Peter Barnes: Psalm 60
(18 February 2018)
SERMON NOTES: GOD GIVES THE VICTORY (Psalm 60)
Parts of Psalm 60 and Psalm 57 together make up Psalm 108, but we are not sure why. 2 Samuel 8 may provide the background, and David may well have written this Psalm when there were many victories, but occasional defeats by the Edomites (see 60:9-10).
1. Praying in hard times.
– 60:1-3. David is praying but he is also complaining. Israel is in disarray and the land seems defenceless. Derek Kidner: ‘Nothing cuts so deep as estrangement.’
William Butler Yeats’ poem, The Second Coming, is often quoted:
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
It was written in 1919, just after World War I, then called the Great War.
– 60:4-5; verse 4 may be saying that they may flee for refuge from the bow (ESV), as in Jeremiah 4:6, or that God has given a banner that it may be displayed because of the truth (NKJV), meaning that in the midst of all the chaos and confusion, God’s truth is still present.
2. God is sovereign in His victories.
-60:6-8; Gen.49:10.
3. Renewed prayer brings an assurance of victory.
– 60:9-10. David knows that there is nowhere else to go – 60:11.
Our victories are not our own – 60:12.
– Dan.2:34-35.