How God Silences the Enemy

Psalm 41. We’ll read the entirety of the psalm. It’s not too long. The Word of God opened. We’re told it’s to the chief musician, a psalm of David. The Word of God says,

“Blessed is he that considereth the poor: the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble.

“The Lord will preserve him, and keep him alive; and he shall be blessed upon the earth: and thou wilt not deliver him unto the will of his enemies.

“The Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing: thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness.

“I said, Lord, be merciful unto me: heal my soul; for I have sinned against thee.

“Mine enemies speak evil of me, When shall he die, and his name perish?

“And if he come to see me, he speaketh vanity: his heart gathereth iniquity to itself; when he goeth abroad, he telleth it.

“All that hate me whisper together against me: against me do they devise my hurt.

“An evil disease, say they, cleaveth fast unto him: and now that he lieth he shall rise up no more.

“Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me.

“But thou, O Lord, be merciful unto me, and raise me up, that I may requite them.

“By this I know that thou favourest me, because mine enemy doth not triumph over me.

“And as for me, thou upholdest me in mine integrity, and settest me before thy face for ever.

“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting, and to everlasting. Amen, and Amen.”

Amen indeed. May the Lord bless the public reading of His Word. This, beloved, is the word of the eternal God, which you are to receive, believe, and obey. The people of God said, Amen.

Let’s pray.

Lord, this is Thy Word. Many of us here can testify of its power to change our lives. We pray that it may unleash its power to change the life and heart and will of man this morning. Lift up the light of Thy countenance upon us, Lord. Thou that dwellest between the cherubims, shine forth. Make much of Thyself and let our comforts be in the fact that our God is glorious in His power, in His person, in His sovereign government. Spirit of God, fill me. Fall upon the gathering. Meet with us here. We need Thee more than we can express. Help us. Help us. We pray in our Savior’s name. Amen.

Have you ever found yourself in a condition of weakness in which you wondered whether you would survive? A period in your life in which things were so difficult, the thought of giving up crossed your mind more than once. A time in your life that you’d rather forget. A time where you wondered whether or not you would ever feel any different. Is it going to be like this forever?

Psalm 41 gives to us the expression of a man under assault. David is going through his own trial, afflicted, slandered, even betrayed. And his enemies interpret all of this—as the circumstances of David, they interpret this as a signal that things are going well for them. Things are not going well for David. And it’s only a matter of time. His demise is inevitable.

And yet, in this psalm, David manages, by and large, to keep himself out of despair, keep himself from believing what the enemy believed: that it was all over for him. This was not always the case for David, but as is expressed in this psalm, though the assaults and the trials are many, he manages, by the grace of God, to keep on believing what was true concerning him.

He pleads for mercy. He understands that as he has been considerate to the impoverished in the past, he takes from that such as the grace of God in his own life and heart, that God will then deliver him also in a time of trouble. God shows mercy to those who remember those in need, in their time of need. He takes comfort in God’s peculiar choice of him.

That’s generally some of the context that most of the commentators conclude, in the sense of what he’s getting at, especially in verse 11, where David writes, “By this I know that thou favourest me, because mine enemy doth not triumph over me.” That really what is at the heart of this is the sense that God has appointed him to be king, and no matter what is put against him to prevent that from taking place or remove it from being so, that God will not let it unfold.

Calvin says, in verse 11, he seems to refer not only to the favor and goodwill which God bears to all the faithful in common, but to the special favor which God had conferred upon him in choosing him to be king.

Of course, the psalm goes beyond David. It’s explicit in its messianic relevance as well. You’ll see in verse 9 language that our Lord Jesus takes upon His own lips, which we find in John 13, verse 18: “he that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me.” And that sentiment of verse 9 then is taken by the Lord Jesus to reflect the very circumstances of Judas’ presence and his betrayal.

Our Lord was one also who was despised and hated and slandered and opposed, and in which there was a general feeling among many to will and, if possible, to manipulate His demise, to bring Him down, to destroy Him. And, of course, Christ overcame this. He went to the cross, He died in our place, but the story does not end there.

He rises from the dead, He secures His own victory, He ascends to the Father’s right hand, and He has now a position that can never change, never be altered, and He holds the ground of victory. And that victory then He confers to His people. They also enter into this experience of victory, of deliverance, of overcoming. That it is not by might nor by power but by His Spirit that the people of God can enjoy this sense of final victory, no matter what happens in the intervening period.

Christ is going to guarantee your victory. It’s going to happen. You will not be utterly overcome. You will not be finally destroyed. You will not be subject to the enemy in such a way that they will have the last say. And what David is able to sense and express in verse 11 can become the very expression of your own soul: “By this I know that thou favourest me, because mine enemy doth not triumph over me.”

The language there, triumph, could be interpreted shout, the shout of victory. It’s the shout of triumph. It’s that shout that goes up at the end of the battle in which those who know that the movement of the sword against the enemy has resulted in this decisive victory, and now is the time to celebrate. The voice of cheer and delight and success goes up.

That is what David is saying will not happen to those who oppose him. “By this I know that thou favourest me, because mine enemy doth not triumph over me.” He does not have the last shout of praise, of victory over me.

So I want us to think about this. I want us to think about it carefully, and I want you to enter into the confidence of David here, because as you’re joined to Christ, as you are in Him, and nothing can separate you from Him, and as you’re loved as much as any believer has ever been loved, the standing is just as much yours.

This morning, I want us to consider how God silences the enemy’s final shout. How God silences the enemy’s final shout. He anticipates a victory. He anticipates that shout of triumph. And all that he envisages for himself will be brought to nothing.

So God silences. How?

In the first place, He knows what the enemy wants. He knows what the enemy wants. The Lord knows. This gets to His omniscience. He understands what is in the thought and the mind of all of the enemies of the people of God. But David also is aware, as he records in the psalm. I want to just reflect upon some of the language here.

He knows that the enemy wants him erased, if we might use that language. Verse 5: “Mine enemies speak evil of me, When shall he die, and his name perish?” They want the servant of God to perish, deleted, removed, taken away, erased. He’s not content merely with a wound. He’s not content with a victory in a battle. He wants it final. He wants him buried. He wants his name removed, his testimony extinguished. Let David be gone forever.

“Mine enemies speak evil of me, When shall he die, and his name perish?” What an awful place to get to. And this is how they feel. David knows it. David knows that’s exactly what’s going through their minds.

But what I want us to understand is that we have enemies who feel the same way. Satan opposes you and wants the extinguishing of your testimony. He wants to destroy your testimony. He wants to remove your testimony. He wants to have you taken away entirely. And we are not to be ignorant of his devices.

The Lord knows that He wants the servant of God erased. That’s what the enemy wants. That he sees rather, I should say, he wants the concern of his servant to become accusation. Verse 6: “And if he come to see me, he speaketh vanity: his heart gathereth iniquity to itself; when he goeth abroad, he telleth it.” So he wants all of this to become something that’s accusatory towards David.

Have this in mind of people, that the enemy wears this face of concern while gathering material in opposition to him, which he’s going to be using against him. A bit like, again, how Satan comes and gathers up the history of your life. The history of your life, and then flings it back to be used against you.

You see in verse 7, David’s aware of the whispering as well: “All that hate me whisper together against me: against me do they devise my hurt.” So they’re rehearsing again how they can overcome, how this triumph can come about.

Verse 8. He wants them to—the enemy desires that the weakness be perceived that the servant of God is abandoned. Verse 8: “An evil disease, say they, cleaveth fast unto him: and now that he lieth he shall rise up no more.” There’s no hope. There’s no future for him. This point of weakness is the beginning of the end. This point of weakness communicates the idea that it is over. There’s no one who’s going to come and help him. No one is going to give him a helping hand, so to speak. No one is going to come and intervene in any way.

In addition, of course, he has this painful experience of verse 9: “Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me.” He sat in my home. He sat in my presence. We dined together. We enjoyed time together. We shared together. And he has become part of the enemy in opposition to me.

And this all leads up then to verse 11, anticipating this final triumph. And David knows that it’s not going to transpire. My enemy will not have this triumph over me. He will not have this victory over me. All of these things may be true. I may be going through all of these things and experiencing all of these things, and yet he’s not going to have the victory over my life.

Before I move on, I want you to get into the language of the psalm and see a correlation, maybe in your own circumstances at times, maybe in the past, maybe in the present, and see how these things can be going on in which, in verse 3, you’re in a bed of sickness and that seems like there’s a weakness there, it’s going to be the end of you. That there’s a feeling even—you might even be worried about your own sin, verse 4, knowing that you’ve sinned against the Lord and you’re concerned about that, never mind the enemies.

I want you to sense all the natural inclination toward fear that comes into your life and realize that it does not dictate how the final chapter will be written. That’s the point. Because we have a temptation and a tendency to read the circumstances, interpret what’s happening, and draw a conclusion that seems like it’s over. I’m a failure. There’s no deliverance for me.

In the second place, He keeps whom His covenant favors. He not only knows what the enemy wants, He keeps whom His covenant favors.

Again, in the language of verse 11: “By this I know that thou favourest me, because mine enemy doth not triumph over me.” There’s a sense of favor. David knows himself to be one who is favoured. Now, of course, David was favoured in the sense of being appointed to become king of Israel. That was a certain type of favour.

But all the people of God are favoured. Every child of God is favored. Every person who can say that I belong to the Lord, I have called out to Him, He has received me, I have believed, I have not accomplished any salvation myself, it is not of me, it’s not of my merits, it’s not of my works, it’s not of my good doings, it’s not of my prayers, it’s not of my Bible reading, it’s not of my philanthropic efforts, it’s nothing about me. It is by faith I rest and receive the free gift of salvation and possess eternal life. Such can say they are favored. There is no unfavored Christian. There is no unfavored Christian.

So how does God keep His people? Well, we might say in the first place, by sovereign grace. By sovereign grace. It’s the grace of God. The grace that brought us to God keeps us unto God, keeps us in the standing of security. We have been favored. If you are in Christ, you have been favored.

If you read in your Bible, as I do, in Ephesians 1, verses 4 and following, it says that we have, of course—verse 3 says we’re blessed: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings and heavenly places.” And it says in verse 4, “according as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world.” So we have been chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, “that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved.”

Now, I’m not going to take any time to break down all that is said there, but you’re chosen, you’re given purpose to become holy and without blame before Him in love, you’re predestined to be a child of God, you are to the praise of the glory of His grace, and accepted in the Beloved. Each of those things could be pondered, and each of them can be grounds for us to understand the favor that we enjoy.

In Romans 8, it tells us in verse 29 and 30, “For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son.” Those He foreknew, He predestined to be like His Son, “that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom He did predestinate, them He also called; whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified.”

So it brings you on this journey of bringing you into Christ, making you like Him, and making you one of the many, the many that Christ is not ashamed to call brethren, and moving you through this experience of being called and justified and glorified. That’s language of favor. I have been called. I have been justified. I will be glorified. All of it is favor.

In 2 Timothy 1, verse 9, Paul writes to Timothy of the One “who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.” So it is not that we did something to earn God’s favor. It’s not that we had a highlight, kind of the halcyon days of our life, and God looked at you and said, look at that treasure. What a specimen that is. And I’m going to bring them and relate to them and be in relationship with them.

And it’s based then upon some performance of yours, which you might not always keep up, that you might undermine, that you might fall from, and then He would change His mind. Just as He changed His mind toward you in becoming more favorable toward you, then He may in turn reverse and no longer favor you.

You see, that’s not the order of things. That’s not how it has come about. He chose you. He set His love on you. Before you even understood what was going on, you were favored, chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, appointed to be in Him, to be a child of God, to be forgiven, to forever be with Him. You didn’t do this. He did this.

Every child, by sovereign grace, knows then that they are favored. The language of verse 11 is written in such a way that some discuss whether or not in Psalm 41 he is talking about, from verse 10, he will know that he’s favored because he will requite them at some point—the Lord will raise them up that he may requite them—or whether it leads into the fact, “because mine enemy doth not triumph over me,” this I know.

But fundamentally, David’s understanding of favor is faith that governs it. He knows by virtue of the relationship he has that he is favored. And it will be, maybe, expressed and seen in some evidences of favor. He will look for proof or signs at times that show, truly the Lord has given me my heart’s desire. But this is not a man who, first and foremost, is depending upon the outward expressions to know that he is favored, because he’s already expressed in this psalm.

In times of sickness, in times of difficulty, he knows he is the Lord’s. This psalm is filled with a sense of expressing confidence, even though the circumstances communicate challenge and difficulty, or a time of hard providence, we might term it. The bed of languishing, bed of sickness. In this time and period of weakness, he is not interpreting that difficulty to mean he is not favored. He knows he’s favored because of what God has said concerning him.

That brings us to consider then that He keeps whom His covenant favors by sovereign grace, and also by covenant promise. By covenant promise, this is what David understands: that God has entered into a covenant engagement with His people.

What do we mean by covenant? We are talking here about God giving His word, making a vow, expressing His commitment that nothing can break or change. We’re talking about a God who says, if we can put it just simply, that if you believe, I will save you, as it were, right? So as we hear His promise, believe and be saved, and we are taking Him at His word.

We are not—I know in the process of it, we talk about regenerating grace and all of that—but what I want you to understand is the promise that we keep holding onto. Because you don’t, you can’t assess—let me put it this way: if the confidence of you is in some feeling of regeneration. How do you know in a feeling of regeneration? You don’t have a feeling of regeneration.

Now, it produces fruit, don’t get me wrong, but one of the things it produces is the faith. The faith. And the confidence of the believer comes back that there’s a promise, and I believe it. God has said it. The reassurance of the child of God, the sense of Him keeping His word and me believing what He has said, means that if I understand the character of God to be one that is not changing, where He doesn’t change His mind, He is a God who cannot lie, then I know that if He has stated this, I can believe it and it will never change.

Now this is how the believer comes back to first principles in his life. He knows that God has given His word, and he rests in His word.

You can’t rest in the feeling. At times you may feel like a Christian, but maybe other times you don’t feel like a Christian. What about the feeling? There’s no confidence there. Or when I look back and transport myself in my memory to that time when I prayed a prayer, I felt like it was genuine. The follow-up question comes just as quickly as you arrive at that thought, which is, was it genuine? Was I deluded? Was I really sincere? If that was real, would I really be here? And it brings you to the same place, beloved, the same place as this.

Has God spoken? What has He said? And do I believe it? He has spoken such comfort to His people.

In Hebrews 6, when we went through that, you remember this is part of the confidence expressed to those the apostle addresses in Hebrews, verses 17 and 18: “Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability,” or the unchangeableness, “of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath that by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation.” It comes back to He has given His word. He has confirmed His Word, and I believe it.

So when John writes to believers in 1 John 5, verse 13, he says, “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life.” I am writing to you who believe in His name so you can come to assurance. Because what happens? I’m writing to you that believe in His name, and you will believe the things I have written. You believe in His name, and if you believe the things I have written, you will know you have eternal life.

How do you know you have eternal life? How? How do you know that this morning you have eternal life? How? Is there some sign I’m not seeing here? Some messaging that is there where God is giving some peculiar light that says you have eternal life? Some peculiar way just for you? How do you know? How do you know you’re favoured?

Because He has given His word and you believe it. You could scrape away and say, why do I believe it? Why do I believe it and others don’t believe it? That’s a completely different question. But in terms of understanding ourselves to be favored, it is in this: God has given His word. I believe it. I am favored. It’s covenant promise.

And also by mediatorial representation. Mediatorial representation. We are not on our own in this, right? We have One who is representing us, that stands in our place, so that the Bible keeps telling, especially in the New Testament, keeps emphasizing this sense of union or identity in another person.

And that all of our confidence comes from not just the promises, but how some of those promises communicate to us the grounds of why we have what we have. So it’s not just God has given promises that you will be saved, it elaborates on why you are saved by believing this. Why are you saved by believing this? Why are you favored by believing this? It’s not purely that this favor comes by belief, right? The favor doesn’t come by belief, suspended. It’s simply because you believe in God, there is favor.

There’s a foundation to it. And it is then, what’s the object? What am I believing in? I’m not just believing in God in some general way, but I’m believing in a God who gave His Son, who came to represent the lost, represent His people, stand in their place so that He could live in obedience in a way they cannot, die on the cross in a way that they dare not, and rise from the dead in a way that they could never.

And that having fulfilled the law and met the demands and represented His people in our nature, stands before God as the answer to the guilty, that by His shed blood He gives cleansing from sin, and by His life He gives life to those who believe.

So the foundation becomes then by representation. I know I am favored because I’m not just believing. I’m believing in One who lived and died and rose for me, prays for me, represents me, and will never forget me.

So you look around this room and you see people and you might think, I wish I had the assurance they have. I wish I could be as confident as they are. And you may be wrong about their confidence. You don’t know just how confident they are. They may not be feeling very assured this morning at all. But let’s assume you’re right. How did they get there? And how do we maintain that position?

God has given His Word. By sovereign grace, He has brought us to see it. By sovereign grace, we have believed it. By sovereign grace, we continue to believe it. And the grounds of it open up before us, in which we see this One who stands, represents, and makes the difference.

Every single thing that God demands, every single thing required to bring the guilty into the very presence of God is accomplished, fulfilled perfectly by Jesus Christ. So that by faith in Him, you have One representing you. And you’re not gaining admittance into heaven by your own effort. You’re gaining admittance through His representation. He represents. He opens heaven. He brings you in. He is the ground of the assurance, so that the promises are not, again, suspended.

Believe in God, you’ll go to heaven. No. Believe that God sent His Son. Believe that His Son took your nature. Believe that His Son lived in the way you should but can’t, and died as a sacrifice for sin, shedding His blood for the remission of our sins, and rises from the dead so that life emanates from Him, and all who stand in Him have life.

This is our hope.

Which brings us finally then to consider He determines how the conflict ends. God determines how the conflict ends. “By this I know that thou favourest me, because mine enemy doth not triumph over me.” God is in control.

I mean, you read in Scripture, you look at David here—I mean, how can he have such confidence? When you’re reading God’s Word, you find over and over again that to get to a place like this is simply to believe that God will do for me what He has done for others, and that my enemy will not have the last say.

Now, oh, we have an enemy. Oh, we do. And he’s after you, he’s after you.

And you know the funny thing—it’s not funny at all, but it’s the strange experience of the people of God. When you really start living for God, like if you said this morning, you know, I am really going to go all out for God. I’ve been living in this half-hearted way for a time, and I’ve been a little indifferent toward the Bible and toward prayer and toward evangelism and the godly life, and I’m cruising here. And if you were to be quickened this morning, and you were really to just come alive and say, that’s it, all on the altar for God, I’m going to live for Him. He is worth every ounce of my being.

And if you’re to do that, you’re going to find on the heels of such a commitment and a desire, you’re going to be opposed with more opposition than you felt prior to making such an expression. Now, when you’re cruising through the Christian life, you really don’t meet the headwinds. It’s when you really go at it, and you’re really trying to live for the Lord. Then the enemy comes because he wants to quell that and destroy that.

But here are some things to remember from God’s Word, so that this truth will be true of you: “mine enemy doth not triumph.” He will not sing over me.

First, how does God determine how the conflict ends? He limits the enemy’s reach. He limits the enemy’s reach. Remember that in Job’s life? In Job 1, verse 12, the Lord said unto Satan, “Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand.” God is limiting the reach of the enemy. You can go so far, no further.

And however malicious Satan may be, however he may desire to destroy, there is a God in heaven who limits his reach. Satan is never sovereign. He does not have unlimited, unrestrained way in your life. That’s how God determines the outcome, because there isn’t one more sovereign and more powerful than Him. He can limit Satan’s reach.

In the second place, how do we know that He determines how the conflict ends? Because He overrules evil for good. He overrules evil for good. That’s of course illustrated in Joseph’s life, isn’t it? Whenever his brothers, after Jacob dies, and his brothers filled with concern that the passing of Jacob will lead to Joseph re-evaluating the past and deciding that he is going to exercise vengeance upon his brothers for what they did all those years ago.

The conscience is a strange thing, isn’t it? You know, after all that had gone on and all the interaction and so on. But as soon as this decisive moment of Jacob’s passing comes about, their minds are like, are we still in his good graces? And you remember what Joseph said in Genesis 50:20: “As for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good.” Your effort at evil, God turned for good.

This confirms afresh that the outcome is not under anyone else’s control but God’s.

In the third place, He sustains under temptation. He sustains under temptation. In 1 Corinthians 10:13, we are told, “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able,” and He will make a way of escape, and so on.

Again, what the verse is communicating is that there is a God who is governing the circumstances. He’s in control, and He is not allowing a free reign opportunity of evil or wickedness or the enemy over you. There are limits. There are limits. And He sustains His people.

He doesn’t always remove the trial, right? You’re going to have times, like David can account here, times of difficulty, times in which you’re having to remind yourself, “The Lord will preserve him, and keep him alive,” and be blessed upon the earth. You’re having to remind yourself of that just like David. “The Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing,” and make all his bed in his sickness. You’re going to have to remember these truths of God sustaining you in times of weakness.

And in temptation, there is an answer for you, beloved. It’s not to be found in yourself, it’s to be found in Him.

In the fourth place, He causes weakness to become a theater of grace. He causes weakness to become a theater of grace. He displays His grace in the times of weakness.

When you’re at rock bottom, when you’re feeling there’s nowhere to turn, when you are gasping for air, it is right then that God is erecting an arena in that moment to put on display, for you and others, the glory of His grace. I wish we could remember that. I wish in that moment when we are at the lowest point and in a condition of despair that we could remember God is erecting a theater to display the power and glory of His grace.

That’s what Paul had to learn. 2 Corinthians 12:9: “And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”

So you’re in weakness. That’s where you’re in. You’re feeling weakness like you have never felt it before. Every solution is gone. Options have been taken from you. They’re not on the table. There’s no path. There’s no way forward or out of this. You are shut in on every side, and there’s no way out. That’s weakness.

God says that His strength is made perfect. He shows it. He displays it. He makes you understand it in a way you’ve never understood it before, in that moment. In times of strength, you don’t understand His strength. It’s in times of weakness that then you discover the source of the Christian strength.

So this, again, means at the very point where it seems like the enemy may be coming, and in a trajectory in which he’s going to be able to triumph over you, right in the cusp of a victory. The enemy has brought me to my lowest point. He has destroyed everything. He has stripped me of everything, and I am left here destitute with nowhere to turn. And you’re feeling right at that point that it is utterly hopeless.

The Lord has just been rearranging the little details of your life to put on display an exhibition of His own strength.

We say we want God’s strength. We say we want God’s strength. But really we don’t. We want our own strength. I want to have all the answers. I want to know where to turn. I want to know what to do. I want to carve out the path, the solution, have all the answers, know what way to go. I want to have all that. That’s how you feel, just as I do. You may sit here and theorize about not being like that, but when you’re there, you just want to have all the resources just to be able to work out the deliverance necessary for the moment.

And so we have to learn, like Paul. We have to learn. We have to learn. I’m gonna go through an engagement where we’re talking to the Lord about it, just like Paul, until finally it dawns on us, He communicates it to us, we relearn it again, or whatever the case might be, and we remember, I have nowhere to turn.

He has orchestrated this, so I learn again of the power of His strength, the glory of His strength. What are You going to do here, Lord? It’s Yours. I relinquish any sense of having an answer. I relinquish it all. I take my hands off the wheel. I give up. I’m trying to work my way out of this. It’s Yours, Lord. What are You going to do?

He causes weakness to become a theater of grace.

He makes believers conquerors in suffering. He makes believers conquerors in suffering. Romans 8:37: “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.” I’ve mentioned this many times, in which the very context of that language of conquering comes from having drawn from Psalm 44, in which what is being highlighted is that believers feel themselves to be led as sheep to the slaughter. The believers are being led as sheep to the slaughter. That’s a very vivid description of weakness. And it feels like it’s leading into devastation, destruction, the enemy’s victory. And he says, “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.”

He makes believers conquerors in their suffering. To be able to suffer—and the enemy wants to just wring out every joy, or like Job, extinguish your trust, right? He was coming at Job, wasn’t he? Job only trusts You because You’ve put a hedge around him and everything goes well in his life.

See, the devil doesn’t want to believe in the power of sovereign grace. That God takes His people and takes them to Himself, and He sustains them. So Satan wants to believe that it’s all based on man. Satan’s an Arminian. He wants to believe it’s all based on man. So Job is going to relinquish. Job chose God because God was being kind to him, and Job was going to give up on God.

Not so. Not so. “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.” You can be crushed entirely. The last word will still be one of your triumph, not his.

He prevents death from its threat of victory. 1 Corinthians 15: “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, the strength of sin is the law, but thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

He crushes Satan under the saints’ feet as well. Romans 16:20: “The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.” He is saying, He’s communicating this final victory of the people of God. And the last shout, the last shout of triumph, will be taken right out of Satan’s mouth as he’s about to express it, and it will be found in the mouth of the saints when they sing their praises to the Lamb, through whom they accomplish the very victory they will enjoy.

At the moment, at the darkest hour when the time feels like Satan has actually won, your life where he is working and destroying and extinguishing and oppressing, there’s going to be in your mouth a praise to God. The utterance of your lips at the very last will be in loyalty to King Jesus. And on that final day, you will enter into praises, and all the weapons of the enemy will be taken from him forever.

It will be worship. They sing the song of Moses, a servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, “great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty, just and true are thy ways, the King of saints, who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name.” That’s the final sound.

It really comes down—Psalm 41:11 is in one sense an expression of what the Lord told Peter. And he was so full of confidence. “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not.” Sometimes the Lord allows a stretch and a period where it feels like faith is almost extinguished. That almost happened to Peter. But the victory is secure, guaranteed.

And you can say this morning, as you sit at the table and you take of this bread and you take of this cup, child of God, you are, you are sitting at a table that allows you to know there is victory. He sets a table before you in the presence of our enemies.

Why? “Because mine enemy doth not triumph over me.” It annoys Satan for you to sit at this table and remember Christ today. It annoys him. He hates the gospel. He hates it. This message of assurance to sinners, of welcome to the guilty—he hates it. And so you believe it all the more.

May God help us.

Let’s pray.

Lord, we thank You today that the final word will not be one that comes from Satan, that the final word concerning us will not even be what we’re able to say about ourselves. It will be that welcome, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you.” Help us to live with a knowledge of the victory we have by faith. Encourage Your people today to step in to that victory and be reassured of their position. Hear us and meet with us. And please bless this little season. We pray in our Savior’s name. Amen.