Psalm 17

 

⁰³          You have probed my heart,

                        You have examined me by night,

                        You have refined me [by fire],

            You will find no idolatry;

                        I have resolved - my mouth will not sin.

⁰⁴          With regard to the deeds of men,

by the word of Your lips

            I have avoided the ways of the violent.

⁰⁵                      Uphold my steps in Your paths;

[in order that] my feet may not slip.

 

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Try My Heart

For the Lord’s Day:  the 22^nd of February 2004

 

Introduction: In the context of this self-debasing prayer, we considered carefully the righteousness of faith within the heart of David, as he approaches the holy throne of God and asks the Lord to consider his dire estate, encroached by fallen men and spiritual powers opposed to the rule of our God and King.  We discovered a certain spiritual acumen beyond our ordinary expectations for such early Hebrew poetry – and in that discovery are thereby strengthened in our resolve that the Lord God has dealt continuously with His elect in a similar manner whenever He considers our estate and thereby listens to our prayers.

 

To this theme, the current verses give added fuel – that the Lord God & Creator does indeed know His own quite well and that  any ongoing investigation of the state of grace in our soul bodes well – if the same God who calls us, saves us and guides and protects us to serve the greater glory of His precious Name and Person.

 

In a certain sense, we here are like patients whose hearts have failed and therefore we have handed ourselves over to the Great Physician to try our inmost beings and thereby prove that the transplanted vessel of His spiritual abode is indeed healthy and because we are now judged on the account of His Son and Spirit – we are thereby all the more healthy and able to serve our great God and King!

 

It is in this same sense that Delitzsch explains these lines:  “David refers to the divine testing and illumination of the inward parts, which he has experienced in himself, in support of his sincerity.”  Another point that the same author would make, is that: “such confessions in the Old Testament consciousness does not claim to be clear from sins, but only from a conscious love of sin, and from a self-love that is hostile to God.”

 

Calvin observes that the Lord is able to know the inmost emotions and intellect of any and every man.  And therefore, he tells us “what David intended to express is certainly very evident.  As he was unjustly and falsely charged with crime, and could obtain neither justice nor humanity at the hands of men, he appeals to God, requesting he would judge in the matter.”

 

Remember last week – we maintained that this “appeal to heaven” is a simple courtly appeal of David’s case to the highest court in the universe.  Since, he could not expect a reasonable judgment amongst fallen men, it is therefore all the more important that the final, highest, greatest and most righteous power would hear the case and decide the final issue.  It was a principle in ancient Israel, that all local cases could be appealed to the Temple Courts, who had the God given power and prerogative to review the lower cases.  And thereby, according to David’s thinking – the highest court in the universe was finally and always – the only one worth considering.

 

In our own land, we have suddenly a legal combustion of pagan opinion, that the very foundations of jurisprudence in this country are thereby threatened.  Rule by law, any common law is being ignored on both left coasts and even in the southwest.  Mere men would tear away from God’s constitutional and covenantal crown the method of determining what the foundational concept of “marriage” actually means!  And as we see the rule of law unraveling in our time, we all the more must realize like David that the final judgment of God will have the last say in this perverted matter, even as the great judge of all the world will have the last say in every matter!  And heaven help us if this corruption of basic values is not speedily restored!

 

Development:  We do not know with any certitude the specific case that David brings before the Lord God of heaven and earth.  And yet, we sense the filial relationship in David’s response – opening his heart, mind and soul to the depth of a holy inquisition.  “You have probed my heart,” David writes, and then continues:  “You have examined me by night, You have refined me [by fire], You will find no idolatry; I have resolved - my mouth will not sin.”

 

In this regard, David and the other elect of Israel truly avoided the worship of the pagan deities which filled the mountains and valleys of Palestine.  Clear through to the removal of the general population to Babylon, the people of Israel played with their spiritual food, preferring in many cases the corrupt deities of their neighbors to the One true God who had saved them and would forgive them in the midst of any repentance.  David allows and understands a threefold inspection of his persona.  First he announces that the Lord God has probed his heart, then he understands that the same God has examined him by night, and in his ongoing troubles, thereby the Most High God has refined him like precious metal.  Therefore, if God has already done this – what worry might David have that God will find any remaining idolatry.  After all, David claims, I have resolved to worship God alone.  Therefore there is no possibility that another deity might be accounted for in his innermost being.

 

Today, we know that medical doctors can indeed probe our hearts with instrumentation to determine the soundness of our health.  Here, we understand from David’s text – that God has been in this business many more millennia than we might suppose.  But, indeed – there is a measure here more important than mere medical health and that import is the true spiritual nature of those who have been born again according to the plan and purpose of God Himself.

 

Second, we understand that God is able to examine our most closely guarded secrets – He knows everything about us, nothing we know, think, desire or want is outside of His inspection.  And it is in the night, when we are relaxed that God knows our inmost being, David observes.  And finally, David knows full well, that it is every life experience, the troubles, the opportunities, the trials and tribulations which make us, mold us and form us according to the grand design of our very Maker.  In truth, as the prophets well knew, God is the Potter and we are but vessels created to serve Him in every sense of the revealed word and wisdom.

 

“I have resolved,” David tells us: “ my mouth will not sin.”  There is in this statement, as both Calvin and Delitzsch observe – a certain sense that David will not reveal for public consumption the worst aspects of his thinking.  This reminds me of something that my Father told me several times.  Whenever you are upset with some public policy or stupidity, rather than write a testy note and send it, simply write the letter and then throw it away.  We could wish the professional “haters” in our culture could show the same restraint – and yet these types must “let it all hang out” for all the world to hear and detest: the sad fact that they hate very good thing and especially those like David who stand for God’s word and purpose.

 

The second three lines in our selection take us further up and into a comprehension of what it means to consider the higher holiness and purpose of our Lord and our God.  David writes in verse four:  “With regard to the deeds of men, by the word of Your lips I have avoided the ways of the violent.”

 

What he is saying here is in the same mental reflection of Psalm One, whereby we are admonished to not only avoid the “counsel” but also “the way” and “the seat of” sinners and scoffers.  In other words, even if we think something, we do not necessarily say it or worse yet, actually do what the sinners do.  In this matter, David understands that God has warned him and us against the way of all flesh.  After all, as the old Reformed proverb goes:  “the once born die twice, while the twice born die only once!”  In fact we fully understand as Jesus admonishes us, that even thinking of lust and violence is just as bad as actually doing so -  in so far as sin is defined.  Yet, how much more was David embarrassed and punished for going all the way in both regards, when it came to Bathsheba.  Adultery and Murder: from the man after God’s own heart?  And yet, the grandness of God’s grace is greater than the willful sins and deeds of His people – who do know right from wrong, and who when accosted will repent, and thereby prove God’s grace and mercy.

 

Application:  In my translation of our last verse for today, the fifth:  I have followed the more ancient King James dialect, which better highlights the causative nature of the Lord’s leading in every good thing:  “Uphold my steps in Your paths; [in order that] my feet may not slip.”

 

Both Calvin and Spurgeon would encourage this understanding and translation.  After all, if the Lord is not for us and if He is not holding us up day by day – how could we find our way.  Unless His word “is a lamp unto [our] feet,” what hope would we have to keep in His precious paths.  The old King James Version does indeed commend the causative [that], so we might better comprehend our being kept in the bosom of Abraham, so to speak.  It is always refreshing to look at the older translations because they indicate, just where they have added an English word to make the sense better known.  Sadly, how few of the modern versions do the same!  And yet, if we would read and comprehend the heart of David, we would realize the totality of his dependence upon the King of Kings and Lord of Lords day by day for the length of his earthly life.  Would that we might live as better men and imitate the spiritual rationality of David’s heart?  Amen.

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PREACHING RESOURCES

 

Calvin, John:  Commentary on Book of Psalms.

Delitzsch, F:  Commentary on the Old Testament – Psalms.

Spurgeon, C.H:  Treasury of David.

The Westminster Confession & Catechisms.

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