Psalm 27

They’re coming. The enemy. The evil. They’re coming, and they look big and strong and scary. The "they" is a lot of different things. "They" are Muslims who strap bombs to their chests and blow up people. "They" are church leaders who water down the truth in order to reach more people, until there is no more truth left, they’re just speaking weak words. "They" are the people who want to squeeze all the grace out of Christianity until it’s just a clear list of do’s and don’ts and facts and figures. "They" are courts that seem to make up the law as they go. "They" are candidates who seem to defy everything that is Christ-like. "They" are the bills that need to be paid. "They" are the temptations our children face. "They" are the pressures on our marriages. "They" is loneliness. "They" are health concerns. "They" is death. "They" are coming. They are close.

We feel them creeping up, and we respond in a bunch of different ways. We hide our heads under the covers and pretend that they are not out there. We try to put our best face on things, look on the bright side, and grin and bear it. We get angry and we lash out and try to conquer the enemy with our counter attacks. We sink down under the weight of the fear. Our world turns gray. We can’t see any light.

And surrounded by enemies, in a dark, gray world, we hear verse 1:

The enemies will defeat us, the fear will drag us down, the evil will triumph unless we can see our Light, unless we are trusting in our salvation.

And when we read verse 1, our first response is, sure. Yes, the Lord is my light. He is my salvation. I know this. I’ve sung this. This is right. It will work. He will see me through.

And then the enemy takes another run at us, and we’re reminded of just how big this enemy is, whatever it is in our lives. And we remember how long we’ve been thinking and struggling with this enemy, and it just never seems to go away. And we know these words, we know this truth, but we go back to sticking our heads under the covers or rolling over and giving up or blasting back in our anger.

But those never work. The enemy laughs at us when we hide or when we try to strike back or when we try to just look on the bright side. All of these other strategies for dealing with our enemies only encourage the enemy to try harder. They snicker. The mock.

Until we go back to verse 1:

When this is our battle cry, when we get back to this truth, this way of living, that’s when the enemy’ smile freezes on it’s face. And the enemy stumbles. They aren’t so confident, they aren’t so mocking. And when the Lord is our light and our salvation and our stronghold, that’s when the enemy retreats and eventually disappears.

The Lord is our light. When your future looks dark, the Lord is our light. When the future of your denomination, or the church in general, looks dark, it’s not. The Lord is our light. When the future of a marriage looks dark, it’s not. The Lord is our light. He’s a bright, burning light that is able to burn away any despair, any hopelessness. He is our Light who is able to point out the direction we need to go to make it through the valley. He is the Light who exposes danger spots, like a lighthouse pointing out the rocks. The Lord is our light.

The Lord is our salvation. The Lord saves. That means that He takes bad things and turns them into good things. He takes broken bodies, broken marriages, broken hopes, broken memories, and turns them into whole and healthy bodies and marriages and hopes and memories. He is not satisfied with anything less than perfect, and He is persistent and stubborn enough to keep working until everything is just perfect. He is constantly pulling us out of pits and setting us up on our feet. We, sometimes, jump right back into the pit again, and He hauls us out time after time, teaching us along the way to not do that again. He teaches and He pulls us out and He teaches and He pulls us out again until we finally know better not to jump in again. The Lord is our light. The Lord is our salvation.

The Lord is our stronghold. The enemy is shooting arrows at us, all kinds of arrows, arrows of temptation, arrows of despair, arrows of resentment and bitterness, arrows of fear. They come shooting in hard and fast, and they are dangerous. They can kill our minds and our souls, and sometimes, even our bodies.

But the Lord is our stronghold. He’s the walls that keep the arrows out. He’s the tower we run into when all that junk comes flying at us. We feel temptation creeping, we go running behind the wall. We feel despair falling on us, we duck into the tower. When the arrows come, we don’t stay out in the open. We may think we’re being holy by trying hard, by having good intentions, by thinking that we’ve depended on God for so long, now I have to do my part. Not a good idea. When the arrows come flying, we go running. The Lord is our stronghold.

And when the Lord is our light, when He is our salvation, when Jesus is our stronghold, then, verse 2:

That’s reason enough to go running back. Our enemies will just keep coming if we keep fighting them. Our enemies will get stronger if it’s us they face. But they will trip all over themselves, they will stumble, and they will go crashing to the ground. It doesn’t matter what enemies we’re talking about, they will all crash and burn.

The enemies of the church, the enemies of truth, they will crash. We just need to stay under the cover of our Stronghold. There’s a quote that I came across in the last few months. It’s from a theologian in the 13^th century, named Mylius, who said:

As long as we are safe in the tower of strength, we’re safe, and the enemies will stumble and fall.

Despair and hopelessness will crash up against us. They will try again and again to drag us down and make our days dark. But safe under the light of the Lord, our days will grow brighter. The clouds will break and the day will grow bearable.

Even the enemy of death will stumble and fall, because the Lord is our salvation. It is unacceptable to Him that anything gets the last word, other than Him. He is the first and the last, and He won’t let death get the last word in. He does. And with the Lord as our salvation, even our greatest enemy, death can not stand, but comes tumbling down.

Therefore, verse 3:

Does this seem impossible? It’s hard enough if one person is mad at you, it’s hard enough when only one person is talking bad about you. But what about thousands? An army of people ticked off at you. Even then, we can be confident. Even though we don’t need to fear. We don’t have to be intimidated, no matter what enemy is coming after us. Even then, no matter what, we will be confident.

And this is why. Verse 4:

Dwelling in the house of the Lord. This isn’t dwelling in the church building, bringing a bed in here to sleep. Dwelling in the house of the Lord is living in the awareness of the closeness of God. Dwelling in the house of the Lord is remembering that He is close, like the air around us, close. Dwelling is seeing His face frequently throughout the day, seeing His face with our heart, with eyes of faith, gazing on the beauty of the Lord. For some, dwelling is reaching out, physically reaching out in the air, seeking Him and knowing that He is there, He’s close.

Dwelling in the presence of the Lord is what keeps us safe, so dwelling in the house of the Lord is the one thing we most want. Verse 5:

And this is where our confidence comes from. When threats against the church come, He will keep us safe. When tensions in marriage come, He will hide us in the shelter of Him. When loneliness overwhelms, He surrounds us with Himself and sets us high above the struggle.

When those enemies come, we might try just about anything to keep ourselves safe. We might panic, we might retreat, we might make a deal, we might fight back. Each of those reactions will fail. We know this. We know the only answer. Verse 8:

When we wake up in the morning, before our feet hit the floor, right after we turn off the alarm clock, we turn our eyes upward, we turn our hearts outward, and we look for the face of the Lord. While we’re brushing our teeth and combing our hair, we’re seeking the presence of Jesus. At 10:00, and again at noon, even hourly throughout the day, we check in and know the presence of God close, so close. As we’re waiting to go to sleep, looking up at the ceiling, or with our face buried in our pillow, we’re turning our thoughts, our feelings, our whole beings to the close presence of the Lord that surrounds us right in our bedroom.

And now we are dwelling in the house of the Lord. Now we are safe the Stronghold. Now we are living our salvation. Now we are seeing the Light. And now, verse 13:

Instead of only seeing enemies surrounding us, we will see the face of the Lord. Instead of just the struggles, we will see His beauty. Instead of only evil, we will see His goodness. When we dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of our lives.

Wait for the Lord. I know it’s tough, but wait for the Lord. He knows it’s hard, but be strong, take heart, seek His face, trust in His stronghold, bask in His light. Be strong and take heart, and wait, wait for the Lord.