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Rev. Alan J. Meenan
There are times when life is less than kind to us, sometimes shattering our hopes and allowing troubles to bombard our minds and leave the soul in doubt and despair. There are days when our happiness is put at risk and circumstances seem to dictate the force of our lives. It’s counter to all our hopes, dreams and plans. There are simply hard and difficult days that we all face from time to time. If in fact, that has ever been your experience, then this Psalm is the Psalm to speak to you. If that is not your experience, God bless you. It will be.
I believe there are words here that will encourage and inspire us to live above the level of mediocrity on a difficult day. One of the neat things about our text this morning is that it was written by a person who has been there and done that. In fact, the Psalm is introduced with the title A Psalm of David when he fled from his son Absalom. Verses 1 and 2 describe the dilemma that King David faced. He was driven from his kingdom, his heart was pierced because his son Absalom had sought to take the throne from his own father. He felt forsaken, alone, mocked and found himself hiding in the wilderness, away from the wonderful trappings of the palace courts. Absalom had done his best to win the popular support. The conspiracy against King David had grown strong and many were joining the rebellion against the King. Rarely do we think of this episode in David’s life, yet it was so real and so painful for him.
We read here in the very first verse, Oh Lord, how many of my foes. How many rise up against me? There are enough, he seems to indicate, that would overwhelm him. It wasn’t just Absalom was it? It was Ahithophel, his trusted counselor and dearest friend who turned his back on him. It was his generals. It was the soldiers in his own army that had raised up in mutinous rebellion against him. David knew that the armies that had swung over to Absalom were far superior to those whom he could muster at this eleventh hour. Never feel overwhelmed by problems. For if you have, you begin to touch the heartache of King David long ago. Not only was the conspiracy strong but his enemies were chiding him in verse 2. Many are saying of me; God will not deliver him. There you are. Don’t turn to God to get you out of this dilemma, David.
Here we have an exposition of practical atheism practiced by numerous Christian people. The basic belief or under girding was that God doesn’t really care about me or God must be angry with me. God is not able to help me, or I’m simply not worthy of his consideration or attention in my life. What I call practical atheism. First there is an attack that God has abandoned us, then the second attack is that we’re not worth his attention in the first place. So the encouragement is to give up faith, or to hold onto it so gently that it doesn’t become that real and intrusive in our life. Perhaps the most bitter of all afflictions, I would think, is to fear that there is no help for us in God when we come to the end of our tether and when we face our own personal dilemma, our own personal catastrophe. Some dream that has been taken from us, some ambition that seems beyond reach, something we have always longed for, something that we have always wanted. We realize that as the years pass, that they never will be realized, and we become embittered. We begin to retreat into our shell and believe that God really doesn’t care or he doesn’t have the ability to help us. Or worst of all, that we’re not worth being helped at all.
One catches that pathos as the Disciples made their way from Jerusalem to Emmaus after the crucifixion. A stranger came along side them, and they didn’t recognize that it was Jesus. He asked them, Why are your hearts so downcast? They turned to him and asked, Haven’t you heard? Where have you been? Jesus has been crucified. We hoped, we dreamed, we longed that perhaps he would be the one who would redeem Israel. We pinned all our hopes on him. Oh the awesome disappointment of it all.
The one thing I hasten to tell you is that David did not give up. Isn’t that good news? Look at the Psalm. What is the very first word? Oh Lord. So you see, even in the despair, David is calling up to God, giving his complaint to God, pouring out his soul to God. He is casting all his care upon God, saying, God, I am hurting. You see when adversity visits your soul, you have a choice: Either you turn away from God or you turn towards God. David turned towards God. He linked his finite resources with eternity. The good news is that he didn’t cry in vain. Because if you look at verse 4, you will discover that he says, Lord, I cry aloud. He answers me from his holy hill. His holy hill of course was Mt. Zion, the dwelling place of the Ark of the Covenant, a place of divine presence in the Old Testament. That Arksymbolized the presence of God, and it is where he reigned over his people. That’s where He sat as King over the world. It was the place of his sovereign majesty. So David speaks from the conviction of actual proven experience. I cried to the Lord and he answered me.
I want to say that far more impressive than the massive arguments of philosophers and the debates of those in theology, is a man or a woman with a holy, humble heart who simply states, He answered me. I’ve been through it all: years in university corridors and seminaries where I’ve listened to various debates of a philosophical and theological nature. There is nothing quite as wonderful as hearing a simple saint of God say, I cried to the Lord, and he answered. Let the philosophers debate God’s existence if they will. But as Jeremy Taylor once said, and said it so wonderfully, Prayer can put a holy restraint upon God and detain an angel till he leave a blessing; Prayer can open the treasures of rain and soften the iron ribs of rocks till they melt into tears and a flowing river; Prayer can unclasp the girdles of the north, saying to a mountain of ice, “Be thou removed hence and cast into the bottom of the sea;” Prayer can arrest the sun in the midst of its course and send the swift-winged winds upon our errand. Prayer is a mighty thing.
St. Augustin on one occasion told a story of a man in a boat throwing a rope at a rock. St. Augustin said, He throws the rope not with an idea of pulling the rock to the boat, but pulling the boat to the rock. So it is with prayer. In the midst of adversity, in the midst of the sea in the storms of life it is a good thing to throw a rope to a rock with the idea of pulling your boat to the rock. That confidence allows David now to move from the character of the adversaries to the character of God himself and away from the problem, towards God. That was the lesson that Peter also learned when he stepped out into the water. Oh look at me, I am walking on water, and he began to sink. As he began to sink, he was enveloped by the waves. He lifted his head and looked to Jesus and was saved. So here David turns his eyes to the greatness of God. Corri Ten Boom facing death for hiding Jews once said that in the depths of despair, God was deeper still.
Verse 3 is magnificent. It is one of the great verses of the Old Testament. You see his faith, his affirmation that is flung in the face of evil. This is the kind of faith that Christian men and women need to embrace more and more today. Not this continual anxious balancing of possibilities, not this vague hope that if we can hang on long enough that somehow someone will get us out of the dilemma. No, David said, You are my shield. You are my protector. The God that rules the heavens and the stars is the one who guards your soul. He is faithful, he is your shield, and with this shield he can defend and protect you from all the fiery darts of the evil one.
Imagine a picture of a shield that is five feet high which was used in those days. Indeed, if I were a soldier back in those days in Israel, I would be a tall soldier. Five feet pretty much covered the entire person. With an army of men with shields, the shields would be along the sides, back, front and top, so that the soldiers were protected before, behind, beside and above. That’s the picture that David has when he says, You God are a shield about me. You are also my glory. You are my victory. The Lord of Hosts who can command tens of thousands of angels comes to the aid of his child in need.
We sing that he could have sent ten thousand angels to deliver Christ from the Cross. So he could. Did not the little prophet Elisha find that to be true when he was opposed by the forces of King Ben Haddad? He was surrounded by such a great army. He said to the young water bearer, Lift your eyes. Lord open the man’s eyes that he might see. The water bearer saw beyond the armies of Ben Haddad and he saw the armies of the Lord and the chariots of fire. Elisha said, They who be for us are far greater than they that be for them. Let us remember in the midst of adversity. You are my glory. You are the lifter of my head.
When the head is lowered, it signifies shame while the lifting of the head, signifies the movement from despair to hope. When Absalom came to be received by his father earlier, he came with a bowed head in the hope that his father would allow him back into the kingdom. David, his father, went over to him and lifted him by the chin and kissed his son as his way of acceptance into the kingdom. Like me, probably when you were in high school if the teacher asked a particular question and you didn’t know the answer. Where did your head go? You were ashamed that you didn’t know the answer and you didn’t want to look the teacher in the eye in case he or she would ask you what the answer to the question was. With my luck, even with my head bowed, I was still picked. God is the one who lifts the head. David as he left Jerusalem is depicted as weeping, bare foot, with his head covered and his chin low. Here he says, Lord, you are the one. You are the only one who can lift my head. You are the only one who can give me hope in the midst of despair. So my beloved, will you remember when a sense of unworthiness becomes acute in your life, when you feel that you are simply not worth God’s time, energy or attention and that he really can’t possibly have any meaning for you that God is the only one who will lift your head and give you hope.
Then in the remaining part of the Psalm, we have the consequences of David’s cry. First you will see in verse 5, he was sustained in sleep. I lie down and sleep. I wake again because the Lord sustains me. It’s a sign of God’s peace. Beyond all the worrying, beyond all the dilemmas, when we are being beset by problems, difficulties and pain, what’s the first thing to go? It’s sleep. I’ve always said that I never have trouble falling asleep, much to the chagrin of my dear wife. My head hits the pillow and I am out. I tell her that it’s a sign of a clean conscience. But when I am disturbed, or perplexed, or facing some quandary in my life, not too much time passes when I fall asleep and when I wake up again. Then I am awake for the rest of the morning. Oh we know that sleep is one of the first things to go when we are troubled. So how then in the midst of the greatest calamity of his life is David able to say, I lie down and go to sleep and in the morning I wake up?
Let me tell you how. It’s a lesson I continue to learn myself. David takes the burden, problem, perplexity, difficulty and opposition and he says, Lord, it’s yours. I’m going to sleep. You can tell me what solution you come up with in the morning. He puts the problem into God’s hands. He knows that God doesn’t go to sleep. He neither slumbers nor sleeps. He who keeps Israel does not slumber or sleep. God had blessed him with a promise that angels would encamp around him as he closed his eyes for sleep. This is not pie in the sky by and by stuff, because the reality is that there is no indication in the text that the storm has ceased to rage. The storm is still battering itself away, but David is at peace.
You may have heard me say before that one of my ministerial colleagues in Texas used to have a little glass ornament on her desk. I loved that ornament. When I went into to talk with her, I would often just lift it up and look at it again and again. It simply said this: Sometimes God stills the storm and sometimes God stills his child and lets the storm rage. That’s what he did here with David. I remember getting a vivid illustration of that in Kesick, England many years ago when I was a teenager. I had just come to know Christ as my own personal Lord and Savior, and I had gone to this Christian convention. It was in the English Lake District, and it was the last night. They were sharing a communion meal with the 3,000 people packed into that huge tent, which they called the Canvas Cathedral. In true English fashion, there was a great storm raging with the wind was howling. The heavens had opened, and it was raining cats and dogs. It was making such a noise, and the canvas was flopping wildly all around us. Rain poured down upon the canvas. Yet within, a stillness and calmness as the cup and as the bread was passed from one saint to another. Thou dost keep him in perfect peace. Whose heart and mind is fixed on you. That’s one of the great advantages you have as a follower of Jesus Christ in a world of despair. You need not succumb to what the others embrace. Was it not so for Paul when he sat in a Roman dungeon waiting for Nero to end his life? He picked up his pen in the midst of that agony and he said, The peace of God is standing armed and sentinel over my heart and mind. Was Jesus not able to say as the Cross loomed before him in the Upper Room as he became luminous with radiant serenity, My peace, he said, I give you. Even though within a brief day he would be executed.
Do we not in the Church today need the God of David, Paul and Jesus? Who is able to lift us out of the dilemma and disappointments? We realize that we have something to live for in Christ. Call upon me in the day of trouble, he says, and I will answer you. But let me press on to verse 6. David declares here that he will not be afraid. I will not fear the tens of thousands drawn up against me on every side. I will not be afraid. I think this is marvelous. It isn’t that he has cut his brain off and thrown it away and said there wasn’t a problem. He was very aware that there was a problem. I would not insult you by suggesting that whatever you may be facing today is simply a non-entity. David faces up to the fact that there are tens of thousands of people mustering against him. So he doesn’t underestimate the problem. He faces it full in the face. But regardless of what the enemy might muster, he knows that God will be victorious.
One of my favorite stories in the Old Testament is that of King Asa on the eve of battle before the Ethiopians. One million of them gathered against the men of Israel and they were outnumbered twenty to one. There was no way they could extricate themselves. There they were waiting for the sunrise and the inevitable death that was facing them. Thinking about their families back in the Judean hills that they would never see again, warming their hands by the fire, shivering with fear in the cold and wondering, Where is King Asa? Should he not be here to muster the army? Should he not be here to utter a word of encouragement to our drooping hearts? Does he not realize that his enemy is beyond us and will be overwhelmed and killed? The chronicler tells us that King Asa was in his tent. He was lying prostrate before the Lord, praying. Lord, I am resting on you, he said. It is in your name that I am going against this great multitude.
What a prayer. What a confidence. What a knowledge that even against a million, God could be victorious. Do I need to tell you who won that battle? Or could you guess? You want to look it up and read the fantastic story of how the Ethiopians were routed. They ran for their lives because God was victorious. So David here is facing his problems, as you face your problems. David gets ready for the battle. Arise oh Lord, deliver me oh my God it says in verse 7. Isn’t it interesting that all he says is arise oh Lord? That’s all it’s going to take. All it’s going to take is for God to stand up. That’s it. God if you will only stand up it will be all right. Will you stand up with God?
Well God wants to stand up for you, my beloved. Ask him. Deliver me oh my God. Remember back in verse 2 when the skeptic said that God isn’t going to deliver him, but David cries, Deliver me. Deliver me oh God. My friend had a 3-year old girl, Catlin. He had been teaching her the Lord’s Prayer on several evenings before she went to bed. She would repeat the lines and he was getting very proud of his daughter. So the final night came when she had to say the whole thing on her own. My friend listened with great pride as she enunciated every word. Right up to the end of the prayer, Lead us not into temptation, she said. But deliver us some e-mail. David cries for deliverance from all that would bring him down. Paul reminds us that we wrestle not against flesh and blood. But if you belong to Jesus Christ, you wrestle against principalities, powers and rulers of the darkness of this world. Against spiritual wickedness in high places.
Martin Luther knew something about that when he penned the words: And though this world with devils filled threatened to undo us, we will not fear for God hath willed his truth to triumph through us. Do let us believe our faith. For in this story of David as he copes with fear, he recognizes that fear came knocking at the door. Faith opened the door and no one was there. When you are facing your fears, when fear comes knocking at your door, send faith to open it. You will find when you do, that no one knocking was there.
So David ends the Psalm by declaring God is King. He is, you know. Salvation belongs only and ultimately to him. He will never withdraw his grace or his blessing from anyone who puts their trust in him. Will you do that this morning? Whether you have been walking with him for fifty years or whether you have never had the opportunity to walk with him at all. I offer you Jesus Christ as one to trust. To love and to have confidence in. He is a shield. A glory and the lifter of your head.