40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Psalm 5 (Episode 384)

Episode Date: October 17, 2023

Chad and Daniel discuss Psalm 5. Have a listen! Show Notes: Support 1517 1517 Podcasts The 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 on Youtube What's New from 1517: 2023 HWSS Conference Livestream Signup Free 2023 Advent Resources 2024(May 3-4) NWA Tickets are Now Available! Join the 1517 Academy All Charges Dropped, Vol. 2 More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Chad Bird

Welcome to the Psalm Companion to 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast, as is the Companion. we are in psalm number five this one is to the choir master is for the flutes you know so you're gonna need flutes if you have i don't know if maybe in the editing i can put some flutes in the background probably not gonna do that but that's what you need to really get the full effect of this psalm uh it is of course a psalm of david what we got what we got going on in this psalm chad all the the people who love flutes out there i hate to you know disappoint you but that is a conjecture it's the only place in the old testament where that occurs so we'll say it's

flutes though yeah maybe it's clarinets yeah some kind of some kind of wind instrument you know it was a wind instrument yeah let's just leave it at that not percussion but uh a wind instrument flute flutes that'll work maybe it's uh maybe it's for like you know like uh it's for the sunday school class with the recorders that's what this is for yeah to the choir master for recorders the psalm of the psalm of david so we start out here with a pretty pretty typical beginning to a lot of the Psalms calling upon God to, to hear the prayer of, uh, of David in this case. And of course of us as well. So I'll, uh, it's, uh, 12 verses read through it. Uh, and then we'll pick out a few highlights. Give ear to my words. Oh Lord, consider my groaning. Give attention to

the sound of my cry, my King and my God for to you. Do I pray in the morning? Oh Lord, you hear my voice in the morning, I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch. For you are not a God who delights in wickedness. Evil may not dwell with you. The boastful shall not stand before your eyes. You hate all evildoers. You destroy those who speak lies. The Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man. But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house. I will bow down toward your holy temple in the fear of you. Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness because of my enemies. Make your way straight before me. But there is no truth in their mouth. Their inmost self is destruction. Their throat is an open grave. They flatter with their tongue.

Make them bear their guilt, O God. Let them fall by their own counsels. Because of the abundance of their transgressions, cast them out, for they have rebelled against you. But let all who take refuge in you rejoice. Let them ever sing for joy and spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may exalt in you for you bless the righteous oh lord you cover him with favor as with a shield a lot of enemy talk in this psalm we see that all over all over the psalms uh david is constantly talking about those who seek to destroy him those who surround him those who plot against him those who whisper against him over and over you'll kind of have this enemy imagery that piles up uh which i actually appreciate because um i think it's one of the uh

this is a little a small soapbox of mine i'll keep it real brief but it's one of my uh one of my maybe complaint is too strong a word but i'll rephrase it one of the things i wish we had in more of our uh contemporary hymns and songs and and just the various ways in which we sing to god is more talk of the the foes that are out there but i say that because it's all over the book of psalms i mean you hardly encounter a psalm that doesn't have something about that and we of course no we don't battle against flesh and blood but we do battle against all the spiritual forces that are out there as as paul talks about in ephesians so that fits with a lot of the themes we find in the book of psalms about the the fact that we the moment we get out of bed

we're we're in a fight so the the military imagery that you find in psalm 5 and all of the book of psalms fits with the reality that we still live in so he starts out here asking god to to hear his prayer give attention incline his ear uh to to what david has to to say and then verse 3 says in the morning oh lord in the morning you hear my voice in the morning i prepare a sacrifice for you and watch that's why so psalm four is an evening psalm and then psalm five is a morning psalm nice pairing one after the other the idea of getting up in the morning and as it says here prepare a sacrifice to be translated different ways it's it's kind of the idea of of uh getting everything ready kind of laying everything out in order is the another way that

we could translate this, I order my prayer to thee, which I kind of like. You get them in the morning, what are you going to do? Well, a good way to start is to kind of lay out your desires in order before the Lord. So you turn to him, you ask him to be with you, to bless you, to forgive you, to do all these things, because you stand in constant need of his gifts. I like the way that that this psalm is sort of ordered. So first, you know, you have him ask God to give ear. So it's even a good thing to do, to ask God to listen to you. Of course, he promises to listen to you, but say, listen to my words, the words I'm about to say. Consider my groaning. So these are not words that you can listen to. This is something for you to consider. So this is just, I consider

my distress, right? Consider my anguish, consider my pain, whatever this is. It's not words that we're talking about. So it's listen to what I say and see what is going on with me, the things that I don't have words for. You have to watch to know about this. Give attention to the sound of my cry, right? So I'm going through hard things, difficult things, bad things. I've got words to say. I want you to hear those. And I've got a situation going on that I would like you to pay attention to, that I'd like you to consider. And I'm going to start my day off by asking you to do these things. This is how I rise in the morning and say, tune your ear to me and cast your eyes upon me, which is great. And then he does this thing, you might think, he's about to do this

righteous-unrighteous contrast thing where he says, okay, so listen, I know, here's my words. You're not a God who delights in wickedness. Evil may not dwell with you. The boastful shall not stand before your eyes. You hate all evildoers. Strong. You destroy those who speak lies. The Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man. And you're like, well, it's a good thing you're not that, David. Obviously, what he's about to do is contrast himself and be like, those people who are bad and me who is good, that's why you should listen to me. But he doesn't, and instead he says, but I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house. So David doesn't say, and because I'm not like them, or I'm none of those things, or

you couldn't describe me as any of those things, which by the way, you can describe David as many of those things. That's not what he does. He says, I am not like that. There is a distinction between those people and me, but the distinction has to do with who you are, not with who I am. It has to do with the fact that I am a recipient of the abundance of steadfast love that you have given me.

I mean, I love this through right here, but I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house. Not any other way. Yeah, yeah. The steadfast love is taking him into the Lord's house, which lines up, of course, with everything that we were talking about, how to bite in the morning, preparing a sacrifice, or laying out my request before you. So he's going to the one place where he knows he is going to be a recipient of the very blessings that he's describing here. He's going to enter into the Lord's house. So he's going to the temple or in David's day, going to the tabernacle. He's going to where God is and he's doing so to be the recipient through and also to

be the recipient of this chesed of the steadfast love. And then he bows down towards the Lord's holy temple in fear of you, not in the sense of I'm afraid of you, but in reverence toward him and worship toward him, which is of course what the fear of the Lord is in the old, in the old Testament. And then he transitions to making a petition. He says, lead me. So direct my steps. Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness because of my enemies.

Make your way straight before me. David's starting out his day. He's aware of the fact that there's plenty of adversaries out there. There's plenty of things that can go wrong. There's plenty of threats. And so what does he do? Well, he's going to go into the presence of God. I'm going to enter your house.

i'm going to bow down because of your love because of the the righteousness that is yours because i fear you that is i i believe in you i reverence you and i need you oh god to to make your way straight before me i don't need to be crooked i don't need to be kind of you know unpredictable make it straight so that in my walk i know that i'm not going to stumble because you've straighten out the way before me and there's plenty of crooked ways that i can go astray and end up falling flat in my face yeah well i think i think what's great about this and by the way he's going to do the same thing again like he's going to go back into describing these other people and then also contrasting it with another type of person and it's going to be a very similar

move that he makes it's still going to have very little to do with with what they do so but right I like this a lot, Chad, because what he does is, first he asks the Lord to lead him in his righteousness. So he's not saying, let me continue to be righteous, but he's asking to be led in the righteousness of God. So keep me in your righteousness, keep me on that path. But this, because of my enemies, is interesting, because you're like, well, what does that mean? It seems like you could just say, lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness, make your way straight before me. That would seem good. Why do you have because of my enemies inserted in here? And I think what David knows, and what I certainly know is true for me, is that the fact that you have

enemies, the fact that they're whatever that is—people, sin, death, the devil, all of these things, all these kind of things—the greatest temptation for you to stray from the righteous path is your enemies. It's retribution, it's hatred, it's all of these things. The actual truth is that I need you to keep me on a straight path. I need you to guide me in your righteousness, because my enemies are the greatest temptation for me to go my own way, to take care of my own problem, right? To say, these people are after me, now I will take matters into my own hands. And this is a good way for me to diverge onto a much more crooked path. And so that rings true to me.

That is the temptation always, right? What is the greatest cause of me going in a direction I shouldn't go? Well, it's sinners. It's sin itself. It's the devil. It's the flesh. It's all the enemies that we all have. Yeah, and we are humans of our nature imitative.

i mean we we start doing that from our our youngest our youngest years babies imitate their parents and we still imitate people today and so it kind of sounds strange but uh we we can we do the same with our enemies we we can begin to imitate to to parallel in our own lives the very things that are a threat to us i mean you see this happen all the time where someone gets uh sucked into some evil that before was an enemy but then it begins begins to kind of imitate that in his own thoughts desires actions words and pretty soon he's no longer on this straight way but instead has fallen into the ditch on one side of the other yeah that's right okay so nine has uh nine and ten have more of the description you were just talking about dan

with regard to the opposite of the righteous way of the lord talks especially about the mouth which is of course a huge theme in the old and new testament no truth in their mouth their inmost self is destruction and i think probably the most arresting image in the entire psalm is this one their throat is an open grave yeah you you can't get much more graphic than that their throat is an open grave yeah in other words paul used this language like their throat is the an open grave and then the venom of asps is on their lips. That's kind of like the venom of vipers. So Paul borrows this language.

Yeah, it's mixing of metaphors, but they both kind of get the same idea across that what is within? Death. So the throat is, you peer down their throat. What do you see? I see death. It's a hole leading into where there's a body down there

rotting in the grave. Their throats are in the grave. They flatter with their tongue, which is pretty interesting. We usually would not link flattering with a throat being an open grave. But, you know, flattery, this kind of flattery probably being used here is not just trying to make somebody feel better. This flattering is a way in which lies are often concealed. So flatter to your face, stab you in the back. Well, when I hear flattery, I don't think flattery is used in a positive way ever.

Not here, for sure. Like, oh, you flatter me. There's a negative connotation. Flattery is like a compliment with a bad intention, right? Or a bad— Or an insincere one, too. Yeah, insincerity. it's associated with all those things where it's like if you see somebody and they're talking to

someone else and you're like man they are just buttering them up look at all like they're just pouring the flattery on you're like this person's trying to get something from them or this person is trying to conceal something because they actually hate this person it's flattery is is not the same it's always self-serving yeah it's not the same as me going to you and complimenting you about something i think you've done well or something like that that's sincere so compliments at least true compliments are always other directed you're trying to build somebody else up but flattery is self-directed you're trying yeah you might be trying to build somebody else up but it's for you it's all it's all about you no matter what flattery might be

coming and flattery is dangerous too because uh we all like to be flattered yeah it's yeah feeds our ego yeah well it's that's why it could be associated with the same thing but their throat is an open grave they're they flatter with their tongue it's like yeah this is somebody who is saying something that sounds real nice on their lips uh but they have death in mind yeah and then verse 10 make them bear their guilt oh god let them fall by their own counsels now that's a let them fall by their own count that's seems strikingly uh familiar to something we just talked about nester yeah yeah continues that that theme that uh that we've talked about falling into the pit which you dug here fall by your own councils uh get stabbed by your own sword

all those sorts of things because the abundance of their transgressions cast them out for they rebelled against you all right contrast is set up now with verse 11 but let all who take refuge in you so the the prior description of those who are not taking refuge in the lord they're taking refuge in their plots and their plans and their flattery and the abundance of their transgressions all those sorts of things but let all who take refuge in you rejoice no flattering going on here but rejoicing instead let them ever sing for joy and spread your protection over them that those who love your name may exalt in you for you bless the righteous man of lord you cover him with favor as with a shield so the whole theme of those last two verses seems to be that of

divine protection so taking refuge in him you're spreading your protection over over them you're covering them with favor as as with a shield so it's the idea that listen there's a there's all kinds of dangers out there every day we wake up we're facing a danger we know this i mean maybe not a physical maybe physical danger for some people but for all of us spiritual dangers so what do we need well we need to be covered we need a shield that's going to be over us somebody that's going to spread his protection over us in this uh militarized zone that we that we live in well the only real protection is is in christ he's our shield he's our refuge he spreads his protection over us and he's the one who's going to fight off the evil that we they're either

tempted to or that is out to get us either way. The protection finally is in Him and only in Him. Yeah, this is the one who...your only protection is in Christ because He is the one whose righteousness you wear. So if God is going to bless the righteous, you must be finding refuge in Christ. You must be wearing that righteousness that He imputes to you. This is the great thing about this is that the contrast here, again, is not—but for those who have only truth in their mouth and who never flatter with their tongue, those people, God, you will bless. No, the contrast is there are people who take refuge, who are recipients of God's steadfast love, who trust—what would it be to trust—or sorry, what would it be to take refuge in God? Well, it would be to trust

him, right? This is a faith-based thing. So the people of faith, that's the contrast. Those who take refuge, those who don't. Those who believe, those who don't. That's the contrast. Yeah, yeah. That's those who are in Christ and those who refuse to have anything to do with him. So in the big picture of things, if you're in Christ, if you're covered by his righteousness, then it doesn't really matter what happens you're you're secure in him you know so it'll say somebody actually does get you oh fine it it ultimately doesn't matter because we're safe in christ no condemnation for those who are in christ jesus and hopefully no death for those who are in christ jesus yep because even death is forced to serve us because it's just the portal

that we that we walk through into the life that is to come so great promises in psalm 5 yeah great All right, guys. Well, that's Psalm 5. We'll be back next week with another episode of 40 Minutes and another Psalm. Chad, I'll see you there. All right. See you then.