A Psalm of David.
1 To You I will cry, O LORD my Rock:
Do not be silent to me,
Lest, if You are silent to me,
I become like those who go down to the pit.
David declared that he would cry out to the Lord bringing his cause and concerns before Him. He begged God not to be silent when he cried out to Him. If God were to remain silent when we cry out to Him we would be without hope like those who don't believe in God; like those who don't cry out to God.
Those who are saved and in right relationship with the Lord possess a great comfort in the ability to cry out to Him. When we cry out to God we can rest assured that he hears us. We, too, like David can ask God not to be silent. In times when we are shaken and in trouble it is a great comfort when we hear from the Lord in some way. Those who trust in themselves will come to the end of what they can withstand. God is silent to them. They have no hope as they go down to the pit. There is no indication that God hears the prayers of the wicked. In the end they will become hopeless.
2Hear the voice of my supplications
When I cry to You,
When I lift up my hands toward Your holy sanctuary.
When I voice my supplications and lift up my hands it shows my attitude of heart. My heart is inclined toward the Lord and seeking after Him at the throne of grace. The supplications are prayers or entreaties to pursue the favor of the Lord. In our world and culture we are sometimes shy about voicing our supplications, our cries are silent and personal and we don't lift our hands until we find ourselves in dire circumstances. When things get really bad we suddenly get bold and give great voice to our supplications. We cry out and lift our hands to the Lord and we don't care who hears us or sees us. Maybe we should arrive at the point long before our circumstances are dire.
3 Do not take me away with the wicked
And with the workers of iniquity,
Who speak peace to their neighbors,
But evil is in their hearts.
4 Give them according to their deeds,
And according to the wickedness of their endeavors;
Give them according to the work of their hands;
Render to them what they deserve.
5 Because they do not regard the works of the LORD,
Nor the operation of His hands,
He shall destroy them
And not build them up.
We live in a world where it seems everyone has an agenda. You can't automatically take things at face value. If you do, you often find out they are seeking power, money or fame and they will go to great lengths to use others to achieve it. There is an air of separation in verse 3. It's a call for sanctification and holiness. I don't want to be mixed up with those who work iniquity; those who speak peace but there is evil in their hearts. Those that act on their sinful nature have evil in their hearts and there is wickedness in their endeavors. Those same people will tell you they are just enjoying life, doing what feels good or what comes natural to them. As they seek after what makes them happy they continue to build themselves up as lord of their life and grow further from Jesus Christ being their Lord. David calls for God to judge their work and render to them what they deserve. For now, their distance from the Lord becomes a judgment in itself. In the end the Lord will judge all sin. Those that rejected the Lord as lord of their life will still be in their sin and receive their just reward.
The wheat and the tares are growing together and wheat doesn't want to be harvested with the tares. The day of harvest is coming when the tares will be separated and thrown into the fire and the wheat will become fruit in the kingdom.
6 Blessed be the LORD,
Because He has heard the voice of my supplications!
David praises God and declares the Lord to be blessed. The word blessed is 'barak' and has broad meaning but in most cases it is associated with kneeling and with bended knee. In this case it is a cry of adoration and exaltation from a position of humility. From bended knee, face down I declare Him to be The One and Only Lord because He has heard my voice when I cried out to Him.
7The LORD is my strength and my shield;
My heart trusted in Him, and I am helped;
Therefore my heart greatly rejoices,
And with my song I will praise Him.
This is a continuation of the face down worship and exaltation. The Lord is where we find strength when we've become powerless. We often wait until we've exhausted all our ways before we turn to him but for those in the Lord, He is there. He brings us through the fire and through trouble that is beyond anything we can do of our own strength. He shields us from those things that would harm us spiritually. This doesn't mean bad things don't happen. It means he will guide us and grow us. Some of the greatest times of spiritual growth is when you are in the fire and learning to lean on the Lord and follow His leading. We learn to trust Him all the more and we are helped. We must never forget to give Him the glory and recognize the rejoicing in our heart belongs to Him.
8 The LORD is their strength,
And He is the saving refuge of His anointed.
9 Save Your people,
And bless Your inheritance;
Shepherd them also,
And bear them up forever.
The Lord is the strength of His people. He is the only saving refuge of His anointed. There is no other. The world says there are many ways to God or that there are many gods. But there is only one God and one Way to God and that is Jesus Christ. The anointed is many times a reference to Jesus Christ or to the priests or others that represent God. In this case it is the corporate group of people that are in the Lord. If we were studying Romans we might say these were 'the called'. They are God's people. In David's case, he is talking about
See Ephesians 1:18
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