Psalm 11 - A Call to Stand Firm

Again, church will be in Psalm 11.

Dan, you want me to switch mics?

No?

Alright.

Psalm 11.

If you don't have a Bible, we have some back there.

Actually, I'm looking back there and I don't see any Bibles back there.

Just kidding, we don't have any back there.

But I have a big stack in my office.

You're welcome to go down there and find those.

Psalm 11.

David is once again in trouble.

And we have this kind of fight or flight situation going on.

And I think we talk a lot about fight or flight instincts.

And depending on the situation, our instincts kick in.

We're gonna fly, we're gonna get out of there, and we're gonna fight.

And we're gonna deal with the threat before us.

And I remember being a kid or a teenager and thinking, well, you always have to fight.

You can never flee.

That's cowardly to flee.

Then you realize it really just depends on the situation and what's going on.

But what David knows here in Psalm 11 is that to flee is to be foolish.

It's a foolish thing to do.

That rather fighting is what must be done.

Now he must trust in God to deliver him.

And his trust is in God's nature and who he is, and that God loves righteousness.

And that God hates wickedness.

So here David again is in peril.

People are telling him, counsel is giving him to flee to the mountain.

And some commentators say that these are people antagonizing him.

Why don't you just flee to the mountain, David, and be like a bird and go to your mountain and be safe.

But I don't think that's the, as we read the context of this, is this chapter 11?

I don't think that's what's going on.

I think David has people around him giving him counsel.

David, your life is in danger and you need to flee.

Most people believe that either David is in danger because of Saul.

Saul is trying to kill him, or his son Absalom.

Either way, people are trying to kill him, and he is to instructed to flee to the mountain.

And David decides to stay, to stay and to stand firm, resisting what might have been counsel from wise people or godly people in some regards.

But he is to stay, to not flee, and to fight.

There's three things we're going to see.

I want us to see in this passage this morning.

One is that the temptation to flee is real and we must deal with it.

The temptation to flee is real and we must deal with it, not ignore it.

Secondly, the consequences.

We're going to see the consequences when people flee.

And these consequences are real.

And thirdly, the strength to stand firm is real.

So the temptation to flee is real, the consequences when people flee is real, and the strength to stand firm is real.

Look again in verse 1.

In the Lord, David says, I take refuge.

How can you say to my soul, flee like a bird to your mountain?

For behold, the wicked bend the bow.

They have fitted the arrow to the strings to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart.

So the first thing that we understand is David understood the threat.

And his response is intentional.

So first he did understand the threat that was before him.

He understands this.

Now, David, if you know anything about the Bible and King David and where he, you know, all these things, he is a warrior.

He knows how to fight.

He's not someone who's aloof when it comes to defending himself.

And he actually surrounded himself with many mighty men, warriors.

I mean, these are guys who really knew how to fight, right?

They just didn't talk a good game.

They could go out and do a lot of damage as warriors.

So David isn't someone who's unaware of what's going on around him.

He's not unaware of his own abilities.

And yet his response is to fight.

And David understands, again, this threat isn't just that there's some people out there who want to kill him.

Again, knowing the story of David, this has been a theme most of his life.

His brothers despised him.

Goliath was trying to kill him.

Like people have been trying to kill David for a long time.

David is framing this conflict in a broader, more cosmic light.

That there are those who are wicked, and they are after the upright in heart, the righteous.

And David's representing the upright in heart.

And what's helpful in understanding this is where David goes for his salvation, where he goes to for his help.

So David again understands what's going on, the threat, and his response is intentional.

His response is not, well, I'm David, I'm a mighty warrior, I killed the lion, I killed the bear, I killed Goliath, I did all that before I was a full-grown man.

I think I can take care of these things.

David understands the attack of the wicked, their motives.

How they've bent their bow, they've fitted their arrow to the string, ready to strike the upright in heart.

We have a small view of the troubles in our life, our marriage troubles, our work issues, our own discontentment, or whatever character issue we're having in our own heart.

We have a tendency to make those things small.

And mostly just about us, right?

If I was just a little bit better here, that would go away.

If I was just a little bit better here, then this would be taken care of.

But we can often forget the cosmic struggle between light and dark.

We don't see the struggle for what it is.

That there is an actual enemy who is seeking to destroy.

Yes, you have your own sin, your own sin nature that's always trying to win and get what it wants.

It just wants gratified.

That's what your flesh wants.

Your flesh just wants to be pleasured right now.

Whether that's food or entertainment or luxury or status or whatever, your flesh just wants those things immediately.

And the things of the world is only they're always pulling at you.

And they're making pleas to you based on other instincts.

That not only can I be have my needs or my wants satisfied, but I can do that in such a way that people respect me, or people admire me, or people are fearful of me.

And so there's these pulls of the world on us as well.

But then there is the evil one, the accuser of the brethren, Satan, Lucifer, the deceiver, and those who are bound up in his wickedness, who are seeking to destroy you, who are seeking not just to distract you, but truly to destroy you.

And oftentimes, when we're faced with hardship, we're faced with struggle and difficulty, there is this temptation to flee.

Conflict in your marriage?

The temptation is just to kind of be apathetic and abdicate.

Just tell me what you want me to do.

Right?

Who's been married and not at some point said that to your spouse?

Just tell me what you want me to do.

Like, let's just get through this.

Let's get over this.

There can be a temptation to abdicate, to flee in a sense.

There's a conflict between you and a church member.

What's the easiest thing to do?

Just ignore it.

Act like it's not there.

There's tension.

Act like it isn't there.

Abdicate.

It's a form of fleeing.

Maybe there's an ethical issue for you in a workplace.

Rather than to stand up for righteousness, the easiest thing to do is just kind of keep your head down low and not deal with it and not be noticed and try to slip by.

To get away, to escape.

If we have this instinct in us to flee, we don't want to fight.

We don't want to have to kill sin.

We don't want to have to do what Ephesians 6 tells us to do and put on the armor and fight these spiritual warfare.

It's just easier if we can insulate ourselves in.

1 Peter chapter 5 gives us this warning.

1 Peter 5 · chapter mention

Beginning in verse 8, it says, be sober-minded, be watchful.

What a great word for us.

Be sober-minded, be watchful.

Do you do a lot of that in your life?

Is this something that regularly comes into your mind through the week?

Being sober-minded and being watchful.

Why?

Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

Resist him firm in your own strength, firm in your wisdom, firm in your money, firm on your own little chunk of land, away from the world.

No.

Resist him firm in your faith.

Knowing that the same kind of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.

And so this suffering and this difficulty and this watchfulness and this resisting, it's not unique to me, it's not unique to you.

It's not unique to Americans in the West, Americans, or people in the South, people in South America or Europe or Asia or Africa?

The Middle East.

These things aren't unique because of our geography or our family of origin.

This is what it means to be a Christ follower, to have an enemy who's after you.

They've readied their bow, they've set their arrow to shoot at the upright and heart.

So David knows the threat.

And he is intentional with where he goes as a refuge.

He's intentional with where he goes for his refuge.

You know, as a preacher, sometimes you feel like you're just saying the same thing week after week after week.

And in a sense, I am, right?

As Galatians 6 9 tells us not to grow weary in doing good, let us not grow weary in reminding one another that we are actually at war against the powers of darkness.

Sometimes we can err, and every little thing we just give Satan almost credit for.

Something bad happens.

That's Satan.

It's Satan.

And we're almost more preoccupied with what Satan is doing than what Jesus is doing.

And that's an error that we make.

We need not make that.

But at the same time, we need to be mindful that we are at war.

That the call is to turn to Christ, to keep turning to Christ, that we might hear and believe, that we might not get tired of telling one another.

Keep trusting in Jesus.

Keep turning to Jesus as your refuge.

David's response was to declare where he takes, where he goes for a refuge.

It was the Lord.

And David was declaring this.

He was preaching this truth.

In the Lord do I take refuge.

How can I say to my soul, flee like a bird to the mountain?

Like, what do you mean, flee to the mountain?

The mountain isn't my refuge.

Hiding in a cave isn't my ultimate refuge.

For you, abdicating in your relationships with others isn't your refuge.

Sneaking away to a secret sin is not your refuge.

You are tempted to run to those things as if they can deliver you.

They don't.

You're running into a trap of the enemy if you think you can just kind of shield yourself in and bar out the hardship around you.

Again, what makes it so challenging is sometimes, oftentimes, the struggle is within our own heart.

That we want to worship other things.

We want other things.

And so it's not that we just don't want to run to Jesus for deliverance.

It's that we kind of don't even want deliverance from Jesus.

We want deliverance from this thing.

From a relationship that's inappropriate.

From a certain amount of money or a certain amount of status.

We flee to these things as if they will deliver.

David is declaring and preaching, no.

Where will I go?

To the mountains?

No, I will go to the Lord.

I will take refuge in him.

He will be my refuge.

I just want to encourage you this morning.

If you're waiting for a crisis in your life before you go to Jesus as your refuge.

If you're waiting for a crisis, it's probably going to be too late.

Oswald Chambers in his wonderful devotional says a similar thing.

He says, talking in this way is like trying to produce the weapons of warfare while in the trenches of the battlefield.

How often we do this as Christians.

When we say we believe that the Lord has saved us by grace and he holds us fast, and nothing will pluck us out of his hand, which is a hundred percent true.

It's what the Bible clearly teaches.

But then we act as if we can just be sitting back and not really contending for holiness, not fighting for righteousness, not killing the flesh, not obeying scripture.

We must ask ourselves.

If we don't care about fighting the flesh when things are easy, if we don't care about fully submitting and going to Christ as a refuge when times are good, then do you really think you're going to Christ at all for salvation?

Do you really think that you're going to him for true deliverance?

If you don't understand that he has to be a refuge for you, not just when the enemy comes in, not just when hard things come at you, but a refuge for you from your own selfish desires, your own sinful nature.

That he might deliver you, that you might run to him.

So you must resist the temptation to flee.

We must understand that the consequences when people flee are real.

Verse 3.

If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?

David's argument here is if the righteous flee, the wicked will destroy, they'll have their way.

And maybe David is speaking of a literal foundation being destroyed, but it would seem much bigger than that, much more than that.

If the righteous, those who claim to be people of truth, people of faith, people of character, who live righteous lives, if they flee, if they go, if those foundations are destroyed, if they abdicate, what will there be?

Now, sure, there might still be other, some other righteous people, but the foundations have been destroyed.

What is there to build on?

What is the recourse?

What are they to do when the righteous have fled and the foundations are destroyed?

And we know from this story of David and his life later on in 1 Samuel 22 the story of Doag the Edomite.

If you don't know the story, there's all these things happening.

And Saul is after David to kill him.

And Saul has gone mad.

Saul instructs this Edomite named Doag to slay all the priests.

All the priests that they can gather together, they slaughter them and kill them.

The priests, those who are to offer sacrifices on their behalf, those who are to be, in a sense, mediators between God and man, and those who are to serve the worship ordinances in the old covenant, the priests.

They are destroyed.

They're gone.

If you know the story of the Old Testament and the story of Israel, there is just this cycle again and again of people rejecting, forsaking God's ways.

Feels like for a moment there's a breath of fresh air, and the foundations are laid, and good and restoration come.

And then they're carried off into Babylon for their rebellion.

Then they're in captivity for 70 years and they start trickling back and they start rebuilding the temple, and then all these threats come in and they give up.

They stop for decades.

And then rebuke comes.

They start building again.

And then eventually they get carried away and they get taken into captivity by the Romans.

And then their temple is destroyed again.

And this cycle of can't you guys just get with it?

Like, can't you just hear God's word and obey God's word?

Again and again and again.

So what's the solution to this?

Well, it is a God who is righteous.

It's a God who is good, who sins his son.

Not a God who has abdicated his responsibility.

Not a God who is absent.

You know the 400 years between the last prophet and then the coming of the Messiah when things felt bleak and empty.

God was not absent, he wasn't missing.

Look at verse 4.

The Lord is in his holy temple, the Lord's throne is in heaven, his eyes see, his eyelids test the children of man.

The Lord tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked, and the one who loves violence.

Let him rain coals on the wicked, fi, fire and sulphur, and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup.

For the Lord is righteous.

He loves righteous deeds.

The upright shall behold his face.

Now we know from earlier in chapter eleven, it's the upright at the end.

Is after.

It's the upright.

The wicked hate.

But the Lord loves righteousness.

He loves righteous deeds.

And we often say that the good news of the gospel is actually bad news in a lot of ways.

Because God loves righteousness.

He loves righteous deeds.

It's bad news because none of us have righteous deeds.

In and of ourselves, we don't have this kind of righteousness.

So what does the Lord do?

He provides righteousness, doesn't he?

Through Jesus Christ, the mediatorial work of Christ, dying on the cross for us, imputing his righteousness upon us, we then can stand before God in the righteousness of Christ.

And David understood where he was fleeing.

It wasn't to his own righteousness, it was to God.

Look at verse five.

The Lord tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked, and the one who loves violence.

Can you find a more clear description of God's attitude toward righteousness and wickedness?

David's hope isn't that the priesthood would be restored, that sacrifices would start up again.

David's hope isn't that he can get back to his throne in the situation with Saul will go away, or the situation with his son Absalom will go away.

His hope isn't that just things will calm down in the kingdom, that he can live a peaceful and quiet life.

His hope is that God is righteous.

And he's on his throne in his temple.

And that he's looking.

His hope is that because of Christ, the chosen one, the Messiah who is to come, who was promised to David, to come from his line would bring salvation.

The righteousness of Christ would give the strength to stand firm.

Again, I feel like we say so many things again and again.

That's because in reality, life is a pretty simple thing, isn't it?

We're made to worship, we're going to worship.

We're called to worship our Creator, the one we've been created to worship.

So the days we have on this earth are spent worshiping, and as Christians, we're daily trying to reorient by God's grace and mercy our worship to Him.

When temptation comes, when difficulty comes, when the threats around us come, church, we need to know that we can stand firm because Christ is our refuge.

The refuge of proclamation church isn't my intellect.

Praise the Lord.

It's not your ability to serve.

It's not how much money we can pull together, or how little we can, or how much we can do on little, or any of those kinds of things.

Our refuge as a church is Jesus Christ.

Our hope is Jesus Christ.

So if it's the culture that's coming against us, we stand because Christ.

Because Christ has done it for us.

Christ has gone before.

He has not only paid the price for us and adopted us into his family, he's then given us the Holy Spirit as a helper to enable us to obey.

The interesting thing about David's counselors, the counsel he's getting, is they're counseling from a place of fear.

They're counseling in a sense, and I don't think they're being malicious, but it would seem it's godless.

I'm not saying they were godless people.

They were with King David.

But their counsel isn't, David, look to the heavens.

Where does our hope come from?

Their counsel isn't, David, remember what the Lord has done.

Remember how he delivered the people out of Egypt.

Remember how he brought righteousness back to the land after all the wicked judges.

Remember these things.

That wasn't their counsel.

I think it's wise for us to remember this: that fear can really drive out godly counsel.

Fear kills godly wisdom if you allow it.

Fear has this ability to just creep in and all the what ifs begin to happen.

Well, what if this, and what if that, and what if this, and what if that?

Fear of failing, fear of not making the right decision.

And fear just, it just, and I've seen it, erode godly, wise people.

Not that they've lost their way or anything, I'm just saying, in the situation, they let fear dominate.

It ruined their council.

You see this on a cosmic scale, nations and governments.

If politics in America has taught us anything, it's that nothing motivates or moves people like fear does.

It just has that effect.

And we need to understand that we are people.

We're susceptible to these things.

And so we're always reminding one another to not hope in anything but Christ.

Our refuge is Christ.

We stand firm because of Christ.

And so, even though the fear might be, what if we make the wrong decision?

What if we fail?

As long as we are putting our hope in Christ.

Whatever comes, whatever comes, church, Christ wins.

Amen?

Christ wins.

There's no situation as Christians where you ultimately lose.

There isn't one.

Yes, there's suffering, there's hardship.

People lose children.

They see people walking away from the faith.

There's tremendous heartache.

But there isn't a situation as a blood bought child of God that you lose.

You win.

So you stand firm because Christ has won.

David flees to God because God can deliver and he will deliver.

We run to God because he can deliver and he will deliver.

So do not let the fears of this world, the fears of your heart, drive you into apathy or to abdicate, to flee hard things.

Don't let those fears push you away.

Don't be undone when the foundations around us are destroyed.

Let us, church, take refuge in Christ.

Let us encourage one another to keep taking refuge in Christ.

It's so easy for me.

I say this as the as a pastor, I get paid good money to do what I do.

And yet so easy for me to forget this.

I'm busy shepherding people.

I'm busy studying God's Word.

I'm doing all these things.

But am I taking refuge in Jesus?

Are you taking refuge?

I don't know everyone's story, but I know there's a lot of people here.

And some people, your marriage, you're in a really, really hard spot in your marriage.

And you're saying, I don't know, I don't want to do this anymore.

This isn't the person I thought I married, or I've changed, and I'm not who I thought I was.

Or you're in a situation where your children are walking away from the Lord.

They want nothing to do with the things of the Lord.

Or terminal illness.

You have cancer.

Or you don't know if in the next six months you're going to be diagnosed with some kind of illness or whatever.

There are just so many things happening in our lives.

As Jimmy Freyed in our time of prayer of confession, it's easy to go through these motions and to declare, we believe this.

May we spend time in prayer, praying for one another.

Church, there isn't another hope.

I know you know that in your heads.

I know that in my head, but I forget it in my heart.

I look to other things at times to somehow make me happy or make me fulfilled or bring something that I want.

Jesus Christ is what my heart longs for.

Your heart was made for him.

And if you're not going to seek him and rejoice in him when times are light and good, why do you think you're going to flee to him when this when the trouble comes?

What makes you think you're going to run to him as a refuge when hardship comes?

Church, we need Jesus Christ, not just for our salvation.

He's not just the doorway into being saved.

We're saved that we might enjoy Him forever and know Him forever.

Let us not grow weary in doing good.

Let us not grow weary in reminding one another.

Let's not keep, let's not keep falling to the temptations to flee.

Falling to the sin of abdicating, stepping back.

But let us put our hope in Christ.

Because He is all that we have.

Let's pray.