The Foundations and the Throne Text: Psalm 11:1-3
Introduction: The Counsel of Fear
We live in an age of perpetual panic. The talking heads on the television, the clickbait headlines on your phone, the concerned whispers in the church foyer, they all hum the same tune. And that tune is the counsel of fear. The world is burning, the culture is collapsing, the bad guys are winning, and the only reasonable thing for a sensible Christian to do is to find a nice, quiet hole somewhere and pull it in after him. "Flee as a bird to your mountain." Get out while the getting is good. Head for the hills. We are told that the foundations of the republic are gone, the foundations of the family are gone, the foundations of basic sanity are gone. And so, the question is pressed upon us, with a great deal of sighing and hand-wringing: "What can the righteous do?"
This is the counsel of David's friends, and it is the counsel of many well-meaning but faint-hearted believers today. They see the threats, and the threats are very real. They are not making them up. The wicked really are bending the bow. The arrows really are on the string. They are aiming at the upright in heart. But their conclusion, their strategic advice, is born of sight and not of faith. Their analysis of the problem is sharp, but their analysis of God is dull. They have a high view of the threat and a low view of the throne.
This psalm is David's response to that kind of worldly wisdom. It is a declaration of trust in the face of tangible danger. It is a lament, certainly, but it is a lament that is anchored in a profound confidence in the character and sovereignty of God. David takes the fears of his friends, acknowledges them, and then calmly sets them in their proper context. That context is the unwavering reality of God's rule. Before we can answer the question of what the righteous are to do, we must first answer the question of where the righteous are to look.
The temptation in our day is to become so fixated on the crumbling foundations beneath our feet that we forget the unshakable throne high above our heads. This psalm forces us to lift our eyes. It is a corrective to our spiritual vertigo. It is a trumpet blast against the strategic retreat of the church into the mountains of cultural irrelevance and personal piety. Faith is not a foxhole. Faith is a fortress, and its name is Yahweh.
The Text
In Yahweh I take refuge; How can you say to my soul, "Flee as a bird to your mountain; For, behold, the wicked bend the bow, They make ready their arrow upon the string To shoot in darkness at the upright in heart. If the foundations are destroyed, What can the righteous do?"
(Psalm 11:1-3 LSB)
The Stance of Faith (v. 1)
David begins not with the problem, but with his position. This is crucial.
"In Yahweh I take refuge; How can you say to my soul, 'Flee as a bird to your mountain;'" (Psalm 11:1)
David starts with his central conviction. "In Yahweh I take refuge." This is the foundational statement upon which everything else rests. Before he even addresses the panicked advice of his counselors, he states his allegiance. His trust is not in a location, a mountain hideaway, but in a Person, the covenant God of Israel. To take refuge in Yahweh is to acknowledge that our safety is not ultimately a matter of geography but of theology. It is to know that you are safer in a valley with God than on a mountain without Him.
And because this is his starting point, the advice of his friends sounds utterly absurd to him. "How can you say to my soul...?" He is almost incredulous. It's as though they are speaking a different language. They see a bird, vulnerable and exposed, needing to fly away to a rocky crag to escape the hunter. David sees himself already inside an impregnable fortress. They are urging him to flee to a place of safety, while he is already standing in the place of ultimate safety.
This is the great disconnect between faith and unbelief, or even between robust faith and timid faith. The timid look at the circumstances and then try to fit God into their assessment of the circumstances. The faithful look at God and then interpret the circumstances in light of who He is. The advice to "flee as a bird" is practical, it is sensible, it is what any secular strategist would advise. But it is godless counsel. It assumes that the material threat is the ultimate reality and that God is, at best, a distant helper who needs us to get to a safer spot before He can do anything. David rejects this premise entirely. His refuge is not a place he runs to; it is the God he stands with.
The Threat Assessment (v. 2)
David does not dismiss the danger. He quotes his friends' accurate assessment of the situation.
"For, behold, the wicked bend the bow, They make ready their arrow upon the string To shoot in darkness at the upright in heart." (Psalm 11:2 LSB)
Faith is not blindness. David is not a Pollyanna. He does not deny the reality of the threat. His friends are right about the facts on the ground. The wicked are not just thinking about doing evil; they are actively preparing for it. The bow is bent. The arrow is nocked. The action is imminent. They are not lazy or incompetent villains; they are diligent in their malice.
And their attack is insidious. They shoot "in darkness." This is not an open declaration of war in broad daylight. It is slander, conspiracy, back-room dealing, and character assassination. It is the kind of attack that you cannot easily see coming or defend against. It is aimed at the "upright in heart," which means it is an attack driven by envy and hatred for righteousness itself. The wicked hate the righteous precisely because they are righteous. The presence of a godly man is a constant, unspoken rebuke to the ungodly, and they cannot stand it.
So David grants the premise. Yes, the wicked are plotting. Yes, they are armed. Yes, their intentions are murderous. Yes, their methods are sneaky. And yes, their target is me. He does not dispute any of this. Where he parts company with his friends is not on the analysis of the danger, but on the conclusion to be drawn from it. Their logic is: the wicked are shooting, therefore you must flee. David's logic, as we will see, is: the wicked are shooting, therefore God is watching.
The Despairing Question (v. 3)
Here we come to the heart of the matter, the question that echoes down through the centuries to our own chaotic day.
"If the foundations are destroyed, What can the righteous do?" (Psalm 11:3 LSB)
This is the question of utter despair. The "foundations" here refer to the fundamental principles of law, justice, and social order. What do you do when the courts are corrupt? What do you do when truth itself is up for grabs? What do you do when the basic structures that are supposed to provide stability and protection are themselves crumbling or have been actively dismantled? What happens when the rule of law becomes the rule of lawyers, and justice is sold to the highest bidder?
The question is posed as a rhetorical one, and the implied answer is "nothing." If the very ground beneath your feet is giving way, what's the point of trying to stand? If the pillars of the temple are collapsing, what can one righteous man do but get crushed along with everyone else? This is the ultimate argument for retreat and resignation. It is the justification for quietism. It is the excuse of cowardice masquerading as pious realism.
And we must be honest. This question has a powerful pull. When we see abominations celebrated in the streets, when we see lawlessness enshrined in legislation, when we see the very definitions of man and woman treated as disposable relics, it is easy to think that the foundations are well and truly gone. And from a certain perspective, they are. The foundations of a particular pagan consensus are indeed being destroyed, but they are being replaced by the foundations of a different pagan consensus.
But the error in the question is the assumption that these earthly foundations are the only foundations there are. David's friends see the foundations of Saul's kingdom cracking, and they assume that this means all is lost. They have forgotten that the true foundation of the world is not a political system or a cultural agreement, but the sovereign decree of Almighty God. Their question, "What can the righteous do?" is the wrong question. The right question is, "What is the Righteous One doing?"
David's answer to this question comes in the next verse, which we will consider later. But the challenge for us, right now, is to recognize this despairing question for what it is. It is a temptation. It is the voice of the serpent in the garden, whispering, "Has God really said? Can God really fix this? Is it not hopeless?" To ask "What can the righteous do?" with a sigh of resignation is to have already surrendered. The battle-cry of faith is not to ask what we can do, but to declare what our God has already done, is doing, and will do.
The foundations of our culture may indeed be destroyed. Let them be destroyed. They were built on sand anyway. Our task is not to shore up the ruins of a condemned structure. Our task is to stand on the Rock that cannot be shaken and to be about the business of our King, who is in His holy temple, whose throne is in heaven, and who is, right now, testing the sons of men. The righteous can do a great deal, precisely because the foundations have been shaken, for it is in the shaking that the kingdom which cannot be shaken is revealed.