Save Me!

Psalm 3: Save Me!

We now have arrived at the third psalm. Psalm 1 and 2 have introduced us to this collection of 150 psalms. The righteous flourish, the wicked perish. God has set up his king. This king will crush his enemies. There is incredible blessing for those who delight in the Lord and take refuge in him. It sounds GREAT to be on God’s side. Being a Christian is fantastic! Jesus reigns and we win.

Then Psalm 3 happens. Actually, Psalm 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 happen. Things are not as great as they appear to be. God’s king who was victorious in Psalm 2 is now fleeing before his enemies. God’s people are calling out in distress.

Lest you think serving God is easy, the next 5 psalms bring earthly reality to bear. How do we deal with enemies, heartache, and despair? In the midst of this life, we can find hope in God. Psalms 1 and 2 are life from heaven’s perspective. Psalms 3-7 are life from earth’s perspective.

The Psalmist has exchanged his view of heaven to the view of earth. We stare this sin-cursed life in the face for what it is. Hard. Evil. Messy. Confusing. Yes, God does bless his people, but the fullness of that blessing is still to come. And for that we wait.

Psalms 3-7 are all lament psalms. Psalm 3 is specifically an individual lament psalm: a person crying to the Lord for help in his distress. Lament psalms generally have 3 parts. First, a stage of disorientation. Life is confusing and painful. Second is the stage of reorientation, when the author cries out to God and regains the right perspective. He sees life from the view of heaven. Third is the stage or orientation. Once the right perspective has been gained, there is a statement of trust in the Lord, and perhaps praise to God as well.

When I use the language of orientation, I think of freshman orientation at college. The staff guide a herd of wide-eyed teenagers around campus. There is confusion. Homesickness. Why am I here again? There might be snickers from upper classman. The lament psalms are like this, but this it is an orientation for our souls. These psalms guide our souls through suffering, pain, and confusion to hope and joy in the Lord.

Psalms 3 and 4 go together. As we will see, they have similar themes. Psalm 3 has been called a morning psalm- look at verse 5. Psalm 4 has been called an evening psalm- look at verse 8.

If you are familiar with the psalms, you will see that some of them have titles. These are called superscriptions. They are not original with the psalms. They are not inspired. But they are ancient and generally reliable.

Psalm 3 is given the setting of David’s flight from his son Absalom. This was a dark time for David’s reign. His son Absalom usurped his throne, and David fled from Jerusalem with a small group of followers. He was in serious trouble. Doesn’t sound like the victorious king in Psalm 2, does it?
1. Lament over foes (1-2)
David’s cry is that his enemies are increasing. In his specific situation, Absalom raised a huge army to pursue and kill David. People were saying: “there is no hope for him. God will not deliver him.” His lament is over his foes. Not all lament psalms are because of enemies. Later in the book, we will find laments over trials, depression, and heartache.

As I was studying this psalm, I wondered: do we really have enemies? Do we have foes increasing in number against us? We do not live a King David did. For the most part, we live relatively peaceful lives. We need to step back from this Psalm and evaluate: do we have enemies? Will this psalm make any sense to us? As I thought through this I realized, I am having a hard time feeling this psalm: the distress and despair of having enemies surrounding me. I prayed- God, help me to feel this psalm so I can preach it well. Then I stopped. Actually, I’m not so sure that I want to pray that!

Yes, we do have enemies. Maybe you are in a situation where people are coming after you to destroy you. This psalm is for you. Christians throughout the centuries have been hunted down and killed. It is happening today. This psalm is for them. Christians have Satan and his legions of demons poised against them. This psalm is for us. Oftentimes our problem is not that we feel surrounded by enemies, but that we forget that we have enemies surrounding us.

I Peter 5:8 reminds us: Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

Revelation 6:9-11: When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. 10 They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” 11 Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been.

There are also people saying to us: there is no help or salvation from God. We are surrounded by unbelievers that think that religion in general and Christianity specifically are a laughing matter. It’s fake. A crutch for the weak. Even if they do give credence to Christianity, they don’t think that God has anything to do with them and will not come in judgment. I’m reminded of 2 Peter 3:3-7:

“knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. 4 They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” 5 For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, 6 and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. 7 But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.”
They say: Christ’s promise of coming is not true. There is no salvation for the righteous. There is no judgment for the wicked.

Believers have enemies. Sometimes seen; always unseen. What we often do not feel is the crushing weight of these enemies growing in number and breathing down our necks. When this does happen, we have a psalm to run to, and a God to run to as well.

2. Prayer to the Lord (3-4)
In contrast to the enemies, it is GOD who David prays to. God is a shield, a protection for David. God is his glory: David believed that Yahweh was the all-powerful king. This God lifted David’s head: he gave him confidence and victory. David called and God answered. God answered from his chosen city—Jerusalem—even as King David left Jerusalem and fled.

If you have enemies you need someone greater than you and greater than your enemies to protect you, save you, and give your victory. That is God at all times for his people. Nothing gets to us unless God allows it. Safe, secure, sustained.

3. Trust in the Lord (5-6)
David actually lays down and sleeps…when thousands of enemies surround him. We have trouble sleeping if we ate too much pizza for supper. How would you sleep in the midst of a battlefield? David slept like a baby. Well, not like any baby I’ve heard of. Verse 5 is now Zachariah’s life verse. He repeats it again and again all in one night.

David wakes up alive because of God’s sustaining hand on his life. Don’t forget that every morning you have woken up alive. It is because God has sustained you. You could have died in your sleep, but God gave you life one more day.

You can tell a lot about a person when they are surrounded by enemies. Are they hysterical? Do they try to run away? Are they calm? When we are surrounded by evil, can we lie down and sleep? Maybe you cannot actually sleep, but do you have a calm trust in our Savior? If you happen to doze off during church, I will just think that you are expressing trust in God.

4. Prayer for Deliverance (7)
Because God is the glorious King and David’s shield, he asks God to save him and slay his enemies. God does not just take out the enemies. He completely humbles and demolishes them. That’s what the actions are pointing out in this verse: striking the enemies on the cheek; breaking the teeth of the wicked. Not just victory, but spectacular victory. Last week we talked about how we do not serve a Jesus who is safe. If we are to have peace and salvation, Jesus must be the judge. Here, God is portrayed as a warrior. We find God as a warrior in the OT. But also at the end of Revelation, Jesus returns riding a white horse and slaying his enemies in a total bloodbath. This may sound cruel, but until we are surrounded by evil, I don’t know if we really are hungry to hear about a God who will vanquish his enemies.

5. Hope in the Lord (8)
David closes with hope in God. God will save him because salvation belongs to and only comes from the Lord. He is the one who will protect and bless his people.

This is a psalm of lament: disorientation, reorientation, orientation. David begins by crying out to God about his enemies. In verse 1, his foes are rising, but in verse 7, David asks God to arise and take them out. In verse 2, the people say that there is no salvation for him in God. In verses 7 and 8 David acknowledges that salvation is from God. He does not pray to God in general, but claims God as “my God.”

Do you believe in God in general, of do you claim him as your own? How will you know? How do you response when evil surrounds you?

We find David going from confusion to confidence in God. How did he do that? How do we go from confusion in this life to hope in the Lord? When we feel the weight of evil, sin, temptation, how do we respond? When we are assaulted by the fiery darts of the evil one, how do we hold firm to the shield of faith?

The answer is obvious, but not easy. Faith. Trust in God. Easy to say; hard to do. Psalm 3 reveals some facets of faith that we can use when we are in battle. There are 2.

1. God is his glory
When we see enemies around us, they press upon mind. They are the biggest problem, our only thought. We are almost paralyzed by thoughts of perishing. We despair. We lose hope. But faith fights for God’s glory to shine through the darkness. Faith fights to see God as the biggest reality in the universe…instead of seeing the enemies as the biggest problem. The army of evil grows small, while the shield of our Savior grows larger in our mind. We express this fight of faith by prayer. Desperate prayer. Crying out to the Lord. By prayer, God’s glory beats through and dispels the darkness of fear. The first facet of faith: God is his glory…the biggest thing in his mind.

2. The LORD is MY God
In verse 7, David calls the LORD “my God.” Do you claim that you believe in God in general, or is God your God? Does he own you, and do you claim you as his own? How will you know that God is YOUR God? The answer is this: how do you respond when evil surrounds you. Despair. Yes. Confusion. Perhaps. But you fight to believe that God is bigger and more glorious. You express calm trust in God. You rest in him.

God is not just a shield. He is a shield against this particular evil. God does not just calm our fears. It is this particular fear that God takes away. You can go to bed tonight knowing that God will take of it all. He is YOUR God. He will protect you from this evil. He will deliver you from today’s temptation. He will calm your fear. God’s got it. I’m going to bed.