Prayer Night Sermon (Psalm 5 And Prayers Of Lament)

Thank you for listening to the Shepherd's Church podcast. This is our Wednesday night service that is focused on prayer and walking through the

Psalms together. We hope that you are blessed and we hope that you will join us as we pray for revival.

Well, hello and welcome again to another prayer night service. Today we're going to be in Psalm 5.

And as you'll remember, every single week we've been basically walking through the Psalms. We've been learning how to pray and we've been allowing the

Psalms to show us through their structure, through their grammar, through their history, and through every facet of these

Psalms we've been letting them teach us how to pray. Today is going to be no different in Psalm 5 and David is going to be focused on praying to God for deliverance from his enemies.

He's going to be asking God to help deliver him from his foes and he's going to go through a five -part prayer called a prayer of lament, which we will talk about in just a moment.

But for starters, let's just acknowledge the simple fact the Psalms have a lot to do with deliverance from enemies.

Psalm 1 begins with the way of the wicked contrasted against the way of the righteous.

Psalm 2 traces the rebellion of the wicked people against God, particularly the kings and the rulers of the earth and how

Christ is going to overthrow the wickedness in this world. So that Psalm is focused on deliverance from enemies.

Psalm 3 is about the people who've attacked David, the wicked mongrels that have attacked him and he's crying out to God for protection.

So that Psalm is about deliverance from enemies. Psalm 4 is about how the wicked have slandered

David's name and how he's crying out to God for vindication. So that Psalm is about deliverance from our enemies.

And then today, as we said, David is going to go through this five -part Psalm of lament where he's going to be praying that God directly and specifically would deliver him from his enemies.

This is a major theme in the book of Psalms. It's a major theme in our life as we live in a world that is broken and we constantly are crying out to God for help in the midst of trials and suffering and pain.

And today, I think the structure of this Psalm will actually be quite helpful for us in learning how to pray.

Because David, again, he adopts this five -part structure on how to actually come to God and pray when you're asking

God to deliver you from your enemies. And this structure follows the Hebrew pattern called lament.

A lament is a humble acknowledgement that things are going wrong in the world, but it's also in the midst of the pain and in the midst of the sorrow, it is a confident expectation that God is going to deliver you.

And a lament typically has five categories. The first is invocation. Before you can come asking

God to deliver you, you have to actually walk into the presence of God. That's what invocation means. You are coming into his presence to seek the true deliverer and to understand what he says and how he's going to help.

So you're coming into his presence. The second part of this invocation, or the second part of this prayer for deliverance or this, as we would call it, a lament for deliverance is an acknowledgement of confidence.

We come into God's presence through the invocation, and while we're in God's presence, we acknowledge that God is the only one who can help us.

He is the one who will come to our aid. We have a confidence and a trust in God. So that's the second part of what it means to biblically lament.

You've come into God's presence, and now you're expressing confidence that God is in control and that he alone can help you.

The third part of a biblical lament is a petition. That means that you spend at least half of your time acknowledging who

God is, coming into his presence, speaking confidently and boldly that you know that God can do the things that you're asking.

You do all of that before you ask God for anything. But a prayer of lament eventually gets to the point where you ask

God for things. You're asking him to deliver you on the basis of a specific situation.

You're acknowledging the need before God, and you're petitioning him in response to the thing that you're struggling with.

So that's the third section of a typical biblical lament. The fourth section is the actual lament.

That's where you're acknowledging the hard thing, the thing that you are in need of being delivered from.

And then finally, a true lament, a biblical lament, ends in praise.

And this is true for almost every lament. I think there may be an exception here or there, but almost every biblical lament does not end in sadness.

It ends in gladness and hope and joy because the confidence that we have as believers is if we come into the presence of God, then he will deliver us.

If we present our needs to God, then he will answer our prayer. So the expectation of a lament is always hope and joy and praise.

There's no wallowing in the doldrums of depression in a lament. There's no sitting down in our anxieties and saying, well,

I don't know if God will save me or not, but let me pray and let me just do this because that's what the

Bible tells me to do. No, a true lament is weeping, crying out to the

Lord, but leaving with joy. And how much our prayer life would actually be blessed if we adopted a biblical posture of lament.

If we came into the presence of God, acknowledging who he is, boldly speaking confidently that we know who he is, that we trust who he is, and then finally, we ask him for the things that we're asking him for, we lament over the things that we're lamenting for, but we get up off our knees with joy and with gladness, knowing that God is who he said he is and he will do what he said he will do and we can trust him.

So that's the structure of David's prayer. And we're going to begin with how he begins with an invocation.

He walks into the presence of God through prayer and he acknowledges who

God is. This is what he says, verses one through three. David has bowed his head and he has entered into the presence of the

Almighty. And he is saying certain things about God. He is approaching

God in certain ways that we would consider are right and good and necessary ways to approach this holy

God. And the question we must ask ourselves in light of what we've just read is, do we approach

God like David approaches God? Do we approach God rightly? Do we come into the

Deliverer's presence praying the way that David prays? And we'll see three things here.

The first is that David prays urgently, seriously, and confidently to God.

Notice what he says. He says, David is not praying a sort of routine, rote, memorized, archaic sort of prayer where lifeless, dead, emotionless prayer.

David is urgent here. He is serious about the office of prayer.

He is confident and bold as he approaches God because he knows who God is. This is the sort of invocation where David is coming into the presence of God urgently, seriously, reverently, and confidently.

There's an example of this in the New Testament. James says of the prophet

Elijah that he was a man just like us, meaning that he put his pants on one leg at a time.

He ate his cereal with a spoon, like he's a man just like the rest of us.

But, James says, he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years.

Again, he prayed, again the indication is earnestly here, and the heavens then gave rain and the earth produced its crops.

James ends that example of Elijah saying that the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

You'll see David doesn't come into the presence of God half -heartedly or lifelessly. He comes in urgently.

You'll see the example of James where he says that Elijah doesn't come into the presence of God flippantly or carelessly.

He comes in urgently. I think this is teaching us that when we come into the presence of God, when we have a lament, that we want to share with God, and we come into God's presence through invocation, that we have to come in urgently and seriously and confidently.

We don't come in as some sort of religious exercise where, well, this is my morning routine.

No. We come into the presence of the living God, and we come in urgently because we know who

God is and how powerful He is. That's the first thing. The second thing that David does when he comes into the presence of God in this invocation, he doesn't begin sharing his prayer requests.

The first thing he does is that he acknowledges who God is through urgent, serious, and confident prayers, but then he also prays persistently.

Notice the repeated phrase in verse 3. He says, in the morning, O Lord, you will hear my voice.

In the morning, I will order my prayer. David is not just forgetting that he mentioned morning.

He's not being repetitive accidentally. He's being repetitive on purpose.

He's essentially, what he's saying is, morning by morning by morning,

I'm coming into your presence. When David says, in the morning, you will hear my voice.

In the morning, I will order my prayer. He's saying, I'm coming into your presence morning after morning, day after day, moment by moment, morning and evening.

I'm coming into your presence persistently. That's what he says. If you'll notice the sort of persistence that he brings is also elevated by this phrase,

I will order my prayer. That's again in verse 3. Now, what do you mean, David, you're going to order your prayer?

You're going to sit down and arrange it in chronological order? Are you going to put it in this fivefold structure that we're talking about here in the category of lament?

Well, maybe that's true. But the Hebrew word underneath this word order means he will, it means presenting a case.

David is coming into the presence of God boldly, urgently, confidently presenting his case before God.

He's making an appeal before God on the basis of who God is. He is essentially using courtroom language here to say that he comes into the presence of the mighty judge, the mighty deliverer, who alone can rescue him.

And he lays out his case. That is what David is doing. That's the sort of bold, confident, persistent praying that you and I ought to be doing as well.

For instance, the New Testament again gives another example of this in the unjust judge.

This is what Jesus says. There's a woman, a widow, and she comes and she pleads before the judge and she pleads before the judge and she comes day and night pleading before this merciless tyrant of a judge and eventually just to kind of pacify this woman and give her justice so that she'll leave him alone.

This unjust judge gives this woman exactly what she wants because she's been persistent.

Jesus says, how much more so will God who is righteous and holy and just give to the one who persistently comes in petitions and prays to him?

There's another example. The friend who comes and who knocks on the door late at night and the man inside the house cries out and says, we're asleep.

Come back tomorrow. We'll help you then. Jesus says, well, if you keep knocking and you keep knocking and keep knocking, even though the friend doesn't want to answer the door, eventually he will answer the door just because of your sheer persistence.

Well, how much more so God who isn't, who isn't limited by human arrest and who doesn't have to wake up in order to come answer you whenever you're praying?

How much more so will God answer you in if you were persistent in your prayers?

So the point is, we must be persistent in our prayers as, as believers, because God has promised all throughout scripture that he will not refuse us.

And there's so many examples of this. I read a story today about George Mueller. And if you've never read anything about George Mueller, take some time by his biography.

It is fascinating the way that God answers this man's prayer.

He prays and fog is lifted so that he can get to a preaching engagement. Like he prays and God answers.

This is a man who's like Elijah who boldly prays and God does things. Well, there's this story that is not very highly reported in the life of George Mueller because everybody likes the dramatic answer to prayer.

George Mueller prayed and five seconds later, you know, the fog was lifted or whatever. But there's this beautiful example of George Mueller early in his ministry, praying for two of his friends who are lost and he prays to God that they would be saved for 60 years, 60 years of George Mueller's life.

He's down on his knees. He's seen God answer prayer left and right in all these various areas.

And not a moment did he become discouraged or frustrated saying, God, why aren't you answering this, this most important prayer for my friend, that he would be saved, that he would be converted, that he would come to you and know who you are.

Why aren't you answering that prayer? George Mueller never did that. He prayed faithfully for 60 years and on his final sermon that he ever preached, one of his friends was converted and a year after his death, the other friend was converted.

God answers prayers. The prayer of the righteous availeth much.

Persistent prayer affects things in the kingdom of God.

Are we patient enough to pray? Are we patient enough to pray for 60 years for the salvation of someone that we love?

Are we diligent enough, persistent enough, bold enough, urgent enough to come into the presence of God like David, praying, knowing that God will answer because he loves us and he cares for us.

That's the second thing, praying persistently. The final thing is praying expectantly.

The verse ends like this. I will eagerly watch. David comes into the presence of God.

He lays out his case before the judge and he says, all right, I'm going to watch because I know

God will answer. I'm going to watch. I'm going to pay attention. I'm going to take note of this moment and I'm going to check my records on a daily basis because I know

God's going to answer this prayer and I can't wait to check it off and say, yep, God answered it.

How frequently, how frequently, beloved, do we pray and we forget what we've prayed for?

We pray as a sort of cathartic experience where we get things off our chest. We go to God like he's the high priest sitting in the booth where we unload all our miseries onto and we forget that we've asked him for things.

We forget that we prayed for things. How often do we probably, would we be encouraged by answer prayers when we don't even remember that we've prayed for them?

My encouragement to us is like David, to come into the presence of God urgently, seriously, confidently and boldly and to come into the presence of God persistently like the widow, praying and praying and praying that God would answer our prayers and I would also encourage us to pray expectantly, remembering the things that we're praying for, watching like David expectantly.

I eagerly watch so that we would see God answering our prayers.

We see these three things in the scripture right here in Psalm 5 that when

David, in an invocation moment, comes into the presence of God, he does these three things.

The text also teaches us that there's three ways that we can pray as we enter into the presence of God.

We're not only, there's not only three attitudes of prayer, urgent, persistent and expectant, but there's also three kinds of prayers that we can pray in those same emotions.

For instance, David says in verse one, give ear to my words. So he's praying words.

He's praying prayers with actual words and meaning. He's articulating things.

He's got his eyes closed and he's praying things with actual sentences and grammar and syntax and all of that.

That's what we would normally consider prayer. The second thing that he says is, heed the sound of my cry for help.

So he's not only praying prayers with words, but he's praying prayers with wordless tears. Have you ever had those moments where you're praying and you just, you break out in tears and you know that you're praying.

The Spirit of God is doing something in you in that moment, but you're not praying with words, you're praying with tears.

David here acknowledges that this is a kind of prayer. Words aren't coming to your mouth, but tears are coming out of your eyes.

And that is a kind of prayer that the Lord hears. Heed the sound of my cry for help, oh God, my cry.

The third kind of prayer that we can pray urgently, persistently and expectantly is prayers that, where I would just call it that we lack the words to even pray.

Those moments where we sit in stunned silence, where we don't even know what to say to God. Or those moments where a situation is so complex and so difficult and so, and so burdensome upon our soul that we don't even have the slightest idea how to begin.

Where we just sit there with a mouth open before the Lord and almost like someone has robbed the breath out of our lungs and we can't even begin to form words on our mouth.

That kind of prayer is pleasing to God as well. And we know that that kind of prayer is pleasing to God because in the

New Testament, God says that we have an advocate who aids us in our prayers, even when we can't pray.

David says, oh Lord, consider my groanings. Paul says in Romans 8 26, do you not know, or we do not know what we ought to pray, right?

The spirit intercedes with us with groans that words cannot express. So if you think about it,

David is asking the Lord to consider his wordless groanings because he doesn't even know what to say anymore.

And in the New Testament, we see from Paul that the spirit of God is taking those groanings and he himself is groaning on our behalf and praying those things and giving those things over to Christ.

We have an advocate and an aid in our prayer who is helping us and assisting us in our prayer.

So that whether we pray with words or whether we pray with tears or whether we pray with silence, God is assisting us in prayer so that we can pray urgently, so that we can pray persistently, and so that we can pray expectantly.

Do you see how all these work together? It's beautiful. Now, when we come into the deliverer's presence, we must have a proper relationship with him.

We've already said that. David himself is calling out.

He's saying his Lord. He says that twice in verse 1 and verse 3. He calls out to God as his Lord.

He calls out to God as his King. He says, my King and my God. He says that in verse 2. And if you look at the pronouns here, you're not only seeing three emotions when we pray, which is expectantly, urgently, and persistently.

You not only see three kinds of prayers, words, tears, and silence. You see that David comes with a personal, intimate, and genuine faith saying, this is my

God that I'm coming into the presence of. This is my King, my Lord. See the my's there?

He's coming into the presence of his personal, intimate, genuine Savior, his

King. He's acknowledging in this invocation prayer that he's included, that he's a friend with God, that he's in a relationship with God, that this is my

God. He can say that, as we'll learn in a moment, on the basis of Jesus Christ. But that's how

David walks into the presence of God. He says that God is his God. He prays three different kinds of prayers with words, with tears, and with silence.

And he also prays urgently, persistently, and expectantly.

So that's what I would say as far as what we learn about this invocation prayer. And I hope that those things have been helpful for you, and I hope that you can implement those particular things into your prayer life as well.

As you begin your prayers, as you bow your head and come into the presence of God, I hope that those three things that we just talked about will be an aid to you as you begin your prayers with God, but we don't stay in the invocation moment.

That's the first phase of our prayer. The second phase of our prayer is that we express confidence that God, the

Deliverer, will actually deliver us. We come into his presence, and then we acknowledge that he is the

Deliverer, and he will save us. This is what Psalm 5, 4 -7 says. This is where David enters into the second phase of his prayer, which is called confidence.

He says, Another example of this is in Psalm 66, verse 18 -19.

If I had cherished sin in my heart, then the Lord would not have listened to me. But since David is saying that I've not cherished sin,

I've not done those things, the Lord will hear me, and the Lord will destroy the wicked, and the

Lord will rescue me in his abundant, loving kindness. Do you see the confidence that David has here? David has confidence that God will abolish the wicked, and God will deliver the righteous because of who

God is in his character. He has that confidence. That's the second phase of a lament, confidence in God.

Now, David draws this out in a specific way. He distinguishes himself from the wicked. He gives a sort of taxonomic definition of who the wicked are, and he begins from general statements, and he moves even to more specific statements.

He says, The wicked. It's a very general statement in verse 4. Then he says, The arrogant. He's narrowing it and becoming more specific.

It's the arrogant. Verse 5, he also says, Everyone who does wrong. That's pretty general itself, but then he goes on in verse 6 to say,

Those who tell lies are the wicked, and bloodthirsty and deceitful men are the wicked. He's identifying with confidence the kind of people that God is going to abolish because he himself even acknowledges how

God views sin, and he does this in verse 4. He says, God does not take pleasure in evil.

He's saying that I can have confidence coming into the presence of this holy

God, knowing that God takes no pleasure in evil. I know

God is going to avenge me. I know God is going to abolish the wicked. I know

God is going to punish the evil doer. I know that because God does not take pleasure in the wicked.

God is not arrogant and boastful. God does not support the ones who do wrong. God does not tell lies nor support the ones who tells lies.

God is not bloodthirsty and deceitful, but he will bring to doom those who act in those ways.

David has a confidence in who God is that God will destroy the wicked, and he even acknowledges.

You've heard probably in church all your life that God loves the sinner but hates the sin. David says that God hates those who do wrong in verse 5.

Verse 5 says God hates all who do wrong. So clearly we've been told wrongly throughout our lives in church when it says that God loves the sinner but hates the sin.

No, God hates the sinner. God has wrath stored up for the sinner. God has a furious, righteous, holy, never -ending anger and furious wrath stored up for the sinner because there's nothing at all protecting them from the presence and the holiness of God because God takes no pleasure in the wicked.

Therefore, he can't take pleasure in those who do wicked things. It says that he hates all who do wrong.

That's verse 5. It says that he destroys those who tell lies. That's verse 6. He says that the Lord abhors, that's even stronger than hatred, those who are bloodthirsty and deceitful and who tell lies.

God has no passion, no love, no affection for the wicked.

And David knows that and is confident in that and he acknowledges that in this sort of confident way that I know you're going to deliver me,

God, because I know that you hate the wicked. It's a strong statement from David, but it's a confident and bold statement, which is probably why he could come into the presence of God so boldly in the first place.

Remember, he came in urgently, persistently, and expectantly. Why? Because he knows the character of God and he knows that God hates the wicked.

But that doesn't lead David to pride. There's many in the world who would charge Christians as being arrogant or thinking that they're better than other people because we're the ones who are saved.

God must love us more than he loves other people. And they say those sort of things when they're trying to accuse

Christians of being arrogant. David has the exact opposite reaction.

This actually produces humility in David. As we draw closer to God, just like David, we should grow more sensitive to sin, not more ignorant of it.

To be arrogant is what the wicked do. They become ignorant of the effects of sin.

They become arrogant and haughty and boastful and prideful and say, my sin's not that big of a deal. My sin's not that.

Christians who acknowledge the sinfulness of sin, the deadly plague of what sin is, that's not haughty and that's not prideful.

That's becoming sensitive to sin. That's expressing a humility in ourself that our sin is offensive to a holy

God, which leads to humility. It leads us to recognize that we in and of ourself are also wicked.

That if left to our own devices, that we would be the ones who are thrown away, right along with the lot of the wicked, that we would be the ones that God abhors, that we would be the ones that God hates if it were not for his grace and his mercy.

David does not excuse himself in the Psalm by saying, yeah, in comparison to the wicked,

I'm pretty great. I'm righteous. I always do everything right. I'm different than the wicked.

I'm a good person. He doesn't say any of that. David pleads for mercy because he's showcasing to us that a relationship with God is not based on our individual merit and our status and our whatever else.

It's based on the holiness of God, the mercy of God, and the grace of God. David pleads for mercy in verse seven.

He says, but as for me, I've just talked about the wicked and I'm confident that God is going to destroy the wicked.

He's going to blow them up in his holy righteous wrath. I got that. But as for me, verse seven says by your abundant, loving kindness,

I think David here was straining for words to talk about how kind God is. He's abundantly loving, kind by your abundant, loving kindness and mercy.

I will enter the house of God at your holy temple. I will bow in reverence to you.

Do you see what David is resting in? He's not resting in his performance. He's not resting in his character.

He's not resting in his ability. He's not resting in his morality. He's not resting in any thing at all that has to do with him.

He's resting in God's kindness. He's resting in God's ability to take a sinner like him who wants to repent, who is, who's eager to repent, who hates his sin, but cannot stop sinning that God will be merciful to that contrite wretch that David is and that he will assist him and help him in his abundant mercy to be able to enter into the house of God and worship.

The juxtaposition that David is making between himself and the wicked is that the wicked have no desire whatsoever to repent.

They have a fundamental hatred of God. They have a God complex themselves in the fact that they think that they are the ones who are in charge of their life and in control of everything.

So therefore, they're idolaters. And David is saying, I know how sinful I am. I know how broken

I am. I need God's mercy and God's grace. That's where David is saying that he will be among those who are rescued.

He can confidently say that because he's not resting in his ability or his performance. He's resting in God.

That's the difference between the righteous and the wicked. The wicked are wicked because of what they do. The righteous are righteous because of what

God does. That's the difference. Again, David pleads for mercy.

By your abundant, loving kindness, I will enter into your house. By no other means will

I enter into your house but by your abundant, loving. We see this sort of juxtaposition of the wicked and the righteous again in the

New Testament. The New Testament is so helpful for us as Christians to define these categories for us.

And we see this example in a parable that Jesus teaches us about the Pharisee and the tax collector.

The Pharisee who comes to God in prayer, again, this is a great example for Psalm 5 because we're talking about prayer.

And he says, God, I thank you that I'm not like these other men, robbers, evildoers, adulterers, tax collectors.

I fast twice a week and I give a tenth of all I get. Amen. Thank you, God. And then he moves on.

The tax collector, on the other hand, doesn't pray like that. The tax collector is not arrogant or boastful, deceitful.

He's not a liar like the Pharisee who embodies so perfectly what David says in Psalm 5.

It's uncanny. But the tax collector, the poor tax collector, doesn't deny any of that.

He is a liar. He is a fraud. He is a cheat. He is a steal. He's everything and more that should condemn him and damn him before a holy

God. And all he says is, God have mercy on me. I'm a sinner. And Jesus tells us,

I tell you the truth that this man, the tax collector, rather than the other, which is the Pharisee, went home justified before God.

For everyone who exalts himself, as David says, the wicked do, they will be humbled.

And he who humbles himself will be exalted. It's Luke 18, 11 through 14.

Theologian named Craigie, who wrote a great commentary on the book of Psalms, he said it like this, though evil persons are excluded from God's presence because of their sin, it does not follow that the psalmist is admitted into the presence of God by the virtue of his own goodness.

The psalmist interest into God's house would be based only upon the abundance of God's loving kindness.

That is to say, it was only God's grace and covenant love towards his people, which made entrance into his presence even remotely possible.

David is not puffed up with pride like the wicked. And that's the reason he can say that God is confidently,

I can confidently say that God is going to deliver me because he's trusting in the grace and mercy of God.

And God will be gracious and merciful. That's David's confidence.

The third section of a good biblical lament is called a petition. You've entered into the presence of God and you've acknowledged who

God is. You've also in your confidence, you've acknowledged who you are and how you're a center in need of God's saving grace.

Then he moves on to discuss his particular petition. The first petition comes in verse eight.

The second petition comes in verse 10. This is what the first petition says. Over half of the psalm is spent preparing

David for his very first petition. He spent most of his time preparing himself in the presence of God before he even asked

God to do a single thing. And the thing that he asked God to do is rooted in humility saying,

Lord, I need you. Lead me in your righteousness because of my foes.

Make your way straight before me. Help me to go on the path, the wise path that you want me to go.

Help me to make decisions that are consistent with your will. Help me to live in such a way that I am righteous and I'm not living like the wicked.

Help me, Lord, to be clean and upright before you and in your presence. Help me to repent whenever I fall short.

David's first petition is not actually for the situation that he's facing.

His first petition is about his attitude on the way that he would face it, that he would face it in righteousness, hiding in the shadow of God's righteousness, that he would face it with wisdom.

That's David's first petition. We'll come to his second petition in just a moment because that's in verse 10. The fourth section, again, we'll go back to his final petition in just a moment.

The fourth section of a typical lament is the actual lament itself. It's the acknowledgement of our need for God's deliverance.

And this is what he says. This is why David has come into the presence of God. This verse, number nine, is the reason why

David is crying, praying with words, and also praying with moanings and groanings that are too deep for even words.

This is the reason that David is on his knees, which is verse nine. And he says, there is nothing reliable in what the wicked say.

Their inward part is destruction itself. Their throat is an open grave. They flatter with their tongue.

David had been betrayed over and over again by wicked people who were unreliable in the things that they said to him, who showcased their own destruction in the counsel that they gave him.

He even says that their throat is an open grave. Think about how serious that is, that they give you smooth advice that will lead you to an open grave.

David is saying that if you follow the wicked, then you will be led down a path of destruction.

So he's coming to God. He's saying, I don't want to follow them. I don't want to listen to their words. I need you.

That's the first petition. I need you to order my steps in righteousness. I need you to make your way straight before me because I don't want to trust in their words.

I don't want to trust in their plans. I don't want to trust in their devices. I don't want to trust in them. This is what he's saying.

Deliver me from that in your righteousness, because I know they're not reliable and I can't trust them and I can't follow them, which leads to his second petition where he says, hold them guilty.

Oh God. Hold them guilty. Oh God, by their own devices and let them fall in the multitude of their transgressions.

Thrust them out for they are rebellious against you. David's second petition is the first imprecatory prayer in all of the

Psalms. This is an imprecatory prayer is where you pray and evoke a curse upon God's enemies.

David is vexed with anger because he does not want to fall into the trap of the wicked.

He wants with all his heart to follow God and the only thing that he can say is

God condemn them in their sin, which is really, really hard for modern listeners where we think, how could

David pray that? How could God sanction a prayer like that? How could God be blessed in a prayer like that?

God condemn them. Well, we have to first understand that David is probably one of the most forgiving of the biblical heroes of the faith.

He's, he's betrayed. He's lied to, he's manipulated.

There's so many evidences of David being treated so poorly by everyone around him.

And yet David continues to seek the Lord and seek his face. That's probably one of the main reasons why the

Bible calls him a man after God's own heart, because David is so patient.

So he's not just run out of patience and throwing a temper tantrum. Like God condemned the wicked. It's not that.

His prayer concern is that, that the wicked have rebelled against a holy God and they're leading people astray by their words.

They're leading people down into an open grave. He's concerned that the wicked are going to lead

God's people astray. So he wants God to, to do away with them. He wants God to condemn them.

He doesn't see a single shred of evidence that they have repented of their sin, that they want to repent of their sin.

No, their throats are open graves. Like Romans one says, there's no one, or Romans three, there's no one righteous, not even one.

They're liars. They're manipulators. They want to destroy God's people. And David is saying that they ought to be condemned for their sin.

Now, the question that we need to ask ourself is when we grow closer to God, do we have a heightened sensitivity to sin like David has?

Do we have a heightened anger over the wickedness and evil in the world?

Do we have a heightened humility about our own evil and wickedness? A heightened appeal to God's mercy and a desperation for the savior?

Do we have those things? And also a thing that we need to consider is do we pray prayers like this?

Because these are biblical prayers and precatory prayers. Do we pray like this?

I'll give you an example of, of how this could, could play out. Everyone has heard me talk about Joel Osteen before.

Joel Osteen is this smiling, happy, motivational speaker who calls himself a pastor in Lakewood, Texas.

They meet in the old Houston Rockets arena. He peddles a false gospel of health, wealth, and prosperity.

His ministry is, is inspired by Satan itself. And I abhor his ministry.

I hope his ministry collapses to the ground. I hope the building that they are leading people astray in crumbles under the weight of an earthquake.

I pray to God that no one gets hurt. But I hope, and I pray that the ministry of Joel Osteen, the ministry of Bethel, and the ministry of these godless churches would end.

I pray that God would condemn their ministries. And the reason that I can pray that prayer is because those ministries are leading

God's people astray. They're arrogant, they're boastful, they're prideful, and they're wicked. And they're leading real people astray by their false gospel.

And there's a godly necessity to hate that sort of wickedness.

We pray for their repentance because we're not God. We ask God, would you please allow

Joel Osteen to repent, step down because he's not qualified as a pastor, and give back all the money that he's taken and hidden away in bathroom walls?

Would you, would you cause him to repent? Would you cause Benny Hinn and his false gospel presentation to repent?

Would you cause Kenneth Copeland to repent? Would you cause Todd White to repent of his charades?

We pray that in earnestness. We pray that with urgently. We pray that persistently.

We pray that expectantly. But at the same time, we also pray that if those men do not repent, that God would wipe away their ministry off the face of the earth.

That God would make it rubble so that everyone who passes by those buildings would look and say, this is what happens when you defy the living

God. We pray that because we have a passion for the holiness of God.

We have a zeal for the righteousness of God. And we have a desire to see

God glorified and not defamed. Those ministries defame the living God. And they lead

God's people astray. And you can start to understand why, why

David was so passionate about praying against his enemies because it was rooted in the holiness of God.

A proper lament doesn't end with the lament though. And that's a key point that I need us to understand.

We come into the presence of God, acknowledging who he is in confidence. We acknowledge that God will do what he said he's going to do.

We also give our petitions to God boldly, urgently, persistently, expectantly.

Yes. And we also lament. And we with tears acknowledge that this grievous thing is happening in the world.

And we want God to intervene. We want God to destroy the wicked. We want God to cause repentance to come to those who are confused and who are leading people astray.

We pray for all of those things. But at the end of the day, we don't stay in our anxieties. We don't stay in our depression.

We don't stay in our tears. We don't stay in our pain. We stand up from our prayer with joy and with gladness, knowing who

God is. In the example that I gave earlier about Joelstein, the wrong way to pray would be in anger to pray all those things and then stand up frustrated, walking away from the situation with your fist clenched tightly in your teeth, gritting as fiercely as they possibly can.

And you saying, I really hope God destroys that ministry. That's the wrong way to end your prayer. I do hope that God ends the ministry of Joelstein.

I do hope that God ends the ministry of false prophets and pagans who are leading God's people astray.

But that's the wrong way to end your prayer. You don't end your prayer that way. You end your prayer with joy and who

God is. Look at what verse 11 through 12 says. But let all who take refuge in you be glad and let them sing, ever sing for joy.

And may you shelter them that those who love your name may exult in you.

For it is you who blesses the righteous man, O Lord. You surround him with favor as with a shield.

David cannot end his prayer without acknowledging who God is. And this is where we get to the gospel, because David's not righteous.

We're not righteous. We've done so much that we deserve to be destroyed right along with the wicked, right along with the

Osteens, right along with everyone else. We are wicked. We have disobeyed God. Our only hope is in the gospel that Jesus Christ came and he died the death that we should have died because of our sin.

He lived the life that we should have lived in righteousness, and he shared that righteousness with us. He deposited his righteousness in us, taking our sinfulness from us so that in this two part work of justification,

God takes away our sin and gives us Jesus's righteousness so that we now can be glad in Christ.

When David says, let all who take refuge in you be glad, he's saying that we can be glad in Christ when he's saying, let them ever sing for joy.

David is anticipating a day when our sins will be forgiven. And David doesn't live to see this moment.

His son doesn't live to see this moment. His son's son doesn't live to see this moment. But David knows that there's going to be a day when

God's people are going to be forgiven and they're going to sing for joy in Jesus Christ. He knows that there's a day that their only shelter is not going to be in their lackluster performance.

Their only shelter is not going to be in their broken religion. Their shelter is going to be in Christ, who's going to have a stand clothed in his robes of righteousness, standing in his shadow, protected from the fiery darts of Satan because of him.

David knows that one day we're going to be able to exalt in the name of God because of Jesus Christ, that we're going to be blessed and we're going to be called righteous because of Christ.

He knows that one day God's people are going to have a never ending eternal favor given to us because of our relationship with Jesus Christ.

And he knows that we're going to be secure forever in the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

David is looking forward as he always does. He doesn't stand up and say, well, I can just be glad and happy because my situation is not so bad.

No, his situation brought him with groaning and tears and pain to the throne of God.

His situation is breaking him and crushing him and frustrating him. He's not getting up in some sort of placation saying, oh, my situation is not that bad after all.

No, he's looking forward to the day when God in the flesh will come and make all things new.

He's he's not trying to find hope in his situation. He's finding hope in the savior who's going to make him glad and sing for joy and give shelter and give him favor and make him blessed.

That is what David is ultimately hoping in. He can come into the presence of God in proper invocation because of Christ.

He can come into the presence of God, confident that God himself will deliver

David from all of his trials. He can come into the presence of God, pleading his petitions, knowing that one day

Christ will take those petitions and he will stand and intercede before us before the throne of God, along with the spirit who will intercede for us, right with us, in us, in dwelling us.

He can come with his laments, knowing that God will wipe away every tear and break every curse and break every chain because Christ will do those things.

And he can come and he can stand up from his prayer and he can walk away with a song in his heart, not because of him and not because of his situation, not because of his brokenness, but because of Christ.

That's the confidence that David has. A future -oriented confidence that you and I now have as a past -oriented confidence.

David looked forward to the cross. You and I look back to the cross, but we're all looking to the cross.

And when we do that, when we come into God's presence, we may be burdened by a million different things.

We may be burdened with brokenness and pain and rejection and enemies and wickedness and all sorts of things that cripple us.

We may not walk into the presence. We may scratch and claw our way into the presence of God.

But by the time that we're done, by the time that we've said our invocation, and by the time that we've acknowledged our confidence in God, by the time that we've shared our petitions, and by the time that we have cried and shared our lament, by the time we've done all that, we stand up in joy and gladness because of who

God is. This teaches us that prayer is not only our way of talking to God.

It's God's ministry to our soul. When we come to him, he ministers to us, and we leave different.

There's a famous story, and we'll close with this, of Martin Luther. He's on his way to Augsburg to appear before one of the cardinals, who's basically going to accuse him of being a heretic, and he's going to have to defend all of his ideas that were heresy, which in fact were not heresy at all.

But the Catholic Church, being heretics themselves, were going to put Martin Luther on trial for being a heretic.

And there's this story of when he's on the road, one of the cardinal's servants is taunting him and saying to him, where are you going to find shelter,

Martin? Where are you going to find shelter if your patron, the elector of Saxony, that's the one who was protecting

Luther, if he deserts you, where are you going to find protection and shelter then?

And without a hesitation, Martin Luther said, I will find my shelter under the canopy of heaven.

The same is true for you and I today. Under the canopy of Jesus Christ, we find our shelter, we find our hope, we find our deliverance.

And knowing that brings us exceeding gladness and joy. Now as we close, we're going to go into a time of prayer.

We're going to go into a time of invocation, where we enter into the presence of God and we acknowledge who

God is and we thank God for who he is. Then we're going to go into prayers of confidence, knowing that God can and will deliver us from the things that we face.

From there, we'll go into a time of petition, where we'll actually acknowledge to God the things that we're facing in this life and the hurts and the pains and the struggles that we're facing.

Then from there, we'll go into a time of lament, showcasing the sorrow that we have over these things and the brokenness and the hurt and the pain that we feel over these things.

But in the end, we will stand up together and we will praise

God because God has not abandoned us or forsaken us. In Jesus Christ, God will deliver us and has delivered us and will forever deliver us.