Answer Me When I Call

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

Romans 1:4

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

Matthew 5:44

your enemies and pray for those who persecute

you.

In Luke chapter 6, verse 28,

Luke 6:28

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.

Psalms 4:8

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.