God who brings down
Psa
17:13
Rise up, O LORD, confront them, bring them down; rescue me from the
wicked by your sword.
In
this verse we see a very different aspect of the Lord – One who acts
against His enemies and does something about them! But
we must take it piece by piece.
David
starts with this call to the Lord to “Rise
Up”. This has two aspects to it: first that the Lord is
in a place of rest as he rules, and second there is a need to move
to bring change. This is a common call:
Psa
3:7 “Arise, O LORD! Deliver me, O
my God!” One thing precedes the other
by necessity.
Psa
7:6 “Arise, O LORD, in your anger;
rise up against the rage of my enemies. Awake, my God; decree
justice.” There is a double call implying the same thing.
Psa
9:19 “Arise,
O LORD, let not man triumph” There
it's a case of rise up to take action to stop something.
Psa
10:12 “Arise, LORD!
Lift up your hand, O God”. There
it's rise up so that you can act. In every case it is a
call to the Lord to change from a state of inactivity to a place of
action.
In
our verse here, the call is to come from a position of inactivity
to face up the people David is concerned about (the wicked) with their
wrongs, and then to bring them down so that they will no longer prevail
over David or dominate him. Again this idea of the wicked being brought
down is a common one:
Psa
36:12 “See how the evildoers lie fallen--
thrown down, not able to rise!”
Psa
52:5, speaking of the wicked, “Surely God
will bring you down to everlasting ruin”
Psa
55:22,23 “he will never let the righteous
fall. But you, O God, will bring down the wicked”
There are many more similar references.
The
picture that is conveyed is of the wicked who are full of pride and
think they are in a strong and secure position as they carry on their
wicked acts. It's like they think they are in a high unassailable
position and they impose harm on others and appear to be getting away
with it. Thus we look at well known figures in the news and wonder
how long they will get away with that which is clearly unrighteousness.
From our hearts must come a similar cry, which is the cry of righteousness
– bring them down Lord, pull them down from their high place of scorning
you, your laws and indeed, scorning goodness, bring them down! It
is a righteous cry because they are offending God and they are offending
justice and they are offending the weak and the good. They continue
to harm God's world by what they say and do. It is right that we cry
for their downfall. Now that may include, hopefully, them turning
to the Lord in repentance and receiving a new life, but if they won't
they need stopping because they are not only doing harm, they are
leading others astray.
But
there is a simple, central truth here that sometimes those of us who
are Christians question: God does deal with the wicked! David
knew it, experienced it and now asked for it. God DOES act into His
world and He does bring discipline and judgment upon those who flout
His design for His world. The Lord does not just sit back and let
people get away with it. If He does He is doing it for a purpose and
because He wants to use people to achieve His ends, and that means
taking time if He is not to offend the right He's given them of sovereignty
of will. It may take time and, indeed, it may be the other side of
a period of grace on occasion, but the Lord WILL deal with the unrighteous
and the wicked and the evil of this world. Establish that clearly
in your belief system!