31.01.07
The Psalms(9): On the Eve of Battle - Psalm 20
The evening of the 13th April 1746 was grim, at least if your name was MacDonald or Cameron. It was the night before the battle of Culloden and Bonnie Prince Charlie’s troops were exhausted after retreating the 200 miles from Edinburgh. Encamped a few miles away in Nairn were the numerically superior troops of The Duke of Cumberland. As a last attempt to avert disaster, Prince Charlie ordered his troops to march the 12 miles, or so, to Nairn, and, in the dead of night, to ambush the Duke of Cumberland’s army whilst they slept. But, whilst they were still a few miles shy, the alarm was raised and the ambush was called off. At 4am in the morning, the even more exhausted Jacobites returned to Culloden, many of them collapsing where they stood and only waking up the next day to find a royalist sword through their bellies. The eve of the battle of Culloden set the tone for the next day – a next day which would herald the destruction of the clan system and the transformation of the Highland way of life forever. The eve of this battle, and all battles, are all important to the result of the subsequent encounter.
Psalm 20 was written on the Eve of Battle. It was written by King David to explain what he did and the ceremonies he performed in the camp of his army on the eve of battle. Psalm 20 is an example of another type of Psalm – the Psalm of Kingship where the people of God sing about their King, whether human or divine. Some of the Kingship Psalms, like 47 and 96 talk about God being the heavenly king; others, like Psalm 20, 21 and 89 talk about earthly kings, like King David. But in essence, the two notions of earthly and heavenly kingship are linked in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, so I just want to take Psalm 20 – which in itself is not an easy Psalm to take, as I found out in my study this week. It’s a Psalm which King David writes on the eve of battle. Psalm 21 is written during the celebration of David’s victorious armies after the battle has been won, but Psalm 20 is written before the battle is joined. There is a religious ceremony where God’s blessing is sought on the outcome of the battle and this Psalm covers what goes on at that ceremony.
But there are two battles, two Kings and two victories recorded in this Psalm. The first is the battle that the Psalm was originally written for – perhaps a battle King David was fighting against the Philistines – a battle fought in 2,800 BC by a human king against a human enemy. But the second is a battle which would take place 800 years after the Psalm was written, when David’s greatest descendant, the Lord Jesus Christ, fought against the devil and sin, and through His death and resurrection won the victory for us – a battle fought by a Divine King against a spiritual enemy. And depending upon which battle we are talking about – whether David’s or Christ’s, the lesser or the greater, we are going to read and sing the psalm in a slightly different way. I want to look therefore first, at the first battle, David’s battles; and then secondly, at the last battle, Christ’s battle:
[A] The First Battle
In his reign, King David took Israel from being everbody’s favourite whipping boy to being a world superpower. He fought many wars and so saw many of the eve’s of battle of which we spoke in our introduction. We don’t know what eve of battle this Psalm was written to anticipate – but we do know that in Psalm 20 we have a ceremony taking place in the presence of the people and the priests. We can divide the original thoughts of David as he wrote this Psalm into three sections:
1. Petition (vs. 1-5) – in these verses, the people are crying out to God on behalf of their King. For them, their King embodied everything they were and wanted to be – He was the symbol of what it meant to be an Israelite and a man of God. Without him, they would be nothing – and so, on this eve of battle they spent much time pleading with God for their King.
In vs. 1 they remind God of the relationship He has with His people – His name is Yahweh, or Jehovah – the God who always keeps His promises – and He is the God of Jacob, the God whose passion for His people has been ongoing for 1000 years before. This is a God who made promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to protect and care for His people – now, on the eve of battle, when the rubber is just about to hit the road, in vs. 1 God’s people are cashing in on His promises.
In vs. 2 they are pleading with God to go with the armies into battle. These references to sanctuary, Holy place and Zion refer to the Ark of the Covenant – the ark made in the days of Moses in which the two tablets of the Ten Commandments were placed, among other things. This Ark was the physical symbol of the presence of God with His people – its lid was called the mercy seat and God’s presence, in a manner of speaking, was said to rest on this ark. But given the impending battle, they want God’s presence not to stay in Zion, in Jerusalem, but to go forth with the Israelite army so that the enemy will be defeated. They are praying for the presence of the all-powerful God with their armies, and especially King David, in the fight.
In vs. 3 they are praying that the King would enjoy the favour of God. On the eve of battle, it is believed that the King, through a priest, would sacrifice to God a burnt offering. This had two aims – first, to make atonement for his own sins so he went into battle clean and pure; second, to commit himself and his plans to God, seeking God’s favour on the coming battle. And so, in praying that God would regard with favour the king’s burnt offerings, the people are in effect praying that God would smile on the King – that God would favour King David above his enemies.
In vs. 4, they are praying for the strategic success of all King David’s battle plans. David was an experienced enough warrior to know that although he was relying upon the Lord for the outcome of the fight, he himself had to plan a strategy for defeating the enemy. And so here the people are praying that God would honour the plans of David and that his battlefield strategies would be effective.
In vs. 5 they are praying first for the preservation of King David – after the battle, they want to be able to rejoice in the salvation, or deliverance, of David, from his enemies. They don’t want to win the battle but lose their king. Furthermore, they want to be able to have confidence as they line up according to their tribes and clans upon the battlefield. They want to be able to shout for joy as they lift up their banners in the sight of their enemies. And so they are also praying for confidence to stand up, lined up behind their king, facing the enemy and preparing to fight.
Aren’t these petitions we pray – when we pray, we cash in God’s promises don’t we – we remind God that He has promised never to leave nor forsake us; we remind Him that if we seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness, all other things will be added to us. And then we pray that God’s presence would go with us wherever we go. We pray that we may know the smile of God in our lives, that we would know His loving favour. We pray that as we go into each new day, God would bless our plans and strategies for coping with the attacks of the devil; and, we pray that we may have the confidence to keep going even in the face of difficult circumstances.
Prayer for the King they loved – on the eve of battle, rather than look inwards, the people pled with God for the success of King David.
2. Pronouncement (vs. 6) – there now comes to the fore a new voice, a single voice – the voice of a priest, and he delivers, what we would call, ‘a word from the Lord’. He assures the King and the people that God will save them and grant them victory over their enemies. At this stage, it’s probably a good time to remind you of a word which is used here to talk of the King – he is God’s anointed – literally, in the Hebrew language, God’s messiah; or, as it is translated into the Greek language, God’s Christ. The Davidic Kings in the Old Testament were God’s Old Testament Messiah’s – they were the forerunners of the ultimate Messiah, Jesus Christ Himself. They were chosen by God and anointed by Him – a symbol of God’s equipping of them for all the tasks of Kingship and Royalty. More on this later – but the Word from God to David is good – the thumbs are up and the battle will be successful. And how much confidence does that give you – to be told by the God who knows everything, including the future, because He arranges and controls everything, including the future – including the battle you’re going to fight tomorrow – how encouraging it is to be told that you are going to win!
3. Praise (vs. 7-9) – in these last few verses, the people sing out in praises of confidence and joy to the Lord. In all likelihood, they are going to face enemies on the next day who have far more advanced weaponry – horses and chariots. Like as not, their enemies will be sitting round their camp fires on this very night laughing amongst themselves at how, on the morrow, because of their mechanized panzer type divisions, the armies of Israel are going to be road kill. They are trusting in their weaponry – but Israel knows that whilst weaponry is not trivial – the deciding factor in any battle is the Lord. And so, for the enemy to trust in their chariots is futile when on their side, the Israelites have the God who holds the stars in place from moment to moment. We today are far more advanced than the ancient Philistines – our chariots have evolved into Chieftan tanks and tornado fighters. But we must not trust in them any more than the Israelites did their weaponry – it is in the name of the Lord we must trust for only He has infinite power and eternal strength.
Then in vs. 8, on the basis of past experiences, the people of Israel express their confidence that the Lord will once again cause them to stand upright, whereas their enemies will bow down and fall. The God who has won countless victories for them in the past will win another one for them this time. He will cause them to stand.
And then in vs. 9 we have a closing prayer – Lord, save the King. This is the verse from which our simple phrase, “God save the Queen” comes from. It is a prayer that if everything else should fall to the ground and be destroyed, at least the King should be saved that the heart of the nation of Israel would live on.
And so there you have the original meaning of the first battle. These people love their king – they are devoted to him because for them he embodies Israel; and on the eve of battle, rather than checking once again their weaponry, they are going to turn to their greatest weapon of all – prayer – and they are going to plead with the all-powerful God who loves them deeply, to give their King victory on the next day.
[B] The Last Battle
So far, we have seen what this Psalm said to people living 2,800 years ago. But we are Christians – Jesus Christ – His birth, life, death and resurrection comes between the writing of this Psalm and the days we live in. If we are Christians, we must see this Psalm through the eyes of the Lord Jesus Christ. If we do that, we realise that there are 3 themes in this Psalm which sum up the Christian message of Psalm 20:
1. Some Enemies are Too Big for an Earthly King – its all very well taking up swords and spears against the Philistines – men of like body as yourself that you can kill with an arrow; but what if your enemy is greater than that? What if your real enemy doesn’t have a body, so there’s really no point in trying to kill him with human weapons? So you are a little child holding a water pistol on one of the mountain roads which lead through the Ardennes Forest in 1940 facing the might of 5 Panzer Divisions coining the phrase Blitzkreig. What if your opponent is just too big for you? What if that enemy is the sin, death and the devil? What if they are the powers of darkness – those enemies which, unbeknown to we humans, keep us in fear and bondage our whole lives through? Can even a king take them on?
That’s the question facing us when we look at the sinful natures we possess, the death which we look forward to with terror, the anger of God against our sin and the devil and His hellish schemes. And let’s take one of the best of men, Muhammed Ali, the best boxer ever, 65 this week – a man who famously said, “its hard to be humble when you’re as great as I am” – Ali, the man who can now hardly put one foot in front of the other due to a Parkinson’s type illness he suffers from. Can the power of human muscle defeat these sinister unseen enemies? No, it cannot even control its own fate. Some enemies are just too big for an earthly king. It needs a heavenly king to deal with hellish foes. What we are saying is that Messiah David might be alright to deal with the Philistines, but when it comes to sin, death and the devil, we need an altogether greater Messiah – a Messiah from God; a Messiah who is Himself God. Only with Jesus Christ at the head of our armies can we have the confidence to set up our banners in the face of our enemies! And so David is just a shadow, a type of the Messiah King which God, in the fullness of time would send to deal with mankind’s greatest enemies – sin, death and the devil. But to know the Glory of Jesus Christ is to be eternally confident, even before the battle is joined, that Jesus will stand victorious. The battle is too big for me, but not for Jesus.
Have you got that message yet? Most people in this world haven’t. They think the battle is easily within their reach; they think that by themselves they can defeat sin, death and the devil by their religious ceremonies, or by having idols in their houses, or by their moral achievements, or by the money they give to the church. But some foes are bigger than they know and they are being toyed with. Only Jesus, not you, not what I am or what I do, only Jesus is big enough to take these enemies on.
2. There is Victory in Death and Resurrection – as King David marched out to battle it must have been awe-inspiring to see rank and rank of determined infantry with their brightly coloured banners and their weaponry glinting in the early morning sun. It was not so awe-inspiring to see King Jesus marching out to war – alone, unaccompanied by any human comforter or fellow soldier – humiliated, being born in a lowly stable to poor parents and living His 33 year life in relative obscurity. And yet, what would come of that life of Jesus was far greater than anything David or any earthly king will ever achieve. Jesus Christ lived a perfect life – in itself a war which none of us can win; died on the cross a sinner’s death for us and rose victorious over sin, death and the devil. We read that His Father would not abandon Him to the grave or to the tomb’s decay. The grave and the horror of all that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein creature represents, as we looked at this morning, were in one and the same action completely destroyed.
The power of sin was broken by the Lord Jesus taking all our sin upon His shoulders on the tree. No longer need sin have authority over us – its reign has been defeated. The power of death was broken through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Do you remember in C.S. Lewis’ book, ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ when the White Witch puts Aslan to death, but then the stone table cracks and Aslan comes back from the dead – and Aslan says, “though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards.” Because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, death is now working backwards, and far from being our enemy, has become the servant of God which, at the end of our lives, ushers us into the inner presence of our dear King Jesus.
And as for the devil – the death and resurrection of Jesus put a chain around His neck and sealed His doom. The cross became the sword of Jesus, taking away from the devil all the weapons he once used against us – weapons like fear, guilt and shame. No wonder then the people of God in vs. 5 can rejoice in the salvation Jesus Christ has won for us. If you had eyes to see it, the Garden on Resurrection morning was filled with awestruck, praising angels. But you will see even greater things than these, for you shall see, with your own two eyes, the exalted and glorified Lord Jesus Christ, having as His footstool our enemies – His foot on the neck of the devil.
3. Our Battle is For Faith – so the battle was too big for us to fight, but Jesus fought it in our place – and through His death and resurrection has been victorious. So what battle is left for us? Let’s take this as our battle cry into this week – “Some trust in chariots, some trust in horses, but as for me, I trust in the name of the Lord my God.” This week, what are you going to put your faith and trust in? In other people? You’ll find them fickle and undependable. In yourself? Even worse. In what you can do or what you can achieve? It will all be forgotten tomorrow and anyway, it doesn’t impress the God for whom nothing is impossible. I went to watch my local football team Partick Thistle last week and I heard a really stupid football chant which I thought I’d share with you “if you want to go to heaven when you die, then you need to wear a thistle scarf and tie.” Well, what do you need to have eternal life? You need to have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ – to trust not in yourself, but in Him – to realise that all other ground is sinking sand. And that, in essence, is the call of Psalm 20 – a call for us not to go out fighting this battle against the devil by ourselves by our own good works or our own religious observance – to do that is to trust in horses and chariots. Rather, the call of this Psalm is to fight for faith – to trust in the Jesus who was big enough to take these enemies on and destroy them utterly through His death and resurrection. Why don’t you sing Psalm 20 to yourself every day this week on the way to work, or your studies, or as you get up in the morning. By the help of the Holy Spirit, today, I’m going to trust in Jesus Christ and live for Him – I’m going be one of those, in vs. 6, who isn’t ashamed to line up behind King Jesus and unfurl my banner which tells of His grace to me in the Gospel. So take your stand tonight – which army are you in? AMEN