In January 2003, Joni and I had just moved to Louisville, and I entered my first seminary class ever. It was a January course on “Models of Sanctification,” taught by Dr. Bruce Ware. The doctrine of sanctification is focused mainly on Christian growth, or what the Bible teaches about how believers grow spiritually throughout life. One main purpose of the class was to introduce us to different ways that different Christian traditions understand the process of sanctification. The first model of sanctification that we studied was that of John Wesley and the Wesleyan tradition that bears his name. Wesley believed in what has been called “entire sanctification,” the doctrine that a Christian can have a second blessing sometime after conversion that results in the end of all conscious sin. I think this teaching is unbiblical. It represents an over-realized eschatology, which means that it leads us to expect to receive blessings in this present age that we are only promised in the age to come. Furthermore, I would say that Wesley’s teaching is not merely unbiblical, but it is dangerous. The reason it is dangerous is because it divides Christians into two different categories: those who have been entirely sanctified and those who haven’t. Additionally, if it is untrue (and it is), just imagine the danger involved when a Christian who really does remain a sinner thinks that he is not a sinner anymore. The teaching only provides an occasion for the hidden sin that remains in him to lead him into a feeling of pride and self-sufficiency. Although Wesley never intended it, this teaching has the potential to lead Christians away from any sense of their ongoing need for God’s grace.
In the years since that class I have come to embrace a view of Christian growth as a process by which we come, primarily, to a deeper understanding of our sin, and correspondingly, a deeper understanding of our need for Christ and thus a firmer embrace of the gospel. Christian growth is more about strengthening our faith-hold on Christ than it is about anything else, and that is why the gospel is for all, believers and unbelievers alike. We are probably at our highest level, spiritually, when we are most aware of our own sin, like the tax collector in Jesus’ parable who would not even look up to heaven but beat his breast and cried, “Have mercy on me, a sinner!” As another one of my seminary professors told me once in an email: “Christian growth is God’s work in us (which we “suffer”), in that God exposes our sin and brings us to Christ, his Son, in all the many ways in which we need to be healed and forgiven. It is an adventure, even if it is one that we would never and could never choose ourselves.”
If this is what Christian growth is primarily about, then the essential place of prayer in the Christian life necessarily follows. Yet consistency in prayer is one thing that so many of us struggle to find. Why is that? We may, with a bit of reluctance, chalk it up to our busy lives. But don’t we, even when we are busy, find time for the things that really matter to us? Perhaps we might say that we do consider prayer important, but we don’t want to make it into a set discipline in our lives because, after all, we aren’t legalists, and scheduled times for prayer implies legalism. To this objection I would reply with the words of John Piper. In answer to the question, “Is prayer a duty?” he said, “You can call it that. It’s a duty the way it’s the duty of a scuba diver to put on his air tank before he goes underwater. It’s a duty the way pilots listen to air traffic controllers. It’s a duty the way soldiers in combat clean their rifles and load their guns. It’s a duty the way hungry people eat food. It’s a duty the way thirsty people drink water. It’s a duty the way a deaf man puts in his hearing aid. It’s a duty the way a diabetic takes his insulin. It’s a duty the way Pooh Bear looks for honey. It’s a duty the way pirates look for gold.” For the Christian, prayer is not a hoop we jump through to get God on our good side. It is an oasis of life-giving water to our dry, thirsty souls. It is our opportunity to commune with the God we love and call him to our side in our time of need. And that may be the rub: we very seldom think of any time as a “time of need.” But if we are sinners living in a world under the power of the serpent, we need God at our side every moment to guard our hearts and sustain our faith. Jesus, apparently, assumed that prayer would be the daily practice of his disciples. After all, he taught us to pray, in the Lord’s prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread.” That is the kind of request that doesn’t make much sense unless it is offered daily.
But we often don’t commit ourselves to daily prayer because we don’t feel our need of God on a daily basis. Notice the correction to this erroneous thinking David provides us in verses 1-2, the introduction to this psalm: “O LORD, I call upon you; hasten to me! Give ear to my voice when I call to you! Let my prayer be counted as incense before you, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice!” When David beckons God to hasten to him and give ear to his plea, he reveals the earnestness behind his prayer. When he calls upon God to look upon his prayer as though it were incense rising to heaven, or as though it were the evening sacrifice, he indicates that he longs for his prayer to be found acceptable to God. He wants an audience with God immediately because he knows how desperately he needs God to deliver him from his own tendency toward sin and from the schemes of his enemies.
David is a model for us. He teaches us by example in this psalm that we must realize our need for God, and let it move us to earnest, consistent prayer. If you would confess that your prayer life is sporadic and inconsistent at best, I don’t have tips, tricks, and gimmicks to help you today. What I do have is theology: learn to see yourself for what you truly are, a hopeless sinner apart from divine grace. Feel deeply your need for God, and the habit of prayer will naturally follow. As we survey David’s prayer, we will note two ways in particular that we need God that should prompt us to earnest, consistent prayer.
First,
As one who grew up in a Baptist church, I was taught “once saved, always saved” from a young age. I still believe in “once saved, always saved,” so long as it is understood in the right sense. But very often it is not understood in the right sense, so I believe that a better way to refer to this doctrine is the perseverance of the saints. That is, the biblical teaching that all who are truly born again will persevere in faith until the end. But why do true believers persevere? The biblical teaching is that true believers persevere because God perseveres. God, who elected us from the foundation of the world, will not allow his purpose of grace to fail for us. So we persevere because it is his purpose to lose none of us. Perhaps, then, it is even better to speak of the preservation of the saints, God’s commitment to uphold and sustain the faith of those who have once been born again.
It is only as we persevere in the faith that we will attain our final salvation. And it is only by God’s preservation of us that we will persevere in the faith. And God has ordained to accomplish this preservation, in part, in answer to our prayers. This is why Jesus taught us to pray, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” Even though we are believers, we constantly need the Lord’s protection from temptation, from sin, from the devil, in order to continue this journey of faith to our destination in the world to come. If we do not have God’s protection, we are destined to be overrun by the power of sin.
David was a man after God’s own heart. Yet note how self-aware he is with regard to his own propensity toward sin. Verse 3 says, “Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips!” He demonstrates an awareness of the power of words here. Words are not empty sounds that have no effects on the real world. They are the things that move the world. Don’t all the presidents, prime ministers, parliaments, and princes of the world carry out their governing roles primarily through the power of their words? This should not surprise, for the world itself exists by the power of God’s own word: he spoke it into existence, and he continues to sustain it by the word of his power. As those who are created to be his image, God equipped us with the power to speak, an incredible power that can be used for good or for evil. David recognizes not only this power, but also the danger of his own words. This is why he prays for a guard over his mouth. He knows that if God leaves his mouth unsupervised, evil, damaging, destructive words will come out.
But David is also aware of the source of his words. The first part of verse 4 reads, “Do not let my heart incline to any evil.” It is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks (Luke 6:45). So David probes deeper to his innermost thoughts, desires, emotions, and recognizes there a natural propensity to evil. The ESV translators have rendered this verse somewhat interpretively, when they say, “Do not let my heart incline to any evil.” In fact, the Hebrew reads, “Do not incline my heart to any evil.” The meaning is almost identical, but the Hebrew is slightly stronger in the power it ascribes to God. To be sure, God does not tempt any person directly, as James 1:13 says. Evil never proceeds directly from the nature of God, for God is wholly good, with no trace of evil whatsoever. Yet he is also completely sovereign over evil, and David recognizes this sovereignty in his prayer. Not only is God sovereign over the conditions that might tempt David’s heart toward evil, God is also sovereign over David’s heart as well. Quite literally, Proverbs 21:1 applies to David: “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will.” If this is the case, David depends completely on God for protection from the sins to which his heart is so naturally inclined.
David’s self-awareness extends to his susceptibility to temptation from others. Note all of verse 4 now: “Do not let my heart incline to any evil, to busy myself with wicked deeds in company with men who work iniquity, and let me not eat of their delicacies!” This is the Old Testament equivalent of Paul’s command in 2 Corinthians 6:14: “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.” That verse is most commonly cited in reference to marriage, and certainly it applies to marriage, but it is also broader than that. Think for a moment: why is it sinful for a believer deliberately to enter into marriage with an unbeliever? It is because a relationship as intimate as marriage will inevitably play some role in shaping the kind of person you are, and while it is certainly possible for a Christian to remain faithful to Christ while married to an unbeliever (many have done it), the marriage itself will cause difficulties and present temptations to the believer. Now apply the same logic to friendships. David asks God to keep him from table fellowship with wicked men who might entice him into evil. Does this mean you should never eat with an unbeliever? Of course not. I hope that you do find occasions to sit down at a meal with unbelievers. Jesus was a friend of tax collectors and sinners. What this verse addresses is not friendly associations we may have with unbelievers. Rather, it serves as a warning to guard ourselves so that our closest, most life-shaping relationships are relationships with those who will spur us on toward holiness, not with those who will lead us away from it.
In fact, verse 5 makes that very point: “Let a righteous man strike me—it is a kindness; let him rebuke me—it is oil for my head.” It was a custom in the ancient Near East to discipline children or slaves by striking them on the crown of the head. David envisions himself as a child needing correction from others. He welcomes the rebuke of the righteous as oil for his head. This image likely suggests the soothing, medicinal effects of oil in the ancient world. So David has prayed for righteous friends who care about him to correct him, but more than that, he also prays for a heart that will be receptive to their correction. The next line reads, “let my head not refuse it.”
It is here that we should note the tremendous blessing God has given us by giving us each other. The church, as God makes plain in the New Testament, is to be a community that provides oversight to its members, where they are cared for and corrected, not by arrogant, judgmental, prideful people, but by humble, loving fellow believers who, like soldiers, resolve to leave no man behind. It is our responsibility to protect one another, and that means it is your responsibility to receive correction willingly and graciously when it is given to you. Our hearts are not naturally inclined to receive correction. The moment someone corrects us, we have a tendency to rise up and defend our wounded egos. So that is another reason to pray. Ask God to surround you with loving oversight, and ask him for a heart that will humbly and joyfully receive it from the church.
At the last part of verse 5 and on into verse 6 David indicates why he chooses to stand with the righteous rather than the wicked: “Yet may prayer is continually against their evil deeds. When their judges are thrown over the cliff, then they shall hear my words, for they are pleasant.” I puzzled a while over this verse, and I am not certain that I have understood it correctly, but what I have come to seems to make good sense. First, I don’t think the word “judges” refers to those who hold a judicial office. I think the term is being used more loosely here, as it is in the book of Judges, to refer to leaders in general. So David is making reference to the leaders of the wicked men against whom he prays. Second, there is a footnote in the ESV that offers a different way to translate this verse: “When their judges fall into the hands of the Rock.” I think that translation is a better reflection of the Hebrew than the one given in the text. The word “Rock” is used several times in the book of Psalms as a title for God. For example, Psalm 42:9 says, “I will say to God my rock…” But if one prefers the other translation, the reference still seems to be about divine judgment. I believe David is speaking of a time when the wicked will fall into the hands of God for judgment. What will happen then? “then they shall hear my words, for they are pleasant.” It is equally possible to translate it, “then they shall hear my words, that they are pleasant.” In other words, when the leaders of the wicked fall into God’s hands for judgment, they will at last recognize the pleasantness, or value, or truthfulness, of David’s words against them. Some have argued that “they” at the end of verse 6 does not refer to the wicked who have been judged, but to the people of Israel as a whole. Many older commentators place this psalm in the time that Saul was pursuing David, so that David is making reference to the fact that when Saul and his men are judged by God, the rest of the nation will make David king and delight in his words. That is a possible reading as well. Either way, the point appears to be that David fully expects the wicked to fall under divine judgment, and at the same time, he expects that he will be vindicated for standing against them.
So because David knows that this is what lies in store for the wicked, he prays for protection from sin that he knows will overtake him apart from divine grace. In the Gospel accounts, we read of two disciples in particular who betrayed Jesus. Judas Iscariot sold him to the authorities, and Simon Peter denied three times that he knew him. And yet, how different were the destinies of these two men! Judas succumbed to despair over his sin and hung himself, but Peter repented, was restored by the risen Christ, and went on to become a pillar of the early church. What accounts for the different destinies of these two men? Was there something about Peter that made him naturally more resilient than Judas? No. The difference between them lies in the words of Jesus to Peter, just before these events were about to unfold, recorded in Luke 22:31-32: “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” There is no record of anything similar that Jesus ever said to Judas. In other words, the difference between Judas and Peter is the intercession of Christ. Our sanctification, our growth, our ability to persevere, our ability to bounce back from times when we succumb to sin, and our ability to continue fighting against it, all of these things are gifts of grace. If we are going to run this race to the end, we are wholly and utterly dependent on God. And if we are so in need of grace, we must likewise devote ourselves to seek it from God daily through prayer.
And so we need God to deliver us from sin. But David’s focus shifts toward the end of this psalm from the temptations of wicked men to the direct opposition of wicked men. And again, he cries out to God for deliverance. That brings us to a second way that we need God that should prompt us to consistent, earnest prayer:
I have noticed as I have studied to preach psalms in the middle of our ongoing sermon series through the book of Revelation how much these two books connect with one another. In Revelation 6, where the Lamb opens the seals of the scroll, with each seal unleashing another aspect of the unfolding of God’s plan leading up to the end, we see when he opens the fifth seal that the souls of Christian martyrs appear under the altar in Heaven. And what do they cry out to God? “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” Maybe you could ask why, of all things, they pray for this. After all, they are not suffering anymore. Why do they care what happens to their earthly oppressors? It is because, though they have escaped physical suffering, they have not yet been vindicated before the eyes of the world. As long as they remain in their graves, they remain under public shame. The world will continue to look on them as fools who died for a silly myth. As long as the earth-dwellers go on without receiving divine judgment, they retain some measure of power over the martyrs they have killed. So the martyrs need deliverance from their enemies. They need vindication against those who have opposed them for their allegiance to Christ. Until deliverance and vindication come to God’s suffering people, the world will always be able to look at us and conclude that it is foolish to follow Christ. So the honor of Christ himself is at stake in the deliverance of his people.
David turns his mind to deliverance from enemies in verse 7. Like verse 6, verse 7 is also difficult. As I studied it, I came to see that the editors of our English Bibles have grouped it with what goes before, but it actually makes better sense to read it with what comes after. Read verses 7-8 together and see for yourself: “As when one plows and breaks up the earth, so shall our bones be scattered at the mouth of Sheol. But my eyes are toward you, O God, my Lord; in you I seek refuge; leave me not defenseless!” Verse 7 expresses the danger that David is in. the image of a plow breaking up the earth suggests violent destruction, and the image of bones scattered at the “mouth of Sheol” (i.e., the grave, the entrance to the underworld) suggests not only death at the hands of his enemies, but shameful treatment of his remains. It seems quite possible, if David wrote this psalm while being pursued by Saul, that he had in mind particularly Saul’s atrocious crime of slaughtering the priests at Nob (1 Samuel 22), who had given aid to David and his men, along with all of the residents of the city—men, women, and even children. If this is the man David is running from, the danger to his life and to his honor is plainly evident. But verse 8 indicates that David trusts in the Lord and seeks refuge in him. He trusts that, as the anointed of the Lord, God will not allow his enemies to have the last word.
So David prays for protection and the destruction of his enemies in verses 9-10: “Keep me from the trap that they have laid for me and from the snares of evildoers! Let the wicked fall into their own nets, while I pass by safely.” He calls upon God to apply the lex talionis, the law of retribution, otherwise known as “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,” to his enemies. They set a trap for me, let them fall into it, but let me escape! This prayer is a kind of imprecation, a calling down of judgment on one’s enemies, something that we see in a number of the psalms. How do we fit together these imprecations with Jesus’ command to love our enemies?
The answer, I believe, lies in the progressive unfolding of the Bible’s storyline. The establishment of the kingdom of Israel was designed by God to be a theocratic representation of the coming kingdom of God. In that setting, it was only right to exterminate from the nation those who spurned the Law of God. But now, in the era of the new covenant, God is gathering to himself a people from all nations, and those people going on living as members of those nations, right alongside unbelievers, until the final judgment separates them. And so, for this present time, Jesus commands us to love our enemies and seek to bring them to repentance by preaching the gospel to them.
Does our new setting, then, mean that imprecations in psalms are of no value to us? No. They are of value to us, so long as we understand the redemptive-historical shift that has occurred with the coming of Christ. We are not to pray the imprecatory psalms over any individual in particular, so long as we hold out hope that he or she may repent and come to Christ. But we do pray, in general terms, for God to bring his judgment against all who will persist in sin against him and against us. We should cry out to God for final deliverance from the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet (Revelation 12-13).
And so we must love our enemies, and yet still pray for deliverance, which includes the final judgment of all who oppose Christ. David prayed to God on numerous occasions, and every time he faced danger, God delivered him. The deliverances of David from death represent a type that point us forward to a greater deliverance, the deliverance of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, from the power of death. Jesus’ body was laid in a tomb, but his bones were never scattered. God did not allow his holy one to see corruption. He vindicated his Son, and in doing so, guaranteed the final deliverance and vindication that will come to all who are in Christ.
And so when we pray for deliverance from our enemies, we are essentially praying for Christ to come and consummate his kingdom. When I was younger I didn’t give much attention to praying big prayers like that because I figured that Christ was going to come whenever God had planned that to happen, and my prayers would not change that one bit. So I thought it was better to focus my prayers on smaller, more personal matters. Those seemed like the things that could really be affected by prayer. But as I have matured in my understanding, I have come to see that our prayers are not really about changing things in an absolute sense. We can’t change God’s mind about anything, and we can’t inform him of something he doesn’t already know. So why pray? We pray to align ourselves with his purpose, and we pray because he has ordained prayer as one of the means by which he will accomplish his plan. We see this in numerous places in Scripture, but I will only mention one example here. In Revelation 5:8, as John is in the throne room of Heaven, where the Lamb will shortly begin opening the seven-sealed scroll and executing God’s plan for the ages, we read this: “And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.” Why are the prayers of the saints pictured as incense in the throne room of Heaven? It is because God has heard the prayers of his people. He has stored them up, and he is now acting to judge the world that oppresses believers and to make the kingdom of this world into the kingdom of the Lord and of his Christ. And he is doing it in answer to those prayers. Pray for the deliverance that God has promised will come at the end of this age. Pray with confidence for Christ to come. Your prayers will arise as incense to the throne room of Heaven, and at the appointed time, God will answer.
There are only two kinds of people here today. You are either a needy sinner who has not come to Christ in faith, or you are a needy sinner who has. Either way, you need Christ today. If you are part of the first group, I invite you recognize your need for a Savior. Your sins have placed you under the threat of divine wrath, and one day you will fall into the hands of the Rock if you do not turn from sin. But the good news is that God sent his Son, who took on our human nature, lived a sinless life, and then offered himself up on the cross to death, not for anything he had done, but to bear the wrath of God in place of all who would believe in him. On the third day, God raised him from the dead. He ascended into Heaven, where he sits at the right hand of God now, offering you the chance to repent before he comes with the armies of Heaven to put an end to all who oppose him. If you will but turn from sin and turn to Christ in faith now, call upon him in prayer, you will be saved. And Christ commands you to identify yourself publicly with him through baptism, so we invite you to take that step of obedience.
If you are a needy sinner who has already come to Christ, who has already taken the step of obedience in baptism, who is now under oversight as a member in good standing with an evangelical church, I invite you to go on believing the gospel, and to declare that you do once again today by partaking of the body and blood of Christ. You never grow up beyond the gospel. You only grow more into it. You are utterly lost without the grace of God. Let that realization motivate you to a life of prayer.