Psalm 5 - Blessings and Retributive Justice

Podcast Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

Welcome back to Tabernacle Talk. Hope that you're having a great day so far. And we are in Psalm 5 today.

We have been traveling through Book 1 of Psalms and been seeing some different circumstances, some different kind of styles of Psalms. And today, we are in Psalm 5. And we're going to see some great verses that are referenced elsewhere in Scripture.

We're going to see David has written this Psalm as well. He writes many of especially this Book 1 of Psalms as kind of a collection of his songs that he has written. And Psalm 5 starts off like this.

For the music director, for flute accompaniment or upon Nehaloth, there's sometimes in the Old Testament some words that are very obscure, that don't have a whole lot of connections with other languages from that time period.

So sometimes, okay, this word is a little bit like this word and this word. So we can kind of triangulate, okay, this is the kind of thing that it is.

This particular word, Nehaloth, is one that is a little more uncertain, but at least as far as we can tell, it's some sort of flute or woodwind type instrument. And this was one that David wrote and he says a flute would go great with this song.

You guys should use that for the accompaniment. He says this, Listen to my words, Yahweh. Consider my sighing.

Listen to the sound of my cry for help, my King and my God. For to you, I pray. In the morning, Yahweh, you will hear my voice.

In the morning, I will present my prayer to you and be on the watch. Here he starts it off by saying, God, please listen to me. I am sighing.

I am crying. First thing when I wake up in the morning, I'm calling on you. I'm grateful for portions like this in scripture because I've been there before that I have felt that overabundant grief.

I felt that anxiety. I've been where David is. He goes, God, I'm freaking out.

I'm crying. I'm going, and I'm so thankful that God has given us these words in scripture that then we can bring into our prayer lives, that we can bring into our emotional toolbox.

If you will, we got to know, OK, how does God want me to respond to things? These three verses that he starts off with are an encouragement to me that God knows when I'm freaking out. God knows when I'm stressed.

God knows when I'm crying. And he's there for me here. He says, in the morning, you will hear my voice in the morning.

I will present my prayer to you and be on the watch. The second part, be on the watch. Sometimes we can pray and we think, OK, that's it.

Like it's it's done with. When we ask God for things, when we are waiting on an answer from God, let's be on the watch for him to answer. If we're if we're praying, OK, God, use me today.

Let's have an intent, then, to look into possible situations where God might want to use us. If we're praying for someone to be saved, well, then let's take some time to maybe talk to that person about Jesus.

When we pray, let's be on the watch and see if God might answer them. He might not. He might have it for another day.

It might be like we've mentioned before that he'll say, no, I've got a better plan for this instead. But when we ask, let's be on the watch. Let's see, OK, maybe is this the way that God might be answering that prayer today?

Maybe you might use this person. Maybe you might use this doctor. Maybe you might use this situation.

Let's be on the watch. Here in the morning, there's an instant anticipation where he says, OK, first things first. I'm going to get up in the morning.

I'm going to do this. I'm not waiting until afternoon to go to God. There's an urgency in going to the Lord.

He says, for you are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness. No evil can dwell with you. The boastful will not stand before your eyes.

You hate all who do injustice. You destroy those who speak lies. Yahweh loathes the person of bloodshed and deceit.

But as for me, by your abundant graciousness, I will enter your house. At your holy temple, I will bow in reverence for you. Here, David looks at the fact.

He says, God, I'm praying to you because I know that not only are you not sinful, and not only do you not take pleasure, you are not happy with sin and wickedness. You don't play with it, you don't toy with it. You want it gone from your presence.

This is no evil can dwell with you. The boastful can't stand before your eyes. Those that do injustice, you hate them.

God's hatred is never an animosity, bereft of action. It is an active thing that he is doing. So just like in his love, God does not love without action.

He loved the world, so he gave. He loves, so he forgives. Here this hatred, you hate all who do injustice, that there is a holy judgment that is on the boastful, the evil, the unjust, the liars, the murderers.

For all of those people, there is judgment that is on these people. And it doesn't always flesh out to its fullest extent right away.

I don't know if you know this, but there are unjust people, there are murderers in the world, there are liars that God has not finally judged yet. But it doesn't mean that they are not under judgment from God.

It doesn't mean that there are not circumstances in which God could have provided for them, maybe monetarily, maybe in relations, maybe in finances. It doesn't mean that God is not judging them in some way.

It just means he has not completely snuffed them out yet. And what David says in verse 7, he says, As for me, by your abundant graciousness, I will enter your house.

Here, I don't particularly know, there's not a date of when the Psalm is written, but when I think of David, he was all of these people.

He was boastful that he declared for there to be a census in Israel, which went against God's law of what kings were supposed to do, that he wasn't supposed to do it.

He did it, Scripture says, because of the pride in his heart, that David was boastful. He was one that did injustice with Bathsheba and Uriah and Joab and many other situations. There you destroy those who speak lies.

There were times when David was a liar and deceived people and attempted to hide his sin in front of people. He was a person of bloodshed that he had Uriah killed. He was a person of deceit.

But yet, because of God's abundant graciousness, David entered into God's house. In his holy temple, he bowed in reverence to him. Here, David realizes it's by God's graciousness.

It's by his mercy. It's not because David is so righteous. Okay, I can come before you because I'm great and all of these other people are terrible and you don't love them.

He says, no, no, I have placed myself in your care that I've messed up. I have done bad things.

And David over and over and over again in his life would do things that were against God, but he would always come back to the place where he'd go, God, I was wrong. He didn't he didn't stay in his sin. He didn't stay rebelling against God.

He in each instance in which he failed and he failed big and there were still consequences. He turned back to God and would say, God, it is only by your mercy. It's only by your.

I'm certain there's going to be some Psalms that we look at where we see this word is Haset. It's a steadfast love. William Tyndale coined the word loving kindness.

It's that steadfast, loyal covenant love that God has for his people that he says, I love you and because I've made a commitment to you, I'm not turning back on no matter what you do.

So you hear David finds his standing with God, his ability to even go before God is based not on David's righteousness, but on God's abundant graciousness there in verse seven.

Verse number 80 says, Yahweh, lead me in your righteousness because of my enemies. Make your way straight before me for there is nothing trustworthy in their mouth.

Their inward part is destruction itself, their throat is an open grave, they flatter with their tongue. Here all of the words that are being used, that would be quoted later in Romans three, among other places, he's using the picture of a snake.

Or in this time period, there were a lot of cultural stories and like origin things about dragons, specifically a sea dragon, and that would often fight with a storm god and the sea dragon kind of embodied chaos and the natural workings of evil

itself. And so here, David kind of describes, okay, here's this snake. And you can think of the snake, the serpent from the garden that initially caused mankind to fall and tricked Adam and Eve, says their inward part is destruction itself.

Their throat is up as an open grave. They flatter with their tongue. You can kind of see the, you know, the tongue thing to quote Milan.

He's doing that. He says they are sneaky. They're out to devour people, to eat them.

He says, make them pay, God, have them fall by their own schemes, scatter them in the multitude of their wrongdoings, for they are rebellious against you. Here he says, God, I want you to make them pay.

But he doesn't say make them pay by wiping them out with a flood. He doesn't say make them pay by sending out fire from heaven. Instead, he calls for their actions to be turned back on themselves.

This is a very reoccurring theme throughout the Old Testament. It's even brought into the New Testament as well, that the evil that we bring into this world, judgment and justice is when that evil gets turned back onto us.

It's when those that attempt to murder are themselves killed. It's when those that try and steal and take advantage from others lose their possessions.

So you can think about the story of Esther and Mordecai and Haman and how Haman hated Mordecai and he wanted him to be dishonored and he wanted to hang him on some gallows that Haman had made.

And instead, Haman had to honor Mordecai because of a whole set of circumstances that I won't get into in this episode.

So Haman had to honor Mordecai in front of tons of people and after Haman's schemes all came to light, then Haman was hung on the gallows that he had made for Mordecai.

And we can see that over and over and over again through throughout scripture that even the one who killed had the infants of Israel killed in the Nile among other methods that God had Egypt.

They lost their firstborn, everyone that did not follow God's instructions for the Passover. That there's a kind of divine thing on the judgment that you attempt the evil that you attempt to bring on others, that it gets poured back on you.

Was listening to something today that was talking about the Valley of Gehenna, where we often would read in the New Testament, the word hell, at least when Jesus is speaking in the Gospels, that underlying word Gehenna, the Valley of Gehenna.

And in that Valley, the kings of Israel and many of the people, kings of Judah in particular, and many of the people, they set up alters to false gods and child sacrifice was something that was very common in those days.

It was something that happened. It was, hey, here is something very valuable to you. You need to give them to the gods.

And it wasn't something that God had commanded. In fact, he commanded them not to sacrifice their children. But the children of Israel did it anyway, those in the kingdom of Judah.

And God told them in judgment, he said, just like you've done this to your children, that you have burned them in the fires of sacrifice in this Valley.

He says Babylon is going to come in, they're going to eradicate your kingdom and they're going to be so many of you that fall, that there's not even going to be room for burial and you're going to get thrown into that Valley of burning yourself, that

where you disobeyed me and you destroyed your children, you yourself will be destroyed. Here David calls for that same thing, that it's not just a God, I really want them to suffer consequences.

It's a just consequence and may we have that heart as we seek justice.

Justice is something that is biblical to pursue, especially as we think about the role of government and they are intended to bring justice, that we would not have a heart that would say okay, we want maximum penalties, the maximum bad for little

crimes. We can see some of that that takes place in various areas around the world, in various countries, in which there's not a just system of okay, we do this little crime, and this is the penalty that we pay for it.

And instead, as we pray for justice, as we say, God, you can see the wrong that's being done, the evil that's being pursued. God, can you bring justice to these circumstances?

For these people that are trying to take advantage of someone, would you help there to be justice that those that try and take from others would themselves have their things be taken? God, would you work in this way?

It is not a prayer of personal vendetta. I have a personal hatred for this person, so God, I want that to happen. But in a true justice that we would say, God, I know what your word says.

I know how your word talks about justice and wrongdoing and all of that. And so God, I'm going to ask that you do right in this situation. We'll see that over and over and over again throughout the Psalms.

This was the cry of God's people. They said, Lord, there are wrong things that are happening. I think all of us would know there are wrong things happening in America or wherever you're listening from today.

And our response ought to be, God, you bring justice. God, may you turn evil on its head, that what wicked people try and do will just fall back on them. We pray for the innocent.

We pray for those that are being abused and taken advantage of, that you would save them. And that would be a good prayer to pray, just as we see in verses 8 through 10, that there would be that divine justice and retribution.

Then verse 11, but rejoice all who take refuge in you, sing for joy forever. And may you shelter them, that those who love your name may rejoice in you, for you bless the righteous person, Yahweh. You surround him with favor as with a shield.

What a comfort that is, that as we think about evil in our world, as we think about these that are like snakes trying to devour, as we think about those that are boastful and proud and murderers, and those that do wrong by others, those that lie, as

we think about all of this evil in the world, we then return to, we can take refuge in God. We can sing because he will shelter us. He will keep us so that we have everything that we need.

We might be like Paul sitting in a prison cell, but we would be able to say with him in Philippians 4.13, I can do all things. I can be in any circumstance through Christ who gives me strength.

It says, may you shelter them, that those who love your name may rejoice in you.

We can have joy in the Lord knowing that he will bring justice, that the wrongs of this life are not forever, that the corrupt kingdoms that we have now, the corrupt rulers that we have now, they are not forever.

One day he will be our ruler on earth just as he is in heaven. It says, you bless the righteous person, Lord. You surround him with favor as with a shield.

And I think that would be a great prayer for us to pray today as we close. God, would you surround us with your favor? God, may your grace, may your blessing be on our life.

And that's not a bad thing to pray. That right here is what David says, an inspired scripture. This is what we pray.

God, surround me with your favor. God, I ask that you would bless with health. God, I ask that you would provide for my every need.

God, I pray that you would help keep me from sin. God, help me to be able to be a blessing to others. Help me to have a heart that embodies the fruit of the Spirit, that when other people see me, they would see Jesus.

God, I pray that you would help me to be a blessing. God, I pray that you would help me to be bold in speaking about you. When we think about the favor of the Lord, it's not just, God, give me monetary blessings.

God, just give me the best medical health of anyone.

Let's think about all the areas of our life that God wants to be in, and let's pray, and let's ask God, God, would you surround me with your favor, that everywhere I go, I know that you are with me, you are for me, you are advocating for me?

And I think of Psalm either 90 or 91, the verse that Satan tried to quote to Jesus where he says, he will give his angels charge concerning you, he'll give them orders so that at no point you dash your foot against a stone, that God is looking out

for you. He cares if you stub your toe, so call on him, ask for justice, ask for favor. And he wants to answer those prayers. And he has blessed it, he has put it in his word, and he says, this is what I want you to think about your life.

I hope that would be an encouragement to you today from Psalm 5, and tomorrow we are in Psalm 6, and I look forward to joining with you then. Thank you.