Psalm 20 Shows Us How God Saves Christ

Psalm 20 sounds like a comforting prayer until you ask one unsettling question: who is the “you”? From Sandown Park near London, we follow that thread and find ourselves face to face with the Messiah, because the psalm names God’s “anointed” one and invites the people of God to pray for his victory. We talk about why older Christian voices saw Psalms 20–31 as a single, rich section that points to Jesus, and how reading the Psalms this way changes what we think prayer is actually doing.

Paul Blackham helps us map the sweep of the messianic psalms, from longing and anticipation to the cross, and beyond that to resurrection and ascension themes woven into the songs of Israel. We also pause over “Selah”, not as a quirky Bible word, but as a built-in moment to stop, think, and let the meaning sink in before moving forward with fresh perspective.

Stephen Lungu then brings the message into sharp focus with a remarkable Christian testimony: arriving at a gospel tent with explosives, convinced the Bible was a tool of oppression, and leaving with a heart flooded by peace and joy. We explore why the weakness of Jesus on the cross confuses many, including Muslim friends Stephen speaks with, and why the Psalms train us to see that apparent weakness as saving power. If you want a deeper, more Christ-centred way to read the Bible, this conversation will give you both a roadmap and a reason to keep going.

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Transcript

Welcome To Sandown Park

SPEAKER_02 0:30

Book by book, I'm Richard Bews, and I'm very, very pleased indeed to be with you. And we're meeting here is where we are at Sandown Park, quite near London, England. What we're going to do is to talk a bit about Jesus in the Psalms. That's our study. Jesus in the Psalms. And there's a particular block of material between Psalms 20 and 27, which we're going to be particularly focusing upon. And this will be a great through, I think, for us to have Stephen Lungu coming in on this, because Stephen himself became a Christian through Psalm 27 many years ago. And we'll learn a bit about that and learn about his own experience too of Christ in the Psalms. And then Paul Blackham. Paul Blackham is really from Lancashire, but working with us in London. And so Africa and Lancashire, and well I was born in Kenya, so that's uh means we're a little bit international today.

Reading Psalm 20 Aloud

SPEAKER_02 1:27

I think what we'll do first of all is to have a reading. So let me read a bit from Psalm twenty. May the Lord answer you when you are in distress. May the name of the God of Jacob protect you. May He send you help from the sanctuary and grant you support from Zion. May He remember all your sacrifices and accept your burnt offerings. May He give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed. We will shout for joy when you are victorious, and will lift up our banners in the name of our God. May the Lord grant all your requests. And I think that's perhaps enough for the moment to read from that Psalm, though there's more verses as well. But we'll look at it together.

Who Is The Psalm’s You

SPEAKER_02 2:18

Ma maybe I'll just start with Paul Blackham and ask, who is this you that we keep reading about in Psalm twenty?

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Well, whoever the you is, it's somebody who's very important to this ancient people who are praying because in verse 5 we will shout for joy when you are victorious. So it's probably not me that the psalmist is praying for. So it's David's king. And of course, all our questions are answered really in verse 6. I know that the Lord saves his. Well, in this version it's got the word anointed, but really a much better word would be Christ. I know that the Lord saves his Messiah, his Christ. He answers him from his holy heaven. So we can see it's actually a psalm of the ancient people of God praying ahead, looking forward with prophetic insight to the great work of the Messiah, long in advance and praying. Yes, Lord, hear him and help him when it comes to his great work on our behalf.

SPEAKER_02 3:34

And I mean plenty of those older Christians, you know, like Matthew Henry, the great commentator, or Charles Hadon Spurgeon, they would all say that there was a great block of uh Psalms here that was really about Jesus, the anointed one.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

That's right. I mean, in a very real sense, this block of Psalms

The Messiah Across Psalms 20–31

SPEAKER_00 3:52

from 20, in a sense, right through to 30 or 31, is all about this, is is a is united with a theme. If you think we've got 20 and 21, this is the looking forward, the ch the ancient church in that sense, looking ahead to the work of the Messiah. Then we've got 22, the cross, 23, resurrection, 24, ascension, and then 26 is a is a psalm which only Christ could pray because it's vindicate me because I've never done anything wrong. Yes. Examine me, you see, never done anything wrong, and so on. And then you get, of course, at right at the end of the sort of section in Psalm 31, verse 5, the final words that Christ uttered on the cross, um, into your hands I commit my spirit. Psalm 22, verse 1, of course, it was his first words perhaps on the cross, like that. So we know we're in this tremendously rich section all about the work of Christ, either looking forward to the work of Christ, or sort of because it's the Holy Spirit that's behind all these things, the Holy Spirit of Christ giving this tremendous prophetic insight. And we can learn more, in a sense, about what was going on within Christ Himself, in his own heart and soul, his own experience, his own emotions, his own prayers in his great work, in these psalms, than we can in any other part of the Bible. Because in a very real sense, at the Gospels, we're looking on at a distance. We're not really permitted in the Gospels to get very close to Jesus because we're looking on at a distance, because everyone's distance there. But in these Psalms, we're looking into his very soul. Very soul saying that's very interesting.

SPEAKER_02 5:23

So it's a blockbuster to me. It's easy to lose sight of that, and I think in recent years, maybe many of us have lost sight of that, but those older commentators pull us back again.

Stephen Lungu’s Conversion Story

SPEAKER_02 5:32

They do. Then here's Stephen Lungu, you were converted to Jesus Christ through a psalm. And uh in fact, we've got look, here's the biography or the autobiography that you wrote about your your own experience out of the black shadows. Who are the publishers? Well, we'll talk about that maybe a bit later. But this is your own story. I know you are a gang leader, and your gang was called the Black Shadows out there in uh in Harari in Africa, and that was some years ago. But so when I look here at this bit like um verse five, talking about the we will shout for joy when you are victorious. Um, how did the victory of Jesus and Calvary and his love first sort of affect you as a former gang leader, Stephen?

SPEAKER_01 6:21

Oh Richard, the victory of Jesus Christ gave me that joy because um it was Christ when he died for me on the cross. He took all my sins on the cross and he bore all my guilt on the cross that I may be free. And when Jesus came, it was a transaction that I should give him my life, my sins, that he should give me his peace, his forgiveness, and his joy. So it was through the preaching of the word of God that um when the man who preached the word of God in a tent, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_02 7:00

In a tent, yes.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

That's right. But you had gone to blow up with explosives. That's right. Uh I had gone to blow up with explosives because uh with the ideology we had been given in the bush as uh freedom fighters that the Bible was a white man's book, and uh it was not uh God's book at all, and was used by the white man to brainwash the black man to make him a slave. So to me, Jesus was like a white man, and the Bible was a book used to brainwash the black man. So it was in this particular tent which I had gone to blow up that uh we decided to set it on fire. But uh when my friend told me that we still had five minutes before seven, which was set for us to blow it up, we decided to. And there were a thousand people in that tent. Exactly. And so we decided to go and listen for only two minutes, and that happened to be the biggest mistake to give God two minutes. And uh so we went inside, and um and uh the man opened from the book of uh Romans chapter six verse 23 for the wages of sin is death, and 2 Corinthians chapter 8, verse 9. And when he started preaching, the thing which I didn't like was the pointing finger. Because each time as he pointed his finger, it seemed as if he was pointing at me, and it would point this direction, but like the finger was bending toward me, and so I took out my knife to stab my own friend, thinking that he had gone to tell your secrets. Yeah, about my secrets. But then the next thing I broke down in tears and I went forward, and that was my turning point.

SPEAKER_02 8:46

You laid your explosives, your revolvers, everything else.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Exactly. And uh, Jesus came into my life, and uh uh and um no language can explain the joy and the peace which flooded my heart that night. From hatred against the white man, hatred against God, the bitterness which was in me, God changed it and gave me the peace and his joy. And from that moment I just wanted to hug everybody.

SPEAKER_02 9:12

And also, I think that the next morning when you woke up from sleeping under the bridge, you you saw a large tree there, or a tree. What is it you said to the Lord?

SPEAKER_01 9:23

Well, I'd go uh when I woke up that I mean that night when I went under that bridge where I used to stay, I prayed. I said, God, why couldn't I see the beauty of stars before? Why? It was so beautiful, glorious. And and I went to sleep in that type of prayer, and that was my best sleep ever. And in the morning there was a tree nearby, and I went to kneel down under that tree, and I hugged the tree. I said, Jesus, if you are only here, this is how I could have hugged you for for saving me, for forgiving me all my sins. And the like there was that audible voice saying, Stephen, stand up. I will open your eyes and I'll send you to the nations you do not know. And it was from that moment when I went to surrender myself to the police.

SPEAKER_02 10:12

Hey, that we'll come back to this a bit more uh about that, how you went to the police and uh how you were illiterate, couldn't read, and how the next day you were on the buses preaching, but we'll come back to that in a moment

Selah Means Pause And Think

SPEAKER_02 10:24

or two. I mean I think you know the joy is very uh impressive here in this psalm. Um and then what does the sealer bit or when it says sealer? Tell the the students here who are sharing in in this what this is all about.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Well it's a little thing you see throughout the Psalms, and well it's here at between verse three and four, this little phrase and uh this little word. And what it probably means, you also get it in Habakkuk chapter three and throughout the Psalms, and it really is perhaps a musical interlude. It's saying, Have a good think about what you've just heard.

SPEAKER_02 11:00

Or is there, I mean, there's an old English saying with that uh put that in your pipe and smoke it. That's right, something like that. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

Put it in your pipe and smoke it. And have a so it could all have been a time, because these are all songs, and perhaps at that time the instrumentalists would have come in and played for a while while we thought about these words that have been said, and then usually what happens after one of those words is the theme is picked up again, but now m the thoughts moved on to some more of the consequences of what's just been said. So you often find that that's what that word does. Very good.

SPEAKER_02 11:34

Very good. So I'm looking here

Strength Hidden In Christ’s Weakness

SPEAKER_02 11:37

now. If this is Christ, um the anointed one about whom we're reading, um, so I'm looking at the end of verse four now, make all your plans succeed, or uh maybe end of verse five, I quite like too, who will lift up our banners in the name of the Lord, may the Lord grant all your requests. Um, in some ways is is portrayed as being quite weak, uh, the anointed one here. Um and how can such an apparently weak person ever be the anointed one? Um I mean sometimes the the Muslims that our Muslim friends you sometimes preach to Stephen. They feel that, don't they? Isn't this rather a weak God? Do you have you found that in your preaching?

SPEAKER_01 12:23

Very much so. Um often they think that when you are weak, you are powerless and you can't be God. Uh the the God must be the mighty one with muscles who can, you know, answer prayers on the dot of time. But to talk about Jesus being weak, that in his weakness, that's where there's power to save the sinner, the Muslims confuse, they can't reconcile that. Uh reconcile that. And so uh Jesus, a whim and also a savior, that really is a puzzle. But uh it takes the Holy Spirit for one to understand this wonderful savior who can do in his weakness on the cross dying, and on the third day arose again.

SPEAKER_02 13:14

I mean, what is so wonderful to me is that the next day after you had found the Lord in that tent, all the explosions and all the problems there were, you were on the buses preaching, and although you were not able to read. Tell us about that for a moment. What happened? I mean, what was it like?

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Well, um, the excitement

From Violence To Public Witness

SPEAKER_01 13:34

and the joy which I had experienced from that moment, and when I looked at the weapons which I had, I couldn't just throw them away, but also the guilt of the stabbings of people or people I'd killed. You've been a man of violence. Yes, and I felt that my hands were still full of blood, and so what I did was just to go to the police and tell them every detail of my life, and if they hanged me there, that was fine. So I got into the bus, uh, going to the police station, and uh, when I got into the bus, they looked all miserable and happy. So I stood up in the bus. I said, ladies and gentlemen, last night Jesus came into my heart. My life is you know forgiven. I'm uh I'm changed, and I went bubbling with joy, and one strong man stood up and said, You shut up. We don't preach on Mondays.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

He pushed me out of the bus.

SPEAKER_01 14:33

And so I started dusting myself. I got into the next bus. I said, I'll start at it again, telling the driver. So I said, Driver, last night, Jesus came into my heart, my heart is changed, and many people started crying in the bus. And one day this in your book, and then they got off the bus.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

And they said, How can we know this? And uh you said to kneel down in the dust. So I forced them to kneel down in downtown, and they were all crying in the streets as people were passing to and fro. And out of those seven people came to the Lord that day, seven, uh, three are full-time pastors serving the Lord. Uh so from that day on, I never stopped talking about him.

SPEAKER_02 15:16

I think it's wonderful, and Jesus has obviously been your unseen companion all these years, helping you to go around the world.

A Kingdom Anthem To Close

SPEAKER_02 15:23

Paul, just as we end off, uh, verse 9 looks a bit like a sort of national anthem. Is that a helpful way of thinking about this psalm as we close?

SPEAKER_00 15:30

It is, and Lord save the king like a national anthem. And it has uh been described as the national anthem of the kingdom of God. Yes. That we all together, that the people of God is his citizens, we we call out to him uh and what wish him to always be glorified and always honored. Of course, he lives forever, so we don't say long live the king because he lives forever. But it is a it's not a bad way of thinking of this psalm.

SPEAKER_02 15:59

That's very helpful indeed. And here's just the last little verse. It could be a memory verse, actually, for you who are sharing with us in this study. It's uh verse seven. Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. So from here in Sundown Park, it's uh Stephen Lunger and Paul Blackham and myself, Richard Bughes, saying, Thank you so far for what we've learned. There are materials you've probably got with you, and you've got the Bible there. Let's keep on studying these glorious Psalms that speak of Jesus. Thank you so much for joining us.