For five verses the wicked have been hatching their nefarious plots against King David. They have done it secretly, cunningly and with mutual bucking one another up and with encouragement. They have reached the point of congratulating themselves on their efforts, saying, "We have devised a perfect plan” and "Who will see us?” But suddenly, just when they think they have succeeded brilliantly, God, who has been watching it all from heaven, launches his bolt against them and quickly brings them down. Indeed, they have been in his sights all along, and it does not require a quiver full of arrows to destroy them. One arrow does the job.
Yesterday we were talking about two of the five different things that psalm 64 verses 2 through 6 examine. Today we'll continue with the remaining three. Remember that we are called upon to fight the Lord's battles with the Lord's weapons, not the weapons of the world. The world's weapons are money, power, influence. Our weapons are the Word of God and prayer. It is said of the warfare of the saints against Satan in Revelation, "They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony” (Rev. 12:11).
As noted in the introduction, this psalm spends most of its time on the wicked who are attacking David, rather than on God. The result is that we are provided with a helpful study of this particular kind of evil. Looking carefully at verses 2-6, we find them analyzing: 1) the nature of this evil; 2) the weapons of these evil people; 3) their methods; 4) their plans; and 5) their fierce but complacent pride. We'll look at the first two of these today and the last three tomorrow.
The psalm begins by David asking God to hear his complaint. In our ears the word "complaint" has a negative sound, because we associate it with complaining and we don't like people who complain. But that is not the sense in which complaint occurs here. Here the word refers to a formal allegation, in this case against the wicked by one who is being unjustly treated by them.
It is not very often that David finishes a psalm without mentioning his enemies. There are exceptions, of course, but not many, and sometimes the references occur in the least expected places. Psalm 23 pictures God as David's loving and wise shepherd. But do you remember verse 5? Verse 5 says, “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” The fact that David mentions his enemies so often gives some idea of how many enemies he had and what his life as the king of Israel was like.
