A Prayer for Guidance, Pardon, and Protection – Psalm
25
A Psalm of David with Commentaries by Dennis
Edwards
Psalm 25 1-5 Unto You,
O Lord, do I lift up my soul. O my
God, I trust in You: let me not be ashamed, let not my enemies
triumph over me. Yea, let none that wait
on You be ashamed: let them be ashamed which transgress without cause. Show me Your ways,
O Lord; teach me Your paths. Lead me
in Your truth, and teach me: for You are the God
of my salvation; on You do I wait all the day.
We see David in his prayer in
a continual interaction with God. He seeks God’s presence in the face of his
enemies. He seeks to know the path and the way wherein he should walk. He prays
that he has not been a bad example that has caused others to stumble. He waits
in prayerful state for God’s response. He waits on the Lord.
Psalm 25:6-7 Remember,
O Lord, Your tender
mercies and Your loving-kindnesses; for they have
been ever of old. Remember not the sins of
my youth, nor my transgressions: according to Your mercy
remember me for Your goodness' sake, O Lord.
As we get older, we may be attacked with regrets over some of the
bad behaviour we participated in during our youth. Solomon admonishes us to, “Remember
now your Creator in the days of your youth,” Ecclesiastes 12:1a. Apostle
Paul advises us to, “Flee also youthful lusts,” 2 Timothy 2:22a. In Proverbs
we read, “My son, if sinners entice you, consent not. My son, walk not in the
way with them; refrain your foot from their path: for their feet run to evil, and
make haste to shed blood,” Proverbs 1:10,15-16.
Some men suffer from Post Dramatic Stress Syndrome, from the sins
of their youth committed during a war. When they are older, they are not able
to get the imagery of the sins they participated in during the war from their
mind. They may be especially attacked as they lie down to rest, or through
nightmares. A women or child may experience something similar through an abuse
they have experienced as the result of the sins of someone else.
David may be feeling remorse over his sins with Uriah who he had subtlety
killed, so that he could marry Uriah’s wife Bathsheba. Though David had
repented as a result of his exchange with the Prophet Nathan, nevertheless, he
was plagued with remorse over his evil behaviour during his youth. It seems
David had been such a righteous lad as a youth, with his victory over Goliath, that
God had to allow David to fall into serious sin to keep him humble. David’s
fall led to some of the most beautiful psalms of repentance we find in the
Bible, which have been a Divine help to many a fallen follower of God.
God get some of His greatest victories out of seeming defeats, victories
of brokenness, and humility, which are the making of a man or woman of God. For
God resists the proud, but gives grace unto the humble. David tells us, “The
Lord is nigh unto them of a broken heart; and saves such as be of a contrite spirit,”
Psalm 34:18.
Psalm 25:8-10 Good and
upright is the Lord:
therefore, will He teach sinners in the
way. The meek will He guide
in judgment: and the meek will He teach
his way. All the paths of the Lord are
mercy and truth unto such as keep His
covenant and His testimonies.
Over and over again we see the importance of humility in our
relation with God and others. The humble sinner is more open to God, than the
self-righteous religionist. Again, we note that God’s paths are mercy and
truth. We might equate mercy to love, and proclaim that God’s paths are love
and truth. Or we might equate mercy to grace, and proclaim that God’s paths are
grace and truth. Mercy and truth, love and truth, grace and truth, these all
point to one person: Jesus Christ. “For the law was given by Moses, but grace
and truth came By Jesus Christ,” John 1:17. Jesus Himself said, “I am
the way, (or the path), the truth, and the life.” Do you want to get on the
path of mercy and truth? Then follower Jesus who is the embodiment of love, mercy, grace, and truth.
Psalm 25:11 For Your name's
sake, O Lord, pardon
my iniquity; for it is great.
Again, we see the wave of guilt coming over David as he cries out
for forgiveness. He laments over his horrible sin, and calls on God for mercy.
It is the enemy of our soul, that tempts us to fall into condemnation over our
past sins, iniquities, mistakes, or blunders. The Proverbs says, “He
that covers his sins shall not prosper: but whosoever confesses and forsakes
his sin, shall have mercy,” Proverbs 28:13. In the New Testament
we find, “If we confess our sins, He (God) is faithful and just to forgive us
our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness,” 1 John 1:9.
Isaiah 43:25 says, “I, even I, am He that
blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and will not remember your sins.”
In Psalm 103:12 we find, “As far as the east is from the west, so far has
He removed our transgressions from us.” Micah 7:19 has the same idea: “You
will again have compassion on us, You will tread our sins underfoot and hurl
all our iniquities into the depths of the sea,” NIV.
Apostle Paul tells us straight out that there is no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus, Romans 8:1. It’s the Devil, the
accuser of the saints, that tries to convince us that we have sinned beyond God’s
desire to pardon. He tells us our sin is too great an evil, that God cannot and
will not forgive us. But these words are, what Jonah said, were lying vanities.
When Jonah was going down for the third and final time to meet his death in the
belly of the whale, he had been listening to the Devil’s words and believed
that he was getting what he deserved for disobeying God’s orders.
Finally, Jonah realized that his salvation was and is always
dependent on God’s grace and mercy, and not his own sinless perfection. Jonah
remembered the Lord, and his prayer came in unto Him in His holy temple. God sent
illumination to Jonah’s mind. He realized that if he observed the lies of the Devil,
lies which told him God would not forgive and save him, because he had gone too
far in disobedience; then Jonah would be forsaking God’s mercy. The mercy that God
continually offers those who come to Him in their moments of great distress and
anguish. If Jonah held onto his pride as he descended into the depths of the
sea, that would have been his last voyage. But he let go of his pride and cried
out to God in humility for mercy, while offering Him thanksgiving and praise.
As a result, the Lord answered his prayer, and Jonah ended up on the beach
ready to go on God’s mission.
Psalm 25:12-14 What man
is he that fears the Lord? Him shall
He teach in the way that He shall
choose. His soul shall dwell at ease; and his seed shall inherit the earth. The
secret of the Lord is
with them that fear Him; and He will
shew them His covenant.
Isaiah tells us, “But to this man will I look, even to him that is
poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembles at My word,” Isaiah 66:2. It
is “the fear of the Lord that is the beginning of knowledge,” Proverbs 1:7.
Having a healthy “fear of the Lord,” gives us the right perspective on life.
When we realize that God has made us and not we ourselves, we start our
thinking at the right starting place, that is, we start with God, not me,
myself, and I.
Psalm 25:15-20 My eyes
are ever toward the Lord; for He shall
pluck my feet out of the net. Turn unto
me, (O Lord), and have mercy upon me; for I am desolate
and afflicted. The troubles of my heart
are enlarged: O bring me out of my distresses. Look
upon my affliction and my pain; and forgive all my sins. Consider
my enemies; for they are many; and they hate me with cruel hatred. O keep
my soul, and deliver me: let me not be ashamed; for I put my trust in You.
David seems to have gained faith through his praying and now his
prayer has more confidence. He believes that God has heard his prayer and will
send relief. David’s time in prayer has transformed him, and encouraged his faith.
In his time of prayer, he has received strength from the Lord and now comes boldly
before the throne of grace.
Psalm 25:21-22 Let
integrity and uprightness preserve me; for I wait on You. Redeem
Israel, O God, out of all his troubles.
The only integrity and uprightness we have is in Christ. It is He
that helps us to be honest, truthful, and upright. It is His grace within us
that causes us to rise above our enemies in character and in honour. David
finishes with, “Redeem Israel out of all his troubles.” Apostle Paul tells us
that the true Israel of God includes all those that believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. We are the seed of Abraham, the seed of Israel, through our faith and
obedience to the Lord Jesus. “And if you be Christ’s, then are you Abraham’s
seed, and heirs according to the promise,” Galatians 3:29.
Charles
Spurgeon said the following: “Israel in the covenant of grace is not natural
Israel [not the nation of flesh and blood Israel], but all believers in all
ages. Before the first advent, all the types and shadows all pointed one way –
they pointed to Christ, and to Him (the Messiah) all the (Old Testament) saints
looked with hope. Those who lived before Christ were not saved with a different
salvation to that which shall come to us. They exercised faith as we must; that
faith struggled as ours struggles, and that faith obtained its reward as ours
shall.”[1]
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