If you have your Bibles with you, please turn with me to Psalm 3. If you do not, then the text is written there in the bulletin for you. Let us hear the word of the Lord as it is contained in the Psalm of David, the psalm when he fled from his son Absalom. O Lord, how many are my foes? How many rise up against me? Many are saying of me, God will not deliver him. You are a shield around me, O God. You bestow glory on me and lift up my head. O Lord, I cry aloud and He answers me from His holy hill. I lie down and sleep. I wake again because the Lord sustains me. I will not fear the ten thousands drawn up against me on every side. Arise, O Lord. Deliver me, O my God. Strike all my enemies on the jaw. Break the teeth of the wicked. From the Lord comes deliverance. May your blessing be on your people. Amen. And may the Lord bless to us. the reading of his holy word. Let us pray. The Psalms of David are important in Scripture. Not only do they naturally fall, of course, in the middle of the Bible, but they are the scripture's songbook, and we gain from them an insight into the journeys of David and other psalmists. It's important for us as a congregation to sing these psalms, to sing the words that David has sung or written. We sing these because Christ himself spoke them. And as we read the Psalms, not only are we reading the product of a historical situation, but we're also reading the words of Christ. Remember who David was. David was the anointed king of Israel, especially anointed king. We have no signs from before the time that he was anointed to be king. Remember, as a lad, he was brought to Saul's palace. And there, when Saul was in anguish, when he was troubled, when his spirit was uneasy, he would call for David and David would sing and play. The Spirit of God would work in Saul and he would be lifted up and he would be uplifted. And so it is with us as we read the psalms, although even this one that we will read today is anchored very firmly in a historical context, yet it speaks to us today and I want to help us understand that as we go through it. So, please keep your text open as we look at this psalm together. The first thing we notice about this psalm is that it has a superscription. It has a little historical note. This was a psalm David wrote after he had been attacked, after he had been betrayed by his son Absalom. Now many of you will know this story. I'm sure some of you are already turning to 2 Samuel 15 and 16, where all the information of this particular event took place. But for those who don't recall, let me just bring you up to speed. Absalom was one of David's sons. He wasn't the nicest individual in terms of his character, although scripture tells us that he was rather fond of himself. In the fifties, he'd be known as a kind of fonds kind of guy. You know, always looking in the mirror, checking himself out. Scripture said he had long flowing hair. He loved to kind of show it off. He was the fairest in the land, if you will. But Absalom killed his brother in a way that he ought not to have done this. The brother ought to have died for the crime that he had committed of rape. But it should have been handled judicially, not the way he did it. He fled from his father's sight. after he got over Amnon's death, himself longed to see his son again. David himself was acting unjustly at this point, because he ought to have dealt with his own son. But, however, David was dealing with something that we all deal with, and that is guilt. Guilt distorts the way we think. Guilt distorts the way we look at life. And here was David's guilt. Flip back 2 Samuel a couple of chapters and you'll find the story of Bathsheba. You'll find the story how David lusted after this woman and secretly had an affair with her and then had her husband killed so that he could continue that affair. The Prophet comes to him and tells him a story about a man who had large flocks and one who just had a little lamb. When David was told that the one with the large flocks took away the little lamb from the one that is all he had, he was appalled. The Prophet pointed to him and said, You have done this very thing. God is very upset with you. He hates what you have done. He has forgiven you because you have repented, but the sword will never leave your house and your own household will rise up against you. So, when Absalom kills his brother, David himself knowing that he has been spared death that was, just in his case, acted improperly. And so, he brings Absalom back. So, what did Absalom do? Absalom begins to plot against his own father. He works in such a way as to steal the affections of the people, and you can read about it in 2 Samuel 15. How he flattered them. And how he made them believe that only he could help Sam. And finally he tricks his own father to allow him to go to Hebron where the kings were crowned. And declares himself the king. And this is the context of this psalm. David had to flee in the middle of the night. Weeping without shoes. Running away. And so effective of Absalom being to turn the nation against his father, that as he ran, he ran with only a few people compared to the entire nation. So, as he runs from his town and sees his son, as it were, now made king in his place, he is weeping. He is absolutely distraught. So he cries out to the Lord, how many are my foes? They rise up against me. The text says that his foes have increased and multiplied to the point that he had as many foes as there were citizens in the land. Other than that few faithful who came with him. He cries out. And he comments to God, he says, many are saying of me that God will not deliver him. Perhaps he is mentioning the time or thinking of that moment just perhaps a few hours earlier before he wrote this psalm, where as he was running away, as he was heading off to the wilderness, One man, Shammai, came out and said to him, Get out! And if you want to look at this, you'll find this in 2 Samuel 16, 7. He said, Get out, you man of blood, you scoundrel! The Lord has repaid you for all the blood you shed in the household of Saul, in whose place you have reigned. The Lord has handed the kingdom over to your son Absalom. You have become a ruin because you are a man of blood. So, David, as he runs, he hears curses being thrown at him as he runs. His kingdom is in ruins. His kingship is behind him. He has no idea what the future holds, but he knows that this is what the Prophet promised would happen to him. This is the judgment that God was bringing on his head for his secret sin. What is interesting about the judgment that was pronounced upon him was this. The prophet said to him, what you did in secret, God will expose completely and your son will do in public. Just as David had committed sin with Bathsheba, so it was that his son took David's concubines onto the roof of the palace and has sexual relations with them, as the scripture says, so that the nation might see. David's shame was huge. You cannot imagine the degree of shame that was upon his life at this time. Many are saying of me, God will not deliver Remember what I said earlier? These are prayers that Christ is praying through David. Where do we hear echoes of this prayer? Cast your minds to the cross. To Calvary. To our Savior. Alone of all men. Abandoned by his friends. And what does he cry? My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? We might know what it is to be abandoned by our friends. We might lose a kingdom. We might lose a company. We might lose a family. We might lose our possessions. We might lose our honor. Christ lost his Father. The innocent dying for the guilty. There on the cross, Christ cries, why have you forsaken me? For you. So that you might know the answer to that question. In the text, we come to the next little word, Selah. unknown, really, what this word means. There are a variety of different opinions, and some are good, some are better. I think I will stick with John Calvin, who seems to have a handle on these things. He suggests that these are musical notations, suggesting that we pause at this point. take a rest. Remember, these were songs to be sung. Perhaps the musicians would play a little bit more. Perhaps it would give the people a chance to reflect on what they're saying. But we ought to reflect on this. Where are you in your journey? Are you in a situation today where you can identify with David? Are the things that you had hoped for and planned for and perhaps even speculated for beginning to sizzle away, to run out like sands from an hourglass, gone forever? Are you in a situation where you are falsely accused Where people you have trusted have turned against you? Has your father or mother abused their trust? Have you as a child abused theirs? Are financially things not quite what you thought they would be at this stage in your life? Are the hopes that you had had for college or for better grades, not going quite as you planned. There will always be people in your life who say of you, God will not help you. You're on your own. You make of life what you make of life. Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. Do it yourself. Be self-reliant. We need to hear what David said. The first thing in the midst of trouble, he cried out to God. Think about these things. What do we next read? First of all, David's problem is dealt with by the second set of two verses, David's protection. He says, are a shield around me, O Lord. You bestow glory on me and lift up my head. To the Lord I cry aloud and He answers me from His holy help." There's military language here. David is in the midst of a military rout. He is being completely pushed militarily from his stronghold. The nation has turned against it and the only possibility he has is for a tactical retreat out into the wilderness in the hope that God will still be faithful to the other promises that he has made. Remember, David is cognizant of this fact that not only has God said he will judge him and the sword will never leave his house, but he's also said this, that your children will reign in the throne forever. here in the midst of this horrible defeat. There's a truth, perhaps, that David is understanding. That you are a shield around me. You are my defense, O God. That although I might have in battle a shield that shields me here in this kind of front area, nevertheless, you are like a shield all around me. And so the enemy's arrows can fly, but they will simply bounce off, because you, O God, have promised me something far greater than to this point I have known. And he also comments that it is God who bestows glory. And you know, in the midst of difficulty, in the midst of embarrassment, In the midst of shame that sometimes we find ourselves in, we need to remember that it is God who gives glory. That is the only glory worth knowing. You know, many of us, if we are honest, perhaps I should say all of us, if we are honest, do and think shameful things. We have thoughts that if our eyes were a projector that projected our thoughts onto the wall, we'd walk around with our eyes closed all the time. Because the last thing we would want is for our thoughts to be seen by other people. We would be utterly ashamed to think that they might know what I am thinking. They might see me for who I really am. You know, we can construct ideas about ourselves and our own minds. About our own godliness. About who we are. About how erudite we are in the Scriptures. How holy we are because we pray. How knowledgeable we are because we read the Scriptures regularly. Yet if our eyes shone without what was in, we would cover them constantly. God's glory is the only glory worth having. David understood this. That though he might lose a kingdom, though he was utterly ashamed to see his concubines being paraded before the nation in such an obscene fashion, a shameful thing for it to happen to him, yet he knows that the only glory, the only honor worth having is that which God gives, not man. But you see, we really are man-pleasers in our hearts. When we knock it all down, we love to plead man, so that we are ashamed when things go wrong. There is a shame because we have lost a job. There is a shame because a sin has happened. There is a shame because an event has taken place in our lives that brings us down in our own eyes and we think others will despise us. in the midst of his difficulty, recognizes that it is only the touch of God, it is God who would raise him up. It is God who would lift his head and look him in the face. And so he cries aloud to the Lord and God answers from his holy hill. The holy hill references here, if you look back at Psalm 2, You see, this is the throne room of God. And elsewhere in scripture, you get this idea that God's holy hill is where God dwells. And it is from God's holy hill that justice is served. Because remember this, that in all our discussion about the work of Christ, on our behalf, the cross and all the rest It is to satisfy the justice of God. And so he cries out for justice. And he hears. He hears God speak to him. I'm reminded of Jonah being thrown overboard and swallowed by the fish. And in Jonah 2, if you want to turn there, we read these words. From inside the fish, Jonah prayed to the Lord God. He said, In my distress, I called to the Lord, and He answered me. From the depths of the grave, I called for help, and you listened to my cry. You hurled me deep into the very heart of the seas, and the current swilled around me. All your waves and breakers swept over me, I said. I have been banished from your sight. Yet I will look again toward your holy temple. The engulfing waters threatened me. The deep surrounded me. Seaweeds were wrapped around my head." That passage, incidentally, from Jonah, if you look that up in the scriptures, you'll see all he's doing is quoting the psalm, actually. Who else do you think could pray that prayer that Jonah himself prayed? None other than Christ, who Himself was banished from the sight of God. For man to look at Him would say there is no help for Him from God. He has been crucified. He has been given the ultimate humiliating punishment of all time. There is nothing that God can ever do for him. And yet, God, as we will read in a few moments, does bring him back. But David cries out to the Lord and he knows that God will answer him. Too often, brothers and sisters, we wait until we are in extreme circumstances. cry out to God. How often have we allowed situations to go by? How often have we entertained sin in our minds and in our bodies? We have cherished it. We have, as it were, loved it and developed it and thought about it and begun to act upon it. When early on we should be crying out to God for His help, It is not until disaster overtakes us or is about to that we cry out to God. This ought not to be. Let us cry to God early in our sin. Let us cry to God early recognizing that we without Christ are lost. God will save us. Think about that. Give this some thought. How does this apply to you? David says these amazing things in verse 5. I lie down and sleep. And I awake again because the Lord sustains me. I will not fear the tens of thousands drawn up against me. on every side. David understands his problem. He knows that God is his protection, and out of that protection comes his peace. We can have peace, brothers and sisters, in the midst of the most trying circumstances. Why? Because God is sovereign. Because God is the Lord of our circumstances. I would challenge you to say this, that if in the midst of difficulties, in the midst of life's challenges, you cannot find peace, I challenge you, you need to turn to Christ and repent of your sin. Because peace is that which is promised His people. Where there is no peace, Christ does not dwell. I challenge you to consider these things. Can you lie down and sleep, as it were, in the midst of the battle? When all the hordes of hell, as it were, are arrayed against you as people are speaking about you, and gossiping about you at work, and undercutting your authority, and you're about to lose your job, or your home, or family members are turning against you because of your witness, or whatever it is. Do you know the peace of God that allows you to sleep? That you toss and turn at night? Unable to calm your mind, constantly thinking through the issues and the problems, constantly coming up with scenarios and how you might kind of manufacture solutions to your problem. I would suggest to you, if you find yourself tossing and turning in the middle of the night, that you get out of bed and get on your knees and use your wakeful time profitably. by turning to the One alone who can give you peace. David sleeps in the midst of the rout, in the midst of the curses being rained down upon his head, in the midst of the shame and the loss of his kingdom, he sleeps. And he wakes knowing that God will sustain him. And then he says that he will not fear No matter how many tens of thousands of people are arrayed around him, God will look after him. Because God is his shield. It is God who gives us the ability to see something that most can't see. We can see something with the eyes of faith that the ungodly cannot. I was talking with somebody the other day there and we were discussing science fiction. It's interesting to know that most of the future that we see presented in books or on the screen are apocalyptic. There is no hope in man for all his social Darwinism. There is no hope. All they see is the worst of humankind being played out forever. A boot stamping on the face of man forever. Yet it is the Christian who can see hope. It is the Christian who can read the Word of God and in here find our security. As it were, we can turn to the last chapter and find out who wins. And we can base a life upon this assurance that God is sovereign and in control. And when all sorts of things are going wrong nationally and internationally, when we look at the future and we think of the geopolitical situation with North Korea and Iran and all the rest of them and Hugo Chavez, nevertheless, We can rest in God and know that we will not be obliterated at the push of a little red button because God has not decreed it. And that allows us to sleep soundly at night. And so David, recognizing that reality, now makes his petition to God. Arise, O Lord, and deliver me. Strike my enemies on the jaw, or on the cheekbone, and break the teeth of the wicked." Oh, that's pretty strong, isn't it? How can you say that? I mean, aren't we supposed to turn the other cheek? Aren't we supposed to be nice? How can we say, God, break the face of my enemies? Smash it up. Well, what he's speaking to here is a number of things. First of all, it's very significant that he uses these two phrases. To slap somebody across the face is the height of put-down, especially in that culture. To be slapped in the face is an affront. It is to be humbled. to be humiliated, and to break the jaw of the wicked. You find elsewhere, the Scripture speaking of breaking the jaw of the lion, that is, as it were, gripping the limb, and so you want to be released from the grip of the enemy. But God will deal with His enemy, because God has enemies. This, I am assuming, is not news for us. We can righteously say, God, deliver me from those enemies. Humiliate them in your timing. And release me from their grip. Because finally, he says, from the Lord comes deliverance. And may your blessing Be on your people. Turning back to Jonah, we read these words. To the roots of the mountains I sank down. The earth beneath barred me in forever. But You brought my life up from the pit, O Lord my God. When my life was edding away, I remembered You, Lord, and my prayer rose to You, to Your holy temple. Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs, but I, with a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you what I have vowed I will make good. Salvation comes from the Lord." And then we read, at this point, that Fish was sick and Jonah was released. He said these things in faith, knowing who God is. That God is just. and faithful. He is good all the time. There is never a point when he is not good. There's never a point when he is not faithful. And though the trials that we go through may be difficult, brothers and sisters like David, we can cry out to him. As we close our service, we're going to be singing, come thou fount of every blessing. And the second verse of that I'd ask you to turn to as I conclude my sermon. Hitherto thy love has blessed me. Thou has brought me to this place. And I know thy hand will bring me safely home by thy good grace. Jesus sought me when a stranger wandering from the fold of God. He to rescue me from danger bought me with his precious blood. Robert Robertson, the man who wrote this song, died on June the 9th, 1790. 217 years ago today. And what interest him. Many of us have known the blessing of God. Many have known the pressure of opposition and of despair and seeming defeat. We have known God's blessings in the past, but we recognize that God has brought us to where we are. This psalm, Psalm 3, calls upon us to press into Christ. To consider our Saviour who cried the ultimate cry of despair. My God, why have you forsaken me? Christ, who came to save His people, who despised more than any man ever was, that we might know the love of God, and who, though perfect in every regard, accepted responsibility for our sins and died in our place, that we might know deliverance and blessing. As Christian and pilgrim's progress looped upon the cross, his burden fell away, never ever to be picked up again. I ask us this morning, let us turn our gaze upon the cross. Let us look to Christ. And if you do not know what it means to have peace, to sleep soundly, to know that God has made promises to you that He will keep, that your burden is still on your shoulder and you are still unable to release it, Then I ask you this morning, let us come back to the fold of God. Let us come to the cross, where Christ bought us with his precious blood. Let us pray. Merciful Father, you who loved us, and love us, and will love us, Despite our sin, despite our failing, despite oppression, despite humiliation, we call to You, O God. We cry to You, and we hear Your answer. And the answer is Christ. We come to You, our Savior and Lord. Forgive us our sins. Rescue us from ourselves, from the grip of sin, that we may leap for joy in the salvation we have found. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.