All right, brethren, Psalm 144. David, this Psalm is our Lord
Jesus speaking. I can show you that, and then
what it is David, too. And it begins here in verse one.
Blessed be the Lord, my strength, my rock, my strength, which teacheth
my hands to war, and my fingers to fight." God's preacher should not let
current events dictate what he preaches. He shouldn't try to
get his message from current events. But our Lord did reference
current events on at least one occasion. There was a tower that
had fallen and killed a lot of people, and he asked those he
was preaching to, he said, Those people that died because that
tower fell on them, you think they were greater sinners than
others? And he said, no, except you repent, you shall all likewise
perish. So we don't let current events
dictate what we preach, but I don't have a problem referencing a
current event. Everybody saw that violent image
of the assassination this week of that man. And already, men
in this country are fighting. They've already drawn lines between
left and right. They're already pointing fingers
and already going to war and fighting over these things. They
already got their smear campaigns going. It's everywhere all around
us. I'm so sick of men exalting Republicans
and Democrats as if that is salvation. It's not. And it's so simple
for believers to do it. So how do God's saints war? How do we fight in this life?
David said, blessed be the Lord my strength which teaches my
hands to war and my fingers to fight. We do war, we do fight. How do we do it? How does a believer
fight? We're certainly in a warfare.
Paul told Timothy, fight the good fight of faith. And Paul
said, I fought a good fight. I finished my course. I've kept
the faith. David says here, the Lord teaches
my hands to ward, my fingers to fight. Believers fight. We're
in a war. But how do we fight? That's my
subject. How do the way believers fight? First of all, the Lord teaches
his child that he alone is our strength. He's our strength. He's our rock. That's where David
began, blessed be the Lord my strength. Now, this is what Christ
said when he walked this earth. I showed you this morning how
he became a servant and he looked to God as his master. And when he was in this earth,
his perfect faith was the Lord is my strength, Jehovah God is
my rock. And this is what he teaches us
in our heart, brethren. The foundations of this earth
could be broken up. God could turn this country into
a third world country tomorrow if he wants to. And it would
probably do us all a lot of good, because we're mighty spoiled.
We stump our toe. We think we just got it so bad. And there's people in this world
right now that don't even have rice to eat. But if the foundations are broken
up, we still are on the solid rock, Christ Jesus. Nothing has
changed. Nothing has changed. The fight
of faith is a fight with our own sin nature, is what it is.
It's not a fight with sinners out there. It's not a fight against
this faction, that faction. The warfare is against our own
personal sin nature. Because in you and in me there
is a sin nature that wants to fight just like every unregenerate
child in this world. We want to fight the same way
as unregenerate men do in our sin nature. That's in us. The
fight is against that man. Rebecca was pregnant with Jacob
and Esau And they were fighting within her. And she said to the
Lord, Lord, why am I thus? And he said, there's two nations
in you. There's two kinds of people in you. And as so with
me and you. There is an old man of sin that's
a rebel against God, that hates God. And there's a new man born
of God that's holy with Christ abiding in you. But the Lord
gave Rebecca this. He said, the elder shall serve
the younger. That old man in you is a lot older. than the
new man in you. But that elder old man in you,
by God's grace, is going to serve the new man. In other words,
God's not gonna let the old man of sin have dominion over you.
Christ has dominion over his people. The Lord is the strength. He's our strength. We don't have
strength to do this. Blessed be the Lord, my strength. By the grace and power of our
Lord, By His Spirit, He's taken up His dominion in us, and He's
gonna keep you and me in the new man, casting all our care
on Him. The Lord is my strength. Turn
with me to Ephesians 6. Ephesians 6, the Lord has given
us armor for this warfare, and He is everything that Paul speaks
about here. concerning this armor. This armor
is Christ. Everything that's spoken here
is Christ. The Lord is my strength. And everything he's saying here
is concerning Christ. Christ puts this armor on you
and me, and he is the strength of every piece of this armor. Ephesians 6, 10. Finally, my
brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. That's how the passage begins.
It doesn't say be strong in you. It doesn't say you be strong. It says be strong in the Lord
and in the power of his might. Blessed be the Lord, my strength.
He says, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to
stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against
flesh and blood. Oh, that we could hear that.
We're not wrestling against flesh and blood. I don't have any fight
with Democrats or Republicans, rich or poor, Israel, the nation
Israel or the United States of America. We're not wrestling
against flesh and blood. We're wrestling against principalities,
against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world,
against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore, take
unto you the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand
in the evil day and having done all to stand. Brethren, I have
a few brethren that are soldiers. They're modern day soldiers.
They fought in wars and some are still in the military. And
they'll tell you, even with modern day armor, you can't put it on
by yourself. You have to have somebody help
you put it on. Well, when it comes to this armor, if our enemies
are spiritual, and the armor is spiritual, then the way you're
gonna have it put on you is gonna be spiritual. And that's gonna
be by the Lord in spirit, the Holy Spirit, doing this in your
new spirit. And he does it through the preaching
of this gospel. He does it through the preaching
of this gospel. He says, stand therefore having
your loins girt about with truth. What is this girdle we're wearing?
The truth, what is that? Pilate said, what is truth? That's
what men will say, what is truth? Christ said, I'm the truth. And
this girdle that girds our loins, it controls us inwardly, is the
Lord our strength. It's Christ Jesus the Lord. He
says, have on the breastplate of righteousness. What's protecting
the heart? What's covering the breast? Righteousness. Is that something you produced? No, it's Christ Jesus, the Lord,
our righteousness. Have your feet shod with the
preparation of the gospel of peace. What's gonna protect our
feet? What's gonna keep us walking
in this warfare? It's the gospel of peace. The
gospel is the good news that Christ Jesus is the Prince of
Peace. We were at war with God and the
Prince of Peace came down and he reconciled us and brought
us into peace with God and then he made us be reconciled to God
in our heart. He is the gospel of peace. How
you can keep walking? How do you walk? You walk by
faith. How you gonna do that? spiritual feet shod with the
preparation of Christ Jesus, the Prince of Peace, his gospel.
And above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith you should
be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. Faith is
the shield because Christ is the shield. Faith is laying hold
of Christ the shield. We're trusting Christ to quench
the fiery darts of the wicked. Take the helmet of salvation.
Your minds, when you hear these things in the world see these
images in the world, your minds get corrupted and would be turned
from Christ. What's gonna keep your mind settled? What's gonna keep your hope being
Christ? It's Christ being our salvation.
The hope, our hope enters into the veil, Christ Jesus, that's
the helmet that protects our head, Christ our salvation. We
take the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, the
Holy Spirit, Our hope in Christ, or the Holy Spirit, opens the
word of God to us, and he bears witness with our spirit that
we're the children of God. He makes us hear this word, and
see Christ in this word, and know we're Christ. That's the
sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And because
this is all of Christ, he says, pray always. we've depended on
Christ our strength, praying always with all prayer and supplication
in the spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication
for all Satan. None of this is in your flesh,
this is all in the spirit. And he said, and pray for me
since this armor's gonna be put on us by Christ through the preaching
of this gospel. Paul says, pray for me that I
might preach this gospel as I ought to preach it. because we're dependent
entirely upon Christ. But here's the point, the weapons
of our warfare are not carnal, they're not fleshly. What about
your flesh? What about you and your doing
called you out of darkness into light? What did you do to become
a holy child before God? You didn't do a thing. The Lord
did something in you. The Lord came and did an operation
in you, same as so it is with this spiritual armor. The Lord
is our strength. He's our strength in this warfare.
In 2 Corinthians 10.3, Paul said, though we walk in the flesh,
we do not war after the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare
are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. casting down imaginations. Where are those? In me and you,
in our old man. He casts those down. Every high
thing that would exalt itself against the knowledge of God.
Where's those high things? They're in our flesh, our sin
nature. He's going to cast those down
and he's going to bring into captivity every thought to the
obedience of Christ. That's not him bringing you to
obey in some perfection where you can stand in your obedience.
That's him and your new man bringing all your thoughts to be centered
in Christ, trusting his obedience to present you to God. Trusting
his obedience to make you righteous and make you holy and present
you to God. And our new man, that's the work
Christ works. That's why he's our strength.
Now let's go back to our Psalm, Psalm 144. We hear here what Christ has made unto
us. This is how Christ is our strength.
This is what the Spirit reveals in our new man through the preaching
of Christ. This is how he's our armor. First
of all, Christ is my goodness. He's my goodness, verse two.
I'm gonna show you in a moment, these are Christ's words first
and foremost. He said this of God the Father.
He said, he's my goodness, he's my mercy. When the rich young
ruler came, making his boast that he had kept all the law
from his youth up, and he just wondering what he lacked, he
came to the Lord, he said, good master? And the Lord said, why
callest thou me good? There's none good, that's one,
that's God. That's what Christ said. Christ,
when he walked this earth as a man said, There's none good
but my Father who is God. Now what do you think he's gonna
work in you and me to say? What do you think the Lord's
gonna work in our new spirit to say when he's made you alive
and given you faith? There's none good but God. Christ
alone is my goodness. He's my goodness. The word means
he's my mercy, he's my faithfulness, he's my loving kindness. Listen,
we behold goodness when we look to Christ. That's where we see
goodness. And by his grace, we try to follow
his example. We try to be good. But it's God
beholding you that are his in the Lord Jesus Christ that God
regards you as good. It's Christ who is good, and
we're good only in him. God sees us good in his goodness,
not in ours. Christ is my mercy with God.
I've experienced God's mercy for giving me all my sin for
Christ's sake. You know what that makes me want
to do? When I continually see how much mercy God's shown me
since the day he called me and he's done it all for Christ's
sake. When my brothers sin, I want to be merciful to them for Christ's
sake for the same reason God's merciful to me. That's not how
I'm gonna be able to stand before God. I'm not gonna be able to
stand before God and be accepted because I've been merciful to
brethren. But in Christ, God beholds each
one of his elect in Christ, in the mercy that Christ has shown
to us and how he's been ever merciful, he sees us as perfectly
merciful in his son. It's the same when you look at
faithfulness and loving kindness. We're not the faithful one. We're
not love. God is love. God is faithful. Christ is the faithful one. He's
love. And God sees his people in Christ
perfectly faithful and perfectly showing love and kindness. He's
my goodness. Through this gospel, the spirit's
gonna reveal in our heart that Christ is our refuge. He's my
fortress, verse two. He's my fortress and my high
tower. We're saying he's a bulwark never failing. That means he's
the walls around his people. He's the refuge protecting his
people. You and me, who was it of Jacob's
sons? Wasn't it Reuben that Jacob said
you're weak as water? That's us. We're weak as water. Can you imagine your daddy looking
at you and saying, son, you're weak as water. That's what Jacob
said to Reuben. Well, that's us. We're weak as
water. In fact, this Psalm right here
says, verse four, man's like to vanity. You know what that
is? That's a mist. That's just a
shadow that's here and gone. We're weak. But Christ is our
fortress. He's our high tower. We've been
made perfectly righteous in him, perfectly holy in him, and he's
in God's right hand, and that's where we're seated, and we're
safe in him. And so when trouble comes, when
trouble comes, we don't run to our logic and our reason and
take our sides with men in this world to argue against the other
side. God's people run into Christ our high tower. We go to this
word and we start looking for Christ. We go to his mercy seat
and ask for grace and mercy to help. We go to Christ our high
tower and there we're safe from the curse of the law, from our
sin nature, from the evil of this world and men in this world.
We're safe in him, not in us. Through this gospel, he's gonna
bring our thoughts, down and bow to Christ and trust, as verse
two says, he's my deliverer. He's my deliverer. He saw us,
you think about this, he saw us in our sin and our condemnation,
deserving the wrath of God, deserving to be cast into hell eternally.
And our Savior said, here am I, send me. I will take their
place. I will step in, in their place. You're gonna have to be made
the sin they are. You're gonna have to be made
the sin of my elect. The Father said, our Lord said, I'll be
made sin. Then you're gonna have to bear
the justice of God that they deserve. He said, I'll bear it. You know, I see people in this world talking
about loving one another. Don't be hearers, only be doers
of it. And then they turn around and
condemn their brethren for their sin and rage and foam at the
mouth because of some brother's sin. You know what love did? He said, take that sin and put
it on me and condemn me and let them go free. You talk about
being a doer of the word? That's what Christ did. He said,
I don't know why it ever did that. We can stop bragging about
our love. He rules everything in this world
for us, brethren. This is what he's gonna bring
you to do. Ever since he delivered you from your sin nature and
gave you faith, now, as we're going through this world, you
know why these things come to pass in Provident? He brings
us to our Red Sea and hymns us in on every side for this reason
right here. to declare to us, fear ye not,
stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he shall show
you today. The Lord shall fight for you,
and you shall hold your peace. That's what he's teaching us
every day. And little by little, he's growing you in faith to
where little by little, when the trial comes, You say, Lord,
I'm gonna trust you. But you know what he does? As
he grows you in faith more, he increases those trials a little
more too. So you don't ever get to the
point where you think, look how good I'm just standing still
and trusting the Lord to save. No, he's gonna keep you knowing
he's the one that's gonna make you fear not and stand still
and see his salvation, that he's fighting for you and you'll hold
your peace. That's what he's teaching us. His faithfulness, His unchanging
grace teaches us that in all these things, He's keeping us
trusting Him. He says there, He's my shield. He's He in whom I trust, who
subdueth my people under me. And He's teaching you at the
same time, that you're nothing. Lord, what's man, that thou takest
knowledge of him, or the son of man, that thou makest account
of him? Man is likened to vanity. He's a shadow that passes away.
While he's showing you he's your strength, he's showing you how
weak you are. That's what he's doing for us. Turn back, you
see that word there, Lord, what is man, that thou takest knowledge
of him? The son of man, thou takest account
of him. And then right before that, see where he says, It's
he in whom I trust. This comes from Psalm 18. Psalm
18 and that Psalm 144 are almost identical. But both are applied
as being the word of our Lord Jesus in Hebrews 2. Go with me
to Hebrews 2. I said I'd show you. This is
Christ speaking. Look here in Hebrews 2 5. Unto the angels hath he not put
in subjection the world to come wherever we speak. but one in
a certain place testified, saying, here's our psalm, what is man
that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that thou visitest
him? How did he visit us? Thou madest
him a little lower than the angels. Thou crownest him with glory
and honor and had set him over the work of thy hands. Thou hast
put all things in subjection under his feet, for in that he
put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that's not put
under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him,
but we see Jesus. Here's the man we're talking
about. He was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering
of death. That's why he came. Crowned with
glory and honor now, nothing is not under his feet now, that
he by the grace of God should taste death for every, the man
is left out in the original, is for every, is for every one
of his elect people. For it became him, for whom are
all things, and by whom are all things, and bring him many sons
to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through
suffering. For both he that sanctifieth
and they who are sanctified are all of one, for which cause he's
not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, Now it's gonna quote
some Psalms, and this is Christ speaking. Say it, Christ said,
I declare thy name unto my brethren in the midst of the church while
I sing praise unto thee. Now here's our Psalm. And again,
I will put my trust in him. This is Christ speaking. Christ
said, I'm going down and I'm gonna save them. and I'm gonna
manifest your name in the midst of this great congregation, and
as I do, I'm putting my trust in you, Father. And again, when
he went back to Gloria, he said, behold, I am the children which
God hath given me. We saw this morning the rest
of that. He came down here and took part of flesh like his elect
to destroy the work of the devil, deliver us, and that's what he
accomplished. So in our psalm, brethren, this
is primarily Christ speaking. If this was Christ's heart, And
this is what God said is perfect faithfulness, perfect holiness,
perfect righteousness. Christ, when he took the form
of a servant, he looked to his Father and said, Lord, you're
my strength, you're my rock. He said, you teach my hands to
war and to fight. He said, you're my goodness,
you're my fortress, you're my tower, you're my delivery, you're
my shield, you're he in whom I trust, and it's you that subdueth
my people under me. That's the perfect faith of our
Savior. That's the perfect faith of our
Savior. And what He's teaching you and me is, He's teaching
you and me, trust Christ. He's given you the faith, and
it's not gonna be perfect like Christ, because you got sin mixed
with yours. But He's gonna keep you trusting
Him, knowing He's all these things to you, because He is these things
in perfection. That's what He's teaching you
and me. Verse four, here's what we are. Man's likened to vanity,
a shadow that passes away. And here's what we ask. This is what David asked, this
is what we ask. Bow thy heavens, O Lord, and come down. And he
did, Christ did. He came down. Touch the mountains
and they'll smoke. Who's David depending on? He's
depending on the Lord. Touch, cast forth the lightning,
scatter them, shoot out your errors, destroy them, send thy
hand from above. That's what he did when he sent
Christ Jesus, the right hand of God, to save us from our sin.
And right now, it's his hand that's saving us. He says, rid
me, deliver me out of great waters from the hand of strange children
whose mouths speak of vanity, their right hand is falsehood. That's what Christ did for us.
And that's what, he trusted a father like that when he walked this
earth, and now he's gonna keep you trusting him to be these
things for you. Let me ask you this, when David,
the Lord called David, anointing him the king, it didn't appear
to anybody David was the king. He was still a shepherd. Nobody
thought he was the king. Saul was in that seat, and as
far as I could see, Saul was the king. But not with God, David
was the king. Right now, it looks like Trump's
the king, it looks like Netanyahu's the king, it looks like Putin's
the king. Christ has made you who know him, he's made you kings.
And you're gonna reign in this earth. How? By Christ our king, the
king of kings and the Lord of lords, ruling everything on our
behalf. So while David is the king, he's
really the king, but everybody thinks Saul's the king. You know
what Saul wanted to do that whole time? Saul was trying to kill
David. The whole time. How'd David fight
him? David tried his best to avoid
Saul. He ran from him the whole time.
And when God gave him several opportunities where he could
have killed Saul, he didn't lay a finger on him. He said, I'm
trusting the Lord to save me. See, that's how we fight. You're
not gonna find God's people attacking people because we're passive,
because we're trusting Christ our King to do the saving. And
that doesn't mean you don't go, if you're drafted, you don't
go fight a war. Yeah, you go fight, go fight with real guns
and real bullets. But it means even when you're
doing that, you're trusting God to save you and keep you That's
what God's people are doing all the time. But as far as just
in this life, we're not trying to use politics, money, our wisdom,
our connive. We're not trying to use any of
those things to fight. We know we are vanity. We don't
have strength to fight. But Christ, the King, is fighting. He's ruling everything. And David's
heart that whole time, I said he's passive. No, he wasn't.
He was actively, fighting the fight of faith. He was actively
fighting that old man in him that wanted to kill Saul and
wanted to fight Saul flesh to flesh. He was fighting to trust
Christ alone and that's what he was doing. Trusting Christ
alone. His deliverer, his shield, his
high tower, all his strength. And he said, and it was him who
subdued my people under me. You know who subdued his sin
nature in David? The Lord did. That's who's going
to subdue it in you. You know who subdued Saul under
David? The Lord did. You know who brought the people
to see that David was really the king so they came and submitted
to him? Listen to this. Go with me to 2 Samuel chapter
5. This is, you know, for a while
when David was actually the king, still Israel rebelled against
him. And you know he had, I forget now the guy that was the ruler
of Saul's army, you know, he made one of Saul's sons to be
the king over Israel, and they still was against David. But
eventually, Then, verse 1, then came all the tribes of Israel,
2 Samuel 5, then came all the tribes of Israel to David unto
Hebron, and spake, saying, Behold, we are thy bone and thy flesh.
Also in time past, when Saul was king over us, thou wast he
that led us out and brought us into Israel. And the Lord said
to thee, Thou shalt feed my people Israel, and thou shalt be a captain
over Israel. So all the elders of Israel came
to the king, to Hebron, And King David made a covenant with them
in Hebron before the Lord, and they anointed David king over
Israel. David said, Lord, you're my strength.
You're the one that subdued my people under me. You see, that's
what Christ did for us. He subdued our sin nature, and
he brought us to see he's our king, and he entered into a covenant
with us. And when David, as a man, when
he was already made the king, and all these men trying to kill
him and rebel against him, he just trusted the Lord. And eventually
the Lord subdued them all, and brought them to bow to King David. And that's how David lived all
his life. And that's how you and me live. That's how we fight.
Now read on, and I'm just gonna read this, and here's our prayer
continually right here. And just notice now, how we're
dependent on the Lord for everything. Verse 9, and this right here
ought to be our praise. Every day, even when the world
looks like it's going to hell in a handbasket, and a handbasket's
made in China and sold at Walmart, I will sing a new song unto thee,
O God, Upon a saw tree and an instrument of ten strings will
I sing praises unto thee. It is he that giveth salvation
unto kings, who delivereth David his servant from the hurtful
sword. Rid me and deliver me from the hand of strange children,
whose mouth speaketh vanity, and their right hand is a right
hand of falsehood. He said, Lord, you save me from
every enemy I have. that our sons may be as plants
grown up in their youth, that our daughters may be as cornerstones
polished after the similitude of a palace, that our garners
may be full according to all manner of store, that our sheep
may bring 4,000 and 10,000 in our street, that our oxen may
be strong to labor and there be no breaking in or going out,
there be no complaining in our streets. You see, this is what
we're dependent on the Lord to work in the church. It'll be
great if the Lord does this in our country, but we've depended
on the Lord to do this in this holy nation that we're a part
of. The holy nation God's made with
Christ as our king, and we his people in this earth. That's
the holy nation I'm a member of. And here's what you're gonna
find out about everybody who knows this amongst God's people.
Here it is, listen to this now. Happy is that people that is
in such a case. Yea, happy is that people whose
God is the Lord. You see anybody in this world,
in this country right today, are people happy? No. Not for the most part. God's
people are. If you know this king right here,
who's ruling everything, and you're a citizen of this heavenly
holy nation, you're a happy people. because nothing's out of place,
nothing is happening that shouldn't be happening. Everything is running
right on track, right on time, just like it should, and it's
all gonna glorify our Savior, and it's all gonna work out for
our good. That is our happiness. Our Lord's ruling it. Oh, I pray
the Lord bless us with that. All right, brother.