Do you pray for deliverance? Why would you for deliverance?  Many people talk about deliverance often. They speak of being delivered from drugs, from sinful habits, or from heritical beliefs. But it is rare to hear someone talk about being delivered from their enemies, but this is David’s point in Psalm 30.

     1     I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up

He was delivered from the enemies. If you notice verse 11 you will notice David thinks this is good. His mourning was turned into dancing. Why was this good for him? Why was it a happy thing to be delivered? Because now he thought he could build the house for the Lord that he longed to build. He wanted to do something for the glory of God, but was hindered in doing so because of the unstable situation in his kingdom. So as David is gathering his people to come and help bring the ark to Jerusalem, he writes this psalm.

Who was this enemy? Most likely it was one of Saul’s offspring. One of the key phrases in this psalm that speaks of David’s motivation, and the point we want to make is in verse 11 and 12. Why did God turn his mourning of the enemy into joy? Why did God deliver David? Why did God intervene and make the enemy go away? Why did God cloth David with Joy? It is not for the sake of David’s joy. It is not for David’s comfort. It is not to make much of David.

It is so that David’s Glory might PRAISE God. God was after praise from David, praise from the highest part of David, from the glory of David.  And this is why God gave David joy, why God delivered David.

When you ask for joy, when ask for deliverance, when you ask for God to intervene in your life, why are you doing it? Do you have an eye to the purposes of God? Or are you simply interested in a pain free existence? May you seek that God would be praised in your pain as well as in your joy.

How can Christianity be man’s invention? Man is so full of his own sin that he hides his face from the revelation of God. He blots out all memory of the Garden. He subverts all testimony from nature. Man runs from the pursuit of religious ideas by his plethora of religious ideas. How could Christianity be made up?

Psalm 11

To the choirmaster. Of David.

In the Lord I take refuge;

how can you say to my soul,

“Flee like a bird to your mountain,

for behold, the wicked bend the bow;

they have fitted their arrow to the string

to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart;

if the foundations are destroyed,

what can the righteous do?”

The Lord is in his holy temple;

the Lord’s throne is in heaven;

his eyes see, his eyelids test the children of man.

The Lord tests the righteous,

but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.

Let him rain coals on the wicked;

fire and sulfur and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup.

For the Lord is righteous;

he loves righteous deeds;

the upright shall behold his face.

There are the wicked and the upright. God hates the wicked. This does not seem to be to strange. We deeply know this. This is the objection raised by atheists. We say God is opposed to evil and man attempts to explain away his own evil actions. Why? Because he knows that this God hates the wicked.

God loves the upright. Again this is not strange. It is self-evident if the above is true.

What is strange then? What is it that makes the human invention of Christianity incredible? It comes in a couple of thoughts.

First, no single human is upright. Not even the author of Psalm 11. He quotes to us his sin in Psalm 25 and Psalm 51.

Second. So what hope does he lean upon? Knowing God’s hatred of the wicked, love of the upright, and his admission of his own sin, what hope does this “made up religion offer?” Psalm 11:1 – in the Lord I take refuge.

WHAT? He runs to the very one whose anger and hatred for the wicked is kindled?! He runs to the very one who would kill him. How can he do that? Should he not rather run to a new god, a different god? That’s what the Greeks would do. That’s what all polytheists would do. Surely the Israelites saw this. Why not run to another deity. Why not create a new mythology in order to relieve their consciences of the horrific guilt? Why not create a religion that removes the guilt without blood, without pain, without humility, without running to God?

…because there is nowhere else to run. There is only one hope: mercy. To fall before this great king, to bow in submission to this angry God, to yield allegiance to this wrathful omnipotent, is the only hope man has.

Man’s great fear is that God is exactly as the Bible says he is: righteous. So God does no wrong. He harbors no fugitive. He does not pervert justice. He does not set aside his glory and splendor of divine retribution. So, we must take refuge in the Lord, and the Lord takes the retribution for us. We must run to the mountain of the righteous Son of God, while the storm of God’s wrath beats upon the mountain.