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Psalm 4 By Rob Nicholson

strange places you get your text from my wife will tell you she gave this to me when was it the night before last was it yeah probably something like that yeah psalm 4 hear me when i call a god of my righteousness thou hast enlarged me when i was in distress have mercy upon me and hear my prayer are you sons of men how long will you turn my glory into shame how long will you love vanity and seek after leasing but know that the lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself the lord will hear when i call unto him stand in awe and sin not commune with your own heart upon your bed and be still offer the sacrifices of righteousness and put your trust in the lord there be many that say who will show us any good lord lift up the light of the accountments upon us thou hast put gladness in my heart more than the time that their corn and their wine increase i will both lay me down in peace and sleep for thou lord only makest me to dwell in safety this is what's known as an evening song for obvious reasons the song that goes before is uh psalm 3 is sometimes called the morning song but uh what i explained this morning in church basically was well lord willing is i intend to do every sunday afternoon rather than alternate with kevin kevin and i will alternate the preaching in church but i'll do every sunday afternoon what i'm interested in doing is focusing on because you weren't there this morning you guys well you know i better tell you so i'm interested in focusing on the more
practical aspects of the christian life to show you how you can use scripture to
apply to particular circumstances unique circumstances and the other thing
i'd like to do is is also to make sunday afternoon a place
where you can bring unbelievers where they can ask questions
okay so rather than me just preaching at you
in the afternoon as we're meeting here for bill
and bill's convenience you know that's fine that's okay as long as it's okay
with you guys but wherever we happen to meet okay
that that's kind of like a more informal fellowship arrangement on sunday
afternoon so you know i'm more than happy to take
people's questions even for them to write them down
so i can go away then come back and then answer them next week
i can feel a lot of questions straight off the top of my head but i mean
i'm talking about issues like you know uh
you know christian relationships and child problems all those practical
things you know that that uh if i can't find some immediate
direction here i'll find it bring it to you but the main thing is to show you
how this works and how it really works is got to get
beyond theory you know it's a good thing to preach
doctrine it's a good thing to preach inspirational exaltation sermons
but it's another thing for people that have enough developed confidence to come
here and find the answer to their problems and say anyway if i do this
i know the lord's blessing is going to be upon it and i can faithfully wait
for the good to come it may take application and process and all these
things but it is going to happen so you know and that's what i think
reform preaching is i mean correct me if i'm wrong but that's what i think it's
supposed to be uh and it's what we're going to try and
do between me and that fellow sitting over there is create a balance
okay so you get all these different aspects presented to you that you take
what you need and you use okay and that's why you know it's good
that he and i are very different it's very good you know uh psalm 4 is
what i call the evening psalm and i could give it a subtitle and say
it's a prescription for a good night's sleep that's what it is
prescription for a good night's sleep you know you
sleepless written with anxiety stress turmoil
worry anxiety you go to your doctor and he writes you out a prescription he says
i want you to take 60 milligrams of simonal before bed you'll have a nice
quiet snooze till the morning well that's okay for
a pagan who doesn't know how to displace their stress or deal with the problems
of life but christians should not be in need of simonal
how do you go about the business of getting a good night's sleep
well what you have in psalm 4 is the reflections of the believer in the
quietness of the evening as he comes and closes off his day
and admittedly you know david lives in a different time
agrarian society things weren't quite moving
so fast in their day their day ran from you know
sundown to sundown and it had a kind of natural termination point as the evening
come on i mean we go to bed each evening and it seems we know
we've got to get up at a certain the rush starts again it just goes on and on
and on and you even go from lord's day to lord's
day at high speed you know many shall run to and fro
get anxiety you know i mean just from the sheer speed of life
and it's this loss of the ability to close the day off
and to to shut down through these these ordinary
spiritual means that the scripture gives it's been lost
well david here in psalm 4 of course is dealing with
and writing of specific events that have happened to him at that immediate time
you know he had the usual number of enemies milling around the place and so
he mentions them and you know the problems of government of
people who are seeking only after lightness and vanity and riches and
wealth in this world and we're not seeking after those
enduring things and we're not concerned about
building up the kingdom in the graces and service of the lord
that he saw it as you know he was the type of the shepherd king
so he mentions the circumstances that are relevant to him
but basically let's take your worries okay let's just get your average jar
of completely sanctified ordinary christian human worry
okay and we'll just unscrew the lid and just pour it in here
okay and you can put it in there and it'll fit quite nicely
but the principles you see for example if you have a look in verse four you've
got four resolutions there he's got as he
comes to this point to shut off his day he does
three things the first thing you see him do is he
brings himself to reverence in god's presence
he says stand in awe you know you picture yourself laying down
and the first thing you need to do after you've had that torment of a day
the soil of the world upon your feet is to get yourself back into spiritual
reality to get some perspective you know you've been dealing with
maybe problem children or worries about money
or stresses between relatives all during the day you're coming to the end of the
day it's time to shut down let's get back into reality you've been
absorbed merely in the things of this world and being a human
how are you going to get your equilibrium back well bring yourself
into the presence of god that's what david does before he goes to
sleep he says here stand in awe
in that sense of bring yourself into this position
and understand this this reverence you know every night
you know bill would certainly be conscious of this close your eyes you
don't know if you're going to wake up in the morning
do you okay other people in this room they presume
i mean you don't presume that anymore do you no well these people do
you know they tend to presume that they're going to wake up in the morning
and i tend to presume it most times you know and it's only when you have the
the taste of death upon your tongue or at least
the sense of it pressing upon your mind that you under
you could possibly i suppose ordinarily begin to understand this you know
you may be closing your eyes for the last time you may really be doing that
and the next thing you know as you go off to sleep if you're not
standing in or at least reverencing the presence of god and bringing him into
that time and place where you're laying at that moment you may be waking up
with your eyes open on him anyway whether that be
to behold christ glory or in another place that the judgment seat sometime
later but there you go when he brings to calm
himself brings himself to calm down he's he's
seeking this this understanding within himself you
know i'm getting myself back into the frame of mind where
the only place i know happiness is in god's favor
and so to come into the presence of god is not a light business
not an easy business we understand what frivolity is
nothing i find more excellent i see because we grew up through the stage
i can still remember
when young christians started to call the lord jesus just jesus
you know and it became the jesus people generation
and you had this lightness and this flippancy began to penetrate people's
talk and his titles that is himself as the lord
or his reference to the reference to him as who he was as
jehovah was something that was lost and reverence and awe and he became a common
word that just fell from the lips and it became like a
buzzword of all the faults and superficial piety that permeated
through the young people in the churches in the 60s and 70s
and there was really no sense of awe or no sense of reverence attached to this
name and people might say well you know you
use the phrase the lord jesus christ kind of like a formula but no you don't
you're just giving him his place and giving him his
title and distinguishing him from from all others from the false
christs and certainly the superficial jesuses that are professed on people's
lips so when david says here you know stand
in awe you know he's saying well bring yourself into this position
where you give to him those titles and that kind of understanding
that is his own jew so you know your first thing you've got here is that
david is is reverencing himself he's bringing
god back in this is already starting to clear things up
it's getting things in perspective as he faces those kinds of
stresses he talks about sons of men is a common name that's used in scripture
a phrase for those who were travelers and tormentors you know and they
were causing you know he says here how long will you will
you turn my glory into shame you know and sort of what these men were
doing was subverting aspects of david shepherd rule as a king
you know and his his rule was to act on god's behalf as the shepherd of the
people and how long will you love vanity and seek
after lightness or leasing you know all these people were distracting
uh david's work and and i'm doing it and so
they're the kinds of things he's loaded in here so he brings god in and says
well you know the lord's in control of this situation you know his presence
is here with me as i lay upon my bed and of course
the first thing that automatically springs into line
when you stand in awe of god's presence is the great distance between
you yourself as a creature and him as he is in his person that's why david says
sin not that seems like an odd phrase doesn't
it stand in awe and sin not but it's not really i mean
that's the instinct of the believer when he
approaches into god's presence he immediately becomes aware
of the distance between god and himself and you see he has a resolution in this
not to see sin and low mean thoughts of god must be
laid aside at this place we're coming into a point
of a serious closure for the day and uh that's the the second hour he's got it
the first one was reverence in his presence the second one is this
resolution not to see him because what he's going to do here
through this process is actually bring himself to commune with
his own heart that's an interesting point what is it
to commune with your own heart well i'm not going to tell you to suck eggs
basically it's pretty straightforward you know what it's like
you get into bed at night and you begin to reflect and commune with your own
heart on how things have gone that day you think about the stuff ups you've made
the things you've said wrong to different people or
or how you you fail to encourage someone on some way and
you think about uh you know the kinds of trials and troubles that you
that are just typical of life and that's what david was saying here in communing
with my own heart it's a reflection on the
self this is how you think i hope it's how you think
hope you think before you go some people just go to bed and go to sleep
that's okay don't know what to say to them
but here communing with your own heart i mean this is where you begin this
reflection on the self and you know you weigh all those
experiences you've had you know the motivation you've
experienced and you judge yourself in the sense of you know
have i been sincere in what sense have i been selfish and in what way have i
used other people and you go through this process just as
a natural consequence of this spiritual business that that david
is talking about here you know you can't be a believer without
a fair degree of self-criticism you know it's normal
and anybody comes along and criticizes you for self-criticism is probably
leading you astralia there is a healthy form of self-criticism
i mean it's different from the kind of uh self-abnegation
and hyper criticism you get when somebody is depressed
when a person becomes depressed they can begin to turn in upon themselves in an
angry way that's what people forget about
depression it's anger turned inward it's frustration
turned inward and because it has no other means of expression outside
and what happens in that case is that a person
literally begins to tear themselves up into little pieces it's not a
constructive process at all it's destructive
okay but we're not here talking about a man who's depressed i mean david knew
what it was to be down and there were times when he was hard on himself
and he was hard on others you know this is uh the same guy who wrote psalm 4
is the same man who cried out once in despair no man cared for my soul
you know he felt the desperation of loneliness he was wrong of course
dove jonathan cared for his soul but that's what depression can do to the
mind it can rob it of even basic truth so when we're talking about this
commuting with your own heart here we're talking about an honest kind of
self-criticism that reflects back on what you've done during the day using
the word of god as your standard you know you have free access through
the blood so self-criticism in this way it's no reason to fear
and uh you know you may make a startling discovery like the rest of us do
but you tend to make the same mistakes over and over again
don't be surprised that's normal so you see these
this is kind of like the beginnings of how to get your good
sleep you see
bring yourself into this position of reverence get god settled in your day
i mean understand that there has been a divine providence guiding you through
every event and circumstance and word that's gone on
nothing's been by accident everything has been to a purpose
and the lord wants you to bring it to a close as he himself said you know
sufficient to the day is the evil thereof
you know tomorrow will have sufficient concerns for itself you focus your
energies on this and close the day off and you move on refreshed
you know you uh it's an incredibly difficult business for anybody to to go
and take their troubles to bed with them and it's a bad business for a christian
to begin to carry them through the week so i'm kind of giving you this like
like a message like a prescription to say this is a good way to shut it off
and if you if you can teach the believers who are around you
these principles you'll find that you'll be a whole lot gracious more
gracious to each other when you shut off your own sins each
night you notice uh further he says there in
verse six
uh and you know like in the king james version we don't actually italicize the
words that means that there are no words in
the original okay the verse reading in verse six says
there be many that say who will show us any good and the word
isn't actually in the text uh so it's really who will show us good
not who will show us any good any kind of generalizes it too much
mind you you're looking at one of the big advantages of the king jones
version here at least they tell you where they've inserted a word you know
but other translations do not tell you and
they're saying look this is what we think this verse means
but you can put your finger on the any and you can read this
many that say who will show us good see and david is bursting there are
plenty of people around him who are critics
and who are cynics david's in the natural process of living
his believing experience day by day and he's able to see
the hand of god in small things are you able to see the hand of god in small
things i mean we look for maximum mercies to
descend upon the church but god has a multitude of small ways
of showing what his mercies are that people and
unbelieving you know christians who are who are routinely unconscious of these
things tend to miss but david doesn't and he's
stunned many of them that say who will show us
good you know david could see good on every hand
he could see the manifestation of god's goodness in the little things that he
had day by day and so when he comes to deal with these
critics he says thou has put gladness in my heart
you see now david is a man he's living in the same world
in the same universe of experience as all these people who are the critics
yet he is saying that in in his heart there's contentment there's gladness
and he sees the contrast as focused in those elements
in which they these people align themselves with
with good and the good he speaks of here is
he's kind of using their words who will show us good
well the good that he's talking about is not a spiritual good he's kind of
characterizing these people the good spoken of there
is merely comfort riches honor health earthly things
you see and it's the very mark of the man of the unbelieving man that
they're the focus of his thoughts and anxieties comfort riches honor health
you know if if he has all those things he can just be happy
and these people are saying who you know who will show us this good what do we
seek in this life you know if we get a good government
we get good management everywhere you know our financial affairs we fix the
balance of payments problem then we'll have you know comfort riches
honor health and you know those things are not a even
of any concern today but he's putting it like a great contrast
and he comes to this point you know of what he considers to be blessedness
his only answer is not to come up with a plan not to come up with a system or
to say well you know i'm going to improve the economic system here and
you know modify the social adjustment scale there he says lord lift up the
light of thy countenance upon us you know that's what he considers to be
the heart of the blessedness of any human to have that sense of the
light of the lord's countenance resting upon you you know
maybe i don't know maybe we lose it as we grow up
i think we kind of formalize it as adults
you know there's nothing wrong with going up to somebody and saying you
know good job well done you know and encouraging
people in in what they do that's good i mean that's
that's in a measure of conveying this sense of lifting up the countenance on
somebody but it's probably better understood if
you can cast your mind back when you were a child
of that uh inevitable pleasure that sense you may have had when you pleased
an adult maybe someone who was special to you like your own father or mother
and your own father or mother smiled at you can you can you even remember your
mother's smile at all or your father's smile can you remember
that well that's kind of like what david's
talking about here he's he values that sense of the father's
smile that sense of the one who is the dearest
and tender tenderest of all his spiritual
concerns if that one smiles if he smiles then then that's worth all
these troubles that's beyond any measure of goods riches honor health well any of
those things you know that uh and and you know uh
it's not often said i don't think from well maybe not in reform circles it's
said trivially in others but uh you know the lord takes delight in
these people he smiles on them often you know in
their in the struggles you face in the times
when you make those stands on principles you
know i'm here to tell you that christ is
is pleased he smiles he's happy he lifts up the light of his countenance
upon you can you imagine that i mean you might have fallen into the
habit of thinking of christ as sitting in heaven and you know judging
and ruling and guiding and protecting and all these good
godly biblical things but don't forget that he loves his people and that he
smiles upon them and there are times when he is
literally beaming with joy over the simplicity
and you know even the imperfection of their obedience but
to him it's it's a vastly great treasure you know it's it's the benefits that
he's drawn from the conduct of his work upon the cross and it's not something
that he values lightly i mean when scripture talks about the
rewards due to the christian uh that he receives you know the crowns
and these things you often hear fundamentalists preach these things in
great extended networks of you know they're really missing the
point because all these things are meant to carry symbolic meaning
and the symbolic meaning is the unutterable joy
in the heart of god when one of his creatures obeys
when they respond to him out of loving obedience
and he lifts up the light of his countenance upon them
and legalism and pharisaism all the all these elements
rob you of these simple things you see david is
in always in the first sense a believer a simple believer
and to have that sense of the father's smile is worth more
than all those things in the world you know
people make the bible a lot more complex than it is
if we reduce it to the kind of terms that are presented to us here then you
find these little pearls i hope you find them pearls i find them refreshing
to be able to go back and look at these things you know labor all the way
through anthropology theology you know and all
these technical ins and outs of things i'd love to come back to the scripture
and look on these simple things that completely refresh the soul
in some sense you know being cynical and critical is wise in this world
but it's certainly no place for the believer to have any heart
or reposing now david has no response to correct or improve
or to polish the human situation that he finds himself in
he understands that what he is on is a journey
he's performing a work and the work is not an end in itself
david was a man who was on a pilgrimage now he learned that through many great
trials and you find you know one of the great
places you find that figured in in post-christian literature is is like
in the pilgrim where he takes the journey
and you read carefully again the conversations between faithful
and christian and hopeful and christian and you'll see these elements
whereby they encourage themselves in the face of dangers they're focused on
uncomfortably simple things you know and uh
bunion understood that because the lord took him and put him in darkness for so
many years you know and the simple things of christ had to
become very precious in such a place you know there was no banner of truth
magazine you know there was uh you know no weekly
reformed forum you know the man was on his own and the
lord gave him the sanctified use of the imagination and he put it to use
on the simple things because to them they were the points that bunion
mattered you know this i think it's one of the great
illustrations of christian history you know when bunion was in the cell
and uh he was allowed one visit and his little blind girl came into
see him yeah have you ever seen that picture
of bunion's visit from his little blind daughter and you know bunion's
totally encouraged and he's not depressed because here he is confined as
he called it with christ and to see his little daughter was a
great moment and there on the bed was you know the open scriptures and his pen
and his few bits of paper that he was writing the progress on
and the sheer beam of joy as he sees his little girl
you know the simplicity of things lifting up the light of the countenance
the father's joy in his own child these are critically
simple things that you could pass over be they ever so be the tendency to make
scripture ever so complex or to write a six inch volume of
theology which are good in and of themselves
his spiritual reflex as you could call it lord lift up the light of the
countenance upon us well that's the cure that's the answer here i am well here
you are as you lay in bed your reverence in that
sense that you stand in awe you know you separate yourself and your
mind from sin because you're entering into god's presence
you commune with your own heart in reflection and you understand that in
the face of all the trials and and uh whether it be missing it misery and or
happiness that you've faced that the key point in your life is this
smile of the lord's countenance upon you that's the great satisfaction that
brings the believer true rest david's only
words to those who seek other ways of finding happiness is to offer the
sacrifices of righteousness and put your trust in the lord you know and
he has no other kinds of advice and to put your trust in the lord is
is you know the word trust has that same sense of belief
oh my goodness how many sermons have you listened to on believing that have made
it so complex you know i love the old illustration that the puritans used of
believing as just leaning on a staff you know putting your weight upon it
and uh people you hear people say well what is faith you know how do i believe
and and if you use that picture the bible's picture of it is so simple
well you know what what is it when you believe on christ well you know you lean
upon him you you put your trust or your reliance you put your whole weight
upon his righteousness having no righteousness of your own it's that
simple that you can read you know great volumes on faith and trust and what
believing is and yet still miss that simple point that it's you know that
the figure that was given in scripture is the great old saint jacob you know
he's a man who was led through many trials he was a trickster and he was a liar and
he was a thief and yet god redeemed him and brought him through the whole
experience and here is this man i mean i don't know about you but any i've
actually read you know liberal commentary
well this guy reckoned the lord made an estate you know you really should have
picked it he saw he saw was a good natural man robust no man of the world
you know why on earth would he pick this this wee jape but you know of course liberal wouldn't have
a clue but what god did was he took the worst he took the lowest he took the man who was the weakest
brought him through a lifelong of trials and troubles and you have this marvelous picture
of jacob the saint and where do you find him near his death worshiping on his staff you know and
humility and obeisance before god now there's a man who knows peace there's a man who knows what
rest is but it's been through a long journey itself and jacob as he stands there offers
nothing but sacrifices of righteousness and acknowledges god in all his goodness and that's
his leaning upon his staff he was touched in the thigh the sinew of his thigh was shrunk
which was the lord's way of making him limp and lean on him all his life a wonderful and
a marvelous picture of what god's grace can do over a period of time and david had had
similar experience thou hast put gladness in my heart more than in the time that their
corn and their wine increased yes pleasures they've experienced health wealth they've
certainly had for a time but even then the spiritual beauties of all knowledge of the
lord and the soul bring you to this point where it just doesn't matter what's happening in the
world it doesn't matter what providence is brought upon you during the day once you've got yourself
into this kind of repose where you're in awe of god you're reverencing you where you understand
the that this is the god who will have no cart or book with sin no point of compromise yet still
is willing to receive his people when you've been through the business of that
self-criticism and dismissal of the day into the ocean of god's grace and forgetfulness
then you can lay you down in peace and sleep because why no lord thou only make us me to
dwell in safety you know let there be robbers on a thousand side let the earth be shaken with
an earthquake it matters not it's all in god's plan it's only the lord that makes you to dwell
in safety in any case you know and i love this particular verse because it's it's the great
verse of the christian serviceman who's facing death when he's out on a battlefield this is the
verse that they most often carry with them you know it's the verse that's most often upon their
lips of believing men when you find them out when they're fighting a war they pray this prayer
before they go to sleep i will both lay me down in peace and sleep for thou oh lord only makes me
the dwellings and you know what fear is terror real terror well i'll tell you what
no prescription is going to do but this one when you've got real fear and real terror upon your
soul and david had known what that's like and he'd become convinced of this through this long
journey that he'd been brought on so having trouble sleeping at night well reverence
resolution about sin and then this reflection with your own heart upon your bed is bound to
lead you to this place if you're a believer where you understand again what gladness and happiness
you have in your own heart because god himself has put it there whatever trials you're going to
face this week scraping together money here on there trying to put clothes on kids backs food
on the table all those kinds of things all designed in the providence and the love of god
to teach you and lead you through this process and far be it from me to merely leave at the point
where you think upon yourself but i mean you look at your christian brethren whether your own wives
husbands or friends they're all going through these these same struggles and if you find one
who's having trouble sleeping then lead them back here to psalm psalm 4 take them back there and say
well look you've got to get god back into this situation you've got to get this sense of
reverence and awe upon your spirit and to understand what his real control is and we've
all got blisteringly short memories you have to understand that this is a daily refreshment that
david takes and unless you drink this fresh draft every day you'll quickly become tired run down
worn and overwhelmed in the world absolutely guaranteed you know i uh after three or four
days of me not kind of formally shutting myself down i know it you know like i i've always made
it a habit of of actually doing this which is probably when i do sleep i sleep pretty well
but sometimes i don't sometimes i forget and you know i generally aware of it after a few
days kids are probably aware of it um life's probably aware of it but you come to yourself
when you realize that what's happened is that you're beginning to reason without christ in
the situation that's what happens it's strange isn't it you know you begin to think about life
as though christ doesn't exist begin to think about there's this worry there's that worry
but you're not reasoning from his position of care and you know that's the difference between belief
and unbelief belief is reasoning according to the reality of god's existence that's that's what it
is unbelief is reasoning as if god did not exist that's how you end up with worry and anxiety and
that's what those things really are what's worry reasoning as if god does doesn't exist
you know think about that you don't need it any more complex than that dude
well there i'm going to leave it okay so that's what do they call it robert's recipe for a good
night's sleep you like that one i hope so i mean i do it works for me i hope it works for you
sure it will but uh if you know anybody who uh is not getting a good night's sleep you know it's one
of the things you say to unbelievers you're having trouble sleeping oh yeah i can't sleep
well you know there is a path to a nice restful night's sleep and it's through
salvation in the person of the lord jesus christ that's the way you get a good night's sleep
and on the other hand you know you bump into people who are professing christians real
christians to the best of your knowledge and you find they're not getting a good night's sleep
well you know sin life at the door generally that's almost always the problem sin life at
the door or you know maybe there's there's some torment or trouble going on in there but you know
the lord expects his people to get a good night's sleep you know the scripture speaks about those
who rise up early and stay up late you know labor as if the more effort they put into things
spiritual the more sanctified things are going to get and the quicker god's going to work uh don't
know anything about that in the bible that's like a works religion and i'm telling you that uh there
were a couple of times we know of in the new testament where the lord stayed up all night
praying but it was a pretty rare event uh he didn't do it all the time and most of the time
he seemed to be in bed by about eight o'clock because that's when the sun went down and got
a good night's sleep okay what i'm saying thereby is uh don't think that any extraordinary efforts
of self-denial or scarifying of the flesh are going to make you more spiritual you know these
are the things that make long-term change and orientation back into the fullness of divine
blessing a reality they're simple things but they do work let us pray
father we ask that you would teach us again from your word to understand what our needs are
and how you have provided for all our needs in the person of the lord jesus
father we ask especially as we continue as a fellowship that we may take time again to
look at the lord jesus and his work and his ministry that we would see him again not only
lord as our savior which he is but our governor and our guide through all of our life the loving
friend who has gone before all lord back through time when we were chosen in him before the
foundation of the world but further into the future where he has already crossed the river
of death and waits for us on the other side lord let no fear torment thy people souls teach them
what true victory is in the person of the lord jesus so that all their praises may return to
the pure we ask for your glory so