God is Mine Helper

And just three quick things I want to share with you, just a way to meditate upon what it means that God is our helper. The first thing I want you to see is this, that when the Lord says this word helper means that we do not stand alone. We do not stand alone. Now in this life, as we’ve seen in our church, as you know in your own personal life, different things you must face.

You know, we have ladies that are in our church that in a few months are going to be going through childbirth. And you know, knowing from personal experience that is not any fun. Okay, nobody got the joke at all. Having observed personally, childbirth is no fun. But here’s the thing to remember, that the Lord is your helper in that. You know, when you’re going through sickness, if there’s sickness or you have surgery or you have financial trouble or you have relationship trouble, whatever the case is, whatever the case is, no believer ever deals with those things alone.

That’s what you have to remember is the Lord does not allow us to stand alone. He says, he maybe doesn’t say it directly in these terms, but it’s definitely implied in this. He says, I am your help. I am your help. Now we must recognize our need for help and we must call upon God. And that’s one of our, that’s one of the hindrances that we have. Oftentimes our tendency is instead of calling upon God and recognizing God as our help, we call upon some other source of help. But the Lord reminds us, you know, this verse, Psalm 60 verse 11, also repeated in Psalm 108 verse 12 says this, give us help from trouble for vain is the help of man. Vain is the help of man. You see when you need help, when you’re in trouble, when you’re suffering, when you’re down, when things are hard and you don’t know what to do and you’re at your wits end or whatever the trouble, whatever the trial, no matter the scale, no matter the severity or seriousness, no matter the complexity, none of that matters. God is your helper. And so we must instinctively and intuitively turn to him for our help because he tells us, he says, I’m your helper. You do not stand alone. Listen to this. This is not just me saying this. This is what the scripture bears out as well. Isaiah 41 verse 10 says this, fear thou not for I am with thee. Be not dismayed for I am thy God. I will strengthen thee. Yea, I will help thee. I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. Notice what he says. I will help thee. But in the same verse he says, I am with thee. You know, that is, did you know that the presence of God with a saint of God is one of the marks of God’s identification of that saint? You do know that? That’s how God separates us from everyone else on earth. That’s how he did with Israel is because in the congregation of Israel was the tabernacle and the manifestation of the glory of God among them. And now we are the temple of God and God dwells in us. So there’s never a time that God is not with you. And because he is with you, he says, I will strengthen thee. I will help thee. I will uphold thee. Now think about that word uphold and look at verse number four. It says this, the Lord is with them that uphold my soul. I’m going to come back to that. But notice he mentions upholding someone in Isaiah 40 verse 41 verse 10. Now in Hebrews chapter 13 verse 6 says this, so that we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper. Now what is the result of that? What is the result of that fact that the Lord is my helper? It goes on to say this, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me. So the presence of God means God is our helper. The fact that God is our helper means we have no need to fear, no need to fear. And then in Psalm 118 verse 6 says this, the Lord is on my side. I will not fear. What can man do unto me? The Lord taketh my part with them that help me. Therefore shall I see my desire upon them that hate me. So to the saint, God says, God is on your side. Now you got to remember, God doesn’t side with everybody. God doesn’t side with people just because they have nice thoughts of God. God doesn’t side with people because they’re wealthy or important or because they have some sort of position or they’re some sort of official of some kind. God doesn’t side with people for those reasons. God is no respecter of persons. God sides with us because we fear him, because we trust him. And when the Lord, you know, you talk about the faithfulness of a friend, when you have a friend who is faithful, they are by your side. They will not leave you. They will be loyal to you to the end. That is what the Lord says of us. He said, the Lord is on my side.

So for that reason, we can say whenever, because God is our helper, no matter what comes to pass in our life, we do not ever stand alone, ever. God is a very present help in trouble. The second thing I want you to see about the Lord being the helper is this. The word helper, the fact that God is our helper means that we must recognize our weakness. Weakness is when you need help.

Weakness is when you need help. A person who is deluded into thinking that they do not need help is a person who does not recognize God as their helper. And so what the Lord often does with his people is he brings us into situations that force us to recognize that we need him. That we need him. And when we recognize that we need him and we acknowledge him as our help and we call out to him and we call out to him and trust him as our help, he demonstrates by that process, by those means, that he is our helper. In other words, he uses those difficult opportunities to provide a circumstance whereby he can come through for us and prove that he is our helper.

Because if it wasn’t for those times, we would never know. We know that God is our helper because he helps and he helps when we’re in need. You think of the writer of this Psalms, David, the Psalm of David in Psalm 54. David, think about David. David is the one that often talks about, I’ll read several passages in the Psalms in just a minute, but David is one who often talks about God as his helper. But David was not a man who naturally needed help. David was not that weak.

I think sometimes we get these, I don’t know if romantic is the right word, maybe romantic views of figures in the Bible. We get caricatured, cartoonish even, you know, like Noah’s Ark. You know, you have the little boat and the giraffe’s head sticking out and you know, you have a sheep and you have an elephant, you know, and that’s, it’s a caricature and you have, you lose sight of what it really is. And I think that’s the way we do with biblical figures. We think of Joshua’s and David’s and Moses and people like that. And we think we get a wrong impression about them.

David was no wimpy dude. David was not a sissy man. David was a man who knew what it was to have the blood of his enemy sprayed across his face. David was a man who knew what it meant to to wield a sword in battle and hear the blood curdling battle cries. He is the one who, the Bible says, David, that Saul slain his thousands and David his ten thousands.

David was, as a teenager, was the man who took on a lion and a bear and killed them without a sword or a spear with a staff in his hand. This was, David was a brave and a courageous man from a human perspective. He’s called in 1st Samuel 16 verse 18, he’s called a mighty man of valor, and that was before Goliath. That’s before he was even a full-grown man. He was called a mighty man of valor. So David was no wimp, but yet you see David say repeatedly in the Psalms, Lord, you’re my helper. I need help. He cries out to God and recognizes his weakness.

And this is one problem that sometimes men fall into, maybe more than ladies. I can’t, it’s not as easy for me to speak about ladies in this case, but I know men out of pride, out of arrogance, sometimes won’t ask for help, not from God, not from man. And that’s not right. God wants us to acknowledge that we need him because we do. We do. Listen to these Psalms, Psalm 33 20. David says, our soul waiteth for the Lord. He is our help and our shield. Psalm 40 verse 17, but I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me. Thou art my help and my deliverer. Make no tarrying, oh my God.

Psalm 94 verse 17, unless the Lord had been my help, my soul had almost dwelt in silence. Psalm 115 verse 9, this is what it says, oh Israel, trust thou in the Lord. He is their help and their shield. Oh house of Aaron, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield. Ye that fear the Lord, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield. So being a manly man, being a masculine man, being a strong man is not exclusive of recognizing that you need God and you are weak and you need him to be your helper. Those can go together in the same person because even if, you know, like we read a minute ago, vain is the help of man. What if that man is myself?

It’s still vain. It’s still vain. We need the Lord to be our helper. So that’s the second one. The word helper reminds us that we must recognize our weakness. We need his help. The third thing I want you to see is this. God sometimes uses men, people, humans, as his means to help us. God sometimes uses men, mankind, other people, as his means to help us. We don’t have to go very far into this psalm to see this. Notice verse 4. Now let me pause here.

Those of you that are in the school of scripture, as we’ve been going through our study of observation, one of the things we pointed out, we talked about with observation, is to observe comparisons and contrasts. Here’s an example. Verse number 4. Behold, God is mine helper. The Lord is with them that uphold my soul. Who are those that uphold David’s soul? You know who they are? They’re people who help David. They’re people who help David. Go on. He shall reward evil unto mine enemies.

Cut them off in thy truth. He mentions, actually mentions enemies three times. He mentions enemies in verse 3. For strangers are risen up against me, and oppressors seek after my soul. They have not set God before them. So you have the enemies in verse 3. You have his enemies in verse number 5. Verse 7 also says, for he had delivered me out of trouble, and mine eye has seen his desire upon mine enemies. So you have a contrast here. In this psalm, you have David’s enemies, this group of those who do not help David. And then you have his friends, those that uphold his soul. And they’re set opposite. They’re contrasted together in the psalm. Now remember the context. If you would, take a moment and read the subtitle once again. It says this, to the chief musician upon Neganoth, Moskill the psalm of David, when the Ziphim’s came and said to Saul, doth not David hide himself with us? What are the the Ziphim’s doing here? What are they doing? They’re betraying David.

They’re ratting him out. Now this Ziph, the place Ziph is down. If you look at a map, the Dead Sea is right here. Jerusalem’s right about here. And if you go to southeast from Jerusalem, you go actually south from Jerusalem toward Hebron, the city of Hebron. And you go southeast from Hebron, about five miles, you get to a hill. They call it a tell, where the city of Ziph was. And that’s where David was hiding out. There were some trees. He was in a fort. That’s where David was hiding out.

And they knew that. And they knew Saul was looking for him. And so the the people that lived in Ziph ratted him out. They were not his enemies. Or they were not his friends. They were his enemies.

That’s the context here. That’s the contrast David is drawing here. That’s who he has in mind. David is being hunted by Saul. And you remember that you remember the history here is that God in 1st Samuel 15, God has rejected Saul to be king. Now Saul is still the king because the time has not come yet for Saul to be actually be removed. But God has already rejected him. To God is a done deal.

In the next chapter, 1st Samuel 16, is when God sends Samuel to anoint David to be the king. David is then anointed to be the king, but he doesn’t become the king for some time. And of course that lead, God doing that with David, anointing him while Saul is still the king, was the direct cause for why Saul became jealous of David and started hunting him and was looking for a reason to kill him. So when God sent Samuel to anoint David to be the king, God was revealing his will to Samuel. He was saying, this is my chosen king, Saul is no more. Now they were in this, Israel was in this limbo because they have a king that God has rejected and he’s still the king.

And they have a new king that God has chosen and that’s been made known now. Everybody knows it. But he’s not the king yet. And so what it does is it causes a natural division. And so what it does is it causes a natural division.

Right? It causes a natural division. Those who sided with Saul became David’s enemies. And those that sided with David became David’s friends. And all of that is in the context of God’s will because God has already revealed his will. So you have to keep that in mind. There were people that held, despite what God’s revealing his will with, with, with about Saul and about anointing David, despite that, there were people that held loyal to Saul in spite of God’s directive. Maybe they had personal interest, maybe they had a desire for position, maybe they had personal reasons, maybe they were of the tribe of Benjamin like Saul was. Maybe they had loyalties in that way. We don’t know, but they held loyal to Saul. But by holding loyal to Saul, these men set themselves against the will of God. Now that’s important. They supported something that God had rejected. They supported something that God had rejected. There’s several names, if you just want to write down the names. We won’t go to all the passages. It would take far too long, but these names that appear in the narrative of 1 Samuel and 1 and 2 Samuel, these figures that are against David, the first one we’ve already studied in Psalm 52, or yes, Psalm 52, Doeg the Edomite.

Remember when David visited Ahimelech, the priest, and Doeg the Edomite was there? What did Doeg do? He ratted David out, and he ratted Ahimelech out as well. Even though he knew very well David had been anointed to be the king. Then you come later to chapter 25 of 1 Samuel, you have Nabal. What’s interesting is, actually I’m going to read that. If you want to go to 1 Samuel chapter 25, this is an interesting verse here. 1 Samuel 25. This is what Nabal said when David approached him.

I don’t know if it’s Nabal or Nabal or however you pronounce it, but Nabal? Maybe it’s Nabal. Verse 10 says this, and Nabal answered David’s servants and said, Who is David? And who is the son of Jesse? There be many servants nowadays that break away every man from his master. Shall I then take my bread and my water and my flesh that I have killed for my shearers and give it unto men whom I know not whence they be? Would you say Nabal was an enemy or a friend of David? Definitely an enemy. Why? You notice he mentions Saul, David breaking away from Saul. There’s obviously a loyalty to Saul going on here, but by doing that, he is setting himself against God’s will. It doesn’t end well for Nabal. It doesn’t end well for Doeg. Then you have the Zephyites, which are the ones who turned over David and Zeph.

That’s, we already looked at them. And then you have in 2 Samuel 2, you have a man in the line of Saul, one of the sons of Saul, of a concubine named Ishbecheth. And Ishbecheth wanted to take the place of Saul when Saul died. You remember, it didn’t end up well for him. Again, rebellion against God’s will. That’s what this is. But that’s not all.

Because there were also, go back to the Psalm, Psalm 54, there are also friends of David. In contrast to this group of enemies that you see in the life of David, enemies who stay loyal to Saul, thereby rejecting God’s will, you have some who still in the reign of Saul, while Saul is still the king, recognize God’s will. And as a result, have an affinity for David. They are David’s helpers. In fact, he mentions them. He says in verse 4, the Lord is with them that uphold my soul.

David had some people helping him. You see that? David had some people helping him. So when he says, God is my helper, you have to remember that sometimes God uses people to help.

Sometimes, listen, sometimes God will use you to be that help. Sometimes God will use another to be the help that you need, and God will send his help by means of one of his people. What do you see in the life? Well, let’s look at a few examples. I gave you four examples of enemies in the life of David that set themselves against God’s will. But there were friends, people like Jonathan. In 1 Samuel 18, Jonathan said, Thou shalt be king over Israel. His father is the king. He is next in line, yet he recognizes God’s will and decision in the matter, and submits and yields to it, and has a close, loving relationship with David. You see how he put God’s priority before his own interest?

What an awesome picture. You know, Jonathan had a sad end to his life because of his association with Saul, but Jonathan himself was an upstanding, upright, faithful, and loyal man first to God and also to David. Jonathan was a help to David, right? Then you have Israel and Judah. I’ll just pass this by. 1 Samuel 18, 16, how they had affinity for each other. They had a relationship with David. Ahimelech, the priest who was killed, we already covered him in 1 Samuel 21. Then you have the wife of Nabal. Her name was Abigail. Father’s joy means.

Nabal dies, or you remember, Abigail, when Nabal was acting churlish and setting himself against David and against God’s will, Abigail went out and tried to give a peace offering to David so David wouldn’t level the whole house, and it worked. Of course, she later, once Nabal died, she became David’s wife, but here’s the thing. She, in fact, if you’re already in 1 Samuel, if you’ll look at 1 Samuel 25 again, I want to show you this verse here. 1 Samuel 25, verse 30, listen to this, this truth. Now Nabal said, hey, there’s many guys that are running away from their masters. What are you doing, David? By doing so, he completely disregarded what God had said about David being the next king. Abigail does the exact opposite. Verse 30, and it shall come to pass when the Lord shall have done to my Lord according to all the good that he had spoken concerning thee and shall have appointed thee ruler over Israel. Abigail, despite her husband, recognizes what God has, the decision God has made about the king. She is yielded to the will of God.

You know, we could just take a little sidebar here and you could see the difference. You have a son of Belial, right, a man who’s just a devil, Nabal, who is a wicked man married to a godly lady.

Can that exist? Oh yes. That’s an example. In fact, both of them, they’re a pair. One of them is a friend of David. One of them is an enemy of David, illustrating in the Bible, in the Bible, illustrating in one family this characteristic. And then the last one is Amosai. First Chronicles 12 verse 18, Amosai came to David and even though he was, I think, part of the house of Saul, he came and bowed to David and recognized God’s will for David.

So when the Bible says God is my helper, when David says God is my helper, it’s not that God helps without any human intervention at all. No. He often uses people who are in the will of God, who recognizes, who recognize God’s will to be the help that you need. You might be the one who needs help and you sometimes might be the one who needs to be the help. And so, you know, but to do that you have to be in the will of God, just like they were. You’ve got to be doing what God wants you to do. You’ve got to be following him, recognizing his direction, close to him.

And if you are, you can be that help. You can be the person that upholds another and is, as it were, the hands of the Lord, for you are the body of Christ, are you not? The hands of the Lord that can uphold the soul of some saint that’s passing through a difficult time. Let me encourage you to be that. When you have the ability to be that help, stick your neck out and ask yourself, how can I help other? How can I help the saints of God who are in need, who are struggling, who are passing through the furnace of affliction? How can I help them? How can I be God’s help for the Lord in their life? Let’s pray together.