In the 59th Psalm, as with a
number of David Psalms, he cries unto the Lord for help. He cries
to be delivered from his enemies, persecuted and hounded unto death,
hated by King Saul, knowing what it is to have the king himself
and his men search for David. and set his hatred upon David
and want to see David dead. David finds refuge in his Lord
and his God and cries out to his God for help. He writes,
deliver me from mine enemies, oh my God. Defend me from them
that rise up against me. Deliver me from the workers of
iniquity and save me from bloody men, for lo, they lie in wait
for my soul. The mighty are gathered against
me, not for my transgression, nor for my sin, O Lord. They
run and prepare themselves without my fault, awake to help me and
behold. Thou therefore, O Lord God of
hosts, the God of Israel, awake to visit all the heathen. Be
not merciful to any wicked transgressors. Selah. Deliver me from mine enemies,
O my God. Defend me from them that rise
up against me. David knew what it was to have
enemies. He knew what it was to have enemies. Mighty enemies. Enemies far greater
and far stronger, far more powerful than he was. He knew what it
was to feel their vehemence against him. Their hatred. to see in their eyes their intent,
to hear from their voices their words and to see in their deeds
their attempts to destroy him. He knew what it was to have enemies
but he knew what it was to find deliverance from them. and to find hope in his God. There are many enemies. And as
with David, we have many enemies. Many enemies from which we need
to be delivered, from whom we need to be saved. And if we're
to know the salvation of God, if we're to know salvation for
our souls, If we're to be delivered from this world and led into
heaven to come, if we're to be delivered from time and brought
into eternity to dwell with Almighty God, if we're to be washed from
our sins and to be resurrected from the
dead, and to be given eternal life in Jesus Christ if we're
to be made the righteousness of God in Him. If we're to be
saved, then we must be saved from many, many enemies. There are enemies without and
enemies within. Those outside of us and those
within us. there are natural enemies and
there are spiritual enemies there are spiritual forces and
powers and dominions all set against the child of God and
all raging all raging against him determined to destroy him
There are forces and powers that you cannot see, which are set
to destroy you, if they can. And set to keep you from the
path of salvation. And set to keep you from hearing
the Gospel of your salvation. And set to keep you from being
drawn unto Jesus Christ. We have enemies without. And
this world does all it can to prevent the children of God from
ever coming to hear the Gospel and ever coming to hear Jesus
Christ. The world around us, the populace,
the people, the mass thinking is set against anyone going to
hear of Jesus Christ. Our ageing generation scoffs
and mocks at the Bible. at the reality of God, at the
fact that there is a God who rules this universe, who created
this universe, who sustains this universe. Our society derides
and hates and mocks the fact that there is a God who made
you and I, who keeps you and I alive, and before whom you
and I will one day stand. accountable for our deeds and
our thoughts and our actions throughout our lives before him.
This society hates those truths and mocks those truths and tries
to take science falsely so called. Not true science. but what they
call science. They try to use their wisdom,
their knowledge and their so-called science to deride the fact of
God and deride the truth of Jesus Christ and to say to all and
sundry, don't bother with it. Don't read the Bible. Don't go
to a place of worship. Don't go and hear that preacher. Don't. And they are enemies. They are enemies to your soul. Their advice will lead you astray. There is a way which seemeth
right unto man, which leadeth to destruction. Their advice,
if you heed it, will lead you not to peace, not to happiness,
not to wealth, not to joy, but to destruction. professing themselves
to be wise, Paul says in Romans. They became as fools. They deny
what nature around them tells them of God. They deny what their
hearts and conscience within tell them of the power of God.
And not only do they shut their own eyes and bury their own heads
in the sand and walk around as blind men, but they seek to prevent
anyone else seeing or knowing or understanding. Not only do
they refuse to listen to the truth but they try to prevent
anyone else around them from listening and they do everything
they can to prevent you from listening or hearing. So the
world scoffs and mocks at the things of God and scoffs and
mocks at Christianity and scoffs and mocks at any that goes to
a place of worship or speaks of the Bible or speaks of Jesus
Christ. They laugh and say, you fool,
that's for a former age and generation. What are you bothering with that
for? And they mock you and say, you're goody two-shoes. Who are
you to be judging us? They make you feel foolish, they
make you feel different. Should you ever speak of the
Bible? And yet they are the fools for
they're heading headlong unto destruction. What they deride
and mock is true. There is a God. He did make this
world in six days. He does sustain this world and
He does sustain your life. He at this moment is causing
your heart to beat that you may sit and listen to this message. And He can stop your heart from
beating in an instant and take you out of this world. and into
the next and if you have not heard this message and received
this message and heard of Jesus Christ and believed on Jesus
Christ before that happens then you will stand before him naked
and guilty of your sins and be judged accordingly. But these
fools do everything they can to keep you from God, from his
word, from his son and from salvation. They are enemies, they are enemies
without and they rage around and try to prevent everyone in
society from hearing these things. And not only do they try to prevent
anyone that knows not these things from hearing, but when they come
across one that knows, when they come across one who speaks of
Jesus Christ, when they come across one who has faith in God,
when they come across one who speaks of the wondrous work of
God in Jesus Christ in dying for their sins and delivering
them from hell, they scoff and mock and deride them too. they
persecute the righteous, they persecute the followers of Jesus
Christ and they persecute them with vehemence. The more the
voice of Jesus Christ is heard, the more you testify of his gospel,
the bolder you are in standing for his gospel, the stronger
their opposition is. If you're a silent follower of
Christ, if you believe but never speak of him, if you go along
with the world's ways and the world's customs, knowing salvation
but hiding it, then you will see peace. But as soon as you
name Jesus Christ in the midst of this world of darkness, as
soon as you declare the truth boldly, as soon as you preach
righteousness unto a people who are full of sin, you will see
their faces change. You will find them to become
your enemies who were once your friends, and you will see them
rage and persecute you. And Christ says, to those that
see such persecution in order to encourage. He says in Matthew
5, Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you
and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. rejoice and be exceeding glad
for great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they the prophets
which were before you they've been enemies of the cross enemies
of christ enemies of god enemies of his preachers and his prophets
throughout all the ages and if you speak of the same truths
that those prophets of old spake of you'll find them to be your
enemies too but you will have a great reward in heaven because
these who rage against the truth will face destruction but those
who know Jesus Christ will have life everlasting but they will
know like David what it is to have enemies who accuse them
falsely As David said, they lie in wait for my soul, the mighty
are gathered against me, not for my transgression, nor for
my sin, O Lord, not because I've done wrong, but because I speak
the truth, because I declare righteousness, they hate me for
that righteousness. They run and prepare themselves
without my fault. As we read in Luke's Gospel,
chapter one, he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which
have been since the world began, that we should be saved from
our enemies and from the hand of all that hate us. to perform
the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant
when Christ entered this world and was born and the Saviour
came of whom the prophets spake. God was about, in time, to bring
about that deed of sacrificing His Son for sinners which should
bring forth His mercy upon a countless number and fulfil His covenant. The mercy promised to our fathers. The mercy. That mercy which saves
us from our enemies and from the hand of all that hate us.
Yes, there are enemies without, mighty enemies, many enemies. If you know Jesus Christ, you
will know their hatred every day in which you walk through
this world. Sometimes it's seen, sometimes
it's silent, but it's always there. The children of darkness,
the children of the devil, hate. the children of God. They hate
those born of God, not for anything they have done, but because they
bear testimony to Jesus Christ, the saviour of sinners, whom
this world took up and rejected and had put to death. This world
did not want him. And if you love him, they will
not want you. But if you love Him, you will
know, as David did, what it is to have great hope in Almighty
God, who delivers from all our enemies. There are enemies without,
but there are enemies within. There are enemies within. Not
only are there multitudes who will prevent you from even coming
to hear the Gospel, But should you come to hear the Gospel,
and should God take the truth of that Gospel, and begin to
declare the truth unto your soul, and begin to speak by His Spirit
within, then you will soon come to discover that your greatest
of enemies, your greatest foes who will prevent you from coming
to salvation lie within. because you'll discover the sin
within your heart that has separated you from Almighty God and has
brought about his wrath that breathes down upon your head.
You'll discover that sin within your heart which you cannot escape. Though you should do everything
you can to cleanse the outside, to cleanse your conduct, to turn
from sin. Though you should do all you
can to walk in God's ways, though you should read the Bible and
attend the meetings and turn from the ways of this world,
you find within that the cause of those sins is ever there.
You find your heart and the evil of your heart and the evil thoughts
and intentions of your heart bubbling up to the surface. And
like Paul in Romans 7, you cry out, O wretched man that I am,
who shall deliver me from this body of death, this body of sin? Who shall take it away? What
an enemy it is. Though I strive to follow God,
though I strive to turn, this sin within stains me and corrupts
me and brings me down. It rules. and I cannot escape the flesh is an enemy that flesh
in which the sin dwells because of the sin within the flesh wars
against the spirit oh the wretchedness of the flesh and the wretchedness
of the flesh in religion oh you hear the truth You hear the Gospel,
you hear the Spirit of God, take the truth and take the Gospel. You may, by God's grace, be brought
to hear the Gospel and be brought by the Spirit of God to live,
and to lay hold upon Christ and to know deliverance, but still
that flesh is there, and an enemy it is indeed. and how it wars
against the Spirit within. Though God, though Christ by
His Spirit might dwell within you, born again of God, delivered
from darkness, though you might know the mighty power of God
in the Gospel, bring you to life, all the journey on, you feel
this flesh warring against the Spirit, pulling you down, making
you do that which you would not, preventing you from doing that
which you would. Oh, the flesh! But in Christ,
in Christ, and in Him alone we're delivered from the flesh. Paul
tells us in Romans 8, there is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus. who walk not after the flesh,
but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of
life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and
death. For what the law could not do
in that it was weak through the flesh. God sending his own Son
in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in
the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled
in us. who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit for
they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh
but they that are after the spirit the things of the spirit for
to be carnally minded is death But to be spiritually minded
is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity
against God. It's an enemy of God. The flesh
is an enemy. An enemy of God. And an enemy
of those who love God. It's enmity against God. For
it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh,
but in the Spirit. If so, be that the Spirit of
God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit
of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the
body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because
of righteousness. Yes, we have the flesh. and the
flesh is dead, the body is dead because of sin that dwells within
it but the spirit is life because of righteousness and we don't
walk in the flesh we walk in the spirit we walk in Christ
but all the time we walk we know the attacks and the influence
of those enemies within And it's only the mighty power of God
which can deliver from such. Another enemy is the world. The
world, like I said, rages against the truth of God. But it does
all it can to fan the flames of the sin within us. Not only
is the world an enemy without, but it does all it can to stir
up the enemy within. It does all it can to influence
us and to draw us astray. It does all it can to draw the
believer astray and to encourage the believer to walk in the world's
ways with the world's mentality and to go and to do what the
world does and to turn from Christ and his gospel and to turn from
his people and to turn from his ways. What a snare this world
is. And what a snare the fear of
the world, the fear of man is. Oh, how fearful we can be of
the persecution and of the ridicule and of the scorn. So how easily
we remain silent when we should speak. How easily we go along
with what the world will do for the sake of peace as we see it. because of our fear of man how
easily the enemy within gains the upper hold because of the
enemies without oh what a snare the fear of man is thirdly we
have a great enemy a great enemy called satan the adversary the
devil the prince of demons the one that goeth about as a roaring
lion seeking whom he may devour the accuser of the brethren that
subtle deceiver that serpent that entered this world in the
beginning who came to the woman and through her to the man to
deceive and to lead us into sin. That father of lies, what an
enemy he is. What an enemy of our souls he
is. And what a force and a power
he is. Adam and Eve in the beginning
could not stand in his wake. That man Adam who wasn't born
in sin as we are, but born innocent, with faculties far greater and
stronger than ours are, with a mind so more capable than ours,
with understanding so much greater than ours, that man who walked
in the garden with Almighty God, that first man Adam, if he fell,
when Satan, as the serpent, came alongside in the garden, deceived
the woman and by her deceived Adam. If Adam fell, if Adam couldn't
withstand Satan's influence, then what help have you and I
got? He's a mighty foe, a mighty enemy,
and we cannot stand against him. He's a mighty enemy full of knowledge
and understanding. Don't forget that his influence
was to cause man to eat of the knowledge of the tree, to eat
of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and he knows
everything that that tree had to teach. He knows God's Word. He knows what's in the scriptures.
He knows what's in the law of God. He knows what we should
be before a holy and a righteous God. He knows the standard that
so many in our day are ignorant of. He knows what you should
and you shouldn't do. And he's very subtle and crafty
with the ways of religion. He knows how to get at you and
how to accuse you and how to bring you down. He'll bring God's
law and find fault with everything you say and do. Child of God
or not. O believer, He knows how to cast
you down. He knows how to get you into
a state of feeling guilty and wretched. He knows how to deceive
you and how to fool you. He knows how to fool you in the
way of religion. He knows how to take the truth
and twist it and pervert it and present it to you as the truth
and lead you astray. He knows how to get you to seek
to justify yourself before God and men by your own works. He knows how to lead you to hope
and to trust in your will, in your decision, in what you have
done for God, or in what you think you will do for God. He
comes alongside with a gospel that looks like the gospel, that
sounds like the gospel, but which isn't the gospel. And he'll tell
you of Jesus. And he'll tell you that Jesus
died for sinners. He'll tell you that Jesus was
crucified. He'll tell you that Jesus was
a man. He'll tell you that Jesus was God. He'll tell you that
Jesus was the Son of God. He'll tell you that he died for
sinners. But he'll tell you that he died
for all sinners. And that you're saved if you
just accept. Or if you just live right. and
it will lead you little by little away from the truth of the scriptures
that Jesus came to save his people from their sins. Not all. Because what Satan doesn't want
you to accept is that there are a great many who are children
of the devil. who are goats, who will ever
remain such, because he knows that he's out to deceive you
and keep you in such a state, and prevent you from ever hearing
and knowing the grace of God, the grace of God, which brings
salvation. He's a deceiver, he's a father
of lies, everything he says is a lie. Half God said, how he
casts the doubt in how he knocks the confidence the prince of
demons and he doesn't act alone he has an army, a multitude of
demons and forces and spirits which go forth in this world
doing his bidding attacking this one and attacking that one you
cannot stand before him At the beginning he came upon man and
he deceived and he entered in. And man is born in sin. Effectively
he's taken over. Indwelling. They're his children
born one after the other. Born the children of wrath, the
children of the devil. But he knows that there is a
seed in this world who look like children of wrath. who look just
the same as others, who are born of the same ancestry from Adam. But they are not children of
the devil. They are children of God. They
are chosen in Christ unto salvation. God has chosen them before he
made this world. He gave them unto Jesus Christ,
each named, each known, and Christ came in this world to save them,
to deliver them from their sins. And whatever this devil does,
whatever Satan does, he cannot take them. He cannot claim them. He cannot pluck them from Jesus'
hands. Now which are you? Are you a
child of God or a child of the devil? Well if you're a child of God,
you'll rejoice at the fact, as Revelation 12 tells us, that
the accuser of our brethren, the devil himself, is cast out. Why is he cast out? Because when
Christ, the saviour of sinners, entered this world and was nailed
to the tree, when Christ was crucified, at that point at which
the devil thought he'd won, Christ destroyed him and cast him out.
because Christ took the sins of that people whom the devil
accused and took them upon himself and took the judgment of God
upon himself that they might not be judged but that he might
be that they might not know death but that He would die that they
should be brought to everlasting life and He delivered them with
a mighty salvation because He took that sin and took it away
He took those sins and took them away He took that judgment and
swallowed it up and He took that death into which they were born
and swallowed it up in victory that death which is referred
to as the last enemy oh yes we have an enemy in satan but we
have an enemy in death we are born dead in sins we will
know as a consequence death at the end of our mortal lives.
And if we're never delivered from our sins we will know what
it is to enter into the second death. And this death is a great,
great enemy from which we cannot by our strength escape. But when
Christ died, he took death, that last enemy, and he destroyed
it. That in the end, at the end of
our days, we should rise from the grave, that we with him should
rise. And we, as He was resurrected
from the dead, will know what it is to be resurrected on that
last day and to rise with Him and to be with Him forevermore.
As Paul makes plain in 1 Corinthians 15 where he speaks of the resurrection. Verse 17, If Christ be not raised,
your faith is vain, ye are yet in your sins. Then they also
which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life
only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. But now is Christ risen from
the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since
by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the
dead. For as in Adam all die, even
so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own
order, Christ the firstfruits, afterward they that are Christ
at his coming. Then cometh the end, when he
shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father, when
he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.
For he must reign till he have put all enemies under his feet. And the last enemy that shall
be destroyed is death. is death when he died he destroyed
death and in the end at the end death will be destroyed because
of his death so that all his people will rise with him he
has put all things under his feet all things what an enemy
death is what a salvation what life what resurrection there
is in Jesus Christ Fifthly, consider Christ's enemies. Deliver me
from mine enemies, O my God, David Christ. But as with so
many of these psalms, really this isn't just the cry of David,
this is the cry of the one of whom David was but the type and
the figure. Christ knew what it was to have
enemies when Christ the Son of God, the King of whom King David
was a figure, entered this world. He knew what it was to have all
men reject Him. All men despised him, even his
disciples scattered at the end. And the mob cried out, crucify
him, crucify him. Religious and irreligious all
were against him. How many enemies did Christ have? Deliver me from my enemies, oh
my God. Christ Christ, defend me from
them that rise up against me. The mighty are gathered against
me, not for my transgression, nor for my sin, O Lord. Because he was pure, he was perfect,
he was sinless. But all men hated him, and he
was slain. And when he was slain, he took
the transgression and the sin of others, that he might deliver
them and bring them unto life with him. But how many enemies
he had! How many! And yet what a great
deliverance he wrought, what a great deliverance he found,
how God raised him from the dead, how he rose from the dead, how
he conquered every enemy, they put him to death but the grave
could not hold him. David himself saith in the book
of Psalms, the Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou on my right
hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool. Sit down. He must reign, one Corinthian
says, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy
that shall be destroyed is death. Oh the enemies that Christ had,
all men, you and I included. We've despised him, we've hated
him, and we in our hearts put him to death. But when he was
slain, he conquered death. He put death to death when he
died. And he wrought a great deliverance. How many enemies he had? how
many enemies we have but oh if you know anything of his deliverance
if you know anything of his salvation you will know that he saved you
that he saves us when we are enemies when we are enemies Christ had many enemies including us. And yet he came
to save his enemies. He came to save his enemies. David writes in this psalm of
being delivered from his enemies, of God judging his enemies. But there are enemies of Christ
for whom Christ died. Oh, there are those, the goats,
the wicked, who will be destroyed with the justice for which David
cries. There will be those on the last
day under whom Christ says, depart from me, I never knew you. And
he will reign over his enemies and he will have them underfoot. But there are those whom he loves,
with an everlasting love, for whom he died, who were also his
enemies. And these enemies he delivered
by his death. Are you one of these enemies?
As Paul says, if when we were enemies, We were reconciled to
God by the death of his son, much more being reconciled we
shall be saved by his life. And in Colossians, and you that
were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works,
yet now have he reconciled. He didn't wait for us to improve. He didn't wait for us to turn
unto Him before He saved us. He didn't wait for us to turn
from our enmity, to cry out in love unto Him. He didn't wait
for us to be good and to be righteous, for it could not be. We're dead
by nature. We're haters of God by nature. We're enemies of God by nature. We're children of wrath by nature. And if He's to save any of us,
it must have been whilst we were enemies. And it was whilst we
were enemies. When we were enemies, we were
reconciled to God by the death of His Son. Were you reconciled
to God by the death of His Son? Were you? If you were, You will
know with David what it is to have enemies as God's Son had
enemies. You will know what it is to be
hated for Christ's sake. You will know what it is to be
despised and persecuted and reviled for righteousness sake. You will
know what it is to have enemies. You will know what it is to cry
with David unto God to be delivered from our enemies. And you will
know what it is in that final day. When you're brought into
eternity and brought into that new heavens and new earth, you
will know what it is in the end to finally be delivered from
all your enemies. Now in this world we know salvation,
we know everlasting life, we know justification. So many times
in our pathway we will experience deliverance from temporal trouble. We will have those rise up against
us from whom God will deliver us. We will see his mighty hand
time and again. We will know what it is to gain
victory over the sin in our life, and to be lifted up by the Spirit
of God in the Gospel and by His grace, and to be pointed unto
a Saviour crucified for us. We'll know victory here and there
over sin, but we'll always know the indwelling rage of sin and
the way the flesh wars against the spirit and we'll always have
those around who rage against us and the gospel but there comes
a day when all the battle, all the fight, all the struggle,
all the weariness, all the woe, all the trouble comes to an end. And we pass from this world into
the next. And we will stand before Almighty
God with His people. And we will hear, as it says
in Revelation 11 verse 12, we will hear a great voice from
heaven saying unto us, come up Hither. And we with them will
ascend up to heaven in a cloud. And our enemies will behold us.
Oh, there'll be that entering in. There'll be that entering
into glory. And the enemies of Christ who
never knew him, whom he never knew, whom his love was never
set upon, will look and wonder and know that what they spoke
of was true. And those poor, battered, hated,
reviled children of God, Those who've tasted of His grace, those
who know the love of Christ their Saviour will know what it is
to enter into glory and to see Christ's enemies made His footstool
and to see those enemies behold them. and to know that they are
ever delivered from them. They'll know what it is to be
delivered from all their enemies. Oh, is that your cry to be delivered
from your enemies? Oh, has God heard your cry? And has he heard your cry for
mercy and grace in the blood of Jesus Christ? If he has, then
when that day comes, you will rejoice. Oh, the rejoicing there
will be in that day when all is brought to a conclusion, when
salvation is brought to its completion, when that finished work of Christ
is brought to its fruition of having all the children of God
gathered in around His throne. Oh, what a happy day! What a
glorious day! What a day to come! Do you look
for it? Do you long for it? That day,
When Christ's enemies will be made his footstool, deliver us,
O God, from our enemies. Amen.