"Great expounder of the Bible, Leman Strauss, said of these books, "They are the greatest work on the Psalms since Spurgeon's Treasury of David." The outlines alone are a preacher's dream!

An excerpt from John Phillips' "Exploring The Psalms"

     From: Psalm 55

When Sorrows Like Sea Billows Roll

I. David’s Anguish (55:1-8)

- A. What David Felt (55:1-3)

    David felt what so many of us have felt when things which have overtaken us are largely the result of our own past follies.

1. Abandoned by God (55:1-2)

       “Give ear to my prayer, O God; and hide not Thyself from my supplication. Attend unto me, and hear me: I mourn in my complaint, and make a noise ?moan?.” It is a dreadful thing when the heavens seem as brass, when we have a lurking fear that our sins have separated us from God. David felt himself abandoned by God.

2. Abused by Men (55:3)

       “Because of the voice of the enemy, because of the oppression of the wicked.” The word translated “oppression” means “outcry” and occurs only at this place in the Bible. David was cornered by his circumstances; he could hear the approaching clamor of the hounds.

       The word translated “enemy” is also interesting. Rotherham renders it “lawless one,” a most illuminating word when applied to Absalom. It was Absalom, David’s beloved son, who was raising the outcry against David. Absalom wanted the kingdom and did not care whether or not his father was killed in the process. In fact, the death of David was essential to his plans.

       “The lawless one!” The title rings out again in the New Testament, only there it is a name for the beast, the devil’s messiah, the Anti christ, the man of sin. Again and again statements in this Psalm can be picked up, carried over the centuries to the last days, and put into the lips of the persecuted Jewish remnant during the reign of the lawless one. Doubtless that remnant will turn back to this Psalm for comfort and courage in the day of their fiery trial.

- B. What David Feared (55:4-5)

    “My heart is sore pained within me: and the terrors of death are fallen upon me. Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, and horror hath overwhelmed me.” “Sore pained” Rotherham renders “my heart continues writhing within me.” David is still haunted by the ghost of Uriah and by the horror of his past sin. He wonders when he will stop paying for those sinful days.

    The fact is that while God freely forgives us for the culpability of our sin, He nearly always lets us live with the consequences of sin. Everything now happening to David can be traced back step by step to his sin. The trouble with his kinsmen and the trouble with his kingdom were directly related to his sin. David himself had laid down the paving stones upon which the avenging troubles traveled. Nothing but divine intervention could prevent his sins from finding him out as a prince, just as they had found him out as a parent.

    Sin is a terrible thing. We think we’ll have just this one little fling. But it doesn’t end there. We set in motion the forces of the wind and we reap the whirlwind. We are going to see in this psalm how terrible was the whirlwind in David’s case. His whole world was crumbling around him.