Psalm 28:1-9 To you will I cry, O LORD my rock; be not silent to me: lest, if you be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit.… It is the king who speaks, whose cause is identical with that of the people. Difference between this and the twenty-sixth psalm. The ground-thought of both is that God will not involve in the same outward fate those who are inwardly different; and that the lot of the wicked cannot be the same as that of the righteous. But there it is the oppressed individual righteous man that speaks; here it is the oppressed righteous king speaking for himself and his people. I. THE PRAYER FOR DELIVERANCE. (Vers. 1-3.) Arguments of the psalmist why God should answer him. 1. The certain, firm faithfulness of God. "God was his Rock." God and he were friends, and he could not but listen to the cry of a friend for help. Besides, God has promised to deliver the righteous out of his troubles. We have this assurance in the gospel. "He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins." 2. If God did not answer him, he would soon be past deliverance. "Like them that go down to the dead." No human help could avail him; no operation of mere natural law. God's arm must interpose for him. All real answers to prayer are supernatural - something above nature - from the realm of spirit. 3. He lifted his hands to the place where God speaks with his people. (See Exodus 25:22.) That is, he puts himself into the divinely appointed way of being heard - praying towards the mercy-seat between the cherubim. Did all he knew and could do for being answered. Have we done that? 4. God was too just to involve him in a common fate with wicked and deceitful men. (Ver. 3.) "Draw me not away," etc. That would not be just. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" II. A PRAYER THAT THE WICKED MAY NOT GO UNPUNISHED. (Vers. 4, 5.) Particularly his enemies. The prayer might not have been prompted by malignity. For: 1. Their frustration might have been necessary to his deliverance. If so, he was only crying for justice, such as we often invoke upon those guilty of injustice. "Give them according to their deeds," and let them not continue in their unrighteous courses. 2. The prayer is followed by a prophecy of their assured doom. Because they do not study God's righteous judgments, they fall into increasing wickedness, and make sure of being destroyed. III. PRAYER ANSWERED IS FOLLOWED BY CONFIDENCE AND THANKSGIVING. 1. The struggles of his soul have brought victory, praise, and joy. (Vers. 6-8.) 2. The psalmist prays that the Lord would do eternally that which he had now done. (Ver. 9.) Would continue to do for ever the same as he had now done for him and his people. - S. Parallel Verses KJV: {A Psalm of David.} Unto thee will I cry, O LORD my rock; be not silent to me: lest, if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit. |
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