A Study in Psalms - Psalm 101

Let's read our psalm tonight, Psalm 101 It's only eight verses, very short. I think it's applicable to our times and what's going on And then we'll pray Psalm 101, a psalm of David. I will sing of the steadfast love and justice to you, O Lord. I will make music. I will ponder the way that is blameless. O, when will you come to me? I will walk with integrity of heart within my house. I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless. I hate the work of those who fall away It shall not cling to me. A perverse heart shall be far from me. I will know nothing of evil

Whoever slanders his neighbor secretly I will destroy Whoever has a haughty look and an arrogant heart I will not endure. I will look with favor on the faithful in the land that they may dwell with me He who walks in the way that is blameless shall minister to me No one who practices deceit shall dwell in my house No one who utters lies shall continue before my eyes Morning by morning I will destroy all the wicked in the land, cutting off all the evildoers from the city of the Lord Let's pray

Father, we do pray tonight as we open this psalm that you will open our eyes that we can see wonderful things in your law May we leave here today knowing more about you, knowing more about Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the work that you'd have us do In Jesus' name, amen You know, lately things are so bad in politics that about all you can do is joke about it, right? And it was Theodore Roosevelt who said 120 years ago, you think things were bad now, they were bad back then

Theodore Roosevelt said when they called the roll call in the Senate, the senators do not know whether to answer present or not guilty And someone also said the congressmen should wear uniforms like NASCAR drivers At least then we could identify who their corporate sponsors are And then someone said I don't approve of political jokes. I've seen too many of them get elected

Someone else said what's the difference between a politician and a snail? One is slimy, a pest, and leaves a trail everywhere, and the other is a snail. A little boy went to his dad and said, Dad, I want to be in politics when I grow up The dad said, are you insane? Have you completely lost your mind? Are you a moron? The kid said, forget it There seems to be too many requirements And my personal favorite, politics is the most accurate word in the English language Poly means many, and tix means blood-sucking parasites

On a serious note, Steve Lawson in his introduction to Psalm 101 writes, In this present hour of personal integrity is fast becoming an endangered species Everywhere one looks, once highly esteemed values of an upright character are vanishing Scandals dominate the headlines Business tycoons sell stock illegally Government officials accept kickbacks Corporate executives deceive their own stockholders Politicians break once-honored codes of ethics Across the board, integrity is quickly eroding

Our contemporary culture is proficient at producing corrupt people who are skilled at lying, cheating, falsifying, stealing, distorting, and covering up the truth The crying need of the hour is for God's people to pursue personal holiness and integrity As they do, Christians will stand out as bright lights in a dark world Believers must be different if they are to make a difference Psalm 101 reflects a passionate commitment to pursue personal integrity in all that one does As the king of Israel, David, the author, determined to live righteously before God and the people

This psalm records David's desire to see integrity restored to the nation of Israel Such a pursuit of integrity, he understood, must begin with his own life before he could see it in others David must first live it in himself. I titled this psalm the I Will Psalm, and in the English Standard Version, which I read from, we have the word I will ten times You have the word shall five times So you've got will and shall, two verbs, action words And then you've got two nouns It says twice, my house twice and my eyes twice So the eyes and house are the nouns So there needs to be action

There needs to be resolutions There needs to be commitments taken to have a clean heart and a clean house and clean eyes David's desire is to be blameless Now, set the stage King Saul is dead Saul was a horrible king He was the first king of Israel, and he was a bad king And he's going to leave a lot of corrupt, bad people in power And David needs to get rid of those people, and David needs to set up a godly kingdom David is probably about 30 years older So he's young So remember, David's going to serve 40 years So this is at the beginning of his reign It's like you make New Year's resolutions

He's making resolutions to God He's making vows to God that he wants to walk in integrity and be a faithful leader in Israel What action does King David want to keep away from? When you read through this psalm, there's words like evil, evil doers, wicked, lies, deceit, arrogant heart, haughty looks, slander, perverse heart, and worthlessness. A little bit of history about this psalm Martin Luther loved this psalm so much, he wrote 80 pages on these eight verses

But Martin Luther was deeply concerned about civil government and the corruption that was there, and he wanted the qualities in this psalm to be for all government authorities In Europe, this psalm became called the Prince's Psalm And I don't know which archduke, but there was a duke who was upset with one of his ministers, one of his politicians in his cabinet, so he wrote a copy of Psalm 101, and he mailed it to this corrupt minister in his cabinet, and that became a proverb in the country

When an official did anything wrong, he would receive the Prince's Psalm to read. I was thinking maybe our politicians in Washington, instead of putting their hand on the Bible, maybe we ought to open it and have them read Psalm 101 It says in the heading, A Psalm of David, and the type of psalm Remember, Psalm 93 to Psalm 100 are called the theocratic psalms And all of a sudden, you come to Psalm 101, now this is going to be called the royal psalm Royal psalms speak about the king of Israel, and ultimately, the eternal king, Yahweh

The psalm was used probably for the coronation of Israel's kings, and the psalm, as I mentioned, was written at the beginning of David's reign The main idea is David is determined to live and reign righteously as Israel's king, and surround himself with godly people His concern is with the moral character of the nation David is going to set standards and make resolutions by which, what kind of king he's going to be, and what kind of leader he's going to be So this psalm is committed to those standards

You have four points in your outline. I will worship, I will walk in purity, I will keep godly company, and I will cut off the wicked Let's begin with paragraph 1, verse 1 David has just been crowned the king of Israel Actually, he was crowned king three times But he knows that God has chosen him to be the king of Israel And he's grateful in heart And so the first resolution and the first two I wills, he's going to sing, he's going to praise the Lord, he's going to make music So first off, he's going to sing of God's love and justice Two very important words

In the first I will, David is going to sing of the twofold manifestation of God's character in the past, in the present, and the future in dealing with Israel Steadfast love and justice Now maybe your Bible, NASB, says mercy King James says love New Living Translation says loving kindness, I think This is the love that flows from God, the Father, and Jesus' Son Then we have the word justice Justice deals with equity, truth, holiness, and righteousness These words are found quite often

There's a very famous verse in Micah 6.8. 25 years ago, we would sing this song in the youth group next door, Micah 6.8, which says, He has told you, O man, what is good and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God Hosea 12.6 says almost the same thing So you, by the help of your God, return, hold fast to love and justice, and wait continually before your God So in the Old Testament, these two words, steadfast love and justice, the people, the leaders of Israel knew they were to do it because it was one of the attributes of God

And then in the New Testament, right away in Matthew, you remember that Matthew 23 when Jesus is saying, Woe, woe, woe to the Pharisees and the scribes He says in Matthew 23.23, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites, for you tithe men and dill and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faithfulness So the religious leaders of Israel, not just King David, were required to show steadfast love and justice

We haven't quite got there in our study on Sunday in Hebrews, but in Hebrews 11, when we get to Hebrews 11.32-34, it talks about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel And then in verse 33 of Hebrews 11, it says, Who through faith conquered kingdoms? And the second thing, enforce justice So they conquered kingdoms and whoever was the leader of Israel knew that one of their number one priorities was to enforce justice in the land of Israel

Because God is a God of steadfast love and justice, David knows he needs to be a godly ruler and have these two attributes of God in his home and his kingdom The second I will, in the last part of verse one, is I will make music Perhaps your translation says, I will sing praises So the second I will is to make music You know, the Bible calls David a man after God's own heart It also calls David the sweetest psalmist of Israel He loved music, making music

We know David better for slinging a slingshot in his hand, but we forget that often he was playing that harp to try to calm King Saul's torments when he was tormented by demons Psalm 33, 2-3 says, Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre, that's a harp Make melody to him with the harp of ten strings Sing to him a new song Play skillfully on the strings with loud shouts In David's home there was a love for music In his palace there was a love for music that went along with praising God for his attributes

Is there in your home? We sing what we care about, don't we? I mentioned before that right now there's some incredible music out and a lot of it about the psalms. I mentioned Getty music, Sovereign Grace music, City of Light, my personal favorite right now The more you read the psalms, the more you will praise the Lord One reason I ask you to read one psalm a day Let's get into the bulk of our message tonight, and that's point number two. I will walk in purity, verses 2-5 After extolling his worship, David now turns to his personal life

Remember, David is the new king over Israel, and there are still many wicked men, probably in positions of authority left over from King Saul's reign You're going to see six I wills in verses 2-5 Before we look at the four sub-points, you might be thinking, well, I'm not the king of Israel This doesn't apply to me This psalm doesn't seem very interesting or apply to me You know, men will read 1 Timothy 3 and say, well, I'm not an elder, this doesn't apply to me Women might read Proverbs 31 and say, I'm not going to do that or keep that up

But the whole Bible has standards that we need to strive and we need to live for In this psalm, David is going to set some resolutions He's going to set some pretty high standards, and I know you're all thinking, well, he probably failed at that one with the Bathsheba incident But Jesus Christ said in Matthew 5-48, you therefore must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect And 2 Corinthians 3-18 says that believers are being transformed each and every day into an ever-increasing likeness of Jesus Christ If you're growing in your faith, you're becoming more and more like Jesus

You're sinning less, you're hating sin So making resolutions to walk biblical, to be pure of heart, to hate sin, is a smart way to strive to be like Jesus Let's look at some of the resolutions that David made about himself and his rule Number one, I will maintain pure feet This is a loaded verse You could preach a sermon on it There's actually like three points in this verse here He says, I will ponder the way that is blameless Oh, when will you come to me? I will walk with integrity in my heart So first off, he's going to ponder

Maybe your translation says, I will carefully attend to the blameless way The NIV says, I will be careful to lead a blameless life King James says, I will behave wisely in the perfect way So David's going to ponder He's going to think out how to set his home and his kingdom in order And the first thing he considers is how to be blameless He knows the Lord's steadfast love and justice would be motivating factors for King to lead a blameless life Having observed the ways of the Lord, David gives himself to try to live a godly life of integrity

David remembers that Noah was called a righteous and blameless man in Genesis 6-9 David knows in Genesis 17-1, God told Abraham, walk before me and be blameless David probably knows about Job 1-1, says there was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job That man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil Psalms 119 probably wasn't written yet, but it says in verse 1, Blessed are those whose way is blameless who walk in the law of the Lord We are to strive as believers in Christ to walk in a blameless way

Colossians 1-22 says, Now that Jesus has reconciled in his body and flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless above reproach before him Jesus wants to present us holy and blameless And Jude 24 says, Now to him, it's a doxology in Jude, Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling, to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy. A blameless lifestyle is one that's faithful, obedient to God, one in which there cannot be an accusation of blame and sin David needs to be blameless in his life and his house

That requires constant vigilance and frequent maintenance Look at the second part of verse 2 Oh, when will you come to me? This is actually a short prayer This is why we believe that this psalm was written at the beginning of David's reign because of this part of a verse, Oh, when will you come to me? We believe that this goes back to 2 Samuel 6, verses 1-11. I won't go there and take a lot of time tonight, but you remember the first time David tried to bring the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem? He messed up, didn't he? He did not have the priest carry it

He had him put it on an ark, and the oxen stumbled The ark slipped, and Uzziah reached out his hand and touched the ark, and God killed Uzziah. R.C Sproul said, The dirt that touched the ark was holier than Uzziah's hands So David was angry David was very afraid So he leaves the ark at Levi's house, Obed-Edom, I think it was, for three months And in that three months, I think that's when Psalm 101 was written Because it says in 2 Samuel 6, verse 9, How can the ark of the Lord come to me? Almost what David says here in verse 2

Oh, when will you come to me? See, for David, the presence of the ark means the presence of the Lord They're nearly the same thing So he wanted the ark in Jerusalem, but he messed up the first time But he got it right the second time and brought the ark there The third part of verse 2 is, I will walk in integrity of heart within my house David is determined to walk in integrity of heart within his house and his administration Accountability begins at home One's private life must match one's public life. D.L Moody said, Character is what you are in the dark

And Steve Lawson said, Personal integrity is a precious commodity that enriches all who possess it The English dictionary defines the word integrity as steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code, the state of being unimpaired, soundness, the quality or condition of being whole, undivided, or being complete Integrity, in fact, comes from a root word meaning total integration of all the parts of one's life into a constant whole When a believer lives with integrity, the word of God is completely integrated into his life No area is untouched or infected by obedience to the scripture

Integrity describes someone who is marked by honesty, sincerity, and incorruptibility He is without hypocrisy or duplicity Someone with integrity is consistent with his stated convictions Psalm 25, 21 says, May integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for you Psalm 26, 1, if you were ever accused falsely of anything, that's the vindication psalm Psalms 26, 1 says, Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity, and I have trusted in the Lord without wavering Psalms 26, verse 11 says, But as for me, I shall walk in my integrity Redeem me and be gracious to me

The book of Proverbs speaks of integrity at least eight times. I'll just read one verse Proverbs 10, 9 says, Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but he who makes his ways crooked will be found out There's three C's in character There's character, conduct, conversation that deal with integrity There was an Indian proverb I wrote down almost 30 years ago that said, If your wealth is lost, nothing is lost If health is lost, something is lost If character is lost, everything is lost because you can't get your integrity back once you lose it

If you want to study more on integrity, Lance preached, I think, a nine-point sermon on integrity We had a bookmark, if you remember that, so you can get that if you want to We all know what happened to David Sadly, he did lose his character We'll talk more about that later So that's I will maintain pure feet Let's move on to number two. I will maintain pure eyes The ESV says, I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless. I prefer the NIV

My dad used to joke the NIV is the never-inspired version, but every once in a while it has a verse, and this says it right here. I will not look with approval on anything that is vile That word vile means morally despicable, physically repulsive, so I think the NIV nailed it right there The New Living Translation says vile and vulgar This word in the King James is balal, or balal It's the same word used in 2 Corinthians 6.5 for Satan In 2 Corinthians 6.5 it says, what accord has Christ with balal? So if you're not pure of heart or pure of eyes, then your mind is not going to be pure

The king's desire is to look only upon that as what is righteous, and we'll talk about that later When I was studying, there's an illustration that Father Ralph, his name is Beating, and I think he's Catholic, but he's the founder of the Christian Appalachian Project, and he talks about an Easter visit to a poor home in Kentucky In case you didn't know it, Kentucky is one of the poorest in the mountain areas where they've recently had the floods

So he was visiting families along this Kentucky mountain creek bed, and he stopped at a shack where there was a man and a woman living with their children The only heat was the fireplace They proudly ushered the father over to a corner of dim room where a two-month-old baby lay The baby was not in a crib, a bassinet, or a cradle, or even had a pillow lined with a basket The child, the family's most precious treasure, lay in a cage made of tightly woven chicken wire

The father sat there for a moment, stunned with silence, and out of curiosity, he finally got the bedroom and he asked, why is that little child in the cage? And he said, I'll never forget the answer The father looked at him and said, we have to keep him in this little cage so that the rats won't eat on him See, it wasn't cruelty that motivated the father to put the baby in the cage On the contrary, like every parent, he deeply loved his newborn baby No doubt he built every bit of that chicken wire cage with love in his hands and a desperate hope in his heart to protect his child

So this asks the question to parents out here tonight, what kind of cages are you building in your home? What kind of cages are there around your television, around your internet, around video games? The combination of these three ungodly things, television shows, unfiltered internet, and violent video games, have, after all, a full generation, have taken a terrible toll on our country, I think You and I may not be able to do much about the national morality, but every one of us can and must take control in our homes

Do you have an unhindered sewer line that brings unfiltered filth into your home? Build a cage there, start now Don't allow television, the internet, or video games to ruin your spiritual life or your children's spiritual life Someone said worthlessness in our heart produces wickedness Let's move on We looked at I will maintain pure feet, I will maintain pure eyes, and now I will maintain pure company He says in the last part of verse 3, I hate the work of those who fall away, it shall not cling to me. A perverse heart shall be far from me, I will know nothing of evil

The New Living Translation says, I hate all who deal crookedly Remember, he would have many men from Saul's cabinet left over He says, I will have nothing to do with him, I will reject perverse ideas and stay away from every evil. 1 Corinthians 15.33 in the New Testament says, Do not be deceived, bad company ruins good morals Proverbs 25.5 says, Solomon, his son, would write this, Take away the wicked from the presence of the king and his throne will be established in righteousness Proverbs 20.26 says, A wise king windows the wicked and drives the wheel over them

David is going to hate those who fall away It means faithless, it means corrupt, crooked, looking out, they're in there for money, whatever Those who would abandon the law, those who are dishonest, those who are untrustworthy, they're in their work David doesn't want them near him, his home, his cabinet, his palace, his country So we'll talk more about this point in verses six to seven But let's move on to number four, I will maintain pure ears Again, we've got two more I wills here Whoever slanders his neighbor, I will secretly destroy

Whoever has a haughty look and an arrogant heart, I will not endure These were three sins that the king David must hate, slander, pride, and an arrogant heart These three were not to be tolerated in David's kingdom The slanderer is someone who has haughty eyes and he has a proud heart Slanderer can give false testimony He can bring the wrong verdicts in the king's court, which can affect the king. J.J

Stewart said about this, the secret slanderer seeking to integrate himself in his prince's favor by pulling down others and the haughty overbearing noble would be no uncommon characters in any court, at least of all in an oriental court There would be a lot of bad people trying to climb to the top and they would do whatever it takes to get there Slander and arrogant people must be removed from the king's court It was the king's responsibility to rid society and his cabinet, his palace, of these criminal elements Haughty look means pride

Proverbs 21.4 says, Haughty eyes and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked, are sin Let's move on to point number three. I will keep godly company This third section probably deals with David's court and the king We've talked a little bit about it in the last sub-point, but this is about David's cabinet and his court If you go to 2 Samuel 8, verses 15 to 18, go there real quick because it's kind of interesting. 2 Samuel 8, I want to show you something that I noticed this week. 2 Samuel, it's going to list David's cabinet

So it says in 2 Samuel 8, verse 15, And David reigned over all Israel, and David administered, what did he administer? Justice and equity to all his people Joab the son of Zariah was over the army, Josaphat the son of Ahuled was the recorder, Zadok the son of Atib, and Amalek was the son of Abathar were the priests, and Sarara was the secretary, and Benaniah the son of Jehoiada was over the Charites, the Pelophites, and David's sons were priests Now if you take time to go to 1 Kings 4, it does the same thing for King Solomon and all his servants

And actually when Lance preached on that text when he studied Solomon, he had a lot of detail about that Solomon actually lists the high priest first there But you know when you go through the next 18 kings of Israel, it doesn't have all those guys See David set, right, David set the worship up in the temple, David set the cabinet up, he set the government up in Israel, he was the first one Solomon followed, but I think after that, a lot of them were just dictators, not rulers So I found that interesting

But the Holy Spirit here is going to take time to let us know what's in David's court. I got three sub points here. I will associate with the faithful, I will associate with the blameless, and I will associate with the faultless So David first off says, I will associate with the favor He says, I'm going to look on favor on the faithful in the land that they may dwell with me Dwell with me means in the palace, being part of my cabinet or my kingdom The New Living Translation says, I will search for faithful people to be my companions Only those who are above reproach will be allowed to serve me

In contrast to verse five, where David wants to remove prideful, arrogant people, verse six says he wants faithful, blameless people to come and administer in his cabinet David is going to search for such faithful characters to be in his court, only by surrounding himself with the best and the most capable men who will advance the interests of God can the king be rest assured that the kingdom of God is strengthened

You know, I've thought about that, that, you know, we elect the president, and I don't think the presidents we elect are often some of the smartest people, okay? Whether they're Republican or Democrat, it's who they surround themselves with that, first Timothy two says, pray for your leaders

We need to pray for the leaders around the president and around the vice president and because they're the ones making the decisions probably to go to war, making a decision to do a lot, especially with the current president, but remember to pray not just for the leaders, but that they be surrounded with strong, wise, godly counselors In our prayer card this month, we're asking you to pray for Israel Israel has rejected its Messiah, but we still pray for that government that they'd have wise, strong, godly leaders Number two, I will associate with the blameless

He says, he who walks in that way that is blameless shall minister to me So in verse two, David made a resolution to walk blameless himself Now he wants the same for those people serving in his court Normally the word minister in the Old Testament would refer to priests or Levites, but here it would refer to court officials who assist the king in his daily functions The one who ministers is a servant who waits on somebody, means serving in the king's court David wants to be blameless and he wants blameless men and women serving in his court

Number three, he says, I will associate with the faultless He says, no one who practices deceit shall dwell in my house No one who utters lies shall continue before my eyes The presence of evil cannot be tolerated David uses two expressions for evil workers that he does not want in his court, deceitful and liars You know, the foundation of any godly kingdom is truth Pilate said 2,000 years ago, what is truth? He didn't have a godly kingdom David is saying that anyone who has these characteristics, he wants to remove them from office and their duties

The application for us is that we need to surround our families, our friends, you know, and at work it's kind of hard to do it. I remember, you know, many years ago, it's been 25 years ago, but Monday morning was the dirty joke time around the water cooler But I wouldn't go there, but somebody would come up and hear a dirty joke and I would just cut them off. I don't want to hear it Go tell it to somebody else Get lost Because they just love to come around and tell dirty jokes and do things You've got to take drastic action You've got to let people know

Lance Sparks said something many years ago He said, the company you keep in this life often determines the company you will keep in the next life And that's so true of our children who we've got to keep around Sadly, some of the people who give you the most trouble in our life are our families, right? Our relatives Few families are godly from top to bottom So you may have to leave some social events You may have to not visit some relatives And you may have to especially tell your children why Your children need to know that theme in Joshua But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord

Let's look at point number four. I will cut off the wicked This is a hard one for us It's an easy one for King David because he's going to say, I want to silence the wicked and then I want to cut off, I want to slay the evil doer He says, morning by morning, I will destroy all the wicked of the land The New Living Translation says, my daily task is to ferret out the wicked and free the city of the Lord from their grip So finally, David says, I want to destroy the wicked from the land morning by morning This does not mean that David's going to go around killing people in the morning

But it does mean that he's going to hold court every morning with his judiciary, his judges, his cabinets And you could look at 2 Samuel 15, 2, Jeremiah 21, 12, Zephaniah 3, 5 for some examples Dispensing justice was to be a daily routine You saw how many times we used that word, justice, justice Every king of Israel knew they were to dispense justice But sadly, many of them did not It was to be their highest priority, in fact It was the king And in the New Testament, it tells us that our leaders are to execute justice and punish those who do wrong Romans 13

Sin must be dealt with in David's home and sin must be dealt with in David's cabinet, in his kingdom, and in his country And we should say sin must be dealt with in our homes, in our churches, and in our country Number two, he says, I will slay the evildoers The last part of verse 8 says, Cutting off all the evildoers from the city of the Lord The king must be ruthless in dealing with evildoers For any judicial system to work, wickedness must be done promptly and sternly The exact opposite of what's not happening in our country

David wants to winnow out the cheats, the crooked, the liars, and the murderers Remember the study in King Solomon? The first thing King Solomon did in his reign is he executed three people right away Three people, right? He knew what his father had taught him So when it says cutting off, that talks about the death penalty And it says in the city of our Lord, what evil is done in Jerusalem is going to be done throughout the whole land of Israel

So the death penalty is biblical, and I won't need to go to the Old Testament and spend time on it, but I was reading this week that currently there are about 700 inmates on California death row There's only 2,500 nationwide, and some of these have been in death row for over 40 years California has the most death row inmates, but the last execution California had was January 2006 Our governor is closing the death row prisons, and actually there's only 27 states that allow the death penalty now, and only 23 forbid it

But the statistic that shocked me the most was in the year 2020, they don't have the statistics out for 2021, but in the year 2020, 17 people were executed with the death penalty in the United States of America The FBI says in that same year, 21,570 people were murdered in the United States Shocking numbers So this verse is hard for us to be applicable We can't go out and kill people We can't go out and administer justice, but I remember the last election we had

The last election we had, I was talking to one of you about how do you vote for those judges? I don't know them, and we were looking online for Christian webpages because you can find Christian webpages to vote for the politicians, right? This governor is good on abortion, this governor is not, or this, but the judges, it was almost impossible to know who they were, what they stood for, and the same thing with district attorneys and judges

It's hard to know how to do them, but, you know, so this verse may be hard for us to be applicable, but we need to support and fight for justice and hang with those who do the same, support our police, support our district attorneys with strong district attorneys, judges, and especially politicians So, you know, David may have failed in many areas, but this psalm and all the royal psalms don't just represent the.. Psalm 72, for example, would represent the kingdom of Solomon when he was coronated This psalm would represent David at the beginning of his psalm

It doesn't just represent the king of Israel It ultimately represents the coming ministry of Jesus Christ He comes to sing of mercy and justice also He will walk in a perfect way, unlike King David He will hate wickedness He's going to humble the proud He's going to destroy the wicked from the city of the Lord Revelation says about the new Jerusalem in Revelation 21-27, but nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life Thus, David's vow here is upheld by Jesus and fulfilled by him at the same time

So for application tonight, I just wanted you to think. I know what you're all thinking David served 40 years, and he broke probably every single one of these I wills, didn't he? But the one that you're all thinking about is the event with Bathsheba, right? Because he says in verse number three, I will not set before my eyes anything that is vile Now, Bathsheba was a very beautiful woman She's not ugly, but looking at her was vile and sinful So David's about 30 years old He's going to make these resolutions about his house, his kingdoms, and he ruled for 40 years and ultimately failed

He failed with the sin with Bathsheba He didn't deal with Job, who murdered two generals He should have kicked him out of his cabinet He didn't deal with his own son when Amnon raped his daughter And then he had a haughty, proud look when he had the census, which ultimately cost the lives of 70,000 Israelites So David probably failed on each and every one of these resolutions But the one verse is the one we always think about Verse three, I will not set before my eyes anything worthless And you know the story in 2 Samuel

It says in a time when kings go to war, King David should have been at war with his men, but he's standing up on his roof, having slept very late that morning He looked across the rooftop and he saw a beautiful woman taking a bath So he starts thinking about her, if he could take her for himself They told him flat out, she is the wife of Uriah the Hittite And she's married to another, but he's the king So he plotted, he schemed, and he had her come over, committed adultery, and eventually he committed murder In fact, he probably committed and broke every single one of the Ten Commandments

So it's important to understand that we make resolutions, we want to follow resolutions They in themselves are not sufficient for Christian living, right? But before you judge King David too quickly, I'm not sure if it's Lincoln Duncan who came up with this, but he said, think about this When you had a good king in Israel, you know what it said about the good king of Israel? He did like his father, David When you had a bad king of Israel, and there are at least 12 bad kings and maybe eight good kings, when you had a bad king, it always says, but he did not do like his father, David

David set the standard David set the resolutions David implemented the government, the cabinet, the judicial system, everything in Israel So while he personally may have fallen, his legacy left a lifetime through hundreds and hundreds of years of Israel And so that reminds us, David failed and we failed too, and it reminds us that salvation is through grace alone, in Jesus Christ alone

You know, when David broke these resolutions, and we mentioned Bathsheba especially, it's interesting that when you go to Psalm 51, he doesn't say, Lord, have mercy on me because I made some really good resolutions He doesn't say, Lord, have mercy on me because I tried to keep these resolutions He doesn't say, Lord, I've tried to live a good life. I've tried to be a good king He says, Lord, forgive me because of your loving kindness, because of your steadfast love So we need to leave here tonight to have a resolution to worship in our homes, to walk in purity

That's the bulk of tonight's message To keep godly company and to hate wickedness All right, next week is gonna be the last Psalm we look at It's gonna be Psalm 145 It's the last Psalm that David writes, and I believe he saved the best for last.