Homiletic Review Psalm 3:1-8 Lord, how are they increased that trouble me! many are they that rise up against me.… 1. One element of the harassment is multitudinousness of trouble. A characteristic feature of the trouble time with Absalom. 2. Another element is unkind and taunting speech. The cruel scoff — "no help for him in God" — cuts like a knife to the very centre of his personality. 3. Another element is a kind of internal despair. It sounds in the first sentences of the Psalm. What are the resources of the harassed man? Turning Godward. He flings himself out of the coil of troubles round about him, and looks up to God. The thought of God as possessing precisely what he, amid his harassments, needs. God is the three things he needs — "shield," or defence; "my glory"; and the "lifter up of my head," for God can both cheer the harassed man's spirit, and restore to him the consciousness of his own real dignity, notwithstanding his trials. I came upon the most beautiful illustration of all this the other day. One of those spiritual Christians, a Stundist as they call them in Russia, was standing amidst a lot of Russian criminals in the courtyard of a Russian prison, chained with them, and sentenced with them to Siberia for his faith's sake. His fellow prisoners were jeering at him. "But you're no better off than we are. You are wearing the bracelets, as we do; if your God is of any use to you, why doesn't He knock off your chains and set you free?" The man replied reverently: "If the Lord will, He can set me free Wen now; and though my hands are chained, my heart is free." He was freed. But though he had been obliged to trudge the weary way to Siberia, for his free heart God would still have been shield, glory, the lifter up of the head. Calmness and courage can come to the harassed man. There is this possible mood for the harassed man — confident expectation. Salvation belongeth unto God; Thy blessing is upon Thy people." (Homiletic Review.) Parallel Verses KJV: {A Psalm of David, when he fled from Absalom his son.} LORD, how are they increased that trouble me! many are they that rise up against me.WEB: Yahweh, how my adversaries have increased! Many are those who rise up against me. |
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