Psalm 20 - The Battle Belongs To The Lord Series

Psalms 20:1-9 KJV To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. The LORD hear thee in the day of trouble; the name of the God of Jacob defend thee; [2] Send thee help from the sanctuary, and strengthen thee out of Zion; [3] Remember all thy offerings, and accept thy burnt sacrifice; Selah. [4] Grant thee according to thine own heart, and fulfil all thy counsel. [5] We will rejoice in thy salvation, and in the name of our God we will set up our banners: the LORD fulfil all thy petitions. [6] Now know I that the LORD saveth his anointed; he will hear him from his holy heaven with the saving strength of his right hand. [7] Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God. [8] They are brought down and fallen: but we are risen, and stand upright. [9] Save, LORD: let the king hear us when we call.

I. INTRODUCTION—THE CIRCULAR PATTERN OF THIS GROUPING OF PSALMS

-In Psalm 19, it was brought to our attention that Psalm 15-24 are a group of psalms that seem to have worship as their theme. Psalm 15 and Psalm 24 are very similar in their presentations and both of them focus heavily on the characteristics of what a true worshipper looks like.

-Psalm 19 served as the center of these psalms and it exalted creation but it exalted the Word of God at an even higher level than the creation. If Psalm 19 shows us anything, it shows us the magnitude, the greatness, and the value of the Word. All of our worship is very much affected by our view of the Scriptures. If there is a high view of the Word, there will be a high view of God. There are those that we meet in life who have an incredibly high view of God and they obtained that because they know the Word.

-All of these psalms have a great impact on our worship:

• Psalms 15 and 24—The Character of the Worshipper

• Psalm 17—The Cry of the Worshipper

• Psalm 18—The Deliverance of the Worshipper

• Psalm 19—The Word of the Worshipper

• Psalm 20—The Battle of the Worshipper

• Psalm 21—The Victory of the Worshipper

• Psalm 22—The Suffering and Joy of the Worshipper

• Psalm 23—The Shepherd of the Worshipper

-All of these are aspects of the true worshipper.

II. PRAYING THE SCRIPTURES

-This psalm is not only a song; it is also a prayer. I want to remind you again to pray the Scriptures.

Gordon Wenham—The Psalms: they are designed to be prayed.

Robert Murray McCheyne—Turn the Bible into prayer. This is the best way of learning the meaning of the Bible and of learning to pray.

John Piper—For me it is absolutely essential that my prayers be guided by, saturated by, and sustained and controlled by the Word of God.

D. A. Carson—Pray over the Scriptures. Christians just setting out on the path of prayer sometimes pray for everything they can think of, glance at their watches, and discover they have been at it for three or four minutes. This experience sometimes generates feelings of defeat, discouragement, even despair. A great way to begin to overcome this problem is to pray through various biblical passages.

Allan Ross—The theme of this psalm is confidence in praying. It records an intercessory prayer for the king, who was himself praying for deliverance in battle.

-Make it your practice to pray the Bible and you will never again say the same old things about the same old things!

• Go through the passage line by line.

• Speak to God about the matters that are prompted by the Word.

• Mix faith with your words of prayer.

-If you were to pray this battle hymn of the saint, it would be obvious that you would also link up Ephesians 6:10-18 where Paul lists the individual pieces of spiritual armor that we have at our availability.

III. PSALM 20—THE BATTLE BELONGS TO THE LORD

William Gurnall—One Almighty is more than all mighties.

-This psalm is not only a song it is also a prayer. In this prayer is a request for a military victory before David goes to battle. Some scholars think that Psalm 20 is closely connected to Psalm 21 and the prayer for the battle is in Psalm 20 and the praise for the victory is in Psalm 21.

-It is also a royal psalm (along with Psalms 2; 18; 20; 21; 45; 72; 89; 101; 110; 132; 144) which means that it portrays the Lord as a sovereign ruler over all the earth. We should take time to take seriously what Jesus had to say:

John 5:39 KJV Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.