Psalms 18, 20, 21

Psalms — Steve Gregg

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Psalms 25 - 31

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Psalms 18, 20, 21

PsalmsSteve Gregg

In this talk, Steve Gregg unpacks and analyzes Psalms 18, 20, and 21. He discusses how David behaved righteously toward Saul and how Jesus teaches us to overcome evil by doing good. Gregg also explores the themes of mercy and perseverance in the psalms and the idea of God making Jesus the head of the church. Overall, Gregg encourages listeners to gain victory over their own sins and habits while understanding the teachings of Jesus.

Transcript

Back in the Psalms to chapter 18. This psalm has more than one interesting feature. It's rather longer than most of the psalms we've studied so far.

It's 50 verses long. It has one of the longest titles of any of the psalms, perhaps the longest. Another interesting feature of it is it's almost identical to another chapter in the Bible, which is 2 Samuel chapter 22.

It is a victory song that David sang and the same psalm is repeated or is reproduced almost exactly as it is here in the chapter 2 Samuel 22. There are a few minor editorial changes that have been made. Apparently, after it was originally written, maybe another version of it came out with a slight different wording.

For the most part, even with the title here, the title appears in 2 Samuel 22 as the first verse of the chapter and then goes through the psalm. This is when David had been given rest from all his enemies. Actually, what it says in the title, To the chief musician, a psalm of David, the servant of the Lord, who spake unto the Lord the words of this psalm in the day that the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul.

And he said, and then it goes on. So, this was when David, he was sitting back one day and he realized that every enemy of his had been removed. That he had been a man who had suffered from many enemies.

And we don't know at what point in his life this was because other enemies arose later in his life, almost to the end of his life. But at a certain point in his life, he realized that the kingdom was settled into his power and he was reflecting back on his flight, especially from Saul. It mentions Saul by name.

And the psalm is celebrating, really, and giving God the praise that's due for the victories and for the deliverances. Now, one of the interesting features about this psalm is that it's messianic. Or at least part of it is.

Because verse 49 is quoted by the apostle Paul as being about Christ. Now, without Paul quoting it, you wouldn't know that. Because it simply looks like David is saying in verse 49, Therefore will I give thanks unto thee, O Lord, among the heathen, and sing praises unto thy name.

But Paul quotes this in Romans 15.9 as being a statement Jesus makes. That Jesus makes this statement. Therefore, if Jesus makes this statement, which appears to be David's own statement, we might wonder how many of the other statements in the psalm are attributable to Jesus.

Possibly the whole psalm in some respects could be. But more exactly, I would say at least from verse 43 on, would be messianic. And we'll see especially how that, from verse 43 on, there are direct prophetic inferences concerning Jesus.

And concerning his ministry among the heathen. David in this psalm rejoices that he's been established on the throne in Israel, despite the opposition of Saul and others. God has set him upon his holy hill of Zion.

But he also rejoices that the heathen will submit to him. Now, there were certain heathens still living in the land of Israel, and David had authority over them while he was king there. So there were certain heathens that submitted to him, besides the fact that he defeated the Philistines and some other groups that came under him that were heathen, or Gentiles.

But for the most part, it's not as though most of the heathen in the world came under David's dominion. Far from it. David only really ruled the little land of Israel, and possibly some territories outlined Israel.

But the real fulfillment of this would have to be, especially the latter verses about the heathen submitting to him, would have to be fulfilled in Christ. So David here, again, is seen as a type of Christ. He's celebrating his victory, so if we read this, we could see this is a victory song not only of David, but of Christ.

How that God has given him the necks of all his enemies, basically. Which is an expression which refers to the fact that the enemies have been made totally come under his power. They're under his sway.

It begins with a description of God as a fortress, as a place of safety. In verses 1-3, it says, I will love thee, O 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. There's a popular song that, I don't know if we've ever sung it here, but you probably know it. It's taken from verse 3 and also later in the song, verse 46.

The Lord liveth and blessed be my rock and let the God of my salvation be exalted. Taking the two verses together, verse 3 and verse 46. It's probably familiar to most of you, the song.

Now notice he says that he calls on the Lord and therefore he is safe from his enemies. And he describes God in terms of military fortress. Now David, of course, lived in the rocks and the caves and the dens of the earth for a while while he was fleeing from Saul.

But here he's speaking of actually an organized fortress, an actual place of safety. We were talking earlier about David saying, my trust is in the Lord. Why do they say, flee to the mountains? And that we have our lives hid with Christ and God.

That our safety is in being found in him. Not having a righteousness of our own, which is after the law, but the righteousness which is of faith. And so being in Christ is like being in a rock fortress, a rock tower, actually a high tower.

He mentions my strength, my buckler, the horn of my salvation. The word horn you'll find frequently in the Psalms and later in the prophets also. Usually refers to military strength or political strength, though why it is used is not certain.

It's probably an allusion to the horns of an animal, like the horns of an ox. It's not extremely clear, but it probably is so. That as the ox has the horn as its source of defense and thrust and power.

So a king or a military general, his power is described as his horn. And here he says that his horn of his salvation is God and his high tower, which is a place of safety. In days when they didn't have airplanes, if you could get high enough so the enemy couldn't get up over your walls or in your tower with their ladders, then you were safe.

So he sees himself as one who has always been safe in the Lord. Though at times he seemed a bit to be on treacherous ground when he's been fleeing for his life. Yet he now can look back and say, I've always really been safe.

The Lord has been a tower and a shield and a fortress for me. And my enemies could never touch me without his wish. He says in verse four, the sorrows of death come past me and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid.

The sorrows of hell come past me about, the snares of death prevented me. So he's talking about until this time, he's now rejoicing, of course, in his victories. But there was a time when he was surrounded by troubles.

The snares of death prevented him or stopped him, basically. Now that, of course, remember, if we take this as a messianic psalm, we could see that as a picture of Jesus surrounded by his enemies and taken and crucified and delivered. Delivered unto death.

But it says, in my distress, I called unto the Lord and cried unto my God. And 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 wroth. Now David goes on in very flowery terms up through verse 19 to describe God coming to his aid in very cataclysmic and quite exaggerated terms.

He acts like the whole earth was shaken up by the situation. But basically what he's saying is that God so powerfully came to his aid, it couldn't have been more dramatic if the heavens had been torn open and the mountains had shaken and all those things. Basically, God's aid had come to him in such a powerful and dramatic way that these kinds of metaphors could be applied to it.

It was so stunning and so remarkable. So he says in verse 7, then the earth shook and trembled. The foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken because he was wroth.

There went up 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 wrote upon a cherub, which is some kind of an angelic being, and did fly. Yea, 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 and the highest gave his voice, hailstones and coals of fire. Yea, he sent out his arrows and scattered them. And he shot out lightnings and discomfited them.

Then the channels of the waters were seen and the foundations of the world were discovered or uncovered at thy rebuke. O Lord, at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils, he sent from above and he took me and he drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemies 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. In other words, he wasn't in a narrow crevice ready to fall over a cliff anymore.

He now was in a place of security and prosperity, a large place. He delivered me because he delighted in me. Okay, now he explains that the reason God did this was because David was a righteous man and kept God's ways.

He says that in verses 20 through 24. 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 in his eyesight. Now we would probably be afraid to say something like that. Once God had saved us out of some trouble, we'd probably feel it was more humble to say, I didn't deserve it.

I didn't deserve to be saved. I was just a wretch like everyone else, but God out of his mercy just saved me. And that's true.

We are wretches. We are unrighteous. But at the same time, he's saying that God has done the just thing.

As far as that goes, David was more righteous than Saul. David behaved righteously towards Saul. Saul behaved unrighteously and it was just a matter of justice and fairness that God delivered David.

He did it because of David's cleanness of hands and because of his righteousness. Now we can apply this passage to Jesus with exactness, really. Because there's no one who could more say, and more perfectly and completely and without exaggeration say, except Jesus, the Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness.

The resurrection of Jesus, delivered out of the hands of his enemies, raised from the dead and given an exalted place, was definitely because of his righteousness and the cleanness of his hands. And he has kept all the ways of the Lord. In other words, there's absolute righteousness of character seen in Christ.

David's righteousness, of course, would be not in the absolute sense, but in more of a comparative sense, a relative sense. But true, compared to Saul, David was very righteous and what God had done was a matter of justice. He had caused justice to be done and to be meted out in favor of David.

Now, he goes on, verse 25, concerning the justice and the exactness of God's dealings. Verse 25, with the merciful thou wilt show thyself merciful. With an upright man thou wilt show thyself upright.

With the pure thou wilt show thyself pure. And with the froward thou wilt show thyself froward, or perverse. For thou wilt save the afflicted people, but wilt bring down the high looks.

For thou wilt light my candle, the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness. Now, the statement that to the merciful God will show himself merciful agrees with what Jesus said. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, Blessed are you merciful, or blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

Meaning from God. God will show mercy to those who show mercy to others. He said it another way when he told us how to pray.

And he said, pray, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. At the end of that prayer in Matthew chapter 6, Jesus said, For if you forgive men their trespasses against you, so shall your Father forgive your trespasses against him. But if you don't, he won't.

That's what Jesus said. So in other words, showing mercy is a means of making sure that God will show mercy to you. If you're compassionate, forgiving, merciful to others, then you have reason to expect that God will be that way to you.

To the merciful he shows himself merciful. To the upright he shows himself upright. And to the pure he shows himself pure.

But then it says to the perverse, or froward, he shows himself to be perverse. Now, is God perverse? No. But what it means is that a man who is upright, a man who is pure, will recognize the pureness and uprightness of God's ways.

A man who is perverse will not understand God's justice, and God will appear to be perverse. A man whose heart is darkened sees God through tainted glasses. He projects to God the wickedness of his own character.

You're aware, of course, of the whole concept of projection that psychologists talk about, where a person has certain character faults himself, and he sees those same faults in everyone else, even though the other people might not have them. He's just projecting his own faults on them. He sees through a tainted lens, and therefore he mistakes the situation.

Perverse people look at God's character, and it looks perverse to them. Well, let me give you a scripture in Titus. Titus chapter 1 and verse 15.

Titus 1.15. He says, unto the pure all things are pure, but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure, but even their mind and conscience is defiled. That's Titus 1.15. Paul says, to the pure all things are pure, to the defiled and unclean nothing is pure, but even their conscience and their mind is defiled. That is, because their mind is defiled, they can't judge things rightly.

Because they are perverse, they look at God's ways, which are so different than theirs. They think of their ways as the normal, good way, and God's is so different, they figure he's the one who's wrong, he's the one who's perverse. And so David is saying that God will actually, and furthermore he's saying beyond that, if men are perverse, that God will judge them, which of course they will view as a perverse action on God's part, but he will do what they don't want them to do.

He'll judge the wicked, whereas he'll show himself mighty and upright and just to those who are just. Now if we go down here, Psalm 18, verse 29, we find that David is pointing out that God has given him the victories. And there's a sense in which we can apply this to Jesus, because Jesus throughout his whole lifetime, in a sense, was making warfare.

He certainly was a gentle and innocent and harmless person, at least as far as his relations with other people are concerned. But with reference to what he was doing to the kingdom of darkness, he was doing violence to it. His preaching the truth was violently forcing deception away.

His bringing in of the light was a violent overthrow of the darkness. The righteousness he was bringing in was a violent overthrow of the power of wickedness. And so forth, you know, Jesus and the devil were at war.

And it isn't seen in the outward actions of Jesus so much, because he was a gentle and kind and meek person. And that is even the way that he made war, because if he had come as an aggressor and a fighter, he would have been fighting evil with evil. But he fought evil with good.

Remember Paul says in Romans 12, when he says, Don't avenge yourselves, he goes on to say, Do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good. So Jesus was actually overcoming, which is a military term. He's actually defeating evil by being good.

And by showing the good way, and also just by winning over the evil man by his goodness. And by changing the evil man into a good man. That's the best way to triumph over evil.

And while it was a gentle thing on the outward, the way he treated men, yet it was a violent overthrow of Satan's kingdom. And so Jesus was in a sense making war with the devil. And he even spoke of it in those terms.

He said he had broken into the strong man's house and bound him. And that was plundering his house. It doesn't sound very calm.

And he talks about how the kingdom of God suffers violence, and the violent men, or the forceful men, will take it by force. Anyway, here we see David talking about how God has helped him in his warfare. We could also apply this to us, of course, as God teaches us how to gain the victory over our sins, and over our habits, and over the enemy about us.

And to take ground for the kingdom of God that is formerly dominated by Satan. For by thee, meaning by God, I have run through a troop. And by my God, I have leaped over a wall.

As for God, his way is perfect. The word of the Lord is tried, or tested. 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, or accept our God. It is God that girdeth me with strength, that maketh my way perfect.

He maketh my feet like hind's feet, or like the feet of a deer. Fast, and able to climb over barriers, and so forth. And setteth me up upon high places.

He teacheth my hands to war, so that a bow of steel is broken in mine arms. So, he's again using the same kind of poetic exaggeration as he had when he was describing the earth shaking and all, when God came to his aid. Essentially, he's saying that God has made me like a valiant warrior.

I leap over a wall. I have the feet of a deer. I ascend quickly to the high places.

I've run through a troop. That is, through a troop of the enemy. I've managed to run through and conquer them all without them conquering me.

Some of it may be based on literal events. Some of it may be just a figure of how God has given him such an absolute victory. It's almost as though he was an indestructible Superman.

Not bragging in any sense, but basically saying that though he were weak, God made him valiant. God made him a winner. God taught his hands to war.

And notice verse 35. Thou also hast given me the shield of thy salvation. Thy right hand hath held me up, and thy gentleness has made me great.

I like that statement. I don't know if that means that God's gentle dealings with David has made him great. That it's a matter of God's kindness and gentleness that David has become great.

Or if it means that because God's gentleness has been worked into David's character, that is an element of his greatness. David is great because he has become gentle with the gentleness of God. David was gentle in many respects, and certainly not in as many as Jesus.

Jesus described himself as gentle. He said, take my yoke and learn of me, for I am meek and gentle of heart. And you should find rest in your heart and soul.

Jesus described himself as gentle. And among the fruit of the Spirit, listed in Galatians 5, one is gentleness. It's a characteristic of Christ that is worked into us by the Holy Spirit.

Gentleness. And his gentleness will make us great. Jesus said, blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Our victory and our greatness, in the eyes of God, will not be based on our ability to assert ourselves and get our own way, but in our ability to lay down our rights to meekly and gently live in good relationship with others and to show the love of Christ and the gentleness of Christ to others. Paul spoke of his gentleness toward the church. I believe it was in 1 Thessalonians.

He spoke how he had gently nursed the church like a mother nurses her child. This is one of the things that made Paul so great. His opponents were men who promoted themselves so much.

But Paul was just one who gently... Well, it's in 1 Thessalonians 2, 6 and 7. He says... Well, we could actually start in verse 5. 1 Thessalonians 2, 5 through 7. For neither at any time did we use flattering words, as ye know, nor a cloak of covetousness. God is witness. Nor from men did we seek glory, neither from you, nor yet of others.

When we might have been burdensome as the apostles of Christ, but we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children. So, he describes how he didn't burden them. He didn't ask them to support his ministry.

He treated them like a nursing mother treats her children. Gently, in other words. And David says, your gentleness has made me great.

So, it's evident here he's describing himself as a great warrior fighting enemies, and yet he speaks of his gentleness. It sounds like a contradiction. But we see that this applies to Christ so clearly.

Because Jesus, by being gentle, was spiritually doing violence to the enemy. The enemy is the violent one. And Jesus was actually overthrowing the kingdom of violence by bringing in the kingdom of gentleness and love and so forth.

And supplanting the place of the kingdom of hatred and darkness and violence. That's why when Paul says we shouldn't strike back at people who strike us, we are overcoming evil with good. Because the evil man, the man who is under the control of evil, will strike out violently.

The person who is under the control of good will not strike out violently. He'll gently respond. He'll turn the other cheek.

And by so doing, he plays a part in the eventual overthrow of the kingdom of violence. Now, it says in verse 36, Thou hast enlarged my steps under me, that my feet do not slip. All these references to fighting on foot, in verse 29, leaping over a wall.

Verse 33, he makes my feet like Hyams' feet. Verse 36, Thou hast enlarged my steps under me, that my feet do not slip. Warfare on foot was something that was abandoned pretty much after David's time.

So that clearly is a psalm written by David instead of some later king. In Solomon's time, the king multiplied chariots. And most of the warfare done in Israel after that time by later kings was done in chariots rather than on foot.

But this clearly speaks of David's time by the fact that there's constant reference to his feet. He's leaping, he's running, he's standing, he's not slipping, his feet are not slipping. He says, I have pursued mine enemies and overtaken them.

Neither did I turn again until they were consumed. I have wounded them that they were not able to rise. They are fallen under my feet.

We see this as Jesus referring to the devil and the demons that he overthrew. It gives it a lot more meaning to us. For Thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle.

Thou hast subdued under me those that rose up against me. God said to Jesus in Psalm 110, verse 1, Sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool. You're going to put your enemies under your feet.

David says here, God has subdued under me those that rose up against me. Put them under his feet. Verse 40, God has given a complete victory, he describes here.

Thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies that I might destroy them that hate me. They cried, but there was none to save them, even unto the Lord, and 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. Now, that doesn't sound very Christian for a man to do that to his enemies. But remember, David lived prior to the Christian revelation.

Jesus hadn't come yet and taught the better way. David lived at a time where the prevailing of good meant the violent overthrow of evil. And we desire the victory of good.

We want good to conquer evil. But we understand now, because Jesus has taught us, that the way to overcome evil is by doing good. And doing good to those who hate you, and pray for those who persecute you, and love your enemies, and so forth.

That revelation had not been given yet. And in the Old Testament, the only concept of causing good to prevail was to violently overthrow the evil. And of course, all those wars in the Old Testament, I believe, God allowed to happen as a picture and a type of the kind of spiritual warfare we do.

The only kind of violence we're engaged in is in terms of spiritual violence done in the unseen realm, in our inner man between us and the enemy. But as far as our behavior toward other men, it's not the same as in David's day. His concept of good triumphing was that evil had to be violently thrown down and crushed.

And that's how he brought it about to the best of his ability. He describes it as a complete sort of a thing, how he just totally ground them into dust, the evil ones. And Jesus has done this, apparently, to the enemy also, to Satan.

Verse 43, Thou hast delivered me from the strivings of the people, and Thou hast made me the head of the heathen. Now it says in Ephesians chapter 1 that God has made Jesus to be the head over all things to the church. Now the church is not all heathen, of course, not all Gentiles, but the church is predominantly Gentile.

The church to which Paul wrote that, Ephesians, the church of Ephesus, was almost entirely a Gentile church. And so in saying that God has made Jesus be the head over all things to the church, it was not much different. Or at least had some of the same elements as here where he says, God has made me to be the head of the heathen.

Now David was thinking in terms of, as king of Israel, he also had several Gentile groups that were subject to him. He had some Gentiles as well as Jews that were subject to him because they lived under his, in his boundaries. They lived under his domain.

But of course this has such a perfect application to Jesus because Jesus primarily, his followers that he rules over, are Gentiles like ourselves. God has made me to be 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. Now it's basically saying that there are those who are hungry to know Christ and as soon as they hear the gospel, they'll respond.

There are those who don't respond immediately, of course, but he's referring to those who do. The people that he's really excited about are the ones who are eagerly, eagerly submit to him as soon as they hear about him. As soon as they hear his name, they want to be in his army.

They want to submit to him. They want him to rule over them. The strangers shall fade away and be afraid out of their close places.

I don't know exactly what that means. Close places probably refers to secure places, meaning that those who don't submit to David or to Jesus will have cause to be feared. They'll be driven out of their secure places.

The Lord liveth and blessed be my rock. From here on, he's basically just giving the glory to God for his victories. Let the God of my salvation be exalted.

It is God that avengeth me and subdueth all the people under me. He delivereth me from mine enemies. Yea, 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, O Lord, among the heathen and sing praises unto thy name. This is the verse that Paul quotes concerning Christ.

He gives thanks to God among the heathen or among the Gentiles. Paul quotes it in Romans 15.9 to show that there is prediction in the Old Testament of the Gentiles coming to Christ. This is part of a string of quotes.

I believe in the passage in Romans there are five quotes from the Old Testament, mostly from Psalms and Isaiah, that he quotes to prove that this is a scriptural thing, that the heathen, the Gentiles, would come to Christ. So, it could be saying, this psalm applies to David and to his seed, the anointed, the Messiah. So, we would see a double fulfillment of this in David's life and in Jesus.

But many of the things said, of course, could only be literally true of Jesus, whereas they would be more figuratively true or maybe in an exaggerated sense in David's life. Now, we've already covered Psalm 19, so we want to move along to Psalm 20 and 21. Now, I believe that Psalms 20 and 21 are companion psalms.

I believe they belong together. Now, it's not entirely clear, but I believe that a close reading of these will show that they have one psalm, 20, is written as a king is going to battle. And Psalm 21 is written after the battle, after the victory.

There's reason for that. I'll tell you a couple of the reasons for that. First of all, in Psalm 20, it appears that the first five verses are the prayer of the people for the king as he's going out to lead his armies to battle.

They're praying for his safety. They're praying for his deliverance. They're praying that God will grant him all his prayers to be answered and that God will give him his heart's desire.

The latter part of Psalm 20 seems to be the king himself speaking about how he trusts the Lord. He's not trusting in horses and chariots to deliver him in this case. He's trusting in God to deliver him.

So, you've got the first part of the psalm, the first five verses, a prayer of the people for the king as he's going to battle. And the last part of it, verses 6 through 9, the king's own faith, or at least through verse 8, the king's own faith that God is going to deliver him in this battle. And then, of course, we have the prayer of the people at the end, Let the king hear us when we call.

Then, in Psalm 21, we have, as I say, after the battle, the two psalms seem to go together. There's a clue that they go together, perhaps in the wording of verse 2. Psalm 21, 2 says, Well, look back at chapter 20, verse 4. The prayer of the people for the king is, In other words, they pray in chapter 20 for God to give the king his heart's desire. In chapter 21, they rejoice, or the king himself rejoices that God has given him his heart's desire.

That is, the thing prayed for in chapter 20 has been fulfilled and is being proclaimed and God has been thanked for it in chapter 21. So, I believe these psalms are companion psalms. Another interesting thing that, whereas in chapter 20, first the people are seen speaking and then the king, in chapter 21, it seems that the king speaks first.

It would appear that verses 1 through 7 are the expression of the king's faith in God, whereas verses 8 through 13 are, again, the people speaking to the king and about the king. So, we have in both psalms two sections, it would appear. Both psalms have a part that the people are speaking and a part that the king speaks, although they're in reverse order.

In Psalm 20, the people speak first, then the king. In Psalm 21, the king speaks first, then the people. In Psalm 20, they're praying that the king's heart's desire will be granted to him, namely the victory in battle, whereas in Psalm 21, the king is rejoicing and thanking God that he has given him his heart's desire.

And that he's facing a battle in chapter 20 seems evident by the fact that he says in verse 7, some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we will remember the name of the Lord our God. That is, the battle is still ahead. We're not going to be trusting as we move ahead here.

In our chariots, in our horses, we're going to be trusting in God. So, this is how these psalms, I believe, fit together. Let's read them.

Psalm 20. The Lord hear thee in the day of trouble. The name of the God of Jacob defend thee.

Send thee help from the sanctuary and strengthen thee out of Zion. Remember all thy offerings and accept thy burnt sacrifice, Selah. Grant thee according to thine own heart and fulfill all thy counsel.

We will rejoice in thy salvation and in the name of our God will we set up our banners. The Lord fulfill all thy petitions. So, we can tell this is a group of people speaking because they say we in verse 5. We will rejoice.

We will set up our banners in the name of God. But they also have a thee. The Lord fulfill all thy petitions.

So, there's a congregation speaking to one individual. And it would seem to be the king going out to battle. And then in verse 6 and following.

Now I know, I believe the king now speaks. Now know I that the Lord saveth his anointed. His anointed would be the king.

The king was anointed with oil when he took office. And in the previous psalm that we studied, chapter 18, verse 50, says, Great deliverance giveth he to his king and showeth mercy to his anointed, to David. So, the anointed refers to the king.

And the king speaks of himself as the anointed. And he says, I know that the Lord saves his anointed. He will hear him from his holy heaven with the saving strength of his right hand.

Some trust in chariots, some in horses, but we will remember the name of the Lord our God. They, the enemy that is, are brought down and fallen. But we are risen and stand upright.

Then again, apparently the prayer of the king and people. Save Lord, let the king hear us when we call. Meaning the king of heaven, God.

Now, I might say that this psalm, the first time I really discovered this psalm, I'm sure I had read it before, but it never had meant anything especially to me, was after my wife was killed, my previous wife was killed. I had to fly to Chicago to go to her, well, that's a long story. I wouldn't have given an elaborate funeral.

I don't think she would have wanted one, but her parents were Catholics. And to them it was very meaningful that she have a Catholic funeral in their hometown of Chicago. Now, she died in California, but they paid to have the body shipped to Chicago.

And I figured, well, if it will bless them, you know, instead of offending them, I'll let them bury the body the way they want to. I know my wife isn't going to care. She's with the Lord now.

So, I let them do it, and then I found out that it would offend them more if I didn't show up. And I realized I had to go back to Chicago for the funeral too, which was really, really hard on me. I mean, my wife had only been dead a few days, so I was still recovering from that.

But to make it worse, I had to go back among all these unbelievers, who were Catholic by tradition, but not true Christians, not believers in Christ. And to be for several days among these mourning, hopeless people, who place so much stock in superstition and tradition, and to watch their casket be sprinkled with holy water, and all kinds of stuff that just turned my stomach. But it was a real trial to me.

Probably worse than the days immediately after her death for me, were the days about a week later, when I had to be at her funeral in Chicago, with all these unbelievers. I was separated from my Christian friends, who had been giving me a lot of support, after she had been killed and everything. I was totally separated from Christians.

And I was with these unbelievers, who were totally negative and despondent, and totally had no positive view of the situation. They had no hope, because they didn't have any belief in salvation at all. Now, the Lord, the reason I allowed it to happen, basically, is I figured it was a chance to witness it.

It turned out to be that way. I was able to preach at her funeral in the Catholic Church, in fact, which was probably the only time I'll ever get to preach in a Catholic Church. And there were about 200 of her friends and relatives gathered there to hear it.

So that was good, and I imagine that's why the Lord worked it out. But there was a time when I was waiting for the funeral. They had what they call a, what do they call it beforehand? A wake.

But they didn't just have one, they had two. The two nights before the funeral, they had a wake. And for about three hours or four hours, I had to greet all of the mourning people with an open casket there.

And to me, I would have gladly just put the body away quietly without ceremony and so forth, but just dragging this thing out, these people mourning and stuff. I got to witness so many of them, it turned out to be really good. But it still is a rather unpleasant experience, a very negative experience in a lot of ways.

But I was just feeling kind of down once I opened the Scriptures, and it opened to this passage, and especially the first five verses. And the interesting thing is that this passage gave me comfort, especially in verse two where it says, God send thee help from the sanctuary and his strength out of Zion, because I have come to understand Zion to be a reference to the Church. And I realized that the Church at home was praying for me, and out of Zion, God was sending strength to me.

And I was strengthened by the passage. But what was really interesting to me later was that just last year, which is now four years after the death of my wife, I was reading an article in a Christian magazine about some people who had lost their five-year-old son who had been run over by a car. And they were really, of course, grief stricken.

And they told how the Lord brought them through and stuff. And then at the end of this article, they quoted this passage. I thought, well, that's strange, because nothing in the passage necessarily lends it to a situation where someone's lost a loved one.

But just as I was reading the article about these people, I realized there were some similarities between their case and mine. My wife had been hit by a car and killed. It was a big shock and a real trial, of course, to everyone, as their situation had been.

And I just thought it was amazing that the Lord had quickened the same Scripture to them for that situation as he'd quickened to me. And that that Scripture had given them comfort as that Scripture had given comfort to me. Though the Scripture itself is not written on such an occasion as that.

It's not written at the time of the loss of a loved one. But just that it would have that... It just was sort of neat to realize that, here, these people I'd never met had experienced a similar crisis, and God gave them the same Scripture to comfort them in it. And the Scripture has always been meaningful to me ever since.

And the prayer is that God will hear you in the day of trouble, and the name of the God of Jacob shall defend thee. Remember Proverbs 18.10. Proverbs 18.10. The name of the Lord is a strong and mighty tower, and the righteous runs into it and is safe. The name of the Lord defends us like a tower around us.

The Lord send thee help from the sanctuary and strengthen thee out of Zion. Probably this meant that to David, when he was out at battle, he was away from Zion, he was away from the temple. But God, whose ark was there in the tabernacle, would be sending forth his aid nonetheless.

Though David was removed from Zion for the battle, yet God, out of Zion, would be sending help. Remember all thy offerings and accept all thy burnt sacrifices. A Jewish king would usually offer certain sacrifices before going to battle to entreat the Lord's favor, of course.

So they're saying, may the Lord take heed to those sacrifices and grant you your request. Grant thee according to thine own heart and fulfill thy counsel. Then it says, we will rejoice in thy salvation.

Which probably means, as God saves you, we'll rejoice in it. We're going to rejoice in the fact that God is going to save you in this battle, or deliver you. And in the name of our God will we set up our banners.

Banners, of course, are emblems that were carried by armies, carrying the emblem of their king upon them. And it says our banner is going to have the name of God on them. The Lord fulfill all thy petitions.

So this blessing is pronounced upon the king, this prayer is uttered for him as he goes out to battle. Now he states his confidence in God here. He says, I know that the Lord saves his anointed.

He will hear him from his holy heaven with the saving strength of his right hand. God's right hand, his saving strength coming out of heaven to save the anointed, is David's hope of success in this battle. And he's saying clearly in verse 7, that though he has horses, he might not have had chariots for all we know, but the enemy apparently did.

The enemy is trusting in their horses and chariots. And I suppose David was in the position that he could have done similarly, but he said we don't trust in those things. They're too unsure.

Anything that someone puts their trust in other than God is not a sure thing. Your chariots might deliver you out of the hand of the enemy, but then again they might not. Your nuclear missiles might prevent you from being blown off the face of the earth, but they might not.

It's not certain, you know. If you trust in your missiles and trust in your nuclear submarines and trust in your laser weapons satellites and all the things that people are trying to do to provide security in this nuclear age, and in a time where nuclear holocaust would certainly follow a war, people are trusting in technology and in technological weapons. In those days they didn't have technological weapons, but they had weapons, and it was just as much a folly then to trust in weapons, whether it be horses and chariots, as it is today to trust in weapons, whether it be missiles or lasers or whatever else they're going to use in the next war.

Those things are not what provide safety. It's true that they might, but it's also equally true they might not. You just don't have any assurance in those things.

If you trust in those things, they may let you down. But if you trust or remember the name of the Lord our God, He never has let anyone down yet. That doesn't mean you'll always win the war, but it means that you'll be protected as much as God wants you to be.

If God wants you to die, then that's fine too. If God wants you to die, you should be willing to die. But you at least will know that nothing can happen to you outside the will of God as long as you're trusting Him.

And it's foolish to put your trust in military resources, although it's very clear that the present administration of the United States is doing that more than some of the previous administrations have done, trying to gain security against future war by tremendous military spending and buildup. I feel it's sad. I don't have any interest in making political statements or anything like that, but I feel that it's an insecure thing and that to do it, well, frankly, it seems to me the money could be better spent.

There are some real needs in the world that those billions and billions of dollars could alleviate, which God might honor more than all this military spending. If we would remember the name of the Lord our God, use our resources to do things that would please God, then we wouldn't need to waste our money on all this military spending. I don't know if David had the same problem.

He probably didn't because there was no mechanization. There was no technology in his day, and probably the same kinds of chariots would be used generation after generation in all wars. We have the increased problem, of course, of having the fact that we develop one kind of jet, one kind of missile, and it's the best in the world, and then the enemy develops one that's better, and ours are obsolete, so we have to scrap them and make a new kind so that we spend billions of dollars this year on weapons, and two years down the line, we have to scrap everything we spent billions on, spend new billions to develop new ones, so that it's not even as though the billions are really being spent on defense.

I suppose we could say if we spent these billions and they really saved us from destruction, then maybe we could count it money well spent, but when it's weapons that never even get used, then it's just money down the tubes, which could have fed many hungry people who are dying, or reached the world with the gospel, as far as that goes, if the money had been so dedicated. But, again, I'm not that interested in making political statements, just saying that for us to trust in horses and chariots always leads to a wasteful product, a wasteful life, as we see in our own day, in our own nation. He says, the enemy is brought down and fallen.

He speaks as though it's already been accomplished, though it hasn't, but he sees it in his mind's eye. He sees that because God is on his side, the enemy's fallen, and we are risen and upright. Now, we're going to go right on down to Psalm 21, because, as I said, I believe this psalm was written right after that same battle, because of the similar wording in verse 2, and the previous psalm in verse 4. And I believe this is the king speaking first here, expressing his faith.

It says, the king shall joy in thy strength, O Lord, and in thy salvation, how greatly shall he rejoice. Thou hast given him his heart's desire, and hast not withhold in the request of his lips, Selah. For thou preventest him with the blessings of goodness.

Thou settest a crown of pure gold on his head. He asked life of thee, and thou gavest it him, even length of days for ever and ever. In other words, God didn't cut his life short in the battle.

He let him live longer yet. His glory is great in thy salvation, which probably means that his rejoicing and his boasting is great in the salvation that God has given him. That is, he's rejoicing greatly in having been saved.

Honor and majesty hast thou laid upon him, for thou hast made him most blessed for ever. Thou hast made him exceeding glad with thy countenance. For the king trusteth in the Lord, and through the mercy of the Most High, he shall not be moved.

Again, this resembles the words he spoke in verse 7 of the previous. Some trust in chariots, some in horses. We will remember the Lord instead of the horses and chariots.

Here in chapter 21, verse 7, the king trusteth in the Lord. That's why he was delivered. He didn't trust in horses or chariots.

He trusted in the Lord. He says, and through the mercy of the Most High, he shall not be moved. Now, I believe in verse 8, and to the end we have the people speaking to the king, saying to him, Thine hand shall find out all thine enemies.

Thy right hand shall find out those that hate thee. Thou shalt make them as a fiery oven in the time of thy anger. The Lord shall swallow them up in his wrath, and the fire shall devour them.

Their fruit shalt thou destroy from the earth, and their seed from among the children of men. For they intended evil against thee. They imagined a mischievous device, which they are not able to perform.

Therefore shalt thou make them turn their back, when thou shalt make ready thine arrows upon the strings against the face of them. Be thou exalted, O Lord, in thy strength. So will we sing and praise thy power.

Now, these words in verses 8 through 11, for instance, are talking about how they're basically saying to the king, just as you've gained the victory in this instance, so will you gain victories every time by trusting the Lord. The Lord will help you to find out all your enemies and to drive them out and to destroy all their children, meaning the race that they belong to, exterminate them. And it says in verse 11, For they intended evil against thee, but they imagined a mischievous device, but they were not able to perform it.

And that's an exciting thing to figure, that wicked people might imagine mischievous devices against us, but if God doesn't want them to do it, they can't perform it. We need to remember that, because much of the sorrow and suffering that comes into our life is not just through natural disasters, but through the hands of wicked people. Or people who may not be wicked in themselves, but who at a moment do something that's not right, do something that's wicked in itself.

They might be otherwise good people, but it is because of the sins of other people often that we suffer. And probably most of our suffering is caused in that way. And when that happens, we sometimes feel like maybe God isn't in control.

Maybe it's not God's fault, or God's not involved in this situation, because after all, the wickedness of these people did it. God didn't approve. God doesn't approve of wickedness.

Therefore, God was not in it. And if we don't see God in it, we're likely to just get bitter about it. But here, we have it pointed out to us, that even though wicked people might intend mischievous things against us, they can't perform any mischievous thing against us, unless God permits it.

In this case, some wicked people planned to do evil to David, but failed, because God didn't let them perform it. And this scripture has been meaningful to me many times, when I've known that there are those who would like to do me harm. And I'm not saying there are a lot who would, but there are some, at least from time to time, who would like to do me harm.

And I don't have to worry about that. Because, of course, either they will, or they will not be able to perform what they plan to do. They may make elaborate plans.

I wouldn't be surprised here in Bandon, if there are even Satanists and all, who would like to do us harm here, who would like to hurt us in some way, and end our work. But unless God permits it, they won't be able to perform it. And so, we find our security totally in the fact of God's sovereignty, that He rules even over the heathen.

He permits, or does not permit, all that takes place. As we saw even in the book of Job. Even Satan can't move, and can't touch us, without God's permitting it.

And here in this case, we have wicked men seeking to touch God's anointed, touch David, but failing, because, of course, God didn't permit them to do it. So, we see the prayer for victory, and the praise of God for the victory, once it's been had. My temptation is to go on into Psalm 25, but I don't think we should take the time, just because of the lateness of the hour.

We do have a little tape left, but probably not enough, and it is lunchtime. So, we'll take our break at this point, and come back to Psalm 25. We've already covered 22 through 24, as Messianic Psalms.