If you would open your Bibles
to the book of Psalms, Psalm 54. Psalm chapter 54. And we'll read the chapter again.
Psalm 54 verse 1. Save me, O God, by thy name,
and judge me by thy strength. Hear my prayer, O God, give ear
to the words of my mouth. For strangers are risen up against
me, and oppressors seek after my soul. They have not set God
before them. Selah. Behold, God is mine helper. The Lord is with them that uphold
my soul. He shall reward evil unto mine
enemies, cut them off in thy truth. I will freely sacrifice
unto thee. I will praise thy name, O Lord,
for it is good. For he hath delivered me out
of all trouble, and mine eye hath seen his desire upon mine
enemies. Tonight I want to look at this
psalm and what David is going through in it. I want to see
his actions, his attitude, and his process as he faces this
situation. As we look at it, I want us to
relate it to our lives and when we go through situations like
this. What David, what he does is what we should do. Now, I
understand that we, as we read many accounts in the Old Testament
especially, it's very difficult to identify with them sometimes. We don't have to pick up our
sword and march into battle to defend ourselves. We don't have
to worry about being thrown into a fiery furnace because we don't
bow down to a god. We don't have to worry about
so many of these things. We have many trials and all of
this Word, all of the Word of God is there to help us get through
them. In actuality, we are really much
closer to these trials that we see in the Old Testament than
we realize. So as we quickly go through this
chapter, notice the process. What David does in this chapter
can and should be done with everything we do and in everything we face.
If you are in trouble, and need help, listen to what David does
here. If today was a great day and
you're riding high and feel wonderful about yourself, listen to what
David does right here. And if you're somewhere in the
middle, you're not in the middle of a trial, but yet things aren't
going perfectly for you, listen and see what he does here because
it's applicable to every situation. For background to what David's
going through, turn with me to 1 Samuel 23. 1 Samuel 23. All right, let's look at verse
13, 1 Samuel 23, 13. Then David and his men, which
were about six hundred, arose and departed out of Kielah, and
went whithersoever they could go. And it was told Saul that
David was escaped from Kielah and he forbade to go forth. Saul had been chasing David for
a long time. So in verse 14, And David abode in the wilderness
in strongholds, and remained in a mountain in the wilderness
of Ziph. And Saul sought him every day,
but God delivered him not into his hand. And David saw that
Saul was come out to seek his life, and David was in the wilderness
of Ziph in a wood. Now look at verse 19. Then came
up the Ziphites to Saul, to Gibeah, saying, Doth not David hide himself
with us in strongholds in the wood, in the hill of Hechelah,
which is on the south of Jishamun? Now therefore, O king, come down
according to all the desire of thy soul to come down, and our
part shall be to deliver him into the king's hand. These people
of Ziph were turning David over. They knew he was around, so they
went to Saul to tell him. Saul was looking for David to
kill him. David was in a foreign land,
holding out until he could return home. Doesn't it feel like our
enemies are ever before us? I heard a man say once, we are
either in the midst of a trial, we are coming out of a trial,
or we're going into the next trial. as sinful creatures, that
is our plot in life. And we are basically like David,
we are holding out until we can go home. We make the mistake
of thinking that what we see and what we have in this world,
that is the pinnacle of our existence. We value it so much that we think
that this earth and what we have is the highest point for us.
To a child of God, this is but a mere blip of our lives as we
will spend eternity in our home above with our Father. David
here was betrayed again, as he had been done so many times.
Some by people who he thought were friends, some by enemies,
and some people he didn't even know who they were. And these
people betrayed him simply for a little bit of favor in the
sight of Saul. It is inevitable that you and
I will be betrayed on this earth. It may have happened plenty of
times already, and it may come from someone at your work It
may come from a friend, it may come from family, and it may
come from somebody in this room. As we see David in this moment,
we are also in trouble. And before we go any further,
let me clarify, let me be clear about who I am talking to. I
keep talking that I want someone to compare themselves and put
themselves in the shoes of David here and what they should do.
I'm talking to anyone who is a sinner. I'm talking to anyone
who feels that no matter how hard they try, no matter where
they look inside them, they can't find any good, they can't find
any hope, they can't do anything right. I'm talking to anybody
who needs saving. Look at verse 1 in our text,
in Psalm 54. It begins, save me. David needed saving. Later on in Samuel there, Saul's
army comes and surrounds the mountain that he's in. He's surrounded.
He has no way out. He just has a few hundred men
and Saul's army is there to get him. So David needs saving. Why would he ask for anything
else first? Save me. Maybe he should pray or we should
pray. I really want people to like me. I want all my soldiers
to look at me and think of me as a great leader. I hope that
everything at work goes well tomorrow. I hope that my job
keeps moving forward. I really hope that I get that
bonus coming. Do we really need to be in a life or death situation
to focus primarily in our prayers on the salvation of our soul?
I'm going to say that again. Do we really have to be in a
position of life and death where we have to then primarily focus
on salvation as our prayer? Pray to the Lord about everything.
But as it's written, one thing is needful. It says here in verse
1, Save me, O God. David is in this situation that
he can't escape. Without some intervening, he
is going to die. The intention of that army is
to kill David. And that's what they will do
if someone doesn't intervene. And if I'm being honest, I rarely
think of myself of being in that bad of a situation or anything
even close. Maybe I should say, I rarely
think of myself even being in a bad situation. I always feel
like, it's not that bad. It could be worse. It's so foolish
to think that way. And maybe it's even worse when
I go searching for help when I do find trouble in earthly
things. I'm thankful to so many people
for so many things they've done for me in my whole life. I don't
know where I would be if I didn't have friends and family and brothers
and sisters who intervened in moments when I was on the path
to do something horrible, who caught me after I did something
horrible, all of those things. And I'm thankful for that. But
I am a complete fool if I do anything before I cry out to
my Lord when I'm in trouble. It continues, by thy name. Save me, O God, by thy name. David here wants God to get the
glory. It's important to note that God
will get the glory. God is going to get the glory. No matter what we think, no matter
what we see, God is going to get to the glory. It may not
seem like it sometimes, but that's only just because we can't see
everything. We just don't know what's going
on. And even though God will get the glory, He will get it
all, it's very important that we do desire for Him to get it. Now if he's going to get the
glory no matter what, why is it important for me to want him
to get the glory? The reason is because there's
a very fine line when we try to take credit for anything that
we pray about or ask for that happens to us. When we pray for
no rain on a wedding day, and there's nothing wrong with that
because I've prayed it. Problem is, When we have that
clear, beautiful day, we then say, boy, we picked a good day
to have a wedding, didn't we? We give ourselves the credit.
And that's what we do. If someone is sick and a doctor
comes in and performs a surgery, we say so often, I am so thankful
for that doctor. I'm so glad that he did that.
We had the right doctor, didn't we? That doctor was brought by
God. He was trained by him. Physicians
in general come from our Lord. He is the great physician. He
is the healer. Anytime we give ourselves even
an ounce of glory, what we're doing is we're feeding our self-righteousness. It says in Ephesians 2, for by
grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it's
the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. We
can't do anything to help ourselves. We can't do any part of salvation
or anything. And we're not able to do it.
But I'm 100% convinced if we could do this really small part,
and it was meant for it, we would take that and then we would give
ourselves all the credit. We can't have any part because
we take it all. We're not satisfied with just
a little bit of glory. We want to take it all. If the
glory of God is your first priority, you can take anything to the
Lord in prayer. If you go to the Lord in prayer
and your priority is Him to get the glory, everything, you can
take anything to the Lord in prayer. And that also answers
some of our questions. When and how to pray and things.
I've wrestled with this plenty of times before. There are often
times when I feel like I need to pray, but the situation presents
itself to be difficult. We read earlier in Matthew how
the Pharisees would stand up and pray, how it was all about
the show and everything. And then it says go in your closet
to pray. The point is not that the closet is a great place for
you to pray. There's no benefit. You could
pray in your room, in the basement, in your car. It doesn't matter.
The point is the glory has to go to Him. If you are praying
in any way, shape or form, that you're getting attention from
it, you're getting credit for praying, any of that stuff. That's
the point he's making in Matthew 5. You have to give God all the
glory. And that's why there's so many
situations such as holding hands and praying in a restaurant.
There's nothing wrong with praying in a restaurant. The point is,
if you ordered a restaurant and you're going to eat, you just
look across to your family and say, I'm so thankful for you
guys. We're blessed. And nobody in the whole room
has a clue that you're praying. They don't know anything about
it. but it's understood. You and your family know what
you're saying. You're thankful for it, but you're not making
a scene out of it. If you're at work, if you're in front of
people, there's a lot of ways to do it without making a scene
out of it. I've been told before one time,
did you just fall asleep? And instead of trying to claim
that I was praying, you just say, sure, yep, I was falling
asleep. It doesn't matter. Give God the
glory for all of it and don't call attention to yourself. In
verse one, it says, save me, oh God, by thy name and judge
me by thy strength. David doesn't lift up his hand
against his enemy until he lifts his hands in humble supplication
to his Lord. Don't ever try to fight a battle
without God. If it's not important enough
to pray about or take before him, then it's not worth fighting
over at all. Look at verse 2. Hear my prayer,
O God. Give ear to the words of my mouth. Why is it so important for God
to hear our prayers? Turn with me to Matthew 7. And look at Matthew 7 verse 7. And
we're looking at why is it so important for God to hear our
prayers. verse 7, ìAsk, and it shall be given you. Seek, and
ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened
unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth,
and he that seeketh findeth. And to him that knocketh it shall
be opened.î Why is it so important for God to hear our prayers?
Because He said Heíd answer them. He knows our prayers, but we
ask. He teaches us. We need to ask
for what we want or what we need. Turn back here to Psalm 27. Another passage with a similar
message. Psalm 27, verse 7. Hear, O Lord, when I cry with
my voice. Have mercy also upon me and answer
me. When thou saidst, seek ye my
face, my heart said unto thee, thy face, Lord, will I seek. Hide not thy face far from me.
Put not thy servant away in anger. Thou hast been my help. Leave
me not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation. We need to ask
the Lord to hear us, and we need to continually ask. If one of
my children needs something, and they say something, they
ask for me. There's a chance I don't hear
them. There's a chance that I think it's not important. There's a
chance I don't want to be bothered with. There's a lot of things.
If they keep saying it, every time they say it, it increases
that I'm going to go to them or I'm going to see what they
need. Now our Lord hears everything, but it's important for us to
continually pray and ask for things. We want to show how important
something is to us. Now in our text, look at verse
3. For strangers are risen up against me, and oppressors seek
after my soul. They have not set God before
them, Selah." The problem David describes here, talking about
these men that turned on him, about this army that's coming
and surrounded him, about this impending what he thinks is going
to be a battle, The problem here applies to anything. In any occasion,
your problem or my problem can be substituted in here in verse
3. If we follow verse 1 and 2, it
doesn't matter the problem, it can be put in there. We must
come to God asking to be saved, giving Him the glory, calling
Him by name, totally dependent upon Him, begging to be heard,
knowing it's the only place we can find help. The reason the
specific problem or request doesn't matter, the reason the problem
that we put in here for verse 3 or the problem David says,
the reason that that doesn't matter is because who we're praying
to is God. Anything we could ask of Him
is within His power. It doesn't mean that it will
be answered, but it means, I'm sorry I said that wrong, it doesn't
mean that we will get what we're asking for necessarily, but He
hears our prayers and He will answer them because He is God. Turn back to Matthew 7. We just read verse 7 and 8, ìAsk
and it shall be given you, seek ye shall find, knock and it shall
be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth,
and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall
be opened.î Now keep reading here, verse 9. Or what man is
there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he
give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know
how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall
your Father, which is in heaven, give good things to them that
ask him? I think of all the requests that
I get from my daughter. She asks me for so many things
all the time. I love her. I want her to have
everything that she can. I want to take care of her and
do everything, but I don't give her always what she wants because
it's not what she needs. And that's the way that this
example of a father, how great of a father he is. I'm a sinner
and I'm just going to do it horribly. I'm going to botch it up so many
times, but he is love and he will answer our prayers in the
way that we need them answered. All right, go back to our text. And as David finishes his prayer
here, he's continuing, but as he finishes what he's asking
for, his courage here breaks out like lightning. He doubts
not of slaying thousands or even tens of thousands if necessary,
if that's what comes from here because he's so confident. Look
at verse 4 and 5. Behold, God is mine Helper, the
Lord is with them that uphold my soul. He shall reward evil
unto mine enemies, cut them off in thy truth. If God be for us,
who can be against us?" That's his attitude here. His faith
boasts of God being his helper, that evil will be his enemy's
reward and that they will be cut off. I can't begin to describe
my lack of faith when I pray. I don't think that it's because
I doubt his ability, but I want to stop worrying and fretting
so much in things. I've heard many people say things
in one way or another such as, you need to stop worrying, you
need to stop fretting, you need to have faith in the Lord. That
worrying is just a lack of faith. You don't have that. In my opinion,
David here, from what I'm reading him saying in the first three
verses, he was worried. He had confidence and faith as
we read through here that he would be delivered. But if he
wasn't worried, I'm not so sure he would have prayed these things.
What we need to do is when we worry or when we fret, we need
to follow David's lead and take it to the Lord immediately. If
something's bothering us, if something's on our mind, take
it to the Lord. My goal from reading that is
that I want to spend more time praying about something than
I spend worrying about it. I don't know what the ratio is,
but I feel like I worry a whole lot more about a lot of things
than I ever pray about them, and that's just foolish. What
is my worrying or my fretting ever doing to help me? Take a
minute and pray about it. Ask the Lord about it. Verse
6 here, I will freely sacrifice unto thee. I will praise thy
name, O Lord, for it is good. David knows from the promises
of God that he will be victorious. David in this situation is unique
in that he knows he will be the king. He's chosen and all that.
So he has confidence that he is not going to die here. Yet
he still prays and frets over these things because he knows
he is dependent upon the Lord. A child of God has been made
promises. We have been promised things.
We should also celebrate and praise His name because of these
promises. David makes a vow that he will
sacrifice to God after his victory. I love it that he is yet to finish
the trial and he is promising, vowing that he's going to make
sacrifices to the Lord because that's who's going to deliver
him. He is going to give thanks to God as we should constantly. David called upon God's name
in verse 1, and now he says, I will praise thy name, O Lord,
for its good. One writer wrote, None can praise
the Lord so well as those who have tried and proved the preciousness
of His name in seasons of adversity. The Lord's name becomes more
precious every time He delivers you from a trial and tribulation.
In Love, I love and can recognize the transition
that David goes through in these seven verses. He starts off in
trouble, pleading of the Lord. He gains faith from that request. Going to the Lord gives him faith
in this trial. And by the end, he's not just
optimistic at that point, but he's excited about the Lord delivering
him. His victory is won before He
ever puts on His armor. This is a similar thing that
we can experience if we are facing troubles and tribulations. If
we go to the Lord in prayer, if we read His Word, it is wonderful. I was going to say amazing, but
it's wonderful how He can turn our fears and our doubts into
faith and then joy. It's amazing how His Word and
praying to Him can turn you from your fears to just, it's gone. It doesn't matter. He's the one
who's going to deliver me if I'm going to be delivered. Look
at verse 7. For He hath delivered me out
of all trouble, and mine eye has seen His desire upon mine
enemies. Why can David say here, for he
hath delivered me out of all trouble? Why can you or I say
that? And the emphasis on the word
all trouble here. We can say these things because
of the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. David was sure
years and years before the Lord came because it was so sure that
he could act as if it had already happened, that the Lord's sacrifice
was already complete. And we are sure thousands of
years later because he fulfilled the prophecy perfectly and because
it's recorded for us to see and read. The Lord Jesus Christ is
our Savior, because no matter who and when, the prayer is always
the same, Save me, O God. I'm not asking for it. I'm not
asking for this. But if God only answers one of
my requests for myself, as long as that request is Save me, O
God, by His grace, I will be ecstatic about that. I remember
as a kid always thinking and even asking before, we talk an
awful lot at church about being saved. And with all the other
things that God can do, all these things you talk about, all these
miracles and all this power and all that stuff, don't you think
we should ask for a whole lot of things too, not just that?
The truth is we don't talk about salvation enough. Let me give
you a little illustration. If you had the ability to grant
one request, you could have anything you want in life and everything
combined. You could choose exactly what
you wanted in earthly treasures. Power, fame, ability, anything
you wanted. You could have all of it wrapped
up into one and you could have it for one year. But the other
so many years of your life would be awful. Would you make that
trade? I don't know if you had to think
about it, but what if I said you could have all of that for
one day? And now it's not one year out
of 70, it's one day out of 20 some thousand that you're going
to have everything you want. What about if you could have
it for an hour or for a minute or for a second? It seems foolish. You wouldn't even ponder it.
We talked earlier this morning, we heard a message about from
everlasting to everlasting and how eternity is forever in front
of us. We don't have any understanding
of the past. We know just our years that we've
lived here and that's all we know. But there is an eternity
afterward and we will spend it in one of two places. Our time
on this earth, because of years forever, if we live to be 700
or 900 as some of the men in the old days, the correlation
on the example I just gave you is too big. You could have one
millionth of a second of your life great and the rest awful,
and that's not the comparison that you would have this life
compared to eternity. What we seek and what we search
for and all the things that we try to attain and we worry about
and all the things on this earth, they are less than a millionth
of a second of time that we have in eternity. And yet we strive
so hard and put so many things like this word and coming to
church and praying and worshiping and all those things as if so
often they aren't even the most important thing. I say all of that because the
Lord Jesus Christ is our salvation. He is everything. And to close,
There's a man, William Hill Tucker, who wrote this about this psalm.
This is one of the psalms in commemoration of the passion
of Jesus. It is seen with greatest effect
as a simple prophecy of Christ. Read this way, it is a perfect
correspondence with the life and feelings of the Messiah.
So I'm going to read these seven verses again with that in mind.
This chapter is a great correspondence or vision with the life and feelings
of the Lord Jesus Christ. So we'll close with this. So
have that on your mind as we read this chapter one more time. The words of our Lord. Save me,
O God, by thy name, and judge me by thy strength. Hear my prayer,
O God, give ear to the words of my mouth. For strangers are
risen up against me, and oppressors seek after my soul. They have
not set God before them, Selah. Behold, God is mine helper. The Lord is with them that uphold
my soul. He shall reward evil unto mine
enemies. Cut them off in thy truth. I
will freely sacrifice unto thee. I will praise thy name, O Lord,
for it is good. For he hath delivered me out
of all trouble, and mine eye hath seen his desire upon mine
enemies. Amen.