Let us bring together in the word of God tonight to Psalm 109, Psalm 109. I want us to think especially this evening about this wonderful line that appears at the end of verse four, where David's praying in the middle of all his struggles says that I give myself to prayer. So we come to this wonderful psalm tonight. It's a wonderful thing to read the psalms as I've been doing recently and seeing this amazing promises of God and his encouragements to us to pray and want to see that tonight from Psalm 109. So I'll read the whole chapter, the whole psalm, verses one through thirty one. This is a psalm of David and David says this. Be not silence, O God, of my praise for wicked and deceitful mouths are opened against me. Speaking against me with lying tongues, they encircle me with words of hate and attack me without cause. In return for my love, they accuse me, but I give myself to prayer. So they reward me evil for good and hatred for my love. Appoint a wicked man against him. Let an accuser stand at his right hand when he is tried. Let him come forth guilty. Let his prayer be counted as sin. May his days be few. May another take his office. May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. May his children wander about and beg, seeking food far from the ruins they inhabit. May their creditors seize all that he has. May strangers plunder the fruits of his toil. Let there be none to extend kindness to him, nor any to pity his fatherless children. May his posterity be cut off. May his name be blotted out in the second generation. May the iniquity of his father's be remembered before the Lord, and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out. Let them be before the Lord continually, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth. For he did not remember to show kindness, but pursued the poor and needy and the brokenhearted to put them to death. He loved to curse. Let curses come upon him. He did not delight in blessing. May it be far from him. He clothed himself with cursing as his coat. May it soak into his body like water, like oil into his bones. May it be like a garment that he wraps around him, like a belt that he puts on every day. May this be the reward of my accusers from the Lord, of those who speak evil against my life. But you, oh God, my Lord, deal on my behalf for your namesake, because your steadfast love is good. Deliver me, for I am poor and needy. And my heart is stricken within me. I am gone like a shadow at evening. I am shaken off like a locust. My knees are weak through fasting. My body has become gaunt with no fat. I am an object of scorn to my accusers. When they see me, they wag their heads. Help me, O Lord, my God. Save me according to your steadfast love. Let them know that this is your hand. You, O Lord, have done it. Let them curse, but you will bless. They arise and are put to shame, but your servant will be glad. May my accusers be clothed with dishonor. May they be wrapped in their own shame as in a cloak. With my mouth, I will give great thanks to the Lord. I will praise in the midst of the throng, for he stands at the right hand of the needy one to save him from those who condemn his soul to death. Loved ones, this is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Well, Psalm 109, no doubt you've noticed just by reading it, maybe this is the first time you've heard it or first time in quite a long time, it's one of the harshest of the Psalms, one of the harshest prayers. that are prayed all throughout the Psalter. There are harsh Psalms like Psalm 88 that describe the harshness of God toward us because of our sins. But there are also Psalms like this, and this one is no doubt one of the harshest, if not the harshest Psalms, where the psalmist is praying for a harsh reality against his enemies. And this is what we call in theological terms a an imprecatory Psalm. An imprecatory psalm, it's literally comes from a Latin term imprecatio, which means to call down a curse, to invoke a curse from God upon someone else. And in the context, you can notice that David's angst, he's not only praying this, but he's doing it in the context of great anguish, great struggle, great anxiety. It's as if, as he's praying, that God is silent. And that's why he begins in verse one. Be not silent, O God of my praise. There were constant taunts and constant assaults. His friends and his family and his neighbors were against him. They had hate-filled words. Their constant spiritual attack against him seems to him like God was silent. That God didn't hear his prayers and that God wasn't doing anything about his prayers. So David says, in fact, verse four, the first part of that verse. The whole reality that he experienced in that one little line in return for my love, they accused me. In return for my love, they accused me. This is a wonderful picture, of course, to us, a prophetical picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. where you see Jesus loving even upon the cross. Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. In response and in return for his love, they accused him, and you see that this is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, especially not only because it's David as the great king, the great picture of Christ, but you see there in verse number May his days be few. May another take his office. That's cited in the New Testament for Judas. When Judas killed, when he committed suicide, Acts chapter one, the church prayed this prayer against Judas and they prayed that God would appoint another one in the office of Judas to make him, that is the other one, to make him an apostle. So it's a wonderful and vibrant picture to us of Jesus Christ and his life and his sufferings, his obedience for us on our behalf. But it's also for us who believe in Jesus Christ as we are united to him. It's also an encouragement to us to pray. Because Jesus, in his obedience on our behalf, he prayed Hebrews five, said that he through many cries and anguishes and terrors and pains, God heard him because of his obedience. He was like a son to God. Of course, he was by his essence. But as the incarnate Lord was like a son who had to cry out and learn obedience for the things that he suffered. This almost teaches us. That we are to love God and pour out our hearts before him because he cares for us. So I can't focus upon all the details this evening, and especially the large elephants in the back of the room. How can we pray? How can we, as Christians, pray a psalm like Solomon and have we seen these words? It's obvious to us as believers tonight, it should be obvious to us that the spirit of this prayer against enemies seems contradictory to us, to the spirit of love that Jesus commands us. Love your enemies. and pray for those who persecute you. And Paul, the apostles command to us, bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse. Romans 12 seems contradictory. Seems that we shouldn't be able to pray these words. Time doesn't permit. I want to focus upon praying, but Just to say a word about this, the best answer that I can give to how the Christian church can read Psalms like this, not only as the word of God, but also how we can pray them, how we can sing them with faith. We are not violating Jesus' command to pray for those who persecute us. The best answer comes from a 17th century Puritan, in my opinion, William Ames, who was an English Puritan exiled to the Netherlands. I won't make a joke about English exile to the Netherlands, but he was exiled to the Netherlands and taught at the University of Franeker, a great reforms theological seminary in university in the 17th century. He said this about when we as Christians sing words like these in Psalm 109 about children and about widows and about all these imprecations, these invocations of curses. He said that we as Christians can sing these words because it's we who are meditating. With fear and trembling on the terrible judgments of God against sin, sin in general. And our sins in particular, this should cause us to be in fear and trembling of what God is truly like, holy, righteous. He's a judge. This should cause us to repent of our own sin. He said, secondly, that when we pray these words, we are learning patience, quote, from the prosperity of the wicked and affliction of the godly. David looks around me, sees the wicked taunting. He, as the anointed savior, you know, we can king. How are they prospering? And how am I the king of God himself being punished? We can pray with patience. This life is harsh. Sin affects us in every way. We don't always have the plastic smile on our face. Life is hard. We can pray with patience. And he said, thirdly, that we pray to God in words like these, we pray to God that he would hasten his revenge, not against our private enemies, but against the wicked and in terrible enemies of his church. We don't pray these words against our neighbor. We pray in grand, sweeping ways against the devil, the world, our own flesh, these great enemies of the church, that God would ultimately condemn them and vindicate us. Now, it's in the middle of all that, then, that David, as he prays this curse upon his enemies, that he says something amazing about praying. In return for my love, they accuse me But I give myself to prayer. Literally, the Hebrew says, I am prayer. In return for my love, they accuse me, but I am prayer. The ESV takes that to say, I give myself to prayer or the NASB says I am in prayer. or the NIV, for example, says, I am a man of prayer. The point is that David is so wrapped up in prayer that as he says, I am prayer, he's saying that he's a man of prayer, that he prays often and he calls out to God. When he's persecuted, he prays. When he struggles, he supplicated God. I am prayer. That should be a description of us. As children of God, I am prayer. I'm a man of prayer. I'm a woman of prayer. I'm a child of prayer. No matter what the devil brings against, I pray. No matter how harsh life is, I give myself to God in prayer. And what David is teaching us here about true prayer is that it is a total offering of oneself, the total offering of myself to God for everything that is needed. A total offering of ourself to God for everything that is needed. And because of Jesus Christ, we have access into the very throne room of God before the holy of holies, we can come to God, we can enter into his presence with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise and ask him anything and lay it all out before him. It would be like us walking to the White House. It's much greater than this. But to walk to the White House and walk in and lay down all of our needs before our presidents. In the old days, I'm a student of history, in the old days, you could literally walk up to the White House at any time, any day, and walk in and say hello and even sit down with the presidents. Of course, now the huge wall and the fence, the surveillance, the security, it's impossible. But it would be like us walking into the very presence of the greatest leader that we had and laying before him every need that we had, knowing that he would accept that little laundry list of things that we needed and grant to us everything so much more than that. God invites us into his presence to lay ourselves before him, to offer everything that we need before him, knowing that he will hear us and answer us. You see that where he says, I am prayer. I am. I give myself to prayer verse four. And then you see how it connects at the end. After all that he says, for he that is God, for he stands at the right hand of the needy one. To save those who condemn the soul to death. So I want you to see two things about the giving of ourselves to God in prayer, this true nature of prayer, offering ourselves totally and completely to God for all that we need. We can do this, David is saying, because God alone is available to hear. God alone is available to hear. And secondly, God alone is able to answer. He's able, he's available and he's able. He hears and he answers. And may the Holy Spirit stir us up to pray this evening. Notice again, prayer is a total offering ourselves to God for everything that we need. And we can do this because David is teaching us here as he learned by experience that God alone is available to hear. Why do I say that? Because David is praying this with all of his enemies against him. And throughout his days, read the story of David in the Old Testament, we learn that even when he was king, but also before. But even when he was king, many of his friends forsook him. Many of his closest confidants came against him. Those they trusted at one point conspired against him for his harm, for his downfall. And where else was David to go? He had no one left. They're surrounding him. God, it seems, is silent. The wicked, the deceitful open their mouths against it. They encircle me, he says, verse three. But I give myself to prayer. Why? Because God alone, no human being, no friend, no family member, no confidant, no one else. But God alone is available to us every moment of every day to hear us. What else is he to do? I give myself to prayer, he says, because he said again, verse thirty one at the end of the beginning of verse thirty one, he stands at the right hand of the needy one. He's not asleep, he's alive and he stands at the right hand of the needy one. God has been teaching me and I hope that he begins to teach you in this passage, if he hasn't yet already. That even when those who are the closest to me have forsaken me and those who have disappointed me and verbally assaulted me and tried to tear me down behind my back. God is showing me to trust in God. That I can't rely on those closest, even upon colleagues, even those who've gone through the same things that I've gone through, but I must learn, brothers and sisters, and we must learn to trust ourselves wholly to God. He's faithful. It's available to us. It's near to us. The prayers, as I learn this, as we learn this together, that we will rely on God more and more to know that we can give ourselves a prayer in the middle of all the chaos that surrounds us and encircles us because God stands next to us. God alone is able to hear our crimes. And just think about that image there in verse thirty one, that God stands at the right hand of the needy one. But God stands at my right hand. Think about it again, God stands at my right hand, what's what sounds off about that, that God stands at my right hand. Most often than not, in Scripture from the old over to the New Testament, it's God's right hand that is focused upon. And it's the one who's at God's right hand, who is favored and honored. The son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, Ephesians one, we saw this morning, he's been raised up to the right hand of God, the place of honor and dominion and power. But now David is saying here in this great time of weakness and anxiety that it is God at our right hand. Not that we stand next to him, but that he comes to us, next to us, alongside of us. At the place where we think we have any power and ability, it is God who stands with us, those who are needy. He's available. He's right here. He's right there. And he cries out to us, he encourages us all throughout the Psalter to run to him. He's like a fortress. He's like a refuge. He's like a rock to stand upon. He's like a shield to stand behind. The righteous run into him, the Proverbs say. The name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous run into it and they are safe. The most beautiful image of this, of course, is our Lord Jesus Christ. He once taught his disciples as he gathered with him and was teaching them, and all of a sudden a nuisance appeared in the midst of his disciples, little children. And they wanted these children out of the circle. They were bothersome, they were noisy, they were distracting, but Jesus picked them up. Bless them. He came to reveal to us the Father and as He picked up little children, He's showing us that just as He picked up little children, so too we can rely upon Him. We can run to Him and He will grab hold of us and hold us in His arms like a dad holds a little child. To love and to care for and to protect. Those of us with children, and I'm getting ready to experience it again, to hold that little baby. That's us being held by Christ. He's at our right hand. He's a refuge. He's a rock. He's a shield. He's a fortress, but he's also the one who grabs hold of us. He's always available, brothers and sisters, to hear us. Psalms say elsewhere, David says elsewhere, that his eyes are always toward the righteous and his ear is always toward their cross. He always looks upon us in grace and favor in Christ, and his ear is always open. He's never asleep. He's never forgetful. He's never far away. He's at our right hand. But he's more than that. We don't just have a God who's like an idol that has a carved out open ear and some stone or gold idol somewhere that we think that he's always available, but it goes into the ear and never comes out. David is showing us that as we run to God, as we are held in God's arms, as he's next to us at our right hand, we the needy, as we give ourselves a prayer that we do this because he alone is able to answer us. He alone is able. Not just available, but he's able not just to hear, but to answer. Let me just say what that doesn't mean, first of all, that God is able to answer what that doesn't mean. A lot of times, don't we take things from our experience and we then put that up to God? For example, we we get down and we have a friend. And our friend allows us to cry and our friend allows us to put our head upon their shoulder to vent, to commiserate. They feel our sorrow and our pain. But a lot of times when we go through that, there are not a lot of answers coming from the one who's there with us. They're with us. They're available to us, but they're unable to give us any answer. They're just there for emotional support to allow us to have some catharsis, some pouring out of ourselves. But there's no answer coming. Because I'm not able, at times, to give us the right answers that we need. They haven't gone through what we've gone through. They don't know the right words. They don't know the right concepts. They don't know exactly what you need to hear. And so there's nothing of ability. With God, though, it is utterly different, of course. He's not just one who's like a therapist for us that we can cry out and pour out our prayers to him and somehow he'll hear us and he will allow us to feel safe, but he's able to answer. He pours himself out in prayer, and as he struggles, he's encouraged to know that God is at his right hand. But then notice the end of verse 31. It's not just that God is there with him, available in his time of need, but God is able to save him, he says. To save him from those who condemn his soul to death. He's available to be in our right hand, but he's also the able God who can actually take us out of our dire distress. Not just to hear what we have to say, but to give us the answer, not just to be a shoulder for us to cry upon, but to actually lift us up. And so David says, I am prayer, I pour out myself, I give myself, I'm a man of prayer. Because God who's near me is the God who can save me, who can actually be able to answer me, to give me what I need to save me from those who condemn my soul to death. And when David prayed to that God who was available and able, that God heard and that God answered. It's the same with us. Just turn for a moment briefly to John 14 before I conclude. John 14. Jesus says this to us about. His own and the father's ability to answer our prayers, John 14, verses 13 and 14, a famous saying of Jesus, whatever you ask in my name. This I will do that the father may be glorified in the son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. The key to what Jesus says there. Is that whatever we ask must be asked in the name of Jesus? In my name, that means that what we ask must be consistent with. And according to the will of God. Are you praying for something or asking for something that Jesus himself wouldn't ask for? Or are you praying for something that will bring glory as Jesus has to bring glory to God the Father? That's the key. to pray according to Jesus name, according to his will, the things that he reveals to us in his word. And when we ask him those things, he will do it, he says. So tonight we are praying. Praying for a couple of things, praying the presence of God. To be revealed more and more in our Praying that we would have a deep and abiding and lasting desire and love for the Word of God. To pray that we would desire to be holy and godly and upright. And to pray that as a result of all that, that the church would grow and flourish. Does God desire these things? Has God promised these things to us in his Word if we ask him? Yes. And so we ask. And so we expect. And so we wait. Our Lord didn't promise immediate answers in John 14. And David gives us no indication here of immediate salvation from those who condemn his soul to death. All he tells us is that when we pray in his name, according to his will, God is glorified and we will receive what we need. Ask, Jesus says. and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened to you. I give myself to prayer then, David prays. God is available to hear us. God is able to answer. What an encouragement to us to pray. And let us pray boldly Knowing that he hears us tonight. Confidence and expectance that he answers. Everything we ask him, according to his name and his will. Amen.