Psalms 3:3-4

Psalm 3 Verse Did I say two? I thought I said three. Psalm 3, I’m going to read and then we’ll be looking at verses 3 and 4. A Psalm of David when he fled from Absalom his son. Lord, how are they increased that trouble me? Many are they that rise up against me. Many there be which say of my soul there is no help for him in God. But thou, O Lord, art a shield for me, my glory, and the lifter up of mine head. I cried under the Lord with my voice, and he heard me out of his whole yield. Celia, I laid me down and slept. I awakened for the Lord sustained me. I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people that have set themselves against me roundabout. Arise, O Lord. Lord save me, oh my God. For thou hast smitten all mine enemies upon the cheekbone. Thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly. Salvation belongeth under the Lord. Thy blessing is upon thy people, Celia. God blessed to us His sacred and holy word this morning. A man named Jim happened to be walking down the street when he met his minister. And they entered into a conversation, and he confessed to the minister that he was having some struggles with his faith. Jim said he had endured so many troubles and problems during that year that he was at his wits end. He didn’t know what to do. Perhaps you’ve had one of those years where it was a financial disaster or a car accident. accident or physical injury or ailment of some nature or death of a loved one or irritating neighbor, whatever the case may be. In any rate, troubled Jim wound up his conversation by saying to his minister, I tell you right now, it’s enough to make a man lose his religion. The minister looked at him rather quietly and replied, Jim, it’s enough to make a man use his religion. In Psalm 3, David relates the troublous times that he is enduring. The preface of the Psalm gives us the historical context of the Psalm itself and of the trouble that David was undergoing. There was great grief in his life because his beloved son, Absalom, was attempting to steal the kingdom from him and kill him. I mean, kill him. And we mentioned sometimes. your children can be a source of great grief. It was a time of great chastening. The reason for the trouble with Absalon, you’ll recall, we mentioned, can be traced back directly to David’s sin with Bashiba, that the sword would never depart from his house. Troubles can come as a chastening from the Lord. And then it was a time of great danger. The mass of rebellion against David that’s mentioned in verse 1 indicates to us the potency of the enemy. The conspiracy was strong. David’s forces were outnumbered. He had to flee from Jerusalem in order to save his life. Ahythrafel, his noted counselor, the one he leaned on. had deserted him and joined up forces with Absalom. It’s an evil world in which we live. We talked about the many enemies we face, and not all of them of the military variety. We mentioned the spiritual enemies of the world, the flesh, the devil. Many things beset us and trouble us. It was a time of great provocation. You’ll notice in verse 2, either God has abandoned you or the ideas that God cannot or is unable to help you. It’s enough to shake your faith to have people say these things. In other words, all is lost and there’s no hope for you in God. You should simply just cast aside your faith, David, there’s no way you’re going to survive this. Is that what we should do? Is that what David did in this particular Psalm? I think it’s important that we do exactly as David did here. So we talked about troublous times. Now I want to talk about your response. The troubled times here. In verse three, here’s what we read. The bow of the Lord are to shield for me. my glory and the lifter up of mine head. What does the idea of God being a shield suggest to you? What kind of scene is being portrayed here for us? And what’s the idea of God being a shield? God is our protector, and we have the idea of him being in battle, right? He’s talking about the multitude against him. We’re talking about the enemy. And so he has a military aspect. to this and he’s saying that God is his shield. We place our hope in God for protection. Divine grace can give you the victory in the worst of times. Now a shield was a piece of defensive armor. Often these shields were large. Sometimes they were small shields, you know, for people who wield the sword in battle, they have smaller shields many times. But the shield of Goliath, remember, was carried by another person. This was probably very common because some of the shields were large enough to cover your whole body. And so you read about people having armor bears, and a lot of time they would carry their shield or some of their weapons with them. Abimelech had an armored bearer. David once filled that role for King Saul. As far as we know, the shield would be more. than any other piece of armor as far as weight, require perhaps the help of another person. Hence, we see the beauty here of the figure. That God is the one who’s being our shield. He’s going to protect us. And let’s look at this as a large shield that will protect all of us, all around us, a complete defense. In fact, the word here the phrase that is used here, thou art a shield for me, can be around me or about me so we have the idea of complete protection. He covers you in the day of battle. He protects and defends you. Now, this isn’t just true for David, because remember what God said to Abraham. I am, fear not, I am thy shield. So he, I said that in Genesis 15.1. God is both willing and able to protect his people. You know, one day, I was at the gym, and I was on the treadmill, and I happened to be looking at the big front window, and there was a moth that was inside the gym. And the moth went to the light of the window, was trying to get out. Well, there was a bird that happened to be on the outside of the wind. And he is pecking at that moth trying to get the moth. And the moth is jumping up and down on the window, and the bird is jumping all over the place trying to get him. Can I imagine the moth is, you know, frightened at his wits end, trying to get out of the way of this bird, and the bird is trying his best to get the moth. It wasn’t going to happen. It was a piece of glass between them. I’m looking at that, and I thought, you know, that’s how God sometimes protects us. We’re out there, and it looks like it’s really bad, but actually, God’s got his shield up around us, and he’s protecting us, so as frightening as the situation may be, he keeps us from being harmed. This is the idea, I think, that David would have us grasp from this particular praise here about God being the shield. What does God being my glory should suggest to you here? Any thoughts on that? I think we have the idea that confidence is in God. Yeah, he can’t be trusting in himself. And victory isn’t in his hands. It’s in God’s hand. So that he’s giving God the honor in this situation, knowing that God would deliver him and protect him and give him the victory ultimately. But yeah, I think that’s the idea, that he’s glorifying the Lord in this situation. If you gaze too long at your enemy, they seem, you know, it seems to get worse and worse, you know, the bigger and badder, and it’s just, you know, it’s really bad. It gets darker and darker. The odds are overwhelming. However, when you turn your thoughts to God being your shield and protector, now your enemy shrink to a manageable proportion, and now you really, there can be victory that God can enable you to overcome your enemy. So David shifts his focus here away from his enemies to God, and when he does that, he sees there’s victory on the horizon. The Lord is on his side. The word glory here actually means heavy. And soldiers usually go into battle light, but when they’re going to battle light, but when they win the victory, they come back heavy from all the loot and all the spoils that they pick up. Well, in this battle, the spoil, the glory is God’s. God’s going to give him the victory. And so God is giving David assurance he’s going to win. He’s going to come out ahead because the Lord is on his side. Here’s a lesson to us. In the most desperate situations we find ourselves, we can draw confidence in God that he can overcome this situation. You remember when Israel was about to enter into the promised land, they sent out the 12 spies to check out the land to see what was like, to see, bring back some of the crops, you know, the fruit and so forth of the grain or something, to see, you know, what was being produced there. Sort of just get an eye for what was going on. Well, 10 of the spies came back and they were completely overwhelmed. They came back and said, oh, boy, this is not good. The strength and the stature of the enemy is great. Why they got fortified walls there. They got cities that are just, you know, with walls up to the heavens. There’s giants in the land. We can’t do it. We might as to turn back now. There’s no sense in going forward. They were fright about the sons of Anac and so forth. He said, we are not able to go against the people, for they are stronger than we. All the people that we saw in it are men of great stature. And we saw giants, the sons of Anak. And we were in our own site as grasshoppers. So we were in their site. Now, two of the spies, Caleb and Joshua, said, wait a minute. We can overcome the enemy. We can win. Let’s go up at once and possess it. We’re able to overcome it. What was the difference between these two things? Well, the ten spies were only looking at the negative side. the, you know, they got walls up to the heavens. They got these giants in the land. We’re never going to win. Whereas Joshua and Caleb were looking at God. God is able to give us the victory. Well, he’ll enable us to overcome it. And so they said this. If the Lord delight in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us. That’s what they said. So they’re saying, well, yeah, okay, it’s going to be difficult, but God’s on our side. You see, this is the idea we have to, when we look at all the difficulties in life, we have to come from this perspective, as bad as they are, as difficult as they are. We have to look at our God who’s greater and almighty, and it can overcome him. He is our glory. He’s going to give us the victory. This is always the case. And so with the Lord, nothing is impossible. The third thing here is this. What does the phrase, the lifter up of mine head, suggests to you? Why would it need lift it lift it up? If we’re downcast, if everything looks bad, your heads, you’re down, or in this case, he’s running from Absalon and he’s exhausted, as you mentioned. In other words, he’s at his wit’s at. Everything looks bad. Everything looks like it’s going to be lost. But if you place your hope in God, God lifts you up. He restores your joy. When shame or dejection or weariness comes, you become crestful, your head droops. David’s head was lowered in shame and sorrow over Absalom’s rebellion. How difficult it had to be that your own son would turn against you. How difficult it must be because you look at the situation and say, well, I brought this on myself because of my own sin with Bashsheba. There’s a lot to be shamed about here. But now he’s seen that God is his shield. He’s looking to God confidently. He’s going to give him the victory. And so he’s seen. his head is lifted up. And I think that’s the idea that we find here in this text of scripture. When our spirits are crushed and we look to God, he’s able to lift us up. If you read the Psalms, there’s a lot times they start out pretty bad. But as he thinks about God and he thinks about how God can, his attributes and so forth, and how God can give him the victory. At the end of the Psalm, he’s praising God. He’s back to where he should be. In other words, his joyous restored, his confidence is built up, back up again, because he’s looked to his Lord. In Luke chapter 21, we read these words. When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, lift up your heads for your redemption, your deliverance, draweth not. When God’s people are persecuted, when they’re being mistreated, the idea is God’s going to give us the victory. Lift up your head. Don’t be down. God’s going to overcome the enemy. He lifts up your head. So there’s lifting up in honor after shame, in health, after sickness, in gladness, after sorrow, after sorrow, in restoration after a fall, in victory, after defeat. So the first thing is, place your hope in God. That seems to be really important. That’s the key. And then verse four, we see something else. I cried under the Lord with my voice, and he heard me out of his holy hill, Sila. First, David is consumed with fear because of his enemies, in verses one and two, and what they said. Then his mind is drawn toward God. in verse 3. Now, what flows out of that? What does he do next? He prays. Right? This should be ever the way for us as believers. And when we get something happens, we should look to our God and we should seek the Lord’s help. And that’s what he does here in seeking prayer here. And this is what we find. When troubles, come, it brings us to our knees. It brings us to seek the Lord who can help us in our time of difficulty. Sometimes, the agony in which you find yourself attempting to pray keeps you from uttering the words properly. But you’ll notice he says here, he cried under the Lord with his voice here. It was a, he spoke out loud. He prayed aloud. It was audible, it seems. Now God, it’s true that God hears our silent prayers, but the intensity of the moment brought him to speak aloud here. I often find in the circumstances in which I find myself, there are times we have to cry out to the Lord. We have to be audible. In fact, I think sometimes audible prayers keep our focus better when we’re praying. Not that we can’t pray silently, But sometimes I think it’s good to audibleize the word, you know, to speak the words aloud. The Bible says be careful for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving, let your request be made known unto God. Look at the, look at prayer in the scripture and how many times God’s people have prayed. I see, you know, prayer, you know, shuts the mouth of lions. you know, prayer makes the heavens brass. Prayer also brings rain down upon the earth, and both in Elijah’s time. Prayer has mellowed the heart of the vengeful. Look at Jacob wrestling all night, praying about Esau, who’s coming, you know, with 400 men, and so forth. Prayer has moved powerful kings, the aid, the cause of God. We see Nehemiah lifting up a prayer in Nehemiah chapter 1 before the king, because he’s burdened about the destruction of Jerusalem and the walls are broken down and he prays and God answers his prayer and allows him to go back and build the walls. Prayer causes the sun to stand still in Joshua’s day. Prayer delivers a man from prison. And you remember Peter was delivered. The prayers of the saints. He prayed for him while he was in prison and God sent an angel and deliver him. We go on and on and on. But prayer has healed the sick. and so forth. Use the resource that God has given you. In the time of trouble, call out to the Lord. What do you think he means when he talks about the Holy Hill here? God’s Holy Hill. There’s two thoughts on this idea. What do you think he means by the Holy Hill here? Keith? Being driven out of Jerusalem. The temple wasn’t there. What was there? The ark was there. And the Ark is representative of God’s presence, right? So some look at this as the ark, as the representative of God’s presence on the Holy Hill of Zion. Some look at the Holy Hill as more in a spiritual light in heaven itself as being high above us and so forth. Either way, we’re still addressing God in both cases here. What’s the thing? is the word Celamine? I told you last week, Zoom. Hopefully you remember. What does it mean? Yes, Russell. Yeah. So here’s another pause. So I’ll meditate upon this. This idea. That he look at the help he’s finding in God and the means by which he’s doing that is crying on the Lord. And how does he show his is faith in verse 4 here? does he expect? What does he has happened? God is heard him. Now, when we use the word heard, we have to understand this properly. It’s true that God hears everything. It’s not that he doesn’t hear it audibly, so to speak. When we pray, he hears what everybody says. Let’s put it that way. So he hears it. But here is used in the sense of heat. He heats. He responds to. We read about the wicked that God will not hear their prayer. It’s not that he didn’t hear what they said, but he’s not responding favorably to their prayer. And so when he says he’s heard me, the idea is he has confidence that God is going to respond and give him to victory. He’s going to answer the prayer. And he will have confidence that the Lord will help him. There was a seminary that was found in 1924. It was at the point of bankruptcy. and they ran into trouble because 1929 came along and the Great Depression and funds, you know, drying up and they didn’t have the money. And all the creditors were going to foreclose at noon on a particular day. That morning, the founders of the school met in the president’s office to pray that God would somehow provide. Well, during the prayer meeting, one of the men prayed in unusual manner. He said, Lord, we know that the cattle on a thousand hills are thine. Please sell some of them and send in the money. Well, while the men were praying, there was a tall Texan that arrived in the business office of the school, the seminary. He said, I just sold two carloads of cattle in Fort Worth, and I feel that God would want me to give you the money. to help out the seminary. I know that times are tough. As the secretary took the check and rushed to the door where the prayer meeting was taking place and knocked quietly on the door. The president was the one that answered the door and she handed him the check. He looked at the check and realized how much money it was. It would cover the debt that they owed. He looked at the signature check and recognized the name on it. and he said, Harry, God sold the cattle. And God encourage us as we go through this life to realize that he can do things that are like that and help us in our time of knee and have confidence when we pray. You know, poor Jim said, I tell you right now, it’s enough to make a man lose his religion when he has all these troubles. and the pastor said to him, no, it’s enough to make a man use his religion. We had to use what God has given us, the faith he’s given us. Now, last week, we closed out by looking at Christ in this Psalm, and I’d like to do that here as well. Last week, as we looked at verses 1 and 2, we tried to show how this Psalm, first of all, relates to Christ in the idea of a, he faced a rebellious Israel as the true king of the nation. He faced a great multitude of enemies on every side. That his greatest suffering was due to the sin that he bore, not because he personally sin, but because he took the sin of his people upon him. And then lastly, we said his enemies told him he had no hope in God. as he hung upon the cross, Matthew 2743. They ridiculed him with a very same kind of language that we see here in this song. Now, how was the Father Christ’s shield? Can you think of a way that God the Father was Christ shield when he was on this earth? He would always say, it’s, it’s, how do he put that? my hour had not come, or his hour had not come yet. It was not time, right? We think of Herod and how he tried to kill Christ. There’s a lot of things that we can look at, but there’s a sense in which we know that God was a shield for Christ in this. And nobody could touch him as the God man until it was time for him to die. How was the Father Christ’s glory? Yes. In John 17, what does he pray about? The very first part of the Psalm. Does anybody remember? Yes. A restoration of the glory that he once had. He’s looking forward to it. He’s going to be restored to the things that he’s set aside. He’s going to be given, and he will have all the glory. He’s sort of hidden. and his human flesh here. But all that glory will be granted him, and he will sit at the right hand of the Father and high, as we know, as the God man now. How is the Father the one who lifts up Christ’s head? Let me give you a suggestion. Remember Pharaoh’s cup bearer and he ends up in prison, when Joseph interprets his dream as well as the Baker’s dream, one of the things that we read in there is, yet within three days, shall Pharaoh lift up thine head and restore thee under thy place. You’ve got to take you out of prison, and you’re going to get back your same position and circumstances as before. What might that prefigure with regard? I know, how can we look at this text here and see something? something about Christ in this. Right, right. We could see him, in a sense, his head is lifted up in the sense of resurrection, and also in the sense of, we mentioned, the return of the glory, restoration of the glory. So I think that comes through here. The hope of the resurrection is sort of prefigured in a way by the triumphant and happen. return of David to Jerusalem after defeat of Absalom’s mighty forces. Restoration to what he had before. What about this idea of crying under the Lord and he heard me? We read in the book of Hebrews about Christ prayers, 5, 7, 8, that he, who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death and was heard and that he feared. We can apply, I think, this idea to Christ. Remember what Jesus said when he went to resurrect Lazarus from the dead in John Chapter 11? As they rolled away the stone, he prays. But what does he say about it? Yes, sir. Yeah. You always hear me, but I said it for the sake of the people. that are listening that they might realize who I am and my position you’ve given me. The Lord always hears the prayers of Christ. And so he heard, any other thoughts on this? These are the thoughts that came to my mind on him. Yes. That’s right. Whatever he prays about, it’s going to be answered. That’s right. It’s effectual. Any other thoughts then as we close? Yes, Keith. It seems like that’s a sense of it. I’m reminded, I think it’s Isaiah 42, if I’m not mistaken, where God says about his servant, my servant shall not fail. Christ as the mediator would not fail. And that’s, there’s no question about, no one’s going to kill him, no one’s going to harm him, no one’s going to be able to prevent the victory that Christ is going to bring. The father is making sure that occurs. And so he will have the victory. So in all these things,