Remain standing for the reading of God's holy
word which comes from Psalm 4,
and hear now the words of the living
God.
Psalm 4.
Answer me when I call,
oh God of my righteousness.
You have given me relief when I was
in distress.
Be gracious to me and hear my prayer.
O men, how long
shall my honor be turned into shame?
How long will you love vain words
and seek after lies?
But know that the lord has set apart
the godly for himself.
The lord hears when I call to him.
Be angry
and do not sin.
Ponder in your hearts
on your bed and be silent.
Offer right sacrifices
and put your trust in the lord.
There are many who say, who will show
us some good?
Lift up the light of your face upon
us, oh lord.
You have put more joy in my heart
than they
have when their grain and wine abound.
In peace, I will lie down and sleep
for you alone, oh lord,
make me dwell in safety.
This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
You may be seated.
Well, Psalm 4
was sung by the nation of Israel
in and for corporate
worship, and we know that because of its
original title. If you look with me right
above verse 1, you'll see it. And it
reads,
to the choir master
with
string
instruments. This was a song. It was a
corporate worship song for Israel.
And in addition,
Psalm 4 was also a prayer for the
nation of Israel. More specifically,
this was an evening prayer.
After a long and hard day of work,
the saints of the Old Testament would come
into their homes, eat, relax,
and right at evening or right before bed,
Psalm 4 was a prayer
that they
would recite.
Today, when we picture someone praying
right before bed, the image that is often
conjured up in our minds is one of
someone kneeling right at their bedside,
and we assume that the prayer that is
going on is the Lord's prayer.
Well, in very similar way,
Psalm 4 was the Psalm that Israel prayed
before they rested their heads to bed. So
Psalm 4 is a song, but it's also
a prayer, and the original title also lets
us know of something else. It lets us
know the identity
of Psalm 4, or the identity of the
author of Psalm 4,
which is King David. Read with me again
the original title.
And it reads, to the choir master
with string instruments,
a Psalm of David.
And while not explicit,
many, including myself, believe the context
in which Psalm 4 was written was Absalom's
rebellion,
which was a revolt led by David's own
son,
Absalom.
Absalom led Israel
in rebellion, led Israel's heart away from David,
and and there was a revolt that rose
against his, his rule, and, Absalom was driven
by selfish ambition.
He was driven by a dissatisfaction
with David's governance of the nation.
Absalom, along with Israel, gossiped,
slandered, and mocked
David's throne,
his kingship, his rule, but not only did
they mock David, they also mocked David's glory,
which was God Yahweh himself.
And it is the reason why when we
read this Psalm, we see much distress.
We see much
sorrow in Psalm 4, and rightfully so.
You know, it is one thing to be
mocked
and have our life threatened by our enemies
and a foreign nation.
However,
it's altogether
something else, something completely different when this happens
from the lips and hands of your own
people,
and especially your own blood,
your own son, the one whom you raised,
Absalom.
For a moment, just imagine the depths and
sorrow that David went through during this season.
It absolutely crushed him, and you could see
it in this song.
I mean, this was once the boy who
descended
down the, the the valley of Elah with
confidence in the Lord to fight Goliath and
kill him. And now in Psalm 4, we
see a man
in darkness,
mentally broken
and calling out for God in this song.
This is a different man here. The weight
of this is,
really breaking him.
And dear saints, the odds of us having
a national rebellion
led,
led, by our own son against us is
very is very slim to none. Right?
However, David invites God's people to pray this
prayer because
this Psalm is your Psalm. This Psalm is
our Psalm. And it's one of the reasons
why Paul commands us in Ephesians and also
in Colossians
that we should speak and sing to one
another in Psalms, hymns, and spiritual Psalms. In
other words, although Psalm 4 was written by
somebody else,
by a specific person in a specific situation,
it is a psalm really written for us
for corporate worship.
God calls, he invites us into David's experience,
even though his troubles are not ours.
And the reason we are invited into David's
experience is because there is much to learn
and to be reminded of, both generally and
specifically,
about how we are to deal with suffering
in the Christian life, and this is what
we are gonna see. Some of us this
morning are going through some sort of trial,
some sort of suffering. And if you're not,
look to your neighbor, your left, your right.
Maybe they are going through it. The odds
of that is is likely. And if it's
not the case,
then be assured that suffering will come. The
Lord allows it to come into the Christian
life. The Christian life is not easy. And
so this song here prepares us. How will
we respond in the day of trouble? How
will we sing to the Lord in that
day?
How will we pray? Will we pray once?
Will we pray twice? Will we continually pursue
after God?
How will we lay down our heads in
peace in the days of tribulation? This is
what this psalm
is for. It's to help God's people answer
and respond
to suffering
in the day of trouble. In a godly
way, it's our response. And so, by way
of introduction,
beginning with verse 1, let's look at what
it says. David writes,
Answer me when I call,
oh God of my righteousness. You have given
me relief when I was in distress.
Be gracious to me and hear my prayer.
Very simply, what Psalm 4 teaches us right
at the opening is that in suffering, the
Christian is to pray.
When suffering comes
and embeds an overwhelming
anxiety
on us, our natural disposition is to become
discouraged. It's not to buck up. God never
commands
us or tells us that when we need
to eat or how to eat because we
naturally do it.
Just like we naturally become discouraged in trials.
This here tells us what to do.
The danger of discouragement is when it becomes
a master of our mind, when we become
a slave to it. Discouragement leads us to
misplace our trust,
We go seek after other things besides the
Lord.
It leads us to fear vulnerability
with our brothers and sisters and also with
God. It it will also sometimes create in
us a bitterness
towards God or to others, and and that
often discouragement leads down this trail of silence,
not prayer.
Unfortunately, David for us is a is a,
a model of what not to do. He
did not fall into discouragement. Instead,
David calls upon the name of the Lord
for help. That Hebrew word, if you look
with me at verse 1, in our bible,
that word call actually means to shout.
In other words, David is not only
not silent,
and he enters into prayer, neither is this
a prayer,
that is completely silent. Well, he's just sort
of praying internally,
but instead what David is doing here is
he is crying out to God. And we
could see that in verse 1 very clearly
because if you look at the text, there
are 2 exclamation marks.
You could hear it. This is an urgent
prayer. David is saying, answer me when I
call.
Be gracious to me.
Hear my prayer is what he's saying. He
is in utter distress.
And dear saints, like David, we are commanded
in season of distress to pour ourselves out
upon the Lord. And it's okay.
We pour ourselves out upon the Lord. If
we cry to him, if we shout for
him, he does not grow weary. He made
us. He knows our frame.
In fact, he knows us better
than we know ourselves.
If a loving earthly father can discern the
heart of their children's frustration,
their worries, their concerns,
sort of intem
interpret their words and even their volume, how
much more our heavenly father?
David is a model for you and I
that when troubles arise,
crying to the Lord is an appropriate response.
It's okay.
David is also an example of continual prayer.
Look with me at verse 1.
David, in fact, is actually praying for a
previous prayer,
which for the Lord is to relieve him
of his distress. In essence, what David is
saying is, Lord, that prayer that I said
yesterday to bring relief to me,
please be gracious.
Answer it. Hear it because I feel like
you're not hearing it.
Dear Christians, in season of suffering,
here we learn by way of example that
we are not only to pour out ourselves
upon the lord, but also plead with the
lord.
In other words, in trial, we are not
just to pray once or twice,
but we are to continually
pray. It's actually press into him. So it's
not only a pouring, but it's a pressing
into him. And we need to do it,
and it's difficult because oftentimes when we are
in trial, in seasons of suffering, it feels
like our prayers are being met with a
deafening silence.
However, we are to continue to press in,
to plead with him. We are to be
like Jacob when he's wrestling with the Lord
and he's saying, I will not let you
go until you bless me. Or as the
Lord Jesus Christ said, we keep knocking at
the door continually until there is an answer.
This is how our prayer life should be
in the midst of trials.
And I wanna be clear. This this wrestling
is very much like a child wrestling with
their father. He knows who who he's wrestling
with. Right? There's a sense of respect,
not disparagement.
And we see this in David's language. David,
shows us, this respect and reverence in 2
ways.
First,
that in our prayers, we are to remind
ourselves who God is and what he is,
what he has done in times of suffering.
Look at verse 1 with me. David does
not just say, answer me when I call,
but rather, answer me when I call
God of my righteousness.
Answer me when I call God of my
righteousness.
In other words, the reason
we have access to God only is only
for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us
through faith in Christ. The only reason that
we can come before the Lord
and boldly pray to him, plead with him,
pour out our heart, is only because Christ's
righteousness has been imputed
to us. We ought to be reminded of
that. That's the reason why we could come
before his throne to pray.
Moreover, that statement, God is my righteousness, should
remind us
and remind you
of who God is, that God is righteous.
That he can only do that which is
right. And, oh, what a comfort that is
for the Christian.
That in times of trial, that we can
have an assurance
that the one who is guiding all of
this
can only do right.
He's not misleading you.
2nd, David shows us that we ought to
remind ourselves
about what God has done for us in
the past.
If you look,
at verse 1, if you look at sort
of that second stanza,
in the Hebrew, he says, he has made
room for me in a tight space.
That's really what it reads in the Hebrew.
And therefore, dear Christian, when we need to
remember, we need to remember,
times in our life when we are literally
in a tight spot,
and the Lord brought us
out from it.
Set our feet upon solid ground. Past deliverances
happen
to give you hope for present deliverance in
the day of trouble. In our prayer life,
we are to remember the God who is
right, who could do nothing
but what is right, and we also need
to remember the way in which the Lord
delivered us in the past. This is what
strengthens us for our endurance in seasons of
trial.
Moving now to verse 2,
which reveals a little bit of the details
about David's
distress.
After praying to God, David now turns to
his enemies, those who are persecuting him, those
who are mocking him.
And it reads verse 2, oh men, how
long will my honor be turned into shame?
How long will you love vain words
and seek after lies?
What we learn here is that the cause
of David's distress comes from those influential
people.
In our text, that word, oh men, is
literally translated, oh men of rank.
In other words, these people
are people of power, people of authority. These
would have been the
landowners. These would have been the politicians. These
would have been the commanders of Israel's army.
They would have even been prominent religious figures.
All of which, all of them,
would have, been held in a high esteem,
in the nation of Israel.
And it is these exact people
that David speaks to and says,
how long?
I wanna be clear. This is a rhetorical
question.
The answer assumes that this that their thirst
for,
immorality and wickedness,
that that sort of behavior will never be
quenched.
David knows that there is no end to
their madness, especially
against him. If he goes right, they're gonna
go left. If he goes up, they're gonna
go down. Right? If that which he calls
good, they're gonna call evil and vice versa.
They're just
outright completely against him. They will never cease
to scoff at David's glory, at his rule,
at his God. These people will never cease
to pursue delusions and deceptions.
And the reason is because they love false
god. They're they love false gods and
they pursue after that which is a lie.
Dear saints, often, the length of our trials
is in seasons, not seconds.
And the distance we are called to carry
this heavy burden is miles
and not inches.
The Lord will lead us in seasons of
long suffering.
And this is the reason why David asked
how long.
Sometimes I think the question how long, oh
Lord, is much more difficult than why, Lord,
is this happening to me.
It becomes such a weight
to us that we just want it to
go away.
When we enter into long seasons of sickness
and sorrow,
dear Christian, we will ask, oh lord, how
long?
When we enter into
persecution and slander by men, whether it be
by our own country,
family, friends, even churchmen,
we will ask, oh, man, how long?
However, David gives us
a couple of things to strengthen
us and to help us endure in these
long seasons of suffering. He is speaking to
his enemies, but he's also reminding us
of what to remind ourselves of. Look with
me at verse 3.
But know that the Lord that is Yahweh
has set apart the godly for himself.
Yahweh hears when I call to him.
Here, David is speaking to his enemies. However,
like I said, he is reminding himself, and
these are these are truths that we really
need to hold on to.
In the first instance,
we need to hold on and be reminded
that God has indeed set his his,
set himself a people for himself. That word
sanctification,
it's this big long theological word that we
use here, especially in the reform tradition.
What it means is that God has set
us apart. He has sanctified us. This is
where that word saint comes from.
It's not a Christian 2.0.
It's not someone who has exceeded this abundant
amount of works. It is simply a Christian.
All who have,
placed their faith
in Christ receive the same Christ, and they're
separated,
from that which is common in the same
way. We are made holy. We are made
separate.
Paul even writes about this in Romans chapter
1 verse 4 when he says, and I
want us to hear this,
To all those in Rome who are loved
by God
and called to be saints.
To all those in Rome who are loved
by God and called to be saints. Called
to be set apart.
To be set
apart means that we are called. It means
that we are loved by God. And I
think this is important for us, and it's
something that we also remind ourselves
in seasons of trial.
Some of us may not know this, but
when I was a child, I dealt dealt
with a great amount of anxiety when I
was in 2nd or 3rd grade.
So much so that I would cry in
class
at an irrational fear for some reason
that my parents would not come and pick
me up.
And I would run myself in a panic
where I would sort of just run out,
almost attempt to and and find,
opportunities for me to run out of the
school. And it caused a lot of fear
for my mom and dad.
And, you know, my parents would sit me
down and ask me, and it was just
this overwhelming irrational fear.
And,
and one thing that I started to do
to myself,
one thing that my mother and my father
told me to do is think of all
the ways and all the reasons why that's
not true.
And that's exactly what I would do. I
would remind myself that my parents made me.
My parents fed me.
My parents protected me. They clothed me. In
other words, it was a way to reason
in myself why would they abandon me.
And this had a
significant amount of relief in my mind of
that anxiety.
Well, in a similar way, we need to
remember our
separatedness
or our sainthood,
that we have been sanctified in seasons of
trial.
David reminded himself that in his season of
suffering,
that greater than Absalom's rebellion, sin and slander,
that God's call upon his life is much
greater. The same is with you. If you
look at verse 3,
he's not just referencing himself, he's referencing
the godly. That is all those whom God
has set his love upon. This is not
just true for David. This is true for
you, dear Christian.
And you have you have rested and received
Christ by faith. You are loved, called, and
set apart by God. This verse 3 is
for you.
The truth that God has set you apart
is the basis
for your peace, for your future hope, and
also salvation. But also, we look at this
verse,
it's also the basis
for why
the Lord hears and listens to us.
David says, the Lord, that is Yahweh, hears
when I call to him. And I like
some translations better because
some translations say,
Yahweh will hear when I call him.
In other words, there's a sense of there's
a greater surety in some of those translations.
And for us today, what David is saying
is, if you are set apart by God,
the Lord will hear you when you cry
and plead and pray to him.
He is listening.
Next, David gives instructions
for his enemies.
In fact, he prays for them.
He writes in verses 4 through 5. Look
at me at the text. Be angry and
do not sin.
Ponder in your own heart on your bed
and be silent.
Offer right sacrifices and put your trust
in the Lord.
You know, David wants his enemies to put
an end to their wickedness.
That's a heart that we ought to have
1st and foremost. Often, whenever we have enemies,
we want them to be destroyed rather than
be restored to the Lord.
He wants them to repent of their unjustified
anger that has led them into sin.
He wants them to reflect upon their own
heart
and return to a proper worship of God.
Dear saints,
by way of example, David teaches us that
in seasons of suffering
caused by mistreatment and persecution,
we need to pray for those whose hand
it comes by, and that's a hard thing.
It really is.
Something we must do because Jesus commanded it.
Matthew chapter 5, verse 44, Jesus says, love
your enemies and pray for those who persecute
you.
In Luke chapter 6, verse 28,
he says, pray for those who abuse you.
Bless those who curse you.
I think the the the apex of this
is when he's on the cross and he's
being mocked and slandered.
And those his own nation,
even those whom he did ministry for and
with
have led him to the cross to be
executed
like a murderer.
And he says, father, forgive them for they
do not know what they do.
There's a sense of forgiveness and a heart
for people
that is just utterly supernatural, but it's something
that we're commanded to do
even by the hands of those
who have persecuted us or mistreated us.
Once again, it's not easy,
but it's something that we must do.
Love wants those that despise us to experience
God's blessing and light.
And I've mentioned that also that in this
section that David also is reminding himself by
way of speaking to his enemies.
And often when we are sinned against, we
are led
to anger.
This anger leads us for an occasion of
sin.
We begin to gossip and slander, to seek
vengeance, and in many ways we've become very
much like those who have hurt us.
Is that phrase that hurt people hurt people?
I think that's very true.
We begin to plot,
scheme,
speak like them, be like them, reflect them,
and that's something that we ought not to
do. We're not we're not to think like
them.
Instead, we lay in our beds.
That that that place
which is a place of solitude and meditation,
and we make it a place where we
plot and we scheme.
And then in our sin, in our anger,
we come into worship with a seared conscience.
We
come in with a misplaced trust
and a distraction in our hearts and our
minds before
the Lord.
Dear saints, in seasons of suffering, let us
exercise self control through self examination.
Do not allow anger
that will come to boil over in an
occasion for sin.
When we are lying in bed, once again,
that place of solitude and meditation, we must
do the hard work of hard work,
reflecting upon our own sins,
correcting ourselves
rather than others. We need to refocus our
minds upon the Lord, prepare our hearts for
worship, lay aside our false gods,
put away our schemes,
and simply trust in the Lord that he
will do what is right because he is
right.
He can do nothing,
but do what what is right.
May that that
that be for us,
today.
Now David returns to from speaking
to his enemies to now speaking to God
again. Read with me verses 6 through 8.
David says, there are many who will say,
who will show us some good?
Lift up the light
of your face upon us, oh Lord.
You have put more joy in my heart
than they have when their grain and wine
abound. In peace, I will both lie down
and sleep.
For you alone, oh, Lord, make me dwell
in safety.
Here, David really
all these verses here really summarize the root
of David's peace in this
situation.
In the rebellion of David's day, there were
many people who looked at the utter fallout
of what had happened.
The rebellion.
The,
and and and asked them, you know, who
will show us a way? There was there
was no longer a king. There was no
longer
a clear,
North Star for righteousness.
False gods abounded, and and there was just
an utter collapse of leadership. And often when
there is a lack of leadership,
there will always be people
that will say,
who will show us some good?
In other words, who will show us a
way out of this mess? And it is
often the case that when everything is collapsing
around us, we're in seasons of trial,
we will continue to look for that one
person or object besides God
to show us some good.
And we see here that David's good is
ultimately
the Lord himself. David exhorts us here that
the place
of our hope, that singular place of hope
ought to be Yahweh himself, the triune
God of scripture. David does not point to
himself to be that hope. David does not
point to a priest to be that hope.
He does not point to the prophet to
be that hope. Rather, he points
all the godly, all those who believe
upon Christ,
to place their hope on him in life
and in death.
If it also exhorts us to recognize that
Yahweh alone is far more superior,
in a sense of joy than anything else
this world can provide.
Unlike today, in the days of the ancient
Near East, everyone relied heavily
upon the rain and the fruitfulness
of the land. When harvest
time came,
there was an abundant amount of grain and
abundant amount of wine that made fullness and
security and happiness and joy.
Kind of don't get that sense here today
because we have supermarkets.
But if we live in a day where
we relied on agriculture so heavily,
that would be good news for us. It
would be a good sign of God's blessing
upon us. In the land of Israel, if
there was ever a famine, that was ultimately
a sign of God's curse upon
the nation.
Well, here, David says that there is
a joy, supernatural
joy
that the Lord has impressed upon
his heart, given him a supernatural
joy. And this is important because the marketplace
itself
today will tell us lies, will tell us
that there is either no joy in Christ
or that they could provide something that will
provide more or a far more superior
joy than Christ. The word the world is
constantly telling us that there is is more
joy in pornography.
There is more joy in gambling. That there
is more joy in wealth,
in power, in pride, in fitness, in fashion,
in gossip, in slander. And often when we're
suffering, we are so susceptible
to fall into these things because all we
want is just a flash of happiness,
a momentary happiness.
We also focus ourselves upon the Lord who
is our joy.
David wants us to do this.
Yahweh is not only our only source
of hope and joy, but he's also
our peace.
This is what
David ends with.
Nicholas Ridley
was a Bishop
of London in 15th century,
and he was one of the Protestant one
of the many Protestant reformers that was burned
at the stake of the Roman Catholic church.
The night before his death, Rome actually sent
a priest
to spend his last night with him,
sort of as a sense of comfort.
And to Rome's surprise,
Nicholas really refused it and rejected it, saying
that he meant to go to bed and
sleep quietly as he ever did in his
life.
And the account says that he actually quoted
Psalm 4 verse 8.
I will lie down in peace and take
my rest, for it is thou, Lord only,
that makest me dwell in safety, out of
the King James version.
Dear saints, yes, this peace is supernatural.
However, it's not unusual.
It's not unreal. The Lord really does provide
us this peace in times of trial. We
see this in the Old Testament. We also
see this in the martyrs. We see this
in the life of many Christians as well,
this unspeakable
supernatural
sense
of peace.
The reason why he was able to do
this
is because the pillow upon which he rested
his head was
ultimately Christ. He truly believed in Christ's words
when Christ said, He who believes in me,
though he die, yet shall he live, and
he who believes in me shall never die.
Really knew that death,
that thing that was a curse for all
of humanity, was actually a blessing for him
to enter into paradise.
That was something that was his rock.
The moment that he took his last breath,
he would enter into glory,
and he knew that ultimately that this injustice
done to him would be brought to light
in the last day.
It's a sense of supernatural peace from God's
truth.
And dear saints, trial and tribulation will come.
Christ warned us.
However, he promised us that he will be
our peace, and in times of trial, we
ought to pray and ask for the Lord,
plead with him
for that peace.
If it is death that you fear, know
for certain that death itself has no sting
on you and that Christ has actually put
it into the grave.
If it is an injustice that angers you,
know that the Lord
knows it thoroughly better than you and that
all will be made right by him in
the end. Vindication will come.
If it is failure of leadership that brings
you anxiety, we ought to always remember
that God is the one who places kings
on their thrones
and makes nations rise and fall.
And it is sickness that you fear, know
for certain that Christ has risen, that he
has ascended
to the right hand of the father, and
he is making all things new.
Dear saints, Christ is the pillow upon which
we rest our head
in the days of trouble. He is the
prince of peace.
Let us pray.