The Great Inversion: What Can Man Do? Text: Psalm 56:1-4
Introduction: A Golden Psalm from a Foreign Land
We are a people drowning in fear. Our culture is saturated with it. We are managed by fear, manipulated by fear, and motivated by fear. We are told to fear a virus, fear the climate, fear our neighbors, fear the economy, and fear the future. And into this swirling vortex of manufactured anxieties, the Word of God speaks with a defiant, rock-solid stability. The world offers you a thousand reasons to be afraid; God offers you one reason not to be. And His one reason trumps all the others combined.
We come now to Psalm 56, a psalm with a title that is full of rich detail. It is "For the choir director. According to Jonath Elem Rehokim. A Mikhtam of David. When the Philistines seized him in Gath." Let us unpack this for a moment. "Jonath Elem Rehokim" likely refers to a tune, something like "The Dove on Distant Oaks." David is a dove, a vulnerable creature, far from home, surrounded by hostile pagans. He is in Gath, the hometown of Goliath, a place where he had every reason to believe he would be killed on sight. This is not an abstract, coffee-shop reflection on anxiety. This is a prayer forged in the furnace of immediate, life-threatening danger.
It is also called a "Mikhtam" of David. The word is obscure, but a good case can be made that it means a "golden" psalm, or something engraved, something precious and permanent. So here we have a golden prayer from a man who, by all human estimation, should be dead. This is what faith does. It creates things of lasting, golden value out of circumstances that the world sees as nothing but terror and despair. This psalm is a master class in dealing with fear, not by pretending it doesn't exist, but by overwhelming it with a greater reality. It teaches us the great spiritual inversion: how to be afraid, and yet not be afraid.
The central conflict in this psalm is not between David and the Philistines. It is a conflict between two competing realities. There is the reality of "man," what the text calls "flesh," and there is the reality of God and His Word. David is being crushed between these two. The question for him, and for us, is which reality will have the final say. Will we be defined by the horizontal pressure of our circumstances, or by the vertical reality of our God?
The Text
Be gracious to me, O God, for man has trampled upon me;
All day long, an attacker oppresses me.
My foes have trampled upon me all day long,
For many attack me proudly.
When I am afraid,
I will trust in You.
In God, whose word I praise,
In God I trust;
I shall not be afraid.
What can mere man do to me?
(Psalm 56:1-4 LSB)
The Horizontal Pressure (v. 1-2)
David begins by describing his situation with brutal honesty. He does not sugarcoat the threat.
"Be gracious to me, O God, for man has trampled upon me; All day long, an attacker oppresses me. My foes have trampled upon me all day long, For many attack me proudly." (Psalm 56:1-2)
The first thing to notice is where David turns. He does not turn inward to find some hidden reservoir of courage. He does not turn to a therapist to process his trauma. He turns upward. "Be gracious to me, O God." His first instinct in crisis is theological. He knows that the only solution to his horizontal problem is a vertical appeal. Grace is the unmerited favor of God, and David knows he needs a reality to break in from outside his predicament. He is not looking for a way of escape; he is looking for the God who commands all ways of escape.
He describes the pressure as being "trampled." This is the word for being crushed underfoot, like grapes in a winepress. It is relentless, "all day long." This is not a one-off attack. It is a sustained, grinding, oppressive campaign. His enemies are not just numerous; they attack him "proudly." This is key. The Hebrew here carries the sense of attacking from a high place, with arrogance and contempt. They believe they have the upper hand. From every human point of view, they do. They are strong, David is weak. They are many, he is one. They are in their homeland, he is a fugitive. They are proud, and he is lunch.
This is the essence of worldly fear. It is the pressure of "man," of "flesh." It is the constant, arrogant, all-day-long assault on the people of God by those who believe that this material world is all there is. Whether it is the military might of the Philistines, the cultural power of secularism, or the sneering contempt of an unbelieving coworker, the pressure is the same. It is the proud world seeking to trample the humble believer.
The Vertical Pivot (v. 3)
In the face of this relentless pressure, David performs a crucial, strategic maneuver. He makes a pivot.
"When I am afraid, I will trust in You." (Psalm 56:3 LSB)
This is one of the most realistic statements about faith in all of Scripture. Notice what it does not say. It does not say, "I am a super-Christian, and therefore I am never afraid." It does not say, "If you just had enough faith, you would never feel fear." That is stoicism, not Christianity. The Bible is written for real people in a real, fallen world, and real people get afraid. Fear is an emotional response to a perceived threat. David is in a den of lions; it would be insane if he were not afraid.
The faith is not in the absence of fear, but in the response to it. David acknowledges the feeling, "When I am afraid." He does not deny it or suppress it. He takes that fear and uses it as a trigger. For the unbeliever, fear is a dead end. It leads to panic, despair, or foolish bravado. For the believer, fear is a springboard. It is a signal, a flashing red light on the dashboard of the soul that says, "Time to trust."
He says, "I will trust in You." Trust is not a feeling; it is a decision. It is a deliberate act of the will to transfer confidence from one object to another. David feels the fear, acknowledges the reality of the Philistines, and then deliberately transfers his confidence from his own ability to survive to God's ability to save. He takes the trembling hand of his own fear and places it into the steady, sovereign hand of God. This is the pivot upon which a life of faith turns. It is the decision to act on what you know to be true of God, regardless of what you feel about your circumstances.
The Great Inversion (v. 4)
This pivot from fear to trust results in a radical re-evaluation of reality. It is a great inversion of perspective.
"In God, whose word I praise, In God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can mere man do to me?" (Genesis 56:4 LSB)
David now gives content to his trust. He trusts "in God, whose word I praise." His trust is not in a vague, generic deity. It is in the God who has spoken. His confidence is tethered to the promises of God. He has God's word on the matter. God had promised him the kingdom. God had delivered him from the lion, the bear, and Goliath. David is standing in Gath, but he is standing on the Word of God. And because he is standing on the Word, he can praise it even before the deliverance comes. Faith praises the promise before it sees the provision.
Because his trust is in this God and in His reliable Word, the conclusion is inescapable: "I shall not be afraid." Wait a minute. Didn't he just say, "When I am afraid"? Yes. This is not a contradiction; it is a conquest. The feeling of fear may rise up, but it will not be allowed to rule. The initial, gut-level reaction of fear is met and mastered by the settled, defiant decision to trust. "I shall not be afraid" is a declaration of war against the tyranny of that emotion. It is a statement of settled policy. Fear may knock on the door, but faith answers and tells it that the house is occupied.
And this leads to the triumphant, almost taunting, question that turns the world's value system on its head: "What can mere man do to me?" The original says, "What can flesh do to me?" He has gone from being trampled by man to dismissing man as "mere flesh." What changed? Not the Philistines. They were still big, and they still had swords. What changed was David's point of reference. He is no longer measuring the Philistines against himself. He is measuring the Philistines against God.
And when you measure "flesh" against the God who spoke the universe into existence, the contest is ludicrous. What can flesh do? It can kill the body. And that's it. That is the limit of its power. But for the one whose life is hidden with Christ in God, that is not a threat; it is a promotion. The worst thing the world can do to a Christian is send him home to Jesus. This is the great inversion. The world thinks it holds all the cards because it can inflict pain and death. The Christian knows that God holds all the cards because He holds resurrection and eternal life. The world's greatest weapon is a toy gun in the face of God's power.
Conclusion: The Logic of the Gospel
This psalm is not just about David in Gath. It is a roadmap for every Christian in every hostile situation. We live in Gath. We are surrounded by a culture that tramples, that attacks proudly, that twists our words and plots our harm. And we are often afraid. That is to be expected.
But the logic of this psalm is the logic of the gospel. We are confronted with an overwhelming threat, the threat of our sin and God's righteous judgment. We are trampled under the weight of our guilt. And we are afraid, as we should be. The proper response to standing before a holy God as a sinner is terror.
But then God gives us His Word. Not a word of promise to David about a kingdom, but a Word made flesh, Jesus Christ. He is the promise. And the gospel says, "When you are afraid, trust in Him." Transfer your confidence from your own righteousness, which is nothing, to His perfect righteousness, which is everything. Take your fear of judgment and place your trust in the One who absorbed all judgment on the cross.
When we do this, we can say with David, "In God, whose Word I praise, in God I trust." We praise Jesus, the Word. We trust in His finished work. And the result is the same great inversion. We shall not be afraid. Why? Because we can ask the same defiant question. What can sin do to me? Its penalty has been paid. What can death do to me? Its sting has been removed. What can the devil do to me? His head has been crushed. What can mere man do to me? He is flesh, and I am united to the risen Lord of all flesh.
This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith. Not a faith that eliminates fear, but a faith that answers it, a faith that pivots on the Word of God and stares down the proudest threats of men, declaring with a quiet, golden confidence that our God reigns, and we are safe in Him.