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
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
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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
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
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,
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.