Psalm 44, title of this message, Arise
for Our Help. In this psalm, we see the expression
of faith in giving glory to God, but we also see the weakness
of faith and complaining of the situation. You know, faith is
drawn out in prayer in many ways. Sometimes it comes out in praise,
as it does in the first part of this chapter. Sometimes it comes out in sorrow,
as it does towards the latter part of this chapter. However,
Where there is faith, it does come out. It comes out. And it's always directed towards
God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The challenge to faith in this
psalm, and I've read this psalm many
times over. I try to read it to get just
put myself in the place of the psalmist. Because we don't know,
and no one knows, who wrote this psalm. Some say it was David.
Calvin says it was not David. He said it was anybody but David.
But we don't know who wrote this psalm. And I thought about that,
and I thought, there's going to be a time in the life of the
church, in the life of a believer, when this psalm will be ours.
We can put our name to it. and we can pray it. But the challenge
to faith in this psalm is taking what we know of God and God's
deliverance in the past and what we are experiencing now. So often
what we know and what we are experiencing, they don't seem
to go together. And that's what we see here in
this psalm. He speaks of God's deliverance
and who God is, and yet he says, but I got a problem. You're not delivering us. Our
enemies are triumphing over us. We'll get to that. But that's
the challenge to faith. The challenge to faith is to
see God in all things. is to see Him in everything,
whether the sun is shining, whether it's thundering outside, lightning,
it's of God. It's of God. Now it takes a while
for a believer to learn this. It takes some growing up. It
takes some growing in grace and in knowledge of Christ to see
God in the whirlwind and in the storm and in the sunshine, to
see Him in absolutely everything. Everything. It's like he's saying, this is
what we've heard, but this is what I'm going through. Looking at it in this light makes
this psalm very interesting to me. In verses 1-3, faith rehearses
to God what it has heard. We have heard with our ears. We have heard with our ears. Faith cometh by hearing, and
hearing by the Word of God. You cannot believe on someone
you don't know, and you can't believe something you don't know.
You can't believe it. You have to be taught. And you
have to be taught something of God. God has to take you in hand
and teach you, for you to really learn of Him. And that which faith hangs on
is the Word of God, the Word of God and the acts of God, the
ways of God. And what a blessing, what a blessing
to have parents or grandparents that teach their children the
Word of God. He says here, our fathers have
told us. Our fathers have given us a history
lesson, and God is the history lesson. God is the history lesson. History should always be looked
at... Now listen, I want you to get this. Because I never
thought about this like I have in reading this Psalm. History
should always be looked at as the work of God, not the work
of men or the acts of men. It should always, always first,
first be looked at as the act of God. That's what history is. It's the act of God. Sad are
the parents who always look at history and teach their children
of the acts of men." History is the work of God. History is
His story, isn't it? You know what the interesting
thing about history is? God wrote it before it happened.
God wrote it before it happened. Now who's ever done that? God
wrote history, it's His stories. Our fathers have told us, listen,
in times of old. If we look at history properly,
if we look at it properly, we will look at it as the history
of redemption, is what it is. The history of this world is
nothing more than the history of God redeeming the people and
saving the people out of this world to populate a new heaven,
a new earth with a people just like His Son. That's it. That's
the reason for history. That's the reason for everything
that exists is for Jesus Christ. All things were made by Him and
for Him. If you just look at history,
if you look at the wars and all these things that have happened
as the acts of men, you've missed it. You've absolutely missed
it. It's the act of God. It's not
about wars and men, it's about the victory of God in redeeming
the people. through the blood and righteousness
of Jesus Christ. It began with Him and it's going
to end with Him. He's the Alpha and He's the Omega. If you miss Christ, you miss
it all. It's a waste of life. It's a waste. Now what does history
tell us? It tells us this, How thou didst
drive them out. Look at that in verse 2. how
thou didst drive out the heathen with thy hand, and planted them,
how thou didst afflict the people and cast them out." You and I cannot see all these
wars that have happened and all these things that have happened.
We can't see the invisible hand of God behind all that. He's making reference here to
the land of Canaan. All those nations that were cast
out, God did it. And He did it for His people.
All the things that has happened on this earth, that is happening
right now, that's going to happen, is happening for you. His church,
it's happening for you. History taught by men is never
really right. Really. It depends on who won.
They write history. But if you look at it from the
Word of God, it's always right. It's always right. God writes
history and it's right because He wrote it before it happened.
History is the act of God fulfilling His purpose which He purposed
in Jesus Christ before the world began. That's what history is.
That's what it is. It is God raising up and bringing
down according to His will for the good of His church. History also tells us how God
delivered us from our sins by Christ and Him crucified. When
we open the Word of God and we preach Christ crucified, we look
2,000 years ago, a man named Jesus Christ, who is God manifest
in the flesh, who died on Calvary's tree to redeem a people. That's
our history, and that's the only history I'm interested in. If
you miss that, if you miss that history, then you have no foundation
for the present and no hope for the future. You don't have it.
It's gone. History also tells us how that
God can be a just God and a Savior through the blood and righteousness
of that man who died on Calvary's tree. In the Gospel we learn
that it's God who gave us all things in Christ. Listen in verse
3, For they got not the land in possession by their own sword,
neither did their own arms save them, but thy right hand and
thine arm. Who's that? In Isaiah 53, to
whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? That arm is Jesus Christ. He is the arm of the Lord. You
don't have heaven by possession because of your merits, your
efforts, or your strength. None of us have it. We know that.
We have it by the grace of God. We have it by the person and
work of Jesus Christ. That's how we have it. We possess
heaven not by our work, but by His grace and His work. They
got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did
their own arms save them, but thy right hand, and thine arm,
and the light of thy countenance, thy favor, I favor because I
has favor unto them." When you and I, who believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ, when we die here in a little while and we wind
up in glory, we are there because God has favored us. It pleased God to make you His
people. That's why. You didn't get it
by your efforts, by your strength, or by the arm of the flesh. You
got it by the arm of God, which is Jesus Christ. And then faith
claims Christ to be King. He says there in verse 4, Thou
art my King, O God, God's my King. There have been many kings
on this earth, but there's none like God. The church The church
has a King, and her King is God Almighty, her Creator, her Savior. Thou art my King. We live under
the sovereign reign of Jesus Christ. Do you live with that?
I want you to be serious with yourself. Do you live? in the
reality that Jesus Christ is on the throne, He's our King,
and He's ruling over all. Thou art my King, I have a King,
King Jesus. And we are not of this world,
we have been translated, the Scripture says in Colossians
1, from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God's dear
Son. There's only two kingdoms in this world. There's only two
kingdoms. There's the kingdom of light
and the kingdom of darkness. There's only two. Now, you and
I are in one or the other. And it tells us in Colossians
that God has translated us. Those who believe, everyone who
believes, God has translated us. He's taken us from the kingdom
of darkness and put us into the kingdom of His dear Son. And therefore, the psalmist says,
Thou art my king, and he knows that he is king over all, he
is king of kings and Lord of lords, command deliverances,
full salvation. Not just a deliverance, but deliverances.
That means from all things, for everything that I need to be
delivered from, all he has to do is command it. The Lord is speaking. That's
all you need to do. Command. How many times did He command
a demon to come out of someone? He gave His Word, He gave a command,
and it happened. Command deliverances. All that
needs to be done to set us free from any situation is for Jesus
Christ to command our deliverance from it. That's all that needs to be done.
It's like when our Lord, when He commanded Lazarus to come
forth from the grave. Listen to this, John 11, 44.
And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave
clothes, and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus said
unto them, Lose him, lose him, and let him go. That's all he
needs to do. Whatever my situation is, I know
this. And it takes a while to know
it. It takes a while to have confidence in it. Lord, if you
just give the command, this will be done. This will be over. This
will be over. And then we have faith's confidence
in verses 5 and 8. He tells what he's heard, he's
been taught by his fathers. grandparents, you know, the forefathers
in the faith. He said, we've heard of your
mighty acts, we've been taught these things. And he says here,
now he says here, he expresses his faith in the present and
future. Through thee will we push down
our enemies. Our Lord said this. It's written
in Romans, but our Lord moved Paul to write it. I can take
any part of the Word of God and say, Our Lord said this. Because
He did. It's His Word, the whole Word. He said, Sin shall not have dominion
over you. My greatest enemy is sin, and
that's exactly what I am. Sin. Satan. What an enemy. What an enemy. Through thee will
we push down our enemies. Paul said, We are more than conquerors
through him who loved us. No sin will have dominion over
you. He's canceled his power, not his presence. Now the presence
of it's there, and even the temptation of it is there at times. But
it's power, it's not your master is what he's saying, it's not
your master anymore. And he says in verse six, I will
not trust my bow, I will not do that. Verse five, through
thee we'll push down our enemies, through thy name will we tread
them that rise up against us. For I will not trust in my bow,
neither shall my sword save me. I will not give the glory that
belongs to Christ to the means that he uses to deliver me."
That's what he said. I'm not going to give glory to
the means. You know, sometimes we can get taken up with the
means, can't we? So often we can get taken up with the blessings
more than the blesser. We can get more enamored with
the blessings than we are the one who gave them. and we are
not to give glory to the means, nor to my ability to use the
means." If the Lord is pleased to save
someone under my preaching, and I'm preaching the gospel, I'm
just a means. I'm just a voice. John the Baptist
said, I'm just a voice crying in the wilderness. I can't gloat
in glory in that. I have never saved anyone. I
just thank God that I'm used that he's pleased to use me to
stand and preach the gospel. You know, it astounds me. I watched
a biography on John Knox the other
night. Me and Vicki watched a biography on John Knox. And the faith he
had and the fight he had with Queen Mary and the Catholic Church
and all that he went through, the fight that they had. And
after it ended, I said to Vicki, And I'm not on the same level
as John Knox, first of all. But I said, I can't believe that
I'm actually standing in that same line with John Knox and
Spurgeon and Henry and these great men. I said, I'm standing
in that same line. I said, that's the most humbling
thought I've ever had. That God would use me and put
me right there in that same line with those men. I'm not on the
same level, by no way, but we're the preachers of the gospel.
That's what I am. I'm just a voice. Just a voice.
But we don't get taken up with the means, or our ability to
use the means. Psalm 115.1, Not unto us, O Lord,
not unto us, but unto thy name give glory for thy mercy and
for thy truth's sake. He says there in verse 7, But
thou hast saved us from our enemies. He says here in verse 5, Through
thee we'll push down our enemies, we'll walk over top of them,
we'll not trust in our foe, but thou hast saved us. We recognize
this. We recognize this. Salvations
of the Lord. And I'm not talking about just
eternal salvation, I'm talking day-to-day salvation also, along
with eternal salvation. Thou hast saved us from our enemies.
You saved me from my sins. You saved me from Satan. Lord,
You have saved me from the curse of the law by being made a curse
for me. You saved me. and has put them to shame that
hated us. In God we boast all day. God
is the one we boast about. We brag in Him. Paul said this
in Galatians 6, But God forbid that I should glory, saving the
cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified
to me, and I unto the world. He said over in Philippians 3,
he said, if anybody has any boasting, he said, I have more. I said,
I was a Pharisee of the Pharisees, you know, I kept the law, I was
a Hebrew of the Hebrews, but all these things, he said, I
count as loss. Can you really look at your life? Can you look
at your accomplishments and say that it's a total loss as far
as gain to you? As far as gain to you, it's a
total loss. It adds nothing to Jesus Christ. He adds to me. He adds to me. I add nothing to Him. Everything
I have comes from Him. I've given nothing to Him. Even
when we give, we're just giving a small portion of what He has
given us. Just a small portion. But the psalmist writing this
says, I have a problem. I have a problem. Boy, he takes
a turn here, doesn't he? It would have been nice if he
just stayed on that same road. But he takes a turn. We see that
we are not without trouble here in verses 9 to 16. And notice here how the psalmist
attributes his afflictions to God. To God. Like Job, Job didn't say the
devil did this. I know a lady that lost a son
some years ago, and her pastor said, Satan did that. He said,
God didn't do that. God wouldn't do that. Yes, God
did do that. He said, a little bird doesn't
fall to the ground without your heavenly Father. Life is of God. It comes of God. I don't care
if it's natural life, it's of God, and it's God who takes it. It's God who takes it. And Job,
when his ten children died, he didn't say, honey, the devil
did that. No, God did that. God took his
sheep. God took his servants. He took
everything he had. It says in 2 Corinthians 5, all
things are of God. Now, that word all, it means
all. It has no other meaning. It means
all. That's complete. But he says here in verse 9,
But thou hast cast off and put us to shame, and thou go not
with us, go not forth with our armies. Thou makest us to turn
back from the enemy, and they which hate us spoil for themselves. First of all, let me tell you,
God never afflicts us without a reason, a holy reason. God never chastens us without
a holy purpose. Never. I can never charge God
with folly. I can never charge God with giving
me a chastening I didn't deserve. I deserve far more than He's
ever given me. But He teaches us here also our
dependence on Him at all times. You know, He gave Israel a lot
of victories. There in the land of Canaan,
God was driving those nations out. And Israel was getting a
lot of victories. You know, a lot of sunshine's
not that good. You gotta have some rain. You
gotta have some rain. Because a lot of sunshine, a
lot of good, a lot of everything going your way, next thing you
know, you think you had something to do with it. You obviously
think you had something to do with it. You'll believe your
own hype. And then God has to bring us into the valley and
show us who we are. There are great lessons in losing
as well as in winning. There are great lessons in discipline.
There are great lessons to be learned under the chastening
hand of God. Thou hast given us like sheep
appointed for meat, and hast scattered us among the heathen.
You know, the church... I thought about this in reading
verse 11. He says, Thou hast given us like
sheep appointed for meat, and hast scattered us among the heathen.
He's talking about Israel there being scattered among the heathen.
But listen, you remember back in Acts, after Pentecost, that
the church was so persecuted that it was scattered, the church
was scattered? And it says, and they preached. They preached
the gospel as they went. If it were left up to you and
me, you know what we'd do? We would group up right here,
and that's what we'd do. God has to send afflictions along
from time to time to scatter the sheep so that the gospel
be scattered. You know, if you're going to
salt meat, you've got to salt all of it. You're the salt of the
earth. You don't put salt in one little
spot. And the way God salts the earth is He scatters the sheep.
Next thing you know, there's a congregation over here and
a congregation over there. You're the light of the world.
Are we going to just shut the door and keep the light in here?
No. We would. We would. I like it in here. I like this fellowship. But if
you're gonna be the light of the world, he's gonna put you
out there. And he said, let your light so shine that they may
see your good works that glorify your father which is in heaven.
In other words, they'll see your good works, they'll see what
a change. What a change. I knew you back when you was
a rascal. But what a change that has come
over you. Well, that change is grace, and
that change is Christ. And then he says here in verse
12, Thou sellest thy people for naught, and do not increase your
wealth by their price. You know what? This is looking
at things from this point of view, from earth. If you could
see where God sees from, you wouldn't be talking like this.
You wouldn't be talking like this. And whoever wrote this psalm
is under heavy, heavy load, under heavy stress. And I can understand. And here's another mark of grace,
that God allows us to speak our hearts. He allows us to speak,
to pour out our hearts, to cast our cares upon Him. He allows
us to do that. Respectfully, but He allows us
to do it. Thou makest us a reproach to
our neighbors, a scorn and a derision to them that are round about
us. I thought you were a Christian, they say. I thought you were
a Christian. That's what I had said to me. I lost my job one
time. A man told me, he said, you must
not be living right. Well, you know, I was in my twenties
then. Now I'm much older, and I can say, what's that got to
do with it? No, God took that job
away from me. Because I left a good job, a
good job, moved to that job so I could sit under the gospel.
Then when I did that, I lost it, and my mind and my heart,
at that time, as a young man, I was saying, why are you making
it so hard for me to hear the gospel? Well, now I know. 40 years later, I know. It took 40 years later for me
to know. There's a lot of questions that don't get answered until
another 40, 50 years down the road. Then you'll understand. If he told you then, you wouldn't
understand. If he'd have made it known to me then, I wouldn't
have grasped it. I wouldn't have got it. The cup wasn't big enough to
pour anything into. Thou makest us a byword among
the heathen, a shaking of the head among the people. My confusion
is continually before me." Have you ever felt like that? As a
believer, I'm confused. Job said that in Job chapter
10. He said, I'm full of confusion.
This is Job. This is a man that God said is
a perfect, upright man. In chapter 10, he says, I'm full
of confusion. I don't know what's going on.
Lost everything. And Job knew, I think Job knew,
not Job knew he wasn't without sin, but Job knew that he worshipped
the Lord, he believed Him, he offered the sacrifices that was
required. He knew that, and yet all this
disaster come upon him. I'm full of confusion. Well, sometimes it takes years
for that to clear up, but my confusion is continually before
me. And what he's saying is my humiliation. I've stood and I've confessed
Christ, I've talked what a great Savior He is, and here I am in
a mess. Whether it be a financial mess,
physical mess, I'm in a mess. And he says, I'm embarrassed.
That's what he said, I'm embarrassed. for the voice of him that reproaches
and blasphemes by reason of the enemy and avenger." That's what
he's saying. I'm embarrassed by their reproaches. But as I said, we know this,
God does not afflict us without a holy purpose. And what we have here is a wrong
estimation of God and too high of an estimation of oneself. But in verses 17 and 19, we see
that chastening does not chase God's children away. Here's the
purpose, here it is. I mean, this is part of it, and
then we'll see the other one in verse 22. But it brings us
closer to the Lord Jesus Christ. I'll tell you what, if you're
a hireling, if you're a wolf in sheep's clothing, hard times
will run you off. Hard times will bring out that
hard heart. But it'll run you, children of God, to God. It'll
run you to your Father. I guarantee it'll run you to
your Father. He says in verse 17, All this
has come upon us. Yes, it has. By the purpose of
God, it has come upon us. And yet have we not forgotten
thee. We have not forgotten our God.
We have not forgotten who you are. We still believe. That's
what he's saying. Lord, I still believe. We still
believe. We believe. And neither have
we dealt falsely in Thy covenant. We've not turned from the covenant
of grace and denied You. We still hold on to that covenant. We are Your covenant people.
We know that. Our heart has not turned back,
neither have our steps declined from Thy way. Lord, You know
that. For Thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons, a
place where the jackals come and eat the bodies that are dead
and killed in the battle, covered us with a shadow of death. And
if we've forgotten the name of our God or stretched out our
hands to a strange God, Lord, You know it. Lord, You know my
heart. Can we say that? Can we say with
confidence? I know we have sinned. I know
we sin. We have sinned. But can we say
with confidence and be thankful, Lord, you know my heart. You
know I love you. Peter said that. Lord, you know
I love you. You know I believe. Lord, help
my unbelief, but you know I believe. Lord, I want to be saved. You
know my heart. Save my soul. You know that. And that's what
he's saying. Shall not God search this out?
For he knoweth the secret of the heart, verse 22. But here's the reason, now listen,
here's the reason for our affliction. It's our union to Christ. Paul
quotes this over in Romans chapter 8. "...Yea, for thy sake are we
killed all the day long." We are counted as sheep for the
slaughter. Here's the reason you're suffering
is your union to the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the reason the
world wants nothing to do with you. This is the reason you are
ridiculed when you speak up and give a witness for Christ. This
is why it's your union to Christ. They hate Him. For thy sake we
are killed all the day long. We're mistreated. Listen, I'll turn over to Philippians
chapter 1. Let me see where I want to start
reading. Let me read starting in verse 27. Only let your conversation
be as it becometh the gospel of Christ, that whether I come
and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that
you stand fast in one spirit with one mind, striving together
for the faith of the gospel. and in nothing terrified by your
adversaries, which is to them an evident token of perdition,
but to you of salvation in that of God. Now listen, for unto
you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe
on Him, but also to suffer for His sake." Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. But what about the suffering
part? Here is the reason that we endure so much suffering.
This is why the church, over the years, over history, has
endured so much suffering. Her connection to Jesus Christ.
Her union to Christ. Look over in 1 Corinthians chapter
4. We're going to look at this, I think this coming Sunday. I think. Yes. In verse 7, chapter 4, Paul
says, We have this gospel treasure in earthen vessels, that the
excellency of the power may be of God, not of us. Now listen,
we are troubled, Paul says, on every side, yet not distressed. We're not distressed out of our
mind, wondering what's going on. We are perplexed, but not
in despair. We're not going into despair. Persecuted but not forsaken,
cast down but not destroyed, always bearing about in the body
the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might
be made manifest in our body. For we which live are always
delivered to death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus
might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. So then death works
in us, but life in you. That's the life, that's it. Now
you and I have not suffered anything like Paul has suffered and many
of the old saints of old have suffered. Like Nero took the
Christians and put them up on poles and lit a garden party.
So he'd set them on fire to light his garden party. Put animal
skins on them so that they would be eaten up by animals. We haven't
suffered like that. But I tell you what, we don't
know what's coming. We honestly don't know what's coming. It's
a kingdom of light, a kingdom of darkness. That's what we live
in. Yea, for thy sake are we killed
all the day long. We are countless sheep for their
slaughter. And he calls on God here, to rise up and act. Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord? Arise, cast us not off forever. Desperate situation calls for
desperate prayer. God's not asleep. God's not asleep. Over Psalm 121, He that keepeth
Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps. But sometimes, in our experience,
it seems like it. Sometimes in our experience,
it seems like it. As David said one time, is God
Klingon? God can and does take some of
his children in such deep waters, such deep waters, that it appears
that God is Klingon. You can go so far down the ocean
and it's very crushing. And God has taken some of his
children in deep, deep waters. So when I read this, I don't
say, what's he talking about? Doesn't he know any better? No. He may put me down there. He
may make me swim that deep one day. We don't always feel what we
know. What we know and what I'm experiencing
sometimes don't seem to match up, but it does. Spiritually, it does. It's right
on order, right on track. He says, wherefore hidest thou
thy face and forget our affliction and our oppression? That's awful
low thoughts of God, isn't it? But this man's hurting. He's
hurting. He's in a deep, deep valley right
here. Our soul is bowed down. It's
like Israel is losing a battle. And sometimes it looks like the
church is losing the battle. Our soul bowed down to the dust.
Our belly cleaves to the earth. Arise for our help and redeem
us for Thy mercy's sake. Christ did arise for our help.
He arose from the grave. You know, this is like this prayer,
and it just hit me before I came down here. This prayer, or this
psalm, it's like in Mark 4.38. Remember the water was beating
into the ship? And it says it was full. And
the Lord was in the back of the boat asleep. Oh Lord, why are
you asleep? That's what the psalmist is saying.
And they went back there and woke him up. And what did they
say? Carest thou not that we perish? That's exactly what he's
saying. Lord, don't you care what's going
on right now with us? Don't you not care? The very fact that God tries us, shows that he cares
for us. I don't discipline, you know,
when my boys were growing up, I didn't discipline the kids
in the neighborhood, just my two boys, just my two boys. God disciplines his children.
That's a reflection of his love. The very fact that He sent His
Son into this world to die in my place, God could not express
greater care for me than when He did that.