Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] The following is a legacy recording from the archives of the C.S. lewis Institute. While the audio quality of these recordings may vary, the content remains vital to the mission of the Institute to develop disciples who can articulate, defend and live faith in Christ through personal and public life.
[00:00:24] My psalm this morning is Psalm 3.
[00:00:28] I'll be briefly looking back to Psalm 2, but I invite you to turn with me to Psalm 3.
[00:00:35] Well, you're turning there, I suppose in Washington you're having these lawyer jokes.
[00:00:41] And my nephew is a lawyer, and he told me that they are now using lawyers instead of rats in the laboratories. Had you heard that?
[00:00:53] And it has.
[00:00:56] It has definite advantages. They discover in the first place they used to run out of rats, but they find out they never run out of lawyers.
[00:01:08] And secondly, that it used to be sometimes the caseworkers developed an affection for the rat, but that never happens with a lawyer.
[00:01:20] Third advantage is there were some things they couldn't get rats they to do. But there's nothing you can't get a lawyer to do.
[00:01:37] Erase the tape.
[00:01:40] That's the only thing I have in common with Nixon. Erase the tape.
[00:01:48] Before I read Psalm 3, just a few points of translation.
[00:01:54] I will not be reading the word Salah.
[00:01:57] We don't know what it means, and presently we cannot know what it means. At the present state of research, we cannot know what it means. All of our sources are ambiguous.
[00:02:10] The ancient versions are in disarray. As to its translation.
[00:02:16] The medieval rabbis differed as to its meaning, and modern scholarship has come up with 60 different meanings, which means none has gained a consensus so that we really don't know what the word means.
[00:02:30] It's probably a musical notation of some sort, but that's about as far as I'd venture. I'm not sure of that.
[00:02:37] In verse three, instead of reading my glorious one, I'll be reading with the 1983 edition of the NIV the one who bestows glory on me, which is unique and I think it's right, was formerly only in Beck's translation, but now in NIV 1983, and it's fairly important to some of the things I want to say in verse 7.
[00:03:07] A small point again. I'll be reading with 1983 edition of NIV this instead of have for you strike all my enemies on the jaw. You have broken the teeth of the wicked. I will be reading with that translation. Strike all my enemies on the jaw.
[00:03:22] Break the teeth of the wicked.
[00:03:26] With that background, let us read the Psalm.
[00:03:29] It's a Psalm of David when he fled from his son Absalom.
[00:03:36] O Lord, how many are my foes?
[00:03:40] How many rise up against me?
[00:03:43] Many are saying of me, God will not deliver him.
[00:03:48] But you are a shield around me, O Lord, the one who bestows glory on me, who lifts up my head to the Lord. I cry aloud and he answers me from his holy hill.
[00:04:06] I lie down and sleep. I awake again because the Lord sustains me. I will not fear the tens of thousands drawn up against me on every side.
[00:04:15] Arise, O Lord, deliver me, O my God.
[00:04:21] Strike all my enemies on the jaw. Break the teeth of the wicked.
[00:04:25] From the Lord comes deliverance.
[00:04:28] May your blessing be on your people.
[00:04:33] I would like to look at the Psalm this morning as an exemplar, as a paradigm for how to pray in crisis, that I'm sure that each of us has his or her own unique pains and hurts to which we alone are privy.
[00:04:59] And this psalm instructs us on how to pray when we find ourselves in crises situations in our lives, whatever they may be.
[00:05:12] It is fairly important for the exegesis and for the interpretation of the Psalms in general to realize that the human subject of most of the Psalms is the King.
[00:05:27] Many people do not understand the Psalms because they do not. They think of the Psalmist as Mr. Everyman.
[00:05:35] But it's not.
[00:05:38] The human subject of most of the Psalms is the king.
[00:05:44] And Israel, in a sense was in David, who was a shadow of in Christ.
[00:05:52] And you will understand the Psalms as indirectly Messianic.
[00:05:57] It is the King praying, and it's the people praying in the King, and their concerns are for the kingdom of God.
[00:06:07] I said Yesterday that Psalms 1 and 2 are the introduction to the Psalter.
[00:06:14] Yesterday morning we said we had to go through the wicket gate of Psalm 1.
[00:06:19] That's with the T for those who weren't here through that gateway to gain the high access to the petitions and praises of the Psalm which demands a regenerate heart and a life that's in the process of being sanctified by the Spirit.
[00:06:35] Ethics is primary.
[00:06:38] In Psalm 2 we're introduced to the human subject who upholds the law of God and affects the law of God, the rule of God.
[00:06:49] Just to read Psalm 2. These 12 verses fall into four stanzas, with three verses in each stanza.
[00:07:00] In verses 1 through 3 we hear in Psalm 2 the resolve of the ungodly, of the unregenerate, of those who haven't been touched with the sweet influences of the Spirit that make us cheerfully submissive to the will of God. We hear the resolve of the nations and their peoples to throw off the rule of God.
[00:07:25] 13 the Psalmist asks in consternation, amazement, indignation, why do the nations rage or conspire?
[00:07:36] The peoples plot something that cannot succeed, as though you could establish a kingdom that is not the kingdom of God with the hope that it would endure.
[00:07:47] The kings, a synecdoche representing all the nations and their peoples today finds expression in our boardrooms, in politics, in our universities.
[00:07:57] The leaders of the people, the leaders of the earth take their stand. The rulers conspire together against the Lord and against his Messiah, against the Anointed One, against the Christ, against the King.
[00:08:13] Whereas Christians find it a law of liberty, they find his rule a galling bondage that is inhibiting them from their true and full humanity and dignity, and they want to throw off the inhibiting rule of God as they see it.
[00:08:29] Let us break their chains, they say, and throw off their fetters, for they will not come under the rule of God and His King.
[00:08:38] Verses 13 verses 4 through 6 We have the resolve of God to set his king on Zion, his holy hill.
[00:08:47] Zion was never simply where the dome of the rock sits today.
[00:08:51] Zion always participated in the heavenly reality.
[00:08:55] Today the earthly is done away and we are left with the full reality of God setting Christ upon his heavenly throne today. Verses 4 through 6 the one enthroned in heaven laughs.
[00:09:11] It's the laughter of victory over of righteousness over evil. It's the victory of righteousness over evil.
[00:09:19] It's not laughter with humor, it's the laughter of victory that finally Christ and God and righteousness will prevail. The kingdom of God will not be thwarted. The gates of hell will not prevail.
[00:09:35] The One enthroned in the heavens laughs. The Lord scoffs at them.
[00:09:40] Then he rebukes them in his anger, terrifies them in his wrath, saying, I have installed my king on Zion, my holy hill, which found its fulfillment in the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, who was installed in heaven itself to establish his rule and his kingdom.
[00:09:59] The third stanza, the next three verses we have the resolve of the King to show by what right he rules this world, and the resolve of the nations to throw off his rule. We have the resolve of God to set his king upon his heavenly throne. And in verses 7 through 9 the resolve of the King to show by what right he does rule in this world.
[00:10:20] I will proclaim the decree, says the king.
[00:10:23] The Lord said to me, you are my son, today I have become your father, referring to the day that he became king and was installed in Zion, the holy hill. And he became in that sense the Son of God when he was enthroned in heaven itself.
[00:10:40] Now comes his mandate of prayer.
[00:10:43] The way the King will establish the kingdom is through prayer.
[00:10:48] Ask of me, my son, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth, your possession.
[00:10:55] And so by prayer he will establish the rule of God in this world.
[00:11:01] Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth, your possession.
[00:11:06] You will rule them with an iron scepter. You will dash them to pieces like pottery.
[00:11:12] In the last stanza comes the exhortation to the nations to submit themselves to the rule of Christ.
[00:11:19] Therefore, you kings, be wise, be warned, you rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling.
[00:11:26] Kiss the sun, which means do homage to him, kiss the hem of his garment and acknowledge him as king, lest he be angry. God becomes angry, and you be destroyed in your way, for his wrath can flare up in a moment. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.
[00:11:46] In the rest of the Psalter, for the most part, we hear the King in prayer, and he is praying for the kingdom of God. He is fulfilling this mandate where God said, ask of me, my son, and I'll make the nations your inheritance.
[00:12:05] And in the rest of the Psalms, the King is in prayer, asking for the establishment of the rule of God in this world. It is theocratically oriented, and the people are in the king, praying for this establishment of his righteous rule.
[00:12:25] Now, if all we had was Psalm 2, ask of me, my son, I will give you the nations for your inheritance, the ends of the earth as your possession. We might have thought the kingdom comes in on a balmy breeze.
[00:12:36] All he has to do is pray, and here comes the kingdom.
[00:12:40] And to our astonishment, we find the king engulfed.
[00:12:44] He is almost swamped. His kingdom is about to be drowned. There's a surging foe all around him. And we discover that it's necessary through sufferings, to bring in the kingdom of God.
[00:12:57] So now we see the King in this lamentable situation, as he's praying for the in the midst of his enemies, for the establishment of righteousness, the kingdom of righteousness and peace and all that it represents.
[00:13:12] That the King is praying in this psalm, he's an embattled monarch, is clear in numbers of ways. First of all, innumerable foes are attacking him.
[00:13:21] Verse 1 and 2. How many are my foes?
[00:13:25] Many are saying of me, you can see there are innumerable foes.
[00:13:30] Verse 7 they are deployed to encircle him and to kill him.
[00:13:36] Arise, O Lord, deliver me, O my God. Or rather verse 6. I will not fear the tens of thousands drawn up against me on every side. He is surrounded by an innumerable foe, and he cannot cope.
[00:13:52] They speak disdainful words against him, as often occurs in the Psalm and in verse 2. They are practical atheists. They have no faith in God. They are cynical and they are despairing. They're utterly without faith. Many are saying of me, God will not deliver him. Just as many say of the saint today, God is useless to you and will not save you in your particular situation. In their propaganda campaign against spiritual things, he finds the Lord his shield, who lifts high his head.
[00:14:27] Verse 3. You are a shield around me, O Lord, the one who bestows glory on me, who lifts up my head.
[00:14:36] In the last verse, the blessing of the people is wrapped up in his deliverance.
[00:14:41] From the Lord comes deliverance. May your blessing then be on your people.
[00:14:49] I also argue it is gratuitous to suppose that an ordinary pious Israelite is employing consistent martial language, coined from royal battles, to express his own situation, which is altogether different.
[00:15:03] We are seeing then here a king, an embattled monarch, and he represents us and we in him as we seek to see the establishment of the righteousness rule of God in our lives and in our world.
[00:15:20] This is the first of what we call lament Psalms.
[00:15:24] There are of the 150 Psalms, 100 of them can be classified as being lament or petition. Let me use the word petition.
[00:15:36] The king is in crisis and the people are in crisis. And he represents us as we're in crisis, as we establish the rule of God. They're in some sort of crisis.
[00:15:45] That's a petition song.
[00:15:48] Of the 150, 50 are petition songs.
[00:15:53] That the saint is in crisis and he cannot cope on his own.
[00:15:59] He's bankrupt, his resources have left him, he cannot save himself.
[00:16:05] Of the 50, 47 of them mention the enemy. Only 3 have no mention to the enemy. Psalm 4 example doesn't mention the enemy because the crisis there. There is a drought, there is no rain, there's no spiritual revival, there's no spiritual refreshment in the land. That's Psalm 4.
[00:16:24] But 47, there is the enemy who is seeking to destroy the king and his kingdom in this world.
[00:16:32] And you can see the implications of that as we'll develop it in Psalm 3.
[00:16:38] A second kind of psalm is what is sometimes called Thanksgiving Psalm, though I think Klaus Vesterman has the better of it. They would be better called not thanksgiving, but acknowledgement.
[00:16:50] That is, these are the reverse of the obverse. The obverse is petition. The reverse is God answered my prayer, my petition. And now I want to magnify the Lord. I want to exalt Him. I want to lift him high in the community of faith so that others may trust him as a Savior, as a deliverer.
[00:17:11] These are acknowledgement psalms in which they confess God is Lord and Savior.
[00:17:18] The third kind of psalm is praise Psalms.
[00:17:22] You just celebrate God for his attributes or for his work in history in general.
[00:17:29] You celebrate his history for his people in general. It is not the specific answer to prayer and it's just God's character and ways and history in general. These are called praise psalms.
[00:17:42] There's about 35 straight out praise Psalms, 15 Thanksgiving Psalms. That makes up the hundred. The other 50 are disparate types.
[00:17:53] I don't usually learn too much from critics, and I don't have that much respect from Gunkel. But I learned this from Gunkels Einleitung.
[00:18:01] And when I read it, I said, yeah, Gunkel's right. My intuitive. I saw it and what confirmed it for me. One day I was reading through Chronicles, not like Artaxerxes needing to go to sleep and so reading some boring chronicle. But I happened to read through Chronicles and I hit this verse in 1st Chronicles chapter 16 and verse 4, where we are told there are principally three kinds of Psalms. And I invite you to turn with me to 1st Chronicles, chapter 16 and verse 4. This is when David institutes the liturgy of worship. Prior to David, there was ritual, but it was mostly wordless and music less.
[00:18:44] David writes the opera to go with the words. He sets the choreography, he sets the stage. He gives us the music and he gives us the libretto to accompany what Moses instituted. That's why there are five books of Moses and five books of David, because David complemented Moses by giving the libretto to accompany the religious institutions of going up to Jerusalem three times a year. And it was mostly without stated words and without music. And David writes the libretto for it and makes it opera.
[00:19:23] Grand worship on the highest scale.
[00:19:26] It's in that context that we read this in 1st Chronicles chapter 16 and verse 4.
[00:19:31] He appointed some of the Levites to minister before the Ark of the Lord. Note what they do to make petition to give thanks and to praise the Lord.
[00:19:43] And I'd come to that conclusion through Gunkel's work inductively that those were the three principal kinds of Psalms.
[00:19:51] Two make petition to give acknowledgement and to praise the Lord, by the way, I've never seen that verse pointed out in all the literature. It's right there in the chronicler saying that what Gunkel didn't understand and what Vestamn doesn't understand, it's the king who is making petition, who is giving acknowledgment and giving praise, and all the people in the King.
[00:20:17] The whole Psalter is a shadow of Christ.
[00:20:21] It indirectly speaks of our Lord and we in him, and we pray in the Christ.
[00:20:28] And when you understand that, for me at any rate, it revolutionizes reading the Psalms and exalts the Lord.
[00:20:40] Now, as those reformed critics have pointed out, these petition psalms have what is known as distinct motifs, certain elements that characterize them. These five elements are almost always found in the Psalms, and you might watch for them.
[00:20:56] They always have direct address to God.
[00:21:01] In fact, the minute you see O Lord, or O Shepherd of Israel, or some vocative like that, you know you're in a lamenton, sort of like if you see Dear John, you know you're in a letter.
[00:21:12] So if you see oh Lord, you're in a lamenton. It never fails. If it doesn't have it, you're not in lament some.
[00:21:20] Then there will be lament in which you vent your crisis. The situation in which you find yourself, the kingdom of God is sputtering, it's faulting, and you're at the point of death. Often the king is at the point of death. You can't go on another step.
[00:21:39] It's a crisis situation. This is the lamentation.
[00:21:43] The third is confidence that prepares the way for petition. That is, you turn from the black mood of despair and lament to the bright hope of confidence.
[00:22:00] And that sets the spiritual ground for the petition that will follow. It prepares one spiritually for to pray with confidence and faith.
[00:22:11] And this usually is introduced but you, O Lord, as in our psalm. And then therefore, comes the petition.
[00:22:20] And finally, after the petition, almost all the Psalms, with the exception of one, Psalm 88, which is called the black sheep of the Psalter, you'll have praise.
[00:22:35] And they always end in some form of praise. Sometimes they just break into praise, sometimes they anticipate praise. But either way, you'll have the praise element in the Psalms. With the exception, as I say, Psalm 88, we will find all these elements in Psalm 3.
[00:22:54] And that will be the outline of my message this morning.
[00:23:00] But for pedagogical reasons, and so we can enter into the psalm. I'm going to start immediately with the lament.
[00:23:07] Then I'll Move to the address, then to the confidence and on through the psalm.
[00:23:13] First of all, then the lament, which is, I can't cope.
[00:23:18] My enemies are too many for me.
[00:23:22] You'll see the address right away. Oh, Lord, how many are my foes?
[00:23:29] How many rise up against me?
[00:23:32] Many are saying of me, God will not deliver me, will not deliver him.
[00:23:39] Now, you'll note that the foes here, the enemies, is stated abstractly, they're not specified, and that's very deliberate, as Mowinkle points out.
[00:23:53] You are allowed to call that more specifically, what is your particular spiritual crisis at which you find yourself?
[00:24:02] Who is your spiritual enemy? What's going on here?
[00:24:06] It's abstract.
[00:24:09] When David first penned it, it's quite clear. The foe was Absalom and his own people who hated him without a cause.
[00:24:20] And Christ understands all of that betrayal of being hated without a cause.
[00:24:25] And the specific foe, therefore, was Absalom and his own people.
[00:24:32] Later on, for example, when used by Hezekiah, it would have been the Assyrians.
[00:24:38] When used by Josiah, it would have been the Babylonians. But the enemy, the specific coloring of the enemy, would have changed from generation to generation.
[00:24:50] For us today in the church, our enemies are what can be meaningful to all of us. And I have to use more general ideas here, would be the flesh, the world and the devil.
[00:25:07] And we're no match point, those spiritual enemies.
[00:25:12] I am no match for my flesh, which on a purely physical level is in the process of dying.
[00:25:20] And apart from God's grace, death will triumph over me.
[00:25:27] I can't reverse it.
[00:25:29] They tell me that the human cell goes through the process of mitosis 50 times, about once every other year.
[00:25:39] They have tried all sorts of cultures to reverse that process.
[00:25:45] They've taken old cells and put them into young cultures, tried to regenerate them, but there's nothing they can do to stop that degeneration. Each time the mitosis takes place, the cell is a bit weaker and we cannot stop the process if there is no resurrection, death has the last word. We cannot cope.
[00:26:11] The Bible speaks of the flesh as our egocentricity, our natural depravity.
[00:26:18] What Dr. Houston was talking about yesterday, so convictingly, our basic self will, self pride, a self will and arrogance that causes me to walk triumphantly over other people or insensitively or in the weakness of my personality, a shyness to withdraw, not to confront, to protect my own reputation.
[00:26:45] I'm no match for my natural self and my own egocentricity in all the ways that it might express itself.
[00:26:55] I can't cope.
[00:26:58] There's not only my insubordinate self serving minotaur flesh as Dr. Houston exposed it in the labyrinth yesterday, but I'm no match for the world either.
[00:27:14] As I understand the world, it's societal pressure to conform to its worldviews and its values. It's the pressure I feel to conform. So I have the acceptance of my peer group all around me and I'm no match for the world.
[00:27:33] Best as I can tell the world, they value three things. One is money.
[00:27:38] That if you have money, the world will call you successful. You will be accepted at least so long as you have your money.
[00:27:46] And the result is that, frankly, I feel that you cannot go through our downtown cities without being lured into the temples of Mammon.
[00:27:57] It used to be that in our downtown cities was the church with the steeple pointing the community up to God, to higher values, to something eternal.
[00:28:08] But the shadow of the church is in the suburbs today.
[00:28:13] Not the real thing.
[00:28:15] Comfort zones, but not really dominating the thinking. It's not the real, real thing. What really counts is oil, banking, business. That's the real thing. And it lures us into these beautiful temples and the marketplace, the shopping centers lure many women into them. To bow down before Mammon with all of the hypostasises of mammon.
[00:28:41] And that's the real thing, success.
[00:28:46] The other temple we're lured into is not the temple of Mammon, it's the temple of Bacchus.
[00:28:52] The world says if you want to be successful, you have to have sex appeal.
[00:28:56] If you don't have sex appeal, well, money will get you there. Then if you don't have money, try sex appeal. That will get you there. And as a result, we camouflage the process of dying and remove the products of death far from us.
[00:29:12] And we bow down to Bacchus and to pleasure.
[00:29:17] If you're like me, I have no chance of money and I obviously have no sex appeal.
[00:29:24] So the third alternative that you have then is you have to have some kind of talent.
[00:29:29] So you tack a bunch of degrees after your name.
[00:29:32] You have to be at some ability or some education and people will respect you for that.
[00:29:38] But all of it is we're trying to find our fulfillment and as Dr. Houston says, really compelled neurotically in an irrational drive to find our meaning and security in the complements of people.
[00:29:55] And it's damning.
[00:29:57] There's not only the flesh and the world, but there's Satan.
[00:30:02] And Satan, as I can judge from Genesis chapter three, attacks the mind, sowing seeds of doubt about the character of God and seeds of doubt about the veracity and truthfulness of God's word, that God's word is only inhibiting you. God is really not good, and his Word is not good. He's only putting so many barricades along your path, bits in your mouth, keeping you from your full humanity.
[00:30:33] Get rid of your inhibitions.
[00:30:35] And when you hear that, that's the hiss of the serpent through various incarnations.
[00:30:42] And he attacks the mind today, he attacks the mind. Even to doubt in spite of, one could infer at least the first cause, even in the existence of God. We end up with the nihilism of the Nietzsche, the meaninglessness of a Camus, the relativism of a Weber and a Freud, and we're left dead, absolutely dead.
[00:31:07] When you put together your egocentricities and the world and the devil the boot, you can't cope.
[00:31:18] We are destroyed before we ever start out and the world engages in a propaganda campaign. God is dead, for they are practically atheists.
[00:31:29] That's the lament, and I identify with it.
[00:31:35] Now we turn to the address that as instinctively as salmon return to their spawning grounds at the time of death, and as a bird flies south toward the bright and warmth of the sun with the onset of the coldness and darkness of winter, just so instinctively the saint flies to God for his salvation, O Lord. We do it instinctively.
[00:32:06] In fact, however, to turn to any other source of salvation is sin, and we're always tempted to turn to our technologies to solve our situation.
[00:32:24] Lord willing, there will be appearing in a month or two a commentary I wrote on the book of Micah in the Tyndale Old Testament Commentary series.
[00:32:33] And I can share with you the most meaningful oracle in Micah as I wrote that commentary.
[00:32:40] It's an unknown oracle. It's Micah chapter 5, verse 10. And I invite you to turn with me there. It's very, very instructive. Micah Chapter 510 through the end of the chapter Micah 4 and 5 are looking forward to the triumphs of the Messiah in his New Age spiritual victories under the Christ.
[00:33:03] And in verse 10 he says he begins to list what will be changed in the new age, in contrast to the age in which he wrote verse 10. In that day declares the Lord, I will destroy your horses from among you and demolish your chariots. That's a poetry for meaning. I will destroy your horse drawn chariots, verse 11. I will destroy the cities of your land and tear down all your strongholds. That means I will destroy all the cities which are your strongholds.
[00:33:39] I'll tear Them all down, all your strongholds. I'm going to tear them down. All your offensive weapons, horse drawn chariots. I'm going to get rid of them. All your defensive weapons. I'm going to get rid of all that. Verse 11, verse 12, which is found again in Isaiah 2:16.
[00:33:55] I will destroy your witchcraft and you will no longer cast spells. I'll get rid of all magic, all astrology, all that kind of resource. All the occult is what he's talking about here. I'll get rid of all that too. That will have no place with the people of God.
[00:34:11] And finally there will be no idols, anything else you might trust. And no idols. Verse 13 through 14.
[00:34:18] I will destroy your carved images and your sacred stones from among you. You will no longer bow down to the work of your hands. I will uproot from among you your Asherah poles and demolish your. I would translate now idols.
[00:34:33] Three things that will be gone. Technology, witchcraft and idolatry.
[00:34:41] I understand the occult and witchcraft.
[00:34:47] I understand idolatry. I have a lot more trouble with getting rid of all technology.
[00:34:54] I'm going to get rid of that.
[00:34:57] But if you're trusting in technology or something that man designs, you effectively break covenant with God. Because your space of confidence has shifted from God to something else.
[00:35:14] And that's the sin that when you begin looking elsewhere for your salvation than to God.
[00:35:21] You broke covenant with God. It's a statement of unbelief.
[00:35:25] Now don't misunderstand me.
[00:35:28] I am not saying there is no place for technology.
[00:35:32] I'm not saying God doesn't use means.
[00:35:36] I am saying we can have no confidence in the means. We have to weaken ourselves.
[00:35:43] It's interesting that when you read this Psalm, we're told that he fled from his son Absalom. And when you actually read 2 Samuel 15:17, you discover David did use means.
[00:35:55] Remember what happened there, that David was fleeing the city.
[00:36:01] He vacated Jerusalem with his Gentile army. The Cretans, the Philistines, the Hittites, the Gentiles were with him. His own people rejected him in a tremendous typology.
[00:36:14] And Absalom takes over the palace with his entourage and with his brilliant counsel, Ahithophel. Ahithophel is a profound, profound psychologist, really. But he's ungodly psychologist.
[00:36:30] David then goes through the valley of Kidron. He's going over the Mount of Olives. And his good friend, which means in a cabinet, counselor, the friend of the king, who's a counselor, meets him and Hushai has his robe is rent. There's Dust on his head.
[00:36:47] And he's going to go into exile with his king.
[00:36:51] David says to Hushai, you'll do me no good here.
[00:36:54] I want you to be a mole.
[00:36:57] Posture as a double agent back in Absalom's cabin, which he does. He becomes a mole back in Absalom's cabin.
[00:37:09] We're now taken back to the powers where Absalom and the revolt is taking place. And now Absalom looks to Ahithopel for counsel. What's the first thing you're going to do with this coup d'? Etat?
[00:37:21] First thing, says Ahithophel, is get a hold of the broadcasting system so the whole world knows there's a revolution going on.
[00:37:28] Of course, those days they had no radio and you see how diabolical the whole thing was to make sure everybody knew this revolt was real. What you are to do is to take your father's harem, pitch tents on the roof of the palace and have incest on the roof of the palace and make everybody know you made yourself a stench. This revolution is for real. But it's their own way of getting a hold of the broadcasting system that everybody knows this revolution is really on is the point.
[00:37:57] They do that and it shows the diabolical. This is the kingdom of God.
[00:38:03] Ostensibly, outwardly. Talk about scandals with Jimmy Swaggart and Baker. Look at this as the ostensible kingdom of God.
[00:38:13] The second thing is, what do we do with David? Ahithophel is right on. Kill him. Get him while he's exposed, get him while he's weak. And Hushai knows that's the truth. Hushai has to defeat that council.
[00:38:26] Hushai says, you know, your father is a wily man. He was out in that wilderness for years. Saul never got him.
[00:38:34] Plausible argument. My counsel is to delay.
[00:38:37] Don't engage in guerrilla warfare.
[00:38:40] Engage in a full scale operation. Get all the thousands of Israel from Dan in the north to Bathsheba in the south. And when David's out there, we'll just come down on him like hoar for us. There'll be no place for him to escape.
[00:38:55] And the Council of Ahithophel of Ahushai appealed to Absalom over the Council of Ahithophel.
[00:39:04] Ahithopel, I'm telling you, is a brilliant psychologist.
[00:39:08] He realizes at that point that Absalom cannot pull it off. He's too weak.
[00:39:14] He wants too many people around him. He's not really a leader at that point. Ahithophel goes home, sets his house in order and commits suicide. This man with no faith and what occurs then. David had actually prayed, O Lord, defeat the council of Ahithophel. And then and there when Hushai comes, he defeats it. But my point is, David used means, even a mole to achieve it. But when you read the song, he doesn't say a word about Hushai's glib tongue. He doesn't say a word about his wit to send him back.
[00:39:52] He recognizes that the whole thing is of God.
[00:39:57] I was sharing with Dr. Houston last night that when I was at Harvard, my first course I took at Harvard, God put me in a situation where I could not cope. I knew I was going to fail.
[00:40:09] The first law of teaching is you work from the known to the unknown. At Harvard, you always work from the unknown to the unknown.
[00:40:18] That was incredible. It was absolutely incredible.
[00:40:21] I didn't understand the whole course. Now we're coming up for finals and it was time for, you know, the only way you could survive was you would never ask the upperclassmen.
[00:40:31] You'd rather flunk out than ask an upperclassman to get through it. It was just your own peer groups. We met together all the first year men there, the 10 of us, to see if we could salvage this course. We met two times. None of us knew we were absolutely in our hangings. Finally, just before the finals. It was a Saturday. The finals were Monday. We met on a Saturday morning. Our last chance.
[00:40:53] Friday night. I'm sitting at the desk and I don't understand a word. I have all these notes and it makes no sense.
[00:41:00] I said, lord, I think you're just going to utterly humiliate me, but if you don't save me here, I'm going to flunk out of this institution. I need salvation and I need it desperately.
[00:41:12] This is absolutely the truth. I finished the prayer and suddenly the whole basic presuppositions that were never given to us popped into my head and I understood.
[00:41:23] Got together the next day with my friends and I said, I understand it. Explain the whole thing. Where did you get that from?
[00:41:32] I said, from the Lord.
[00:41:36] They still didn't believe the Lord delivered me, but I knew the Lord had. And he put me to the point of utter weakness that I would learn that my education is of him as I reflect back on it. And it's very essential that God puts us into situations of utter desperation.
[00:41:52] It's not that I didn't study. It isn't that I didn't use means, but I knew I was weak. My means could not pull it off.
[00:42:01] David could not number his troops this is what's wrong with so much of our work in seminars today. We now have computers.
[00:42:09] It makes logical sense. But we shift our confidence from God to human beings and we really believe. We become secular man at that point and we become practical atheists. Even in Christian work, I teach exegesis, I teach exposition. I teach all the things you can do. But you can never bring in the kingdom of God or you can bring in a kingdom. You can have big churches.
[00:42:37] But I do not believe you have the kingdom of God without Christ doing it.
[00:42:45] That's the address.
[00:42:46] O Lord, how many are my foes?
[00:42:49] How many rise up against me? Many are saying of me, God will not deliver him.
[00:42:57] I now move to the confidence which is found in verses 3 through 6. God will not deliver him to but you.
[00:43:06] But you are a shield around me, O Lord, the one who bestows glory on me, who lifts up my head to the Lord. I cry aloud and he answers me from his holy hill.
[00:43:21] I just want to make two points here for confidence.
[00:43:25] The first point is confidence. David knew his identity.
[00:43:33] He knew he was the elect.
[00:43:36] He had a glory bestowed on him.
[00:43:39] You are a shield around me, O Lord.
[00:43:43] You have bestowed glory on me.
[00:43:47] You lift up my head above the surging foe he had. He knew his election.
[00:43:54] He knew he was Son of God in that sense.
[00:43:59] At that point, I found myself asking David, how did you know so clearly and certainly that you could risk everything that you were the Son of God?
[00:44:10] And I discovered there were three spiritual means by which David knew his election.
[00:44:16] The first one was there was the holy. The word of the holy prophet Samuel had come.
[00:44:24] Samuel, man of God, known in Israel as prophet of God.
[00:44:29] He took the anointing oil and poured it all over David and said, david, you are the king.
[00:44:39] That had to come with tremendous conviction from the word of God.
[00:44:46] There was not only the Word of God, but there was the Spirit of God that came upon him and changed David into another person.
[00:44:56] And thirdly, he thereupon goes out and does the works of God and topples the Goliath.
[00:45:04] It is also true of the Christ.
[00:45:06] How did Jesus know that he was Son of God?
[00:45:11] And for most of this point, we miss Christ. We'll say, well, he was God. He knows that's to miss Christ.
[00:45:18] Christ was fully human.
[00:45:23] Christ is God experiencing humanity.
[00:45:29] God knows what it means to be born. Not knowing it really, but he's fully human.
[00:45:35] God knows what it means to memorize scripture.
[00:45:39] God knows what it means to study. God knows what it means to go to school. God knows what it means to be with parents. God knows what it means to prick your thumb on a thorn bush, to get burned in a fire, to feel a bee sting.
[00:45:53] God experienced it.
[00:45:57] God knows what it means to live life humanly by faith and dependence upon God.
[00:46:06] That's the meaning of the incarnation.
[00:46:08] God died.
[00:46:11] He experienced our death and faced death.
[00:46:16] God is truly human in Christ.
[00:46:20] And in that sense, I raised the question, how did the God man know he was the elect in his full humanity?
[00:46:30] And. And in John 5, Jesus listeth.
[00:46:33] There's the word of John the Baptist. There's the prophetic word.
[00:46:38] There was the Spirit of God that descended upon him, and he did the works of God.
[00:46:45] How do we know we're children of God? It's the exact same word.
[00:46:50] Holy Scripture came to us with efficacious power, it said. But as many as received him, he gave the right to the authority to be the children of God. And Holy Scripture confirmed us.
[00:47:04] And by the miracle of grace we believed. It became real to us in a moment.
[00:47:10] And this is the word of God.
[00:47:14] The Spirit came into our lives and is altering us, is changing us.
[00:47:20] And also what astounds me is that God uses us.
[00:47:25] Uses me.
[00:47:27] It's a miracle of spiritual things.
[00:47:31] You have bestowed a glory upon me.
[00:47:36] You are shield around me, O Lord. You bestow a glory upon me who lifts up my head. And he also knew something else, not only about God, about himself, but about God. Verse 4. That God hears and answers prayer to the Lord. I cry aloud and he answers me from his holy hill. It's a tremendous picture here. Here is Mount Zion, 2,700ft above sea level.
[00:48:02] I would judge David to be down in the Jordanian rift, about 2,500ft below sea level. He's on the lowest spot on earth.
[00:48:12] So it's a real picture. Here is David in the lowest spot spot on earth in the rift. Here is God on the hill.
[00:48:20] And remember that they had counseled David. Take the ark with you. Have a good luck charm. Have a talisman. Have the Ark right there with you. And David says, no, let the ark there.
[00:48:30] God will hear. It's not a matter of space and difference and geography. It's altogether difference. He's spirit.
[00:48:38] Psalm 94, 10. Does he who implanted the earth not hear?
[00:48:44] Does he who formed the eye not see?
[00:48:48] God hears. God sees and he watches above his very own.
[00:48:54] To the Lord, I cry aloud and he answers me from his holy hill. And with that, David puts his faith to the test.
[00:49:02] In the midst of great danger, he doesn't take a night toll. He just goes to sleep.
[00:49:09] I resolve to go to sleep. I will lie down and I sleep. I will wake again because the Lord sustains me here. His life is at stake.
[00:49:19] Nothing worse could have happened to him. And here he is sleeping in the midst of it. The earliest catechism we have of the Church identified this, of course, with Jesus, who went into the sleep of death knowing he would be raised again from the dead. He had nothing to fear.
[00:49:37] God will raise me.
[00:49:39] Death cannot triumph. Evil cannot prevail.
[00:49:45] God will save. God will deliver.
[00:49:49] Now comes the petition. Then arise, O Lord. Deliver me, O my God. Strike all my enemies on the jaw. Break the teeth of the wicked. And here we have what is known as prayers for judgment upon the enemy. Called. Called Impregatory Psalms. And there are 35 impregatory Psalms. the seminary I give a lecture or two on this particular problem.
[00:50:11] I'm sure you don't want that lecture now.
[00:50:14] I'll only say this to make application.
[00:50:17] Is it wrong for me to pray, O God, strike my natural self dead.
[00:50:24] Is it wrong for me? Oh God, strike the world dead, so it has no meaning to me.
[00:50:30] Destroy Satan and his temptations.
[00:50:33] I want to pray, O Lord, strike my flesh.
[00:50:37] Strike the world. Strike Satan on the jaw, so they're rendered useless and operative for me. That is certainly a legitimate use of the impregatory psalms. Strike my enemies so they will not prevail. Over me comes the praise. Verse 8. From the Lord comes deliverance, as proved by David, as proved by the Christ.
[00:51:05] From the Lord comes deliverance. May your blessing be on your people. And with this I must conclude the key word of the psalm is deliverance.
[00:51:16] It's what we know as a stick vort running all the way through the Psalm. Verse 2.
[00:51:22] The enemy says God will not deliver.
[00:51:25] Then the confidence assumes it. Verse petition, verse seven. Deliver me, O my God. Praise from the Lord comes deliverance. It's the key word linking the entire psalm together in all of its motifs. Deliver.
[00:51:39] What does it mean?
[00:51:41] It's the word for Jesus, by the way. It's the Hebrew word yasha, that comes over through Greek as Jesus for who saves his people from their sins.
[00:51:51] The word means to intervene, to deliver out of the crisis, to save one from the crisis and bring salvation.
[00:51:59] But the word also is always used in a sense of a judicial term. Because it is right.
[00:52:07] God saves because it is right.
[00:52:11] Is it right that death should have the last word in a man or woman's life? I would say it is wrong that death and chaos should prevail in confusion?
[00:52:23] Is it right that my egocentricity should prevail and not the Spirit?
[00:52:28] That the world should prevail and not the kingdom of God? That Satan should prevail and not the Christ? I say that's wrong, but it's right that God will prevail. He will have glass. Word from the Lord comes deliverance.
[00:52:44] May your blessing be on your people.
[00:52:48] I say I don't know what pain, what crisis we're in, but I do know Jesus is a Savior and we can trust him.
[00:53:00] And he brings us to the point of bankruptcy so we know his salvation.
[00:53:06] I will tell of all your deeds and not my accomplishments, but I'll come to a land where all the glory is mine.
[00:53:21] That would be so wrong but I'll come to a land where all the glory is his.
[00:53:32] The proceeding was a presentation of the C.S. lewis Institute. In the legacy of C.S. lewis, the institute endeavors to develop disciples who can articulate, defend and live faith in Christ through personal and public life. For more information please visit our website at www.cslewisinstitute.org. thank.
[00:54:00] You.
