Evening. Compel me, which is
what we were just saying. Bid me, Lord, to come unto thee.
Make me willing. Bend my heart. Cause me to come. If you'd like to open your Bibles
with me to Proverbs chapter 9. Proverbs chapter 9. Services
for. Wayne's memorial will be this
Saturday here at 10 o'clock. And David Pledger will be preaching
Walter Gruber's memorial service in Lincolnwood in Houston this
Sunday night, and that'll be live streamed as well. So if
you'd like to watch that, you can join in for that. Caleb, Robert, thank you brothers. for standing faithfully in my
absence. I appreciate it so much. We had
good services, I thought, in West Virginia. And the brethren
there send their greetings. It's very sweet to get to know
some of them. And I stayed with, you all know
Emily Murray that's married a Christian. And I stayed with her. mom and
stepdad in their home, and that was a real treat. It was a good
weekend, good meeting, and I was very thankful to go and glad
to get home. Let's begin. I started something a couple of
months ago. There's 31 chapters in the book
of Proverbs. And I just read the chapter first
thing, first thing in the morning before I do anything else, before
I get out of bed most of the time, read the chapter of Proverbs
for that day and then next month do the same thing and try to
concentrate on one verse. I'd share that with you to encourage
you. I think if we all did that, it'd have a great impact on our
whole church. So I know it's been a blessing
to me just to read a chapter a day, read it slowly, go back
over it, ask the Lord to give you one verse to think about
all day, and what blessing this book is. Proverbs chapter 9,
beginning at verse 1, wisdom hath builded her house, she hath
hewn out her seven pillars. We know that Christ is our wisdom. And here he's being personified.
And in verse two, she hath killed her beast, and she hath mingled
her wine, and she hath also furnished her table. Here's the Lord. This is the sacrifice of Christ
been made on Calvary's cross. And the mingling of the wine
is the comparing the scripture to scripture in God's word. And the furnishing of the table
is what we're doing right now. We're reading from the word of
God, and pray the Lord will feed our souls. She had sent forth
her maidens. She cried upon the highest places
of the city. Who so is simple? Let him turn
in hither. As for him that wanteth understanding,
she saith to him, come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine
which I have mingled. Forsake the foolish and live,
and go in the way of understanding. He that reproveth a scorner giveth
to himself shame, and he that rebuketh a wicked man giveth
to himself a blot. Reprove not a scorner, lest he
hate thee. Rebuke a wise man, and he will
love thee. You know, when we're setting
the table of God's Word, we're not trying to rebuke fools or
trying to change men. We're feeding God's sheep is what we're
doing. And they rejoice. in what they are hearing. Give
instruction to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser. Teach a
just man, and he will increase in learning. The fear of the
Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the holy
is understanding. For by me thy days shall be multiplied,
and the years of thy life shall be increased. If thou be wise,
thou shall be wise for thyself. But if thou scornest, thou shall
alone bear it. Let's pray together. Our heavenly Father, we pray
that you would make us simple as we come before thy holy presence. We ask, Father, that you would
teach us wisdom and understanding We ask our dear blessed Heavenly
Father that you would reveal to us the glory of Christ and
that we would find our hope and our salvation, our rest, our
comfort in him. Lord, forgive us for our sin.
For Christ's sake, we pray that you would hide them and put them
away under his blood. We ask it in Christ's name, amen. Number 17 in the hardback temple,
17. Let's stand together once again. Every blessing to my heart to
sing thy praise. Streams of mercy never ceasing
call for songs of loudest praise. Teach me some melodious sonnet
sung by flaming tongues above. Raised about, I'm fixed upon
it, Bound of Thy redeeming love. Here I raise mine Ebenezer, Hither
by Thy help I'm come, And I hope by Thy good pleasure, Safely
to He went a stranger, wandering
from the fold of God. He, to rescue me from danger, interposed His precious blood. How great a debtor, daily I'm
constrained to be. Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
guide my wandering heart. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel
it. Prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart, oh, take and
seal it. Seal it for thy courts above. Please be seated. We open your Bibles with me to
Psalm 144. We're going to look at the first
two verses in this Psalm tonight, Psalm 144. And I've titled this
message subdued, subdued under Christ. What a blessing it is
when the Lord makes his people willing in the day of his power.
He doesn't drag us kicking and screaming. He doesn't save us
against our will. He changes our will. He makes
us willing. We desire nothing more than to
know Him and to love Him and to be with Him and to believe
on Him. And that's what the Lord's saying
here in this psalm, in at least the first two verses. Look, it's
the Psalm of David. Blessed be the Lord, my strength. And that word strength is rock,
which teacheth my hands to war and my fingers to fight. The
Lord is my goodness and my fortress, my high tower and my deliverer,
my shield. And he, He, He in whom I trust. We're not trusting a doctrine.
We're not trusting our understanding. We're trusting a person. He is the one I trust who subdued
my people under me. Now, as we've seen time and time
again, These are the words of Christ talking about his relationship
with his father and his dependence upon his father. And he's rejoicing
in that the father has subdued his people under him. And we, by virtue of our union
with Christ, can offer up the same prayer. We are made to be
willing, we are subdued, we are thankful to be able to come into
his presence and to worship him. This word blessed, it means to
kneel or to adore, to praise, to bow in worship before him. It's a glad, willing spirit of
submission. You know, people, when we talk
about man not having a free will, you know, the one who's trusting
in the decision that they've made for the hope of their salvation,
accuse us of, well, God doesn't want us to love him against our
will. We didn't say that. We didn't
say that. He makes us willing. He brings
us to himself and causes us to be subdued at his feet. We, like Mary, choose that one
thing that is needful. And that's the work of the Spirit
of God in the heart. This is what he does when he
subdues us. This word means a glad, willing
spirit of submission and worship of reverence, motivated by gratitude
and love. And that's what we want. We want
the Lord to to move our hearts, to be grateful and to love him
because he first loved us and to to worship him out of out
of gratitude and to submit to him with a with a willing spirit
and a willing heart. And that's the way the Lord's
heart was towards his father, was it not? Was there any resistance
whatsoever in the Lord's heart toward his father? And doesn't
the Lord, we have resistance in our flesh because our flesh
is drawn to the things of this world. But our heart, our new
man, Our new man is just as willing as the Lord Jesus Christ was
willing. That's what it means to have the mind of Christ. That's
what it means to be made after his own heart. David said he
was a man after God's own heart. And when the Lord gives you a
new heart, he gives you a new spirit. He causes you to submit
to Him willingly and lovingly. And it's that desire to know
Him and to love Him that causes us to bow in worship. Not raising our fists, not in
rebellion, not as the world would say, I'm not gonna have that
man reign over me. No, the believer comes and says,
Lord reign over me. Reign over me. Take control of
me. Help me. And that's what the
Lord is praying here. It's not a forced or a manipulated
attempt. That's what men do in religion.
They try to shame people for not coming to church, or they
manipulate them with something that appeals to the flesh, or
they force them with threats if they don't come. That's not how the Lord does
it. We say if you don't want to come,
don't come. If you don't want to give, don't give. God makes his
people willing. He loves a cheerful giver because
that's the evidence of his grace that he puts in the heart to
want to come to him. That's what David's saying. He
said, Lord, do this work for me. Don't leave me with just
some cold doctrine. Don't leave me with just some
forced attempt to worship you in order to earn your favor. Lord, make me willing and give
me that spirit of continual prayer so that as I'm walking through
this world, walking by faith, that you cause me to draw near
unto thee. We don't come out of obligation.
We're not looking for reward. That's why men are involved in
religion. They're wanting to obligate God
and they're looking for some reward for their religious efforts. No. No, that's mercenary religion. That's all that is. Wanting to
be paid for what you're doing, serving God for payment. No,
that's such bondage. What liberty, what freedom there
is to be able to serve him lovingly and willingly from a willing
heart and to bless him. That's what he's talking about
here. That's what I want. I know that's what you want.
And your flesh stands in your way. And you say, oh, Lord, help
thou mine unbelief. Give me this spirit of grace. Give me this desire. Did not
David say, I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into
the house of the Lord? A dear sister up in West Virginia,
first thing she said to me when she saw me Sunday morning, she
said, this is my favorite day of the week. I'm just so glad
to be here. Thank you for coming. You know, you've said that to
me before, and that's true. We're not coming here for any
other reason. We come here because we want
to. We want to worship him. I was truly glad. He made me
glad. I had somebody write me recently
when I was dealing with this issue of being glad. I can't
remember the context of the message. Maybe you remember it was just
a week or two ago. And she just wrote me. She said,
I'm so glad to be glad. I'm so glad to be glad. And aren't
you glad to be glad? Aren't you glad that somebody
doesn't have to shame you and manipulate you? You're glad to
be glad. I was glad when they said unto
me, let us go into the house of the Lord subdued under Christ. That's what the Lord's rejoicing
to his father saying, you've subdued by people unto me. And
what a, what a wonderful place to be. So David said, bless me, the Lord.
He's the Lord. It's not just being subdued under
just anybody. This is the God of glory. This
is the self-existent, eternal creator and sustainer of all
things. This is the one who gave his
name, this Lord. Anytime you see L-O-R-D in caps
in the Old Testament, it's Jehovah. It's, it's, which, which is Yahweh. It's the, it's the name that
God gave to Moses at the Bernie Bush when God, before that, before
that, God's people didn't know the name of God. He gave him
his name at Moses. And, and he, and he says, I am,
I am. And the Lord Jesus Christ, being
the fullness of the Godhead bodily, takes that name on himself. And
those Jews knew what he was saying when he said, I am the bread
of life, and I am the resurrection and the life. I am the good shepherd. They wanted to crucify him. And they said, you, being a man,
have made yourself out to be God. You've taken on the very
name of God and taken it to yourself. And they were offended by that.
And God's people say, oh, bless the Lord. Bless the Lord, oh
my soul. From the heart, Lord, I want
to worship you. I want to be subdued to you and
sit willingly under your feet and rejoice in you and to hear
what you have to say to me and to be comforted by your presence
and by your power to be encouraged. to be delivered. That's what
he goes to go on to say that this is the this is the one who's
without father and without mother, without beginning and without
end. This is the priest after the order of Melchizedek. This
is the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the Lord. We're we've
come into his presence to worship him. It's not just an idea. And I liked what Donny Bell brought
out the other Sunday. You know, we talk about coming
to Christ. We're not talking about a physical
presence. You remember when Mary Magdalene
came to the tomb and and and she thought that the gardener
had taken the body of Christ. The gardener was the Lord Jesus
Christ. And she said, oh, sir, just tell
me where you've taken him, that I might retrieve his body. And
and the Lord spoke her name, Mary. Mary, that's all he had
to say was her name. And when he speaks to us, he
speaks to us, he calls us by name. And he said, my sheep come
unto me. And Mary said, oh, Rabboni, master. And she fell at his feet and
was clinging to him. And the Lord said, Mary, touch
me not. I've not yet gone to my father.
When I go to my father, You know, she'd lost him once. She wasn't
going to do it again. But she needed to learn that
it wasn't his physical presence. It was his spiritual presence.
So we're not looking to a physical image of the Lord Jesus Christ. That would be idolatry. We're
looking to the nature and character and love and mercy and all the
attributes of God that are revealed to us in scripture. And that
takes the Holy Spirit to be able to do that. Because the flesh
just wants to see something physical. And that's why men in religion
who don't have the gospel are always creating some idol that
they can look to. They want something tangible
that they can see. And the Lord reveals himself
to his people, to our hearts, by his word. It's the Word of
God that reveals Christ. And so faith is believing what
God has said about himself and rejoicing to come into his presence
and to not cling to something physical, but to have the Spirit
of God enabling us to to look in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ
and say, blessed be the Lord, the immutable, sovereign, self-existent
God of glory, who's full of mercy and full of love and full of
truth. He's the one we bless. He's the one we kneel before.
He's the one we submit to. and only if he makes us to do
that. We're not talking about some
kind of commitment that we make. Look at this verse. Verse two again, the last part
of verse two. He's praying, the Lord Jesus
is rejoicing in his relationship with his father and he says,
you subdued my people unto me. This is a work of grace. You
see, when we talk like this and we preach like this and we hear
these things from God's Word, we don't say, well, you know,
I'm going to go out and I'm going to be more subdued and more committed
and more submissive to the Lord. No. No, Lord, make me. Make me to be that way, Lord,
work grace in my heart so that I'm willing and I delight in
being able to come unto you. And I was glad when they said
unto me, and Lord, this is what you're going to have to do. Now, I mentioned in verse one,
blessed be the Lord, my strength, that the word strength here is
the word rock. And what a picture. The Lord Jesus is looking to
his father as his rock. And it's a symbol of something
that doesn't change, immutability. You know, we know that rocks
change, scientifically they do. The molecules even in a rock
are moving, but as it relates to other physical things, rocks
are pretty stable. And the Lord using this physical
image to illustrate his strength and his stability and his immutability. And the Lord is saying, my father's
my rock. And we use that word, we use
that term today when we speak of someone that's our stable
influence in life. We say, well, they're my rock.
Well, the Lord Jesus Christ is our rock, isn't he? After preaching
the Sermon on the Mount, he said, if you hear these words, believe
them, obey them, follow them. You're like a man who builds
his house upon a rock. And when the wind blows and the
rain falls and the storms come, that house will stand. Why? Because
it's built upon a rock. Every house, every tabernacle,
every house is either built on a rock or it's built on shifting
sand. Now, what's going to happen to shifting sand when that storm
comes? The sand's going to wash out from under it and that house
is going to fall. Oh, what a stable foundation
we have. He's the rock. He's the one who
said to Peter, when Peter said, thou art the Christ, the son
of the living God, and the Lord said, flesh and blood has not
revealed the son to you, Peter, you've been blessed of God. Blessed
art thou, Simon Barjona, my father has revealed this unto you, and
upon this rock, the declaration that you just made, that I am
the Christ, the Son of God, I'm gonna build my church, and the
gates of hell shall not prevail against it. What a blessing. And so we can
say, blessed be the Lord, oh Lord, that willingly submit to
the God of glory who is my rock. He is my rock. To the world,
he's the rock of offense. He's the stone of offense and
the stone of stumbling and the rock of offense. He's the rock,
the cornerstone that the builders rejected. But God has taken him
and made him to be the head of the corner. So the whole church
and the believer's whole life is founded in Christ, rooted
in him, standing on him, relying upon him for everything, for
everything. What a delight. What a joy. I mean, look at the world. What
do they have? What do they have? They've got
nothing. Nothing. Temporal promises of the world,
which lead nowhere. What does it profit a man if
he gains the whole world? And that's what men are doing,
pursuing the world. Laura Grace and I were talking
about this the other day. I said, those who want to conquer the
world, you know what they end up with? The world. That's what they end up with. What do they got? Nothing. Nothing. What a blessing it is to have
the Lord Jesus Christ as our rock. He's that rock that followed
the children of Israel through the wilderness. Woke up every
morning. Different camp, there's that
rock again. Moses took the rod of justice
and smote that rock, and water came out of that rock. And you
know that's a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's
cross, burying our sins and suffering the judgment of God's wrath,
that the water of life might flow freely. We live in a dry
and thirsty land. There's no water here. That's why the Lord said, if
any man thirst, any man thirst, let him come to the doctrines
of grace. No, let him come unto me and
out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. Oh, that's what
we want. We want to come to the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ that, that, that, that the truth of
who he is would flow from our bellies and that we would have
fellowship and peace and forgiveness in the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Deuteronomy chapter 32 verse
4 says, he is the rock, his work is perfect. Now that's an easy
verse to remember. He is the rock, his work is perfect. Oh, what a glorious truth. There's
no other rock. Everything else is shifting sand
and everything else is determined by a work that can't be perfect. God requires perfect obedience
to the law. He requires a perfect sinless
sacrifice. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
the rock and His work is perfect. We can't produce that. No amount
of work, or will, or wisdom, or knowledge that we acquire. We're dependent upon the Lord
Jesus Christ as our rock, whose work is perfect. Listen to what
Deuteronomy 32 verse 31 says. Their rock is not as our rock,
even our enemies themselves being judges. Their rock Their rock is not as our rock,
even our enemies themselves being judges. You ever had someone
say to you, my God's not like that. My God's not like that. My God wants everybody to be
saved. My God loves everybody. My God died in order that everybody
would have a chance. And when you tell them the gospel,
they respond by saying, well, my God's not like that. And you
say, yeah, Yeah. Your rock's not like my rock.
And you've just judged yourself by what you've said. You've just
proven my point. 1 Samuel 2, verse 2 says, neither
is there any rock like our God. Oh. What hope we have. This is what David's saying,
blessed, blessed. He makes me willing and he causes
me to come to him and acknowledge that he is everything and I am
nothing and that he is my rock, my strength. Now the rest of
this verse is military terms. It's the language of battle. And he says, he says, he's my,
he teacheth my hands to war and my fingers to fight. And then he talks about being
a fortress and a high tower and a deliverer. These are all military
images. David, we know, you know, what
they cried, Saul has killed his thousands, David, his tens of
thousands. David was a man of war. And,
uh, and it was only during the debt during the reign of David
and his son, Solomon, that, that the Jews were not under bondage.
You remember, you remember when they said, uh, when the Lord
said that they could be free and they, and they responded
by saying free, what are you talking about? We've never been,
we, we be children of Abraham. We've never been in bondage to
any man. Is that what they said? And at the very moment they said
that, they were in total bondage to the Romans. And before that,
the Babylonians, and before that, the Egyptians, and, you know,
they were always in bondage. The only time they weren't in
bondage is during that little short reign of King David and
Solomon, when they had freedom. Now, how'd they get that liberty?
How'd they get that freedom? By the conquering of David. David's
the man of war that got them the victory and gave them that
time to enjoy peace. Peace. So David's saying, Lord,
you taught me to fight. You gave me the strength. And
the picture here for us, of course, is that we're in a spiritual
battle. And if we're going to be successful in fighting this
battle, God's gonna have to teach us. He's gonna have to do for
us what he did for King David. He's gonna have to teach our
hands to fight and our fingers to make war. This is not a physical thing.
This is a spiritual warfare. Our warfare, Caleb, you quoted
this Sunday, our warfare is not against flesh and blood. Ephesians
chapter 6, it's against principalities and powers and wickedness and
high places. This is a spiritual battle. We're not fighting a battle against
flesh and blood. You think, well, my sins are
physical conflicts that I'm having to deal with. No, your sin's
not the problem. It's the power behind it. It's
the temptation and it's the spiritual battles that we've got to address
the cause of our sin. And that can only be done by
the power of God. We fight this battle. The weapons
of our warfare are not carnal. They are mighty through God to
the pulling down of strongholds that we might bring every thought
into captivity to the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
our battle. The spirit warned against the
flesh and the flesh against the spirit. Lord, I want to be, you
know, that's what heaven's going to be. An eternity of, of complete
submission and willingness and love and, and you know, faith,
hope, and charity. And of these three, the greatest
of these is charity. Why is that the greatest? Because
in heaven, faith will no longer be needed. Faith will be our
site. Hope will no longer be needed.
Hope will be our experience. Love will last forever. And that's
what the believer longs for, to be done with this warfare
and to be in the presence of their Lord for all eternity,
worshiping him in the fullness of his glory. What a hope. We look through a glass stemling
now, don't we? We are. The Lord Jesus Christ is our
commander. You remember that passage we
looked at in 1 Samuel chapter 22 when David went down to cave
Adullam, the cave of justice, a picture of Christ going into
the tomb and satisfying the justice of God. And everyone that was
in distress and everyone that was in debt and everyone that
was discontented came down unto him and he became their captain. the captain of their salvation.
And that's what we do. We, you see, we're not, the Lord
doesn't throw us out into the battle to fight it with our own
strength. No. How many times we read where
the Lord says to Joshua, the battle's not yours. It's the
Lord's it's the Lord's. And even when David went up against
Goliath, he said, my God will slay this uncircumcised Philistine. It was the Lord that gave him
the grace to do that. It was the Lord that directed
that stone. It was it was all of God. And Dave was just following his
commander, his captain. And that's what we do. Lord,
go before me, go before me and make the way. Be my strength. He teacheth his hands to war
and his fingers to fight. Remember Saul was jealous of
David on many occasions, but on one time he offered to give
David his daughter so that David would be the son-in-law of the
king. But he said, you got to bring me a hundred foreskins
of the Philistines. And David went out and brought
back 200. What's that a picture of? It's
the circumcision of the heart. This is the hand of God that
circumcises the heart and makes us willing. He takes out that
heart of stone and he gives us a heart of grace and love and
flesh, a living beating heart. That's the warfare. And of course,
the warfare of his hands when he went to Calvary's cross. willingly
submitting to the will of his father. Father, forbid thy will
that this cup can pass from me, but nevertheless not my will,
but thy will be done. Don't you know that those Roman
soldiers had never in all their times of crucifying a man, had
never had anyone lay down and willingly put his hand exactly
where they wanted it? Don't you know that those big
Roman soldiers had to fight that man to hold him arms down and
drive that? And the Lord said, here, my father
has taught my hands to fight. My father has taught my fingers
to make war. And I'm fighting against death
and I'm fighting against hell and I'm fighting against sin
and I'm fighting the fight for my people. And I'm going to win
this war because my father has taught my hands how to fight.
And because of what he did in conquering death and conquering
Satan and putting away our sin, he strengthens our hands so that
every time we're brought to that place of needing to engage in
warfare, we cry out to him, oh, Lord, be my commander. I'm in
distress. I'm in debt. I'm discontented.
Lord, lead me. Lead me. You can't. A doctrine can't lead you. Another
man can't lead you, but Christ can. And he will. He will. Come unto me, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden. The person of the Lord Jesus
Christ, God subdues us unto him. You know how our Lord's hands
were so gentle and yet so strong? He would touch a leper that no
one else would touch and make him clean. He'd touch a blind
man and give him sight. He'd touch a deaf man and give
him ears to hear. He'd touch a dead man and raise
him from the grave. He was so strong and so gentle.
And yet the one time we see the righteous indignation of our
Lord's hand is when he cleansed the temple and accused those
merchandiser of men's souls saying, you've turned my father's house
of prayer into a den of thieves. And he turned over the money
changers, chased out, made a whip and used those hands that God
had given him to make war. What's he doing? He's making
war for his people. He's showing us that we're not saved by works. We're not saved by our will.
We're saved by God's grace where we come to a house of prayer. What is prayer? It's just an
admission of our dependence upon the Lord. It's what it is. We come before him and we bow
in his presence and we plead for his mercy and for his help. Oh, and if he's if he's good
to comfort us, you know all as well. If the Lord is at my side,
all is well. Even if nothing has changed,
all is well. He's for me. No man can be against
me. My situation hadn't changed one
bit, except that the Lord's here now. And I'm OK now. He's going to fight this battle
for me. He's going to direct me. The peace of God is better
than understanding, isn't it? It's better than understanding.
This is the person of Christ whom God subdues us under his
feet. Notice what he says, my goodness,
Lord, you are my goodness. Now this word is mercy in the
original text. It's the word mercy, but the
mercy of God is the goodness of God. Goodness, isn't that
what David said? Goodness and mercy shall follow
me all the days of my life. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
only one who stands in the presence of God as good. He said himself,
there is none good but God. And he said, I'll, told Moses,
he said, I'll cause my goodness to pass before you. I'll hide
you in the cleft of the rock. Oh, how good he is. how full
of mercy he is. He's a loving, merciful, he delights
in showing mercy. He says, I'll have mercy upon
whom I will have mercy. And that's why we are mercy beggars
always. We can never presume. And yet
once he shows us mercy, and as we're able to come to him and
experience his mercy, all we see is goodness. And we bow before
him. Notice, notice what else he says. The Lord is my goodness and my
fortress. A fortress, an impenetrable stronghold. The enemy cannot breach the walls
of this fortress. You cannot break down the gate.
It's a safe place. A man shall be as a hiding place. We flee to the person of the
Lord Jesus Christ and he becomes our fortress. Even in the same
way, he fled to his father and the father was his fortress,
was his stronghold, was his protection and his defense. And notice he
says, he's my high tower. When you're in a battle, there's
nothing better than the high ground. A fortress on a hill,
the enemy can't get to that. And that's what the Lord Jesus
Christ is saying here. He's my high tower. He's my fortress. I flee to him. You remember in,
I think it was 72 AD actually, after the destruction of Jerusalem,
some of the Jews fled to Masada and they thought they had a fortress
up on Masada. They were gonna be safe up there.
And the Romans just built a ramp up to the top of the hill, gonna
kill them all. By the time they got there, they'd
all killed each other, committed suicide. That fortress wasn't
successful. It didn't help them. They were
trying to escape death, and they only died in that fortress. And
here the Lord said, I'm your high tower. Don't try to flee
to something physical. Don't think I can change my circumstances
and create something that's gonna make me safe. No, that's what
he's saying. Come unto me, flee to me, I'll
be your fortress. I'll be your high tower. There's
no fortress in this world, no high tower in this world. Well,
nothing higher than heaven, is there? He's in the heavens. And he hath none whatsoever he
wills. And he operates from the heavens.
The armies of heaven and all the inhabitants of the earth.
He's reigned sovereign over them. Men say, I'm not gonna have this
man reign over me. He's reigning over you. You see,
the Lord Jesus Christ reigns sovereign over all men. The only
difference between men is whether or not they're willing to submit
to that reign and lovingly bow to it and worship him for it
and trust him or whether they're gonna spend the rest of their
life raising their fist to God and rebelling against his reign. He's my deliverer, you see that?
Oh, we're held captive. We've been taken prisoner. The
prison of our sin and our unbelief and Satan and ourselves and this
world and we're in need of being delivered. We're in need of being
delivered and that's what, we're not gonna be delivered by some
knowledge that we've achieved. or some circumstances that we've
manipulated, only the Lord Jesus Christ can deliver us. So we
come unto him. He delivers us from the fear
of death. He delivers us from the judgment of God. He delivers
us from the penalty of sin. He delivers us from the rigors
of the law. He delivers us. That's why God's
people rejoice in coming to him because they've been delivered.
He set me free. We need to be delivered from
the pull of this world, don't we? You remember in 1 Samuel
chapter 30 when the Philistines came and David and his mighty
men were out fighting a war, fighting a battle, and the Amalekites
actually was, David was fighting the Philistines, the Amalekites
came to Ziklag where David and his men had left all their wives
and children. And so they defeated the Philistines,
they come back, And as they're approaching Ziklag, all they
can see is billows of smoke coming up from the city. They get there,
they find out that all of their wives and children have been
taken prisoner. And the men, David's men, turn
on him. I mean, they're so full of grief,
and they're so desperate that they're willing to kill their
commander, and the scripture says David comforted himself
in the Lord. He couldn't find any of his men
that would comfort him. He wasn't comforted with his
circumstances, he comforted himself in the Lord. And the Lord directed
him to go after the Amalekites. And here's the part I love about
this whole story. Twice, this phrase is repeated
twice in this story. After David found the Amalekites,
slew all the Amalekites, captured back every one of their wives
and every child, not one person was lost. And the scripture says,
and David recovered all. He recovered all. That's what
our David has done. He's recovered all. Not one of
his children will be lost. He successfully redeemed them
at Calvary's Cross. And here's why we come lovingly
before him. Here's why we come. We love him
because he loved us. And greater love hath no man
than this. They lay down his life for his friends. So here's
our, he's our deliverer. He's our stronghold. He's our
fortress. His hands were taught to fight
and he teaches our hands to fight and he subdues us. He's our shield. Remember in Ephesians chapter
six when the scripture speaks of the spiritual armor and it
says, the shield of faith whereby you are able to quench the fiery
darts of the devil. Well, it's not your faith that's
your shield. Faith is not your shield. You people say, well,
I've got my shield of faith. I'm just going to have my faith
out there and I'll be able to, by faith, I'll be able to, what
do you, what do you have faith in? A person. A person, the Lord Jesus Christ. Your faith is not in a doctrine. It's not in a knowledge. It's
not in an experience. It's in the person of the Lord
Jesus Christ. He's the one who quenches the
fiery darts of the devil. It's not our faith. Faith is a means to an end. The
end is Christ. He's the one who conquers our
enemy. So David's saying he's my shield. That's what the Lord said to
Abraham. I am thy shield and I am thy exceeding great reward. Isn't that what the Lord said
to Abraham? Let's just look at this real
quickly. Look at the last part of verse
two. He's my shield and he in whom I trust. Paul said, I know whom I have
believed and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which
I've committed unto him against that day. The person of the Lord
Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus wasn't trusting
in some document or some agreement that he had made with the Father.
He wasn't trusting in just a legal covenant that he had established
in eternity past. He was trusting his Father. This is life eternal, that they
might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou
hast sent. Oh, I want to know him. There's
nothing warm. There's nothing comforting. There's
nothing hopeful about trusting in a doctrine or in a truth. It's the person of Christ. his nature, his character, his
heart. We love what he loves and hate
what he hates. And the Lord said to Peter three
times, Peter, love us now me. Not, you know, Peter. And what
do you say to the church of Ephesus? I have somewhat against thee
because thou hast left thy first love. Now how easy it is for
us to become, grow cold towards the person of Christ. Don't you love it when the Sanhedrin
brought Peter and John in and Peter and John just declared
Christ. And they said, these are ignorant
unlearned men. They've not been to our rabbinical
schools. They don't have their degrees.
They don't know anything. They can't even really talk good
without an accent. And yet they took notice of them
that they had been with Jesus. They had been with the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what gave them boldness.
And that's what gave them power. Not their education, not their
abilities, but the fact that they had been with the Lord Jesus
Christ. Subdued my people under me. You know, the strongest desire
of the flesh is not a lust for pleasure. It's not a lust for
popularity. It's a lust for power. That's the strongest desire of
the flesh. I preached a message on that
one time about the temptations of Christ, and we looked at popularity
and and pleasure and popularity and power. One dear sister said
to me afterwards, she said, I can relate to the whole popularity
thing and pleasure thing, but I'm not sure I can relate to
the power. Have you ever noticed when you're tempted that temptation
is often presented to you gradually and you make compromises along
the way until you're in your head over heels, When Satan tempted the Lord to
turn the stones into bread, that was just the beginning of his
temptation. That was to appeal to his hunger, to his flesh,
his pleasure. Then when he took him up on the
pinnacle of the temple, that took it the next step up. You
know, cast yourself down and these people will bow and worship
you. But when he took him up on that
mountain and offered him all the power, what is power? It's control. It's control. It's not being willing to submit
to authority. Not being willing to be told
what to do. I was talking to a young man one time. I said,
man, you need to get in the military. You need to learn some discipline.
The military will fix a lot of the problems you have. You know
what he said? He said, I ain't joining the military. I said,
why not? He said, I don't want anybody telling me what to do.
And he was just honest enough to say, I don't want anybody
telling me what to do. And I said, well, that's your problem. And
he still got it, still got the same problem today that he had
then. He won't submit to authority. What is it to be subdued? What is it? It's to bow willingly,
lovingly. Oh, the Lord Jesus Christ, he's
my authority. He's my all in all. He's my life.
What do we? That's that's what the world
won't do. The unbeliever will not do that. Not have this man
reign over me. God makes you willing in the
day of his power. He keeps making you willing. And he just makes
you more willing. to submit to his authority willingly,
lovingly, and to lose all your own power. Our heavenly Father, we pray
you bless your word to our hearts. We ask it in Christ's name, amen. 24, let's stand together, number
24.