Psalm 5
Okay, Psalm 5. This is another Psalm of King
David. And he says, give ear to my words, O Lord. Consider
my groaning. Give attention to the sound of
my cry, my King and my God. For to you do I pray. O Lord,
in the morning you hear my voice. In the morning, I prepare a sacrifice
for you, and I watch. For you are not a God who delights
in wickedness. Evil may not dwell with you.
The boastful shall not stand before your eyes. You hate all
evildoers. You destroy those who speak lies.
The Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and the deceitful man. But I,
through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your
house. I will bow down toward your holy
temple in fear of you. Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness,
because of my enemies. Make your way straight before
me. For there is no truth in their mouth. Their inmost self
is destruction. Their throat is an open grave,
and they flatter with their tongue. Make them bear their guilt, O
God. Let them fall by their own counsels. Because of the abundance
of their transgressions, cast them out, for they have rebelled
against you. But let all who take refuge in
you rejoice. Let them ever sing for joy and
spread your protection over them, that those who love your name
may exult in you. For you bless the righteous,
O Lord, and you cover him with favor as with a shield. Pray with me. Our God and Father,
we thank you for these Psalms and for The times when we hurt,
when we are feeling uncertain, when we don’t know what to do,
and when evil and enemies are around us, we do ask and pray,
Father, that you would, by your word, encourage us and show us
that, indeed, on the mountains around us stands your holy army
and that you surround the righteous, you care for us, your wings overshade
us, and we have nothing to fear, though the world give way, you
are the God who loves us and cares for us, and saves us, and
we thank you for these truths, but write them on our heart tonight,
we pray in Jesus’ name, amen. Our psalm tonight is Psalm 5,
and it continues as we started with Psalm 3 of the Psalms of
David. They’re gonna go all the way
through 40, 41, and we’re gonna find ourselves looking at a similar
context every time, and guess what that context is? David is
under some sort of duress. And here again, we have a Psalm
of King David. We don’t know what the historic
situation is. We don’t know why he’s in trouble.
We just know that he’s in trouble. And so what we have is a prayer
of David as he talks his trouble out to God. He talks of God and
his goodness and man and his wickedness. And then he lands
on a safe and good and flat level ground where he says, God is
gracious, man is wicked, but as long as I have God, I am a
person who finds himself in good hands. So what do we do when
life gets hard? What do we do when evil surrounds
us? What do we do when we feel the
tension of good and evil? We feel the tension of blessings
and curses. We feel the pain of living life
in a world that is fallen, that is broken by sin, but we’re also
living in the graces and the goodness of God. How do we work
that out? Well, David here gives us another
morning Psalm. Remember that Psalms three and
four were morning and evening Psalms. Three is in the morning,
four is in the evening. Well, Psalm 5 and 6 are back-to-back
morning and evening psalms. He says in this psalm, he says
in verse 3, it is, in the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice. In
the morning, I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch. And so here
we have an example of David. We don’t know exactly how it
works out, but he wakes up in the morning and the first thing
he does, maybe second after making his coffee, is he prays. He commits his day, he commits
his life, he commits his struggles and the issues he’s facing, he
commits them to the Lord. And notice how he says in verse
3, I watch. And what a great blessing it
is to wake up every day to know that we can go face to face with
God and say, Lord, here’s my day. Here’s my struggles, here’s
my hardships, my thanksgivings, my adorations, my confessions,
my supplications. I offer them before you and I
watch. And all the day long we recount
our prayers, we give thanks for the blessings as he answers them,
and we watch and wait for him to do his work. That’s what we
have before us this evening in this prayer. As we approach the
subject of prayer, I want to remind you that prayer is something
we must do. Prayer is hard work. Prayer is
something that takes diligence. We have to be honest with God.
Sometimes we ramble in our prayers. Here we have an example of David
contrasting himself, a righteous man, with the wicked. But we
have to pray. And sometimes I think as we see
with King David, we come out of our prayer closet sweaty,
maybe with some tears, with palms and fists that are gripped because
of the labor and intensity of it, but we emerge from that prayer
time with confidence because God is bigger than our enemies,
He’s greater than our problems, He’s the solver of sin issues,
and we can walk with confidence. So let’s make our way through
this psalm and see what our God has for us. In verses 1 through
3, we have basically David saying, God, listen to me. He says, give
ear to my words. Consider my groaning. Give attention
to the sound of my cry. And how does he address God?
He gives him three commands, if you will. Give ear, consider,
and give attention. But he calls him my Lord. He
calls him my King and my God. And so he addresses the God of
the universe, his Heavenly Father, listen to me, give ear, consider
my groaning, and give attention to the sound of my cry. So there’s
the commands he gives God. give ear, consider, give attention. There’s the names he calls God,
O Lord, twice, and then my God and King, once. And then what
does he call his prayers? Well, he says, give ear to my
words, consider my groaning, and then give attention to the
sound of my cry. Now, do our prayers sound like
cries? I would guess very often not. Do our prayers ever sound
like groaning? Maybe, but God wants us to cry
out to him. He even wants to hear our groans,
and he for sure wants to hear our words. But those are three
little sets of categories of threes that are interesting.
Oh Lord, oh Lord, my God, my Lord and King. Words, groaning,
and cries. Give ear, consider, and give
attention. Those are interesting little
rows of three, aren’t they, to consider in our prayers. So what
should we think of our prayers? Well, first of all, when he addresses
God as O Lord, he’s addressing Him as Covenant God. Okay, God,
you’ve made a covenant with me. You’re a covenant-making God.
You’re a covenant-keeping God. So when I come to you in prayer,
I’m expecting something. Not that God is some divine vending
machine or we go to Him and say what we want and He outpops our
blessings. No, but God has promised to be
our God. And so He’s promised to hear
us and consider our prayers and even to answer them in His time.
And so there’s something about approaching God as our covenant
God, Lord, and King. There’s something also about
us approaching in faith. Why else would we pray if we
didn’t believe that He could do something? Why wouldn’t we
go somewhere else? Why wouldn’t we take matters
into our own hands? No, we pray because by faith we believe that
God is at work. And so here’s an example of David
praying in the morning, casting his suit, so to speak, before
God, and then he watches. And he waits all day to see what
God is doing. Now, sometimes we pray with words.
Sometimes we pray without words. Sometimes we cry. Sometimes we
groan. Sometimes we, as the New Testament
says, we just sigh because we don’t know what to say. We adore,
we confess, we give thanks, we give our supplications, and we’re
persistent. Do you remember the example Jesus
gives of persistence in prayer? There was the old woman who kept
going to the unjust judge and saying, I want justice. And what
does that judge finally do? I’m going to give her what she
wants because I’m tired of her coming to my bench. And what
does God say? Will not your heavenly father
answer your prayers if you are persistent. Or how about Aaron
and Hur on either side of Moses? Remember the battle of the Israelites
against the Amalekites in Exodus 17? And on one hand is Moses
holding up Moses and the staff, and the other hand is Hur. And
as long as his hands are up, they are prevailing against the
Amalekites. They were big, nasty enemies of God’s people. But
what happened when Moses’ hands got tired and they fell? The
Amalekites prevailed. And so there is something about
persistence in prayer. We do it together. We uphold
each other in prayer. Just as Aaron and her upheld
Moses’ arms and the staff, we need to be persistent in prayer.
How about Jacob? Remember Jacob asleep with his
head on a rock for a pillow? And what’s the phrase from Genesis?
I won’t let you go until you bless me. And so we’re persistent
in prayer like the lady before the unjust judge, and Aaron and
Hur and Moses before the battle of the Amalekites. Or how about
Elijah? It’s spoken of in James 5. Elijah
prayed that it would not rain, and guess what? It didn’t rain. But then, they needed rain on
the land, and what did Elijah do? He prayed that it would rain,
and guess what? It poured. And so we remember throughout
the scriptures that God is always at work, but he works through
our persistent prayers, our sighs and groans, our adorations and
confessions, and thanksgivings and supplications. There’s urgency
in our prayers as well. Do you know these verbs, give
ear to my words, consider my groaning, give attention to the
sound of my cry? These are imperatives. This is David, the psalmist.
This is you, the Christian, saying, God, listen, I mean, to give
God an imperative, to give him a command, how about that? But
that’s the example we have. Oh, God, hear me. I cry out to
you night and day. Here I am. Give ear, consider,
give attention to the sound of my cry. There’s urgency. Here
I am, your child. I have nowhere else to go. And
so I come to you, my heavenly Father. And then we come with
faith. We believe and do not doubt.
What does James say? We don’t come to God faithlessly,
no, but we come with faith, believing and not doubting, not being tossed
to and fro, but coming in boldness because we know that God wants
to bless us. And so what of our prayers? Will
God listen to us? He absolutely will. Will he answer
our prayers? Yes, but according to his will. What does our catechism say about
prayer? Prayer is the offering up unto God the desires of our
heart for things agreeable to his will with thanksgiving and
confession of sin in Jesus’ name. And so we want to align our hearts
and our desires with the will of God. So that’s the first thing
we see in this passage is David praying to God. God, hear me. The second thing we hear is,
this is my joking way of putting it, but wicked Go away. Okay? Wicked buzz off. Get out
of my face. Get out of my life. And we find
this in verses 4 through 10. But let’s begin with verses 4
through 6 where it says, But you are not a God who delights
in the wickedness. You are, or evil may not dwell
with you. The boastful shall not stand
before your eyes. You hate all evildoers. You destroy
those who speak lies and the Lord of horrors, the bloodthirsty
men. You know, in this passage, I
think the movement shows how we ought to approach God. He’s
come to God, consider my needs, hear my cry, listen to my groans,
and then what does he do? He sees the wicked all around
Him and He puts them before God. You don’t like them. You don’t
trust them. You’re going to judge them. You don’t put up with their
sin. And so there’s a sense where because we’ve been in the presence
of God and His righteousness, we can size up ourselves. which leads us to confession,
but we can size up our enemies and put them before God in a
gracious and righteous way. It’s a good sign. I’m gonna say
something that’s very politically incorrect. It is a good sign
when you see yourself as righteous, correctly so, and you see the
truly wicked as wicked. Okay, that’s not a politically
correct statement, is it? We’re to judge not, right? We’re
to be tolerant and all the rest. But you see what is happening
in a passage like this is when you bump into God and see His
righteousness and goodness, you see His holy laws, you read Psalm
1 about blessed is the man who does this and does not do that.
You read Psalm 2 and God will not put up with the wicked kings
of the earth. You come to a psalm like this
and you realize God is God, we are his saints, and the unrighteous
are truly that, they are unrighteous. That’s why the Apostle Paul quotes
this passage in Romans 3. How bad are the wicked? They
are really bad, they are really wicked. And so we need to recognize
that. Well, how does he address, what
does he call the wicked? I mean, we’ve seen him call God
Lord a couple times, my Lord and my God, my God and my King.
Well, what does he say of the wicked? He calls them the wicked.
He calls them the rebellious. He says they attack, they slander. And then he goes on to say, God
will not hear them. but he’ll hear me because I’m
righteous. He’ll hear me because I’m his
child. He’ll hear me because I love him, and we’re in covenant
together, but God will not hear the righteous. And he goes on
to speak of God’s position towards the wicked. Notice how he says
it in verses four and five, and he says it a little bit in verse
six. He says three things. God does not delight in wickedness.
He says evil may not dwell with him. That’s the first thing.
God does not delight in wickedness and evil may not dwell. The second
is you hate all evil doers. And then the third is you destroy
those who speak lies because you abhor the bloodthirsty. So
what is God’s action towards the unrighteous, to the wicked?
He abhors them. He hates them. And he does not
delight in them. It cannot dwell with them. So
here we see God through David’s eyes assessing and having a position
towards the unrighteous. Now that will not fly in the
face of politically correct, even in the church language that
we find ourselves surrounded by today. But he says, God will
not hear the wicked. He’ll hear me though as I pray.
And he rejects them. He does not delight, he hates,
he abhors. But what about David? He says,
not so with me. He says, God will let me approach
him. God will let me enter his presence. And so what do we think? This
is maybe a good spot to stop and say, how do we as Christians
judge others? I mean, we’re told in culture,
don’t judge, don’t be judgmental, that’s judgmental, you’re being
judgmental, you can’t do that, hand slap, right? And the Bible
even says, judge not lest you be judged. But aren’t there times
in the Bible where it says to judge? Examine yourselves to
see if you’re in the faith. The apostle says, look at your
own heart. That’s judging, right? Now, wouldn’t it be nice not
to have to be judgmental to ourselves, but that’d be. That’d be fake
Christianity. Or what about in the case of
elders and deacons? What does the Apostle Paul tell
Timothy and others and us as the church to do when we’re looking
for men to serve in the church? He says make judgments, find
somebody who’s godly, somebody who’s married, somebody who’s
lived a life pleasing in God’s sight and has shown an example
of godliness before the world. That’s a form of judgment, isn’t
it? And we could go on and on and find examples of this. But it’s a good reminder for
us to say what the Apostle Paul says, but for the grace of God,
there I would be also. So yes, we judge. Yes, we look.
Yes, we examine. Yes, we have God’s standards.
But as Paul says to Titus, we too remember that we also once
were foolish. We were depraved. We were blind.
We were serving Satan. But the grace of God came. And
as our Heidelberg catechism taught us this evening, we were washed
with the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit and we are now
clean. But if it were not for God’s
grace, we would be the wicked who God abhors. We would be the
wicked who God does not hear, who God hates and who cannot
stand in his presence. But guess what? He loved us so
much that he saved us through his son that we might have that
relationship with him. And so yes, there’s the wicked
and the arrogant who do wrong, who are liars and bloodthirsty
and deceitful all around. But guess what? God does not
take pleasure in them and he will destroy them. You can see
God’s progressive action in this. He does not delight in them.
The evil may not dwell in his presence. They cannot have a
standing before him. And he abhors the bloodthirsty
and deceitful. But notice how it turns in verses
seven He says, but I. Anytime you find the word but
in the scriptures, that usually means something good is coming.
Like in Ephesians 1 and 2, but God, being rich in his mercy,
has saved us. Here he says, but I. I’ve been
talking about the wicked, but I, through the abundance of your
steadfast love, I will enter your house and I will bow down
towards your holy temple in fear of you. Lead me, O Lord, in your
righteousness because of my enemies, and make your way straight before
me. Give safe passage to me. He appeals to the covenant love
of Almighty God. He says, yes, there’s the wicked
out there, but here am I, and I want to come in your presence.
And then he moves on in verses nine and 10 and says, for there
is, and he’s back on the wicked, there is no truth in their mouths.
Their inmost self is destruction. Their throat is an open grave,
and they flatter with their tongues. And as he’s prayed for himself
in verse eight, lead me, Lord, in your righteousness. Because
of my enemies, make your way straight before me. Give me a
safe passage through the woods of Loxley. How about that? You
know, Robin Hood? Give safe passage through a terrible
domain. Or if some of you are, Oh, what’s
the story? Pilgrim’s Progress. Making your
way through the Christian life with all the enemies of the world.
He says in verse 7, or verse 8, make your path or your way
straight before me. Reminds us of Proverbs 3, 5 and
6. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your
own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will
direct your paths. He’ll make your path straight.
So he prays for himself in verse 8, but after talking again in
verse 9 of the wicked, look at his prayer for the wicked in
verse 10. Make them bear their guilt, okay, for all their bloodthirstiness,
for all their lies, all their deceit, all their hatred of God
and his people. Make them bear their guilt, O
God. Let them fall by their own counsels. Because of the abundance of their
transgressions, cast them out, for they have rebelled against
you. There’s a prayer of imprecation,
a prayer of God, take care of business, make the wicked go
away. You’ve got good reason to do it, so now do it. You can’t
trust them, they’re destroyers, they’re wicked, they’re arrogant,
they’re fools. It’s an incurable race. Without
God and salvation, they They are to be put away, even to be
put to death. But what does he say here? It’s
not about me. It’s not about David here. This is about the
glory of God. This is about the righteousness
of God. This is about equity and fairness and justice, but
big picture. I mean, sure, David wants his
enemies to sort of go off the map, to leave him alone. Here
I am trying to be king and they’re causing me trouble. Make them
bear their guilt, oh God. Now maybe some of you have been
the subject of other people’s wicked tongues. And now in the
days of social media, it becomes more difficult. And so what do
you do when somebody has slandered you? What do you do when their
throats, their mouths, their voices have slandered you and
scorned you and poked fun at you when you’ve been sinned against
by the words of others? You just go to God and say, make
them bear their guilt. There’s nothing you can do to
fix it. You simply let God clear your name, and you trust Him
that He will do this. You know, if you chase every
enemy in your life, and you may not be the king of Israel or
the president of the United States, or you may not be such a public
figure that you have more mouths being run against you, but you’ll
find yourself in this spot. You just say, God, You take care
of business, because it’s really about You and righteousness and
Your great name. And so that’s the second thing.
The first is that God would hear us. The second is that the wicked
would go away. But look at how he ends this
in verses 11 and 12. And you might say this is how
he wraps it up and ties it nicely with a neat bow. He says, let
all who take refuge in you rejoice. Let them ever sing for joy. How
does a person go from hardship and misery and being slandered
being unjustly treated, how does he go from that to singing for
joy? It’s only because he can take
refuge in Jesus. It’s only because he can take
refuge in the sanctuary. It’s only because he can hide
in the shadow of the wings of the Almighty spreading over him
and covering. You may not find yourselves in
a super high position like David, You may not be the 40-something
president of the United States facing international terror and
treaties and trade and all those kinds of things. You may not
even find yourself the head of a company in North America or
in our little fair town here. But if you serve God and you’re
trying to live a godly life, You’re gonna find yourself in
the same boat as David and he says, let all who take refuge
in you rejoice and sing for joy. I don’t know about y’all, but
sometimes coming to church, actually a lot of times coming to church,
it’s like fleeing that crazy war-torn world and coming into
the foxhole and saying the bullets can’t get me here. The enemy
can’t find me here. I’ve come to a place of quiet
and safety and I’m with comrades. friends in battle with brothers
in arm and we come today to have our wounds healed to put a little
salve of the Holy Spirit on us to find the truth of God’s Word
and to say we’re coming to get healthy because we got to go
back out there and we got to get the nerve up to do it. Monday
morning is coming again. And so we come into God’s house.
We take refuge. We rejoice and we sing for joy. And what does he ask God to do
in the second part of 11? He says spread your protection
over them. so that those who love your name
may exult in you. He’s in a sense saying, save
us so that we can sing about you. Save us so that we can worship
you. And then he goes on to add a
little blessing, a little benediction. For you bless the righteous,
O Lord, and you cover him with favor. Literally, you crown him
as with a shield. And so what a great way to end
this psalm. God, I need you. Enemies go away. and then God’s
blessings. And so we thank our God for a
word of encouragement like this. Let’s pray together. Our heavenly
father, we do thank you that you encourage us by your word,
that you bless the righteous. And though we do have to live
with the wicked around us, you give us refuge, you cover us
with your wings and you give us encouragement. And we thank
you that week after week, we can enter your house and come
in your presence and we can worship you and that we can rejoice in
your gracious salvation that is ours ultimately in Christ,
but is ours also every day as we face the enemies and we receive
the suffering that is intended for Christ, but comes upon Christians
because he is exalted at your right hand, but we receive on
his behalf here now. Help us in this life to trust
you in Jesus name. Amen. my thoughts attentive be. Hear my cry, my King, my God,
for I make my prayer to Thee. With a morning light, O Lord,
thou shalt hear ♪ Then King Christ and watch will
watch ♪ ♪ Truly thou art not a God ♪ ♪ That in sin doth take
delight ♪ ♪ He who shall not dwell with thee ♪ ♪ Nor the proud
stand in thy sight ♪ ♪ Stand strong, O Lord, my head
abase ♪ ♪ For my soul to Thy air raise ♪ ♪ Lead me in Thy
righteousness ♪ ♪ Make Thy way before me straight ♪ ♪ For they flatter with their tongue
♪ ♪ Saints expel ♪ I just