Secrets of David and psalm 25

This is a hauntingly beautiful psalm, where David bears his soul to the Lord, and asks first and foremost that the Lord keep his soul as the God of his salvation.

David is ensnared and it is his own sins he is speaking of here that have his feet caught in a trap. His troubles are enlarged and deepened; it is as if the tide of his troubles feels to him like he is separating from the Lord and drifting away but still the chance is there that he can get back and be rescued like the swimmer caught in an overwhelming tide or current that is becoming to strong for him to contend with on his own. But David still has a sighting of his lifeguard who has to be the Lord. He says that his iniquity is great and while the psalm doesn’t detail what it is, David knew that his transgression had been great. He knows that Lord has everything about him in remembrance, and there is an awesome beauty to that alone and he asks that the Lord remember him according to his tender mercies and loving kindness for him that have been of old and have always existed for him in the mind of the Lord. He asks that he remember not the sins of his youth, where he knows in his folly he transgressed upon that very mercy and loving kindness that had been there for him of old, even in those times of his youth.

An important prayer secret is revealed right in this psalm in verse 17 where it says, “ The troubles of my heart are enlarged O bring thou me out of my distresses.”

This is a reminder to us, to pray that the Lord bring us out of trouble, or away from it. This is to be our first approach to praying about troubles as the Lord will often lead us away from troubles as for example with the parting of the Red Sea for his people.

His enemies have a cruel hatred for him, which is palpable to his soul. In verse 19 when he says consider my enemies, he knows that the Lord sees him and his situation in the reality that it is.

Even from his troubles he knows that all the paths of the Lord, are of mercy and truth.

This psalm goes very deep into the relationship between David and the Lord. He says in verse 7. “Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: according to thy mercy remember thou me for thy goodness’ sake, O LORD”

The Lord’s mercy for David, comes out of his goodness for him, something that David has already known and experienced, that indeed the Lord has been good to him and has goodness for him which is a great goodness, not a small portion. The goodness of the Lord for David is something that did exist, and David asks for mercy for the sake of preserving that goodness of the Lord for him, which he believes he has transgressed with his sins. This key verse tells us about the nature of sin, that is opposes the goodness of the Lord for us as individuals.

No matter what is seen and what is now obscured from sight in the midst of David’s trouble he knows that the Lord sees his soul and that his goodness for him is still something that is real, is operative, and has been of old or is an original goodness equating even with original creation. Here is an important key to this psalm, that the Lord is good to people, in this case David and the scope and dimensions of this goodness are to a degree unknown but we can speculate that the goodness that the Lord manifests to an individual does not have to be limited and indeed, if the Lord has been good to you and you already know this, then an appeal can be made to this goodness as something that is of old, meaning that is had been there from the beginning, and since it was there, it’s dimensions may be larger that previously contemplated and would then extend time wise since the Lord controls time and it would come from the past and into your future. Some evidence of the Lord’s goodness to you, is evidence that this might be a very large and substantial goodness, greater maybe than the sin, and here is what David is speculating upon in this psalm as he hovers between feeling lost in the pathways of his transgression and finding his way back to the goodness of the Lord for him. When David appeals to the goodness of the Lord, he is appealing to this goodness as being directed to him individually and also something that the Lord possesses and in a sense is a prize possession of the Lord, something that the Lord holds onto, that is his goodness for David personally.

Verse 8 says, " Good and upright is the LORD: therefore will he teach sinners in the way."

The Lord reaches out to sinners out of his goodness. The sinners in this verse are described as having lost their way. You don't want to sin to reach the Lord's goodness but in the case of David, he had sinned and is appealing to the goodness of the Lord from the position of having transgressed.

David also speaks in this psalm of the inheritance of the righteous that they will be at ease in the presence of the Lord and they will inherit the earth. This is more so an outline for any one who is in this type of relationship with the Lord in that the Lord will want them to feel welcome, at home, relaxed and comfortable in his presence.

A New Testament story that relates to this is the Prodigal Son, who after his roaming away is welcomed back to his inheritance and made to feel at ease.

Verse 14 says, “The secret of the LORD is with them that fear him; and he will shew them his covenant.” In the New Testament, Jesus talks of prayer in secret, and the secret in prayer goes also to the Lord revealing secrets to those in that prayer relationship that is between the one person and the Lord. The words of Jesus give a direct call to pray in secret, and part of this is that secrets will be revealed in the prayer relationship that aren’t given out except by that secret relationship.

Right there is an awesomeness of the call, being called to the secret prayer life as an individual in the presence of the almighty God who parted the Red Sea. David, has stilled his soul and turned fully to the presence of this secret relationship and is revealing some of these deep secrets right here in this particular psalm and in the other psalms written by him. So this psalm is telling, that the Lord has revealed secrets to David, who has subsequently revealed them to us in his writings. And this psalm also renders to the uttermost importance of the soul, reiterated throughout the Bible.

But one key secret we can take from this psalm with regards to any troubles is indeed that we go to the Lord to take them away from us and also put us at ease, as the Prodigal Son was welcomed back but also firmly distanced from his prior troubles as he made his way home to his Father’s house, symbolically from the story, the house of the Lord.

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