Triumphant in Trouble
By Senior Pastor Prince Guneratnam
Psalm 3
O Lord, how many are
my foes! How many rise up against me!
Many are saying of me,
“God will not deliver him,” Selah
But you are a shield
around me, O Lord; you bestow glory on me and lift up my head.
To the Lord I cry
aloud, and He answers me from His holy hill. Selah
I lie down and sleep;
I wake again, because the Lord sustains me.
I will not fear tens
of thousands drawn up against me on every side.
Arise, O Lord! Deliver
me, O my God! Strike all enemies on the jaws; break
the teeth of the wicked.
From the Lord comes
deliverance. May your blessings be on your people. Selah
We are born into trouble as it is said in Job 5:7. Even
righteous ones have troubles because this world is sinful (Psalms 34:19). How
do you respond when you get into trouble? How do you behave?
The above Psalm is an excellent teaching on how to triumph
when we are in trouble. The psalm is written in a difficult experience David
had with his rebellious son Absalom (2 Samuel 15). What did David do in order
to be victorious even when facing trouble?
As we look at the Psalm (v.1-2), we see that David had many
foes (as many as tens of thousands as stated in v.6) who rose up against him;
many were saying of him, “God will not deliver him.” What hurt him most was what they said
(v.2b). Though the one rebelling against
David was his son, others were trying to tell David that he was no longer
worthy of God’s help and God’s blessings. It is true that wounds made by the
sword heal quickly whereas the wounds inflicted by the tongue fester in the
soul and heal only with the help of God.
How many of you are suffering from wounds that have been
inflicted by the tongue? And every time you try to rise up somehow you remember
what has been said and it puts you down.
David’s problem here was not a foreigner but his own flesh
and blood, his son Absalom trying to usurp authority and over throw his
kingdom. What hurt David most was said by his enemies. Today, Satan is having
much success in the church among God’s people because he is the accuser of our
brothers (
How do we rise up above these situations? We can learn form
David’s experience. There are four facts that David understood and put into
practice in this Psalm (v.3-5).
1. Trust in God
David in those troubled times, suffering from wounds made by
the tongue, trusted in God. He said it was God who was going to be his shield.
He responded in the midst of such hardship with confidence and faith. In fact
his confidence in the Lord was such that he was able to lie down and he could
go to sleep (v.5).
In Mark 4:38, during the storm, Jesus himself was in the
stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher,
don’t you care if we drowned?” He had such confidence in God that the boat
would not sink that he went to sleep. But having been awaken he rebuked his
disciples for their lack of faith and then he calmed the storm.
There is another beautiful illustration in Peter’s life that
we read in Acts 12:6, when Peter was taken and put in jail, after James had
been beheaded. Peter was the next one to be executed, yet bound chains he was
able to sleep between two soldiers, and with sentries standing guard at the
entrance. Peter had confidence in God just like David when he penned the words
for a song “My glory and the lifter of my head” (v3).
2. Communion with God
Prayer is a spiritual thing. David knew how to pray. “Arise, O Lord! Deliver me, O god! For you have struck all my enemies on the jaw; you had broken the teeth of the wicked!” He asked God to smite the “cheek bone” or jaw and break the “teeth” of the enemies (v7). “A slap on the mouth!” because that is where trouble begins. God always deals with the heart or root of the problem, while men deal with the symptoms.
3. Fellowship with godly
people of the same faith
As we look at the background in 2 Samuel 15, David knew how
to surround with himself men who feared God. In time of troubles, not only do
you need to trust God and pray but say also need to fellowship with those who
are of the same faith. Through them you are going to receive strength, which is
why it is important for us to come to church. That is also why we need to
attend life group meetings for through these we will be encouraged. We may know
people in church but do you fellowship with them?
4. Finally, get a
good night and rest
It is necessary for us to rest physically because we are
human. David knew how to sleep well. God
gives sleep to his beloved. David knew how to say “God, I trust you, I have
prayed, I have surrounded myself with men of the same faith, I have done all
this and Lord, there is nothing else humanly possible to do, I will now rest,
so that when the time comes for me to enter into my victory, I am strong and
healthy!”
Just like Elijah, the prophet of God in 1 King 19. He had
tremendous pressure put upon him by challenging the worshippers of Baal. After
the great victory at
The story ends after David had truly rested in God, with
God’s deliverance from his rebellious son Absalom 2 Samuel 15). After Absalom
was destroyed, David returned to the throne. You can triumph over your trouble
because you have a God who is able to deliver you. “Now to Him who is able to
do exceeding abundantly beyond all we ask or think, according to the power that
works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all
generations forever and ever. Amen” (Ephesians
(All the above quotes
are from New International Version.)
CALVARYNEWS
Issue 39, May – June 1996