Psalm 4:1-8
A Drop Forged Faith
Woodlawn Baptist Church
December 28, 2003
Introduction
If you’ve paid much attention to your tools, you’ll notice a stamp on some of them that says they are drop forged. What’s the big deal with being drop forged? Did you ever wonder? When something has been drop forged, that means that a piece of steel, like a steel bar or rod gets heated to extremely high temperatures to improve its malleability and to increase the steel’s dynamic grain flow. That’s just a fancy way of saying that the properties of the steel are rearranged to make it much stronger than it previously was and that it is heated to such a high temperature that it becomes easy to work with. Once the steel is heated to about 1500 degrees Fahrenheit, it goes through the forging process where the heated metal is compressed between two dies. One die is stationary, and the other is dropped with the impact hammer of the press. After the steel is cooled, you have a tool that is both functional and strong enough to handle the job it was made to do.
As I read Psalm 4, I find a man who was shaped and strengthened much like the steel I’ve described to you, a man that God was able to use because he became both functional and strong enough to handle the job he was given to do by God. He didn’t begin that way. In fact, David began like all of us do. In the beginning we are all just raw pieces of cold steel, but in the hands of God we are changed, and if there is anything that puts the heat to our lives and applies enough pressure to change us it is times of distress. James wrote that “the trying of [our] faith works patience,” and that if we allow it, patience will do a work in us that will bring about spiritual maturity. I think that’s why Peter was able to say that…
“the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.”
When your faith is under fire people see who you are – you are either all show or you continue to grow, and your spiritual growth brings praise and honor and glory to our Savior Jesus Christ. As we consider this psalm tonight, I want you to see that it really isn’t so important what the trials are as what you do when they come. Some people try to link Psalm 3 with Psalm 4 and say that the thing that was causing David distress was Absolom, and that may well be, but it really doesn’t matter. If it did the Lord would have let us know. He doesn’t though, so we won’t indulge in trying to give the psalm a historical setting. What we do know is found in the title, “To the chief Musician on Neginoth, A Psalm of David.” The word Neginoth means stringed instruments. The title literally says that this is a Psalm composed by David for the chief musician to be sung with stringed instruments.
As we study this Psalm tonight, I want you to see that God has a three-step remedy for distress that is quite different from the one we usually resort to, but if we will allow Him, God will use the trying circumstances of our lives to shape and strengthen us so we might be better equipped for the work He left us to do. In Psalm 4:1-8, David wrote…
“Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness: thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress; have mercy upon me, and hear my prayer. O ye sons of men, how long will ye turn my glory into shame? How long will ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? Selah. But know that the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself: the Lord will hear when I call unto him. Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah. Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, and put your trust in the Lord. There be many that say, Who will shew us any good? Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us. Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased. I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety.”
You Must Turn To God In Prayer
In Psalm 3, it is obvious that David’s distress was brought about by a physical attack against him by an invading army. In Psalm 4 however, the distress was an attack on his person and character. Verse 2 asks two questions, “How long will you turn my glory into shame? How long will you love vanity and seek after leasing?” Another version states the verse this way: “O sons of men, how long will my honor become a reproach? {How long} will you love what is worthless and aim at deception?” You see, here we have David’s reputation coming under attack. Of course we know that David was not perfect. He sinned like we all do, but that was not the occasion in this Psalm. The attack on his reputation here was one built on slander and lies, which is what the word leasing means.
Have you ever been slandered? Of course you have – everyone has his or her reputation attacked at some time or another. Whoever made up the rhyme, “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me” didn’t know what he was talking about! Words do hurt. They wield great power to inflict deep and lasting wounds, and they can come from most any direction. Words of slander may come from the secretary down the hall at work, or from a co-worker in the plant. They may come from friends at school or from family you thought you could trust. What do you do when you are attacked like that? What do you do when people begin talking about you and you know they are spreading lies? What do you do when you find out people are listening to their lies and even believe some of them? Most often we begin making the circuit trying to do damage control. We start telling our side of the story; trying to build up our forces so that we feel like we have properly defended ourselves in the wake of the hurt they have inflicted.
I want to tell you, and I suppose you already know this: these kinds of attacks are very stressful. It is easy to feel disparity when people believe the evil reports against you, people you didn’t think would ever believe such words. But listen, that’s not the only thing that brings stress into our lives, is it? What are some things that create unwanted stress in your lives?
Essentially, we can feel distressed for one or more of three reasons. First, we experience distress when we feel like we’re being challenged or threatened by some outside force. That’s what we see in this Psalm. A second reason is change. Of course, change is not necessarily bad, but change creates tension in our lives because we grow accustomed to where we are and what we are doing. A third reason is when we experience a loss of personal control. This is particularly true of control freaks. I admit that I can get pretty distressed when I don’t get my way. Now, remember what I said in the beginning, regardless of the source of the distress, it is your response that really matters. You can’t avoid trouble. You won’t always get your way. People are going to slander you or attack you, and when these things occur in your life, you will inevitably experience stress to some degree.
So the question now is this: What do I do when I’m stressed out? I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading so I would be prepared to answer this question tonight, and in my reading I came across a list of 101 things to do that was written in by the Tripler Regional Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. Obviously I can’t read all 101 things to you, so let me give you the top ten. When you are feeling stressed in life,
1. Stop thinking tomorrow will be a better today
2. Avoid tight fitting clothes
3. Avoid relying on chemical aids
4. Be prepared for rain
5. Don’t rely on your memory ... write it down
6. Take a bubble bath
7. Make duplicate keys
8. Say "no" more often
9. Set priorities in your life
10. Avoid negative people
Now really, in the list of 101 things to do, there were some pretty good ideas, but if you like to deal with stress on the lighter side, then you might like another list I found. Again, you just get the top ten.
1. Jam miniature marshmallows up your nose and sneeze them out.
2. Pay your electric bill in pennies.
3. When someone says, "have a nice day", tell him or her you have other plans.
4. Make a list of things to do that you have already done.
5. Fill out your tax form using Roman Numerals.
6. Drive to work in reverse.
7. Stare at people through the tines of a fork and pretend they’re in jail.
8. Make up a language and ask people for directions in it.
9. Replace the filling of a Twinkie with ketchup and put it back in the wrapper.
10. Bill your doctor for time spent in his waiting room.
Seriously, people come up with a lot of things to do when they are experiencing distressing situations, but the most effective means of dealing with it is seldom if ever mentioned and it is probably the easiest of them all to do – pray! When David was in distress, he turned to the Lord and said, “Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness…have mercy upon me, and hear my prayer.”
There’s a wonderful lesson here for you and me. It doesn’t matter what causes your stress. It may be an attack on your reputation. You may not be in favor of inevitable changes. You may feel like you are completely helpless in your situation. It doesn’t matter! There’s nothing you can do to stop those situations – all you can do is turn to the One who can! David recognized an important part of his trials when he said, “God, you have enlarged me when I was in distress.” David recognized that whatever it was that was causing him distress was simply an instrument in God’s hand to grow him…to strengthen and mold him into what God wanted him to be.
So, when you feel overwhelmed, turn to God in prayer. Be honest with Him about what you are feeling. Nowhere in the Bible will you find that you have to put up a front with God. You may not like others to know you are hurting and you may not have a friend in the world with whom you are close enough to share your deepest hurts, but you can share them with God. Not only do you need to be honest with God, you need to be careful of feeling indignant with Him or feeling like He owes you something. David shows a great mark of maturity when he prays that God would have mercy upon him, or to be gracious to him. You see, David wasn’t perfect, and here he is simply admitting to God that he recognizes that there is nothing in him that is worthy of God’s intervention. For God to answer David’s prayer would be an act of grace – giving David something that he didn’t deserve. Listen, when it gets right down to it, any answer you receive from God in your prayers must be ascribed, not to our merit, but purely to his mercy.
You Need To Stop And Remember
In verses 3 and 4, the word Selah is mentioned twice. “Stop and think about it,” David says. Now I don’t know about you, but even when I do stop and pray my mind tends to race from one thought to the next, and my thoughts wander so that I am praying disconnected thoughts to the Lord. I am confident that in those times of prayer God knows my heart and knows how to sort out what I am saying, but I think there is a better way to go about prayer in these times of distress, and it is to journal your prayers. I’ve mentioned this numerous times to you, and I can’t begin to impress upon you the value of doing so. There is something about writing out your prayers to the Lord that allows you to see what you’re saying. It allows you to take the time to think about what you’re praying and to evaluate your thoughts and apply Scripture to them. For those of you who think that journaling prayers is odd or unnatural, don’t forget that when you’re reading the Psalms, much of what you are reading is what another man journaled long ago. Psalms 3 and 4 are good examples of prayers that were written down by David. I am not proud of everything I have written over the past few years, but I am certain that one day in the future when my prayers are read by my daughters they will gain a much better understanding of who I am and what my faith meant to me.
As David wrote out his thoughts, he began to write to the ones who were attacking him. It has been said that President Lincoln used to do this when he was angry with someone. He would write out what he wanted to say to the person, and then he would tear up the letter and throw it away. It is my opinion, and you can take that for what its worth, that while David was praying and writing, he remembered some important things that he would have said to his accusers, things that you need to remember in times of distress. Look with me at some of these things:
God has set the godly apart unto Himself
Now I’ll be honest with you and just say that I’m not really sure what all that means. It is quite possible that the slander against David had to do with his being on the throne. Some may have considered him to be unfit or incapable of fulfilling his duties, so that now David reminds these men that he is secure in his position as king because God set him apart for that purpose. Certainly God saw something in David that He didn’t see in the others, a godliness that existed in him that was not present in the lives of his brothers.
Still others have suggested that David was referring to his relationship with God, remembering that those who have been chosen by God to be saved are secure in that divine election. It could mean some other things as well, but the important thing for you to remember is this: God knows who belongs to Him and He knows the truth about those people. You see, folk are going to slander you and run you down and mistreat you. They will spread lies and they will convince some people that you are not so godly after all. When you are tempted to retaliate, you need to go to God in prayer with the assurance that God knows who you are and He knows the truth about your life. Those who are godly are simply those who demonstrate outwardly what already exists inwardly, namely a relationship with God through His Son Jesus Christ.
God will hear us when we pray
I think I am safe in saying that regardless of when you pray, how you pray, where or why you pray, God will hear that prayer. He is the omnipresent, omniscient God who knows it all, but that’s not what the word hear means in this passage. When David says that God will hear him, he means that God will hear him with favor. In other words, David had great confidence in God, a confidence expressed by his words. I am confident that most of you pray, at least periodically, but when you do, when you are in distress, do you really believe that God will hear your prayer and respond favorably to it?
You must pray with faith, believing not only that God can come through for you, but that He will come through. Again, you’ve got to be real with God. Don’t be a poser, trying to bluff your way through with God. He knows your hurt – the pain you feel because you’ve been slandered – He felt it too when He was here walking among us. Because God knows firsthand what you’re going through, pour out your heart to Him with a quiet confidence that when you pray, God will hear and God will meet the needs you have.
God wants to bring us into His glorious presence.
David told these men to stand in awe, or to tremble and sin not. If they could just bring themselves to stand before the Lord, they would stop the slanderous lies against Him. When you find yourself being the one spreading the lies, you need to come into God’s holy presences and repent of your sin. If you are the one on the receiving end of these lies, then you too need to remember that it is not your job to get angry and retaliate; that is God’s job. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done or what’s been done to you, bring yourself into the presence of God. You see, when you stand in awe of God, and because you are in awe of him, you will find yourself ceasing from the sin you’ve been committing.
I know it is hard to do, but when you open your mouths to speak evil against someone, just imagine yourself telling Jesus what you want to say and see if that doesn’t stop you in your tracks. Listen, as you are praying, just remember that the evil others are planning and speaking against you don’t really matter, because God is on the side of the godly, on your side, and He will see you through those circumstances.
You Need To Place Your Trust In God
In verse 5, David tells his accusers to offer the sacrifices of righteousness. In other words, they needed to repent of their sin and make their relationships right with God. I think this says something wonderful about David. He was king and could have done any number of things to rid himself of those who were against him, but instead he chose to allow God to have His way by praying for these people who were falsely accusing him. Now that’s a difficult thing to do! It is one thing to pray about them, and another thing to speak to them when they can’t hear you, but it is altogether different to pray that they would be restored in their relationships with the Father. The advice he gives the men is the same advice he had taken earlier, “put your trust in the Lord.”
Do you think that David’s accusers would have done any of these things had they heard or read his message? I doubt it. They would likely have done more harm to him had they been given the chance. Some Christians would even think it foolish and a waste of time to pray for their enemies. You say that you don’t think it’s so foolish, but when was the last time you prayed for your enemies? When was the last time you asked God to prosper those who were defeating you? I’m talking about that guy you work with that is unbearable, or that individual you know who just won’t leave you alone. You know that lady who talks about you every chance she gets – have you been praying for her? If you’ve not been doing these things, then you are the one needing to follow the doctor’s orders and put your trust in God. You are secure in Him, He knows the truth, He knows what you’re going through, so rather than spend your days trying to make sure you come out on top, pray for your enemies and trust the Lord with the outcome.
Some people will say that you’ve got to take care of that yourself. You know, stand up and defend yourself, and there may be times you need to do that. It seems that when David was being slandered, some were telling him that he needed to take the matter into his own hands. Verse 6 indicates that David prayed that God would shine the light of His truth on the matter so that all could see who was right and who was wrong.
Now folk, this is radically different from what we like to do, but God is calling you and me to a radically different walk! As David prayed and remembered his standing with God, the Lord began to lift the burden of the distress he was under. Verse 7 tells us that even while he was praying a great gladness was restored to him. That ought to indicate two things to you. First, David didn’t offer up a little token prayer. He spent time with the Lord, pouring his heart out to Him, writing out his thoughts and taking the time to evaluate what he was saying. Second, he was willing to allow God to change him in prayer. He went to God in distress because he didn’t want to be in distress. I think that all to often we go to God in prayer in distress or anger wanting God to change the other person and not us. All that does is reveals your level of spiritual maturity. It doesn’t matter what you’re going through in life. You may be having a horrible time at work, or it may be as close to home as the marriage you are in. You can’t change the other person – but you can change you, and when you realize that, when you turn to God and allow Him to shine His light on your situation and give Him the opportunity to work and you trust that He will do all these things, you can rest with great gladness and satisfaction knowing that the situation is out of your hands.
This is a paradox to me – the very thing that creates stress in my life: not being able to be in control is the very thing that can bring me the greatest comfort and peace! I can’t stop you from telling lies about me, and I don’t have to! Isn’t that wonderful? So instead of tossing and turning all night over things that are beyond my ability or power to handle, I can “lay me down in peace and sleep…” because God is in control. “…for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety.”
Listen, stress is an inherent part of daily living. It has been a part of human life since man walked on earth. Adam and Eve hid themselves in a moment of distress. Cain murdered his brother in a moment of distress. Peter cut off the priest’s ear in a moment when he felt his world was falling apart. Whether it is disobedience to God, or someone else is better off that you, or someone is slandering you or your world is changing around you and it is causing great discomfort to you, we all experience these times, and when life is moving by so quickly, it is difficult to stay in the game and remain calm. It seems like just at the moment you think there’s going to be a break and you can spiritually catch up, something else comes up. There are the phone calls, the demands on your time, the need to keep current with e-mail messages, to complete the To Do lists, and do "more" with "less". It can all be very stressful.
Most people don’t usually know how to respond to stress. They tend to react without thinking. What is your usual practice? When your faith is under fire, what are you made of? Do you find yourself avoiding the situation, taking your emotions out on others, withdrawing, confronting the situation head on? Or do you take the time to stop and pray for wisdom and guidance? Do you turn to the Lord and seek His help, His intervention, His thoughts? I realize that there are times when you must make an immediate response, but there is not a day that goes by that you don’t have the time to spend in serious prayer with your all-seeing, all-knowing Father who loves you and will meet your deepest needs. Demanding times and demanding people call for people who have a drop forged faith, a faith that has been realigned and strengthened by the fire of distress and molded by the hand of God so that it can face the tough jobs that still lie ahead. What is your faith made of?
Works cited:
Adapted from http://www.howstuffworks.com/question376.htm
Courtesy of the Tripler Regional Medical Center, Honolulu, Hawaii
http://www.hcc.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/101ways.htm
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/bondono2/WebJokes/Joke0137.html
