There are psalms of David in every book of the Psalter, but we have come near the end of the Psalter’s third book and have not had a psalm of David, until now. And characteristic of David, it is an appeal for mercy based on the character of God.
What are David’s requests? There are a lot of them, fifteen in all, as I said yesterday. He asks God to “hear” and “answer” (v. 1), “guard” and “save” (v. 2), “have mercy” (v. 3), “bring joy” (v. 4), “hear” and “listen” (v. 6), “teach me” and “give me an undivided heart” (v. 11), “turn,” “have mercy,” “grant…strength” and “save” (v. 16), and “give me a sign of your goodness” (v. 17).
David’s prayer incorporated arguments why God should answer him. Yesterday we looked at arguments based on David and David’s need. Today we examine four reasons based on God and God’s character.
When Moses began to pray, his first request was that he might know God. He had been with God on the mountain twice for forty days at a time, but he still yearned to know God better: “If I have found favor in your eyes, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you” (Exod. 33:13). This is a petition every Christian should make often.
The mercy of God is such a tremendous and all-embracing theme that it applies to virtually every area of life. There are four applications that we cannot afford to miss.
Who is like God? What is God like? Have you ever asked yourself that question? It is a good question. The trouble is that it is unanswerable, because there is nothing God can be compared to. He is in a category of his own, unique.
Our starting point is to notice that this is a strong praise psalm. In fact, it is a superb example of what our praise of God should be. The psalm begins and ends with the words “Praise the LORD,” and the first of its three stanzas repeatedly calls on all the servants of God to extol God, which is what the remainder of the psalm (stanzas two and three) does.
As we noted in yesterday’s study, the only place in the Bible where YHWH is explained is Exodus 3:14. Though derived from the most basic of all verbs and expressed in the simplest verbal form, YHWH expresses a wealth of God’s attributes. We have already noted that 1) God is a person; and 2) God is self-existent. Today we continue with three more attributes of God.
Having called upon the “servants of the LORD” to praise him “from the rising of the sun to the place where it sets,” the psalm next turns to the praise of God directly, extolling him as the one who is “exalted over all the nations” and whose “glory [is] above the heavens” (v. 4).
That brings us to the last stanza of Psalm 113. What it tells us is that God stoops down in order that he might lift the downtrodden up. And more! He lifts them to be as he is. Do you see the parallel between these two stanzas? God is exalted over the nations, so he exalts the poor, raising him from the dust. God is enthroned on high, so he raises the poor to sit with princes.
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