Great Prayers Of The Old Testament Part 24: The Lord Is My Light And My Salvation Series

Great Prayers of the Old Testament

Part 24: The Lord Is My Light and My Salvation

Psalm 27:1-14

Sermon by Rick Crandall

(Prepared May 23, 2025)

BACKGROUND:

*Anyone who has read a good portion of God's Word knows that there are a lot of prayers provided for us in the Bible. The Dake Annotated Reference Bible lists 222 different prayers in the Bible: 176 prayers in the Old Testament, and 46 prayers in the New Testament. (1)

*Today we will study another great prayer in the Old Testament. It's Psalm 27, and Matthew Henry gave the best background I have found. He began by writing, "Some think David penned Psalm 27 before his coming to the throne, when he was in the midst of his troubles, and perhaps upon occasion of the death of his parents. But the Jews think he penned it when he was old, upon occasion of the wonderful deliverance David had from the sword of one of the Philistine giants."

2 Samuel 21:16-17 gives this report:

16. Then Ishbi-Benob. (His name simply means "His dwelling is in Nob"). And he was one of the sons of the giant, the weight of whose bronze spear was three hundred shekels, who was bearing a new sword, thought he could kill David.

17. But Abishai the son of Zeruiah came to his (that is David's) aid, and struck the Philistine and killed him. Then the men of David swore to him, saying, "You shall go out no more with us to battle, lest you quench the lamp of Israel."

*John Gill explained that when David's men talked about the king's death in battle "quenching the lamp or light of Israel, they signified that their glory and prosperity depended on his life, and that, should David be taken away, they should be in affliction and adversity, their honor and their happiness would be at an end." So, King David was almost killed by the giant Ishbi-Benob, but Abishai rescued him and killed the Philistine. From then on the people would not let David go out with them to battle. With this background in mind, let's read Psalm 27:1-14 thinking about what it means for us today. (2)

MESSAGE:

*Only this year, and only by God's grace, did I start to treasure this Psalm. It all started with vs. 13-14 where David wrote, "I would have lost heart, unless I had believed That I would see the goodness of the LORD In the land of the living. Wait on the LORD; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD!"

*I mention this because this past year has been the most urgent time in our lives for us to wait on the LORD. Some of you may know that last August 3rd, I had a small vessel stroke in my brain stem. By the time we got to the emergency room, the whole left side of my body was basically useless. I never lost feeling in my arm or leg but I was not able to move them at all. And this stroke affected every organ from the top to bottom on the left side. By February this year, I was walking very well with a quad-cane. Sadly, I broke my left hip in a stupid fall, and I am still trying to come back from that.

*But my dear wife has been through a million times more trouble than me. Last October, our doctor discovered a 4-centimeter malignant tumor in her esophagus. Again by God's grace, Mary was admitted to M. D. Anderson in Houston, and had one of the best surgeons in the world. They thought the 6-hour surgery went well, and everything seemed to be fine until the 4th day after surgery. That's when Mary began to go septic. Somehow they had missed a tear in her esophagus. She had to go back for another 6-hour surgery to clean up her chest cavity and protect her from further damage. She was in and out of ICU, and our daughters told me it was "touch and go" for a few days. Only recently did they tell me the whole story that their mom almost died a couple of times in that ICU.

*Now, we have both been back home for a few weeks and the great news is that Mary is cancer-free. Praise the LORD! We also thank God for all of the people who are praying for us and have expressed their love in many other different ways. But the hard news is that Mary is going through her four post-op chemo treatments and these have been much harder on her than the pre-op treatments. So, please pray for us too, as long as the LORD lays us on your heart.