Lead Me In Your Righteousness

Well, please remain standing for the reading of

god's word, which comes from Psalm 5.

Hear now the word of the living god.

To the choir master,

for the flutes,

a psalm of David.

Give ear to my words, oh lord.

Consider my groaning.

Give attention to the sound of my cry.

My king and my god, for to you

do I pray.

Oh, lord.

In the morning, you hear my voice.

In the morning, I prepare a sacrifice for

you and 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 temple

in the fear of you.

Lead me, oh lord, in your righteousness

because of my enemies.

Make your way straight before me.

For there is no truth in their mouth.

Their innermost

their innermost self is

destruction.

Their throat is an open grave.

They flatter with their tongue.

Make them bear their guilt, oh 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 exalt in you.

For you bless the righteous, oh lord. You

cover them

cover him with favor

as with a shield.

This is the word of the lord.

Thanks be to God. You may be seated.

Well, last week, we looked at Psalm 4,

which was a prayer of lament.

A prayer of lament. In Psalm 4,

David

is crying out to god,

pleading with him to bring relief to his

long

season

of suffering.

And the reason I mentioned Psalm 4 is

because Psalm 5 and Psalm 4

are similar

in

many

ways. For example,

look at the original title of Psalm 5,

which just could be found right above verse

1. It's very similar to Psalm 4. It

reads, to the choir master for the flutes,

a Psalm of David.

Now like Psalm 4, Psalm 5 is another

prayer of lament.

It's a prayer that is set to music

for the nation of Israel

to sing in their corporate, familial, and also

individual

worship

of God. This is a praise song.

In addition, like Psalm 4, Psalm 5 was

prayed in a particular time of the day.

Psalm 4, if you remember, was prayed

in the evening.

Well, Psalm 5 was prayed in the morning.

Psalm 5 is a is a not only

a song of praise, but it's also a

prayer.

And Psalm 4 and Psalm 5 also share

one thing together which is that its author

is King David.

It's the attribution of authorship is to King

David. And lastly, like Psalm 4, Psalm 5

equips God's people both generally and specifically

about how to deal with the troubles

of life. Psalm 4 and Psalm 5 teach

us

how to pray in the chaos of life.

Psalm 4 and 5 teach us not only

how to pray, but also what to pray

in the chaos

of life. So we're gonna be looking at

prayer once again this morning.

And so, by way of introduction, let us

read

together verses 1 through 2.

David writes,

give ear to my words,

oh Lord. Consider my groaning.

Give attention to the sound of my cry,

my king and my God, for to you

do I pray.

Oh, Lord, in the morning you hear my

voice. In the morning I prepare a sacrifice

for you and watch.

Now, once again, very very much like Psalm

4,

David teaches that the righteous

respond

to the to the day of tribulation in

their life with prayer. And, what is prayer?

Well, as the Westminster Shorter Catechism would define,

it is an offering up of our desires

to God

in the name of Christ.

Anything that is according with his will and

with his purposes.

And, right here in verse 1 in Psalm

5, we really see how David prays. And

by way of example, we can learn much

from this.

First is that prayer is audible.

If you look at the text with me,

David does not say, give ear to my

intentions

or give ear to my feelings or you

give ear to my desires. Rather, he is

saying, give ear to

my words.

Now, it's not to say that we can't

pray to God in silence. We see Hannah

do this in 1 Samuel chapter 1 when

1 Samuel 1 · chapter mention

she's in grief and mourning, and she's praying

internally, and, the priest could see her lips

move.

So I'm not saying that, nor am I

saying that if you don't pray with words

aloud, that the Lord does not hear you.

What I am saying is that a biblical

form of prayer is one that is audible.

It is one with

words.

And, like many pastors and theologians have said,

praying audibly with words

is only biblical, but it's also practical. When

we pray out loud,

we are far less likely to wander off

in our thoughts.

I don't know if I I can attest

to this, but many times when I'm praying

in silence, whether it be in the in

the shower or if it's in the on

the car ride back home or to work,

I begin to pray and literally within a

second or 2, my mind is like in

a different universe.

And so praying with words is practical, and

that it really helps us focus. We want

to pray with words

when we can.

Second, praying with words is also a way

in which we express our emotions to the

Lord.

We are creatures,

that speak. God designed us this way, and

it's for a reason.

We have all watched movies when a man

and a woman

are deeply in love with it, deeply in

love with one another, and it's fairly obvious.

And, you can sort of see the tension

that they wanna say the 3 big words,

which is I love you. And, you know,

the man wants to say it. The woman

wants to hear it. And, there's sort of

this built up of excitement to that moment.

There's also this awkwardness of, okay, well, if

I say it, is it gonna be reciprocated

back to me?

However, often in movies, you'll see once it's

said, right, there's this sort of release. There's

this joy that comes forward. And I think

in prayer that

the the the same sort of principle

is there when we speak with words. We

more effectively pour ourselves out

on the Lord when we pray with words.

We are designed to communicate the spoken word,

and it is the way that God designed

us. And therefore, it should be a primary

way in which we communicate to him. Pray

audibly

with words.

We also learn, look with me at verse

1, that even our groanings are prayer.

Even our groanings are prayer. David says, consider

my groanings.

There are times in the Christian life

when we won't have words to pray.

We remain speechless

because of maybe some excitement,

or maybe we are found without words because

of tremendous

sorrow. And there are times where really the

best prayer that we have is just,

oh, Lord,

please.

Or we could take comfort that the Lord

knows

what that

means.

Paul tells us in Romans chapter 8

Romans 8:26

verse 26. Listen to this. He writes,

likewise, the Holy Spirit

helps us in our weakness,

for we do not know

what to pray for as we ought.

But the spirit himself intercedes for us with

groanings

too deep for words. That is a wonderful

comfort to the Christian, that even when we

don't have words, that God is able to,

decode it, so to speak.

On most of our phones, whenever we write

and send a text message to somebody,

it is sent. It is encrypted, meaning that

it is coded up. If any if it

is intercepted,

it looks like a bunch of symbols in

code. But once it gets,

once it

arrives to the recipient, it unlocks and you're

able to read the plain text. Well, in

a very similar, but really more powerful way,

this is how

praying to the Lord, even in our groans,

works.

The Lord can decode the groaning of our

life, even when they are sent to him

in incoherency

and in our weakness.

That our feeble groans can be an effectual

prayer is a grace from God.

That our groans can be an effectual prayer

is a grace from God. And I think

that's, once again, a wonderful comfort. I think

sometimes in our prayer life, we think that

our prayers have to be long and lofty,

almost sounding like a Puritan in order for

God to accept them and hear them and

and and and and answer them. Well, that

is not true. I think Charles Spurgeon is

helpful when he wrote in his book, The

Power of Prayer in the Believer's Life. He

wrote,

some brethren pray by the yard,

but true prayer is measured by the weight,

not by the length.

A single groan before God

may have more fullness of prayer in it

than a fine oration of great length.

Dear Christian, have peace that even in our

groanings,

the Lord can interpret what that is.

Next, David says that the Lord knows

the sound of our cry.

He writes, give attention to the sound of

my cry in verse 2. And I'm always

blown away

when I read about how mothers

can listen to the cry of their infants.

And just by the pitch, tone, and sound

of it, they know exactly what they need,

exactly what they want, exactly what happened to

it. If it's an emergency,

or if it's a diaper that needs to

be changed.

Right? They know it. And it's incredible.

Well, I mentioned that because if an earthly

mother can do this, how much more our

heavenly father

whom we whom created us, whom we have

our existence and have all of our being

in. Or when we cry to the Lord,

even if it's a prayer that cries to

him or it's literally crying,

he could hear us.

He's able to interpret what is wrong.

That's another wonderful comfort of prayer.

And, continuing with verse 2, David writes, my

king, my God,

for to

you do I pray.

Now, in the Hebrew, when David writes, for

to you do I pray, what David is

communicating is

exclusivity

in his prayer. In other words, what David

is saying is, Yahweh, it's only

to you that I pray.

Therefore, dear saints,

this text ought to remind us that the

object

we lift our prayers

to is Yahweh alone.

Father, the son, and the holy spirit.

The that the object we lift our prayer

to is Yahweh alone. Father, son, and holy

spirit. David did not pray to the saints

that came before him.

He did not pray to Adam, Noah,

Moses, or Joshua.

Today, we have this form of prayer practiced

by our Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox friends.

And this is one of the great differences

and distinctions

between Protestantism

and

and those

branches of Christendom.

And here's one text where we would look

at and say, no, prayer ought to be

the object of our prayer that we lift

our prayers to. Is God Yahweh alone?

David is also not praying to his government.

He's not directing his prayers to judges or

or elders or commanders. And, you know, for

some of us, that might sound wrong. Who

prays to the government?

Right? Why why why why would anybody do

this? That's that's kind of odd. Well, I

if that's kind of confusing,

you really need to understand. We have to

recognize that the question really is not

whether we pray to God, but which God

do we pray to.

Right? The question is not whether, but which.

It's not whether you pray to God, but

which God do you pray to? Man is

is so prone

to make a god out of institutions

and people.

And as we speak and make our request

to them and we see that they're the

maybe they're the only solution, we, in effect,

are praying to them in in in in

making them out to be god. Turn on

the news station,

Whatever. What party or political affiliation, and you

will see, in effect, prayers being lifted.

When we do this, we will often find

ourselves lifting our desires

exclusively and more often to them than our

creator when we pray to the government. Now

let me be clear. Christians ought to petition

our government.

K? We we ought to be involved in

electing

godly,

even Christian leaders that will establish peace, justice,

righteousness, and prosperity

in in our land. We want that.

However, the problem is when we see any

politician

party.

Let me go even a little bit further

for the Wilens Reformed Church, even our pastor.

Right? We begin to see them as the

resolution and solution for everything.

Right? That may become sinful.

For the Christian, we lift our prayers unto

God alone because he alone, as David says,

is our God and our king.

He is alone as our God and our

king. He alone is our highest good

and our in our, unending need. He alone

is our highest good in our unending need.

So our prayers ought to be directed to

God alone.

Now, moving to verse 3, read with me.

David writes, oh Lord, in the morning you

hear my voice. In the morning, I prepare

a sacrifice for you and watch.

Now last week, we learned that Psalm 4

was an evening prayer. I mentioned this this

morning at the very beginning of our sermon

that Psalm 5 was a morning prayer. And

this is one of the reasons here.

Here, David mentions that in the morning,

Yahweh hears his voice. There's a sense of

assurance that the Lord is actually hearing him

at that period of time. It's also the

time where he lifts his prayer

unto God.

Now, you're saying there is a belief in

American Christianity

that says that the power of prayer is

found in spontaneity.

Repeat that again. There's a there's a belief

that in American Christianity

that says that the power of prayer is

found in spontaneity. In other words, prayer unscheduled

is is a is a is prayer that

is unspiritual,

if you will.

And once again, this is not true. Now

that's also not to say that the Bible

commands us to pray in the morning or

in the afternoon or the evening. We don't

wanna fall into into that ditch. However,

the spiritual discipline of making time to pray

is biblical and wise.

The spiritual discipline of making time to pray

is biblical and wise. And I think if

you and I are honest, one of the

reasons why we fail to pray in the

Christian faith life and practice is because we

don't schedule it in.

I'll be the first to admit that it's

not my priority

oftentimes to put on my calendar.

Dear saints, scheduling prayer

is a good and godly thing to do.

The apostle Paul writes actually to Timothy.

Timothy is a young pastor

of,

of Ephesus Reformed Church.

And,

and and he writes to Timothy in 1st

Timothy chapter 4 verse 7 through 8. I

want us to pay attention to this. Listen

to these words. He he tells Timothy,

have nothing to do with irreverent and silly

myths.

Rather,

pay attention here, train yourself for godliness.

For while bodily training is of some value,

godliness

is of value in every way.

As it holds promises for the present life

and the life to come. All saying, train

yourself for godliness.

And dear saints, prayer is one of those

spiritual disciplines

that we ought to practice. It really is

an exercise.

If if we wanna build muscle,

we schedule ourselves to go to the gym.

If we wanna lose weight, we schedule a

time to food prep.

We sort of are very orderly and systematic

in what we eat and what we don't

eat.

Well, if you desire to be conformed more

and more to the image of Christ and

die more and more into sin, which is

godliness, that pursuit,

we ought to pray, dear Christian.

Make time for it.

Another thing that that David points out here

related to spontaneity is, it's okay to prepare

words of prayer.

In verse 3, David's phrase, I prepare a

sacrifice to you, can also be translated into

Hebrew, I prepare my prayers to you.

David was not a priest. He was not

a Levi. He could not make a sacrifice.

This is in reference to prayers. Right before

the sacrifice would happen, the priest would prepare

a prayer

and and speak it before

the sacrifice. And so this is what David

is referencing

here. Once again, our culture, for some reason,

thinks

spontaneity is is is somehow more

spiritual, but it's okay to recite prayers.

It's okay to prepare

a prayer.

We do it every Sunday

in our confession of faith together,

that there is a prayer.

We at least schedule it in one time

a week, corporately to do it, and it

is biblical. It is wise. It's good for

us.

Keeping a prayer journal or a list of

those that we need to pray for is

a form of preparing

for our prayers.

We ought to do that as well.

Now, moving to verse verses,

4 and 6.

David continues. He writes,

for you are not a God who delights

in wickedness.

Evil may not dwell in you.

The boastful shall not stand before your eyes.

You hate evildoers.

You destroy those who speak lies.

The Lord abhors

the bloodthirsty

and the deceitful

man.

Now often when we pray, we go straight

to the request,

which is not bad.

There's also a sense in which we should

adore our Lord in prayer. And by way

of example,

David models the act of adoration in prayer,

which

is lifting our words of worship and praise

to God,

in prayer.

Praising him for who he is. Telling him

the things that he has done,

And oftentimes, when we do that in prayer,

by way of reminder, we are sort of,

you know, this is the sort of tide

that rises and elevates our boldness and confidence

in the Lord.

David, in essence here,

is affirming God's

holiness.

God's holiness.

The word holy in Hebrew is kadosh,

and it simply means to be set apart.

And the holiness of God is most

powerfully captured

in Isaiah chapter 6.

Isaiah 6 · chapter mention

I would recommend anybody who has not read

that chapter read it.

But in this passage, Isaiah

has a vision of Yahweh in the temple,

and it is magnificent.

It is wonderful, the description of it. The

Lord's robe is filling the temple.

You have angels flying around Yahweh,

and these angels have 6 wings, 2 wings

to cover their eyes, and there are other

2 wings to cover their feet, and the

other 2 to fly around him. And, what

they are saying

is, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of

hosts. The whole earth is filled

with his glory. And, that threefold repetition,

holy, holy, holy

is a Hebrew superlative. It's it's sort of

like when we say in English, he is

the most wise, or he is the greatest.

Well, here,

there's a there's an affirmation

in this threefold holiness that communicates

Yahweh's utter and complete

separateness

from all of creation.

He he is not like us

and we are not like him.

And how so? Well, David mentions it here.

He says, he does not delight in the

wicked.

There are some wicked things that we delight

in.

Evil does not dwell in him.

Jesus says that within our hearts, there is

evil, and we know it by what comes

out of our mouth.

We are sinful and participate in wickedness. Inside

us dwells evil that defiles us. Once again,

we are not like him and he is

not like us.

Yahweh is without sin, and in him there

is no darkness.

Not even a shadow

exists in his mist in his midst when

he arrives.

He is light and he is life. And

the reason David said this is because he

would have read the scriptures of the Old

Testament.

He would have read Moses's words in Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy 32:4

chapter 32 verse 4 when Moses wrote

that God's

work is perfect,

for all his ways are just.

A God of faithfulness and without iniquity,

just and upright

is Yahweh.

In other words, David could read the scriptures.

He could look at the history of Israel,

and he could find no sin in Yahweh.

He was perfect in the way that he

led them.

He was perfect in his patience.

And when he executed justice, he did it

righteously.

There is no sin in him.

Yahweh could be found without sin.

Moreover, the scriptures proved when David was looking

at it that the Lord hates, he abhors

the boastful, the liars, the evildoers, the bloodthirsty,

and the deceitful men. And, he knew that

this was Yahweh's character because of their destruction.

Once again, this is the holiness of God.

And for some of us this morning, it

might sound weird

that to say that God hates,

that God abhors.

It was often said in Christian circles,

God loves the sinner, but hates the sin.

God loves the sinner, but hates the sin.

A sort of bifurcation,

a more narrowing of what God hates

than what we should define. And while I

understand the sentiment,

however, at face value and left alone,

the statement is actually not biblical.

Sin manifests through people.

So this is not an abstract invisible force

in a corner behind a shed.

In addition, what what goes to hell, what

is punished by God is not a floating

force,

but people.

What was punished to propitiate

our sins on the cross was not a

floating force, but it was a person. And

it was Jesus Christ, the righteous.

Jesus, the lord,

hates sin, and we ought to hate what

he hates and love what he loves. And

and what I'm also not communicating, I don't

want us to fall into another side of

the ditch, and that we're what I'm trying

to communicate is just god hates. That's all

he does.

No. God is

love.

The most famous bible verse confirms this. John

3 16. Most of us could cite it

by memory. For God so loved the world

that he gave his only begotten son.

But he does not just say it.

He demonstrates it through the sending of his

son. Paul writes in Romans chapter 5 verse

Romans 5:6

6, but God showed his love for us

in that while we were still sinners,

Christ died for us.

Therefore, God hates

and loves sinners.

The cross of Calvary demonstrates,

when we look upon it, both the hatred

of sin and the love of God for

sinners.

That's the symbol.

We ought not to forget

1, or just focus upon 1 and leave

the other. The glory of God is found

on the cross, and that is where the

the epitome of God's love is seen

for sinners.

Dear saints, in our prayers like David, the

holiness of God

ought to be the heartbeat of our adoration

to him. When we arrive in prayer, we

ought to

recite to him the wonderful works of his

redemption.

Dear Lord, thank you for sending your son

to die for my sins.

To die for the sins of my family.

Thank you that you are holy and just.

Thank you for your salvation. Thank you for

the things that you have done. Thank you

for,

bringing justice to the wicked. Thank you for

uncovering that which is in darkness and bringing

it into light.

You are God who sees everything.

This is the form of adoration that we

should come. It really helps us to come

with a reverence

and awe to God in our prayers. And

it just helps us overall.

If if God did not answer prayer,

right, simply the adoration itself

is worth doing for us

because of who God is.

Does God change things? Yes. Simply by adoration,

he will change us.

I I I I recommend to do it.

It's it's a wonderful thing.

And moving on, read with me verses 8

and 9. David writes,

but I, through the abundance of your steadfast

love, will enter your house. I will bow

down towards your holy temple in the fear

of you.

Lead me, oh, Lord, in your righteousness because

of my enemies.

Make your way straight

before me.

Here David is contrasting his destination

with the wicked.

The wicked will be destroyed. However,

he says, David says, he will enter

God's house. But until then, he is going

to, look towards the temple and pray towards

the temple.

Now David could not enter the temple. As

I said recently, he was not a priest.

He was not from the tribe of Levi.

He was from the tribe of Judah. He

was the, he was the king of Israel.

And just because he was the king, didn't

mean that he could mosey on into the

temple.

Didn't mean that he could dwell into the

presence of God. That was only for the

Levites. And so when he says, David says,

I will enter your house,

he's not talking about an earthly temple, but

he's talking about a heavenly one.

David is looking upon the day in which

he will dwell with the Lord for all

of eternity on earth. And the new testament

tells us that this is the new heavens

and new earth. This is not simply heaven,

but this is the reestablishment,

the restoration of all things which Christ is

doing in the present.

God promises that he will dwell with his

people for eternity, and this is where David

looks at.

And you're saying, notice the reason for his

confidence that he will dwell with God. David

does not place his confidence. The reason why

he will enter into the gates, enter into

his holy temple, it's not because of his

works. It's not because of his heritage. It's

not because of the tribe that he is

in. It's not because of the position he

has as king.

His confidence is simply because of God's steadfast

love. And I know I repeat

Hebrew words often, but if there's one that

you're gonna pay attention to,

write down, take to heart,

is this Hebrew word, which we translate in

our English, steadfast love. David says, but I

through the abundance

of your steadfast

love, will enter your house.

Hesed,

that Hebrew word, is the strongest

form of love in the Bible.

Hesed is that unfailing,

unconditional,

covenantal love that God only has exclusively for

his people.

He loves all creation in a general way,

but more specifically,

those upon whom he loved, his covenant people.

Those he loves with

the Hassed love.

Dear saints, have you ever asked,

you know, why me?

Why did I deserve

a salvation so great?

What do I do to be granted the

position

and assurance that I will dwell with my

creator for all of eternity and look with

him look at him face to face? It's

a wonderful thing.

Why me?

And the only answer that the Bible gives

and Paul gives in the new testament is

because of God's has said. His love. His

steadfast love for his people. Listen with me

at Ephesians chapter 2.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

Paul says, we all once lived in the

passions of our flesh,

carrying out the desires of the body and

the mind, and were by nature children of

wrath.

There's nothing to love.

Then Paul Paul writes, but God being rich

in mercy,

because of the great love with which he

loved us, even when we were dead in

our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.

So why have you been chosen? Why has

God

set his love upon you? Well, simply because

of the great love with which he has

loved us.

And now David didn't have Paul to read

this, but he did know this truth because

this truth is found in the book of

Deuteronomy.

Moses reminds Israel that the reason why I

chose you out of all the people, it

wasn't because

you were awesome, it's because I'm awesome.

Right? It's because of my promises and steadfast

love.

Moses writes in Deuteronomy chapter 7 verses 7

Deuteronomy 7:7–9

through 9. It was not because you were

more in number than any of the people.

The Lord set his love on you and

chose you for you were the fewest of

all people.

But it is because

the Lord loves you, and is keeping the

path that he swore to your fathers.

Dear saints, the love of God ought to

drive us in prayer

with boldness.

We ought to come in his courts and

knock more frequently,

and drive us to lift our thanks and

praise

to him daily. We are saved by grace

through faith and not by our own works,

but only through him who saves and loves

us.

But look again here, David also does that

he just doesn't save us because of his

love. He he also sanctifies us. In other

words, God does not simply just promise to

bring us into salvation,

bring us into eternity.

He loves us so much that he is

sanctifying us. He is delivering out of our

own ways in this life at present.

And it's the reason why David asked, lead

me, oh Lord, in your righteousness,

and make your way straight for me.

And dear saints, do we pray that the

Lord will lead us to walk in a

manner that is worthy and pleasing to him?

In our prayers, do we care about what

God prays for? What God wants, excuse me.

That we thirst to walk in God's righteousness

more than asking for wealth and health?

It's not to say praying for health and

wealth is a bad thing, but do we

thirst for righteousness?

Do we pray that God will make our

way straight before we make our way straight?

We run to him in our prayers.

Moving to verse 9 through 10, read with

me. David writes, for there is no truth

in their mouth.

Their innermost

self is destruction. It's an incredible statement.

Their throat is an open grave. They flatter

with their tongue.

Make them bear their guilt, oh God. Let

them fall by their own counsel

because they have rebelled

against you.

Now here, David prays what is called an

imprecatory

prayer.

An imprecatory

prayer. Now what is this? An imprecatory prayer

is a request

for God's judgment and curse upon his enemies.

The enemies of his people. Whether by exposure,

whether by their own doing, or either by

their own destruction.

I mean, hear it again.

Make them bear their guilt,

and and and let them fall by their

own counsel.

Now, many Christians have have come to this

verse here, and they they think to themselves,

is this biblical?

Should should a Christian pray imprecations,

imprecatory

prayers?

Right? Did not Jesus tell us to pray

for our enemies?

I mean, last week, if you were with

us, and if you go back and listen

to the sermon, we we I I exhorted

all of us here, and by way of

David's example and Jesus's example to pray for

our enemies.

Psalm 4 did it, and it seems like

there's a maybe a a a a hypocritical,

application here.

There's a there's a tension here that we

see to make some people feel somewhat uncomfortable.

Well, here's the short answer.

You know, can we pray imprecatory prayers? The

short answer is yes.

However,

we ought to always do the hard work,

the hard work of hard work before we

enter into

imprecations,

before we lift imprecatory

prayers.

And I think these three points here are

helpful

when we pray imprecatory prayers. 1st, before we

ever arrive at

praying

an imprecatory

prayer, we need to first and foremost

pray for the restoration

and repentance of our enemies,

of God's enemies.

In other words, before we pray Psalm 5,

we ought to pray Psalm 4.

It is far too easy for us to

write letters, to send them off prayers of

imprecation. We're we're very good at that.

But it's also easy for us to to

sin as well in doing that. We ought

to be careful when we enter these. Secondly,

impregatory

prayers should never be an expression of our

intent,

right, of what we want to do. It's

some form of letting God know about the

way in which we are gonna retaliate.

In other words, an impregatory prayer is asking

of God and him alone to deal with

his enemies as he sees fit.

You're requesting to God, maybe this is a

way in which you desire for them

to be removed.

It is a prayer that commits the enemies

of God and his people into the Lord's

hands because vengeance belongs

to God alone, not us.

We rest in God ultimately to either bring

restoration

or destruction

to God's enemies. And 3rd, the heart of

an imprecatory

prayer is for the vindication of God's name,

not ours.

That is to say God's name, his glory,

his honor is the reason why we pray

this.

For example,

David says in Psalm

Psalms 9:20

9 verse 20,

put this put put them in fear, oh

Lord.

Let the nations,

those that are against Israel, let the nations

know that they are but men.

He's asking for God to humble them.

Look what we're here with me, Psalm 83.

Let them be put to shame and dismayed

forever.

Let them perish in disgrace.

That they may know that you alone,

whose name is Yahweh,

are the most high over all the earth.

Precatory prayers

seek to

establish God's

justice,

his righteousness upon all the earth,

and seeks for for and foremost his name.

David is not saying, you know, bring them

shame and bring them into dismay

to vindicate me,

or because I'm awesome. It's more because you

are awesome.

And so with a heart for God and

a love for neighbor, praying for those

persecutors

of the church to fall is okay.

Prayers that request the removal of wicked rule

upon this earth, and wicked laws is completely

godly. Our desire should be for the establishment

of God's rule and justice, and for it

to come quickly. Every time we pray,

Lord, come quickly.

That, in effect, is somewhat an imprecatory prayer.

It's not only for the Christ to come

back and to relieve us and bring us

into his presence. It's also we we also

say that with the reality that when Christ

comes, he comes in judgment.

So that in itself is somewhat of a

form of a imprecatory

prayer.

Finally, read with me verses 11 through 12.

David writes,

let all who take refuge in you rejoice.

Let them sing for joy.

Spread your protection over them.

That those who love your name, exalt in

you. For you bless the righteous, oh lord.

You cover him with favor

as with a shield.

David, by way of example, reminds us of

one simple thing here,

that we ought to pray for people,

that we ought to pray for people. David

does not want the wicked to simply be

removed for his own pleasure, but rather for

the peace and joy of the righteous.

David wants the righteous to rejoice. He wants

them to sing.

He wants God to protect

the righteous like a shield in battle, which

was a shield that would cover the entire

body. He wants God to show favor to

them, to to bless them in their distress.

And dear saints, do we pray for the

joy and protection

of our brothers and sisters in Christ?

In our prayers, do we think about our

brothers and sisters?

Do we care enough to pray for their

desires and their needs?

Do we pray do we do we hesitate

to pray for the church? Do we do

it often? And when we do, what do

we pray for?

Open up one of Paul's letters.

You will find that often at the opening,

he is

telling

those churches the way in which he is

praying for them. And it's magnificent. If you

look at Colossians chapter 1,

Colossians 1:9–10

verses 9 through 10, it's one of my

favorite. Paul writes,

and so for from the day we heard,

we have not

ceased to pray for you, asking that you

may be filled with the knowledge of his

will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

So that as to walk in a manner

worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing him.

Paul is praying for the church in Colossi

to be filled with the knowledge

so that they may walk in a manner

that is worthy and pleasing to God.

When we pray for one another,

let us ask for God to fill the

Willans Reformed Church with the knowledge

of the will and wisdom of God.

And that it may produce in us a

spiritual

maturation that would lead to all of us

living a life that is worthy and pleasing

to the Lord.

We need to have a prayer list. We

need to keep in touch

with our brothers and sisters in this church.

For those who are struggling, and they're suffering,

and need prayer communicated to your brother and

sister, we want to know. We want to

pray for you.

We need to pray for,

Juan Carlos and Nolan and our elders.

They may have wisdom to execute the things

that they need to execute. That they may

be guided by the spirit, by the by

the law of God. We need to also

pray for our children

as we're teaching, that they would mature as

well.

That we'd come to a deeper understanding

of the gospel. Dear saints, prayer is such

a powerful weapon.

Martin Luther

famously wrote that prayer

is the mightiest of all weapons

that created nature can wield.

Prayer is the mightiest of all weapons

that created nature can wield. And with that

said, let us now

turn to prayer.

Dear heavenly father, we thank thank you so

much for your word.

Lord, help us in our

prayers.

Lord, help us to

adore you and them to give you thanks

and praise for the wonderful works

that you have done in history and that

which you will

most surely do in the future.

Lord, help us pray for our neighbors, Lord.

Help us to pray in such a way

that we would desire

for, your enemies to be put under your

feet for the establishment

of justice and peace and prosperity, Lord. Let

us pray for our missionaries, wherever they may

be.

Lord, help us just as a church, as

the Williams Reformed Church, learn how to pray,

Lord. Help us in our discipline,

spiritual discipline of prayer, Lord.

We ask all these things in the name

of Christ.

Amen.