Psalm 28

Speaker 1: Amen. I had a good time meeting with our teenagers this afternoon. We enjoyed a good time of fellowship and stuffed crust pizza. So, you know, theology. Pizza. Same time. How can you go wrong? In here. Oh, admissions. And thought about that. Yeah. You want pizza the next day? Okay. All right. So, visions committee pizza next meeting. Little Caesars. Okay. That's all I gave the names. Okay, good. All right. But yeah, we talked about the in Time's timeline and that was really fun. They had some good questions and I enjoyed being able to spend that time with them. Take your Bibles. If you haven't turned to Psalm 90, Psalm 28, you'll hear me okay. Okay. Because. It's already hot up here. I really don't want to be trying to struggle to get you to hear me on top of that, that's just going to. I would like to come in for the gym. It's warm in here. You're. You're still awake. I know. Here in a few minutes, I might. Fix that. They're doing good so far. Oh, thank you. Mystery. I'm 28 is where we're going to be tonight as you find your place, if you don't mind standing in honor of reading God's word. We're going to need versus one through nine and get into the message here tonight. Bible says unto thee, will I cry? Oh, Lord, my rock, be not silent to me, lest I'll be silent to me. I become like them. They go down into the pit, hear the voice of my supplications. When I cry unto the. When I lift up my hands toward thy holy oracle. Draw me not away with the wicked, with the workers of iniquity, which speak peace to their neighbors. But mischief is in their hearts. Give them according to their deeds and according to the wickedness of their endeavors. Give them, after the work of their hands. Render to their desert. Desert. Because they regard not the works of the Lord nor the operation of his hands. He shall destroy them and not build them up. Blessed be the Lord because the hath heard the voice of my supplications. The Lord is my strength and my shield. My heart trusted in Him and I am helped. Therefore, my heart greatly rejoices with my song. Will I praise him? The Lord is their strength. He is the saving strength of His anointed. Save thy people and blessed thine inheritance. Be them also, and lift them up forever. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day. Thank you for the opportunity. We have to look into your word together here tonight. If you give me the words, you'd have me to say. The folks that are here to listen apply with you here to their lives. It's in Jesus name. I pray. Amen. Thank may be seated. All right. How many of you have ever. Felt like. You were betrayed. I mean, if you have ever felt like someone has stabbed you in the back. How many of you, the person or people that did that to you? It was someone that you thought was a close, trusted person. That's a hard thing to go through, isn't it? Do you think that would qualify as a storm in your life? A trial. Absolutely. David is here writing and. It is obvious from the words, especially in the first five verses, that David is dealing with betrayal. David is dealing with someone close to him that has hurt him, that has caused him harm, wounded him, betrayed him. And he's really he doesn't know what to do. Now. He's he's calling out to God in desperation for help. If we look at our three different perspectives from which David wrote, he is most definitely in the middle. He is in a storm. And so in verse number one, David cries unto the Lord. And we hear a certain level of desperation in his voice. He is calling out, begging God to respond to his cry. I tell a lot of stories on my brothers, but when you have three brothers, there's a lot of stories. So for a while we had a Great Dane. We went from a Chihuahua to a Great Dane because we don't do anything in the middle. We just go from one extreme to the other. The Great Dane, her name was BlueBell because obviously BlueBell ice cream. Yeah. And she was also a blue color. So anyways, but BlueBell, she was pretty cool. I mean, she ate hydrangeas and her face broke out like a teenager. But, you know, she she was cool and she was very protective. And, of course, she was huge, but she thought she was a puppy. She always thought she was like the Chihuahua, but she wasn't. She was this giant, hulking horse that was running around our house. Well, BlueBell took a particular liking to my brother, Myka. Myka, as you know. Just so hurtful to me. I'm scared. He's fine. But me and Michael, we'd wrestle like brothers do. And we would. We would wrestle, and we would fight in the room or in the living room or outside. And, you know, I'm basically a ninja, so it wasn't long before I would usually be the one to be winning. Well, then Michael, urn, he could call out for help. Hey. Go. Help. Help! BlueBell! And you hear what of all but a whole lot of them as this thing galloped into wherever we were and BlueBell would come and she'd stick. That broke out nose all right in the middle of us and start pushing me off of Micah. And he knew he could call to this dog for help and she would come running to help him. David is calling out to God for help and he is desperate for his cry to be heard and responded to. He says, Oh Lord, my rock, be not silent to me. He sees God as his stability. He sees God and as his protection. But David is concerned that God would not respond to him in his moment of need. He says, if they'll be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit. The pit refers to a trap that would be laid by enemies. We'll see David's enemies here in a moment. But there was a certain way of hunting that that hunters would partake in back in this time. And they would use what was called a kite, not like a kite that you fly in the air, but it was a wall or a fence or some kind of barrier that they would build, and they would start off with a really wide mouth. And then as it went, it would get closer and closer together until it would force the animals into a concentrated area, and they would dig pits all in that area so that the animals would fall in and become trapped. Then the hunters could come in. They could spirit or shoot it, or whatever the case may be. And that's how they would get their their food for their families or for their for their village. And so David is calling out to the God, if we can kind of picture this. David is on the run. David's running. He knows he's being pursued. He is knows. He knows he's being chased. And he says, God, I need your help less. I end up like one of those animals falling in the pit. It says, if I fall in, then that's it. There's no help for me. And so David, here in verse number two, continues this cry by saying, Lord, hear the voice of my supplications when I cry into the when I lift up my hands toward thy holy oracle. David illustrates the neediness of his position by the lifting of his hands. If you've ever been around children, you know, when they when they want something, when they need something, they want you to pick them up. Well, how do they how do they motion for that before they can even talk? They lift their hands up for you to reach down and pull them up and hold them close to you. David is here. He's a capable soldier, isn't he? I mean, he stood against Goliath. He stood against the Philistines. I mean, he's a great soldier. He's a leader of. Of of men and people. He's very capable. David is the kind of guy that just makes you sick. He's just good at everything, you know? He's good at getting all of the girls to like him. He's good at music. He's good at writing. He's good at fighting. Everything. David's got all of it going for him. But what is the posture that David takes when he's coming to the Lord? It's helplessness, a posture of neediness. It says, Lord, I need you. My hands are lifted up to your holy oracle. One of the commentators said that this is most likely a a reference to the holy of holies, the dwelling of God. He says, God, I am lifting my hands up to where you are because I need you to pull me up out of this this struggle. I'll be the one that falls into the pit. David takes the posture of a child. David seeks to express his desire for God to notice him, even in today's classroom. How does a child get their teacher to notice them? They raised their hands. No matter what your skills, abilities or talents you like, David, never get to the place where we. You do not need God. The moment we start to think, I've got this handled, I've got this covered. That's when we're in danger. No. What's interesting about that Kate way of hunting. The hunter really doesn't have to be as fast as the prey. He doesn't have to be as strong as the prey. He really does really have to get close to the prey. He just has to keep the prey moving. And so he's back there making noise, driving them forward. Perhaps the animal gets far off and he stops hearing the noise. The animal starts to relax like, you know what? I've done it safe. I've outrun my enemy. I was too fast for him. He. He left me alone because he knew I was too strong for him. So the animal keeps on walking forward before he knows it. Fall straight into the pit. The hunter prepared for it. David says, Lord, I need you or I'm going to end up in that pit. Just like that animal. David's posture drives home the idea. That David needs God. David we see in verse number three dealing with a situation of conflict that stems from the obvious betrayal of someone that was close to him. David says, draw me. Not away with the wicked and with the workers of iniquity. Draw me another way. You've no doubt heard some of this stuff about how they would gather up grain in those days and how they would harvest their wheat, how they'd come around and they'd they'd scoop up a big thing of wheat, and they take that sickle and they cut it off and then they'd carry it away. Already gathered up there, drawing all of it together, and they're there harvesting it. David says, Lord, please don't, don't gather me up with the wicked when you come to extract your judgment. Why would David be concerned about that unless the wicked are close by to him? I mean, they're near there, right in the midst of his social circle. I mean, they are close to him. And so David knows that God is just David knows that God judges wickedness. David is saying, Lord, I don't want to get caught up with the ones who are doing wrong. See, this helps us to understand how close the evil doers were to David. Have you ever heard the phrase guilty by association? Just being there, though, you maybe didn't do anything. You get in trouble, too. And one of my teenagers that got mixed up with the wrong crowd and got to the point in his life where he was dealing drugs. And one of those deals went bad. And so the guy pulled out a knife. He pulled out a gun, shot the guy in the stomach. Thankfully, the guy didn't die. So this this young man he only had to go to prison for I believe was five or six years, but he had a friend with him that was there that night at that 7-Eleven. That guy, though, he didn't have a gun and no, he didn't pull the trigger. That guy went to jail to. Since he was president. He was an associate. But he didn't pull the trigger. Didn't matter. David says, Lord, I don't want to be mixed up in these ones that are doing wickedly and face your judgment when you come to extract your judgment and justice upon them. See, David says version of a three. That these people, these workers of iniquity. They speak peace to their neighbors. But mischief is in their hearts. These people who have hurt him. We're not the people that he expected to hurt. These people that betrayed him were not the ones he thought would betray him because they were neighbors. They were close associates of each other and to his face, they were speaking peace. Hey, David. We really like you, David. We are for you. David. We're right there with you, man. David, whatever you need, you just let us know. But in their hearts, David says they had mischief towards him. On one hand, they speak peace, but on the other hand, they have ill intent. For David. Now when you read verses four and five. We might be tempted to think, Wow. He was being really harsh towards these people. I mean, the way David prays to God and what David asks God to do to them. I mean, it's it's pretty graphic and violent. We have to remember, David is hurting. David has been betrayed. And so David is praying to God, asking that God would recompense his enemies based on the way they've treated him. Look at what he says. He says, give them according to their deeds and according to the wickedness of their endeavors. Give them after the work of their hands, render to them their desert. That word dessert there. I almost said dessert when I was reading it. But it just means give them what they deserve. The desert deserved. Those words are connected. Because they regard not the works of the Lord and or the operation of his hands. He shall destroy them and not build them up. David's in pain, and so he goes to the one that loves him more than anyone else. And he says, Lord, you see the pain that has brought been brought upon me. You know how much I am hurting because of what these people who I. I thought were my neighbors, I thought were my friends. You see what they've done to me, Lord. Reward them accordingly. Can we pray like that? Is it okay for us to pray those ways? We ask you this? Just because you prayed, it doesn't mean God is obligated to fulfill it. Oh. What do we say this morning? About our prayers to God. Are they supposed to be these robotic formulas that we follow through? Because that's what we're supposed to do. Is God not big enough that we could pray to him even in our weakness and in our pain and express our hearts. The present state of our heart. And trust that God knows best. And then God already has a plan for justice to be. Served. That we don't have to be the ones to see it through. I think God's big enough that we can pray to him like this and trust that God knows best, and that God will show mercy and God will reward He'll He'll allow reaping to take place where seeds have been sown. He's perfectly capable of handling that no matter what you and I say. Really. You know, when we're looking at David as he's there in his pain, it is understandable that he would have these prefatory thoughts of justice being served on his enemies. This morning. You also remember that we said when we spend time with God in prayer, silence and solitude, which I believe the sweet psalmist of Israel probably took a lot of time with the Lord. We start to learn more about him. We start to understand how he is in a better way. We get a clearer view of him. David. Inverse number six has a change in tone that is rather severe. It's very sharp. The turn that he makes. They think it's funny when somebody says, Hey, then they were headed down the wrong path. Then God got a hold of them. They did a full 360. What does that mean? David's here and. Verse number five to verse number six seems to be very different. There's no three six here. It's a 180. He goes the opposite direction. So this change is so is so sharp, so intense that some commentators struggle to offer an explanation as to how this could be. Some say that that perhaps there was a significant amount of time that separated verse five from verse six. You know, David wrote verse one through five, maybe in his diary or something like that. And then a long time passed and years later, David came back thinking about this, and he wrote verses six through nine. I'm sure that's possible. Maybe it was many years later and David had a change of heart and mellowed out a little bit. Some even say that perhaps verse number six is a whole different person. You know, I mean, I'm sure you've listened to some songs that have more than one singer. You know, somebody says, Don't go breaking my heart. The other person answers, says, I won't go breaking your heart. And they just go back and forth. You know, so so some songs are like that to different people speaking. I don't think that's what this is. I don't really think it's like, you know, this super long gap in between versus number five and versus number six. What I think we're seeing playing out here is exactly what we talked about this morning, where David is spending time meditating on God or writing out the sincere desires of his heart. And as he communes in the presence of the Lord, God starts to change him. God starts to change David's attitude based on what David realizes about God. You see, He goes from verse number one where he says, Lord, be not silent to me, to verse number six. Blessed be the Lord. Because He has heard the voice of my supplications. So he goes from God. If you don't answer me, I'm going to end up in the pit that's been dug for me to blessed be the Lord. Because He heard. David, I believe, spent some time solitude and silence with God. And through this communion, he got to know God better. So he rejoices with confidence that God has heard His prayer. Blessed be the Lord. He has heard the voice of my supplications. He goes on and starts to rejoice over a couple of different aspects of God's relationship to Him. These are all things that David learns about who God is and who how God relates to his people. And this influences or informs David's response to those that have hurt him. You see, we're going to see in just a moment that when David got a good view of who God was, he got his eyes off of himself, off of the hurt that had been caused him off of his situation and on the Lord. And eventually on others. The first thing we see is that he rejoices. Verse number seven in the fact that God has protected him. The Lord is my strength and my shield. My heart trusted in him and I am helped. The first thing is that God is his shield. You know, sometimes we trust men to be our shield and they're not very good shields. Perhaps these people that David is being betrayed by were some of his military men. Maybe it was some of his bodyguards that were supposed to be like shield him and protect him. It turned out to be false and betrayers. David says, God never betrays me. He is my strength. He is my shield. Even the people we thought had our back and they proved that they did not. God always does. God always has our back. He is our shield. He says I am helped by God. Like the little kid that's reaching up. Asking for dad to pick them up. They can't rise to their their parent's level. They need someone to help them up there. Carter likes to climb. You know where you hold their hands and they. They climb up your legs and then they do the backflip. He really likes doing that. Did you know Carter is not able to do a backflip on his own and needs help? David says, Look, here I am down here and I'm I'm suffering with all this strange to help me. Rise up. Help me to rise above these things and God help them. God was there for him. Not only was He there for me, he says, God is my strength. Look at verse number eight. The Lord is their strength. He is the saving strength of His anointed. He says the same thing in verse number seven. The Lord is my strength. Protection. Help. Strength. These are great things that come from the Lord. We access these things. Same way, David. Access. Access it. What is it? That's not a word accessed. The. I spending time with God. Spending time in his presence. What happened to Isaiah when he entered into the presence of the Lord? He was forever changed. We get to be in God's presence on a daily basis if we choose to do so. You can have communion with God on a daily basis. Jesus has opened the door for you to commune directly with God. You don't have to come here to church to commune with God. You don't need the pastor to come over and say some magic words for you to commune with God. You can commune with God at any moment. And some of the sweetest times of communion with God are when men have failed us. And we realize that we've been asking men to be our protection and men to be our help and men to be our strength. And we realize they can't do it. We have no choice but to turn to God. And we always find him. They. Someone close to you betrays you. God will never betray you. Somebody close to you hurts you. That'll never be God. This book that I'm reading that's based on this premise. I've said it before. If God is holy, then it means He cannot sin. And if God can't sin, that means He cannot sin against you. And we trust God. Yeah. We can't. Even. We don't understand. We can trust. So what does David say he's going to do? Well, like we so often see at the end of our summer seven, he says with my song. Will I praise? With my song. I will praise. Will I praise? I'm sure some of it has to do with we just have more people in our services. But there's a noticeable difference in the singing that takes place here at the Baptist Tabernacle on a weekly basis. No. We were at a pretty low point. It's hard to really come together, not think about the hurts, the people that we felt people had cause, the betrayal that we felt. It's hard to sometimes sing out and praise God. I feel like. A lot of healing in second place. Feel like there's much more peace among brothers and sisters than there used to be. We've seen God do some great things. We've seen God bring us through a pandemic. When we see that God is faithful, when God helps us and strengthens us, when he protects us. Natural. The natural outflow is that we would sing to him. Lift up his name. Sing praises to him. All of us should have things in our minds. That we think of, that we meditate on, that provoke us to sing to the Lord. I appreciate Brother McKay saying something about the the men's meeting that we went to this past weekend. One of the awesome things about it is 1300 men being in this big old metal building. Singing so loud praises to God that you can't even hear yourself sing. Which is great for me. You know, I mean, it just. Is awesome. And we're all imperfect there. There's not a single perfect man in the room. We can sing and praise God. See, there was a change in in focus that David had. He was looking at his attackers, his betrayers, how they had hurt him. We see this shift where he begins to look at God and what God can do for him. God has done for him. So it causes a shift in his tone. We get our eyes off of ourselves and get our eyes on God and what He's done for us. We're going to praise him. Really praising him. Remember speaking to. Speaking to yourselves. Songs and hymns and spiritual songs. It's for our collective good that we would sing. It's natural then, that that moves us to thinking about others. And what God has done for us. He could do for somebody else. A loved one of the preacher said yesterday. He said, look, there may be a guy in here that has gone so far. You may think there's no way Jesus can help you, but Jesus can help. And you know what? There are people in this room who have seen God work in their lives to do things for them, to bring them back to a place of health when it didn't seem like there was any hope for them. And when God proves himself faithful to you, whether it be in a time of sin or in a time of betrayal, then you start to say, okay, well, if you did that for me, he can do it for them. And so our eyes get off our they get on to God and then God directs us to others. Which is exactly what David does at the end of this passage. So He goes from the Lord is my strength, my shield, my heart trusted in him. I am help. My heart greatly rejoiced with my song. Will I praise him? You see, my, my, my I verse marry the Lord is what? Their strength. It is the saving strength of his anointed first timer. Nine Save thy people and blessed thine inheritance. Feed them also and lift them up forever. So you starts to look at what God can do for other people. They hurt me. God helped me. God can help them to. You've experienced the strength, help, the protection of God. That ought to motivate you to want to see those same things accomplished in the lives of others. It ought to help all of us to get our eyes off of ourselves, to stop being so selfish. And be more selfless. Thinking of others. Thinking of how God might help them save those people. Bless the inheritance, feed them and lift them up. That's a pretty cool prayer. If anybody in here wants to pray that prayer for me, I would be totally cool with that. Lord save Pastor from his own foolishness. Feed him, help him. I'll be like, All right, cool. I'll come cosign with you on that prayer. All of us need to be reminded of this from time to time, because living with other sinful humans means it's only a matter of time before all of us are hurt, betrayed, stabbed in the back by someone we thought we could trust. But when men fail us, it needs to be a motivation for us to look to God. Because we'll never be disappointed when we look to him. It will never fail us. Will never leave us. Will never abandon us. We see his faithfulness will motivate us to then take others, bring them to him as well through prayer, or by talking about him to them. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day. Thank you for the good attention of your people. Thank you for the confidence that we can have in you. That even when we are hurt, betrayed when other people fail us. We can have confidence in the fact that you never fail us. Like David, we can come to you and find help. We can trust that you will hear our cry. If we will spend time with you in communion, with you and in your presence, or you will change us as only you can do. You will help us to have a different perspective on what has occurred. Lord. We will. Fine. Used to be our strength and our help and our protection. Or if there's somebody here this evening that is struggling with hurt caused by another individual, I pray that they would go through the same steps that David did. They would look to you. It would find you to be faithful or that they would praise you. Then they would seek to draw others to you as well. Lord, thank you for all you do for us. It's in Jesus name that I pray. Amen.

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