Look at Psalm 56. It says, Be
merciful unto me, O God, for man would swallow me up. He fighting daily oppresseth
me. Mine enemies would daily swallow
me up, for they be many that fight against me, O Thou Most
High. What time I am afraid, I will
trust in Thee. In God I will praise His Word. In God I have put my trust. I will not fear what flesh can
do unto me. Every day they rest my words. All their thoughts are against
me for evil. They gather themselves together.
They hide themselves. They mark my steps when they
wait for my soul. Shall they escape by iniquity,
in thine anger cast down the people, O God? Thou tellest my
wanderings, put thou my tears into thy bottle, are they not
in thy book? When I cry unto thee, then shall
mine enemies turn back. This I know, for God is for me. In God will I praise his word,
in the Lord will I praise his word. In God have I put my trust. I will not be afraid what man
can do unto me. Thy vows are upon me, O God. I will render praises unto thee,
for thou hast delivered my soul from death. Will not thou deliver
my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light
of the living? Now, this psalm was written If
you read the title of it, it says, To the chief musician upon
Jonathalum Rechochim, a mixtum of David, when the Philistines
took him in Gath. Now, if you go back in the history
that David is writing of here or that relates here to David,
he was fleeing from Saul who had set out to kill him. And
so he fled from the face of Saul, and he wound up – that was whenever
he had gone to the temple, and that's where he got Goliath's
sword, if you remember. And then, as it turned out, Doeg
turned tables on the priest there and had him slain, and David
was fleeing from the face of Saul. And he went over to the
Lord's enemies. And the Scripture says that he
went into Philistia and went to King Achish in Gath. And of course, the Philistines
were the sworn enemies of the Lord's people. And David had
slain many of the Philistines. In fact, he went into the Philistines'
camp with Goliath's sword in his hand. And you remember, Goliath
was the champion of the Philistines, was he not? And so here was David
in the very midst of the people who were his sworn enemies, and
yet they received him in a measure and didn't kill him because they
hated Saul worse than they hated David. And you know, that's kind
of the way that politics and the natural realm of the world
is, isn't it? That people have strange bedfellows. I mean, and our country seems
like never learns their lesson about this line of thought is
is cozying up to somebody who's our enemy in order to overthrow
some other enemy. And then we turn around later
on and have to fight the ones that we gave the stuff to, to
fight the ones that we didn't want to fight ourselves. So it's
just a constant mess. I mean, the world has always
been like that. It's designed by the Lord like
that. I mean, you look at the events in World War II. I mean,
we cozied up to the communists who were essentially avowed enemies
of our own went with the Russians because
we shared a common enemy and the Russians and the Germans
who were trying to kill the communists and get power over Russia and
yet we joined forces with them to get rid of the the Germans. And then, of course, we all know
what happened then as a result of all of that. But that's just
the way of the world. That's always the way it's been
and it's always the way it will be. I mean, there's wars and
rumors of wars and will be until the time of the end. what place
God's people have in those is debatable in some cases, and
in my own mind, not debatable at all, because the weapons of
our warfare are not carnal. And so, you know, let the potsherds
of the earth strive with the potsherds of the earth. I mean,
these political things are going to go on until the Lord comes
back. And I don't know. you know, what place that we
would have in those things except as, you know, time goes on and
whatever the Lord brings to pass. But nonetheless, here was David
brought into the very camp of his enemies and in a situation
where he had no power whatsoever. He couldn't do anything. When
Akish had him brought unto him, David acted like he was crazy
so that Akish wouldn't think he was strong and mighty and
would be able to overcome him. Because he didn't know what to
do. He was in a mess. He was between
the proverbial rock and the hard place. He couldn't go back to
the nation of Israel because Saul was out to kill him for
sure. And here he was in the camp of his enemies, and he wasn't
sure that they weren't going to kill him any minute. He didn't
know what was going to happen. And so he says, Be merciful unto
me, O God, for man would swallow me up. He says on every side. Now in this, now though this
is David speaking, keep in mind that everything in the Scripture
is about Christ. And this is Even though it is
the words of David, it is also the prayer of the Lord Jesus
Christ as He walked among men. The Scripture says that He came
unto what? His own, and His own received Him not. So here was
the Lord Jesus, the Savior of Israel, the Deliverer, the Messiah,
the Promised One, and yet here He is in the midst of them and
they are seeking to swallow Him up. They are seeking to destroy
him. And so David is in that same
situation and he says, Be merciful unto me, O God, for man would
swallow me up. This world is no friend to the
people of God, never has been and never will be. Now the world
will always be seeking to accuse the people of God in one fashion
or another. As Brother Al brought out, the
world, And the prevailing thought of the world is that it is so
ridiculous for a person to actually believe what the Bible says about
how the Lord created the world. Now, there has been a time, I
suppose, at least people tell us there was, a time when the
predominant thought in this country was that the Lord created the
world just like the Bible says. I am not too sure that that really
was ever received spiritually, but it was at least received
in a kind of an open knowledge type of a way. But nonetheless,
it was not a thing that was open to great ridicule in the major
line of thought. Really, it's a minority for sure
of people who actually believe that God created the heavens
and the earth exactly like the Scripture says that He created
it. Everybody's got their little
taste on it and their theory about how they try, as Brother
Al ably pointed out, to make science and the Scriptures mesh
together. The science of this world will
never mesh with the Word of God. Now, that doesn't mean that true
science is at odds with the Word of God, because true science,
Paul talks about science falsely so-called, because that is that
men will look at science as being that which can be proven. And
something that is truly scientific can be proven. But the science
that men call science can't be proven. I was thinking as you
talked about the man climbing up the thing and you said he
got up there and there was a group of theologians there. I was thinking,
actually what happens is this man climbs to the top of the
mountain and thinks he's going to find the answer, and when
he gets there, there's another mountain up there that's taller
than the one he just climbed. Because these things cannot be
answered. And it is a true thing that you
can't prove to anybody. You cannot prove to anybody that
God created the heavens and the earth in six days. You cannot
prove it to them. It is impossible to prove it
to them. It cannot be done because it is by faith that we understand
that God created the world out of nothing. That is by faith. Now where does faith come from?
Faith is the gift of God and except God gives a man that faith,
he cannot and will not believe that. And so you can debate these
guys all day long and it is really a waste of time in a measure. Now it is not a waste of time
because these things are useful unto those who have faith to
encourage them. Because sometimes we get to listening
to the enemies. And we get discouraged. But,
dear brethren, there is nothing to be discouraged about in the
revelation of Almighty God, because all of these people, regardless
of how smart they may think they are, they are going to pass away,
and they are going to find out one day that they were wrong.
Now, it doesn't matter to me if they find out they are wrong
or not. fall down on their faces and
worship the Lord. I doubt that that is going to
happen. It could happen if the Lord is all fit to bring it to
pass, but I doubt that it will according to what the record
of Scripture shows us that it is. But David knew himself to
be in the midst of the enemies of God. And dear brethren, this
world is no friend to us. And the religious world is the
biggest enemy that there is to the truth of God because the
religious world will take a measure of truth and masquerade it as
being the truth. And the religious world will
ridicule that which is the truth because it does not match up
with what they want the truth to be. And they will say it's
not the truth. And they will attack those who
would preach the truth and say, oh, well, they're just hard-hearted.
How can it be that if we should preach, or anybody, not we as
per se us, but if anybody should preach that God will show mercy
to whom He will show mercy Why would that in any wise be considered
to be a hard doctrine? Because God Himself said, I will
show mercy to whom I will show mercy. Now, anybody that would
worship God, would they not have to fall down and say, praise
be unto God? How could they oppose that? I
don't understand how they could. Now some people may, but I don't
understand it. But I know this, whatever God
says about Himself, dear brethren, is the truth, whether we like
it or not. And so the enemies of God, they
will daily swallow us up, for they be many that fight against
me. of our most high, because whenever men fight against the
truth of God, they are not fighting against us per se, but they are
fighting against God Himself. And so we desire to be delivered
from such. Now listen to what he says here.
What time I am afraid I will trust in thee. Now there is another
Scripture in the Psalms where David said, I will trust in the
Lord and not be afraid. That's different than what he
says right here, isn't it? He says, such times as I am afraid,
I'll trust in thee. Now both of those things are
very true measures unto the people of God, but we're not always
in such a state as we're trusting in the Lord and not be afraid.
Brother Spurgeon said that to travel first class was whenever
you were in that position where you could say, I will trust in
the Lord and not be afraid. But he said actually to travel
in the second car wasn't a bad place either because he said
such times as I am afraid, I'll trust in the Lord. Now we don't
know when we'll be afraid, do we? We're not always afraid. You know, things that don't scare
you one day might scare you the next day. The Scripture indicates
that the older we get, the more things scare us. I believe that's
a true thing. You know, I believe we get more
scared about things because I know for a fact that when I was a
younger man, I didn't think twice about running up a ladder. and
running down the top of a wall without even thinking about it,
a wall like that. I never even thought about it.
Hang out on a truss over, you know, nothing. And now I get
up on a ladder and I look down and I look around and I think
about how I feel and I say, you know, this is dangerous. I mean,
if I could get hurt doing this kind of thing. And so we do become
fearful of things that perhaps once we were not. Now the error
that men make is in thinking that when they are not afraid
that they are necessarily better off than when they are. Fear
is a good thing. Fear keeps people from doing
stupid stuff. You know, a lot of times young
people do stupid stuff and they get hurt doing it because they
weren't afraid of it. And so it's not always a bad
thing to be fearful, but it is always a good thing that when
I am afraid, as David said, what time I am afraid, I will trust
in thee. In God I will praise his word. In God I have put my trust. I will not fear what the flesh
can do unto me. And so like in this matter of
The creation. All men will put their confidence
somewhere. All men, without exception, have
confidence in something. Some men have confidence in themselves. Strong confidence. Now, you listen
to the philosophers and the psychologists of our day, and that's what you're
supposed to do, isn't it? Just believe. You've got to be
strong. You can do it. You've got to have confidence
in yourself. You've got to have self-confidence. That's the key
word of the day, self-confidence. Self-confidence is the door to
the ante-room of hell. David said such times as, I'm
afraid I'll trust in the Lord. He says, I'll put my trust in
His Word. You see, it doesn't make any
difference what science says. And we're not opposed to science,
but we're opposed to the worship of science. See, that's the thing
wherein God's people have to draw the line. Mathematics is
a form of science. That's a good thing. We use mathematics
every day. That's a good thing. But we don't
worship it. Neither should we worship the
theories that men come up with that they think are so true.
I will praise His Word. I will praise the Lord. In His
Word have I put my trust. I will not fear what flesh can
do unto me." When a man's confidence is in the Word of God, it doesn't
make any difference what anybody else says, does it? You see,
this is why the disciples were able to undergo persecution as
they did and counted all joy when they were called upon to
suffer for the cause of Christ because they trusted His Word.
And when a man is trusting in the Word of God, it does not
make a difference what anybody else says. If they laugh at him,
they say, Oh, you believe the Bible is true. You are just a
fool. You are just stupid. Well, you
believe the precepts of God. Well, the flesh says, well, I
want to be a friend of the world. I don't want to be thought to
be stupid. Do you like being called stupid?
I mean, even if it's true, do you like being called stupid?
No. None of us like to be called stupid. But when a man, when his hope
is in the Word of God and his trust is in the Lord, He says,
I will not fear what flesh can do unto me. When the Lord Jesus
stood before Pontius Pilate, and Pontius Pilate said, Don't
you know that I have power to put you to death? The Lord Jesus
said, You don't have power to do anything. Now as a man, Now
we know as the divine Son of God, He knew Pontius Pilate didn't
have any power, but I'm talking about He's standing before Pontius
Pilate as a man in human flesh. What was His confidence in there?
His confidence was in the Lord. And He was willing to do whatever
it was. He was not afraid of what Pontius Pilate could do
unto Me, because He said, you could have no power at all, except
it were given to you. He said, Well, they say you're
a king. Now, some people misread what the Lord Jesus said there. Pontius Pilate said, They say
you're a king. The Lord Jesus said, That's what
you say. He said, For this came I into
the world. Now we do know that the Lord
Jesus Christ came into the world as a king, but what the Lord
was telling to Pontius Pilate was, and as far as what you understand
a king to be, this is the reason I came into the world, not to
be a king, as you understand what a king is, but he said,
for this cause came I into the world, to bear witness of the
truth. And he said, my word is truth.
Now dear brethren, when we speak the word of God, We have the
same confidence that he says there. We speak the truth of
God. We're not speaking something
that may be right. It is right. And we fear not
what flesh might do unto us. Every day they rest my words.
All their thoughts are against me for evil. Now when the Lord
Jesus bore witness of the truth, what did the Pharisees say? They
said, well, he maketh himself a god. They twisted his words,
didn't they? He said, I am the father of one
now. They understood that he was what he said he was and they
hated it. But you see, they twisted the
words of the Lord Jesus Christ and wanted to make him appear
evil. They said to Pontius Pilate,
this man said he was a king and we'll have no king but Caesar.
Now wasn't that an amazing thing? I mean, here's one of those political
bedfellows to get something that they wanted, wasn't it? Just
like any other nation. They wanted to kill the Lord
Jesus Christ and they were willing to brown nose up to Pontius Pilate
and say, Oh, well, we don't have any king but Caesar. We love
Caesar. They didn't love Caesar. But
they hated Christ, did they not? You see, that's the way that
the religious world is. It hates the truth of God. Now, it will embrace some of
the truth of God in order to go against the truth of God. Every day they rest my words.
They twist things. They say, You believe that God
predestinates all things. Well, then we don't need to pray
for anybody, or you just don't care about people and all of
that. Brethren, if I didn't believe God predestinated things, I wouldn't
ever pray. What would be the point in praying?
I mean, if you believe the salvation of a man is up to him, Don't
pray for the man. Go to the man and plead with
him and get on your knees and do everything you can to tell
him different. There's no point in praying if
you don't believe it's salvations of the Lord. But you see, we
believe salvations of the Lord, don't we? We believe the only
one that can save anybody is the Lord. We believe the only
people that will be saved are those whom the Lord saves. It's
not up to men. And so the words of those who
would preach and teach the truth of God are twisted by those that
hate the truth. And that is exactly what they
did to the Lord Jesus Christ. Every day they arrest my words.
All their thoughts are against me for evil. They gather themselves
together. They hide themselves. They mark
my steps while they wait for my soul. You see, they are marking
out. They are working behind the scenes.
Those that hate the Word of God, they are constantly thinking
of ways they can overturn it. And this was especially true
in the case of the Lord Jesus Christ. The leaders of the Jews,
they were working behind the scenes, were they not? They were
scheming and planning and figuring, now we've got to come up with
a way to stop this man. Shall they escape by iniquity?
in thine anger cast down the people, O God. Thou tellest my
wanderings, put thou my tears into thy bottle. Are they not
in thy book? Is every tear that the Lord Jesus
Christ shed not recorded in the heavens? You say, tears have
He shed? Why have He shed tears? The Scripture
says Jesus wept. He wept, dear brethren. He wept
over Jerusalem. He wept over the people of God.
He wept over the scattered people. He wept over those that would
despitefully use Him. He said to His disciples, pray
for those that despitefully use you. And so it is. that the tears
even of the Lord Jesus Christ are recorded even as the Lord
as He moves His people to weep in the present time for the iniquities
they see in themselves and those things and wrongs that are done
unto them. When I cry unto thee, then shall
mine enemies turn back. This I know, for God is for me. Now, dear brethren, that's the
basis of our salvation is that God is for me. Now, that's the
Lord Jesus Christ speaking, and that is the very basis of our
salvation, that the Father receives the Son. You see, we don't have
any hope that we will be received. See, that's natural religion.
The natural religion of men causes them to believe that they can
do something that will cause them to be received. Well, if
you'll pray a certain prayer, God will receive you. Not so. If you'll act a certain way,
God will receive you. Not so. But if you're found in
Jesus Christ, God will receive you. Why? Because He's pleased
with His Son. He's for Him. And dear brethren,
if we're found in Him, then indeed, we too. shall be received." And
we can say with David, God is for me. I know that He's for
me. Why do I know He's for me? Because He likes me? No, because
He loves His Son who gave Himself as an offering for sin. And by
the grace of God, He's given me faith to believe that Christ
is that Savior of sinners. And He's caused me to know that
I'm a sinner. and He has caused me to have
no other hope but that which Christ has done." Now, dear brethren,
the gift of faith is that which causes a man to run to Christ. That is the place of true salvation. It is in Him who the Lord is
for. Well, we are kind of running
out of time, but may the Lord give us a mind Such times as
we are afraid to trust in Him, because even the Lord Jesus Christ,
when He came face to face with the sin of His people, was a
fearful time for Him. Now, because a man is in fear
does not mean that he is overwhelmed by fear. And in the case of the
Lord Jesus Christ, He was fearful, but He was not overwhelmed with
fear. Because the words of David are
the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, such times as I am afraid, I
will trust in thee. And the Lord Jesus Christ indeed
had cast all His care on His Father. He had none other in
whom He would trust. And it is because of His perfect
trust that He who can be touched with the feelings of our infirmities,
of our weaknesses, of our fears, of our troubles. You see, He
has known all of those things. And He has borne them before
the Lord. And in His perfection, He said,
I will trust the Lord. and not be afraid. May the Lord
give us grace to see and know Him who is perfect in all His
ways, though He walked in the midst of His enemies. And as
a man, He felt Himself to be swallowed up. Yet as that One
who is triumphant and a Savior and Redeemer of His people, He
made a show of them openly, and He triumphed over them all. in
our behalf. May the Lord give us a mind to
believe it and receive it.