Psalm 4: In Every Circumstance, God Alone Is Worthy of Trust

Introduction

If someone asked you what the darkest period in human history was, you would probably answer the Second World War. Yet in the midst of those dramatic circumstances, several documented accounts tell of people who knew a completely inexplicable peace. Silvain Dewaele, of Église Connexion in Paris, opens his message with one of them: that of Corrie ten Boom, a Dutch Christian whose story is told in the book "The Hiding Place." Her city was regularly bombed by the German army. One night of terror, woken in a panic, Corrie took refuge in the kitchen and found her sister sitting there, drinking herbal tea, reading her Bible and praying.

Similar stories were collected during the London Blitz of 1940-1941: newspapers of the time noted several cases of citizens keeping a surprising calm in the midst of the bombings. These were not people detached from reality. They were human beings like everyone else, enduring the same sufferings as others. But their attitude showed that deep within themselves, they were anchored to something that gave them this peace, even in the worst situations.

Hence the question this message raises: how can we know such peace when everything seems to be collapsing around us? More precisely, what can we lean on when all human and earthly foundations are shaken? This is the question raised by Psalm 4, and its answer fits in one sentence: in every circumstance, God alone remains worthy of trust.

Message Outline

1. Psalm 4, the Evening Prayer of a King on the Run

Psalm 4 seems to form a pair with Psalm 3. The two resemble each other and complete each other. Where Psalm 3 probably served as a morning prayer for the Israelites ("I laid myself down and slept. I awakened, for Yahweh sustains me," Psalm 3:5), Psalm 4 was used as an evening prayer: in verse 8, David lies down and falls asleep in peace.

• There are good reasons to think, even though it remains a supposition, that Psalm 4 refers to the same period of David's life as Psalm 3, where it is explicitly said that David was fleeing from his son Absalom.
• This episode is a defining event in the life of the king of Israel: Absalom rebels against his father and attempts a coup to seize power. Part of the people and the army then betray David to rally to Absalom in Jerusalem, out of pure opportunism.
• David has to flee the city with his men. He sleeps in tents and wanders from place to place, in great uncertainty about his future. You will find this account in 2 Samuel 15 to 18.

Whether or not this link is proven, hard trials were an integral part of David's life, and the Psalms show how his faith in God carried him through this kind of situation. The preacher develops his message in two parts: by nature, man looks for happiness in the wrong place; then, the rest of the one who trusts in God alone.

2. By Nature, Man Looks for Happiness in the Wrong Place

The tone is set from verse 1: "Answer me when I call, God of my righteousness. You have given me relief when I was in distress. Have mercy on me, and hear my prayer." It is David who is speaking to God. He is in distress. He calls on God for help to obtain justice.

Silvain Dewaele pauses on a subtlety of the Hebrew that translations sometimes miss. Where some versions say "you have given me relief when I was in distress," the original text plays on words: "when I was in a tight place, you made room for me." And we probably should not understand: "You came to pull me out of distress and put me far away, in a safe place," but rather: in the very heart of my distress, you comforted me, you made room for me, while I am still in distress. This reading, he says, fits well with the rest of the psalm.

Then comes verse 2, where the problem is laid out: "You sons of men, how long will you turn my glory into shame? Will you love vanity, and seek after falsehood?" On first reading, the wording may be surprising. But the word "glory" refers to everything that touches honor, dignity, the status someone holds. And David reminds us in verse 3 that it is God who set him apart as king. So he is not having an ego crisis: he reproaches these men for despising what God has honored and, as a consequence, for rejecting God's will.

• These men chase after illusions, after something that cannot satisfy them. They are opportunists, neither more nor less, traitors, people who look for their security in a pile of things other than God.
• If we connect this with verse 7, which speaks of the joy found when grain and new wine abound, we can guess that they look for their security in material comfort, in favorable living conditions, in a good economic situation. Things that are good in themselves.
• What they are blamed for is having despised God and pushed him to the margins of their lives as soon as they felt they had everything they needed.

3. "Yahweh Has Set Apart for Himself Him Who Is Godly": A Security That Rests on God

David continues in verse 3: "But know that Yahweh has set apart for himself him who is godly: Yahweh will hear when I call to him." The contrast is sharp with the men who love vanity and pursue falsehood. David leans on a solid reality, on the living God, and the emphasis is on God's action.

• David does not say: "Look how exceptional I am," but: "Look at the exceptional thing God has done." God is the main subject of the verse: he is the one who sets apart, who chooses, who acts.
• David's security rests neither on his personal worth nor on his own faithfulness, but on God's faithfulness and on his action.

Verses 4 and 5 follow: "Stand in awe, and don't sin. Search your own heart on your bed, and be still. Selah. Offer the sacrifices of righteousness. Put your trust in Yahweh." The preacher reads this passage with the nuance of anger ("if you become angry, do not sin"), which the apostle Paul takes up in Ephesians 4:26: "Be angry, and don't sin. Don't let the sun go down on your wrath," again in a context of repentance and a change of attitude.

• Here, David does not call down judgment on his adversaries, as he does in other psalms. He seems rather to call them to repentance, to return to God.
• "Search your own heart" (literally, "speak in your hearts"): in Hebrew thought, the heart is not only the seat of emotions. It is the center of the whole person, the place of reflection and decisions. David is saying in effect: if you are angry, if you are agitated, do not follow your fleshly nature; examine yourselves, examine your life, and honestly consider what you love and what you are pursuing.
• "Be still" does not mean "take it," "internalize your pain," or "do not express it." On the contrary, David immediately indicates where to direct this energy in moments of anger and agitation: offer sacrifices of righteousness and put your trust in Yahweh.

This is the example of David himself in verse 1, who cries out: "Answer me when I call, God of my righteousness. Have mercy on me, and hear my prayer." The call, then, is not to use hard circumstances to love what is vain, seek falsehood and let anger explode, but to cry out to God and seek to depend on him as never before.

4. "Who Will Show Us Any Good?"

If we return to the men of verse 2, their fundamental problem is not limited to a bad political choice, that of having rejected David for Absalom, nor to being materialistic people who would do well to be a little more turned toward others. Their problem is spiritual: they seek happiness without God.

This appears clearly in the question of verse 6: "Many say, 'Who will show us any good?'" This is, for Silvain Dewaele, the great question of this psalm.

• In Hebrew, the text speaks literally of the good: "Who will show us the good?" It is the same word as in the creation account, when God declares his creation good, before sin entered the world.
• These men are therefore, in reality, searching for paradise lost, searching for happiness. They simply search in the wrong place, trying to create their own truth, which the psalm quite simply calls falsehood.
• David's answer is unequivocal: "Yahweh, let the light of your face shine on us." The answer is God's presence. Not that God is merely the means of reaching happiness: happiness is God himself.

5. The Rest of the One Who Trusts in God Alone

The expression "let the light of his face shine on us" is found elsewhere in the Old Testament. It describes a person who enjoys God's favor, his presence and his kind attention. If God makes the light of his face shine on us, then we can affirm, like David in verse 3, that Yahweh hears when we call to him.

• David does not say: "Happiness will come when I have recovered Jerusalem" or "when my problem is solved." He does not look first for a solution, he looks for God.
• He does not seek the gifts or blessings that may come from God, but God himself as the ultimate good. This did not prevent him from asking for God's help in verse 1 for his situation. But he does not limit himself to asking for a solution to his problem: he uses this situation to seek God above all.
• Because David understood that when God is present, he already has everything.

Then comes the verse that has made a strong impression on the preacher since the first time he read it, verse 7: "You have put gladness in my heart, more than when their grain and their new wine are increased."

• David does not say what we might be encouraged to say in a surge of good will: "I adopt a positive attitude," "I try to see the bright side of things," "I try to put things in perspective." In all these expressions, it is "I." In this verse, there is no "I." It is "you," God: "You have put gladness in my heart."
• It is God who gives joy, God who acts, who gives, who transforms. And since the heart refers to the whole inner being (spirit, will, desires, intellect), God renews David from the inside, for a result far greater than that of the men who enjoy all the material comfort.

It is easy to picture the scene. On one side, men who have everything they need, humanly speaking: reserves for long months, the high walls of Jerusalem to protect them, thriving businesses. Things that are good in themselves, but which, in their case, are masks hiding what they are deep down: empty, unhappy creatures, deprived of the ultimate good that is God. And when they find themselves in the evening on their beds, alone with their conscience, there is only emptiness, agitation and the pursuit of illusions.

On the other side, David, rejected, on the run, reduced to sleeping in tents, in total uncertainty about his future. But he knows that his life is in God's hands, that in him he has everything he needs, and that God hears him when he cries out. From the world's point of view, which of the two seems happier? And from the point of view of eternity? "The happiest man in this psalm is not the one everyone envies, the one whose lifestyle makes the front page of social media and Instagram. The happiest man is the one who knows God and whom God knows."

The psalm ends in verse 8: "In peace I will both lay myself down and sleep, for you, Yahweh, alone, make me live in safety."

• David does not say: "I feel a bit better, that did me good." The Hebrew text literally says: "In shalom, I lie down." And biblical shalom is much more than the absence of conflict: it is fullness, harmony, the deep peace that flows from being in God's hands.
• Humanly speaking, David has plenty of reasons to be anxious. But he knows a greater reality that transcends circumstances: God reigns, he has not lost control, he is faithful. That is why he can sleep.
• "You make me live in safety": David is probably not speaking here of a house. Some translations render it "in my dwelling," and others suggest rather: "You make me dwell in a state of security." You get the idea.

6. Crying Out to God in the Face of Injustice, Alone and as a Church

What can we conclude, if not that, like David, we can call on God when we face difficulties, individually but also collectively? Let us not forget that this psalm was sung by the Israelites in assembly and also applied collectively. It can therefore concern what we go through at the level of the Church.

The preacher thinks of all the terrible injustices one can suffer in this world: harassment at school or at work, physical or sexual assault, sometimes even in the Church, real estate scams, people stripped of hard-earned savings. More broadly, racism, the persecuted Church, our brothers and sisters imprisoned or killed for their faith.

• Faced with this evil, which can poison our lives and sometimes seem to destroy us slowly, we have human resources that we can and must use. Thank you, Lord, for that: asking for help from the people around us, turning to the authorities, filing a complaint, starting legal proceedings. These things are absolutely useful and necessary.
• But what do we do when, despite all these levers pulled and all the energy spent, we remain deeply anguished inside? When these levers prove insufficient to give us the peace and comfort we so cruelly need?
• This psalm encourages us to cry out to God, following David's example: "Answer me when I call, God of my righteousness. You have given me relief when I was in distress. Have mercy on me, and hear my prayer."

7. The God of Our Righteousness Understands Our Distress

We can cry out to God with all the more confidence because the God of our righteousness understands our distress. He will not answer us coldly, like a distant administrative email: "We have noted your distress and will reply as soon as possible." God understands our distress, simply because he has lived it himself, directly.

• God became man in Jesus Christ. He is the godly man par excellence of whom verse 3 speaks. Yet, despite his innocence, he was betrayed by those close to him and nailed to a cross.
• The men of verse 2 are us: all of us, sinners by nature, with this natural tendency to reject God and despise him, or at least to follow him outwardly as long as he seems to give us what we want, and to reject him out of opportunism at the first opportunity.
• For us who were thus lost and without hope, Jesus Christ died, bearing on himself the punishment we deserved. Raised from the dead, he assures us that in him, by faith in him, our sins are forgiven and we are reconciled with God.

We can then read with full confidence David's answer that will show us happiness: "Yahweh, let the light of your face shine on us." And we can have the assurance of this incredible grace, obtained by the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, through faith in him.

The message concludes with the reading of Romans 5:1-5: "Being therefore justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; through whom we also have our access by faith into this grace in which we stand. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only this, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope: and hope doesn't disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us."

"Faith in Christ is not a mere administrative formality that allows us to be saved, as if it were reduced to a visa for paradise. It is a lifebuoy that we hold on to every day, and that allows us to find peace and comfort in God in the midst of all the trials we may go through."

Key Takeaways

• By nature, man looks for happiness in the wrong place: in material comfort and economic security, pushing God to the margins of his life as soon as he thinks he has everything he needs.
• To the question "Who will show us any good?", the answer is not a solution but a presence: happiness is God himself.
• The joy God puts in the heart goes beyond that of abundance. It is what makes it possible to lie down and sleep in peace, in shalom, even when nothing is yet resolved.
• God understands our distress because he lived it in Jesus Christ, betrayed and crucified despite his innocence. Faith in him is a lifebuoy to hold on to every day.

Personal Application

1. When you find yourself in bed in the evening, alone with your conscience, what occupies your heart: peace, or emptiness, agitation and the pursuit of illusions?
2. What does your security concretely rest on today: your economic situation, your comfort, your reserves, or God's action on your behalf?
3. In your last trial, did you ask God for a solution, or did you seek God himself?
4. Faced with an injustice you are suffering, have you used the human levers at your disposal, and have you also cried out to God like David?
5. Does your faith in Christ look like a visa for paradise, or like a lifebuoy you hold on to every day?

Verses Cited

• Psalm 4
• Psalm 3:5
• 2 Samuel 15-18
• Ephesians 4:26
• Romans 5:1-5

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Psalm 4 about?

Psalm 4 is an evening prayer of David, probably written while he was fleeing from his son Absalom. In it he cries out to God in his distress, reproaches men for seeking happiness in vanity and falsehood, then affirms that God puts more gladness in his heart than material abundance. He lies down and falls asleep in peace, because God alone gives him safety.

What does "Who will show us any good?" mean in verse 6 of Psalm 4?

In Hebrew, the text speaks literally of the good, the same word as in the creation account. These men are searching for paradise lost, but in the wrong place. David's answer is God's presence: "Yahweh, let the light of your face shine on us." God is not merely the means of reaching happiness: happiness is God himself.

How can you find peace when everything is collapsing around you?

According to Silvain Dewaele, Psalm 4 encourages us to use the human resources available, but above all to cry out to God like David. God understands our distress because he lived it in Jesus Christ, betrayed and crucified despite his innocence. By faith in him, we have peace with God (Romans 5:1) and we can lie down and sleep in peace.