Psalm 52 A Psalm of David, when Doeg the Edomite came and told Saul,
and said unto him, David is come to the house of Ahimelech. Comments by Dennis
Edwards.
Let us read
first the section from the book of Samuel.
1 Samuel
22:9-11 Then
answered Doeg the Edomite, which was set over the servants of Saul, and said, I
saw the son of Jesse (David) coming to Nob (the city where the high priest
lived), to Ahimelech the son of Ahitub. And he enquired
of the Lord for him, and
gave him victuals, and gave him the sword of Goliath the Philistine. Then the
king sent to call Ahimelech the priest, the son of Ahitub, and all his father's
house, the priests that were in Nob: and they came all of them to the king.
1 Samuel 22:12-13 And
Saul said, Hear now, you son of Ahitub. And he answered, Here I am, my lord. And
Saul said unto him, Why have you conspired against me, you and the son of
Jesse, in that you have given him bread, and a sword, and have enquired of God
for him, that he should rise against me, to lie in wait, as at this day?
1 Samuel 22:14-15 Then
Ahimelech answered the king, and said, And who is so faithful among all your
servants as David, which is the king's son in law, and goes at your bidding,
and is honourable in your house? Did I then begin to
enquire of God for him? be it far from me: let not the king impute anything
unto his servant, nor to all the house of my father: for your servant knew
nothing of all this, less or more.
1 Samuel 22:15-16 And the
king said, You shall surely die, Ahimelech, you, and all your father's house. And
the king said unto the footmen that stood about him, Turn, and slay the priests
of the Lord: because their
hand also is with David, and because they knew when he fled, and did not show
it to me. But the servants of the king would not put forth their hand to fall
upon the priests of the Lord.
1 Samuel 22:18-19 And the king said to Doeg, Turn, and fall upon the
priests. And Doeg the Edomite turned, and he fell upon the priests, and slew on
that day fourscore and five persons that did wear a linen ephod. And Nob, the
city of the priests, smote he with the edge of the sword, both men and women,
children and sucklings, and oxen, and asses, and sheep, with the edge of the
sword.
Expositors believe the psalm can
be directed at either Doeg who cruelly killed the priests and their families,
or King Saul who commanded him to do so. Both are representative of antichrists
since time immemorial and the ultimate Antichrist of the last days.
Psalm 52:1 Why do you boast yourself in mischief, O mighty man? The goodness
of God endures continually.
In contrast
to the evil done by past, present, and future antichrist figures, God’s
goodness endures forever and even the seemingly unjust and evil events, God can
transform for good. Even if we cannot see how God’s goodness transformed an
evil event in the present life, He will transform it in the next life.
Apostle
Paul writes about such circumstances in Romans 8.
Romans
8:35-36 Who shall separate us from
the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine,
or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For Your sakes we are
killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
Jesus
Himself had prophesized of future events saying,
Matthew
24:9&13 Then shall the deliver you
up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and you shall be hated of all nations
for My name’s sake…But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be
saved.”
If we
endure the persecution and death and do not give up our faith, God promises us
a great reward.
Matthew
5:11-12 Blessed are you, when men
shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against
you falsely, for My sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your
reward in HEAVEN: for so persecuted (and killed) the prophets which were before
you.
Apostle
Paul continues,
Romans 8:37 Nay, in all these things, (that is, tribulation, persecution, and
death), we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.
How can we
be more than conquerors when we die? Because we go to a better place. Like the
words of Nero in the film “Quo Vadis.” As he’s inspecting the dead victims of
his persecution, he notices that they all have smiles on their faces. The
attendant tells him that the Christians believed that when they died that they
went to a better place. Nero, in a seeming panic attack, keeps distraughtly
repeating the phrase, “They’re going to a better place! They’re going to a
better place!”
Like
Apostle Paul wrote elsewhere,
2
Corinthians 4:17-18 “For our light affliction,
which is but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight
of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but the things which
are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which
are not seen are eternal.”
Psalm
52:2-3 The tongue devises
mischiefs; like a sharp razor, working deceitfully. You love evil more than
good; and lying rather than to speak righteousness. Selah.
These are
the attributes of the antichrist types. Apostle Paul warns of them.
2 Timothy
3:1-5 “This know also, that in the
last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own
selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents,
unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent,
fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers
of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying
the power thereof: from such turn away.”
2 Timothy
3:12-13 “Yea, and all that will live
godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. But evil men and seducers shall
wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.”
Apostle
John also wrote,
1 John 2:22 “Who is a liar but he that denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is
antichrist, that denies the Father and the Son.”
1 John 4:2-4 “Hereby know you the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses
that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: and every spirit that
confesses not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is
that spirit of antichrist, whereof you have heard that it should come, and even
now already is it in the world. You are of God, little children, and have
overcome them: because greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the
world.”
We are more
than conquerors through Jesus that loves us and has promised us eternal life.
Therefore, we fear not them that can kill the body, but are not able to kill
the soul. We fear, love, and obey Him that is able to destroy both soul and
body in hell, Matthew 10:28.
Psalm
52:4-5 You (the wicked unbelieving
antichrists) love all devouring words, O you deceitful tongue. God shall
likewise destroy you for ever, He shall take you away, and pluck you out of
your dwelling place, and root you out of the land of the living. Selah.
As we read
above, God is able to destroy both body and soul in hell. Jesus said that there
would be weeping and gnashing of teeth. In Revelation 20, we read about
the “second death,” which could be indicating the death of the soul of those
created beings, who, even after God shows them mercy and offers forgiveness, still
refuse to acknowledge Jesus as Lord and God.
Revelation
20:12-15 “And I saw the dead, small
and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was
opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things
which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up
the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were
in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and
hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever
was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.”
Some souls
will have their names blotted out of the book of life.
Revelation
3:5 “He that overcomes, the same shall be clothed in
white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but
will confess his name before My Father, and before His angels.”
Jesus had,
also, warned in the Gospels:
Mark
8:34b-38 “Whosoever will come after
Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whosoever
will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for My sake
and the gospel’s, the same shall save it. For what shall it profit a man, if he
shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in
exchange for his soul? Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of Me and of My
words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him shall the Son of man be
ashamed, when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”
Psalm
52:6-7 The righteous also shall
see, and fear, and shall laugh at him: Lo, this is the man that made not God
his strength; but trusted in the abundance of his riches, and strengthened
himself in his wickedness.
God has
pronounced His judgment on the wicked, and it shall come to pass. In Isaiah
we read of Lucifer’s fate.
Isaiah
14:12-16 “How are you fallen from
heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How are you cut down to the ground,
which did weaken the nations! For you said in your heart, I will ascend into
heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the
mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the
heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Yet you shall be brought
down to hell, to the sides of the pit. They that see you shall narrowly look
upon you, and consider you, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to
tremble, that did shake the kingdoms..?”
At the end
of the present dispensation, the Devil, Satan, that old serpent, that dragon,
shall be bound for a thousand years during Christ’s millennium rule on earth.
Revelation
20:3 “And cast him into the
bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should
deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and
after that he must be loosed a little season.
Revelation
20:7-8a “And when the thousand years
are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to
deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth.”
He shall
bring the millennium nations against Jerusalem where Jesus has been operating
His millennium kingdom from. It is at that point that God must judge the
millennium peoples who have rejected Him, and destroy the surface of the earth
by fire.
Revelation
20:9b-10 “And fire came down from God
out of heaven, and devoured them. And the devil that deceived them was cast
into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast (the Antichrist) and the
false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.”
That “for
ever and ever,” could signify “for an age and an age,” that is, a given period
of time, and might have an end in the “second death.”
Psalm
52:8-9 But I (the believer and
follower of God) am like a green olive tree in the house of God: I trust in the
mercy of God for ever and ever. I will praise You for ever, because You have
done it: and I will wait on Your name; for it is good before Your saints.
There is a
reward for those of us that believe on the name of the Son of God. God will
prepare a new heaven and a new earth, because the first heaven and first earth
were passed away; and there will be no more sea, Revelation 21:1.
Revelation
21:2-5b And I John saw the holy
city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride
adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying,
Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they
shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God. And
God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more
death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be anymore pain: for the
former things are passed away,…Behold, I make all things new.”
That’s the
happy ending. Hold on to your faith. Hold on to what you believe, that no man
takes your crown, Revelation 3:11.
Revelation
3:12 “Him that overcomes will I
make a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go no more out: and I will
write upon him the name of My God, and the name of the city of My God, which is
new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God: and I will write
upon him My new name.”
Revelation
22:12-14 “And, behold, I come
quickly; and My reward is with Me, to give every man according as his work
shall be. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the
last. Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to
the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.”
Revelation
22:17 “And the Spirit and the
bride say, Come. And let him that hears say, Come. And let him that is athirst
come. And whosever will, let him take the water of life freely.”
Revelation
22:20 “He which testifies these
things says, Surely, I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!”
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