Turn to Psalm 144. You know, it's good to be sick once
in a while. I don't know about all the time, that's on another
level, but it gives you time to reflect and sit down and meditate
on the things you've studied. I did more sitting than I did
studying this week. And I felt like it was more profitable
to me in doing that. I thought of this this morning.
I thought one of the reasons there's so much obesity in this
country is that we eat, but we don't give ourselves enough time
to digest what we've eaten before we eat again. And I think this is a good rule
here, a good rule of thumb. Read a little and think a lot. Meditate a lot on what you've
read. Instead of reading a lot and meditating a little, I'd
read a little and meditate a lot on it. Now, this morning, the message suggested to me several
titles, and I don't think I'm gonna try to finish this psalm
at all this morning. I started out with God's people
are a happy people. And then the more I studied,
I, uh, I came up with this title, a prayer of a soldier of Christ,
or you can shorten it as soldier of Christ, but it's a prayer
of a soldier. David, he's praying here as a
soldier, not just as a king, but as a soldier in battle. And
he ascribes his victory to the Lord. And he shows his dependence
upon the Lord for victory. And he gives the glory, all the
glory of victory to the Lord. He gives it all to him. Since the fall of Adam, this
world has been at war with God. That's what's going on. There's
just a war, a war with God. The world is at war with God.
We've had World War I. We've had World War II. But in
reality, there has been one world war. And it's going to go on. UNTIL
THE LORD PUTS AN END TO THIS THING. IT'S GONNA GO ON UNTIL
THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, AS WE READ IN 1 CORINTHIANS, WHEN HE
SUBDUES ALL POWER AND ALL AUTHORITY AND HE DELIVERS UP THE KINGDOM
TO GOD THE FATHER, THEN THIS WILL BE OVER. BUT THE WAR WILL
NEVER STOP. IT'LL NEVER STOP. NOW IT SAYS
HE MAKETH WARS TO CEASE UNTIL THE END OF THE EARTH. THAT'S
INDIVIDUAL WARS, BECAUSE IF HE DIDN'T, THEY WOULDN'T. If the
Lord didn't cause wars to stop, they would not stop. Man would
keep on going until he killed the last one. But God makes wars
to stop when His purpose in that war is accomplished. God's purpose in every war is
accomplished. And every true believer is in
a warfare. They are soldiers of the Lord
Jesus Christ. We are in a true warfare. Listen to these scriptures. 2
Timothy 2 verse 3 and 4, Paul writing to Timothy, Thou therefore
endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that
woreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life, that
he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. 2 Timothy 4, 7, Paul said, I
have fought a good fight. There is a good fight. There
is such a thing as a good fight. I have finished my course. I
have kept the faith. He says to Timothy again, fight
the good fight of faith because it is a fight. It's a spiritual
warfare and there's a constant battle going on for your soul.
Satan's still after it. Now your soul is secure in Christ.
Our lives are here with God in Christ. They're secure, but Satan's
still after it. He goes about it says, seeking
whom he may devour. Jude in verse three, exhort you
that, he said, I exhort you that you should earnestly contend
for the faith once delivered to the saints. It's our turn.
This is the way I look at it. It's our turn to contend for
the faith. It's our turn. You know, it says
of David, it says that he served his generation. And it's our
turn to serve our generation, the gospel, to serve them the
gospel. And our Lord is called a man
of war. I know this Jesus that's being
preached today, he looks so wimpy, I tell you, he could whip anything.
But our Lord is called a man of war. Exodus 15.3, the Lord
is a man of war. The Lord is His name and the
Lord spoken of here is the Lord Jesus Christ. This scripture
is speaking of Him. He did battle. He came into this
world and He did battle with Satan. He did battle with those
religious Pharisees, false religion. He did battle with evil men.
Look over in Revelation chapter 19. In Revelation chapter 19, look
in verse 11. 11 through 16, And I saw heaven
opened, and behold, a white horse. And he that sat upon him was
called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he did judge
and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire,
And on his head were many crowns, and he had a name written that
no man knew but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture
dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God. And
the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses,
clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth
goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations. And he shall rule them with a
rod of iron. And he treadeth the winepress
of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on
his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of kings
and Lord of lords. He's a man of war. I tell you,
people are going to be surprised when they find out who He really
is. There's some people going to be surprised when they find
out who the Lamb of God is. They're going to find out that
the Lamb is also King of Kings and Lord of Lords. That's who
our Lord is. Now a believer is a soldier. In David here in verse 1, he
sets forth himself here as a soldier. as a soldier of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Blessed be the Lord my strength,
that is my rock, he's my rock, he's my strength, which teacheth
my hands to war and my fingers to fight. I thought of David
when he talked about his hands and his fingers to fight. I thought
of him when he took that sling and he swung it around with that
rock in it and slew Goliath. God taught him how to do that.
But this is in a spiritual sense. We'll see this in a minute. But
David sets himself forth here as a soldier in this first verse. And I realize this more and more
that I and you are soldiers in the Lord's army. We are part
of the battle. Now the battle's won, the victory's
won by our Lord on the cross when He cried, it's finished,
but we still have battles to fight. And the soldier here,
David, he ascribes his strength and his stay to the Lord, to
the Lord Jesus Christ. He knows that victory's of the
Lord. You know, every victory that we have over temptation
is of the Lord. We're tempted daily. I mean,
we're tempted daily. You drive down the road and you've
got all these signs, these advertisements, you've got everything out there.
We're tempted daily. But it's the Lord who gives us
the victory not to give in to the things of this world. And
then we have the soldier's character here. He's a humble soldier. He's humble. He acknowledges
the Lord is his strength. He said, the Lord's my strength.
You know, Paul said this, no man is sufficient for these things.
Our God is our sufficiency. To be able to stand here week
after week and preach the gospel, to handle matters of life and
death, to handle matters of eternity, to handle matters of God's glory,
that's of God. Nobody's able to do that. No
man's able to do that. That's of God. He's my strength.
Every time I stand here, if the Word of God goes out in power,
it's His. It's His strength. It's Him sending
it out. I can't make the Word of God
effectual to anyone. He can, and He does. He does. He's my strength, and we give
to Him all the glory and skill and victory. It's of the Lord. We give it to our Captain. He's
the Captain, it's said, of our salvation. And the soldier here
is like his captain, meek and lowly. David's the king of God's
Israel. This is God's Israel. It's not
just another nation. This is God's Israel. And God made him
king. He was a shepherd. He took him
from being a shepherd, turned him into a warrior, and made
him a king. He's the warrior king, so to speak. But yet he's
meek and lowly. meek and lowly, and he's thankful.
He starts out, blessed be the Lord. He's giving thanks to the
Lord for all of his victories. And he's a student, listen here.
He teacheth. He's under the Lord's teaching. All thy children shall be taught
of God. An untaught soldier will soon
be a dead soldier. He'll soon be a dead soldier.
But know what He teaches here, His hands to war and His fingers
to fight. In other words, power and skill
come from the Lord. You know the power in preaching
comes from the Lord and the skill to be able to handle the Word
of God. is from the Lord. To be able
to take Scripture and compare it with Scripture is of the Lord.
That's what I listen for when I hear someone preach, especially
if I hear them preach for the first time. I listen how they
use the Scriptures. Scripture interprets Scripture. When someone doesn't know how
to use the Scriptures, God's not in that. He's not in that. So he's taught and his power
and his skill comes from the Lord. And the Lord gives his
soldiers courage. You know, there's a lot of men
who are standing in the pulpit who say they believe in the sovereignty
of God, the particular redemption of Christ, but they don't preach
it. They say, if I preach that, I'd
lose my job. Coward. You're a stinking coward. The Lord's men, His servants,
are not hirelings. The Lord will take care of His
servants. They just tell the truth. Just tell the truth. Power and skill, courage, strength,
and wisdom in battle is of the Lord. Then our Lord is our instructor
in this battle. Listen, His Word is the soldier's
textbook where he learns The Art of War. I have a book in
my study called The Art of War. It's written by Sun Tzu back
in 500 BC. I've read that book four or five
times, especially when I was running a business. I read that
book four or five times. It's just on the strategies of
war. And right here's our textbook. Here's our textbook right here.
And in this book, we learn who the enemy is. It's hard to fight
someone you can't see. And our enemies, our true enemies,
are unseen. They're spiritual. They're spiritual.
You know, our real enemies are not flesh and blood. They may be used of Satan, just
like the Lord said to Peter, Satan has desired to sift you
as wheat. And another time the Lord said
to Peter, get thee behind me, Satan. Men are used of Satan,
but men is not really our battle. Our real battle is spiritual
battle. It's hard to fight someone you
can't see. Listen here to what Paul wrote in Ephesians 6, 12.
We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities,
against powers. See, we wrestle against principalities. and against powers and against
the rulers of the darkness of this world. Against spiritual
weakness in high places. That's what we wrestle against.
That's what the fight is against. It's against spiritual weakness,
principalities. Satan, you can't see Satan. He's
a spirit. But he's very real and he's a
very real person. Demons are very real. They're
very real. And then we learn the character
of the enemy we're fighting. You're gonna fight someone, you
know, it's good to know something about them. And that character of the enemy
we're fighting is subtle. Boy, he's subtle. You think he's
there when he's here. You think he's this when he's
that. He's very subtle, crafty, evil. Satan is pure evil. There's not an ounce, I mean,
an ounce of mercy in him. Every motive is evil. And that's
exactly the way humanity is by nature. If God did not constrain
the human race, we would really see what it is. We would see
what it is. God said in Genesis that the
imagination of the heart was evil and that He said continually. continually. Satan is pure evil. And those who are lost are pure
evil. That's not an overstatement.
That's the truth. That's the truth. And then we
are aware of the enemy's devices. That's what Paul said there in
2 Corinthians 2. But we are not ignorant of his
devices. Remember that man that committed
incest? And Paul said to cast him out
and they cast him out. He said, let's cast him out and
Satan destroy the body. And they cast him out. Well,
the man repented. He repented and he wanted to come back. And
Paul said, open your arms up and receive him. Don't you become
like the Pharisees and that adulterous woman and stone him. That's what
Satan would have you to do because you wouldn't be any difference.
There wouldn't be any difference between you and those Pharisees.
He said, that man's repented. You open your arms up and receive
him back. See, that's grace. That's grace. Law won't let him
come back. Self-righteousness is not going
to let him come back. Grace lets him come back and receives him
with open arms. And we have here, we have the
weapon, the soldier's weapon, which is the sword of the spirit.
It's his word. Our weapon used in this warfare,
Paul says, not carnal. It's not carnal. Remember when
Peter took that sword? He took it and he cut off that
young man, that man's ear. And the Lord said, put that sword
up, put it back in the sheath. The weapons of our warfare are
not carnal, they're not swords or guns, but it says here in
2 Corinthians 10 verse 3 and 4, For though we walk in the
flesh, we do not war after the flesh or after the manner of
the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but
mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. You know,
the Word of God is called a two-edged sword. It's the Sword of the
Spirit, it's the Word of God. There is NOTHING, there's NO
WEAPON on this Earth. And I mean we've got some powerful
weapons on this Earth. We can destroy the human race
with the weapons we've got, if God allowed it. We could destroy
the human race. But there is NO WEAPON that's
even comparable to the Word of God. No weapon. There's no power comparable
to the Word of God. God's Word, I'll tell you this, nations can sign their peace
treaties, leaders can get together, but there's nothing that can
break their heart and change their minds like the Word of
God, if it comes in power. It can turn a tyrant and to a preacher of the gospel.
Paul the Apostle is the prime example, a tyrant, a hater of
God. And God made him the greatest
preacher of the gospel. Now, what the Lord is to the
soldier. I'm only going to look at verse
one and two. What the Lord is to the soldier.
Now I want you to notice how many times the pronoun my is
used in verses one and two. It's used nine times in just
verses one and two. This pronoun my. My goodness,
my fortress, my high tower, my deliverer, my shield, and the
subduer of my people. He says the Lord is my goodness. Now in Hebrew, this means my
mercy, my mercy. In every victory won, it's an
act of the Lord's mercy to me. It's an act of mercy to me. And the Lord is my goodness.
He's the author and donor of all goodness to me and in me.
He has brought all our works in us. It's the Lord who worketh
in you both the will and the do of His good pleasure. And he's my fortress. David didn't look around at his
army that he had, all those hundreds of thousands of men. He didn't
look at them. He looked at the Lord. He looked to the Lord. He said, he's my fortress. He's
my stronghold is what a fortress is. It's my stronghold. You're
only as good as your stronghold. You're only as good as your stronghold.
He's the author of it. The Author of my goodness and
He's my fortress, He's my stronghold. All that God is in His glorious
being, in all His glorious perfections, that's what He is to me. For
example, is God all power? He's all power to me and all
His power is used for my good. It's used daily, daily. You know
God's power is being used right now to keep at bay the forces
of darkness that would take you out. If God let it, He would. You'd be surprised what would
really take you if the Lord allowed it. He's my stronghold. He's my fortress. He's an impenetrable
fortress. He's my high tower. He set me
above all my enemies, all my enemies. In Proverbs 18, 10,
the name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous run into
it and is safe. You know, He's my high tower.
He has set me above all my enemies. Where are you seated right now?
You say, I'm sitting right here in front of you. Well, yes, you
are. But where else are you really
seated? This is temporary. Right now, I am eternally seated
at God's right hand. I'm seated at God's right hand
right now. I've heard Henry say that so much when I was a young
man, but now that I'm an old man, I think I'm getting a hold
of that a little bit. I think I'm starting to really
set my heart on things above. I see things in that light now
more than I ever have in my life. I'm seated at God's right hand.
He's my high tower. Where I am seated is inaccessible
to Satan. I mean, it's inaccessible to
him. And he's my deliverer. The one who delivers me out of
all my troubles and all his children, he delivers them out of all their
troubles. You in trouble, the Lord will deliver you out of
it. The Lord delivers us from all
our enemies. It says there in Psalm 136, 24,
and hath redeemed us from our enemies. for his mercy endureth
forever. He's delivered us from the power
of Satan. It says in Colossians 1 13, who has delivered us from
the power of darkness. We were under the power of darkness and
he delivered us from it. He didn't ask us if he could.
He did. He just did it. He just did it. Who has delivered us past tense. from the power of darkness and
has translated us into the kingdom of his dear son. And he delivered
us from the power of the law, that law that was accursed to
us, it says in Romans 614 for sin shall not have dominion over
you for you're not under the law but you're under grace and
Galatians 3 13 christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law
being made a curse for us cursed is everyone that hangeth on a
tree he's delivered us from that curse that curse is real it's
real and he's delivered us from the power of sin Isaiah 38, 17, behold, for peace
I had great bitterness, but thou hast in love to my soul delivered
it from the pit of corruption, for thou hast cast all my sins
behind thy back, wherever the back of God is. He said, my sins
are cast, they're gone. You've delivered me from all
my sins. Psalm 86, 13, For great is thy
mercy toward me, and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest
hell. He's delivered me from hell. Psalm 116, 8, For thou hast delivered
my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from falling.
Thou hast delivered me. Every deliverance we have is
of the Lord. And he's my shield. He's my shield to protect me
from the fiery darts of Satan. You know, if he were not our
shield, we'd feel those darts. We don't feel them so much because
he shields us. He shields us. He shields us
from false doctrine, false teachers. He shields us from demons. He shields us from demons. How
many times did the Lord command a demon to leave a person, and
he said, and enter him no more. He's not yours, he's mine. Don't
you enter him again. He said to Abraham, I am thy
shield and thy exceeding great reward. He shields me with the
gospel of truth, with righteousness, his blood, his sacrifice, faith,
hope, and love. He shields me, he's my shield. And he's the object of my faith
in the battle, he said, in whom I trust. Through this, when David
went into battle, he looked to the Lord through the whole battle
for victory, for victory. And the subduer of my people,
David knew it was the Lord who subdued his people, he knew that,
he knew that. You know, God brought David through
such a way That he knew that Israel was subdued under him.
God's people were subdued under him by the Lord. He knew that. He knew it wasn't by his greatness
or by his skill or anything about him. The Lord did this. Who subdued
you under Christ? Thy people shall be willing in
the day of thy power. The Lord subdued me. The Lord
subdued you, you who believe. The Lord subdued you and brought
you under His control, brought you under His reign, brought
you under His grace, brought you under His love and made you
to know it. He subdued you. Oh, my soul. I'm gonna leave. I'm gonna leave it right there
and pick up Lord willing Thursday with the rest of this. But this
is a prayer of a soldier of the Lord Jesus Christ. And in this
prayer, he gives to the Lord the glory of victory. He gives
to the Lord the glory of strength in the battle. He's the one who
enables me in the battle to go through the battle and to come
out victorious in the battle. It's the Lord. It's the Lord. All right. Oh, we'll go after,
after, uh, the service, you know, we're going to eat, but you ladies,
if you want, when we start to sing, you can go on down if you
want to.