Introduction
I read something this week that reinforced a conviction that has been growing in my mind over the past several months. What I read was a news item about a plaque that has been taken away from a tourist centre at the Grand Canyon in the USA.
Have any of you been to the Grand Canyon?
It’s pretty impressive, isn’t it?
I’ve only seen it from the air - flying from St Louis to LA one day. I had no idea that something that was 9 or 10 thousand metres below me could look so massive, so glorious. It is the most amazing expanse of colour and texture that I have ever seen. I knew then why it was called “Grand”.
You’d think, wouldn’t you, that a plaque which said:
“How many are your works, O Lord!
In wisdom you made them all”
would be entirely appropriate. That a quote like this, from Psalm 104:24, would not give rise to any public controversy. There certainly wasn’t forty years ago when the plaque was placed there.
These days things are different. The story I read this week tells of how the quote from the Psalms had to be removed because it is no longer acceptable to display such “dangerous, sectarian thoughts” on public property! I kid you not. What has the world come to if it is not only socially unacceptable, but “dangerous” to say in public that God made the Grand Canyon?
Generally, over my lifetime at least, most of our society has accepted the church as a positive social influence. Even if they disagreed with much of what we believe, people didn’t mind having us around to do good works. Forty years ago there was no problem with putting a plaque that mentioned God on the tourist centre at the Grand Canyon.
But not today. Today our society is saying to us: “You keep your God and your beliefs away from us. Such ideas are unconstitutional; such ideas are dangerous.”
Do you hear the message in that? More and more, the world around us is telling us that it thinks that we, the church, followers of Jesus Christ, are a danger to society. The popular call for “tolerance” does not extend to those who wish to proclaim the name of God, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. They are no longer saying, “we disagree with you, but you’re good people who we are happy to live with.” No – the message is now: “you and your ideas are dangerous.”
Admittedly, I’m pressing the point a bit here. Lest you think I’m pressing it too far, let me stress that I don’t think that what I’ve just talked about is the most common attitude towards Christians in Australia, nor even in the USA. But it IS becoming more prevalent and has taken a strong hold on law-making and public policy in America. And read some of our newspapers closely – you’ll clearly see this attitude coming through.
Into this atmosphere, the same Psalms that are being removed from the Grand Canyon speak to us – or rather, through them, God speaks to us. None more so than our passage for today, Psalm 26. This passage shares with us a prayer and the accompanying meditations of a man of God who was being accused of being a danger to his society simply because he obeyed the Lord God.
David, the son of Jesse, often felt the threat of a hostile world, especially during the period between his anointing as the future king of Israel and his enthronement to that office. Often men would falsely accuse him of seeking to undermine the first king, Saul, and therefore the nation. This was despite the fact that his own actions in sparing Saul’s life proved otherwise.
When faced with hostility from a world opposed to God and His purposes, David would come before the Lord in prayer. That is the first lesson for us from such a passage – to be people of prayer, people who don’t try to sort out their issues without discussing them intimately with God first.
This is what David does in Psalm 26,where we see him appealing to God as the righteous judge. He asks for “vindication”. What does this mean? What’s David really asking for here?
I believe that what he’s asking for is that God would declare him to be innocent of the things he was being accused of. His concern wasn’t merely personal. He’d been anointed king; accusations that he was acting against God were intended to prevent him being seated on the throne; they were trying to stop God’s plan being carried out.
On what basis does he appeal to God for this vindication?
Firstly, he knew the reality of his own heart. When he says, “I have led a blameless life”, he isn’t saying he is perfectly sinless. We know from elsewhere in the Bible, including several other Psalms, that David couldn’t and didn’t make that claim. I think that all he is saying there is that he has genuinely sought to serve God and the kingdom and that he cannot be accused of treachery as his enemies were doing.
He is able to declare before his judge that he is a man of sincere faith (vs 1) and that because of this he can withstand an examination of how he has lived his life (vs 2). He proceeds to undertake just such an examination, making the following main points:
· He has kept to the path that follows God’s love and truth (vs 3). This is a claim to have honoured God’s standards in his life, to have “walked the walk”, not merely paid lip service to the ten commandments and other requirements of God’s law. The apostle Paul encouraged several churches in the New Testament for their manner of life using similar language to this. For example, he prayed that the Philippians’ love would abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight – combining the ideas of love and truth as key Christian characteristics.
· As evidence of his sincerity, David declares (in vs 4 – 5) that he has not entangled himself with people whose character and manner of life are at odds with God’s holy standards. Deceipt, hypocrisy and wickedness are the hallmarks of such people, but David deliberately avoided being caught up in their ways and their schemes. Later, in vs 9 – 10, he refers to their “wicked schemes”, which through bribery would seek to drag the man of God off the path of truth and love. Such is his commitment to staying on that path that he simply refuses even to sit with them – the idea being that if you sit down with someone, you have joined them, you are open to their ideas and their behaviours, you endorse their attitudes. David refused to do that. I am reminded of Joseph, who literally ran from Potiphar’s wife when she tried to seduce him, rather than give in to her insistence that he sin with her.
· Rather, David loved to spend time with God (vs 6 & 8) and to praise God (vs 7). He speaks of loving being in God’s house, a theme that recurs in several of the Psalms. For David, being in God’s house meant being in the presence of God Himself, being intimate with the Lord, being close to the One who has cleansed him and who loves him.
I think there’s a parallel between the things David talks about and the passage in Ephesians 6 where Paul talks about the need for us to put on the full armour of God. David was in reality being assaulted by Satan when those wicked men accused him. He is able in the end to stand firm because he has on the full armour of God. I don’t have time to explore this in more detail, but briefly we see the following correspondence of ideas:
- the girdle, or belt, of truth parallels David’s sincerity, the inner truthfulness of his relationship with God;
- the breastplate of righteousness parallels him washing his hands and rejecting the ways of wicked men;
- the feet wearing gospel shoes parallels him telling of God’s wonderful deeds;
- the shield of faith parallels his unwavering trust in God;
- the helmet of salvation parallels his cry to God for mercy and eternal life;
- the sword of the spirit parallels his love of God’s truth and desire to proclaim His message;
- and praying in the Spirit is what he is doing in the Psalm, bringing his requests to God, but also being open to God to lead him from one thought to another as required.
Why do I make that last point, about moving in prayer from one thought to another? Well, there’s an interesting transition in verse 9. David has made his case for vindication by the end of verse 8, concluding with the thought of God’s glory. It seems to me that he is immediately made aware of his own sinfulness. He was quite right when he declared before God that he was blameless of the things his enemies accused him. But as he thought of being in God’s glorious presence he had to realise that, compared with God’s holy standards, he fell short. Compared to God, even the most virtuous man is inadequate. That taunts of the enemies thus call into question his standing before God.
He therefore prays, not just for vindication in his immediate situation, but for eternal vindication, for eternal life. “Do not take away my soul along with sinners …… redeem me and be merciful to me.”
There is a CHALLENGE to us in these verses. The challenge is to align our hearts with the character and purposes of God the way David’s was.
1) Are we men and women of sincere, unwavering faith in our Lord Jesus Christ? I am not talking here about sinless perfection. As the writer CS Lewis once said, when we sincerely try to walk God is pleased even with our stumbles. The question is, are we walking in truth – stumbles and all - or are we merely pretending to be Christians?
2) Do we recognise God’s enemies and actively avoid being drawn into their wicked ways? They are by nature deceiptful and they bring attractive bribes to draw us off the path of truth. I should add that our enemies are not just people who are physically present. More and more the enemies lurk in places like the internet, or in TV shows which show us far more than is good for us. Do we pray against their influence in our lives and choose, as David, did not to sit with them?
3) Are we putting on the full armour of God so that we can stand firm against the hostility that Satan and his cohorts direct towards us?
But there is also a great ENCOURAGEMENT for us in this Psalm. God never issues us a challenge, without also providing encouragement that He will enable us to meet the challenge. The note on which Psalm 26 finishes is a positive one.
“My feet stand on level ground; in the great assembly I will praise the Lord.”
This tells us how God answered David’s prayer. After asking God for vindication, then meditating upon his relationship with the Lord and God’s glory, David comes away convinced in his spirit that he stands on level ground. This is true of all of God’s people – the rough ground has become level and the rugged places have been made smooth for us.
When the world says, “you are dangerous” our first response should be to make sure that we are actually behaving in a right way. But if we are, then we can take heart that God says of us, “no, you are not dangerous, you are vindicated – you are standing in the right place, stay there!”
As the apostle Paul wrote to the Romans, “if God is for us, who can be against us? …. Who will bring a charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies, who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus who died – more than that who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God interceding for us. Who then shall separate us from the love of God? {Nothing} can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
The second part of this final verse also reveals that David knows his prayer has been answered. One aspect of what it means to be “in the great assembly” is that he would have been looking forward to becoming King and leading God’s people in worship. But in light of his prayer for eternal life, I think this is also an anticipation of that great day when all of God’s people will gather in heaven before the Lord and join in the words of Revelation 9:12 –
“Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honour and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever.”
Friends, the world is hostile towards God and His people. But we have this assurance from him, that if we are sincere in our faith then He will vindicate us – both now and in eternity.
(Additional notes not delivered in sermon:
- a secret to interpreting passages like this which seem to be advocating salvation by merit is to understand the context for the writer. This is the approach I took in this sermon.
- another possible approach to Psalm 26 would be to see it as Messianic. David, as the ancestor by birth of the Lord Jesus, spoke words that ultimately are only 100 per cent true of Christ. He did lead a blameless life, for us. We can pray the prayer of Psalm 26 because Christ represents us before God as the blameless one so that we can be presented blameless in God’s sight.)
