Bible Commentaries
Psalms 11

Verses 1-7

And now in the last five Psalms of this series you have what might be likened to a little song book, a hymn book for the oppressed people of God in that dark day. Do you know why the people of Scotland love the Psalms so much? They learned to love them when they were being persecuted by those who sought to destroy the Scottish church; and when the Covenanters had to hide in the hills for their safety they sang these Psalms as fitting their exact circumstances, and how much they meant to them. There they were, driven out on the mountainside to hold their meetings for worship and for prayer and praise. It must have been a wonderful thing to hear a company of them lifting up their voices in one of these Psalms.

Suppose you were one of the remnant of Israel in the coming day and you have met with a few of His people while the agents of the antichrist are spying on you. How beautifully these Psalms would fit as you would lift up the heart to God. “In the Lord put I my trust: how say ye to my soul, Flee as a bird to your mountain?” Is it not strange that people would ever sing that old song, “Flee as a bird to your mountain”? It suggests that it is perfectly right to flee as a bird to your mountain, but that is not what David is telling us here. He says, “My trust is in the Lord-though the people may say, ‘Flee as a bird to your mountain,’ I will not do it; I will go to the Lord Himself for He is my refuge; He is my strength. I need to go to Him”-“for, lo, the wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string, that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart. If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? The Lord is in His holy temple, the Lord’s throne is in heaven: His eyes behold, His eyelids try, the children of men. The Lord trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence His soul hateth.” The wicked are looking on; they know that the day is near when the Lord will be manifested and, “Upon the wicked He shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup. For the righteous Lord loveth righteousness; His countenance doth behold the upright.”

All of these Psalms, up to Psalms 15:0, express the same thing, the suffering people, the afflicted people committing their cause to God and counting on Him to bring them through in triumph at last.