Confidence To Face Our Enemies


We will all have detractors and attackers. We will all have someone not like us or despise us. The Psalmist did in Psalm 139. The interesting thing about this Psalm is that it's so beautiful we lose the context. The Psalm was sung while the author was facing adversarial animosity.

He cries out toward the end:
Psalm 139:19 (ESV) Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God! O men of blood, depart from me!

Here's the power of the Truth of this Psalm. In the face of his enemies, what is his confidence? The fact that God made him, knows all about him, and will always be with him.

Note the following very familiar passages:
Psalm 139:1–2 (ESV) O Lord, you have searched me and known me! 2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.

Psalm 139:5 (ESV) You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.

Psalm 139:7–8 (ESV) Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? 8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!

Psalm 139:13–16 (ESV) For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

Psalm 139:17–18 (ESV) How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you.

This Psalm reveals the Omniscience, Omnipotents and Omnipresence of God in a wonderfully poetic way. It's also the favorite passage for pro-life weekend at church. And it should be. It's clear that we are formed by God according to his design from the moment of conception AND that our lives were in His mind before one of our days came to be. This Psalm is awesome.

 But it's also important to know for those of us facing hostility from those around us... unbelieving neighbors, family or friends. Perhaps we are facing difficult circumstances in general - cancer, disease, difficulties. What will be your confidence when your enemy comes around? It must be this: That God has never once lost sight of you. That His plan is going to prevail for you. That you cannot escape His presence and He is THINKING about you right now. 

 No wonder the Psalmist said "How precious to me are your thoughts... how vast is the sum of them!" It is precious to know God's thinking of you at the same time other things may threaten you. 

 Let that be the confidence you carry into every battle you may face!

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