We're turning tonight in the Word of God to the 20th Psalm, Psalm number 20. A rather short one. As you can see, nine verses. Psalm 20. The Lord hear thee in the day of trouble, the name of the God of Jacob defend thee. Send thee help from the sanctuary and strengthen thee out of Zion. Remember all thy offerings and accept thy burnt sacrifice, Selah. Grant thee, according to thine own heart, and fulfil all thy counsel. We will rejoice in thy salvation. And in the name of our God, we will set up our banners. The Lord fulfil all thy petitions. Now know I that the Lord saveth his anointed. He will hear him from his holy heaven with the saving strength of his right hand. Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we will remember the name of the Lord our God. They are brought down and fallen, but we are risen and stand upright. Save, Lord. Let the King hear us when we call." We're taking tonight as our title, a national anthem. And hopefully that'll become very clear as to why we're doing that in a moment or two. Of course we're into the famous twelfth week in our own country here and we have the bands getting ready to go and the marchers of course marching on 18 locations when it comes to the weekend on Saturday. So from Belfast to Kilkish right across and up to Cole Rean we have some of these venues. Dundonald apparently the first time in more than 50 years will be hosting a 12th demonstration. None of those when you come to the field when you have the speeches that are to be given there and the service that will be conducted in all of the fields, none will conclude without the singing of the national anthem, central to who we are and to what we observe and follow. And all the commemorations we know is keeping in mind a battle that was fought a way back in the year 1690, William of Orange, William III. When you come into the Word of God, you'll find that war frequently visited the people of Israel. In fact, the pages of Hebrew history as we have them in the Old Testament, they ring with the clamor of strife. When, for example, way back in the days of their Egyptian bondage, God delivered them, there was the Exodus, the exit from Egypt, there were battles then to be fought. And we have an account of those, not only in Joshua, but in the book of Judges, the two of Samuel, the two of Kings, the two of Chronicles, and so right through Jewish history, because the final book in terms of history in the Old Testament is actually 2 Chronicles. And then we take all the prophets and we take the Psalms and the Proverbs and what not and we fit them into the timeline that begins in Genesis and that ends at Chronicles. And so there in that book of Chronicles we come to the final king. But we find right down the line we're talking about warrior kings here. We have David, of course, the great psalmist of Israel, and constantly in battle. And the upshot was that God told him, you have an aspiration, a desire in your heart to build a house, but that will not happen because you have too much blood on your hands. That will be built by another king, Solomon, coming after you. Jehoshaphat. big character in the kingdom of Judah, Hezekiah, Josiah, men that we like to go to and read about and observe their history and learn from, they were all connected with war. When we come to the New Testament Scripture, we find our Lord Jesus Christ, and He takes this telescope of historic time, and He's looking right into the future as to what is going to take place, and that place where he was in Palestine at that time with the Romans doing their utmost to keep the lid on potential Jewish rebellions and all of that. He is saying this land will suffer terrible scars through war going into the future. And not only that, it spreads right across the world and we know all about the concept of total war. in the 20th century, World War I, and then followed quickly within 20 years by the Second World War. And right to the end of time, when we get to the book of Revelation, what do we have? We have them, battle still going on, right to the end, until that time when the city of peace comes down, and when they will study war no more. Psalm 20 is really a prelude to war. It tells the nation how it should be preparing when battle is at the gates. And interestingly, the psalm after this, Psalm 21, is a postscript to war after the battle has taken place. Famous Baptist pastor from London back in the 19th into the 20th century. His books would have been published and well spread through many Bible reading persons will probably have a book of Spurgeon sermons beside them as well. Spurgeon said, we have before us, talking about Psalm 20, a national anthem. fitted to be sung at the outbreak of war when the monarch was girding on his sword for the fight. So we're going to divide up the psalm quickly tonight as we move through it. You'll find that the people are urging on their leader here. They have expectations for their leader. They're finding that leader in a position where he's leading them to war, and he's being challenged here, and he's awed within his own spirit about the responsibility of taking a nation to war, committing the people to the horrors of conflict, and we find the leader here is turning to God and saying, Lord, this is what we need from you in these days of emergency. First of all, therefore, the cradle of this help. It is an appeal for help right through the Psalms. So first of all, the credo of this help. I think we all see in history that whenever war is beginning to loom, whenever big threats are being made, nation against nation, people tend to be more religious, and I'm putting that deliberately in inverted commas. Now, they might have a double standard that they operate for themselves. But they look up the line to the leaders, and they expect their leaders to be devout. more religious than they are even. With war clouds gathering on the horizon, the people of Israel here are looking to their king. And they're telling the king just what kind of a leader they need him to be in the days of crisis and in the times of conflict. He was to be looking to the Lord. That's what you find in verse one, right through to three. The Lord hear thee in the day of trouble. The name of the God of Jacob defend thee, send thee help from the sanctuary and strengthen thee out of Zion. Remember all thy offerings and accept thy burnt sacrifice. Selah. They're looking for a leader who is prayerfully in touch with God. The first verse, the Lord hear thee in the day of trouble. The name of the God of Jacob defend thee. And so they can look to their king, and they will hope that he's skillful. They will hope that he's going to be successful, but they want him also to be spiritual, even here in verse one, to be a supplicator. In times of national emergency, here is always the key thing. Are we in touch with God? Do we have somebody, people in the nation who know how to pray? And the church has a responsibility to join an intercession for its leaders in those days of crisis. We should pray, the Bible teaches us this, to pray for those who are in authority, to pray for righteous men to be in authority because righteousness, exalt of the nation, sin is a reproach to any people. We want men, primarily, who will pray themselves. Three times in the Psalm, you'll notice the name of God is introduced. The name of the God of Jacob, that's in Psalm 20 in verse one. Look at verse five, the name of our God is mentioned there. Look at verse seven, the name of the Lord, our God, and God's name and his power in person, that is going to be the key to the Psalm and the key to the success of the nation. The name of the God of Jacob, just take those three names in turn here. The name of the God of Jacob, that implies, as far as I am concerned, practical trust. He's the God of Jacob. To be the God of Jacob, that means we're underlining compassion there. That means we're thinking of care there. Look at Jacob, there was nothing deserving about Jacob. He was a schemer. He was a crooked armed twister. He was a crafty cattleman, not a bit above lying or cheating if it was going to serve the turn and work out to his advantage. And yet God met Jacob. He mastered Jacob. He molded Jacob. He magnified him and he multiplied him. And here's the lesson. The name of the Lord God of Jacob The God of Jacob is the God who loves us in spite of our foulness and our faults and our feelings, and so we're underlining the aspect of compassion here. And as we're calling in him the name of the God of Jacob, there's that practical trust in God. We're saying, here we are, Lord. We need you desperately. We're weak, we're wayward, we're wicked by nature, but we're looking to you to meet us where we are, screathing us out. The name of the God of Jacob. Not only that, the name of our God. Psalm 20 and 5, we have the emphasis there on personal trust. He's the God of relation, not just the name of God is appearing here, because sometimes you'll hear leaders of nations and they'll make a speech and they'll pepper it with references to God and they'll throw his name in, but it's always general, it's always vague, it's always indefinite. The man's a politician. And he doesn't want to offend the Jews that may be in his kingdom, or the Muslims who are in his kingdom, and so he'll not pray in the name of the blessed Lord Jesus Christ. And he doesn't want to offend the atheists either, and so he might make a vague reference to Providence, or the one who could care for us. doesn't do. We need to make it personal. The name of, what do we have here in Psalm 20 and 5? The name of our God. God does not want our patronage. He wants our prayer based on personal trust. We need to have that relationship with Him. Then the third title of God here, the name of the Lord our God in verse 7, pointing to perfect trust. The God, He was the God of revelation. Jehovah, our Elohim, those are the Hebrew terms here. He's the God of creation. That's what it's pointing to. He's also the God of the covenant that also is configured in this arrangement here. He is the God who has revealed Himself, who has given to us His Word, who has spoken in specific, understandable, moral, spiritual, arresting terms. He's the God who was not only there somewhere, He's the God who was known. For he has revealed himself to us and because he has revealed himself and we know who he is, he can be trusted implicitly. It's a wonderful thing for a nation when its leaders are men and women who have personal, practical, perfect trust in God and who are not in the slightest bit afraid to allow it to be known. Sadly, in our country today, we have atheists running the show. Atheists with their hands on power. And if they ever refer to God, it's pure lip service to a selective audience. But they're not trusting in Him. I pray we are not embroiled Not only in big controversies, but in conflicts. Because the last person you want to lead a nation when the nation has its back against the wall is someone who professedly does not believe in God. The last person you want. And so we have here this desire for a leader who was prayerfully in touch with God. Not only that, powerfully in touch with God. Look at verse 2. In Psalm 20 and 2, the Lord sent thee help from the Sanctuary and strengthened thee out of Zion, the Sanctuary, the house of God. That's the place where you would expect the infusion of spiritual power to come from. Zion in David's day, the great citadel of David, the military stronghold of Jerusalem. That's where the power would have been coming from, the nation's military and strategic power. It's essentially linked to the moral, spiritual character of the nation as well. There's no deliverance such as that deliverance that comes out of the sanctuary. When you're in trouble, where do you go? Fly to the cross for shelter, for defense, in the hour of need, and there you find help is given. Powerfully in touch with God. Properly in touch with God. They wanted their leader to be properly in touch with God. Look at verse 3. The Lord remember all thy offerings and accept thy burnt sacrifice. What's the reference to here? Before a war, the kings typically offered sacrifices. So in the hour of crisis, the people didn't want a king who made vague gestures or overtures of a religious style. They wanted a king who knew the power of the cross in his own life. Who knew what it was to depend upon the sacrifice? That's what verse 3 is all about. And again, we don't see much of that in public life today. We're faced with crisis. Are they going to as they lead the nation? Calling the nation to prayer? We haven't had a call for a National Day of Prayer for decades. Are they going to plead with us to call upon God and that he will intervene and send a spiritual and national revival to our land? That would not be the politically expedient thing to do and the people in charge today will not be doing it. Our Lord presented himself as the victim on the cross. the voluntary sacrifice, the sweet-smelling savor, and he went out, and on Calvary he battled the legions of hell. And here's where we need to get our eye, on the sacrifice of Christ, and never go wide to take on the enemy until, first of all, the Lord has given us a token for good at the altar of the cross, in your personal life. going out living for Christ day by day. Don't be going out engaging the world, tussling against the flesh and the devil without first being at the cross. That's the cradle of help. But then secondly, look at the counsel in this help. The counsel in this help. And we're looking at verse four and verse five in Psalm 20 to get that. There is the thought of planning the battle carefully here. Verse four, the Lord grant thee according to thine own heart and fulfill all thy counsel. He was a man who had a plan. The only way the Lord was going to bless the plan, endorse the plan, make the plan a success when it was being carried out, was if first of all, that plan had been led with an extreme consciousness of God. Lord, what should we do? Lead the way. Show us the path forward. There's the famous painting depicting George Washington. at Valley Forge after he'd been defeated in Philadelphia and again in Germantown. By that stage, his army is decimated. His soldiers have little food, hardly enough clothing. The weather was cruelly cold to compound everything. The Continental Congress could not supply what they needed. So the army's living in crude huts. Some of the men are barefoot. Many soldiers died because of the harsh conditions. Others were too sick to fight because of a smallpox epidemic that was raging through them. And the picture, that famous painting, George Washington at Valley Forge, shows him kneeling in prayer. Now just to show you how far the Western world has drifted from that position, the Chicago American sometime later carried a cartoon showing a sneering youngster, so we're going down through the centuries here, wearing a t-shirt. and pointing a derisive thumb at the picture of Washington, kneeling in prayer at Valley Forge, and the cartoonist labeled the boy's shirt like this, Future American. And he had the boy saying, what's that square doing down on his knees with his eyes closed? And that's pretty much an assessment of where much of our world is today. A prayer meeting? Who would ever go to a prayer meeting? Why would you want to do that? What benefit could you ever hope to achieve there? And here's the lesson coming through in Psalm 20 verse 4 and 5. How could a nation battle against the forces of evil? If its leaders, if its lawmakers refuse to acknowledge any kind of dependence upon God, and so the people of Israel are saying to their king, open your ear and make sure you hear heaven and what it says to you. Plan the battle carefully. Not only that, pursue the battle courageously. Look at verse 5, we will rejoice. in thy salvation and in the name of our God we will set up our banners the Lord fulfill all thy petitions the word for banner only appears twice here and in the song of Solomon chapter 5 and verse 10 and in the song of Solomon 5 and 10 it's translated there the chiefest you'll know the words my beloved is the chiefest Among 10,000, He's the standard bearer among all of those people that are loyal to Him. And this Psalm, I'm sure you saw it as we read down through its words tonight, and you flicked over to the margin of your Bible. When you came to that word anointed in verse 6, now I know why that the Lord saveth His anointed. And in the margin, you've seen the word there, Messiah. The commissioned one. The one sent from heaven. The Lord Jesus Christ, in other words. And he's going forth. Here's the setting in Psalm 20, to battle against his foes. And he is our standard bearer. And we are to rally to that banner. On Saturday, many people will be walking behind banners. Some of them will have the most beautifully painted Bible scenes on them. Others will deal with the Battle of the Boyne. Others will be more World War I in their nature. But here's our banner. It's crimson. Here's our standard bearer. He's the Messiah, the chiefest among 10,000, the living Lord Himself. He's our advocate before the throne. And soon, when He is our advocate, our petitions are going to be heard. So we have, first of all, in Psalm, the cradle of this help. Verse one to three. The counsel in this help, four to five. And finally, the confidence about this help. from verse 6 through to the final verse, verse 9. Notice, because this is all about the prayer that is offered to the Lord in this circumstance. Notice three features of the truth he expressed in verse six. Now I know why. That the Lord save with his anointed. He will hear him from his holy heaven with the saving strength of his right hand. And I want you to notice as we're reading through six to nine here, the way confidence permeates every sentence here. It's pulsating with assurance. The truth he expressed. The people might be looking to the king, but the king is looking to the king of kings. And interestingly enough, in verse six here, the word for saveth is in the past tense. David is expressing the truth. I am so confident that God will give us the victory that I am acting now in faith as though the victory were already in the bag. as though it had already been won. Yes, we need to deploy the army on the battlefield. It's more than formality, but here is the certainty God will hear and God will help. the truth he expressed." But notice that's built upon something in verse 7, and we've seen it before already in the Psalm, the trust he exercised. Some trust in chariots, he said, and some in horses, but we will remember the name of the Lord our God. They're looking at their armaments, their strength on the battlefield. It was up until quite recently all about let's build the biggest tank and let's put as thick an armour on it as it will sustain. Now a lot of armies are thinking more in terms of mobility. Let's move fast along the field of battle and so it's light vehicles, well armoured but much lighter than the big lumbering tank. If you were to go to the Greek version of the Old Testament, Greek translation of it, called the Septuagint, it will render the term, save Lord, as God save the King. David is trusting in the name of the Lord, his God. His trust isn't in his chariots. His trust isn't in the multiplicity or the speed of his horses. we will remember the name of the Lord our God, the Lord our God, the trust He exercised. And Britain's anthem comes right from this phrase, Save the King. We have it, of course, in 1 Samuel 10, the verse 24. We have it in 2 Samuel 16, 16. We have it in 2 Kings 11 and 12. We have it again in 2 Chronicles 23, 11. God seeth the king. Notice also the triumph that he is expecting here. In verse 8 and verse 9, notice the triumph that he is expecting. They are brought down and fallen, but we are risen and stand upright. See of Lord, let the King hear us when we call. Total deliverance. They are brought down and fallen. Because of total dependence upon the Lord, we are risen. God, see of the King, see of Lord, let the King hear us when we call. Just before we sign off on the psalm tonight, let's turn our eyes to the King who is eternal, who is immortal, who is invisible, who the psalm is talking about at its heart, the Messiah. Our Messiah died for us on Calvary, did not save himself. And he surrendered himself, so that the wrath of God is poured upon him, as well as all the spite of man. But the biggest thing that's falling is the punishment for our sin. He didn't save himself, but today he lives. Today he reigns. Today he waits to answer our call. Save Lord, let the King hear us when we call. Let's bow together in prayer, and we'll commit the rest of our meeting to this time of prayer. As many as possible do take part in the time we have.