Before I start tonight, I want to confess something; something that has
been burning me up inside for as long as I can remember. I know some of you may
be able to relate to this and some may be nervous to share it, perhaps worried
about what people would think of you, but before I go on, I want to stand here,
in front of my family and my friends and in the presence of God, to confess
that:
I. Am. Useless!
I can’t do a thing. I have been learning to play the guitar for the past
four or five years and still cannot get rhythm in the strumming and don’t get
me started on the finger picking! I have been able to play the cornet for 31
years but still cannot master triple tonguing. Despite having 10 years’
experience working with children, I still struggle sometimes with parenting my
own children, there always seems to be something new to overcome. The problem
is when I am faced with problems, quite frankly, I am pathetic at solving them.
In short, I am useless!
Thankfully, however, there is hope. King David knew of this when he was faced with struggles in his own
life, one example is found in Psalm 108.
On face value, Psalm 108 looks like just another psalm: poetic; full of
praise and to be sung in a Sunday morning service. If you studied the Psalms in
any detail you would notice that it is made up of two halves of two earlier
psalms, Psalm 57 and 60. Let’s turn to them to see for yourself, Psalm 57:7-11
and 60:5-12. Both are written by David at different points in his life and
about different topics. If you just accept that as is without any further
study, you are in danger of missing the real message of this perfectly crafted
psalm and the encouragement to be gained from it.
Despite being made up of two separate psalms, Psalm 108 consists of
three subsections:
Praying with the spirit of Praise (verses 1-5)
Praying with the spirit of Faith (verses 6-12)
and culminating with a Call to Battle (verse 13).
Praying with the Spirit of Praise (vv1-5)
What’s the meaning of life? Perhaps it is achieving the biggest salary, or
that top job in your career. Maybe it is buying a big house with a big garden
with hundreds of maids to be at your beckon call. What about setting up your
own companies, achieving A* in all your subjects, publishing a novel or two,
writing several hundred songs and making millions as they sell around the
world. One popular science fiction novel declares the meaning of life, the
universe and everything to be - 42!
But, of course, we know the meaning and purpose of life is to praise and
glorify God. Indeed Psalm 8 tells us that God has ordained praise from the lips
of children and infants. We are
spiritual beings, created to glorify God, so, is it any wonder Psalm 108
reminds us of how we should praise God.
Verse 1 ‘My heart is steadfast, O
God; I will sing and make music with all my soul’. David is famous for
walking closely with God, indeed, from him Jesus would come. When he
experienced problems, he faced them with a steadfast heart, a heart that was
focused solely on God. When we praise God, our hearts must be employed and 100%
engaged in the action of praise. However, our minds are prone to wandering,
even when we try and focus. Have you ever wondered why we are encouraged from a
young age to close our eyes when we pray? We must endeavour to control our
thoughts.
David gives us a great way to remain focused and engaged in our
praise – through what we are good at doing.
For David, it was music, verse 1 and 2 speaks of making music with the
harp and lyre. These are not just any instruments, they are among the most
tuneful and melodious stringed instruments that produce chords fit for the ears
of the Almighty! Classical music is the only genre of music that has lasted for
hundreds of years and still gives pleasure to listener. Is it any wonder angels
have been pictured with these stringed instruments throughout human history?
Also, this is not just any old tune strung by the fingers of the player, these
tunes must be expressions of affection, a tune that is energetic and lively not
something that is played when you are tired from a hard day’s work.
OK, music is not everyone’s given skill or cup of tea, maybe, your skill
is, in fact making cups of tea, in which case David is saying you should do so
with 100% focus and use this great skill of yours to glorify God. Notice it
says at the end of verse 1, ‘with all my
soul’? In the KJV, this reads, ‘even
with my glory’ – referring to your whole being. To many, our greatest glory
is our tongue. With words we can edify people and bring them down in the same
sentence. With our tongue we can hurt people terribly or make them love you.
It’s used in propaganda and adverts, to manipulate people into doing things
they don’t want to, but also for making people feel good about themselves. It
has the power to start wars and to break through rage. To many the tongue is
our glory and we should be employing it to glorify God. But if you feel nervous
about using your tongue, be rest assured that you will have something and
David urges us to use every part of our soul and our being in the praising of
God.
When we use our tongue to praise God (or any other ‘glory’) we should do
so publically (verse 3). David wishes for his Psalms to be heard by all his
people and of course, they have been. David has become the world’s widest known
poet having had his psalms translated into many different languages around the
world. Not only have his own people heard and read his psalms, but many
gentiles like you and me have heard them as well. We should never be ashamed of
praising God in public, we never know who is listening or watching, indeed we
should use every opportunity to sing his praises. How many times do we miss
opportunities to give the glory back to the father? How many times do we allow
someone to give us praise, that ‘Well done, mate, that was fantastic!’ without
pointing out God was the source?
When we praise we must magnify the mercy and truth of God. The heavens
in verse 4 are vast, but God’s mercy is more
vast. Equally, as much as we can rely on the sky always being above us, God’s
faithfulness is so much more reliable. We cannot see beyond the skies and
heavens, but we can be sure that God’s mercy and truth are infinitely more.
There is no limit to God’s mercy and love, he is faithful beyond our own
understanding and perception. So how can we be effective in glorifying such an
awesome God? We can’t. We are defective,
useless, our praises are insufficient, we must beg that God glorifies himself
(verse 5).
When we pray the Lord’s Prayer what is our first petition? Hallowed be your name’. We ask that in
all things He glorifies himself. To God be the Glory, great things he has done!
Does this mean, however, we should stop praising God, surely our best is not good
enough? No matter what we do it is insufficient to praise the majesty and glory
of his name, should we, therefore, just let him do the praising for us? Of
course not, we must always pray with a spirit of praise!
Praying with a Spirit of Faith (vv6-12)
Our prayers must be confident in the knowledge that God is faithful.
They must be public-spirited, that is, we must think of others. David urges God
to remember his chosen people, to deliver them from harm’s way (v6). After all,
the church is the bride of Christ and he has promised to deliver us from evil.
If the church is God’s beloved, then it should also be our beloved and as such,
we should bear upon our hearts, at the throne of grace, the concerns of the
church of God. To this end, we must have faith in the power of God. Verse 6 – ‘Save us and help us with your right hand’.
This ‘right hand’ is seen in Acts 7:54-56 – where Stephen, just before
he was stoned to death saw Jesus standing ‘at the right hand’ of God. This
cannot be a coincidence that hundreds of year before, David prays asking that
God’s right hand would save his people. Jesus, of course, is mighty to save.
David yearned for his people’s deliverance just as we must yearn on behalf of
Christ’s bride, the church.
Verse 7 says ‘God has spoken from
his sanctuary’ this is God’s word. John 1 clearly identifies God’s word as
Jesus. David speaks of the promise that God made with him about Israel in the
Promised Land (1Chronicles 17) and that all her enemies would be subdued. We
can rejoice in whatever God says because He is faithful to do what He says. He
promised a son to David whose kingdom will be established forever (1Ch
17:10-14) and so David calls for this very son to deliver God’s beloved people.
As if to remind us that God is faithful in keeping his promises, David
lists the fulfilled promises so far: (v7b-8)
Shechem and Succoth were already part of God’s people either side of the
Jordan, as well as Gilead and Manesseh, Ephraim and Judah from verse 8.
Ephraim’s helmet could refer to David’s army being supplemented by many
soldiers as a declaration of loyalty to David’s kingdom and Judah’s sceptre is
a sign of lawgiving and who came from Judah and is the ultimate law giver?
Jesus!
In verses 6-8, David reminds us that faith in Christ is what we should
be aiming for. He is the right hand of God who is mighty to save even the
vilest offender who truly believes. He is God’s promise fulfilled.
It is interesting that, despite Moab, Edom and Philistia (v9) being
enemies of Israel, David has the mindset that they are already God’s (my!). Moab is my washbasin. Moab were
long-time rivals of Israel, but David eventually conquered them in 2 Sam 8
making some of them servants. He refers to a refreshing conquest similar to a
refreshing wash after a long journey. He tosses his sandals at Edom the
descendants of Esau, Jacob’s brother who ‘lost’ his inheritance from their
aging father, Isaac – leading to years of animosity between the two peoples.
David acts as if they are unimportant similar to throwing your shoes in the
corner and Philistia, a long history between them and David ever since Goliath,
perhaps reminding us that every so often past conquests can flair up again, but
we should stay strong and have faith God will help us through.
We should pray with a spirit of faith, believing that what we petition
for will be done according to God’s will. David petitions about his up and
coming battle with Edom, the fortified city spoken of in Obadiah vv3-4. This question
in v10 is rhetorical, of course David knows God will because He has already
promised it, but David serves to glorify God in his prayer of faith. If you
wish to find the story of the Edomite conquest, you can find out how David and
his army walked all over the Edomites, killing over 18000 and making the rest
servants of Judah, which of course, was prophesied in Genesis 27:37 where Esau
was told by Isaac that Judah would be lord over Esau and Esau would serve his
younger brother.
We must never become discouraged or ‘beaten off’ from God by others or
circumstances. Even when what we ask for does not come at a time when we wish
it to or in a way we expect, we must remain faithful. One thing Jean and I have
learnt over the past few years is that God teaches you what you ask for through
trials. A few years back, Jean I were struggling in our marriage, things had
got on top of us and we were drowning just like many marriages. We eventually
prayed together for some sort of revival in our marriage. Expecting our love to
blossom immediately and all our problems to be solved. The answer didn’t come
immediately as we hoped for, rather I moved away to Cumbria for a year and
half. During that time, however, our fondness for each other grew. Our love
developed beyond our expectations. We drew closer by being apart. We learnt
that God teaches by his design not ours. We must persevere and remain faithful.
We cannot achieve anything by our own means. The ‘help of man is worthless’ (v12), we, you and I can try to make our
lives worthwhile. We can get that new car, we can go for that highly-paid job,
we could become famous around the world, but that doesn’t mean anything. We
are, in short, useless! David accepts this, knowing that the odds were
completely up against him and his army. The Edomites had the higher ground and
the advantage. If David took his men and attacked Edom, he knew he would be
slaughtered. He and his men would have no chance. He was useless. We need to
accept that for ourselves.
But there is hope! There is our Call to Battle.
(Verse 13). Armed with our Spirit of Praise and Spirit of Faith, God
calls us to war, with God as our captain, he will lead us to victory. God is
our secret source of courage, wisdom and strength. Our inward faith results in
outward actions glorifying God. Any problems we come face to face with can and
will be overcome with God as the lead. He will trample any enemies who try and
stop us. He promised that to David and the promise was fulfilled. His promise
is still active today. When Christ returns he will utterly crush the enemies of
his bride, the church and finally we will be free to worship, praise and
glorify God forever.
