Sayre Woods Bible Church

Arise, O LORD! Deliver me, O my God! Strike all my enemies on the jaw; break the teeth of the wicked. (Psalm 3:7)

Not the typical line in a Sunday morning song! It certainly caught my attention this morning.

Psalm 3 was probably written by David as he was fleeing Jerusalem from the uprising and rebellion of his son, Absalom. It was one of the lowest points of David’s life. His kingdom and his life were both jeopardized…by his own son no less!

That night David wrestled with his thoughts and emotions. He was in danger of losing everything….his authority, his home, his wealth, his dignity, his security, his son, and his very life. Everything was spinning out of control. Enemies were all around. People who used to sing songs to his name are now cursing him and wishing him dead. Public opinion is fickle and cruel…not much has changed in 3000 years!

In the midst of all this David fights to keep his eyes on the LORD. He cries out to Him. How many are my foes! There are too many fronts to fight. David is overwhelmed. But You, O LORD, are a shield for me, my glory and the One who lifts my head. God protects. God provides. God lifts up our head so we can walk confidently and without fear.

Most amazing of all to David…God allows him to sleep! I lay down and slept; I awoke, for the LORD sustained me. This to David was the sign that he needed. God enabled him to rest. He did not toss and turn all night. He remembered who God was. He put his life in God’s hands. And he rested.

With renewed confidence, David now asks God to rise up and strike his enemies on the cheek and break their teeth. How do you interpret this…especially in light of the NT command to “love our enemies” (Matthew 5:44)? Here are some thoughts I had this morning…

• David is speaking from his heart to God. This is his prayer. It is real…not a rote exercise filled with spiritual platitudes.
• David does not personally seek to break his enemies’ teeth. He cries out to God to defend him and to break the teeth of his foes. He truly allows vengeance to be the Lord’s (Romans 12:19).
• The request itself is interesting. David asks God to hit the mouth and teeth of his enemies. Not a fatal blow but a blow to stop their violence. The picture is of a wild animal with teeth bared running after David. David cries out to God to knock the animal’s teeth out! Quite an appropriate prayer. A toothless wolf is a lot less threatening than a fanged one.

As I consider David’s psalm today, I think of two things…one, I need to pray that God gives me the confidence to lay down, sleep, and rest no matter what stresses or uncertainties I face in life…and two, loving my enemies does not mean allowing them to rip me to shreds with their teeth. I can pray for them and love them while at the same time praying that God would break their teeth so that their growl is less threatening and their bite is less harmful.

Lord, You are my strength, my shield, my glory, and the lifter of my head.

And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil… (Matthew 3:17, Matthew 4:1)

Sometimes chapter divisions (which were added to the Bible in the 1200’s to help with reading) cause us to miss the real flow of the Bible’s message. It is especially true with the ending of Matthew 3 and the beginning of chapter 4. There is no break here. God’s declaration at Jesus’ baptism…”This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased”…is immediately followed by…Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.

Matthew wanted to connect these two statements. Jesus’ testing in the wilderness was not a sign that God abandoned Him or did not love Him. In fact, it was just the opposite. God’s love for His Son actually brought Him to the place of testing. God was well-pleased with Jesus thus He led Him to a place where Jesus’ obedience and love for His Father could be displayed.

It’s a wild thought…a thought that runs contrary to our thinking. We often think, “If God loves me, then He will protect me from all trials and difficulties.” Or we often think when we are in a difficult time in our lives, “Why is God allowing this to happen? I haven’t done anything wrong. I don’t deserve this. What is going on? Is God real? Is He there? Does He love me?” Our formula for life is simple:

Godly living + God’s favor = Good life (i.e., no major problems in life)

When this formula is interrupted by trials, we do not know what to do. We start blaming God, doubting Him. But the problem is not with God but with our formula.

Jesus’ obedience (godly living) and God’s favor (This is my beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased) actually led to the wilderness of testing. Jesus spent forty days in physical hunger and suffering and then at the end of that time faced an emotional and spiritual battle with Satan himself. It was such a grueling time in His life that He needed angelic ministry to recover after it was over. But this was part of God’s plan….part of His good plan.

Matthew 3:17-4:1 teaches us that formula of discipleship looks more like this…

Godly living + God’s favor + Periods of testing = Abundant life (i.e., increased dependence on God and joy in Him)

Hebrews 5:8 tells us that although he [Jesus] was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered. Jesus learned obedience in the wilderness. He learned to put God above his physical desires (stones to bread), above personal pride and applause (jumping from temple), above the hunger for things or possessions (the offer of the whole world). In short, he learned to put God above Himself…which is the only true path to the “good life.” This could only be learned in the wilderness.

What does that mean to me? It means that as much as I hate being in the wilderness…being in difficult times, being physically weakened, being emotionally drained, being spiritually stretched…that these are times that God is refining me, changing me, removing elements of pride and self-sufficiency, and teaching me to depend on Him. Why does God allow this? Not to harm me…but to keep me from destroying myself in my own pride. Not to give me a miserable life…but to ultimately give me an abundant life. Not to discourage me…but to give me a hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11).

Lord, I do not like being in the wilderness…but when I am there give me the strength and faith to rely on You, to trust You…and when it is over minister to me with Your angels.

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. (Ezekiel 36:26-27)

Reading this passage I am struck by the phrase “heart of stone.” A hardened heart. The thing that shuts our ears off from God, the thing that blinds us to sin, the thing that draws us into idolatry is a heart of stone.

I think the pull of sin is constantly moving us to harden our hearts. As we go through life, we tend to become cynical, stubborn, set in our ways. The longer we are on a certain path, the harder it is to get off it. We become stiff-necked. God tries to pull the reins and move us in a different direction but we fight, resist, and dig in our heels.

That is why God calls us to have the heart of a child. A child is still pliable, teachable, dependent. At some point, however (adolescence?), the heart starts to exert its independence. “Who are my parents to tell me what to do? What do they know? And while I think about it…who is God to tell me what to do? Who is He? Does He even exist? What right does He have over me? He should answer to me not vice-versa.” Not too many people probably think this way consciously but deep down this is the attitude of a heart of stone. It is immovable, impenetrable, built up with walls, objections, rationalizations, bitterness, self-sufficiency, pride.

Jeremiah 5:3–a parallel passage–says this: O LORD, do not Your eyes look for truth? You struck them, but they felt no pain; You crushed them, but they refused correction. They made their faces harder than stone and refused to repent.

Wow, what a picture of the human condition. As someone once said, “We would often rather die than repent.”

It really takes a miracle for the Spirit of God to break through to such a heart. God’s relentless grace keeps pursuing, keeps knocking, until through some miracle of regeneration, a person opens up their heart to Him. The hardest territory to take in the entire universe is truly the human heart.

But when God’s Spirit gets in, He does something amazing…He gives us a “heart of flesh.” He doesn’t make us super-spiritual…He makes us truly human. We become what we were supposed to be. We become able to think, able to feel, able to follow Him. The heart becomes soft, teachable, humble, less self-confident and more dependent on God. We learn to cry again. Learn to submit. Learn to serve. Learn to care. Learn to love. And, amazingly, learn to be human, made in the image of God, reflecting the glory of our Creator.

O LORD, make me less like a stone and more like a human today!

This week we will be in the book of Ezekiel. Ezekiel is perhaps one of the more neglected books in the Bible. It is a hard book to understand with a lot of symbolic imagery and prophecy. Ezekiel was a priest taken into exile in Babylon around 597 BC (think the story of Daniel). There he prophesied to Jewish exiles explaining God’s judgment on the nation and foretelling their future restoration. Chapters 33-39 (what we will be reading) are a key part of this prophecy of future restoration.

My people come to you, as they usually do, and sit before you to listen to your words, but they do not put them into practice. With their mouths they express devotion, but their hearts are greedy for unjust gain. Indeed, to them you are nothing more than one who sings love songs with a beautiful voice and plays an instrument well, for they hear your words but do not put them into practice. (Ezekiel 33:31-32)

These verses are a perfect parallel to James 1:22, Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.

Hearing the word but not practicing it. It is obviously a problem that God’s people often face. Here are several observations that I can make from these verses…

• We can deceive ourselves into thinking we are spiritual simply because we regularly listen to and give lip service to God’s Word.
• We can express devotion with our mouths (I love the Lord!) while harboring greed in our hearts (I can’t wait to get what I want).
• We can view a good sermon as a love song–something that sounds good and stirs our emotions but does nothing to change the way we live.

These verses convict me. I fear that I often enjoy a sermon more than I apply it. I can easily drift into spiritual “cruise control”–going through the motions without truly meditating on God’s Word and allowing it to seek deeply into my heart…allowing it to expose my sin…allowing it to change the way I think and live. I fear I may even be doing that now.

Lord, help me truly to hear Your Word. Expose my fears, my anxieties, my selfish desires, my conflicts, my pride. Search my heart and know me. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in Your ways.

Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you will find favor and a good name in the sight of God and man. (Proverbs 3:3-4)

Proverbs reflects the heart of a parent. A good parent wants the best for their children. They desire them to succeed, to enjoy life, to follow truth, to find the best of friends, to know God. Yet all you can do as a parent is lead them and plead with them. You cannot make them follow this path. It is the great risk of love. You love them and sacrifice for them but you can’t force them to love in return or even to follow your advice.

As you read Proverbs, you see the heart of a father pleading with his son. “Listen to me. Don’t go down this path. It only leads to destruction. Love God. Follow truth. Learn to be humble and teachable. And you will find life and joy.” Unfortunately there are other voices in society calling out to them…”Don’t listen. Do what you want. Take what you want. Be your own king. Who cares what others think? Who cares what God thinks? Happiness is found in getting what you want when you want it…regardless of who it hurts.” That same struggle goes on today. Not much has changed in 3000 years.

Proverbs 3 is probably one of the most beloved chapters in Proverbs. And verses 5-6 are probably the most known verses in the whole book. But this morning my eyes were drawn to verses 3-4.

Let love and faithfulness never leave you (NIV). The New King James says, Let not mercy and truth forsake you. The two Hebrew words are chesed (lovingkindness, mercy) and emet (truth, faithfulness) so both translations are correct. I personally like to mix them. Let love and truth never leave you. Pursue love. Pursue truth. Let both characterize your life.

Bind them around your neck. Make love and truth your necklace. Let it be the adornment of your life. When others see you, let them see a person who loves and cares for others and a person who speaks the truth and lives the truth without compromise. Caring and consistent. The perfect balance of intimacy in relationships and integrity in life.

Write them on the tablet of your heart. To be an outward adornment it has to be an inward reality. Make love and truth your passion, your priority, your pursuit. Love God. Know truth. Love others. Be truthful. Measure your life by how much you are growing in your love for God and others and how much you are living consistent with God’s truth.

Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man. Others notice a life of love and truth. Even if they hate what you stand for, they come to respect who you are. Even if they resist your love, deep down they desire what you have. I am reminded of Proverbs 16:7, When a man’s ways are pleasing to the LORD, he makes even his enemies live at peace with him. A life of love and truth speaks volumes. It cannot be ignored. It wins the favor of others. And more importantly, it resides in the favor and grace of God.

Lord, let my life be characterized by Your love and Your truth.

If you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God (Proverbs 2:3-5).

It is not enough to think that wisdom is a nice thing to have or something that you wouldn’t mind having in your life. Wisdom must be hungered for, desired, pursued. We are to “search for it as for hidden treasure,” with passion and purpose.

That kind of hunger and desire is mentioned elsewhere in Scripture. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled (Matthew 5:6). Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:13-14). As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God (Psalm 42:1).

Unfortunately that desire is not always there. Other things steal my attention and my passion. I snack all day on junk food and then find little hunger for the feast that God has laid out for me.

I remembered something I read in Dr. Paul Brand’s book, The Forever Feast…

“Researchers have conducted bizarre experiments with rats. In these experiments an electrode is implanted directly into the part of the rat’s brain that registers pleasure. If the rat is given the choice of two levers, one that releases food into its dish, and one that switches on direct pleasure without the need to eat, the rat presses the pleasure lever until it dies of starvation. The actual need for food has been separated from the sense of need. The need for food is real, but the sense of pleasure, which is false, results in death.

A similar condition occurs in people with drug addiction. An addict on a succession of “highs” may lose awareness of many of his or her normal body needs. Many lose weight and muscle mass. Consequently, the caricature of the hollow-eyed cadaverous drug addict is sometimes not far from the truth.

What is true of the drug addicted person at a physical level is even more true at the spiritual level of large numbers of the human race. When Jesus said “Happy are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled” he was not making a distinction between those who need righteousness as compared to those who don’t need it. We are all in need, but we don’t all know it or feel the need.

Friends and pastors may see that a person is in need of salvation and of the work of the Spirit, but there is little they can do until the person is hungry for God. We have to pray that God will awaken within this person an appetite for what he has to give. Then there is hope!

…We should never assume that the loss of spiritual appetite happens only to other people. There are times when one’s own spiritual life may be at a low ebb and the Bible seems lifeless and dull. This is not a time to stop feeding. Loss of appetite may become progressive, and even terminal, as in kwashiorkor [a disease in the malnourished in which they lose their appetite altogether]. These are times for discipline; for forced feeding. Daily Bible reading and prayer and fellowship in God’s house will tide us through.

One day your appetite will be stimulated. Words will leap out again and taste good. One day the spiritual saliva will flow again as God’s word becomes relevant to your felt need, and you realize you have passed through a transient period of anorexia. The food has become as appetizing as ever.

Some wandered in desert wastelands…. They were hungry and thirsty, and their lives ebbed away. Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress…. Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds to men, for he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things (Ps 107:4-9).”

Lord, increase my appetite for Your truth, for Your presence, for Your love.

Today we continue our tour through the different literary sections of the Bible. We will spend this week in Proverbs - the wisdom literature. Proverbs is written to teach us the basic principles of life…how should we live in this world. Wisdom is learning to take the knowledge of God and apply it to everyday life.

Since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the LORD, since they would not accept my advice and spurned my rebuke, they will eat the fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of their schemes. (Proverbs 1:29-31)

These verses caught my attention this morning. How do we get in trouble in life? 

1. We hate knowledge. Sometimes we simply prefer ignorance. We would rather be entertained than engaged. We would rather not know truth than be forced to confront it and possibly have to change. Sort of like the man who suspects he is sick, but willfully avoids going to the doctor. “Maybe if I ignore it, it will go away.” When we refuse to acknowledge the sickness of our own heart and our need for help, our need to change, we choose ignorance. We choose foolishness.

2. We do not choose to fear God. It is always amazing to me that a person who lives at most 100 years, who cannot conquer death, who cannot control nature, who cannot even control his own body, often has the audacity to look the eternal Almighty God in the face and say, “Leave me alone. I don’t need You. And I don’t want You either.” Wow. The foolishness of human pride. We have no fear of God, no respect of His power, no regard for His sovereignty. In our minds, we run the universe and God must answer to us. Sounds like the mind of a spoiled, strong-willed two year old, doesn’t it?

3. We do not accept wisdom’s advice. We do not want to know. We do not want to acknowledge God. And we do not want to listen. To accept advice requires a willingess to admit one’s limitations and admit one’s need for help. We simply do not want to go there. As my three old year often says, “I do it.” Expanded tranlsation…”Leave me alone, dad. I got this one.”

4. We spurn wisdom’s rebuke. Here is where the real rub is. We do not like acknowledging God and hearing His word quite simply because we do not like to be told we are wrong. As someone once said, “We would rather die than repent.” There is a fierce streak of independence running through our veins. It is there when we are born. It is there when we are toddlers and resisting the help of our parents. It is there when we are teenagers and think we have greater wisdom than our parents. It is there when we are young adults and spurn the older generation as naive and old-fashioned. It is there when we are adults and stubbornly refuse to hear the advice of others, especially those younger than us. It is there, deep down, when we hear the conviction of the Holy Spirit and we stiffen up our necks and say, “Get out of here! You do not know what is best for me.”

This is the way of the fool. And the end of this way is getting to “eat the fruit” of your stubbornness. What is that fruit? Distress in one’s soul. Trouble in one’s relationships. Bondage to sin. And ultimately death.

That is why ”wisdom call aloud in the street” and “raises her voice in the public squares” and “cries out at the head of noisy streets.” Because God is eager to rescue us from our own self-destruction. But only the humble, the repentant, and the wise, perk up their ears to listen.

Lord, teach me to be wise! 

We have heard with our ears, O God; our fathers have told us what You did in their days, in days long ago… But now You have rejected and humbled us; You no longer go out with our armies. (Psalm 44:1, 9)

I’m always amazed when I think that the Israelites sang psalms like this one in worship. It is so different from the songs we typically sing today. I love the songs we sing today by the way…but there is something unique and honest about singing this psalm…

You gave us up to be devoured like sheep and have scattered us among the nations.
You sold your people for a pittance, gaining nothing from their sale.
You have made us a reproach to our neighbors, the scorn and derision of those around us.
Alleluia…Alleluia…

Well actually the Alleluia part is not in Psalm 44 but you get the picture. Can you imagine singing this song this Sunday?

Awake, O Lord! Why do you sleep? Rouse Yourself! Do not reject us forever.
Why do You hide Your face and forget our misery and oppression?

Quite a song. It makes me wonder… Are we missing some of the passion…some of the honesty…some of the struggle of faith in our Christian life today? Are we “too positive”?

I think the New Testament does give us a greater sense of hope and certainty than what the Old Testament believer had. The OT believer looked forward to God’s redemption and deliverance. We can look backwards to the cross. The OT believer saw God’s greatest act of love and power in the Exodus. We see it in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Thus we can echo with the apostle Paul (who quoted Psalm 44:22)…

As it is written, “For Your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:36-39).

So we are in a different position today…a position of grace…with a greater reason to rejoice. But Psalm 44 is still instructive to us. It reminds us that the road of faith is not always easy. That sometimes hearing about God’s great works when you are suffering under the weight of present trials and turmoils is not always comforting. “Where are You now, God? I need Your help now not stories about what You did in the past.” And that God invites us to wrestle with Him, to pour out our hearts to Him, to call out to Him, Rise up and help us, redeem us becaues of Your unfailing love!

It could be that the struggle is part of the growth and that singing about it reminds us that we are all on the same difficult journey together. Only now we know for certain…because of Jesus…that nothing in the journey can separate us from God’s love.