PM 21 September 2025
Have you ever prayed and felt as though heaven were silent?
You bowed your head, lifted your heart, and cried out with trembling lips—only to be met with silence, as though your prayer disappeared into the air? The heavens seemed as brass, your soul as dry ground, and your God far off.
That’s where David begins in Psalm 28.
David—king of Israel, man after God’s own heart, the sweet psalmist of Israel—is not immune to that experience. Here he lifts up his voice and says, “To you, O LORD, I call; my rock, be not deaf to me, lest, if you be silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit.” He is not praying as a religious professional, nor as a man performing a ritual. He is praying as a desperate sinner, a threatened man, a righteous sufferer clinging to the mercy of God.
This is a psalm for those who feel the ache of divine silence. It is also a psalm for those who live in a crooked world and long for justice. And it is a psalm for those who, having cried and waited, find God faithful—and must lift up a song of thanksgiving not only for themselves but for all the people of God.
Psalm 28 teaches us how the righteous pray:
- They cry to God in silence,
- They plead for justice amid hypocrisy,
- They rejoice when help comes,
- And they intercede for the whole people of God.
But even more than that, Psalm 28 points us to the Righteous One—Jesus Christ—who fulfilled this prayer in His own body and now carries His people forever.
Let us walk through this psalm under three headings:
- The Plea of the Righteous in the Silence of God (vv. 1–2)
- The Petition of the Righteous in a Corrupt World (vv. 3–5)
- The Praise and Intercession of the Righteous (vv. 6–9)
May the Lord give us grace not only to understand this psalm, but to pray it—with David, with Christ, and with one another.