Peter Barnes: Psalm 25:1-7 :
(First 5 minutes poor audio)
(7 April 2019)
SERMON NOTES: TRUSTING IN THE LORD (Psalm 25:1-7)
– one of the acrostic Psalms (like Psalms 9-10; 34, 37, 111, 112, 119, 145; also Proverbs 31:10-31). Each verse begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet – hence the 22 verses, with a few irregularities (vv. 2, 5, 18, 22). Theodore Beza calls it a pattern for daily prayer for the church and for individual Christians.
1. David prays for vindication.
– 25:1-3. This seems to come later in life so he could be referring to what happened when Absalom rebelled against him. There will be vindication and there will be shame.
– David knew what it was to be downcast, to be treated maliciously. Lift up your soul, get out of yourself, look to the one who rules and reigns in heaven. He will get the last word.
2. David prays for guidance.
– 25:4-5; Ps.1:2. Seek to know the Word and meditate on it.
– to know and to walk; Ps. 119:105; John 17:17.
3. David prays for forgiveness.
– 25:6-7. H. A. Ironside tells of visiting a ninety year old man who lamented: ‘Everything seems so dark.’ Ironside pointed to these words. Margaret Wilson was only eighteen years of age when she was sentenced to be drowned in the Solway River as a Covenanter on 11 May 1685. As the tide rolled in which would take away her earthly life, she sang these words. Three times David prays that God would ‘remember’: remember not David’s sins, but remember David.
Augustine: ‘Your mercies are from eternity because You have never been without them.’