Turn back to Psalm 59. Psalm 59. The title of the message, God
is my strength and my refuge. Almighty God, Creator of Heaven and Earth, the God of my salvation, is my
strength. He enables me to stand up under
all trials, that He sends my way, and He's my refuge, He is
my hiding place. No one else and nothing else. And God is enough. He is a sufficient
refuge, and He gives us sufficient strength in our times of trouble. As He says in verse 16, Thou
hast been my defense and refuge in the day of my trouble. Whatever trouble a day brings
forth, God is my strength and my refuge. We couldn't have a
better refuge, could we? Just when you go home, sit down
and think about who God is. Who God is. He speaks. He speaks and a world is created. He speaks in the earth that hangs
upon nothing but His Word. It hangs upon the power of His
Word. There's nothing over top, I mean at the bottom, nothing
over top. It's hanging there out in space by the power of His Word. One of the things that's amazing
is that those who believe not God, that they don't lose their
mind. When you look at this earth spinning
out in space and nothing holding it. And they don't believe God,
they don't believe who God is. How do they keep from going... I guess if you're dead, you can't
go crazy. I guess that's the answer to that question. If you're
dead, you can't go crazy. Men and women are spiritually
dead, they don't even consider what it is to not believe God. But to us who believe, what a
comfort. What a comfort to know that all
things are of God. They are upheld by the power
of God. They are upheld by the word of
God. What comfort you and I have.
And this God is our strength and our refuge. Now David knew
what it was to have many enemies. He knew what it was to mourn
over sin. And he knew what it was to have
a rebellious child, Absalom, trying to dethrone him. He knew
the pain of that. But more importantly, our Lord,
He had His enemies. Listen, He had and He has. He
still has His enemies. This world hates Him. This world
hates Jesus Christ. Now, the Christ of this Bible,
they hate. The Christ of their imagination,
they don't hate. As Paul said, they'll come preaching
another Jesus. They don't hate another Jesus.
They hate this one, that the Word of God sets forth as the
sovereign Christ. He is the sovereign Christ of
God. No man knows the Father save the Son, and He to Whomsoever
the Son will reveal Him. They hate Him. And our Lord had
His enemies, and He has His enemies. He knew these things that David
knew by experience. Now, he knew no sin. He knew
no sin. We know that. But he was made
to be sin for us. when he was in the garden of
Gethsemane, I think part of the great pain that he suffered there
in the garden, the great agony that was being made sin. He's holy. This is one who's
holy. This is one who knew no sin.
Being made sin? You and I can't even imagine
what that is. He was tried by men. He was tried
by Satan. He was tried by God. Listen,
in ways that you and I have never been tried and never will be
tried. When our Lord was tempted in all points, He was tempted
and tried to the very nth degree. I mean, to the fullest of it.
You and I, the Lord removes it. He just lets it go so far that
He puts a stop to it. But now He was tempted to the
fullest degree. Tried by men, tried by Satan,
tried by God. Scripture, he was tempted in
all points as we are, yet without sin. He was opposed by the Pharisees
and the scribes and the Sadducees. Everyone who should have received
him rejected him. Turned thumbs down on him. Said
he was a nobody. We know you. You are the carpenter's
son. My soul." Well, this is God's
Son. God's Son. No one has ever been hated as
much as Jesus Christ. Scripture says He was hated without
a cause. He didn't need a cause. Because
there's a natural born enmity, there's a natural born hatred
in everyone that comes into this world of God. of God, God who
feeds them every day, God who gives life and breath, God who
gives us our jobs, our employments, He gives us all things. He's
hated by His own creation. Our Lord knew this. Now, this
psalm is based around 1 Samuel 19.11. This is where Saul found out
where David was. He was in a house. And Saul commanded
his men to surround the house. They surrounded the house. And
Saul gave orders to kill him. Get David. It's like dead or
alive, you get him. But they were given orders to
kill him. And David's wife, which was Saul's daughter, Michael,
She told David about it and she let David down through a window
and he escaped, just like Paul. Remember Paul, recently Paul
was put in a basket, let down by the simplest of things. God, there is no temptation that
has taken you, the scripture said, but that God will make
a way of escape. And here David is surrounded
by an army. He's surrounded by Saul's army
with orders to kill him. Here's one man in a house. One
man in a house. God's man. All the difference
in the world. All the difference is God's man. It's God's man. And he's let
down. He escaped. How many times did
our Lord, as a man, escape? when they surrounded him and
they wanted to kill him. And yet he would escape. Because he said, my hour has
not yet come. He had an hour set by God, as
he speaks of in John 17, now my hour has come. He had an hour
set before creation. that he would die, that he would
suffer and die and pay for our sins, the sins of all his elect. But until that hour comes, nothing
can touch him. And the same can be said of me
and you. I don't know what hour I will die, and I don't want
to know. Honestly, I don't want to know. I thank God He has not
made that known to me and to you. I'll leave that in His hands. But I know this. You and I cannot
die until that hour comes. Until that hour comes. that God
has set for us before the world began. He set the time of our
birth. He has set the duration of it
and the hour, the very second we will leave this life. Isn't that comforting? That's
so comforting to me. That's, you know, you can walk
out the door and not be scared to death somebody's going to
do something. My times, David said this, my
times are in your hands. My times is not in the hands
of a robber, a thief, or you know, my times are in God's hand. I was reading Ecclesiastes before
coming down here. There's a time to be born and
there's a time to die. You know who set that time? God
did. Our Father did. Our Heavenly
Father did. Now, everything David says and
speaks of here in this chapter, in this Psalm, he speaks of trust,
mercy, strength, and refuge. It's applied to him. He applies
it to himself. It is applied to our Lord as
a man. He trusted in God. Is that not
what they said of him? They accused him of this when
hanging on the cross. He trusted in God. Let's see
if God will have him. They knew he trusted in God.
His life, he lived out his life in front of them. They knew that. Now, they're doing it like out
of derision. They're saying, well, he said,
you know, he claims to trust in God. But they knew he did.
They knew it. Never a man spake like this man.
Scripture says he went about doing good. He did nothing but
good. He's the only man that ever did
good. The only man. And this can be said of every
believer here and every believer from the beginning to the end.
We trust in God. We trust in His mercy. He is
our strength. And the older you get, the more
you appreciate that. I tell you, when I was young,
I had more confidence in my strength than I did in God. But now that
I'm old, I'm like, I look back and I can see what a nutcase
that is, trusting in your own strength. We don't have any.
Why is everybody wearing a mask? If we're so strong, why are we
wearing a mask? Tell you why you're wearing a mask, you're
scared to death of that little germ, a microscopic thing you
can't even see. There's your strength. God's
our strength and He's our refuge. It's our hiding place, our resting
place. And as I said, this is applied
to David, it's applied to Christ, it's applied to us, but especially
to Christ because of this. Without his faith and faithfulness,
he trusted God. God was his strength. As a man,
this is over my head and over your head, but we can believe
it. As a man, he trusted God, and yet he's God. But he trusted
God. God was his strength. God protected
him. His Father protected him. He
did not physically protect himself. His Father protected him. He
was not a brawler. He was meek and lowly and very
approachable. But listen, without his faith
and faithfulness, we wouldn't have a righteousness and wish
to stand before God. He trusted God. He walked before
God. He kept the law. He walked in
righteousness. You know, before I heard the
gospel, I heard about Jesus Christ dying on a cross. They had Him
dying on a cross for everybody. I heard about Him dying, but
I never heard about Him living for me. I never heard about Him
for 33 years working out a righteousness for me. I never heard that. I
heard about Him dying, but I didn't hear about Him living. His life
and His death go together. You can't have one, not the other.
You can't have righteousness without Him living for me, and
you can't have righteousness without Him dying for me. That
is the complete fulfilling of the law of God. His life, for
33 years, He lived for everyone whom He saves. He lived for you. And then at the end of that,
he died for you. And then he rose for you. And
he said, let God's right hand for you. Everything is for you
in Christ. Now, here we have in this prayer,
a prayer for deliverance. He says, deliver me, defend me,
and save me in those first two verses. Now, I want to ask you
this question here. David starts out and he says,
deliver me from my enemies, oh my God, defend me from them that
rise up against me, deliver me from the workers of iniquity,
save me from the bloody men. Now, who's in real trouble here,
David or Saul? When I read that, I thought,
now who's really in trouble? David in that house praying.
Saul is in trouble. That army that's surrounding
that house, David's not the one in trouble. No, those men are
in trouble. The fervent prayer of a righteous
man avails much. Much. Now in this prayer also,
David is very specific. Prayer is not just mumbling a
bunch of words. It's not just being religious. Prayer is to be specific. It's a need acknowledged. We
acknowledge specifically what we want, what we desire, what's
on our heart. Cast all your care upon Him,
for He careth for you. We don't pray in generalities. Pray in specifics. David said,
Deliver me. There's an army out here going
to kill me. I need your help. And then all prayer is directed
to God. Our Lord said this, when you
pray, say, Our Father, which art in heaven. We direct it to
Almighty God. And then in prayer, we acknowledge
our Father's ability to meet our need. He says here, He is
our strength and refuge. This is what He is to us. This
is what God is to us. This is what Christ is to us.
He is our strength, first of all, at all times and in all
situations. He is our strength. He's the
one who enables us to bear up under the load. I have seen some believers go
through some very, very hard trials. And I have seen them
bear up. And what I have seen is God holding
them up. On one hand, God is bringing
a heavy trial on them. while at the same time, on the
other hand, He's holding them up under the trowel that He's
bringing upon them. He's bringing the trowel and
He's holding them up under the trowel. And what's going on? What's happening? He's conforming
them to the image of Jesus Christ. You know how diamonds are made?
They're made under great pressure. They'll take a lump of coal and
it's under the earth, and it is made from great pressure. And that's how God conforms us
to the image of His Son. Under the pressure of trials,
and He holds us up under those trials. You think Job could have
stood up under all of that without the invisible hand of God holding
him and sustaining him? We couldn't hold up under anything
if he didn't sustain us. And then he says here, he's our
refuge, our hiding place, our high tower. You know, as soon
as it thunders out here outside, and it did this morning, And
our dog, that big golden retriever we got, biggest coward in the
world. It thunders and he just falls
apart. He'd fall apart. But the first
thing he does, he goes find him a hiding place. A place where
he, at least to some degree, he feels safe. And he'll go find
him the darkest place and the tightest place he can get himself
into. And there he just trembles and hides. Our hiding place is
the Lord Jesus Christ. When the thunder rolls and the
lightning crashes, it's to Him we run. It's to Him. He is our hiding place. It says
in Isaiah, it says, a man shall be our hiding place from the
wind, covert from the tempest of the storm. I was gonna ask
you this question. Where do you and I go in times
of trouble? the same place that Jesus Christ
went to in time of trouble, our Father. He said, I go to my Father
and your Father, my God and your God. And then He's my defense. He's my defense. You see it in
verse 2 and verse 16. You know, the whole Trinity is
our defense. Now the word defense here is
high place. He lifts us up above the enemy.
He lifts us up above the storm. I said last, we was talking,
I don't know who I was talking to, but I was talking about the
sun shining, talking about the sun hadn't shined, we hadn't
seen the sun shine for what, a week? And then I said, the
sun's always shining, it's just you got to get on the other side
of the cloud. And I'll never forget my first plane ride. There
was a man at 13th Street that had a company. And he had his
own jet. And he gave me my first plane
ride when I was in my early 20s. Flew to St. Louis. And it was
a cloudy, dark day when we left. And this is, I'd never experienced
this before, but when we went up, we went up to them dark clouds
and we went on up and we got above and the sun was just, it
was just as bright and shining. And I realized when I saw that,
it just hit me, even as a young man, it hit me. The Son of Righteousness is always
shining. Even in my darkest hours and
my troubles and my heartaches, the Son of God is shining. It's
just that the cloud has it blocked for right now because of this
flesh. I can't see it. I can't see Him. But the whole
Trinity is our defense, our high place. The Father chose us, the
Father loved us, the Father put us in Christ. And Christ, listen,
Christ is my defense, as my advocate. You know the court of heaven?
That's one court you don't want to stand in without the best
lawyer there is. And he's it. He's the best advocate. He's
my mediator. He's my high priest, intercessor,
righteousness. I thought Christ like the rainbow. You know, there's a rainbow over
the throne. And I thought Christ is like, you know, the rainbow.
The rainbow is made up of what? Many colors. And Christ is many
things to us. Whatever it is we need, Christ
is that to me and to you. Wisdom, righteousness. The Scripture
says He is made unto us. He is these things to us. Wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption. He's my defense. He's my high
tower. He's my high place. He's my resting
place. And then he says here in verse
10 and 16, he is the God of my mercy. And I think he's looking
back here and he's taking a survey of his life. And he's taking
a survey of all the mercy of God to him all these years. And
he said, he's the God of my mercy. And I tell you this, as God is,
so will he be. Is He the God of my mercy? He
will always be the God of my mercy. Does He love me? He will always love me. God never changes. That is so
comforting. As He is, He will be. If He loves
me, He loves me with an everlasting life. He always loved me. Mercy is of God. Saving, sovereign mercy is of
God. And He's the God of my mercy.
He has saved me by His grace, by His mercy. He has saved me. And He's the God of my mercy. And His mercy, as David said
in Psalm 23, His mercy shall follow me all the days of my
life. I started to work on an article
today for the Bulletin, and I sketched out a little bit of it here before
coming down, but I thought, I can outlive my education. I can outlive
my health. I can outlive my mind. but I
cannot outlive the love and mercy and grace of God given to me
in Christ before the foundation of the world. I cannot outlive
that. I can outlive all the rest of this, my health, my mind,
all of it, but not His love and grace. It's forever and ever
and ever. Now, in verse 16, because of
all that God is to us in Christ, David says, we wait for Him with
singing. David says, I will, but I've
said we, because we are included in this, if we are His. We wait. It's not hard to wait on someone
who's faithful. Not hard to wait on someone who
loves you and you love them. We wait with patience, and your
patience possesses your souls. We wait for Him, listen, and
we wait with singing. You know, usually when you're
waiting on somebody, what are you doing most of the time? You're
complaining. You're looking at your watch.
I thought you were going to be here 10 minutes ago. David said, I wait. I wait for
Him with singing. rejoicing in this. He's coming. He's coming. We're singing of His coming.
And we encourage ourselves when we sing of Him, as we wait for
Him. Saul's men waited around the
house. David waited on God. Big difference. Big difference. And then singing shows happiness. Singing has a calming influence. It does. It has a calming influence.
And God's children can sing even when they're pressed down in
sorrow. They have something to sing about. What do we have to sing about?
Well, it says also in verse 16 here, I will sing of thy power. Saul, they had him surrounded. It's like, all right, we got
you now. You're in, you're under my power. No, you're not. Pilate
said that. Don't you know, I have the power
to release you and the power to let you go in the Lord. The
only time he spoke up, You know, until then he answered him not
a word. But when Pilate took the power that belonged to God,
when he took that to himself, the Lord spoke up, hold on now.
You know, there's a time to be quiet. There's a time to speak
up. And our Lord is like, hold on now. You have no power at
all against me except to be given you from above. And we have that,
we can say that same thing. We sing of His power, the power
of God. The Scripture says over, look
over in Psalm 62, just a page over, in 62.11, God has spoken
once, twice have I heard this, that power belongeth unto God. You know there are no powers
that be except the ones that God has given power to. Seriously,
I mean from Satan, all the demons, all men, all people who are in
positions of power, have no power except to be given to them from
God. They have no power. The power to even take your next
breath is of God. You know why people die? Sin. We know that. It's not because
the heart stops. You say, well, his heart stopped,
now he's dead. No, God took life away and his heart stopped. It
is life that keeps the heart going. It's not the heart that
keeps life going. The life that God gives, when
we come into this world, keeps everything in our body working.
And when God takes that life away, the body stops. The organs
stop. My heart does not keep me alive.
It's the life God's given me that keeps the heart working. Power. That's power. Stephen
Sharnock said this, "...the power of God is His ability to bring
to pass all that He has decreed. Who can say unto Him, What doest
thou? Who can put God in check? No one. Every time our Lord told a demon,
commanded a demon to come out, every time, they came out with
a word, just by word. It's hocus pocus, just these
words come out of him. And he came out. And this power is possessed by
the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, All power over all flesh
is given to me, that I may give eternal life to as many as thou
hast given me. And in another place he said, All power is given
to me in heaven and earth. Now you go preach the gospel.
You go preach the gospel. Because all power is given to
me in heaven and earth. I'm standing here preaching the
gospel, but the power to save, the power to break the heart,
the power to convict of sin is of God. It's in the hands of
Jesus Christ. And by His Spirit, He convicts
and convinces of sin and He gives life from the dead. Life from
the dead. When you see a sinner saved,
you know, if you walked out here at the cemetery and someone came
out of that grave, someone came out of that grave, it would freak
you out, I know it would, if someone came out of that grave.
When you see God save a sinner, you've literally seen a resurrection. You've seen spiritual life. You've seen someone raised from
spiritual death to spiritual life. You've seen it. Our Lord has power to save, power
to heal, power to subdue, power to kill, and power to make alive.
He has all power. And then I'm going to close.
In verse 17, "'Unto thee,' he says, "'O my strength will I
sing.'" We sing unto a real person. We sing two songs. Did we sing
it as unto the Lord or did we just sing two songs? Because
that's part of the ritual of the service. I hope and pray
we sing to the Lord. We sing to a real person. One
who has saved us, one who defends us, one who sustains us, one
who guides us, one who encourages us, all the way home. We sing
to Him. We sing to Him. You know, after our Lord and
His disciples took the Passover and He's getting ready to go
to the cross, what did they do right after they did that? They
sang a song. They sang a song. And while David's house is surrounded,
what's he doing? He's singing. He sings a song. I will sing, I will sing unto
thee, O my strength. David had his enemies. Christ
had and has his enemies. We have the same enemies. But
we will wait on the Lord and sing while we wait on His mercy,
power, and strength. God. God is our strength and our refuge
at all times.