Psalm # 20

Preached: Jun 20, 2010 Des Arc First UMC Nursing Home

iToday I am going to get Political on you.  I don’t do that very often but today's Psalm is all about doing what is right and proper in the sight of God

Today’s Psalm is one of those that might sound strange to our American Ears.  It is a Psalm to help and save our King. The king they are referring to is of course David. So how can this psalm be applicable to us today?

Well all we need to do is change the thought of a King to the Thought of our Elected leader. So maybe this Psalm does have some words for us to day.

Don’t we have the same wishes for our elected leader to receive from God—what the people of Israel had for their sovereign anointed King.

  • That God Hears our cry of need

  • That God Keeps us safe from harm

  • That God Sends us help

  • That God sends us strength

  • That God remembers our works and sacrifices for his kingdom

  • That God will keep our leaders safe and Healthy and be a part of all the Nations plans and actions

  • That we also can shout with joy as we hear of the victories of our nation and its leaders.

Well some of us wish that, unless you are one of the naysayers who do not wish our current elected officials anything but to be rid of them.

The Psalm then goes on to tell the nation that God does hear our prayers for our leaders and our needs and that He can and will save them from even themselves if we understand and accept God as our true leader.

Then in some striking words we hear that some nations boast of their Chariots and Horses or for today's ears their armies and their weapons but we should not boast of these things, but of our Lord and God.

How to, have we as a nation forgotten this.

We spend 6 times as much on our military as all of the next 5 nations combined.  And what do we have to show for it. We have now been in a war for over seven years.  We have been immersed in some kind of war or action most of the time since World War II.  We have gone from being a nation Under God. To being a nation who is trying to sometimes Be God and correct all of this worlds ills and mistakes by our Mighty Power.

I cried the day we invaded Afghanistan. Not because I did not want to see Osama Bin Laudin taken to justice for the actions of 9/11 but because as a former Military Officer I knew that similar to Viet Nam we would be hitting into a very large Tar Baby (See Uncle Remus’ tales) and that this nation did not have the will power nor the strength to do it right and quickly end the problems it would cause. I knew when we would do the same thing for Iraq and thanked the Lord we have been smart enough to not do it to Iran.  You can never win the hearts of people by bombs and gunfire.  You can only put them under your thumb.  Rome new this in the first Century and forgot it and this help take that great Empire down.  The French forgot it under Napoleon. The Germans forgot it under Hitler. The Japanese forgot it.  The Russians forgot it many of the colonies under England knew this and taught it to England including our nations over 200 years ago.

But we as a nation must now learn it also again. We sometimes forget the sacrifices made in the past to be a Nation under God.  We cry over the 1000 people we have lost in 7 years of fighting in Iraq and forget we lost twice that many in one day on one beach called D-day Omaha Beach. Sometimes we must have great loses to remind us of the greatness that we can be. And the responsibility that goes with those gains.

If all we can do is boast of our Armies and not our God then we loose our God and our Armies fall apart.

As the Psalm says “those Nations fall down and collapse.”

So again as the Psalm reads we need “to rise up and stand firm to Give Victory to our “Nation” O, Lord Respond to our cry.”

I know that I have gotten political in this and that is all right, for sometimes we as individual need to stand up and make a difference, One person at a time.

Not to be a nut case and take us down the garden path to a cool-aid party were we all drink the wrong mix. But to God once again to drink his living water and to become part of his Holy Ministry to the least the last and the lost of this world.