Written for the January 23 service at the Lynnville (IL) UMC in 2005. The Scripture is from the 27th chapter of Psalms, verse 1 and verses 4-9, as well as Jesus’ teaching of what has come to be called ‘The Beatitudes’…
“The Lord is my light and my salvation.” The Biblical Illustrator quotes C. H. Spurgeon in saying, “The soul is assured of (that statement), and therefore declares it boldly. Into the soul at the new birth Divine light is poured as the precursor of salvation. Where there is not enough light to reveal our own darkness, and to make us long for the Lord Jesus, there is no evidence of salvation. After conversion our God is our Joy, Comfort, Guide, Teacher, and, in every sense, our Light: He is light within, light around, light reflected from us, and light to be revealed to us. Not merely does He give light or salvation; He is light, He is salvation; he, then, who has laid hold upon God has all covenant blessings in his possession.”
“Whom shall I fear?” Again, C. H. Spurgeon tells us that that is… “A question which is its own answer. The powers of darkness are not to be feared; for the Lord, our light, destroys them. The damnation of hell is not to be dreaded; for the Lord is our salvation. This is a very different challenge from that of boastful Goliath: that rested on the conceited vigour of an arm of flesh; this on the real power of the omnipotent I AM.
Our life derives all its strength from God: we cannot be weakened by all the machinations of the enemy. This bold question looks into the future as well as the present. “If God be for us, who can be against us,” either now or in time to come?”
The books of 1st and 2nd Samuel are very fascinating reading. Basically, they tell the story of how David became the Anointed of God and all of the trials he suffered through because of it. As you know, Saul had fallen out of favor because of his disobedience to God, and God had anointed a very young David to take his place. Saul thought that he could undo what God had done and attempted to kill David. In 1 Samuel 19, we read…
“Saul told his son Jonathan and all the attendants to kill David. But Jonathan was very fond of David and warned him, “My father Saul is looking for a chance to kill you. Be on your guard tomorrow morning; go into hiding and stay there. I will go out and stand with my father in the field where you are. I’ll speak to him about you and will tell you what I find out.”
Jonathan spoke well of David to Saul his father and said to him, “Let not the king do wrong to his servant David; he has not wronged you, and what he has done has benefited you greatly. He took his life in his hands when he killed the Philistine. The LORD won a great victory for all Israel, and you saw it and were glad. Why then would you do wrong to an innocent man like David by killing him for no reason?”
Saul listened to Jonathan and took this oath: “As surely as the LORD lives, David will not be put to death.”
…
But an evil spirit from the LORD came upon Saul as he was sitting in his house with his spear in his hand. While David was playing the harp, Saul tried to pin him to the wall with his spear, but David eluded him as Saul drove the spear into the wall. That night David made good his escape.
Saul sent men to David’s house to watch it and to kill him in the morning. But Michal, David’s wife, warned him, “If you don’t run for your life tonight, tomorrow you’ll be killed.” So Michal let David down through a window, and he fled and escaped.
And in chapter 23 we read… “Saul was told that David had gone to Keilah, and he said, “God has handed him over to me, for David has imprisoned himself by entering a town with gates and bars.” And Saul called up all his forces for battle, to go down to Keilah to besiege David and his men.
When David learned that Saul was plotting against him, he said to Abiathar the priest, “Bring the ephod.” David said, “O LORD, God of Israel, your servant has heard definitely that Saul plans to come to Keilah and destroy the town on account of me. Will the citizens of Keilah surrender me to him? Will Saul come down, as your servant has heard? O LORD, God of Israel, tell your servant.”
And the LORD said, “He will.”
Again David asked, “Will the citizens of Keilah surrender me and my men to Saul?”
And the LORD said, “They will.”
So David and his men, about six hundred in number, left Keilah and kept moving from place to place.”
In these verses, and many others like them, we learn just how troubled David’s life had been. So it should come as no surprise that he wrote in this Psalm, “One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple. For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling;”…
David knew trouble! And I’m sure that he often felt as if he had had enough… he wanted to rest in the safety of God’s house… because he also knew that God had always been the source of his deliverance!
I had a friend who was also very familiar with troubles. I met her one Saturday many years ago at the Laundromat… her daughter was five, then, and my son, four… we were both single… and we struck up a friendship that lasted over all of these years. I, alone at first, and later with others of my family, would take her and her family on trips to St. Louis and Chicago from time to time, and we always made a big to-do about exchanging gifts at Christmas time. And even though we didn’t get to see as much of one another as we might have liked in recent years, we each tried to keep tabs on one another as best we could… my wife would see her in the store and the two would visit and share what was going on in each of our lives, and she and her family were certainly in my prayers every day.
You see, after her second child was born, she developed Lupus, and lived with the debilitating effects of that disease until it finally killed her just this last week in 2005. For twenty-two years she would have bouts of excruciating pain and anguish as different parts of her body were affected, interspersed with joyous times of being in remission. But through it all, she strove to take care of her family and worship her God… that’s right, she never lost her faith, no matter how bad things might have been!
I knew that during the early years of our friendship, my lack of faith was something that always bothered her… you see, I was going through a few trials of my own at the time, and had turned away from acknowledging and following that course that had been laid out so plain for me as a youth. And even though we never really had much opportunity to discuss it, I also knew how happy she was when I once again headed down this path and began building my ministry to God and Christ.
Another thing we never discussed but I knew was that she was one who surely took to heart the words of Jesus as He began His Sermon on the Mount…
“Blessed are the poor in spirit,”… I know there were times when her spirit was weak and discouraged… “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
“Blessed are those who mourn,”… I had many an opportunity to sit with her to listen and encourage her as she would cry… “for they will be comforted.”
“Blessed are the meek,”… A fiery Irishwoman she might have been, but I have never known anyone more tender and loving and caring than she could be… “for they will inherit the earth.”
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,”… She certainly did that, and tried to instill those qualities in her children as well… “for they will be filled.”
“Blessed are the merciful,”… no one was exempt from her forgiveness… including me, sometimes!… “for they will be shown mercy.”
“Blessed are the pure in heart,”… if hearts were made from soap, she would have been Ivory!… “for they will see God.”
And I’m certain that she does today!
So you see, troubles of any magnitude are no excuse for turning away from God! And we find some backing for that in what David is saying in this Psalm. In fact, the Biblical Illustrator calls this a ‘psalm for life’s storms’. First, it gives us COURAGE. This courage is founded on confidence in God. When the soul feels God with it, it becomes invincible.
That courage is heightened by memories of past deliverance. Recollection of past mercies strengthens our faith in future supplies.
It defies all future enemies, and faces the mysterious future with a jubilant soul.
The Psalm also talks of a SHELTER IN LIFE’S STORMS. It tells us where… The house of the Lord: the place where He specially manifests Himself to His people… it tells us the means by which the shelter is to be secured… Dwelling with God; delighting in God; and inquiring after God… and it gives us the source from which it is to be derived… God Himself… and the spirit in which it is accepted… Confidence and praise.
All of us face troubles in our lives! E Stanly Jones gives the following prescription for meeting trouble; “Don’t think your case unique; it can be matched many times over. Don’t give yourself to pity; the temptation will be to feel sorry for yourself; a self-pitying self is a pitiable self; don’t allow yourself to slip on that. Don’t give yourself to excessive grief. Many do it, thinking they thereby show their love. Don’t retail your sorrows; doing so will cause them to grow. Don’t resign yourself to sorrow and feel it will continue. Don’t complain; the more you complain about things, the more you have to complain about.” After all,W. Russell Maltby has said: “Jesus promised His disciples three things – that they would be entirely fearless, absurdly happy, and that they would get into trouble.”
But it was Dean W. R. Inge who said, “He who will live for himself shall have small troubles, but they shall seem great. He who will live for others shall have great troubles, but they shall seem to him small!”
In our Psalm, David cries out, “Hear my voice when I call, O LORD; be merciful to me and answer me. My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, LORD, I will seek. Do not hide your face from me, do not turn your servant away in anger; you have been my helper. Do not reject me or forsake me, O God my Savior.” And Jesus answered him… and us… when He said… “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven…”
scluebbert 