Turn with me if you would now
to Psalm 25. Psalm 25. I pray this will be
enjoyable to you. Studying this has been simply
meaning in simplicity, very, very simply enjoyable to me. I want to end our day today,
this day of worship that we've had together. I want to end it
with a prayer to our Lord that is stated very clearly in one
particular verse here. We're gonna look at this psalm.
We're gonna look at the whole psalm. It's a prayer of David,
but one verse summarizes the prayer so well. And I've preached
from this psalm many times. I love Psalm 25. This is truly
a wonderful, wonderful psalm. There are so many verses in this
psalm that are individual outlines within themselves. I preach so
many messages from just one verse here and there. It's just a wonderful
Psalm. But as we read down through this
tonight, you'll see that there are just full verses in here. But from this Psalm, I pray that
the Lord will send a message to us from the whole Psalm. And
I pray he'll comfort us from it. And I pray that he'll cause
us to truly pray this to our Lord from the heart. For our scripture reading, we
just read that the Lord said, don't use vain repetitions, which
is something I feel I do all the time. And don't do it for
any other reason than to get into your closet and to pour
out your heart and soul to your Lord. I pray the Lord will let
us get into our closet and pour out our heart and our souls to
Him. The summary is stated very clearly
here in verse 20, David crying out to the Lord in prayer. He
says, Oh, keep my soul and deliver
me. Let me not be ashamed for I put
my trust in thee. Now that's a prayer. That is
a prayer to end the day with. Oh, keep my soul. What a thing
to, from the depths of our hearts, cry out to our Lord. Oh, keep
my soul. He said, Father, all of them
that you gave to me, I've kept. Lord, please let me be one of
them. Please let me be one of them.
Oh, keep my soul. and deliver me, deliver me from
sin, deliver me from death, deliver me from this flesh, deliver me
from this world. Let me not be ashamed for I put
my trust in thee. My trust is in you. If our souls
are going to be kept, God is gonna have to keep them. If we
are going to be delivered, The blood of Christ is gonna have
to deliver us. The only way that we cannot be
ashamed is if Christ bore the shame for us. And the only way
we can put our trust in him is if he gives us the faith to do
it. He has to author it. He has to
perform it. He has to finish it. That's the
only way. So Lord, sincerely, we're crying to you. We are crying
to you. This is our prayer to you. Keep
us, deliver us, and spare us from the shame. All our hope
is in you. All our hope's in you. Right
here in the Psalms, you don't, well, you can turn back. Look
at Psalm 22. Psalm 22 is referred to as, The Psalm of the cross. You may
hear, hear people refer to Psalm 22 as the Psalm of the cross. Verse one says, my God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? Psalm 23 is referred to as the
Psalm of comfort. Verse one says, the Lord is my
shepherd. I shall not want. Psalm 24 is
referred to as the Psalm of the crown. Verse one says, the earth
is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and they that
dwell therein. It goes on down to say, open
the gates and the King of glory will come in. Psalm of the crown,
the cross, the comfort, the crown. Psalm 25 could be referred to
as the cry of every child of God. Every child of God, the
cry and the prayer of every child of God. Let's see what it is
by seeing what David prayed right here. And before I get into it,
I want to tell you, this is. I said I enjoyed the simplicity
of this and I pray that we all enjoy this. There was a man,
all I want to do is tell us what the Psalm is saying. It's all
I want to do. Tell us what the Psalm is saying.
There was a man many years ago who accused a very dear preacher
of the gospel. He was trying to slander him,
but he ended up honoring him and complimenting him. But he
accused him saying, In your preaching, all you're doing is telling us
what the scripture says. He said, that's all you're doing.
You're just telling us what the scripture says. Well, what else
would we want to know? You, you preach that to a child of
God and he'll say, amen. Thank you, brother. Well, that's
all I want to do. I want to, I want us to know
that going into this. I just want to tell us what this scripture
says. And, um, I pray the Lord will bless it.
I pray he'll bless it. All right, let's look at it together.
Verse one. David said, unto thee, O Lord,
do I lift up my soul. And may this be our prayer. As
we go through this, may we be able to say with him, unto thee,
O Lord, do I lift up my soul. There is one place of safety. and redemption and deliverance
for my soul. And that's in the hands of the
Lord, my God. There's only one place. From
the cross as our substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ said this
same thing. He said, Father, into thy hands,
I commend my spirit. Same thing. There's only one
place of safety, one place of deliverance. Verse one says unto
thee, oh Lord, do I lift up my soul? Verse two says, oh my God,
I trust in thee. Let me not be ashamed. Let not
my enemies triumph over me. We have many physical enemies
and we have many spiritual enemies in principalities and in powers
and in places of darkness. That is true. We have many, many
enemies, not only out there, but in here. In here. We have a great enemy
who's trying to pull darkness over us, trying to hide these
things from us, trying to lull us away from these things. Lord,
don't let my enemies triumph over me. We have enemies physically,
we have enemies spiritually, but honestly, the two greatest
enemies I have are right here in my own flesh. It's my mind
and my heart. These two places are the factories
of my sin. This is where my sin is made,
right here. Lord, please don't let my enemies
triumph over me. Please, please, I need you to
triumph over them. Verse three, yea, let none that
wait on thee be ashamed. Let them be ashamed, which transgress
without cause. Meaning with rejection for the
remedy, transgression is sin. It means with no conscience,
an empty conscience toward the God that they're sending again.
And I'll tell you who that is. All of us, all of us. if God doesn't cause us to cry
out for mercy and forgiveness. All of us, if he doesn't have
mercy on us, every one of us. Verse four, he said, show me
thy ways, O Lord. Teach me thy paths, thy ways,
thy paths. There is a way that seems right
to me in my flesh, but the end of it is destruction. Show me
thy way. Show me thy way in everything.
Everything pertaining to my life. Show me your way. Show me your
path. All of my ways and all of my
paths are sin. Let me recognize that, Lord.
You know, everything that we think would be best for us, every
person here can go into your own situation. This is how I
think my life would best go. Show me your way. Teach me your
path. Verse five. He said, lead me
in that truth and teach me for thou art the God of my salvation
on thee do I wait all the day. You're the God who saved me. You're the God who saved me.
Please lead me. and teach me. I'm waiting on
you, he said. I'm waiting on you. On thee do
I wait all the day. Verse six, he said, remember,
oh Lord, thy tender mercies and thy loving kindnesses, for they
have been ever of old. Please remember mercy and grace
toward me. Even me, even me, let thy blessings
fall on me. Please remember mercy. Please
remember your grace to me. Verse seven, remember not the
sins of my youth. Don't you beg that of the Lord. Please don't remember the sins
of my youth. We could go on and say, please
don't remember my sins of today. I had plenty of them in my youth.
I have plenty of them right now. Verse seven, remember not the
sins of my youth nor my transgressions. According to thy mercy, remember
thou me for thy goodness sake. Oh Lord. Remember not my sin
by remembering your own blood. Mercy in your own blood. Every
soul that's been covered in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ,
this is what God the Father has said. We've read it many times. He has said, every soul that's
in the blood, He said, their sins and iniquities will I remember
no more. No more, for His goodness sake. That's the reason why it's for
his goodness sake. I've read this article to you. A very dear preacher of the gospel
wrote this a long time ago. He said, you say you are unworthy
of the least of God's mercies. Aren't you glad Christ is worthy
and that the redemption he accomplished was for the unworthy. You say
you have no goodness or merits to claim. Aren't you thankful
God accepts sinners based on the goodness and merits of His
Son? You say the law affords you no hope. Right you are. But the gospel declares that
the mercy and grace of God is freely given to sinners because
of the doing and the dying of His dear Son. This is the only
salvation worth having and the only one worthy to be proclaimed.
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. All because
of his goodness sake, all for his goodness sake. Verse eight,
good and upright is the Lord. Therefore will he teach sinners
in the way. God will teach his people Christ
the way. The way Lord put us in the way. He said, I am the way he'll teach his people the way
God will teach his people Christ. How wonderful is that? God will
teach his people Christ. They'll grow up with all this
mess from religion, all that mess. And through his word and
through his gospel, God will teach all of his people Christ.
All of them. And he'll do that because he's
good and upright. Verse nine. The meek will he
guide in judgment. and the meek will He teach His
way." How glorious is it to think that all of God's people have
already been guided through the judgment. He'll guide them in
judgment. They've already been guided through
the judgment. Therefore, He'll guide them in
judgment, in His paths of righteousness, His paths of judgment and justice. Verse 10, And I love this verse. All the paths of the Lord are
mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant in his testimonies. Sometimes we wonder why did things
go that way? Mercy and truth. That's the reason
why. all the paths of the Lord unto
them that are in His covenant. Outside of the covenant of Christ,
every path that a man or a woman takes is the path of destruction
and sin, every one of them. But in the covenant of Christ,
every path is mercy and truth, every path. Every single path
leads to mercy and truth meeting together and righteousness and
peace kissing each other. Every path. Verse 11. For thy name's sake, O Lord,
pardon mine iniquity, for it is great. Now that's a verse. I've preached from that one verse
many times. I've preached from a bunch of
these already, just a single verse, many times. This is what
stands out about that verse. He's saying, Lord, for your name's
sake, because of who you are, who you said you are, call his
name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. Call
him that because that's who he is. And that's what he came to
do. And it's saying, David is saying here, Lord, I am begging
you to pardon my sin because it's so great. Because there's
so much of it. This is the reason why. Because
there's so much of it. Not because it's so small. He's
not saying, Lord, it's so small, it wouldn't be much to just let
that go. He's saying, because it is so
great, so infinitely great, I am begging you, would you please
completely pardon all my sin? For your name's sake, because
you are who you are. Every soul that asks the Lord
of that, he will say to that soul, yes, I will. Yes, I will. I most certainly will. You just
come to me. You will find safety. You'll
find security. You'll find rest. You just come to me. I was thinking
about. The story, I love the story of
Charles Wesley, who was a gospel preacher and a hymn writer in
the late 1700s and The story is told of him being in his upstairs
room writing when he had a window open and all of a sudden a huge
storm came up, just immediate thunder, lightning, rain, and
he rushed out to close his shutters. They had, you know, the shutters
were open and as he was reaching out, a bird flew up into his
coat. And he pulled that little bird
in. And he went and sat back down and wrote, Jesus, lover
of my soul, let me to thy bosom fly. The Lord says, you just come
to me. You'll find safety. You'll find rest. You'll find
peace. Pardon. He'll leave pardon. Verse 12. What man is he that
feareth the Lord? Him shall he teach in the way
that he shall choose. The soul that the Lord has taught
will fear him." All of God's people say, I am so afraid to
stand before His holiness. The soul that the Lord has taught
will fear Him. Will fear Him. And then verse
13 says, His soul shall dwell at ease and His seed shall inherit
the earth. The song says, "'Twas grace that
taught my heart to fear and grace my fears relieved." Same grace. The very same grace, the same
message, the same good news taught my heart to fear this holy God.
And the gospel from the holy God taught my heart to be relieved. My fears relieved. All of God's people will experience
that fear and relief from fear because of the Lord Jesus Christ.
God's holiness. and the Lord Jesus Christ bearing
that holiness. Verse 14 says, the secret of
the Lord is with them that fear Him, and He will show them His
covenant. The secret of the Lord, the secret
of the Lord. Across my page in Psalm 27, verse
five says, for in the time of trouble, He shall hide me in
His pavilion In the secret of His tabernacle, in Him, shall
He hide me. He shall set me up on a rock. He'll put me in the secret place
of the rock. He'll hide me in the time of
trouble when the judgment comes down. Why will He do that? It's
because He made a covenant to do that. He made a promise to
do that for His people. And He said, I'll do it and I'll
cause them to know it. I'll make sure they know it.
Look back at Psalm 25, verse 14. The secret of the Lord is
with them that fear Him and He will show them His covenant.
The margin says, His covenant to make them know it. They'll
know it. Verse 15. Mine eyes are ever toward the
Lord, for he shall pluck my feet out of the net. Our eyes must
be ever toward the Lord because we are always falling into the
net. That's the reason why we have to ever be toward the Lord
because we are always falling into the net. We cannot keep
ourselves from trouble and sin. If the question is asked, when
am I gonna finally keep myself out of trouble? In this flesh,
never. Never. We cannot. So prone to wander, Lord, we
feel it. Prone to it. So verse 16 says,
turn thee unto me and have mercy upon me for I am desolate and
afflicted. Lord, I cannot be left alone. Don't leave me alone. Don't leave
me alone. Please keep your eye on me. Please
keep your hand on me. Please keep your mercy on me. Verse 17, the troubles of my
heart are enlarged. Oh, bring thou me out of my distresses. You're the only one who can.
He's the only one who can. You know, David was a man who
experienced true distress, true distress, true stress. We shorten that word nowadays
to just stress. We just have stress. We're just
in stress. David was a man who knew something
about running for his life. Just the depression and pain
from his family and everything around him. And he's speaking from his heart
and all of God's people can speak from their heart knowing you're
the only one who can deliver me from this. You're the only
one who can deliver me from this. Earthly relief is so temporary. Earthly relief can provide just
a brief moment and then you go right back into it. What God
does is forever. He does it forever. He's able
to do it. He's able to bring us out of
our distresses. Verse 18, he said, look upon
my affliction and my pain and forgive all my sins. That's a big request, isn't it?
Forgive all my sins. Every sin I have ever committed,
please don't leave one unforgiven, not one sin unforgiven. A true sinner in need never gets
out of the position of being a true sinner in need. Never. He said affliction, pain, sin,
that's what we're gonna deal with the rest of our days here
on this earth. Verse 19. Consider mine enemies, for they
are many, and they hate me with cruel hatred. Our Lord, you know,
all of the Psalms, some people talk about certain Psalms being
messianic Psalms, meaning it's Christ speaking it. All of the
Psalms, we can view them as Christ speaking these on our behalf.
And oh, the enemies, our enemies, were his enemies, we were his
enemies. Everything was his enemy. And from the cross, from the
grave, verse 19, consider mine enemies,
there are many, they hate me with cruel hatred. We did, didn't
we? In our flesh, thank God for the gospel. Thank God he is who
he is and he did what he did. Thank God. For us, the apostle
Paul told the Corinthians, he said, we are troubled on every
side. We're perplexed, we're persecuted,
and we're cast down. But he said, there's hope because
of the dying of the Lord Jesus. And because of the life that
we have in him. Because of that, he said, we're
not in distress. We're not in despair. We are
not forsaken and we're not destroyed. Because of Christ our Savior,
because of Him, we can cry, verse 20, oh, keep my soul. This is what it all comes down
to. Lord, keep my soul and deliver me. Let me not be ashamed for
I put my trust in thee. All of my hope is in you. All of my hope is in you. And that's what'll keep my soul.
If I had hope in Christ plus something else, I would be in
despair because the plus something else would not bring hope to
me. If it was my good works, all I'd have to do is look at
myself honestly and I'd fall into despair. If it was my baptism,
I wonder if I went all the way under. Something would bring
me into despair. If it was my anything, if it
was Christ plus anything, the plus anything would bring me
into despair. But because it's Christ alone,
that's what gives me hope. That's what gives me hope. That's
what keeps my soul. That's what delivers me and encourages
me. I know you've done it. If it's
Christ alone, I know you've done it. If I'm putting my trust in
you alone, I know you've caused me to put my trust in you alone.
Therefore have I hope. You've caused me to hope in you.
That gives me hope. Verse 21, he said, let integrity
and uprightness preserve me for I wait on thee. David's not talking
about his integrity. Boy, the Lord exposed David many
times, didn't he? Thank the Lord for David. Thank
the Lord for that brother. But he's not talking about his
own integrity and he's not talking about his own uprightness. The
only integrity that I have is the integrity of Christ. Let
integrity preserve me. The only uprightness I have is
the uprightness of Christ himself that has been freely given to
me. So I wait on thee. I trust in thee. That's what he said at the end
of verse 21. I'm waiting on you. I love how he ended this prayer.
I truly do love this. For 21 verses, he's been saying,
I, me, my. And in the last verse, He says,
Lord, would you not only do this for me, but would you do this
for every brother and sister in Christ that I have? Would
you do this for all of us? Would you do the same thing for
all of your people that I'm asking for myself? Verse 22, he said,
redeem Israel. Redeem Israel, O God, out of
all his troubles. Don't we pray that for each other?
Lord, save us all. Save us all. When we sing, even
me, even me, our heart's crying, even us, even, save us all. Bless us all. To that God has
said many times over in His Word, I have and I will. He says that
to His people over and over again. I have and I will. A wonderful
Savior is Jesus our Lord. A wonderful Savior to me. He hideth our souls in the cleft
of the rock where rivers of pleasure we see. A wonderful Savior is
Jesus our Lord. He taketh our burden away. He
holdeth us up, and we shall not be moved. He giveth us strength
as our day. With numberless blessings each
moment He crowns, and filled with His fullness divine, we
sing in our rapture, O glory to God, for such a Redeemer as
ours. He hideth our souls in the cleft
of the rock that shadows a dry, thirsty land. He hideth our lives
in the depths of his love and he covers us there with his hand.
He covers us there with his hand. Oh, keep our souls and deliver
us. Let us not be ashamed for Lord,
we are putting our trust in you. To that he replies every time,
I have and I will.