(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

All right, please take your Bibles again. You're probably still in Psalm 3 if you haven't closed it, or I guess you have. Psalm 3. Maybe I should do the Bible reading before the sermon. Anyway, Psalm chapter 3, the third Psalm. Psalm 3 verse 1. Well, the title of the sermon this morning is A Shield for Me. A Shield for Me. If you've noticed, that's a term, a phrase that's found in this Psalm. A Shield for Me. God is a shield for us. God will protect us from our enemies. God will protect us from all wrong. Psalm chapter 3 verse 1 says, Now this is a Psalm of David, right? He's crying unto the Lord. You can almost feel David's pain as you're reading through this Psalm, can't you? You can see him just depending on the Lord. His enemies have come up against him. He's feeling stressed. He's feeling worried. And he knows his refuge is the Lord. He knows that his shield is in the Lord. But I'm not sure if all your Bibles have this. Some of the Bibles do. Mine does. If you look at just the beginning there of Psalm 3, if yours says this, it says, A Psalm of David when he fled from Absalom his son. Have you guys got that in your Bibles? Some of you? Yeah. All right, cool. So this is a Psalm of David. He wrote this while he was fleeing from his own son Absalom. Now I don't know if you know the story of Absalom, but I think it's important if we want to know what David was going through during the Psalm is that we get up to speed a little bit with Absalom. So please turn to, keep your finger there in Psalm chapter 3 because we'll go back, but turn to 2 Samuel chapter 15. 2 Samuel chapter 15. Because unfortunately for David, you know, a man after God's own heart, a man who loved the Lord, a man who wrote many of these Psalms, a man whose much of his life is captured in the Bible, you know, we draw a lot of inspiration from David. You know, a lot of people know, you know, the people that don't even know the Bible know the story of David and Goliath. We know that David is someone that can stand up to opposition that's much greater than he is as long as the Lord is with him, right? We draw a lot of inspiration, a lot of courage from King David, but unfortunately for him, and obviously he took many wives, you know, for himself, you know, he had many children, but Absalom his son is one of his failures. He had a lot of failed children in his life. He failed as a father in many ways, and obviously Solomon was good for most of his life, so he succeeded with some of his children, but Absalom is one of his children that he really failed with, right? And so this also, you know, as parents, as fathers, we ought to draw, you know, think about these things, meditate upon these things. We can be men that love the Lord. We can be men that serve in the church, go soloing in, know our Bible doctrine, but we may fail at raising our children to love the Lord in the same way. So, you know, we see these great men of God in the Bible, yet they have failures in their life. They have, you know, they make mistakes, and the Lord records those things for us, so we can learn from that, okay? But 2 Samuel chapter 15, the story of Absalom. So David's already on the throne, right? He has a lot of children. Absalom, by the way, Absalom, when you start reading about him, he seems like a pretty nice guy. I think he started off as a pretty decent fellow, actually. I think he did have a fear of the Lord. He did have, you know, certain morals and things instilled upon his life, but just through life, it seems like he was affected, and you know how it is. You know, as a child, you look at the world with, you know, rose-colored glasses. You know, you think everything's great. You think everyone's good. You think everyone's trying their best, but as you grow older, you become a little more cynical. You see the failures of man. You see, you know, you see certain crimes. You see the nature and the wickedness of man. You know, you yourself might see, hey, you know, I have a tendency to do wrong. I have a tendency to do sin, and you start to have a different view of life as you get older, and I think this is what happened to Absalom. He, you know, his father was the king. He knew very well that God had put David to rule over Israel and be the king of Israel, but he looked at his father and said, well, my father has failures. My father's not that great after all. In fact, I could be a better king than my father. I can rule the people of God. I can rule Israel better than my father did. So we pick up the story here in 2 Samuel chapter 15 verse 1, and I want you to notice Absalom, how he is, and by the way, I don't think it's captured in this chapter, but the Bible says that Absalom was a very handsome man. He was very nice to look upon. Not only that, he had like long hair, like he had long locks of hair, and you know, he looked like this, I guess, this hero. I don't know. He looked like this great guy. He looked, you know, he was very, you know, you know how sometimes you can look at someone and you can think, man, that guy's a genuine guy. He looks really trustworthy. He seems like a powerful individual. You know, I could get behind that person. That's probably what Absalom was. He probably looked like a king. You know, he probably looked like a powerful man that people could rally behind, but we look at verse number 1, and it came to pass after this, that Absalom prepared his chariots and horses and 50 men to run before him. So Absalom obviously is a son of the king, has chariots, has horses, has men that are serving him and working with him, and then in verse 2 it says, and Absalom rose up early and stood beside the way of the gate, and it was so that when any man that had a controversy came to the king for judgment, then Absalom called unto him and said, of what city art thou? And he said, thy servant is of one of the tribes of Israel. So the story here is that Absalom would stand at the gate of Jerusalem. People would come to the king, would try to come to King David with their controversy, with their problems, for King David to make a certain judgment on what needed to happen. Maybe they had someone wrong them, and they needed King David to make it right, to pass judgment, make it right. Well, Absalom would notice these men coming through the gates. That's why he stood there at the gates, and as these people would come past, he would say, hey, what's the problem? Can I help you? Is there anything that I can do for you? What city are you from? He was someone that was very social. He was able to get along with other people. Maybe King David struggled a little bit more in that area, but Absalom was a very social, outgoing, extrovert kind of person. And then in verse 3, and Absalom said unto him, see, thy matters are good and right, but there is no man deputed of the king to hear thee. So it's almost like it doesn't matter what problem these people are coming to King David, even if they're in the wrong. I mean, sometimes you think someone has wronged you, but sometimes it's you that's done the wrong, right? And it's just, you know, your bias and your pride that gets in the way. But Absalom, no matter what they're saying, as they come through Jerusalem to talk to David, Absalom says, yep, you know, you're mad at your case. You're in the right. You know, when someone says to you, yeah, you're in the right, like, have you ever had a conflict with someone, right? And then, you know, what happens is you want other people to be on your side. You want other people to see it your way, right? And sometimes there are people that, you know, you tell them the story and you're like, yeah, but hold on, you did wrong as well. You know, it's not just the one person. And they take great offense to that, right? Because everyone wants to be seen as respected and right. And Absalom made sure he did that. He made sure that they made, you know, they felt like, yep, you're in the right. You know, unfortunately, he says, there's no one that can see you. There's no one that can raise this matter to you, you know. And there's no one that, of the king, that can hear your matter, can hear your controversy. And then in verse number four, it says this, Absalom said, moreover, oh, that I were made judge of the land, in the land, right? He's saying, I would, you know, if only I could be the judge of the land, if only I had the authority and the power to make a call of judgment for your case, that every man which hath any suit or cause might come unto me, and I would do him justice, right? So Absalom, you know, is this wonderful fellow. You know, he's the king's son. He's not like, you know, if I'm someone that comes with a controversy, the king's son, wow, he's on my side. He's saying, you know, he's greeted me. He likes to know where I come from. He's interested in my life. He's saying, man, if only there was another judge, if only that other judge was me, if only I could be the one. You'd be like, wow, you know, it'd be such a great thing if Absalom was the king of Israel, right? Because King David doesn't have the time to see us, but Absalom does. Verse five, and it was so that when any man came nigh to him to do him obeisance, he put forth his hand and took him and kissed him. So you see just this greeting, just, you know, best, you know, Absalom was able to make best friends with people. You know, people loved him. And then look at verse six. And on this manna did Absalom to all Israel that came to the king for judgment, so Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel. So everyone that would come through the gates, Absalom would greet them, ask them how they're doing, you know, show himself a friend, you know, show himself the son of David. They loved him. The people of the city loved Absalom more than they loved David, right? Now let me just take a quick break from here, because let me tell you something now. When the false prophets come into this church, when the false teachers come into the church, they're going to come in the same way that Absalom came, okay? They're going to be people that are well loved. They're going to show themselves as very interested, speaking highly of you, always saying you're in the right, and then they're going to say, well, you know, if only I was the one, that was the judge, right? If only I was the pastor, only if I was the bishop of the church, and he'll try to rally the hearts of the people in his church to follow after him, okay? That's what false prophets are like, and that's what Absalom was like for his father, the king. Look at verse number 10. But Absalom sent spies. So is he, is Absalom this great guy? Like he's not really doing anything wrong at this stage, right? He's just, you know, showing himself, you know, getting the praises of men upon himself, but then now we see what his heart is really like in verse 10. But Absalom sent spies throughout all the tribes of Israel saying, as soon as you hear the sound of a trumpet, then ye shall say Absalom reigneth in Hebron. So Absalom has all these men after him. He sends spies, right? What are spies? They listen, they hear, they report back to the king of all the things that are going on throughout Israel. So he's up to date. He knows how he can take advantage of certain situations, and all these spies in different areas will say when they hear the sound of a trumpet that Absalom reigns in Hebron, okay? They want Absalom to be the reign. They want him to be the king, right? And because they're all throughout the land, it's going to sound like the whole nation of Israel is supporting Absalom to be the king rather than David. And then verse 11. And with Absalom went 200 men out of Jerusalem that were called, and they went in their simplicity, and they knew not anything. And Absalom sent for Athipaphil the Gileanite, David's counselor, from his city, even from Gilo, while he offered sacrifices, and the conspiracy was strong for the people increased continually with Absalom. So Absalom gets one of David's chief counselors, Athipaphil, to come and follow him as well, right? Not only is he bringing up his own men, but he's taking men away from his father David. And you can see that it says that the conspiracy was strong, okay? This was a good plan. Absalom had it all under control. He knew what he needed to do to take over as king of Israel. This is the son of David, son of David's family, right? The same blood raised in the household of David, right? And you see this wickedness come upon Absalom. Verse 13. And there came a messenger to David saying, the hearts of the men of Israel are after Absalom. So finally David hears about this. David gets, somehow he gets informed that people are after Absalom. They want Absalom to be their king. Verse 14. And David said unto all his servants that were with him at Jerusalem, arise and let us flee. David knew the time was up. Man, he's like, we got to get out of here, okay? The conspiracy was that strong. The news was that important. David knew at this point that Absalom would want to kill his own father and take the throne. So David gathers his servants and they flee out of Jerusalem. For we shall not else escape from Absalom. Make speed to depart lest he overtake us suddenly and bring evil upon us and smite the city with the edge of the sword. So David's heart was for the people of Jerusalem. David's heart was for the people of Israel because he knew, hey look, we got to get out of here because if we stay and we put up a fight, these armies of Absalom are going to come and put a sword to the city, right? There's going to be not just the armies that are going to go against one another, but there are going to be innocents caught up in this. It's better if we just get out of here and make sure there's no war, there's no, you know, that no one suffers in the city. We see David is a true king. He truly cares about the people that he serves. Verse 15. And the king's servants said unto the king, behold, thy servants are ready to do what server my lord the king shall appoint. And the king went forth and all his household after him and the king left ten women which were concubines to keep the house and the king went forth and all the people after him and tarried in a place that was far off. So, you know, David and his servants, they flee out of Jerusalem. Now let's look at verse number 30. We won't read the whole chapter, but let's go down to verse 30 because I think this is when David wrote this Psalm. Psalm number three, right. Verse 30. And David went up by the ascent of Mount Olivet and wept and as he went up and had and had his head covered and he went barefoot and all the people that was with him covered every man his head and they went up weeping as they went up. So they're going up to to the Mount of Olives, right, weeping over what's happened, weeping over the fact that his son has come in and taken it and, you know, gone into Jerusalem. Absalom had set himself up as the king at this point and they're just weeping. They're just upset. Look at verse 32. And it came to pass that when David was come to the top of the mount, what did he do when he came up to the top of the mount? Where he worshipped God. Behold, Hushai the Archite came to meet him with his coats rent and earth upon his head. So they're, what's that word? Anyway, they're upset. They're crying. They're crying unto the Lord. They're worshiping the Lord God. That's all David knows that he can do, right. We see David's heart is not, the first thing in his mind is not, hey let's get the armies. Let's fight back. No, the first thing on his mind is I've got to go to the Lord. I'm going to get up to this mount. I'm going to get everyone to weep over this event. We're going to pray to the Lord. We're going to worship the Lord because we know the Lord is our shield. We know that we can get victory from the Lord. We know we can get victory over our enemies and of course he's upset. It's his own son. You know, it's one thing if it was just the Philistines or some other enemy of Israel, but it was from his own household, his own son that had gone up against him and taken over the kingdom. So this is where we find Psalm number three. This is the heart of David when he's betrayed by his own son. He's fled out of Jerusalem. You know, what we find out later, we're not going to read more about Absalom, but I just wanted to give you a bit of the context there, but Absalom then goes after David and tries to kill him, right. He goes out and tries to make war against David's men, trying to seek after David. It's not the first time David's fleeing for his life. Remember King Saul, you know, the former king of Israel also going after David. David, you know, David's an amazing man. David's a man of war, but we still see the weaknesses of David. We still see him fleeing and it's almost like the Lord allows this to happen so it doesn't get so prideful, you know, that he gets down on his knees and worships God and prays to God and seeks his strength from the Lord. But we see in Psalm, if you go back to Psalm 3, back to Psalm 3, Psalm 3. So I hope that gives you a bit of context of what this Psalm is about and many Psalms, as you read through the Psalms, see if there's a little title there for that Psalm because it might give you the context as to why that was written and might enrich your understanding of what that Psalm is about. But Psalm 3 verse 2, many there be which say of my soul. So this is David. Remember David speaking out. Many there be which say of my soul there is no help for him in God. Selah. There is no help. People were saying about David, there's no help for him, right? The kingdom's been overrun. Absalom has taken over. He's gone and he's fled into the wilderness, right? No one's going to help him now. Not even God's going to help him. But again, what do we see King David do? He goes straight to the Lord and let me encourage you, brothers and sisters, when you're down, when the world's against you, when everything's crumbling at your feet, right, and you feel like the whole world's falling apart around you and you feel weak, you feel defeated, you know, you might have fled like King David has fled. The first thing you do is you go to the Lord, right? The first thing you do is you go and cry unto him. You know, if you're diagnosed with some sickness, you know, many times our hearts are like, well, you know, let me go to the hospital. Let me go to the doctor. Let me go to the specialist. The first thing you do should be, I'm going to the Lord. I'm going to bring my problems before him. I'm going to gain my strength from him. Here's my rock. Here's my shield. He's going to protect me. And then you go to the doctor, right? You know, but you draw your strength first from the Lord. He's the one. He wants, you know, sometimes he puts you in positions. You know, he doesn't promise us that Christianity is this smooth life and everything's gone. You're always going to prosper in life and you're always going to do well. No, there are times for tribulation so he can use those times to work in you, to make you, I'm a perfect Christian, to make you more patient, to make you more strengthened upon him, to draw more upon him, because maybe you've been drawing upon yourself for way too long, right? The Lord allows tribulations to go in your life, right? So you can draw to him, guys. Make sure you do that. Make sure when you're troubled, you know, if your marriage is struggling, whatever it is, your finances, you know, you could lose your job, whatever it is, go to the Lord first. Go weeping, you know. David went to the Mount of Olives, you know. Find a place where you can get along with God. Find a place where you won't be distracted. Get away from the computer. Get away from your phone. Get away from whatever it is that, you know, distracts you from the Lord. Get alone with the Lord and bring your problems to him because there's going to be those that say of you there's no help for him in God. But no. David said, no, there is there is help for me in God. He goes straight to the Lord and weeps. Verse number three. This is David speaking to the Lord. But thou, O Lord, are a shield for me, my glory and the lifter up of mine head. So he reminds himself of the Lord. He says, Lord, you're my shield, right? You're going to defend me from my enemies, right? My glory. What did King David glory in? Did he glory in his kingdom? Did he glory in his position as king? Did he glory in his battles that he had won? No, he says my glory. The Lord God is my glory. I glory in the Lord God and the lifter up of mine head. So who lifts up David's head? Who exalted King David? Was it himself or was it the Lord that lifted up his head? It was the Lord that lifted him up, right? David was just a shepherd, remember, back in his days. Just a shepherd minding his own business. You know, no one saw anything great in David. You know, his other brothers looked like powerful men. You know, they were the strongest guys. You know, Samuel thought surely one of his brothers would be king, but the Lord had set for King David the youngest to be the king of Israel, right? It's the Lord that lifted up David. When David went up against Goliath, when David goes up against the lion and the bear, you know, it's the Lord that encourages it. It's the Lord that strengthens him. It's the Lord that lifts up his head and David was humble enough to recognize that, right? Now if you guys, you guys might remember the story where David's winning all these battles and then the people of Israel are praising David. They're saying, well, they say of King Saul, I think I might get this a little bit wrong, but he says of King Saul, you know, King Saul has slain the thousands and David has slain like the tens of thousands or something like that, right? But it's the people that are praising him. David was not like that. David was a humble king. He didn't praise himself, but he sought for the Lord to praise him. David didn't get a big head and get carried away. He knew that it was the Lord that lifted him up, right? Now turn to Ephesians chapter 6. Keep your finger in Psalm 3 because here we read that the Lord is a shield for me, okay? He is our shield and what I want to draw your attention to just very quickly in the New Testament is that we are given an armor of God. We are instructed to put on a certain armor which has a shield as well for us to be able to fight the wiles of the devil, for us to be able to get through life, you know, intact in one piece because the Christian life is a life of warfare, okay? You know, no, we're not fighting wars in the Middle East, you know, we're not fighting necessarily civil wars or things like that. Our warfare is spiritual. Ephesians 6 verse 10. Ephesians 6 verse 10. Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Now was King David strong in the Lord? Yes, he was. Verse 11. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Now pay attention, that is a command. The command is to put on the whole armor of God, right? So we may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Who's our enemy on this earth? It's the devil. It's the spiritual wickedness of this world. Now we might have physical enemies, like we might have people that hate us, we might have people that hate church, we might have people that hate Christianity, but the person that is behind all that is Satan. Look at verse 12. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood. It's not flesh and blood that we're wrestling against, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Who's our enemy? It's Satan. It's his devils. That's our enemy. We can't see that enemy, but it's there. And so God instructs us and commands us, put on that whole armor, right? David, when he went to the Mount of Olives and wrote these Psalms, he's put on his armor. He said the Lord is my shield, right? Ephesians breaks down this armor of God in a lot more detail for us. Look at verse 13. Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God that ye may be able to stand against, sorry, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand. So God wants us to stand, right? When we're in spiritual warfare, when we're being attacked, when we're being persecuted, right? When our world is failing around us, God wants us to stand, okay? He wants us to stand. We're not going to be living in a world of peace, okay? The world hates the Lord. Remember that. The world hates. We read, you know, last week the kings of the earth take counsel together against the Lord. This world system is against the Lord, is against us. I'm sorry to say that, but that's the truth of God's word. That's what the word of God says. But regardless of who stands against us, the Lord wants us to stand. He doesn't want us to fall. He wants us to stand by standing. We're required to put on the whole armor of God. Not just some of the armor, but the whole armor, all of it, okay? What is the whole armor of God? Verse 14. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth. So that's like putting on a belt, right? Being girt, your loins being girt about with truth. So the first thing, the first part of the armor is that we would know the truth. Who's the truth? Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, the word of God, right? All the doctrines that we find written in the Bible is the truth. It's important for us to know doctrine. It's important to us to know why we believe what we believe. It's important for us to be able to stand on the truths of God's word. So if we're ever challenged, we can go back and point people to the word of God and show them the truth of the word of God, right? That's why I want us to memorize verses together as a church every week. And if you're not doing it, let me encourage you to do it. So you'd be girt about with the truth, okay? Because you won't always have a physical Bible around with you, but you can have the word of God in your heart, right? And that can be the truth that you stand on. That can be the truth that leads you from error, that leads you away from false doctrine. That's part of the armor, is having the truth of God's word. And obviously you need your Bible, otherwise you won't have the truth. Sorry, get around the truth. And having on, so verse 14, and having on the breastplate of righteousness, the breastplate of righteousness. So righteousness, walking in the Spirit, walking in the commands of the Lord, knowing the laws of God, doing the word of God, right? This is, what I like about this is, it's one thing to know the truth. It's one thing to know doctrine. It's one thing to know all the Bible and know all that, which is part of the armor. But the other armor is to have that breastplate of righteousness. So your life ought to be relatively clean. You know, we have the righteousness of Christ imputed upon us when we're saved, but you need to be walking a life of righteousness, right? When people look at your life, they ought to say, hey, this man fears the Lord. This man is seeking to walk in his ways, right? This man or this woman is not struggling with sins the same way that the world is struggling. This person seems to have power over sin. This person seems to have power over wickedness, because that's, you know, we have the Holy Ghost living in us. We have the Holy Ghost. Sebastian, stop that. Can you guys sit behind there, please? Hurry up. Sebastian, hurry up. The Holy Ghost is living in us, okay? So we ought to be walking in righteousness, okay? Because no one likes a Christian that knows it all, that can speak good things, but yet his life is a life of wickedness, right? Because that's, that's why people, how many times do you go to the door and you talk about, you know, people that don't, you know, they've been to church, they don't go to church anymore, and they say, well, it's full of hypocrites, right? Because they hear one thing, but then when they see people, they do the other, right? It's like the Pharisees of old. You know, we see Jesus Christ speaking against the Pharisees. You know, he says, yes, they know truth. They can teach you great things, but honestly, they're not walking in the paths of righteousness, you know? Their father is the devil, referring to the Pharisees. You know, as Christians, we're going to be careful not to be people that think we're so high and mighty, we know so much, but our walk, our righteousness is not there on show for people, and we can be seen as hypocrites, right? That's the worst thing, you know, especially for young kids. I, you know, I remember as a child, you know, you have a desire for the Lord, you have a zeal for the Lord, you know, but then you see people in church and they're so cold, you know, you see the wickedness that they do, and you go, what is Christianity? Is it even worth it? You know, we need both the truth and we need the righteousness. These paths all make up the armor of God. Verse 15, Ephesians 6 verse 15. And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Your feet, right? We go soul-winning, we go walking, we go door-to-door preaching the gospel. That's part of the armor, being prepared with the gospel, right? Anytime you have the opportunity to preach the gospel, to get people saved, you ought to be ready for that. That is part of the armor of God. And if you're someone that's not prepared to give the gospel, look, you're going to struggle against the devil, right? Because the devil is the one that's feeding false gospels. The devil's the one that puts doubts in the hearts of people of eternal security. Maybe you can lose it. You need to know the gospel back to back. You ought to know it well. You ought to have verses memorized because, listen, even if you don't go door-to-door soul-winning, you're going to have opportunities where you're one-on-one with someone and they're going to want to know what they need to do to go to heaven, right? They're going to want to know what do I need to do to be saved? You're going to come across the paths of other Christians, right, that think they know the way of heaven, but they're still trusting in their works. They're still trusting in their baptism. They're still trusting in their churches. They're still trusting in their religion. Hey, they're going to cross your paths because, you know, Christians cross paths with other Christians, but many times those Christians aren't even saved, right? And I'm saying Christians in a loose term, right, because everyone's a Christian, right? Everyone says they're Christian. Australia's a Christian nation apparently, right? So always be ready. Part of the armor is to have the gospel and being ready to give the gospel at all times. Verse 16, Ephesians 6 verse 16. Above all, take in the shield of faith, where with ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. The shield of faith. You know, the Lord is a shield for us, but here it's referring to our faith as our shield. Now this is not about your faith like of salvation, right? We believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. We'll be saved. It's the faith of our walk, right? It's continually trusting in the Lord, right? We go from faith to faith. That's the Christian life. We go from the faith of salvation. We're saved. That's been done. That's a done deal. Then we go on with faith, right? We walk in faith. We walk trusting in the Lord because it is so easy to go through life, go through the challenges of life, and lose hope and lose faith in the Lord. The Lord's always there for you. The Lord wants to help you, guide your paths, and light your way, right? We ought to draw our strength from Him. We ought to be led by Him. Having that shield of faith in your life is going to prevent the fiery darts of the devil from attacking you and hurting you. Verse 17. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of the Lord. So the helmet of salvation, right? The assurance of your faith, the assurance of your salvation. Because here's the thing. When you know you're going to heaven, when you know you're saved and you don't have any more doubts, doesn't that strengthen you? Doesn't that allow you to move forward? Because someone who's always doubting, am I saved, am I saved, am I saved, they're not going to be able to do great things for the Lord. But the one that knows, yep, Christ has paid for all my sins. I'm sure of salvation. I'm going to heaven when I die. I'm relying on Him. He's done it all. It's His work. There's nothing more that I can do but put my faith and trust in Him. Now that's done. That's a done deal. It's like a helmet. It protects you. You can then go forward and fight the battles of the Christian life. You can do great things for the Lord once you're assured of your salvation. And then it says here, the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. You know, I won't go through all of that there, but the word of God, the sword of the Spirit. Everything else there as far as the armor goes was protective elements, the helmet, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield. This is the first time where you actually have a weapon. The word of God is your weapon. The word of God is your sword in the spiritual realm, even in the physical, it seems, many times. You go soul winning and you're like, oh, just pull out my Bible. Oh, no, no, no, no. It's like they know they're about to get struck down with the word of God. People know it's a sword. It's sharp and it hurts. But hey, that's the word of God. That's why sometimes it's good just to have your Bible verses memorized so you can speak to them without them fearing like, oh, wow, you're pulling out a sword. Essentially, that's what you're doing when you're preaching the gospel. When you're going and speaking the word of God, you are using the sword of the Lord as your attack. And of course, just very quickly, when Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, what did he do to fight against the devil? He pulled out the sword. He pulled out the word of God and was able to defeat Satan simply by quoting scriptures. But that is the end of the armor of God. But don't forget verse 18. Don't forget verse 18 because this is what David was really good at. Verse 18, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit and watching their unto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. So yep, you're doing all these things. You've got the armor of God on you. Don't forget to pray. Don't forget to go to the Mount of Olives as it is, as it were, and pour your heart out to the Lord. Pray for his strength. Pray that he would preserve and give all the supplication so that's the answer of prayers to the saints. All right, so we do have an armor, guys. David spoke of God being his shield. The New Testament church, we have this armor listed out for us. This spiritual warfare that we are to fight with. Go back to Psalm chapter 3. Psalm 3 verse 4. Psalm 3 verse 4. Psalm 3 verse 4. I cried unto the Lord with my voice. So we see, yep, King David definitely is praying, is crying out to the Lord. I cried unto the Lord with my voice and he heard me. The Lord hears your prayers. Okay, you come to the Lord of your problems with your struggles. You cry out unto him. The Lord will hear your prayer. Okay, the Lord will hear you. Take encouragement in that, that the Lord of the universe, the Lord who's the creator of all things, will listen to you in your strife, will listen to you in your problems. He'll hear you if you cry out unto him. And he heard me out of his holy hill. Selah. His holy hill. You remember guys from last week, what's the holy hill? The holy hill of Zion, right? Out of heavenly Zion, out of heavenly Jerusalem, in heaven. You can cry out unto the Lord from this earth and he'll hear you from the heavens. Okay, your prayers are powerful. It's your communication to the Lord. We saw that when we were reading Ephesians 6. We're going through the armor of God. We saw then how important it is to bring our prayers and supplications before the Lord because he hears you. The Lord wants to hear you. And you know guys, if you're like me, there are times where I fail and I do wrong or I sin and I just don't even want to open my mouth to the Lord, right? Or I could be struggling with something and I just refuse to speak to the Lord because you're ashamed. Or you know, why would the Lord want to listen to me? And I'm just a man. I'm ashamed. He's probably sick of me. None of those thoughts go through your mind when you fail. The Lord hears you. The Lord wants to hear you. His mercies are new every morning. He's faithful towards you. You know, you're his son. You're his child. He sent Jesus Christ to die for you. You're a valuable asset to him, right? He wants you to come and cry to him and draw your strength from him and for him to be your shield, for him to be your protector. That's what the Lord wants. I mean if your child, if your own child is struggling with something, right? Don't you as a parent want them to come to you and open up so you can comfort them, so you can give them advice? It's the same thing with the Lord God and we forget that. There's so much things that you learn as a father that you sort of start to realise, oh that's how the Lord is. It's not till you have your own children that you realise, oh wow, the Lord is the Lord God our Father. He's this way and I realise that now that I have my children and now that I'm a father and now I'm a mother, I'm a parent, you start to recognise certain qualities of God that you may not have noticed before. But the Lord wants you to cry to him and he'll hear your prayers. That's a guarantee that he will hear you when you cry out unto him and he'll hear you from heaven. Look at verse number five. I laid me down and slept. I laid me down and slept. Now I love that because King David, right, stressed Absalom his sons after him. He's taken over the kingdom. He's taken over the hearts of the people of Israel. If you've ever been stressed, if you've ever been worried, you might recognise that it's hard to go to sleep because you've got so much on your mind. Just when I was in Sydney and I was coming up to the Sunshine Coast to start this church, I was stressed. There was a lot on my mind. We had to move. We didn't even know a week leading in if we even had a place to stay. There was so much on my mind and then the sermons that I felt like I had to prepare for and just not knowing. It's a new frontier and just being so stressed. I wasn't able to sleep. I was really tired. The weekend that we came up here, I was so tired. There were some nights that I just hadn't slept well. I was stressed. But what we see here, that's not the right approach. That's not how we should be because when we see with David, we see David, he cries unto the Lord. He knows the Lord has hurt him and then he laid me down and slept. David had an ability to know. I've given those things to the Lord. There are certain things that are outside of my control. The Lord knows them. I'm going to go to sleep. I'm not going to worry about them. I'm not going to be continually thinking about them. I'm going to leave them in the hands of the Lord. It reminds me of Psalm 127 verse 2 which says it is vain for you to rise up early to sit up late and eat the bread of sorrows for so he giveth his beloved sleep. So Psalm 127 verse 2 says this it is vain so it is worthless it is empty for you to rise up early to sit up late doing what? To eat the bread of sorrows like just worrying, stressed. It's vain. It's empty for you to wake up early and sleep late if that's what you're doing. For so he giveth his beloved sleep. The Lord wants us to rest in him. The Lord calls us his beloved. He wants us to put our burdens upon him and then to relax. When you have worries in life, when you have stress and you have troubles and difficulties, there are certain things that you have the ability to control and there are some things you just have no control over. Obviously the things that you have the ability to control, you've got to sort that out. You've got the ability to do that. But there are some things you just can't. There's nothing you can do to stop it. There's nothing you can do to take it back. It's been done. But you can leave it in the hands of the Lord and the Lord says to you, go to sleep. Relax. Leave it with me. One of my old pastors in my previous church would say, as human beings, we have this strange ability to pray to the Lord, to cry unto him, to take off all our burdens and put them to the Lord and then when we're done praying, we pick those burdens back up and then we're back off. We say, Lord, take care of him, but then we put him back on our shoulders and we're back to being stressed. That's true. I think that's so easy to do, but the Lord says, no, leave it with him. So you can go to sleep. You can rest. Beloved, you can sleep and rest. Don't worry. I've got control over it. Be strengthened in me. If the Lord of the universe has control over it, then we should be able to rest easy. We should be able to sleep and not continually think about those things throughout the day. I awakened for the Lord sustained me. I laid me down and slept. I awakened for the Lord sustained me. So David's refreshed. He's sustained by the Lord. He's cried out there on Mount Zion and he slept. He's had a good night's sleep. He wakes up in the morning. He's feeling good. He's feeling that the Lord has sustained him, the Lord has strengthened him. He knows the Lord's on his side and that's how we should be. We should be that. Once we leave our problems with the Lord, we should know, yes, the Lord knows it. He's heard my prayers. I'm going to draw strength from that and go on throughout my day. Look at verse number six, Psalm 3 verse 6. I will not be afraid. I love this verse so much. I will not be afraid of 10,000s of people that have set themselves against me roundabout. So David says, look, there can be 10,000s of people, thousands. So that's not 10,000. That could be 20,000. It could be 30,000, 40,000, 50,000, 10,000s of people that have set themselves against me roundabout. I will not be afraid. You know, and look, if you're going to live for the Lord, you're going to be persecuted. If you want to stand for the word of God and the truth of God's word, the world's going to hate you. If you even just preach a gospel of faith, a gospel of grace and not of works, Christians will want nothing to do with you. Your own family might say, well, that's just a false gospel, and mock you. You might have 10,000s literally of people against you. And in a way we do, because we ought to stand out from this world. But he says, look, I will not be afraid. Okay. I will not be afraid. And this is something that, you know, I'm trying to work through in my life. I'm trying to think about, you know, there could be a time where, you know, I might preach something from the Bible, and then you might have the media against you, or you might have other churches against you for what you preach. But the truth is, I will not be afraid, right? I will not be afraid of 10,000s of people that have set themselves against me roundabout. Why? Because it's not just that he's against David, but against the Lord God, right? If we stand true with the Word of God, if we stand true with the Bible, and we get persecuted by literally 10,000s of people, then they're actually not just against us, but they're against God. They're against the Word of God. And if there's anyone that's going to win those battles, let me say it's going to be God, right? We see last week that he laughs. The Lord God mocks at these people that are trying to do away with his laws, with his commands, with his Word. With God, you are never outnumbered, okay? You're never outnumbered. Now turn with me, stay in Psalms chapter 3. Turn with me to Psalm, sorry, 1 Samuel chapter 14. 1 Samuel chapter 14. 1 Samuel 14. You know, people are going to go up against you, and it can even be your own family, and that's where it hurts, right? When it's your own flesh and blood, they go up against you, when all you want to do is serve the Lord, and worship him, and love his Word, and live for him, right? We see that with Absalom. We see Absalom went up against his own father, but even when ten thousands are against you, you're not outnumbered. And what I love about the Bible, especially the Old Testament, is that there are so many wars, there are so many battles, where Israel were outnumbered, right? And should have just been totally destroyed, but the Lord's come in and fought those battles for them. One of my favorite battles is here in 1 Samuel chapter 14. So we'll read it. 1 Samuel chapter 14 verse 1, and it's about Jonathan, Saul's son. So if you know Jonathan, he was a godly man, you know, he was a righteous man, he loved King David, but he was also a man of war. He was also a captain of Israel, okay? And so we read about Jonathan here in verse number 1, 1 Samuel 14 verse 1. Now it came to pass upon a day that Jonathan, the son of Saul, said unto the young man that bare his armor, Come and let us go over to the Philistines garrison that is on the other side, but he told not his father. So Israel here are at war with the Philistines once again, you know, they're constantly at war with the Philistines that you'll read about. And Jonathan decides to take matters into his own hands. He goes to his armor bearer and says, you know what, I'm not going to tell my father this, but how about you and I, we go up against the garrison of the barracks, the armies of the Philistines, just you and I, how about we do that? Just two people, right? Verse number 2. And Saul, Saul his father, tarried in the uttermost part of Gibeah under a pomegranate tree, which is in Migron, and the people that were with him were about 600 men, and Ahia, the son of Ahitub, Ichabod's brother, the son of Phinehas, the son of Eli, the Lord's priest in Shiloh wearing an epod, and the people knew not that Jonathan was gone. So we have a contrast here. We have a contrast between Saul, and Saul was a believer, he was saved, and we have his son Jonathan, right? We see the difference between father and son with King David and Absalom. We see that Absalom, you know, was the wicked one, and King David's relying on the Lord, but we saw, we see kind of like this reversal, because Saul later in his life departed from the Lord, the spirit of the Lord departed from him, right? He didn't want anything to do with the Lord, and then we see Jonathan, his son, he's the righteous one, he's the one that wants to go against the armies. You can be one of the other, right? You can be one, you can be like Jonathan that says, hey, we've got a battle to fight, let's do something about this, or you can be like King Saul who just says, well, there's a battle there, you know what, we're just, we're just, we don't know what to do, we'll just stand still and sit underneath this pomegranate tree, right? We see one takes action and one doesn't, with Jonathan. And verse four, verse number four, and between the passages which, by which Jonathan sought to go over unto the Philistines garrison, there was a sharp rock on the one side, and a sharp rock on the other side, and the name of the one was Bozez, and the other, and the name of the other, Sennar. So it's like these cliffs. To get to this garrison, you have to go down this one cliff, and then there was this other cliff to get to this, to the armies of the Philistines. And verse five, the forefront of the one was Situat, Norfolk over against Mishmash, and the other, Southford against, over against Gibeah. And Jonathan said to the young man that bare his armor, come and let us go over unto the garrison of these uncircumcised. It may be that the Lord will work for us. So he says, look, let's go against this garrison. Let's go fight against these people. Just you and I, just two of us, against the whole army. It may be that the Lord will work for us. You know, Jonathan had the faith to say, hey, the Lord might come and help us. The Lord might come and fight this battle. You know, I've got faith in the Lord in that happening. And then I love these next few words that he says, for there is no restraint to the Lord to save by many or by few. Right? There is no restraint to the Lord to save by many or by few. Does the Lord need a great army to defeat the enemies? No, it can be many. It can be few. The Lord's not restrained by how many stand up for him. You know, and we're a small church, right? We might say, well, you know, I wish our church was larger. I wish our church had more people. Hey, there's no restraint to the Lord to save by many or by few. We can do as few of us as there are. We can do great things for the Lord. We can be like Jonathan and the armor bearer and take on the whole garrison as long as the Lord is with us, as long as the word will work for us. Verse seven, and his armor bearer said unto him, do all that is in thine heart, turn thee behold, I am with thee according to thy heart. And I love the armor bearer. I mean, if I was Jonathan's armor bearer and Jonathan's saying, hey, just the two of us against the whole army, I'd be like, Jonathan, what are you doing? Like, that's crazy. I mean, but no, the armor bearer is a righteous man. The armor bearer fears the Lord. The armor bearer has faith in the Lord. And you know, it's, even though there's a few of us, it's great when just a couple of us can get together and support one another. Right? We can do so much more when there's multiple, multiple, you know, that's why soul winning is so hard. You know, just going soul winning is so hard when it's just one of you. You know, if you don't have a church that's sending you out, when you don't have friends that can get together and go soul winning, it's so much harder when it's just you doing it. But when you've got the armor bearer, when you've got that soul and partner, when you've got that friend that's ready to go into the battle with you, you know, you can do great things and you can be encouraged by one another. Verse eight, then said Jonathan, behold, we will pass over unto these men and we will discover ourselves unto them. So we're going to go to these men and then we're going to show them who we are. We're going to, you know, discover ourselves. We're going to make ourselves known. If they say unto us, tarry until we come to you. So if they say kind of like, tarry, like stop, you know, what are you doing here? Then we will stand still in our place and we'll not go up unto them. So if they say stop, tarry, you know, then we won't go and fight. But if they say thus, come up unto us, then we will go up for the Lord have delivered them out of our hand and this shall be a sign unto us. Okay, so we're saying, look, if they say, hey, come up and fight us, then we know the Lord has delivered them in our hand. I mean, that takes great faith to make that decision, right? But the Lord's with them. We see this in the story. Verse 11. And both of them discovered themselves unto the garrison of the Philistines. And the Philistines said, behold, the Hebrews come forth out of the holes where they have hid themselves. Because they only see two, right? In the Philistines mind, they're going, hold on, the Hebrews must be here and they're hiding in holes. They must be underground somewhere, because they only see two of them. It's like, it's unreasonable, makes no sense that there can only be two of the Israelites coming to fight us. So in their mind, they're thinking, the whole Hebrew army has come up against them. Verse 12. And the men of the garrison answered Jonathan and his armor bearer and said, come up, come up to us, and we will show you a thing. And Jonathan said unto his armor bearer, come up after me, for the Lord have delivered them into the hand of Israel. So they're like, yep, come up, come up and fight, you know, come up. Like, remember, it's a cliff, so they've got the high ground. And in an army setting, if you've got the high ground, you've got the advantage over the army that's got the low ground, right? But there's only two of them coming up. Jonathan goes up first, then he says, once I'm up, then you come up, right? Just one at a time. Sorry, we're up to the, in verse 13. And Jonathan climbed up upon his hands and upon his feet, and his armor bearer after him, and they, and they fell. So the armies of the Philistines, and they fell before Jonathan and his armor bearer slew after him. And the first slaughter, which Jonathan and his armor bearer made, was about 20 men. So there's 20 of them. These two guys are able to defeat 20 men, right? That's 10 each, you know, within, as it were, a half and half acre of land, which a yoke of oxen might plow. And there was trembling in the hosts. So the rest of these armies hearing about this battle, they're hearing about these 20 men that have been defeated, and they're trembling in the fielding among all the people, the garrison and the spoilers. They also trembled. But now look at this. Now the Lord steps in, okay? Because keep in mind that Jonathan is a captain of Israel, of the army. He's fought in many battles. He's a skilled swordsman. I'm assuming his armor bearer is also very skilled. So they were able to defeat these 20 people, but now the Lord steps in, and the earth quaked. So it was a very great trembling. So there's an earthquake taking place, right? The Philistines, they see, they think the armies of the Hebrews, they think the Israelites have come against them, and now the Lord makes it that the earth quakes. Verse 16. And the watchman of Saul in Gibeah of Benjamin looked, and behold the multitude melted away, and they went on beating down one another. So the armies of the Philistines are so panicked that they have the earthquake. I'm assuming they think the whole army of Israel has come upon this garrison, and there they are beating down one another. They're fighting against themselves. They don't even know who the enemy is. They're so afraid. The earth has been quaking. They think they're going to lose their life. They start fighting against each other. The Philistines are fighting against each other, all right? So you have these two guys. They go up against these 20. The Lord steps in. They panic. They all start fighting again. They don't even know who the enemy is because they're assuming. There's an army. They're assuming these guys have come. Obviously, they're running scared, and they see people with weapons. They're fighting. They're fighting them, and they don't realize it's their own people that they're fighting. The Lord has stepped in and done an amazing miracle. I love that story because it's just two guys taking on the whole army. Two guys. The Lord steps in, and He does wonderful things for them. You're not outnumbered with the Lord. That's just one story in the Bible. There are so many stories there that we can get encouraged from when we feel like the whole world's against us. No. You've got the Lord. You've got the Lord. The Bible says in 1 John 4 4, Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. Greater is he that is in you. If you're saved, you have God dwell in you, the Holy Spirit in you. Greater is he that is in you than he, the devil, that is in the world. It's amazing. Amazing power. Sometimes as Baptists, we shy away from this because we think this is Charismatic or Pentecostal. You've got great power at your disposal because you have the Lord in you. You have the Word of God, which is your sword. You can fight amazing spiritual battles. You can do great things for the Lord, just like these two guys did that fought against the whole army. When you're facing thousands, you've got to step out in faith. That's what Jonathan did. That's what the Armaberry did. They stepped out in faith, didn't they? They trusted in the Lord, and they did what they could do. They did what they could do. They defeated those 20. They did what they could do. Same thing with you. When you're going through trials, you have faith in the Lord. You do what you can do, but what you can't control, you leave to the Lord and let Him deal with that earthquake. Hopefully, He sends that earthquake your way to save you. Back to Psalm 3. Psalm 3 verse 7. Psalm 3 verse 7. So even though David at this point has slept, he's been sustained, he's been encouraged by the Lord after praying to Him. He says this in verse 7. So what do we see here? We see David looking back at past victories, looking back at past battles. He says, Lord, you've smitten all my enemies. He's looking back in the past. All the wars that he's faced, all the battles that he's won, all the victories, all the answered prayer in his life. He says, Lord, he's reminding himself of what the Lord has done in his life. He's been strengthened by that. It's the same thing that we ought to be. When we're going through the struggles and the trials, we ought to look back at our life and go look where I was and look where the Lord has brought me. You know, remind yourself of the prayers. These are things that are raised before the Lord. These are things that I've been praying for in the past and He answered those prayers. So that ought to encourage you now in the present, right, when you feel like everything's falling apart, you should encourage in the present that in the past the Lord's come through for me. In the past the Lord has answered my prayers. In the past He's defeated my enemies and therefore I can look forward to the future because He's going to continue doing the same for me. He's going to continue defeating my enemies. He's going to continue answering my prayers and so we see David drawing strength from the past battles, the past victories. We ought to do the same thing and that's why I encourage you guys to write down your prayers, right. Have a journal. Have something where you pray about something to the Lord. You write it down because when it's answered you can tick Him off and say, yep, the Lord has answered those prayers, right. I've said this before in other sermons because many times the Lord will answer your prayer and you just forget that you even asked about it. You'll forget that the Lord answered it, right. But the Lord has stepped in, right. The Lord has stepped in into your life. He's made time and events change for your sake to answer that prayer for you. It's not just a coincidence. The Lord stepped in and answered those prayers and David drew strength from that. You too ought to draw strength from answered prayers. Verse 8, salvation belongeth unto the Lord. Thy blessing is upon thy people, Selah. So salvation, obviously this is not about spiritual salvation. This is physical salvation because David was fearing for his life, right. And you know we're not going to turn there but Absalom had a short reign. You know he was seeking after David and I told you that he had this long hair. The story goes that he's riding one day on his horse and then somehow his hair gets caught up on a tree and he gets stuck on a tree, right. He's riding along, the horse takes off, he gets caught on a branch and his hair gets wrapped up and he's just hanging there on a branch. Someone comes along, one of David's men comes along and kills Absalom. That's the end of him. Sad thing for Absalom. He started off as a great guy actually before any of this stuff happened. He seemed like a great guy. He suffered a poor death. You know guys, boys don't have long hair. This is not about long hair but you know I mean it does no good especially if you're going into battle. You know you're going to get caught up in that hair and then that's the end of it. But yeah Absalom had that long hair. It was his downfall, right. His beauty, the things that people rejoiced in, that was his downfall. His long hair, caught up in that tree, the end of him. Salvation belongs in front of the Lord. Don't step in and take revenge. You know give place unto wrath. Give place to God to step in and do amazing things for your life. Look the Lord that the Lord that delivered Jonathan and the armor bearer from the Philistines is the same God that we worship. It's the same God that saved you. It's the same God that listens to your prayers. Same God that defeated these enemies. Like sometimes we read the Old Testament they sound like fairy tales. No they truly they really happen. It's the same God that we worship. It's the same one that can do these things and do greater things in you. Okay so yeah look that's Psalm 3. Just I just hope that it's encouragement to you. I don't know what trials. We all go through trials. You know never think never think you know you're in church and you see people smiling. You see other Christians and you know you're going through difficulties. Never think man I wish I was like you know these other Christians. They seem to have it all together. They seem to have it all you know worked out. Why are they why are they why do they seem to be rejoicing in the Lord and I'm struggling. No we all go through troubles. All of us. We all make mistakes. We've all sinned against the Lord. We all have enemies that are against us. We all go for trials okay in different periods of your life and you know instead of you looking at other people and saying wow you know why why am I no they're going for troubles as well. Try to find out what they are if you can be a blessing to them as well because many times one way to just overcome your personal sorrows is to is to hear out other people and then say you know what brother I'm going to be praying for you and encourage yourself. Encourage other people. Be a blessing to other people and they can be a blessing back to you. You know the Lord can use people in the church to encourage one another the same way that the armor bearer encouraged Jonathan to go into that fight. Let's pray.