A Road Map for Life | Remembering Our Redeemer Sample

THIS IS WAR (Psalm 60)

Did you know that sometimes, when you are fighting on one front, the enemy will sneak around on the other side? He is a strategic attacker!

While you are engaged in one battle, another battle comes. While you are winning a victory in one area, suddenly you find that you are struggling with something else.

That is the context of Psalm 60. You can see this in the title of the psalm. This was when Joab had led his armies against one set of enemies, and while he was gone, other enemies of Israel took advantage of his absence and brought another attack.

I am reminded of the adage, “When it rains, it pours.” You are fighting on the right hand and another foe shows up on the left.

That is just part of life. But an even more important truth is that God is able to take care of every enemy and every battle. That is the emphasis of Psalm 60.

It begins with the words, “O God.” Have you ever been at the point where it was all you could do to cry out to Him and almost groan while doing so? God hears every groan of your heart.

Verses 1-4: “O God, thou hast cast us off, thou hast scattered us, thou hast been displeased; O turn thyself to us again. Thou hast made the earth to tremble; thou hast broken it: heal the breaches thereof; for it shaketh. Thou hast shewed thy people hard things: thou hast made us to drink the wine of astonishment. Thou hast given a banner to them that fear thee, that it may be displayed because of the truth. Selah.”

Hardness

I marked in my Bible the phrase “hard things” in verse 3. Sometimes hardness is the first thing God allows us to see in a given situation. According to II Timothy 2:3, each of us is to “endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” You cannot remove all of the hard things from life.

Heaven will be wonderful in part because we will not have to live with the harsh realities of a sin-cursed world, but while we are here we have to travel through life’s obstacle course. Sometimes it seems like a minefield, and you are just trying to survive. But if you think all God has for you are hard things, keep reading.

Verses 5-9: “That thy beloved may be delivered; save with thy right hand, and hear me. God hath spoken in his holiness; I will rejoice, I will divide Shechem, and mete out the valley of Succoth. Gilead is mine, and Manasseh is mine; Ephraim also is the strength of mine head; Judah is my lawgiver; Moab is my washpot; over Edom will I cast out my shoe: Philistia, triumph thou because of me. Who will bring me into the strong city? who will lead me into Edom?”

The city referenced here, the strong capital of the Edomites, is the city of Petra. It was seemingly impenetrable. But God is able.

Verse 10: “Wilt not thou, O God, which hadst cast us off? and thou, O God, which didst not go out with our armies?”

This is the cry of someone who feels that God has forsaken him. My friend, God will never do that. He is always with you, always at work and warring for you. He speaks through this psalm, assuring us that He is in control. Nothing takes Him by surprise.

Perhaps you are living in shock right now, dealing with something you never saw coming and simply trying to cope. Nothing catches God off guard. No one is too strong from Him.

Help

Verse 11: “Give us help from trouble: for vain is the help of man.”

God will bring you to the place where you realize that you have nothing, you are nothing, and no one else can help you. He does that to show you that your only help is in Him.

There are several keywords scattered throughout this psalm, sprinkled among the various descriptions of difficulty. Those words include “heal” in verse 2, “hear” in verse 5, and “holiness” in verse 6. These words describe who God is and what He does.

None of the bad circumstances in your life take away from the goodness of God. His nature is fixed for time and eternity. He is unchanging in a changing world.

Him

Verse 12: “Through God we shall do valiantly: for he it is that shall tread down our enemies.”

This entire psalm is for one purpose, and so is whatever you are going through today. God is always bringing us to Himself, making us realize that we are nothing and He is everything. There are terrible and difficult things in this world that we have to deal with, but He is enough. Verse 12 reminds us of His sufficiency.

I think sometimes we are praying for short-term relief when God wants us to have long-term growth. We may be trying just to get out of something when He is trying to put something in us — a greater faith and a greater understanding of who He is.

I love that this war song God gave us does not end with us barely surviving. It ends with our victory in God, doing “valiantly.”

It might look like the enemy is carrying the banners and marching against you right now, but I want to remind you that we are marching under the banner of the One who has already conquered all of the enemies. They are under His feet. Through God, you will do valiantly today. It is not about you trying harder or being stronger in and of yourself, but enduring hardness and relying on His strength alone.

Amid your battle today, near the front lines where it is the hottest, remember that God is there, “for he it is that shall tread down our enemies.”