No Guarantee to be Enemy Free

Deliver me from the workers of iniquity and save me from bloody men. For lo, they lie in wait for my soul, the mighty are gathered against me, Not for my transgression, nor for my sin, O Lord. They run and prepare themselves without my fault. Awake to help me and behold, thou therefore, O Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel, Awake to visit all the heathen, be not merciful to any wicked transgressors, say lie.

They return at evening, they make a noise like a dog, they go round about the city, Behold, they belch out with their mouth, swords are in their lips, for who, say they, doth hear? But thou, O Lord, shalt laugh at them, thou shalt have all the heathen in derision, Because of his strength will I wait upon thee, for God is my defense. The God of mercy, the God of, rather, my mercy, shall prevent me.

God shall see, let me see my desire upon mine enemies. Slay them not, lest my people forget. Scatter them by thy power and bring them down, O Lord, our shield. For the sin of their mouth and the words of their lips, let them even be taken in their pride, And for cursing and lying which they speak. Consume them in wrath, consume them that they may not be, And let them know that God ruleth in Jacob unto the ends of the earth, say lie.

And at evening let them return, and let them make a noise like a dog, and go round about the city, Let them wander up and down for meat, and grudge if they be not satisfied. But I will sing of thy power, yea, I will sing aloud of thy mercy in the morning, For thou hast been my defense and refuge in the day of my trouble. Unto thee, O my strength, will I sing, for God is my defense and the God of my mercy.

Let’s pray together. Our Lord, we thank you for the opportunity to again study your Word here tonight. Guide us, we pray, and lead us as we study your Word and be our teacher. Lord, help us to remember and see the truths and principles we need to see and understand tonight. Help us also to apply these things to our hearts. Thank you for the Psalms, Lord, how this saint of God walked through his tribulations with you and how you helped him and you recorded his innermost feelings in Scripture for us.

Lord, help us to glean from them and benefit and profit from them. And so we commit this time to you now in Jesus’ name, Amen. Now if you would go to 1 Samuel chapter 19, we’re going to come right back to the Psalms, so don’t go far. 1 Samuel 19 starting in verse 11. And what I want to do is read the context, the historical context of this Psalm.

1 Samuel 19 verse number 11. The Bible says this, Saul also sent messengers unto David’s house to watch him and to slay him in the morning. And Michael, David’s wife, told him, saying, If thou save not thy life tonight, tomorrow thou shalt be slain.

My pages are stuck here. There we go. So Michael let David down through a window and he went and fled and escaped. And Michael took an image and laid it in the bed and put a pillow of goat’s hair for his bolster and covered it with a cloth. And when Saul sent messengers to take David, she said, he is sick. And Saul sent the messengers again to see David, saying, bring him up to me in the bed that I may slay him.

And when the messengers were come in, behold, there was an image in the bed with a pillow of goat’s hair for his bolster. And Saul said unto Michael, Why hast thou deceived me so and sent away mine enemy? Notice that, mine enemy, that he has escaped. And Michael answered Saul, he said unto me, let me go. Why should I kill thee? So David fled and escaped and came to Samuel, to Rama, and told him all that Saul had done to him.

And he and Samuel went and dwelt in Naoth. Now, you’ll see in the Psalm, you see it here, but Saul obviously set himself as an enemy of David. And so he sent these watchers to David’s house to watch him and kill him. Now, how many of you would say, if I were to ask your opinion, maybe take a poll, how many of you would say, if you don’t mind raising your hand, you don’t have to, how many of you would say, I know that I have enemies?

Like, I know for certain there are people that count me as an enemy to them. Is anybody, there’s a few hands went up there in the back, all the Aguilar fan. What’s going on with that? The truth is we might have enemies. Yeah, we might have enemies. Don’t worry, you don’t have any enemies in this room. So you’re safe here. The truth is we might have enemies that we’re not even aware of.

We’re not even aware of. And but from time to time, we do have enemies. And by enemy, I don’t mean somebody who would necessarily take your life. And that gets to my point. Okay, when I’m talking about an enemy in scripture, you notice in Psalm 59, of course, in the most obvious context, enemies were the ones, first of all, Saul, but also the men, the mighty men, the servants of Saul that Saul sent to David’s house to wait on him.

They would be his enemies, right? Because they were waiting to kill him. But then you read further down in the Psalm and you read in, for instance, in verse number seven, Behold, they belch out with their mouths, swords are in their lips. For who say they doth hear? That’s talking about their words. And then you go a little bit further down to verse number, excuse me, verse number 12, for the sin of their mouth and the words of their lips, let them even be taken in their pride and for cursing and lying, which they speak.

So in this case, in the second half of the Psalm, it’s not even talking about the enemies of the enemies of David in the sense that they would take his life. But it’s talking about the enemies of David who would speak against him, who would slander him and knife him in the back using their, not the knives made of wood or steel, but using the knives made of tongues.

And that’s also, listen, if somebody is slandering you behind your back, they are your enemy. All right, right? We might not think of them in that way. We might not think of them as an enemy, like maybe a deadly enemy. But when somebody talks, you know, when they cut you to pieces behind your back, according to the scripture, they’re your enemy, right? So I would say then that we probably have more enemies than maybe we think we do, right?

And so, and the reason I say all that is to say this is when you read in Psalm 59 about the enemies, you can’t just think of people that would kill you. But whatever David says of enemies that are deadly enemies, however David deals with that, we’re going to see the way he deals with it, how he understands how the Lord helps him in that. But whenever you see that, if David’s trust in God and David’s leaning upon God is sufficient when he has a deadly enemy, then that is also sufficient for those of us who may not have deadly enemies.

But we have definitely people who are our enemies, who count themselves as our enemies. In other words, if it works for the worse situation, then it works for every lesser situation as well. Does that make sense? And so you no doubt have had people slander you. You no doubt have had people knife you in the back, right? And run your name down and do so wrongfully. You no doubt have had that.

And that’s kind of what we’re reading here. If you haven’t had it happen, it will happen. You just live long enough, you just keep breathing and it will happen because that’s human nature. It will happen. And you’re going to have people that come out and they are not on your side and they are not for you and they do not wish you well, they wish you ill.

And that’s the definition of an enemy. And so when you read it, I don’t want us to lose touch from David’s situation to ours because there is a lot more similarity than it might first be evident. But think about this. He mentions his enemies in verse one and two. Deliver me from my enemies, O God. Defend me from them that rise up against me. Deliver me from the workers of iniquity.

Bloody men, they wait for his soul. The mighty are gathered together against him. Now notice verse four, they run and prepare themselves without my fault. Notice this, the first thing I want you to see is this. I want you to think about this question. Who would be David’s enemy? Now think about, when you think about that, ask yourself this. Think about the man that David himself is.

Think about the man that David himself is. Look if you would real quick at 1 Samuel. You were already there a minute ago, but look at the previous chapter, chapter 18 of 1 Samuel.

1 Samuel 18. Look at verse number five. Now remember, this Psalm was written, best we can know, in the context of chapter 19, verses 11 through 15. We just read that, right? Everybody with me? Now we’re looking at one chapter prior to that. So this is not a long time prior to this. Notice what it says in verse 18, verse five.

1 Samuel 18, verse five says this. And David went out withersoever Saul sent him, and behaved himself wisely. And Saul sent him over the men of war, and he was accepted in the sight of all the people, and also in the sight of Saul’s servants.

Now notice, the same men who are sitting at the house of David, waiting to kill him in the morning, are probably some of the same men of Saul’s servants that we read in verse five, who are thinking, God’s telling us what they’re thinking. They’re thinking, man, David’s a great guy. How quickly their minds had changed. You know, that’s one of the things about enemies that is so hard to bear, is they used to be friends.

That’s what makes enemies so difficult, and dealing with people who set themselves as your enemies, because they’re often were your friends prior to this. And we read in verse five that everybody in the kingdom, from Saul himself, who is David’s arch enemy, to all of the servants of Saul, and the men of war, who are the people that Saul sent to kill David, it says he was accepted in the sight of all the people, and also in the sight of Saul’s servants.

So David was a man who, think about the character of the man of David, the character of David. David was a man who you would naturally be drawn to as a man of honor, a man of courage, not only on the battlefield, but moral courage. He was a man who had a true heart for God. He was a man who loved God. He was a man who was upright and morally pure.

And we know David fell later, but at this point, this is early in his life, David is a man who is worthy of respect and worthy of loyalty. And he is a man who is upright in the sight of God. So we know the man of David, so what does that say then about his enemies? Who would set themselves against such a man? Any person who sets themselves against a person who is a friend of God sets himself contrary to God.

You see the connection? So if I’m a friend of the Lord, if you’re a friend of the Lord, and you’re a man or a woman who is upright before God, and someone sets themselves as an enemy of you, that means they are setting themselves contrary to God himself. And so that tells us something about David’s enemies. These enemies were... This tells us how wicked these men were.

And by counting him an enemy, they would be making war with someone who’s on friendly terms with God. It tells us the character of these enemies. And it doesn’t say very much about David’s character, but it says a whole lot about the character of his enemies, that they would set themselves against a man who loved God. So what’s the lesson in that? The lessons in that is this.

Who we count as our friends, right? Now we’re talking about enemies, but who we count as our friends, who it is that we choose to accept God, we’re talking about enemies, but who we count as our friends, who it is that we choose to associate with, says a lot about us. But our enemies also say a lot about both us and them. You see, when someone, when any person sets themselves against someone who is a friend of God, someone who is an upright believer and saint of God, that tells you something about where that person is with God.

Not only the sin of the slander and hatred and ill will and malice that is present in that person, but the fact that they direct that same slander and ill will and malice towards someone who walks uprightly, that says something about where that person is with God. Look if you look back at, if you’re still in 1 Samuel, look at chapter 18, verse number 29. The Bible says this, and this proves my point, and Saul was yet the more afraid of David, and Saul became David’s enemy continually.

Why would he be afraid of David? Why was Saul afraid of David? Think about it. There’s only one reason Saul was afraid of David. Saul had the control of the army, right? Saul was the king. He had no reason to be afraid of David, so why is he? He’s afraid of David because of David’s association with the Lord. That bothers Saul. But you see the principle here.

Look at verse 30. Then the princes of the Philistines went forth, and it came to pass, after they went forth, that David behaved himself more wisely than all the servants of Saul, so that his name was much set by. David’s a good man, and Saul, as an example of an enemy, is showing his character. Listen, you can’t, listen now, you can’t, I cannot hate on the saints of God who walk up rightly and be right with God.

It’s not possible to do that. It is not possible to do that. It’s not possible to set oneself as the enemy of a saint of God, an upright man or woman, and yet be a friend of God. You can’t do that. You gotta choose. You gotta choose. Even among Saul’s servants, they recognized the kind of man that David was. Now look if you would at 2 Samuel, real quick, chapter 16.

2 Samuel chapter 16. And this is why, brothers and sisters, listen, this is one reason why we ought to be very careful with our words. I’ll use Brother David Aguilar as an example, just because I just like to use examples. Brother David is a good man, right? Brother David is a man who’s upright and he loves God. I can say that about many of you, I’m not saying he is more than you or anything like that, I’m just saying he’s my example at this moment.

So then if I slander him and knife him in the back verbally and act as his enemy, what does that say about me? Now if he was a scumbag, right, and he wasn’t a good man and he had problems, it might be more reasonable. But he’s not. He’s upright. He tries to love the Lord and live for God and those kinds of things. And so that heightens the issue for me as the enemy, right?

This is why we as the saints ought to be very careful because what we find is, and listen, I’m talking about even people who live for the Lord, right, and who do want to live for God, you know? We sometimes slide into this, right? We slide into this practice where we start to talk about people behind the back and slander, and we play the part, even though we don’t intend to necessarily or we’re not maybe a full-blown enemy of a person, yet we play the part of the enemy’s tongue, right?

But who is our target? Often, is it not true, often our target are godly people. That should not be. That should never, ever be. That should never be. Now, 2 Samuel 16, look at that at verse number five. 2 Samuel 16, look at that at verse number five.

This is kind of an example of what we see here. 2 Samuel 16, now this is David. David’s the king. Saul’s and his family, they’re all dead. So David’s the king. This is when he’s being chased out by Absalom. Verse five says, And when King David came to Bathurim, behold, thence came out a man of the family of the house of Saul, whose name was Shimei, the son of Gera.

He came forth and cursed still as he came, and he cast stones at David and at all the servants of King David, and all the people and all the mighty men were on his right hand and on his left. And thus said Shimei when he cursed, Come out, come out, thou bloody man, and thou man of Belial. The Lord hath returned upon thee all the blood of the house of Saul in whose stead thou hast reigned.

And the Lord hath delivered the kingdom into the hand of Absalom thy son. And behold, thou art taken in thy mischief because thou art a bloody man. Now stop and think. Is anything that Shimei is saying true?

Nothing. He’s talking about David has killed the house of Saul. That’s why he calls him a bloody man. But you remember David repeatedly refused to raise his hand against Saul. But he’s calling, he’s saying, he says the Lord hath returned upon thee all the blood of the house of Saul. Do you remember? David did not take his, you know, take his wrath out on the house of Saul when he became king.

Now there was one issue that came up a matter of vengeance, but that was Saul’s problem that David had to deal with later. But David wasn’t like, well I’m the king now so I’m going to wipe his family out. Remember Mephibosheth? Mephibosheth, who was of the house of Saul. So what Shimei is saying here now David had his problems, right? And we know the Lord is using the wickedness of Absalom to chastise David for what he did with Bathsheba.

We know that. But Shimei doesn’t know that. Everything Shimei is saying about David he’s a bloody man. Is David a man of Belial? Look at verse number seven. Is David actually a man of Belial? Is he a devil? No, he is not. So here’s what you have in this example. This man Shimei comes out and says all these mean, unkind and that’s putting it nicely these nasty things about David, all of which are false.

That’s what we’re talking about, right? Because David is generally an upright man. An honorable man. But why is he doing that? Think about it. Shimei, why do you think he’s doing that? See, he’s of the house of Saul. Shimei has loyalty. Shimei has loyalty to Saul and to his house. So being in the house of Saul he views it a certain way. Right? Because he’s of the house of Saul he cursed David and he viewed David falsely now in a way that made him curse David.

But all of that was false. So here’s the point. In this example what you see is sometimes this kind of enmity and animosity comes from personal loyalties rather than facts. You’ve got to be careful. This is why we all have to be careful. And this is a notice to us all that personal loyalties and personal interests and considerations cannot determine cannot drive us to do things that set us at odds with those who are the friends of God.

That is not a good reason. But yet is that not what drives so many instances of animosity? It is. Personal loyalties. Listen, as a believer every single one of us should have loyalty to God and to His Word and to the truth. Regardless of blood regardless of loyalties or history we should have loyalty first and foremost to God and to His Word and not let any of those loyalties muddle or muddy is muddle a word? Muddy our view of what is right and what is wrong concerning a person.

Listen, if there’s an issue we ought to be able to look at a person and say and judge it honestly and uprightly and truly right? And pull ourself out of that and say this is good or this is bad this is right or this is wrong. And often times what we’ll find is that that person who’s on the opposite side might be right. But our loyalties say they should be wrong but they’re not.

You’ve got to be careful it’s loyalty to God and His Word and that’s one thing Shimei did not have. See if Shimei had loyalty to God and His Word he’s not going to set himself against David because you know why? David’s a man after God’s own heart. You see that? So it says something about Shimei. Now go back if you would to the Psalm 59 So we see these enemies of David and it reminds and we see, look at verse number verse 3 For lo they lie in wait for my soul listen, we can’t do that we can’t lie in wait for people to slander them go off in some back room and whisper and talk about them behind their back and complain to one another about this or that. We can’t do that.

That is not, that’s not godly. That’s not upright. But that’s what they’re doing the enemies gathered against me. You know what that means? It means they get a crowd and they start talking. That listen, that is not upright. That is not godly.

But that’s what these enemies did. But notice what he says in verse 3, for they lie in wait for my soul, the mighty are gathered against me. Listen, not for my transgression, nor for my sin, O Lord. Verse 4 They run and prepare themselves without my fault. So David was living uprightly and he says in this Psalm they hate me without a cause. I haven’t hurt them.

I haven’t done anything to deserve this mistreatment. And so this reminds us of this truth. Living godly and living for god and uprightly in God’s sight is no guarantee that we will not have enemies. Living uprightly, no matter what the TV preachers might say, what the modern, current, and contemporary theology says, that if you live for God, everything will be fine and you’ll have your best life now and everything will be great. That is not true.

David lived for God and had enemies still. Then you look at Proverbs 16 verse 7, it says this, and you know this verse, when a man’s ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him. And of course we go to that verse and we ignore everything else in the Bible and we look at that one verse and say if a man’s ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him. Okay, then why does David have enemies?

Ponder that. David’s ways did please the Lord and yet he had enemies. What does that tell us? It’s Proverbs 16, 7 that I just quoted is a principle to be applied. It is a generally applicable truth. It’s not an absolute because here’s an example, we’re reading an example where an exception but it’s often taken as an absolute. David’s ways did please the Lord but he yet he still had enemies. Take even our Lord Jesus. Jesus had enemies despite the fact that he always did that which was right in his Father’s sight. And if it was true of our Lord, and if it was true of David as an example to us here it shall be true also of us.

Do people really count another person an enemy though they do right? Yes. Listen here’s why I say that is that it should not take us by surprise. We should not have the expectation that we’re always going to be treated well if we live for God. Sometimes that’s not going to happen. And sometimes people take offense to that and take aim at us because of that. Now they never come out and say it. There’s always listen, there’s always a rationale. Is there not? There’s always an excuse.

It’s always something you did. It’s always something you said. It’s always something like that. Nobody ever comes out and says I just don’t like him. And I’m going to just give him you know, I’m going to give him a hard time. No, there’s always a pretext. But that’s irrelevant. For Saul it was a pretext. He was jealous. David was going to do this. David was going to do that.

There were rumors, etc. There’s no guarantee that we will be enemy free. But notice David’s defense. Notice verse 1. He says Oh my God defend me from them that rise up against me. Look at verse number 9. Because of his strength I will wait upon thee for God is my defense. Look if you would at verse number 16. But I will sing of thy power I will sing aloud of thy mercy in the morning for thou has been my what? Defense.

And refuge in the day of my trouble. Verse 17. Under thee oh my strength will I sing for God is my defense and the God of my mercy. God is his defense. So think about David’s you know, David’s world. He has these people in his life that do not like him. In fact they have people that want to kill him. What’s he going to say? What’s he going to say?

What could David possibly say to these enemies to convince them not to be his enemies? Is what? It’s useless. Trying to defend yourself when someone has set themselves as an enemy against you and when you’re without fault is useless. You’re never going to convince someone no matter how much you plead to change their mind.

The only resort you have is to call upon the Lord to be your defense. No other course of action is effective. That’s it. Is you lean upon the Lord and let the Lord do the defending. He is the defense. And listen, this is true listen, this is true on your job this is true among your friends this is true among your friends this is true in all situations.

I know I felt it and you have too when somebody said something and it finally got back around to you what do you want to do? You know it’s not true, what do you want to do? First thing you want to do is you want to defend yourself. But I’m just telling you it almost never works. It’s just a fact. It almost never works. So David’s answer is God, you’re my defense.

You’re my defense. You take it to God and let him take care of it. But I’ll say this and I say that but it touches on our last point which is this whenever we’re the if you want to say victim, I don’t like that word but the target of this kind of treatment by our enemies and we want to claim God we cannot claim God as our defense.

We cannot claim God as our defense if our enemies are our enemies because of our own wrongdoing. Remember that God has no favorites. He is no respecter of persons. Romans 2, 11 says that God is no respecter of persons. So listen, if we’re not living holy, if we’re not being upright and godly and moral and honest and all these things that we know we’re supposed to do and then people get mad at us and say mean things about us, don’t run to God to be your defense. God’s not going to defend you. He’s just not. Why?

Because God doesn’t defend evil. He doesn’t defend evil. And so that’s why if you’ll look to finish up, look at 1 Peter. You can leave Psalm 59 behind. We’re going to look at 1 Peter to finish. 1 Peter chapter 2.

1 Peter chapter 2 verse 20 verse 20 verse 20 says this, for what glory is it, 1 Peter 2, 20 for what glory is it if when ye be buffeted or punch, that’s what that word means for your faults, ye shall take it patiently. But if when you do well and suffer for it this, and ye take it patiently this is acceptable with God. In other words if somebody knocks your lights out because you say something foul to them and you say, oh, I suffered for Jesus. No you didn’t.

You suffered because you were stupid. Right? Now you know I’m being facetious, but you know what I’m saying. That’s what the verse is saying. Look at chapter 4 verse 15 and here’s where we have a pointed command here. Let none of you suffer as a murderer or as a thief or as an evildoer or as a busy body in other men’s matters. You notice how notice it started out with the worst sin and it kind of went down, murderer thief evildoer, busy body.

You see that? You say, well I’m not a murderer. The Lord’s going to kill you and me some way or another in this verse. He says yet if any man suffer as a Christian let him not be ashamed but let him glorify God on this behalf. So here’s the principle. We can’t claim God, listen we can’t say God these people are being mean to me and they’re treating me wrongly and they’re saying bad things behind my back and they’re slandering me if the reason they are doing that is that we’re evildoers and busy bodies and thieves and unfaithful and ungodly and vile and moral and wicked. We can’t say that. God’s not coming to our aid. He’s not coming to our defense. He’s not going to defend us.

This is why, listen Christians sometimes do get a victim mentality. We think, we have this idea that everything bad happens to me because of other people. Right? We think, oh well those people are just saying that because of this or that or the other and we blame them when it might be they’re doing that because of our misdeeds.

That’s not a defense a believer can claim. You see that’s what David says. I didn’t do anything to them. Now anybody can say that, right? I can say, well I didn’t do anything and they did it. I mean we can claim whatever but God knows. God knows. So as a believer as a child of God we should not play the victim. Listen when you’re mistreated the first thing you ought to think honestly and I found this rule for me to be helpful.

No matter who says no matter who it is that says something about you. No matter who it is whether that person is reputable or not the first thing you should do is not defend yourself but ask yourself is there actual truth to what they are saying?

And if there is even if they shouldn’t say it you have to receive the truth because your loyalty is to God and his word to the truth. So what you might find is that you get unpleasant you get bitter medicine from sources that you don’t like. That’s okay. Sometimes the Lord does that to us. But one thing we should not do whenever we have an enemy like this is we should not just automatically as a default and as a reaction just say well it’s them.

Well it might be them but it should give you pause to examine yourself and say do I have a fault here? There might be something I need to get right. There might be something I did that maybe caused them to misunderstand or I might have spoken at a turn or whatever so that you can do everything you can to get right with that person and it could be that that itself resolves it but if not and here’s just as a practical matter and I feel this too especially in ministry right? The years I’ve been in ministry went to the Michigan field in 2008 until now knocking on 20 years, 18 years.

I know whenever things went sideways in my relationships with other people I would beat myself up a lot. Even when I had honestly examined myself and to try to see did I do something wrong? Even then I would go away sometimes just it must have been something. It must have been something I did. But here’s the point. It could be that you didn’t do anything. It could be that you literally did everything right that you knew to do and you still have enemies. So just because you have an enemy doesn’t mean you’ve done something wrong.

Enemies are a thing that exists even if you do right. Think of the Lord Jesus. And so all of those things, all of these things here play together and they help us to understand the way we respond or should respond when we find ourselves on the receiving end of an enemy. Alright, let’s pray together.