Thank you. Okay. Thank you. We're going to sing the hymn 580, or a number of verses of 580. A sovereign protector of I, unseen yet forever at hand, unchangeably faithful to save, almighty to rule and command. Let's begin our prayer meeting tonight with singing the first two verses of this hymn. A sovereign protector, our God, Unchanged and forever at hand, Unchangeably faithful to save, Almighty to rule and command, He smiles and my comforts I find, His grace as the dew shall descend, And walls of salvation surround, The soul He delights to defend. Inspire her and hear her prayer, Thy shepherd and guardian of thine. I all to Thy covenant bear, I sleeping and waking resign. If Thou art my shield and my sun, The light is no darkness to me, and fast as my moments roll on, they bring me love dearer to me. I'll sing the next verse. Kind author and grind of my own, leave thee for my God I abide. My glad enemies are set up, And though thou hast never been to love, I use all the years that are past, wherein my defense thou hast proved. Nor will thou relinquish at last a sinner so signally loved. Amen. Let's unite in prayer together. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we come collectively to thee for Bible study and prayer. Tonight, this evening, we thank thee for thy good hand. And we can say that thou art a sovereign protector, one who guards and keeps his people, the one who never slumbers nor sleeps. We rejoice in thy providential care and thy hand upon us since last we gathered for a midweek Bible study and prayer time. Bless thy saints who have joined with us tonight in the building and for those who join us by Facebook Live tonight. Bless them in their homes, we pray, and grant, dear God, their own souls to be encouraged and helped even in these days. So we look to thee, send the Spirit of God now in the preaching and for the preaching and hearing of thy word, for we offer prayer in and through the Savior's precious name. Amen. Returning to 2 Samuel and the chapter 22, let me welcome you. Lovely to have you. If this is your first time back in God's house, we welcome you. you in our Savior's name. And for those watching in, thank you for joining with us. It's nice to be in God's house for the midweek prayer meeting and not having to tidy the study at home so it doesn't look a mess for our Bible study. 2 Samuel chapter 22, and we'll read some verses just here at the beginning of the chapter. It says, And David spake unto the Lord the words of this song, in the day that the Lord had delivered him out of the hand of all of his enemies, and out of the hand of Saul. And he said, the Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer, the God of my rock, and him will I trust. He is my shield, the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge, my savior. Thou savest me from violence. I will call on the Lord, who is worthy to be praised. So shall I be saved from my enemies. When the ways of death compassed me, the floods of ungodly men made me afraid, the stars of hell compassed me about, the snares of death prevented me. In my distress I called upon the Lord and cried to my God, and he did hear my voice out of his temple, and my cry did enter into his ears. We'll end our reading there at the verse number seven. As we've said, we plan only to speak to half eight and then have a good a seasoned half hour of prayer as we normally would have had. And so I want to be quick tonight as we go through the word of God this evening. But let's just again briefly pray that God will minister to our hearts. Lord, by thy spirit and through thy word, minister to our souls, we pray. And grant, dear God, these brief moments together. May it be, oh God, a very blessing to our soul. May it be found to be The coronavirus pandemic has led to an explosion of new words and phrases, both in the English language and in other languages. This new vocabulary helps us to make sense of the changes that have suddenly become part of our everyday lives. Terms such as self-isolating, pandemic, quarantine, lockdown, social distancing, key workers, PPE, and furlough are all terms that have increased in use over the last number of months. Two terms that are frequently used in daily conversation today are the terms shielding and shielders. According to the NHS, shielding is a measure to protect those at very high risk of severe illness by minimising all interaction between a person and others. Those who are shielding are known then as shielders. These are people who are considered to be at extremely high risk of becoming severely ill if they do contract COVID-19. As I thought of shielding and those who are termed shielders, my mind was taken to words that God spoke to Abram there in Genesis chapter 15 and the verse number one. The circumstances surrounding the speaking of these words are familiar to us all, I know, Abraham, along with 318 armed servants, had just rescued his nephew Lot in the previous chapter. He had been taken prisoner of war. On returning from that successful rescue mission, Abraham then meets Melchizedek. Some people believing this to be a pre-incarnation appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then he goes on to meet the king of Sodom, whose gifts the father of the faithful refuses, not wanting any part with the sins of that particular place. And in light of that, then we are told what God said to Abraham. Look there at verse 1, Genesis 15 verse 1. After these things, the word of the Lord came on to Abraham in a vision saying, Fear not, Abram. I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. Whether the events of the past few days had, in reflection, caused Abram to slip into a fearful state of mind, or the unknown future resulted in fear laying hold on the heart of God's servant, we cannot be sure. But something made Abraham afraid, and God was coming to allay his fears in these words of promise. Fear not, Abram. I am thy shield and exceeding great reward. And what God promised to Abraham, because we are of Abraham's spiritual seed, so God promises to us. God is our shield and he is also our exceeding great reward too. Tonight we have read in 1 Samuel chapter 22 what God was to his servant David, composing A song to commemorate the Lord delivering him out of the hand of all of his enemies and from the hand of Saul. David wrote the following words in the verse number three. The God of my rock, in him will I trust, he is my shield. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my high tower and my refuge, my savior, thou savest me from violence. David spoke of the Lord being his shield, just as Abraham, it was conveyed to Abraham of God being his shield, and that's really what I want us to consider briefly this evening in a message I've entitled, A Shielding Like No Other, A Shielding Like No Other. No other. I want you to consider first of all the entity who shields us. The entity who shields us. It'll come as no surprise to you that the one who shields us is identified throughout the scriptures as the God of heaven. God, or David says here in 2 Samuel 22 verse 3, the God of my rock and him will I trust. He is my shield. Now the title that David uses here to describe who it is that is his shield is a very interesting word. In the Hebrew it is the word Elohim. When he uses the word God here in the verse 3, the God of my rock Elohim. Now the ending is I am in the English and it indicates that the word God is not to be seen in the singular but rather in the plural. It's plural number and therefore we could literally read the words of verse number three in this way, the gods of my rock. and them will I trust, they are my shield." Now David is not polytheistic, he doesn't believe that there are more gods than one, but rather he believes in a God, a singular God yet consisting of three persons. The plurality, this term Elohim, points us to the Trinity. He is speaking here of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. There are these three persons in the Godhead of one substance, of one power, one in eternity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And when David uses this term, he is reminding his readership and reminding his own heart that it is the triune God who is his shield. It is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit who is engaged in shielding him, protecting him, guarding him, keeping him safe in the day of trouble and in the day of adversity. There are other scriptures that point then to the divine nature of the one who shields the child of God in the day of adversity and in the time of trouble. I think of those words there in Deuteronomy chapter 33 verse 29, happy art thou O Israel. Who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency. Psalm 3 verse 3 But thou, O Lord, art a shield for me, my glory, and a lifter up of my head. Psalm 28, verse 7, the Lord is my strength and my shield, my heart trusted in Him and I am helped. Psalm 33, verse 20, our soul with us for the Lord, He is our help and our shield. Psalm 84, verse 11, the Lord God is a sun and shield. The Lord will give grace and glory. No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. Psalm 115, verse 11. You that fear the Lord, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield. Psalm 144, verse one and two. Blessed be the Lord, my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, my fingers to fight, my goodness, my fortress, my high tower, my deliverer, my shield, and he whom I trust, who subdueth all people under me. And so the believer is shielded, not by some physical shield made of metal, but rather by God himself, in the trinity of his sacred persons. It is God who stands between us and the foe, us and the enemy. It is God who interposes himself between his child and the source of danger, and thus all that reaches us in our lives. Whatever trouble it would be, whatever enemy it would be, it must first then pass Him who is the one who shields us. It must first pass Him. Is that not reassuring, child of God, that between you and the enemy stands God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost? There He is standing, shielding us, protecting us, preserving us. That omnipotent God stands between you and all that the enemy will throw at you. And that whatever reaches you in your life, whether it be sickness, hardship, difficulties, trouble, bereavements, disappointments, all of those things have first passed him and been permitted to reach you by this one who is all wise and this one who is all loving. John Fawcett, Baptist theologian, pastor, and hymn writer, he wrote, the Lord can so manifest himself to his afflicted people. that the season of affliction shall be to them a season of great consolation. He is to them a fountain of life, of strength, of grace, and comfort in the afflictive hour, and his fullness they receive as their necessaries require. He says the Lord Jesus Christ is a son to enlighten, and at the same instance, he is, thank God, a shield to defend them. Mr. Spurgeon said, oh, what a shield is God for his people. He wards off the fiery darts of Satan from beneath and the storms of trials from above, while at the same instance he speaks grace to the tempest within the breast. God is our shield. Jehovah, the self-existent, the omnipotent, the all-wise, the all-loving, the all-good, the all-just God is the one who stands between us and all that life will ever through us and therefore it is for us to trust this God, our God, brethren and sisters, to trust him to defend us and to shield us and to preserve us and to keep us until we are safely brought to glory itself. And so the entity, the one who shields us is Jehovah, God, Elohim, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But consider a second truth with me this evening, not only the identity or the entity who shields us, but I want you to think about the enemies from which God shields us, the enemies from which God shields us. David needed a shield. Obviously, he needed a shield from the hand of Saul. He mentions this Very fact in the opening verse. And from all of his enemies, that's an umbrella term, bringing everyone else in outside of Saul, David needed a shield, needed someone to defend him, to defend him from his enemies. How many enemies have we not? Just think of them. Think of all those enemies that confront you and I on almost a daily basis from which we need God's shielding from. I think first of all of the enemy of the world and its fascinations. Do you and I not need to be shielded from the world? This present evil world? Of course we do. The world's fame, the world's fortune, the world's friendships, The world's finery are all great dangers to us to lead us away from God. The ways and the habits, the customs and the opinions, the practices and the tastes and the aims and the spirit and the morality of the world are all perils from which the child of God needs to be shielded from. And this is why the scriptures tell us that we're not to love the world. That's why the scriptures tell us that we're not to be conformed to the world. This is why the scriptures tell us that we are to keep ourselves unspotted from the world. This is why the scriptures remind us that we are to have no friendship with the world. That is why the scriptures tell us that we are to have no affiliations with this world. Such is the danger of this present world. We do not see it as such. And yet this world is a dangerous place. It can get into our hearts, can get into our minds, can control our thinking on the issues of the day. And yet our minds need to be brought away from such things, shielded from such things. God can shield us, thank God, from the world. In actual fact, he prays for this very thing to take place. John 17, verse 15, the Savior, uttered these words in his high priestly prayer, I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them, guard them, shield them from the evil, the evil in the world. The evil one, yes, but also the evil that is in the world. And thus he is praying in the glory tonight, that we might be shielded, guarded, kept from the world and all of its fascinations. Another enemy we need to be shielded from is Satan and his devices. The devil seeks our ruin. He desires to see our testimonies destroyed and in tatters, and he employs various devices to accomplish such an end. Some of his devices include tempting us. 1 Corinthians 7 verse 5, to fraud ye not one another, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer, and come together, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency. He does so by persecuting us at times. Revelation 2 verse 10, fear none of those things, but thou shalt suffer. Behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried, and ye shall have tribulation ten days. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. He tries to ensnare us. He tries to bring us to ruin by accusing us. Revelation 12 verse 10, And I heard a loud voice saying, In heaven thou is come, salvation and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ. For the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. He tries to hinder us at times. 1 Thessalonians 2 verse 18, Wherefore we would have come unto you, even I, Paul, once and again, but Satan hindered us. He tries to deceive us. Revelation 12 verse nine, and the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world. And he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. With such a formidable foe, with such a dangerous adversary, with such a subtle opponent, child of God, we need God. We need God to shield us from the devil's devices and from his snares. And this he does. A prime example of that, I believe, is seen in the life of Job. Satan would acknowledge this, that around Job, God had placed a hage. Listen to what the devil said to God there in Job chapter 1, verse 9 and 10. He says, Doth Job fear God? For not hast thou made a hage about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? that was blessed the work of his hands and his substance is increased in the land. God put a hedge, shielded this man of God down through his earthly pilgrimage until this moment of time. And Satan now seeks permission to touch the very body of Job, understanding that without God's permission, nothing could take place in Job's life. Dr. Gill made an interesting comment concerning this hedging of Job. He wrote, God encompassed him about with his love as with a shield, a hedge which could not be broken down by men or devils. He surrounded him with his almighty power that none could hurt him. He guards him by his providence. He calls his angels to encamp about him. Yea, he himself was a wall of fire around him. Thank God around us tonight, child of God, There is a hage of protection. Our God is shielding us. His wing is around us and over us. His everlasting arms are underneath us. And therefore, whatever direction Satan would aim his fiery darts from, thank God, God will be our shield. Another enemy we need to be shielded from is the enemy of our flesh and its tendencies. Often our greatest enemy is ourselves. Within all of us there lies that enemy who could see to our downfall and destruction at any unguarded moment. Our passions, our lusts, our base desires, if unchecked and unsubdued by divine grace, would see us making shipwreck of our lives in a moment of time. And so at times we need to be saved from ourselves. We need God to shield us from the fleshly tendencies at war in these souls of ours. There is a final enemy, we need to be shielded from, and that is the enemy of religious error and its disguises. And many have been swept away. The winds of false doctrine have been laid away from God by false teachers, have departed from the faith through some heresy, because they left themselves exposed to that error, having failed to shield and to ground themselves in the truth of God's word. And so we need the Lord to shield us from false teachers, from heresy, yes, and from false doctrine, in order to be grounded then in the truth. then God himself, all of these enemies, the world, the devil, the flesh, religious error, Rose set array against the child of God, in confederacy with each another, aiming for our downfall, opposing our every advancement in holiness and our onward march to heaven and to home. And yet, thank God, God can shield us from our enemies in whatever guise they come to us from, so that we might be overcomers rather than being overcome by them. One preacher said, it is God who protects us from known adversaries, from the temptations of the world, the flesh and the devil, from all the arrows that fly by day, from all the terrors that haunt us by night, from adversaries of whom we know and against who we would be ever on our guard if we could. God is our shield. He is our shield. God shields his people. Let me close with a final brief thought the extent of God's shielding? Into what area of our lives does the shielding of God extend to? Well, his shielding extends to our substance or to our possessions. Did you notice what Satan said to God there in Job chapter one, verse 10, hast thou not made a hedge about him and about his house? and about all that he hath on every side. God not only heads Job about, but also he put ahead a ring of protection around Job's home, about the family, and about even all of his and even his possessions. Since that is the case, since it is the case, And can you and I then not entrust our finances and our homes and our earthly possessions to the possessor of heaven and earth? Of course we can. Of course we can. God shields us. Yes, it goes to our substance. He shields our bodies at times. We're told in Psalm 121 that God will not suffer our foot to be moved. It'll not slip. It'll not stumble. We thought about that a few weeks ago. Remember, the Lord keepeth the feet of his saints. In Psalm 91, verse nine and 10, we're given this promise, because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most high thy habitation. There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. And do we not see this most vividly portrayed there in Exodus in the chapter 12? The night of the Passover, what did God do for his covenant people? He shielded them. He protected them. He stood guard over the door that was marked by the blood off the land so that the death angel could not pursue and enter into the very place of residency. He protected the very life of the firstborn. He can keep us. He can keep us through days of pandemic. He can keep us in times of sickness. His shielding goes to our bodies. But most importantly, His shielding extends to these souls of ours. Having come to trust in Christ for salvation, God will shield us from wrath to come. The wrath that is to come upon the ungodly in this world will not touch the child of God, because we are hiding in him. He will shield us on that day. Judgment has already fallen upon him at the cross of Calvary. It shall not fall upon us in the day of judgment. And so he is shielding our souls. What did Paul say? Or what did Jude say? That he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. What did Jesus Christ say? John 10, 28. I give unto them eternal life. They shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. We'll be shielded in the day of wrath. Thank God for that. He keeps our possessions. He keeps, thank God, our bodies, but most importantly, he keeps our souls. so that they'll never fall. But thank God they'll be brought safely to glory and then reunited with our bodies on the day of general resurrection. This is why I say God, as a shield of his people, provides for us a shielding like no other, having hidden in him for salvation. May we continually hide behind him and in him until every foe is vanquished and the enemy is fully routed by the one who goes forth conquering and to conquer. David said, he is my shield. Thank God. He is our shield tonight. May the Lord be pleased to bless His word to our hearts for Christ's sake. Amen. We're going to get down to prayer at this time. Just to remind you, a few prayer points for those who will then log off. We encourage you to seek the Lord in prayer whenever the broadcast goes down. But remind folks here, Lord's Day services, 12 noon and 6 p.m. Our brother Tommy Ackeson, as he recovers from his treatment, that has went well, and he wants to offer his thanks to the congregation for praying for him. And then pray for others who are unwell in the congregation at this time. So we encourage you now. to seek the Lord in prayer. I'll briefly pray, and then we encourage you to pray. And whenever you do pray, could I encourage you to maybe just keep your head bowed as you do pray. If you're going to pray publicly, please try and keep just your head bowed, and please do it at a volume that is moderate, and please also give others opportunity to pray. We don't have very long, so please give people the opportunity to pray. Thank you for coming. We appreciate your presence with us tonight. Let's seek the Lord. Loving Father, we thank thee that thou art a shield for thy people. Lord, thou art our defense and thou art our defender. We rejoice, O God, that though the enemy would roar and though we would hear his many accusations, we thank thee that between us and him stands the one who bears the marks of Calvary, that answers on our behalf. Payment has been made for all those sins and thereby the one is set free. Lord bless us as we seek Thy face. We pray for, O God, the continual eradication of this virus from our nation. We pray for mercy. As a nation, we most certainly do not deserve it. Our sins are great. Our sins are many. We cry to Thee, O God. Show us mercy. and we'll give thee praise for it as we are tonight. We offer prayer in and through your Savior's precious name. Amen and amen.