The Great Divide: A Declaration of Dependence
Introduction: The Politics of Fear
We live in an age that is marinated in fear. Our entire political discourse, our media cycles, our public health pronouncements, are all fundamentally shaped by a calculated manipulation of what we ought to be afraid of. Fear is the currency of control. If a man, or a committee of men, can dictate your fears, they can dictate your actions. They want you to fear a virus, to fear economic collapse, to fear your neighbor, to fear the weather, and to fear the future. And for every one of these fears, they have a pre-packaged solution that requires you to do one thing: trust them. Trust the experts, trust the science, trust the state, trust the media. Trust in man. Trust in nobles.
This is nothing new. This is the oldest political trick in the book, going all the way back to the serpent in the garden. The essence of his temptation was to get Eve to distrust God's word and to trust her own senses, her own judgment, her own desires. He introduced a fear, the fear of missing out, and offered a solution that required a transfer of trust from the Creator to the creature. Every subsequent act of tyranny and rebellion has followed this same pattern. The choice has always been between the fear of God, which is the beginning of wisdom, and the fear of man, which brings a snare.
The Christian faith is not a retreat from this conflict. It is a direct confrontation with it. It is a declaration of war against the politics of fear. The gospel does not offer us a safer world, but rather a steadfast heart. It does not promise an absence of troubles, but rather the presence of God in the midst of them. This psalm, and these verses in particular, draw a line in the sand. It presents us with an absolute antithesis, a great and glorious divide. On one side is the entire apparatus of human power, prestige, and planning. On the other is Yahweh. And the psalmist, speaking by the Holy Spirit, tells us in no uncertain terms where our confidence must lie.
This is not a polite suggestion for the religiously inclined. This is the central axiom of reality. It is the hinge upon which a life of freedom or a life of slavery turns. And as we will see, this is a song that our Lord Jesus sang with His disciples just before He went out to face the greatest distress in the history of the world. If it was sufficient for Him then, it is more than sufficient for us now.
The Text
From my distress I called upon Yah;
Yah answered me and set me in a large place.
Yahweh is for me; I will not fear;
What can man do to me?
Yahweh is for me among those who help me;
Therefore I will look in triumph on those who hate me.
It is better to take refuge in Yahweh
Than to trust in man.
It is better to take refuge in Yahweh
Than to trust in nobles.
(Psalm 118:5-9 LSB)
From the Strait to the Broad Place (v. 5)
The psalmist begins by establishing the context of his testimony. This is not a song from an ivory tower; it is a song from the trenches.
"From my distress I called upon Yah; Yah answered me and set me in a large place." (Psalm 118:5)
The word for "distress" here carries the idea of a narrow, tight, or constricted place. It is the feeling of being cornered, hemmed in, with the walls closing in. This is the condition of man under the curse, and it is the experience of the saints when they are pressed by the world. It is the pressure of affliction, the constriction of anxiety, the tight spot of persecution. And what is the biblical response in such a place? It is not to scheme, not to despair, and not to compromise. The response is to call upon Yah.
He calls on the covenant name of God. This is not a generic appeal to a higher power. This is an appeal to the God who has made promises, the God who has bound Himself to His people by a covenant of grace. To call on Yah is to say, "Remember Your word to Your servant."
And the result is deliverance. "Yah answered me." God is not deaf. His ear is ever open to the cry of His people. And the nature of the answer is beautiful. He "set me in a large place." From the tight, constricted space of distress, God brings him out into a broad, open expanse. This is the essence of salvation. It is freedom. It is liberty. It is the removal of constraints. When God saves a man, He takes him from the prison cell of his sin and sets his feet in the wide-open country of His grace. He takes a church from the tight corner of persecution and gives her room to grow and breathe. This is the pattern: from the straits of Egypt to the breadth of the promised land, from the bondage of the law to the freedom of the gospel.
The Great Emancipation from Fear (v. 6-7)
This experience of deliverance leads to a bold and defiant declaration of faith. This is the logical conclusion of knowing that God answers prayer.
"Yahweh is for me; I will not fear; What can man do to me? Yahweh is for me among those who help me; Therefore I will look in triumph on those who hate me." (Psalm 118:6-7 LSB)
"Yahweh is for me." This is the foundational truth of the Christian life. It is the bedrock of our sanity in a mad world. This is what Paul echoes in Romans when he says, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31). The immediate consequence of grasping this reality is freedom from fear. "I will not fear." This is not a matter of temperament or psychological self-help. It is a theological conclusion. Fear is a form of atheism. To fear man is to believe that man is ultimate, that his threats are sovereign, that his power is decisive. To refuse to fear man is to confess that God is God.
The psalmist then asks the great rhetorical question: "What can man do to me?" Now, we must be clear-eyed about this. What can man do? He can do plenty. He can lie about you. He can cancel you. He can seize your property. He can imprison you. He can even kill you. The psalmist is not naive. But the point is that man cannot do anything ultimate to you. The worst thing man can do is kill your body, which only serves to usher you more quickly into the presence of the Lord. Man cannot kill your soul. He cannot separate you from the love of God in Christ. He cannot nullify the promises of Yahweh. His power is derivative, limited, and temporary. The writer to the Hebrews picks up this very line and tells us that it is something "we may boldly say" (Hebrews 13:6). This is our song now, purchased for us by Christ.
And God is not for us in some abstract, distant way. He is "for me among those who help me." God is not opposed to using means. He gives us friends, family, and brothers in the church. But He is the decisive helper among them. And because He is our help, the outcome is certain. We "will look in triumph on those who hate me." This is not a statement of personal vindictiveness. It is a statement of faith in God's justice and vindication. It is the confidence that in the end, God's cause will prevail, and those who belong to Him will share in His victory.
The Middle Verse of the Bible (v. 8-9)
The psalmist now distills his testimony into a sharp, proverbial principle. It is a fundamental choice, a basic orientation of the soul.
"It is better to take refuge in Yahweh Than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in Yahweh Than to trust in nobles." (Genesis 118:8-9 LSB)
It is a fascinating piece of providential trivia that verse 8 is the middle verse of the entire Bible. The central verse of the Word of God declares the central choice of the human heart: where will you place your trust? The whole story of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, pivots on this question. Will you trust the word of the Creator, or will you trust the word of a creature?
The contrast is absolute. It is "better" to take refuge in Yahweh. This is the greatest understatement in the world. It is like saying it is better to have open lungs than to be suffocating. To trust in man is to build your house on the sand. Man is frail, fickle, and finite. He is a liar, either by intent or by incompetence. He makes promises he cannot keep and offers securities he cannot provide. To trust in man is to guarantee disappointment.
But the psalmist gets more specific in verse 9. It is better to take refuge in Yahweh than to trust in "nobles." This is trust in man, but it is trust in man with a title, with a budget, with an army. This is trust in princes, presidents, prime ministers, and public health officials. This is trust in the system, in the institution, in the expert class. Our entire civilization is a massive, teetering monument to trust in nobles. We are taught from our youth to look to the state as our savior, our provider, and our protector. But the Bible tells us this is a fool's errand. Princes are just men in nicer suits. Their plans fail, their kingdoms fall, and they die just like everyone else. To trust in them is to lean on a broken reed.
To take refuge in Yahweh, by contrast, is to run into a strong tower. He is the one who cannot lie, cannot fail, and cannot be overthrown. To trust in Him is the definition of sanity.
Singing with Christ Before the Cross
This psalm is powerful on its own, but its full glory is seen when we realize who its ultimate singer is. The gospels tell us that after the Last Supper, Jesus and His disciples sang a hymn before going out to the Mount of Olives (Matthew 26:30). That hymn was almost certainly this Hallel psalm, Psalm 118.
Think of it. Our Lord, on the night of His betrayal, with the full weight of the cross before Him, sang these words. He was about to enter the ultimate "distress," the narrow place of divine wrath for our sin. He was about to be abandoned by man and condemned by nobles. And in the face of it all, He sang, "Yahweh is for me; I will not fear." He sang, "It is better to take refuge in Yahweh than to trust in man."
He lived out this psalm perfectly. He did not trust in Peter's sword, or in a legion of angels, or in Pilate's vacillating conscience. He trusted His Father. He called upon Yah from His distress on the cross, and Yah answered Him by raising Him from the dead and setting Him in the largest place imaginable: the throne of heaven.
Because He sang this song, and because He embodied this song, we can now truly sing it. Because we are united to Him by faith, His declaration is our declaration. His Father is our Father. His victory is our victory. When the world presses in, when the nobles rage, when fear comes knocking, we have a song to sing. It is the song of the King, who trusted God through the valley of the shadow and came out into the broad place of resurrection glory. Therefore, let us boldly say it, and boldly live it: Yahweh is for me. I will not fear.