Book of Psalms - Psa. 27, vv. 1-3

Confidence in Psalm 27 Begins with God’s Light and Strength

All right, so we're in Psalm 27. We probably won't get very far. Which is okay. I like to take my time going through these Psalm 27 now. Remember we were in Psalm 26 last week and David had been Appealing to the Lord for his judgment.

Saying that he washes his hands in his own innocency. Or he washes his hands in innocency and he will stand in his own integrity. We realized that all of that was actually the integrity of the Lord. And he was viewing himself as something other than a sinner or a bloody man.

Even though we know he was a man of war and had definitely sinned. So he's looking at himself and asking God to look at him the way God usually looks at him through God's eyes. Psalm 27 could be a sequel to Psalm 26.

Though it's not thought to be it's thought that it was Written at a later time or rather in an earlier time in David's life. Perhaps when he was running from Saul. But the principles remain the principles could would still be used.

I'm sure David still had similar thoughts when it came to just correcting his mindset and getting to the place where He feels confident in the Lord. And so what's really good about this psalm is that it it teaches us What's truly important and if we will follow this example Then it will really help to correct our mindset a lot.

Go save the baby mama. So go to Psalm 27. And we'll try to we'll try to talk it out a little bit. All right, so I'd love to get some of y 'all's thoughts as we read through this Psalm 27 we're gonna maybe make it through verse 5 today.

We'll see a Psalm of David. The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? What's the first thing that pops out at you in that first verse?

Right, so his the the lack of fear that he experiences is because of Who God is to him, right? So I like that any other answers. So one of those verses that you use to change your mindset when you're already at a bad place.

Like that. Okay. Any other thoughts? Yeah, yeah positive mental attitude predates pop. Does anyone find it interesting the way it's worded. If you just look at it like I've always read this and and pulled out exactly what you guys pulled out.

But I'm also I when I'm getting ready to teach I go. All right. What am I not seeing way and by asking that question? It makes me just kind of look at things that I wouldn't normally give time to so I'd encourage you to do that because all of a sudden you start finding things you never thought you would have found like.

You're still not seeing it. I know right it says the Lord is my light in my salvation. What does that mean? My light in my salvation, huh? Wait see my okay without light. You can't see I like that. What else?

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Okay, that's good. Any other thoughts I think about.

The story of creation where there was a light before God put the great before God put the Sun in. Right? Yeah.

Because he is the source of the light. Yeah. Okay. Well that really got me thinking because I was like well. The very first thing I thought of too was what Katie brought up. Which is the word is a lamp into my feet and a light up in my path.

So, okay. Reveals truth, right? But then I was like, well, but what does it mean? You know, what is light mean in this verse? I really started nerding out over it a little bit.

And.

The word here is or a and.

If.

You go to each Hebrew letter. Each Hebrew letter means something which adds meaning to the word or at least just it gives you a bit. It doesn't necessarily add. It's those things together. Comprised the meaning of the word.

And so I started nerding out over each Hebrew letter on this and so you have a left you have.

I.

Can't remember the name of that letter and then the last one is Here I have I have a note for that let me see because I do want y 'all to know What the letters are I? Had some notes that were outside of my notes that I was gonna pull up but then I had to go do the What she would calls it.

Because I haven't memorized all these letters yet, so I have to kind of keep a list of them. Oh above yeah, so we've heard of what above is from brother Myron, right? It can mean nail. But it also is a letter meaning Nail or secured.

All right, and so a left is the first Hebrew letter and it's it reads right to left. So like if you're looking at the Hebrew Word like in blue letter Bible When I say the first one is a left. It's the one on the far right which we're used to being the last one.

So a left is the first letter of the alphabet kind of like what we would call the a and it represents God. All right, and it doesn't even really have a pronunciation. It is the sound of a breath.

And.

So.

We typically will give it the Pronounce it pronunciation, but it's really more like that right, which is interesting because it represents God and It even represents in some cases the name of God. Thing about that is if you think about the very first Not necessarily English word but very first word on your lips when you come out of your mama's womb it is a breath and The last thing on your lips when you leave this earth is a breath.

So that's pretty wild if you think about the fact that even those who don't know who God is and may never know His name is on their lips when they come into this world and when they leave it and so a left Often represents the divine or in this case God.

And it can mean strength it can mean leader. It can mean ox because an ox Is a representative of strength. So then you have a left then you have love which means nail or secured and Then finally you have Resh yes resh Thank You pop.

And resh is the head or first and it can mean authority. So you put those three together you have God secured authority. So the Lord is my light and the word for light means my God secured authority. Which is pretty neat, right?

If you think about what we typically say when we talk about Jesus we say he's like my Lord and Savior well a God secured authority is lordship and So it's almost like an Old Testament way of saying he's my Lord and Savior.

But there's an added flavor to it because he's already said the Lord is My light and so he's the he's my Lord and Savior but part of what makes him Lord is this element of light which is what reveals truth and.

So.

Maybe I nerded out over it too much. I don't know but I thought it was kind of neat. So we say Lord and Savior and He says after this Whom shall I fear? And then he says the Lord is the strength of my life of whom shall I be afraid.

So Kings Are often considered Lord, right? And so if you have a subject and you look at the King the subject says yes Lord. No Lord, right? So when David says the Lord first he puts His God as Lord of Lords, right?

He's not a Lord. He's not my Lord. He is the Lord. But he is my God secured authority. So he's also my Lord, right? The Lord is my Lord and my Savior and he says My strength he is my strength or the strength of my life, which means my place of safety.

It can mean a stronghold so Kings. They have this effect on their people and that is they create confidence. Now sometimes they have different ways of creating confidence. When we think of why people follow a king One of the first things we think of is what power right?

And what do we usually attribute that power to with a king? Authority army what else? Crown anything else. Loyalty. Oh, no. No, no, these are all these are all good answers in the right answers. I find it interesting that we don't say wealth.

Because a lot of people go well, you know, we think of Kings and we think of wealth, you know. But we have a little bit of a different idea of what makes a king. Wealth often follows Authority. Wealth is sometimes the byproduct of authority.

There are two things typically that inspire Subjects to follow someone and make them in a way they're King. You have the scenario where Kings come in and they make themselves your king, right. The tyrants that come in They do that by strength.

So.

Strength Can create confidence that no, I Am Lord, you're not I am I've got the strength you don't and they can come in and just take over. It can also inspire someone to say I want you as Lord, which is why a king was often the first to run into battle.

All right. He's often the first to rally the troops in a hard fight and that Strength was inspiring and men look at that and go I'll follow him. I want to be around the strong one. That happens. Even in today's society when you have somebody who has a very strong Personality people typically try to fall in line and do what they do.

It typically try to follow them. You got your leaders and your followers and your leaders We often say are the ones that have strong personalities. They're not always good just because they have strong personalities.

Sometimes they're bad. But whoever has the strong personality is often the one that dictates where people are going what people are doing what they think how they act and. So you have strength as one of the ways.

That.

Confidence is built in a subject that that person is my lord. Now if you have a scary King. Who is a tyrant and goes around and just demolishing everyone else?

That.

Subject wants to be on that King's side and make him Lord because he doesn't want to be the one that's demolished. So it's it's a leading out of fear. That's not altogether bad. We think of it as bad, but All Kings have the ability to do that.

It's just some Kings become tyrants and they lead with fear. Other Kings become benevolent lords and they have a Position of authority which is fearful, but they don't lead with the fear. They might lead with love and so Strength is a very big part of instilling confidence in a follower.

David here is talking about who he follows is God and one of the first things he mentions is Strength but he's already mentioned something else beforehand. And that is the Lord is my light and Light is usually in Scripture associated with intellect or with truth and.

So.

David who's getting ready to like write this whole psalm About why he was not afraid of his enemies and why he has confidence in the face of danger He starts with truth. It starts with the positional authority of God he is the Lord and because he is the Lord and He is the Lord of light.

He is my light. He literally shines light on the matter for me. We say that. That is his first go-to point as to why he's not afraid and. So light often being associated with judgment Becomes synonymous with truth in a lot of ways.

That's why before passing judgment. We say things like we need to examine the facts and the testimonies. We're hoping to shed what? Light and sometimes we'll say truth on a matter and so. One of the first things David says is the reason he doesn't fear is because of The truth or the light that God brings to his life now.

The word for fear here is different than the word for fear at the end of this verse. There's two different words for fear. And so I want to talk a little bit about About that. But before we do I'm not quite done with light here so.

Because light is often synonymous with truth and truth has to be present for proper judgment. There is also this element of the king or the Lord who is Often synonymous with judgment right. Kings past judgment on their subjects on their enemies like they are the ones that people look to for.

What is supposed to happen? Where are we supposed to go? What are we supposed to do? How are we supposed to think and act and be and live and stuff? David starts there and He talks about this idea of fear.

After.

Invoking who God is and what God brings which is truth light proper judgment. So he won't fear because God brings truth life light proper judgment. Why would that help someone with fear? Why would that be something that brings confidence?

Knowledge always. Comforts fear. A lot of people are extremely afraid of snakes. My dad was.

Okay, and.

So.

Granser. Granser he was his pops dad and we called him Granser. He he was a research scientist in the Navy and he would Work a lot with snake venom. So they milk the snakes and stuff and some of them very venomous.

And pops been around snakes and like we had a six-foot Rat snake in our garage one time and we were calling pop. Like pop get over here and he came to help with the snake. And that was a fun time. We got him got him caught in a pillowcase.

You remember that pop. She was mad that we didn't kill it but it was one of the good good snakes. One of the good snakes apparently.

But.

Like it helped to know that pop understood What was what was the real scenario, right? So bringing truth to the scenario? No, this is one of those snakes that can't kill you. Oh, well that helps. Okay.

But what if it was one of the snakes that could. How would that have helped? How would pops intellect of helped if it was one of the snakes that could kill us? All right, you handle it differently and that's what we're really getting down to when it comes to truth and light and judgment the reason why it helps with fear is that there is a security and knowing that if danger is present a wise person with proper judgment will know how to handle it, but also If danger is not currently present a wise person with proper judgment will know how to avoid needing to handle danger.

Like you can avoid Certain scenarios and like if we have a a great King who is wise in in good in judgment He's not gonna just go headlong into wars with other countries. He might try diplomacy. He might try Ways that will keep us away from war not just keep us safe in war and.

So the reason why this is important in this particular verse is that the the word for fear at the the first word for fear That's used here. Whom shall I fear? Is a word that means to be put to dread.

Well.

Usually when you are put to dread it means oh no Something's coming, right? It doesn't necessarily mean oh, no, it's here. It's like oh no something's coming so if you have a king who has great judgment, you won't have that experience that often because Nothing's coming because he keeps us out of trouble.

Yeah, right so We get to the next part so there's truth there's judgment, there's the Lord is the Lord and Because of his truth and judgment. I don't have to worry about future potential danger. Then he says The Lord is my strength of my life.

He is the strength of my life of whom shall I be afraid? It sounds redundant. Like why is he saying? Why would I be afraid again, but it's not redundant because it's a different word and it has a little bit different meaning.

So Someone walks through the door right and they're here to hurt us.

What happens?

Matt shows up. What do you do Matt? Matt gets shot. Noah shows up. Noah picks up where Matt left off. Noah gets shot. This is Emily shows up next and we're all safe. Miss Thurston walks in the door and now we're all scared because you don't mess with Miss Thurston.

Yeah. You don't mess with her. Okay, so so Someone comes in to hurt us. It's game on right fight ensues. What do you want in a fight? You want strength? You want physical ability. Which is why judgment is important and often the person who has some judgment can De-escalate a situation so that they don't have to use strength, but at some point That becomes the thing that would have only worked to keep you out of the scenario.

You find yourself in the scenario and now you need strength. You need endurance. Right, so David first starts off by letting us know I'm going to be kept out of dreadful situations because I have The Lord the Lord as my Lord who is the Lord of light and truth and proper judgment, right?

But then he talks about strength and. And and the reason is the same reason why when you are Doing something like martial arts the very first thing they'll teach you how to do is de-escalate a situation how to use your intellect to get out of a Potential threat.

At least they should. I'm sure not all martial art teachers do that. But a good one will teach you that it is a last resort using the strength. But then The second thing they'll do is they will condition your body so that you have endurance and a lot of strength if it comes to fighting because In martial arts, it's not about Who wins it's about who survives because surviving is winning and that's the purpose of strength.

And so you have David who says the Lord is my light. He'll keep me out of trouble. But if trouble still comes he's also my strength and What's interesting is the fear. The word for fear here of whom shall I be afraid means to startle?

Suddenly. That's what happens when danger is present. That's not what happens when present when when danger is a potential. You know, you don't get startled you you experience dread when it's on the horizon you get startled when it's already here.

And.

This verse is that it's showing us that David has confidence that he will be kept out of trouble. But if trouble happens to find his its way to his doorstep He will survive it because the Lord is his strength as well.

Sorry, pop. Did you have something else you wanted to say?

Word.

First word is fear. The second word was that. Right? Right. Yep, right.

Which is why I nerded out over him because I'm like, all right, who shall I fear and Of whom shall I be afraid. It's translated differently. So I just said I wonder if it's different words. It's not. It isn't always, you know.

Sometimes it's just it reads a little better if you translate it differently. And many times the words Can be translated in two different ways. Well in this scenario, it was two different words, which I found interesting.

And that's gonna happen again in this study when we go a little bit further down. Kind of not really. It's not the same word. But it's when we start to dig into what the words mean. They mean something other than we think they mean.

Oh, yeah, isn't that interesting. So pop talked about how they're releasing hostages back to Israel. Because Trump said it better be done before I get back in office. There was a sense of dread there for them, you know, like oh there is pending doom, you know, so that could be.

Yeah, yeah.

So that that could be a part of it for sure. Um, it's a it's a good example, you know, like it's not like he's Pressing the button and now you got to survive a bomb. That would be more of the startled fear right like danger is here.

He's using a Potential fear a threat but see in this case David is like if I were to be threatened, I'm okay Because God's gonna keep me away from that if the threat is present and it's like oh, I'm I'm in a fight.

I'm okay with that too because The Lord is my strength. So, how do we know that this is About Light and judgment. I meant to say this a second ago when when we were talking about the light. Had one of my notes out of order here.

It's a similar dynamic for us because Jesus is our Lord, but he is also The judge and he's actually the judge of judges. Jesus is how do we know because in John 5 22, it says the father judgeth no man.

But hath committed all judgment unto the Son.

So.

Jesus is the one who has all judgment and That should give us peace right because he is our King. We're on his side, right? He's gonna judge the other guys. He's gonna look at us and say I covered you in my blood.

You are clean. So when I judge you I judge you as innocent.

Basically saying the court is staffed the judge and the advocate for us.

In a sense, it really kind of it kind of is I Mean, it's not fair. That's what Satan wants. He wants fair, you know, he wanted. What would be fair is for us to be Judged and thrown into hell, that's what would be fair, but we don't get fair.

We get mercy and then we get grace. So when my kids are like that's not fair. That's always my comeback. You know who likes fair. I'll tell you who likes fair. They might get tired of me saying that I don't know because I've done it a lot.

Yeah.

It is most assuredly true that David has confidence in his Kings judgments, therefore he will not fear the judgment of others. Another way Kings inspire confidence is through their strength. They will they would often be the first to charge into battle.

I've already said all that some. I've got my notes somehow out of order here, but Verse two. Yeah, we got through all the verse one there.

David’s Victory Over Enemies and the Meaning of “Enemies” and “Foes”

Okay.

Verse two. When the wicked even mine enemies and my foes came upon me to eat up my flesh. They stumbled and fell. So Kings Do this other thing to help with confidence? They have strength they have intellect.

But they also will count their victories and chronicle them. And the reason why a king chronicles his victories is There is another generation that may come and follow this King you know. And there is there is going to be a future battle where he has to call his troops to war.

And What he is able to do by chronicling the victories He's had in the past is he's able to say hey remember when we won last time. Let's go in again. And When his people go, oh, no, there's an enemy at our doorstep.

He says remember what I did to the last enemy and. So the chronicling of his victories and the recounting of those victories Helps to instill confidence in his people and in his troops.

So.

Here's another another really cool little word study when the wicked Even mine enemies and my foes came upon me to eat up my flesh. They stumbled and fell. David is recounting the victory from the past so he knows.

It's it's worked in the past that gives me confidence for the future. What do we say in the stock market past results are not indicative of future potential or whatever? But but David doesn't have to worry about that because he's like God Jesus he's like God is the same yesterday today and tomorrow.

So he's victorious yesterday. He's victorious today. He's victorious tomorrow. So that helps but then what I thought was interesting about this It it made a question pop up in my mind and here's my question.

You guys can answer it. What's the difference between an enemy and a foe? I thought they were the same. You Nailed it except what's interesting is the way this is written. You just have it backwards.

Yeah, what's it?

So but you're actually right because an enemy is someone who wants to invoke harm on you. But the word that is used for enemy here is Tsar and I'm probably not saying that correctly. But it can be and is very often translated as adversary so while In the English you got translated enemy.

It can also mean adversary, which is someone who works against you who? May not have The desire to harm you physically, but they want to see you fail, you know. That's what an adversary is. Whereas an enemy or a Foe is always someone who wants to kill you or hurt you.

Now the fact that this first word is Translated enemies here. It may or may not be a great translation. But you can take it to mean also that the the ones who want to see you Fail the ones that are against you that are just a thorn in your side.

There is a harm that they desire for you there. It's not necessarily necessarily physical though. Failure can sometimes lead to a physical harm you know like if you if you failed in business or something and now you're unable to Feed your family and stuff that would lead to a physical harm, but it's not the focus of the adversary.

The adversary just wants to see you fail. They want to see you sad. They want to say they don't like you. There's someone who's kind of against you and who you are and what you do and what you think say all that but an enemy or a foe Always wants to see you get hurt.

And so I think it's also interesting that it says When the wicked even mine enemies and my foes now I am NOT near the translator as the the group that translated the King James Version Bible. So when they put in the word even there it that is an addition which is why it's in brackets.

It's not in the original Hebrew. The reason why they put it in there is because it's to show that enemies mine enemies and my foe is kind of like a subset of What the writer means when he says the wicked like there are the wicked who are my enemies and my foe.

But the way it actually reads in Hebrew is when the wicked mine enemies and my foes.

So.

Whether it is a subset or not both make a lot of sense and this goes this speaks to a Dynamic that I was listening to with the John MacArthur Sermon that Katie I was actually just eavesdropping. Katie was listening to the sermon and he was talking about how there are people who sin against Directly but then there are people who just sin and maybe people in the church even who will sin and now they have because they have sinned.

They have sinned against you because there is a break in fellowship when they are living a life of sin and Your goal should be to restore them as a brother or sister and even though the sin that they committed may not have been against you directly the Way, we would see it because it is a sin against the Spirit and a sin against God's Word.

Then they have sinned against you directly because you're supposed to be one with the Spirit you're supposed to be one with each other and a sinful person cannot have Fellowship with a righteous person.

That's why in Psalm chapter 1 we hear the Sinners will not stand in the congregation of the righteous. It could be that it let's say it's not a subset. Anyone who is wicked. They are against you because they are against God.

But if it is a subset it makes sense because people who are against you whether physically or not. If you belong to the Lord, they're against God, which is what David is saying. Whom shall I fear? It's not me.

They're fighting. It's gonna be God it's not gonna be me like they got to go up against the Lord of Righteous judgment and the Lord of strength and so Gold star to Jenny for getting the difference there.

Confidence Against Encamped Armies and War

Verse 3. Though and host should encamp against me. My heart shall not fear though war should rise against me in this will I be confident? So the level of confidence that we see from the psalmist is described in like an Escalated way.

What do I mean by that? Well, he first described the person who opposes him an adversary. It's translated in me here, but it's what Jenny brought out. What if it's just someone who doesn't really want to hurt you, but they're just kind of against you.

That's the first person he describes but then he describes a foe. Someone who actually wants to hurt you so that's there's an escalation there, right? But here he continues to escalate the potential threats.

Someone who's against him someone who wants to attack him. Then he has a group a host. That this host is like an armed group. So now it's like not just a person who wants to hurt me now. It's an entire group that wants to hurt me.

And this it doesn't specifically.

Say that.

It's not the same as foe right like with a with a foe it's they are out to hurt you physically. This doesn't bring that same connotation, but they are armed which means they can and might hurt you physically.

But it is a group that opposes you. Right. And so through that opposition they might escalate to the point of attack. Then he moves on to an even higher level. Which is if war comes against me war is not between a group and another group.

It's between nation and.

Nation.

So like if an entire Race of of People not just a subset or group of people. And you go well race well it could mean it could mean like race relations. We know that that happens in the end time. We have nation shall rise up against nation and the words there actually mean race against race but when we talk about war it is Against a nation and The nation is not just people.

If you went and looked it up a nation is usually described as people. But it's not just because they are a group of people. It's because they are a group of people it to who adhere to an idea or an ideal or a set of a common history.

Or common language things of that nature so like We are Americans. But we are not necessarily America. I Identify as that sometimes I like who's America. Well we are and so are these neighbors of ours over here and stuff.

We are Americans. But we're not truly America. If we go to another country, it's not like okay now America is in France. It doesn't work that way. Americans are in France and they represent America which means they might bring ideals they might bring history language.

Which you know? Worldviews they might bring it into the other country. But it's those things that are the nation and so because those things Can invoke something like war. Now you've got an even harder enemy to fight something that's more ethereal right it's not like okay.

There's the person go attack the person. Let's subdue the person or there's a group if our group is bigger, and we can overcome that group war is over. No now. You can subdue a group and the war might not be over if there's another group that adheres to the same ideals.

You you would have to then go okay? Well Let's put it like this. Someone comes over attacks America right they subdue all of us. America loses, but wait. There are still people that might rise up and create a new rebellion.

The people who've been captured Might say no, we're not done fighting if we find a chance to escape and fight again. The nation lives so to speak. I'm reminded of the White Horse King. I Had a book that Ben gave me.

I read the whole thing loved it. It was awesome is about Drawing a brain Blank, but yes, thank you King Alfred and King Alfred at one point is defeated by an enemy King but he lives among the people because he's escaped and while he's among the people his ideals are still alive and his his Virtues are still strong in some of the people and he uses that to rally people To his cause and he ends up coming back and defeating the king and he's the only reason why we have England today.

Like it wouldn't be there if it hadn't been for him. That's how close it was for that whole nation to disappear. They had been defeated and he was a refuge among the people hiding from the enemy King, but he was still in the kingdom and The nation that Alfred built was still alive.

So when David here says war is upon me, that's much bigger than a people group.

It's.

What inspires the people group? So that's that's a bigger thing because we wrestle not with flesh and blood but with principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in high places. Right dark rulers of this world.

So like This is a this is a confidence that surpasses Human strength of any kind. This is a confidence that surpasses Even his own mental capacity because how do you overcome an ideal? How do you overcome a nation.

You must not only defeat the people but you must cause all other people To decide that that nation is dead and that ideal is dead.

So.

When he says war is upon me. I will you know, I will not fear. In this will I be confident. That's a big statement and he has confidence that. It's like he's really sat and thought about like what are all of my potential threats from this level all the way up.