When he was 7 years old his family was forced out of their home, and he had to go to work to support them. At the age of 9 his mother died. At the age of 22, he lost his job as a store clerk. He wanted to go to law school, but his education was not good enough. At the age of 23, he went into debt to become a part owner of a small store. His business partner died and he was left to pay the debt off for many years following.
At the age of 28, after four years of courtship, he asked the young lady whom he was romantically involved with to marry him. She said no. Just years earlier he had a romantic relationship that ended at the girl’s death. At 37, after three times of trying, he was elected to congress, only to lose his seat two years later when he ran for reelection.
At 41 his four year old son died. The next year he was rejected as land officer. At 45 he ran for the U.S. Senate and lost. Two years later he was defeated for the nomination of Vice President. At 49 he ran for the Senate again, and lost again. At 51 he was elected to President of the United States, but on his second term he was assassinated.
Who am I referring too? I am referring to Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln was a man who knew failure. He knew what it was like to be hit with the fiery arrows of life. He knew loneliness and loss, humiliating failures, debilitating disappointments, and agony upon agony. He experienced hopeless circumstances.
The experiences of Abraham Lincoln are universal. We could all draw a map of our life and it would reveal failures, loneliness, lost, disappointments, and agony. We can all look to times in our life were everything seemed hopeless. That is where we find King David. We find him reaping the consequences of bad choices. We find him facing a seemingly hopeless situation. Adversity is evidently very real to him in this psalm.
Psalm 3 is the first Psalm that has the inscription of the author on it. It is called a lament Psalm. It is a cry of despair from a man of God that is facing some adverse circumstances. It is a lament from a man who finds himself in a hopeless situation.
The occasion is not a happy occasion, therefore the prayer he records is a cry for help. Most see Absolam’s revolt as the occasion for this prayer. Absolam was David’s son who desired the throne of his father, so he plotted to over throw it. The revolt was so powerful that David had to flee Jerusalem. David did not pen the psalm in the palace, but he penned it while under the starry sky running for his life.
David knew success, but he also knew sorrow. He also knew hopelessness, and the circumstance that he finds himself in is seemingly one of hopelessness. The circumstance appears to be hopeless. "Lord, how they have increased who trouble me! Many are those who rise up against me. Many are those who say of me, ‘There is not help for him in God."
The first thing we notice about David’s situation is hopeless adversity. When looked up, v. 1 literally reads, "Lord, how many are my foes!" I bring this out because we need to understand the meaning of the Hebrew wore translated "Foe." The Hebrew word is "SAR," and in its simplest meaning it refers to something that is narrow or confining. It can also mean "to bind up" or "to tie."
It is used in some instances to describe a strong emotional feeling experienced by one who is pressed externally by enemies, or internally by wrong decisions or passions. It also describes the personal anguish one encounters by adverse circumstances such as death.
For David, the word describes a distress or anguish that comes from enemies who are crowding him in a narrow place. What makes this distress, this anguish even greater is that those who are his foes, are his foes because they have staged a revolt against him. Notice what he says in the second half of verse one, "Many are they who rise up against me."
Repeatedly he uses the word "many" to describe those who are revolting against him. David was God’s man, but he failed in his walk with God, and therefore the things that are taking place in his life at the time of this Psalm is the consequences of that failure. David wakes up after having to flee Jerusalem and he begins to pen a prayer to God expressing the hopeless adversity he was facing.
Not only was the situation one of seemingly hopeless adversity, it was also one of hopeless abandonment. "Many are they who say of me, ‘There is no help for him in God.’" Those who staged this revolt were saying this about David. In their mind ,David had done things that forfeited his right to expect any help from God, and to expect him to answer his prayers. That word "help" can also mean "salvation" or "deliverance."
The tense of the word "say" suggests that this "saying" was continuous. So David heard over and over that God was not going to help him. He heard over and over again that God would not save him, that God would not deliver him. They were saying basically that because of David’s failures God had abandoned him. There was no reason for David to think that he would experience divine favor.
Notice that word "Selah." It means to pause or to reflect. David is saying, think about what was just said. Have you ever felt like the adversity that you were facing was hopeless? Have you ever felt like God had abandoned you? Maybe because of a moral failure, or just because your circumstances seemed so dark? Hopeless adversity and hopeless abandonment has a way of zapping the joy from life. It has a way of draining life of all joy. Proverbs 13:12 says, "Hope deferred makes the heart sick."
David could have let the hopeless adversity make his heart sick. He could have let the hopeless adversity discourage him. He could have believed the majority who said that God had abandoned him. But he didn’t. He knew that this is one time that the majority was wrong.
He knew that even though the situation seems hopeless, he could still be hopeful. For he knew he had a sure foundation of hope. *He could have let what he was down under determine his outlook, but instead he let his outlook be determined by his up-look.
My advice to you tonight is this: When you find yourself in what seems to be impossible, hopeless situations; when you have reached your end; don’t let your outlook be determined by what your down under. Let your outlook be developed by your up-look. What you need is to have an upward outlook when your down under!
We seldom do this. So many times we let our circumstances dictate our sight. Instead of correctly seeing our situations, we let our situations determine what we see. If our situation is gloomy - and it may be - we allow that to show us gloom. But you cannot let your situation dictate what you see. David was in a situation of desperation, but he seems to have caught a glimpse of deliverance.
"But you, O Lord, are a shield for me, my glory and the one who lifts my head. I cried tot he Lord with my voice, and he heard me from his holly hill." David makes a strong contrast with what he just said in verses 1-2 and what he is about to say in verses 3-4. Yes, the situation is one of hopeless adversity. Yes, the situation seems like one of hopeless abandonment.
But David does not let his outlook be determined by the hopelessness he sees in the natural. No, he looks up to his God and lets the hope that is found in Him determine his outlook.
He says, “But thou, O Lord…“ Back in verse 2, those who were speaking of God’s abandonment of David used the Hebrew word "Elohim" which is a general word for God. But David uses Yahweh, which is the personal name of the one true God. He knew that his hope was in "Yahweh," the covenant keeping God, Who is faithful to his word. They can try to run David from the throne, but God has already given David his word that he would rule the throne.
So David looks up and is hopeful. And as David looks up, there are three things he declares about his hope.
1. He declares the hope of God’s protection: He says, "But you, O Lord are a shield for me." When we think of a shield we usually thing of something that protects us or defends us. It is something that we can put in front of us so that we can protect and defend ourselves from the enemy.
But the idea that David has in mind here for shield is the type that brings not one-sided protection, but all-sided protection. The Message Bible translates this verse “But you, God, shield me on all sides…“ This protection is from above, beneath, around, without, and within. What a shield God is for his people! He protects his servants. He protects his people. He protects all that put their trust in him and walk with him.
David knows that God has the ability to thwart any enemy attack. He knows that God can shield him from every evil intention of his foes. *And he knows that God can protect him from his own weakness, inability, and incapability. Some of us merely need to be protected from ourselves: From our own uncontrollable tendency to try and handle things on our own, do what we think is needed, or do what we feel like doing and expect God to support us.
God is a shield on all sides. He can protect us from outward and inward attacks, from every diabolical scheme that the enemy has planned, and then also from our own insufficiency to bring resolve to the situations in our life!
2. He declared the hope of God’s personal touch: He says here that He knows God will be "the one who lifts my head." Hopeless situations can breed discouragement, disappointment, and depression. But David did not let the situation determine his outlook. He knew the hope of God’s comfort, of God‘s personal touch.
He knew that God was "the one who lifts my head." He knew that God could deliver a man from all that discourages, all that disappoints, and all that depresses. God is the one who lifts heads. He is the comforter of his people. *And notice that it is not the situation that David is concerned with God touching. David knows that it is HE who needs God’s personal touch.
That’s good for us to recognize. Many times God wants to use our circumstances to move us toward Him, to receive from Him the touch of His hand on our life, not just on the situation. When we’re in a crisis, a dilemma, we often want God to touch the situation, believing that if He changed the circumstance, then we could and would automatically be better.
But David knew that the real issue was not the status of the situation, but the status of his own life. Notice care-fully, too, that David says, “You are the lifter of my head.” I think we can see from that where the root of our desperation is sometimes: It’s in our head, in our thinking.
Let me ask you: Can your God do anything? Is there anything too hard for God? Is there any situation you can present Him, where it causes Him to become incapable or unable to guide you through it? The answer is a resounding NO!
Do you know what that means, then? There is absolutely no hopeless situation for the believer. No family situation. No health situation. No financial situation. No job situation. No emotional situation. No national situation. There is no hopeless situation for those who put their faith and trust in God.
There is only HOPELESS THINKING! David cried out for, what we also need many times: I need God to lift my thoughts. When you’re down under a situation, burdened beneath the load of care, the easy thing, the natural thing, is to look downward.
I have found it to be true, that, downward thinking comes all too easy. Disappointment and discouragement seem to be way to easy to become a part of our lives. The natural tendency is downward thinking, discouragement, depression.
But David calls out in a hopeful declaration, that God was “the lifter of his head.” God is the one who can give me a transforming personal touch, that, may not always change my situation, but can and is for the purpose of changing our outlook of the situation. That’s what we need, more times than not: An upward outlook when we’re down under!
3. He declared the hope of God’s perception: David said in v. 4, "I cried unto the Lord with my voice, and he heard me out of his holy hill." The word “cried” is past tense, which shows that it’s something that had happened. He’s writing about it after the fact.
And David says, “I remember when I cried to the Lord, lifting my voice to him, that, he heard me. I was in the wilderness, fleeing for my life. God was in the place of his holiness, but he both perceived and received my desperate plea.” Isaiah 59:1 says, “God’s ear is not dull that he cannot hear.” If there’s one thing I have come to learn, it’s that God has good ears. You need to understand, though, what I mean by God’s perception.
We know that he hears our prayers, but the Lord hears much more than that. God can hear groans, not only hearing them, but interpreting them. In fact, there are times that, the Bible says, the Spirit even prays on our behalf with “groanings which cannot be uttered.”
The Bible also says that God can hear us so good, that He will sometimes help us even before we’re finished asking. How can He do that? Because He knows. He knows our situation. He doesn’t need us to pray so he can perceive our trouble. He knew the trouble was coming before it came.
God doesn’t perceive our problems through our prayers. The purpose of your prayer is not for His perception. Prayer is for your participation in your deliverance. Prayer is what implores Him to action.
He is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. Those three words tells us He knows, He’s able, and He’s there! And when you’re feeling like you’re down under the weight and the pressure of life’s circumstances, you need to know those three things. He knows, He’s able, and He’s there. He will protect you, give you a personal touch, and you can be assured that He perceives your problems.
And knowing those truths will help you can Have An Upward Outlook When You’re Down Under!
