You can turn your Bibles, please, to Psalm, Psalm chapter 5. We're going to do two Psalms, one this morning, one this evening. There were papers given out, so I trust you have one and you're able to follow along with a general outline. We'll read Psalm chapter 5 in its entirety.
We'll pray and then we'll begin. To the chief musician with flutes, a Psalm of David. Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my meditation. Give heed to the voice of my cry, my King and my God, for to you I will pray.
My voice you shall hear in the morning, O Lord, in the morning I will direct it to you and I will look up. For you are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness, nor shall evil dwell with you. The boastful shall not stand in your sight. You hate all workers of iniquity.
You shall destroy those who speak falsehood. The Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man. But as for me, I will come into your house in the multitude of your mercy. In fear of you, I will worship toward your holy temple.
Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness, because of my enemies. Make your way straight before my face. For there is no faithfulness in their mouth. Their inward part is destruction.
Their throat is an open tomb. They flatter with their tongue. Pronounce them guilty, O God. Let them fall by their own counsels. cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions, for they have rebelled against you.
But let all those rejoice who put their trust in you. Let them ever shout for joy because you defend them. Let those also who love your name be joyful in you. For you, O Lord, will bless the righteous.
With favor, you will surround him as with a shield. Amen. Let's pray. and ask God's blessing to be upon this time. Our gracious and our loving Heavenly Father, we again come into your holy presence, Father.
We recognize that we have need of your Holy Spirit to open up the word of God. It's not just any book, but rather it's the very mind and voice of God himself. And so, Lord, we pray your blessing to be upon the reading of your word, upon the opening up of your word, that, Father, we might find much to worship you in regards to and much to praise you in regard to. We pray, Lord, that this would be an encouragement to each one here this morning, and that, Father, we would leave here benefiting from having looked into your word, that we would be made and molded into the image of your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Lord, we pray your blessing now and the strengthening and aid of your Holy Spirit. And it's in Jesus' precious name we pray, amen. Well,
Introduction
certainly in Psalm chapter five, the best posture for prayer, and this is a prayer of David, chapter 5 and chapter 6, which we'll look at this evening, are both prayers. And ultimately, the best posture for prayer is to realize that we need help in our prayer. And that's what David does here. David is giving.
We begin here with a prayer of David. And you remember the disciples when the Lord Jesus Christ, he was praying in solitude. And when he finished praying, his disciples waited until he'd finished. And they said to him, they said to the Lord Jesus, Lord, teach us to pray.
That was in Luke chapter 11 and verse 1. And so certainly we need prayer. We need help in our prayer. We need guidance in our prayer.
And that's what David is doing here in chapter 5. D.L. Moody, an evangelist, a great evangelist, a great preacher of the 1900s, he said, He was a great preacher. He commanded audiences of thousands.
He said, I'd rather be able to pray than be a great preacher. Jesus Christ never taught his disciples how to preach, but only how to pray. So obviously we need help in prayer. And in the New Testament, if the Lord gave the disciples instructions on how to pray, then we hear in the Old Testament prayer book, which is really what the Psalms are, they are a prayer book.
Psalm 5, where David here teaches us how to pray when we're in dangerous situations, we're in difficulties, maybe we're in a perplexing situation, maybe we're just in plain lousy circumstances. That's what this book is about. That's what this chapter is about. So in David's own prayer here, he's going to model for us, and I hope that's what I hope to progress through, is this model of David that he provides for us.
It's almost like a prayer tutorial, we might say, so that as he himself prays, he leaves behind instructions for us as to how we ought to pray as well. And so I trust that we can benefit from the model that David leaves here, from this tutorial that he leaves for us. You see that in your outline, there's four points. By the way, I need to give credit to certainly Dr.
Dale Ralph Davis for this outline. First point would be in the first three verses, prepare your prayer is the first point we'll look at. And then know your God, know the God to whom we pray. And thirdly, make your request.
And lastly, in the last three verses, declare your confidence, obviously, in God. Well, beginning, note that
Scripture Reading: Exodus 3:1-15
David does not pray to a distant stranger. He's speaking to Yahweh. How do we know that? Well, he says in verse 2, he says he's speaking to Yahweh, to God.
He says, my King and my God. So he's not a distant God. It's my King. It's my God.
And certainly that's something that I think It's a doctrinal truth that has become precious to me, the transcendence of God versus the imminence or the personalness of God. We pray to a transcendent God. We pray to a God who is far off, who is far greater than us, a God who is far more holy than us, a God who is beyond what we can even imagine. But we also pray to a personal God, an imminent God, a God who sees us in the very circumstances that we are in.
And so I think that's what David is suggesting here by the use of the words, my king and my God. So yes, God is a far off, but God is also near us. God is close to us. And Yahweh is that redeeming God who is there for his people.
I just want you to turn your Bibles to Exodus chapter 3, just to give us that sense that God sees the nitty-gritty of our lives. God is not a God who is just a far-off and remains a far-off. God is a God who sees the nitty-gritty of our life. And I'm gonna read, it's a fairly lengthy passage, but I want you to just, as I read, sense that personalness of God.
This God who has redeemed Israel is also the same God who watches over us and cares for us. So Exodus chapter three, verses one to 15. Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the back of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.
And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. Then Moses said, I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn. So when the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, Moses, Moses.
And he said, here I am. Then he said, do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet. for the place where you stand is holy ground. Moreover, he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God. And the Lord said, I have surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Now therefore behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.
Come now therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt. But Moses said to God, Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt? So he said, I will certainly be with you, and this shall be a sign to you that I have sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.
Then Moses said to God, indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they say to me, what is his name? What shall I say then? And God said to Moses, I am who I am. And he said, thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I am has sent me to you.
Moreover, God said to Moses, thus you shall say to the children of Israel, the Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob has sent me to you. This is my name forever and this is my memorial to all generations. So that is the God that we have with whom David is dealing with here in Psalm chapter 5, the God that we deal with as well. Yahweh, or God, has brought David into a personal relationship with Him, that personal bond with Himself.
And it's on that basis that this prayer begins in chapter 5. Note how David describes his prayer in chapter 5. It consists of First of all, spoken words. In the first half of verse 1, I'll call it 1A or 1B.
I'll refer to them as A's and B's. 1A, give ear to my words, O Lord. So first of all, prayer has to be words. It can't just be Zen or some thinking thoughts in our head. It needs to be words, or it can be words.
But also, for an encouragement, it can also mean, in verse 1B, it says in 1B, consider my meditation. That meditation there really means, the word means sighings or murmurings that it does. Psalm 39 verse 3 uses a very similar word. If you just turn to Psalm 39 verse 3.
So that yes, prayer can be words, but prayer sometimes might just be murmurings might just be signs because that's a science is what I'm saying because that's all we can get out Psalm 39 verse 3 says my heart was hot within me while I was musing that's that word sign or Meditation in our in our verse today in verse 1b while I was musing the fire burned then I spoke with my tongue so distraught concerns of ours in our hearts or for in our in our minds are Maybe that cannot be formulated into words Well, there's an encouragement here that Yahweh understands it Yahweh understands those thoughts those concerns that perhaps are in your heart that are in your mind that we can't even formulate into words. That's a good thing to know. Perhaps
Prayer as Words and Groanings
it's almost as though David knew, you can turn to Romans 8. It's probably a familiar passage. I would quote it, but I'd probably get it wrong, so I'm gonna look it up. Romans 8, 26.
It's almost as though David knew that there was going to be a Romans 8, 26 coming along in a couple of thousand years. Romans 8, 26 says, likewise, the spirit also helps in our weaknesses, for we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. So same idea there as these murmurings, as this meditation in verse 1b that David speaks of. So the psalmist comes with desperate words in verse 2a.
It says in 2a, give heed to the voice of my cry. His prayer is not calm, it's not a sedate prayer, but rather there's a sense of urgency right out of the gate. give heed to the voice of my cry." So there is a sense of urgency, yet with so much tension in the chapter already beginning in verse 2, the tension there, he comes in the morning, I will direct my requests, where? To God, in verse three. Verse three, my voice you shall hear in the morning.
So in the morning, I will direct my requests. So even with the turbulent times that David is in, even with the difficulty, He perhaps can't even put the things into words. They're just in his heart or in his head. They're beyond giving voice to.
He does seek to direct his requests to God.
Ordering Requests Before God
What does that verb direct mean? It means to arrange, to set in rows, to lay out in an orderly fashion. I found it interesting that over in Leviticus, if you turn to Leviticus chapter one, a similar word is used because I think it helps us to formulate kind of an image in our mind. What does it mean to lay out our requests before God? or direct my requests.
So in Leviticus chapter 1, verse 7 and 8, this is the burnt offering is being prepared. The sons of Aaron, the priests, shall put fire on the altar and lay the wood in order. That's the word. Lay the wood in order.
You just imagine that wood being laid out in order on the fire. The priests, then the priests, Aaron's sons, shall lay the parts, the head and the fat, in order on the wood. that is on the fire upon the altar. So just as in the Old Testament, the sacrifice was laid out in an orderly way, he's using the very same verb here. David is to lay out the requests before God.
Leviticus 24.8 uses the same word. If you just flip over to Leviticus 24.8, he's using that same verb, directing my requests, laying in order, setting in rows, laying out in an orderly fashion. I'm going to read 24.8 of Leviticus, which reads, Every Sabbath, he, obviously that is God, shall set it in order before the Lord, continually being taken from the children of Israel by an everlasting covenant. So even our prayers should not be a scattered, disorganized fashion.
As much as sometimes maybe they will be murmurings, maybe they will be expressions that we cannot give voice to. Yet there's a sense of preparing our prayer in an orderly fashion. laying it out before God. So just as the priests in the morning sacrifice, they did it in an orderly fashion, so David here is getting together and ordering his prayer. He's preparing his prayer before God.
Often we may find ourselves, if you visit other churches, I'm not trying to diss other churches, but sometimes certainly when you're on holidays, I think it's good to go to other churches just to get a sense of what is out there, what people are experiencing, and what people are, how they're worshiping. And so often you hear a sense of just Christian cliches being rattled off. We just want to thank you, Lord, for being here. Enjoy your worship.
We just want to ask you lord to really give us a good time in your presence We we you know help us to worship you lord. Well, there's just a sense of of um, Cliche-ness about that rather than we we really just might even say we just want to stop and worship you lord You know, we need to stop and ponder sometimes. What does it really mean? to worship in spirit and in truth, as John 4, 24 talks about. Worshipping in spirit and truth.
Or as David is suggesting here, laying out in an orderly fashion our prayers before God. So we don't come in a haphazard way, but we lay out our requests, we lay out our petitions. in an orderly way. E. M.
Bounds, a minister in the 1800s, he said, what the church needs today, this is obviously speaking of the 1800s, what the church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more novel methods, but men whom the Holy Spirit can use, men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. So I thought it was a good suggestion, a good reminder that that's what we need in the church today. We need men of prayer, men who can, and women obviously, I'm using the word generically, but people who can lay out their requests, lay out their petitions before God in an orderly manner. We may need sometimes to revert to using written prayers.
I know that for some circles there might be an aversion. Certainly was in my heart when I have been to churches where there's written prayers being read out. But sometimes I think the older I get, the more I appreciate that maybe there's good reason for things like that. Certainly there's a book of It's called The Pastor in Prayers by C.H.
Spurgeon. It's a book, a bound book, just of his prayers. And it's very edifying to just read those prayers. There's a, Matthew Henry has some prayers in a book that's bound.
It's called Method for Prayer. The Puritans, they have a bound book, and their prayers are called The Valley of Vision. And I'm going to read one, read a prayer from The Valley of Vision. So these are, this is a Puritan prayer And it's for the Lord's Day.
It's a Lord's Day prayer. And perhaps I think maybe for us to consider just the orderliness, the way in which it's laid out, might help to order our prayers and be unto edification for us. Perhaps maybe even just to prepare our own hearts for worship on the Lord's Day. Let me read this.
So this is the Lord's Day morning. It's a Puritan prayer. Day and night are yours. They are also mine from you.
The night to rid me of the cares of the day, to refresh my weary body, to renew my natural strength. The day to summon me to new activities, to give me opportunity to glorify you, to serve my generation, to acquire knowledge, holiness, eternal life. But one day above all days is made especially for your honor and my improvement. The Sabbath reminds me of your rest from creation, of the resurrection of my Saviour, of His entering into repose.
Your house is mine, but I am unworthy to meet you there and am unfit for spiritual service. When I enter it, I come before you as a sinner, condemned by conscience and your word. For I am still in the body and in the wilderness, ignorant, weak, in danger and in need of your aid. But encouraged by your all-sufficient grace, let me go to your house with a lively hope of meeting you, knowing that there you will come to me and give me peace.
My soul is drawn out to you in longing desires for your presence in the sanctuary, at the table, where all are satisfied on a feast of good things. Let me, before the broken elements, emblems of your dying love, cry to you with broken heart for grace and forgiveness. I long for that blissful communion of your people in your eternal house in the perfect kingdom. These are they that follow the Lamb.
May I be of their company. So there's a difference between prayer and drivel. I think we can all identify with that. And I'm not advocating eloquence in prayer.
That's a very eloquent prayer. But I think it also is a very educating prayer as well. It's a prayer that I would hope all of us could amen to, say an amen to, and say, yeah, that's my desire when I come to the Lord's house on a Sunday. That's the desire of my heart.
And just to read that, perhaps in your own quietness, the quietness of your heart, certainly I think that that would be beneficial to all of our souls. So I certainly am not advocating eloquence in prayer, but certainly want to reject thoughtlessness in prayer. And verse three, just back to our passage, verse three, In the morning, I will set in order my requests to you." Well, that's the first point, is prepare our prayer. Be prepared in prayer.
Prepare your prayer that comes before God.
Know Your God
Secondly, David gives us a second direction, that is, know God. Know God. Note the connection to verses 1 to 3. I'm reading verse 4a.
For you are not a god who takes pleasure in wickedness. These verses are the reason for David's expectancy. Verse 4a. is the reason for his expectancy in the first three verses. Why is David watching expectantly in verse 3C?
I will look up. It says, in the morning I will direct it to you. And I will look up. Well, there's obviously an expectancy there.
Well, because, verse 4, for you are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness. He knows what God is like. David knows God's character. And he's immense, he's immersing himself, and we ought to immerse ourselves in knowing the character of God.
If we're praying to God, well, let's know the character of God. Let's know the things about God. What does God love? What does God hate?
And pray that we would love the things God loves and hate the things that God hates. We need to know the character of our God. And what is God's character? Well, David tells us.
As I say, this is a tutorial. in prayer, and David is going to go on and tell us a few points in regards to that character of God. God does not delight in wickedness, says that in verse 4a. For you are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness, verse 4b, nor shall evil dwell with you. Evil can never be a house guest of God.
Thirdly, another character of God is arrogant men will never stand in his presence. Verse 5a says, the boastful shall not stand in your sight. So, so far, this is the way we would expect a holy God to be, to not delight in wickedness, to where he cannot endure evil and where he would not endure arrogant men. But it gets more interesting.
God's Hatred of Evil and Evildoers
Yahweh hates not only the evildoers, Sorry, not only the evil, but the evildoers as well. And we're going to see that in verse 5b and 6. 5b says, You hate all workers of iniquity. You shall destroy those who speak falsehood. The Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.
So we have no tame God here. We do not have a tame God. We don't worship a tame God. Look how vigorous God is in his righteousness.
It blows up the myth that, well, God loves the sinner, sorry, God hates the sin, but loves the sinner. Well, that's not what these verses say. It just blows that myth into smithereens. God hates the sin, loving the sinner.
No, that's not what verse 5b says. It says, you hate all workers of iniquity. He doesn't detest merely bloodthirsty deeds, but bloodthirsty men. That's what it says in 6b, the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.
So as we get to know this God, that's the point I'm on, that we would know this God. Well, this God is a God who abhors not just the sin, but the sinner as well, outside of Christ. Obviously, we need to add that. We don't pray to a bland God.
That's clear in this chapter as well. Yahweh, he has a certain character. David knows that character, and David knows what Yahweh loves, and he knows what Yahweh hates. And it's this that gives David confidence that Yahweh will come to the rescue of his people.
If we know what God hates and what God loves, Then there's a sense of confidence in there that God will come to the rescue of his people So how does the knowledge
Knowledge of God Shapes Prayer
how does the knowledge of God instruct us in our prayers? Well, I have two points here that I'd like to cover. First off, for one thing, it infects our prayers with praise. If we know our God, it's got to affect our prayer with praise.
Let's look back at verses four to six. Let me read four to six together. For you are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness, nor shall evil dwell with you. The boastful shall not stand in your sight.
You hate all workers of iniquity. You shall destroy those who speak falsehood. The Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man." So David is declaring Yahweh's character, but in doing that, he's at the same time praising Yahweh, praising God for the way that he is. There's a sense of praise there.
It's not dark and negative, but rather he's praising God for the character that he is. And this is what we do in our call to worship on Sunday mornings. Why do we read a psalm? Why do we begin our worship services with a psalm?
Well, we're seeking to bring before the people of God the character of God. And that's why we read the Psalms that we read, or any passage out of the Word of God. We read Isaiah this morning. It's so that we might understand through the Scriptures the character of our God.
So we might be worshipers of that God. We might fill our consciences with a sense of who that God is. So that's what we're doing when we begin our worship services. We're declaring truths about the character of God, and that's the purpose of our reading.
Some traditions, sometimes, I know there's some churches have a tradition of reading certain confessions. I was looking at the Belgic Confession. I thought, yeah, that would be a great thing, other than I think nothing is better than the Word of God, and I think Pastor Butler has schooled us in that. So I would rather read the Word of God than the Belgic Confession, maybe for a private reading.
There's nothing wrong with reading the Belgic Confession. I'm gonna read just four lines here, three and a half lines. of the Belgic Confession, see if this doesn't instruct us in the knowledge of God so that we become worshippers of that God, the God to whom we pray. It says, we all believe with the heart and confess with the mouth that there is only one God who is a simple and spiritual being. He is eternal, incomprehensible, invisible, immutable, infinite, almighty.
Perfectly wise, just, good, and the overflowing fountain of all good. What contained in that, I guess that's one sentence, with a few add-ons, is a tremendous amount of knowledge of God, of the character of God. of the Belgic Confession, or with the words of the Psalm we're looking at here today, Psalm chapter 5. We're confessing our faith, to be sure, but we're also oozing with praise regarding the character of God in these verses. So that's what David is doing.
He's rehearsing Yahweh's character, and in rehearsing his character, he ultimately slips into praise, and we can't help but do the same thing as we rehearse the character of God. What's the other thing that this, a knowledge of God, how does it instruct our prayers? Well, another bit of instructions, we must know what God is like when we pray. The character of God is the basis or the springboard of our prayer.
Certainly, I think if we were to go for a job interview, I don't know, at the Hershey Company, and we went for that job interview and we knew nothing about chocolate, we knew nothing about the Hershey Company, probably that wouldn't be the best, we wouldn't pass the interview very well. We have to know something about who we're going before. We might speak up chocolate or talk about how wonderful the Hershey Company is. I trust they are a good company, I have no idea, just use that as an example, but we need to know something about that company to kind of, in the interview, say, yeah, we explain that we know this about them, or we admire that about them.
Perhaps maybe a tech company. If you're applying for a job at a tech company, to go in and know nothing about technology, they're probably not going to hire you. But if I can explain, yes, I know this, I know that, and I know the other thing, then more than likely, you would stand a better chance of getting a job. I know as a teacher, certainly, If a child were to come to me in the morning and say the my dog ate my homework Well, I wouldn't look too kindly upon them.
They would know my character and say I don't think he's gonna I don't think that's gonna pass I don't think he would he's gonna say. Oh sure. No problem. Just forget it and move on with the day No, there would be consequences with that.
But if they came to me and said well look I My mother is in the hospital. My grandfather passed away just last week. Our home was a mess. I didn't get to bed until midnight because we were visiting mom in the hospital.
Well, they hopefully would know my my steely outside No inside there is there is a heart and I would hope that they would know that yeah, he would probably say sure You know what? Don't don't worry about the homework You can just you can just carry on and and we can deal with it down the road So that whole idea of that that we would know the character of the person This is the case in prayer as well. And I think for David in Psalm 5 here because David You know is in verses 4 to 6 David is making his his he can David can make his petitions For example, in verses 10 to 11, I'm going to read that, because he knows of the character of God. Let's just read verses 10 to 11.
And the idea here is that because he knows the character of God, he can make his petitions, which comes later in the chapter. It says, Pronounce him guilty, O God. Remember, he knows the character of God. And that's what we just discussed earlier in regards to God not being a God who can stand boastfulness, evildoers, those who take pleasure in wickedness.
Because I know that about God, I can now make this pronouncement in verses 10 to 11. He says, Pronounce them guilty, O God. Let them fall by their own counsels. Cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions, for they have rebelled against you.
But let all those rejoice who put their trust in you. Let them ever shout for joy because you defend them. Let those also who love your name be joyful in you. So this is why we can pray for some of the world's governments or leaders to be overthrown.
Because we know that God hates oppression. God hates oppression in those verses 4 to 6. Clearly God hates oppression. So therefore we can pray. against oppression.
We can pray against those governments that are oppressing God's people. Why would we even pray for Christians in hostile environments to be delivered unless you know that it's the God who said here, That he sees us, he observes us, and we saw it in Exodus as well. He observes our every move. He observes the details of our lives.
And so that is the God to whom we pray. If you turn in your Bibles to Acts chapter 7 verse 34, it's actually a text out of Exodus. It's repeated in Acts. I'll just read it out of Acts.
Acts chapter 7 verse 34. Acts 734 says, I have surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send you to Egypt.
That's the passage that we read earlier. in Exodus. So, certainly, we need to know our God. And that's what I think the psalmist here in chapter 5 is saying, that we do need to not just prepare our prayers, but we need to know the God to whom we are praying.
Make Your Request
The time comes finally to make the request. David is about to make his request to God, and notice that it doesn't come until verses 7 to 9, the request of David. And David's making his request, and he's going to make it on the basis of grace in verse 7a. and in an attitude of reverence in 7b. First of all, grace.
And that's the way our prayers need to be formulated as well and formed, with that sense of knowing the grace of God, but also having a sense of the fear and the reverence of God. It says, but I in 7a. It's an emphatic but I. But as for me, I will come into your house.
David has just testified what God hates in the previous verses, verses four to six. He hates evildoers. He hates bloodthirsty men. He hates deceitful men.
And so therefore, we might expect that David might contrast to that his own self-righteousness. He was a man after God's own heart. Why wouldn't he say in verse 7, but as for me, well, I'm a godly man. I'm not like those evildoers, those bloodthirsty and deceitful men.
He doesn't. In verse 7a,
Grace and Fear as the Basis of Prayer
he says, but as for me, I will come into your house in the multitude of your mercy. So he does not come based in his own religiosity, but rather he comes before God on the grace of God, only on grace does he come. And also fear, verse 7b, it says, in fear of you, I will worship toward your holy temple. There's a perfect balance here between the David exercises, a perfect balance.
He thus reflects the quality of the psalmist's worship. I'm going to quote one sentence here from Dale Ralph Davis on these two verses. He says, what a combination we have here. In 7a, we meet the welcome, friendship, and acceptance grace extends.
And yet 7b reflects the majesty, the kingship, and the trembling that fear knows. Glad welcome and trembling reverence together. We see that in this, as I say, almost like a prayer tutorial of David. Andrew Bonar, tells a story about a Grecian painter who had produced a remarkable painting. of a boy carrying a basket of grapes on his head.
It was so true to life, so realistic, that when the painting was displayed in the forum, the birds actually began pecking at the grapes, thinking that they were real. Well, his friends praised the painter, but he was very displeased. He said, quote, I should have done a great deal more. I should have painted the boy so true to life that the birds would not have dared to come near.
In short, he should have attracted them and repelled them all at the same time. And so here, David is lured both by grace and yet sobered by fear. He has just the right packaging here for worship. Now for the request, notice the request is halfway through the psalm.
Sometimes we jump right to requests. Our prayer time goes right to asking God for things. Well, David in this tutorial for prayer doesn't do that. He waits till he's almost halfway through the psalm before he starts into his request, which is verses eight and nine.
The Request: Lead Me in Righteousness
Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness because of my enemies. Make your way straight before my face, for there is no faithless in their mouth. Their inward part is destruction. Their throat is an open tomb.
They flatter with their tongue." Well, David's request is, lead me in your righteousness, which is 8a. What does that mean? Lead me in your righteousness. Lead me in the righteousness you require of me, or the right way that you want me to go.
Certainly, as I studied it out, I would say that it means walking in godliness is even more important than walking safely. David is in the midst of something great. We don't know exactly what it is, what his difficulty is, but it's difficult. It's a messy situation.
It's a messy circumstance. He doesn't pray for safety. He doesn't pray for his own well-being. Rather, he's praying for godliness in the circumstances that he finds himself in.
And don't we find that life is sometimes just plain mucky? Is our desire sometimes to escape the muck of life or live a life that pleases Yahweh, pleases God, in the midst of that mucky life, if we were to call it such? Maybe it's the New Testament equivalent, this idea of lead me in your righteousness. Maybe it's the New Testament equivalent to Matthew 6, verse 13, a familiar verse to all of us when I read it.
It says, do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. So again, just that we're looking for deliverance, that we're looking for the, not the circumstance even to be taken out of our way, but that rather we would, that our life would please God in the circumstances that he has put us in. Sometimes we don't know all the details of our lives. I think of young people looking ahead, you think of jobs and careers and families and futures and perhaps all the dangers that we see in our own circumstances as adults in this world, all the pitfalls that lie before us. what precautions we should be taking as we head into life and and Sometimes we may feel that in a crisis.
There's no there's no solution. There's there's there's no road ahead of us But verse 8 comes along lead me O Lord in your righteousness. That's what we can pray so whether you're a young person or an older person whether you're facing questions about jobs, the future, family, whether you're in a very difficult circumstance, a difficult home setting, whatever the circumstance may be, David doesn't itemize all the circumstances that we can use this text in. He just says, life is mucky, life is messy, life is very difficult.
But what can I pray? What is my request? Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness. That's what we need to pray.
So we may think of a scenario such as a young woman maybe being struck down with cancer. She's living a normal life. All of a sudden, she gets the news. She's in a hospital ward, and she's got cancer.
Very, very difficult circumstance to find oneself in. Maybe a very short time to live. Maybe children, young children in the home. And there, her world is literally caved in around her.
Decisions about the future need to be made. How would we pray for them? How would we pray for ourselves? Well, I trust that what prayer would make more sense than this prayer of verse 8a.
Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness. Whatever that means, lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness. So I trust that that's really, that's David's request. That's the extent of his request.
He doesn't go into detail. He doesn't go into a lot of, you know, God do this, this, this, this. lead me in your righteousness." And he left it at that. So I trust that that would be a benefit for our instruction.
Declare Your Confidence
Moving on to the last point, declaring your confidence. David's fourth direction here would be to declare his confidence, and that's found in the verses 10 to 12. As David continues in prayer, I think we can see that His confidence is growing. You may, this afternoon, want to reread this chapter and just have a sense that, yeah, David's confidence is growing as the prayer continues.
It's a two-pronged petition.
Prayer Against Enemies and For God's People
He's praying against his and Yahweh's enemies. Verse 10, pronounce them guilty, O God. Let them fall by their own counsels. Cast them out in the multitudes of their transgressions, for they have rebelled against you.
And his prayer is also for God's people, for their joy and their protection in verse 11. But let all those rejoice who put their trust in you. Let them ever shout for joy because you defend them. Let those also who love your name be joyful in you.
So God's people cannot enjoy security and safety, verse 11, Unless at some point their enemies are taken out of the way verse 10 and certainly That may sound like a hard thing for us to say in the New Testament age, but it is very true. The psalm of David's here is as true when he wrote it as it is today in our day and age. I think of the situation relatively recently, those fugitives in northern Manitoba, the two young kids from the island who had gone on a killing spree and they were found to be somewhere in northern Manitoba. The whole town, though, the whole area was upset.
They couldn't rest. They couldn't find peace. Doors were locked, keeping children indoors. Even when they went on the road, they were just always having their eyes open.
Why? Because the fugitives had not been located, had not been dealt with. And so, in the same way, when we know that we can't enjoy safety and security, Unless at some point we know that God takes those enemies of ours out of our way. Not necessarily enemies physically.
It could be enemies within our own heart. Enemies within our own minds. Whatever it might be. We think of Esther in Esther chapter 7.
Or I think of Esther in Esther chapter 7. Remember the people of Israel were under great difficulty. They were under great siege. They were all to be slaughtered.
But Esther stood in the place where she was supposed to be. And instead, Mordecai being hung on those gallows, Haman was hung on those gallows. So the enemy of Israel had to be taken out of the way. And Haman was put on the gallows and the people of Israel escaped.
Think of in Exodus chapter 14, Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea. They were chasing the Israelites out of Egypt. They were chasing them and about to execute them and completely obliterate them. And they could not have peace, the Israelites couldn't have peace until Pharaoh and all of his army were washed away in the Red Sea.
If we could turn, I have one other example, and I'll have you turn your Bibles. Those were long passages, but I think they do bring to our remembrance how God protected his people, and we can have a holy confidence in our God. If you turn to 2 Thessalonians chapter one, 2 Thessalonians chapter one, As a New Testament example of this, Paul is encouraging the early church of Thessalonica, and he's declaring his confidence in the God who does and will protect. And it's encouragement to the Thessalonians.
So I'm gonna read, it's actually verses six and seven, but I think to give a little bit of context, I'm gonna maybe start at verse two. and I'll just read from two down to seven. We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers, remembering without ceasing your work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of our God and Father, knowing, beloved brethren, your election by God. For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance, as you know what kind of men we were among you for your sake. Sorry, you know what, I'm reading the wrong, I'm reading first.
I knew something wasn't quite right. I want second Thessalonians, my apologies. I was reading first, I told you to turn to second. And they appear in the same spot in my Bible, so that's why I thought it was okay until this wasn't sounding right.
So I'm going to read verses 3, 3 to 7, to give us some context. We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is fitting, because your faith grows exceedingly, and the love of every one of you all abounds toward each other, so that we ourselves boast of you among the churches of God for your patience. and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that you endure, which is manifest evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you also suffer, since it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you, and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels." There is we need to declare that confidence. That's what David does here in this song there's a there's a ruggedness in in the psalmist prayers here and It's it's also a ruggedness about true biblical piety. It's okay to read those verses okay to pray those prayers against God's enemies.
Why would we pray those prayers against God's enemies? Because we know the character of God. We know God hates evil. We know God abhors deceitful and bloodthirsty men.
Can we turn to Psalm 98? Psalm 98, verse seven to nine. Let's find it here. Psalm 98, seven to nine, the Psalmist here is ecstatic about Yahweh judging the world with righteousness.
Psalm 98 verses seven to nine says, let the sea roar and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell in it. Let the rivers clap their hands. Let the hills be joyful together before the Lord, for he is coming to judge the earth. With righteousness, he shall judge the world and the peoples with equity.
So, certainly Yahweh is judging the world with righteousness. Why? Because it means He will put things right. And that's ultimately what David is praying for here, that things will be put right.
Yahweh Surrounds the Righteous as a Shield
David's confident assurance rests In verse 12, reading verse 12 of chapter 5, Psalm, back in our Psalm, for you, O Lord, will bless the righteous. With favor, you will surround him with a shield. David doesn't know how or when the answers to his prayers are going to be worked out, but he knows who will see to it. He says, for you, that's an emphatic you.
He doesn't know how it's going to be worked out, when it's going to be worked out. God doesn't work on our timelines. We don't work on God's timelines. But one thing he is certain of, that it's God who will work things out for him.
And it's to the individual that this is also about. Verse 12 reads, For you, O Lord, will bless the righteous. Not the general population, not general Christendom, but you will bless the righteous. When I looked that word up, it's a singular word.
It's not a plural. It's a singular. For your Lord will bless the righteous. So, if we are seeking to be righteous, God will bless that.
God will own the prayers of the righteous. I found an interesting phrase at the end of verse 12. We're just about finished here. At the end of verse 12b, it says, with favor, you will surround him as with a shield.
It shows the completeness of our protection surrounding with a shield, although you think of a shield Children, you think of a shield you hold here. It's a flat piece, might have some slight curve on it. But how can a shield surround as with a shield? How can God's protector surround?
Well, Derek Kidner, an Old Testament scholar, he says this in regards to the shield. He says, the word for shield, sina, refers not to the handheld, but large, body-sized shield. Surrounds or wraps him with a shield refers to the closeness of Yahweh. The verb, wrap round appears near the end of 1 Samuel 23 when Saul almost has his meat hooks on David and his men.
Saul on one side of the hill, David and company on the other side of the hill. David and his men are hurrying to get away from Saul and Saul and his men were closing in on David and his men to nail them. He had David surrounded, completely surrounded. He was ready to basically wrap him up.
Oddly enough, just at that moment, a breathless messenger caught up with Saul with the news of a Philistine invasion. Saul had to let David go and go himself to defend his own country. Saul had been closing in, but Yahweh was closer. So the enemy cannot wrap us up when Yahweh already has us wrapped around with his favor.
And I hope that when we go away from here this day, that we would consider the hope, the promise of verse 12, that Yahweh has us wrapped around with his shield. One last story and then we're almost done. There's a German theologian, his name was Helmut Thieleck. I'm gonna pronounce it Helmut Thieleck.
I'll have to talk to Claudia later if I got that pronunciation right. He tells of an incident from his early school days when he was about 10 years of age. He and his classmates had taken a dislike to another lad in the class. Hans, the boy's name, exuded a kind of lackadaisical attitude towards studies.
And yet, when asked a question in class, he could spout off everything one might know about the matter. For this and other quirks, Hans earned the ire, that means the dislike, the hatred, of Thielic and his friends. Hence, they decided that the whole bunch of them need to give Hans a thrashing. That means beat him up.
But on the morning set for the ambush, a strange thing happened. Hans' father was walking with his son that day to school. His father was one of the most highly respected men in town. The gang noticed what happened when Hans and his father parted in front of the school.
They saw how Hans' father stroked his son's hair. and patted his cheek when they parted. Then, several times as they both began to go their separate ways, father and son would turn and wave at each other. Theolic said that he and his cohorts were very touched by the scene. It was as if they came to a collective, if unstated, conclusion.
Whoever was loved by such a father stood under a protective taboo and could not be molested. They were gripped by an expression of awe, and so Hans was spared that day. One might say he was wrapped round by his father with favor, almost like a shield. So have that story in your mind when you read this passage in Psalm 512, or the passage in earlier that we spoke of in 1 Samuel 23 when David when Saul had to take off and left David.
He was protected by the shield of God. So David ends his prayer here with the confidence that nothing can finally hurt the righteous, for Yahweh's favor will always surround him. So what do we do in the meantime? We live in an arrogant, deceitful, lying world.
We face enemies without, we face enemies within. What do we do? Well, I think we continue praying what we've been taught here in Psalm 5, verse 8. Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness.
So that's the best thing we can pray for ourselves. That's the best thing we can pray for one another. Irregardless of the circumstances, irregardless of the difficulties, pray that we would continue, as verse 8 says, lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness. Well, I trust that we have been instructed by David's tutorial in prayer to prepare our prayer to know our God, to make our requests, and then to declare that confidence, that confidence in God when we go to Him in prayer, as we've learned from this, David's tutorial in prayer.
Well, let's pray.
Closing Prayer
Our gracious and our loving Heavenly Father, we praise you, Father, that you are a kind God, you are a good God, you are a merciful God, and how we pray for one another, Father, that you would be pleased to cause us to be led Righteousness whatever that might mean for each endeavor each each individual here this morning father We do pray earnestly that you would lead each of us in your righteousness Cause us father to have a holy confidence in you a holy confidence in in in in our God in our Yahweh We pray Lord that you would teach us of yourself teach us to love the things that you love and hate the things you hate That we would know your character father. We would want to declare your character in praise and worship in our prayer life So, Lord, instruct us, we do pray, not just for this hour, but for the rest of this day and into next week. We pray, Lord, that you would be pleased to cause us to be a praying people, a people who seek your honor and your glory in all circumstances. And we just give you our grateful thanks and pray your blessing in Jesus' precious name.
Amen. Well, please turn with me in your hymn books to hymn number 568.