Well, that's good singing this morning. It's wonderful to be here with you and to sing God's praises with you. It's one of the things that I say often when I'm here that I really enjoy doing here at this church, aside from digging into the Word of God with all of you, which is what we're about to do pretty soon. It is a thrill, really, to break open the Word of God with you. It's a thrill to be able to turn to the words of eternal life, words that are living and active, sharper, as you know, than any two-edged sword that can pierce right through bone, marrow, right to the very recesses of the heart and have its way there with us. I pray that God will have his way with us today and that you will bear with me today as I'm bringing something hot off the press, I guess you might say. This is especially for you, not because there's something I know about you that tells me you need to hear this, but rather it's something that's been on my heart for a long time and I just finished, actually. And so here we are. So I'm going to ask you to really think with me today. Put on your thinking caps and work your way with me through some passages. They're not difficult. And what I have to say, I believe, is very exciting. It's something that every Christian needs to hear. Because every Christian is in a fight. Did you know that? I didn't know if you knew we were in a fight. We're in a fight. Paul calls it a good fight. In fact, one of your pastors, Pastor Ventura, actually wrote about this fight in a book on spiritual warfare. So this fits into the category of spiritual warfare. So that's what I want to talk about this morning. And I'm excited to consider with you our great need to overcome militant tempters that assault us in our greatest moments of weakness. That's what I want to talk about. I just want to begin there. There is a great need, beloved, to overcome militant tempters in our lives because we are constantly tempted by a triad of tempters. You know them as the world, the flesh, and the devil. According to James chapter 1, verses 3 to 15, they present us with convenient alternatives to godliness that appeals to our senses. so strong is their appeal that if we don't vanquish them on the spot, then they instantly become our lusts. And once that happens, we have reached the point of no return, and our lusts give birth to sin. It's a real slippery slope, to be sure, as we move from temptation to sin, and it's a very subtle kind of process, a deceptive kind of process, deceptive enough to catch any unsuspecting Christian off guard. We can be on the other side of this process before we even know it. Sin is no respecter of persons. It doesn't matter who you are, how mature you are. If you're off your game, then you can be on the other side of this process in seconds. We all stumble in many ways, James says. So I think you would agree with me that there's a need for us to know how to overcome these kinds of these kinds of tempters, also to overcome them in our greatest moment of weaknesses. Now, add to that condition, this triad of tempters, the fact that most of the time, we actually face them by ourselves. That is to say, without the help of the body. Now, I don't want to be misunderstood here. Let me explain. I'm not de-emphasizing the importance of body life by any means. We should expect to strengthen each other in the faith and to seek the accountability of each other, right? That's body life, that's important. And examples of this abound in the New Testament. But I think 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 comes readily to my mind, verses 14 and 15. Paul says, we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. Now, that wasn't addressed to elders. That's addressed to the body. Everybody's sitting in the pew. This is the responsibility of members of the church. We need to be engaged in this very aggressive one-anothering, something that's rather unpopular today in American Christianity. I'll get to that in a moment. But we all need this. very holy interaction, this one another-ing. It needs to take place. Faith is not private. Faith is public. We belong to a body. And in heaven, there will be no private worship. We belong to a body for a reason. We all have received strength, I think, from those who are spiritual, right, who come alongside us. When we face heavy ordeals, when we're tempted to respond sinfully, when we've slipped into a depression or perhaps even given into something immoral or whatever it may be, they helped us to make biblical choices. They got firm with us and they talked biblical sense into us. They are a blessed assistance to be sure. At the same time, let me say that there is no guarantee whatsoever that they will always be available when we need them. No guarantee. I would also say that more often than not, we face temptation without the help of other Christians. many times when we are by ourselves. And when that happens, no one knows, no one's available, no one's praying specifically for us in that particular condition. We're sort of like Uriah in 2 Samuel 11. There in that passage where fellow soldiers seem to have withdrawn from us and they leave us exposed on the front lines. And many of us fall in battle at this point, finding the onslaught of temptation quite overwhelming. So you can see just how important it is then to know how to win the fight, how to battle these spiritual battles when we have to fight them single-handedly, with only the Lord as our helper. Now with that in mind, then, let's rehearse three areas of truth just to lay a foundation before I give to you a very powerful strategy. You're going to love this strategy. I can't wait to share it with you. I'm chomping at the bit. But I'm going to pause, and I want to go through these three foundational truths with you just to set the stage. These are areas of truth to help us prepare for receiving this strategy for successfully fighting our spiritual battles when we have to do it single-handedly with only the Lord as our helper. So here's the first truth. The first truth that we need to realize is that we are responsible to win. We're responsible to win. That is the fight, all fights, even the small skirmishes. We're responsible to win. Our triumphs over sin are grounded in part in a firm conviction that, as redeemed and renewed image bearers, we are responsible to strengthen ourselves in the fiercest part of our spiritual battle and keep ourselves from the point of no return. Our responsibility. Christians are responsible to live their confession triumphantly. Now, you may have figured out by now that the concept of Christian responsibility has really fallen on hard times in our post-Christian culture. It really is ignored today in our culture. Americans are taught routinely not to take responsibility for their own problems, their own actions, and to place that responsibility on something else, like illness or environment or miserable people or job or government, politics, whatever. Blame shifting is epidemic in our country. Actually, it was a great evidence of the fall, was it not? Adam blames Eve, Eve blames the serpent, rather. American Christianity, which is what I call Christianity that has been influenced by secular culture, has adopted a version of this secular ideology, and it promotes it tenaciously. So you've heard of groupthink in secular culture. Groupthink is that practice of thinking or making decisions as a group in such a way that it discourages individual responsibility. Well, groupthink has a counterpart in the church, and it's churchthink. It not only fails to recognize our responsibility to win over temptation and sin, it fiercely discourages it in all kinds of ways. Ways like this. You cannot do anything, it's all of grace. If you try, you're only operating on your own strength, so stop trying. That's a clever one. Or God's love will carry you through. Or it's okay if you get depressed, you're only human. Or don't worry if you lose those daily battles, you've already won the war. It just goes on and on. The Americanized Christian culture warns us then that responsibility enslaves and that real freedom lies in the relinquishing of responsibility. Don't worry, it says. It's okay if you cannot do it. These misconceptions really fuel a very laissez-faire approach to the Christian walk. Let me just say that real freedom, beloved, real freedom is when we assume our God-given responsibilities. not when we deny our God-given responsibilities. Denying our responsibility in slaves, assuming them, gives us freedom. Oh, don't get confused. There is an initial sense of relief at the thought that you're not responsible to overcome your problems. There is an initial relief at that, but eventually it's overshadowed by this misconception that you're stuck with a problem for the rest of your life and you have only medicine and therapy or coping mechanisms to depend on. That's rather bleak. If you believe that kind of satanic propaganda, you will be enslaved to sin and you will continue to limp along in your spiritual life. Responsibility to win is a big part of what it means to be made in the image of God. That's right. God has outfitted us with a state-of-the-art weaponry with which to represent him in our good fight, and we need to learn how to use it. If you ignore the implications of what we are in Christ, then the only thing you'll be successful in securing for yourself is the status of a helpless victim. And that new identity comes with no responsibility and no freedom. Oh, beloved, the fashionable lifestyle of the believer who ignores God-given responsibility may be bright and cheery. But his inner man is fragile and cannot keep from cracking under pressure. So let's understand the powerful, liberating truth, and that is that we have been recreated in Christ to be valiant warriors who are responsible to win. That's the first foundational truth that will set the stage for us. Here's the second. Not only are we to be convinced that we are responsible to win, we are also to be convinced that we are more than conquerors. Those aren't my words, those are the Apostle Paul's. The Bible's portrait of a genuine believer is refreshingly opposite to American Christianity's cheery but fragile representatives, and it calls us to consider a companion truth to Christian responsibility, and that is this, Christians are more than conquerors. Isn't that a wonderful image? More than a conqueror. We know what a conqueror is. You're more than that. in Christ. That means that we fight a spiritual battle, not a physical one against other people, of course, but we fight nevertheless. We fight off temptation from the world system and from our own flesh. We kill ungodly lusts. We war against the God of this world. We wear armor. We wield weapons of warfare. The Bible is our sword. We destroy ideological fortresses and take every satanic thought captive to the obedience of Christ. The Christian walk is a militant march of the warrior who is armed for battle and ready to die in service for Christ if need be. That's the picture of who we are. Now, if you've never thought of your Christian walk as a good fight or yourself as more than a conqueror, you may find the contrast between the Bible's portrait of a believer and that of American Christianity to be shocking. Maybe you're here today and you're saying, from your vantage point, it seems more like the other side is won. Perhaps you're contemplating counting your losses and just getting out, whatever that means. But the problem, beloved, with that thinking is the life in Christ is not something that we can desert. There's no such thing as going AWOL in God's army. We're in a fight that we'll rage on until the Lord takes us home. So what are we to do then? Are we destined simply to limp along the straight and narrow? Are we no more than spiritual POWs? By no means. No, you need to please Christ in your decisions. You can. You are more than a conqueror. You have been entrusted with the responsibility to vanquish temptation and sin in your life. Champion God's righteousness in the very area of your weakness. Be aggressive. This is war. I want to weld these two truths together in the third one, and then we'll get to that very exciting strategy that I was telling you about. Here's the third truth. We said we need to be convinced that we are responsible to win. We also need to be convinced that we are more than conquerors. Here's the third truth. I'm going to put it in sort of a formulaic way. Be convinced that we can because we are, therefore we must. I'll say that again. We can because we are, therefore we must. What am I talking about? I wanted to give you the formula first, then I'll open it up for you. There are two powerful implications to your nature in Christ, according to the word of God. One is that you are able to be responsible and conquer. The other implication is that you must. be responsible and conquer. To act irresponsibly and lose spiritual battles goes absolutely contrary to your new nature in Christ. I don't know if anybody's ever talked to you this way before. It's kind of new verbiage, but it's the same old truths. We are responsible to obey. We are responsible to win. Same thing. sometimes helps to be formulaic, as I said, with biblical truths. I said we can because we are, therefore we must, so we can fill in the blanks. We can battle to victory because we are more than conquerors, therefore we must battle to victory. See how it works? We could say it this way, we can live holy lives because we are holy in Christ, therefore we must live holy lives. Now you might be thinking, all right, easier said than done. Well, it may not be easy to overcome temptation, I'll give you that, but it is certainly not complicated, no mysteries. A rigorous, aggressive, fighting style set on winning for Christ in all personal areas of morality and spirituality calls for biblical thinking that leads to biblical action. And that biblical thinking is, we can because we are, therefore we must. All right, three truths. We've set the stage. We're talking about spiritual warfare. We're talking about being more than conquerors with a great responsibility to win for Christ until he comes to take us home. You're wondering, how do I do that? Here comes the strategy. Now, this is not the only strategy in the Bible, but this is probably the most common. The strategy that will help you to fight the good fight is this. It is to learn how to talk to yourself. To learn how to talk to yourself. Talk to myself. Yes, that's right, to talk to yourself. Does that catch you off guard? You were perhaps expecting me to give you some complicated theological concept with a name that is hard to pronounce, right? Nope. Nope, talk to yourself. In fact, you do it all the time. That's right. We all do it. There's no shame in this. The issue before us isn't do we talk to ourselves, rather it's how do we talk to ourselves and what do we tell ourselves. That's the issue and that's the strategy. You might think of this as our conscience speaking to ourselves, and that's fine. However you want to picture this, I don't want to get too picky and try and dissect all of this. We're simply talking about you talking to you about biblical things. In fact, some of us here, I think, are old enough to remember that way that some of the 60s and 70s TV cult shows used to personify someone's conscience at the moment when he had to choose between good and bad decisions. Do you remember where I'm going with this? Sitting on the person's right shoulder was a miniature version of himself dressed in an angel outfit. And sitting on his left shoulder was another miniature version of himself dressed up in a devil suit. Of course, it's Hollywood's rendition of the devil, the red pajamas and the pitchfork and everything else. The angel had the wings and so on. When a person would turn to his right shoulder, he would hear the voice of reason, the voice of reason When he would turn to the left side, he would hear the tempter. The tempter would say, go ahead, do it. Everybody does. You'll be glad you did. You'll see. And then he would turn his head to the right shoulder and hear from the voice of reason, don't even consider it. You'll regret it. Just walk away right now while you still can. I don't know if you remember some of those, some of you older saints. We laugh at that, but what the secular writers portrayed was pretty close to what happens to us in those crucial moments when we're on temptation's road, standing at the crossroads between giving in and overcoming. This is really how God made us. How and what you tell yourself makes a huge difference. For example, you might talk to yourself as a coach, and you might get firm with yourself, and you might tell your lazy self, you're going to exercise today. Or you might talk to yourself as a nurse to your sick self, and you might say, OK, don't forget to take your medicine. You need to drink plenty of water. Don't forget to do that. Let's write it down. Or maybe it's the voice of reason that you are giving to yourself. Listen, stop worrying about it. That won't help. And don't be afraid. That's just plain silly. Or maybe you talk to yourself as the tempter. Rationalize yourself into a sinful act. There's no problem acting this way. After all, it's all part of becoming all things to all men that I may yet win some." It's pretty sneaky. That's the tempter. So it's not that we talk to ourselves, rather it's how we do it and what we say. I want to talk to you this morning about how to talk to yourself and what to say. More specifically, when you're starting to entertain rogue untruths that come to your mind, when other troops have withdrawn from you and you're left to confront this temptation all by yourself, there's no one around to talk biblical sense into you. You need to know how to minister to yourself. You need to first confront your weak self in order to strengthen yourself. To say this another way, argue yourself out of temptation, away from sin and toward obedience. Attack any sinful and unprofitable thoughts the moment they come to your mind with weapons of warfare. This is the way that God's champions have always done it. You say, is that in the New Testament? Oh yeah. If we had time, I could take you, it's rife, I could take you all over the place and show you. The verse I think that probably would encapsulize all of this would be, let the word of God abide in you, it says in John. And that's what it means to abide, let the word of God abide in us. We need to talk and minister to ourselves with biblical truth and not believe the lies. The Old Testament portrays this in a rather chronographic way. For example, in Psalm 42, the psalmist musters his defense against his depressed self. Why are you downcast, O my soul? And why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. Who's he talking to? Himself. He's ministering to himself. Let me give you, in the time we have remaining, four specific ways that the Old Testament saints ministered to themselves, the way that ancient believers did and successfully battled sin. Now, we're not going to have any time at all to actually draw practical implications from each of these four ways. We'll have to do that next time when we're together. I simply want to give you a sense of what it means to be more than a conqueror and how we are to take a militant approach against our weak selves. Keep that in mind. Here's the first one. First of all, they talked to themselves as sound theologians. So you would want to talk to yourself as a sound theologian. King David was a shepherd, but he was also a king and he was a genuine worshiper of Yahweh. And he knew what it meant to fight for God as all three. As a shepherd boy, he explained to King Saul that although he had not grown up a warrior in the traditional sense, his responsibilities tending his father's sheep put him in situations where he defended his flock and defeated wild animals single-handedly. 1 Samuel 17. He had no doubts about doing the same thing to the giant Goliath, who was a blasphemer of Israel, who defied the armies of the living God, David said. His militant posture was grounded, you see, in a faithful God and whom he trusted. He said, the Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, he will deliver me from the hand of the Philistine. Can you hear the militant voice that comes from this shepherd boy? Well, when he became king, David was, of course, no stranger to battle either. And when he led his troops into the heat of it, he did so with the same militant posture that was grounded in the faithfulness of his covenant God. God's word to David was the exact same word to Moses. and to Joshua before him and to Nehemiah after him. It was this, the Lord your God who goes before you himself will fight on your behalf. And trusting that David never lost a battle that God told him to fight, never. As a true believer, David was also well acquainted with the spiritual battle that rages in the human soul. And not surprisingly, he approached that battle with the same militant posture. Take, for example, the incident in Ziklag. This is our central text for this morning, but we're going to be jumping all around. But in 1 Samuel chapter 30, you may already be there, in the first six verses, we find something rather astounding. David took his men on a mission and left their wives and their children in Ziklag unprotected. When David and his men returned to Ziklag, well, they found that the Amalekites had invaded and took their wives and children. Well, that was distressful to say the least. The narrative tells us David was greatly distressed because the people spoke of stoning him. For all the people were embittered, each one because of his sons and his daughters. But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God." This is a remarkable statement. David went from being the people's choice to public enemy number one in a single moment. He was all alone. No moral support, no sympathizers, being at such odds with his men while at the same time grieving his own loss of his wives and children, we're not surprised to see that he was distressed and that he was in need of strengthening. The word distress here in this chapter, this verse, verse six, stands in contrast to strengthen. He was distressed, he needed to strengthen himself. So there are opposites. And it carries the idea of extreme timidity, of weakness, of cowering. At that moment, David lacked confidence that he was actually God's choice and he was tempted to give up. The contrast in verse six, but in the last clause shows that David had a sinful way And he had a righteous way open to him at this very moment, this very moment where he was feeling his timidity and his weakness and tempted to give up. And he clearly chose the righteous way. Rather than yield to his distress or to become sick, debilitated because of it, he conquered. When many at this point would hang it up, or worse, David owned up to his responsibility to strengthen himself in his God and deliberately and aggressively fought to win. How exactly did David strengthen himself at this moment? Well, the literary structure of 1 Samuel is the key here. The greater context provides some clues for us. The writer deliberately contrasts how David handled his intense temptation here with how Saul handled his two chapters earlier in chapter 28. The contrast shows on the one hand that Saul had no resource for help and guidance. And on the other hand, David had an intimate relationship with God that surely formed the foundation for a sound theology. David's act of strengthening himself in the Lord then means that at the moment of intense distress, when he was tempted to give up, he talked to himself as any sound theologian would. We might assume safely that he went right to his theology and then instructed himself to live by faith and not by sight in his current circumstances. He won. He won that day. Didn't always win. He won that day. More than a theologian, you need to learn how to talk to yourself as an apologist, an apologist. An apologist is someone who defends the faith. Many psalmists take the same militant and self-confrontational approach that David did at Ziklag. We're not surprised that David wrote many psalms, in fact. That is, they confronted themselves directly and honestly with scriptural truth that fit the need of the moment, with a view toward winning the spiritual battle. Now, proof of this holy interaction lies in the private nature of these Psalms. You say, what do you mean by that? Well, before many of the Psalms were actually recorded and deposited in the temple and became the temple hymn book, used by all of God's people, they were actually real prayers prayed by real people in the heat of the moment. They were prayed by genuine believers in the heat of the moment. So, follow me on this, their private nature, the private nature of the psalm compels us to conclude that certain questions that these psalmists raised in their praying had to be directed to none other than themselves. They weren't directed to God and they weren't directed to anybody else because they weren't praying to anybody else or with anybody else. So the only conclusion is that there are times when some of these questions are directed to themselves. Often these internal questions take the form of a rhetorical question. You know a rhetorical question is a question that anticipates an answer. When God said to Adam, did you eat of the fruit that I asked you not to? God wasn't looking for data. It's a statement. You ate from the fruit I told you not to. Now look at the consequences. That's a rhetorical question. Are we saying that the psalmist talked to themselves? Yes. But they didn't do so without careful purpose. They confronted themselves aggressively, sometimes with rebukes and exhortations, and at other times with encouragement and assistance. Take, for example, Psalm 77. You can turn to Psalm 77, hold your place here at First Samuel 30. Psalm 77 is a psalm of Asaph. He laments over a protracted period of general suffering and sorrow that seems to be nationwide. So his nation was suffering for a long time. He begins to become depressed. So he prays for a resolution. In verse one, he says he prays at times crying out loud with a great intensity. Verse two, in the night, my hand was stretched out without weariness. So he's all night long crying out to God. Asaph in his weakened condition is tempted to think the unthinkable. that God is no longer loving or compassionate to his redeemed people. What else is he to think when he compares God's past awesome acts and glorious acts of deliverance that are listed in verses four to six to God's inexplicable silence in his own situation? You see, he looks back and sees that God is delivered every time. He looks at his own situation and notices that there's no answer. There's no activity. Yahweh is silent. With no one around to strengthen Asaph in his debilitating doubt, he takes responsibility to strengthen himself, and he's aggressive. He revisits. God's sterling track record of love and compassion in verse five, where it is shown throughout all of Israel's history, as he puts it in verse five, the days of old, and he meditates on the fact that God is actually faithful. Verse six, he says, my spirit pondered this. Asaph then begins to defend the faith to his doubting self. And you can see how rigorous he does this with the rhetorical questions that he uses in verses seven to nine. Now, by the way, those questions, as I say, expect a certain answer. I want to point out to you that initially these rhetorical questions may have been the ungodly thoughts that his flesh produced, or maybe the evil one planted in his mind. But regardless of the source, the fact that he then recasts them in rhetorical questions that clearly expect a negative answer shows us how he's fighting and he's winning the mental battle. We can capture the aggressive, apologetic tone that he uses with himself by rephrasing his questions in verses seven to nine. I would rephrase them this way. Of course the Lord will not reject you forever. He will absolutely be favorable to you again. His loving kindness cannot cease. You know full well that it's boundless. The same goes for His promises. He will never renege on them. You know that it's impossible for God to forget to be gracious or to withdraw His compassion from His chosen people. It is His nature to be compassionate. And this is what he told himself. This is how he argued with himself. Verse 10 marks the transition in the Psalm and Asaph's spiritual battle. He's winning. After using God's track record of love and compassion effectively to refute the ungodly thoughts that assaulted him and his weakness, he returns to refute his initial erroneous suspicion that God could ever change in his nature, ever become unreliable, or even be guilty of turning hateful and heartless. And with renewed vigor, Asaph the apologist confronts Asaph the doubter and defends the true way that God communes with his people on the basis of God's holy nature. Asaph won that day. He won. We mentioned already Psalm 42, the psalmist, assumes the role of an apologist there when he tells his weakened self, who is all depressed, to hope in God. In Psalm 56, David tells his doubting self that it's always the best to obey God and trust Him for the outcome. He says, I will praise God for His word. I will trust in God. I will not be afraid. What can flesh do to me? Well, here's a third way that the Old Testament saints spoke to themselves. They talked to themselves as polemicists. You need to talk to yourself as a polemicist. You say, what is that? Well, a polemic is an argument. A polemicist is somebody who counters error with arguments. In our case, in the Christian faith, it is someone who counters unbiblical views that threaten his faith. Someone's going to tell you that Christianity is a lie. You say, no, it's not. You give an argument. But it's even more subtle and more effective than that. Let me show you. This is a wonderful thing. Well, pagan religion threatened Israel throughout most of her existence, and won over many Israelites, not all would play the harlot after other gods. There would be a remnant. And the remnant would stand their ground. They were steadfast, not because they were immune to the allure of pagan religion or the pressure from countrymen who were turning away from the living God to dumb idols. Oh, no. No, they weren't immune to it. They simply fought it off. They fought off all such temptation by the way they structured their prayers. They prayed polemically. Now, remember, they're praying to God by themselves. No one's around. And so they begin to talk to themselves in this kind of way. Let me show you how this works. Whereas the apologetic psalmist used sobering rhetorical questions to strengthen themselves, the polemic psalmist, polemical psalmist used pagan religion verbiage, actual pagan words for the purpose of exalting Yahweh. In so doing, they undermine such pagan thought, while at the same time declaring the matchless sovereignty of God." This is such a great thing. In Psalm 19, which is ascribed to David, you read there, Psalm 19, first six verses, David extols God's glory that is revealed in both creation and then in 7 to 11 in Scripture. From the middle of verse four to the end of verse six, David shifts his focus from the whole creation to the one part that dominates it, it's the sun. It's the most powerful force in nature. Depending on its position relative to the earth, it leaves us in utter darkness or shines on us while it lights the earth bright enough to actually blot out constellations. from our sight, nothing on earth can escape its heat. It affects the tides, the weather, sustains all life on earth, but most importantly, it reveals the glory of its creator, the Lord God. Now David doesn't just glorify the Lord by drawing attention to how magnificent the sun is, God's handiwork. No, he at the same time condemns in his prayer Canaanite religion that was having an influence in his kingdom at the time. By this time in his life, you know, David is very experienced and his experience gave him insight into the perils of pagan thinking that surrounded his people. He had witnessed firsthand how it tempted his countrymen constantly and often with great success, but he himself would not fall prey to it. So his prayer was intended to do two things, to declare the glory of God, but in a way that would at the same time be an offense to the Canaanites everywhere. That's a polemic prayer. You see, the ancient peoples of Mesopotamia worshiped the sun. His name was Shamash. They even called this God the bridegroom. And isn't it interesting that David purposely uses the word bridegroom in this verse to describe the sun? In other words, loaded with pagan imagery to condemn the pagan notion of a sun god and all that goes with it. The sun is not a god, but merely Yahweh's handiwork and tells of his glory. Furthermore, since they also believe that the sun god was the upholder of justice and righteousness, David delivers another slap in the face to Canaanite religion by his reference to God's creation, especially the sun, within a context that exalts God's law as an ultimate source of justice. in verses 7 to 11. You see what he's doing here? He sees the pagan religion all around influencing his countrymen. Perhaps he himself was even tempted. He begins to minister to himself. He goes to prayer and he uses the very words that are technical in Canaanite religion to exalt Yahweh and to show that Yahweh is really the overall creator and sovereign. Let me just say that any Hebrew who recited this psalm would immediately pick up on David's polemic. But remember, this prayer was David's alone first. He privately praised the Lord, but in a way that also denounced the poison pagan religion that threatened his faith. By himself, in his prayer closet, that's how he strengthened himself. Let me quickly go to the last one here, and that is they talk to themselves as persuaders. You need to talk to yourself as a persuader. There in the Psalms are a number of different categories. One is called the Lament Psalm. It includes several distinct features. If you turn to Psalm 54, you will see what I'm talking about. Psalm 54, there is the initial cry for help. Oh, Lord, save me. followed by the description of the lament, my enemies are pursuing me. And then the petition where the psalmist gives biblical reasons why God should answer his prayer of deliverance. Save me, oh God, because you are faithful. The encouraging part of the lament psalm, and why it's remained a great tool for encouraging saints all throughout time, is the last component where it actually turns into praise. Lament turns into praise. Old Testament scholars refer to this part as the vow of praise. The psalmist vows to God that he will go straightway to the sanctuary upon his deliverance in order to boast to the assembly about what God has done. In some laments, the psalmist forgoes the vow and begins simply to rehearse his praise. Right there in the midst of distress, he stops and he begins to rehearse praise because he knows God's going to deliver him and he's going to go and tell everybody about it. Now what's so remarkable about this feature is that the psalmist makes his vow of praise or rehearses his praise in the midst of ongoing distress. In Psalm 54, David is so confident that God will do right by him that he dispenses with his lament and starts rehearsing praise in preparation of the day of deliverance. It says at the end of the psalm, You have delivered me, past tense. Hadn't happened yet. Beloved, if you survey Christians today about the best situation for praising God and worshiping God, I think very few, if any, would say, oh, in the heat of spiritual battle where temptation to bail from our Christian responsibilities is greatest. But that's what David did. Yes, not so for the champions of righteousness of old. As soon as they felt the tug at their heart to lose all hope, they used the truth about their God to persuade themselves to biblical action. This about-face stance of the psalmist gives fuller meaning, I think, to the statement, you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. Well, we've seen the Old Testament sampling of how God's people strengthened themselves in their spiritual battles when they were weak and vulnerable to temptation from the world of flesh and the devil. They approached those battles with a militant posture. They weren't fooling around. They took responsibility to win seriously. They championed righteousness in their greatest areas of weakness by assuming different stances, different postures. Depending on the situation, they became theologians to themselves in order to understand how tragedy fits within the will of God. They became apologists to themselves, defending God's truth against their doubt. The Lord is my light, my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the defense of my life. Whom shall I dread? He's asking himself this question. The answer is no one. They became polemicists when they needed to nurture an unflagging devotion to God in an atmosphere that promoted creation worship. The sea is the Lord's, for it was He who made it. And they became persuaders and convinced themselves that God loves to work in seemingly unbeatable odds. God's way is through the sea. I'd never go that way. Now, let me just say in closing, we've got to get the New Testament in here because we looked at Old Testament stuff. I want to say this, in Christ, beloved, we are equipped to imitate the militant posture and self-strengthening activity of the Old Testament saints in even greater ways. You say, wow, really? Yes. Maybe you find that assertion rather astonishing. It seems hard enough to live as more than conquerors. How can we possibly do a better job of it than David or Asaph or any of the other Old Testament champions of righteousness? We can, beloved, because we are members of a better covenant, better promises. We have at our disposal the glorious completed revelation of God to use in our warfare. The Old Testament saints lived in the shadow of what is now reality for us. We have seen what they could only long for, the great high priest who has passed through the heavenlies, Jesus, the Son of God. If they could hold fast their confession on the basis of what God has promised, how much more can we who have seen those promises fulfilled The New Testament writers believed this truth and they were forceful in calling Christians to be responsible to fight the way God expects them to fight. See to it that no one misleads you. Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lust. Resist the devil. Test yourself to see if you're in the faith. Be all the more diligent to make certain about your calling and election. Prepare your minds for action. Consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. The Apostle Paul clearly considered his readers responsible to fight the good fight. A very young Timothy was responsible to flee youthful lusts, no option, get out of there, and remain faithful to his pastoral duties and to a congregation that didn't take him seriously. The Ephesian elders were responsible to stand sentinel over themselves if they were to be effective overseers of their flock. Paul himself modeled our responsibility to fight and win spiritual battles. He worked hard to put to death lust of the flesh so that they would not have mastery over him, but that he would have mastery over his own body. He refused to lose heart. He strengthened himself in the inner man when he switched his focus on that which was seen to that which is unseen. And he concluded, our momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison. He also did this alone, when no one was there to help him. In 2 Timothy 4, verses 16 and 17, we learn that he was in the front lines of persecution when his companions withdrew and left him alone. His testimony is this, only the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, verse 17. What does it mean that Jesus stood with him and strengthened him? It means that we should not be so naive to think that Paul, who had spent his entire redeemed life instructing Christians and calling them to follow his teaching, would say that his theology played no part. It played a huge part when Jesus stood with him It means that the teaching of the Lord was abiding in his heart. The theological promises of the one who went before Paul to fight for him became his refuge, his retreat. He trusted God's sovereign will for his life. Is it any wonder that he would command Christians? to go to their theology and determine the right course of action to consider. He says, consider yourself to be dead to sin, alive to God in Christ Jesus. Or this, have the same attitude as Christ Jesus, which essentially means reason like the Lord. Well, finally, Jesus is our ultimate divine role model, of course. He single-handedly faced and conquered repeated temptations from the devil in his greatest moments of weakness, in a wilderness without food for 40 days, when his disciples were falling asleep on him later in his life, deserting him later in life and betraying him at the end of his life. Then he faced death alone. He died alone in the fullest sense. Yet he was obviously convinced that it was his responsibility to win. And he depended on his arsenal of the Holy Spirit, of prayer and scripture to achieve the victory. Perhaps the greatest statement ever made about our responsibility and ability in Christ are his words from the cross. It is finished. Here's the conclusion. Christians are sure conquerors who are complete in Christ, have been enabled by his power to win, and therefore they must win. You must win, beloved. The truth needs to be rediscovered and reemphasized for two good reasons. The Bible teaches it, and American Christianity does not. There is a great urgency for us as Christians to understand and accept this or else we will continue to enslave ourselves and limp around at best. But God has not given us a spirit of timidity, right? But of power and love and discipline. Our resources in Christ are more than sufficient. and being entrusted by God with the responsibility to make use of them is both empowering and liberating. We know the one who was tempted in all ways as we are yet without sin. Shall we not draw near to him with confidence and expect to receive mercy and to find grace to help in time of need? That's a rhetorical question. Well, therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed." Hebrews 12, 12 and 13. Father, thank you for this time together. Thank you for your word. Thank you for the hope it gives us, for the fact that we are in Christ more than conquerors, and that we have nothing to fear but our great God himself. And Lord, we do want to be your representatives. We want to fight your fight. We pray, then, that we will be vigilant, ever vigilant, that we will take the examples from the Old Testament saints and how they minister to themselves. And with a complete revelation, do the same, that we might stand and we might conquer in the greatest moments of weakness for your glory, for your honor, for the sake of the gospel, and for the sake of the church. For we pray in Christ's name, amen.