PSALM FIFTY FOUR THE SOUL UPHOLDER. Here is a song of retreat. There are times in our lives when we have to retreat, and the amazing thing is that it is harder to retreat than it is to go forward. It is more dangerous to retreat. More aid is needed in retreat because you still need to fight the battle in retreat. Otherwise it becomes a rout. The song is based upon an experience of David's when he was retreating from Saul. There are two accounts of this in the Bible (1 Samuel Ch.23 & Ch.26.). David and some 600 men went wherever they could, here, there and everywhere, in constant retreat before the army of Saul. David afterward remained in the wilderness of Ziph and Saul sought him every day. But God refused to give him up as Saul was kept informed by the people of Ziph as to his whereabouts. In his flight from Saul, David went to the Southern part of the Holy Land. During his period of hiding, Jonathan, Saul's son, came to him and assured him that one day he, David, would be king upon the throne and Jonathan would be by his side. The sad thing is that in the final battle Jonathan was among the slain. Just when it seems that there was no escape for David and his men, Saul heard that the Philistines were invading his country, so he retreated in haste to his own territory. David, escaping with his men, went to E! ngedi. So, just when it seemed it was all over for David, God dealt with the armies of Saul. This Psalm was born out of David's experience at that time. It is a psalm for times of TEMPTATION - PERPLEXITY - PERSECUTION. THREE THINGS David found to be necessary in this situation. It might help us to make note of them:- FIRST: TO ASK FOR GOD'S AID. David cries in his Psalm, "Save me O God by Thy Name and judge me by Thy strength." This prayer was David's primary answer to the problem. He could have sat down and consulted with his leading men. "Anyone got any ideas how we get out of this tight corner?" Instead, he turns to God. The first answer to the problem was to pray, "SAVE ME BY THY NAME...BY THY SELF". "You do it Lord. You shall have the Glory! You shall have the honour! You shall have the Name that You have done it." The situation was impossible. They had been betrayed. There was nowhere to hide and nowhere to go. "By all those acts and perfections by which You are known, Lord, reveal Yourself." "JUDGE ME BY THY STRENGTH"--it is a peculiar phrase - NOT "Judge me by MY strength". If God did that, we would all fail the test. He asks God to plead his cause. In effect David was acknowledging that he had no other sources of relief. He throws himself upon God's Strength. God had told him at Ziph that if he stayed th! ere, the people would betray him. So here he was, wandering in the wilderness with spies keeping Saul informed of his whereabouts. What a shock it must have been when Jonathan came to visit him. If Jonathan knew where he was, others did also. So David throws himself upon God's Strength, feeling his utter weakness. There comes a time in every person's experience when you can do no more in the situation. THAT is the time to prove God. David's first resource was TO ASK GOD. SECOND: TO FACE THE NEED. It is pitiful to see people pretending that they haven't got what they have got. They refuse to face the facts of their situation. It is NOT Divine Healing to deny that you have the sickness you are suffering from. Nor is it real Faith to deny the seriousness of your situation. David prayed earnestly - "Hear my prayer O God!" He was sure that he did not pray in vain. Face the facts, and then ASK GOD. At the end of his prayer/song he says SELAH. Selah = Think about it. We never solve a single problem if we refuse to think about it. Always face the need. David was sure that he did not pray in vain. FACE THE FACTS: and always bear in mind that FACT No.1. is "God is with us, and He will hear our prayer!" David knew that he was asking for no more than God had promised - He had promised him the Throne. FACE THE PROBLEM: having prayed he faced the problem. Many turn to prayer to forget their problems. We must face the problem. David did, "Strangers have risen against me!" This is a strange saying, for the Ziphites were not strangers but his own countrymen; in effect they were his own people. BUT, they acted as aliens or barbarians. In the New Testament, Matthew 18, the Lord Jesus Christ was instructing His disciples about discipline among believers. He ruled that if there was a difference between believers and one of the differing party refused reconciliation, "If he neglect to hear the Church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man." When we alienate ourselves, we become as aliens. Here in the Old Testament the Ziphites were treacherous. Thus David calls them strangers. Even today, it is possible to have many relatives who are in effect strangers to you, they do not belong to the people who worship God. David calls them "Oppressors" - "They seek after my soul!" Oppresso! rs? - having power, they use it unlawfully. Seeking his soul? - they attempted to destroy his life. It is sadly possible to destroy a person's life without killing him. You can shatter a person's life - destroy his character and everything about him - leaving his life in pieces - not worth living. In the sight of God that is oppressive destruction. "They have not set God before them" sings David. They were acting totally irreligiously. The greatest shock of my young Christian life was to discover that so called Christians can act like heathens. One expects all the people of God to act like people of God, and you are left wondering where their religion disappears to. THIRD: TO RECOGNISE GOD'S HAND. In the fourth verse, when David begins a new stanza, he bursts out in song, "BEHOLD, God is mine helper: The Lord is with them that uphold my soul!" He recognises God's Hand in life. We pray - we face the need - and then we recognise God's hand. It is a wonderful and thrilling experience to look for evidences of God's moving and to discover them. There is a lovely phrase in the Book of Ruth, where Boaz commanded his men in the harvest field to "Drop handfuls on purpose" for Ruth to pick up. When she went home after her gleaning, she had double the amount that she would have done without this dropping of handfuls of corn for her to pick up. In our lives, God drops 'handfuls on purpose.' We need to keep open a keen eye to look for what God is doing, and recognise the hand of God. In the purpose of God there are benefits in each day as "He daily loadeth us with benefits." Seek the benefits first. David had friends - but he could expect no relief from them. So he rested on th! is truth - "GOD IS MINE HELPER." As he considered the goodness of God he sang, "He will reward mine enemies". God did, with the very evil they intended for David - DEATH. His spirits rise: "I will sacrifice freely to Thee" -"I will praise Thy Name"- what language to use in the barren mountains of Ziph. "For He hath delivered me out of all my trouble" - had the news come through that the Philistines were on the warpath and Saul was retreating? Did David see the troops in the distance being withdrawn? "Mine eye hath seen His desire upon mine enemies." What a relief it must have been when his scouts returned to say that Saul's army was going away. He was waiting for the attack. Saul's host could wipe them out. But something happened - the Philistines were attacking Saul. Why did it happen at that time? We do not know, but in the English language we use a lovely word to explain such events in our lives - we say "It was PROVIDENTIAL!" That great little word means "God provided it." Look for the Providential occurrences in your life. Trace them back. See the results. Recognise the hand of God in your life. Remember that PROVIDENTIAL THINGS do not come before nor after the event, they always come IN THE NICK OF TIME. God always moves to our aid in the nick of time. Perhaps we should call it the NICHE OF TIME. That little bit of eternity which flashes into our life, when God shows His hand at the time we needed it. We should never really call Providence "A bit of Luck!" It is the provision of the Eternal, when God moves into the niche in our lives which is the turning point between disaster and deliverance. This is the blessing of God when everything in our lives seems to be going wrong. "GOD IS MINE HELPER - HE UPHOLDS MY SOUL." Copyright (c) 1996, Hedley Palmer. All rights reserved. ---------------------------------------------------- file: /pub/resources/text/hpalmer/psalms: ps-054.txt .