Dennis Tuuri

Heat. Heat. Let’s begin by reading Psalm 18. I will love thee, oh Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer. My God, my strength in whom I will trust. My buckler and the horn of my salvation and my high tower. I will call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised. So shall I be saved from mine enemies. The sorrows of death tempest me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid.

The sorrows of hell compassed me about. The snares of death prevented me. In my distress, I called upon the Lord and cried unto my God. He heard my voice out of his temple. And my cry came before him, even into his ears. Then the earth shook and trembled. The foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken because he was rock. There went up as smoke out of his nostrils and fire out of his mouth devoured.

Coals were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also and came down, and darkness was under his feet, and he rode upon a cherub and did fly. Yay, he did fly upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness his secret place. His pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies. At the brightness that was before him, his thick clouds passed, hailstones and coals of fire. The Lord also thundered in the heavens, in the highest gave his voice, his voice, hailstones and coals of fire.

Yay, he sent out his arrows and scattered them, and he shot out lightnings and discomforted them. Then the channels of water were seen and the foundations of the world were discovered at thy rebuke, oh Lord, at the blast the breath of thy nostrils. He sent from above. He took me. He drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy and from them which hated me, for they were too strong for me.

They prevented me in the day of my calamity. But the Lord was my stay. He brought me forth also into a large place. He delivered me because he delighted in me. The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness. according to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed me. For I have kept the ways of the Lord, and have not wickedly departed from my God. For all his judgments were before me, and I did not put away his statutes from me.

I was also upright before him, and I kept myself from mine iniquity. Therefore hath the Lord recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands and his eyesight. With the merciful, thou will show thyself merciful. With an upright man, thou will show thyself upright. With the pure, thou will show thyself pure, and with the froward, thou will show thyself froward. For thou wilt save the afflicted people, but will bring down high looks.

For thou lightest my candle, the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness. For by thee I have run through a troop, and by my God have I leaped over a wall. As for God, his way is perfect. The word of the Lord is tried. He is a buckler to all those that trust in him. For who is God, save the Lord? Or who is a rock, save our God? It is God that girtheth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect. He maketh my feet like hind feet, and setteth me upon my high places.

He teacheth my hands to war, so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms. Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation, and thy right hand hath holden me up, and thy gentleness hath made me great. Thou hast enlarged my steps under me, that my feet do not slip. I have pursued mine enemies and overtaken them. Neither did I turn again till they were consumed. I have wounded them that they were not able to rise.

They are fallen under my feet. For thou hast girded me with strength under the battle. Thou hast subdued under me those that rose up against me. Thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies that I might destroy them that hate me. They cried that there was none to save them, even unto the Lord, but he answered them not. Then did I beat them small as the dust before the wind. I did cast them out as the dirt in the streets.

Thou hast delivered me from the strivings of the people, and thou hast made me the head of the heathen. A people whom I have not known shall serve me. As soon as they hear of me, they shall obey me. The strangers shall submit themselves unto me. The strangers shall fade away and be afraid out of their close places. The Lord liveth, and blessed be my rock, and let the God of my salvation be exalted. It is God that avengeth me, and subdueth the people under me.

He delivereth me from my enemies. Yay, thou liftest me up above those that rise up against me. Thou hast delivered me from the violent man. Therefore will I give thanks unto thee, oh Lord, among the heathen, and sing praises unto thy name. Great deliverance giveth he to his king, and showeth mercy to his anointed, to David, and to his seed forevermore.

Let’s pray. Father God, we thank you for this psalm. We thank you for the tremendous victory that is displayed herein. Help us, Lord God, be attentive to the psalm in our lives this day and indeed throughout the rest of our lives to understand the truths you have in there for us. Help us, Father, to hear with ears that are open to hear the things of you. And help us, Father, to hear with open hands to do thy will as you’ve instructed us to do. In Jesus name we pray.

Amen.

This is probably the longest psalm we’ve dealt with so far. And I suppose that I could have divided this psalm up into sort of bits and pieces and talked about it for several weeks. But I thought I’d rather as I read through the psalm many times in the last three or four weeks, what I was struck with was the flow of the psalm, the overall message that the psalm gives and how that flow continues in one basic pattern.

And so I didn’t really want to break it up. Instead, we want to talk about the basic flow of this psalm. And basically there are four well, Chris and I thought last night about this flow idea and she said sort of like boulders along the way. And I suppose that throughout the psalm there are these major themes in it. And the first theme that we’ll talk about is the glory cloud and God’s deliverance.

The second theme is God’s equipping the saints for the battle. And then the battle itself, victory, and then the fruits of victory. And those are sort of the hallmarks of this psalm as we talk about the general flow of the psalm and what it’s trying to teach us.

Well, let’s just go ahead and start with the glory cloud in the first several verses. After David calls out to God and asks for deliverance we then have this idea starting in verse 7 that the earth starts to shake and tremble and throughout the next 10 verses or so there is what’s known in scripture as a theophany—an appearance of God or a manifestation of God in a visible form. And so David talks about these manifestations of God and this manifestation of God in this sort of form is frequent in the Old Testament, frequent in the scriptures and God frequently displays himself as a cloud and you’ll see in this passage here that God sort of wraps himself in a cloud as it were.

He’s revealed in this glory cloud and this manifestation, this physical manifestation of darkness pavilion round about with dark waters thick clouds of the skies etc. This glory cloud can be interpreted a lot of different ways. Before we get into that though I wanted to just briefly touch upon one way of looking at the Psalms that is rather interesting in light of this psalm. There’s a man named Mowinckel and many people divide the psalms up into various categories and Mowinckel had the idea that these psalms were originally liturgies to be used for cultic festivals—cultic not in the sense of a bad cult but in the sense of a particular group of people, the nation of Israel and their festival seasons and he says that they have these certain festivals and that each of these psalms is for a particular occasion. The largest of these festivals, the most important one in the year was the new year festival which he associated with various other feasts of God and he said that over 40 of these psalms are written for that new year festival.

Well, we don’t really know if Israel had a new year festival or not, but it is an interesting idea to think through and then maybe to try to catch some of what God actually intends in this psalm. The basis of this as some commentators have followed Mowinckel and you’ll if you read if you study through the Psalms and the structure of the Psalms, you’ll come across Mowinckel and his approach. Mowinckel though saw more the idea that these things were manifestation of some older ancient legends of various pagan gods.

Well, it’s probably the reverse. There’s a truth that God teaches in terms of resurrection and regeneration and recreation that then is mimicked by these pagan gods. So you have to be careful with this stuff. But it is interesting as I was studying through this and he includes Psalm 18 as one of these new year sort of festivals. For instance, one writer pictures in terms of this new year’s festival the gradual extinguishing of the torches, the divesting of the king of his royal attire.

And with the onset of total darkness, the king lying prostrate at the feet of his enemies, where he cries out to Yahweh, the words of Psalm 89, “How long, oh Lord, will thou hide thyself forever? Remember, O Lord, how thy servant is scorned.” And then at last, the atmosphere has become almost unbearable in its intensity. Yahweh does come to deliver his people. He comes at dawn, symbolized by the sun, and the supreme source of light and life, and is victorious.

And then the new year’s festival would continue in terms of God now establishing the new year and setting straight its courses thereof. This is what I’m reading out of a commentary by a man named Derek Kidner. It’s a fairly good commentary on the book of Psalms. Well, we don’t know if Israel had a new year’s festival. And we don’t know in any detail how they might have used some of these psalms in terms of the liturgy of the Old Testament feast festivals.

They probably did use some of them. But we do know that Psalm 18 does have that idea in it—of death where David talks about how the cords of death encompassed him about. He was brought down. The snares of death prevented them, sorrows of hell are shield compassed about. David describes himself in the first verses of these psalms as being nigh unto death, descended as it were into the mouth of death. From there, God comes in the form of this theophany, this visible manifestation of God and delivers David out of those things.

So we do know that it has that element of death and resurrection to it. We know also that this psalm, at least as you study through it, there’s a specific reference of verse 49, for instance, is quoted in the book of Romans, 15th chapter verse 9 by Paul relating to the Messiah. So we know that Psalm 18 is definitely messianic in that sense. It’s true of David. He was brought down to death in several of his encounters with Saul with the pagan Philistines and the battles that he fought with them.

But it was also true primarily of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ suffered death on the cross and separation from God. God then resurrected Christ on the basis of his righteousness and gave life back to him. So we know that there is that element in the scripture of death, rebirth or recreation from the word of God. A better way to look at it though I think is a biblical way is the way that David Chilton deals with some of these same sort of passages.

This manifestation of the glory cloud is primarily seen in two Old Testament events where God would demonstrate himself in this theophany this manner. One of course is deliverance that we read about this morning in the song of Moses. The deliverance of God’s people from the nation from Egypt from the pagans. And God delivered them through the crossing of the Red Sea. At the Red Sea, there was this manifestation of God in judgment upon the heathen and in deliverance of his people.

And it’s interesting that we talked last week about Deuteronomy 32, the song of Moses that he sings in terms of the covenant affirmation that he gives. And if you look at Deuteronomy 32, we talked about that last week that David was using some of the imagery from Deuteronomy 32, which is a covenant affirmation, a covenant song of witness. David was using some of the imagery there in terms there of the pupil of his eye and God coming with wings covering David and covering his people in the wilderness.

In Deuteronomy 32 verse 11 let’s see verse 10. God he found him Israel in a desert land in the waste in the waste howling wilderness. He led him about he instructed him and kept him as the apple of his eye. As an eagle stirreth up her nest fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings. So the Lord alone did lead him and there was no strange God with him. And one thing that this is talking about, of course, is God’s establishment of his covenant people protection in the wilderness.

God finds the covenant people in the wilderness. They’ve come out of Egypt. They’ve been redeemed. They’re in the wilderness. God protects them with his cloud, with his theophany. He delivers them out of Egypt through the Red Sea. He takes care of them. He leads them. How did God lead the nation of Israel in the wilderness? Well, he led them as a cloud by day and as a fiery pillar by night. So this idea of God in a cloud again, this visible manifestation of the wilderness is also talked about in these verses.

The interesting thing that David Chilton points out, I’m going a long way about this I suppose, but in verse 11 where it talks about the eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young. That Hebrew word there fluttereth Chilton points out in Paradise Restored is the same word that’s used in Genesis 1:2 where the spirit of God hovers over the waters. It’s the only occurrence of that Hebrew word in the entire scriptures.

In Genesis 1:2, that word is used. Now, that’s interesting that same Hebrew word be used. Additionally, let’s see in Genesis 1:2, it says, “The earth was without form and void. Darkness is upon the face of the deep, and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” And the word moved, other translations say hovered, is that same Hebrew word in the only occurrence of it. It’s also interesting that Chilton points out in verse 10 of Deuteronomy 32 where God finds Israel.

He finds his covenant people in a desert land in a howling waste. That word for waste there is the same Hebrew word that’s used in Genesis 1:2 for the earth being formless and void. Okay? Without form and void. And again, it’s the only occurrence of that Hebrew word. Now, there’s strong literary evidence therefore to see in the deliverance of God’s people from the nation of Egypt and God’s guiding his people through the wilderness to see in that the same sort of creative activity at work, recreation if you will, of his people that he performed at the beginning of this of the earth’s history in Genesis 1 where we talk about God’s creation of the earth.

So that image of God in the cloud should be associated in our minds with the recreating power of God for his people. God had brought his people out of Egypt, recreated them as it were, brought them forth from death unto life, and now he’s going to give them a land to live in as he guided them through the wilderness into the land of Canaan. So, it’s important to recognize that typology here. The same thing is true in this passage, Psalm 18.

And you don’t have to have a lot of external evidence. It’s real clear. As I said, David’s at the point of death. God comes in the form of a theophany, fluttering wings, moving over David, protecting David, bringing wrath upon David’s enemies and delivering David and giving him life. And David concludes that with saying that God brings him into a large place and delivered me because he delighted in me.

That large place, God bring David into a large place is the Hebrew word, a set of words. It’s frequently interpreted salvation. Salvation is to be brought into this large place by God of blessing instead of the tight surroundings of when the enemy is upon us. So we see in Psalm 18 the manifestation of the glory cloud the importance of God’s recreation of his people of the covenant people of Israel and also of the individual.

This theophany in this first instance is talking about David himself. Now David typified the nation and that he was the king. But you’ll notice in this psalm in the introduction to the psalm that he doesn’t say a psalm of David the king of the Lord or the representative of Israel. He says a psalm of David the servant of the Lord. It’s an aspect of humbleness there. But there’s also the aspect there David is an individual being rescued by God through this theophany.

So it is with we as believers. We’ve talked about how the word of God as we interpret some of these some of the teachings from the Old Testament this idea of understanding that God reveals himself in the Old Testament. This particular situation is real. But God uses that same situation, the same pieces of scripture to tell us something about himself and that’s the important thing and then there’s application from that word of God to ourselves individually or as a church. For instance last week the Sabbath verse we read had to do with Jehoiada the priest the high priest anointing Joash the rightful heir to the throne who had been supplanted by somebody else and Joash at that time was 8 years old and that was that occurred on the Sabbath day.

Well we know then that actually occurred there was a Jehoiada high priest there was a Joash, a 8-year-old king, and he was crowned by Jehoiada and by the other people that were there and we have the phrase long live the king from that point on. We know that’s true. But we know also what’s true there is that the scriptures are also speaking typologically there revealing the covenant keeper to come, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ came and supplanted as it were the god of this world, Satan. He overthrew Satan. He was crowned by God as resurrection on the Sabbath day. And so we know that’s true of Jesus Christ primarily, although but also was true of Joash, the crowning of David or David’s son.

And we know that Jesus Christ himself was the seed of David, the singular seed of David to come. Joash was certainly of the seed of David of the lineage of David. But the one to come was being typified through all these things and was Jesus Christ himself. Well, it also has application to us. It doesn’t just mean that it’s true of Jehoiada and Joash. It doesn’t just mean it’s true of Jesus Christ. It means that we as a congregation then when we come together on Sabbath services are to crown Jesus Christ to recognize his reign.

to recognize him as king of all that we say and do. And that’s what we try to do on Sundays. So there’s truth in that. The same thing was true of delighting in the saints. We knew that David delighted in the saints. He had compadres, comrades, friends of his that he worked with and delighted in. We know that it was primarily that psalm was speaking of Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ delighted in the saints.

But we know it’s also true of us and we know that because it’s true of Christ, we by analogy understand that it’s our commitment to delight in the saints and delight in the people of God. Well, it’s the same thing that I’m trying to get across about this idea of recreation. We know it’s true that God delivered David. We know it’s true that God delivered David from the point of death many times. The historical setting for Psalm 18, it is repeated almost verbatim, word for word, with the absence of one verse, maybe a couple of words.

In 2 Samuel 22, you’ll find the exact same psalm. 2 Samuel 22 is the source material for this psalm. 2 Samuel 22 recounts that the end of the 2 Samuel, the end of the recounting of David’s victory, over the various enemies that he encountered. In 2 Samuel 8, we’ll see a little synopsis of those enemies that God had David conquer over. But in 2 Samuel 22 and 21 rather that immediately precedes this song of David about the deliverance of God, we read of the various enemies of the land, the sons of the giants that David’s men took care of.

And one of them had struck David and thought he had killed him. And this is when David is old. This is when David is well advanced and has been king for many years. And one of these other giants struck David and they thought said that he looked like he was dead and David’s men come and rescue him slay the giant they say don’t come out to war anymore lest the light of Israel be put out said you stay home we’ll do the fighting from now on cuz you’re old and don’t fight as good so we know that David in that situation one of many was rescued from the very jaws of death by God’s deliverance in that case working through the men that David uh had fighting with him we know it’s true many other times as well we know it’s true primarily of course of Jesus Christ the recreation, the recalling to dominion, the return to the garden, the new Adam of Jesus Christ.

And we know it’s true of us individually as well. We know that if we’ve been called by God, an elect of God and been saved by God’s grace, if we’ve been called as covenant people of his and he’s put his covenant mark on us, we know that this passage is true of us. This theophany, this tremendous manifestation of God that we read about here is true of us. That’s the kind of concern he has for us individually as well as us as a people is that kind of concern for us individually to manifest himself in that theophany and help us to understand the care in which he puts into our deliverance.

We’ve been delivered by him and we should walk then as a people have been redeemed and recalled to our identic calling of dominion. So that’s the glory cloud and that’s important to catch in this whole thing that rescue from death. But there’s a lot more than that in this psalm. We move on to a section that deals with the equipping for the battle and I suppose the next few verses there were after deliverance of David has been accomplished and salvation is wrought.

we then talk about the equipping of David for the battle. the psalm goes on to talk about David’s victory over various people. Before that victory comes equipping. We see for instance in verses 20 through say 25. The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness. According to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed me. For I have kept the ways of the Lord and have not wickedly departed from my God.

And he goes on to speak of the things for all his judgments were before me and I did not put away his statutes from me. Now that verse is an interesting verse 22 in terms of preparation for battle. The correlation there of judgments and statutes is a technical correlation a description of the law of God. Okay, ten commandments and his case law and you’ll find that throughout the book of Deuteronomy as well as several other books as well.

That correlation in a single verse in a single setting between judgments and statutes and some people see in that judgments really judgments and statutes relating to our relationship to God and our relationship to man. But anyway, it’s a technical term. And so, we know here that David in this specific verse was specifically talking about the law of God. The law of God and his obedience to it is a great part of the equipping for battle that David went through.

He declares himself to be upright. He says that he’s paid attention to the judgments and statutes, technical language for God’s covenant law. Those things are part of the equipping of David for battle. Additionally, there’s a humbleness to the whole thing. It’s part of the equipping as well. David says that with the humble, you will show yourself humble. And throughout these passages that talk about the victory of David over his enemies, the victory of Jesus Christ over his enemies, and our victory over enemies, you see continually in this psalm the refrain that it’s God who’s at work.

David is doing these things, but it’s God has equipped him for this battle. And so there’s a humbleness of David. And as I said before, it’s pointed out in David being the servant of the Lord. David says that God has enlightened his darkness. Well, how does God enlighten our darkness in the world around us? He does it through his scriptures. The word is a lamp to my feet. It shines the way we’re supposed to go.

We have a battle in front of us. I suppose that’s one of the things that’s important as we see this equipping for battle in this psalm is a realization there is a battle to be fought. That we are equipping ourselves for that battle. And the way we equip ourselves for that battle is to know the word of God and to walk in accordance with it. Recognizing that our position with God is one of praise. We talked about how we’re to delight ourselves in God several weeks ago.

We’re to mold ourselves to God. That’s the way God equips us for his battle. The law of God should be a lamp to our feet. It should provide a restraint upon our mind as it were to keep ourselves from thoughts that might be outside the will of God. And it should be also the means whereby God controls our emotions. I guess I was thinking about some of this stuff in terms of the year coming ahead of us, the battles we’re going to have.

And I was equating some of these equipping of David for battle with the equipping of ourselves for battle. We come together here as a church on Sundays for a purpose. That purpose is not to rest up after a tough week out in the world. That’s not the purpose of coming together Sundays. The purpose for coming together Sundays is to be equipped for the battle of the next six days in as we walk out our lives.

Equipped for that battle that will end in victory. That’s the constant theme throughout this thing. We come together on the Sabbath for the instruction from the word of God and its application to our lives as we go forth working for the realization as it were of the kingdom of God in front of us. We talk for instance about Psalm 15 a while back. Spent several weeks talking about the importance of Psalm 15 and who will stand in Zion.

And you remember we talked about Zion being the result to David originally of battle of offensively going forth and the power of God to battle. And so Psalm 15 has this correlation to the idea of battle and victory. And what does Psalm 15 talk about? It talks about our relationships with each other in the covenant community. Talks about the way we should talk with each other. Talks about the way we should have compassion for each other.

And other things that relate to covenant life. What we do as a church is important not just because we’re concerned with the people inside this building and because we have a little closed club through which we’re concerned. No, all this is part of the equipping that we receive from God for the battle for the coming year, for the battle for the coming week. We’re being equipped by God for victory and to battle.

We talked about delighting in the saints in Psalm 16 and the importance of that. It’s important that we understand that when God prepares us for battle, he doesn’t do it for us individually. He brings us together as an army. One reason why we stand now for the reading of the Sabbath reading, for the prayer, for the opening hymn, is to get in mind that we’re coming and muster before God as his troops.

We’re God’s troops. That’s what we are. And God has called us forth into a unit, okay? Into an army together here in this church. And indeed, we’re connected through the with the army of God in other churches as well through the invisible church. We come together as a group of people that are supposed to work in conjunction with each other. Now, this psalm has a lot of David talking about himself, but you have to recognize from studying the life of David that he didn’t operate by himself.

We talked about for instance in 2 Samuel 22 and how David had friends, he had compadres, he had fellow members of the battle that he was engaged with and they saved his life. They came together as a unit. I was thinking about, you know, when David first had to flee from Saul and ends up at Ziklag with a group of men that are quite interesting. and I was thinking that you know again there God is preparing him for battle by bringing them together with other people who were sort of the outcasts of the time there were some debtors there were some discontent or malcontent people and God brought all this together as a fighting force under David for good and for victory and I was thinking I don’t want to say that you know we’re a real rough group or anything but you know it’s interesting how God has brought us together from various perspectives for various reasons some of us I suppose are discontent over other things where we were going to church or certain aspect of our Christian life.

Some of us are here for other reasons. But God has brought us together sovereignly under his control to equip us for battle for the victory to come. He wants us to go forth in the new year riding victoriously to expand the kingdom of him. And he wants us to do that as a group. We can’t do these sort of things that God has commanded us to do without understanding our relationship to one another. David talks here about God delivering him with his mighty hand and Yet, we know from 2 Samuel 21 that deliverance at that in that day from death was by the hand of people that David knew were fighting alongside him with.

God used the hand of other people to deliver David from that death. And so it is with us. God works with us, but he works through us. And his glorious manifestation of his power comes through the working of other people that we’re called to work with as well. You notice also this equipping for battle has the idea of an offensive battle that David is going to go forth from here. It’s not just a matter of deliverance and then everything’s, you know, nice and rosy.

There’s deliverance for the point of David going out and conquering. David goes forth in this psalm to conquer for God and to go up against his enemies who have tried to put him down. He says in verse 29, for by thee I have run through a troop. And by my God have I leaped over a wall. Gosh, it’s a neat verse. I’ve run through a troop. I’ve leaped over a wall. He’s not running from a troop.

here you know he’s running through a troop. He’s leaping over the walls which were the primary defense of the enemies of the enemies of a city rather at that time. So the enemies of David had walls and he was leaping over the walls to get at those people to destroy them for God. Now this might be offensive to some of us but that’s the plain teaching of scripture. Psalm 83 that we just sang is a psalm of David a holy one of God a man who is after who was delighted and was a man after God’s own heart.

We’re given that kind of strength by God to go forth into battle. I remember, one night when Gordon Rogers was over and we were watching on cable TV a Sunday night, we were watching the Gymnasters and they’re at Rock Church on the on the East Coast and they were singing some chorus, you know, about how I run through the cities and climb over walls and while they’re singing it, you know, they’re running around like this and they’re climbing over walls.

Kind of looked a little funny, but you know, that’s the kind of attitude we should have. This is the first Sunday we meet this year. We should look forward to the year expecting God to fill us with that. sort of strength and that sort of vigor to go forth from him. We shouldn’t come here and say, “Well, gosh, you know, I hope I feel a little better today because it was so tough during the week.” No, we should get power from the word of God.

We should be equipped by God’s word, through his law to go forth into battle. We’ve got a lot of things to do this year and we’re going to do them through the power of God as we walk in obedience to his law. It’s a great verse and maybe if somebody knows that chorus, they could teach it to us and we could do that maybe during communion., that’d be fine with me, you know. It’s important to recognize that’s what we’re here for is to be equipped.

Okay. Along that line, the delighting in the saints and David’s bivouac at Ziklag as James B. Jordan talks about—this Friday night. We’re going to have a bivouac at the Lord’s house singing Geneva Jigs. And it’s important that we get together on some of those occasions. We get to know each other and we’re encouraged by the singing of God’s word. Additionally, this Friday night there will be something special going on because we’re One of the things we’re looking at this coming year is and we talked about this last week is trying to establish a way to express compassion and concern for the poor, for those people in our society that God would have us minister to.

That’s important. we know from the various passages we read last week, Isaiah 58 for instance, the importance of that. We want to do something about it as a church. I brought today and again this falls right in the line of equipping for battle. I know I’m not sure how many people there are starving in this country, but I know this. I know there are a lot of people out there have been enslaved by a statist mentality and they now are walking robots as it were or slaves to the state.

And we have the obligation to go out to those people and show them an alternative. Show them the way of God. Show them the commandments of God and as they apply to their lives and show them God’s concern for him as demonstrated by his covenant people. Keith Zurich, well Keith gave me summaries of each of the chapters of George Grant’s new book on bringing in the sheep. And I made copies of those summaries of each chapter and I’ll have them at the back table after the service.

This is for the purpose of equipping us to carry on that battle. And this Friday night sometime around under or through the jigs, we’ll be talking about that and begin to formulate some plans for what we’re going to do and at least kick it around a bit amongst who’s ever there. it’s important for the delighting of the saints. It’s important to recognize that God has equipped us by for battle. Of course, through his word, but also through a congregation, through a people group of people who are committed to each other.

By the way, when I talked about the delighting in the saints several weeks ago and stressed the idea that the saints are the excellent ones in the world in the earth, it was pointed out to me that I had three people stand up and they were all men. You know, that wasn’t intentional. it’s it’s certainly true that women are the excellent ones in the earth as well, saints and called before God and should have that same respect that we have for the holy ones of the earth, for the excellent ones, for heads of state as it were.

I was thinking in terms of preparation for battle that one way God prepares families is with this unit of bringing together the husband and the wife to work as one person and spreading forth the gospel of Jesus Christ and its claims upon every area of life. I was thinking trying to think of a word for that. I thought well women are kind of like we’re you know it says in the scriptures we’ve been made kings and princes uh with God and I guess that the women would be queens and I was thinking it’s kind of like being a vice president.

But it really isn’t like being a vice president because it’s not like the women have something to do in our household just we’re not there. That’s not what it is. It’s not an empty office until the absence of man occurs. We’re to work together as a unit for dominion. And so I certainly didn’t mean to omit any women standing up in terms of excellent ones in that manner. I don’t know if any of you want to stand up now, but probably not.

Okay. But it’s important to delight in the saints and to recognize our importance before God. We’ve been equipped by God for battle. Then there’s the actual battle itself in verse 29 and verses 37-42. We just read 29. In 37-42, David says, “I have pursued mine enemies and overtaken them. Neither did I turn again till they were consumed. I have wounded them that they were not able to rise. They have fallen under my feet.

But thou hast girded me with strength under the battle. Thou hast subdued under me those that rose up against me. Thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies that I might destroy them that hate me. They cried, and there was none to save them, even unto the Lord. But he answered them not. Then did I beat them small as the dust before the wind, but it cast them out as the dirt of the streets.

Well, it’s obvious there’s a battle, then we expect victory in it. Now, I was thinking again of this that this is probably offensive to some people here. I had a talk this week with a person who didn’t like the idea of God’s law being so confining on us and everything. And he definitely saw a distinction between the God of the New Testament and the God of the Old Testament. And some people applied those things to these verses.

Well, God used to do physical warfare in the Old Testament and now it’s all spiritual warfare. And there’s an element of truth in that. Of course, we know that in the book of Revelation, we see the symbol we’ve often talked about Jesus going forth in the white horse, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, conquering by the word of his mouth. But that’s not to say that God was some sort of bloodthirsty strange God back here in the Old Testament when David conquered over his enemies physically.

We can bet that if there was a Christian nation on the face of the earth today, there’d be physical conflict involved. And I fully expect to see that in the years to come. Not maybe in our lifetimes because it’s going to take us a long time to rebuild a godly country. But if we do, we can expect physical warfare. And these psalms will have renewed meaning for us when we go forth into the world with a sword in hand.

It’s important to recognize that God is a God of the physical as well as of the spiritual. He comes and delivers us physically as well. The primary application of course today for us is the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. But that’s not to look upon this or denigrate the teaching of the Psalms and Psalm 83 for instance that we sang earlier as somehow unspiritual or not quite with it or something.

It was the God of scripture who penned these words and express these concerns and who gives us victory over our enemies. Lord willing, we won’t have times like that in this country, but it is quite likely we will as we rebuild a godly country. It’s interesting too that David in here says that he let’s see somewhere in here he talks about bending the bow and breaking it. And it’s interesting because of course the bow and the arrow was the primary method of offense that people had at that time.

There weren’t guns or cannons or nuclear bombs. They were bow and arrow and they were very strong. And David said he even breaks those things apart. The strength of God and the equipping of God for the battle. And that’s the way we should think as well as we look at some of the tactics of those around us. I remember thinking as I watched on TV a few years ago uh geode demographic targeting and political campaigns and what a tremendous technique that was.

They break the whole congre whole population of the country up in these little cluster groups and each cluster group is an income group basically. And they people will who make mass mailings into these groups will target each piece of mail for the specific cluster group that person is part of. So if you live for instance in one section of Beaverton where it’s well Mirwood for instance over by ourselves you got $200,000 houses the direct mail you receive from the candidate or for that issue or sales whatever it was would be specifically oriented toward upper income people.

Whereas if you live in another part of Beaverton where the income was much lower or out in Hillsboro in some places of Hillsboro you’d receive a whole different kind of mailing for the same purpose. Well, that’s a very powerful tool and we can look at the powerful tools of the enemy around about us, but we should look at them with the same way that David looked upon the bows and arrows of his enemies, recognizing that God has given us strength in him and in his word to fight forth against those people and to break those techniques themselves.

I was thinking of this idea of victory and the manifestation of victory in terms of this whole psalm really in terms of the political action committee and this home school bill which I hope not getting tired of hearing about yet. There’s another meeting this Tuesday. But, you know, it’s interesting what’s happened as a result of that whole process. Howard L. a couple of years ago had this idea of a political action committee to go on the offensive against the National Education Association instead of always fighting defensive battles. That’s just what we did through that mechanism. We went on the offensive. They weren’t after us in the legislature.

We went after them to change the laws to make more favorable homeschoolers. It’s an offensive nature. We recognized that God had equipped us for battle and we went forth to do that battle. And it’s interesting A couple of observations that I’ve made in this last couple of weeks about what’s happened to our whole process. when we went down two or last month for negotiations with the with the people who are writing the administrative rules for the bill, I went down with basically two other homeschoolers, one from Salem and one from Portland, who have a lot of people that they influence.

These two people at the beginning of this process thought it was a real bad idea to introduce a bill. They thought Oh, you shouldn’t do that. You’ll call attention to us. You’ll make it tougher for us, etc., etc. They were on the defensive. But by the time we got to that administrative rule conference we had a month ago, these two people, I couldn’t hardly hold them back anymore. They didn’t want any regulation anymore.

And they were ready to go down there and demand it of these guys, you know, they may they not treat us any differently than the public schools. Their whole perspective had been changed. These are Christians I’m talking about, as a result of working with the parents education association and with this bill for the last year. Their idea of the possibility of victory dealing with the state has come to life and they’ve changed from a defensive posture to an offensive posture and that’s what we’re trying to do.

We may not realize the effect we have. We may sometimes God will show us the effect we have on other people. Other times he won’t. But we do have an effect. We have a positive effect for God as we work through this. The other thing that’s interesting about this and David I’m sure his valor in war encouraged the people that he was fighting alongside of and they fought the harder for it. The other interesting thing about this is that David talks in here about how heathen people whom I have not known shall serve me.

And there’s almost a sense of supernatural obedience from people to the word of God as it’s preached forth. remember when the nation of Israel went into the promised land, God said that he would send forth these various plagues to them first and they’d be prepared. They’d be willing almost to lay down their weapons before them as they marched in. And you know, it’s so interesting to us how we’ve gone forth with this homeschool bill and really we don’t have very many numbers.

You we have a few maybe a couple hundred people in the state who are really committed to it. Only three or four who are actually doing anything with it. And yet we seem to exercise a great deal of authority down there with the people from Salem. They came to us and said, “What do you want in terms of administrative rules? If whatever if you just make this so that it’s not going to be hard on us, this is what one ESD man told us at the hearing or at the conference we went to.

Just make it so it isn’t hard on us administratively. We’ll give you anything you want in terms of a of a norming score for the child to be performing.” Well, you get my They were saying, “Gosh, you know, just don’t give us any more problems. We’ll settle this thing with you now.” And that’s what we’re doing. And the administrative rules are going to come out are going to be real good. And there’s an aspect there again of God blessing his people as they go forth into the battle, recognizing they’ve been equipped by God, redeemed by him, and then are supposed to go forth and and garner the fruits of that victory.

By the way, you’ll also see in this psalm in verses 43 delivered me from the strivings of the people. Thou hast made me the head of the heathen. A people whom I have not known shall serve me. As soon as they hear of me, they shall obey me. The strangers shall submit themselves unto me. Okay. And in verse 42, well, the people there is talking about the gentile nations around the nation of Israel in 43 and 44.

And here’s an excellent text to use when you want to talk about the importance of God’s law over the civil magistrate of other nations besides covenanted nations. They’re going to come to David to be ruled by him. Is David going to rule from a position of natural law or some sort of neutral law in terms of the civil government? Well, of course not. He’s been commanded as a king of Israel to form his laws on the basis of the theocracy of God.

God’s ruling in his people. David’s going to rule from that perspective. And the heathen are going to obey that rule. God’s law isn’t just for his covenant people. The nations of the earth will submit to the Lord Jesus Christ as time goes on in this in this world. That’s the sort of victory we should expect. I guess all I really want to do today is sort of talk about the importance of what we’re doing to look forward to the new year.

See that God’s prepared a lot of battles there. He’s equipped us for those battles. What we have to do is be faithful in those callings. I talked about the political action committee and today Howard L. brought me a computerized list of people who have donated to it. That’s important. We’ve got a mailing list of probably over a thousand people that is just a mess. It needs to be computerized. Needs to be put into this database.

That’s going to take some of my of time, 30, 40 hours. We need people to do that sort of work. There’s other work that needs to be done. The studying out the idea of the of bringing in the sheaf of God our relationship as a church to the poor, to the widow, to the orphan today, that’s going to require a lot of work as we look forward to it. That’s a battle that God has laid before us. We can’t turn our backs from it.

It’s something we put our hand to do and we’re going to do it. It’s going to require work as we look at these things. I have an idea. Maybe not this year. Maybe this year. I don’t know. yet of a study center in Portland that would serve as an offensive center as it were for strategies to develop to teach people from the word of God how to run their businesses, how they’re to involve themselves in politics.

This is an area of of battle that we have to go forth into and seek victory in and establish a study center. my idea for the future in the next year or two, I think it’d be real important to begin to talk about and hopefully with some people that have some ability to do something about it sister of restitution to replace the penal systems that we have in this in this state and city. They’ve had it. The humanist has had it with his ideas of how to correct things.

They haven’t worked. They’re falling apart. The prisons are too full. The crime rate keeps going up. They have no solution. We