The Abundance of the Lord's House

THE ABUNDANCE OF THE LORD’S HOUSE

An Exposition of Psalm 36

By Pastor Brian Wilbur

Date: July 2, 2023

Series: The Psalms

Note: Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

THE SCRIPTURAL TEXT

Holy Scripture says:

Psalm 36

To the choirmaster. Of David, the servant of the LORD.

¹ Transgression speaks to the wicked
    deep in his heart;
there is no fear of God
    before his eyes.
² For he flatters himself in his own eyes
    that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated.
³ The words of his mouth are trouble and deceit;
    he has ceased to act wisely and do good.
⁴ He plots trouble while on his bed;
    he sets himself in a way that is not good;
    he does not reject evil.

⁵ Your steadfast love, O LORD, extends to the heavens,
    your faithfulness to the clouds.
⁶ Your righteousness is like the mountains of God;
    your judgments are like the great deep;
    man and beast you save, O LORD.

⁷ How precious is your steadfast love, O God!
    The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
⁸ They feast on the abundance of your house,
    and you give them drink from the river of your delights.
⁹ For with you is the fountain of life;
    in your light do we see light.

¹⁰ Oh, continue your steadfast love to those who know you,
    and your righteousness to the upright of heart!
¹¹ Let not the foot of arrogance come upon me,
    nor the hand of the wicked drive me away.
¹² There the evildoers lie fallen;
    they are thrust down, unable to rise. (Psalm 36:1-12)

SECTION 1: THE CHARACTERISTICS OF WICKED PEOPLE (v. 1-4)

Psalm 36 is a beautiful passage to ponder as we come to the Lord’s Table. In the first section, verses 1-4, David reflects on the characteristics of wicked people. Perhaps it strikes you as strange that David spends one-third of the psalm thinking about the nature of wicked people. But what David does here is very important. Why is it very important? Follow this train of thought.

First, the fact of the matter is that we are surrounded by wickedness on a large scale. For a long time our society has been promoting a materialistic and sexualized view of the world. The result is that people have a lot of stuff and a lot of license to do what they want, but people’s souls are shriveled up. June was Pride Month, which is wrong on so many levels. To begin with, God abominates human pride, when human beings make much of themselves and their achievements (for example, see Proverbs 6:16-17). Further, in Pride Month human beings are taking pride in moral rebellion against God’s sexual design for men and women (for example,, see Romans 1:24-27). To make this bad situation worse, Pride Month features the ubiquitous flying of the Pride Flag, which has hijacked the rainbow that God gave to us as a sign of His mercy to sinners (Genesis 9:12-17) and used it as sign of humanity’s pride in its own rebellion.

The rebellion always comes down to the same basic question: “Did God actually say…?” (Genesis 3:1) “[There] is no fear of God before his eyes” (Psalm 36:1), therefore the wicked man has no regard for God’s standard. God teaches mankind about life and marriage and humility and grace, the kind of grace that covers iniquity and cleanses from sin. But mankind spurns these good gifts and pursues anti-grace, anti-family, anti-life, and anti-humility, which is pride, the kind of pride that celebrates iniquity and pressures other people to make the world a safer place for increased sinning. The problem, of course, is that a world of increased sinning is not a safe place.

So the first reason that David’s reflection on evildoers is important is because we are surrounded by wickedness on a large scale. The second reason that David’s reflection on evildoers is important is because this bent toward evil is in each and every one of us. When Paul describes the sinfulness of all human beings in Romans 3, he says: “There is no fear of God before their eyes” (Romans 3:18), which is almost an exact quote of the second line in Psalm 36:1. In and of ourselves, we – the sons and daughters of Adam – are shot through with sin. The difference between “the wicked” (Psalm 36:1) and “the upright of heart” (Psalm 36:10) is that the wicked in verses 1-4 are unrepentant: they are still stuck in their wickedness. “[The] upright of heart” are formerly wicked people who have discovered the grace of repentance. However, “the upright of heart” are still vulnerable; they haven’t been perfected yet; sinfulness can still be stirred up in their heart; they can still do and say very stupid things.

David is an upright man. He wants to continue in that uprightness. But he is surrounded by the wicked, and he is not immune from their schemes. Further, on a physical and social level the wicked really do endanger the righteous.

This leads me to the third reason why David’s reflection on the nature of evildoers is so important: when you are surrounded by and opposed by wickedness, and when wickedness can be stirred up in your own heart, you need spiritual and moral clarity. We need to have a clear view of what the wicked are up to. We need to see clearly so that we might clearly distinguish righteousness from wickedness, truth from deceit, good from evil, wisdom from folly. Without moral clarity, you will be sucked into the moral chaos. But with moral clarity and moral conviction, you can cry out to the Lord for His gracious assistance, and He will “[lead you] in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake” (Psalm 23:3).

So what characterizes the wicked man?

First, the wicked man’s heart is attentive to sinful words (v. 1a). “Transgression” is speaking to the wicked man in the depths of his heart, and the wicked man is listening. He should be listening to the Lord, but instead he is listening to sin.

Second, the wicked man doesn’t fear God (v. 1b). He doesn’t stand in awe of God. He isn’t overwhelmed by the majesty of God. He isn’t hemmed in by God’s reliable words. Instead, the wicked man laughs at the heavens and floods the world with his ambitions and lusts.

Third, the wicked man fools himself into thinking that he will get away with his iniquity (v. 2). The contrast between the end of the verse 1 and the beginning of verse 2 is profound: “before his eyes” he has “no fear of God” (v. 1b); but “in his own eyes” he has a flattering view of himself and his own opinions (v. 2). The wicked man has the illusion that he can sin and get away with it: he assumes “that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated.” Lest you think that this mindset only affects world class sinners like dictators, mob bosses, drug dealers, and human traffickers, Jesus warns his disciples to never lose sight of the Master’s return. The unfaithful servant “says to himself, ‘My master is delayed in coming,’” (Luke 12:25), and thus he loses any sense of living for the Lord. Therefore, the unfaithful servant lives selfishly, ignores His Master’s will, and hurts others, thus proving to be an unrepentant man who will not inherit the kingdom of God. You have never lived a single second outside of the Lord’s watchful eye. Everything you think and feel and say and do is visible to Him. Let that sink in, and live accordingly.

Fourth, the wicked man’s words “are trouble and deceit” (v. 3a). This is no surprise, for men speak as they are spoken to in the depths of their heart. “Transgression speaks to the wicked” (v. 1a) and out of the overflow of his own troubled and deceived heart, the wicked speaks transgression, trouble, and deceit to the world (v. 3a).

Fifth, the wicked man pursues evil conduct (v. 3b-4):

“he has ceased to act wisely and do good.

He plots trouble while on his bed;

he sets himself in a way that is not good;

he does not reject evil.” (Psalm 36:3b-4)

His conscience is no longer tender, and his heart is not sensitive to wisdom. He has sold himself to do evil. He is always thinking about the next heist, the next fling, the next high, the next scheme, the next victim. His whole life is a picture of anti-repentance. The Lord instructs sinners: “cease to do evil, learn to do good” (Isaiah 1:16), but the unrepentant sinner doesn’t reject evil and ceases to do good. When David is on his bed he remembers the Lord (Psalm 63:6), but the wicked man “plots trouble while on his bed”. The wise man makes a straight path for his feet (Hebrews 12:13), but the evildoer “sets himself in a way that is not good”. The wicked man is proactively pursuing a ruinous path.

SECTION 2: THE GREATNESS OF THE LORD’S STEADFAST LOVE (v. 5-9)

As for David, he wants nothing to do with the way “that is not good”. David knows that “the way of the wicked will perish” (Psalm 1:6). David’s desire is to flourish like a well-watered tree in the garden of the Lord. And this brings us to the second section, in verses 5-9, when David reflects on the greatness of the Lord’s steadfast love. Someone might have assumed that after David reflected on the character of the wicked man, he would proceed to reflect on the character of the righteous man. There would have been nothing wrong with that, for Scripture often does tell us about the good moral qualities of those who walk with God. Nevertheless it is instructive that in this psalm, David doesn’t reflect on the character of the righteous man, but instead reflects on the greatness of the Lord’s steadfast love. It is, after all, the greatness of the Lord’s steadfast love that is the firm foundation beneath the righteous man’s feet, and now David wants to reflect on this firm foundation. The man who is truly upright is upright – not because he has cranked out some moral decency from his own sinful heart, but – because he has discovered the kindness of God cascading over him like a waterfall from heaven.

The first thing that David tells us is that the Lord’s steadfast love and faithfulness are extensive (v. 5). How extensive?

“Your steadfast love, O LORD, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds.” (Psalm 36:5)

The Lord’s steadfast love – His hesed, His kindness – is in the heavens. It is vast in its scope. The Lord’s faithfulness – His steadiness and trustworthiness – is expansive in its range. We are small and finite, but the Lord’s steadfast love is bigger than we can imagine – big grace for little people. We are fickle and subject to so much change, but the Lord’s faithfulness is a massive constant – unswerving fidelity for fickle people who need a firm place to stand. If you ever feel constricted and trapped by the circumstances of your life, look up into the great big sky and remember that the non-constricted, non-trapped, free and expansive faithfulness and steadfast love of the Lord descends upon you, like light from the sun or like rain from the clouds. It says in Psalm 103,

“For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.” (Psalm 103:11-14)

God has big compassion for little people. God has big mercy for sinful people. God has immeasurable love for creatures of dust.

The second thing that David tells us is that the Lord’s righteousness and judgments are massive and awesome. The Lord’s righteousness “is like the mountains of God” (v. 6a). Mountains are great and mighty, impressive to behold, beautiful and awe-inspiring. So it is with the Lord’s righteousness – His righteous character, His righteous commands, and His righteous actions. The Lord revealed His righteous commandments to Israel at Mount Sinai. The Lord revealed His Righteous One to Peter, James, and John on the Mount of Transfiguration. The Lord revealed His righteous salvation to mankind at Mount Calvary. If you treat the Lord’s righteousness and His righteous decrees revealed in Scripture like a commonplace item like hand-soap, useful but not captivating, then you don’t understand the Lord’s righteousness. But if you treat the Lord’s righteousness and His righteous decrees revealed in Scripture like a breathtaking mountain range that captivates you and rivets your attention, then you’re on the right track.

Continuing with verse 6, the Lord’s judgments “are like the great deep” (v. 6b). A massive body of water is also impressive to behold, beautiful and awe-inspiring, and even intimidating. Furthermore, you can see the surface of the water, but can you really plump the depths? Can you plumb the depths of the sea? Can you plumb the depths of the Lord’s judgments – the Lord’s just decrees, the Lord’s wise decisions, the Lord’s righteous punishments? Perhaps David was thinking about the great flood of Genesis 7 when “the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened” (Genesis 7:11). The entire earth was engulfed in water and became a great deep – and the whole thing was a sobering and overwhelming instance of the Lord’s righteous judgment.

At the same time, what did the Lord do through the great flood? He saved both man and beast. David concludes verse 6: “man and beast you save, O LORD” (v. 6). The Lord saved mankind through Noah and Noah’s family. And the Lord saved the animals through the representative animals that were present with Noah on the ark. The Lord designed human beings to “have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1:28), and so when He saves man He also preserves man’s dominion by saving the beasts, which the Lord intends to see flourish under man’s care. After the floodwaters receded and a new day began, the Lord established His covenant with Noah and with Noah’s offspring and with all the animals (Genesis 9:9-10), and the sign of this covenant was God’s rainbow:

“I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.” (Genesis 9:13-15)

With the Lord’s righteous judgments always in mind, human beings are supposed to see the rainbow in the clouds of the heavens, and they are supposed to savor the Lord’s mercy. “Your steadfast love, O LORD, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds.”

The Lord’s steadfast love is precious protection and plentiful provision, as verses 7-8 proclaim:

“How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights.” (Psalm 36:7-8)

God’s steadfast love is more precious and valuable than a rare and costly jewel. Yes indeed, the Lord’s “steadfast love is better than life” (Psalm 63:3). The Lord’s steadfast love surrounds His people: “Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the LORD.” (Psalm 32:10) The Lord blots out our transgressions according to His steadfast love and abundant mercy (Psalm 51:1). The Lord remembers His people according to His steadfast love and not according to our sins (Psalm 25:6-7). The Lord shows His steadfast love to us by hearing our cries, delivering us from distress (Psalm 31:21-22), and delivering us from the power of death (Psalm 86:13). Despite the fact that the wicked make a lot of noise, “[the] steadfast love of God endures all the day.” (Psalm 52:1)

The Lord’s steadfast love is linked to the fact that He is a reliable refuge to His people, which takes us to the next phrase: “The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings.” (v. 7b) Though enemies were rising up against David in Psalm 59, David had a steadfast love refuge in the midst of the danger, and it enabled him to sing in the midst of that danger:

“But I will sing of your strength; I will sing aloud of your steadfast love in the morning. For you have been to me a fortress and a refuge in the day of my distress. O my Strength, I will sing praises to you, for you, O God, are my fortress, the God who shows me steadfast love.” (Psalm 59:16-17)

We are vulnerable children who need the wings of God to shelter us – to shelter us in the storm, to shelter us when our enemies plot against us and persecute us, to shelter us from the devil’s schemes to lure us off track, to shelter us from levels of temptation that we cannot handle, to shelter us from the consequences of our own sin. The pinnacle of the preciousness of the Lord’s steadfast love is when He sheltered us from His own righteous judgment against us because of our sin. He sheltered us by taking the accursed punishment upon Himself. Our Lord said:

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” (John 10:10-11)

There is nothing more tragic than when self-reliant sinners refuse to take refuge under the Savior’s wings. Jesus lamented over the stubborn-hearted:

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you desolate.” (Matthew 23:37-38)

Those who refuse to take refuge “in the shadow of the Almighty” (Psalm 91:1) end up in a place of desolation. But how different it is for those who make the sovereign Lord their refuge (Psalm 73:28)! For the Lord’s house is a place of abundance: “They feast on the abundance of your house.” (v. 8a) In fact, it is through the abundance of the Lord’s steadfast love that we enter the Lord’s house in the first place (Psalm 5:7). And once there, we find abundant provision: the pantry is well-furnished, the kitchen is a culinary and aesthetic delight, the serving dishes are always full, the company around the table is tremendous. Sometimes this abundance is physically palpable, but the truth of the matter is that we are speaking about spiritual realities. David once prayed, “You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound.” (Psalm 4:7) Habakkuk knew how to rejoice in scarce times:

“Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.” (Habakkuk 3:17-18)

While His disciples were thinking about physical food, Jesus had another kind of nourishment in mind: “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.” (John 4:34) Earlier in John 4, Jesus told the Samaritan woman about another kind of water: “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:13-14) Two chapters later Jesus told the people about another kind of bread:

“I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” (John 6:48-51)

Living bread: “They feast on the abundance of your house” (v. 8a). Living water: “and you give them drink from the river of your delights” (v. 8b). Those who follow Christ are nourished as they do the Father’s will. We believers have in our possession the grace of the gospel, the promises of God, the presence of the Holy Spirit, and the joy of fellowship with one another. Our great God is a never-ending supply of abundant life: “For with you is the fountain of life” (v. 9a). Furthermore, we are not trapped in the darkness like the wicked man of verses 1-4. The wicked man is blind to the grandeur of “the mountains of God”. The wicked man’s eyes are fixated on the mirror of his own delusions. But those who “[dwell] in the shelter of the Most High” (Psalm 91:1) have their eyes open to the glory of God. In God’s light “we see light” (v. 9b): our eyes are open to the extravagance of God’s love, the expansive vistas of God’s faithfulness, the mighty mountains of God’s righteousness, and the utter transcendence of God’s judgments. Blessed are your eyes if you see and savor these things! For it means that your vision hasn’t been narrowed to glory-reducing mirrors and screens, but instead that your vision has been opened up to see the beauty of the Lord.

SECTION 3: DAVID’S PETITION (v. 10-12)     

David concludes this psalm with a short petition – a simple prayer request. David’s prayer request flows naturally from the first eleven verses.

In view of the greatness of the Lord’s steadfast love (v. 5-11), David wants the Lord’s people to actually live in the reality of it. So David prays that the Lord would keep sending forth His steadfast love and His righteousness to His people: “Oh, continue your steadfast love to those who know you, and your righteousness to the upright of heart!” (v. 10) Believers should never take the Lord’s favor for granted, but instead should earnestly desire fresh experiences of God’s grace. Believers should never grow complacent about past grace, but should feast on the abundance of the Lord’s house today, should drink from the river of the Lord’s delights today, should see the light of the Lord’s glory today. We want to actually walk with God today, and not memorialize how we used to walk with God in the past. So we pray for the Lord to continue working graciously in our lives today.

At the same time, in view of the presence of wickedness and of wicked men (v. 1-4), David prays for protection: “Let not the foot of arrogance come upon me, nor the hand of the wicked drive me away.” (v. 11) The picture here is of arrogant and wicked men who subdue people and drive people away. These arrogant and wicked men embrace evil (v. 4) and practice deceit (v. 3) as they carry out their destructive plots (v. 3). The result of their wicked activity is a world of death: “There the evildoers lie fallen; they are thrust down, unable to rise.” (v. 12) The contrast is profound: “the upright of heart” (v. 10) who know the Lord (v. 10) are nourished by the Lord’s life-giving abundance (v. 8-9), but the evildoers are cut off and cast down (v. 12). The moral clarity of which I spoke earlier is literally a matter of life and death.

THE LORD’S SUPPER

As we gather around the Lord’s table to celebrate the Lord’s supper, we remember that Jesus is our life-giving light: He said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12) We remember that Jesus embodies the Father’s steadfast love and is the one and only appointed refuge for the children of mankind: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes [takes refuge] in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) We feast on the abundance of His house, on the bread of life, on the body that was broken so that we might be forgiven and restored. We drink from the river of His delights, from the cup of salvation, from the blood that was shed so that we might enter into a lasting covenant with the Father. There, at the cross, the righteous stand secure; they are lifted up, unable to fall. There, at the cross, steadfast love and faithfulness and righteousness and judgment meet in holy splendor, and the Lord’s goodwill to His people stretches forth with eternal scope: “Surely goodness and mercy [steadfast love] shall follow [pursue] me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.” (Psalm 23:6)