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Psalm 10 Sermon Notes

The document summarizes Psalm 10, which discusses why God delays action when wicked people prosper. It says God delays to multiply dangers, intensify prayers, and magnify his power. The delays are meant to teach believers about weakness, strengthen prayer, and showcase God's power in delivering.

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55 views6 pages

Psalm 10 Sermon Notes

The document summarizes Psalm 10, which discusses why God delays action when wicked people prosper. It says God delays to multiply dangers, intensify prayers, and magnify his power. The delays are meant to teach believers about weakness, strengthen prayer, and showcase God's power in delivering.

Uploaded by

wesafi4410
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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PSYCHOLOGY IN THE PSALMS

PSALM 10

A PATIENT SONG

FIRST BYRON CHRISTIAN REFORMED CHURCH


DAVID MURRAY
AUGUST 29, 2021 (PM)
INTRODUCTION
Why is God so quiet when the wicked are so noisy? Why is God nowhere to be seen when the wicked are
everywhere to be seen? Why is God so slow when the wicked are so busy? Why does God take his time
when we're in such a rush? Why does God delay when the wicked are so early? We feel so impatient
when facing wrong, a feeling we know is not right, but neither is wrong right.

We’re not the first believers to feel like this and ask questions like this. Three thousand years ago, the
Psalmist was asking the same painful questions. Thankfully, in Psalm 10, God also gave him a comforting
answer, three comforting answers actually. It's important to embrace these answers because when we
are impatient in suffering, we lose hope, we lose faithfulness, and we lose blessing

BACKGROUND
The Psalms are God's infallible study of the connections between feeling, thinking, and doing. They stimulate
healthy thoughts, feelings, and actions. But they also help us process dangerous and damaging emotions. So
far we've felt the following Psalms:

Psalm 1: A Happy Song


Psalm 2: A Fight Song
Psalm 3: A Peace Song
Psalm 4: A Love Song
Psalm 5: A Hate Song
Psalm 6: A Complaining Song
Psalm 7: A Justice Song
Psalm 8: An Awe Song
Psalm 9: A Safe Song
Psalm 10: A Patient Song

Why does God delay when I'm in danger?

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1. GOD DELAYS TO MULTIPLY THE DANGER (1-11)
David was desperate. The Lord was nowhere to be found. Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you
hide yourself in times of trouble? (1).

Worse, the wicked were everywhere (2-11). They persecuted God’s poor (2), boasted about breaking God’s law
(3), denied God’s existence (4), and mocked God’s judgments (5).

David was especially pained by what they said. “There is no God” (4). “I shall not be moved; throughout all
generations I shall not meet adversity” (6). “God has forgotten, he has hidden his face, he will never
see it” (11).

If God had acted sooner rather than later, David would not have seen so many dangers or felt so endangered.
God delays to multiply and amplify the danger.

change your STORY with God's Story


Sense your danger. God brings us into danger to make us feel our danger. The fact is that we are always in
spiritual peril, but we rarely feel it as we ought. God makes us feel our danger, to believe our danger: the
danger of our lostness, the danger of others' lostness, the danger of death, the danger of false doctrine and
practice, the danger of injustice, the danger of national declension, the danger of the devil, and so on.

Sense Christ's danger. One of the ways I worship Christ with the Psalms is to hear him singing them. Like
every Jewish boy, he would have learned the Psalms and sung them in his home and in the synagogue. I see
him in great peril, singing verses 1-11 and add my words of worship to his words of danger.

BELIEVE YOUR DANGER


AND YOU'LL FEEL YOUR DANGER

We see the danger. God sees our danger.


Why is God still delaying?

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2. GOD delays to INTENSIFY OUR PRAYERS (12-15)
So what did David do? Did he give up on God? No, after listing all the wicked’s wicked wickedness,
he asked God to work. Arise, O Lord (12a); remember, O Lord (12b); hear them, O Lord (13); see
them, O Lord (14); break them, O Lord (15a); pursue them, O Lord (15b). This isn't a shopping list,
this is a wrestling match. God delays to increase, intensify, deepen, and amplify our prayers.

change your STORY with God's Story


Praise God for giving us prayer. God uses danger to draw us to prayer and to deepen our prayers. Trouble
transports us from saying prayers to praying. Our prayers change from cold and formal to hot and emotional.
It's no longer passive and fatalistic "What will be, will be" but there's a desperate yearning, an intense pining.

Praise Jesus for his prayers. I see him falling to his knees, praying verses 12-15 in the garden of Gethsemane.
I see him stretched on the cross praying verses 12-15 in his agony. I hear the prayers of agony he prayed so
that I could pray for comfort.

COMFORT DIVIDES OUR PRAYERS


DANGER MULTIPLIES THEM

We've prayed and prayed.


Why is God still delaying?

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3. GOD delays to MAGNIFY HIS POWER (16-18)
David leaves us in no doubt as to the eventual outcome. The Lord is king forever and ever; the
nations perish from his land. O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted; you will strengthen
their heart; you will incline your ear to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, so that
man who is of the earth may strike terror no more (16-18). The Lord reigns (16), the Lord hears
(17), and the Lord delivers (18). God delays to magnify his power in delivering.

change your STORY with God's Story


Praise God for delivering us. How many times we know about and haven't adequately praised him. How
many times we don't know about and haven't praised him for.

Praise God for delivering Jesus. I see Jesus rising from his knees, singing confidently about God’s deliverance
of him from divine justice, the tomb, and this world. No one was in greater danger, no one had greater
prayers, and no one had a greater deliverance.

Praise God for using danger to teach us. He teaches us our weakness, trains us to pray, and instructs us how
to trust in his power. What a difference patient waiting makes to our lives!

GOD’S MINIMIZES US
TO MAXIMIZE HIS POWER.

Hear God's Story > Change your story > Tell the story > Change others' stories

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SUMMARY
God delays:
Wait patiently and
Why does God delay when To multiply the danger
you'll wait productively
the wicked are so early? To intensify our prayers
To magnify his power

PRAYER: Patient God, when I am impatient for you to work, help me to sense
my weakness, mature my prayers, and magnify your power. Amen.

Discussion questions
1. When has God 'delayed' in your life and how did you respond?

2. What dangers are you facing right now?

3. On a scale of 1-10, how would you describe the intensity of your prayers?

4. What affects the intensity of your prayers?

5. What truths or verses are helping you to wait upon God?

6. How has this Psalm helped you love Jesus more?

First Byron Christian Reformed Church Pastor David Murray


8541 Byron Center Ave SW, Byron Center, MI 49315 www.HeadHeartHand.org
Phone: (616) 878-9768 www.livingthebible.net
www.firstbyroncrc.org

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