“Hear a just cause, O LORD; attend to my cry! Give ear to my prayer from lips free of deceit! From your presence let my vindication come! Let your eyes behold the right!” Psalm 17v1-2
Psalm 17, a Psalm of David; one of many Psalms of David crying out to the Lord for vindication. A king who is called “a man after God’s own heart” did quite a bit of crying out to the Lord. Some may have called him crazy, emotional, or bipolar, but the Lord has providentially given us the Psalms – a book that is one in the same time essentially a diary of king and the inspired Word of God. The Psalms allow us to see the insides of a man and his walk with the Lord. This pictures our own Christian life in many ways. What a reassuring thing it is to see that a manly warrior king such as David had the same gut-wrenching struggling Christian life that we do. Weakness and frailty is a commonality among all humans, regardless of the facade portrayed.
There are three things Psalm 17 teaches us.
- The Appropriateness of Crying Out to the Lord
As has been hinted at already, crying out to the Lord in our distress is a most appropriate action for a Christian. After all, in our moments of despair or opposition, it is the Lord who we are indeed to cry out to, and no other. Crying out to any other person or thing, will not do. Only God can save us and only God can help us.
How great it is that such a high and holy God as ours would make it right for worms like us to pray to him. What right do sinners have to the throne of heaven? What claim do wretches have to the ear of the Almighty? Yet, we have a God of condescension who sees fit to make it appropriate for us to cry out to God in our prayers.
- David’s Appeals
In our text, David makes several appeals in his prayer as the basis for why God should hear and answer his cry. He appeals to justice, a prayer from lips that are free from deceit, vindication from the Lord’s presence, and the Lord’s eyes beholding what is right.
Let the reader know that we meet none of these appeals. When we come before the majestic throne of God in prayer, it does not matter how we stand in comparison to other sinners, it only matters how we stack up to the holiness of God. Let’s just say, we don’t stack up.
We are not just as God is just. We are sinners and everything we do, even the good we do is filled with sin. We do not pray prayers with lips that are free from deceit. Our lips are covered in soot and ashes from the flames of our deceitful tongues. While our fellow man may be too blinded by his own sin to see our wretched lips, all is laid bare before the Lord. He is not deceived by us. There is nothing in us worthy of vindication, for there is nothing in us that stands vindicated in the presence of God. We may be able to fool our neighbor into beholding the right in us, but not so with the Omniscient One. We are black as sin in His eye.
It is clear that our sinful lives do not meet the appeals that David makes in his prayer to the Almighty. The reality is that David didn’t meet them either. The horrid sin of David is well-chronicled throughout Scripture. David knew well the iniquity in his heart.
This foundation helps us to understand that this Psalm is not an appeal for God to look upon our own merit, but it is an appeal for the mediation of Christ. The life, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ is the only way this passage makes sense. Jesus is the key that unlocks the understanding of the text.
- Christ’s Fulfillment of Psalm 17v1-2
“Hear a just cause, O Lord; attend to my cry!”
While we have done many an injustice, a just cause was heard at the cross. It was there that God was both the just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. At the cross, Christ was judged for our many injustices, and His just ways are imputed to us, thus God declares us righteous at the cross. The Lord attended to our cry at the cross, and He attends our cry today in Jesus.
“Give ear to my prayer from lips free of deceit!”
Jesus is a man of prayer. He prayed many prayers as he walked this earth, every single one of them he prayed with lips that were free of deceit. There was not a deceitful bone in His body. The Father gave ear to the prayers of Jesus, including our Lord’s cry for us, “It is finished!” Even now, Jesus prays for us. Every syllable from His pure and precious lips reverberate through the eardrums of the almighty.
“From your presence let my vindication come!
We cannot vindicate ourselves, we need to be vindicated by another. From the presence of God, our vindication comes indeed. At the call of the Father, Christ came forth from the Father’s presence to vindicate us from our sin.
“Let your eyes behold the right!”
Because of His Son’s life, death, and resurrection, the Father looked at His Son and beheld the right! He smiles at His Son’s righteousness. For those who have faith in Christ, we are united with Christ and credited His righteousness. This means that the Father’s eyes behold us righteous, not because of our own merit, for there is none, but because of Christ’s.
Every appeal that David makes in our text is an appeal that only Jesus can (and has) fulfilled. David’s plea is a plea for Christ. Let us learn well from David here. In our crying out to the Lord, let us cry out with appeals and pleas for Jesus. There is no other way for our prayers to make it to the throne room of God than through Jesus. God the Father will not hear out a single prayer that is not mediated through His precious Son.
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