fearful that we don’t sin, that we have lives of moral rectitude. And we’re supposed to actually rejoice in the fact when God’s judgments come. Seems like that’s what the text says.

So anticipatory thanksgiving, you know, is undergirded by this steadfast love of God, but it includes all these other elements as well. So that’s an overview of the text, and I wanted to make several other observations and kind of buttress some of the points that I just made. But I’m going to have to find my place in my notes now. So you just meditate on that for a minute. Think of that three-fold response. It’s easy to remember: “See, fear, rejoice.” Could be part of your Thanksgiving liturgy this year. “Let’s see and fear and rejoice together.”

Okay, so, as I said, the first thing is the whole summary statement tells us that the undergirding factor, the big takeaway from this text, is a recognition of God’s steadfast love that undergirds everything else according to the way the text is lined out and to the summary verse at the beginning as well. And Doeg’s sin was a sin of tongue—the tongue was focused on—and he was doing this through positioning the truth. And we want to avoid that kind of thing like the plague, like the plague.

Additionally, anticipatory thanksgiving, then, is based upon properly evaluating the actions of others. David could see, and he knew that Doeg told the truth, but he knew he told partial truth and positioned it. So David’s anticipatory thanksgiving at the end is thanksgiving to God for the future, is informed by a proper discernment of the sort of sins that we’re to avoid and that God will judge others for. And as I said, anticipatory thanksgiving believes in the temporal judgments of God and are based in a proper fear of displeasing God, and of God’s judgment upon us.

And I would say as well that what this means is—and this is the same thing as last week—that anticipatory thanksgiving means we think of the long line. You know, we live in a more instant world, right? Everything fast, fast, fast, fast, fast. It’s like that Steven Wright joke: “I made instant coffee in my microwave and went back in time.” An old joke, apparently. Not that funny a joke, but I thought it was funny. I made instant coffee in my microwave and went back in time. I think that’s the right joke. Anyway, the point is we want the short-term stuff. Music. We’re like little lips that come up. Three-minute songs that don’t take a lot of involvement.

It takes more discipline and kind of stepping away from immediacy like that to appreciate a long set of songs in an album along a particular theme, or a piece of classical music that takes themes or a couple of sub-themes, weaves them together into the long line. But that’s what David undergirds—David’s anticipatory Thanksgiving is a focus on the long line of history, not the short-term events that are happening. He evaluates them properly. But his view of history from the long perspective is what gives him the ability to give anticipatory thanksgiving in the moment.

I guess the points I was going to make as I went through this I’ve already made. So we’re almost done. That’s good.

Okay, and Thanksgiving, of course, based on the center of this text, is based upon God’s love and love that will move in history to judge those who attack the one he loves. Okay. And so anticipatory thanksgiving—it is required to do it the way David does it—to believe in, to know that God is temporally judging people now in history and that he will do that—undergirds our sense of the ability to give anticipatory thanksgiving.

I wanted to maybe just read a couple verses before we close. As I said, from a psychological motivational perspective, Doeg’s sin—we could say is greed. You know, he’s got a fear. Instead of taking refuge in God, he puts his refuge in the abundance of his goods. And so 1 Timothy 6:5 comes to mind when Paul is talking about depraved men. He says that these are men who imagine that gain is godliness, or that godliness leads to gain—could be a more modern translation of that verse. But who equate gain with godliness. And so you know, the idea is we can fall into this love of money thinking it is God, godliness itself.

And of course, 1 Timothy 6, Paul goes on to say that’s simply not true. 1 Timothy 6 goes on to say—now godliness, or actually he says these are people who think this, and his advice to us is to withdraw yourself from these kinds of people. And then he says, “Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world. It’s sure that we’ll bring nothing out,” etc. And then he goes on to say in that same text that the love of money is the root of all social sin.

Well, what is the word in the ESV here? “Love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.” And the word in the Greek is kaka. And so the root of all social—dung, or no—all kinds of social dung in culture is the love of money. Why? Because the love of money is reflected—at least our psalm tells us today—in a desire to find refuge in something other than God. It’s idolatry. It’s finding refuge and safety from some other source. And because of that, it is anti-community. It breaks societies down.

And Paul—so Paul says, you know, don’t think that gain is godliness. That’s kind of what the wicked people do. Withdraw from these people. Recognize that godliness with contentment—godliness is great gain. You give God a thanksgiving for the present giveness of your situation.

So you have a set of givens. You’re going to sit down, most of you, at a dinner this Thursday. And that dinner will reflect a set of things that have been given to you that you didn’t choose. You didn’t choose the family you were born into. You didn’t—in spite of people trying to do it now—determine what sex you are. It’s a giveness from God, and it’s a gift. You didn’t determine your height or whether you’re beautiful or ugly or whatever it is. There are small things you can do around the edges, but you know, you are who you are. And that’s a gift from God.

To look upon all those things that surround our lives, the giveness that God has placed us into. And it’s not just the physical setting, right? You are given a particular set of friends, a particular family, a set of associations. Now, those can change over time, but at this moment when you sit down on Thursday, there’s a givenness that absolutely surrounds you. There’ll be this bird for most of you on the table. It’s a given that you’re going to have Thanksgiving this year, and you’re to rejoice in that. And it represents all that wonderful blessing of God in the natural order that we just sang about in Psalm 65.

There’s a givenness to all of that. It just surrounds us. And thanksgiving is supposed to be based upon those gifts of God that he’s given to us. And the other side of that is—he going to reject the giveness of God? You’re going to move in terms of a guy like Doeg who wants to find his refuge, his delight, in what’s not given. He’s going to use ungodly means to try to increase his wealth, standing, etc.

So, thanksgiving in the present for the givenness of the things of God is important. It’s the momentary thing. And thanksgiving is anticipation of what God will work out in the world through his loving kindness, through his steadfast past love eternally. And the way we get from here to here is properly stewarding the gifts that God give us in the moment.

Thanksgiving has as its proper concomitant, its proper partner—gratitude has as its partner stewardship. As you look around the table and you see friends and family, it’s a great gift that you’re to thank God for in the moment. This is the giveness of life. But when we thank God for a thing, we also commit ourselves to properly steward that thing according to his word, his law, his character.

And so when you give thanks for the food, give thanks for the people, give thanks for all the blessings that God has given you in your life at this moment. And at the same time, commit to be proper stewards of those relationships, that family, the marriage. I thought about this yesterday with Eric—when Eric and Emilyn were taking vows, Doug spoke on covenant giveness to Eric and Emilyn. Right now is each other. Their marriage is a given fact from God now. He’s brought them together and they’re supposed to, you know, accept that giveness as a grace of God, a gift of God, and they’re supposed to give God thanks for that. And they’re supposed to steward that relationship, right?

So that’s what we do as well. And if we don’t do that, then we move in terms of Doeg, who is dissatisfied, fearful. What might happen tomorrow? I don’t know. I don’t trust in God’s steadfast love being forever and eternal. So, I’ve got to take care of myself. And I may give him some degree of thanks for the present, but it’s not enough. And I’m not going to steward it. I’m going to try to gain things through illicit means, which is the opposite of stewardship.

So, there’s a giveness to our situation. Anticipatory thanksgiving thanks God in the present. Commits to stewardship for the future. And thanks God anticipating the great blessings that he brings to us in the context of the world that we live in as well.

So may the Lord God cause us this Thursday, when we gather together, to know that underneath the turkey, that platter, underneath the platter, that table, underneath the table, that floor, underneath the floor, that piece of ground your house is on—undergirding all these things, but they’re representations of—is the steadfast love of God that is forever and ever. And when we see that at the foundation, that leads us to immediate thanksgiving for the giveness, the graces, and gifts of God, which keeps us from the sort of horrific coveting that’s idolatry. And it also allows us to realize that steadfast love moves into the future with us. And so we can give God, anticipating what he’s doing in the future, thanksgiving for the things that are not really done from one sense, but they are done and accomplished because this is what God is working out as the result of his steadfast love.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for this week. We thank you for the givenness of a Thanksgiving holiday that focuses us on these great truths found in your scriptures. And we thank you for today’s text that urges us to have anticipatory thanksgiving, faith in our thanksgivings—for our not just our pres—but for our tomorrows as well.

Bless us, Lord God, as we seek to be thankful once more for your great gifts to us, to properly steward those gifts, and then to look forward with thanksgiving and anticipation with what your steadfast love will bring to pass in the future.

In Jesus name we pray. Amen.