R1646 A Christian Response to a Personal Attack

God has an encouraging word for you and me today through the Bible-based preaching of Dr. Don Wilton about a response to a personal attack. As we open God's Word to Psalm 27, we're also open to connect with you on our website, www.tewonline.org.

It's the place you can hear this program and so much more and sign up for the daily encouraging word email that's www.tewonline.org. And now today's teaching with Dr. Don Wilton. Being a Christian brings into our lives the cross of Christ, the fellowship of his sufferings. David, King David, had everything. He's a very good illustration for us. Even though he lived in a different day and age, he was a very blessed person. He came from royalty and yet he faced great struggles in his life. I want to read to you what he wrote in Psalm 27.

Let's just read it. You follow along with me in Psalm 27. This is David in the midst of the personal attacks that he was facing. The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? When evil men advance against me to devour my flesh, when my enemies and my foes attack me, they will stumble and fall. Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear.

Though war break out against me, even then will I be confident. One thing I ask of the Lord, and this is what I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple. For in the day of trouble, he will keep me safe in his dwelling. He will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle and set me high upon a rock. Then my head will be exalted above the enemies who surround me. At his tabernacle will I sacrifice with shouts of joy.

I will sing and make music to the Lord. Hear my voice when I call, O Lord, be merciful to me and answer me. My heart says of you, seek his face, your face, Lord, I will see. Do not hide your face from me. Do not turn your servant away in anger.

You have been my helper. Do not reject me or forsake me, O God, my Savior. Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me. Teach me your way, O Lord, and lead me in a straight path because of my oppressors. Do not turn me over to the desire of my foes, for false witnesses rise up against me breathing out violence.

I'm still confident of this. I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord, be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. May the Lord write that word upon our hearts. The beautiful thing about knowing Jesus, being a Christian person, is not that you and I are not under attack. The devil is as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.

You and I are target number one, and the devil will throw everything at you. You really think he wants you to be happy and rejoicing in the Lord? Do you really think God wants a unified church? God does.

That's what he intends. So the devil sits there and says, you kidding me? Do you really think the devil wants you to have a happy family life? You really think the devil wants your children to grow up loving the Lord, enjoying life, having the best time in the world, but doing it in a wholesome, God-like fashion? You think the devil loves that?

God does. That's what he desires. The devil says, I'm going to get them.

I'm going to get him. So watch this. What is the Christian response? Let me just give this to you. If we go to Psalm 27, what is it that God says to us?

Here it is. I'm going to give you just five major points, and you might want to write these down, and they will mold into your own life. If you're going to respond to your personal attack in your life, like David, here it is. Number one, establish your foundation. Verse one, the Bible is very clear, the Lord is my light, my salvation, therefore whom shall I fear? Establish your foundation. I invite you today, in light of God's word, reestablish who you are right now, but do that before God.

You know, I'll use that term every now and again. I am a Christian man. I am the same as you, with all that life has to offer, whether it be headaches, tummy aches, all the battles and struggles, the health issues people go through, the relentless hammering, the lack of funding, all of it.

Establish your foundation. Who are you, my friend? Have you given your heart to Jesus? I invite you to give your life to Christ.

If you haven't given your life to Christ, I can guarantee you something. He is the best friend you will ever have. He is the rock, and I'm telling you, He is our hope. You're listening to Dr. Don Wilton, our teacher here on The Encouraging Word. There's more about our rock, our hope, coming up in just a minute as Dr. Wilton completes today's message, but he wants you to know we're here for you. We'd love to pray with you anytime at 866-899-WORD. That's 866-899-9673. Or meet us online at www.tewonline.org.

That's www.tewonline.org. It's a great place to sign up for The Daily Encouraging Word email, a wonderful free email devotional from Dr. Wilton, and so many more great resources, like this fresh book from Dr. Charles Stanley, along with a message from Dr. Wilton. What's going on in your life today? Are you thinking about giving up? Don't give up. We cannot afford to be deterred on the Christian journey.

Too much is at stake. This month, Dr. Wilton has two special resources to send you for your gift of support to The Encouraging Word. You will receive Dr. Wilton's inspiring message, Pressing Forward, along with Courageous Faith by Dr. Charles Stanley. Both of these ministry resources will help fortify your faith to stay the course on the Christian journey. Call us at 866-899-WORD, that's 866-899-9673, and request Pressing Forward and the bonus book Courageous Faith today. Thank you for supporting The Encouraging Word. We cannot fulfill our mission without you.

Now back to today's great teaching with Dr. Don Wilton. Number two, here's a good one. Identify your attackers.

Identify them. This may take a little while, and you may need some help and counsel and prayer and fasting and examination, listen. You know one of the things that's very common about hurting people, it becomes hard to listen to what others say when you yourself are hurting. It's a tough one. Can I give you a clue?

If you just recently have said to your wife or to your husband, I don't need to hear your opinion, you're it. You got a stubborn streak in you. Establish your attackers. So in this passage, David established three groups. Number one, people. He called them evil men.

Verse two, people, individuals. Individuals will attack you. By the way, I've never seen a pew in a church attack anybody.

Now I've seen people fall over them. You know, it's not things that attack us. People do.

That's just reality. And David identifies that evil people, evil men, people, singular. Who is it? Who's making your life miserable right now?

Identify. Number two, enemies. In the second part of verse two, he says, when my enemies attack me, he moves from people to enemies. He moves from one on one to being outnumbered.

By the way, what are enemies? It's just more people. It is.

Aren't I brilliant today? It's just a few more people. It's like gang warfare. Yeah they come. Yeah they come. I remember when I was a boy in Africa and I was out on a pier in the Indian Ocean with some friends of mine after a youth group. There were like three of us and two otherwise personalities approached us with flick knives if some of you remember what flick knives are. And we said, well, we can at least try to stand up against these two even though we were scared to death because they were coming one on one and we outnumbered them by a few. And then all of a sudden around the corner came another 25 of them.

Do you know what I did? I turned, ran and jumped off the edge of the pier on the other end into the Indian Ocean where great white sharks are. I'd rather get eaten by a shark than face enemies, groups of them. So here's the point, folks. What are you facing?

What are you facing? The third group he categorizes armies. Look at verse three, though an army besiege me. In many ways he's talking here about three groups, me and that other person to me and that group of people and then he's talking about me and the entire nation. He's just defining, he's establishing his attackers.

Your mind may be completely different. What is the devil bringing against you? Who is it? Who's in your ear at the moment? Who's bringing you down?

Who's it that keeps telling you that you're so useless and worthless? It has to be someone because you're fighting against someone. You identify your attack. That's what David did.

He just pinpointed, said, Lord, show me what I'm dealing with, who I'm dealing with. Number one, establish your foundation. Number two, identify your attacker. Number three, and I love this. This is my favorite part. Determine your end game.

You got that? Determine your end game. What is it that you are striving for?

You know, one of the things that we are engaged in a lot in our church is premarital counseling. So we have a couple and they're about to be married and they have fallen in love with each other and those of us who are privileged to counsel them and offer them some words of counsel and advice, we talk to them really about, well, what is your end game? Because your end game will define very clearly your strategy to get there.

If you aim at nothing, you're going to accomplish nothing. You've got to get to the point in your life at which you say, Lord, you know what? I'm under attack and I don't want to live like this anymore. I want to be whole. I want to be happy. I want to be fulfilled.

I want to contribute. I want to love my family. I want to stop being like this. I want to stop hurting like this.

I want to stop behaving like this, whatever it is that you're going through in your life. Determine your end game. David had three definitions of his end game which are wonderful. In verse 4, the first of his end game was to hear the words, well done.

I love that. That just ought to be every Christian's end game. Look what he says here in verse 4, the second part. He says, he says, this is one thing that I ask of the Lord that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.

You know what the Bible says about that? The Bible says the day will come that Jesus will look into your face through his beautiful eyes and say to you, well done, good and faithful servant. That's an end game. I want Jesus to say that of me. Lord, what do I need to do in order to accomplish my end game?

Number two, to hold steady. It's the second part of the definition of his end game. Look at verse 5, for in the day of trouble, he will keep me safe in his dwelling. Now we can unpack that in eschatology and end times.

Just listen to me, folks. What David was affirming was this. He was not saying one day, he was saying right now in the midst of my struggle, my end game is to hold steady.

I love that. I know I'm hurting, but man, I'm going to be right there. I know I don't feel like being in worship, but I'm going because I know God's going to speak to me. I'll guarantee you there's at least one person listening to me today. The last thing you wanted to do was to be worshiping right now, right?

Aren't you glad you did? Can you hear what David's saying here? Because you establish your end game, all right? All of those of you that are married, if you're out of fellowship right now with each other, what's your end game? Why don't you establish an end game right now before God? You know that your marriage is under attack. You know it.

Nobody needs to tell you that. What's your end game? To love one another, to forgive one another, to live in joy, to go have the same joy that you had when you first said I do to one another. Establish your end game. Watch what happens. The pieces start falling into place. God's going to speak to you.

That's what he said. My end game is not just to hear the words well done after I die, but to hold steady because I know you're going to place me in a rock. And number three, to worship regardless.

I love the third end game of David. Look at verse six. He says in the latter part of verse six, he says, I will sing and make music to the Lord. If you read that whole passage, he said, listen, regardless of what happens, I'm going to worship. I'm going to worship regardless.

I'm going to worship regardless. That's powerful, man. All right. Establish your foundation. Identify your attackers.

Determine your end game. Number four, now it's time to speak your request. Speak your request.

Now you're ready. That's what David did. Look at verse seven. Verse seven says very clearly, hear my voice. When he spoke his request, here are the four things that he requested. It's all right there. You can request these four things from God right in the midst of the struggle that you're going through. Number one, hear me. You say, but God does hear.

He still wants you to ask him. You know, on Friday, Karen and I went and met our family halfway between here and Atlanta. If you've ever been there, it's called Lake Hartwell. We just found a place on the edge of the lake and took some chairs and sat there and played with the kids. Four of my grandkids were there. Do you know, my grandkids call me Chief, and I love them.

We just have the best time. Do you know they know that I love them, but they still ask me, Chief, watch, listen, hear, pay attention. You know, on Thursday, my oldest son, Rob's, twins, and McCall, my little granddaughter, came to visit us. And I chased them around the house and scared the daylights out of them.

And we just have the best time together, and I just love them with all my heart. Do you know that God knows that you know that he's your Heavenly Father, but he still wants you to ask him to listen up. There's something very beautiful about it, because he's our Heavenly Father. So here it is, hear me, second one, look at me. Now, can you imagine David saying that? That's what he says in verse nine.

It's right there. He says, do not hide your face from me. Now why did David say that? David said that because he knew that God cannot look upon sin.

He was recognizing the righteousness of God. That's when you turn to God and say, Lord, please hear me. And secondly, look at me. You are saying, Lord, listen, I'm under attack. And I want you to know, it's not all on those who are attacking me. I'm a sinner. Please look at me. You know what God does?

He says, okay, and he looks at you, wow. You mean God hears me, looks at me, he has the number three. Teach me. It's right there in the passage, verse 11, teach me your way, show me what I must do. You know, I've tried my best to tell you, well, you need to identify your attacker and how's it going and what's troubling you.

Who's the one who's really going to do that? Anyone like to tell me today? The Lord Jesus will show you. We love to kind of point at each other.

Let me tell you exactly what's wrong with you. Well, there's a certain level which we can certainly help each other, right? But the greatest one to do that is the one who teaches us, and number four, hold me. I love the fourth request here, hold me, hold me.

Look at verse 12, do not turn me over to the desire of my foes. Do not turn me over. By the way, in the Hebrew text, that means please don't let me go. Please don't let me go. Hold me, don't let me go. It's a beautiful picture.

That's in the middle of that attack. Lord, would you just put your arms around me? Would you just hold me? So where does that leave us? Point number five, we're going to study a personal, a Christian's response to a personal attack.

Where does that leave me? Number five, wait your turn. Wait your turn. I totally love verse 13. David said this, he said, I'm still confident that I will see the goodness of the Lord and I'm going to wait for him.

I'm going to be strong and I'm going to wait for him. And by the way, waiting your turn literally means, here's what it means, it means just have a complete full trust in God that God's got me. By the way, God and instant coffee don't go together. You know, you don't drive up to a God machine and say, you know, I'll have a little bit of you right now. He's God.

He's God. You know, we were sitting out there on the edge of Lake Hartwell on Friday and Ducky was sitting in her chair and she was telling a story to everyone and all of a sudden Charlie was standing in front of her and said, Ducky, I need to tell you this and I want to tell you this. And he said, Charlie, I'm talking.

I know, but Ducky, I want you to know and we went and I found this bird under a bed. Excuse me, Charlie, I am talking. You let me finish saying what I'm going to say and then you can talk. I know we all say that to our children, don't we? And for just a brief second, he stood there under discipline, like a volcano about to erupt, like life's not fair, like this is the worst thing that's ever happened to me in my entire life. Like you mean you interrupted me, Ducky? And then she finished and she said, now, Charlie, what is it that you would like to tell us?

And there it came. You know, God looks at us and he says, listen, I really love you, you know. I really love you. I got you.

I got you. Just wait on me, trust me, watch me, see what I can do. Would you bow your heads with me? As many in our worship center are bowing their heads, I pray that you'd open your heart to what not only Dr. Don has said today, but the power of the Holy Spirit speaks through the encouraging Word of God. And if the Lord has stirred your heart, perhaps right now is the time for a response.

Here's Dr. Don with our closing thoughts of the day. Thank you for listening today. It's been such a joy sharing God's Word like this. Isn't it amazing how you can hear God speak through His Word and by His Spirit? Right now, I'm going to ask you, would you give your heart to the Lord Jesus Christ?

Yes, you would. Why don't you pray this prayer with me right now? Dear God, I know that I'm a sinner and I need Jesus. I need to be forgiven of my sin. I confess my sin to you and I receive you into my heart and into my life. In Jesus' name I pray. My friend, if you've prayed that prayer, God not only heard you, but he's answered your prayer.

The Bible says they that call upon the name of the Lord Jesus will be saved. I want to connect with you. You can visit us at www.tewonline.org or you can call us at 866-899-9673. Okay you want me to give that again? You might want to write it down, make note of it. That number 866-899-9673.

Let's connect because we got a lot of growing together to do. Perhaps you just prayed along with Dr. Wilton as he was leading in that prayer to give your life to Christ or to rededicate your life to Jesus. If so, Dr. Wilton has free resources he wants you to have if you'll call us at 866-899-WORD.

That's 866-899-9673. We'd love to give you these resources to pray with you and connect with other resources even on our website at www.tewonline.org and while you're at our website www.tewonline.org sign up for the daily encouraging word email from Dr. Don and discover more about who we are at the encouraging word. We believe the world needs more of this bibbly based teaching like Dr. Wilton delivers every single broadcast and we're doing this with partnerships prayerfully and financially with friends like you. Again, discover more on our website about how you can be a partner with us in sharing the life changing power of Jesus that's www.tewonline.org.