Trusting God in Times of Trouble: Psalm 3

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in

practical ways. Good morning everybody, And if you're watching, Jeff

and I decided to both wear gray today.

It's a uniform. Yeah, it's the Baba guy's uniform. We're

shooting from prison.

And this is our friend. That's terrible. People who are

not watching, which is what at least half of our listen.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, they don't watch.

Yea more than half. Yeah. No, we're not in prison.

And are these actually uniforms lately? It just happened to

be two gray shirts.

That's right.

Have you ever been in prison? Have you ever been

in prison?

No?

I mean I've been in prison for ministry stuff, but

I've never gone to prison.

Okay, have you ever been to jail?

No, I've never gone to jail.

Have you ever been arrested?

No, I've never been arrested.

Oh so again, good for you, Good for you. I

haven't arrested twice.

Chris Once is a past, which says almost everything you

need to know if you're a new listener.

That's the differs between the two of us.

Ready, Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's not true. I've never been

kicked out of Bible cog.

Chris was on the show for color commentary.

Hey, you got kicked out of Bible college twice.

It's true. It's true, and I'm a Bible guy.

That's right.

Right, So you get to get up and talk about

redemption and mercy and you need to get up and

talk about I got Yeah, I got kicked out of

kicked out a Bible college twice. Well, hey, everybody, Hey,

now that I think about it, my first Bible college

felt like prison.

So maybe that come there you maybe that you.

That's right, I'm with you there. Okay, So today we're

talking about well, I mean, technically we're skipping over this chapter.

But let's read what Desiree wrote. She said, David in

this passage escapes into the wilderness. So let's pose this question.

If you were to choose one celebrity to be trapped

with you in the wilderness, who would it be? Bonus

points if they have survival skills, are just a great

sense of humor?

Oh wow, yeah, so you want.

To do rock paper sciss those first?

Yes? And so we just do one one person, just one,

just one person. We're not picking like a draft or nothing?

Just one? Okay, but there's there's an obvious choice. Want

to do shoot? One? Two?

Three?

Shoot?

Oh? I had paper?

Of course it's bear grills.

Of course that's not that's a no brainer.

That's the reason why I accept.

I don't know.

I don't want to drink anything he hands me to drink,

and I don't want to eat anything he.

Wants me to drink. I think I made a bad choice.

I'd like to evoke that. Yeah, because I'm gonna be

able to find food and water. What was I thinking?

Yeah? I actually don't know another survival celebrity, which is

why I did rock paper scissors.

Oh yeah, yeah, Well the other one would be, uh

was it something man, wilderness man or something? I forgot

there was there was another guy.

That did this made up name. No, no, no, no, I

can't remember.

Their certificate doesn't say wilderness.

He doesn't I know, I know, but there's bear grills

and something.

So there's another guy.

Yea, yeah, I forgot again.

This is not his run.

I forgot I got his name, all right, Okay, Well

who would you pick?

Well, I I mean apparently not grabbed mine. So bear girls,

I actually type this in just a second ago and

the only I've got kidding, the only person that's coming up,

and all of Google in the first page is all

bear girls.

Really, so there's.

Nobody else even suggested, isn't that funny?

Yes?

Okay, here, here you go. Ed Stafford is the guy

uh was which is on naked and marooned. So I'm

gonna choose that guy.

Really, yeah, a naked guy?

Well no really, no really, if he and I were

stranded together and he suggested I get naked, I would say.

No, okay, he will, good, thank you.

Okay, Well, there you go. I don't have to be

naked in order for that guy to know things.

Well, I know, but I just wouldn't want I wouldn't

want to be with him, as what I'm saying. So, yeah,

well I mean less Stroud, that's the one survivor man. Yeah,

less Droud. Okay, i'll give you bear grills. My guy

came right up. Yeah, I'll give you bear grills, and

I'll take less Stroud. I think Less Droud's a touch crazier,

but he's not going to make me drink terrible stuff.

Oh really yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what I'm

going to go ahead and.

Give you thanks bear grills.

Thanks, Jeff, you're going to need bells.

Let me just say that you're gonna need bear grills.

If you're stranded like that, you're gonna need somebody who

can help you.

Here's the thing.

I a normal special Forces guy.

I think I'm a little tougher than you, so I

could drink whatever.

Jeff, what tougher than me? Yeah?

Okay, well I'm pretty sure physically, I'm pretty sure I've

seen you gag way more than you've seen me.

Gay.

So so listen, listeners don't know. We probably have a minute.

I get sure this. Listeners don't know this. But last

October we filmed a really fun video where we were

supposed to get in a confrontation, right.

Right, that's right.

So and so we were on roller skates, yes, and

uh no no, we both had.

Taken off taken off our and so we.

Were like, let's go, man, you want to go? And

you started like pushing each other like this, yeah, and

and all of a sudden I pushed you like boom.

You hit me hard. You shoved me hard, and you

didn't move and then and then.

You went boom and you hit me and you literally

threw me. I flew. I flew over the staff. The

staff was in booths and boots, and I literally flew

over the booths and everybody laughed, and I was like.

Oh my gosh.

I was like, I mean, I feel like I'm in

the eighth grade again.

I felt so. I didn't mean to do that. I

still feel bad about that. When we were driving home,

my wife was there. Yeah, my wife was like, the

whole thing was fun, that was fine, but what were

you thinking.

I was like, I wasn't thinking anything. He shoved me

and I shoved him back right right.

Well, it was it was what they told us to do.

Yeah, I know, but I shouldn't have thrown you into

the thing like that.

I didn't mean to it just it was really really funny.

Yeah.

So Chris is a big tough guy sitting here on

the thing, Yeah, at the table, but uh yeah, in

that moment.

I was not very tough in that moment.

Yeah, in that moment I threw yet. But well, I

think you're tough guy. You took it like a champ.

I mad if I punch you in the face ten times,

you would be okay, exactly.

You take it like a champ. I felt really embarrassed

by it. But okay, so hey, there you go. Congratulations

you get bear grails even though you lost the rock

paper scissors I can get.

I'll go less and I'll take them drive a little

more nuts.

But okay, all right, Well you know what, either way,

I don't ever want to be in that situation. And

if I had no celebrity and I was stranded, I

would I would be in trouble because I don't really

know that many survival skills. I didn't do boy scouts,

I didn't do wilderness things.

But you'd figure out right away you needed water and shelter.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean those things. Yeah, but sure,

but you know all those tricks of like compasses and

direction and all that, like like, oh, let's heat up

a needle. Let just put it on relief in a water.

Okay, well good, yeah, well that'd be hopefully that never happens, Chris, right,

I agree. So the reason why she had us do

that one, by the way, is you remember those of

the listeners with us last week David is running from Absolom.

Absolom is pulling off a coup, Absolom being David's son,

and the heir to the throne. And so David goes

out into the wilderness in outside of Jerusalem, heading down

towards the Jordan River, and so that's why she was

doing that. It's pretty crazy. He's running, he's hiding. And

during that time several things happened. Absolom gets terrible advice

from says, hey, go sleep with some of David's wives,

and so that was pretty horrible.

But then.

While Absolom is just misbehaving in such a horrible way,

suddenly God begins to leaning on David. David begins writing

more psalms, right, he's writing prayers. Every Psalm that you

read is a prayer to God, and it was always

set to music, so it was like a musical prayer,

which really, if you think about it, those of you

that are Christians, on when you're singing worship songs, a

real worship song is going to be a prayer to God.

So some of our testimonies you're just sing about how

good God is to you. That's one thing, but others

are they're like a prayer to God.

And you can tell the difference. So here we go

Psalm chapter three.

Today, it's a psalm of David regarding the time David

fled from some absolom. And it's not a very long chapter,

but it says, Oh Lord, I have so many enemies,

so many are against me, so many are saying God

will never rescue him. But you, o Lord, are a

shield around me. You are my glory, the one who

holds my head high. I cried out to the Lord,

and he answered me from his holy mountain. I lay

down and slept, and I woke up in safety, for

the Lord was watching over me. I am not afraid

of ten thousand enemies who surrounded me on every side. Arise,

O Lord, rescue me. My God, slap all my enemies

in the faith and shatter the teeth of the wicked.

Victory comes from you, Oh Lord, May you bless your people. Jeez, wow,

Well you can hear him. He's got fear and he's

reminding himself that he's trusting the Lord. Right, that's that's

where he's at.

There, and he probably has some pretty big flashbacks, yeah,

right of being.

In the caves, and he's been here before.

He's been here before, and he's written various similar psalms before.

So are we reading sixty three or we just.

Talking about for sixty three tomorrow.

Oh I see, okay, very good. So this is Psalm

three today, that's correct. So Psalm three basically is during

absence rebellion, and it's it's reminding us, you know, that

victory comes from the Lord, and and David's always been

that way. You know, think about this. David started off

with Goliath, and even before Goliath, what did he do?

He referenced that, you know, even when the bear came,

and even when the line came, I knew that God

was going to, you know, be with me. And so

he took care of the bear in the and the lion,

and then even during Goliath and then what else, he

was put in charge of the Commander's army, and he

always gave credit and honor to the Lord. And so

David has always believed that God's in control, even though

it seems like, oh, it's just that human versus that human,

it's their skills versus my skills. It's these circumstances and

they're cunning general versus you know, our strategies and things

like that. It seems that way, and it's very easy

to forget that God's overall in charge of everything. So

I would just say for our listeners, there's a sermon

in there somewhere. You know, it doesn't seem like God's

in control, but God's always in control.

Yeah, Well, here David lost his throne. He's losing so

much of his identity. At this point, you know, he

had he's had like a decade of relative peace and safety,

some discord in his family, but other than that, it's

not like he's going to war all the time and stuff,

and he's settling into this idea that God has blessed

me and this is my new norm. And because of

all the struggles in my past, I paid my dues,

I did all my stuff. Now my job is to

sit on the throne and rule. And at this point,

now he's running and he's losing every he feels like

he's losing everything. And sometimes when we have bad circumstances

happen in our life, we can kind of feel like

when life turns against us, we can start to feel

like God is turning against us. And you know, in

that moment, you kind of have a choice. When you

are when the pressure's on, what's on the inside comes out.

It's like a tube of toothpaste. Right, or ketchup bottle

or whatever. When the pressure's on, whatever's on the inside

comes out. And in this situation, you either run to

God or from God. And it's interesting because in all

this time, it seems like David is relatively silent prior

to this, for like a decade, and I'm sure he

was writing things, but we just don't. We don't see

a lot. And then all of a sudden, here he is.

We're going to read a couple of these prayers where

he's just what's on the inside comes out. He's a

man after God's heart, and he immediately leans into and

trusts God even when he feels like everything's working against him.

And there is something about that that when you're in

your sane moments, you need to decide who are you

when the pressure comes? Because pressure's coming. There's gonna be

another hard day, there's going to be difficult things. Life

is difficult because we live under the curse, right, And

so when the pressure comes, who what are you gonna do?

Are you gonna run to God? Or are you gonna

blame God? And David once again decides to trust God.

So we don't often cross reference that much, but you know,

it reminds me what you just said, is Daniel. Remember

Daniel one eight, It says when Daniel purposed in his

heart that he would not defile himself with the portion

of the king's meat or the portion of the king's

wine which you drink. And I just thought to myself,

you know, one of the greatest lessons that I could

have learned. And I think I clung onto this even

as like sixteen or fifteen years old. Is the idea

that you should decide now to purpose in your heart? Yes,

so you know, so make a decision now, you know

when things are, you know, before the trial comes. And

so when it says in Daniel w Ate that Daniel

purposed in his heart and he says, hey, whatever's going

to happen, you know what, I'm not going to do.

These are the lines I'm not going to cross. And

in this case, you just to give some readers some context,

because I did bring it up. So, Daniel was captured

by the Babylonians, right, he was taken, and he was

taken captive, and he was chosen out of a group

of prisoners basically to represent people well, and they wanted him.

He was good looking and everything else. So they wanted

him to be this representative. So they basically said eat

this meat, but it was sacrificed to false idols, and

so it was this paganistic sort of a deal. And

and Daniel says, no way, I'm not going to eat meat,

sacrifice to false idles. I'm not going to do any

of those things. And so he used to prayed and said,

I bet you if you give us a vegan diet

and we don't even eat like the rest of the

people who are training. He said, you watch us after

what was it thirty days? Yeah, and he said watch

us after thirty days or forty days. It was one

of those two things. And he said, and then and

tell me if we don't look better, stronger, healthier, and

more good looking, and which, by the way, we know

is not necessarily you know, they took that challenge because

that wasn't normal, right, So that's not a you know,

I've heard people say, well, that's the reason for the

you know they call it. You ever heard of the

Daniel diet, right, and people say, people say Daniel looked better, Well,

that it was the reason why they took that challenge,

because it wasn't exactly common for that to happen, right,

for them to eat corn meal and then look better.

But anyway, but Daniel did. Anyway, all that to say,

this is David. David a long, long, long time ago

made a decision on what kind of man he was

going to be, so that when the pressure did come,

when the things did happen, he rides into town. What

does he get. He gets a messenger that says, your son,

Absolom has usurped you and he is claiming to be king.

And then David immediately goes into action. But he always

decides what kind of man he's going to be before

that kind of thing hits him.

Yeah, so this is where David's at, and he decides

he's going to run to God in this crisis. That's

what we're talking about, is either you run to him

or from him. You blame him or you trust him.

And Davids decided, Hey, even if I'm surrounded by ten

thousand men, if Absolom had ten thousand men, Now we

know David had hundreds of thousands of men, right, but

absolumly has ten thousand men. It's really striking when you

have this incredible warrior that even a guy like Joe

ab or a Masa would look at and follow David.

The mighty men would follow David. He is just an

incredible tactician, an incredible warrior.

He's very, very, very sharp.

But he's decided he's not going to fight his son,

and so he'd rather retreat than fight his son. That

that's pretty amazing. So here he is, he's surrounded by

ten thousand men, his son, Absolom. We have no evidence

that Absolom ever actually led any men in battle prior

to this, right, right, So it's David, this grizzled old

warrior who savvy and has every trick in the book

in his bag, and Absolom, who chiss is handsome and

has long hair, right and is a politician. David could

have wiped him out, but instead David says, it doesn't matter.

The im surrounded by ten thousand men. I'm trusting you, right,

And I think that there's kind of a hint here

that he's saying to God, I'm not fighting, I'm going

to trust it. You're my shield, You're the one that's

going to protect me. And then he says, I'm crying

out to the Lord, and he answered me from his

holy Mountain. His holy mountain is Mount Mariah, which is

the Temple mount in Jerusalem. That's the temple. Mount Mariah

peeks out right where the Temple mount saits today, where

Solomon built his temple. That's probably where the tabernacle was sitting.

It's interesting because he's not in Jerusalem, but he knows,

you know, the presence of God this holy place, and

he's still associating with that's the place.

That's the place.

Remember when he left, he said, I think God's going

to bring back here. He sent the Ark of the

Covenant back there, right, and he's saying, I believe God's

going to bring me back there. And then he says,

I laid down and slept. That's really rare when you're

in that kind of pressure, right when you're getting eaten alive.

You feel like many people have a hard time. Do

you have a hard time sleeping when you're worried?

Lately? I would say in the last three or four

years especially, I would say it's way more common than

it used to be.

Yeah, yeah, well, I think a lot of our listeners

probably have that, you know, the worries of life just

kind of weighing down and you're having a hard time sleeping.

So you know, if you're woking up in the middle

of the night, well, one of the things that the

best things you can do is just start praying and

telling God, hey, I trust you. Pour out your fears first.

I love it how he ends at the end, Hey, God,

bust their teeth, smack them.

Up a little bit. Y.

Hey, I don't want to kill him, but he's kind

of asking God to be like a mafia tough guy, right,

he just don't don't kill him, just break his legs,

right right, slap him in the face and break his

teeth for me a little bit, send him a message.

But other than that, I'm going to trust you. And

so you know a lot of times when we pray,

we're like, oh, help me, help me, help me, help me,

help me, help me, help me help And also we're

doing is worrying, worring, warring. But there is a moment

where what you see with David is David says, I

need your help, and then he pivots into so I'm

going to trust you and and and he's lays down

and goes to sleep. So there is this time when

you just have to pray to the point where you say,

I'm going to trust you in this.

When I was in high school, I was having a

problem with some kid and I literally have you know,

I got a big, huge Italian family and really yeah, right,

and and uh, you know, a lot of them were,

you know, sort of connected. You know, my grandfather was

truly connected to the mob and was right in the

thick of it, and so you know, I think consequently

his sons and then and then there's some us sort

of felt like they were mob like you know what

I'm saying, right, tough guys, right, And by the way,

they were definitely tough guys, like like there is no

way that that they did not back it up. Okay,

But anyway, I remember one time I was having trouble

with this one guy and one of my cousins came

up to me and said, you want me to take

care of it? And I said, what do you mean?

And and I was just curious, and I was like,

what what would you do exactly? And basically I can't

use any of the words that he used, okay, but

essentially he just said, you give me one phone call

he goes, and I would just figure out he goes.

I would. I would, I would follow his pattern, and

I would predict when he's going to be alone, he says,

and we would come up behind him, put a blanket

over his head and beat him up and then run

away and he'd never know who did it. That's what

that was sort of the promise, right. And I said,

I said, you'd put a blanket over his head and

beat him up? And they said yes. And I said

have you done this before? And he's like, oh yeah.

And I'm like, okay, I'm an expert.

Okay, So this is this David.

So he's saying, Arise Lord, rescue me, slap my enemies,

shatter their teeth. It's not unreasonable when you're praying to

ask for justice, right, that's what he's asking. He's asking

for justice here, right. I don't want you to kill him,

but man, make him pay.

Right.

And it's surprising that I remember David's a pretty hard man.

David killed people who came and gave him bad news,

and right now he just wants him smacked up a

little bit, just rough him up a little bit. But

it's not unreasonable to ask God for justice, because God's

a just god.

Let me look at let me take a minute to

look at the interludes here. So this is so this

is written as a musical psalm, and so it you know,

for instance, it does verses one and two and then

it says interlude, and another version may say selah right right,

and then then it does tows.

That's the Hebrew word. The Hebrew word is cela.

Is cela is cela okay, And then then you have

three and four, then interlude cela, then five and six,

seven and eight, and then sela is what it says.

So when you're reading that, just know that number one

it's there because it's a it's a song, right. But

there's also a sermon in there as well, isn't there?

So you can do a whole sermon on this is

the time to rest, right, so, and then you could

do another sermon on reflecting on what you just said, like,

for instance, have you ever read the Bible?

Yes?

And thank you, thank you, comma okay. Have you ever

read the Bible and you feel like you make progress

because you've read you know, like a whole chapter or something,

and then you think, then you then you think to yourself,

I didn't really take time to soak in any of

that have you ever done that?

Absolutely where you gone like you read the words?

Yeah, you read the words, and then you're like, I

need to go back and I need to like really

truly reread that and then really think about because that

was some good stuff, right, especially when you're in Proverbs. Right,

you can read. You could zoom through Proverbs and go

I need to reflect on every verse for at least

five minutes because that's how unbelievably different they are. And

and and there's like massive truths, you know, hanging on

each verse. Well, it's the same thing with interludes. So

this is like a song, but it's also sort of

like a prayer. And I think that there's a sermon

in there somewhere where we could remind ourselves that when we,

you know, for instance, drop on our knees or posture ourselves.

And doesn't have to be on our knees, but we

posture ourselves to pray to God. And we start off,

for instance, and we say, our Father are in heaven.

How great is your name? Like, let's pause right there

and recognize God is God is great? And then and

then we say, give us this day our daily bread,

you know, and and and and and then just pause

there for a minute and realize, like, like the children

of Israel wandered in the wilderness for forty years and

they woke up every day and God gave them their

daily bread and they couldn't even hoard it because it

would go bad. And God wanted them to depend on him.

And that's that's really what they're at asking. It's a

it's a word picture for you and for me to

say that God will give you everything you need. And

before you move on to the next verse, you know,

just rest there and think about that, you know, not

my will but yours be done. Instead of moving on,

let's really think what that means in our lives.

That's great.

Let's let's let's seala that shall we right and figure

out like, Okay, God, what is it that you want

me to surrender? What what agenda you know that I

know is not it's my agenda, it's not your agenda?

What do I need to surrender? And I think that,

you know, sometimes when we read versus we can just

whip over it. But there's a lot to be learned

in the pause.

Absolutely, in the rest.

Yeah, but you would you call that a bridge?

No, it's yeah, so we're not exactly sure what Cela meant,

but it seems to have these three big ideas. One

is that there's this kind of a pause moment, but

then beyond that, the next time, it's the next section

is going to be louder than the last section.

So there's a.

Musical thing like, Okay, we're going to crescendo into the

next piece, and it might have been like a like

a turnaround where the band is playing and Okay, we're

gonna get a little louder in the next one. It

also seems to have an indication maybe for the crowd,

this is where we're going to raise our hands and

shout hallelujah or praise the Lord.

Or something like that.

So it kind of has these three pieces to it.

And so what you have is you have him starting

off quieter and gentler, Lord, I have so many enemies,

this brokenness kind of thing. Then hey, we're gonna get

louder and we're gonna raise our hands. We're gonna trust God.

But you, oh Lord, are a shield around me. And

it's building energy. There's energy building there. And then you

get to the end of that he heard me from

his holy mountain and then we're gonna pause, and there's

gonna be this crescendo, and then we're gonna raise our hands.

We're gonna I'm not afraid of ten thousand.

You see what, you see what's happening.

So these interludes are almost like when the band plays

a little bit and then you come back in a

little bit more excited, the drums kicking on the harder.

So it's an African American preaching.

Yeah almost, yeah, yeah, So it builds all over and

then finally it ends with a sela. So that word

sela comes up seventy four times in the Bible, and

almost every time it has a pattern like this, where

the song is where the song seems to be or

the prayer seems to be building. And so we're not

exactly sure what cela means, but it certainly isn't some

kind of an interlude or an intermission piece. But it's

not a stop. It's a we're going to build up to.

The next thing.

Okay, great, that's great, recollect your thoughts and then push

on to the next part of it.

Very powerful.

Wait, that is our time, so we will see you

next time on the Bible.

Guys,