The Bible Study Hour

Announcer: What does it mean to be merciful? Today on The Bible Study Hour, we're studying Psalm 41, where the theme throughout is mercy. David is a man who knows mercy. He knows that he deserves nothing, yet he's received overwhelming and unmerited favor from God. What can David's behavior toward his enemies teach us about forgiveness?

Announcer: Welcome to The Bible Study Hour, a radio and internet broadcast with Dr. James Boice, preparing you to think and act biblically.

Dr. James Boice: David knows that he has received mercy and that showing mercy to his enemies will bring blessings. Let's find out how by turning to Psalm 41. You may recall the ending of the last Psalm had to do with the poor and needy. The psalmist is saying, "I am poor and needy. May the Lord think of me." Well, that's where this Psalm begins. And as I say, it's probably the reason why the Psalms are connected the way they are. We've seen that before.

Quite often, a Psalm will begin at the point the preceding Psalm ended, and I think that's probably why we have the order we do here. David, as he writes this last Psalm of Book 1, says, "Blessed is he who has regard for the weak." That is the poor and needy that were spoken about in the previous verse. And he has a special blessing upon them. The theme of this Psalm is mercy.

You find it twice in the Psalm. It's in verse 4 and verse 10. Verse 4 says, "O Lord, have mercy on me. Heal me, for I have sinned against you." And then verse 10 says, "But you, O Lord, have mercy on me. Raise me up that I may repay them." But it's not just there in the middle section of the Psalm that we find it. It's there in the opening section because David is pronouncing a blessing on the one who has regard for the weak, and what that means is the one who shows mercy to those who need it, and especially those that are not able to pay you back.

And in the middle section, when he begins to talk about his enemies and his false friends and the way they've been treating him, his real complaint is that they didn't show any mercy to him when he needed it. So, as we study this Psalm, let's keep that in mind. It's a Psalm about mercy, and it's commending mercy to those who are the people of God. One of the sad things about Christians is that often they are known for anything but that. And yet they should be.

You know what our Lord said in one of the Beatitudes, it's really the key verse of the Psalm, if you want to take it that way. Jesus said, "Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy." That's exactly the theme David develops in the first few verses. And if you want an exposition of the Psalm, well, you also find it in Matthew's Gospel. The key verse, the Beatitude, "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy." The exposition comes toward the end of Matthew where you read, "Come, you blessed by my Father, take your inheritance, for I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes, and you clothed me. I was sick, and you looked after me. I was in prison, and you came to visit me."

So mercy is the theme and the way you do it is the way Jesus Christ describes it there. Now, the Psalm has three sections, and it's very easy to see. The first part of it, the first three verses, is a statement of the theme. That's where we have the Beatitude in its Old Testament form. The second section, which I regard as containing verses 4 through 10, although the New International Version breaks the stanzas up differently, but in verses 4 through 10 we have a plea for mercy on the psalmist's part, in which he states his sad condition, why he needs mercy.

And then finally, and I handle it this way because of the change of subject matter, verses 11 through 13 are a final expression of his very firm confidence in God. So you have the theme, you have a plea for mercy based on the theme, and then you have the statement of confidence. Now that first section begins with the word "blessed," and that means it's a beatitude itself. "Blessed is he who has regard for the weak." This is the third time in the book of Psalms that one of the Psalms has begun this way.

We're very aware of the first one because it's the first Psalm in the Psalter. "Blessed is the man who does not make his company with the ungodly but who grounds himself in the law of the Lord." It's the way the Psalter begins. And then the 32nd Psalm begins the same way, and now this is the last one of Book 1 of the Psalter, ends the same way. So, so this book, you see, begins with a blessing and it ends with a blessing. The 32nd Psalm is about forgiveness based on the shed blood of Christ. So you have a blessing pronounced on the one who loves the word of God and grounds his or her life upon it.

You have a blessing upon one who has been forgiven of his or her sins, and finally in this Psalm you have a blessing on the one who out of that experience of forgiveness shows mercy to the poor and the needy who are all about us. Now, there are a couple of ways this blessing pronounced here can be taken. It can be an encouragement, on the one hand, to show compassion to those who need compassion. "Blessed is he who has regard for the weak." That's what you should do. Go out and and care for the weak. Or the first three verses could be understood as David saying, "This is what I have done. This has been the way I've operated in my life, and because of this, I know that God is going to take care of me when I need it."

Now, probably both of those are true. As we read on further here in this Psalm, we find out that David was in a position where he really did need the mercy of God. People were not showing it to him. He needed it from God. And so that's what he's praying to God for. But at the same time, what he's saying is that you and I should be people who are characterized by mercy to others who are around us. There are seven things that David says God will do if we make it our goal to show mercy to other people. Here they are. Number one, the Lord will deliver us in times of trouble. Number two, he will protect us. Number three, he will preserve our life. Number four, he will bless us in the land. Number five, he will not surrender us to the desire of our foes. Number six, he will sustain us on our sick beds. And number seven, he will restore us to health. So in those first three verses, David makes those seven statements.

But there's an interesting progression there, isn't there? If you look at them carefully, you'll see that they move from the more general to the more specific. The most general of all is the first. God will deliver us in times of trouble, all kinds of trouble. But as he begins to list these things, he gets more and more specific until finally he says toward the end, "The Lord will sustain him on his sick bed," verse 3, "and restore him from his bed of illness." Now, David is sick and ill, and that's exactly what he needs. So you see, he's moved from the general principle to the specific in these verses.

Now that's worth thinking about, because when we think spiritually, very often the way we think is in general terms. We pray that way, and we think that way, and we aren't specific with God. But the wonderful thing about our God is that he doesn't just care for us generally, though he does, and preserve us in time of trouble generally, though he does, but he cares for us in specific things. And here David is sick, and so he needs a God who's able to sustain him in his sickness. And he's ill, and he needs a God who's able to raise him up and restore him to health. And God certainly is able to do that.

Whatever your specific need may be, particularly if you're aware of it in an area of weakness, and you're looking to God for mercy, you'll find that that's exactly the point at which he meets you. When I expound a text like this, I don't know every individual heart, and I certainly don't know all the details of your life, but you can see your own situation reflected in these verses. And what they're telling you is that God knows you, where you are, and he knows your need, and he wants to meet that need if you'll come to him the way David does.

Now we move on to the second section because that's the statement of the theme, "Blessed are those who show mercy." Verse 4, David calls out to God for mercy. The reason I put verse 10 with these other verses is that the theme of these verses all has to do with the plight in which David finds himself. I think before we move on to see exactly what he says here about his enemies and his false friends, we should look at that word "mercy" and understand it in a way that will help us understand the first few verses. You see, one thing I said is that David is not only urging us there to be merciful, he's also stating a great principle.

One of the commentators says it's probably the first time in biblical history that this principle has been stated, though our Lord did it very clearly in the Beatitudes. That is, if you show mercy to other people, God will show mercy to you. Probably the first time, but it's nevertheless a very clear statement. But you see, if we look at that and say, "Well, what David is saying is this," he's saying, "Look, I showed mercy to other people, therefore God owes me mercy," right? If we think of it that way, we miss what he's saying. Because mercy by its very definition is not something that's deserved. If David had said, "Well, I've given money to other people, therefore God ought to give me money."

Well, that at least a logical connection, though it's wrong. Or, "I went to visit somebody and now I wish God would be close to me." That we could understand. But that isn't what he says. He's talking about mercy. And mercy is God's unmerited favor, and it's even more than that, it's God's favor to people who deserve the opposite. You see, we know as we look on to verse 4 that David is aware that he doesn't deserve anything from God because he's confessing his sin. "Heal me because I've sinned against you." Sinners need mercy. Justice to sinners is judgment. What sinners need is mercy. So when we begin to think that what he's praying for in the Psalm is mercy, we understand the way he's talking about it in the first verse.

He is saying, I believe, "I have shown mercy to other people." And that is true. And he is stating the principle that God shows mercy to those who show mercy. But that is a different thing from claiming mercy of God because you show mercy. You see, you understand what mercy is, it's always showing favor to someone who doesn't deserve it and in fact deserves the opposite. And what David is really saying is that I'm in that position. Furthermore, because of my sin, I'm more in that position than anybody else. Here's somebody who was poor and I went and I helped them out, but that doesn't compare to where I stand before God in terms of my sin.

Here's somebody who was lonely and I went and visited them, but their loneliness is nothing and what I did is nothing to compare to my sin and the mercy that I need from Almighty God. Do you see how that operates? If you want to receive favor from God, the way to receive it is not by coming to God to say, "You owe me this." The only thing God owes you is hell. But you should come to him saying, "Lord, have mercy upon me." You see, that was the publican's prayer. It's the one that was heard.

David's praying for health here, of course, and the phrase he uses, "heal me," actually means, "heal my soul." The reason I mention that is that it broadens this. You see, if he just says, "heal me," and we think in terms of physical healing, we say, "Well, he's sick and he wants to get well." But he puts that in the same sentence that he says, "I have sinned against you," and that broadens it, you see. He's saying, "I want you to heal all of me, body and soul. I have a spiritual illness as well as a physical illness."

And so you see, when you're beginning to think in terms of your debt to God and mercy and what you need, inevitably your horizon expands, and you begin to think, I'm sure you understand this, you begin to think in what we would call a Christian way and not merely in a secular way. I point out that even secular people who have no real spiritual understanding at all can pray, but they pray in secular terms. What they mean is, "I'm sick, I'm thinking in terms of bodily illness and bodily health, and I want to get well."

Now you can pray that because we have bodies, we can bring anything to God. But essentially that's a secular prayer. But when you say, as David does, "Heal me body and soul," he's thinking he wants to be healed not just in his body but in his soul. He wants forgiveness for his sins. He wants to be restored to a right, healthy spiritual relationship to God, and that is to pray spiritually, because it's to think in terms of divine dimensions.

Now he begins to describe in verse 5 the kind of things that have been happening to him, and it's at this point that we really begin to identify with David in his suffering. Four different things he says his enemies and false friends have done. And the first is in verse 5, and then you see it again in 6, and it's there in 7, and and 8 together, and then a fourth thing in verse 9. What's he saying? Well, first of all, in verse 5, he says that his enemies are hoping for his death.

The way he says it is this: "My enemies say of me in malice, 'When will he die and his name perish?'" That's not sort of an innocent kind of question, you know, "I'm just wondering now, theoretically, when King David's going to die." That's not that kind of a question. They say, "When in the world is this man going to die and get out of here so we can get on with the change in government that we're wanting?" That's the kind of question that was being asked by his enemies. You say to yourself, "Well, how in the world can that be? We have such a good picture of David because of what's told us about him in the Old Testament, and because of the things that he obviously did and the way he was regarded by most people, that we say, 'How in the world could a person as upright and successful and with as much integrity and honest as David possibly have enemies?'"

Of course, you don't have to think very deeply to know that it is quite possible. As a matter of fact, it is often the most upright people who have the most enemies. People say when they're trying to explain dishonest conduct, "Well, you have to go along to get along." And what they mean is if you bring yourself down to the level of everybody else, you get along fine. But when you try to lead a moral life and do the right thing and set a good example, well, then inevitably you're going to develop enemies. And that's what happened to David. We know that he had enemies early in his life from the house of King Saul.

King Saul had been disobedient, but nevertheless, he had his loyal followers, and when God raised David to the throne and removed Saul, well, those who were loyal to Saul were enemies of David. And later on in his life, even his son Absalom turned against him, to undermine his authority. David had to flee from Jerusalem, and because Absalom was successful for a time, we know that all of those who followed Absalom from the palace and the army were obviously enemies of David. At least at that time they were.

Well, you say, "Why is that?" Well, it was jealousy, chiefly. David was an outstanding man, and they were jealous of him because he was and because he had conducted himself with integrity and with high moral standards. Now, let me say that that has a great bearing on the Christian church. There are lots of divisions in the church, and some of them are valid. Some of them have to do with truth. Some of them have to do with matters of conduct, and where a division takes place on the basis of an important truth for the integrity of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that is a justified division.

But if you spend any time studying church history, it doesn't take you very long to decide that most of the divisions that have taken place in the church, by extension, most of the schisms that exist even within a single congregation are not due to contention for the truth of the gospel at all, but rather jealousy that one Christian has for another Christian. And often it's true of Christian leaders. The language will try to cloak the thing that's really going on. Somebody will say, "You know, well, I think he's erred in his eschatology, and it's very important that we we stand against error." Or, "I think he's terribly wrong in the way he practices baptism," or something like that.

And so I'm going to separate over that issue. But you see, often it's simply that there's jealousy of one who has more power or more influence than we do. So we have to be on guard against that, and especially in the evangelical church. If the devil is unable to defeat us from without, he will certainly try to defeat us from within. And the most effective way of all of doing that is to create divisions among Christ's body. Well, that's the first thing. Now the second thing David says he was experiencing is that his supposed friends, I'm not talking about his enemies now, but his supposed friends came to him and they paid proper courtesy, as you would expect them to do when they were in the presence of the King, even though he was ill.

But as soon as they went out, they said quite different things about him. They were hypocrites. "Whenever one comes to see me, he speaks falsely while his heart gathers slander, and then he goes out and spreads it abroad." I suppose when they came to see David in his bedroom, lying in his bed, sick, tended by his physicians, they said things like this. They said, "Oh, we're very sorry to hear that you were sick. We just got the news, and as soon as we got the news, we came right over because we just want to say how sorry we are. We've been praying for you that you get well. I'm sure God's going to hear our prayers. We hope you're going to be better real soon, but don't worry. In the meantime, everything's being taken care of real fine. Is there anything we can do?"

That's the kind of things they were saying. But as soon as they went out, they said to one another, I suppose, while they were still standing in the hall, "Didn't he look awful?" And then they would say, "I don't think he's going to make it, do you?" Then somebody else would say, "Well, not to worry. He hasn't been handling things very well in recent years anyway. I suppose the sooner we have a change the better." That's the kind of things they were saying, and David knew about it. Well, unfortunately, that sort of thing happens too. It hurt David as it hurts anybody, and it's one of the aspects of his suffering that he's laying before the Lord.

Here's the third thing he mentions. Instead of sympathizing with David in his illness, some attributed the illness to God's judgment on him for some moral failure. Now, that's what's being talked about in verses 7 and 8. "All my enemies whisper together against me, and they imagine the worst for me, saying, 'A vile disease has beset him; he will never get up from the place where he lies.'" Now that phrase "a vile disease" literally means "a thing of Belial" in the Hebrew. And that's a hard phrase to interpret. Belial doesn't mean anything to us, and so the commentators do the best they can. It's kind of vague, and their phraseology is vague as well.

Here's the kind of things they say. Perrone, one of the commentators, says, translates it, "some shocking thing." The King James says, "an evil disease." The RSV says, "a deadly thing." The NASB says, "a wicked thing." The NEB says, "an evil spell." And the NIV, as you see, says, "a vile disease." It's attributing the cause to a moral failure. They're saying he's in bad shape because of something bad he did. Now, it's vague, and it's intentionally so, and it's the very nature of that kind of an accusation to have it vague.

You see, when David really had done something, his adultery with Bathsheba, and his scheming to have Uriah killed, when Nathan the prophet came to him, it wasn't vague at all. He gave him a story about a man who stole a sheep from his poor neighbor, and as soon as David pronounced his judgment, Nathan said, "You're the man." No question about that. But you see, when enemies do this sort of thing, it's vague. They say, "Oh, well, what he's going through, he must have done something bad." It's what Job's counselors did with Job.

They didn't throw any light on Job's suffering at all. All they did was increase the misery of the suffering saint. Now, let's learn from that as well. We are going to see it from David's side. We want to do that, but let's see it from the side of these false friends and enemies too. We have to remember that suffering comes into the lives of people for very different reasons. Some suffering that we experience is just the common lot of man. We live in a fallen, sinful world, and there are bad things that happen.

Job said, "Man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward." So he said, "Sooner or later, you're going to have bad things in your life. You are going to get sick, and eventually you are going to die, and sometimes you are going to lose your job, and that doesn't necessarily mean that God is trying to do something in it with you. There are just bad things that happen." That's the first thing. Sometimes God sends suffering into our lives in order to accomplish things. And in that first category, God will even accomplish things in that. Paul was speaking about that when he said, "Suffering produces perseverance."

You see, as long as things go well, you don't learn anything about perseverance because, well, who has to learn how to persevere when things go well? But it's when things are bad that you have to persevere. That's what proves the mettle of the saint. As long as you're going along from success to success, well, fine. But it's when things don't go well. When the job doesn't go well, when the church doesn't grow, when you have all kinds of people saying things about you, and you hang in there and do what you ought to do. Well, that's where you develop perseverance. So some suffering is meant to develop character in the saints.

Then some suffering is simply to glorify God. That was the case of Job. Job was a righteous man. He hadn't done anything wrong, even though his friends were saying that he had. You read the story. You find that what God was doing was demonstrating in the life of Job that a man or a woman will praise and bless God for who God is, regardless of the blessings that they receive from his hand. Because Satan was saying the only reason Job praises you is because you give him a lot of money. And God said, "Well, take away the money, and you'll see that that isn't the case at all." You see, God was bringing glory to himself through Job's suffering. All those reasons. It's only a portion, and I would say a small portion of suffering that comes into our lives because of some particularly evil or moral failure or sin that we have done.

You see, when we're thinking about other Christians, that it's far more likely, if they're suffering, that God has sent suffering into their life as an honor than he sent it into their life as a punishment. So we have to remember that when we deal with other people. Above all, we have to learn how to be merciful and not be ready to pronounce our judgments.

Well, there's a fourth thing that happened to David in his illness, and it's what he describes in verse 9. "Even my close friend, whom I trusted, he who shared my bread has lifted up his heel against me." Now that may have happened more than once in David's life. No doubt it did, a man in his position. But we do have one story in Second Samuel that alone is enough to explain it. He had a trusted counselor, a wise man by the name of Ahithophel. And when Absalom led the rebellion against him, Ahithophel went over to Absalom's side and gave Absalom advice. Fortunately, this man was very wise, and he understood David.

Fortunately, God blinded the mind of Absalom so he didn't take his advice. And when that happened, Absalom took the wrong advice, and David was unable to escape and eventually regained the throne, and Ahithophel went went home and hanged himself. But here was a man whom David had trusted and who undoubtedly sat at his table who betrayed him. Now that really hurts. It's it's hurts enough when your enemies are out to get your hide. It's worse when your friends are hypocritical and say one thing to you and another thing behind your back.

But when your close friend, the one you've trusted, does that, it hurts most of all. Jesus, of course, you well know, referred to this verse in John, in the 13th chapter, verse 18, in reference to Judas. Because he said, "It's to fulfill the Scripture that was spoken, 'Even my close friend who shared my bread has lifted up his heel against me.'" It's worth studying the way Jesus used that text, by the way, because Jesus didn't quote it exactly. He left out the words "whom I trusted."

You see, that tells us that Jesus knew what was in the heart of Judas and didn't actually trust him. He was betrayed by his friend, but he didn't trust him. And not only does it tell us that, it also tells us something about the way Old Testament quotations are used in the New Testament. Some of them are direct prophecies. They don't really relate to what happened in Old Testament times. They refer to the coming of Jesus Christ, and he fulfilled them exactly. But there are others, verses like this, that aren't strictly Messianic in that sense, but are picked up in the New Testament as a principle or a statement that in a secondary way applies what was happening in the New Testament period.

People have said, "Does this verse prove that this Psalm, the 41st Psalm, is Messianic?" No, it doesn't do that any more than the quotation by the author of Hebrews of those verses from the preceding Psalm makes the 40th Psalm Messianic. It isn't that at all, but these verses are picked up and used in that way. And so the principle is one that Jesus Christ himself experienced. Now, if Jesus Christ, the perfect Son of God, who never sinned at all, and therefore certainly never sinned against any individual. If Jesus Christ could be betrayed by a friend, as he obviously was by Judas, you and I can certainly experience that, but with far less justification.

In our case, you see, we have sinned, as David had sinned, and we have offended people, as David had offended people, undoubtedly. And so we pray not for justice, but we pray as David has for mercy. And that's exactly what he says, following the reference to his friend. "But you, O Lord, have mercy on me. Raise me up that I may repay them." Some people don't like that, and we've talked about that problem in the Psalms before. I pointed out that there's a great difference between David functioning as the king, whose duty is to maintain order and establish justice, and David functioning as an individual.

As an individual, David was extremely forgiving, and so he was very careful not to take vengeance on his enemies. "Vengeance is mine, I will repay," saith the Lord. But as king, he had responsibilities. And there's nothing at all wrong with him praying here that God would raise him up in order that he could execute a proper judgment on those who were really traitors to the kingdom. Well, that's the second section. We have had the statement of the theme of the Psalm, having to do with mercy. Now we've had a plea in which David is asking God for mercy in view of his sad condition.

We come at the end, especially in verses 11 and 12, to a confident statement of his trust in God. What this means, you see, is that the tone of the Psalm at the end goes back to the beginning. He started off talking about God showing mercy to those who have been merciful. The second section pleads for mercy. Here at the end he says, "And that is just what God is going to do. God is going to be merciful to me. I know it." And look at this. Not only is he saying that God is going to be merciful to him in the ultimate sense. You see, as if he were saying, "You will be pleased with me some day, and my enemy will not triumph over me eventually, though he's triumphing over me now, and you will uphold me, though you're not doing a very good job at the moment."

He's not saying that at all. All of this is in the present tense. And what David is really saying is this: "My enemy does not triumph over me even now, and you uphold me even now." It means, you see, even though my sickness may cause other people to think that you have abandoned me, you've not abandoned me because you're with me in my sickness. And even though my enemy is working against me, you are holding him at bay, and I am triumphing over him even while I'm down, and you're holding me up even in this low period. Now, that's a great testimony. You see, that's greater than anything the world could even begin to conceive.

If the world thinks at all in spiritual terms, when people in the world are in trouble, they say, "God, get me out of this trouble." I had lots of people in counseling sessions say that to me, "Why doesn't God do something?" They've never thought of God before, but suddenly they're in trouble, and they want God to get him out of it. That is not strictly the way the Christians think. We can pray for deliverance. David certainly is doing that, but as we do, we know that the greatest triumphs he gives us is in the very midst of the trouble. You see, what is the victory in the in this particular Psalm? Is the victory that God has given him health and brought him out of it?

We believe he did that. We know the story of David. It happened eventually. But that's not happening in the Psalm. The victory in the Psalm is that David is not cursing his enemies even though they are cursing him. You see, there there's the Christian's victory. I've sometimes pointed out in terms of the death of Jesus Christ, that the victory is the victory of the cross, not the resurrection. Resurrection is a very important thing, and it demonstrates that the atonement was accepted in the sight of God, but the victory was the victory of the cross, that Jesus went to the cross, and it was on the cross that he achieved salvation for us from our sins.

You see, the victory was in the suffering, not not apart from the suffering, not instead of the suffering, not after the suffering, not over the suffering, but the victory was in the very suffering itself. And David's experiencing this, and he's saying, "I found it to be true that no matter what I go through, God is with me as I go through it, and no matter what is said, I'm able to respond in a way that honors you and not in the way they're speaking about me. And I'm able to praise you and seek your face, and bless you and commend you to other people even though I'm suffering."

And you see, that's where he comes to at the very end. It's interesting how these five books of the Psalms end. The first three end exactly like this: "Amen and amen." Book 4 ends with the words "Amen. Praise the Lord." The word is actually "Hallelujah" in the Hebrew. And then the last book of the Psalter, the very end, Psalm 150, ends with a double "Praise the Lord." And how can we not do that? We've studied enough of the Psalms to know that we must, that we should, that we can, that we will. Look, Psalm 1 tells us that God blesses those who root themselves in his word. He watches over them.

Psalm 2 assures us of the final victory of the divine Messiah, even our Lord Jesus Christ. Psalms 3 and 4 teach that God is with us in the morning and in the evening, because he watches over us, we can lie down in safety and sleep in peace, and we can rise up and praise God. Psalms 6 and 32 tell us that God is willing and able to forgive sins. Psalm 7 speaks of God's justice. Psalm 8 of his majesty. Psalms 9, 20, 34, 35, and 40 speak of deliverance from enemies and of the preservation in trouble of both the king and the nation. Psalm 14 exposes the folly of spiritual fools.

The 16th Psalm is a prophecy of the resurrection. Psalm 22 is a prophecy of the cross. Indeed, Psalms 22 through 24 are the shepherd Psalms. Psalm 22 being the Psalm of the good shepherd who gives his life for the sheep. Psalm 23, the Psalm of the great shepherd who guides and protects his sheep. Psalm 24, the Psalm of the chief shepherd who will return in righteous judgment to reward his sheep. Psalm 27 teaches that God is our light and our salvation. Psalm 28 tells us how he answers prayer. Psalm 29 emphasizes God's glory.

And Psalm 30, God is our joy, and Psalm 31, he's our refuge. Because of this, Psalm 37 affirms that we can rest secure in God in all circumstances. And Psalms 38 and 41 explain that God is our help even in sickness or in other trying moments of our lives. And that is why the weak person is able to give such strong tribute to Almighty God. It's why we say, "Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Amen and amen." Let's pray. Our Father, we're thankful for this Psalm that we have studied, in which David in such grim circumstances, abused and slandered, is able to lay it all before you.

And because he does that and knows you, he's able to respond in a way utterly different from that of his enemies. Instead of cursing, he blesses. Instead of seeking destruction, he prays for mercy, and he commends it to all like ourselves who have followed him in the faith. Our Father, teach us to be like that. When we see somebody deserving judgment, help us to be merciful. Teach us to show mercy, and so by us speak to them, and so bless our witness that they might find you to be the God of all mercy in Jesus Christ, who died not for the righteous, but for sinners just like ourselves. Amen and amen.

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