Psalm 27:1-3 – 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? When the wicked came against me to eat up my flesh, my enemies and foes, they stumbled and fell. Though an army may encamp against me, my heart shall not fear, though war may rise against me, in this I will be confident.
In the first three verses of Psalm 27, David, the psalmist, makes four references to the boldness he experiences in his life. He states that he fears no man, holds no anxiety in his heart, and is completely confident in approaching any situation he may face in life, even in the face of death. In each of these references he credits to ultimately derive from who God is. The courage he experienced, the confidence he walked in were byproducts of David’s justifying faith in God. In these first three verses there also lies a prophetic picture of the end time church, both living in the strength of her Beloved God, and triumphing over their enemies by their faith and trust in Him. Look at David as representing the Church of Jesus, facing her trials and tribulations courageously, not because of any natural propensity to preserver, but because of the God who enables.
David stated that the Lord was his light, the strength of his life, and his salvation. Jesus Christ gave wisdom and understanding to David that his contemporaries did not have. The same way He gives wisdom and revelation to those of us, now, who commune with Him (Ephesians 1:17-21). The Lord was his light. That is to say that the Lord imparted super-natural revelation to David’s mind, which gave David the reassurance he needed in order to face his times of tribulation. He was fearless in the presence of his enemies, even as they sought to kill him. Why? What type of faith produces courage, even gladness, in the face of death? David’s faith did not rest solely in expectation of God preserving his flesh from his enemies. His faith was much deeper than that. David’s faith consisted of confidence and surety in the union he experienced with God.
His faith convinced him that even if he was handed over to his enemies and put to death, they were unable to harm him. David had this outlook because his world view was rooted and grounded in eternity. Because he thought and interpreted life from an eternal perspective the everyday tribulations and sufferings became almost completely irrelevant in light of his glory and destiny with God. They were unable to do any harm whatsoever to the life he experienced with God. As mere men we view our life as beginning at conception and ending at the termination of our bodies. David had a totally different perspective, he had understanding that descended from above, as should we who are in Christ. David had a deep understanding that the life which he lived from did not have its origin in his flesh, but rather, had its origin in God Himself. The life that David experienced was the Life of the Holy Spirit yoked with his spirit. It was this mystery of Christ in him. David was justified by God through his faith in God and from this heart posture God unifies Himself with fall man producing redemption.
No man has the ability to separate us, who are in Christ, from Christ. Jesus says this in Matthew 10:27-31 when He says “Do not fear those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” Man has the ability to destroy our bodies, but his authority stops there. Man has no ability to destroy either soul or spirit. David had an understanding of this and so he was bold in the face of death. So what if they took his body? To live is Christ, to die is only to gain Him fully. See how imperative it is that we have this paradigm? When we understand that nothing can separate us from His love it produces confidence and boldness in us. Paul states this later on in Romans (8.35-39), where he says:
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” 37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This type of faith is not extravagant, but rather is the normal Christian faith. The reasons why we don’t share this same perspective with David are many. Partly, as the church in the western world, we have lowered the bar of Biblical faith so low that what we present as saving faith is actually only a mental comprehension void of any transformational power. We teach people with our actions that they can be saved without any change of lifestyle or repentance. The faith that David presents here is the faith by which we must live and walk out our spirituality; one where we demonstrate our spirituality through our lifestyle. The standard of Biblical faith has never changed, even if our presentation of it has.
This “Davidic” faith is required for our generation if we are to face the fiery trials that lie ahead of us. Just as David’s enemies sought to remove his life from him, so the torrent of Islam has vowed to systematically annihilate every Jew and Christian from the face of the earth, in our day, in our time. We are approaching days of unparalleled conflict and crisis. We are approaching the days which the Bible spoke more of than any other time in the history of man. Jesus addressed the generations that lie just ahead of us even more than He addressed His own. How many of us possess the faith that prepares us for martyrdom? How many of us are reading the signs of the times? For those of us who are reading them, how many of us are responding to them?
If we don’t posses faith like David’s, Biblical faith, how shall we stand in the days ahead? The Bible speaks of a victorious church in the generation that witnesses the culmination, but it also speaks of a great falling away, due to offense. We can be confident that the church in the days ahead will possess this faith, and we can also be confident that God will, in one generation, totally change the expression of Christianity. Be certain about this: In a single generation God will change the expression of Christianity from politically correct, acceptable and lukewarm to unapologetic, radical passion. This Davidic faith is paralleled in Revelation chapter 12.11. Here we see an entire generation of believers walking in victory by means of this faith. That generation will be able to experientially identify with David in these first three verses of Psalm 27.
Revelation 12:11 – And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.
What a beautiful picture of the end time church! Even in the face of death we are true to our Beloved God through the grace of the Holy Spirit. How? By faith. By the same faith which David, every prophet, every apostle and every saint that has persevered through tribulation possessed. In this we can be confident: that God will pour out His Spirit on all flesh before the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord (Joel 2-3) and His saints will experience victory, even in the face of martyrdom. The boldness and confidence that David moved in is a prefiguring foreshadow of the Bride of Christ at the end of the age.
The Bride of Christ in the final generation will triumph over Satan and march on into everlasting glory. This won’t happen through idealistic triumphanalism. It will happen through means of martyrdom. They experience victory through enduring the physical tribulation and they triumph if/when their bodies are put to death. Because the victory is already secure through faith the outcome of their physical bodies is irrelevant. They are victorious in the presence of their enemies regardless of the apparent situational outcome. Though their bodies are put to death for a time, nothing shall separate them from the life which they enjoy and possess. This life is Christ living in them, their hope and glory.
The end time generation will corporately manifest the faith which David displays in Psalm 27 during the Day of the Lord, and will experience the same confidence that David experienced in the face of his adversaries. Once we, who are of the faith, receive the imparted Life of God within us, the victory is won. Let them take our bodies, our souls He keeps. Though we still experience many battles, our stance before God is objective. We are justified, we are adopted, we are accepted, He has declared us so. And we do and forever will partake of His eternal life.
Filed under: Eschatology - (The Study of the End Times), Global End Times Prayer Movement, Other
Amen! …But I’m not too sure if I agree that it will be Islam that becomes the ‘universal faith.’ Unless it does some type of melding with the new age movement.
But anyway, great, encouraging post and many more are needed.
I was moved to write something similar recently. Feel free to check it out.
Peace, http://lavrai.com/blogs/2008/04/02/will-you-give-in-or-hold-on-to-christ-jesus/