A Study of Psalm 3 (3)

Dearly Beloved. I trust this finds you well and bubbling in the Lord. We continue our study of Psalm 3. We noted yesterday that in trouble, people might be looking to see and may say God will not help us or cannot rescue us. The important thing is for us to have our assurance in God and not be moved. Psalm 3v2 (AMPC) says “Many are saying of me, There is no help for him in God. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!” God never tires of us coming to Him. In fact, it is when we do not come to Him that is an issue. We draw on three scenarios in scripture where onlookers looked at children of God and probably thought, God would not rescue you from this, and what the responses of the children of God were. The first is that of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They were Hebrews in Babylon, facing a decree that had gone out for everyone to bow before the golden image of the king. They refused to bow. They told the king – “… O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God whom we serve is able to save us. He will rescue us from your power, Your Majesty. But even if He does not, we want to make it clear to You, Your Majesty, that we will never serve your gods or worship the gold statue You have set up” (Daniel 3v16-18, NLT). The furious king had them thrown into a fiery furnace made 7 times hotter than normal. Even the soldiers who threw them in died. However, amid the fire, God showed up, so much so that onlookers saw a fourth person in the fiery furnace. They were saved and God was magnified. Similarly, out of being envious of Daniel, his fellow presidents and administrators made the king utter a decree that no one should pray to anyone – divine or human – apart from the king for 30 days. As his tradition was, Daniel continued to pray to the Most High God three times a day, and was thrown into the lions’ den. God shut the mouth of the lions and his colleagues were the ones eaten by the lions (see Daniel 6). Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego and Daniel all stayed with God, regardless of the situation they found themselves or what others were saying.

 

Now consider Asa. Asa, King of Judah, had put his trust in God in the past. When he became king, “Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God” (2 Chronicles 14v2) and commanded Judah to save him. He cried out to God when he was faced with a numerous and uncountable army from Ethiopia, and God helped him, and gave him rest. In his 36^th year as king, Baasha, the King of Israel came out against him. Asa then reached out to the king of Syria for help. He did not go to God as he always had. 2 Chronicles 16v7-9 (TLB) says “About that time the prophet Hanani came to King Asa and told him, “Because you have put your trust in the king of Syria instead of in the Lord your God, the army of the king of Syria has escaped from you. Don’t you remember what happened to the Ethiopians and Libyans and their vast army, with all of their chariots and cavalrymen? But you relied then on the Lord, and he delivered them all into your hand. For the eyes of the Lord search back and forth across the whole earth, looking for people whose hearts are perfect toward him, so that he can show his great power in helping them. What a fool you have been! From now on you shall have wars.” God never tires of us coming to Him. He is our Father, and we must continue putting our trust in Him.

 

Prayer

Father, we thank You for You are our Help, our Strength, our Defender. You are the Lord of Hosts who can never fail. Lord, in anyway we have trusted in anything or anyone apart from You, have mercy on us and forgive us. We come to You and declare that only You are our salvation. Be glorified in all we do and all we are in Jesus name, amen.