Alright, brethren, let's go to
Psalm 83. He says, Keep not thou silence,
O God. Hold not thy peace, and be not
still, O God. For lo, thine enemies make a
tumult. And they that hate thee have
lifted up the head. They have taken crafty counsel
against thy people and consulted against thy hidden ones. They
have said, Come, let us cut them off from being a nation, that
the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance. For they
have consulted together with one consent. They are confederate
against thee. The tabernacles of Edom and the
Ishmaelites, of Moab and the Hagareens, Giebel and Ammon and
Amalek, the Philistines were the inhabitants of Tyre. Asher
also was joined with them. They've helped, hoping the children
of Lot. Due unto them as unto the Midianites,
as to Sisera, as to Jabin, like the brook of Chazon, which perished
at Endor, they became as dung for the earth. Make their nobles
like Oreb and like Zeb, and yea, all their princes as Zeba and
as Zalmunna, who said, let us take to ourselves the houses
of God in possession. Oh my God, make them like a wheel,
as the stubble before the wind, as the fire burneth the wood,
and as the flame setteth the mountains on fire. So persecute
them with thy tempest, and make them afraid with thy storm. Fill
their faces with shame, that they may seek thy name, oh Lord. And let them be confounded and
troubled forever. Yea, let them be put to shame
and perish. that men may know that thou,
whose name alone is Jehovah, art the most high over all the
earth." God's people need God to speak to us. This is how this
psalm begins, asking God, keep not thou silence, O God. Hold not thou peace and be not
still, O God. We need God to speak to us. We
need God to protect us. Believers need to hear a word
from God. We need to hear God speak in
our heart, the Spirit of God making known the presence of
God in our heart. David said in Psalm 28.1, he
said, Unto thee will I cry, O LORD my rock, be not silent to me,
lest if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down
into the pit. God may be silent, in a sense
that he makes his child perceive that God is not speaking. But
scripture tells us that God our Savior upholds all things by
the word of His power. And God may appear from our perception
not to be moving, but we know at all times God is actively
working all things together for the good of them that love God.
for the good of His called people according to His purpose. And
He waits until His time to move. He waits until His time to speak.
And our times are in His hand. But He waits to do for us what
He did for the psalmist here. To bring us to cry unto Him. Asking Him to speak to us. Asking
Him to move on our behalf. That's the purpose in God is
to keep His people constantly crying to Him, constantly depending
on Him. And we see here why we need God
to speak, why we depend on God. We see it here in this description
of our enemies. Now listen to these enemies,
the description here in verse 2. He says, Lo, thine enemies
make a tumult, and they that hate thee have lifted up the
head. Now we see in this description here of enemy, we see the characteristics
of God's enemies. Now let me say this about God's
enemies. There's spiritual enemies, there's unseen enemies, There's
the unregenerate of this world that don't know God. There's
our own sinful flesh. All of that is represented in
these enemies. We just have many, many enemies in this world as
believers that would turn us from God. Look at this description
of them right here. He says those who are enemies
to God's people. This is the good news. Those
that are enemies to God's people are God's enemies. He says here,
lo, thine enemies. They're God's enemies. If they're
against God's people, they're God's enemies. They're God's
enemies. That's a great comfort to us,
brethren. A great comfort. God shall protect His people
from all our enemies because they're God's enemies. And the
enemy is boisterous. He says here, they make a tumult.
Always trying to disrupt the peace of God's people. Always
trying to disrupt this peace. Always trying to be daring and
defiant to cause great trouble amongst God's people. And then
God's enemies operate from a natural heart of enmity against God.
The natural heart, the carnal mind's enmity against God. And
that's where the enemy's operating from. And because there's enmity
against God, there's pride. There's a proud heart. Arrogant
spirit. Look here. They that hate thee
have lifted up the head. They that hate thee have lifted
up the head. Every sinner in his natural state
is enmity against God. Hates God. The carnal mind is
enmity against God. And that carnal heart, that natural
sinful heart is nothing but pride. That's what this thing of lifting
up the head, stiffening up the neck, defiant. It's the carnal
heart, the proud heart. Now that's the sin nature that
Christ has to free His people from. That's the sin nature we
come into this world with. And hating God. Hating God. It may appear pleasant,
it may appear moral, but underneath is hatred of God. And pride is
what it is. That was the sin of the devil,
was pride. I will ascend to the throne of
the Most High. I will set my throne on high. And we have to be safe from that
continually. But that same carnal sin nature
is in every child that God saves and that nature God saves His
child from when He creates a new man within us and gives you a
meek and a quiet spirit. That old man is still with you.
He still wants to rise up. And we have to be saved from
him constantly. We need God to protect us because
the enemy is crafty. Look here in verse 3. They have
taken crafty counsel against our people. and consulted against
thy hidden ones. They've said, come, let us cut
them off from being a nation, that the name of Israel may be
no more in remembrance. You remember the serpent came
into the garden, and the scripture says he was more subtle than
any of the creatures that God had made. And the devil is crafty,
the devil is subtle, and so are all the enemies of God. He says
here, they've taken crafty counsel against thy people. We see it
in the way enemies of God dealt with our Savior. Look over at
Luke chapter 20. This is how they dealt with our
Savior. Luke 20 and verse 20. It says, they watched Him. They
watched Him. They were always looking for
something to accuse Him with. They watched Him and they sent
forth spies. They sent forth people to listen
when they didn't think He knew they were listening and to spy
on Him. And these ones that came to Him, they feigned themselves
as just men, that they might take hold of His words so that
they might deliver Him unto the power and authority of the governor.
And they asked Him, saying, Master, we know that Thou sayest and
teachest rightly, neither acceptest thou the person of any, but you
teach the way of God truly." That was just deceit, that was
craftiness. They said, is it lawful for us
to give tribute to Caesar or no? But he perceived their craftiness
and said to them, why tempt ye me? And this is our Savior here
who knows the hearts in every enemy. He knows the hearts in
every man, but he knows the hearts in all our enemies and he is
able to save us. There's none that are so crafty
that they can outwit our Redeemer. They couldn't do it when He walked
this earth, they can't do it now. And so we call on Him, Lord
speak, we need you to protect us, because our enemies are crafty.
And the enemy, they want to put us out of remembrance. They want
to destroy the church of God and put the name of God's people
out of remembrance. And they sow against God. Now they're
divided against themselves. All sinners in this world are
divided against themselves. But this one thing they have
in common, they hate God and they hate His people. Look here
in verse 5. They've consulted together with
one consent. They are confederate against
Thee, O God. the tabernacles of Edom, and
the Ishmaelites, of Moab, and the Hagareens, that's Hagar's
children. After she left Abraham, she had
more children. And they're enemies of God. It
says these others, Jebel, and Ammon, and Amalek, and the Philistines,
that with the inhabitants of Tyre, Asher is joined with them. They've helped the children of
Lot. You think about this, though. All these came from one man.
They all came from Adam. Everybody on this earth came
from one man, Adam. But because Adam sinned, we all
sinned, and the natural heart that we're saved from is hateful
and hating one another. Hateful and hating one another.
And some of these here were brothers, physical brothers, that hated
their brethren and their brethren's descendants. Edom is Esau's descendants,
that's Jacob's brother. And Ishmaelites were Ishmael's
descendants, that's Isaac's brother. And Esau hated God, therefore
he hated Jacob, and Esau's children hates Jacob's children, because
they hate our God, they hate our God. And as it was then,
so it is now. Those that are born after the
flesh persecute those who are born after the Spirit. It was
that way. It's always been that way. Cain
killed Abel because of this. And it's still so in our day.
But now every sinner in this world descended from the same
father, from Adam, because of sin now. Men hate one another
by nature. Now they may not appear to hate
one another. You let it come down to Anything that's a personal
benefit and men will split. But especially now when you start
declaring the gospel and they start hearing about God, men
that are so divided they hate one another, one thing they will
counsel together on and be in unity about is the hatred of
God and the hatred of God's people. Those that crucified our Redeemer,
The Pharisees and the Sadducees, they didn't get along with each
other. The Romans, they didn't get along with each other, but
they had this in agreement. They hated Christ enough that
they were willing to crucify Him. And that's so of all men
in this world. Every spiritually dead sinner
is united together, counseling together as the enemies of God
against God's people. And brethren, it's going to have
to take God putting away the sin of His people It takes God
coming and giving a new heart and making us see that there's
no difference in me and you and any other sinner. Making us to
be the chief of sinners in our estimation of ourselves so that
we'll quit trying to use ourselves to be against another. That's
what all division's about. It's one worm exalting themselves
as being better than another worm. That's all it is. It's
enmity against God and enmity against his people. We have to
be, God has to come in spirit and so humble us in the dust
that we can't esteem ourselves better than another. And when
he does that, brethren, there'll be unity. When you made to see
he's given you one faith, one spirit, one Lord, one savior
who saved, that's when brethren are brought together and made
one. Our assurance is this, we're no match for the enemy. You want
God to leave you alone to take on your enemies in this world?
We're no match for the devil. We're no match for any enemy
we have. We're no match for the one we
look at in the mirror every day. We need God to save us. And that's
why they're calling out here, Lord, speak to us, help us. You just think about the stuff
going on over in the East right now. And, you know, you got two
or three different or however many factions over there right
now, and they have one common enemy right now as long as America's
in the present. But you let America pull out
and just watch what's going to happen. You can go read about
what happened when Russia left over there back in the late 80s.
It lasted six months, and they went to killing each other. It's
going to happen again. But they have one common enemy
right now. And men of this world have a common enemy against God
and against His people. We need God to save us. We need
God to keep us. But notice who God's people are.
This is our hope right here. Look here, verse 3. It says,
They have taken crafty counsel, God, against Thy people. They
consulted against Thy hidden ones. That's who the Lord's people
are. God has a people in this world
who are His people. They're His people. They're called
the holy nation. They're called His peculiar treasure.
They're people He chose in Christ before this world was ever made.
That's His people. It's no physical nation. It's
no physical traits that makes one chosen and one not chosen. It's who God chose. That's His
people. by free grace, choosing whom
He would. And God has hidden His people. If you are saved
by God's grace and believe Christ, you're one of the hidden ones.
You're one of the hidden ones. Now, how are we hidden? God hid
us in Christ. When He chose His people in Christ
and blessed us with all spiritual blessings, He hid us in Christ. And when Adam sinned in the garden,
there's one reason God didn't pour out His wrath on Adam right
then. Because he had a people hidden in Christ. And He's going
to save them. And there's one reason He didn't
pour out His wrath on you when you came into this world a sinner.
If you're His, the reason is He hid you in Christ. And right
now, amongst all enemies and everybody in this world, He's
protecting His people because you're hidden in Christ. Christ
is hidden from this world. Who hath believed our report?
To whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? Father, I thank
You, Lord, that You hid these things from the wise and prudent
and has revealed them unto babes. Christ is hidden from this world
unless God is pleased to reveal Himself in the hearts of His
people. And His people are hidden in
Christ. Listen to Isaiah 32 verse 2. Isaiah 32, 2 says, a man shall
be as a hiding place from the wind and a covert from the tempest,
as rivers of water in a dry place, as a shadow of a great rock in
a weary land. You know who that man is? That's
the God-man. That's Christ Jesus. He is a
hiding place from the wind. He's a covert from the tempest.
He's as rivers of water in a dry place. We saw that this morning.
He's as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land, in a hot
land where the sun's beating down. He's a shadow. All these
things Christ is. What's this tempest He's the
hiding place from? Christ went to that cross and
the tempest was poured out on Him and His people were in Christ
just like Noah was in that ark and was hidden from that flood
that came down and came up from the deep. And we were hidden
in Christ when God satisfied His justice on our Redeemer.
And now having put away our sin and put away the condemnation
and having arisen to God's right hand, when God saves His child,
you know what He is continually teaching us? You are hidden. He says in Colossians 3.3, you're
dead. You died in Christ. Your body
of sin died when Christ died. You're dead. Before God, you're
dead. It's settled. It is settled. God's child died in Christ. It's
settled. Judgment's settled for His child. But your life is hid with Christ
in God. You're risen with Christ. You're
hidden in Christ. This was so before we knew Him,
brethren. This was so when He arose, when He died, we died
in Him over 2,000 years ago. And when He arose, we arose in
Him and sat down. The reason God spared you and
preserved you and brought you to hear the Gospel and taught
us the Gospel is because He had you hidden in Christ. Your life
was hidden in Christ. Same right now. The reason He's
keeping us in protecting us and providing for us right now is
we're hidden in Christ. That's the assurance of preservation. Listen, Psalm 91.1. If you want
to look at these, these are going to be in Psalm. I just want to
go through these with you. Psalm 91.1. In the midst of all the tumult
and all the conspiring of every enemy in our lives, God keeps
us knowing and He keeps us believing God has hidden us in Christ. Just like a man You don't hide
things that aren't any value, do you? Anybody, you got anything
that's just cheap as a, cheap as, just cheap things that you,
you don't hide them. What do you hide? Valuable things. Well, he's hidden us because
you're his precious jewels. And he's hidden you just like
you would hide a precious diamond. And He's making us know this.
He's reminding us this. And that secret hiding place
is Christ. Look at Psalm 91.1. He that dwelleth
in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow
of the Almighty. He's that secret place. Christ
is that secret place of the Most High. I'll say of the Lord, He
is my refuge. That's what it means. He's my
fortress, my God. In Him will I trust. Look at
Psalm 27.5. Psalm 27.5. Let's read verse
4. He says, One thing have I desired
of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the
house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty
of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple. For in the time of
trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion. In the secret of his
tabernacle shall he hide me, he shall set me upon a rock. That tabernacle, first and foremost,
is Christ. And he's that pavilion. But it's
his church. It's where he's assembled his
people. He's going to hide his people
in his church. This is a hidden place right here to this world.
Wherever He's assembled His people and His gospel is going forth,
the world doesn't notice it. The world doesn't have any understanding
of how important it is and how valuable it is. He's hidden you.
Look here in Psalm 31 and verse 20. Thou shalt hide them in the secret
of Thy presence. from the pride of man. Thou shalt
keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues." Man can strive with their tongues,
and they can accuse, and they can try to separate you from
the Lord. And the Lord lets you go through
some of that. But He's going to hide you in
the secret of His presence. Nobody's going to separate you
from Him. Nobody's going to separate His people from Christ. He's
not going to let it happen. He's not going to let it happen. God
keeps us crying to Him, praising Him, sanctifying Him above all
our enemies by asking Him to hide us in Christ. Back here in Psalm 32, look at
verse 7. This is what He cries out, Thou
art my hiding place, Thou shalt preserve me from trouble. Thou
shalt encompass me about with songs of deliverance. This is
our cry. He said over in Psalm 17.8, keep
me as the apple of your eye. The pupil. Keep me as the apple
of your eye. Hide me. Hide me under the shadow
of thy wings. Psalm 64.2, hide me from the
secret counsel of the wicked. That's what he's going to do.
That's what he's going to do. You think about Christ. You think
about how men secretly counseled and what they were going to do
to Christ. And throughout his life, the Lord just walked, he
just walked right through the middle of them. Nobody could
lay a hand on him, nobody could touch him until the time appointed.
Until the time appointed. And right now, what he's doing
for his people, he's hiding his people from the secret counsel
of those enemies that would try to separate us from the Lord.
He's gonna keep doing this. Wherever he has a people, he's
gonna keep hiding his people so that we can worship Him and
nothing will be able to separate us from Him. So we cry out, Thou
art my hiding place and my shield. I hope in Thy Word. You're my shield. You know what
the shield of faith is? It's not faith. Faith's not the
shield. The shield, what did the Lord
tell Abraham? I am thy shield and thy exceeding
great reward. The shield of faith is faith's
object. Now if your faith's in your faith,
you don't have a shield. But if your faith is in Christ,
Christ is your shield. He's the one who's going to protect
you from the fiery darts of the wicked. He's the one who's going
to keep your head safe from the devils trying to turn you and
make you think you're not a child of God. He gonna keep you looking
to Him. He's the power to do that. Deliver
me, O Lord, from mine enemies. I flee unto thee to hide me. That's what our psalmist is doing.
That's what, if you, if you, if you just start having a thought
that is Either a doubtful thought, a sinful thought, you know, something
sanctifying your enemies, something that's, you know, if it keeps
going it's going to get worse and worse and worse. The only
power against that, brethren, there's only one power against
that, flee to Christ to hide you. I mean, with passionately
fleeing to Him. I mean, go to His Word, go to
the Gospel, hear Him declared, hear Him preached. He's the power. He's the power. Now look at this thirdly, and
I'm going to be brief here, but faith depends upon God to save
us from every enemy. And each of these battles that
we're looking at here, God saved all his chosen from the enemy.
We depend on him to save it. And he lists a bunch of battles
here. He says, Lord, do for us like
you did then. And in each one of these, God
alone did the saving. Look here, I'll just read on
verse nine. Do unto them as unto the Midianites. Do you remember how the Midianites
were slain? Who did that? God made it abundantly clear
who did it. He told Gideon, Get in there, you got too many. You're
going to send some of these men home. And God chose which ones
would send home. They all let some drink water
like a dog and some lapped it up with their hand. And it doesn't
say why God chose which one of them. But the ones that, I think
it was the ones that got down and drank like a dog, he let
them stay and the other ones he sent home. I may have had
that backwards, but the point is you couldn't tell which ones
he was going to choose and which ones he sent home. It was God's
choice and God sent them home. Why did he send them home? Because
Gideon was leaning on them too much, that's why. And he narrowed
it down to there was just a handful of them and he said, now Gideon,
you go against this big army of the Midianites and you take
a picture And you put a candle in that pitcher. And you go in
there with a trumpet. And what you do is you take a
third of them around this side, a third around this side, and
a third around this side. And Gideon told them what the
Lord told him. He said, now, when I blow the trumpet, he said,
you break the pitcher. And everybody started blowing
these trumpets and shouting the word of the Lord. And they broke
those pitchers, and that candle shined, and they went to blowing
the trumpets. And the Midianites took off. They just left. That's all a picture of this
gospel. We got to be broken vessels. Entirely broken. We haven't accomplished
a thing. We can't accomplish a thing.
And as long as we have that spirit, God won't use us. We got to be
broken. The vessels got to be empty.
The vessels got to be powerless. So the excellency of the powers
belongs to the Lord. That's that broken vessel. And
that's the one the light shines through. And the trumpet being
blown is the gospel. Who gave the victory? God did. He willed it down. There was
just so few people to show it's the Lord that did it and not
man. And that's the case with all the rest of these. I won't
go into detail, but Sisera and as you did to Jabin at the brook
of Chazon, they perished at Endor. He goes through all this list
that he did and he says, Lord, he said, you did this. We need
you to do this. These enemies are wanting to
take us. He said, make them like a wheel.
Make them just roll over and over and over and just have no
rest. He says, make them a stubble
before the wind. You know how the chaff is separated
from the wheat? There's a lot of disturbance,
a lot of trouble. They got these down in Kentucky
and places and they have them in valleys and things and they'll
have a barn and the floor of it, you can get on it and bounce
on it like a trampoline. And they put the weed in there.
And I believe, was it Adam, was it you I was talking to this
about? Some of them have set them up to where there's a door
at one end, a door at the other, and they actually use the wind
coming down through the holler to blow through the barn. But
where they don't have that, they use a big fan. and they just
bounce that wheat up and down, and up and down on that floor,
and as it does, the chaff is light, and the chaff bounces
up. As it's bouncing, it separates, and the chaff bounces up, and
the wind blows the chaff, just blows it away. What do you think
these troubles are about? God's separating the wheat from
the chaff. And the light is light enough,
the wind can just blow them away. God's people, they can't be turned
that easy because God's got them rooted. They're heavier by His
grace. The chaff can just, you shake
it up too much and the chaff is just, you blow it away with
the wind. Make them like the stubble before
the wind. As the fire burneth the wood,
as the flame setteth the mountains on fire, persecute them with
our tempest, make them afraid with our storm. God has done
this for us in Christ. He's done this for His people.
Christ went and He bore the tempest. He saved us from the lost curse.
He saved us from our sin. He saved us from our God-hating
nature by His Spirit. He saves us from the devil. He
saves us from every enemy we face in this world. And He keeps
doing it. We're more than conquerors through
Christ that loved us. That's the only way. But by God's
grace, Christ can pray this against the enemies and He can pray this
perfectly. We just pray, Lord, magnify your
name, save us from our enemies. But here's what we also pray.
Lord taught us to pray for our enemies. And we pray for our
enemies. Look here in verse 16. Fill their
faces with shame that they may seek thy name, O Lord. That's
a prayer for them. Fill their faces with shame that
they may seek you, Lord. Sinners only seek Christ to save
when God fills our faces with shame. That's ongoing. We have to see
the shame of our sin, our sin being against God, our sin being
against Christ who is such a loving Savior to His people. We have
to see our sins against God's people. We have to see our sins
of rejecting such a holy, just, and good Redeemer. See our shame
before our enemies. Are you ashamed of yourself?
I am. I'm ashamed of what I am. Can
you say, if you ever said that to a brother, I'm just ashamed
of who I am and what I am. Pride can't own that. Pride can't even say, I might
be wrong, I might have it wrong. If there's any whose face God's
filled with shame, seek the name of the Lord. Go to Him. He's the only one that can save
you. And He'll hide you in the pavilion, and He'll protect you
from the strife of tongues. It's one thing for God to shame
you. He will. He'll bring it in. But He's not going to let His
people be ashamed. for trusting Him to save us. He's going to
save you. He pardons His people. There's
no God like Him. He passes by the remnant of His
inheritance, the transgression of the remnant of His heritage.
He passes by. He delights to show mercy. He
delights to have compassion. God's not going to hold it over
your head. He's not going to keep on whipping
you. He's going to bring you to Him. and have mercy just like
that. When you ask mercy, you're getting
it from God. That's who He is. That's how
He saves. But verse 17, 18, let them be
confounded and troubled forever. Yea, let them be put to shame
and perish, those that won't bow to Him. That men may know
that Thou, whose name alone is Jehovah, are the Most High over
all the earth. That's who Christ Jesus is. He's
Jehovah Jesus. He's God over all the earth. He's the omnipotent Savior who
saves His people. God has highly exalted Him and
given Him a name above every name. And one day every knee
is going to bow and every tongue is going to confess that He's
Lord of lords and King of kings. It's going to be to the praise
of the glory of God. And He says right now, Bow down
now and kiss the Son. Bow down and kiss Him lest He
be angry. Have you? Have you? That's the only way we'll be
saved. It's to bow down and kiss the Son. Blessed are all those that do. They're happy. You've got eternal
salvation, eternal rest, eternal peace. And you're His hidden ones. And
here's the thing about it. He's going to win every battle.
He will win every battle. That means His people will win
every battle. Trust in Him. You're going to win every battle.
And He's going to keep you. And He's going to keep you hidden.
Pray for your enemies. Pray for God to save your enemies.
and pray for God to exalt his name. That's what he's going
to do. Father, we thank you for this
word. Thank you for your mercy. Lord, thank you for saving us
in spite of us. Thank you for continuing to be
merciful to us. We don't deserve the least of
your mercies. Our sins are ever before us,
our transgressions, and you just continue to quicken our heart. You continue
to make us see what sinners we are and yet what perfection we
have in Christ. Lord, we pray for you. Those that know you, those that
don't know you, whatever our need be, give shame of faith,
Lord, that we might seek you and find mercy in Christ. Lord, help us to not cause a
tumult. Help us to seek peace and pursue
it. And Lord, we trust you to win
that battle for us. Exalt your name. Lord, help us to honor you and
worship you and look only to you. We cry unto you, Lord, speak
it by your voice in our hearts, in the hearts of your people.
Move for us, move upon us, hide us and protect us. Lord, do all
according to your will, for the glory of your name. Forgive us
of our sins, Lord, we ask it in Christ's name. Amen.