The Covenant Lawsuit Text: Psalm 140:6-8
Introduction: Prayer in a World of Vipers
We live in an age that wants its Christianity to be respectable, quiet, and, above all, nice. The modern evangelical impulse is to find the most inoffensive corner of the room, sit quietly, and hope nobody notices you. But the Psalms will not allow this. The prayer book that God Himself gave to His people is not full of gentle suggestions and mild-mannered platitudes. It is full of blood, thunder, and war. It is a book of prayers for a people besieged by enemies, slandered by liars, and hunted by the wicked. It is a book for the church militant, not the church triumphant, and certainly not the church dormant.
Psalm 140 is a prime example of this. David is surrounded by violent men who sharpen their tongues like serpents. The world he inhabited was not a neutral playground; it was a battlefield. And our world is no different. We are surrounded by a culture that despises the lordship of Jesus Christ. Its foundational institutions, its media, its universities, and its governments are increasingly sharpening their tongues against the people of God. They imagine mischief in their hearts, and the poison of asps is under their lips. To pretend otherwise is not piety; it is a dereliction of duty.
In such a world, how is a righteous man to pray? Our text this morning gives us the answer. It is a prayer that moves from a bold declaration of covenant relationship to a confident reliance on God's strength, and finally to a righteous appeal for God to frustrate the plans of the wicked. This is not the prayer of a vindictive man seeking personal revenge. This is the prayer of a citizen of God's kingdom, asking his King to act in accordance with His own law and for the glory of His own name. This is covenantal prayer. This is prayer that takes God at His word and asks Him to do what He has promised to do: to save His people and to judge His enemies.
We must learn to pray these prayers. If we find them distasteful, it is not because the prayers are sub-Christian, but because our own Christianity has been domesticated and declawed by the spirit of the age. We have been taught to be embarrassed by the justice of God. But David was not embarrassed. He understood that God's justice is part of His goodness. A God who is not willing to deal with vipers is not a God who can be trusted to care for His sheep.
The Text
I said to Yahweh, “You are my God;
Give ear, O Yahweh, to the voice of my supplications.
O Yahweh, O Lord, the strength of my salvation,
You have covered my head in the day of battle.
Do not grant, O Yahweh, the desires of the wicked;
Do not promote his evil scheme, that they not be exalted. Selah.
(Psalm 140:6-8 LSB)
Covenantal Declaration (v. 6)
The prayer begins not with a request, but with a declaration of fact. This is the foundation of all true prayer.
"I said to Yahweh, 'You are my God; Give ear, O Yahweh, to the voice of my supplications.'" (Psalm 140:6)
David does not approach God as a stranger or as a beggar hoping for a handout from a distant deity. He approaches God on the basis of a covenant relationship. "You are my God." This is not wishful thinking. This is a legal claim. He is saying, "You are the one to whom I belong, and I am one of the people whom You have redeemed. You have made promises to me, and I am here to hold You to them." This is the glorious boldness that every believer in Jesus Christ has the right to exercise. We do not come to the Father in our own name, but in the name of the Son, with whom the covenant was made. When we say, "You are my God," we are reminding God of His own oath, sealed in the blood of Christ.
Notice the progression. First, the declaration of relationship: "You are my God." Second, the resulting petition: "Give ear... to the voice of my supplications." Because God is his God, David has the right to be heard. His prayers are not launched into the void; they are addressed to a specific person who has a contractual obligation to listen. Our prayers are not a shot in the dark. They are an appeal to the judge of all the earth, who must do right. When your enemies are breathing down your neck, the first thing you must do is remind yourself, and God, of who belongs to whom. This is the anchor point in the storm. Everything else in the prayer flows from this fundamental reality.
This is why our worship is warfare. When we gather and declare that Jesus is Lord and that He is our God, we are serving notice on all the petty tyrants and spiritual vipers of this world. We are declaring that we have a King, and that His court is the one to which we appeal. Our supplications have standing because our identity is secure in Him.
Confident Remembrance (v. 7)
From the foundation of the covenant, David moves to the remembrance of God's past faithfulness. This is how faith is strengthened for the present battle.
"O Yahweh, O Lord, the strength of my salvation, You have covered my head in the day of battle." (Psalm 140:7)
David piles up the names of God: Yahweh, the covenant-keeping God; Adonai, the sovereign Lord and Master. He is reminding himself of the character of the one to whom he prays. And what is that character? He is "the strength of my salvation." God is not just a helper in salvation; He is the very muscle, the power, the might of it. Our salvation is not a cooperative venture where we do our part and God does His. God is the one who saves, from beginning to end. David knows that his deliverance comes from a source outside himself.
And he has evidence. "You have covered my head in the day of battle." This is not abstract theology for him. He is looking back at specific instances, perhaps at Goliath, perhaps at the Philistine armies, perhaps at the plots of Saul. He is remembering the feel of the divine helmet. In the heat of the fight, when swords were swinging and arrows were flying, David knew a protection that was not his own. God had been his shield and his armor.
This is a crucial discipline for every Christian. When you are in a new battle, you must preach the sermons of your old battles to yourself. You must recount the instances of God's deliverance. How did He save you from your sin? How did He provide for you last year? How did He rescue you from that foolish decision? Faith is not built on amnesia. It is built on a long and accurate memory of God's faithfulness. The same God who covered your head yesterday is the same God who is the strength of your salvation today. This remembrance fuels our confidence. We are not asking a stranger for help; we are asking our proven commander to do again what He has always done.
Righteous Imprecation (v. 8)
Now, built on the rock of covenant identity and past deliverance, David makes his specific, wartime request. And it is a request that makes modern Christians nervous.
"Do not grant, O Yahweh, the desires of the wicked; Do not promote his evil scheme, that they not be exalted. Selah." (Psalm 140:8)
This is what is called an imprecatory prayer. It is a prayer against God's enemies. And let us be clear: it is a righteous and necessary prayer. David is not asking God to help him settle a personal score. He is asking God to uphold His own justice in the world. The prayer has two parts.
First, "Do not grant... the desires of the wicked." The wicked have desires. They have plans, ambitions, and goals. And their desires are fundamentally aimed at the overthrow of God's kingdom and the harm of God's people. They desire to see evil flourish. They desire to see righteousness mocked. David prays that God would simply say "No" to them. He is asking God to be God, to oppose those who oppose Him. This is a prayer for divine frustration. "Lord, whatever they want, do not let them have it."
Second, "Do not promote his evil scheme." The Hebrew here is potent. It means do not let his plot succeed, do not let it be lifted up or brought to completion. The wicked are always scheming. They lay snares and nets, as the previous verses said. Their plans are intricate. David prays that all their clever machinations would come to nothing. He asks God to sabotage their best-laid plans. Why? The reason is given at the end: "that they not be exalted."
This is the heart of the matter. The fundamental battle in the universe is over who will be exalted. Will God be exalted, or will man? The wicked scheme and plot so that they might be lifted up, so that their names might be great, so that their will might be done on earth as it is in their rebellious hearts. David's prayer is that God would vindicate His own glory by bringing their arrogant schemes to ruin. When the plans of the wicked fail, it is a public testimony that there is a God in heaven who rules over the affairs of men. This prayer is profoundly God-centered. It is a prayer for the fame of God's name.
The "Selah" instructs us to pause and think about this. We are to meditate on the fact that God's glory is tied to the frustration of evil. A God who is neutral in the face of wickedness is not the God of the Bible. We should pray, with zeal, that God would confound the schemes of those who promote abortion, who seek to redefine marriage, who teach our children to call evil good and good evil. To fail to pray this way is to fail to love what God loves and hate what God hates.
Conclusion: Praying with the Helmet On
These three verses provide a model for every Christian engaged in the spiritual battle. Our prayers must be rooted in our covenant identity in Christ. We must boldly declare, "You are my God," because He has purchased us with His own blood.
Our prayers must be fueled by remembrance. We look back to the cross, the ultimate "day of battle" where Christ our champion crushed the serpent's head. God covered His head, raising Him from the dead, and that victory is now our own. He who delivered us from the greatest enemy, sin and death, can surely deliver us from lesser foes.
And our prayers must be courageously covenantal, asking God to act for His own name's sake. We must ask Him to bring to ruin the desires and schemes of the wicked. This is not about personal animosity. It is about cosmic loyalty. We are on God's side, which means we are against what He is against. We pray for the confusion of His enemies so that He alone will be exalted.
So do not be ashamed of these prayers. Do not let a sentimental, effeminate age rob you of your biblical birthright. Put on the helmet of salvation, remember the battles God has already won for you, and then get on your knees and ask the Lord of Hosts to scatter His enemies. Ask Him to grant them nothing. Ask Him to bring their schemes to naught. Pray this, and then pause, and consider the glorious fact that the God who answers such prayers is your God.