God’s Goodness in Suffering (Psalm 34)

Big Idea: Learn about God’s goodness in the midst of suffering. But don’t just learn about it; experience it yourself.

Advice can be valuable, but only if it comes from somebody reliable. But when you find someone who’s been through exactly what you’re going through, and they have something to say, their advice can be incredible.

• If you are getting married, it is so helpful to talk to someone who has been married for a long time and is making it work.
• If you’re going through joblessness, it helps so much to talk to someone else who’s been unemployed in similar circumstances.
• If you are raising teenagers, it can be very helpful to talk to someone whose kids have gone through the same thing.
• If you are going through a crisis, it is helpful to talk to someone else who’s been through a similar crisis and survived.

It can be so valuable to get good advice from someone who’s learned from a similar situation we’re going through.

David’s Circumstance

So here’s why it’s worth learning from Psalm 34.

There are 14 psalms that are linked to events that took place in David’s life. This is one of them. We read in the inscription of the psalm, “Of David, when he changed his behavior before Abimelech, so that he drove him out, and he went away.”

Two things to notice here.

First: David knows what it’s like to suffer! We find this story in 1 Samuel 21. You think you have problems? David was literally running for his life. He was in so much trouble that he fled to the land of the Philistines, his archenemies. How desperate do you have to be to flee to people who want to kill you? Even worse, he went carrying the sword of Goliath, a Philistine he had killed. When David was recognized, he escaped, barely, by acting like he’d lost his sanity.

Here’s the thing about the Bible. We are not the first to suffer. You name whatever problem you’re going through, and it’s probably not going to be crazier than what David went through before he wrote this psalm. It’s hard to out-crazy this story. David writes as someone who’s an innocent sufferer facing a really difficult situation.

But here’s the other thing to notice. The inscription says, “Of David, when he changed his behavior before Abimelech.” This is slightly confusing, because the Philistine king’s name was actually Achish. Abimelech shows up in Genesis 20. He was king in a similar area, but it was Abraham, not David, who dealt with Abimelech.

Why does Psalm 34 mention the wrong guy? Robert Alter, a Bible scholar, suggests that the editor was making connections. He saw some parallels between David’s story and Abraham’s story. A just man is threatened with imminent death, and God rescues him.

In other words, this is David’s story, but it’s part of a bigger pattern of how God treats his people. The future king of Israel is so desperate that he’s scratching doors and drooling all over his beard, and the editor says, “Yeah, this reminds me of some other times that God has rescued his people in some pretty strange circumstances.”

So this is a psalm written by someone who knows what it’s like to go through crazy times, and David has two messages for us.

Two Lessons

Here are the two lessons.

Learn from me (1-7)

In the first part of this psalm, he gives his personal testimony. He begins with a call to praise:

I will bless the LORD at all times;
his praise shall continually be in my mouth.
My soul makes its boast in the LORD;
let the humble hear and be glad.
Oh, magnify the LORD with me,
and let us exalt his name together!
(Psalm 34:1-3)

Then he gives the reason why he is praising God and calling us to praise God in verses 4 to 6:

I sought the LORD, and he answered me
and delivered me from all my fears.
Those who look to him are radiant,
and their faces shall never be ashamed.
This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him
and saved him out of all his troubles.

What is David’s testimony? David’s testimony is not that he escaped from King Achish by his own ingenuity. He doesn’t credit his clever acting skills. He credits God. God was the one who delivered him, so God deserves the praise.

David sought Yahweh in a time of trouble. God answered and delivered him. He cried out, and Yahweh heard him, and saved him from all of his troubles. Tucked away, though, is an amazing promise in verse 5:

Those who look to him are radiant,
and their faces shall never be ashamed.

Here’s what he’s saying. You can experience a joy, a radiance, in even the worst circumstances. You can be going through the worst possible crisis, and you can still experience comfort and joy. The kind of joy that God offers isn’t diminished by difficulty and hardship; it coexists with difficulty and hardship. We can look to God in our struggles and experience joy and peace even in the middle of trials.

And then he gives us a theological truth you may find hard to believe. It’s found in verse 7:

The angel of the LORD encamps
around those who fear him, and delivers them.

What does this mean? It means that God has promised to take care of us. There is never a minute that we are outside his care. The angel of Yahweh encamps around us, and he has helpers. John Calvin wrote:

…the angels encamp around (Psalm 34:7) the godly, and that not one angel only, but many, have been commissioned to guard every one of the faithful. Away, then, with the fanciful notion of a good and evil angel, and let us rest satisfied with holding that the care of the whole Church is committed to angels, to assist each member as his necessities shall require.

If we knew this, we would never be worried or scared. It doesn’t mean that we will never suffer. It does mean that we will never go through a single moment in our lives in which God takes his eye off of us, in which God ceases to care or come to our aid. Behind the scenes, God is much more involved than we realize. As John Piper has said, “God is always doing 10,000 things in your life, and you may be aware of three of them … There is no power in the universe that can stop God from fulfilling his totally good plans for you.”

This is my story, David is saying. Praise God, because he helps the righteous in times of trial. He comes to the aid of his people when they are in very tricky situations. His angels come to the aid of his people.

Notice that David’s circumstances hadn’t changed. He was still a fugitive. He was still in danger. He was still alone. But in the middle of these circumstances, he found that God was faithful.

David wants to remind us that it’s never our quick thinking or our clever strategies that deserve the credit when we survive difficult situations. God deserves the praise. It’s God who comes to the help of desperate people in desperate times. Not only this, but it’s God who not only helps us to survive these times, but who can actually help us glow in the middle of unbelievable difficulty.

J.C. Ryle put it this way:

The everlasting arms are round about you. Lean back in them and know your safety. The same hand that was nailed to the cross is holding you. The same wisdom that framed the heavens and the earth is engaged to maintain your cause . . . Ah! reader, they are well kept whom Christ keeps.

That’s David’s message in verses 1 to 7. He wants us to learn from his experience. David has been through hard times, and he knows: God delivers his people, and so God deserves the praise.

But David has a second message. Learn from my experience, he says, and then:

Discover for yourself (8-22)

The rest of the psalm is David turning to us, based on his experience, so we who are suffering can experience the same thing.

Listen to what he says in verse 8:

Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good!
Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!
Oh, fear the LORD, you his saints,
for those who fear him have no lack!
The young lions suffer want and hunger;
but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.

Don’t just take my word for it, David says. Taste of God’s goodness yourself. The famous preacher Jonathan Edwards said:

Thus there is a difference between having an opinion that God is holy and gracious, and having a sense of the loveliness and beauty of that holiness and grace. There is a difference between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet, and having a sense of its sweetness. A man may have the former, that knows not how honey tastes; but a man can’t have the latter unless he has an idea of the taste of honey in his mind. So there is a difference between believing that a person is beautiful, and having a sense of his beauty.

Don’t just hear others talk about God’s goodness. Taste for yourself! It’s only when you act on what you know about God’s goodness that you will experience how good God truly is.

How do you do this? The answer comes in verses 11 to 14:

Come, O children, listen to me;
I will teach you the fear of the LORD.
What man is there who desires life
and loves many days, that he may see good?
Keep your tongue from evil
and your lips from speaking deceit.
Turn away from evil and do good;
seek peace and pursue it.

Here’s where you see what it looks like to taste God’s goodness. It’s not just something you sample. You will only taste God’s goodness as you surrender completely and totally to him. Fear him. Obey his commandments.

This doesn’t mean that you earn God’s favor by your own efforts. It does mean that God’s agenda isn’t just to rescue from danger. God has a much bigger agenda: to have all of you, to change you. When you come to Jesus to taste of this goodness, it involves a surrender of your entire life to him. He wants all of you if you’re going to follow him.

But when you do, look what you will experience. His eyes will be on you (verse 15). He will hear your prayers and deliver you from trouble (verse 17). He will be especially attentive to you in times of crisis when you’re brokenhearted (verse 18). He will deliver you from your troubles (verses 19 to 22).

This may seem to you to be too good to be true. It doesn’t mean that you will never experience troubles. It does mean that when you experience troubles, you can still know that God remains fully engaged, watching and helping you. It may not make sense to you, but nothing will happen to you that will not work out for your good in the end and his glory even if it doesn’t seem like it now.

The best example of this is Jesus. Jesus went through injustice. He was arrested and beaten. He deserved none of it; he was the ultimate example of an innocent sufferer. And yet, as he was crucified, John 19:36 says that they didn’t break his bones in a direct fulfillment of verse 20 of this psalm. Our lives are in God’s hands, and nothing will happen to us outside his sovereign care, even as we go through horrible difficulties.

Take it from someone who knows. David went through all kinds of troubles in his life. David says: Learn about God’s goodness in the midst of suffering. But don’t just learn about it; experience it yourself.

Whatever you’re going through, you can find out what David did: that God is good even in the middle of suffering. But don’t take David’s word for it or my word for it. Come to Jesus, and experience this yourself.