Trust In The Midst Of Troubles

I remember hearing a story about a pastor of a house church in China who was incarcerated on account of his faith. His name was Pastor Yun. I can’t remember exactly where he was imprisoned or some of the finer details of the story, but I cannot possibly forget the main points of the story. Pastor Yun was locked up and subjected to abuse and persecution for his faith in Jesus Christ. It wasn’t uncommon for him to beaten and even tortured for his faith. One day, Pastor Yun and four of his fellow prisoners were taken out into the prison yard in the dead of winter to shovel snow or some form of manual labor. At some point, the head guard, who was brandishing an electric baton, told Pastor Yun to kneel down before him. Pastor Yun said to the head guard, “I will not kneel down before you. I will only kneel down before my God.” The prison guard snarled and said, “I am your god.” To which Pastor Yun replied, “In the name of Jesus, you are not my God. You are only an earthly officer. My Lord is in heaven.” This only served to infuriate the guard. He turned on the power to his electric baton. He ordered the other guards to forcefully extend Pastor Yun’s hands, palms facing up. He placed the baton into the palms of his hands. Immediately, hundreds of volts of electric current shot through him. Pastor Yun cried out, “Lord, have mercy on me!” And immediately, the baton malfunctioned. They could not get it to work at all. Pastor Yun looked up at the guard who had dared to call himself his god. Even though it was deathly cold, in the dead of winter, this guard was sweating profusely. In what seemed to be a state of panic, he dropped the baton and ran away. Sometimes, God answers the prayers of his people that way. At the same time, sometimes he doesn’t answer that way. Sometimes, God’s people are made mincemeat by the evil of this depraved world, but God always answers the prayers of his people. Therefore, God’s people should never cease to call upon him. In Psalm 3, David finds himself in great trouble. He is in mortal danger, but he does not fail to call upon the LORD God. David knew the power of his God, and he knew the power the prayers he offered up to his God possessed. James 5:16 reminds us, “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” The unbelieving world largely sees prayer as a Christian’s form of escapism from real life. It’s their silly little way of not facing up to the realities of life, but Bible believing Christians know better. Prayer is a gift God has given his people to help us get through life’s stormy waters. The placement of Psalm 3 is not accidental. In fact, it is actually quite significant. Psalms 1 and 2 form a foundation for the book of Psalms. Psalm 1 stresses the vital importance of God’s Law in the lives of his people. There are only two paths we can take in life, and Psalm 1 lays these two paths out for us. There is the path of the righteous, and there is the path of the wicked. Psalm 2 stresses the ultimate triumph of God’s kingdom and of his Anointed One. It stresses the futility of fighting against God and his sovereign rule. It stresses what will happen to those who foolishly choose to do so. Then we come to Psalm 3. Immediately, we come to a psalm where God’s people face trouble. David is in mortal danger. Psalm 3 doesn’t jump into cotton candy theology like the Prosperity Gospel, declaring that life is a fairy tale, magic carpet ride and God is your cosmic bellhop. The Psalms immediately give us an honest view of life in a fallen, sin-stained world. Psalm 3 declares in no uncertain terms that God’s people face troubles, but Psalm 3, as well as God’s word as a whole, calls us to trust God in the midst of life’s troubles. The superscription of Psalm 3 gives us our setting and our context. “A Psalm Of David, When He Fled From Absalom His Son.” This setting gives us a lot of information to help us understand David’s plight in Psalm 3. He is fleeing from his son Absalom, who has sought to usurp the throne from his father (2 Sam 15-16). Absalom stealthily raised up a rebellion in Hebron against his father. He stole the hearts of the people and turned them against David. So David felt he was left with no recourse but to flee Jerusalem. It is in these circumstances that David calls out to the LORD. Surrounded by troubles and filled with distress, he doesn’t become overwhelmed and crushed by his circumstances, as grave as they are. He calls out to the Lord. In verses 1-2, David cries out, “O LORD, how many are my foes! Many are rising against me; many are saying of my soul, there is no salvation for him in God.” David’s initial focus is on his enemies. David is in distress. His circumstances leave him in a very unsure situation. He doesn’t know how things are going to turn out for him. His enemies even seem to taunt him. They say, “…there is no salvation for him in God.” In the context of this psalm, “salvation” is speaking about deliverance from his enemies. They’re not simply saying that God can’t help. They’re defiantly proclaiming that God won’t help him. I believe there have been times when we could identify with that. Surely there have been times we have felt that God has lost track of us. We have felt as if we are adrift on a giant ocean of trouble all alone. When we have a greater view of our troubles than we do of God, we can be driven to great despair. We can wrongly feel like God is not even in the picture. We can be swallowed up by our own grief and despair. Those are precisely the times we must refocus on God. Jesus knows his sheep. If you belong to Jesus, he knows you. He knows your situations. He knows your sorrows. He knows your grief. He was “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isa. 53:3). Jesus will not change every difficult situation we face in our life, but he is with us. And he will preserve us. Sometimes, the greatest evidence we have that Jesus has not abandoned us is not when he delivers us from a time of suffering or hardship. It’s that we are even still standing in the midst of it. Life can deal us crushing blows and exceedingly difficult and painful times. And the burdens of these times are too heavy for us to bear, but no burden is too heavy for Jesus. We may not be facing hundreds or thousands of enemies as David was. But how many enemies does it take make life miserable?  We may not be facing the treachery from our own son as David is facing, but we can know the pain and anguish of a child who is living in rebellion. We can know the pain and anguish of a child who has walked away from the faith. Whatever the source may be, God’s people can face times of great trouble and distress in life. In verses 3-4, David proclaims, “But you, O LORD, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head. I cried aloud to the LORD, and he answered me from his holy hill.” The focus of the Psalm now turns to God. David has turned his focus from his enemies onto the LORD, and as he does, his perspective changes. David has taken his focus off of his enemies and placed it where it belongs: on God. As soon as David turned his thoughts to God, he found great comfort and confidence. David had experienced God’s faithfulness and deliverance many times in the past, so he had confidence that God would deliver him in the present time. God has promised he will deliver us as well (1 Peter 5:10). Yet, we also need to bear in mind that God’s deliverance may not always be an earthly deliverance. This is a fact that we cannot omit, gloss over, sugar coat, or water down. It is simply a reality. In our day, many Christians are still martyred. But if that is God’s will, don’t they receive a greater deliverance? Isn’t being in the presence of Jesus far better? Isn’t that something we should yearn for, when it is God’s time? In verses 5-6, David declares, “I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the LORD sustained me. I will not be afraid of many thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around.” We may wonder how in the world David would be able to sleep in the midst of the circumstances he’s facing. Many people can’t sleep if they have to have a tooth pulled the next day. But because God is who he is, David is able to sleep. He slept well, and safely, because the LORD sustained him. David is at peace, even though he does not yet know how his situation will turn out. His circumstances have not changed, but he is not held in the vise grip of fear. Even while Absalom’s treachery has placed David in grave danger, he slept soundly because David is resting in the peace of God. Peace enables him to look at an uncertain future without fear. Circumstances have not changed for David at this point, yet there is now no alarm or anxiety or fear. Peace is not the absence of conflict and trouble. Peace is the presence of Jesus. Isaiah 26:3 “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.”