The Basis of Our Call

Finding God’s Ear

Read: Psalm 4:1, “

1  Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness!

You have given me relief when I was in distress.

Be gracious to me and hear my prayer!

David here again battles. Prayer is always a battle. David knows God and that a righteous God that he knows that God is this, that he determines to seeks grounds of righteousness, at the very point of his call. When he calls out.

People without knowledge of God, will approach God, in their sins, and expect God to listen, and expect God to hear them. God, in his electoral provisional grace, does not recognize, or see, or know people, who have not met the requirements that David here is addressing. “God of my righteousness”. David expresses his call out to God, and also makes the entire basis of his calling out to God, a matter of God’s willingness and ability to receive David’s concerns and his calls through prayer.

David has many concerns, and many problems, and struggles and even wisdom, that he gains from his experiences with God. But all these things, will be speaking into cotton, into a pillow, and into the ocean, and nothing of all his expressions of prayers and nothing of all the needs that David needs to have met, that only God can work on David’s behalf, can even be initiated, if David, is not able to get God’s ear.

If David, is righteous, then he can say, “God of “my” righteousness. And this is David’s approach, and his example, of the only way to approach God without being seen as a fool in being presumptuous about God’s acceptance of his voiced prayers.

Experience: David brings awareness of experiences with God, and past divine interactions into his life and the relief and serenity that God has brought into his life. David pleads for God’s grace, in all this, to hear his prayer.

We have Assurance, When God Hears

Read Psalm 4:2-5, “

O men, how long shall my honor be turned into shame?

How long will you love vain words and seek after lies? Selah

3  But know that the LORD has set apart the godly for himself;

the LORD hears when I call to him.

4  Be angry, and do not sin;

ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent. Selah

5  Offer right sacrifices,

and put your trust in the LORD.

Immediately, just like the disciples in the new Testament, when they experienced Jesus, they began to testify of this divine revelation. David here, is doing the same. He has found wisdom and he begins to teach “sinners” the knowledge of God and what it means to have relations to the divine God of all, and how they miss the point in their hypocrisy, of noting even coming to understand the first point, that God is righteous. David has found, that understanding, if that the godly, in life, in ethic, in mind, in planning for the future, and who have interactions with God, that these people, are those who God hears, and that David is among these type of people as he states, “the Lord hears when I call”. David, continues then to teach those without knowledge of God, catechisms of divinity. “Be silent you sinners, God is holy, if you do not offer to him an acceptable sacrifice, he will not hear you!”.

Escaping the Throes Of Sinners

Read Psalm 4:6-8

6 There are many who say, “Who will show us some good?

Lift up the light of your face upon us, O LORD!”

7  You have put more joy in my heart

than they have when their grain and wine abound.

8  In peace I will both lie down and sleep;

for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.

David explains that many people here, and that do exists, are in a state of throes that they seem to not be able to escape.

Many people, when they realize that God is not so easily approachable. And many when they realize that God is holy and righteous, and that he may not receive people to him, who even try, they have a great struggle, and a great personal war in spirit and mind. They realize that God is holy, buy they cannot seem to get their hearts and minds in “right spirit” with God, and they cannot seem to get a peace of spirit and assurance that God has accepted them, and heard their prayers and is kindly toward them, like David here. These are throes of sinners. A state of being that sinners seems stuck, in a net, like they are swimming in the ocean, and the net, has weights, and is pulling them under, and at least is making the threats to do so, and they cannot get free. Love for sin. Blindness about sins in ones life, and relations that can attach to our lives, all these things can be like this net. This net causes, our crisis of determining who will be the Lord and master of our life.

This psalm states that many are expecting God to do good, and for his sovereign light to shine on them. But they have not reached the state of realizing this to come into actual experience. This is the throes. This is an extremely difficult thing to face. But here David, has done his battle, and has determined that the God, of his righteousness, would be the Lord to determine all things about his life and this battle has been won, in David’s life. And God enables him to help others to get free as well. David explains that this relation, and divine gracious experience of God’s relations to him ni such imputed covenantal love to him, places in David, “more joy that others have, even when they prosper with grain and wine”.

CONCLUSION: Where are you at? Are you like David? Are you one who David is counseling? Are you right with God? Are you in the throes of situations that you feel you may not come out on the right side of things? Today, you can praise God for his grace in your life, and if you are still not walking in assurance of this grace, like David exemplifies, you can determine to seek God, until you come to the point of determining that God is the God of your righteousness, and even to seek God to understand what that even means, if you are still searching. God bless!