Articles
God Alone Is My Rock and Salvation--Psalm 62
It is in God alone whom the psalmist finds strength, protection, and deliverance from evil and evil men.
Psalm 62 is, perhaps, like no other psalm composed in the Book of Psalms. This psalm has three stanzas with four verses each and they are separated by Selah. David is painfully aware of the ill and treacherous threats and behavior of his revolting son, Absalom, with his rebel army; but his trust is Jehovah alone. H. C. Leupold says in his Exposition of The Psalms, “There is scarcely another psalm that reveals such an absolute and undisturbed peace, in which confidence in God is so completely unshaken, and in which assurance is so strong that not even one single petition is voiced throughout the psalm.” The bitter hostilities of man do not distract him from the object of his faith; in trust he is triumphant over the riches, power and vanity of human strength, he remains unshaken in trusting God only.
Isaac Leeser, Hebrew scholar, renders 62:2 this way, “Only in God my soul trusted in silence: from Him cometh my salvation. Only He is my rock and my salvation.” The Hebrew “ak”, we are told by scholars, is almost untranslatable into English, but that our words only or alone best serve the meaning. Also, in Hebrew sentences wherein “ak is used it begins the sentence, and this makes it emphatic. Only God did David trust; he trusted God alone! His enemies thought of him as a leaning wall or tottering fence easily pushed over, but as Boice says, “Yet in spite of their hostility, in this psalm David is not worrying about them but rather is trusting God.” Though David loved his devilish son, Absalom, he couldn’t change his heart across a number of years; yet in the sons death David mourned and wept.
The greatest loss Christians can experience is failure to keep God alone as the object of their affections, devotions, obedience, and trust. Life’s experiences without this are deceiving and miserable. Great difficulty is seen along life’s pathway in Christians being side-tracked by the allurements of substitutes for God alone:
We turn to science, riches, education, power in positions but these all end in their human limitations. However, God never leaves or forsakes the faithful saint, but works all things to his good (Romans 8:28). Again, as Boice wrote of David, “He is not trusting some-thing other than God, nor is he trusting God and something else, or God and someone else. His trust is in God only, and that is why he is so confident.”
The acute disease besetting Christians is the lack of belief in the Almighty God and in the power of His gospel. This woeful spectacle is seen in every effort of preachers that turn to tales and entertainment, newspaper headlines, etc., rather than preaching exactly what Gods word says to an eternity-bound people. Getting crowds with fluff is no evidence that God is with the crowd. An opportunity to preach the everlasting gospel (Revelation 14:6) must not be taken lightly; and the man who stands before an audience as Gods representative to speak as the oracles of God (1 Pet. 4:11) must do so reverently, saying what is profitable to men (Acts 20:17-27). This does not permit the preacher to preach himself (2 Corinthians 4:5), but does impose on him the duty to preach Christ as Lord. Paul, in all of his accomplishments for Christ knew his needs in the sentence of death that he should not trust in himself, but in God who raiseth the dead: who delivered us out of so great a death, and will deliver: on whom we have set our hope that He will also still deliver us (2 Corinthians 1:9,10). What victory for saints who having denied themselves (Luke. 9:23) to become disciples can remain so looking unto Jesus (Hebrews 12:2). Christians can’t depend on psychology and human experiences for help and completeness, but, like David, trust God alone!
David asks the question:” whence shall come my help?” Then quickly he answers the question, “My help is from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth”(Psalm 121:1, 2). It is difficult for man to remain constantly under the conviction that God alone is the source of his help, but this is the truth; having sufficient trust in Him that causes one to let go of all human sources and lean on God only is what the Bible teaches (see Proverbs 3:5). The neurotic and doubtful Christian has to cease complaining about getting nothing that is satisfying from things, and turn his heart into complete trust of God alone. Jesus preached against anxiety for tomorrow, saying today has its troubles; deal with the present shrinkage of faith and develop full confidence that God will provide (see Genesis 22:8; Matt. 6:34; Hebrews 10:35-39). Paul said, “ But my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19). This doesn’t tell how God does this, but does affirm it is in Jesus. It is in Jesus that we have hope, confidence, assurance and the right to trust only God for help to resist the devil and so live that we can go to heaven: but here we confess that we are strangers and pilgrims on the earth (Hebrews 11:13).
Earl Robertson
Biblical Insights
Vol. 4, No. 1, Jan. 2000 http://www.biblical-insights.com/
