Love & Joy in Him
Psalm 5: 1-12

A PRESBYTERIAN PSALTER - by Pastor Max A Forsythe

A Translation of the Text: For the choir director with flutes. A Psalm of David 01 O LORD, give ear to my words, consider my sighs. 02 My King and my God, listen to my cry for help, for to you I pray. 03 O LORD, in the morning You hear my voice, in the morning [the sacrifice is prepared for] You, and I wait.   04 You are not a God, who takes pleasure in evil, with You the ungodly cannot dwell. 05 The arrogant, cannot stand before Your eyes, You hate all who do wrong. 06 O LORD, You destroy the ones who tell lies, [any] man of blood and deceit, you abhor.   07 But, I, by your great mercy, may come into Your house, In reverence, will I bow down, toward Your holy temple. 08 O LORD, lead me in Your righteousness because of my enemies - make Your way straight before me.   09 Not a word from their mouth can be trusted, their heart is filled with depravity, their throat is an open grave, with their tongue they speak deceit, 10 O God, declare them guilty, let their intrigues be their downfall banish them for their many sins, for they have rebelled against You.   11 But, let all who take refuge in You be glad, let them ever sing for joy. Spread Your protection over them, that those who love Your Name may rejoice in You. 12 For surely O LORD you bless the righteous, You surround them with your favor, as with a shield.

Translation Notes:   01 The prayer here is that the Lord might hear both our audible words and inaudible sighs. 02 David acknowledges that he is a man under the higher authority of God and expects his King to listen. 03 There is here in the Hebrew a sense of preparing for the ritual sacrifice which most of the translations ignore. May we like David include with our prayers a sacrificial worship as well? 04 The utter righteousness of our Holy God is upheld in these words. 05 And before such an awesome holiness the sin stained fallen creature cannot and will not choose to stand. 06 Here is a promise of justice and a declaration of the absolute hatred that God holds for the ungodly. 07 But under the eternal Covenant of Grace and mercy, the elect may come into God's house. There to worship in earnest and sincere piety. 08 His righteousness, not ours and because of the continual distraction of His and our enemies, He must protect us and show us the way ahead. 09 God's justice is held here to be perfect, the way of the wicked is habitual and even in this life their public actions declare their doom. 10 God's final justice is begged and the worldly evidence is held up for His righteous decree. 11 Here the saving salvation of being in and of the Lord is celebrated so that we might know where in our Love and Joy may consist. 12 Even in this life the blessed ones who belong to the Lord may know His favor and His protection.

Meditation on the Psalm:

There Today's psalm can be comfortably be divided into three parts. Verses one through three open this morning prayer. Verses four through eight contrast the ungodly with the elect. Finally verse nine to twelve repeat the contrast and thank the Lord for the kindness of His care. Each part brings earnest pleadings to the attention of our Lord God Almighty.

We begin with the opening three verses. Verse one calls upon the Lord to hear David's audible and inaudible longings. Words and sighs are the emphasis of the two phrases. The words are those that we use to communicate with, the sighs are the hidden intentions that prompt our words. We may make three notes concerning this verse. First, we should know that there may be prevailing intercession where there are no words. By this we mean that wherever our words fail us, God knows our real needs and motives. For many of us who get tongue tied or who do not feel that we pray well, there is real hope here. God sees beyond the surface, he hears and knows our inmost emotions. With God there are no secrets whatsoever!

Second, there may be words of intercession where there is little or no personal devotion! Every year on the last day of school, we say our good by to another crop of Seniors. It is always interesting to see who will take the trouble to approach you that one last time. It is a time to discover who your real friends were during the school year! Every year I am always surprised at the real feelings shown from the least expected places. So it is with the prayers given to our Lord and our God. Very many have learned how to say the words of devotion who have little concept of the real nature of the prayer relationship with God. Jesus observed well in His report of the Publican and the Sinner as they approached the throne of God in prayer.

Third, the prayers of David are here made in expectant hope! How often to we come in prayer to our God expecting to be heard and even expecting a forth coming answer? Are not many of our precious prayers nothing more than pious exercises designed to tickle our conscience? We must be vary wary of considering our common experience to be the same as David's. This is always a real problem. As we consider our own habits and attitudes we project them towards other people and like all men consider everyone else to be similar to us. No, we cannot operate in this worldly way of thinking. We are here instructed by David in the way we should pray and we are challenged to improve our personal prayer life!

Look there in verse two to David's soulful plea. "Listen to my cry for help". The implication here is similar to the cry's of little children in the night. How easily mother's discern the difference between coughs and whimpers that are serious and those that are not so serious. Lord, David calls, hear my serious cry for help. Lord, hear my anguish and pain, listen to my fervent prayers. God is able to distinguish and note the seriousness of our pain and of our devotion to Him! Notice how David finishes this verse by referring to his King and God. David here declares his sole allegiance to our very own God. It is to Him alone that David prays.

In verse three David declares his resolution not to hold back nor neglect his daily intercession. In the second phrase David asserts the depths of his devotion. In that phrase there is a Hebrew word that we ordinarily translate "lay before you" which is a technical term in the Hebrew worship of laying in order all of the elements for the sacrifice. It gives prayer a sense of seriousness that our petitions should be well planned. We should not immediately dive into prayer, we should know what it is we intend to say and plan for that! Otherwise we just ramble on and on and on. Have you ever talked to someone who sounds like that on the telephone? Well, my Grandmother used to write letters of many pages just like that, however, when it came time to make a long distance phone call that she was paying for, she planned the conversation a day or so in advance so as not to waste a precious nickel of her phone time. The implication here of the Hebrew is that we should give as much consideration to our God and King as we plan our daily prayers! But even more than planning David emphasizes the expectation that should be ours when we pray.

The Hebrew here has it "I will look out". That is as the NIV has it to be expectant of having an answer. How many people pray daily yet never expect anything to come of their prayers. Do you think such prayers would be answered? A story was once told of a planned prayer service for rain in the countryside. One of the local doubters was impressed with the seriousness of the pastor who walked to the service taking His umbrella with him!

Do you expect God to answer your prayers? How can we expect the Lord to open the windows of his grace and pour out His blessings if we sow the words only and then do not seek the harvest? Prayer is serious business, we would do well to follow David's preparation in these three verses opening psalm five. Of course not all prayers are answered, there are obstacles that we place in the way of answered prayer. In verse four to six David notes the way of the ungodly. These are those alienated from God. That alienation is set forth in six ways here.

First, we must realize that God takes absolutely no pleasure in evil, therefore we should flee from every nuance of evil within our personal lives. Second, we should note that the wicked do not dwell with our God and Lord! With Him there is no place for the total stranger who knows not our heavenly father. Third, we must know that the arrogant cannot stand in the presence of God. This means that we should regularly evaluate our own humility and cultivate the proper relationship with our God and King. We dare not think too highly of ourselves! Fourth, we must be warned that our God hates every ounce of iniquity and because of sin in our lives we are stained beyond hope. All who do wrong are hated. Fifth, we must be aware of the destruction God has planned for them who stand condemned by their own lies. And lastly, in a holdover word from the King James which is little used today we must note that God abhors the workers of deceit and murder.

There in that list would we all be except for the grace of God. In verse seven we find David's acknowledgement of the need of God's mercy. This is the only thing that gives him the confidence to come into the Lord's house. How much do we sense the mercy of God in granting us knowledge of His presence and His Son? How much credit do we regularly take for God's having chosen us well! We do well to understand that our relationship is only given through His divine mercy!

For that mercy, we like David must bow down in reverence and focus our attention upon His divine Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. These seven verses complete the first cycle in this psalm. And like our urgent prayers David again makes his petition anew. "O Lord, lead me", is his prayer. Over the years I have read in several places further encouragement to pray back to our heavenly Father the words we find in Scripture. What better guide to prayer than the Father's revelations in Scripture.

David continues in verse eight that God's way and plans be made known because there are enemies watching. We too work and pray before a watching world and in the same sense of David we desperately need the leading of our God and King in our time. May David's plea here be ours as well. Make your way plain Lord, your way, not our way. Let us see and know your will that we might hasten to do it.

Again we see a second contrast in the last verses. In verse nine David acknowledges the true nature of humanity. It is well that we quickly discern the difference between God's narrow path and the broad freeway to destruction. We must take note of the destructive tendency of our basic emotions and flee from the graves that would pull us down with a fallen world. In verse ten we see the eternal prophecy of what will come to them that deny our Lord and King. Their guilt will be their downfall and our righteous and holy God must banish them for their sins and rebellion against Him. But again, David returns to the blessedness of taking refuge in our Lord and God. There is promised joy and gladness because of His divine protection.

There is verse eleven we see that that protection is promised for those who love His name. Just as mercy is a divine gift so too we see here and in verse twelve the blessing of the righteous. We are eternally safe surrounded and protected when God spreads His protection over us. And this promise is not only for today and tomorrow but for all eternity. Now as we close you must consider the implication of the essential verse in this great psalm. There it is at the end, Who is God's protection for? It is for those who have love and joy in Him. They and only they may rejoice. Can you rejoice in His protection and blessings. You can if you love Him above all else! Do you love Him? That is the question that determines your future for all the ages to come. Do you love Him. We pray that if you have not made a declaration of love for our God and King that His Holy Spirit may soon grant you the mercy of a saving relationship. Amen.

	Resources Used:
Kidner, Derek.	Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries: Psalms.
Spurgeon, C.H.	The Treasury of David.
Psm 005a	04 June 89 & 24 January 99

Translation Resources:

Interlinear NIV Hebrew-English Old Testament
New Geneva Study Bible (NKJV)
The Jerusalem Bible Very useful for poetic structure
New American Standard Bible Best translation for verse meaning
New International Version Best translation for paragraph meaning

Spurgeon, C.H. A Treasury of David. The essential theological anchor
Bratcher, Robert G. & Reyburn, William D. A Translator's Handbook on the Book of Psalms.
Barthelemy, Dominique et al. Preliminary & Interim Report on the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project.
Dahood, Mitchell. The Anchor Bible: Psalms 1-50. Very limited use.

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