An Advocate for the Righteous

Well, church were a few a few weeks back.

Summer's coming to an end. It's a weird time to start a

series called Summer in the Psalms.

But the reason is that we have our college students coming back

in about 5 weeks. Everybody will be back from the

summer excursions. We wanted to wait to start

Ephesians until we had all of our church body here, as many as

we could. And so the idea was, it's not my

idea, it's Jeff Goss's idea. He said we sing Psalms together

all the time, Psalm 5 being one that we just sang.

Why don't we study the theology of the words that we're singing

and unlock a new, deeper meaning to what we're singing to the

Lord. And so we've got Psalm 5.

We sing all the time, Psalm 40, Psalm 42, Psalm 116, Psalm 148

through 150. And so for the next few weeks,

we're going to look at those together beginning this week and

Psalm 5. And if you remember back to the

end of Isaiah last week, we just finished Isaiah.

The the final verses revealed to us what we called the climactic

vision of divine and eternal glory, that future view of the

second coming and of the Kingdom of God and the final state and

the new heavens and the new earth and the inheritance that

is supposed to be for the church.

This is what we've been promised.

And then the commentator Kim revealed to us after saturating

us in the teaching of heaven and of the future, Isaiah doesn't

take us there. He leaves us here and it it's

not a happy thought that he leaves us with.

He says you're going to be hated, you're going to be

persecuted, you're going to be surrounded by injustice.

And we feel the the tension of trying to achieve righteousness

on the earth, trying to let our light shine in the darkness, but

the darkness is overwhelming or can feel that way.

And so this has been the condition of Christians for all

ages, even before Jesus walked the earth of of being light

shining in the darkness, hated and persecuted.

And when you look at Psalm 5, this was the condition of King

David. We say even as the king, or

maybe we could say especially as the king or especially as a

Christian king, even David felt the hostility of the world, the

persecution of trying to live the godly life and achieve

righteousness while you're surrounded by evil.

And as is typical of the Psalms, David doesn't give you the

specific historical situation. He didn't say, well, you know,

I'm riding now, fleeing Absalom, hiding in a cave.

He doesn't give you those historical details, partly

because they don't matter. What he's doing for you is

giving you vocabulary for your life, expression of your soul.

When you find yourself in a similar situation, surrounded by

your enemies, and you see that whatever's happening to him,

there is some level of slander and betrayal and opposition,

maybe this is a little bit too close to home for you.

He prays against his enemies in verse 6, saying they're lying

and slandering his reputation in verses 8 to 10.

Whatever it is they're doing, they're deceitful, they're

scheming, and they're hostile. So this could be politics in the

court. This could be any number of

things, a coup in the palace of people not accepting him as the

new king initially, nobody. There's always opposition to

change. And again, we say it could be

any of these things. But ultimately it does not

matter because the point is how he reacts is how he reacts, how

he vocalizes the internal stress and the external pressure that's

being put on him as a man living in a world that's hostile to the

things of God and of Jesus Christ.

And so through Psalm 5, the the implication for you is going to

be, this is a living illustration of how you are to

respond when you feel like you are surrounded by enemies or you

are surrounded by injustice. And so we see when surrounded by

enemies on every side, your response ultimately is prayer.

When you're faced with anxieties on every side, your response is

ultimately going to be prayer. You'll see it modeled more

specifically than that. I think of Hezekiah and 36 to 39

when he's, he receives a letter that's horrible news.

He receives horrible news about the state of his military, you

know, in, in comparison to his enemies.

And what does he do except take that letter and spread it out

before the Lord of glory. And he says, Lord, you, you know

what this says, here's the results.

This is what my health is like. I'm going to die, right?

And he lays it before the Lord and he prays and you see, that's

essentially what David is doing. He goes and drives him to prayer

and and David has made this a pattern of his life and of his

ministry. You go all the way back to Psalm

32, Psalms ago. Psalm 36I will not be afraid of

many thousands of people who have set themselves against me

all around. What a passionate, powerful,

talking about God's sovereignty in his life.

It's total trust and hear his prayer with the with these

thousands of people. He says arise, O Lord, save me,

Oh my God. Verse 8 salvation belongs to the

Lord your blessing be on your people or you Fast forward a few

psalms to Psalm 22. He says many bowls encompass me.

The strong bowls of Bashan surround me.

This were Jesus's words on the cross, open wide their mouths at

me like a ravening and roaring lion.

Dogs encompass me, a company of evil doers encircles me.

And you say, what is your response?

How do you respond to that kind of opposition, that kind of

pressure? He speaks these words in verse

19. Oh Lord, do not be far off.

Oh, you my help, come quickly to my aid.

And what we saw in Isaiah is over and over again.

When the pressure came, did Isaiah go to God or did they go

to the military might of Egypt and play politics with Assyria?

They went to everywhere else except looking unto the hills,

setting their eyes on the hills, saying, where does my help come

from? Where does your help come from?

From the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.

David's help is the Lord. And you hear this trust

overflowing in the Psalms. I'll take you to one more

example. When the emperor didn't approve

of his Protestant writings, Martin Luther was summoned to

Worms, where he was expecting a theological debate, hoping to

take it to speak for himself. And he arrives there.

When you hear the diet of the Diet of Worms, or you read that,

it's not what you think, right? It's talking about this moment

in his life. He's going to the Imperial Diet

where he thinks he's going to get to give a defense of

himself. And when he shows up, there's no

room for discussion. He's legally demanded for Can't

your views and your writings or face the consequences of heresy.

And Luther's response is, can I have a day to think about it?

And they grant it. And so April 17th and the

evening is April 17th, he retreats into his closet.

And in the sorrow of his own soul, surrounded by his Catholic

enemies with his life threatened, he prays.

And I want you to hear his words at length because this is his

response. Oh God Almighty God,

everlasting, how dreadful is the world.

Behold how it opens its mouth to swallow me up, and how small is

my faith in you. Oh, the weakness of the flesh

and the power of Satan. If I'm to depend on any strength

in this world, all is over. The Nella struck sentence has

gone forth. Oh God, Oh God, oh thou my God,

help me against the wisdom of this world.

Do this. I beseeched me.

You should do this by your own mighty power.

The work is not mine, but yours. I have no business here.

I have nothing to contend for with these great men of the

world. I would gladly pass my days and

happiness and peace, because the cause is yours, and it is

righteous and everlasting. Oh, Lord, help me.

Oh faithful and unchangeable. God, I lean not upon man.

It were vain. Whatever is of man is tottering.

Whatever proceeds from him must fail.

My God, My God, do you not hear me?

My God, are you no longer living?

No, you cannot die. You do but hide yourself.

You have chosen me from this work.

I know it. Therefore, oh God, accomplish

your own will forsake me, not for the sake of your well

beloved Son, Jesus Christ, my defense, my buckler, and my

stronghold. Lord, where are you?

My God, where are you? Come, I pray thee, I'm ready.

Behold me prepared to lay down my life for the truth, suffering

like a lamb. For the cause is holy.

It is your own. I will not let you go, no, nor

yet for all eternity. And though the world should be

thronged with devils, and this body, which is the work of your

hands, should be cast forth, trodden under foot, cut into

pieces, consumed to ashes, my soul is yours.

Yes, I have your own word to assure me of it.

My soul belongs to you and will abide with you forever.

Amen. Oh, God, send help.

Amen. Where do you go when the world

surrounds you and your enemies surround you?

I want you to to see a couple things in his prayer which are

going to be saturated and and David's prayer, you see a plea

to be heard saying, Lord, please hear me take up my 'cause you

see a plea to be led by the Lord God Almighty saying lead me.

Lord, you've brought me into this persecution in the

suffering. Now help, help me to be faithful

in it. Help me.

I was righteous. Righteousness is what brought me

into the suffering. Now may righteousness be my

light as I go through it and endure it.

And then finally, a plea for justice because he's been

wrongly and falsely accused. And above all, I want to remind

you or point out the confident expectation of his prayer when

he says yes, I have your word to assure me of it.

My soul belongs to you and will abide with you forever.

O God, send help. Amen.

It's such expectation and hope. And then they it gets delayed.

And so he, he doesn't show up in the morning like our Psalm will

say, but he, he gets summoned that next evening before Emperor

Charles the 5th, all of his nobles, all of his bishops, all

of his church officials, There's 1000 men, figuratively speaking,

surrounding him. And it was in the confidence

following his prayer that he recites the now famous words, My

conscience is captive to the word of God.

I cannot and will not recant anything for to go against

conscience is neither right nor safe.

And then he says, here I stand, I can do no other, God help me,

Amen. And so he had for his model in

his prayer closet the prayers of David and Jesus had for his

model and his prayers David and and we have Jesus as well.

This is how he prayed. And so look with me to Psalm 5

and see how you are to pray, living in the world that Isaiah

66 painted for us, living in the Kingdom of men, living in a

world that's full of men and women who hate you and who

persecute you for righteousness sake.

Here's the words of Psalm 5A, Psalm of David.

It 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 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 evil doers. You destroy those who speak

lies. The Lord abhors the bloodthirsty

and deceitful man. But I, through the abundance of

Your steadfast love, will enter your house.

I will bow down toward Your holy temple in the 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. 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 and

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, you cover him with favor as a shield.

So remember the the marks of true worship that we saw in

Isaiah 66. And one of those was very hard

to hear. As he said, a true worshipper

always, without exception will experience persecution.

If you live for righteousness, if you are a light in a Dark

World, you will experience persecution.

And I want to stop because it saturates our Psalm.

It's so important to the theology of our Psalm.

What is persecution? What does it mean to be

persecuted? I want to pause and look.

If you look in the dictionary, it will just see simply it means

to, to drive away or to put to flight, to seek eagerly after

someone. And I think even biblically

along this line, if you think of Paul in the Thessalonian church

as he's, as he's proclaiming the gospel in Thessalonia, they whip

up a mob and they seek after him and they throw him out of the

city and literally drive him away.

And then was it enough that they throw him out of the city?

No, he goes to Berea and they make the journey to go there and

to whip up a mob and a a frenzy there.

And it says there too, they came agitating and stirring up the

crowds. So the dictionary definition

holds that is persecution in one sense, but look at how Jesus

defines it. Matthew 511.

Blessed are you and others revile you and persecute you and

utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

So Jesus is in this verse saying persecution comes on you when

you're insulted and persecution comes on you when you're being

driven away or when people speak falsehoods against you.

You can look at your life if Jesus has promised persecution.

Do you feel this in your life, in your ministry?

Matthew 24, nine. Jesus says again, then they will

deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death and you

will be hated by all nations for my name's sake.

So again, he, he defines persecution.

He says you're going to be delivered over to, to

tribulation. The word means literally

pressure. Does anybody feel pressure from

the external world in this culture to conform to the

standards of the world, be they gender ideologies or sexual

ideologies? Do you feel the pressure, the

tribulation? He says you're going to be

hated. The words of Jesus Christ and

then the worst expression of of persecution, the worst that they

can do to you, he says is being tortured and being killed and

then all of it he says at every point on his account.

So persecution Jesus defines it at every point is caused by

Matthew 511. He says on my account, Matthew

24/9 for my name's sake. John 1521 on account of me

Persecution is is because you're living and preaching

righteousness and persecution is only persecution when you're

doing it in the name of Jesus. So if you're annoying and

obnoxious and you're experiencing the fruit of your

own obnoxiousness, that's not persecution, That's just reaping

what you're sowing in. The same as general suffering

and hardship in the world that we all go through with health

problems and everything else is not persecution.

And the consequences of your bad choices are not persecution.

Jesus has defined it for you. And with that in mind, now turn

back or think back with me to Psalm 5, David and Psalm five.

The first of his keywords, and there are a few, is the word

righteous. He's going to say it in verse 8,

Lead me Lord, and paths of righteousness.

He's going to say it in verse 12, For you bless the

righteousness, O Lord, you bless righteousness.

And So what he's saying is righteousness is what got me

here. Righteousness is why I'm in this

boat anyway. And then he adds to it.

And righteousness is what is required of me in the midst of

persecution. It caused it and it's what's

required of me in it. It's because the light of

righteousness dispels the darkness of the wicked and they

don't like it. And so for righteousness, he's

being insulted, he's being driven away.

He's having falsehood spoken against him.

Above all, the pressure is on him.

He's hated, his life is threatened.

And then here is his response in Psalm 5.

And I want to break it down in four please, 4 sections because

there's a four fold pleading with the with the Lord verses

one to three. He's pleading to be heard.

Give ear to my word. Oh Lord, consider my groaning,

hearken unto the voice of my cry 3 times, hear me, please hear

me, please take up my cause. And then he moves to pleading to

be LED saying lead me Lord versus 4 to 8 in your

righteousness. Maybe even the the four coming

of Psalm 23 when he says like a shepherd, Lord, lead me.

Verses 9:00 to 11:00, there's a pleading for justice.

You'll see why that's important. And then finally, verse 12A,

pleading for just rewards, a plea to be heard, a plea to be

LED, a plea for justice and a plea for a just reward.

And it starts in verse one, asking three times in three

ways. He's pleading with God that he

would listen to him, that he would hear him.

He says give ear to my words, O Lord, that's the first.

Then consider my groaning and then give attention to the sound

of my cry. An extremely important to to

this prayer is when he prays it and make sure he tells you

twice. It's in the morning.

In the morning, he says in verse 3 to you, oh Lord, I pray in the

morning. You hear my voice again at the

second-half of verse 3 in the morning, I prepare a sacrifice

for you and watch If you read your translations, everybody's

translations in here, we'll take one of three stances.

Your translations are different and I want you to see why.

I actually want you to see what's what's unique about them

all or what's similar about them all.

They all are directed toward God in prayer.

They're all spoken in the same spirit.

They're reflecting the same thing, but there's a difference

because it says, Oh Lord, in the morning you hear my voice.

In the morning, I the actual verb is arrange, and then

there's no word after it. In the morning I arrange and

we're forced to supply the word in the Hebrew that comes after.

What is he arranging? And your, your interpreters or

your translators are going to take a couple different stances

here. Some would say he's arranging

his petitions to God, his requests of God.

And it, it seems to fit the context well.

He seems to be kind of ordering his prayers here, pleading for

these things. But the problem is commentators

will show you that the word arrange is not used anywhere

else in the Old Testament. This verb is not used anywhere

in the context of prayer. And so it it may very well be

that he's arranging his prayers. This is what we sing, the

version that we sing together as a church, where he says, oh

Lord, in the morning I will direct my prayer unto thee and

will look up. And the NASB says, oh Lord, I

will order my prayer. And then we could say if, if the

word is not arranged, if we're not arranging prayers, then what

is the word arranged usually used for in the Old Testament?

And the answer is you're arranging a sacrifice to set on

fire for the Lord. You're arranging the wood for a

sacrifice. And so that's why the, the ESV

says in the morning, I prepare or arrange a sacrifice for you

and watch. And that may very well be what

David is doing. And, and the, the third option

that I'm going to latch on to follows the, the idea of the

logic of the Psalm as a whole. There's the Robert Alter, the,

the Hebrew poetry expert latches onto this and he says David is

coming to God the Father as a man who's coming into a

courtroom to plead his cause. So what is he arranging?

He's arranging his arguments. He's arranging his cases.

And with that in mind, he says the reason he follows it is

because it's a whole structure of the Psalm.

Verses 1 to 3 is his appeal. Hear me take up my case.

Verses 4 to 8 are the precedent. We'll see what that means. 9 to

11 are his petition, and verse 12 is a plea for the just

reward. And So what does the verb

arrange mean? In verse 3?

He's arranging his cases. And in the depositions and the

legal proceedings that I've been involved with, the lawyer comes

into the room and he has his litigation bag.

He has thousands of pieces of paper that are arranged.

I use that verb intentionally. These thousands of pieces of

paper that are arranged just so they're highlighted, they're

marked up, there's pencil marks in the margin because they're

ready to be used and marshaled in this case, they're sticky

notes that are drawing the eye to every important document in

this, key documents in this. And he's saying, that's how I'm

coming to the Lord. I'm coming to present my case

because I'm righteous and the world is wicked, and I'm here to

prove it to you. Look at my life, Lord, examine

my life. Here's the evidence.

Look at what the wicked have done to me.

Now take up my case, God, and act justly.

That's the argument of what he's asking.

He's come before God the Father to make the case.

Helpful to understand is in the ancient world the rising of this

of the morning sun is associated with the enactment of justice,

which is why you look at second Samuel 15.

Two men are coming before the king in the morning at sunrise

to lay out their cases to the king.

And so twice it mentions in our Psalm that he comes to God in

the morning because that's when cases are presented in court.

We could even say in verse 2 he says my king and my God, he's

appealing to him his king because kings were the judges

and kings were the highest judges in the land.

And so to appeal to, you see, Solomon, the highest cases, the

hardest cases are brought before Solomon and he, he weighs in on

them. And So what do you do if you're

the king and you need to appeal to somebody?

David goes to the king of kings. He goes to his king, He goes to

his Lord, his God, his judge, the highest bar in existence.

And he says in verses one to three, he's begging for him to

hear him give ear to my words, consider my groaning, give

attention to the sound of my cry.

He's come prepared. He's laid out his arguments

before the Lord, and he's begging God to listen and affirm

his case. And so he's saying, Lord, I've

come at the appropriate time. I've come to you in the morning

when I'm supposed to come to the bar.

And he comes to him in the appropriate manner.

He comes to the right person. He comes to his king and his

judge. And then I want you to see that

this appeal ends with a powerful declaration of confidence and

trust. He says, I present my cases

before you. I arrange my cases and look up,

right. I arrange my my prayers before

you. I bring my plea and I look up.

And that means I wait expectantly for you to answer

them. This is what George Mueller did

every morning when he would wake up and there wasn't any food for

the hundreds and thousands of orphans that he was supposed to

be feeding. He says, this is what you do.

He gave instructions. It's as you pray in the name of

Jesus Christ, you align your heart with Jesus Christ.

You make your petition and then you wait.

You literally look up knowing that God is going to answer that

prayer and you see it over and over again.

He answers the prayers of the righteous unto thee and will

look up. George Mueller said he would.

He would just make his case and then he would.

He would declare, let the God who loves orphans, may the God

of orphans be God. Let the God who takes care of

orphans, let him be God. That's essentially what David's

saying here. Let the God who delivers the

righteous from the wicked, let him be God.

I'm going to look up and wait for the moment that you save my

life. And then he moves to verses 4 to

8. He pleads to be heard, and 4:00

to 8:00 he pleads to be led. And this is where the the legal

precedent comes. If you don't know the definition

of that, that's OK. I didn't either.

I looked it up. Precedent is an earlier event or

action that's regarded as an example or guide to be

considered in subsequent similar circumstances.

Maybe you knew a little bit about what it was, but that's

what it is. It becomes when a judge weighs

in on something, it becomes case law.

And So what David is saying here is God's character is binding

precedent in the world because he's the same yesterday and

today and forever. He's unchanging the things that

he's done in the past revealed to us his nature and it's

precedent. And David says, I'm going to

take that to the bank. I'm going to, I'm going to stake

my life on your precedent. I'm pleading for you to lead me

according to your character. And if you look through this, he

kind of gives 6 facts of precedent, kind of six things

that he's going to hinge his argument on.

And the first one, you can read them with me in verse 8.

He says you are not a God who delights in wickedness.

That's not who you are. That's not the God I worship.

That's not the God that's been revealed in the Scriptures,

meaning God takes no pleasure in either wickedness or in wicked

people. And the second one is like it.

Evil may not dwell with you. He says dwell is the word for

sojourn, to dwell temporarily. He says evil cannot be God's

guest. God's not going to open his home

and let evil into his house. It cannot entitle itself to

God's protection and care. The third thing he says the

boastful shall not stand before your eyes.

It's meaning literally God is going to cast out evil, cast it

aside. And I listen to a lot of metal

music and in high school and they became a cliche, this

phrase cast aside. It was like in every song you

got sick of hearing it. And that's exactly what he's

saying. They used it because it gives

voice to the theme of rejection and abandonment, which

apparently is a very metal thing.

And that's what God says here. He says I will cast out evil and

wickedness. I have no part in it.

And the the sobering theme is that God is going to abandon the

wicked and we can add with finality, it cannot be his guest

and will not be his guest. It will not be included in his

Kingdom. The 4th, he begins to to turn to

his hands and his heart and his soul.

He says you hate evil doers, you hate them, meaning his heart is

turned away from them. Fifth, he says you destroy those

who speak lies. It's not just his heart, but his

hands turn away from them. And then worst of all, the 6th,

he said the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.

And so Spurgeon is saying, commenting on this, he says it's

not just his heart, it's not just his hands, but his spirit

is against them. His spirit abhors them.

That means literally it's an abomination to him.

It's a detestable thing. He hates the bloodthirsty and

wicked man. And remember the words of of

Proverbs 616 to 19. There are 6 things the Lord

hates 7 that are an abomination to him.

You'll see them all in the Psalm.

Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood,

a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to

run to evil, a false wicked who breathes out a false witness who

breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.

So if God is the same yesterday and today and forever, if he

hated wickedness, then if he moved against it, then if his

actions have been repeatedly and predictably just throughout

history, David says that I'm going to count that you will act

and move today as well. And so David appeals to the

character of God as precedent. And this is a powerful way for

you to pray if you're experiencing some kind of

pressure. I remember a time distinctly, I

was, I was feeling a time crunch and a time pressure.

I remember going to the Lord and saying, Lord, you are a God who

hates wickedness. You're you're a God who loves

the orphan and the widow. And so I need you to have, I

need a phone call. I need a phone call from this

person and I need it right now. And I remember before I was done

praying, as I'm opening my eyes, my phone rings exactly the

person I needed to talk to. And I'm not saying God is going

to. You're not obliging God to

answer your prayers. When you pray this way.

It delights His heart for you to pray His nature.

Lord, you are just and good and loving and wise.

He loves to hear his nature. He's revealed it to you and He

loves the precedent. Lord you, you saved the the

Israelites from the Egyptians in the Red Sea.

You love to act and move and prove yourself in the world.

And so I lift my prayer to you and wait.

It's modeled for you here. This is your prayer.

And when you pray this way, again, it doesn't oblige God to

answer your prayers, but you can know and understand and that

your prayers are faithful and just and good and.

Contrary to all of this. Evil here come more please in

verses 4 to 8, first one, he says Lead me, O Lord, in your

righteousness because of my enemies.

And the second one is like it. He says, make your way straight

before me. I need to be LED.

I need to be LED through the persecution.

And the word lead is the same word as Psalm 31.

Three. It's the same word as Psalm 23,

three, where David says, right, the Lord is my shepherd.

I shall not want. He says he leads me in paths of

righteousness for his name's sake.

He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's

sake. Here again, Psalm 5-8, lead me

in your righteousness. He's saying, Lord, I need you to

be my shepherd. I need you to, to, to lead me.

And he longs to walk in a way that is straight, meaning moral

and upright. And the shepherd has to show him

the way and. So if the first.

Keyword of the passage was righteous.

Then the second keyword I want to draw your attention to is the

word wicked. He, he's painting two different

pictures of two people. He's got his case and his

enemies. And he says in verse 4, heading

off this new section, he says you are not a God who delights

in wickedness or wicked people. And that word is the main word

of a whole list of synonyms that starts to come verse 5.

You can look with me. The wicked are the boastful.

Verse 5 again, the wicked are evil.

Verse 6, there are those who speak lies.

Verse 6, they are bloodthirsty. Verse 6, they are deceitful.

And extremely helpful for me this week was a commentator

named Hans Joyakim Kraus who builds a theology of the wicked

man. He says this wicked man is a is

a type throughout all of the Psalms and it's it's this word

wicked, the wicked one. And he says in the Psalms the

wicked are often enemies of the individual.

And interestingly, he says the wicked are the persecutors, the

wicked ones are the persecutors of individuals, of righteous

individuals in the Psalms. He says on the basis of all that

we know of the Psalms, the deceitful and persecuting

activity of the godless works out so that the innocent are

made to appear guilty by lies and malicious gossip.

So you build the theology of of this, looking through all the

Psalms, it says the wicked are deceivers.

That's the word used in verse 6. The wicked people are are those

who plot and plan and grumble. They destroy the defenseless and

the poor. They lie.

They encourage false witnesses. They despise and ridicule their

victims. They trample the weak.

They're ruthless. And the Psalms teach that their

greatest weapon that they use against you, if you want to

insight and to look into their playbook, is their tongue.

They slander you. And you can look to verse 9 and

that's exactly what it says of the wicked.

And this, their greatest weapon is their tongue.

Kraus says of these individuals, the wicked say in Psalm 10/6, I

shall never be moved. They say in 1013, God will never

call my actions to account. And they asked pridefully in

Psalm 12/6, Who is my Lord? And Karl Bart talks.

About him as well, this wicked man, he says he's seen in the

Psalms not merely as our rival, it's not just the rival of the

righteous person, but the man who is engaged in the

performance of objective unrighteousness.

He says the known man is finally and characteristically evil and

and showing him. David also shows our response

and is personified by David in Psalm 5.

Bart says we are to let out a tempestuous yearning cry for a

higher compensating avenging righteousness, a judge between

US and them. And if you look with me to the

third section, that's exactly what you see from David.

There is a plea for justice. There's a plea against the

wicked man, a tempestuous yearning cry.

Verse 10. Read it with me, he says.

Make them bear their guilt. Oh God let them fall by their

own councils and that's the promise of God as he says to

anyone who doesn't provide, protect and include the church

or the vulnerable. He says you will fall by your

own traps. Your feet will step into your

own trap and you will not be provided forever.

You will be excluded forever from the Kingdom of God and you

will not find yourself in the fellowship of the Saints.

David's praying along these lines make them bear their

guilt. God let them fall by their own

counsel. He's he's longing for justice.

His plea is for justice. Lord, bring on them.

What is their do the fruit of their deeds?

And you look at verse 10 as well.

He he says because they've rebelled against me.

No, he says, because. They've rebelled against you.

So he's, they're not David's enemies first.

They're David's enemies because they were first God's enemies.

And so you have again the legal language of the court.

David brings his petition and he pleads for justice for the

wicked, and he also pleads for the righteous justice of the

righteous. 1 And you see here verse 11, 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. He's he's pleading for justice

and righteousness. And I want you to see there's

kind of characteristic of the Psalm as there's synonyms

everywhere. He's multiplying synonyms and

he, he shows kind of with these play on words.

He makes these synonyms or these play on words using the voice.

He's talking about their voice and you can see it back in verse

one. He's referencing my words and my

cry and my voice. He wants them to to hear.

And then in the next section, he turns to the he turns to the

wicked and he says you need a spiritual otolaryngologist.

There's a problem with your ear, nose and throat and I can't fix

it. And so he says they speak lies.

You've got an internal issue. Your throat is an open grave.

Your tongue is flattering, and we all know this to be true,

that the the smooth talk of the wicked speaking to your flesh

over time, speaking these lies will draw your body and your

spirit to hell. They they flatter, they they

indulge you, they whisper these secret words to your heart and

they draw you in. They're so convincing.

And then this play on word. Transitions to the righteous in

verses one to three. Remember how the the Psalm began

with this crying out? Hear me, Lord.

Hear me, Lord. Hear me, Lord, and it ends in

verse 11 with singing out. Let all who take refuge in you

rejoice. Verse 11, let them sing

eternally for joy. Verse 11 again, let them exalt

in you. Exalt means to celebrate

triumphantly, to rejoice greatly or exceedingly.

And so if. You're in a situation where you

you feel like you're surrounded by unrighteousness and to an

extent it's all of us, but some at times worse than at others.

He says plead your case before God and commit yourself to

righteousness. He says he'll take your plea and

he'll he'll bring it into singing.

He ends the verse with this final pleading.

In verse 12, He says you're pleading for a just reward.

And if we're going to use legal language again, we would call

this his, his declaration or his resolution.

He says for you, bless the righteous, O Lord, you cover him

with favor as with a shield. So this is God's settled policy

toward the righteous, a confident resolved truth.

The the beauty comes back in verse seven.

Look at how David commits himself in verse 7 to

righteousness. He aligns himself with with

righteousness and beauty. And he says it's not through his

own merit, but he says, I, through the abundance of your

steadfast love, will enter your house.

And it's just a helpful reminder that, you know, we only make any

of these claims for righteousness because of God's

abundant grace and mercy and steadfast love.

And it reminds us that we're only included in his Kingdom

because of the righteousness of Jesus Christ that was achieved

at the cross. And so it's helpful to

understand that he's our judge because when we commit ourselves

to Jesus Christ, our judge, our King, and our Lord, what does he

do as judge? He takes his gavel, he looks at

you, he hears the case, he hears Satan, he hears Jesus Christ,

the righteous one, your advocate.

He slams the gavel and he declares you now and forever

more not guilty. That's what God the judge does

to any of him who come and plead the blood of Jesus Christ.

He says you've been redeemed, you've been clothed with the

righteousness of Jesus Christ. And so we can confidently

declare with David I, through the abundance of your steadfast

love, will enter your house. And I want to.

Draw your attention. To one more beautiful aspect, if

you look back to Psalm 4 and how Psalm 4 ends and this placement

of this Psalm and the whole Psalter, it ends with David

lying down in peace to sleep. He sleeps in confidence, and

then this continues into chapter 5 with him waking up directing

his prayers to God in the morning.

It's a beautiful thought. So he goes to sleep with joy in

his heart, dwelling in safety. He wakes up praying to God the

Father in righteousness, which leads to this final thought that

persecution is never the final word for Christians.

Persecution also cannot ultimately steal the joy of

Christians. Kraus says that this way the

Psalter is not a book of failure.

It's a testimony of thanks, of assurance, and of newly

established promises. The same thing said another way

by Martin Luther 500 years ago. He wrote this hymn.

And though this world with devils filled does threaten to

undo us, we will not fear, for God has willed his truth to

triumph through us. The Prince of darkness grim we

tremble not for him. His rage we can endure.

For lo, his doom is sure. One little word shall fail him,

and you go back even further to David.

He says it this way, resolving the whole Psalm in verse 12 with

the confident expectation that God will answer his prayers.

He says that the settled policy of God toward His church.

You bless the righteous. Oh Lord, you cover him with

favor as a shield. And with that note, let's pray

together. Lord, impress the meaning of the

Psalm on our hearts. Help us to understand and know

we're not left without resource in the world.

Teach us what this this Psalm of David means, what these these

words of David mean and help them to help us to apply it to

our own prayer life. Lord, when we are surrounded by

the wicked like wolves, and you've promised that we will,

when we speak righteousness, when we live righteousness,

Lord, help us to remember that we always have a place to turn.

It's not a foreign power. It's not our government.

It's not those around us with security.

Lord, it's you. We look our eyes, we look to the

hills, We rest our eyes up on the hills.

And where does our help come from?

It comes from the Lord. You are the one who makes heaven

and earth. You are the one through your

steadfast love, we can enter into your house.

You are the one who provides, protects and includes us.

You are our shield, our buckler. And so, Lord, we pray to you and

say, defend us from our enemies, give us the joy of our

salvation. Remind us of it this morning and

we sing your words back to you, Lord, the words of David written

so long ago. In the name of Jesus we pray,

Amen. Thanks for listening to learn.

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