The Divine Ally Text: Psalm 94:16-19
Introduction: The Great Sorting Out
We live in a time of great pressure. The ungodly seem to prosper, and they are not content to prosper in their own lane. They want to frame mischief by law, as this psalm says earlier. They want to codify their rebellion and make you participate in it. They want to make their delusions mandatory. In such a time, the righteous man can feel isolated, alone, and squeezed from every side. The sheer audacity of the wicked can be breathtaking. They murder the fatherless, they afflict God's heritage, and then they say, "Yahweh does not see."
This psalm is a potent corrective to that kind of pressure. It is a reality check. It reminds us that God is the God to whom vengeance belongs, and that He is not blind, deaf, or indifferent. But it also gets intensely personal. When the public pressure mounts, the private battle begins. The world's chaos threatens to become the soul's chaos. The question of public justice, "Who will arise for me against evildoers?" quickly turns into the question of personal stability, "My foot has stumbled."
The world wants you to believe that you are on your own. It wants you to think that the fight for righteousness is a lonely, doomed crusade, and that your internal anxieties are proof that you are cracking under the strain of your own irrelevant convictions. The secularist looks at the beleaguered Christian and says, "See? His God has abandoned him. He is all alone with his worries."
But the psalmist here pulls back the curtain. He shows us that the Christian life is not a tightrope walk we perform with gritted teeth, hoping not to slip. It is a supported walk. The central reality for the believer is not the presence of evildoers or the multiplication of anxieties, but the intervention of God. This passage is about the great sorting out, not just in the public square, but in the private chambers of the heart. It forces us to answer the fundamental question: when the pressure is on, who is your ally?
The Text
Who will arise for me against evildoers?
Who will take his stand for me against workers of iniquity?
If Yahweh had not been my help,
My soul would soon have dwelt in the abode of silence.
If I should say, “My foot has stumbled,”
Your lovingkindness, O Yahweh, will hold me up.
When my anxious thoughts multiply within me,
Your consolations delight my soul.
(Psalm 94:16-19 LSB)
The Rhetorical Ally (v. 16)
The psalmist begins with a cry that feels like a challenge.
"Who will arise for me against evildoers? Who will take his stand for me against workers of iniquity?" (Psalm 94:16)
This is a rhetorical question, but it is not an empty one. It is the cry of a man standing in the breach, looking for reinforcements. He is surrounded. The "workers of iniquity" are not just a few scattered troublemakers; they are an organized force. They are those who, as verse 20 says, "frame wickedness by statute." This is institutionalized evil. This is the kind of cultural rot that seems overwhelming.
So he asks, "Who is on my side?" This is the same question Moses asked at the gate of the camp after the golden calf incident: "Who is on Yahweh's side?" (Ex. 32:26). It is the question of allegiance. In a world gone mad, where do the battle lines fall? Who will stand for truth when it is unpopular? Who will stand for righteousness when the entire machinery of the state and culture is grinding in the opposite direction?
The question is designed to make the reader feel the isolation, the desperation. It is a test. Will you look to the left and to the right, hoping for a political savior, a charismatic leader, or a popular movement to rescue you? Will you put your trust in princes? The psalmist sets us up. He makes us scan the horizon for human help, and in our day, we see very little that is promising. But the emptiness of the horizon is intended to make us look up.
The Divine Rescuer (v. 17)
Having asked who will stand with him, the psalmist immediately answers his own question. The answer is not a man, but God Himself.
"If Yahweh had not been my help, My soul would soon have dwelt in the abode of silence." (Psalm 94:17 LSB)
The question in verse 16 was "Who?" The answer in verse 17 is "Yahweh." If God had not been his help, he would already be dead. "The abode of silence" is Sheol, the grave. This is not hyperbole. The battle against institutionalized wickedness is a matter of life and death. Without God's constant intervention, we would be utterly swamped and destroyed. Our enemies are too strong, too numerous, and too cunning for us.
Notice the certainty of it. "My soul would soon have dwelt..." It was a near thing. This is the testimony of every saint who has ever stood against the tide. We are always just one divine intervention away from being completely overcome. Our perseverance is not a testament to our grit, but to God's grip. He is our help. The Hebrew word for help here is `ezrah`, which points to active, sufficient aid. God is not a passive sympathizer; He is an active rescuer.
This is the great secret of Christian courage. We do not fight because we are confident in our own strength. We fight because we are confident in our Helper. We can afford to be bold against evildoers precisely because we know that the ultimate outcome does not rest on our shoulders. Yahweh is our ally, and if He had not been, the fight would have been over long ago.
The Stabilizing Grace (v. 18)
From the external battle against evil, the psalmist turns to the internal battle of personal weakness.
"If I should say, “My foot has stumbled,” Your lovingkindness, O Yahweh, will hold me up." (Psalm 94:18 LSB)
This is where the rubber meets the road. It is one thing to know intellectually that God is our helper against the wicked "out there." It is another thing entirely to experience His support when we feel ourselves failing "in here." The image is of a man walking on a treacherous path, losing his footing. "My foot has stumbled." This is the confession of weakness, the admission of failure, the cry of the heart that feels it is about to go down.
What catches him? Not his own resolve. Not his bootstraps. The answer is, "Your lovingkindness, O Yahweh." The word is hesed. This is one of the great covenant words of the Old Testament. It is not a sentimental, squishy affection. Hesed is covenant loyalty. It is steadfast, utterly dependable, rock-solid faithfulness. It is God's unbreakable commitment to His people, sealed in blood. When we stumble, it is God's covenant promise that catches us.
His love is not a pillow to soften the fall; it is a steel girder that prevents the fall. "Your lovingkindness...will hold me up." It is an active, sustaining power. This is why we can be honest about our stumbles. We don't have to pretend we are spiritual superheroes. We can say, "My foot is slipping," because we know what will happen when we do. His hesed will be there. Our stability is not found in our perfect walk, but in His perfect faithfulness.
The Comforting Presence (v. 19)
The final verse of our text addresses the plague of the modern age: anxiety.
"When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, Your consolations delight my soul." (Psalm 94:19 LSB)
The psalmist is brutally honest about his internal state. "My anxious thoughts multiply within me." The Hebrew speaks of disquieting, divided thoughts. This is the internal chaos that mirrors the external chaos. It is the whirring of the mind that will not shut off, the playing out of a thousand disastrous scenarios. Worry is a sin, because it is a form of functional atheism. It is acting as though God is not on the throne, as though He is not our Helper, as though His hesed is not enough.
But the psalmist does not simply say, "Stop being anxious." He shows us the divine remedy. The remedy for a multitude of anxious thoughts is the application of God's consolations. What are these consolations? They are the promises of God, brought to mind by the Spirit. They are the truths of Scripture. They are the reminders that God is sovereign, that He is good, that He works all things for our good, that He has defeated sin and death, that He is coming again to judge the world in righteousness.
When the anxious thoughts swarm like bees, we must counter-attack with divine truth. And the result is not just the absence of anxiety, but the presence of something far better: delight. "Your consolations delight my soul." This is not just relief; it is joy. It is the soul finding its rest and its pleasure in the character and promises of God. The world offers distractions to quiet your anxiety. God offers consolations that produce delight. The world wants to numb your soul; God wants to make it sing.
Conclusion: The Unseen Ally
So we see the progression. The psalmist feels alone in the public square, but realizes Yahweh is his ally. He feels his own footing giving way, but realizes God's covenant loyalty is his stability. He feels overwhelmed by a storm of internal worries, but finds that God's comforts bring delight to his soul.
The central lesson is this: the reality of God's active presence is greater than the reality of your circumstances, your weaknesses, or your anxieties. The world screams at you that you are alone. Your own heart whispers that you are about to fall. Your mind buzzes with a thousand fears. But faith answers back. Faith looks at the army of evildoers and says, "If Yahweh had not been my help..." Faith feels the stumble and declares, "Your lovingkindness will hold me up." Faith is assaulted by anxieties and testifies, "Your consolations delight my soul."
This is all made concrete and tangible for us in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one who truly stood against the workers of iniquity. On the cross, His foot truly stumbled into the abode of silence, into death itself. He was overwhelmed with anxieties in the garden, sweating blood. He did all this so that we, who trust in Him, would never truly be alone. In Christ, Yahweh is our help. In Christ, the hesed of God has a human face. In Christ, all the consolations and promises of God are Yes and Amen.
Therefore, when you are tempted to despair, when you feel isolated and weak, remember your unseen Ally. He is not a distant hope, but a present help. He will arise for you. He will hold you up. And He will fill your soul with a delight that no amount of earthly chaos can ever extinguish.