Psalms that has a title that tells us of the occasion by which it was written by King David. It says in the title, when Saul sent men to watch his house in order to kill him. This was very early in David's understanding that he was going to be king and so forth, yes, but it was very early because at this time Saul was still king. David had just been playing an instrument, the lyre, for King Saul. He had just come from battle. In fact, 1 Samuel 19 tells us that he had just fought the Philistines and struck them a great blow. is playing the liar once again to soothe Saul, who came into some difficulties with an evil spirit. And the evil spirit had gripped Saul. And Saul took, not for the first time, but the second time, a spear to kill David, to try and pin him to the wall. David fled. He went back to his house. And that night, his wife, Michael, told him, you need to leave now, because if you don't, you will be dead by morning. There were guards sent to watch the house of David. And it's on this occasion, either at that time or looking back on that time, that King David, later or at that time, would write these words. Deliver me from my enemies, O my God. Protect me from those who rise up against me. Deliver me from those who work evil and save me from bloodthirsty men. Or behold, they lie in wait for my life. Fierce men stir up strife against me. For no transgression or sin of mine, O Lord, for no fault of mine, they run and make ready. Awake, come to meet me and see. You, Lord God of hosts, are God of Israel. Rouse yourself to punish all the nations. Spare none of those who treacherously plot evil. Each evening they come back howling like dogs and prowling about the city. There they are, bellowing with their mouths, with swords in their lips. For who, they think, will hear us? But you, O Lord, laugh at them. You hold all the nations in derision. O my strength, I will watch for you, for you, O God, are my fortress. My God and his steadfast love will meet me. God will let me look in triumph on my enemies. Kill them not, lest my people forget. Make them totter by your power and bring them down, O Lord, our shield. For the scent of their mouths, the words of their lips, let them be trapped in their pride. For the cursing and lies that they utter, consume them in wrath. Consume them till they are no more, that they may know that God rules over Jacob to the ends of the earth. Each evening they come back, howling like dogs and prowling about the city. They wander about for food and growl if they do not get their fill. But I will sing of your strength. I will sing aloud of your steadfast love in the morning. For you have been to me a fortress and a refuge in the day of my distress. O my strength, I will sing praises to you. For you, O God, are my fortress, the God who shows me steadfast love." As we consider these words, let us turn briefly to the Lord in prayer. Father, we thank you for these words. They are yours. They are able to penetrate, even to divide, the deepest, darkest depths of our hearts. We pray, Lord, that you would prick us with your truth. Help us, in one sense, to bleed your word that others might know your power, your strength, your forgiveness, and your rescue. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. I cannot help but think of those who are out to get a leader. You know what it's like, perhaps. Perhaps it's someone in the workplace where they're out to get the boss and they're just looking for the misstep. They're looking for the right opportunity to catch him in some kind of way so that he can be belittled or even fired. Or perhaps it's in politics. those who would seek to find some way to bring down the leader. Maybe they want the power. Maybe they want their influence. Maybe they want him to get his comeuppance or her in some cases. And so they're just waiting for the right opportunity for the get gotcha moment. Or maybe, unfortunately, it's in the church. someone looking to a favorite Sunday school teacher in jealousy, or looking to a pastor that you don't like, looking for just the right time to find a way to get them and bring them down. Those are the words that we're kind of reminded of as we read this particular passage. You see, David is in his house And as he's either thinking back on this time or actually thinking of these words at that time, his house is surrounded by the guards of King Saul. Remember, he's the crack soldier of Saul's army. David is the one they were singing songs about. King Saul has killed his thousands, but David has killed his tens of thousands. And Saul has become jealous as a result. Unable to pin David to the wall, he sent his guards to surround the house so that they could take him. Michael, his wife, had a plan. She let him down out the window and David escaped and meanwhile she brought together this idol and she placed it in the bed, covered up the idol, put fake hair in the pillow and she said to the soldiers as they came into the house to arrest what would be King David, arrest soldier David and musician David and she said he's ill, he's sick. So they go out back to King Saul and tell him David is sick, and Saul says, go in and take his bed and bring him out. We will kill him. And that's where these words were written. David escapes. But here, as he's contemplating this escape, he asks this from God. Rescue me. Deliver me from my enemies, O my God. Protect me from those who rise up against me. He says, rescue me from my enemies. Now, when you think of enemies, you're often thinking the Philistines, those that you're doing battle against. But here, his enemies have become the royal guard of King Saul, who are surrounding his house, waiting for the opportunity to grab him and take him out to King Saul. Rescue me from my enemies. Rescue me from those who work or do or practice evil. Verse 2, deliver me from those who work evil. He recognizes this isn't the normal thing that a king does, is to take the most faithful soldier, the strongest guy, the one who has led the troops out into battle, and the one who, on the other hand, is the musician playing the instruments in his chamber to soothe his soul. It's not normal for them to seek the life of that servant. And so David writes, deliver me or rescue me from those who practice evil. There are men of blood. Save me, he says, from men of blood, from bloodthirsty men. They're just looking for the opportunity to take David's life at the command of King Saul. And there are bloodthirsty men. There are those who would seek the lives of others. They are in the inner cities, sometimes of our country. Sometimes they become a husband or a wife seeking the death of a spouse. Sometimes they are those who would seek the death of believers. They are in our world. There is real evil. David says, rescue me from these. And then he says a few things about them. They lie in ambush for my soul. Or as verse 3 says here in the ESV, they lie in wait for my life. In other words, they're just waiting for the opportunity to trap him, to get him, and to bring him to destruction. He says they are strong. He says, fierce men stir up strife against me. The word is strong. They will attack me. in their strength. In other words, these aren't just your common everyday guys who have a big talk but no ability to carry out their actions. These are the guys with the weapons. These are the guys who are soldiers in Saul's army. These are the bodyguards who are the most trusted individuals in King Saul's army. And these are the guys who can do it. And David recognizes these men of blood here are strong. They are there to attack. And then he says this, He says, for no transgression or sin of mine, O Lord, for no fault of mine, they run and make ready. They run and prepare unfairly. In other words, we know by this point, David's not perfect. Obviously, no one is. But David hadn't done anything in order to get in this state where he was to be arrested and killed. It just was not fair. And David recognized that. And so what does he do? He's asked God to rescue him from his enemies. He's also asking God to wake up. Do you have the audacity to tell God to wake up? God doesn't sleep. He's not out there waiting for us to wake Him up so that He can act on us. The idea here is He's saying to God, you know, but here awake to my plight. Know what the circumstances are. Come meet me and see. In other words, call me, summon me, and you'll see my condition. Again, God knows it. But again, he's calling on that relationship he has with God, the God who has called him, the God who, out of all the sons of Jesse, they had to wait until David was dragged in from the field, the youngest, who was watching the sheep, the one that was the most insignificant, and God said, this is the one. He will be the next king of Israel. And David is calling upon that God who had anointed him to know his plight. And then he says also, awake, rouse yourself to know their guilt. You, Lord God of hosts or God of Israel, rouse yourself to punish all the nations, spare none of those who treacherously plot evil." In other words, he's telling them, know their guilt and have no mercy on the faithless. Don't have mercy on them. Now again, that sounds kind of harsh. I began to think of someone who finds themselves in a position where unfairly they're sought to be arrested and to be taken away. I don't know about you. Many of you probably haven't traveled to some places far away, but I know some of you have. And one of the most interesting experiences I had was finding myself in the basement of the KGB building in Riga, Latvia. And as we toured through that building, besides the fact that we were watching our watches because we thought we were going to be late to class and I actually had to ask permission to be let out of what was once a prison early, the guard was a guard and had formerly been a guard in the Soviet Army. And he had knowledge of what would take place in these types of places. And as he told us what was going on, he recognized, or we recognized, the average person that was going to be sitting in one of those cells was someone who had done nothing legally wrong. Someone had informed on him or they were afraid of him in the KGB and one day he had just been arrested, taken to that holding cell, had done nothing wrong and they began to torture him particularly psychologically. They would turn the lights on or off at their command. They would put them so packed into a cell that they could not even roll over in their sleep unless everyone in the cell rolled over. The ways in which they were tortured were ways that we cannot, in our American minds, comprehend. And it was all so that they would confess to something that they had not done. This is the kind of thing that David is recognizing. He hadn't done anything. He hadn't done anything to deserve being arrested or put on the most wanted list of King Saul. And yet, through all of this, what does he recognize? there is still a place to turn to the living God who called him, who loved him, who was faithful to him. And he told God, I know that you can not only rescue me, you can laugh at them. First of all, in verse 6, he reminds us again of a little bit of who they are. They're like dogs in the night. Now, if you know anything about the ancient Middle East or near Middle East at that time, you know that they didn't have pet dogs very much like we do here. You know, there are some cultures that say the last thing you want to be is a dog, but I tell you, America's a little different. We tend to treat dogs better than we treat other humans. But in their culture, in their day, they mostly did not have pet dogs. The dogs they had would be wild dogs running about in the city. And they would come out particularly at night to scavenge for food. And so you would hear the snarling and the growling and the fighting and all those things in the night, particularly in the city where people had gathered and where they could find scraps of food. And so these dogs would be out about in the city. And there were times when it might be just a little dangerous for some people to go out in the back alley, so to speak, because of these dogs. These dogs were just waiting and stalking in order to get these scraps of food. And David says this is what these people are like. Dogs in the night. And they're arrogant. There they are, he says, verse 7, bellowing with their mouths, with swords in their lips for who they think will hear us. In other words, they don't care. They're arrogant in their speech. They don't care if other people hear them. They're out to get the others, and they know that they're backed up by others. They're in groups together against the one who is being pressured, that is David. And he says, this is what they're like. but God will scorn them." Verse 8, "'But you, O Lord, laugh at them.'" Here's David in his house, surrounded by these guards, thinking that they're like these dogs in the night, lying in ambush, waiting to arrest him. And he says, and I can almost picture him kind of chuckling to himself, thinking, God's going to laugh at you. Why? You hold all the nations In derision, O my strength, I will watch for you, for you, O God, are my fortress. My God and his steadfast love will meet me. God will let me look in triumph on my enemies. In the midst of all this, he recognizes God is stronger than these folks. God can thwart their plans, and they will be defeated by a strong God. Just as he used that word strong when he talked about these soldiers, here are a few verses before. Strong they will, of course, it says in that verse, it says they're strong, they will attack me. He's saying God is stronger. God is my strength. I will look in triumph over my enemies because of God's work. You see, they're at the mercy of God's plans. So he says, verse 11, don't kill them. lest my people forget. Make them totter by your power and bring them down, O Lord, our shield. For the sin of their mouths, the word of their lips, let them be trapped in their pride." You see, he's asking God. On the one hand, yes, he asks them to have no mercy and destroy the enemies. On the other hand, he's saying, look, even if you don't destroy them, it might be better if you don't kill them because otherwise we might forget that you're the God of victory. We might forget the great and wonderful things that you do. And of course, what happened? It was all recorded in Scripture, these events, in the book of 1 and 2 Samuel, so that we can know what God did in the life of David with his enemies. They were defeated by the strong God and at the mercy of God's plans. David didn't know if they were going to be utterly destroyed, how Saul's jealousy might be eliminated, how those who would follow Saul and seek David's arrest, how they might come to naught, but he knew that God was in control because they will, it says, be trapped in their pride. They will be captured, that's what the word trapped is, they will be captured, consumed, why? By their pride and consumed by the ruler of Jacob. consumed in wrath, consumed till they are no more, that he may know that God rules over Jacob to the end of the earth." You see, the death of the enemies is not necessary, because we want to remember what God does. But at the same time, if God were designed to bring to naught, or to kill, or to eliminate all of his enemies, God would be justified. And of course, God then is shown to rule not over Jacob, but to the ends of the earth. God is the king. He is sovereign. He is over everything. There is faithfulness right there. So he says on the one hand, rescue me, I'm in dire distress. On the other hand, laugh at them, because God is the God who is stronger than them. And in the end, we'll sing to God as a result. You know, I don't think we sing enough at our house. We don't. That's not something that all of us in our family have a great gift in. Now, I love to sing in a choir and that kind of thing. I'm not really confident singing solos and that kind of stuff. Not everyone in my family is confident in singing. There's some that have a little bit of a gift of singing and some that don't, and that's okay. But what we do when we recognize God's glory and God's strength is it should well up in our hearts to sing to a God who is worthy. And so he says, after a repetition of this refrain, each evening they come back howling like dogs and wandering for food and so forth, it says in verse 16, I will sing of your strength. So here's David again. the dichotomy of David. On the one hand, in these Psalms, calling out to God for help. On the other hand, singing to the God who does help. Despite the dogs of the night, despite the fact that these soldiers are surrounding his house and he doesn't get out that window, then everything might be lost. Despite the fact that he's going to be estranged from his wife Michael for years on end, despite the fact that he's going to spend years hiding in caves and going to Philistia and doing all those other things, yet he can sing. Why? Because of these three things. because of your strength. Verse 16, I will sing of your strength. You are stronger than anything else this world has to offer. Secondly, because of your faithfulness. Here's that word, that steadfast love, covenant faithfulness. That's what that word is. I will sing aloud because of your covenant faithfulness here in the morning. And think about this, in the morning, if he didn't escape the house, what would happen? He'd likely be killed by the soldiers or brought to Saul that he would have him killed. But he says, Lord, you are faithful so much, I know your covenant faithfulness will be with me in the morning. And thirdly, because of your protection, you might have noticed throughout this psalm, it might even be the title on your psalm, it is in some translations, it says, you are my fortress. And it's interesting, he actually repeats these things. Verse 16 says this, you are my strength, you are my faithfulness, you are my protection, my refuge, or fortress. Verse 17 repeats it. My strength I sing praises to you, you God are my fortress, my protection, to God who shows me that covenant faithfulness. It's repeated twice in a row. Why? Because this is why we sing. This is why we sing. You see, David doesn't find strength and solace in bunkers. He doesn't find it in bodyguards. He doesn't find it in bulletproof vehicles. He doesn't find it in any other means that this world has to offer. He only finds it in the protection that God can give, both in the literal, physical protection that God is three times here. My strength, my strength, my shield. And then my refuge, my refuge, over and over again. in God's faithfulness, His promises. This is the root of our ability to sing in times of distress is because of God's promises. Three times in this passage we see God's covenant faithfulness. In verse 10 and verse 16 and verse 17. And then again, three times, my fortress, my fortress, my fortress. Verse 10 says this, My God and His steadfast love, again that word covenant faithfulness, will meet me. The word is literally, will walk ahead of me. As David goes down his way, escaping the window, from the window, perhaps on the outer wall, we don't know exactly how it worked, where his house was placed in that particular circumstance, but as he escaped down the window of that wall and ran out into the countryside, eventually into Philistia, which is where he went to begin with, he says, your faithfulness will go ahead of me. That's how confident he was in the grace of God. You see, the best defense, that's what David needed, wasn't it? The best defense, they say, is a good offense. And guess who has the best offense? The strong God, able to conquer the direst enemies, the most dangerous circumstances. He can pull us out, and of course, We know that these words apply not just to our physical salvation, but to our salvation from sin and the bonds of death. Let's pray. Lord, as we consider your word and your way, we rejoice in who you are. We love you for what you have done. And most of all, we thank you that you are covenantally faithful. That is, your commitment to us cannot be broken. It will never end. No one will escape your hands. No one can be snatched out of your hands. Lord, once we have come to be a part of your family, even though this world, this life might bring us trials and tribulation, distress, even death, yet in the end, we have life in you. You are our fortress and our refuge. We will sing to you. In Jesus' name, amen.