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["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] Page 250. Page 250. And let's go ahead and sing it out on the first verse. Days are filled with sorrow and care. Hearts are lonely and drear. Burdens are lifted at Calvary. Jesus is very near. Burdens are lifted at Calvary. Calvary, Calvary. Burdens are lifted at Calvary. Jesus is very near. Page 250. Let's sing it out on the second verse. Cast your care on Jesus today. Leave your worry and fear. Burdens are lifted at Calvary. Jesus is very near. Burdens are lifted at Calvary. Calvary, Calvary. Burdens are lifted at Calvary. Jesus is very near. Page 250. Let's sing it out on the last. Troubled soul, the Savior can see every heartache and fear. Burdens are lifted at Calvary. Jesus is very near. Burdens are lifted at Calvary. Calvary, Calvary. Burdens are lifted at Calvary. Jesus is very near. Great singing. Welcome to Verity Baptist Church in the Wednesday evening Bible study. Let's open up in a word of prayer. Father God, thank you so much for this church, Lord. Thank you for these people who come out here on a Wednesday evening to serve you. I pray that our singing would glorify you, Lord. I pray that you'd bless the service and the preaching to come. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. All right. Turn in your song books page number 260. It's just 10 pages over. Page 260. We're going to be singing He is Able to Deliver Thee. Page 260. And let's go ahead and sing it out on the first. We're going to be singing He is Able to Deliver Thee. Page 260. And let's go ahead and sing it out on the first. He is able to deliver thee, He is able to deliver thee, though by sin oppressed go to Him, for us our God is able to deliver thee. Page 260 on the second. Tis the grandest theme in the earth or main, Tis the grandest theme for a mortal strain, Tis the grandest theme till the world again, Our God is able to deliver thee, He is able to deliver thee, He is able to deliver thee, though by sin oppressed go to Him, for us our God is able to deliver thee. Page 260, let's sing it out on the last. Now you guys are singing good, but we can sing it a little bit better, so let's finish strong on the last. Tis the grandest theme, let the tidings roll, To the guilty heart, to the sinful soul, Look to God in faith, He will make thee whole, Our God is able to deliver thee, He is able to deliver thee, He is able to deliver thee, though by sin oppressed go to Him, for us our God is able to deliver thee. Great singing. Amen, and we welcome you of course to the midweek service here at Ready Baptist Church. We're so glad that you are with us. Let's go ahead and take our bulletins and we'll look at some announcements real quickly. If you do not have a bulletin, just raise your hand and one of our ushers can get one for you. If you need a bulletin, just put your hand up and we will get one for you. The verse this week, Philippians 4-4, Rejoice in the Lord alway, and again I say rejoice, and that's a good verse there. We like that. If you open up your bulletin, you'll see our service time Sunday morning, service 10 30 a.m. We do invite you of course to be with us on a Sunday morning on the Lord's Day for Church, and we invite you to be with us of course on Sunday evening at 6 p.m. for the evening service. We're glad you're with us for the midweek service on Wednesday night. We call it the most encouraging service of the week. We're glad that you're here. If you look at our soul winning times, our main soul winning time is on Saturday mornings at 10 a.m. We'd love for you to join us on Saturday morning for our big soul winning rally, and then we have additional sewing times as well on Thursdays and Sundays at 2 p.m., and if you'd like to go soul winning there'll be an opportunity of course for you to be able to do that. If you look across the page there, our big announcement right now is our Family and Friend Day, which is on Sunday September 15th, and in the morning service we're going to have all sorts of special things going on. We're going to have a free lunch after the service. We'll be grilling outside, so we want to encourage you to be here for that, and then of course we'll have the anniversary mugs that we give out to each family. We'll have candy suckers for the kids. We'll have special music from the VBC Choir and Orchestra. So we want you to just be getting ready for Family and Friend Day. You have one of these cards. You should have a card like this in your bulletin, and I want you to use this card to invite people to church. Bring somebody. If you've been thinking about, if you have a friend or a family member, a co-worker, neighbor, something like that, and you want to invite them to church, this is the time to do it. And look, no one's going to get mad at you. This is how you do it. You walk up to your buddy and you say, hey at our church we're having this thing called Family and Friend Day, and you're my friend, so I want to invite you to church. They're not going to be offended at that, right? They're going to be like, oh okay, sure, you know. So invite somebody to church, bring them with you. It'll be a great time. Some of you are anti-social. You have no friends. I get that, but we've got soul-winning times for you, so you can just go meet a perfect stranger. They don't dislike you because they don't know you, so you can join us, of course, for the soul-winning times, and we want you to just be aware of the soul-winning pushes we have there Thursday, Friday on September 12th and 13th at 6 p.m. and then Saturday morning at 10 a.m. So make sure you're joining us for those. And then, of course, men, we've got the Biblical Leadership Institute orientation night coming up, so make sure you're aware of that. If you're interested in learning more about that, we've got these little fliers back in the foyer. Make sure you grab one of those homeschool groups. They start PE class on Thursday, September 5th, so make sure, moms, that you're aware of that. And then, of course, the BBC Choir and Orchestra, they'll be practicing this weekend at 5 p.m., so make sure you're aware of that. Also, there's a Ladies Weight Loss and Accountability group that meets on Wednesday nights at 6 15 p.m., so if you'd like to be a part of that, ladies, you can join that as well, and that is in my wife's office, and my wife leads that group there. Upcoming cleaning crew, you can check for your name there. If you look at the back of the bulletin, birthdays and anniversaries for the month of August, this week we had Ms. Andrea Santo's birthday on August 25th, Ms. Kelly Mitchell's birthday on August 26th, Justice Usher's birthday on August 27th, and then later this week we have Brother Vladi Vukulcik's birthday on August 30th, Brother Jacob and Ms. Ariel Shoboian have an anniversary on August 30th, Brother Farid Ramirez has a birthday on August 31st, Brother BJ Nathan has a birthday on August 31st, and Ms. Dogma Holiday has a birthday on August 31st. Praise Report, Money Matters, all of those things are there for you to look at, and if you are a first-time guest, if it's your first time here at Verity Baptist Church, we're glad that you are with us, and we have a gift we'd like to give you. As you walk out of the church building this evening, if you go out our main foyer, you'll see a little table set up, and on that table you'll see these little gift bags. We have several resources in here that we'd like you to have, and we want to make sure you grab one of these before you leave on your way out, and if you are a guest, we'd also ask that you please take a moment to fill out the communication card, which is inserted in your bulletin. If you need a pen, you can just raise your hand. One of our ushers will bring you by a Verity Baptist Church pen, and we would love to have a record of your attendance. We actually would like to send you a little gift, but we need your information to do that, so please take a moment to fill the card out. When we're done here with the announcements, we're going to sing a song, and when we're done singing, we're going to receive the offering, and as the offering plate goes by, you can drop the card in the offering plate. I think that's it for all of the announcements, so we're going to go ahead and take our song books, and let's go to page number 10. Page number 10, and we're going to sing near the cross as we prepare to receive the offering this evening. Page number 10, Jesus keep me near the cross. Sing it out on the first. Jesus keep me near the cross. There a precious fountain Free to all our healing streams From Calvary's mountain In the cross, in the cross Be my glory ever Till my raptured soul shall find Rest beyond the river Good. Sing it out. Page number 10 on the second. Near the cross a trembling soul And mercy found me There the bright and morning star Sheds its beams around me In the cross, in the cross Be my glory ever Till my raptured soul shall find Beyond the river Good. Page number 10. Sing it out on the third. Near the cross, O Lamb of God Bring its scenes before me Help me walk from day to day With its shadows o'er Good. Sing it out. In the cross, in the cross Be my glory ever Till my raptured soul shall find Beyond the river Good. Let's sing it out. On the last Near the cross, I'll watch and wake Hoping, trusting ever Till I reach the golden frame Just beyond the river In the cross, in the cross Be my glory ever Till my raptured soul shall find Last beyond the river Amen. Good. Singing. Before we have the guys come up, I do want to remind you, of course, that we are a family integrated church. And what that means is that children and infants are always welcomed in the service. We do not separate children from their parents for any reason. However, we do have mother baby rooms and daddy rooms available for your convenience. All of the rooms have comfortable seating. They've got monitors set up so you can watch the service and listen to it. If you're not sure where the mother baby rooms are, where the daddy room is, you can look at the back of the bulletin and you'll see a layout of our church building. It'll show you where the mother baby rooms are, where the daddy room is. It'll show you where the restrooms are. So please make sure you use those rooms as needed. And if you have a child that's been distracting during the service, if you need some privacy, you can get up and head to those rooms. And then, of course, I want to remind you to please check your phones. Make sure they're on silent or vibrate or off so that they don't go off in the middle of the sermon. We'd appreciate your help with that. And we'll go ahead and have these guys come up and help us with the offering at this time. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, Lord, we do love you. We thank you for allowing us to gather together tonight. Lord, we pray that you'd bless the offering, the gift and the giver. Continue to meet our needs here at Verity Baptist Church. We pray for our church family and for those that are still out sick. Lord, we pray you'd help them to get better and to be back with us on Sunday. We pray that you'd meet with us tonight as we open up your word, as we study the Bible together, as we pray, of course, for our church family. We pray that you'd meet with us and that you'd help us and that you'd help us to draw closer to you. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. All right. Well, let's go ahead and take our prayer sheets tonight. If you did not get a prayer sheet on your way in, just raise your hand and one of our ushers can get one for you. If you need a prayer list, just put your hand up. And of course, I want to remind you that the way you add a request to the prayer sheet is through your communication card. On the back of the card, there's a place for you to write down a request. Make sure you mark whether it's private or public. If it's private, only I will see it. If it's public, we'll put it on the prayer sheet. If you don't mark it, we'll do our best to figure it out. We usually don't add those. And when we do add them, we add them in the order that they're received and they are removed after a couple of weeks. We want you to just be aware of that. If you want a request in longer, you have to fill out another communication card. Let's go ahead and take these requests to the Lord. I'm going to pray out loud. I'm going to ask that you would pray with me in your mind and your heart and let's bow our heads together. Heavenly Father, Lord, we come to you tonight asking for these requests from our church family. And we begin with these requests dealing with health. We pray for Brother Allen as he's praying for his friend's healing from a recent stroke. And we pray, Lord, that you would help his friend to be able to recover from that. We pray for Jeffrey Love's mother and he's praying for his mom's health. And we pray that you'd help her to get better. We also pray for Brother Diego and praying for his mother-in-law's complete healing and asking for her to be healed, Lord, and to recover. We ask that you would answer that. We pray for Brother Warren, praying for the health of his two other brothers. And also Brother Matt Lee Wilson, praying for Ms. Rizel's recovery and some postpartum issues, just that she would be healed and recovered soon. We pray for Ms. Rachel Wheeler, who's praying for her grandma Judy's infection and kidney issues and asking for healing there. We of course pray for Ms. Cricket and praying for complete healing for her hip and for her to get better and be able to be back with us soon. Pray for Brother Ron and for his health. And we pray for Ms. Christine Ortiz and her health and Brother Salvador for his health and for wisdom for the doctors that are treating him. Pray for Ms. Docma for her pain, that you'd relieve her pain. And also of course pray for Brother Edgar and Ms. Selena, praying for Uretzi and Jonathan, just to continue to be healthy and of course happy as they have cystic fibrosis. And Lord, we ask that you would help these individuals. We pray for our missionary, Dave Cabuntala, and for his wife, Ms. Angel, as she continues to battle breast cancer. We pray that you give her victory. Lord, we ask for all of these individuals. We pray that you would give them all health and recovery. We pray that you'd give the doctors, the nurses wisdom. They're dealing with them. Lord, help them all to get better. We also pray for the ladies in our church that are expecting Ms. Rebecca, Ms. Angel, Ms. Laura Beth, Ms. Laurel, asking that you'd give them all healthy pregnancies with no issues and no complications. We also pray, Lord, for these that have financial and physical needs. Brother Allen, praying for God's favor and help with his business. And Brother Jeffrey Love, praying for business to continue to improve as well. Brother Montel, praying for upcoming opportunity for a job of promotion. And Brother Ron, praying for his finances. Ms. Midori, praying that she would be selected for a senior apartment. Ms. Christine Ortiz, praying for her finances. Brother Salvador, for his finances work as well. Lord, we ask for all these individuals. We pray that you would help them, bless them, open doors for them, answer these prayers, Lord, and be with them. And then, Lord, we pray for these that are asking for spiritual needs. Praying for Brother Ike and praying for his walk with the Lord. And also Nicholas, praying for opportunities for soul winning in countries where it is currently banned. And also Ms. Christine, praying for her faith. And Brother Salvador, for his faith and their walk with you. Lord, we ask that you'd bless these individuals, that you would strengthen them and be with them and help them in their walk with you, of course. And then, Lord, we pray for these that have requests for salvation. Brother Vladi and Ms. Antonina, praying for their family's salvation. Brother Jeffrey, praying for the salvation of his friend Ann. Ms. Natalie, praying for her husband's salvation. And Ms. Maria, praying for Roma and Skyler's salvation. Brother Ron, praying for his mom and his family's salvation. And Ramona Sparks, praying for Sean's salvation. Ms. Christine, praying for her family's salvation. Ms. Dogma, praying for her daughter and her family's salvation. And Lord, we ask for all of these individuals, we pray that you would help them and be with them. Lord, we pray that your Holy Spirit would work in their hearts and in their minds. We ask that you would do whatever needs to be done in their lives to bring them to the place where they'd be willing to hear the gospel and be receptive to it. And Lord, we pray that you would send a soul winner to cross their paths to clearly communicate the gospel clearly to them. And Lord, we ask that what can be done, would be done, that these individuals might be saved. And Lord, we pray for these that are having requests for their friends and family. Brother Warren, praying for his brother's upcoming parole board appointment. And also Brother Montel, praying for upcoming custody trial in September. For Isabel and Brother Salvador, praying for his family as well. Lord, we ask that your will would be done in these situations. We pray that you would move the hearts of the individuals making decisions and that they would be done in favor of our church people, Lord, and of their families. And we pray that your will would be done, of course, in these situations. Lord, we pray for Ms. Laura Beth as she's traveling, praying for traveling mercies for her and the kids as they travel to Montana and Idaho and Washington. We pray you keep them safe as they go. And then we pray, Lord, for these that have unspoken requests. Brother George McQueen, my father Felix Jimenez, Ms. Natalie, all having unspoken requests. Also Brother Salvador and Ms. Docma having unspoken requests. And Lord, you know what their petitions are. You know what they're asking for. We pray that you would answer according to your will. And then Lord, we ask for our church. And we pray that you continue to help our church and bless our church. Bless the prison ministry. Bless the work being done in the Philippines and Manila and Fampanga and B. Cole. And we pray for Pastor Stuckey and for his family. We also pray for our upcoming family and friend day. Lord, we pray that you'd help us have a great day. And Lord, we pray for our church family. Help everybody to get better soon. And there's been sickness going around. We ask that everybody to get better, Lord, and help them to get back to church. And we pray that you'd help us to gear up for this family and friend day. Help us to be faithful with soul, being faithful with inviting people to church. Lord, we pray that you would meet with us tonight as we take another psalm and study it together. We pray that your word would speak to our hearts. Lord, we ask that you would help us to minimize distractions. Help us have our hearts ready to hear from your word. And Lord, we ask that you'd help us to learn, draw closer to you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Please open up to Psalm 5. Psalm, chapter number 5. If you don't have a Bible, please raise your hand. And I know you can read your Bible. Psalm, chapter 5. Psalm 5, just keep your hand up and a shawl come by. Psalm 5, just keep your hand up and a shawl come by. Psalm, chapter number 5, being verse number 1. Give ear to my words, O Lord. Consider my meditation. Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my king and my God. For unto thee will I pray. My voice shall thou hear in the morning, O Lord. In the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee and will look up. For thou art not a God that hath pleasure and wickedness, neither shall evil dwell with thee. The foolish shall not stand in thy sight. Thou hatest all workers of iniquity. Thou shall destroy them that speak leasing. The Lord will abhor the bloody and deceitful man. But as for me, I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy, and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple. Lead me, O Lord, in thy righteousness because of mine enemies. Make thy way straight before my face, for there is no faithfulness in their mouth. Their inward part is very wickedness. Their throat is an open sepulcher. They flatter with their tongue. Destroy thou them, O God. Let them fall by their own counsels. Cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions, for they have rebelled against thee. Let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice. Let them ever shout for joy because thou defendest them. Let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee, for thou, Lord, will bless the righteous with favor. Will thou compass him as with a shield. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for this evening. God, I thank you for your word. I ask that you please give us all the tender hearts of the message tonight and as to be their pastor, please strengthen him and fill him with spirit. We love you. In Jesus' name, pray. Amen. Amen. All right, we're there in Psalm 5, and of course on Wednesday nights, we've been making our way through the book of Psalms. We've been studying the Psalms as our Wednesday night Bible study. We've been taking one Psalm a week, and tonight we find ourselves here in Psalm 5. And I'd like to just, like we've done in other Psalms, just quickly speak about the superscription. If you remember, the superscription is the annotation that is added at the beginning of these Psalms. Not every Psalm has it. Some of them do, some of them don't. Some of them give us a lot of descriptions, some of them don't give us as much of descriptions, but there in Psalm 5, if you look at verse 1 right at before verse 1, you'll see this little superscription. It says to the chief musician upon Nehilloth, a Psalm of David. And of course, what the superscription does is a couple of things. First of all, it tells us the writer, the author, the human author of the Psalm, and this is a Psalm of David, so we know that King David is the one that wrote this Psalm. And then we see that it was directed to the chief musician upon Nehilloth, and we actually saw that last week in Psalm 4. And of course, the chief musician there is probably referring to the music ministry leader, the choir leader, or the orchestra leader of the children of Israel, because of course, this is in the Old Testament, and they were still under the Levitical priesthood. They had a tabernacle, and eventually they would have a temple, and they had all sorts of Levites that were musicians, and they had singers, and they had instrument players, and there was somebody that led that. And in fact, we'll see some of that later on in the Book of Psalms, men like Asaph, who were chief musicians, and this is who it's being directed to. And the idea is this, that David wrote this Psalm, and he is giving it to the chief musicians because he wants it used for corporate use, for corporate worship. So in some ways, the Book of Psalms is like the Old Testament version of our hymnbook. Now, it's more than just a hymnbook. It's more than just songs. It's scripture, but these Psalms were meant to be sung, of course, in the Hebrew original language. I do want to just point out that you'll notice there it says, upon nehilloth, upon nehilloth. And if you remember, in Psalm 4, we saw something very similar. Psalm 4 said to the chief musician on Neganoth, a psalm of David. And the word neganoth, if you remember, we've talked about the fact that the superscriptions are actually in the original language. They're in the Hebrew. They are not just added by the translators or by the people that produced these Bibles or published these Bibles. Now, your Bible may have things added by the publishers, and so be careful about that. But these superscriptions are actually in the original language. They were translated by the King James translators. And in Psalm 4, we saw the word neganoth, which is a word that we don't... It's not an English word, not a word that we use or understand. But the word neganoth, the underlying Hebrew word, we talked about it last week, is used elsewhere in scripture. And sometimes what we can do is we can find that underlying Hebrew word and see how else that word was translated, and it gives us synonyms or gives us an idea of what the word means. So the underlying Hebrew word that in Psalm 4 is translated neganoth elsewhere in the King James Bible is translated as the words the song, my song, the stringed instruments, their songs, their music, on my stringed instruments, and so forth. So the understanding based off that is that neganoth is probably referring to a song on a stringed instrument. So we understand, and we're not 100% sure, but we believe that the instructions here are to the chief musician. David is directing it to be used in corporate use, and he's telling them this is to be sung using stringed instruments. Now, the interesting thing about Psalm 5 is that in Psalm 5, we have a different word. We don't have neganoth, we have nehiloth. And nehiloth is very similar to neganoth, but it's different. The problem with Psalm 5 is that the only time that the underlying Hebrew word is used in the entire Bible is here in Psalm 5. So the only time the Hebrew word is used is in Psalm 5, and the only time the word nehiloth is used in our King James Bible is in Psalm 5. So it's a little more difficult to be dogmatic about what it means, but because neganoth is an instruction, seems to be an instruction that this is music that should be played to stringed instruments based off the Hebrew word, and I'm not going to go into that. Most people seem to believe, and I would probably tend to agree, that this is referring to music that is to be played not on a stringed instrument, but on a wind instrument. So again, David being the sweet psalmist of Israel, David being a musician, is giving instructions here, and he's saying Psalm 4 is to be played on a stringed instrument. Psalm 5 is to be played possibly on a wind instrument is probably what he's saying, as opposed to a string instrument like Psalm 4. You probably don't care about that. I just want to cover it, just to make sure we cover it. But let me just show you this, another thing just by way of introduction, and it is this, that this psalm, though it was music, and David has given instructions that it is to be delivered to the chief musician, and he's even given instructions as to which instruments it seems like he's asking to be played with this. These are wind instruments versus stringed instruments. What I want you to know is that this is actually also a prayer, and what we have here in Psalm 5, and we have this a lot throughout the Psalms, and we actually already seen this in Psalm 3 and 4. I just didn't really point it out, maybe like I should have, but it is this, that this is written as a prayer, and this is actually a morning prayer. If you're there in Psalm 5, if you look at verse 1, and we're going to go through this, but let me just give you, show you this. He says, give ear to my words, O Lord. Consider my meditation. Harken unto the voice of my cry, my king and my God, for unto thee will I pray. Look at verse 3. He says, my voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord. In the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and I will look up. So these 12 verses that make up Psalm 5 is actually a prayer, a written down prayer under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost by David, and verse 3 tells us that it is a morning prayer. Now what's interesting about that is that when we begin the book of Psalms, of course we have Psalm 1, the famous psalm, blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, and all those things, and Psalm 1 focuses on the individual, and how we can have access to the power and the blessing of God on an individual, and then Psalm 2 focuses on not a person, but people, nations, the heathen rage, and it talks about the nations, and we learned about all the end times things in Psalm 2 about nations. What's interesting though is that once we get past those two psalms, and we've got the focus on the individual, and then the focus on the nations, then we have Psalm 3 and 4, which are actually evening prayers. They are also prayers, but they're nighttime prayers, and we've talked about it a little bit, but let me just highlight it for you again. Go back to Psalm 3 real quickly. Look at verse 5. In Psalm 3 and verse 5, he says, I laid me down and slept. I wait for the Lord to sustain me, and all of Psalm 3 is actually an evening prayer where David is praying as he goes to bed. It's a psalm that is meant to be sung as worship to the Lord, but also a prayer that could be prayed as you're going to bed, and he says, I laid me down and slept. I wait for the Lord to sustain me. Notice Psalm 4 and verse 8. In Psalm 4 and verse 8, he says, I will both lay me down in peace and sleep, for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety. And again, Psalm 4 is a psalm that's put to music, but also a prayer that could be prayed, an evening prayer that could be prayed going to bed. I will both lay me down and in peace and sleep. So in Psalm 3 and 4, you've got these evening prayers, and then in Psalm 5, you have a morning prayer. Look at again Psalm 5 and verse 3. My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord. In the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up. Again, that may not mean anything to you, may not care about that, but I think it's interesting that we're giving these evening prayers, and then we're giving this morning prayer. Now, because this is a prayer, this psalm is divided into four sections, or at least I should say I've divided it into four sections, and these four sections are, they have this pattern, this couplet, and the way that it works is this. David makes a request because this is a prayer, and then he gives a reason for the request. So he makes a request, gives the reason, makes a request, gives a reason, makes a request, gives a reason, makes a request, gives a reason. This is the pattern found in this psalm, and it's interesting to point out the patterns, because again, remember that this is actually poetry, Hebrew poetry, music, and in the original language, it would have a structure like poetry, and we can even see that in the English when we see the pattern, the request, the reason, the request. So I've divided this into four sections. I'm going to go ahead and give them to you up front, and then we're going to walk through this. We're just going to walk through the psalm together, but if you want this for your notes on the back of your course of the week, of course, there's a place to write these down. These are the four sections that I've divided this, and it's based off the request that David is making. The first section is verses one through six, and I've just given it the heading, hear me, hear me, verses one through six, and then verses seven through nine, I've given it this heading, lead me, lead me, and then verse 10, it's its own section, and it's under this heading, destroy them, destroy them, and then verses 11 through 12 is the last section, and I've given it this heading, bless us, bless us. So we have, hear me, verses one through six, lead me, verses seven through nine, destroy them, verse 10, and bless us, verses 11 and 12. So let's just walk through this together, and we'll deal with it in the sections that we have, and we'll begin, of course, with section one, or the first heading there, hear me, and we find it in verse number one. And again, remember, there's a request, and then there's a reason for the request. So I want you to see the request. Psalm 5, verse one, to the chief musician upon Nehilloth, a psalm of David, we've already talked about that, and here's the request, give ear to my words. So this is David praying. Remember, this is a psalm of prayer, and in his prayer, he begins with this request. What's the request? Hear me, hear me. He says, give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my meditation. Look at verse two, harken unto the voice of my cry. He says, harken unto the voice of my cry, my king and my God, for unto thee will I pray. Look at verse three, my voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord. In the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and I will look up. So I want you to notice that in several different ways in these first three verses, David says in multiple ways the same thing. He says, give ear to my words, harken unto the voice of my cry. He says, unto thee will I pray, my voice shalt thou hear, I will direct my prayer unto thee. So five different ways in these verses. He's starting this prayer of psalm, the psalm of prayer, with this request, Lord, hear my prayer, hear my prayer. And what we can learn, because remember, this is not only a psalm, it is a prayer, and it is a morning prayer. And what we can learn from that is this, that we should begin our day by communicating with God. And I think that every Christian should have a time in which they spend time with the Lord. I understand that some people are not morning people, and some people are evening people, and I get all that. And I definitely think that it is good, and I understand it doesn't work for everybody, so I'm not dogmatic about this, but I think if possible you should begin your day with the Lord. You should begin your day in the Word of God, in prayer, spending time with God. But whether you read your Bible in the morning or not, although I definitely recommend that you read it in the morning, because you know the Bible says that in all things He should have the preeminence. And the Bible says, seek ye first the kingdom of God. And that's not just in life in general. I think in the morning, when we wake up for the day, we should seek Him first. We should give Him priority. We should give Him preeminence. So I definitely think that it's good to develop a Bible reading time in the morning before the day gets all crazy and chaotic. But here's the thing, whether you read your Bible in the morning or not, maybe you're an evening person, you read it at night, or you read it at your lunch break, or whatever, I still think that all of us should get in the habit, and this psalm really kind of spoke to me about this, we should get in the habit of at least acknowledging God and communicating with God in the morning. Harken unto the voice of my cry, my King and my God, for unto thee will I pray. And he says, my voice shall thou hear in the morning. And maybe you don't have your devotional time in the morning, but you should be able to say my voice, you should be able to say to God, my voice shall thou hear in the morning, oh Lord. In the morning, will I direct my prayer to thee and will look up. And it's this idea that we should begin our day by communicating with God, by talking with God. And again, maybe you have a devotional time at a different time, but in the morning, as you're getting up, as you're brushing your teeth, you should talk to God. Good morning, Lord. Good morning, God. In the morning, thou shall hear, my voice shall thou hear in the morning. But I want you to notice, it's about prayer, but in verse two, he says this, harken unto the voice of my cry. And that word cry, in our King James Bible, the word cry isn't cry like a baby, like wah, crying. The word cry means to yell or to shout. It's the same word used in Isaiah about preaching when he says, cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet. But it's interesting to me because, you know, sometimes we like to think of prayer as a very special thing and it is a special thing and a sacred thing and it is a sacred thing. But sometimes our prayers are a cry. Sometimes it's not this very somber, solemn thing, but it might be outside of an emergency room, a mother crying out to the Lord, a father crying out to the Lord, maybe for their child during an emergency. Sometimes prayer is not just give ear to my words, sometimes it's harken unto the voice of my cry. And it just kind of shows us the different facets of prayer that sometimes we have to cry out to the Lord. Sometimes we find ourselves in trouble. I don't think that the only time we should pray is when we're in trouble, but definitely when we find ourselves in trouble and in pain and heartache, we can cry out to the Lord. And then he says there, and that reminds me, by the way, it reminds me of this song. I like the song, Pass Me Not O Gentle Savior. The lyrics say this, pass me not O gentle savior, hear my humble cry. While on others thou art calling, do not pass me by. Savior, Savior, hear my humble cry. While on others thou art calling, do not pass me by. And here the Psalmist says, harken unto the voice of my cry, my King and my God. And then I want you to notice at the end of verse two there, he says, for unto thee will I pray. For unto thee will I pray. And that seems, if you're just reading it casually, kind of like, well, who else are you going to pray to, David? But of course there are many people that pray to a lot of people that aren't God. There's millions of Catholics that are praying to Mary and saints, and they're not praying to God. And there are lots of people out there that are praying to someone other than the Lord. So here, David says, for unto thee will I pray. But again, it reminds me of the hymn. It says this, thou the spring of all my comforts, more than life to me. Whom have I on earth beside thee? Whom in heaven but thee? And the truth is, is that sometimes when we are crying out to the Lord with our problems, with our burdens, with our heartache, there's really not anybody on earth that can help us. There's really not anybody on earth that can do anything for us. But in those moments, we can have this assurance that unto thee will I pray. I can bring my prayer. I can bring my pain. I can bring my anxiety. I can bring my request to the Lord. Whom have I on earth beside thee? Whom in heaven but thee? So we see that we should be communicating with God. Then I want you to notice the second thing again in these verses. And it is this, not only should we begin our day, because remember, this is a morning prayer. Not only should we begin our day by communicating with God, but we should begin our day by directing our attention to God. Now, obviously, if you're going to pray in the morning, if you're going to say a prayer, a morning prayer, then that will help direct our attention to God. But I want you to notice that this is highlighted as well. Look again, Psalm 5, verse 1. Look, he says, to the chief musician of Nehilloth, a psalm of David, give ear to my words. But then I just want you to see this, because we talked about, we highlighted the prayer. Give ear to my words, hearken unto the voice of my cry. Unto thee will I pray. My voice shall thou hear in the morning. I will direct my prayer unto thee. But notice, he also says this in verse 1. He says, O Lord, consider my meditation. So he's not just saying, hear my words. But he's saying, Lord, I want you to consider my meditation. Now, what is a meditation? A meditation is something you're thinking about. So notice, it's not just that we are to begin our day by communicating with God. That is definitely part of it. But along with that, we should be directing our minds and our thoughts and our meditations unto the Lord. You're there in Psalm 5. Flip over to Psalm 19 real quickly. Psalm 19. And look at verse number 14. Psalm 19 and verse 14. Notice what Psalm 19 says. Psalm 19 and verse 14. Let the words of my mouth, notice what the Psalmist says. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer. So here, the Psalmist is telling us, not only do we need to be careful about what comes out of our mouth, and we should be careful about what comes out of our mouth, but we should also be careful about the meditations of our heart, the things that we think about. And of course, the reason that these things are connected is because of the fact that what comes out of your mouth is connected to what's in your heart. Jesus said, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. But we need to be careful about making sure that not only the words of my mouth, he says, let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight. You know that God knows what you think? God knows what you're meditating upon, what you're considering. No one in the world knows what you're thinking about, but God knows what you're thinking about. And here, the Psalmist is saying, consider my meditation. Let the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight. So in the morning, this is, look, this is a good morning ritual. Maybe you have a morning ritual. I think probably everybody has a morning ritual. Whether you realize it or not, you probably have a morning ritual. Maybe your morning ritual is you get up in the morning. If you're anything like my wife and I, first thing you do is have a cup of coffee. Our morning ritual, I've shared it many times, and we get up in the morning. My wife makes coffee. I sit down at my chair. She sits down at the couch next to me. We have a cup of coffee together. We read the Bible together. That's our morning ritual. Maybe your morning ritual looks like that. Maybe it looks a little different. Maybe you exercise. Some of your morning ritual is hitting this news button 15 times, you know, before your wife finally rolls you out of the bed and says, go to work. But everybody probably has a morning ritual. And what we should do is maybe try to incorporate this as our morning ritual. At some point in the morning, say, my voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord. I'm going to communicate to God in the morning. But not only that, I'm going to put my thoughts and my meditations of my heart on the Lord that they might be acceptable in thy sight. And, you know, the Bible tells us that we need to bring our thoughts into captivity and we need to make sure that we think on the right things. You don't have to turn here. But in Philippians 4, in verse 8, the Bible says this. Finally, my brother and Paul said, whatsoever things are true and whatsoever things are honest and whatsoever things are just and whatsoever things are pure and whatsoever things are lovely and whatsoever things are of good report. If there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things and just ask yourself this question. What sounds better for your spiritual mind, your heart, your soul? What sounds better to wake up in the morning and at some point in your morning ritual, look up to heaven and speak to God and communicate to God and thank God for another day and bring your cry. Maybe you wake up in the morning and the first thing, first thought of your conscious self is something heavy, something burdensome and bring that cry unto the Lord and bring your meditations and think of something true and honest and just and pure and lovely, of good report virtue, praise and think on these things. Doesn't that sound better than waking up in the morning and the first thing you do is scroll on your phone for news about Kamala Harris and the election to check out social media and what did I miss throughout the night? Someone might have ate something that they took a picture of and he really needed to look at. Doesn't it just sound better to say, I'm going to wake up in the morning and think about the Lord and communicate with God and pray to the Lord. It's a way to begin our day and if we can begin our day thinking on God and thinking about the Lord, then it'll set up the rest of our day. Now remember, there's a request and a reason. So his request is this, hear my prayer, hear my voice, hear my words, hear my prayer, hear my cry and then he gives us a reason. He says in verse 2, harken unto the voice of my cry, here's the reason and it's easy to miss it but I want you to see it, my King and my God. I love that phrase, I love those little words, my King and my God. Now what's interesting to me is as we look at Psalm 5 and I don't know if you've noticed this and I haven't done this on purpose, honestly you probably think I have but I haven't, there has been kind of a theme over the last several weeks as we've been in Psalms and also on Sunday mornings and things like that on the subject of prayer. I feel like God has really been having us learn about prayer. In fact, I'm preaching a whole sermon on the subject of prayer this Sunday morning and it's not because I'm on a kick on prayer, although I think it's fine to be on a kick of prayer, it's just where we happen to be in our Rooted and Grounded series but what's interesting to me is that Psalm 5 is a morning prayer and there are some connections to a very famous prayer which is often referred to as the Lord's Prayer in the book, in the Gospels. Let me just share that with you real quickly. Go over to Matthew chapter number 6. Matthew chapter 6. And there's a lot that I want to say about this. I'm not going to say it because I'm preaching on it on Sunday so I don't want to steal my own thunder for Sunday or whatever, but let me just say this. He says, I want you to hear my prayer and then he says my King and my God. Now there's a couple of things there. First of all, we have to realize that just because God is your God does not necessarily mean that he's your King. Those are two different things. Now we don't usually use that terminology and David is using that terminology because if you remember David himself is a king in a kingdom so he's using that terminology. The way that we would probably say it in the New Testament is this, just because God is your God, just because Jesus is your God and just because Jesus is your Savior does not necessarily mean that he's your Lord and that's why lordship salvation is false and not true because unfortunately most saved people, Jesus isn't their Lord. And here what he's saying when he says my King and my God, he's not only acknowledging that God is his God and his Savior but he's also his King. And this is actually a theme in prayer. We'll talk more about it on Sunday morning but let me just show it to you here real quickly. Matthew 6 and verse 9. Remember Jesus' famous prayer? The disciples asked him teach us to pray and he says well here's, let me give you an example of prayer. Matthew 6 verse 9. After this manner therefore pray. So Jesus telling them here's how you should pray. If you want to pray kind of pattern yourself by this pattern. Our Father which art in heaven hallowed be thy name. Now Jesus just got done telling them not to have vain and repetitious prayers so this is not a prayer that we should chant, okay? We're not Catholic. You're not supposed to take beads and rub them and chant or whatever. This is just to be an example for us but he says our Father which art in heaven hallowed be thy name. Now remember the psalmist said my King and my God. Here's what Jesus said in Matthew 6 and verse 10. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. And what this has to do when when David says my King and my God in this morning prayer and when Jesus says thy kingdom come thy will be done. The idea is this that though prayer is asking and receiving and I believe that and I think we need to be asking and asking for big things and powerful things from the Lord. We need to remember that before we ask part of prayer is to align ourselves with the will of God. It's not for us. God is not Santa Claus up in heaven just we're gonna ask him for everything on our wish list and hope he gives it to us. No we begin by aligning ourselves and the way that Jesus taught that is before you start asking for anything he says thy kingdom come thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven and the psalmist version of that is saying you're my king. David was the king but he said I have a king you're my king and my God. Keep your place there in Matthew we're gonna come back to it go back to Psalm 5 if you would look at verse 3. My voice shall thou hear in the morning O Lord in the morning will I direct my prayer into thee and then I just want you to notice this little phrase at the end of verse 3 he says and will look up and again this idea is to set your attention to put your attention on the things of God he's saying he said not only am I gonna pray and oftentimes when we pray we bow our heads and and and and there's all sorts of different ways to pray the Bible tells us all sorts of different ways but here's the psalmist says one thing I'm gonna do is I'm actually gonna look up now obviously when he's looking up he's not seeing God I mean he's seeing the sky but the idea and the fact that he's saying I will look up is this idea that I'm going to set my attention here's how Paul said it in Colossians you have to turn here but in Colossians 3 and verse 2 he said set your affection on things above not on things on the earth and I would recommend to you based from Psalm 5 that we should all begin our mornings by looking up by setting our attention on things above not on things of this earth don't begin your day by focusing on the things of this earth and the things happening in this world but set your affection on things above he says there I will look up and will look up so that's the request but then I want you to see the reason and the reason is found begins in verses 4 and it's 5 and 6 he says in Psalms 5 in verse 4 he says 4 is the word for there the word for means because you just got done making the request he's saying what's the request hear my prayer in the morning I'm gonna direct my attention I'm gonna direct my focus I'm gonna talk to you I'm gonna think about you I'm gonna look up I'm gonna have my meditations be on you and I think that's a great way I think that's a wonderful way for all of us to begin our morning mornings but then he says here's why here's why I'm going to do that the request is that you would hear my prayers and answer my prayers but then he says here's why Psalm 5 verse 4 for thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness neither shall evil dwell with thee and what we see in verse 4 is a an emphasis on the holiness of God and we're gonna talk a lot about wicked people but I want you to understand the context here is this what David is this I'm going to in the morning open my mouth and speak to the Lord in the morning Lord thou shall hear my voice and I'm going to look up and I'm going to have the meditations of my mind be on the things above and not the things of the earth why would you do that David why should we do that David here's why for thou art not a God that has pleasure in wickedness neither shall evil dwell with thee and here's the thing if you and I begin our day with our thoughts on the things of this world with our affection our love set on the things of this world we're going to act and live like every other wicked person out there so David is saying I want to begin my day by focusing on God because God is not a God that have pleasure in wickedness neither shall evil dwell with thee and the idea is this that I am directing my prayers and my attention to you God in the morning so that I will not be wicked now look at what he says in verse 5 in verse 1 we have the holiness of God for thou art not a God to have pleasure in wickedness neither shall evil dwell with thee and then in verses 5 and 6 we see the wickedness of man the foolish shall not stand in thy sight thou hatest all the workers of iniquity thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing remember we learned last week that the word leasing means lies or falsehood the Lord will abhor the bloody and deceitful man so we see that man is wicked human beings are wicked they're foolish and they shall not stand in thy sight so David says I don't want to begin my day by focusing on foolish people because foolish people are not going to stand in thy sight I want to begin my day by focusing on the things of the Lord now I do want to point out here and I don't want to preach a lot on this although I won't probably get back to it later on but it is this that at the end of verse 5 he says this thou hatest you see that word there thou hatest all the workers of iniquity I could preach a whole sermon on this and I'm not going to I've done in the past but one thing we need to know is this that God hates some people and and and people out there today they're like God doesn't hate anybody God loves everybody well I don't know what Bible you've been reading but you're not been reading the Word of God because this Bible says thou hatest all the workers of iniquity and thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing the Lord and just in case you're like well maybe David messed up maybe David wrote the wrong word here when he said thou hatest then he says it a different way he says the Lord will abhor and the word of war means to feel hatred toward something the Lord will abhor the bloody and deceitful man so we learn here this is just one example of many examples there are some people that God hates he hates the workers of iniquity he will abhor the bloody and deceitful man and look right right next to Psalm 5 and verse 6 right where it says the bloody and deceitful man you can just just write the the Democratic Party because you say you know who are the bloody and deceitful men any politician who is trying to make it so that more babies are killed in the womb is a bloody and deceitful person you say oh how do you think God feels about that he abhors it he hates it he hates all the workers of iniquity thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing the Lord will abhor the bloody and deceitful men so that's section 1 hear me then I want you to notice in verses 7 and 9 7 through 9 we see the second section and it is this lead me now again this is a morning prayer all of it is a morning prayer but I want you to notice the emphasis so he just got done talking about I'm going to begin my morning focusing on God speaking to God because I don't want to be because for thou art not a God that have pleasure and wickedness and I don't want to focus on the wicked because you hate them you hate the workers of iniquity you abhor the bloody and deceitful man and then here's the compare and contrast verse 7 but as for me so he says enough about them and we're going to come back to them later in the song but now he's going to focus on himself David he says but as for me look what he says here's what David says there's not only what David says this is what David prays and I think there's something that every Christian should pray he says but as for me I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy and in thy fear will I worship toward the Holy Temple you let David in his prayers said Lord I'm going to go to church but as for me I will come into my house and you know let me tell you something it is high time that we as Christians make a big deal of the house of God again you want to make America great again how about we make the house of God great again because we should be Christians we should be believers that emphasize the house of God he says look they're wicked they're bloody and deceitful men they're speaking lies and leasing he says that's how they are but let me tell you how I am he says but as for me I will come into the house and by the way the more time you spend in the house of God the less you'll be a worker of iniquity the less you'll speak leasing the less you'll be joining yourself and promoting bloody and deceitful men so he says but as for me I will come into the thy house you're there in Psalm 5 flip over real quickly Psalm 122 Psalm 122 look at verse 1 Psalm 122 in verse 1 here's what this psalm says David says I was glad when they said unto me let us go into the house of the Lord you know if you're a Christian that doesn't like church there's something wrong with you you need to get right with God you need to ask the Lord to search your heart and to help you get right because you should be glad to go to church you should be glad to be in the house Lord you should be glad to be with God's people you say well God's people are this and that you're this and that they're all sinners you're a sinner they're hypocrites you're a hypocrite but as for me I will come into the house go back to Psalm 5 real quickly and again I just think we need to we need to have an emphasis on the house of God not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together and look if you allow yourself to become the person that anything just any excuse gets you to skip church just understand this if the devil knows that you're the type of person that any excuse will get you out of church he's gonna give you an excuse every time I mean you'll have a reason every week you'll have a reason every Sunday to skip church and then you'll be one of these you know hit and miss once every few weeks but if you just decide if you're like Danny on your purpose in your heart if you just tell yourself and you tell God right because that's what David is doing but as for me I will come into the house some of you need to start praying this prayer but as for me I will come into my house if you start praying Lord I want to be in church I want to be faithful to the house of God come hell or high water I'm gonna be there then you know the devil's gonna fight you on that a little bit that the first time you pray that prayer just get ready you're probably gonna have a flat tire you're probably gonna have a dead battery you're probably gonna have you know can't find your shoes or whatever but if you just fight through that and you're just like I don't care I'm calling an uber we're getting to church you know eventually once the devil realizes that you know the Bible says resist the devil and he'll flee from you and once the devil realizes that you're not the type of person who's just gonna miss church on a whim then you can be the type of person that can pray but as for me I will come into the house and look we need to make much of the house of God make much of the house of God let us go into the house of the Lord you man it needs to make a decision now look I understand and look let me just say a couple things first of all I because we just had a lot of sickness if you're legitimately sick stay home please we understand that I'm not sitting here telling you come to church throwing up and with a fever or if you're sick we get that and we understand that and I know there's been a lot of sickness going around some of you are like he's preaching about me if you're thinking that right now I got another sermon for you called when you think the sermons about you because let me let you know a little secret like 75% of our church has been sick over the last three weeks so yeah I'm not preaching about anybody okay but but let me just say this I do think there's a lot of people who just it's funny like something that will keep you from going to church won't keep you from going to work if you had a camping trip or or some family vacation it wouldn't stop that but it stops church and if you know that's true then you need to get right with God you know if you're so sick you can't go to work then then don't come to church please but if you're like well I would go to the picnic well then you should go to church whatever you don't like that I don't care let me piss some of your other men off too some of you men need to just make a decision that you're not going to work during church time and you sit there and pray Lord the economy is bad bless my income bless my income and then you skip out on church to work that's all right look I'm not mad at you I mean it's between you and God but you ought to have this prayer that says but as for me I will come into thy house I will come into my house but as for me I will come into the house and look there's many many hours in the day many many hours in the week you can prioritize the house of God and you should but as for me I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy and I want you to notice that here David is explaining the only reason that you and I get to be in the house of God it's not because you're so great and I'm so great you're so good I'm so good it is the multitude of thy mercy that we can be in the house of God and if you remember that this is a morning prayer it reminds me of Lamentations where it says his mercies are new every morning great is thy faithfulness so here in the morning David is saying but as for me I will come into the house look I just think some of you every Sunday morning should get up and pray through Psalm 5 and say but as for me I will come into thy house and then when you're like I wonder if I should skip Sunday night well then just say well let me pray about it and if you're gonna pray about it pray Psalm 5 and verse 7 but as for me I will come into thy house just be faithful to the house of God it'll be good for you he says but and again if you're legitimately sick that's not I'm not talking about you know some of you are like you're here all the time and you were sick last week I'm not preaching about you okay so just have enough maturity to know that too but as for me I will come into the house and the multitude of thy mercy but then I want you to notice this he says and in thy fear will I worship in thy fear will I worship the Bible says in John 4 24 you have to turn there it says God is a spirit and they that worship him must worship him in his spirit and in truth John tells us that we need to worship God in spirit and in truth the psalmist here tells us that we need to worship God in fear and thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple what I think is funny about this is that the liberal Christians today the liberal Christians and again when I'm talking about liberal Christians I'm like I'm not talking about liberal politicians like about Christians that are liberal you know the church with with the purple lights and it's it feels like a rock concert that those churches they really emphasize and focus and they brag a lot about their worship but they don't worship in truth because they don't preach the King James Bible and doctrine and the Word of God but you know they also don't worship in fear and thy fear will I worship because when you're worshiping in these liberal churches and you've got these people raised in their hands as they're just living in fornication as they're just drunkards and drug addicts and and again we're all sinners and church is a spiritual hospital we're trying to help people get off of sins we understand that but when you're just living in open blatant sin not repenting not trying to get right but you were in church raising your hand that's not worship and thy fear will I worship and what's what I think is interesting is that the New Testament tells us that when we raise our hands he says raising holy hands without wrath and judgment and obviously that's a big liberal thing please don't start doing that here it'll just get awkward but if you're gonna raise your hand make sure it's holy draw near to God and he will draw near to you cleanse your hands you sinners and purify your hearts you double-minded so we see that the fear that worship needs to be done in fear and it needs to be done in truth so we see an emphasis on my house and then I want you to notice we see an emphasis on leading look at verse 8 just look at verse 8 just look at the first two words I love these words lead me lead me lead me Oh Lord in thy righteousness because of mine enemies make thy way straight before my face now I told you that there was some correlations here to the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6 can you go back there Matthew chapter 6 now you might have thought I was kind of stretching I don't think I was stretching when he says my king and my God and then Jesus said thy kingdom come I don't know if you know this but the first part of the word kingdom is King a king as a kingdom so whatever some of you thought I was stretching that that's okay but I'm not stretching this one this one is here all right because he says Psalm 5 verse 8 lead me lead me Oh Lord in thy righteousness look at what Jesus has in Matthew 6 13 in the great Lord's Prayer and look at it lead us lead us lead us not into temptation but delivers from evil for thine is the kingdom and power and glory forever amen now look what better way to start your day than to start your day by praying to God communicating your words to God communicating your mind to God and you say well what am I gonna pray in the morning if I'm praying to God how about pray this lead us lead us today lead me today lead me Oh Lord the psalmist says in thy righteousness and I just want to point out I preached on this in the past but when Jesus says Matthew 6 13 and lead us not into temptation but delivers from evil he's not making a request here like Lord you've been leading me into temptation I'm asking you to stop the idea is this lead us and maybe the way to help you grasp it is that you should put a pause there lead us I'm not saying that the King James translated anything wrong I'm not saying that but just for your own mind you might want to put a pause and realize that the request is this lead us and when you lead us Lord it will be not into temptation and the idea is this the Bible says in James that when we are drawn away into temptation we're drawn away of our own lusts and the truth is this when we are drawn into temptation we are drawn into temptation because we're leading ourselves we are drawn away of our own lusts so the request is this Lord I don't want to lead myself because I lead myself into temptation and I'm asking you to lead us because you'll lead us somewhere different than the guy that's been leading me that guy has been leading me he's been messing me up and I'm asking you to lead us not into temptation not because you'd lead us into temptation but because I've been leading myself into temptation lead us not into temptation but delivers from evil isn't that what the psalmist is saying look at Psalm 5 and verse 8 lead us oh Lord in thy righteousness what is that not into temptation because of mine enemies make thy way straight before me so we see that we should begin our mornings by saying this Lord hear my prayer and part of praying in the morning Lord hear my prayer is that I'm going to pray to God in the morning I'm going to direct my communication my thoughts my attention I look up and I'll set my affection on things above and then he we see that another request is to lead us lead us now he says why does he what's the reason for the lead us here's the reason look at it verse 8 lead me oh Lord in thy righteousness and here's the reason because of mine enemies because of mine enemies he says Lord lead me because I've got some enemies make the way straight before my face now here's what the psalmist says he says they hate me verse 8 mine enemies but then he also says this in verse 9 they hate you he says for there is no faithfulness in their mouth their inward part is very wickedness their throat look at this description their throat is an open sepulcher think about like you go to a cemetery and you bury up a corpse a body that's been buried it's been decaying looping that up and think of just what you would see think about what you would smell the stench of rotting corpse maggots eating away at this flesh and God says that's how he describes the throat what comes out of the throat of the enemies of God he says it's an open sepulcher they flatter with their tongues so he says I want you to lead me and I want you to lead me because of our enemies and he's talking about our enemies God they hate me and they hate you and then I want you to notice in verse 10 we have the third section and it's this destroy them I remember he just got done saying lead me because of mine enemies and then he says verse 10 and if you weren't with me on the whole God hates some people then you're not gonna like this either but God hates some people and David knows it and David this is a prayer this is a morning prayer all right like you get up in the morning and you're like Lord it's a beautiful day thank you for life that you know all those nice things and then it's like destroy thou them that's what he said look at verse 10 destroy thou them Oh God let them fall by their own counsels cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions for they have rebelled against me so he says destroy them let them fall cast them out and then and and what's the reason that's the request what's the request the prayer request is destroy thou them the prayer request is let them fall by their own counsels the prayer request is cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions well what's the reason David here's why last part of verse 10 for they have rebelled against me they have rebelled against me let me just take a moment to talk about this because here in Psalm 5 we find the first of the official imprecatory songs and we talked about this a little bit in our first sermon in the book of Psalms we talked about different types of Psalms and we know that some songs are Psalms of rejoicing some are Psalms of lament but some Psalms are imprecatory prayers and though I feel like we've already seen a hint of this in the other Psalms most people out there if you google it are going to agree that Psalm 5 is the first of the imprecatory prayers I don't know that I necessarily agree with that because there's been kind of some imprecatory statements in some of the other Psalms but this is for sure the first imprecatory Psalm now what is an imprecatory Psalm or an imprecatory prayer it is a prayer of destruction it is a prayer of curse and judgment on the enemies of God now some of you are like I'm not really that into prayer but if you knew that you could do some imprecatory prayers you might get more into it because it's praying that God just right now honestly let me just explain this I know you guys know this go to Psalm 139 if you would I know most of you know this but let me just explain it just to make sure you understand how does an imprecatory prayer work when we pray a curse destruction upon others how does it work well first of all remember this that we are to love our enemies Jesus famously said in in the Sermon on the Mount he said that we need to love our enemies and bless them that curse us be good to them that hate us pray for them which despitefully use us and that is not an imprecatory prayer okay because you're supposed to bless them that curse you all right so our enemies we're supposed to bless them we're supposed to love them we're supposed to esteem them better than ourselves we're supposed to turn the other cheek we're supposed to suffer ourselves to be defrauded these are all concepts found in the Bible all right our enemies what is that talking about let's talk about our personal enemies what does that mean here's what it means someone that is against you that's an enemy right someone that is working against you that is opposing you that is fighting you but they're doing it because of you not because of God but because of you does that make sense so you look you might have an enemy at work and and maybe they just don't like you but it's not that they're fighting you because you're a Christian it's not that and I always think it's funny when Christian like I got fired from being a Christian I was like okay I mean I know that happens but like maybe you got fired because you're late all the time you know or whatever anyway that's a summer for another day but they're fighting you they just don't like you look you and using you could have an enemy that's a fellow believer you could I hope this isn't the case but you could have an enemy even in church like that's my enemy and you your neighbor could be an enemy a co-worker be an enemy it could be a saved person it could be an unsaved person but they're just your enemy you have beef with them you can't clash with them and what are you supposed to do in those situations love your enemies bless them that curse you the good to them I hate you pray for them to despitefully use your persecute you we're to love our enemies that are not necessarily the enemies of God however there are people out there who are enemies of the Lord now oftentimes the enemies of the Lord fight us but they're not really fighting us because they hate us although they do hate us but they're really fighting us because they hate the Lord does that make sense so when when we know that someone is a reprobate they hate the Lord they're fighting against God and the work of God then these imprecatory prayers we're allowed to pray them let me give you one example very famous example Psalm 139 look at verse 21 knows what David says do not I hate them now now if you look at that you might say well wait a minute Jesus said love your enemies we're not supposed to hate anybody well again you need to read the Bible because here this is a song this is inspired by the Holy Spirit this is the Word of God holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost and David he said that he spoke as the Holy Ghost moved his mouth and here's what he said in one of the Psalms he says do not I hate them Oh Lord look at it that hate thee now the reason that David is such a powerful individual is because when we when you look at the life of David remember Saul was trying to kill David and two different times David had the opportunity to kill Saul but what did he do he said I will not he said I'm not gonna put my hand against the Lord's anointed so in that case Saul was David's enemy but Saul wasn't a reprobate he was a saved individual he was totally backslidden he was going crazy he was David's enemy but David didn't do him wrong why because David understood the principle that we're to love our enemies but here David says do not I hate them Oh Lord that hate thee and am not I grieve with those that rise up against thee look at verse 22 I hate them with perfect hatred so this hatred here there's nothing sinful about it it's a perfect it's a complete hatred it's a mature agent I hate them with perfect hatred and then notice he says I count them mine enemies so when someone is my enemy I am NOT to count them mine they might consider themselves my enemy but I'm not to look at them as an enemy I'm to love them bless them pray for them that despitefully use those and persecuted but when somebody is an enemy of the Lord then I am to look at them as my enemy I hate them with perfect hatred I count them my enemies and then just in case you think that they maybe they was having a bad day maybe David's all backslidden here when he's writing this which is stupid because it's a scripture in the context verse 23 search me Oh God and know my heart try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me and notice the request lead me in the way everlasting so notice that we're supposed to hate those who hate the Lord and we're supposed to count them our enemies but again you have to be mature enough to realize look this person this person hates me they're attacking me they're trying to destroy me but really is that they hate the Lord and they're just seeing me as a child of God or representative of God so they're attacking me that's an enemy of God and therefore they're my enemy and I hate them I hate them Oh Lord with perfect hatred but then there might be another individual we're like this is not a bad person they just don't like me you know they just we just have and then that individual we're supposed to love them bless them so I hope that makes sense and here's why I make a big deal about it is because and and I'm I'm running out of time but I think that you know the someone brought this concept I heard this concept recently and when I say recently I mean in the last eight months and at first I kind of balked at it but then I tried it and and it is and it's actually a very good thing and it is this that sometimes it's good for us to pray you might think like oh how do you know pray for an hour how do I get on my knees and pray for an hour sometimes it's good for us to pray through scripture now again I don't think that we should be praying vain and repetitious right you're not supposed to sit there for an hour our father which are in heaven hallowed be thy name the kingdom come they go and I'm repeating it over and over again but you know what you could do is you could take that Lord's prayer because Jesus said after this manner therefore pray you could take that prayer as an outline or as as as a suggestion and pray through it not pray the prayer but pray through it so you look at it and it says our father which are in heaven hallowed be thy name and then you can take some time to pray Lord your name really should be hollowed and I thank you that you are my father and I want to acknowledge you right now and I want to make sure that I come to you in the proper attitude of fear and truth thy kingdom come thy will be done Lord I pray that you help me align myself to your will and though I realize that my will and your will may not always be the same will but I'm trying Lord to ask that you would help your kingdom your will to be done in my life and that I would push thy kingdom come thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread Lord I want to pray for my physical needs and I want to ask that you would help me at work that you so you see I don't think we should pray like a Catholic these these these prayers in the Bible but you can pray through scripture and I will say this when I have prayed through certain scriptures I don't I can't explain to you this was sold me on it because I heard of this and I'm like I don't know that's a thing and I thought I'm just gonna try and there's something I'll tell you this as a preacher there's something that just opened up those passages to me when when I began to pray through them and here's what I'm saying to you is Psalm 5 is a psalm that you could pray through in fact this morning as I was praying for the sermon I prayed through this psalm and when I got to Psalm 5 in verse 10 destroy thou them I pulled out my list of enemies I mean I'm talking about literal names of literal people and I called their names out and I said destroy thou them Oh God let them fall by their own counsels cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions for they have rebelled against thee so we see that this is a prayer this is something that we can do and again you need to be careful that you're not praying that God destroys your personal enemies that's not something that we should be doing but when they're the enemies of the Lord when they're wicked reprobates working against the work of God then we can pray these things and then let me give you the fourth heading and it is this bless us so verses 1 through 6 hear me verses 7 through 9 lead me verse 10 destroy them verses 11 through 12 bless us we see the request he says but let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice here's the request the request is let allow those that put their trust in thee rejoice let them ever shout for joy because I'll defend this them let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee and let me just say this about this and I gotta wrap this up but he's asking that we would be blessed that we would rejoice those who trust he says that they would rejoice that they would ever shout for joy he says that they would be joyful in these so he's asking for this request but point but I just want to point this out he says let them also that love thy name and I think it's good for us to understand as Christians that God makes he differentiates that just because you're saved doesn't mean you love him and there are some additional benefits to loving the Lord what are some benefits well this is one of them you can't pray this you're like oh man I'm gonna pray Psalm 5 because so-and-so and I hate them and they are a reprobate so I'm gonna pray well wait wait a minute but before you start praying these things we need to make sure that our hearts are right and that we love we love there's a what I'm trying to say is that there's a difference between just being saved and being a safe person that loves the Lord because you could be saved and not love the Lord so this is he says let them also that love thy name be joyful in me so there's a prerequisite that the only way you can be joyful Lord is if you love the Lord and you say well I think that every safe person loves the Lord that's not what the Bible says that's not what Jesus said Jesus questioned the love of believers he looked at Christian people and he said if you love me keep my commandments so there's a very very you say oh how can I know if I love the Lord very easily if you're keeping his commandments you love him if you're not keeping his commandments then you may have a love for him and you're saved and all that none of that is going out the window but it doesn't mean you love him and and therefore there are some benefits to people that love the Lord one of them is this let them also that love thy name be joyful in me and of course if you're loving money and loving the world and loving carnal things then you're not going to be full of the joy of the Lord that should make sense here's another example of where there's an added benefit to those that love us here's a very famous verse that people love to quote all the time but there is a qualifying statement in this verse Romans 8 28 and we know that all things work together for good now the verse doesn't say that all things are good but it does say that all things can work together for good and Christians love to quote that something bad is going on it's like well we know that all things work together for good wait a minute that's not what the verse says the verse does say that but if there's more to it he says and we know that all things work together for good to them that love God so the only time that you can that that means that you could be saved and not love the Lord how do I know if I love the Lord if thou if you love me keep my commandments and you could have bad things happen to you that are not going to work out for good but there's a promise and a benefit to those that love the Lord he says we know that all things work together for good to them that love God to them who are the called according to his purpose so if you love God then you can have this confidence that all things no matter what's happening can work together for good in your life and if you love God you can have this confidence let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee and then notice the reason he says the request is let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice let them ever shout for joy let them also love thy name be joyful in thee here's the reason verse 11 but let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice let them ever shout for joy here's the reason because thou defendest them look at verse 12 for thou Lord will bless the righteous with favor without compass him as with a shield and what he's saying is this that the joy the psalmist saying this I can wake up in the morning and though my prayer may be a cry because of mine enemies I can have joy because thou defendest me because thou defendest them for thou Lord will bless the righteous with favor without compass that what that word means to surround him as with a shield so here's what we see in the in this Psalm Psalm 5 it's a morning prayer and it teaches us how we should direct our prayer in the morning we should wake up whether you have your Bible time in the morning or not you should at the very least I think we should all try to put this into practice let's do it morning we should all wake up and direct our attention to the Lord acknowledge God pray to God thank him set your meditation your thoughts on things are above ask him to lead you lead me in thy righteousness lead us not into temptation if you have enemies maybe you don't have enemies maybe you're living the good life well good for you but if you have enemies then pray destroy them let them fall cast them out if they're the enemies of the Lord because they rebel against thee because they're really fighting you God and then ask the Lord to bless you let us put our trust in thee help us to rejoice help us to shout for joy help us to be joyful in thee why because thou defendest them this power has in our word of prayer Heavenly Father Lord we do love you and we thank you for this psalm and Lord I pray you'd help us to be people who would direct our thoughts and our minds to you in the morning Lord help us in the morning it's so easy to just get out of bed and get busy with life and this and that and things that need to get done and I understand all that but help us Lord at least to take a moment to acknowledge God to speak to him just to to set our thoughts on him to ask him to lead us to bless us to defend us Lord I pray you to help us to be people that would give God our attention in the morning and that it might set the rest of our days the rest of our day established on the things of Lord we love you in Jesus name we pray amen all right we're gonna have brother Moses come up and lead us in a final song and of course want to remind you that we've got soul winning tomorrow at 2 p.m. and then we've got our big soul winning rally Saturday morning at 10 a.m. we'd love for you to join us on Saturday morning for soul winning be here for that and if there's anything we can do for you of course be here on Sunday for church there's anything we can do for you please let us know we'll have brother Moses come up and lead us in a final song turn in your song books to page number 372 page number 372 we're gonna sing let the lower lights be burning page 372 and let's go ahead and sing it out on the first brightly beams our father's mercy from his lighthouse evermore but to us he gives the keeping of the lights along the shore let the lower lights be burning Sena gleam across the way some boy's fainting struggling seamen you may rescue you may save page 372 let's sing it out on the second dark the night of sin has settled loud the angry billows roar eager eyes are watching on me for the lights along the shore let the lights be burning Sena gleam across the way some poor fainting struggling seamen you may rescue you may save page 372 let's finish it strong on the last trim your feeble and my brother some poor sailor tempest pause trying now to make a harbor and the darkness may be lost let the lower lights be burning Sena gleam across the way some poor fainting struggling seamen you may rescue you may save great singing if you're a guest and if you have any questions about salvation church membership or baptism you can see pastor in the front and can I please have brother Darryl will close this over more prayer you