DELIVERED IN DIFFICULTIES
TEXT: PSALM 18:1-6
INTRODUCTION:
The explanatory preface to this Psalm says it is a “Psalm of David, the servant of the Lord, who spoke to the Lord the words of this song on the day that the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul, and he said:”
**READ TEXT**
In the next to last verse of this Psalm David says, “Therefore I will give thanks to You, O Lord among the Gentiles, I will sing praises to Your Name.”
That word “love” in that first verse of out text, is in the Hebrew, the word: “rä·kham',” and its means, “to love, love deeply, have mercy, be compassionate, have tender affection.” John MacArthur’s commentary on this first verse and says, “Love. This is not the normal word for love that often bears covenant meaning…but it is a rare verb form of a word group that expresses tender intimacy.” In those times when the Lord has delivered me from a trial or tribulation, I have felt that “tender intimacy” this word describes.
Remember, King Saul became jealous of David’s success in battle, and was also envious of the fact that the people loved David. If we read from I Samuel, chapters 18, 19 and 23, Saul tried to have David killed at least nine times, either by the hands of others, or by his own hand, once by throwing a spear at David in I Sam. 19:10. In I Samuel 20:3, just after the attempted spearing, David escapes out of the palace with the help of his wife, Michal, and we see David meeting in secret with Saul’s son Jonathan (David and Jonathan were best friends). David says, “But truly, as the Lord lives and as your soul lives, there is but a step between me and death.” But God delivered Him and saved him out of the hands of Saul, and David learned the most important lesson a child of God can learn. It’s this: “It’s not important what HAPPENS to a Christian, what’s important is how we REACT to what happens to us.
God is called a Deliverer in both the OT and the NT. The word “deliverer” in our text is the Hebrew word: “pä·lat',” and means, “carry away safe, deliver, (cause to) escape.” A Greek word used often in the NT and translated as “Deliver” is “rhü'-o-mi,” (whroo am I), and means “to draw out of or remove from a rushing current.” Another example of this same word is used by Paul in his letter to the Colossians. In Col. 1:12, 13 in the Amplified Translation, Paul writes, “The Father has delivered us and drawn us to Himself out of the control and dominion of darkness and has transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.”
David learned that God does not deliver us OUT of our difficulties that we’ve learned to trust the Lord to deliver us IN our difficulties. The Apostle Paul re-emphasized this truth in Romans chapter 8. He wrote, “For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that IS SEEN is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?’” (Rom. 8:24).
I want to take you now to the NT and the Book of Acts, the 16th chapter, and I want us to look at a situation that Paul the Apostle and his fellow missionary, Silas, had gotten themselves into, that required a mighty deliverance by God. Paul and the missionary band had been sent by the Holy Spirit into Greece. They were trying to determine the Lord’s will as to where they should go minister, and the Lord gave Paul a dream where a man from Macedonia (Greece) was asking them to come over and minister to them.
Paul took Silas, who the Bible says, was also a prophet, and they went into Greece and ended up in Philippi, one of the primary cities of that area of Macedonia. It was there that the saleslady, Lydia of Thyatira, was converted to Christ. As time went on they were going about preaching the Gospel, and satan sent one of his emissaries to harass them – a slave girl, who was possessed of a demon and did fortune-telling. Paul got aggravated at the devel, and said, “I command you, in the Name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” In verse 19 of Acts chapter 16, we read, “But when her masters saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into them into the marketplace to the authorities. Paul and Silas were stripped of their clothes and beaten with “many stripes” and were thrown into the prison – the INNER prison, and their feet were fastened in stocks, so they couldn’t move about.
I had been studying this part of the scripture and wanting to come up with an outline to preach through it but wasn’t having any luck coming up with anything. I’ll never forget. I was driving in town, thinking and praying about this and trying to come up with something, and I turned into my Grandma Pruitt’s driveway and shut off the engine. Just then, the Holy Spirit gave me the title, and the outline for this sermon. The title was “Delivered in Difficulties,” and the outline for each point was S. P. When we Suffer Persecution, we must Sing Praises. When we do, our God will Shake the Prison, and Save the Prisoners.
I. THEY SUFFERED PERSECUTION
A. READ vs 22-24
B. All they were doing was preaching the Gospel – doing good – the best good that could be done for anyone, sharing the Good News that Christ had risen from the dead and is alive, and will forgive our sins, be our Shepherd and take us to heaven to live with Him eternally.
C. In II Tim. 3:12 Paul to Timothy, “Yes and all who will live godly in Christ Jesus, SHALL SUFFER PERSECUTION.”
1. If we’re really living for Jesus, we WILL suffer persecution.
2. There are some I call “Pillow Prophets” who will say, “Just fluff up your pillow and float off to heaven on a feathery bed of ease. Don’t worry about sin; God’s forgiving, live like the world lives, and always have your hand out to God saying, ‘give me, give me.’”
D. The saints of the Bible didn’t have their hands out to God all the time, saying “God, what can you do for me. They said instead, “God show me what I can do for you, and if that duty brings with it suffering, then so be it. If loss, so be it; even if death, so be it
E. These “pillow prophets” say that if you’re not prospering and increasing in good and riches, then you should doubt your faith and question God. These false prophets would tell you something is lacking in your faith, if you’re not rich and fat, and happy. That is a lie from the “father of lies” the devil
F. Jesus tell us the true reason in John 15:18-20. **READ** JOHN 15:18-20 READ** PINK. Paul and Silas proved the truth of that statement. They showed us what we are to do when we suffer persecution.
II. THEY SANG PRAISES
A. **READ VS 25**
B. **READ PSALM 27:6 READ** PURPLE
C. The proper response when we suffer persecution is to sing praises to our God. We must learn this.
D. Jesus said, “Blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute and say all manner of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is you reward in heaven: for they also persecuted the prophets that were before you.”
E. There is a purpose for our afflictions. We are not just victims of a cruel fate.
F. We read about the three Hebrew boys in the Book of Daniel, the third chapter. They were ordered to bow down to an image of King Nebuchadnezzar but refused. The king said he would have them killed by throwing them into the fiery furnace.
1. They told the king, “…our God, whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.”
2. But God DID deliver them IN the fiery furnace, before they were delivered OUT of the fiery furnace.
G. The Philippians knew Paul practiced what he preached. That’s whey they understood what he meant when he said, “Rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I say REJOICE.” They knew what had happened to him and Silas in that prison, and like them, when we learn to sing praises when we suffer persecution:
III. GOD WILL SHAKE THE PRISON
A. **READ VS 26**
B. If we’re obedient and trusting in our God in the midst of our persecutions and we sing praises to Him, He will send a mighty earthquake of His power and metaphorically “shake the prison” we’re in
C. The story of Joseph comes to mind in these lines.
1. First, he was thrown in a pit by his brothers and sold by them into slavery
2. Potiphar’s Wife
3. The prison
4. But we read that “…the Lord was WITH Joseph and showed him mercy and gave him favor with the keeper of the prison and committed unto Joseph all the prisoners” (Gen. 39:21, 22).
D. Your experience might be just one night, or one year. I hope it’s not 13 years, like Joseph, but if we learn to SING PRAISES unto our God, He will shake the prison and, and the foundations were shaken and IMMEDIATELY your bonds will be loosed, just like as it was with Paul and Silas, and so many others down that our Lord has delivered down through the years.
E. But notice, Paul and Silas got the victory IN the prison, before they were delivered OUT of the prison.
F. When God shakes the prison, He is doing it for a PURPOSE – the purpose He has is to:
IV. SAVE THE PRISONERS
A. **READ LAST PART OF VS 26-34**
B. Jesus had returned from 40 days of fasting in the wilderness and from being tempted by the devel. He went to the synagogue in His hometown of Nazareth on the Sabbath, which was His custom, and He took up the Book of Isaiah to read:
C. **READ** LUKE 4:18, 19 READ BLUE **
D. Yes, God saved the prisoners, Paul and Silas and everyone in the jail, including the jailer himself, but He sent Paul and Silas
E. He saved the Israelites, but He sent Moses
F. What God will do for the world, He will only do THROUGH US! He wants to save, but He works through His people, as we witness to the world of His glory
G. If we learn to trust God IN our difficulties, He will deliver us OUT of our difficulties. If, when we suffer persecution, we sing praises, God will send an earthquake of His power and shake our prison, and He will save the prisoners – that includes us and all who have witnessed the power of God in our lives to keep us in peace and give us joy IN our difficulties.
Closing:
Deliverance in the Bible is the acts of God whereby He rescues His people from peril. In the Old Testament, deliverance is focused primarily on God’s removal of those in the midst of trouble or danger. He rescues His people from their enemies (1 Samuel 17:37; 2 Kings 20:6), and from the hand of the wicked (Psalm 7:2; 17:13; 18:16-19; 59:2). He preserves them from famine (Psalm 33:19), death (Psalm 22:19-21), and the grave (Psalm 56:13; 86:13; Hosea 13:14). The most well-known example of deliverance is the exodus from Egypt (Exodus 3:8; 6:6; 8:10). Here is God defined as the Deliverer of Israel who rescues His people, not because they deserve to be rescued, but as an expression of His mercy and love (Psalm 51:1; 71:2; 86:13).
In the New Testament, God is always the subject—and His people are always the object—of deliverance. The descriptions of temporal deliverance in the Old Testament serve as symbolic representations of the spiritual deliverance from sin which is available only through Christ. He offers deliverance from mankind’s greatest peril—sin, evil, death and judgment. By God’s power, believers are delivered from this present evil age (Galatians 1:4) and from the power of Satan’s reign (Colossians 1:13). All aspects of deliverance are available only through the person and work of Jesus Christ, who was Himself delivered up for us (Romans 4:25) so that we would be delivered from eternal punishment for sin. Only Jesus rescues us from the “wrath to come” (1 Thessalonians 1:10).
John Paton was a missionary in the New Hebrides Islands. One night hostile natives surrounded the mission station, intent on killing them. Paton and his wife prayed during that terror-filled night that God would deliver them. When daylight came they were amazed to see their attackers leave. Later, the chief of the tribe was converted to Christ. Remembering what had happened, Paton asked the chief what had kept him from killing them. The chief replied that he was afraid to attack because he had seen hundreds of men in shining garments with drawn swords circling the mission station. Paton knew no men were present.
Our deliverance in the Ironworker Pension situation.
God is a deliverer. When we suffer persecution, let us sing praises, then God will shake the prison, and save the prisoners, including delivering us in the process.
