Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to Psalm 19, and reading from
our text the last verse of that psalm, verse 14. Psalm 19 and verse 14. Let the words of my mouth and
the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord,
my strength and my redeemer. Psalm 19 and verse 14. In this psalm, the first part
of it is dedicated to setting forth the glory of God as shown
in the creation, in the firmament. and day by day. And then the
Samas, David, he goes from that to a desiring for himself those
spiritual blessings and a knowledge of God, and especially in being
kept from sin and from errors, even secret faults, those things
that we may not know of, or those others looking on they may not
perceive. And those sins, as he sets forth
in verse 13, which are presumptuous sins, they are sins with the
thought, well, I'm saved, God's people can't be lost. It doesn't
matter if I don't mortify that sin. It doesn't matter if I just
let that one go. It is a sinning against light
and a presuming upon the mercy of God in a deliberate way, thinking
that for some reason, whether because of what God has done
for us or because of what denomination we are in or some way it undermines
the warnings of God's word and we just go on and we sin just
presuming that some way we will escape the chastisement or punishment
or judgment due to those sins and he prays let them not have
dominion over me." We're all subject to those sins, but let
them not have dominion over us. And he testifies, if this be
the case, then shall I be upright, I shall be innocent from the
great or from great transgression. If we were to really walk as
if the Lord would mark every transgression on you, every thought
on you, every word in our tongue, then we would walk surely. And so, David, he goes on from
that to make the prayer of our text. Let the words of my mouth
and the meditation of my heart Be acceptable in thy sight, O
Lord, my strength and my Redeemer. Very often our meditation, if
we are walking in a presumptuous way, there will be some inward
thoughts of conspiring to walk in the way that our old nature
wants, and very often that then is put into words as well. And so we have, and I want to
look in three points this evening with the Lord's help. Firstly,
David's prayer. Let the words of my mouth and
the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord. David's prayer. And then secondly,
the importance of words. and meditation. Why? Why does
he make this the subject of his petition? And then thirdly, David's
profession. O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. Dear Thomas had a similar profession,
my Lord and my God. Well firstly, David's prayer. It is a great mercy that we have
in the Word of God many petitions, many prayers that are a pattern
for us and being the inspired Word of God, they show us in
that way what are acceptable and right words. I want to notice
some of the aspects, just a few, of this prayer of David. Firstly, as to whom he prayed,
O Lord, that is Jehovah, the God that he'd spoken of in the
earlier part of this psalm, the glory of God, the God that the
firmament showed his handiwork, the God that made heaven and
earth. We read in Jeremiah that the
gods that have not made the heavens and the earth let them perish
from underneath the heavens and the earth. Well, it's very clear
from this psalm that David's God, Jehovah, Lord as in capitals,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Triune God, is the God that
He has been speaking of in the psalm, that is in the heavens,
in the earth, day unto day is showing forth His glory, His
power. There's no nation, there's no
language or speech where their voice and the Lord's voice is
not known. And so it is vital for us that
we don't just pray, that we pray unto this God. There's many,
many in this world that would say that they pray, but they
pray to all sorts of gods. With the Masonic Lodge, not in
any way a Christian organization, There is a requirement that those
that belong to that, that they believe in God. But that God must not be defined. It must not be said that that
God is the God of the Bible, or the Lord Jesus Christ, but
those that joining it must believe in a God. And that is a thing
that is quite acceptable in the world. And even the children
of Israel, they had so many, the Lord chided them for the
amount of their gods that they had. And when Paul was at Mars
Hill, He found altars to all sorts of gods. And no doubt all
these gods, they were all prayed to. And then the altar to the
unknown God. It's vital that when we pray,
that we are coming to the one true God. In Ahab's time, king
of Israel, They went after Baal, the false god. And God sent a
famine through Elijah's word for three and a half years. And
then God called them to Mount Carmel to decide who was the
true god, Baal, or the God of Israel. And the trial was that
an altar was made, and the God that could kindle that altar
with fire from heaven in answer to prayer, that that was the
true God. Or Baal's altar was fast, and
in spite of all their cries and cutting themselves with lancets,
there was no answer, no fire from heaven. Elijah's altar was
then built, and to make sure there could be no accusation
of it being lit by man, there was a trench put about it, water
drenched that whole sacrifice. But in answer to Elijah's prayer,
that Israel might know who was the true God, and that he had
turned their hearts back again, the fire came from heaven. And unlike man's fires, if we've
ever tried to light a fire, especially a damp one, and we've tried and
tried and it's flickered and it's slowly gained heat and slowly
kindled, but this immediately was kindled Consumed the sacrifice,
the wood, the stones, and licked up the water and the dust from
the trench. You consumed everything. A fire
like none other. May be that you have seen a lightning
strike, or seen the after effect of it, or perhaps seen a video
of it. and how instant that is, in a
moment, and seeing that bolts of lightning and fire coming,
not from the earth up, but coming from heaven, the destruction
at what it hits. And the Lord demonstrated who
was the true and living God there, And if that was so, with the
children of Israel, God's chosen people, a people that had heard
of the Lord's mighty acts in Egypt, at the Red Sea, at Jordan,
they had seen the mighty acts of the Lord again and again,
yet still went back from Him. The Lord in mercy did turn their
heart back again, to the one true God. And may we hold fast
to this, especially in our day and in our generation. Men do
not like to be told that there is only one true God. But there is, and you and I will
never, ever find peace or comfort apart from that God, because
it is before Him that we must stand at the last judgment day. It is his law, sin is the transgression
of the law of God, not any God, but this God. And the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus is the redemption through this God's
provision. The only name given among men,
our Lord said, if you believe not that I am he, you shall perish
in your sins. And so where David prays is so
vitally important. And if there are those of us
here or any listening online and you've been praying to other
gods or not knowing to whom you pray, you pray to the God of
the Bible. the Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
the God that made heaven and earth and to no other. David was a man after God's own
heart and it was to the Lord he prayed, may we do the same. But David also then had a knowledge
that his words and thoughts were before God. That this God, to
whom he prayed, knew what his thoughts were. He knew what his
words were. It is David that penned Psalm 139. He says there, O Lord, thou hast
searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my down-sitting
and mine up-rising, thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my
lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is
not a word in my tongue, but lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. This is his testimony. You may
read at your leisure all that he sets forth in that psalm.
Beautiful psalm. But it's the knowledge of God,
the knowledge that God has of a person. Not just of David,
but everyone. All our thoughts, all our words,
are all known before God. And it's very evident from David's
prayer that he believed that, he knew that, he knew it to be
a fact. Do we? Are we aware of it? Do we know that our words, our
thoughts, they are all before God? But the third thing that's evident
in this prayer is that there are acceptable words and unacceptable
ones. There are acceptable meditations
or thoughts and ones that are not acceptable. We cannot just
utter anything, whether it be in prayer or in our lives. The
Word of God is very clear that even the thought of foolishness
is sin. And as we look in a moment, the
importance of words and meditation. But David was persuaded of this,
that they were weighty things. It was not something that could
just be dismissed as irrelevant or not part of our faith and
not something that was important. It's something that he desired
and made a matter of prayer that they be acceptable in the sight
of the Lord. The very fact that he is coming
before the Lord in prayer in this way tells us as well that he believes
that God, the God to whom he came, was
able to make his words acceptable and his meditation right. He is asking the Lord to do it
for him, which also implies he did not trust himself, did not
trust his own knowledge and own words, did not trust his own
thoughts. If we are mindful of our sinful
state by nature, and mindful of how our thoughts go hither
and thither every way, and think of how many words that we have
spoken that we wish we could bring back and take back, then
this prayer needs to be our prayer. And David was obviously persuaded,
may we be so too, that the God to whom he came could actually
influence in the work of the heart, and that is what is spoken
here, meditation of the heart we had this morning, concerning
the heart of man, what the heart is, a person's deepest feelings,
or their true personality, their mind, soul, spirit, The heart
is the center of something. And so there's not just a superficial
thing, but that which is, as our Lord said, that it flows
forth from the heart, out of the abundance of the heart, man
speaketh. And David was professing this
God had power over his heart, to influence it, to move it,
to make his words be acceptable, and even his meditation to be
so. There's many things that can
be told about our own faith and belief in our prayers. Or may we have prayer like David. We'll want to look then secondly
at the importance of words and meditation. I want to bring before
you the words of our Lord on this matter. In Matthew chapter
12 and from verse 36, the Lord says this, but I say unto
you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give
account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou
shalt be justified, and by thy words shalt thou be condemned. Justified is to be set free from
condemnation and the other way, by thy words thou shalt be condemned. The importance of words our Lord
says before his hearers, says before us in that account. Then we have the unpardonable
sin and what really that is in Luke chapter 12 again and verses
8 through to 12. He says, also I say unto you,
whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of Man
also confess before the angels of God. But he that denieth me
before men shall be denied before the angels of God. And whosoever
shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven
him. But unto him that blasphemeth
against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him. The sin
against the Holy Ghost is not that which is just thought. but
it's that which is spoken, that which is blasphemed. The Holy
Ghost, the Teacher of God, the Power of God, the Spirit of God,
the Inspirer of the Word of God, by whom the worlds were made,
and by whom God's presence is known and felt here below. The Lord said, as he ascended
up into heaven, I am with you always, even unto
the end of the world. Where the Spirit is, Christ is. Where Christ is, the Spirit is.
The great mystery of godliness, God, manifests in the flesh. And there's a distinction here
the Lord makes, and it is in the very free, voluntary, articulation,
the words and speaking against the Holy Ghost. We have a most
solemn illustration, as it were, of one's words being the means
of his condemnation. It was in the second book of
Samuel, chapter 1, after King Saul had been killed on Mount
Gilboa, and David was at Siglag. And then there was an Amalekite
came, and he brought the crown of Saul. And he testified, thinking
that David would give him a reward, that he had actually killed King
Saul, that King Saul had asked him said that as he was wounded,
would he slay him? And he saw that his life was
soon going to be taken anyway, so he slew him. And yet we know
from the Inspired Count that that was a lie, that was not
true. And David knew that, saw that actually he'd taken his
own life. He'd asked for his armor bearer
to do it, he would not do it. And from David's words to that
Amalekite, David perceived that actually that man was just looking
for a reward. Yes, he had been where King Saul
was, he'd got the evidence of it in his crown. And yet David
said to him, he said, that didst not thou fear to touch the Lord's
anointed and to slay him? And he said, Thy own words testify
against thee. And he asked his young men to
go and to slay him. And David took that man at his
own word, and he perished because of that which he said. We have
other examples as well. We think of in the New Testament
church with Ananias and Sapphira. Those that had been blessed in
the church had been selling their lands and giving to the poor. Ananias and Sapphira, they wanted
to be seen to be doing the same. But their own covetous heart,
they wanted to keep some of the money, so they sold their land,
and they made out to the apostles that they were giving all of
the money to the poor. In actual fact, they were keeping
back half. They could have rightly said
to him, we've sold the land, and we are keeping half of the
money, and we're giving the rest to the poor. And that would have
been acceptable and right. But they made out that they were
giving it all. And again, both of them were
struck dead. They had agreed together to deceive
the Holy Ghost. And again, Peter says, thou hast
not lied unto men, but thou hast lied unto the Holy Spirit. And it was God, Peter had no
power to take away their lives, It was God that struck them both
dead independently. And so it again is that their
very words were actually taken and they were condemned because
of those words. Then we have the testimony in
Romans 10, that it is in verse 10, with the heart that man believeth
unto righteousness, that with the mouth confession is made
unto salvation. It's not just enough, as it were,
to keep in the heart no confession of what God has done. Sometimes it will be those like
Joseph of Arimathea that are secret believers, But before
long, they must speak, they must come out, they can't hide it
within. And amazingly, it was when all
the other disciples fled, it was Joseph of Arimathea, a secret
disciple, the inspired word says, that then begged the body of
Jesus to take it down from the cross. And with him, who was
with her? Nicodemus, who before had come
to the Lord by night because of the other Jews. And here he
is openly now, coming. If we are of those who perhaps
are secret disciples, you know the Lord has wrought in your
heart, He's blessed you with faith, He's changed your heart,
He has worked there, but up to this time there's no confession,
no testimony. There's not a come and hear all
ye that fear God, and I'll tell what he had done for my soul.
The mouth has not confessed it. When one is baptized, they are
baptized on profession, of their faith. They're not baptized because
the church feels they're God's children. They're not baptized
because of the judgment of the church, but upon their profession. And we should accept those that
we meet with If they profess to be a Christian, a believer,
a follower of the Lord, we should accept that word testimony. Until we see in their life and
conduct those things that are totally inconsistent with a Christian
walk and conduct, we should accept that testimony. We shouldn't
have the thought, well, you say you're a Christian, you say you're
a believer, but until I have time enough to prove it, I won't
accept it. In effect, you're saying, I'll
be the judge of this, and I'll make judgment of it. Scripture
says, no, with the mouth, confession is made, and that's made before
God. And yes, we know there are many
that say, Lord, Lord, and will say at the last day, and the
Lord will say, depart from me, I never knew you. Depart from
me, all ye that work iniquity. And it's very evident that their
lives do not answer to their confession or to what their words
say. But the scriptures are very firm
on the importance of words and that which is actually spoken
and testified and it is very evident that David, the psalmist
in our text, he was very aware of this. David was the one, of
course, that dealt with the Amalekite He says, let the words of my
mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight,
O Lord. But what about our meditation? The Word says, as a man thinketh
in his heart, so is he. The thought of foolishness is
sin. But David, in many other psalms,
he speaks about that my meditation of him shall be sweet. And in the Night Watchers, he
meditates. We read of that in Psalm 63. When I remember thee upon my
bed and meditate on thee in the Night Watchers, really meditation
to a child of God is like with the clean beasts after they'd
eaten. Then they chewed the card. They brought up again what they
had eaten and had the second benefit again. All says to Timothy,
Meditate on these things. Give thyself wholly unto them. For in so doing thou shalt both
save thyself and them that hear thee. And so with the meditation,
if we are to really gain a benefit from what we read or what we
hear in the Lord's house, it is how we meditate and go over
that, thinking over these things, going over them, deeply thinking
over them in our hearts. There is the benefit. and the
help that he's gained through it. And so, in this second point,
the importance of words and of meditation. But then lastly,
David's profession. He says, O Lord, my strength
and my redeemer. There's two things that he testifies
what the Lord is. But with both of them, it is
mine. It's not someone else's, it's
his. Like we said of Thomas, my Lord
and my God. It's not someone else, like our
parents or sheltering beneath someone else. It is a personal
testimony. In some of our, or some of the
churches that we have dear brethren in, they have the practice that
the parents promise in the church, to bring up their children in
the fear of the Lord, and be subject also to the discipline
or admonition of the church in the bringing up of their children. But when those children get old
enough, then they take confession. And really the responsibility
is taken then from the parent to the child, and the child takes
on that responsibility themselves, and
it's done by confession, that is no longer, as it were, sheltering
beneath the parent, but they are on their own, in their own
right. Now quite in natural things,
as a child grows up, The young child, it's very evident that
all that they do is by the parent. They're so dependent upon that
parent. But as we get older, and especially
when we leave home or have our own home, then more and more
those responsibilities are directly on us. We are accountable ourselves. We can't shelter beneath someone
else. And so with a profession it's
so important that we be able to use the word my in whatever
we profess that the Lord is. So David has firstly my strength
or in the margin it is my rock, my rock, that is that which is
immovable. How many times it's set forth
in the Word how changeable we are, but the Lord does not change. Jesus Christ the same, yesterday
and today and forever. I am the Lord, I change not. Wherefore ye sons of Jacob, are
not consumed. And that rock, for the people
of God, they prove it so. And I hope some of us have proved
it so. That the God that first quickened
us, that blessed us, that helped us, that He is the same today
as He was 40 years ago. He has not changed. He can still
be depended upon, rested upon, lent upon, relied upon. He is the strength of the soul. Quite opposite from ourselves
in all our weakness, changeability, in all that we are, we see in
the Lord that He does not change. The eternal God is thy refuge
and underneath are the everlasting arms. It is a wonderful profession
and to those who feel their weakness and changeability is a great
thing to view our God as being our strength in this way. Sin
weakens Sin takes away our strength, takes away our ability to stand
even before man, takes away our ability to stand at the last
judgement. But when the Lord comes and the
Lord is our advocate, our saviour, then we can stand in Him. O Lord my strength, Where is
our strength? You know, sometimes we speak
of people and what their strengths are, the things they're good
at. But how oft we can lean on that,
rest in that, be confident in that. But with the Samas, to
have this profession, well, my strength is not in me. not in
my gifts, not in my resolutions, not in my righteousness, not
in self but outside of self, in the Lord. O Lord, my strength. And then he has this, and my
Redeemer. David had very clear views. of his greatest son, the Lord
Jesus Christ. In prophecy, if we return just
a few Psalms later on to Psalm 22, we read the very words of
our Lord that he spoke upon the cross. My God, my God, why hast
thou forsaken me? Those words the Lord uttered
upon Calvary. David saw and knew Christ's days,
same as what Abraham did. Those Old Testament saints, they
died in faith of what the Lord would do, that He would come
and that He would redeem His people. When our Lord was born,
Anna, while the Lord was but a babe, she looked upon Him and
she spoke of Him, of that babe, Jesus, to all them that looked
for redemption. in Jerusalem, redemption, to
be set free by the payment of a price. David had been set free. Whether this psalm was penned
before or after when he sinned in the matriarch with Bathsheba,
certainly we know that David knew that when Nathan said, Thou
shalt not die, when David confessed his sin, that the only reason
why he was not to die, not to perish eternally, the Lord had
died for his sin. And I believe he saw that in
time, the child that was to be born, God said would die, and
it did die. Not in judgment, but as a sign,
as it were, as a chastening. But also I believe David looked
right past that and could see that his offspring, the Christ,
when he came, he would die. And he would die because of his
sin. And in that he would redeem him
and save him. and that it would be the way
God had chosen that he could give David life. My Redeemer. David was a redeemed soul. How
vital for us to be able to know that we are a redeemed soul. That we have received eternal
life, the forgiveness of sins, that God has received perfect
satisfaction for all that was owed us and for all the debt
of our broken law, my strength and my Redeemer. The words of our mouth, acceptable
in the sight of the Lord. How acceptable that is when the
Lord works in a sinner's heart And that meditation and the words
goes from what may first be when he first began working in their
hearts, meditating terror, meditating the wrath of God, fearing what
was coming and what was due to them and because of their sin,
and the words that were then acceptable to God, confession
of sin, owning our sinnership, owning what we deserve. But how
acceptable when the Lord by His Spirit brings His pardoning love
and mercy, sets the soul free, gives them liberty, joy, faith
in believing that the Lord Jesus Christ has died upon Calvary's
tree, put away their sin, blotted out their transgression, that
when that is seen and that known, how acceptable are those words
in God's sight. How acceptable is the meditation
when that soul feels the lines are falling onto me in pleasant
places. I have a goodly heritage. The
Lord has answered my prayer. He's wrought in my heart and
the thoughts of peace and the blessed meditation of the Lord
and the prospect of heaven and the hope beyond the grave, it
fills the heart. And how acceptable when that
spills over into the words, and instead of those mournful utterances
and confessions, there's then those beautiful, blessed utterances
of assurance, of comfort, of joy, of the love of God in the
heart. I remember when my own mother
died at the age I am now, and I was 25 at the time, died of
cancer, And hearing her cries day after day, night after night,
open the ark and take me in. And she was crying and pleading
for mercy. She said, we've all gone the
wrong way. We've all sinned. We've all gone
the wrong way. All her utterances was of her
sin and her condemnation of need and her pleading for mercy. But
then the Lord appeared. And she testified, I am a miracle
of grace. She said, it's in the hymns,
and it is in hymn 158. A miracle of grace. And every
child of God is a miracle of grace. And she testified, beautiful,
beautiful. All the world would love him.
Yes, they would, if they saw what she was seeing in him. The
language of her mouth, what she It changed. It changed. And it will. And that is acceptable
to God. You might say that the same words, uttered in a different setting,
changes whether they're acceptable or not. The Lord knows those
souls He has blessed and favoured. And if they are testifying a
blessing when He hasn't blessed them, that's not acceptable. But if they are making out they're
not blessed when they have been blessed, that is not acceptable
either. Sin that is confessed and owned
before God, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just
to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness,
is acceptable unto God, but it is so acceptable and beautiful
when the Lord blesses, pardoned and forgives, that we are like
the leper that turned and gave glory to God, gave thanks to
God. If the Lord has blessed us, may
our lips show forth his praise. May our mouth truly are to those words that are unto
salvation, that seal the matter as it were. Out of the abundance
of the heart man speaketh, or as the Lord said concerning those
when he came into Jerusalem, if these should hold their peace,
the very stones would cry out. So may we have prayer, and may
we have a profession and words that are acceptable, meditation
acceptable. Let the words of my mouth and
the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight. In Thy sight, O Lord, my strength
and my Redeemer. Amen.