Alright brethren, Psalm 86. We read here, this is a prayer
of David. And we're just going to look
at the first seven verses tonight. But in these seven verses, David
makes four petitions. He makes four petitions for blessings
that only God can give. And to each of these requests,
he attached a for or a because. There's a reason attached to
each of these. First of all, he asked to be
heard, and really it is for the action is to be granted the petition. He says, bow down thine ear,
O Lord, hear me, for I am poor and needy. And then secondly,
he asks to be preserved. He says, preserve my soul, for
I am holy. O thou, my God, save thy servant
that trusteth in thee. Then he asks, to receive mercy. Be merciful unto me, O Lord,
for I cry unto Thee daily. And then he asked to be given
joy in the soul. He says, Rejoice the soul of
Thy servant, for unto Thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. For Thou,
Lord, art good and ready to forgive, and plenteous in mercy unto all
them that call upon Thee. Give ear, O Lord, unto my prayer,
and attend to the voice of my supplications. In the day of
my trouble I will call upon Thee, for Thou wilt answer me. See that last phrase, Thou wilt
answer me. That's why he says, I'll call
upon Thee in the day of trouble, for Thou wilt answer me. So that's our subject, is the
prayer God will answer. Prayer God will answer. All who
come to God through faith in Christ with the spirit that David
has right here, this same spirit making these petitions right
here, God will answer. God will answer. This is prayer
God will answer right here. First of all, David asked to
be heard, and he's not just merely asking to be heard, but he's
asking for God to act. He's asking for God to supply
the need. He says here in verse 1, bow
down thine ear, O Lord, hear me, for I am poor and needy. Bow down thine ear, O Lord, and
hear me. Act on my behalf. Who is God? Who is our God? Who is the Lord
God? Psalm 115.3. Our God is in the heavens. Our
God is in the heavens. He hath done whatsoever he hath
pleased. He's holy. Our God is holy. Our
God can have nothing to do with sinners. can have nothing to
do with sinners. He's holy. He's the creator. He's the ruler of heaven and
earth. He controls all things in heaven and earth and all deep
places. He's the all-powerful, almighty,
holy God. Psalm 8.3, He said, When I consider
thy heavens the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which
thou hast ordained. What is man that thou art mindful
of him? And the son of man that thou
visitest him? We're talking about God. We're talking about holy God.
And yet there are some who holy God will bow down and hear. Notice the reason David gives.
This is who God will hear. It's those who come to God in
this spirit right here. He says, bow down thy ear, O
Lord, hear me, because I am poor and needy. When we hear poor
and needy, sometimes we think about money and temporal things and
what have you. There's a lot of people who are
poor in money and poor in temporal things that aren't poor and needy
as David is here. Poor and needy is to be poor
and needy in spirit, is to be broken and contrite in spirit. You've been here, you've been
to this place where you just beg God to bow down and hear
you. This is a good reason to ask,
for I am poor and needy. The poor and needy is somebody
who is absolutely dependent on the Lord for everything. Totally
dependent on Him. And this is not, this is not for stuff. This is not for temporal
blessings. God will give us some temporal
blessings, and we're thankful for that. But this is being poor
and needy for spiritual blessings. God will provide all things for
His people, but the need, the real need, the need is spiritual. The poor and needy need more
than temporal things. This spirit here is the spirit
of utter dependence for God to give everything, for God to provide
all. To be utterly poor and utterly
needy for God to do all the blessing, for God to provide everything. Christ was perfect in spirit. When you read this psalm, we
could read this psalm and just hear Christ praying as He walked
this earth to the Father. Christ was perfect in spirit
when He walked this earth. In the Beatitudes, when we read
the Beatitudes, Christ is the perfection of those graces of
the spirit. He is those graces. He said, blessed are the poor
in spirit For theirs is the kingdom of God. The Son of God was rich. He had everything. But he became
poor that we through his poverty might be made rich. And when
he came down and took flesh, he walked this earth utterly
dependent on the Father. He was perfectly poor in spirit. Exactly what this means. He was
poor in spirit. His is the kingdom of heaven
to give to whomsoever he will. He had not where to lay his head.
That's true, he was poor in temporal things, but he did that willingly. That was on purpose. But he came
down and made himself the servant of God, totally dependent upon
the Father, so that he might be the author and the finisher
of our faith. What does that mean, really?
It means he's the only one God looks to. He walked as the perfect believer
before God. He authored and finished faith
for his people. He is the faithful one. That's
what this thing of being poor and needy is about. It's being
utterly faith, just going out in faith to God, trusting God
to provide everything you need. And that's how Christ walked
through this earth in perfection. And it's from His faith, that
it's the faith of Him by which we're justified from our sins
and saved through His blood. And it's from Him, the faithful,
giving to us, giving us faith and giving and sustaining that
faith and keeping us coming to Him poor and needy. Saying, Oh Lord, would you bow
down? Would you bow down to me, just
this poor and needy sinner, and hear me? You know, that wouldn't
be a petition that most people would think would be a good reason
to make to God, that you're poor and needy, but that's what God
delights in. Those that are utterly dependent
on him. He's poor. Christ was poor in
spirit. He's the one to whom the kingdom
belongs. He's the blessed one who mourned. He's a man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief. Ravi just read it. He mourned
over the sin of those he saw. Even those that rejected him.
He stood over Jerusalem and said, I would have gathered you. And He's the one who comforts
His mourning people. He's the one who was perfectly
meek in spirit. Perfectly meek in spirit in all
His teaching and all His dealing with even those that rejected
Him. He depended on the Father. He
looked to the Father. In Psalm 69, He prayed to God
and we hear His dependence and faith toward the Father. He said,
I am poor and sorrowful. That's what Christ said, Psalm
69, 29. He said, I am poor and sorrowful. Let thy salvation, O God, set
me up on high. And the reason I'm pointing this
out is because when born again, when the Spirit of Christ entered
into David, this is in a little semblance of what our Lord was
in perfection, David had in the new man. A spirit to see he was
poor and needy. Totally dependent upon God to
provide. The spirit makes us know this. He makes us know we're sinners. We're poor and we're needy. And only God can provide. Only
God can give what we need. We're made poor and needy for
Christ to give us all spiritual blessings. They're all in His
hand to give to His people. But He only gives them to those
that come to Him poor. That means everything's got to
come from Him. Needy, He alone can provide the
need. All spiritual blessings. God
the Father heard Christ when he prayed and for Christ's sake
he will hear the poor and needy. He's put that spirit in his people.
Our Lord said in Isaiah 66, to this man will I look, saith the
Lord, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit and
trembleth at my word. He said in Psalm 72, 12, he shall
deliver the needy when he crieth. That's not somebody that comes,
you know, puffed up and has something that they can contribute. Needy. Needing God to provide all. That's the only reason you really
cry to Him. The poor also and him that hath
no helper. That's who we're talking about.
He can't help himself and no other sinner can help him. The
only one that can help him is Christ. He that hath no helper,
he shall spare the poor and needy, and he shall save the souls of
the needy. See, we're talking about the
soul. We're talking about spiritual blessings. He said over in Isaiah
41, 17, When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none,
and their tongue faileth for thirst. What's he talking about?
When you're thirsting for the living God, like the deer pants
after the water brooks, when you're thirsting for God, I mean
thirsting from God, not we're trying to have our way and not
we're trying to work things out ourselves and not we're trying
to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and make ourselves acceptable
to God. When you are dying of thirst because you have no water
and you can produce no water, When you cry to Him, cry to Him
from a desperate need. He said, I, the Lord, will hear
them. I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them. I'll open rivers
in high places. We cry for God to bow down and
to hear us. cry for God to act on our behalf,
to provide all the blessings we need. Sometimes we don't even
know what blessings we do need. We need Him. We need Him. So that was the first petition.
Lord, hear me. Bow down and hear me. I'm poor
and needy. Here's the second thing he asked
for God. to preserve and save his soul. He said in verse 2, Preserve
my soul, for I am holy. O thou my God, save thy servant
that trusteth in thee. Preserve my soul. More than just the body. We're
not talking about here just providing for the body. We're talking about
the soul. We're talking about the inner
man. We're talking about the soul. Protect me. Guard me. Preserve me. Save my soul that
I might live with thee forever, God. That I might be accepted
of thee. God shall do this. The Hebrew
right here, it's the equivalent in Greek is what Paul prayed
when he said he was confident of this very thing that he which
hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day
of Jesus Christ. He will preserve his people and
he'll keep you. He said, the peace of God which
passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through
Christ Jesus. He will keep the soul of his
people. And those poor and needy, those
that know themselves to be defenseless, those that know themselves to
be entirely dependent upon God to preserve and save our soul,
that's what we cry for, Lord preserve and save my soul. What's the basis of David's petition
for God to preserve his soul? His petition for God to hear
him was, Lord, I'm poor and needy. I need you to provide everything. What's his petition here for
God to preserve his soul? For I am holy. For I am holy. Is David pleading
his own holiness for God to hear him because he's holy? The margin
says, for I'm one thou favorest. And one thou has sanctified,
and one thou has set apart by thy grace in Christ. He's not
basing his petition on something he had done for God or any fruit
he bore. That wouldn't be poor and needy.
That wouldn't be humble and contrite. You know Christ, the scripture
tells us Christ created all things for himself, for his glory. Everything
that's made, in some way it glorifies Christ, if we could just see
it. Have you ever noticed the more fruit a vine bears or the
more fruit a tree bears, the more it bends over? The more fruit it bears, the
more it needs something outside of itself to hold it up. David saw his need of Christ
by God's sanctifying grace. The more he saw his need of Christ,
he had fruit. Do you know what the fruit was? Lowliness. Fruit is lowliness. To his own self he was poor and
needy and depended upon God to preserve him and save his soul.
He saw his need for God more. So David based this petition
on what God had done for him. Preserve my soul for I'm one
you set apart, Lord. Basing this on God's word and
on God's promise and on what God had done. I'm one you set
apart, God. One you set apart for yourself
in Christ before this world was made. One you chose by your free
grace. Sanctified by your free grace.
Of God are you in Christ Jesus. If we come to God saying what
the Pharisee said, Lord I thank Thee, I'm not like him. I do
this, I do that, I do the other. That would be boasting in some
holiness or another. He's coming here petitioning
God on what God has done. God, you've put me in grace.
You've made me holy by your electing grace. preserve me, Lord, because Christ
has perfected me forever by His one offering. I don't have any
other hope but that. Lord, You've made me holy by
the blood of Your own Son. Of God is He made unto us sanctification. He made me a partaker of His
holiness and a partaker of His divine nature. You came in Spirit, Lord, and
put a new spirit in me, a new man in me, holy by Christ dwelling
in me to make me look away from me to Him who is my holiness
and not to anything in me. This is one sanctified by God's
grace in Christ Jesus. If he didn't need God to preserve
him, if he was stronger and stronger and stronger, he wouldn't be
saying, Lord, preserve me. But this is one that's made holy. Oh God, preserve me, save me,
because of your sanctifying grace, because you made me to trust
you to do so. O thou my God, save thy servant
that trusteth in thee. I need you to do the saving. I need you to preserve me. For those that God sanctified
to see that Christ is our holiness, here's the greatest word you'll
have from him. Fear thou not, O my servant Jacob, saith the Lord. Neither be dismayed,
O Israel, for lo, I will save thee. I will save thee. I'll preserve you. That's our
only hope, what he's done for us. David cries for God's mercy.
He says here in verse 3, Be merciful unto me, O Lord, for I cry unto
Thee daily. Be merciful unto me, O Lord,
because I cry unto Thee daily. David says, In my cast down state,
in my miserable state, in my weak and lowly condition. What
was the problem? He's a picture of Christ here.
Because at the end, he's surrounded by proud men who don't have God
set before him that are trying to kill him. And nobody can save him. And he says, Lord, in my cast
down, miserable, weak, lowly condition, make me the object
of your mercy. Make me the object of your pity.
Make me the object of your compassion. David's suffering. And he keeps
praying, oh Lord, oh God, oh Jehovah. Don't we pray that way? You ever prayed that way? Where
you just, oh Lord, please help me, please, oh Lord. It's called groanings that can't
be uttered. David's penning this and he's
writing this so it can be sung, but when David prayed like this,
You can just imagine there'd be lots of spaces in this psalm
where he'd just say, oh Lord. And no words. His heart just
crying out to God. But Christ made this petition
in perfection. And our groanings come up to
God through Christ, our intercessor. They come up in perfection. Christ
said in Psalm 41, 9, to show you this is all a picture of
Christ. He said, yea, mine own familiar
friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted
up his heel against me. But thou, O Lord, be merciful
unto me, and raise me up, that I may requite them. And God heard
him. God raised him up. And now he's
living there as the intercessor who justified his people, who's
the advocate with the Father, who's a propitiation for our
sin, who's making intercession for his people. Wherefore he's
able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God
by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. He does. What did David base
this petition on? He said, for I cry unto thee
daily. One, it's on the fact he cried
to God alone. I cry unto thee. I cry unto thee. He glorified God. In each of
these, you see, he makes a petition, and then he praises God. Lord, I need you to bow down
and hear me, because I'm poor and needy. That's glorifying
to God. Only you, God. can hear and fulfill
this petition. Lord, I need you to preserve
my soul because your name is attached to me. You've made me
holy. This is your work, Lord. I need
you to save my soul. And here he says, Lord, I cry
unto thee daily. You're the one that can be merciful. You're the only one that can
be merciful to me and save me. He was importunate. He cried to God daily, constantly,
without ceasing. I cry unto thee daily. You know, when the Lord calls
you and you begin to pray, really pray, you know, I always think
of Saul of Tarsus, and he had said a lot of prayers, and you
hear people, they say a prayer for me, and he had said a lot
of prayers. But whenever the Lord revealed
Himself in him, the Lord said, Behold, he prayeth. He really
started crying to God. And you really start crying to
God. And it's sad that we do cry to Him daily. I think all
God's people cry to the Lord daily. But we don't pray perfectly. We don't pray as we ought. We're
cold a lot of times, and sometimes we just do say prayers. Our Lord's a perfect intercessor,
but He will bring His child into trouble, and He will cause you
to cry to Him, and keep crying to Him, keep crying to Him, keep
crying to Him. And let me ask you a question.
Is there any better place you could be than crying to Him and
crying to Him and crying to Him? Christ gave the parable of that
one who kept knocking, went to the neighbor and kept knocking
and needed some bread, kept knocking. He said, because of his importunity,
he will arise and give him as much as he needs. And Christ
said, I say unto you, ask, and it shall be given you. Seek,
and you shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened
unto you. For everyone that asketh receiveth,
and he that seeketh findeth. And to him that knocketh, it
shall be opened. Here's something else he based
this on. I think we need to put verse 5 with this. For thou,
Lord, art good. Lord, God, be merciful, for thou,
Lord, art good. It's the goodness of God that
leadeth thee to repentance. It's the goodness of God that
puts prayer into our heart and makes us see we're poor and needy.
Makes us see we need God to preserve us. Makes us see we need God
to be merciful to us. He has to put that prayer in
our heart. We can't pray that to God. We can say be merciful,
but I mean really, really be a vessel who needs God's mercy. Goodness of God does that. And
it's the goodness of God that makes His child behold His goodness
and be free enough and feel welcome enough to come to Him and ask
this when you're laden with sin. We cry for God to be merciful.
Here's the petition. For thou, Lord, art ready to
forgive. Oh, God, be merciful. See how
he's praising God? He's basing all this on what
God's able to do. He's the needy one. When we pray,
we're the ones that need. We're basing everything on what
God's able to do and what He's willing to do. God, be merciful
to me because you're ready to forgive. Somebody said, God's
more ready to forgive than we are to ask Him for forgiveness. And he forgives readily. David
said in Psalm 32, 5, I believe that was when he was, he was
the one who had gone and asked the bread and all the priests
had been killed because of him. And he said, I acknowledge my
sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will
confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and thou forgavest
the iniquity of my sin. He's ready. If you come to Him,
He is ready to forgive. David cried for God to be merciful. For thou, Lord, are plenteous
in mercy unto all them that call upon thee. That means rich in
mercy, abundant in mercy. Unto all them that call on him,
all them that come saying, I'm poor, I'm needy. Lord, I need
you to preserve me. You're the holy one. I need you
to sanctify. I need you to preserve me and
hedge me about and keep me protected. Be my refuge. Lord, I need you
to be merciful. You're the one that's rich in
mercy. You know, when you confess your need to God for mercy, you're
saying you don't deserve any of this mercy from God. Nothing. But when you call on Him, and
your heart's breaking, and you... He's the only one you can call,
and the only one you want to call on. He's the only one you
know that can help you. And he brings you to cry out
like Micah did, who is a God like unto thee that pardoneth
iniquity and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage.
He retaineth not his anger forever because he delighteth in mercy. And then lastly, David cries
for joy. cries for joy. Verse four, rejoice
the soul of thy servant. Rejoice the soul of thy servant. This life is just, it's trouble,
it's sadness, it's sorrow, it's one trouble after another. And
it's going to be that way to the end. After his sin with Bathsheba
and after he murdered Uriah, David cried to God after he had
made all this petition to God just like he is making right
here. He cried to God and he said, Make me to hear joy and
gladness that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. The bones you have broken. He
said, Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation and uphold me
with thy free spirit. Why did Christ lay down His life?
Why did He come and take the place of His people on that cross
and bear the sin of His people and the wrath of God, the fierceness
of God's anger? Why did He do that? He did it to make His people
the righteousness of God in him. And declare God the Savior in
the process, that he's just and the Savior of his people. But
he did make his people the righteousness of God in him. Not just righteousness,
the righteousness of God in him. What's going to rejoice the bones
God's broken? You could have, we're not talking
about God mending everything temporarily for you. We're not
talking about God fixing everything in you, in your life and in your
job and none of that. We're not talking about that
may be left untouched. What's going to rejoice you in
your soul? Christ came to redeem his people,
to come to his people, to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion. Not them that just mourn because
you stumped your toe, or mourn because your car got damaged. Them that mourn what they are. what they are before God. He came to give unto them beauty
in the place of ashes. He came to give the oil of joy
to replace the mourning, the weeping. He came to give the garment of
praise for the spirit of heaviness, so that you might be called trees
of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might get
all the glory. That's the joy we're talking
about. Him coming, He said, as one whom his mother comforted,
so will I comfort you, and you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.
When you see, what is it He makes you see? He makes you see That
was you on the cross. He makes you see that was you.
He really took your place on the cross. He makes you see what horrific offense you and your sin is to
God by beholding it on Christ. That's the only way. and beholding
Christ putting it away. And beholding Him come out of
that grave and you go with Him to glory and sit down at His
right hand. And He says, when you see, when
you see, when you see this by faith, your heart shall rejoice. That's rejoicing nothing else
can put in you. your heart shall rejoice, your
bones shall flourish like an herb, and the hand of the Lord
shall be known toward his servants, and his indignation toward his
enemies. What's this basis for this? For
unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. Lord, I can't put
joy in my soul. I can't do anything for myself.
Lord, I'm committing it all to You. Christ gave His soul an
offering for sin to make His people righteous. And when He
brings you here, He makes you just commit your whole soul to
Him. Lord, I'm committing my soul
to You to give me this joy. And He prayed this expecting
it. Because he should expect it. This is the work of the Lord.
This is not just David praying. This is the work of the Lord
making him pray. This is true prayer. He said, verse 6, Give ear, O
Lord, unto my prayer, and attend to the voice of my supplications.
In the day of my trouble I will call upon Thee, because Thou
wilt answer. You come, poor and needy, You
come giving God all the glory for everything He's done. You
come needing Him to preserve you, needing Him to save you.
You come needing Him to be merciful to you because you don't deserve
anything from Him. You come needing Him to be the
joy and put the joy in your heart. And I want to tell you something,
if we ever really pray, from the first time the Lord says,
Behold, he prayeth, to the last prayer he puts in your heart,
that's how his child's coming. When it's of him and he's put
it in your heart to really pray, that's the only way we really
pray right there. And here's the good news. God
will answer thee. what He's put in our heart to
give Him all the glory and His Son all the glory for His Son's
sake, for His righteousness sake, He will answer. He will answer. Alright, Brother Greg.