We're back to Psalm 5. Psalm 5. I titled this message, A Morning
Prayer. A Morning Prayer. We looked at
Psalm 4 last Wednesday, and at the end of that psalm, he said
in verse 5, I lay me down and slept. I waked for the Lord sustained
me. That was his prayer. Psalm 4
was his prayer when he went to bed. Psalm 5 is a prayer when
he got up that morning. And let's always remember, as
we go through these Psalms, to apply these to Christ first. This is His prayer. You know,
we want to read the Lord's Prayer, we go to John 17, that great
intercessory prayer. But we can also turn to the Psalms,
and we have the Lord's Prayer. The greater David is praying
in this psalm, as well as King David. David's praying from an
experience, a real experience, and our Lord prayed from real
experience, a real man, going through real sufferings and trials
and things that you and I go through. He was tempted in all
points, as we are, yet without sin. But this is the morning
prayer. This is the prayer that he prayed
when he woke up that morning. And it is a prayer for guidance. What a way to start a day. Lord,
guide me through this day. Direct my steps. I've got a whole
twelve hours ahead of me, or a whole day, or twenty-four hours,
for the next morning. Guide, direct, keep. And he prays for help in this
psalm. Then he prays toward the end
of it for God's people. Let all those that put their
trust in thee rejoice. Let them never shout for joy.
Now, if you apply this to our Lord, you know that's going to
be answered. He's always heard. And listen,
we're always heard in Him too. He always hears our prayer. When
we pray, when we truly pray, not rambling. I'm not talking
about rambling. I'm talking about praying. I'm not talking about
practice, I'm talking about praying. When we pray, He hears us. He
hears us through the mediator, the intercessor. And so He gets
up in this early morning. I was trying to find the scripture
right before I came. I read it just two days ago,
where the Lord got up before daybreak. He got up before the
dawn, got up before the sun arose. And He went out and He prayed.
In another place I was reading before I came over here, He went
into a mountain and He prayed all night. He prayed all night
long. He communed as a man. He communed with his Father and
with God. He prayed. And here he says in
verse 1, give ear to my words. He's speaking this one out loud.
He's putting a voice to this one. Give ear to my words, O
Lord. Consider my meditation. Some prayers are silent. I'd
say most of our prayers are silent, aren't they? If you live in an
attitude of prayer throughout the day, You're always sending
up silent prayers, and some are spoken out loud. I remember years
ago, years ago, Henry said in the Bible class, write down your
prayers. Write them out. And from time
to time, I write them out. I wrote one out some time ago,
stuck in my billfold. I said, I'm going to carry this
one with me, because the Lord is going to answer it sooner
or later. Sometimes I like to write them out. And it helps
you to it helps you to concentrate because look, look, I'll get
back. I'm getting ahead of myself here in verse three in the morning
when I direct my prayer. You know what that word means?
And I'm way ahead of myself here, but it means order. It means arrangement. I won't
come back to that, but that's what it means. It means it's
not just glibly saying words. It's a real order. of words praying
about something that's really on your heart. That's really,
really, really on your mind and on your heart. And you put an
order to it. And I'll get to that in a minute. What he's saying
here, listen carefully to me. Listen carefully. Have you ever
tried to get someone's ear? He said, oh, if I can just get
their ear. Give ear to my, oh, if I can just get his ear. Listen
carefully to me and even consider my meditation. My thoughts. Because I cannot, and you know
this by experience, you cannot always find the words to express
what's going on in here, can you? So often, so often, I cannot
find the words to use to express what I'm feeling, what's on my
heart. And he's saying, Lord, consider
my meditation. Consider my thoughts. Because
I can't express everything. I can't put it all into words.
I can't do it. God knows what's on our heart,
even if we can't find words to express it. And that's why he's
saying, Lord, consider my meditation. And I tell you what, I'm learning
some more of this as I get older. We ought to really give some
thought and meditation before we pray, to what we're going
to pray about. Because you're going before Almighty
God. You're using the name of His Son. How important is that?
You're seeking an audience with the King. If you were seeking
an audience right now with just the President of the United States,
you would order your wares. How forceful, says Job, how forceful
are right wares. Let this prayer not seem a light
thing to thee. We need to pray. We need to pray
and learn to pray violently. The kingdom of heaven suffereth
violence and the violent take it by force. Jacob said, I'll
not let you go till you bless me. I will not, I will not do
it. I will not let you go. And he
called, he changed his name to Israel as a prince. What? That's thou power with God. To
have power with God in prayer. Turned the world upside down.
I tell you, he turned the world upside down. Look what the twelve
disciples did. Look what, look, they just turned
the world upside down. The Lord did through them. Hearken
to the voice of my cry. Answer me. Is that too bold? That's not bold. That's not too
bold. You know, I brought this out last week. We're to come
to the throne of grace boldly. Boldly. Hearken to the voice
of my cry, my King, my God, my God, my Creator, my Savior, but
my King is the one who rules over me. I'm your subject. Give ear to me and hearken to
the voice of my You know, he starts out here, give ear to
my words, consider my meditation, and now he's saying, the voice
of my cry. This is urgent, isn't it? This
is urgent. His prayer is directed to a certain
person, Almighty God. He wants him to hear his cry.
It's an urgent prayer. And he recognizes the one to
whom he prays. My King and my God. My King and
my God. I thought of this, if we consider
the one to whom we pray, it will encourage us to pray more and
more earnestly and then expect, expect that prayer to be answered. Listen to this, my voice shalt
thou hear in the morning before anyone else hears my voice. This is devotion. This is a model
for us. Before anyone else hears my voice,
Lord God, you're going to hear it. I want you to hear it. I
want an audience with you before I speak to anyone else. You reckon
that would straighten our day out, if we started with that
attitude? To have an audience with God, for God to hear our
voice? My voice shalt I hear in the morning, O Lord, Jehovah,
self-existent one. In the morning will I direct,
I will arrange, I will order my prayer unto thee, and will
look up." Spurgeon said, morning is the best time of the day.
It's the first fruit. And I like what he said here.
One hour in the morning in prayer is better than two hours in the
evening when you're wore out, your mind is tired. You've been
distracted all day. He said, that morning you're
fresh, you're up, give it to God. Seek God. It's the best time in the morning.
I'll direct my prayer. I will arrange my prayer before
thee. And here, this has the same meaning.
The high priest would take, and he would arrange the wood at
the altar. He would arrange the sacrifice.
He didn't just toss wood down there and then, he didn't go
through this ceremony the way they did it. They didn't go through
this ceremony just haphazardly. He would arrange it. There was
a certain order to it. God's a God of order. And this
word here, I will direct, has the same mean as arrange. I will
arrange my prayer. Our prayers ought to be arranged
in meditation. in seriousness, and then voiced
to God. And then he says here, and this
is good, My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord,
in the morning will I direct my prayer to thee, I will direct
it to thee, I will order it, arrange it, call upon thee, and
then I'm going to look up. It's like this, I've laid my
petition out before thee, And now I look for the answer. Have
you ever just really looked for the answer? Expect it. Have you
ever really expected it? We ought to, shouldn't we? We
ought to expect it. Back in 1983, I had lost my job. You know, we were broke. It's the one time in our life
that we were broke. And I remember this so well.
And this is why I'm saying we ought to expect it and not be
surprised. But we needed a job. Vicki and I were broke. We had
no work. And she was gone somewhere. I
don't remember where she'd gone. And I had prayed. I was praying,
Lord, we need a job. I need a job. You know, we're
in trouble here. As I was praying, the phone rang.
The phone rang. And she got a job, a good job,
because I was praying. And I was shocked. I thought,
you didn't believe that? You ought to have believed it.
You ought to have expected it. Honestly. I ought to have expected
it. But I was surprised. I was surprised. It was just, does things like
that happen? Yes. Yes. I will look up. You'll hear my
voice in the morning. I'll direct my prayer to you.
I'll raise my prayer to you. Then I'm going to look up and
I'm going to expect what I've just asked for. According to
His will, but I'm going to expect it. I'm going to get an answer,
and it's going to be according to His will, then it's going
to be right. But I'm going to get an answer. I expect it. I'm going to look
up. Oh, we should pray that we're
shocked when it happens. That's living in his flesh. And
then he says here, though, but then he directs his attention
toward the world, the natural man, the human race. He says,
"...without not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness." God doesn't have pleasure in
wickedness, and he acknowledges this. In his prayer, he acknowledges
God's holiness. That's what he's doing. He's
acknowledging God's holiness. And he says, you don't have pleasure
in wickedness, and neither shall evil dwell with thee. God hates sin. He takes no pleasure
in the things of this world. He takes pleasure in his Son
and those in his Son. He takes pleasure in righteousness.
That's what he takes pleasure in. Evil or evil persons shall
not dwell with God. No, not everyone going to heaven
says, Lord, Lord. That's what he said. Not everyone
says, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of God. And one of the worst of sins,
if you want to catalog sins, one of the worst of sins is self-righteousness. The Lord said those sodomites
will fare better in judgment than those people in Capernaum
Where all his mighty works were done, he said, those people in
Sodom and Gomorrah will do better than they. They will fare better
in judgment, which shows the degrees of judgment, degrees
of punishment. The more light given, the greater
the responsibility. The foolish shall not stand in
thy sight. Thou hatest all workers of iniquity. The fool has said in his heart,
There's no God or no God for me. That man's not going to stand
in God's sight. There is not one fool in the
kingdom of God. Back in the older days, all the
kings had their gestures, but the king of kings has no gestures. He has no fools. He has no fools. We are wise in Christ. Now, I
know we sin, I know we do some things we ought not to do, but
I'm telling you what, there are no fools in the kingdom of God.
When this thing's over with, when it's all over with, everyone
in His kingdom will be wise and righteous, holy. There'll be no fools there. There'll
be no fools at all. He says here, He hateth, thou
hatest. All workers of iniquity. You
know, this is important to tell people this. You know, tell people
that God loves everybody. God wants to save everybody.
It just puts them to sleep. I can look at a man that just
pursues wickedness, whether it be in religion or on the street,
and I tell him God hates the workers of iniquity and he's
going to destroy them. If I were you, I'd feeded Christ.
If I were you, I'd kiss the sun. Because outside of him, there
is no love. There was no love, I'll tell you the truth. There
was no love outside the ark. Those guys did not drown in the
love of God. They drowned under the wrath
and hatred of God of sin. And that's the truth. He hateth
all workers of iniquity. Thou shalt destroy them that
speak lying." Leasing is lying. They have a lying tongue. The
Lord will abhor the bloody and deceitful man. This is an honest
prayer. This is just being honest. You
know, we need to be honest with people. I want people to be honest
with me. Tell me the truth. I thank God that my pastor told
me the truth. He will destroy them that are
liars. It says over in Proverbs 6, there are six things God hates,
the A7, and one of them is a lying tongue. He hates it. He hates it. But as for me, here's
His resolve. This is the resolve of David.
This is the resolve of our Lord when He walked on this earth.
This was His resolve, but as for me, I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy,
rejoicing in thy mercy, and in thy fear will I worship toward
thy holy temple." Here's his resolve. It was to come into
God's house. Where's that? It's where every
God's people are gathered. The house of God, they had the
time when this prayer was prayed. They had the tabernacle. And
he says, here, I will worship toward thy holy temple. The temple
wasn't even built. They had the tabernacle. David's here. It's
speaking. It's not Solomon speaking. It's
David. The temple wasn't even built
yet. But he's saying here, I'm going to worship God with thy
people. I'm going to come to your house,
gather with your people. And I'm going to worship toward
thy holy temple. The temple of God in which we
worship is Jesus Christ. God was in Christ, reconciling
the world to himself. He is the temple where we meet
God and God meets us and true worship happens. It's not a building. It's not a building. I visited
that Mormon temple down there over in Utah. And I went into
that Mormon Tabernacle Choir a few years ago. I visited that. God's not in
that temple. That is as empty as can be. It's just empty. God's not there. God is not there. He's not in a house. God's in
Christ. And if I'm in Christ, If Christ
is in me, that's where the temple is. And that's where true worship
happens. That's where true worship happens.
And he says here, his resolve here, is I'm going to go to the
house for me. This is my resolve. I don't know
about the rest of the people, but this is my resolve. As for
me, I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy,
rejoicing in thy mercy, And in fear, in thy fear, in a correct
fear, a right fear, a fear that's born of God, and I'll worship
toward thy holy temple. Christ as the mediator, Christ
as the high priest, Christ as the sacrifice, Christ as the
temple. And any praise here from God
is lead me. When you get up in the morning,
somebody's going to lead you. You're going to be led to something.
Something's going to lead you. And he says here, Lord, You lead
me. You lead me. You guide me. Lead me, O Lord, in Thy righteousness
in a right way. Keep me in the path. Keep me. Oh, and you learn this as you
get older. Keep me in the path of righteousness. Because of my enemies, they're
always trying to trip me up. How many times did they try to
trip our Lord up? How many times did they try to catch Him in
His words? How many times did they try to set Him up? And here
He prays. Here He prays, Lead me, O Lord,
in Thy righteousness, because my enemies make Thy way, not
my way, Thy way, straight before my face, that my steps in righteousness
And make thy way straight before my face." And I believe he's saying this,
I don't want to err in duty. I don't want to err in duty. Our Lord came here into this
world on a mission. He said, my need is to do the
will of Him that sent me. He came here to do the work of
His Father. And His desire, His desire was
to do it and to do it perfectly. And He did it. And our desire,
our desire is that, Lord, keep me from error of duty. Commission
or omission. Keep me from error. Don't let me get hung up on something
that I think is good and turns into something bad, and I get
off the gospel. Keep me from doing that. Don't
let that happen. And then it says in verse 9 here,
he talks about man's nature. This is the human race. For there
is no faithfulness in their mouth. They tell you one thing and do
another. The Scripture says, That all
men are liars. Let God be true and all men are
liars. I like what Todd said one time.
The only time we absolutely, absolutely tell the truth is
when we're just reading the Scriptures. And don't add anything to it.
You just read them. That's the only time you tell the truth. There's always some element of
sin going on. Paul said, when I would do good...
Isn't that what I'm doing now? When I would do good. When I
stand here and preach the gospel. There's always something else
going on. Your mind, you have to fight your mind. Even when
you're preaching, you've got to fight your thoughts. You've
got to fight your mind. There's no faithfulness in their
mouth. There's no truth in them at all. Now, there is faithfulness
in the believer, because God put it there. He put truth, it
says in Psalm 51, in the inward parts. But naturally, we don't
do that. Their inward part is very wickedness.
Do you ever hear the old cliche, bad to the bone? Beauty skin deep and ugly goes
all the way to the bone. You've heard of that. That's
what I'm saying here. They're wicked all the way to
the bone. All the way to the bone. Their throat is an open
sepulcher. The stench. Would you want to
stand by a grave that hasn't been covered up? Martha said,
Lord, he's been dead for four days now and he stinketh. You
don't want to go there. And he said, their throat just
spews out this decay of death. And if anyone, you know, really
Paul, Paul even really quotes from this. Our Lord said this
in the gospel. He said, you're like white as
sepulchers. Poison of ashes under your tongue. Their throat is an open sepulcher.
It spews out and then they flatter you. And they flatter with their
tongue. Yeah, they're after something. Flattery
from a wicked man is poison. It's poison. And listen. You think this too
strong? Destroy them. Destroy thou them. O God, let them fall by their
own counsels. Cast them out in the multitude
of their transgressions for this reason, not because they did
something to me and I'm upset and I want to get even. You know,
we naturally want to do that. That's something you've got to
fight. No, he says, destroy them, let
them fall by their own counsel, cast them out in the multitude
of their transgression, for they rebelled against you for what
they have done to you. Let all those that put their
trust in Thee, let them rejoice. Make them to rejoice. Let them
ever, ever, forever and ever and ever shout for joy. A joy
that never ends. An inner joy. Because I'll defend
us then. If God be for us, who can be
against us? Thou defendeth. You defend them. I would ten thousand times have
God defend me than the whole military might of the United
States. Just let God defend me. I'll just have God defend me. Let them also that love thy name. Not just people that say, I know
God, I believe God. But love, to have an affection. See, this reaches into your heart.
Those who have a real affection towards you. You can't love something
and not have an affection for it. Just want to hug it up. You
can't do it. Let those that love thy name
be joyful. What a union. What a union. For thou, Lord, wilt bless the
righteous. You can count on it. You can
count on it. You're going to be blessed. If
you're His, if you believe the gospel, if you love Christ, you're
going to be blessed. You are blessed. And you're going
to be blessed and blessed. with favor, wilt thou surround
him, wilt thou encompass him as with a shield." It's like,
I get this image of an invisible shield. There's an invisible
shield around God's child that nothing can penetrate because
he has God's favor and God's going to bless him. And I know
people think, Things happen to you, you get hurt, but this is
for good. This is for good. We know that. If it penetrates, it penetrates
for good. Thou, Lord, wilt bless the righteous.
It ends well with the righteous. It will always end well with
the righteous. With favor wilt thou compass him as with a shield. Faith, confidence.