“Track 5: In God We Trust (Psalm 5)” | 5/26/24
Psalm 5 | 5/26/24 | Will DuVal
Who you gonna call?” [Ghostbusters!]
Who you gonna call?”
Call the POLICE! That is a DISTURBING song. But growing up, I LOVED it! I KNEW who I was gonna call, if I “had a dose of a freaky ghost” - think you better call: Ghostbusters.
Full disclosure: I don’t think there was anyone else TO call. From what I remember of the movie, the Ghostbusters were pretty unprofessional and not particularly competent - certainly not very TIDY - when it came to actually “busting” the ghosts. But I don’t think they had a lot of COMPETITORS, if you searched the Yellow Pages for “Ghostbusting” services; it was just the one entry.
In Psalm 5 (how’s THAT for a segue way?) - In Psalm 5, King David is in TROUBLE. In his own words, David needs somewhere to “take refuge”, someONE to “spread [their] PROTECTION” over him, to “cover him… as with a SHIELD”. David is faced with the same question Sigourney Weaver was faced with; the same question YOU AND I are still faced with TODAY, any time we find OURSELVES in dire straits: “Who can ya CALL?” In whom will we TRUST?
The Bible recognizes that there are actually LOTS of options - LOTS of competitors out there vying for our TRUST:
**In Psalm 20, David points out that “Some trust in chariots and… horses”, in other words, in MILITARY might. Russia… China… Iran… it’s a scary world out there. But at least we’ve still got the most POWERFUL military around. You put your TRUST there?
**1 Timothy 6:17 warns against “set[ting your] hopes on the uncertainty of riches”. This Inflation? Talk about SCARY! You better have a NEST egg; you trust in your savings?
**But most pointedly and personally, Proverbs warns us against trusting in OURSELVES: “Whoever trusts in his own heart is a fool” (28:26); “lean NOT on your OWN understanding…Be not wise in your own eyes” (3:6-7).
So then who CAN we trust? Who ARE you gonna call? Forget the ghosts - how bout when the CANCER rears its ugly head again? When you get that dreaded call from the doctor, like our sister Sara Morello did last week. Or when you discover that your husband has been cheating on you for months now, behind your back. Or when you’re PERSECUTED for your FAITH - ghosted and avoided after you invite the neighbors to VBS… or your White House invitation is called into question because you had the audacity to suggest that being a wife & mother is an honorable vocation… or being imprisoned and KILLED for Christ, like our brothers and sisters in Eritrea & North Korea - When you feel OVERPOWERED by the Enemy… “Who ya gonna CALL?”
Here’s PsalmFIVE’s answer: In GOD We Trust. And specifically, David wants to encourage us here, that we can trust God to come through in 5 very important ways for us.
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Would you STAND with me… Psalm 5:
“To the choirmaster: for the flutes. A Psalm of David.
5:1 Give ear to my words, O Lord;
consider my groaning.
2 Give attention to the sound of my cry,
my King and my God,
for to you do I pray.
3 O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice;
in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch.
4 For you are not a God who delights in wickedness;
evil may not dwell with you.
5 The boastful shall not stand before your eyes;
you hate all evildoers.
6 You destroy those who speak lies;
the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.
7 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.
8 Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness
because of my enemies;
make your way straight before me.
9 For there is no truth in their mouth;
their inmost self is destruction;
their throat is an open grave;
they flatter with their tongue.
10 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.
11 But let all who take refuge in you rejoice;
let them ever sing for joy,
and spread your protection over them,
that those who love your name may exult in you.
12 For you bless the righteous, O Lord;
you cover him with favor as with a shield.”
[This is the word of the Lord… Seated…]
When we find ourselves in trouble, the first thing we need to KNOW that we can trust, is:
1) We trust in God’s LISTENING. (1-3) He HEARS us.
Think Ghostbusters: it doesn’t make a BIT of difference if you know who to call… if no one is picking up on the other end of the line! David says: God’s not LIKE that; we can TRUST that he LISTENS when we CRY OUT to him: “O LORD… you HEAR my voice,” v3 says. What’s he doing? David’s just PRAYING, right? v2: “To you do I PRAY”; prayer is just talking with God.
Now, that should have made SOMEONE here LAUGH - “JUST” talking with God?! Oh, that’s it: just communicating with the Almighty, Transcendent, Sovereign God of all the UNIVERSE?! David tried to put it in perspective for us last Sunday in Psalm 8: “When I consider the work of your fingers - the earth and solar system and galaxy and UNIVERSE - like a mere grain of SAND on God’s FINGERtip… What is MAN that you are even MINDFUL of us, God?” That a God like YOU, should deign to LISTEN to an otherwise insignificant little QUARK, like ME?
And yet he DOES; we can TRUST that God CARES for us, and he LISTENS.
But David teaches us THREE THINGS about HOW we ought to pray here, in these opening 3 verses.
First, we ought to pray HUMBLY and DESPERATELY. David is HUMBLE; he asks God to listen to him: “Give ear to my words… consider my groaning… give attention to my cry”. These aren’t the petitions of a spoiled, ENTITLED child. We’re ALL born thinking we’re the center of the universe, so it’s no wonder kids often come up to their parents, while we’re talking to other adults, and butt right in: “Dad, where’s MOM? Dad… DAD!” My parents used to have a little CODE they taught us (Whit - you remember that?) we were supposed to just put our hand on their LEG, and wait patiently. Of course if they CONTINUED the adult conversation another 5… 10 seconds… we’d start SQUEEZING their leg tighter and tighter…
But that’s what David is DOING here - he humbly recognizes: “God, I know you’ve probably got MUCH bigger fish to fry. You are YAHWEH - v1; “Lord” - you are KING, v2 - and you are the almighty GOD”; David acknowledges: THAT’S who I’m praying to hear. So God, I recognize: who am I that you are even MINDFUL of me… and yet, God, I NEED you… to listen!”
He’s humble, but he’s also DESPERATE. David doesn’t waste any TIME here; the first word of the psalm is “GIVE EAR” - azan - it’s an imperative verb, a PLEA, really: LISTEN! Some of us were taught the “ACTS” model of prayer - Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication - you need to spend time ADORING God, simply for who he IS… then CONFESSING your sins, recognizing your undeservedness to even come into his presence… then THANKING Him - taking time to APPRECIATE all the blessings he’s ALREADY bestowed upon you… before you rush to supplication - ASKING God for anything ELSE.
David says “That’s all well and good. And there’s a TIME for that; He’s gonna write PLENTY of other psalms of adoration, confession, thanksgiving… but right NOW, “God, I need HELP!” I’m DESPERATE. What did PETER pray, when he followed Jesus out of the boat onto the water, but then he took his eyes OFF Jesus and began to SINK: what was Peter’s PRAYER? “Lord, SAVE ME!” (Matt 14:30)
HELP!! That’s a whole PRAYER, friends, and sometimes it may be the BEST one you’re able to manage. And guess what: God HEARS it. He doesn’t say, “Now WAIT a minute; let’s hear some ADORATION first… tell me how GREAT I am, and then we’ll see about that help…” - NO. God gives ATTENTION to the sound of our CRIES. We pray HUMBLY and DESPERATELY.
Second, we are invited to pray RAWLY and also ORDERLY. I love the juxtaposition here, of David’s “GROANING” on the one hand, in v1, but also his “preparing a SACRIFICE” of prayer in v3; the Hebrew verb there literally means to “arrange or set in ORDER”. This word is used in the OT to describe the careful placement of the pieces of an animal onto the altar for a sacrifice - we studied Leviticus together this spring; was that a haphazard process? Sacrifice? No! God gave them meticulous details to be observed. The same verb is ALSO used in the OT to describe the arranging of TROOPS to head into BATTLE. You gonna be haphazard about THAT? “I don’t know - y’all attack somewhere, we’ll attack somewhere; I’m sure it’ll all work out…” - No! A good general strategically sets his troops in ORDER.
Think about that word picture now, when it comes to PRAYER. West Hills isn’t that big; I’m not that important; y’all got a lot of access. But imagine we were a church of 1,000 - TWICE as big… or 5,000 - TEN times as big. And unless you're an elder or staff member, I just don’t have TIME to take a lot of MEETINGS. But you’re in a CRISIS, so you reach out, and my personal assistant says: “He can get you in for 20 minutes next week.” [Some of you are thinking: I don’t WANNA be at a church like that! Just play along for the sake of the illustration…] - Would you show up to that appointment LATE? Without having really thought through how to explain your predicament to me? No, you are going to PREPARE - ARRANGE your thoughts; set them in ORDER - to make the best use of that time.
Now consider: every time we go to the LORD, in PRAYER, we have an INFINITELY greater audience, and hearing. We ought to CONSIDER that when we pray, and not do so CASUALLY, flippantly.
And while we’re at it: WHEN does David pray? V3: “In the MORNING” - he repeats it TWICE. Why? Cuz when you’re truly in CRISIS, and you can manage to get an audience with the most important person there IS, the only one who can actually DO anything about your situation, because he happens to hold the entire UNIVERSE in his hand, you show up for the FIRST APPOINTMENT AVAILABLE. Why would you WAIT?! You can get me in at 8am? Great!
7am? Even BETTER!
6 am? I’ll set an ALARM; but I’ll BE there! Cuz God: talking to YOU is better than SLEEP.
So we PREPARE, we set our prayers in ORDER…
And YET, God assures us that even when we FAIL to - even if all we can muster is GROANING - he HEARS. Romans 8:26 assures us that God’s “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.” When I met with John & Gayle the week before last to plan Becca’s memorial service, they said, “We just don’t even know what to PRAY for anymore - there are no words”. I reminded them, “That’s okay. GOD hears your GROANS. Your SOBS.” He hears, when there simply are no WORDS.
We pray humbly & desperately, both orderly and RAWLY, and third: we pray confidently but PATIENTLY.
David is CONFIDENT in v3: “you WILL hear my voice”. But he’s also PATIENT: “I prepare my prayer… then I WATCH.” I WAIT, expectantly… but PATIENTLY.
Not MY will, but YOURS. And not MY timing, but YOURS, O Lord. There’s no such thing as “unanswered prayer”, friends. There are answers we don’t LIKE, one of the HARDEST of which is: “WAIT.” We say, “God, I NEED you to show up… in THIS way, in my life.” And God might be saying, “I know. And I will. Now WAIT. And WATCH.” That’s an ANSWER; not the one you WANTED, but it is GOD’S answer, to test and to strengthen YOUR trust, in HIM. If we will be confident… but patient.
That was all just the first 3 VERSES! We trust in God’s LISTENING.
#2 - But SECOND, We trust also in God’s LAW. (4-6)
If prayer is a conversation with God, then us talking to HIM is only half of the equation; HE wants to speak to US as well. And God HAS, friends, through His WORD; his LAW. And we can TRUST that when GOD speaks, when God INSTRUCTS us, IN his Law, that He has our best INTEREST at heart (God’s not trying to stifle our fun; rather, His commandments promote life to the FULLEST for us), AND we can trust that AS God, HE KNOWS WHAT’S BEST FOR US. Even better than WE do.
This is what David REMINDS himself of in vv4-6 now; he’s really reminding himself of how NOT to respond in this stressful situation he finds himself in - who NOT to trust, namely: HIMSELF. His own sinful FLESH. We don’t know the exact occasion for David’s writing Psalm 5; it might have been his son Absalom’s rebellion again, we talked about that some 2 weeks ago, as the possible context for Psalms 3 & 4. But whatever the context, David knows he’s got a CHOICE to make here: “Am I going to repay EVIL for evil, or like Romans 12 later exhorts us in the NEW Testament: will I “NOT be overcome by evil, but [rather] overcome evil with good.” (17-21)”
And the answer for David is CLEAR:
Because God is “not a God who delights in wickedness…”
Because “evil may not dwell with [Him].”
Because “[He] hates all evildoers…. [He] destroys those who speak lies; the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man”...
David says, “God: I’m gonna TRUST that your way is BEST.” That my ENEMIES, who DO delight in wickedness, those who ARE evil, boastful, liars, bloodthirsty and deceitful - even when it may SEEM like they’re getting AHEAD in life, by TRUSTING in their own sinful flesh, and FORSAKING God’s ways - doing whatever is necessary to come out on TOP, no matter HOW many people they gotta STEP ON along the way… David says, “I’m not gonna DO it that way. I’m not gonna STOOP to their level, and repay evil with evil.” David says, “I love GOD, more than I love SUCCESS, power, or pleasure.” Absalom wants the throne? So bad he’s willing to lie, cheat, & steal - to MURDER - in order to unlawfully usurp it? David says, “He can HAVE it.” I’d rather be with GOD in the wilderness, than WITHOUT him in the PALACE. And I’m gonna TRUST God, ultimately, eventually - maybe not in MY timing but in HIS OWN timing - I trust that God WILL destroy the evildoer and restore those who remain faithful to him. Those who trust and OBEY God’s LAW.
“When we walk with the Lord in the light of His Word
What a glory He sheds on our way!
While we do His good will, He abides with us still
And with all who will trust and obey
Trust and obey, for there's no other way
To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.”
Ps 58:11 promises: “Surely there is a reward for the righteous”
Likewise, 1 Samuel 26:23 “The Lord rewards every man for his righteousness and his faithfulness”
Ps 84:11 goes so far as to declare “No good thing does [God] withhold from those who walk uprightly.”
Do you really BELIEVE that? Do you TRUST that promise? “No good thing does [God] withhold from those who walk uprightly.” I’ll be honest: I’m pretty hit or miss. “Kids under FOUR eat for FREE” - that seems like a GOOD THING to me. A good thing God is almost ASSUREDLY going to WITHHOLD from me if I decide to “trust and obey”, and NOT to be “deceitful” and “speak lies” to the waitress - God’s gonna WITHHOLD that “good thing” - that free meal - from me, and from my 4 year, 2 month old son (“Elijah: you’re still THREE, when we eat at IHOP, GOT it?”).
Do I really TRUST that God HATES evildoers and ABHORS the bloodthirsty? Cuz if I DO, then it’s gonna impact how I respond on social media when someone’s TROLLING me. THEY might be “bloodthirsty”, looking to pick a FIGHT, and I might even have the perfect REBUTTAL, to put them in their PLACE. But am I going to return EVIL for evil, and get down in the MUD with them, cuz I feel the need to justify myself, PROVE myself, cuz maybe I’m FULL of myself; I’m the “boastful”, of v5. And maybe I care more about everyone else knowing how much smarter and RIGHTER I am than this troll, than I care about GOD’S approval - would I rather have 20 or 30 “Likes” from people who agree with me, or am I content with just ONE like - GOD’S - because I’ve agreed with HIM?
Do I trust that God will HUMBLE the proud? But that he WELCOMES the humble.
When we feel attacked, it is NATURAL to want to repay evil for evil. But friends: it is GODLY to overcome evil with GOOD.
#3- We can trust in God’s LEADING. (7-8)
David says THEY may trust - the WICKED may trust - in their OWN sinful scheming in order to get ahead in life, but v7 - “But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, [God] I will enter your house.” The wicked CAN’T; remember: “evil may not DWELL with [God]”. But, David says, I CAN, and I WILL… HOW??
Is it because DAVID is so righteous? Through the abundance of DAVID’S unwavering love for GOD? Check v8: Is David led by HIS OWN righteousness because of his enemies?
No! He prays, “YOU lead me, O Lord, in YOUR righteousness! …Make YOUR way straight before me… through the abundance of YOUR steadfast love.”
See, friends, David knows: BECAUSE evil may not dwell with a perfectly HOLY God, the ONLY way that I’m getting an audience with HIM - entering into HIS house - is through HIS CHESED; through GOD’S lovingkindness, HIS MERCY.
Part of this psalm gets quoted in the NT, in Romans ch3, where Paul declares that ““None is righteous, no, not one… “Their throat is an open grave; [there it is:] they use their tongues to deceive.” …“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”” (10-18). So Paul concludes that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (23). That NONE of us deserves to enter God’s presence, to have ANY relationship with Him whatsoever, based on our own merit, our own righteousness (or lack thereof!).
But here is the GOOD news of the gospel, friends, the REST of Romans 3: that though we are undeserving sinners, nevertheless we “are justified [in other words, we are DECLARED righteous; MADE righteous] by [God’s] grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.” (24-25) In other words, you and I can now “enter God’s house” - HEAVEN - not through OUR good works, but through the ABUNDANCE of God’s mercy & LOVE which he has LAVISHED on us in his son JESUS. If we will receive CHRIST - HIS sacrifice on the cross, on our behalf; dying the death that WE deserved because of OUR sin; Jesus paid the PENALTY in order to FORGIVE us our sins - and if we will simply RECEIVE Him, his GRACE, his free, undeserved GIFT by FAITH, then we will be SAVED. This is the gospel.
But what does it require of US? Think back to where we STARTED: humility and desperation. Look at how David enters God’s house in v7 now: “I will bow down… in the fear of you.” That’s a posture of SUBMISSION, reverence, HUMILITY. It brings to mind for me the parable JESUS told, of the 2 men who came into the temple PRAYING: one, a Pharisee, puffing out his chest; the other, a tax collector, BEATING his breast: “God, have MERCY on me, a SINNER!” Jesus said, “I tell you, this man [the one BOWING DOWN… in the FEAR of God] went home to his house justified [declared righteous, and therefore ACCEPTED, by God] rather than the other. [Here it is AGAIN:] For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”” (Lk 18:14)
It takes HUMILITY to admit you need someone else to LEAD you, doesn’t it? Hell will be FILLED with the spiritual equivalent of the stereotypical man who is too PROUD to admit he’s LOST and just stop and ask for DIRECTIONS already. The man who just can’t BRING himself to put DOWN the hammer and the nails and just pick up the stinkin’ INSTRUCTION manual already. And HUMBLE himself enough to allow himself to be LED by someone ELSE for a change: YOU driving, YOU building, WITHOUT a map, WITHOUT a manual: how’s that WORKING for ya, friend?
Who’s leading YOUR life? Have you come to the END of yourself yet, and realized how utterly LOST you are, trying to navigate life, trying to navigate this CRAZY world of ours, on your own? Have you realized how DESPERATELY you need an INSTRUCTION manual, to help GUIDE you?
Here’s the REAL fact of the matter: we need MORE than a manual, don’t we? Cuz the manual can tell you how to live. But it has NO power to actually carry OUT those instructions. We don’t just need a MAP, friends; we need a new DRIVER behind the wheel. And praise God, he offers us that TOO: not just his WORD, to guide us; but His SPIRIT, to actually LEAD us in paths of righteousness, for his name’s sake. To MAKE his ways straight before us.
But we have to LET him. Have you surrendered your life to God’s gracious and competent LEADING. That is a DAILY calling, by the way; it’s not enough that you “surrendered your life” 36 years ago at a youth camp, and you’ve been flying on AUTOpilot ever since then. Listen: if you’re not SURE who’s driving, I can TELL you who’s driving: YOU’RE driving. Trust me: you’ll KNOW it when GOD’S driving. You will feel really uncomfortable and out of control, if you’re still spiritually immature… and you’ll feel incredibly PEACEFUL and happily out of control, if you’re spiritually mature. But you’ll know, when it’s HIM and not YOU.
Is God LEADING your life? Do you TRUST him too?
#4 - We can TRUST in God’s LAW-ENFORCEMENT. (9-10)
Not just His LAW, but God’s ENFORCEMENT of that Law as well. The STRUCTURE of Psalm 5 is really interesting, isn’t it? You’ve got these 3 beautiful stanzas - the first, third and fifth - that David addresses directly to GOD - “LISTEN to me, O Lord… LEAD me, O Lord… PROTECT me, O Lord…” - but then interspersed are these two IMPRECATORY stanzas - the second and fourth - that David still addresses to GOD, but who’s he really focused on and praying ABOUT? His ENEMIES! “God: You hate all evildoers… Make them bear their guilt, O God… let them fall by their own counsels… because of the abundance of their sins cast them out…”
I cited part of Romans 12 earlier - “Repay no one evil for evil” - but 2 verses later, Paul explains how we’re able to DO that while still loving and remaining committed to JUSTICE. See, that’s the thing: I think a lot of Christians (and even MORE NON-Christians) get tripped up by the fact that in the OLD Testament, God commanded his people to PUNISH injustice. We just got done studying Leviticus together here recently: ““Whoever takes a human life shall surely be put to death… If anyone injures his neighbor, as he has done it shall be done to him… eye for eye, tooth for tooth; whatever injury he has given a person shall be given to him.” (24:17-20)
But then we fast-forward 1,500 years, and we hear JESUS command us: ““You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39 But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” (Matt 5:38-39).
And you think: “Well, which one IS it? Who do we OBEY?”
The answer is JESUS. We obey JESUS, NOT Moses.
But the next question is WHY? Why do they disagree at ALL? Is the Bible contradictory?
And I think there are THREE important truths to point out and keep in mind, when answering that question:
First, Leviticus’s “eye for an eye” command is NOT at odds with Romans 12’s command to “repay no one evil for evil”, because if you take MY eye, UN-lawfully, THAT is “evil”; but if I in TURN, take YOUR eye, LAW-fully, that isn’t “EVIL”; that’s just JUSTICE. Romans 12 doesn’t say “repay no one JUSTICE for evil”; Romans 12 is all FOR justice.
The SECOND thing we need to remember with his apparent discrepancy between the Old and New Testaments is the differing historical CONTEXTS. And there are actually two SUB-points worth noting on that. First of all, God frequently refers to Israel in the OT as his “child”, but just like ANY child, Israel didn’t grow up OVERNIGHT. And God is a GOOD Father, a PERFECT one, in fact. So in his fatherly love, God accommodated his Law to SUIT his people at a developmentally appropriate stage of life. When kids are LITTLE, you SPANK them; at a certain stage of their development, that’s no longer effective or appropriate. So in the OT, God prescribed spankings, but the punishments evolved, as his PEOPLE did.
The second thing to note specifically about the historical context, though, is the uniqueness of Israel’s SOCIAL structure in the time of MOSES in contrast to the time of JESUS. In Levitical times, Israel was a THEOCRACY. Israel was HERE, everyone ELSE was over THERE, and God RULED over Israel as their KING. But fast forward 1,500 years, and Israel rejected God as their king, they begged for human kings like all the OTHER nations, and those HUMAN kings eventually led Israel ASTRAY and invited God’s JUDGMENT by MEANS of the surrounding nations, such that by the time of Jesus, there IS no “Israel” you can really point to anymore, there’s just JEWS scattered all OVER the place, with lots of GENTILES intermingled with them now too, even in their former homeland, of Judea, and Galilee.
What’s the point? Well, it’s EASY to make and enforce nice, neat rules for my kids when they’re still at HOME, living under my ROOF. But if they REBEL against me and run AWAY from home and now they’re living under LOTS of different roofs, and even the ones who ARE still at home have welcomed their rebellious FRIENDS over now to live in MY house, even though they’re NOT my kids… you can start to see why God’s RULES had to CHANGE, ADAPT with the times.
But here’s the third and most IMPORTANT reason things changed: because simply put - JESUS changes EVERYTHING! In the same way that the NT explains the whole purpose of the Law was to show us our sinfulness, our failure to KEEP the Law, and thus our need for a SAVIOR, a Law-FULFILLER… so too, the whole purpose of God calling His PEOPLE - Israel - to be the Law-ENFORCERS for 1,500 years (“YOU take an eye for an eye… YOU take a tooth for a tooth…”) was to show them that they really weren’t good at THAT either; we needed a better law-ENFORCER too. As a matter of fact, by the time of Jesus, the Jews weren’t even ALLOWED to enforce a lot of God’s laws, cuz the ROMANS, their overlords, were in charge. We see this with their trial of Jesus; the Jewish leaders said: “Look, under OUR law, GOD’S law, this man’s crimes - blasphemy - are punishable by DEATH. And we’d crucify him OURSELVES, if we COULD! But Caesar- YOU are in charge now; so CRUCIFY him, CRUCIFY him…”
God says: “Do you really want people like THAT… people like YOU!... in charge of LAW-enforcement? Don’t you want JUSTICE? REAL justice?” God says, “The ONLY way you’re getting it, is if you let ME handle it.”
THAT’s the rest of Romans 12: “Repay no one evil for evil… [don’t] avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”” (17-19).
Will we trust GOD to enforce HIS Law, without feeling the need to take matters into our own hands?
When the bully picks on you at school… or at WORK; bullies aren’t just adolescent phenomenons, are they?
When the neighbor disregards the property line and ignores your request that he move his fence back.
When that friend stabs you in the back, when that spouse DOES cheat on you…
Will we trust GOD to enforce his Law? It is HIS Law, after all. Let’s notice THAT about what David says here in v10: does David pray for God to make these evildoers “bear their guilt and cast them out” because they’ve rebelled against HIM? Against DAVID??
No; David says, “For they’ve rebelled against YOU,” God. David’s concern isn’t so much whether or not they’ve sinned against HIM, but rather their sin against THE LORD.
Boy- THAT’S a good, convicting question to ask ourselves whenever we feel that urge for JUSTICE, isn’t it? When we get cut off on the highway and we start praying these imprecatory psalms: “God, break my enemy’s TEETH!” (“Hey, I’m just being BIBLICAL here!”)
ARE you, though? Cuz if you ARE, you’ll be less concerned with that person’s sin against YOU, and MORE upset about their rebellion against GOD, HIS Law.
But perhaps you struggle with these imprecatory prayers for the opposite reason: not an OVER-emphasis on justice, but an UNDER-emphasis on it. You wonder, “Should we really be praying for God to “cast sinners out”, to PUNISH people?” Warren
Wiersbe notes (878): “Perhaps our problem today is… we don’t hate sin enough to get UPSET at the wickedness and the godlessness around us. Bombarded as we are by so much evil and violence, we’ve gotten accustomed to the darkness.”
These imprecatory psalms made it into God’s word - into JESUS’S hymnbook; remember: JESUS talked more about Hell than ANYONE in the Bible; Jesus is more pro-JUSTICE than ANYONE - and these psalms are here for a reason.
We’re not EMBARRASSED of God’s word; we NEVER need to APOLOGIZE for it. When unbelievers read a passage like Psalm 5 and say, “See! You worship a VENGEFUL God!”, we reply, “You’re DARN RIGHT I do! And if you’re WISE, you will TOO! “Vengeance is MINE, says the Lord! So you better take REFUGE while you still CAN!”
See, that’s the thing, friends, and let’s transition now to our final truth that we need to TRUST in:
#5- We trust in God’s LIFE-PRESERVING. (11-12)
David prays: “God, let all who take refuge in you rejoice… spread your protection over them… you cover [the righteous] with favor as with a shield.” But here’s the thing: DAVID knows that he needs not only refuge IN God… but refuge FROM God! He needs protection not just from his ENEMIES, but from God’s OWN righteous WRATH against SIN. And more than that, David knows that if God TRULY only “blesses the RIGHTEOUS”, if God TRULY only “covers” - “SHIELDS” - the RIGHTEOUS… then guess who’s in TROUBLE?
An adulterous MURDERER like DAVID!
A lustful BOASTER like ME!
A materialistic GOSSIPER like YOU!
NONE is righteous - NO NOT ONE! We’re ALL in trouble, friends!
So where do we TURN? Where can we HIDE, from the righteous WRATH of an omnipresent, all-seeing GOD? In WHOM can we TRUST? Who ya gonna CALL??
“Let all who take refuge in JESUS rejoice;
Let them EVER sing for JOY…
For God BLESSES the RIGHTEOUS” - only the RIGHTEOUS get blessed… only the RIGHTEOUS get COVERED, get SHIELDED from the STORM that is God’s holy wrath against sin… and NONE of us is righteous on our OWN merit, but praise GOD that “in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them… [Because] For our sake [God] made [JESUS] to become sin [though he] knew no sin, so that in him, we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:19-21).
This is the GOSPEL, friends. This is HOW God preserves our lives, and remains perfectly JUST while simultaneously offering us perfect, undeserved GRACE: he does it at the CROSS!
“On the Mount of Crucifixion,
Fountains opened deep and wide;
Through the flood-gates of God’s mercy
Flowed a vast and gracious tide.
Grace and [truth] like mighty rivers
Poured incessant from above;
Heaven’s peace and perfect justice
Kissed a guilty world in love.”
Trust in JESUS this morning, friends. He ALONE can save you from your sin, and PRESERVE your life.