Revelation chapter 5 will read the entire chapter, book of Revelation chapter 5, and then we will turn back in our Bibles to the Book of Psalms, the 109th Psalm, the first Revelation chapter 5. Let us stand together and show our reverence to God as we read his fully inspired and infallible word. Revelation chapter 5, beginning of verse 1. I saw on the right hand of him who sat on the throne a book written inside and on the back sealed up of seven seals. I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, who was worthy to open the book and to break its seals. No one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the book or to look into it. I began to weep greatly because no one was found worthy to open the book or to look into it. One of the elders said to me, stuck weeping, behold the lion that is from the tribe of Judah, the root of David has overcome so as to open the book and its seven seals. Between the throne with the four living creatures, and the elders, a lamb standing is if slain having seven horns and seven eyes which are the seven spirits of God sent out to all the earth, became and took out of the right hand of him who sat on the throne. They had taken the book, the four living creatures, and the twenty-four elders fell down before the lamb having each one a heart, and golden bowls full of incense which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying, worthy art thou to take the book and to break its seals for thou was slain, and its purchase for God with thy blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and thou hast made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God, and they will reign upon the earth. Thy looked, thy heard the voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders and the number of them was myriads of myriads and thousands and thousands. Saying with a loud voice, worthy is the lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing. The every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea and all things in them, I heard saying, to him who sits on the throne and to the lamb be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever, and the four living creatures kept saying, Amen, and the elders fell down and worshiped. O God of my praise, do not be silent, for they have opened the wicked and deceitful mouth against me, they have spoken against me with a lying tongue, they have also surrounded me with words of hatred and fought against me without cause. In return for my love they acted as my accusers, but I am in prayer. Thus they have repaid me evil for good and hatred for my love, verse 14, let the iniquity of his fathers 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 their memory from the earth, because he did not remember to show loving kindness but persecuted the afflicted and needy man and the despondent in heart and put them to death. He also loved cursing, so it came to him, and he did not delight in blessing so it was far from him, but he clothed himself with cursing as with his garment and it entered into his body like water and like oil into his bones, let it be to him as a garment with which he covers himself and for a belt with which he constantly girds himself. But this be the reward of my accusers from the Lord and of those who speak evil against my soul, may blessing of God be upon the reading and the hearing of this Holy Word, please be seated. We have taken a bit of departure, we have been speaking about the necessity of reclaiming many things in the Christian life, we have talked about the hope of salvation which needs to be reclaimed, we have talked about the supremacy of the preaching of the Word of God, that means which God has appointed for the salvation of the world, and then we talked about prayer as being one of the more neglected disciplines of the Christian life, and we have been urging that if we would see reformation, we must reclaim the fullness of prayer. This is the metanism which God has given us, the means of grace whereby we receive from him that which is necessary to carry out the commission which God has given to us. And last week we looked for legitimacy of imprecatory prayers, which is what this 109th soul is. It is a calling upon God to see and to judge and to pour out His justice and His judgment upon hard-hearted and self-conscious wickedness in the world. We are involved in a conflict, we are involved in a warfare, it is indeed a warfare for the lives and the souls of men, and what we are asking for God to do is to come down in His power and to redeem His people to save them from their sins and from the oppression of this world and to be victorious over all of the nations so that every knee might bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is more the glory of the Father. As what we pray for in the mornings, when we ask our Father who art in heaven, let your name be hallowed, let it be sanctified, by kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We are praying for the victory of God's kingdom through the preaching of the gospel. This morning we want to examine ourselves, clearly, however, to evaluate our qualifications for praying in Precatory prayers. We are told by the Lord that if we regard iniquity in our hearts, the Lord will not hear us. We planted out to you last week the praying in the Precatory souls is not something to be taken lightly, it is not something that is to be used at the drop of a hat, but nonetheless it is to be used. We are to pray these prayers under certain circumstances, but in order to do so, we must examine our hearts. We read in our call to worship this morning, who is able to come into the hill of the Lord. It is He who has pure hands, clean hands, and a pure heart, and brothers and sisters, if we are going to come into the Lord for any kind of prayer, then we need to examine ourselves to see whether we are qualified to pray these prayers and to have a hearing from the Lord. First of all, I want to point out to you then that you may pray in Precatory prayers if you are qualified by your position in Christ. Now what I mean by this is if we examine ourselves carefully and if we understand our own sin natures, you must understand that there is only one man who has ever had clean hands and a pure heart. You may look good in the sight of other men, but if you look inside your heart and if you look carefully at the deeds which you do when no one else is looking, we are talking about depravity this morning in the inquirer's class. And ask yourself the question, aren't you more inclined to do things that you know to be wrong when you know that you won't get caught? Let me stop and think about it. It's one thing not to do something that you know to be wrong when you know that there are going to be consequences to pay. But what happens? What's going through your heart and mind when no one's around, as far as you can tell no one will ever find out about it, isn't there that tendency inside you just to go ahead? Now of course, a trust that at times like that will remember the restraining influence that while others may not see and others may not find out that God sees all things and will take notice. But look at your deeds and look at your heart and you have to ask yourself the question, who is it then that makes stand before the presence of God? And who is it that would have the audacity as a sinner to pray for God's judgment upon other sinners? Who is there that can do that? The only qualification and the bottom line qualification, and if you don't have this then you don't have any of the others, is that you must be qualified by your position in Christ. You must be one whose sins are forgiven, who has a pure heart because youriquity and your sins have been pardoned, being washed away by the blood of Christ and being clothed and clothed with his acceptable righteousness. If you are not a believer, if you are not surrendered to Christ, if it is not your desire to see him exalted above all others, if it is not your purpose and your focus of your life to serve him and to obey him and to commit your life to him in every facet in a progressive and ongoing way, then you have no business praying any prayer, let alone the impregnatory prayer. You see if you are not in Christ. If you have hardened your heart then you, ultimately, will be the subject of the impregnatory prayers not of the saints but of Jesus Christ himself. You will be praying for your own destruction. Now I know that sounds very harsh and I don't want to be harsh, I don't want to be hard, but I do not believe that I would do anyone here who is yet in their sins any favors by saying it's no big deal. When you see the judgments that are going to come upon those who are yet in their sins, you must understand that if you are yet in your sins, this is a prayer against you and none other than the sovereign Lord himself, the king of righteousness, the God of grace and mercy, and yet who will by no means clear the innocent will visit these judgments upon you. And I say this, not to be hard but to beg with you, to be reconciled to God through this great seat of your Jesus Christ who rules the world and who offers mercy to you this day, that you might have a right to position with God through his seat and look at you. If you see if you are not in that position then you have no hearing with God. But we pray to the Father in the name and by the authority of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, and if you do not have the name of Christ you do not have his life as yours and his forgiveness and his pardon and his blood cleansing you and his righteousness clothing you. You have no hearing with the Father until you call for mercy. Now how do we know this to be the case? Well there are three things that I'd point out to you and that is that David prays as the representative of God's kingdom, he is the king of Israel. He was God's anointed. And as the king of Israel, as he intercedes and as he prays this imprecatory prayer because of the enemies of God coming against him, you must understand that he does not just pray as an individual who has been offended, but he prays as the representative of God in Israel. And he understands the assault upon him is an assault upon God's people and an assault upon God's people is an assault upon God himself. Do you remember Saul when Saul was converted? He was on his way to Damascus and on his way to Damascus, he was going there in order to my first cute Christians. At the hand of Saul, many had been imprisoned, at the hand of Saul, some had been executed because of their faith in Christ and God. The second person of the God had the Lord Jesus met Saul on the road to Damascus, knocked him off his horse as it were with the blinding light of his glory. And do you remember the words of the Lord Jesus to Saul? Saul, why are you persecuting me? Now Saul thought he was doing the work of Jehovah God. But in attacking the people of God, he was attacking that very God himself, the king of glory. And that's how David prays as the representative of God's kingdom. He has the position of being a representative of God's kingdom. The second aspect then is Jesus also prays in this song as the mediatorial king of God's kingdom. You must understand this prayer is not just the prayer of David as the king of Israel, but David in his prayer and as the representative as the type of Christ, Christ is the greater David, or greater David's son, this prayer is the prayer of Christ himself. And how does Christ pray as the mediatorial king of God's kingdom? This prayer must be viewed as a prayer of Christ himself as he intercedes for his oppressed people. And that leads us then to understand how we may pray being qualified by our position as Christ. And that is you pray as a kingdom of priests through faith in Christ in that portion from Revelation 5, but we read. By the way, as Christ took the scroll and begins to open the seals, you must understand that what that opening of the seals is and the resulting judgment poured out upon unbelieving Israel, it is in response to the prayers of the saints that that happens. And he is worthy to execute justice and judgment for his people precisely because he has made us a kingdom of priests, you through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. You be joined in him by that faith, are made partakers with Christ of his rule and reign. You are the body of Christ, and therefore by virtue of your position, you may then pray these prayers as Christ's representatives upon the earth. Let me look at a few things with you. First Peter chapter 2, to show you, again, you are a kingdom of priests. Now, remember that in the Old Testament, those were the particular representatives of God, the prophets, the priests, and the kings had a unique position. They were representatives of God in first Peter chapter 2, verse 4. By the way, these were a persecuted people. Peter out of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit writes in verse 4, and coming to him as to a living stone rejected by men but choice and precious in the sight of God, you also as living stones are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. If this is contained in the scripture, behold, I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious cornerstone, and he who believes in him shall not be disappointed. This precious value then is for you who believe, but for those who disbelieve, the stone which the builders rejected, this became the very cornerstone and a stone of stumbling at a rock of offense. For they stumbled because they are disobedient to the Word and to this doom they were also appointed. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous life. You are a kingdom of priests and what is one of the things that the priest does, he intercedes for the people of God. You also are representative judges of the world, 1 Corinthians chapter 6. The reason that you may pray these prayers because of your position in Christ is because of that relationship which you have with Christ, by virtue of his grace and saving faith. You then become heirs with him and you rule with him in life, 1 Corinthians chapter 6. Does any one of you, when he has a case against his neighbor, dare to go to law before the unrighteous and not before saints, or do you not know the saints will judge the world? And if the world is judged by you, are you not competent to constitute the smallest law courts? Do you not know that we shall judge angels how much more matters of this life? What authority do you and I have to judge angels? What authority do you and I have to sit in judgment on any? We have none of our skin and of ourselves, but because we are joined savingly to Christ, we are a kingdom of priests and therefore we are also not only priests, but we are kings and therefore are able to judge according to the word of God, we are to judge righteous judgments. You have direct access to God's judgment through Hebrews chapter 4. This is the reason that you may pray these imprecatory prayers because God has commissioned you and clothed you with these offices, and He has given you the mechanism to do so by coming unto His throne directly, chapter 4 and verse 14. Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession, but we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin, let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace that we might receive mercy and may find grace to help in time and trouble. In other words, fourthly, you have a foreritative revelation of God's judgment. Going to the word of God, you can declare and you can pray these prayers because God has pronounced His cursing upon those who self-consciously ate Him and who self-consciously opposed the work of His kingdom, but you must be qualified by your position in Christ. Exam in your hearts are you a new creation is your heart's desire to serve God and to serve Him alone. If you don't, you don't have a pure heart and you don't have clean hands and you have no business praying the imprecatory prayers. Secondly, you may pray the imprecatory prayers when you are qualified by your character in Christ. Our salvation is not one that is merely theoretical, though certainly justification, that declaration of God whereby sinners are declared to be righteous for the sake of the righteousness of another. It is very true, but one who is justified is also one who will be sanctified and is in the process of being set apart more and more from sin and worldliness to Christ-likeness and obedience. And so when we examine ourselves, and when we approach this 109th Psalm, then we need to examine ourselves not, first of all, with regard to our position in Christ by His declared judgment on the basis of His grace through faith, but then we have to ask ourselves to question in my praying of this imprecatory prayer, which is a solemn thing to do, is my present action also motivated by pure motives, and am I indeed acting in a manner that is becoming a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ? Or am I just being selfishly vindictive? Am I being simply heart-hearted? Do I desire the glory of God, or do I desire my own comfort? Am I being selfish or selfless in this? You must be qualified by your character in Christ. Go back once again to Psalm 109, and we will show you that that is exactly what the psalmist said, what David and Christ says about themselves. Notice in verse 3, they have also surrounded me with words of hatred, and they have also surrounded me with words of hatred, and fought against me without cause. Now, the idea there is that you must be innocent, if you are going to pray the imprecatory prayers because you are suffering oppression, it must be because you are God's representative, and you are suffering because of the righteousness of Christ and the Beatitudes. Our Lord says, in general, blessed are the persecuted, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and say, all manner of evil against you, falsely, for my name is saved. You see, they are going to, and I mentioned it last time, just in passing, the imprecatory prayers are not to be uttered when the guy cuts you off on the highway, or when you are going along waits until you are almost upon him before he turns in front of you on a side street and proceeds on a 55-mile, an hour zone, a 20-mile, an hour. That is not an appropriate place. You are not persecuting you because of your position in Christ. You aren't suffering the indignity of going that slow and a faster speed limit because of anything that is a persecution for the sake of Christ, that's not a ground for it. You must be innocent, you must be persecuted without cause. In 1 Peter, he spends a great deal of time, again, talking to people who are suffering persecution, but notice what he says. 1 Peter, chapter 2, verse 18, he speaks of those who are suffering because they are, well, because they are slaves, actually, but they are servants and they are suffering unjustly. Servants be submissive to your master with all respect. Not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable. Now, notice the next verse. For this finds favor, if, for the sake of conscience toward God, a man bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly, for what credit is there if, when you sinned and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience, but when you do what is right and suffer for it, you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God. You've done something wrong in people, treating you harshly because of what you've done wrong. In other words, children, this is not a good prayer to pray when you're spanked by your parents disobedience. I know you may think sometimes that you'd like to have God intervened, bring a little bit of his wrath on your parents for what you consider to be unjust treatment, because prayer is not to be uttered in that situation, you must be innocent before you pray this prayer. The accusation must be false, the opposition must be unjust. A second character quality, you must be innocent, secondly, you must be benevolent. And you say, how in the world can a benevolent person pray this prayer? Well, I want to show you how. Look at verse 4. In return for my love, and I just lost it here, at Psalm 109, I just, I just, there it is. In return for my love, they act as my accusers, but I'm in prayer. You notice what he's saying here? Here is one who is not acted as an enemy toward these people to stir up their wrath and to stir up their oppression. Rather he has covenant with God to do them good and not evil. He has been benevolent in his treatment of his enemies, and you can think, for instance, of soul. On a number of occasions David had opportunity to kill his enemy and to assume the throne which God had promised to him. But David did not do so. He said, I will not lift up my hand against God's anointed. He served soul with all of his heart. In return for his love, soul, treated him with evil, with Absalom, his own son, whom David treated with a love of a father, Absalom lifted up his heel against his own father, but David had been benevolent. You think of Judas with the Lord Jesus Christ? Christ indeed had displayed his love to Judas, and yet Judas had betrayed him with a kiss. You see how this character must be one, you must be innocent, but you must be benevolent. Your praying of these prayers for God just as to be visited upon a people must flow out of benevolence, toward those who are being persecuted and who are losing their lives because of the self-conscious wickedness of the enemies of God and his kingdom. It is not to be selfish and vindictive, but it is to be benevolent. Thirdly, you must be devoted to God, and that's where the others come from. Your character must be innocent, it must be benevolent, and you must be devoted to God. This is the end of verse 4, in return for my love, they act as my accusers, but what? I am in prayer. I'm not looking around for my own ways of getting back at these people. I'm not plotting and scheming for advancing my cause and putting these others down. What happens when I am persecuted and oppressed for righteousness' sake? My first recourse and my only recourse is to go to the God of grace in prayer. I'm devoted to God, even in the midst of suffering and pain and betrayal. My action, my attitude, is to be devoted to the God of my prayers. He is my hope and my salvation. And so we read, and we don't have time to turn there, but you can look at 1 Peter 2 and verse 23 at the end of that passage where the servants were suffering unjustly for righteousness. Peter goes on to give the example of the Lord Jesus Christ, too, though he did not revile, was reviled, did not revile again, but kept on entrusting himself to him who judges righteousness. You see, that's what David was doing, that's what Christ did, and that's what we must do. Our appeal must be to the God of righteousness. Commit yourself to the vindication of the Lord. Commit the timing of your vindication to the Lord. Don't take things into your own hand, but you take these prayers and you pray to the Lord and you commit it to him, and you make that a sufficient action. You commit yourself to God and you commit the timing. David won a number of years being persecuted by Saul before God finally brought about his vindication, but it was indeed his vindication. Christ's crucifixion took place, and his crucifixion was not vindicated for another 40 years. You see, you must commit those things, and you need to understand, I was reading a biography of Jefferson Davis, and a phrase jumped out at me when I was reading the introduction. Jefferson Davis spoke at a memorial service at the conclusion at the death of Robert E. Lee in Richmond. Of course, Robert E. Lee was buried in Lexington, Virginia, on the campus of Washington and Lee, Washington Lee College. But at a memorial service, thousands of course turned out to commemorate the death of this fine and godly man. And Jefferson Davis was commenting and saying how many people will come out to commemorate a man who was successful and all that he did. And he was just saying how strange that it was that so many people would love and have such high respect for a man who, at least from the earthly perspective, really in his campaigns, experienced failure. And Jefferson Davis made this comment, and it's one to remember if we are going to commit the timing of our vindication of the Lord, you must distinguish between those who enjoy success and those who deserve success. And so I think we can apply that. You need to understand the difference between those who enjoy vindication and those who deserve vindication. And in that way, you must understand and can see and await the timing of the Lord. But your character has to be such that you are innocent, benevolent, and devoted to God. One, I think what we'll do is we will stop at this point in time because I see the time is almost going here and I want to do justice to the rest of these. But I just want you to examine yourself having come through these two points. And you ask yourself and make application, but we do not preach the word of God simply to stimulate your intellect. But rather, we preach the word of God to glorify him and aim at the changing of your hearts, your characters, by the power of God's grace. But don't leave here this morning without asking yourself the question, am I qualified to pray in precutory Psalms? Do I have a position in Christ, whereby I am acceptable to God? Do I have a position in Christ where I am indeed a prophet and a priest and a king, not for my own agenda, but for the agenda of a living God and the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords? May I, when I am concluded with my prayers, along with the four living creatures and the 24 elders and the saints that are assembled around the glass you see, sing the fourfold hallelujahs to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Is it your desire in everything that you do and in the prayers that you ask to see Christ exalted as the one who is worthy of riches and praise and adoration and dominion forever and ever? Is that the focus of your life? And if it is not this morning, then I urge you and I appeal to you, flee to the grace of God, flee to the grace of God and the Lord Jesus Christ and yield yourself as servants to Him to obey Him. You will enjoy that eternal blessedness with the saints forever and ever and you will sing again a new song in the song of Moses and experience the victory of life even in the midst of death. But second, examine your practice, examine your heart even now as you go to any prayer, particularly in predatory prayers. And can you say that by the grace of God, first of all, that you have a pure heart and is that pure heart bringing forth the fruits of righteousness with clean hands? And if you are going to pray these prayers, is it because of the concern that you have for the oppression of the innocent, the oppression of the benevolent and those who devoted to God? You see, I think that not only applies to imprecatory prayers, but I believe that applies to all prayer. And may God be pleased to grant us that grace whereby we may be able to enter into the courts of heaven with those hearts that have been cleansed by the blood of Christ, and with hands that have been sanctified to bring praise and glory to Him as they are lifted to Him in prayer, that we are seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. And then may God be pleased to hear and to answer, to save His people and to vindicate their cross. Let's pray together. Almighty God, our Father, we bow before you this day, recognizing that in and of ourselves, there is none worthy. And we pray therefore that you would search us and examine us and crush that sinful pride that would lift itself up and think that we could pray any of these prayers with... with any self-righteousness. For indeed, apart from Christ, these imprecatory prayers would be prayed against us by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, that you would visit us with eternal damnation. O Lord, our God, cause us to see that we are only what we are by your grace, and therefore may we approach your throne with ac humility which is becoming a sinner saved by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then our Lord, our God, we prayed, would sanctify our lives also, that we may indeed be benevolent to those about us, that we might be innocent of accusations that might be brought against us, and that we would be wholly devoted unto you, that you would make prayer the first line of distance, not the last, and grant us that patient confidence to await our vindication from you. Knowing that it is but a little while, it shall be done because you are the King of kings and the Lord of Lords. Lord, do your work in our hearts this day, grant us that due caution that is becoming to those who deal with matters of life and death, awaken us all Father, and grant us grace that might live and die for glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Who is worthy of riches, honor, dominion, and praise, and we ask it in Jesus name and for His sake. Amen. Let's turn our soldiers now for our hymn of commitment to Psalm 94A as we conclude our worship. Psalm 94A. God of vengeance, O Jehovah, God of vengeance, O shine forth, rise up, O you judge of nations, render the proud, their worth. 94A, let's sing to the glory of God. vengeance, O Jehovah, God of vengeance, O shine forth, rise up, O you judge of nations, render the proud, their worth. Psalm 94A. God of vengeance, O shine forth, rise up, O you judge of nations, render the proud, their worth.
God of vengeance, O you judge of nations, render the proud, their worth. Receive now the benediction of your God, and now may the grace, mercy, and peace of God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit be with you now, and abide with you forevermore for the praise and glory of Christ.