God Is My Helper

God Is My Helper

Monday, January 4, 2016

11:36 AM

Psalm 54:4 (KJV)

4 Behold, God is mine helper: the Lord is with them that uphold my soul.

We are led by the superscription to 1 Sam. 23:19. Here we find where the Ziphites who were of Judah like David went and told Saul where he was hiding. David calls them strangers in v. 3. They may have been of the tribe of Judah but they were certainly of a different spirit than David. The Lord did give him a tremendous blessing of deliverance in this instance.

We find in 1 Samuel 23

1 Samuel 23:26-28 (KJV)

26 And Saul went on this side of the mountain, and David and his men on that side of the mountain: and David made haste to get away for fear of Saul; for Saul and his men compassed David and his men round about to take them.

27 But there came a messenger unto Saul, saying, Haste thee, and come; for the Philistines have invaded the land.

28 Wherefore Saul returned from pursuing after David, and went against the Philistines: therefore they called that place Selahammahlekoth. (Sella-amalla - koth)

Selahamahlekoth means The Rock of Escape.

The Psalm is short, as if compressed by the intensity of David's need.

1-3 contain a prayer for deliverance; 4-7 contain expression of confidence and praise. In the first he invokes the name of God; in the second he extols it.

I'm glad we serve a God who is our helper. Sometimes we wind up in trouble because of our own doing,

But sometimes we find ourselves in trouble for no fault of our own, here David was running from God and in the will of the Lord. He hadn't done anything wrong in this instance, except he was following God and God had promised him the throne.

I read a story recently called "Six Days on a Raft" by Bill Harrison who during WWII was lost on the Pacific Ocean due to his boat being destroyed by a Typhoon. The war was over they were just cleaning up some of the mines left in the ocean from the war and then heading home when the typhoon struck and destroyed their ship. Bill tells in his book how several men were able to secure a raft before the ship went down and they were in that for six days. They lost a few more men during their stay on the ocean one to sharks when he climbed out to swim to shore. Bill says that the sharks were always around swimming and at one time even ramming their little life raft. They were sunburned almost beyond recognition, they had sores from the salt water they had lost all supplies so had nothing to eat no fresh water to drink and had were starting to hallucinate. On one occasion Bill and another shipmate in a hallucination seen the ship below them in the water, his shipmate swam down to get some juice he left in the fridge and was never seen again.

Bill tells so many more details than I can tell in this short amount of time, but he struggled with depression, anger and frustration that the Navy wasn't doing more to rescue them, that this had happened

On the sixth day Bill had an interesting experience where he realized he had been praying, and then would immediately become frustrated that nothing had happened. He couldn't figure out what it was, then it dawned on him he was missing faith. It was during this time that the Lord seemed to tell Bill that he was not going to survive another day in this condition.

He rounded his shipmates together and told them they had been praying but had missed the aspect of faith, of believing God. He remembered Matthew 17:20 If you have faith as small as a mustard seed God can remove a mountaint" that part "if you have faith " stood out to him. He said the verse over and over

It came to him to thank God for their deliverance to praise him. He led his other shipmates who were down to 6 now in prayer and to the Lord

They began to sing they sang and sang for nearly an hour at the top of their lung becoming more and more energized and peaceful.

They finally stopped to take a break and that’s when they heard the purring of the engines of three planes overhead. Bill said he took of his shirt and waved it like a flag. They were not coming in their direction they were heading off to an island quite a ways away from them. The first two planes past them up, the third plane suddenly made a left had turn and began heading directly at us. It was a united States Navy plane Bill said it was like an angel sent from heaven Then began the rescue.

What is interesting is that there is no record of any Navy Planes in this area at this time, no one knows who the Pilots were or where they went. Bill had the number of the plane but it was nowhere around there area when the rescue happened. Truly God is our help.