Lord, Save Us From The Wicked (Psalm 5)
The message tonight feels a bit like a part two of the last point of the message from this morning. This morning we saw that we are to be vigilant and not love the world. Here, we are coming at the idea from a different angle. This is a prayer for God to protect us from the wicked.
As I mentioned this morning, we live in a society that is wrought with wickedness that seems to be growing by the minute. And this is a great danger to us. We tend to think only in terms of persecution, but that is not the only danger. What about temptation? What about changing the way we think to be more worldly? What about being more accepting of sinfulness? What about the things being taught to us and our children through the media we watch? What about the things taught in schools across the country?
With David we must cry out, Lord, save us from the wicked.
Let’s read Psalm 5 together.
Resolve to Pray (Vv. 1-3)
The psalm begins with a passionate plea for God to hear his prayer. And the plea is quite strong. He is groaning in agony desiring for God to rescue. This prayer will not go unheard.
God hears all things. He knows all things, so He must hear all things, but the hearing David wants is for God to pay special attention to his cry. And David can be assured that He will because God is David’s King and David’s God.
God hears our prayers, that is pays special attention to and answers them, because He is our King and our God. This is of course one of the great privileges of the Christian. And we have this privilege because Christ died to bring us to God (1 Peter 3:18). And because of this God is our King and our God and we can trust that God will hear our prayers.
But David does not stop here. He then resolves to seek God alone (V. 2). He says that he will pray to God, not others. He is seeking help from God alone. This is not avoiding discussing problems with others to the police or other things that God has given as a means for help, but it is seeking God above and beyond all others. God is who we entrust everything to, not anything man has come up with so we go to Him with our ordeals.
Notice also that David resolves to pray (V. 3). That’s weird, because it seems like he is already praying. But David makes plans here and essentially says to God, “You’ll hear from me in the morning”. And we should as well. We should make a plan for when, where, and how we are going to go to the Lord in prayer. It is something that we think of ahead of time and make preparations to do. If you don’t then you won’t do it.
And then, David does something that many people do not do today. That is, he resolved to watch for God’s answer (V. 4). He didn’t just shoot up a prayer and leave it at that. He resolved to watch for God’s answer to his prayer. David is trusting that God will answer his prayer and he waits for the answer. As Thomas Brooks said,
“He is either a fool or a madman, he is either very weak or very wicked, that prays and prays, but never looks after his prayers; that shoots many an arrow towards heaven, but never minds where his arrows alight.”—Thomas Brooks
One day I prayed for a student whose family was having financial struggles. His father had left and his parents were divorced. Dad hadn’t paid child support since he left years ago. Our church helped with some things but I knew it wasn’t long term. So, I prayed that his Dad would begin paying child support. This student told me a few weeks later that his Dad had paid thousands of dollars in backed child support and was going to be paying it monthly. I was in shock. I shouldn’t have been in shock. I should have been looking for God to answer that prayer.
Christ has made a way for us to go to God in prayer. God is now our God and our King through the finished work of Christ, so we can trust that God hears our prayers. Christian, cry out earnestly. God hears your prayers. Make a plan to pray. Where will you go? When will you go to God in prayer? David said, “You’ll hear from me in the morning.” What are you going to say? Then look for the answers to come.
We Trust That Judgment Is Coming (Vv. 4-7)
If we give some thought to the context of this psalm answers begin to fly out at us. Why does David talk about God’s holiness amid struggles with the wicked? It’s because David is ultimately trusting in God’s justice to take care of the wickedness that seeks to overtake him.
God is holy, righteous, free from evil and does not tolerate wickedness. He takes no pleasure in wickedness and wickedness of some sort seeks to overtake David. And David here trusts that God will judge evil. And those people that wickedly seek to destroy David, God hates.
“Woah!”, you might be thinking to yourself. “Did you just say that God hates?” Yes, I did. And I did not pause or stutter when doing so. It says so in Psalm 5:5. He also abhors some people, that is in the next verse. Let me put it this way, if you love something then you hate what brings harm to it. God loves holiness and hates wickedness. And He does not separate sins from the one sinning quite the way many people teach that He does. And David understands this and trusts that God is on His side and not the side of the wicked. He is trusting in God’s just judgment.
Now, there is something interesting said in verse 7 that helps to clear up all this hatred talk.
Because of God’s lovingkindness, it is different for the Christian. It is not that we were something special that put us into a different class of people than the one that God hates. It is because God’s lovingkindness shown up us, whom God once hated, that we are loved by Him. Here is how Paul says it in Romans 5:8-11.
“8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath [of God] through Him. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. 11 And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.”—Romans 5:8-11 NASB
We did not earn God’s love. While we were still sinners and enemies of God, Christ died for us and brought us to Himself. God’s grace has shown upon us and we have gone from enemy to friend. And we can now trust that God is for us and not against us and trust that He will make things right at the judgment.
The mocker, the person who stands against God and His ways, the one who belittles God and His people, the one who draws God’s people off the path through temptation, these people will not stand in the judgment. God does not tolerate sin. The call for you who are still God’s enemies is to repent and believe the gospel. We broke God’s Law, we have earned for ourselves God’s justice, but God did not leave us in that condition. God sent His Son to come and live a perfect life that could be credited to us, and to die on the cross in our place as a sacrifice for sin. Jesus rose from the grave and conquered the power of sin and death and all those who trust Him are moved from God’s enemies to His people. They are taken out of the Kingdom of darkness and made part of Christ’s Kingdom. How wonderful it is that God saves His enemies!
Now, consider the wicked. What do you think is going to be the sound from Heaven when God’s wrath is poured out upon the wicked? The sound is going to be applause and hallelujahs. There will be jubilation at the judgment of the wicked. Remember, evils come at the hands of wicked people in this life. We hope and trust in God’s justice that will one day come because God will make all things right. Sometimes people wrong you. Sometimes people really wrong you. And sometimes the law doesn’t help you. Sometimes they can’t help, sometimes they won’t. But we trust that God will make all things right. We don’t take matters into our own hands, we trust in God’s justice.
“19 Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath [of God,] for it is written, “VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY,” says the Lord.”—Romans 12:19 NASB
Christian, it is only by God’s lovingkindness that you will not also receive God’s justice. And it’s only by the grace of God that He is your defender and will come to your aid.
God Rescue Us From The Wicked (Vv. 8-10)
David pleads with God to lead him in God’s ways. This is difficult because of his foes (V. 8). For David the problem was probably some sort of aggression. Someone was likely after him. But that is not always how the wicked come at us. So, when we apply this idea to us we benefit from thinking more broadly than just a type of persecution. Though, for much of the world this would be prayed about physical persecution.
Pray for God to keep you safe from the wickedness of this world (V. 8). Wickedness is all around us. We pray that God would keep us physically safe from the wickedness that is all around us. But we also pray that God would keep us spiritually safe from the wickedness that surrounds us. In a world fueled by lust and immorality, we pray that God would keep us safe from the wicked.
So, we go into life and our prayer knowing that the ways of the world are wicked (V. 9). We go into life knowing that we can find nothing reliable about the wicked. We know that there is nothing reliable in their speech, they are destructive at their core, their throat is an open grave, their tongues give flatter, and we simply understand that humanity is capable of an immense amount of sinfulness.
It should be noted that Paul uses this verse in Romans 3 to describe the wickedness of humanity. I say this only to say that you were once numbered with those mentioned here. It is only by God’s grace that you have been pulled out of the world and brought into the light of God’s Kingdom.
Now, look at verse 10. David prays for God to hold them accountable and that there is a tremendous downfall of the wicked. And this we pray as well. When wickedness surrounds us we pray for God to hold them accountable. We pray for God to abandon these people to their wicked ways and that it ends in their destruction. Letting people fall by their own devices is another way of asking God to stop sustaining them and allow them to be ruined by their own foolishness. This is how Paul describes sinful humanity in Romans 1.
What a description of lost humanity! There is nothing reliable in their speech. Their inward part, heart, is destructive. Death is in their throat. They flatter with their tongues. No wonder we notice wickedness everywhere. And no wonder we are harmed by sinful people in this life. And this we hold on to. God will hold people accountable for their sins. Oftentimes it happens just as David here asks for it to happen. People are oftentimes destroyed by their own sin. I tell my daughter all the time that sin makes people stupid. Greedy people are often destroyed by their greed. Oftentimes the lustful person destroys his family and livelihood through his adultery. This is God abandoning people to their own devices and allowing them to fall.
The wicked lay a trap for the righteous. It may be through ridicule, temptation, persecution, or other ways. But we pray that God would deliver us from the wicked. We pray for deliverance from being influenced by the wicked, the vices of the wicked, and the wrath of the wicked.
It is not wrong to pray for the destruction of those causing us harm. In fact, I pray for the destruction of those persecuting believers in other countries when I see the news reports. And, I have prayed that God would bring ruin to individuals doing tremendous evil. But Jesus does show us a better way. When we pray for our enemies we should pray for their repentance. But if that is not going to come, their ruin. We long to see wickedness purged from the Earth, and we long to be saved from the wicked.
It may seem like I am being incredibly harsh tonight. I am honestly unsure of another way to preach from Psalm 5. But I also think I am trying to give this an incredible amount of seriousness. I used the example of Lot fleeing Sodom this morning. Lot and his family were so immersed in wickedness that they had no idea how bad things were. Lot was the only one who spoke out against the wickedness that was happening outside his home. Family members laughed at him telling them they needed to flee. His wife died as she looked back at that sinful city, probably longing to go back at some point. He and his daughters survived, but they were so tainted by Sodom that the daughters got Dad drunk and had children with him.
We don’t want to be like Lot. We want to be rescued from the world. We want our families to be safe from the wickedness of the world. And we pray that we are kept safe.
Here at Victory, we want to be a safe haven for the sojourner. We want to be a place where God’s grace and mercy is placed before His people. And we want to support and help each other amid the evils of this wicked world. And we want to remind each other that God is our shelter.
God Is Our Shelter (Vv. 11-12)
The ending to this Psalm is very upbeat, as it should be. It ends affirming that all those who are God’s people have shelter from this wicked world in God.
Our safety is not ultimately in how well we can protect ourselves. I do think that you have a right to protect yourself, and even an obligation to protect your wife and kids. But ultimately we trust God for our safety.
Because God is our safety, we can sing for joy. God has given us favor. And God has given us safety.
As I was studying for this sermon I read a quote from Charles Haddon Spurgeon, that summarizes this last idea so very well.
“Joy is the privilege of the believer. When sinners are destroyed our rejoicing shall be full. They laugh first and weep ever after; we weep now, but shall rejoice eternally.”—Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, Vol. 1, p. 49
The wicked will have time for fun and joyousness for but a little while. The non-believer will have their best life now, and oftentimes it will come at the expense of the righteous. But our refuge is in God. We trust that He will keep us safe and give us incredible joy. He does that now, but ultimately in the New Heavens and New Earth.
Conclusion
Christian, this is our hope in times of trouble. When everyone seems to stand against us God is our shelter. He is our shield. He is for us and will defend us. And we trust that He will make all things right.
R. Dwain Minor