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.