Psalm 143

Psalm Category: Individual lament

Central Thought: Past deliverances give courage to pray for present help.

Key words: persecution, remembrance, teach, deliver

Paul assures us that the Lord will always provide a way of escape out of temptation (1 Cor. 10:13). We have this because Christ accomplished it for us in His perfect obedience in which He overcame all of Satan’s schemes to cause Him to stumble. Similarly, in Christ, we have deliverance from sin in His death and entrance into life in His righteousness. Therefore, only those who are in covenant with God through Christ (Lord, vv. 1, 7, 11; lovingkindness, vv. 8, 12) are entitled to pray this prayer and sing this praise. Yet everyone is called and invited to enter into covenant with the Lord by turning from their sin to God’s grace (Mark 1:15; Rom. 10:11, 13). To pray and sing this psalm, we must be able to call the Lord “my God” (v. 10) and to confess ourselves to be His servants (v. 12).

In Psalm 143, the Spirit (v. 10) gives us courage to pray for deliverance from those who seek to destroy us in both spirit and body (vv. 3–4, 7). We are led to seek God earnestly (hear, answer; v. 1) and urgently (quickly, morning; vv. 7–8). All this reflects our experience and instructs our prayers.

The Spirit directs us to confess our sin, to ask to be spared from justice (v. 2), and to seek God Himself (vv. 1, 9–11) for His faithfulness and righteousness (vv. 1, 11). This includes His grace (face, v. 7) in giving us the good we do not deserve because of our lack of righteousness. This also includes His mercy (v. 2) in not giving us the calamity that we do deserve because of our sin. Grace and mercy together give us peace (1 Tim. 1:2; 2 Cor. 5:21).

The Spirit leads us to build our hope of deliverance on the immovable rock of reality instead of the shifting sand of wishful thinking. The core of this psalm (vv. 5–6) reflects on the history (days of old, v. 5) of God’s dealings with His people both in general principles (all Your doings, v. 5) and in particular events (the work of Your hands, v. 5), such as the Exodus and all the deliverances through the period of Judges. David is the epitome of someone used by God to deliver His people from their earthly enemies. Through him, we are pointed to Christ who is the Deliverer from all our enemies, namely from Satan and his powers of temptation, sin, and death. On this objective, proved basis of testimony to historical events, we ask God to deliver us in the present as He delivered His people in the past (v. 6).

Having cried out for deliverance, the Spirit then leads us to ask for directions. Just as the Lord led Israel out of Egypt by way of the Red Sea and the angel led Peter out of jail through the opened gates, we also ask for the way out of our troubles (vv. 8–11). We ask the Lord to inform our minds to know these directions (vv. 8–9) and also to train our behavior to act accordingly (vv. 10–11). Word and works, faith and life, knowledge and practice are twins that are never to be found without their partner (Song 4:2, 5; James 2:14ff; Eph. 2:5–10).

There is an unhappy but necessary consequence of our deliverance. It is the destruction of those from whom we are delivered (v. 12). The Holy Spirit leads us to pray for deliverance by asking for the destruction of our stubbornly unrepentant enemies. Israel and her hosts were delivered through the Red Sea, and Pharaoh and his hosts were drowned in those same waters. Peter was led out of prison by the angel, and his guards were led away to execution. We are delivered from Satan, all his schemes, and his hosts, and they all are delivered into the lake of fire. We flee from Satan to Christ and urgently call others to join us in this so that they and we will be spared this necessary and inevitable justice.

Pray to and praise God for the way of escape from all our trouble (v. 11) that He has provided in Jesus. Learn about the mighty deliverances of God throughout redemptive history (vv. 5–6) culminating in the person and work of Christ, so that you will be encouraged to pray with confident expectation. Study to know the principles and train to practice the behaviors that lead out of the sorrows of your sin and into the joys of Christ’s righteousness (vv. 8–11). “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:14–17, NIV).

Kit Swartz | Comments welcome at oswegorpc@hotmail.com. Sermon audio files and pdf outlines on these Psalms are available at reformedvoice.com.