This is the first psalm that
is given in the whole psalm, all 150 psalms. It's the first
one given with a title. It's the Psalm, a Psalm of David,
the sweet psalmist of Israel. And it says it's a psalm of David
when he fled from Absalom, his son. Sometime when you have an
opportunity, I would recommend that you read 2 Samuel 15-18. Absalom virtually hijacked the
kingdom from David. He robbed his own father of the
glory of his kingdom. In fact, hold your place here
and go back to 2 Samuel. Let me just read a few Verses
from 2 Samuel, chapter 15. 2 Samuel, chapter 15. Let me just
kind of introduce the message to you, lay a foundation for
the remarks that I am prepared to make tonight. 2 Samuel, chapter 15. And I don't have time to read
too many verses here, but I want to begin reading verse 1. and
read through verse six, 2 Samuel 15. And it came to pass after
this that Absalom prepared him chariots and horses and 50 men
to run before him. And Absalom rose up early and
stood beside the way of the gate. And it was so that when any man
that had a controversy came to the king for judgment, Then Absalom
called unto him and said, Of what city art thou? And he said,
Thy servant is one of the tribes of Israel. And Absalom said unto
him, See, thy matters are good and right, but there is no man
deputed of the king to hear thee. Absalom said, moreover, O that
I were made judge over the land, O that I were king, in other
words, that every man which hath suit or cause might come unto
me, and I would do him justice. And what Absalom is saying is,
my father, my father isn't really doing his job. but I'm doing
the job instead of my father. The things that he's not attending
to, I'm attending to. The things that he ought to be
taking care of, I'm taking care of. Oh, that I were king in his
stead. So verse five says, or let me
read the last statement of verse four, and I would do him justice. If I were your king, I would
treat you right. He's undermining his father's
authority. And it was so that when any man
came nigh to him to do him obeisance, he put forth his hand and took
him and kissed him. And on this manner did Absalom
to all Israel that came to the king for judgment. So Absalom
stole the hearts of the men of Israel. And verse seven, this
tells us how long this went on. And it came to pass after 40
years. And I don't have time to go any
further. This went on for a long time. For 40 years, he did this. So it happened over a long time.
And I'll tell you what it reminds me of. When I was working on
this message this afternoon, It reminds me of how people can
be tempted to forsake the kingship of our Lord Jesus Christ, to
cease to follow Him, to cease to believe the gospel and leave
the message of the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus
Christ, and error creeps in sometimes over a number of years. A number
of years. I've known churches that were
at one time the sounding board for the clear message of sovereign
free grace. God's election of some people
unto salvation. The redemptive work of our Lord
Jesus that was victorious. He saved his people from their
sins by his sacrifice upon the cross of Calvary. And the message
of the efficacious or effectual grace of the Holy Spirit in regeneration
and making application of the preached word to the hearts of
people. Churches that used to stand for
that over a number of years, a good many times, they just
slowly slip away. And that which used to be a lighthouse
for the gospel, becomes an edifice of religious darkness. That's how Absalom took over. He didn't just go in and grab
the reins from his father. That wouldn't work. That wouldn't
work. And somebody who believes error
When a church has been hearing the gospel, a preacher wouldn't
come in and immediately say, everything you've been listening
to is wrong. Well, nobody would give him a
hearing. Absalom didn't do that to begin with. He didn't undermine
his father, except little by little. And that's exactly how
error slips in. Do you remember what Paul said?
to the Ephesian brethren in Acts chapter 20. He said, I know that
after my departure, men from within, from within, will start
preaching another gospel. And you know, those words were
spoken to the church at Ephesus. And our Lord Jesus said in Revelation
chapter 2, he said, I've got something against the church
of Ephesus. That was several years later. I got something against you.
You've lost your first love. That's what he said. You used
to love me, Christ said. You used to preach my gospel.
You used to preach about me being on the throne. I'm the king.
But you're slowly slipping away. He said, you better straighten
up. I'm going to take the lamp stand away. That's what he said.
I'm going to take the light away. I'm going to take the gospel
away from you. Now you hear me. The gospel is a wonderful treasure
that the Lord gives to us. He entrusts to us. Let's not
take it ever for granted. And let's always, especially
you men, always be keen to discern what's coming forth from the
pulpit, that it's consistent with the Word of God, that it's
glorifying to Christ. Because I know this has happened. It's happened over... If you've
studied anything about church history, and if you're acquainted
with some churches that used to be sovereign grace churches,
usually it comes in little by little. Because you see, there's
a subtlety to error. And those who preach it. Absalom. This stretched out over 40 years. Forty years. And finally, he had the hearts
of the people. And his father and the few followers
who stuck with David, they left the city weeping. Weeping. Crossed the Brook Kidron, as
our Lord did later, and went up to Mount Olive. weeping all
along the way. Most churches that used to believe
something, they're now just an empty religious edifice, just
darkness, not light at all. You see, it used to be, and I'll
just go into history a little bit here, but it used to be,
if a church was Baptist, like John Rippon and men like that,
John Gill, John Bunyan, those men believed the truth. They
stood firm. They wouldn't budge an inch. But where are the Baptist churches,
and I won't even get into the rest of the denominations, but
where are the Baptist churches that are faithful in proclaiming
the points of grace, five points of grace, total depravity, unconditional
election, particular redemption, irresistible grace, and perseverance
of the saints? Where are the Baptist churches
now that do that? In the average Baptist church
today, if you announced as your subject the absolute sovereignty
of God, they'd say, what'd he say? What's that word again? Reminds me of that verse, and
I won't say any more about this, what I've just talked about,
except for this, where Paul said, having a form of godliness. That's
all they got. but denying the power thereof.
Oh, how I pray that God will keep us in the truth, in the
truth. Well, sad scene here in chapter
15 of 2 Samuel. Look at verse 16. I'll read just
a few more verses. And the king went forth, and
all his household after him. And the king left ten women,
which were concubines, to keep the house. The king went forth,
and all the people after him, and tarried in a place that was
far off. And all of his servants passed
beside him. And all the Carathites, and all
the Pelathites, and all the Gittites, six hundred Men which came after
him from Gath passed on before the king. And it was just a sad
procession of people. But here's what I want you to
take away from this. Look down at verses 24 and 25
and 26. And lo, Zadok also and all the
Levites were with him, bearing the ark of the covenant of God.
And they set down the ark of God. That symbolized the presence
of God. And Abathar went up until all
the people had done passing out of the city. And the king, David,
said unto Zadok, Carry back the ark of God into the city. If I shall find favor in the
eyes of the Lord, he will bring me again, and show me both it
and his habitation. But if he thus say, I have no
delight in thee, if God says, I don't have any delight in David,
watch it now, behold, here I am. Let him do to me as seemeth good
unto him. There's an attitude of a child
of God. I hope to come back. I hope to
come back to Jerusalem. I hope to come back here and
worship. But if not, Let the Lord do to me as seemeth
Him good. Oh, how I pray for that attitude.
Let the Lord do to me as seemeth Him good. David turned this whole
thing. Here his kingdom has been stolen
from him. And his son Absalom did it. His own flesh and blood. And yet David realized back behind
everything was the God of glory. In fact, in chapter 16, as they
were traveling David and these followers, this guy started cursing
David and throwing rocks at David. And one of David's generals said,
I'll take care of that guy in short order. My sword is sharpened,
O King. I'll cut him down. David said,
no, don't do that. Don't do that. Because David
recognized the providence of God. He said, if the Lord had
not told him, curse David, he couldn't have cursed me. What a good attitude to have.
Here's a man seeking the glory of the Lord. And I'll tell you this, David
is an imminent type of our Lord Jesus Christ in many ways. The
Son of God, Messiah. He's David's son and he's also
David's Lord. And like Absalom turned the hearts
of the people. Another creation from God turned
the hearts of all people against our God. Satan did. And he approached our mother,
and then our mother approached her husband, Adam. And Adam,
who was the representative of the whole human race, he sinned
and we all fell into iniquity. We've all been following the
wrong power, the deceitfulness, the subtlety of the evil one. You see, Adam's guilt, Adam's
sin has been imputed to all of his offspring. That's you and
me and everybody else. But it wasn't imputed to our
Lord. Because he wasn't the son of Adam. He was the son of God. The son of God. And when Messiah was born, he
was born without any guilt, without any sin. He did no sin. He spoke
no sin. He thought no sin all of his
life. But when he was born, all of
the forces of evil aimed their weapons at our Lord Jesus Christ, with the intent being to turn
all of the kingdoms of this world against the Son of God. But they couldn't destroy our
Savior. Even when our Lord was born, just a small child, Herod
was out to kill him. I mean, persecution, enemies,
they were great in number. David said the enemies are great
in number. And so were the enemies of David's
son and David's Lord. In fact, we read of David, one
of his most trusted counselors was a man by the name of Ahithophel. And he took part in the rebellion. And he wound up committing suicide. One of our Lord's apostles, Judas,
He was opposed to the Son of God. Sold him out for 30 pieces of
silver. And what did he do? He went out
and hung himself. He committed suicide. As David's enemies conspired
against him, so our Lord's enemies conspired against him. And then
I'm going to tell you something. You have enemies who have conspired
against you. I'm talking about spiritual enemies.
I'm talking about the powers of darkness. Maybe not liberal as men and
women, although if people know what you believe, They're not
really your friends unless they believe the gospel. They may smile to your face,
but what you believe, who you believe, and the gospel of grace
that you embrace, they hate. The natural mind is enmity, is
enmity against God, hostile against God. And if you stand for God,
if you stand for who God is in his absolute authority and in
his sovereignty, if you stand for the effectual work of atonement
by our Lord Jesus Christ, the world is against you. The churches are against us. Say, where do you go to church?
13th Street Baptist Church. Oh, you go to the old church. And you know who Ahithophel was?
Bathsheba's grandfather. That's who he was. He wasn't successful. Judas wasn't
successful. And I'll tell you this, Satan
is not going to be successful either because back in Psalm
2, the Lord has set his king upon the holy hill of Zion. Our
Lord Jesus was successful doing the work the father gave him
to do. He has been exalted to the right
hand of the father on high. He vanquished our enemies. He
crushed the head of the serpent. And he put away our sins. Enemies? Yeah, we have enemies. We have enemies. But they shall
not conquer us because of who our Savior is. You know, I was thinking about
the persecution that David suffered and the persecution that our
Lord Jesus Christ suffered. And I wrote this down today.
Has there ever been a child of God who was exempt from troubles? You say, oh, I've got troubles. Really? What a shock. I think everybody has troubles.
All the people of God do. In fact, later on in the Psalms,
David says, I was envious of the wicked. They didn't seem
to have any troubles at all. He said, then I saw their end.
I didn't envy them anymore. For David, the persecution was
ongoing and it had reached the pinnacle right here. His enemies increased against
him. In the case of our Savior, the
enemy never let up. They hounded him when he began
his public ministry. Oh, they despised. In fact, Isaiah
wrote he was despised and rejected of men. A man of sorrows and
acquainted with grief. Every which way he turned, there
was the enemy. But the enemy couldn't stop him,
because that which he was sent to do was save his people from
their sins. And no power in heaven, earth,
or hell could keep him from doing that work successfully. I'm sure to David, Part of the
persecution was this. Go back to the text in Psalm
3. Part of the persecution was this. He even talked about how
many there were. He says in verse 1 of Psalm 3,
Lord, how are they increased that trouble me? There's so many
of them. Many are they that rise up against
me. Many there be which say of my
soul, and this had to hurt. There is no help for him in God. Look up the word help. It's the
identical Hebrew word as found in verse 8, salvation. There is no salvation. There
is no salvation for him in God. And that's essentially what they
said to our Lord Jesus Christ. Go ahead and call on God. Let's
see if he'll save you. Oh, the mockery. The mockery. And I'll tell you what the enemy
of your soul, Satan, I tell you what, Satan, he can't kill us,
he can't do away with us, he can't take away God's salvation
because it's first of all, it's God's salvation and he gives
it. But I'll tell you what, the enemy of our souls will make
every effort to make us miserable, to make us doubt, the goodness
of God to us, to make us doubt the full and free forgiveness
of our sins by the bloody death of Christ. When he does that, just go to passage like Romans
8. You remember when our Lord Jesus
was tempted 40 days and 40 nights by the devil? What did he use
to thwart The enemy, the word of God. Not your word, not your
thoughts about the word of God, it's just the word of God. Here's
what Paul said, who shall lay anything to the charge of God's
elect? I'll tell you this, Satan will
try. He'll try to charge you before
God, but nothing will stick against you. and He'll try to charge
you in your conscience. You're such an awful sinner.
You can't be a child of God. Well, it is true I'm an awful
sinner, but I have a great Savior, and He has put away all of my
sins, and He did it once and forever by His cross. Christ has borne our sin, they
were put on him, and he bore them away. We sometimes sing the song, Joe
leads us in this, he took my sins and my sorrows, and made
them his very own. He bore the burden to Calvary,
and he suffered and died alone. That's all I need. The worthy
substitute in his work of redemption. Gotta go quickly. He says, beginning in verse three, he
finds peace. There's first of all persecution,
and then he finds peace. He says, but, Thou, O Lord, art
the shield with something that absolutely surrounded the army
or the military people. Our Lord is our shield. He is the angel of the Lord who
encamps round about His people. Child of God, don't be fearful,
don't worry, don't murmur, Though the lion that's evil may roar
against you, you're surrounded by the very power and the very
person of the Lord Jesus Christ. The lion of the tribe of Judah
has conquered the lion that's out for your soul. And then David says, In verse 4, I cried
unto the Lord with my voice. And when His people cry, He hears. He heard. You who are the Lord's adopted
sons and daughters, when you cry out to God, you always have
His ear. It's almost like the Lord says,
I hear you. I hear you. Nothing gets past Him. Because you are, in whatever
circumstances you're in, by the sovereign will of God. And He's always there to protect
you. Here's peace. Here's peace for the people of
God. Watch what he says. He says, not only is the Lord
a shield for me, He's my glory. He's my glory. David gloried
in the Lord. And our Lord Jesus Christ, He
gloried in the Father. He gloried in the Father's will.
I always do those things that please Thee. And may we glory in the Lord
too, who is lifting us up to everlasting glory. And David
says, he's the lifter up of mine head. Does your head hang low
in sadness, in discouragement, even maybe in pain? Does your
head hang low? He lifts you up. He lifts up
your head. Be encouraged, he says. You're
my child. I rule everything in your life.
Be encouraged. And so David says in verse five,
I laid me down and slept. But David, your son is your enemy. He has all the masses of people
are with him. David said, well, I'll just lay
down and go to sleep. How can you do that? How can
you be at peace and in the midst of such enmity toward you? because the Lord is with me.
I awaked, for the Lord sustained me. And I'll tell you something
else I see right here. I see our Lord Jesus Christ laying
down His life for His sheep. I laid me down and slept the
sleep of death. The sleep of death. And he did
lay down his life. He said, no man takes my life
from me. I have the power to lay it down.
I have the power to take it again. I laid me down and slept. I awaked. Why? Raised from the dead. Because the father was pleased
with the work that he did. He justified us by his bloody
death. We're made the righteousness
of God in Christ. I awake for the Lord sustained
me. And therefore, verse six, I will
not be afraid of 10,000s of people that have set themselves against
me round about. I'm just not gonna be afraid. I'm not gonna be afraid. Since
the Lord is our shield and our glory, since he's the lifter
up of our heads, just lay down and go to sleep. Do you lay there and toss and
turn at night and worry about what might be? I'll tell you
what might happen. Isn't it amazing how our minds
go to like the worst thing that could happen to us and then we'll
worry about something that most likely will never happen. And
even if it does happen, it can't happen outside the sovereign
will of God. David says in verse 7, here's
his prayer. Arise, O Lord. Save me, O my
God. I have no other confidence except
Christ. I have no other hope except Him
who took my place upon the cross and died in my stead. For Thou
hast smitten all mine enemies upon the cheekbone. He's broken
the jaw. He's broken the jaw of every
enemy against my soul. I told somebody before the service,
he has, thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly. He's broken
the teeth of the lion who pursued me. Oh, the lion roars, and it
may put some fear in me, but if you look real close, his teeth
have been knocked out. That's our Savior did that. Satan cannot harm us. because he's defeated. And David winds up with this,
salvation belongeth unto the Lord. It's his. You see, the salvation God has
given me, that's his salvation. And the responsibility for keeping
me safe, for preserving me, That's not a responsibility that's
laid upon me. I could never do it. It's up
to the shepherd to keep me. He's never lost a sheep yet. He's the great physician and
he's never lost a patient yet. And therefore David finishes
up the psalm by saying, thy blessing, thy blessing. is upon thy people." After all, we were blessed with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. And so therefore,
the psalmist winds up by saying, Selah. And one of the definitions
of Selah is, what has just been said is the truth. It's the truth. Be encouraged, children of God. The Lord is governing your life. That includes troubles, it includes
the times when you're happy and glad, days of health, but it
also includes days of illness. No matter what the enemy attempts
to do, my great shepherd, He has this poor sheep upon his
shoulders, and he's gonna carry me all the way home. And that
encourages me, and I hope it encourages you. Let's get songbooks
out again. And I want us to sing Under His
Wings. That's number 269, 269.