Keep Me As The Apple Of The Eye Series

In this psalm, like many of the psalms of David, we find him in some serious trouble.

However, David was a great man, and the one thing that determines greatness in people’s lives is how they go about solving their problems.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone that we can take our problems to each day and they would handle them for us?

Illus: That reminds me of a CEO who had a lot of problems and he wanted to hire a college graduate to solve all of his problems.

He interviewed this young man from the University of South Carolina.

• He explained that he had a lot of problems and he wanted to hire someone like him to solve them.

• The young man said, “I appreciate your interviewing me for the job but how much does this job pay?”

• The CEO said, “This jobs pays $5,000 a week!!”

• The young man said, “How can you afford to pay me $5,000 dollars a week to solve your problems?”

• The CEO said, “That is your first problem!”

David knew he had someone to solve his problems.

He personally talked to THE PROBLEM SOLVER, THE LORD, on a daily basis.

Illus: Have you ever wished in certain situations you could be a fly on the wall and listen into some of the private conversations that take place.

Psalm seventeen gives us this opportunity to be that fly on the wall and listen to David as he talked to God about his problems.

Notice, as we read Psalm 17, he was not fretting, he was praying.

Illus: I point this out because many do not know the difference between worrying and praying.

They think worrying and praying are synonymous.

People who do not know the difference will worry as much on their knees as they do standing up.

David knew the difference. He prayed!

That is why this Psalm is called "A prayer of David."

There are different KINDS OF PSALMS

• Hymn Psalms—Begin with a call to worship. All through these kinds of psalms it tells us of the reasons that we ought to worship God.

• Thanksgiving Psalms—They express thanks for a blessing or some crucial need that has been met.

• Remembrance Psalms—They help us to remember that there are some great things that are in the past also.

• Wisdom Psalms—These psalms will take two contrasting ways of life—one to be followed and another to be shunned.

• Lament Psalms—They have a tone of distress, weariness, struggle, and pain in them. But there is something compelling about the lament psalms; they express a sense of confidence that the Lord will come to their rescue.

Psalm 17 is a LAMENT PSALM.

Let’s look at some of the things that this Psalm teaches about David as he pours his heart out to God.

In this prayer the first thing we can see…

I. HE WANTS TO BE HEARD

David is expressing common sense in his prayer. That is, why bother to pray if God is not going to hear us.

However, David understood that before his prayer could be heard by God, there were some CONDITIONS he must meet.

Let’s look at two of the conditions…

Look at Psa. 1:1, we read, “Hear the right, O LORD, attend unto my cry, give ear unto my prayer…”

Illus: How many times we have sung that familiar song...Pass Me Not O Gentle Savior

Verse 1: Pass me not, O gentle Savior, hear my humble cry; while on others thou art calling, do not pass me by.

Verse 2: Let me at thy throne of mercy find a sweet relief, kneeling there in deep contrition; help my unbelief.

Verse 3: Trusting only in thy merit, would I seek thy face; heal my wounded, broken spirit, save me by thy grace.

Verse 4: Thou the spring of all my comfort, more than life to me, Whom have I on earth beside thee? Whom in heaven but thee?

This psalm 17 has the same tone of voice that the song has in “Pass me not, O gentle Savior.”

Prayer is a wonderful gift from God for God’s people. We appreciate prayer greatly when we are going through some difficult times.

God is not the heavenly Father of everyone, He is God, the Father of his children.

PRAYER IS A GIFT FOR THE CHILDREN OF GOD.

How many times have you heard someone say, I pray but my prayers seen to bounce off the ceiling. And this is true for some folks. Their prayers never go any further than the ceiling.

There are REASONS why some prayers are NOT heard and answered.

WHY ARE THEY NOT ANSWERED?

(1) God's Word says in James 4:2 “…yet ye have not, because ye ask not.”