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Psalm 5 – From Where Do You Get Your Direction?

August 15, 2010 at 7:15 PM Leave a comment

Psalm 5

¹Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my meditation.

²Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray.

³My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.

⁴For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee.

⁵The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity.

⁶Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing: the LORD will abhor the bloody and deceitful man.

⁷But as for me, I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy: and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple.

⁸Lead me, O LORD, in thy righteousness because of mine enemies; make thy way straight before my face.

⁹For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; their inward part is very wickedness; their throat is an open sepulchre; they flatter with their tongue.

¹⁰Destroy thou them, O God; let them fall by their own counsels; cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions; for they have rebelled against thee.

¹¹But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice: let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them: let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee.

¹²For thou, LORD, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield. (KJV)

Take a good look at the Psalm quoted above.  Psalm 5 was written by David at a time in his life when he felt overwhelmed, possibly during the situation with his son, Absalom.  It may seem at first glance that David is being a bit “uppity” with God (vv. 1-2).  It is almost as if he is demanding God to hear his prayer.  That is not the case.  He quickly admits to the fact that God is a God who takes no delight in evil at all.  David also took no delight in evil.

Now, we know that the situation with his son Absalom, was a direct result of David’s sin, first committing adultery with Bathsheba, and then attempting to cover it by having her husband Uriah, killed.  Because of these sins, the die was cast and the situations would work themselves out.  This is in spite of the fact that David had received God’s full forgiveness.  It is no different for any of us.  If we sin by involving ourselves in something as terrible as what David did, the consequences will remain.  If you say you are a Christian, yet you drink, and then get in a car to drive home, you may wind up killing someone in the process.  If you do kill someone, God will likely not raise that person from the dead, nor will He reduce or eliminate any potential jail time that you would be faced with as the criminal.  God will most certainly forgive you judicially, but He has no responsibility to eradicate the natural consequences of your actions.

This is the way it was with David.  Though David sinned terribly, God forgave him.  Though David had done things that could not be undone, God was still with him.  We cannot condemn David, unless we are willing to condemn ourselves.  David, having sinned, and asked for forgiveness, was now right with God.  He was able to continue in his relationship with God a wiser and humbler man, who was also a king.  He realized that he was not above sinning.  He realized how much more he needed to rely on God, which is something he had either not realized, or forgotten.

Because of the spiritual growth in David’s life, he now understood what it meant to hate sin, to utterly despise it, not only because of the consequences of it, but because of how much of an affront it is to God.  In verse 3, David states that every morning he will pray to God, and he will look up to Him.  He will begin his day in prayer, time spent with God, communing with Him, meditating on His Word, and learning to become more like Him in character.

Beginning in verse 5, David begins pointing out the differences between the righteous and the unrighteous.  No one who is unrighteous will be able to stand in God’s presence.  In fact, it is clear from Scripture, that God – while He knows everything that goes on in the hearts of all people – will ultimately send to the unrighteous what they deserve, and that is judgment.  The foolish person is unable to stand in God’s presence.  God hates those who work iniquity.  In other words, God not only hates evil deeds, but hates those who commit them and encourage others to do the same.  Hate is a strong word here and we tend to think of this word in emotional terms.  Hate is not necessarily an emotion for God.  It is part of His justice, which directly connects to His holiness.  David, as opposed to the worker of iniquity, wants to do everything he can to please God.  He is fully on God’s side, not his own, any longer.  He has given up all claim to his own life, realizing that there is nothing of any worth unless it involves doing God’s will with the right attitude.

In the last few verses of this short Psalm, David reiterates to God that he will spend the rest of his life being sold out to God and His purposes.  David understands that the only reason he is able to walk into the Lord’s presence is due solely to God’s blessing – a multitude of blessing!  This speaks of God’s love.  This speaks of God’s desire to draw us to Him.  Notice also that David speaks of worshiping God in HIS (God’s) fear, not his own.  He says that he will worship God in God’s fear.  What does that mean?  Simply put, it means that David recognizes that there should be a healthy fear of God even though we are part of His family, having been adopted through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.

Now, in spite of the fact that Christ had not been physically born, lived sinlessly, or died on Calvary’s cross, David still belonged to God.  Why?  Because David’s faith was evident.  He believed God, just as Abraham had believed God (and was counted righteous).  We are made righteous as soon as we evidence belief in Jesus Christ.  This faith of ours, is received gladly by God and because of it, He is able to provide salvation for us.  This is how a person is born again, or born from above (John 3).  David’s faith in God was just as sufficient then as our faith is today.  The cross of Christ is always before God since He exists outside of time.  The cross-work of Christ is not a one-time event that took place 2,000 years ago from where we are today.  It is always before God, a constant reminder of what Jesus did to make salvation available to all, whether they are before the cross took place in time, or after it.

In verse 8, David pleads with God to lead him in straight paths.  David wanted nothing more than to do God’s will from the heart, because he knew that is what pleased God.  This is what David wanted to do.  This is the sign of a great leader.  No leader is perfect.  All fail at times.  If you consider the many leaders this world has had, it is easy to separate the great leaders from the not-so-great.  A leader either follows his own plan, or submits himself to the Lord to follow God’s.

In today’s world, we have leaders and politicians who strive to be leaders.  They want to lead their nation, but to where?  Most want to lead their nations down a path that they themselves have created.  They believe that they have the answers, that they have chosen the best path, that the people over which they lead (or rule in some cases) will benefit greatly because of their insight, vision, and effort on their part.

Adolph Hitler was a great leader who had a plan.  The plan was to rule the world.  What made him great was his ability to captivate an entire nation, making them one, united in purpose, his purpose.  Under Hitler’s leadership, Germany would rule the world.  There have been others from as far back as Nimrod in Genesis, to the Caesars, to Mussolini, and too many others to name.  It is difficult to find a leader from history where God’s will was the firm desire of his heart.

Here in America, we have a leader who has eschewed Christianity and publicly embraced Islam.  While he may believe that he is doing Allah’s bidding, he is doing his own.  President Obama is not the leader that this country needs, but it may be that God has decided that this is the leader we will have for now, in order to show us the futility of being lazy.  Have we been lazy with God?  Have we simply gotten used to living in America and always having a house, a car, a job, or education?  Have we gotten used to living in a Democracy, where the freedom we enjoy goes beyond anything people enjoy in any other part of the world?

I am not convinced that President Obama is here to stay, meaning I do not believe that he is intended to be a second term president.  Neither am I convinced that he should finish his current term.  If Christians (and I’m talking about authentic Christians here, not merely those who profess to be Christians and believe themselves to be Christians because they attend a church, and use Christian-sounding verbiage), will take the time to get on their knees, it may well be that God will respond in a way that will bring the resignation of President Obama.  It’s not unheard of either, since President Nixon resigned after the pressure of Watergate became too much.

I am becoming convinced that God has allowed President Obama to become president to grab the attention of Christians everywhere.  We have become too complacent.  We have come to accept the status quo.  I believe God is literally shaking us up, so that we will realize our need to draw close to Him.  He wants us to be able to say with David that we will come to Him every morning, and in fear, we will worship Him.

Why does God allow persecution?  Why does God allow hardships to occur in the life of Christians?  Why does God often place us in situations that require us to cry out to Him?  Aside from the fact that He does these things for His glory, there is only one answer that I can see.  He allows these things because He knows that without persecution, without hardships, without troubles, we will (and DO) become complacent.  We will stop seeing our need for God.  We will cease reading His Word.  We will put off praying, not intentionally, but because we “will get to it later.”

Dear brothers and sisters in the Lord, God has not vacated His throne.  He has not pulled away from the happenings here on earth.  He has not left us in the dark.  While it is true that during the Tribulation, it will appear as if God has left the earth, that will not be the case.  Even now, as we move closer to the beginning of the Tribulation, things are going to heat up and Christians will feel the heat.  That is a very good thing, because it proves to us that God is providing these situations in order that we would draw close to Him.  However, I do not believe He wants us to draw close to Him merely for the purpose of being close to Him.  I believe He wants us to get close to Him so that we will know His mind and the only way we can know His mind is through meditation on His Word and through prayer.

Does God want President Obama – a Muslim in the White House?  I believe He ALLOWED it certainly, but I do not believe He wanted it to happen.  He allowed it and is using it to shake us awake so that we will begin to see at least to some degree, what it will be like for those living inside the Tribulation period.  So what would happen if all of us prayed?  What would happen if all of us drew close to Him?  What would happen if we stormed the gates of heaven with our requests to cause Obama to resign?  He can still say no.  He can say that He will not do that because that is not His will or plan.  Have we lost anything?  No, we have lost nothing at all.

For as long as President Obama remains in office, I believe Christians have an obligation to pray for the man’s safety.  Without Christians earnestly praying for the man, harm could come to him.  In fact, during his campaign, security for him more than doubled and in fact, he and only one other individual had security during his run for office.  We do not need anything to happen to President Obama.  We do not need some crazed maniac deciding to do something that will cause harm to our president and the first family.  What we need is for God to simply remove him from office, either by not getting him re-elected, or having him resign prior to the next elections in 2012.

But there is something else that Christians need to wake up to, and that is the fact that people are dying daily and going to hell.  That is a very scary proposition.  You are breathing one moment, and then you have stopped breathing the next.  That person who just died, unless they were in relationship with Him during their life here, will continue not being in relationship with Him there.  We need to understand that God wants us to know Him and He wants us to know His will.

Do you recall the time when Joshua led the campaign against Ai, which failed miserably (cf. Joshua 7)?  It is a remarkable passage and we can easily miss important details if we do not pay attention.  The people of God had been told that they were not to take any of the spoils, but to destroy everything before God.  They were not to be “infected” by anything that the pagans had in their homes that may have been used to worship other gods.

Joshua 7 starts out with, “But the children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing: for Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed thing: and the anger of the LORD was kindled against the children of Israel,” (Joshua 7:1 KJV).  We ultimately learn that the fault lies with Achan, yet the entire Israelite camp suffered the defeat.  God always looked at Israel as ONE entity, not a bunch of individual people.  It was not that He could not see the individual.  It was that He chose to see them all as one.  They ALL shared in the victory and they all shared in the defeat.

What is absolutely fascinating to me is what we read in verses 6 – 9:

^“6And Joshua rent his clothes, and fell to the earth upon his face before the ark of the LORD until the eventide, he and the elders of Israel, and put dust upon their heads.

⁷And Joshua said, Alas, O LORD God, wherefore hast thou at all brought this people over Jordan, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us? would to God we had been content, and dwelt on the other side Jordan!

⁸O LORD, what shall I say, when Israel turneth their backs before their enemies!

⁹For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land shall hear of it, and shall environ us round, and cut off our name from the earth: and what wilt thou do unto thy great name?”

Here we see Joshua tearing his clothes, and throwing himself before the Lord.  He needed to know what had happened.  Why did the Israelites suffer defeat?  Why had God turned His back on them?  When problems happen in our life, that is the FIRST thing we should do, but it is often the last.

God allowed Joshua to vent for a bit, and then stopped the whole process with one statement.  “¹⁰And the LORD said unto Joshua, Get thee up; wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face? Israel hath sinned, and they have also transgressed my covenant which I commanded them: for they have even taken of the accursed thing, and have also stolen, and dissembled also, and they have put it even among their own stuff.”  Because sin had been committed, God was essentially saying to Joshua, “Look, why are you complaining to me?  I was ready and willing to help you gain the victory, but sin stopped me.  Find out where it is in the camp and DEAL with it.  THEN come back to me.”

The question to us is this:  are we, as authentic Christians, been guilty of unconfessed sin before God?  I can tell you from personal experience that I have NOT prayed enough to God.  I have not been on my knees enough.  I have not poured out my heart before Him, nor have I asked Him to set my path straight before me!  In other words, I have grown complacent and because of it, I have become guilty of not availing myself of God’s wisdom, His love, or His direction.

It may well be that Obama is president because that is exactly what God wants.  It may also be that he is president because that is how He is calling attention to the problem we have as Christians that keeps us from praying enough, sacrificing enough, offering ourselves enough, or evangelizing enough.  I don’t know about you, but I have had enough of myself!  Like David, I am going to meet with God in the morning, and expect Him to lead me throughout the day in a straight path of undeniable reality.

I am going to ask God to help me pray for the lost of this world and to work to introduce the lost to Jesus.  I am going to ask that He remove our current president through resignation or at the very least, not allow him to be re-elected.  I am going to ask Him that my life will glorify Him in all things, including what I think and say.

Prayer is the glue that keeps the Christian’s life connected to God.  We need to actively pursue Him and we can only do that through prayer.  The times are upon us when quick, short “thanks for lunch” prayers are not going to do anything.  We must endeavor to spend time with Him so that He can work in and through us.

Whether the Tribulation is here tomorrow, next year, or not for another ten years, there are things God wants to accomplish on this earth.  He has chosen to do the lion’s share of it through the Church.  If you are an authentic Christian, then you are part of the Church.  We then have an obligation to be completely available to God for whatever His purposes decree.  The only way we can move within the confines of His established will is through conscious prayer.

God will move among us.  He will work through us.  He will glorify Himself.  He will do these things and more IF we pray.  May the Lord teach us, in His wisdom, to become soldiers who never stop praying!  I want God to lead me, every moment of every day.  I have gotten so tired of trying to lead myself.  I want God to be glorified in and through me.  I want to be one who wins the battle in His strength through prayer.  We need to do it.  We need to start now.

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