Springs Lighthouse Church

Pastor Brian Michaels: Psalm 60, if you'd turn there, please. Psalm 60.

Lord, we thank You for Your word and for the opportunity to dig into it. Father, help my voice to be able to be sustained through the course of this teaching, Lord, and just allow us to draw near to You and to hear Your voice speaking to us by Your Spirit. Lord, we simply desire to draw near to You and to hear from You. And so, Lord, hear our prayers and give us ears to hear Your voice as You speak to us in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Well, we have undertaken over the last couple of years a study through the Psalms that we are doing in between studies of other books. So as we get to the end of a longer book like Isaiah, then taking a number of weeks to go through Psalms because the Psalms can tend to be repetitive if we're going to go through all 150 of them in a matter of weeks, right?

First of all, it would take a matter of many, many weeks, and I felt like this would be a better way to do it, to kind of break it up into smaller chunks. Then ultimately we will look at getting into another one of the book studies, and then when we're done with that we'll come back and we'll do a number of Psalms again.

So tonight we start with Psalm 60. It says to the chief musician, and remember that these prequel notes that are in here are actually in the originals of the most ancient manuscripts that we have of the Psalms. So we consider this to be a portion of the Scripture. This is not like a lot of places in your Bibles where they'll put a sub-heading in that the translators or the publishers or the printers put in there. This was actually a part of the biblical text.

To the chief musician, set to Lily of the Testimony. Uncertain. It seems to be that this was a song that was well known that the tune was taken and then David's words because we read that this is a Michtam of David, so David is the author of the Psalm. Is it David writing this to that tune? That is what most scholars believe that it is. There is also a possibility that it is a reference to the instrument that was used that he wrote it on.

But it's more likely that this was a song that was familiar to the people. It was a tune they knew and David's words are set to it. It is a Michtam of David, which means that it is a golden Psalm and it is for teaching. So it's to give instruction to the people of God. And the rest of that heading is "when he fought against Mesopotamia and Syria of Zobah, and Joab returned and killed 12,000 Edomites in the Valley of Salt."

Now you can read some of these events in Second Samuel 8, Second Samuel 10, First Chronicles chapter 18, which record for us that David, shortly after he comes to the throne and he becomes king of all of Israel, sets about expanding their borders. He sets about subduing their enemies. And remember, when Joshua brings the children of Israel after the wilderness wandering, they come to the promised land, they go into the promised land, Joshua brings them in, Jericho is defeated, Ai gives them some problem but then they defeat Ai, they split the land and then they begin conquering the promised land.

But you remember that a lot of the enemies of Israel and the enemies of God were left in the land. There were a couple of reasons for this. God says from His perspective, allowing this to happen, that it was because He wanted them, first of all, to learn what it meant to do battle, that they had to learn battle, they had to learn what war was about.

But also the Lord says, "I'm not going to drive them out all at once or the wild beasts and the vegetation would just take over the land. You're not ready to possess it all." From the human standpoint, the reason that their enemies were not all forced out is because the children of Israel just got lazy. And so we have the human perspective and we have God's perspective.

In other words, man could have gone in and God would have brought them through and given them complete victory in every situation. God knew they'd be lazy. God knew that there were places that they would just kind of go, "Ah, it's fine if they live in the land," and then other places they would actually make alliances with the people. But from God's standpoint, He says, "Listen, I know this is going to happen and here's what I'm going to do through the process. I'm going to make sure that the land is manageable as you come through."

Well, you get through the time of Joshua and then the times of the judges, which is about 700 years. Then Saul becomes king, and David becomes king. And it is during this time in the early part of his reign that David is subduing his enemies. And it seems like this is the situation where David is subduing the other surrounding groups of people that have remained and then David expands the land.

The land of Israel, God gave them the land when He gave the instruction to Abram that He was going to make of him this great nation. He's going to lead him into this land and give it to him. The boundaries that the Lord gives are all the way in the north up to the Euphrates River and all the way down to the south to the Nile. So this was the land that God gave to Israel. They never possessed it all.

But David was able to take the land from about 6,000 square miles to over 60,000 square miles. So by a factor of 10, David expanded the size of the land of Israel during his reign. That doesn't mean that every battle was victorious. It doesn't mean that David was victorious in every single battle he went into. But here's what David realizes: if they were defeated in battle, that defeat was secondary.

If their armies lost that battle, that was secondary to what was really going on. David knew that God was capable of dealing with all of their enemies. So when they experienced defeat, David's first reaction was always to go back and seek the Lord and say, "What is it that we haven't done? What is it about where we're at that You responded this way and not fighting this battle for us?"

And so it's kind of an interesting perspective that he has because it seems, going into these first verses, that God has allowed them to be defeated. And David begins this Psalm dealing with that reality. He says, verse 1, "O God, You have cast us off." Again, that word "You" speaking of the Lord. He's referring to God. He uses this reference to God eight times in the first four verses.

Clearly, he understands that whatever defeat they have just experienced came by the hand of God. That if Israel was ever defeated, it was because God allowed it because that military defeat was secondary. The primary issue is we're not in a right place with God, and he begins delving into the problem. "O God, You have cast us off. You have broken us down. You have been displeased. Oh, restore us again."

"You have made the earth tremble. You have broken it." The idea that the earth seemed to shake at their defeat. But see, David, looking at the defeat, realizing how terrible this is because it indicates some separation in their relationship with God, he also says, "You have broken it." Then he says, "Heal its breaches, for it is shaken." Where the wall of the city had been broken down by the enemy or where the walls of their defenses had been broken down by the enemy. He says, "Lord, You did this. You allowed this. What's going on? Because I know that You can heal this as well."

"You have shown," verse 3, "your people hard things. You have made us drink the wine of confusion." The word "confusion" is interesting. It can also be translated "staggering". The idea is that there's confusion. But it's like the confusion of a drunk who's staggering around and can't put the pieces together of what's happening around them. If you can just some of you have to think really hard to try and imagine what this is like.

To be drunk to the point where you're staggering around and can't put all the pieces together. Others of you might very well not have that much of a problem because it hasn't been that long. But you remember before Christ, your B.C. days, of course, right? In those times when you're just kind of completely out of it, it's like you're taking in information but you can't process it and you can't get it back out. This is the idea that David uses in this poetic language: "You have made us drink the wine of staggering, the wine of confusion."

And it's as if David is looking at this saying, "From the outside, I don't get it. I don't know what's going on. I don't know why You've allowed us to experience this defeat." But where does he turn? He turns to the God he knows has it all under control. Really good word for all of us: when we're confused ever been confused? Ever gone through a time in your life where you just don't understand what's happening? And you feel overwhelmed?

That's the next Psalm. You just kind of feel like, "I don't get it, Lord. I feel like I'm in a good place with You. I feel like everything's all right, but I'm confused. I don't understand what's happening around me. There's struggles in the family, there's struggles at work, there's struggles with my stuff breaking down. There's struggles, there's struggles. I'm confused. I don't get it. But I know that You have it all under control, so You're the one that I'm going to go to. You're the one I'm going to cry out to."

He says in verse 4, "You have given a banner to those who fear You, that it may be displayed because of the truth. Selah." And we've mentioned that word "Selah" seems to carry with it the idea of: "What do you think about that?" So, You have given a banner to those who fear You, that it may be displayed because of the truth. What do you think about that? Again, the idea: "Lord, what's happened here? We know, I know," David would say, "that You are my victory banner." You remember Exodus chapter 17?

You're all going, "Yes, exactly! Exodus chapter 17." That was when Joshua went to battle with the Amalekites, the people of Amalek. And it was that time that Joshua went into battle and Moses was up on the mountaintop and as long as his staff was raised up, the children of Israel were victorious. Ah, now it's clicking. I can see the heads. "Okay, that's Exodus 17." And when his arms would begin to drop, then the Amalekites would begin to be victorious. And so Aaron and Hur (H-U-R, not a pronoun), Aaron and Hur stood on either side of Moses and held his arms up and the children of Israel were victorious.

It was after that battle that Moses referred to God as "Yahweh Nissi", which means "The Lord our Banner". Now, we don't use banners this way very much anymore, but it was in the sense of the banner that a military group would raise in battle or raise in victory when they were victorious over their enemies. "Lord, You are our banner. You are our victory." David now uses that same terminology and he says, "You've given us a banner for victory." In fact, Lord, You are our banner for victory. But we've been defeated. So what is our problem? Where is our problem?

He says in verse 5, "That Your beloved may be delivered, save with Your right hand, and hear me." And again, poetry's a little bit difficult sometimes to kind of wander through and try and put these thoughts all together. But as I read this, here I see David in the first four verses talking about: "God, I don't get it. I'm confused. You're our banner of victory, and yet we've been defeated. I don't know what's going on, but I know that You've allowed this."

"In fact, Lord, I can even say You caused us to be defeated to bring us back around to a place where we're seeking You. But I know that You love me. I know that You love me." Did you catch that? "That Your beloved may be delivered, save with Your right hand, and hear me." We've been defeated. Remember what he said in verse 1? "You've cast us off." And yet he refers to himself as the Lord's beloved.

Gang, there are times when we go through disciplinary measures from the Lord. Ever been there? Has God ever had to take you to the woodshed? Has God ever had to deal with something in your life that you know it's like the Lord is just chastening you because you haven't been listening? You haven't been listening, and He brings you around to this point where you're just like, "Lord, I just need to deal with this." I want you to know something: He still loves you. If you're experiencing that discipline right now for any reason, you are still loved by God.

Verse 6, he says, "God has spoken in His holiness." And this is interesting because we don't often remember that David was also used by God as a prophet as well as king. We think of his rule as king, we think of him as the sweet psalmist of Israel. He was also a prophet and here he prophesies and tells us the words of God. "God has spoken in His holiness."

This is what God says: "I will rejoice. I will divide Shechem." Shechem was on the west side of the Jordan River. "And measure out the Valley of Succoth." That's on the other side of the Jordan River. And in dealing with Shechem and the Valley of Succoth, it sort of lays out the Jordan Valley from north to south. And the Lord says, "Gilead is mine and Manasseh is mine."

Gilead was that land beautiful land, very fertile land that was over on the eastern side of the Jordan River and north, where Reuben, Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh decided to stay rather than coming into the promised land. And so they decided to settle outside of the land. They did send their armies in with Joshua to bring the rest of the children of Israel to a place of conquering the land and then they went back to their families to settle on the other side of the Jordan in the area of Gilead, which then kind of in general took the name of Manasseh even though it was half the tribe of Manasseh.

They were kind of dominant in that area. So God says, "That whole section Gilead, Manasseh it's mine." Over on the eastern side of the Jordan River. By the way, in not going into the promised land and staying and settling on that side of the Jordan River, guess who was first to go into captivity? Reuben, Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh. Never pays to not go for what God wants you to go for.

Well, Gilead is mine, Manasseh is mine. Ephraim on the western side also is the helmet or protection for my head. We've talked about this in our study through Isaiah that we just concluded. Ephraim was the principal tribe of the northern kingdom of Israel once the kingdom was split. Most of the tribes were in that northern kingdom, but Ephraim was predominant.

So Ephraim was the name that the northern tribes largely took, even though they were called Israel, they were often referred to as Ephraim. The southern kingdom, Judah, is where Jerusalem is, and that's mentioned next: "Judah is my lawgiver." Now do you see how often, going through these verses, we see "my", "mine", "my", "mine" as God is taking them through the entirety of the land?

You almost get the idea that the land is God's. You almost get the idea that that whole region of the Middle East belongs to the Lord. And over and over and over in the Scripture we get this idea. Now, He gave it to the nation of Israel. It is still theirs today. There is no reason to think that God has gone back on that promise to give them the land.

In fact, when the Lord returns, we will see the border and He sets up His millennial kingdom, a thousand years of reign upon the earth, we will see Israel from the Euphrates all the way down to the Nile River. They will have all of the land that God had ultimately promised to them, which they never in this time upon the earth ever obtained.

But the land is God's. This does not mean that everything that the current government of Israel does is absolutely 100 percent correct. Can we acknowledge that? Because there's all this stuff going on out there, even within the church, where everybody's fighting with each other over this issue of Israel.

The land is Israel's. The land will be Israel's. God has promised that. We support Israel in that sense. That does not mean that the current political system in Israel is governed by God. And we have to acknowledge that as well. They are not perfect. For the most part, many of them are just flat atheists, never mind even being Jews who acknowledge God.

So we have to be able to balance that when we're talking about geopolitical issues, and the church should not be clashing over all of this stuff. Antisemitism is from the pit of hell. Period. It's turning against God's people and thus you turn against God. And God said of Israel, "Whoever touches you touches the apple of my eye." In other words, you come against Israel and you're poking God in the eye. Not a good idea.

But at the same time we need to acknowledge that we don't agree as the church, as Christians, with every single decision that Israel ever makes. I don't think that the two of them are mutually exclusive. So verse 8: "Moab is my washpot." Well, that's a figure of disdain. "Over Edom I will cast my shoe." These are surrounding areas over in what is today Syria and down along the southern area across the Golan and then down across on the other side of the Dead Sea.

That is the area of Moab, the area of Edom. He says, "Over Edom I will cast my shoe." Again, a sign of disdain. This is not something that we do or see too much in America. But you remember back in 2008 when George W. Bush was doing a press conference and one of the Iraqi journalists threw their shoes at him? That's cultural. Same exact thing that God is talking about here: "Over Edom I will cast my shoe. Philistia, shout in triumph because of me."

Very difficult Hebrew to translate, but it becomes more clear in the context that it seems to indicate, "I will shout in triumph over Philistia." It's talking about God's triumph over all of these areas: Moab, Edom, Philistia, Philistine country. Verse 9, David says, "Who will bring me to the strong city?" Now he's talking about God bringing him against Edom.

You remember that when we first began this, Joab returned and killed 12,000 Edomites in the Valley of Salt. So the whole context of this is they had experienced some defeat, but then God is going to use Joab to now go down into the Valley of Salt, fight against the Edomites and be victorious. So when David says, "Who will bring me to the strong city?" the presumption would be he's talking about bringing his armies into Edom to the strong city.

Anyone want to hazard a guess as to what that might be? Petra. It seems to fit in the context of the Psalm and what he's talking about here, coming down to the strong city. "Who will lead me to Edom?" Petra, the rock city, is a city that is built into there's one little narrow passageway through the rocks to get back to it, and it is a city about the size of Manhattan that is built into the rock.

Their treasuries, their banks, many of their tombs, a lot of their public buildings were actually carved into the rock. It was considered to be nearly impenetrable. David says, "Who will bring me to the strong city? Who will lead me to Edom? Is it not You, O God, who cast us off? And You, O God, who did not go out with our armies?"

Isn't it You, Lord, the same one who didn't go out with our armies before, who didn't fight on our behalf? Aren't You the same one who's going to lead me down there to be victorious, to take me into that great city? Verse 11: "Give us help from trouble, for the help of man is useless." That would be a good bumper sticker. "The help of man is useless."

Even better in the old King Jimmy: "Vain is the help of man." Someone wants to put bumper stickers together, we'll sell them here. Listen, Joab, who it mentions in the introduction would go and kill 12,000 Edomites in the Valley of Salt, he's just the instrument through which God will accomplish this victory. He's just the hose. He's just the implement in God's hands to bring about this victory. Not man. God, David is crying. "Give us help from trouble, for the help of man is useless. Through God we will do valiantly, for it is He who shall tread down our enemies."

What a great thought to close the Psalm: "Through God we will do valiantly, for it is He who shall tread down our enemies." Not man. God will take care of it. And gang, that's still true for us today. We are fighting a battle. We have a spiritual battle that is taking place. Spiritual warfare is a real thing.

I think we can err in two ways when we deal with spiritual warfare: there's a group of people that just don't even want to acknowledge it because it seems too weird and seems too scary. Right? But there are forces, demonic forces, that we battle against. We don't wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and rulers and all of these things that are in the spiritual realm. That's where we're doing battle.

So to ignore it is a problem. But to give Satan too much credit is a problem too. That's a big problem. Satan is not omnipotent. He's not all-powerful. Satan is not even omnipresent. He can't be more than one place at a time. Scripture indicates he can get places pretty quickly, but he can't be more than one place at one time. So when we talk about being attacked by the enemy, when I say, "Man, the enemy's really attacking me this week," because it's been a week.

I don't believe that Satan has ever personally attacked me. I don't think I'm important enough. Does that make sense? I mean, the way I look at it, he's got enough to deal with with Trump and Putin. Right? So I don't think Satan's got his eyes set on me. But he certainly has some ugly demons to send my way, and your way, and your way, and your way, because he's going to attack us.

So you can't give him too much credit either. You can't say that you've lost a battle or that you succumbed to sin and what I call Flip Wilson Christianity. Any of you remember Flip Wilson, the comedian? "The devil made me do it." That's Flip Wilson theology. It's not biblical theology. The devil can tempt you, he can sway you, he can entice you, but he doesn't make you do anything.

"Through God we will do valiantly, for it is He who shall tread down our enemies." Here's the great news: we know the end of the story. We know the end of our story. My life here on earth will one day come to an end and I will be in the presence of God. That's the end of the story.

So everything that's happening right now to us, gang, if you're going through it right now and many of you are, some of you just because it's the Christmas season. I was thinking about this today. Every year I go through this same thing where I just feel like, eh. Through this Christmas, I'm just not a Christmas person. My wife and I have had conversations every year for the 42 years we've been married.

What is wrong with my psyche that I get down every holiday season? Probably comes back to some psycho-babble in my childhood. But the bottom line is there's something there that just makes me on edge. It's probably that you can't go anywhere in the world without people all over you. And for an introvert, that's hard. I don't know what it is.

But here's what I know: I know the end of the story. Whatever testing we're going through right now, do you understand it's an open-book test? It's open-book! We got all the answers right here. The Lord is there for us in the midst of all this stuff, and David realizes that.

Now Psalm 61. To the chief musician, on a stringed instrument, a Psalm of David. We're not given any more setting than that. Many scholars believe that this was written in response to Absalom's rebellion. You remember when Absalom, David's son, rebelled against him? David actually had to flee Jerusalem and he goes all the way up to Mahanaim, which is quite some distance from Jerusalem.

There's indication in the Psalm that he was somewhere way outside of Jerusalem as he writes this Psalm. We'll point it out when we get there. If this is in conjunction with what happens with Absalom, then certainly we know that David realizes that ultimately this is again part of the consequence of his sinful behavior when he committed adultery with Bathsheba and then to try and cover it up ended up murdering her husband.

You remember when Nathan the prophet came and confronted him? Here's what Nathan said. It's in Second Samuel 12 if you want to look at it later. Nathan the prophet says to David, "Thus says the Lord God of Israel: I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your keeping, and gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if that had been too little, I also would have given you much more.

Why have you despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in His sight? You have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword," that was Bathsheba's husband, "you have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the people of Ammon. Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house because you have despised Me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.

Thus says the Lord: Behold, I will raise up adversity against you from your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, before the sun."

Now if this is in conjunction with Absalom's rebellion, David knew this is exactly what God told him was going to happen. Exactly. So he begins: "Hear my cry, O God." This is a lamentation of David. "Attend to my prayer." And even the way he starts this, "Hear my cry, O God, attend to my prayer," though he knew this was the result of his own sin, the consequence of the decisions and choices he had made, he knows the forgiveness of God.

Nathan, everything I just told you Nathan said, and David's response: "I have sinned." He confessed, he repented, he turns back to the Lord. So now, even though he realizes years later he's dealing with the result of all of that, he still cries out to the Lord because he knows God hears him. "Hear my cry, O God, attend to my prayer; from the ends of the earth I cry to You, when my heart is overwhelmed."

And that's where we see that indication that David may have been far outside of Jerusalem when he writes this Psalm. "From the end of the earth I will cry to You, when my heart is overwhelmed." But here's the interesting thing: David sinned greatly, did he not? I mean, I'm hoping nobody in this room has sinned as greatly as David did, quite frankly.

Adultery, murder. I mean, the guy really blew it. However, you look at David and his entire life, he never changed his God. He never worshipped any other God. He never allowed his own sinful behavior and even those times he was in rebellion against God in his own heart to turn him so far away that he ever cried out to another God.

Now here he is way outside of Jerusalem. If he's in Mahanaim at this point, as he's considering everything that has been happening and he's going through all of this, at this point Absalom would have been dead. Remember, Absalom dies because his rebellion fails and then he runs off on a mule and his hair gets stuck up in the tree and Joab comes along and kills him.

David would have known that all of this has happened. He's heartbroken over the death of his son, what it has meant for Jerusalem and the people of God. "Hear my cry, O God, attend to my prayer; from the end of the earth I will cry to You." And in that day, much of the belief system centered around local deities. They believed that there were gods that were over specific areas of the geographic region.

In other words, there were gods of the hills and there were gods of the valleys. There were gods of this place and there were gods of that place. Today we would call them city council, but I digress. We have this idea in David's day of all of these local deities. Well, David is way outside of Jerusalem, he doesn't turn to some local deity.

He knows that God is God to the end of the earth. He is King of Kings, He is Lord of Lords, there is no other God. And so David is still crying out to Yahweh, the true and living God. But his heart is overwhelmed. "From the end of the earth I will cry to You, when my heart is overwhelmed." Have you ever been there? When you just feel like there's no end to this?

The pressure keeps building. I feel like I'm going to break from the pressure and the pain of life when my heart is overwhelmed. Even from the end of the earth I will cry to You. That's David. And what an encouragement to us that is. Because I don't care who you are and I don't care how mature you are in your walk with God, you can have times like that.

And we need to understand that. This is not an indication of lack of spiritual depth or maturity. David, David, the one who said, "I would rather rather than being a king, rather than being a prophet, I would rather be a doorkeeper. Read: usher." Because I think sometimes, we have ushers around here, right? That welcome you when you come in, and we think, "Oh, that's just not a very big ministry."

David said, "I would rather be a usher in the temple of my God than anything else, just to be in the presence of the Lord." This is a spiritually mature man and his heart is overwhelmed. And he says in that time, "Lead me to the rock that is higher than I." There's three things I see in that statement.

David knows he needs a rock. A strength and security is needed for him. His son Absalom has been killed. That was the one thing he commanded all of his army: "Don't hurt my son Absalom. Go and be victorious against his army, but please spare his life." Joab has killed him. David knows this. But he feels powerless to really confront Joab because Joab knows all the details of what had happened with Uriah.

Joab was the one that got the message from David to make sure Uriah was put in the heat of the battle and then everyone else withdraw from him so that he was killed. And David doesn't feel like he can stand up to Joab at this point. But he knows all of this, he's crushed. "Lead me to the rock, the fortress, the stronghold."

Secondly, he needed a rock, a stability, a strength that was higher than himself. David was a very capable man. The difficulty for capable men is that we cease many times relying on God and we trust in our own capabilities. And he says, "I need a rock that is higher than I." Beyond any of his intelligence, beyond any of his ability, beyond any of his wisdom.

And thirdly, he knew he couldn't get there on his own. "God, lead me to the rock that is higher than I. I need You to get me there. For You," verse 3, "have been a shelter for me, a strong tower from the enemy. Lord, You've shown Yourself strong on my behalf so many times. I know I can trust You now. You've been a shelter for me, a strong tower, a fortress from the enemy."

Verse 4: "I will abide in Your tabernacle forever; I will trust in the shelter of Your wings. What do you think about that?" I think this is a man who's crushed and is crying out to the one who can bring him peace and comfort and strength and see him through this trial in his life. "I will abide in Your tabernacle forever. I will trust in the shelter of Your wings."

Now we've seen David use this phrase many times and he's going to use it in the next couple of Psalms as well. Abiding under the shadow or trusting in the shelter of Your wings. The idea that comes to our mind, I'm sure, is the way a mother bird collects her youngsters underneath her wings to protect them.

And we've all heard the stories, maybe some of you have been in these situations and seen it, where a fire sweeps through a farm and through a barn and they go in later and there's the carcass of a hen that has been charred and burned to death through the fire and you move the body and all these little chicks run out because she's been able to protect them, offering herself up for them.

It's that idea. But the fact that David in this case links this with "I will abide in Your tabernacle forever; I will trust in the shelter of Your wings." The tabernacle, remember, the temple is not built yet. That's not built until the days of David's son Solomon. So they were worshipping in the tabernacle.

Well, where do we see any symbolism there with the tabernacle? And yes, we do. The Ark of the Covenant had over the mercy seat two cherubim that were constructed there that had their wings folded over and touching one another as they faced each other on the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant. And it makes me wonder if David wasn't just talking in the sense that he so often has about the way that a mama bird will take care of their young, which God certainly does for us.

And I think He clearly means elsewhere. I wonder if in this instance he isn't thinking even more clearly of the mercy seat. "I will trust in the shelter of the wing of these angels, these cherubim with their wings outstretched over the mercy seat." Where God's mercy covered the law. Remember what was in the Ark of the Covenant?

One of the items in there were the tablets upon which God wrote the law for Moses. The mercy seat covering over the law. What a wonderful picture. Because we need God's mercy to cover the law, otherwise we're all guilty. "For You," verse 5, "O God, have heard my vows; You have given me the heritage of those who fear Your name. You will prolong the king's life, his years as many generations."

David knew God would bless his reign as king. He knew it, even though he's on the run from Absalom. Think about this: he left Jerusalem and had to go on the run because his son was trying to kill him. Well, now he knows that that rebellion has ended, it's been crushed, Absalom is dead.

But he says, "You will prolong the king's life, his years as many generations." Why? Not because David was so awesome, but because God is. God had sent Samuel the prophet to anoint David as king. David wasn't trusting in anything he could provide; he was trusting in the provision of God's promise.

God made him king, and he knows: "I may have to go back on the run, I may have to be out in the wilderness just like I was years ago when Saul was hunting me down before I came to the throne, but I still had God's promise that I am going to be king and that God is going to bless my reign." And he never lost sight of that. He had times where he cried out, "Lord, if they kill me, this is going to look bad for You."

Can you imagine having that conversation with God? "God, if they kill me, this is going to cause You to look bad because I'm trusting in Your promise and You made me king." And speaking of himself as king, verse 7: "He shall abide before God forever; Oh, prepare mercy and truth which may preserve him." Prepare mercy and truth. Those are kind of two sides of a coin, aren't they?

Truth is where the law is. This is truth. God said "thou shalt", God said "thou shalt not". That is truth. And the truth is we have all broken the law. But mercy is where God intervenes to bring His compassion and His grace to bring us to salvation. "Oh, prepare mercy and truth which may preserve him."

Every time I see this balance in the Scripture, I think of John chapter 1, where it talks about the coming of the Messiah, full of grace and truth. Jesus was gracious, but not gracious to the point where he would neglect what was true. He always proclaimed what was true, but he also brought grace into the mix. And aren't we all grateful for that?

"He shall abide before God forever. Oh, prepare mercy and truth which may preserve him. So I will sing praise to Your name forever, that I may daily perform my vows. I will sing praise to Your name forever, that I may daily perform my vows." David, heartbroken over the death of his son, so much so, if you remember the story, Joab, the commander of his army, had to come to David and rebuke David because of the effect that his grieving for his son was having on the men.

David's men had gone and fought for David, fought to preserve his kingdom. They had fought against the forces of Absalom. It was a great battle. They didn't know if they were going to be victorious or not. They believed that God had put David on the throne, so they went into battle.

Well, David was so heartbroken over the death of his son who had rebelled against him that the men all were kind of slinking back to their tents like, "Man, we really blew it. We thought we were doing a great thing for David, but now he just doesn't care for any of us. He only cares for this wretched son of his."

And Joab had to rebuke him and bring him back to a place where he understood that he needed to acknowledge his men and the sacrifice that they had made. And he gets to that place where he says, "I will sing praise to Your name forever." Now I'd hope to get into Psalm 62 and we just aren't going to have time to get there tonight, so we'll pick that up next time.

But I think when I come to the end of Psalms like this and I realize that David has gone through his crushing and David has come to a place of being overwhelmed and he cries out to God, "Lead me to the rock that is higher than I, for thou hast been a refuge and a strength for me, a tower of strength in the presence of mine enemies."

And he can cry out that way and finally he gets to the end of that Psalm and he says, "It doesn't matter. I'm going to sing praise to Your name forever." Man, I want to get there. I will confess to you, I'm not always there. Sometimes I do well, sometimes I don't. Anybody with me with this? Sometimes you do well, sometimes you don't.

But I want to get there. Lord, in the midst of every single trial and difficulty and those times that we're just overwhelmed, may I just have a heart to sing praise to You. And so, Father, that is our prayer tonight. Lord, I pray for each of Your folks in this place that in the cold and in the ice and everything else, they've come into this place to worship You, to study Your word, to draw near to You, to hear the proclamation of Your truth.

Lord, may we also hear the proclamation of Your mercy and grace. May we walk from this place tonight enveloped in it. And Lord, may we sing praise to You no matter how crazy the season might get, no matter how crazy the news might sound, no matter how crazy politics gets, no matter how crazy and insane this world should get, and no matter how overwhelmed we may feel.

May we learn to sing praise to You, to the name, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, our victory banner. And Lord, see us through to that victory, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. God bless you guys. We will see you this weekend.