1953. A Sure Refuge In Fearsome Times

Welcome to The Daily Platform. Our program features sermons from Chapel Services at Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. Every day, students are blessed by the preaching and teaching of the Bible from the University Chapel Platform. Let's now listen to a sermon preached by Dr. Dan Olinger of the Bob Jones University Seminary.

I have a question for you this morning. What do you do when you're really, really scared? Have you ever been really scared? There are plenty of examples in the Scripture of people who were really scared. Everybody gets scared. It's not a sign of some kind of cowardice or pathology if you get scared. The key is what you do when you get scared. So I ask you today, what do you do when you get scared? I'd like you to turn, if you would, to Psalm 11.

I do have the text on the screen. I will as I read it. So if you don't have a Bible or a Bible on your device, you should be covered. Psalm 11. In the Lord put I my trust.

How say ye to my soul? Flee as a bird to your mountain, for lo, the wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart. If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? The Lord is in his holy temple. The Lord's throne is in heaven. His eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men. The Lord trieth the righteous, but the wicked and him that loveth violence, his soul hateth. Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest. This shall be the portion of their cup, for the righteous Lord loveth righteousness. His countenance doth behold the upright.

This is a Psalm of David. That's what the superscription says. And there's a bit of debate among the scholars about whether the superscriptions should be trusted or not, and particularly whether they're inspired or not. And that debate has been revived in the last few months, and I'm going to wait and see what they decide.

I'm studying other things at the moment. But I see no reason to think that David didn't write this Psalm. That has been the tradition for many centuries. There are a lot of times in his life that this Psalm could apply to, aren't there? We know that for a number of years, the king of Israel was trying to kill him and was chasing him, and he was running in the wilderness. At one point he goes to the Philistines and asks for protection, and that's after he's killed Goliath. This is a man who knew desperate peril from somebody who could carry out his plans, or everybody thought could.

We know that after he became king, his son Absalom rebelled against him in sight of the civil war, and David actually had to flee from Jerusalem and cross the Jordan into what is today Jordan for a period of time. He begins the Psalm with his thesis statement. In the Lord, the King James says, put I my trust.

The modern versions render it typically as a perfect, I have put my trust. This is something that has already happened and is continuing to influence my life. The Holman Bible says, I have taken refuge in the Lord.

That's his thesis statement. And so when he gets advice from people with more sense of the peril of the situation, he says, how can you say to me, to my soul, me, how can you say to me, flee as a bird to your mountain? How can you say, go look for another refuge? The Lord is my refuge.

How can you say, go look for another one? In the Hebrew, the name, the personal name of God, Yahweh, the Lord is fronted. That means it's emphasized. It's like it's underlined and bold faced. The Lord is my refuge. How can all of you plural say, I'm not talking about you, but the people David's writing to.

How can you plural say this thing? A bird. Most birds don't stay and fight, especially if their enemy is ground bound. You know, they just fly up and you can't catch them anymore.

They don't stand their ground and fight. And a mountain is a place of refuge. David, when he was running from Saul, at one point, they're on opposite sides of a valley. And Saul and his army is right there, and David and his few men, his band of ruffians is over here, and they can see each other and hear each other. And David says, the king of Israel has come out to seek a single flee, like one who hunts a partridge in the mountains.

Maybe this is when David writes this song. We know in another place that he went up and lived in what the Bible calls the strongholds of En Gedi. En Gedi is an oasis, a spring. It's right on the shore, practically, of the Dead Sea. And there are some mountains there, and there's a beautiful waterfall, and it's just a glorious place in contrast to the surrounding desert. And right near there, this says the strongholds of En Gedi, right near there is Masada. And Masada is a mesa, a flat-topped mountain there in the wilderness. And if you can get to the top, you're in a pretty good position defensively. It's not likely that anybody else can get up there while you're shooting at him. And David had been in a refuge like that.

But he's not thinking about Masada here. He says, the Lord is my refuge. Why are you telling me to run? They continue, verse 2, there's danger. The wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string that they may secretly shoot at the upright. Behold!

Lo! That's an exclamation point. That means they were scared.

They were maybe panicked. They say, they step on the bow, literally. I don't know how much you know about archery, but when you string a bow, you step on it.

You can get a good leverage on the bend. And then you string it, and then you notch the arrow. And that's like cocking a gun. That's saying to everybody around you, okay, I mean business.

I mean business. They load the arrow. I should be keeping up with myself, shouldn't I? And they are ready to shoot. Okay, the best advice, when you see somebody taking that posture, the best advice is to run. That's what you do.

Okay? And so they're giving him sensible advice. That they may privily, secretly shoot at the upright in heart. Some translations say, in the dark. So this is an ambush. They're waiting off the side of the road, in the bushes. And they're waiting. They're going to jump. And they're going to get you. And you're going to be surprised and not ready to fight back. And so they say, run! And then they say, it's hopeless. If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? This is a sign of panic. I read it energetically on purpose. If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?

I have a little line I use with my students fairly often. Freak out thou not. Now, these are not words of faith. These are not the words of one who is trusting in God. Yes, they're in the Bible. And I have seen verse three quoted as if it were good advice. I once spoke at a Christian school conference, far from here and long ago.

You'll never figure out where it was. Where verse three was the theme verse for the conference. If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? Now, I understand that we have a stewardship of our young people and that we ought to see to it that they are well taught. And we ought to protect them as best we can from those intent on their harm and destruction.

I have kids and even if I didn't, I think I would understand that you take care of the kids. But I just didn't have the heart to tell the sponsors of the conference that their theme verse was the words of the ungodly. It's a call to panic. And David says, remember verse one, how can you say this to me? Yes, we're learning this semester from the book of Nehemiah that you need to build a wall.

You need to get the job done. There are threats and you need to steward your preparation for those threats. But Nehemiah didn't panic and he didn't encourage anybody else to panic. And here David doesn't panic. Notice David does not deny the truth of what they're saying. He never says, there are no bows, there are no arrows, there are no enemies.

Come on, you're just imagining things. You're paranoid. He doesn't say that.

Why? As I've noted, he has reason to know that there are enemies and he's faced those enemies down before. And there have been times when he was within a breath or two of death. He doesn't underestimate the danger. He's not Pollyanna.

If I can believe, I can achieve. He's not thinking that way. But his response is not what his advisors expect. He says, the Lord is in his holy temple. Now, in your Bible doctrines class, for those of you who've had it already, when you studied the attributes of God in the first semester, you learned what holiness is and you learned that it's not primarily about being good. There are other words for being good. Holiness is the idea of being distinct, of being outstanding, of being the only person in your class, Pele in soccer, Michael Jordan in basketball. I had to think for a minute. I don't know much about basketball, as you can imagine.

You know, the only one in your class, nobody else comes close. The Lord's temple is like no other temple. You know, those other gods we have, the other sources we look to for strength, they don't compare to the Lord's temple. In the Lord's temple, the Lord is there and you're safe. The Lord, again, in emphatic position here in the Hebrew, is in his holy temple. He is the one who by his presence makes the temple holy.

He is the reason it's like no other. This is our protector. This is our God.

And David says, I'm going to run to him every time. David says, the Lord's throne is in heaven. The Lord's throne is in heaven. That's the high ground. Now, in military strategy, in strategic thinking in the military, you want the high ground. We saw a moment ago, Masada, that's high ground. It's easier to shoot down on people than to shoot up at people.

You can see farther, you can get a better view of strategically where the enemy is, where he's massing, how big he is, and you can then devise tactics. Now, I hasten to add that God does not need the high ground. He doesn't need any strategic or tactical advantages. Nobody else belongs on the battlefield with him. And whatever happens, he can take it from the lowest ground imaginable. He is omnipotent.

But David still uses this image. He says, the Lord has the high ground. The Lord's throne is in heaven. His eyes behold. His, excuse me, I lost my place.

Here we go. His eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men. What does he mean by that? He's watching.

He's paying attention. He hasn't forgotten you. Sometimes we feel like he has. And I'm not saying you're an evil person for feeling that way.

Sometimes we just do. But he hasn't. He hasn't. The Lord told King Jehoshaphat, the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. His eyelids try the children of men. Scholars think that what he's talking about here is squinting his eyelids.

You know, you squint when you want to look at something more closely. He's examining the situation. He's discerning. He knows what's going on. One commentator says, God's stillness is not inertia.

It's concentration. His eyelids try the children of men. God is examining everybody. He sees what is happening.

And he knows what is happening. And down in verse 7, he makes it clear that he is emotionally involved in the situation. The Lord loves righteousness. In verse 5, he hates those who love violence. God is emotionally invested in your state. I appreciated Dr. Scott's emphasis yesterday in chapel on the usefulness of the hard times, how God is doing things in us, the way a coach brings an athlete to excellence by putting him through hardship. Dr. Scott and I didn't plan our messages to go consecutive days.

We didn't coordinate at all. But the Lord does that. He does that repeatedly.

And his hand is in these things. And he responds, upon the wicked, he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest. Fire and brimstone. That's the end of Gog in Ezekiel chapter 38. It's the end of the beast in Revelation chapter 14. It's the end of the wicked at the great white throne judgment in Revelation 20. The doom of the evil is sure.

The things you are afraid of will not survive. He says in verse 6, fire and brimstone and an horrible tempest. A burning wind in the Hebrew. There is a wind that blows off the Sahara desert. By the way, the word Sahara is Arabic for desert. So that is the desert desert. That's what we've named it. Off of the desert desert, the wind blows northward in the certain seasons. And this hot, dusty, sandy wind just covers the Mediterranean and rains down on Egypt, on Europe.

And it's a serious distraction, to say the least. It's called the Seraco, by the way. In Psalm 7, David has written in another place, saying David, he has written, If a man does not repent, God will sharpen his sword. He has bent and readied his bow. Your God is just as prepared as the bad guys. And He's stronger than they are. And He knows everything about them. He's got the jump on them, so to speak. He has all the tactical advantages. This is not a close fight.

I'm not ready for that slide yet. Verse 7 says, The Lord loveth righteousness. His countenance doth behold the upright. Some versions read the upright shall see his face. It's a little unclear which direction the looking is going in that verse.

But the idea is the same. You and God are looking one another in the face, and you know one another. Interestingly, God once said, centuries earlier, no one can see the face of God and live. He made an exception, a kind of an exception, with Moses, who could see God's back and live. But we are told we will see His face. We see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, Paul tells us.

We can see Him now in the Word, and we will see Him perfectly and clearly then. So why run? Why run?

Why freak out? In Psalm 27, David writes, One thing have I asked of the Lord, that shall I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple. One thing he wants. May we be like that. I would like to close today by reading the first five verses of Psalm 46. Psalm 46, and then I'll close in prayer with a benediction. Psalm 46, one. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will we not fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with its swelling.

There is a river, the streams of which shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High. God is in her midst. She shall not be moved. God shall help her, and that right early. I leave you with this benediction from the mouth of Aaron the priest.

Let's pray. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen. Today's sermon was preached by Dr. Dan Olinger of the Bob Jones University Seminary.

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