My Enemies Trample on Me
Psalms 56:1-4 ESV
“Be gracious to me, O God, for man tramples on me;
all day long an attacker oppresses me;
my enemies trample on me all day long,
for many attack me proudly.
When I am afraid,
I put my trust in you.
In God, whose word I praise,
in God I trust; I shall not be afraid.
What can flesh do to me?”
As followers of Jesus Christ, we are going to have enemies
who are also Jesus’ enemies. They are enemies of the cross of Christ, and many
of them call themselves Christians, too. For, they refuse to walk in the fear
of the Lord, in submission to Christ as Lord. But behind them is our true
enemy, Satan, who is truly the one with whom we are at war.
Thus, our battle is a spiritual battle which must be fought
with spiritual weapons of warfare called the armor of God – the belt of truth,
the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith,
the Sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, feet fitted and ready with
the gospel of peace, and prayer (Eph 6:10-20).
Because Satan hates God, he hates Jesus Christ, God the Son,
and thus his goal is to destroy Jesus and his gospel and his followers. Thus,
Satan uses other humans to mete out his punishment on the saints of God for the
purpose to either intimidate us into submission to him or to strike fear in us
so that we will not obey the Lord.
But he is not limited to using other humans. He can strike
us in our emotions by putting thoughts in our minds to try to confuse us or to
make us afraid. He can even be very oppressive with these thoughts so that,
even if we are praying, we can feel as though we are under enemy attack. We may
even feel our hearts racing, but we must not yield!
They Injure My Cause
Psalms 56:5-7 ESV
“All day long they injure my cause;
all their thoughts are against me for evil.
They stir up strife, they lurk;
they watch my steps,
as they have waited for my life.
For their crime will they escape?
In wrath cast down the peoples, O God!”
The goal of Satan is to injure (to destroy) God’s cause,
which is our salvation from sin, and which then should become our cause, too,
when we die with Christ to sin and we are resurrected with Christ to newness of
life in him, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
Thus, Satan devised a plan for the destruction of the gospel
via using ministers of the gospel of Christ to dilute the gospel message to
make it more appealing and acceptable to the flesh of humans and to the people
of the world, including to worldly Christians.
So, they totally ignore Jesus’ primary teachings on what it
means to be a follower of Jesus Christ and to have eternal life with God, and
they ignore all of Paul’s teachings which contradict the gospel message they
want to convey, and they cherry pick the Scriptures they like.
So, they pull Scriptures out of their context and they twist
them to say what they are not saying, and they teach a half-truth (lie) gospel
free from any requirements of God for repentance (turning from sin), walks of
obedience to Christ, and submission to him as Lord of their lives.
My Tears in Your Bottle
Psalms 56:8-11 ESV
“You have kept count of my tossings;
put my tears in your bottle.
Are they not in your book?
Then my enemies will turn back
in the day when I call.
This I know, that God is for me.
In God, whose word I praise,
in the Lord, whose word I praise,
in God I trust; I shall not be afraid.
What can man do to me?”
If we are true followers of Jesus Christ, it should pain us
that the gospel is being destroyed, and that a false gospel has taken its place
in the hearts of many people who call themselves Christians. We should weep
over the fact that many are dying and headed to hell on the promise of heaven.
The things which concern God should concern us. The things
Jesus wept over we should weep over. And if we are concerned about what
concerns him it should show in what we do and in the words that we speak. And
that should, in turn, get us rejected and hated by Jesus’ enemies.
And, again, Jesus’ enemies can include many who call
themselves Christians if they are working against him and his work instead of
with him and for him in his work. If they have joined in with the cheap grace
gospel and are living no different than the world, they are his enemies.
But the Lord knows what we are going through. He knows our
battles and the tears we cry due to being mistreated for righteousness’ sake.
Although Satan will always be at war against us, when we cry out to the Lord,
and we resist the devil, he will flee from us, but he will try again. But we
don’t need to fear his attacks, for our trust is in our Lord Jesus Christ.
My Vows to God
Psalms 56:12-13 ESV
“I must perform my vows to you, O God;
I will render thank offerings to you.
For you have delivered my soul from death,
yes, my feet from falling,
that I may walk before God
in the light of life.”
When we turn our hearts over to Jesus Christ, by faith in
him, and we turn from our sins to follow Jesus Christ in obedience to his ways,
and so we die with Christ to sin, and we are reborn of the Spirit of God, and
the Holy Spirit comes to live within us, we have just been betrothed to Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ is now our husband, and we are his bride. And
right now, he is preparing a place for us, and one day he will come back for us
to take us to be with him forever, and then our salvation will be complete, and
our marriage to Jesus will be consummated (like in the Jewish marriage).
Faith in Jesus Christ is a commitment (like a vow). It is a
promise to leave our lives of sin behind us to follow Jesus Christ as our Lord
and to walk in his ways and in his truth and to do what he commands us to do. For,
it is a surrender of our lives to him, making him our Lord (master).
So, we are obligated to live according no longer to our
flesh, in practice, but to now follow our Lord in obedience to his will for our
lives. For, if we walk (in conduct) according to the Spirit, we will have
eternal life. But if we walk (in practice) according to the flesh, we will die
in our sins, not have life. So, please take this to heart. Your eternity
depends on it.
The Great Redeemer
Lyrics by Francis Foster, 1915
Music by Samuel W. Beazley, 1915
How I love the great Redeemer
Who is doing so much for me;
With what joy I tell the story
Of the love that makes men free.
Till my earthly life is ended,
I will send songs above,
Then beside the crystal sea
More and more my soul shall be
Praising Jesus and His love.
He has purchased my redemption,
Rolled my burden of sin away,
And is walking on beside me,
Growing dearer day by day.
That is why I sing His praises,
That is why joy is mine,
That is why forevermore
On the everlasting shore
I shall sing of love divine.
Glory be to Him forever!
Endless praises to Christ the Lamb!
He has filled my life with sunshine,
He has made me what I am.
Oh, that everyone would know Him,
Oh, that all would adore!
Oh, that all would trust the love
Of the mighty Friend above
And be His forevermore.
He is everything to me, to me,
He is everything to me,
And everything shall always be;
I will never cease to raise
A song of gladness in His praise;
Here, and in the world above,
My soul shall sing of saving love;
Life and light and joy is He,
The precious Friend who died for me.
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