Psalm 5
Psalm 5
Songs for the Church
Psalm 5; Matthew 6:7
By Pastor Jordan Hines
chapter five. Psalm five. As we go through the book of psalms, we come across a familiar person and a familiar problem.
A man named David who finds himself in need of help. And whenever you find David, he always begins talking about God, and he ends talking about God. And I think that's a really cool pattern for us to look at, where.
As we look at our problems, we need to start thinking who we are in Christ, what we believe about truth and reality in God, and then think about our problems and then ask God for help. And he will answer us in his timing and his will. The psalm is also.
It's an interesting psalm. I joke with Jenny on the way in that it's for flutes. It's to the chief musician with flutes, a psalm of David.
So I don't know if we'd be able to necessarily match up the Hebrew, translated into English into an actual comprehensive and understandable song. But this is an interesting idea that just like in our hymn book, just like we sang, we sing songs to memorize truth, and so that truth would come into our heart. Like, if I start the hymn how great thou art, you can start to fill in the rest of the words or even the song that we just sang tonight.
If you knew that song before, even like the chorus, you can remember that chorus over and over again. You can recall it tomorrow just offhand, because you've already memorized it, you've meditated on it, and you know it. And often in hard times, I think that's when we go back to truth.
That's when we need to sing those songs. We need to meditate on who God is. So let's ask the Lord to help us meditate on who he is, so that when we go through difficult times, we'll be able to be comforted.
Let's pray. God, thank you for your truth. Thank you that you've not only given us your truth, but you've given us song, you've given us art.
You've given us a church where we can come together and we can rehearse your truth, where we can remember the comforts of your word, remember the comforts that you are with us, even in the trials, even when our enemies are around us. God, you also are a God of justice. And we know that you, in the end, will bring justice to all, justice to all the sin around us.
God, help us to treasure our identity in you so that we can truly be comforted in our times of need. In your son's name, we pray this. Amen.
Psalm, chapter five is twelve verses it's a psalm of lament. Meaning? It's a psalm like a cry of tears, if you will, a cry of sadness. And I would ask Nathan here because he loves to do so.
Scripture reading. If you want to read psalm five for us, nice and loud. Give you 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 the God who takes pleasure and 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 heart is destruction.
Their throat is in an open tomb. They clatter 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, who will surround him as with a shield.
Thank you, Nathan. I want to take this text apart and just to tackle the first three verses first. As David opens up, he really is just starting with a plea for help, which is a fitting place to start.
Whenever we go through a trial or tribulation, whenever someone lets us down, whenever life doesn't go the way we want it to go, often we just need to start with a plea for help. And there's very passionate language here that he uses. The first phrase that he uses is give ear to my words, o Lord.
Basically, it's just listening and just acknowledging that that person is there and listening. We can trust that our God is not dead, that our God is not. Our prayers are not falling on deaf ears, but our God hears our prayers.
This God that's being referenced here is the Yahweh of the Old Testament, the covenant keeping God that would bring back to remembrance all the history of the promises of Israel. He builds on this idea. And he says, consider not just hear, but consider, but understand what you're hearing.
Understand my meditations, or the ESV says, my groanings. I love the way the ESV puts it. It uses the word groanings instead of meditations.
I think both of these things are true together. But the groanings of one's heart and what one meditates on is serious. It's not something that's just, oh, well, I, you know, stubbed my toe on this piece of wood.
It's something that has happened that's tragic. Your meditation, it has to be something that's serious. It's not a minor thing.
It's something that's heavy that you're considering. We're also seeing here that David is asking God to give heed to the voice of his cry, my king and my God. So we have give ear to listen, consider, understand, and give heed to.
So listen attentively. Be very detailed in listening to every single part. And obviously, as we pray to God, God already knows the details of our situation.
So it begs the question, why are we asking? Why would we ask a God who already knows everything about our situation? Well, I think part of it is God wants us to realize and recognize our need for him in every single moment and all the details. He wants us to realize and recognize that God is powerful and that he knows us. He also wants us to continue in this relationship with him.
It's about rehearsing this so that we can meditate on who we are in Christ, meditate on what he has done for us. And also God does listen. And God wants to bless those who pray to him and who are pursuing him.
And it would be like a child who never says thank you for anything that their parents do for them. Their parent is much more likely to do something for a child. Say, we'll just do a simple illustration of, you get ice cream.
One night. Like last week, some of us went out to get ice cream and say that the child who receives ice cream never says thank you for their parent buying them ice cream. The parent probably doesn't want to get them ice cream very much because the child's not appreciative.
It's all about the relationship here. So David asked with passionate language for God to give ear, consider and give he. But also we have mention of God's listening ear, of how God responds.
Verse two, he says, my voice you shall hear in the morning, O Lord. And then verse three, in the morning I will direct to you and I will look up. So David is directing his prayer in the morning.
The first thing that he does in the meaning of his day is directing his prayer to God. And this starts his day off with the right mindset of thankfulness, of acknowledging that God can answer prayer and will answer prayer. And he addresses God with these pronouns.
And he's very specific. O Lord, O Lord. In verse one and two.
In verses two and three, my king and my God. He is his lord, his king and his God. He is everything to him.
He's the Lord, the one who saves him, the king, the one whom he is subject to in his God, the one whom he worships. David has gone to God here, and as we transition to verses four through six, we're going to see that he goes to God with his plea because God is holy. David's appeal in verses four through six is because God is holy.
And first, let's just see some actions that God takes against these evil people. There's quite the list going on here of what God is doing against these evil people. And this begins the comparison between evil or wickedness and the righteous.
Again, a theme we've already seen in the book of psalms so far. Verse four. One of the statements in verse four says, for you are not a God that takes pleasure in wickedness.
God is not delighting in or pleased with wickedness or sin. He doesn't want that, people. He doesn't want that.
For David, David here is addressing his enemies. He continues, nor shall evil dwell with you. Not only does God not delight in it, but God cannot be present with it because God is holy.
And he continues, in verse five, the boastful shall not stand in your sight. This is the boastful, the prideful, the arrogant, the one who is all about himself. They cannot be with God.
It's humility and pride in conflict and battle. And as people, we are finite. We fall underneath God as his creation, and we ought to recognize that and be humble before him.
God's actions continue here. In verse six, he says, you shall destroy those who speak falsehood. Are we getting the point here that God doesn't like sin? It's very simple.
God hates it. It's literally that the liar will be dismantled beyond the ability to be repaired. It's to destroy.
It's completely obliterated. These people are in line for judgment. Verse six says, the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and the deceitful man the Lord detests.
He finds it repugnant. It's gross. The man who is guilty of murder and lying, of the bloodthirsty, the one who.
It's really a gross picture of someone who desires to take someone's life. And David is speaking, I believe, from experience here, as someone who would have been chaste and would have been challenged for his life. David is pleading his case before a God who hates sin.
And as David sees sin in these people's lives, he calls the sin before God and is basically asking God, do you see their sin? Do you see their wickedness? But David is not without hope here. Look at verses seven and eight. With me.
David rests in the confidence he has in God. Verse seven, he makes a big transition from these previous, these wicked people. He says, but as for me, as for me, for David, I will come into your house in the multitude of your mercy.
Now, that idea of mercy is probably the key word in that sentence. It's a key Hebrew word that you have heard before. It's the hesed word.
It is the unfailing favor, the kindness and goodness of God, especially as it relates to the covenant God of Israel. It is the unwavering favor of God despite sin. See, God's people are loved.
God's people are cared for. The mercy of God is great. David here is not claiming that he's perfect.
David here is not claiming that he has it all put together and that he has the best strategy to, to defeat the people chasing him. What David claims here is that the mercy of God will be with him. I come to your house in the multitude of your mercy.
I come to God. And he continues his confidence. In verse seven, he says, in fear of you, I will worship toward your holy temple.
This fear of God drives him to worship. This is reverence. It's fear.
It's reverent fear that moves to worship, that moves to a life lived for God in the holy temple. The idea of holy temple here is repeated from the previous section. There, from your house to the Holy Temple, it is the presence of God.
It is coming closer to God, a literal picture of being close to God. And David gets more specific here. In verse eight, he says, lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness, because of my enemies.
Now, this one's a little bit more puzzling. Lead me, O God. So direct me.
Bring me to this place, O Lord, in your righteousness. This contrasted with the unrighteousness, the wickedness, because of my enemies. God, lead me by your moral standard, by what's right, because I'm surrounded by wicked enemies.
In contrast with these wicked enemies, God, lead me. He also says, make your way straight before my face. Direct.
So he's basically saying here, direct me down the right and prosperous path. Keep me safe and make my path straight. Make sure that I can understand what the next step is.
Keep my path straight. And God, this has to do with preparation of what David has to do next. David, understanding that God is in control, that God is sovereign and God wants to direct him.
David has confidently pleaded before a holy God to hear him, to lead him in righteousness, to walk with him in worship despite the wicked people around him. David prays here as he transitions to a, a kind of prayer that we don't see very often in our own lives, a prayer for destruction of the wicked. The destruction of the wicked.
Verses nine through ten. It says, for there is no faithfulness in their mouth. He also says they flatter with their tongue.
There's no faithfulness. There's nothing reliable or consistent or trustworthy or real that comes out of their mouth. It's all lies.
They're not faithful to the truth. They compromise the truth, and they have false information and they flatter with their tongue. They have dishonest praise.
They speak whatever they need to say to get what they want. Notice the use of the tongue here. The mouth is an instrument used by the wicked.
And also David here is using his tongue in righteousness. You can look to James, you can look at the New Testament example of the tongue is a fire. If you can control the tongue, you control the whole body.
The tongue is a powerful instrument in the body of a righteous person. It is a tool for righteousness, for spreading the gospel, for spreading who God is. In the body of an unrighteous, a wicked person, it spreads misinformation, it spreads a lack of faith.
It spreads blasphemy. The tongue is powerful. The wicked description here is one who can't control their tongue, who just does whatever they want.
The rest assured, they have an end. Here in verse ten, their inward part is destruction. He also says in verse ten that their throat is an open tomb.
Their inward parts are the very inner parts of them, the innermost being of them. Everything that they are and will be is bound for destruction. The essence of who they are, they will be destroyed.
Their throat, again, relating to the tongue is an open tomb, meaning that they're dead inside. What they're saying, they're saying because it feels right. But what they're speaking is death.
The message they're spreading causes death, causes people to be enemies of God. And David has a very powerful prayer for them, and it's one that I think we should be careful in interpreting this passage because we need to recognize our position as sinners too. Look at verse ten with me.
He says, pronounce them guilty. Be careful, comma o God. So he calls on God to pronounce them guilty.
He's not saying, God, these people are wicked. Do this, this, and this. To them.
He's saying, God, do you see this? From all that? I understand this is wicked, this is wrong. This is not righteous. This seems to violate your law.
Pronounce them guilty. He also says, let them fall by their own counsels. The word here for counsels is literally their own schemes.
Let them be tripped up by their own wickedness in their intelligence, that they think they're going to outsmart God. And those who are trusting in themselves, those who think they can outwit God or just live however they want to and pursue the persecution of the righteous, just let them fall by their own schemes. Let them suffer defeat.
Let the sin that they have reaped be sown in their life. And then, very specifically, David says, cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions. Now, an interesting comparison.
We've seen that phrase before, the multitude of before, but it was used in the context of grace, as David came to the house of the Lord with multitudes of grace. And now David is praying that these people be cast out in the multitude of their transgressions, for they have rebelled against you. Banish them with all their evil doings, because they have rebelled against the authority of a holy and righteous God.
This psalm is saturated with theology. It's saturated with the holiness of God. And because God is holy, he cannot have sin in his presence.
Because God is holy, he cannot abide us walking away from him in rebellion. He wants us to go to the house of the Lord to worship, to put off unrighteousness, and to abound in the mercy of God and be confident in the mercies of God. And also there are people who will suffer and will be thrown ultimately into the pit of hell because of their sin.
They will be judged. And I don't believe that David's heart here is one of trying to do vigilante justice. I think what David's trying to do here is he is purposefully stating that he is walking with God, that he's pursuing God, and he sees the people around him, and he's asking God to just do what's right, do justice.
I don't think that David is a man who wants his enemies to necessarily perish in an unworthy manner. In fact, David is a man who famously didn't kill Saul when he had the chance to, even though Saul definitely was a murderer. You see, we have a situation here where David is emphasizing the holiness of God, and that is the basis on which he is asking for justice.
That is the basis that he's relying on. And lastly, as David concludes, we have a prayer for the salvation of the righteous. As he returns to his prayer that God would just be with him, he returns to God.
In the last section here, verse eleven, it says, but let those rejoice who put their trust in you. So the people who he has spoken of before, they are bound for judgment, for justice, for the guilt that they have, the sin guilt that makes them deserving of being cast out. But the believers here rejoice because they put their trust in God.
Let them ever shout for joy. Why? Because you defend them. Let those also who love your name be joyful in you.
There's great joy in knowing that God is on our side, that God loves us, that God cares about us, that the God who has the power over everything in this universe loves us. And that's super comforting. For we are sinners.
And if we had any part in our salvation, if we had any part in maintaining or keeping our status with God, we would certainly be cast into hell. But it is by grace, through faith, that we are saved. And we can rejoice, we can be joyful.
We can have that joy that is not based on emotions or situations, but joy that is based on who God is. And finally, lets look at God's actions. There's a few statements in verse eleven.
One of the statements is you defend them. And also in verse twelve, for you, o Lord, will bless the righteous with favor. You will surround him as with a shield.
A couple words there to note. There's a defense, a defense, a defense of the righteous. And then he is a shield that surrounds them.
God works in sinners. God works in people who are also characterized as righteous. And as you find yourself in both those categories, you can, like David, look around you and say, God, someday these people will be brought to justice.
God bring justice on all the sin in the world. And yet I don't believe that David, if he were here, would tell you to never evangelize, to never go to these people, because David here has a profound, a profoundly deep understanding of what these people are in for. He understands that they're guilty.
He understands what they deserve. And I'm sure that if these people would be converted, be saved, have faith and trust in God, that he would rejoice with them, because those who have God can rejoice and shout for joy, because our God does defend us. It comes down to the basic question of will God be your savior or your judge? Because he can be your savior.
He can be the one whom you look to with multitudes of grace, as David goes to the house of Lord with grace. Or he can be the one who looks at the multitude of transgressions and sin that's held on your account because you haven't trusted Christ. And I love David's prayer here because it is one that does not dismiss that he is going through troubles, but it acknowledges that he is going through troubles, and he acknowledges who God is in those troubles.
And we can do that today. We can practice that today. And it's a good reminder for us that we have a God who we can ask for guidance in those trials.
Let's ask the Lord for help tonight. God, thank you for delivering David, for giving him joy in the face of these evil, evil men. I pray that you would help us to rest and be confident in the grace that we have in knowing God, in knowing you.
Help us as a church to meditate on these truths. Help us to be changed. We'd walk out of this building different from when we walked in.
God, thank you. In your son's name, amen.