I am helped
Introduction
Psalm 28
In this Psalm, David is saying to us that when he prayed, God heard him. In vv 1-5 he is praying. He is asking God to stay near to him. He is asking God to hear his prayer and in his prayer, he is asking God to draw him away from the wicked and to judge them rightly because they don’t love him and don’t do right before Him.
Then in vs 6, he blesses the Lord for hearing his prayer.
In vs 7, he declares that the Lord is his strength and shield and then he says three words that are the title of my sermon. He says, “my heart trusted in him, and I am helped” – “I am helped”.
Now, in vs 8, he says that the Lord is not only his strength, but that he is their strength. God does not limit his help to one, he is a strength to his people.
And finally in vs 9, he concludes, praying one more time, asking the Lord to bless, keep and provide for His people.
Now this Psalm is a reminder that, in the Lord, we are helped. He is our helper, our strength and our shield.
Thank God! He is our help in times of need. He never forgets us. It is precisely when we need him the most that he lifts us up and strengthens us so that we do not fall.
There are many times in the Bible where we see the mighty hand of God helping his children.
God helps us in times of despair.
For generations, the Philistines had tormented the Israelites. They had been a “thorn in the flesh” for the people of God, but when the man of God got up and prayed for his people, the enemy was defeated and Israel was restored.
Did you know that fear creeps into our lives only when our faith is weak. No doubt, fear has the potential to debilitate and stunt our faith. That is why it’s important to feed our faith and exercise our faith – to put our faith to work and to put our faith to use and one way to exercise our faith is remembering all the good things God has done for us!
When Samuel cried unto the Lord to save the children of Israel from the philistines, it got God’s attention. Vs 10 says that “the Lord thundered with a great thunder on that day upon the Philistines, and discomfited then; and they were smitten before Israel.
This is what we need. We need to abandon fear and cry unto God. Get God’s attention. Seek his face. He will fight for you, but you must have faith.
Something else: the Israelites didn’t have any guarantee that they would get the victory. They went forward, trusting in God and in Samuels prayer, but they did not let fear stop them. They went out confident in the thought that God would do something.
Brother, God can and God will do something in your situation. Now, in may not be what you expect – it may not be what you want, but he will take that fear-causing situation in which you choose to have faith and give you something better. For Isreal it was peace. At the very least, god will give you peace – maybe peace to live with the situation, maybe peace to put up with the situation. He may not make that situation go away, but he will give you peace in the valley.
Samuel took a stone and set it up as a visual reminder of what God did and said, Hitherto hath the Lord help us–he brought is this far. No forget that the Lord has brought you this far.
God helps us in times of danger
Now at this time in history Israel was split in two. Jehoshaphat was the king of the southern kingdom of Judah. Ahab was the king of the northern kingdom of Israel. They had formed an alliance and after a lot of talk and debate, they decided to go up and fight against Ramothgilead. However, Ahab had heard from a prophet of God that he would die. So he tricked Jehoshaphat into dressing up in his kingly robes while he disguised himself as a common man.
Sure enough the king of Syria commanded his men no to fight with common men, but only to hunt down the King and kill him. When they saw Jehoshaphat dressed like a king, they assumed it was Ahab. Now Jehoshaphat is completely surrounded by the enemy and it looks like they’re about to kill him, but vs 31 says “but Jehoshaphat cried out, and the Lord helped him; and God moved them to depart from him.”
God helped Jehoshaphat in a time of danger. It says that God “moved them to deport from him.” That word “moved” means to incite, to allure, to divert.
God changed the enemies military strategy in a momento. He helped Jehoshaphat.
Brother, our enemy has you in his crosshairs. He wants your destruction. A Christian is living in constant danger. We are exposed to the wiles of the devil. We are in the path of the fiery darts of the wicked. The danger is real. But God is ready to remove the enemy from the battle field. He is mightier than the enemy.
By-the-way, our enemy is Satan. Your brother in Christ is not your enemy. Your husband is not your enemy. Your wife is not your enemy. Your mother-in-law is not… well. Your pastor is not your enemy. The woke liberal media is not our enemy.
When we are under attack we need to remember that everything is under his control. 1 Corinthians 15:27 “For he hath put all things under his feet….”
Ephesians 1:22 And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church,
Hebrews 2:8 Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet.
You see, the Devil has already lost. His time is short. He is on his last leg, but he is still dangerous. He is going under, and he knows it, and he is going to take as many people with him as he can.
Nevertheless, when we think all is lost, remember that God will have the last word in everything. He will help us.
God helps us in times of distress.
Psalm 116:6 “The Lord preserveth the simple: I was brought low, and he helped me.”
Being brought low means being broken. It means “down in the dumps”. It means to languish - or to deteriorate.
Satan tries to break us however he can. Daniel 7:25 talks about the Devil in the last days– “And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time (that’s talking about the tribulation period).” I think we are close to the tribulation and I think we are living the the days when Daniel said that the Devil would “wear out the saints”.
However, Revelation 12:12 says: “Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.”
One way the Devil tries to break us, or to bring us low, is to tire us out. He just overwhelms us with one thing after another. He wears us out. It’s not always one big trial or obstacle, sometimes it’s a series of smaller things that build up to more than we can handle. Sound familiar?
Would you read Isaiah 40:28-31 with me?
28 Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.
29 He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.
30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:
31 But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
Conclusion
He gets us to our destination – 1 Cor 15:57 “But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
He helped Paul – 2 Tim 4:7 “ I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:”
You know, that’s the key: “Keep the Faith”. He’s there. He knows. And he has promised to be with us.
Mat 28:20 “…and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”
David said, “I prayed, God answered. I am helped.”
I hope you have been helped.