The heading of this psalm says that
this is a psalm of David. It was penned by David, but this
is a prophecy concerning Christ. This is Christ speaking. Down
in verse 9, Christ speaks of Judas betraying Him. He says,
My own familiar friend in whom I trusted, which did eat of my
bread, hath lifted up his heel against me. And we know that's
Christ speaking because over in John 13, 18, as they were
sitting at the table that night, the Lord Jesus said, I speak
not of you all, I know whom I have chosen, but that the Scripture
may be fulfilled. He that eateth bread with me
hath lifted up his heel against me. He quoted that scripture.
And so we can look at this psalm now and we know this psalm is
Christ speaking. This is Christ speaking in this
psalm. Now the main point of the psalm
is found in verse 1. There's two parts to it, two
main points to it. The first thing the Lord Jesus
says is blessed, happy, is he that considereth the poor. That's
the blessed man. The blessed man, the happy man,
is he who considers the poor rather than condemn those fallen
in sin, rather than stand in judgment over them. The happy
man is he that considers them, comes to their aid, comforts
them, helps them, puts their sin away. And then the second
part he says, he that considers the poor has this promise from
God. The Lord will deliver him in
time of trouble. And there's a point to that.
It's not just that if you go out and you help poor people
then God's going to deliver you and save you because you help
poor folks. The point is when we're helping
the poor, when you're sacrificing for somebody
for a poor sinner. Sometimes you have this thought
that they're going to reciprocate and appreciate what you've done
for them. And that's not always the case.
We're going to see here how Christ was treated while he was considering
the poor. And when that is happening and
if God permitted everybody to reciprocate that to you, you
would get your comfort from how people responded to you considering
the poor. You would have your comfort and
your consolation and your strength from how they treated you. But
a lot of times they treat you just mean as a snake, even though
you've tried to do everything you can for them. And so he's
teaching us our strength and our comfort and our deliverance
in these times. It's not of man. It's the Lord
that's going to be our deliverer and our keeper and our preserver
as we're rejected and cast off by men. You get what he's saying? The blessed man, the happy man
is he that's considering the poor. And as he does so, All
His comfort and all His salvation is coming from the Lord. It's
not coming from man, it's coming from the Lord. Now, first of
all, I want you to understand that this blessed man that considereth
the poor is Christ Jesus the God-man. He's the blessed man
that considereth the poor. The poor whom our Lord Jesus
considers is God's elect, fallen into the poverty of sin. the
poverty of sin that we're talking about here. And it's God's elect
that He considers who have fallen into sin. Now that wasn't always
our case. We weren't created in poverty. God gave us great riches when
He created Adam in the garden. God gave him the riches of uprightness. He created Adam after his own
image. He created Adam upright with
no sin in a sinless world. Great riches He gave to Adam.
He gave Adam the riches of having a communion with Holy God. Adam could walk and talk with
Holy God in the garden. He gave him the riches of having
a fruitful garden in a fruitful world. No sin was in the world. Everything, if you planted a
seed, it was growing. There wasn't anything that is
the result of sin at that time. This world was a perfect world.
Perfectly created by God and there's Adam put in the midst
of it and God said and of all the trees in this garden you
can freely eat just that one. You can't eat. God gave Adam
the riches of dominion and I'm talking about perfect dominion.
Listen to this, God said, let us make man in our image after
our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the
sea, over the fowl of the air, over the cattle, over all the
earth, over every creeping thing that creepeth on the earth. Some
people say, well, we still have that dominion. No, no, not like
Adam had. These animals would come to Adam.
A lion would walk up to Adam and sit down at his feet and
he could pet him and name him and walk in and out between fierce
animals and whatever. The fish, he could gather up
the fish and name the fish. Every creeping thing on earth.
He had total, complete, perfect dominion over everything and
nothing was afraid of him. But in direct rebellion against
God, Adam sinned, broke that one commandment, ate of that
one tree God said not to eat of, and when he did, he plunged
himself and all his family, all of mankind into dire poverty. He plunged us into the poverty
of sin and death. that immediately entered in and
Adam lost that communion he had with God. Immediately we fell
into the poverty of a sin-cursed world so that we have to sweat
to earn our bread and this earth brings forth briars unto us. We lost communion with God. We
fell into the poverty of being... there was Adam in the garden
and then he's cast out of the garden. And we lost that communion
with God in Adam. And all that dominion we had,
we fell into the poverty of just being defiled. Everything we
touch, we defile it, and we don't have that dominion like Adam
had. But Christ Jesus, the Son of God, is he that considereth
his poor people. He considereth His poor people.
When He saw all His elect falling into this dire poverty of sin
and death, Psalm 136.23 says, He remembered us in our low estate,
for His mercy endureth forever. He didn't turn away from us when
we fell into this poverty. He remembered us in our poverty.
Considering His poor people, this One who is God came to where
we are. humbled himself and lowered himself
and came down to where we are. As Paul said in Philippians 2.7,
he made himself of no reputation. This one who had every right
to have the reputation as God our Savior, he made himself of
no reputation. He took the form of a servant.
This one who is God over all, this one who created all things
and upholds all things made himself subservient under the law. and He was made in the likeness
of men. Being found in fashion as a man,
He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the
death of the cross. We know how the grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ, how though He was rich, and you just can't
even fathom how rich He was, yet for our sakes, He became
poor. He gave all His riches to us
poor fallen sinners that through His poverty we might be made
rich. This is what Christ did for His
people. So believer, we're going to look at this Psalm here and
it's going to show us how Christ suffered as He considered us
poor, bankrupt, destitute sinners. This is why He was here. He was considering you and me,
His poor, sinful people. And as we see Him coming here
and considering us and doing this for us, I pray God's grace
upon us that His love, Christ's love in doing this for us might
constrain us to consider His poor, lost people who are yet
in need of His grace and His mercy. And not only His poor
elect people, but all poor people. It's God's grace to give us the
ability to do whatever we can for anybody that's poor. But
you especially, especially, if you enrich the poor man to the
point where he had a job and he could provide for himself
and he didn't have to live in poverty anymore. Well, that's
a nice thing to do for him. If you haven't given him the
gospel of Christ, still robbed him. That's the important thing. He's given poor sinners the gospel
of our Lord Jesus Christ and declaring to them what Christ
has done for his people and how he's the salvation of his people.
That's how we're to consider the poor. Christ said in His
Sermon on the Mount, Blessed are the merciful, for they shall
receive mercy. Blessed, happy are the merciful.
He said it's more blessed to give than to receive. Don't you
find that to be the case? Don't you enjoy seeing somebody
receive something that you've given them? That's a blessing
to give to somebody. More blessed to give than to
receive. It's selfishness that makes us
think the other way. To think, you know, well, I'd
rather receive than give. That's just selfishness. But
it's more blessed to give than receive. And he said, and he
that's merciful, he's blessed, he's happy, and he shall receive
mercy. And we see here why we need that
mercy. And this is what he shows us
here and how the Lord gives that mercy. He says, the Lord will
deliver him in time of trouble. Now throughout his life, Christ
lived and the reason he humbled himself, the reason he became
a servant is because he's walking this earth as the one holy, sinless,
representative and substitute of his people. He's the only
one God the Father is looking to. And so as He walked this
earth, what He does, His people are going to do, or His people
are doing in Him. So as He walks this earth, He
looks to the Father and trusts the Father in perfect faith and
fidelity. He looks to Him only to deliver
Him and provide for Him and do everything for Him. Because that's
righteousness, that's true love which is the fulfillment of the
law is to glorify God the Father by completely, totally, thoroughly,
perfectly trusting Him to provide all for you. And what Christ
is teaching us as He did that is He's teaching us to do the
same to Him. Trust Him. Put all your confidence
in Him. Lay it all at His feet and trust
that He's going to keep you and deliver you and provide for you
and do all things necessary to save you. And He's teaching us
this. He's working out our salvation
as He's looking to the Father and trusting the Father. He's
the author and the finisher of faith. He's the beginning and
the ending of faith for us. And as He's doing that, perfecting
our salvation, He's also setting an example for us, teaching us
to look only to Him and trust only the Lord Jesus even as He
looked to the Father. And He says this, here was His
confidence in the Father. Verse 1, The Lord will deliver
him in time of trouble. The Lord will preserve him and
keep him alive. He's speaking about Himself.
He's the man that considered the poor and he's saying the
Lord will deliver him in time of trouble. The Lord will preserve
him and keep him alive. And he shall be blessed upon
the earth. Thou wilt not deliver him unto the will of his enemies.
The Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing.
Thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness. But we don't ever
read about Christ laying upon a bed of languishing. We don't
ever read about our Lord Jesus being upon this sickbed. What's
He talking about? He tells us in the next verse,
verse 4. I said, Lord, be merciful unto me, heal my soul, for I
have sinned against Thee. I hope that These words don't make you say,
that can't be Christ speaking. I hope that's not what you think.
Christ Jesus the Lord was born of a virgin, not of a sinful
man, so that he came forth holy, spotless, undefiled, separate
from sinners. That's who he is. That's how
he came forth into this world. But He came to manifest the righteousness
of God. He came to declare God just. He came to deal with God's law
for His people and give divine justice, everything it demanded
of His people. He came to declare God the justifier. He came to lay down His life
and justify His people from our sins. And so in holy obedience,
in holy obedience, In the first garden it was disobedience that
plunged us into sin and death. In the garden of Gethsemane it
was holy obedience whereby the last Adam saw his bride plunged
into sin and he willingly gave himself to bear her sin and be
made sin for her that he might make her righteous and holy.
This was what Christ was doing. Robert Hawker said this, he said,
as the high priest was commanded on the day of atonement to lay
all the sins of the people upon the scapegoat, so Jesus stood
with all the burden of his people's sins upon him. As the prophet
said, the Lord hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all. And as such, Christ might well
be supposed in the name of His redeemed to say, Heal my soul,
for I have sinned against thee. You see brethren, this is how
full of sin we are. Everything we do has sin mixed
with it. Even our confession of sin has
sin mixed with it. Even our plea for mercy has sin
mixed with it. We need an intercessor who is
so perfect that he Once He's taken our sin, He could intercede
for us and beg God's mercy and confess His sin that He owned
to be His own, confess it to be His, so that there's a perfect
intercession that's been made to the Father. And that's what
Christ did. He made intercession for His
people. He took our infirmities and our
sicknesses, but more than that, He took the sins that caused
them. And he was touched with all the
feeling that those sins and infirmities cause. And worse, he was touched
with the justice. The hand of God touched him.
The wrath of God touched him. Because he was bearing all the
sin of his people. And our Lord Jesus Christ, Isaiah
said, He justified His people. He bared the sin of many. And
He made intercession for the transgressors. He said, I have
sinned. Forgive me. That's how real Christ
became one with us. That's why He was made flesh.
That's why it was a necessity. That's why it was a necessity
He be made under the law. That was why it was a necessity
that He go to the cross. He was bearing our sin. And here's the good news, brethren.
This is why I want you to understand this. Not only because He declares
the righteousness of God. That's the first reason. That's
important. That's the most important. But secondly, I want you to understand
this because as real, however real Christ was made sin, that's
how real you've been made the righteousness of God in Him. And I tell you, the Lord wasn't
just treating him as if he was made sin. And He's not just treating
you as if you've been made righteous. He made him sin. And in doing
so, Christ made us righteous. We are righteous before God.
So as we hear Christ in this psalm declaring how the Lord
Jehovah made good on all His covenant promises, supporting
and delivering our Redeemer in everything He faced, and you
see Him being delivered by God the Father in all this, understand
this brethren, these same blessings are ours for Christ's sake. The Father is going to do these
same things for His people for the sake of Christ our Redeemer. Christ declares here that He
received a completely different treatment from poor sinners as
He walked this earth. From poor, bankrupt, depraved
sinners as He walked this earth. Here He is, He's come now to
save His poor people. And yet, this is the treatment
He received as He came and sacrificed Himself and laid down His life
to save his people. This is the treatment he received
from sinners, right here. He says, all his enemies united
as one man to try to see him put to death. He says in verse
5, my enemies speak evil of me. When shall he die and his name
perish? You know that passage from John
11, all the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered to make
this council and they said, what are we going to do with this
man? They said, this man's doing many miracles, if we leave him
alone, everybody's going to believe on him. And the Romans are going
to come and they're going to take away our place and our nation.
And that's all they were worried about. And one of them stood
up, Caiaphas, He was speaking and he didn't know what he was
saying. He didn't understand what he was saying himself. But
God put the words in his mouth and Caleb stood up and he said,
you don't understand, it's expedient that one should die for the people
so that the whole nation perish not. Is that not the gospel?
One should die so the whole nation don't perish. And he said, it
says, this spake he not of himself, But being high priest that year,
he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation and not for
that nation only, but that He should gather together in one
the children of God scattered abroad. And so from that day
forth, they took counsel together how they might put Him to death. Here He is laying down His life
for poor sinners, come down from glory, walking this earth in
the likeness of our flesh, and all sinful men could say is,
I wish we could just kill him and get his name out of our midst. His enemies only came to him. They came, you know, like they
were really concerned and they really have some honest questions,
but the only thing they were doing was trying to catch him
in his words so they could justify rejecting him and walking away.
It says here in verse 6, And if he come to see me, nobody's
enemies, if he come to see me, he speaketh vanity. His heart
gathereth iniquity to itself. When he goeth abroad, he telleth
it. All that hate me whisper together against me. Against
me do they devise my heart, my hurt. The Pharisees and the Sadducees,
they wouldn't just walk away from the Lord Jesus. They wouldn't
just say, okay, we reject Him. We don't have nothing to do with
Him. They just wouldn't do that. What they did is they kept coming
to Him, trying to get Him to say something or do something
so they could justify before the people and say, see, this
is why we're leaving. This is why we're rejecting Him
right here. Then went the Pharisees and took
counsel how they might entangle him in his talk. And because
they couldn't entangle him in his talk, Christ says, then when
they went abroad, they went abroad telling what he had said, but
they twisted his words and didn't speak the truth of what he said.
They didn't quote what he said, they twisted his words and took
them out of context and made it sound like he was speaking
lies and what have you. And Christ said they did all
this because they hated Him. He says, all that hate Me, all
that hate Me whisper together against Me, against Me do they
devise My heart. Brethren, if you, by God's grace,
consider the poor, you spend of yourselves, you're willing
to be spent for the poor, needy brethren, Don't be surprised
if you get this treatment. Don't be surprised because this
is how Christ was treated. Christ was bearing the sins of
His people which causes our diseases and our sickness and yet, here's
what sinners said, it's His own fault. He did something to deserve
it. Look at verse 8, an evil disease say they cleaveth fast
unto him and now that he lieth he shall rise up no more. And
to this day that's how spiritually ignorant people are, that's what
they say about the cross. This man Jesus, there was a reason
he was crucified. He did something to get what,
that's why it was his fault. That's how unregenerate sinners
look at it. Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows,
yet we did esteem him stricken and smitten of God and afflicted.
We were like Job's friends. We came and looked upon Christ
and said, you did something. You're getting what you deserve.
Brethren, when your loved ones and your believing brethren,
when they are chastened of the Lord, don't stand in judgment
over them and accuse them of sin and something they've done
and God punishing them for something. God chastens His children to
correct us, but He doesn't punish His children. He punished us
in Christ on the cross. What He's doing for us is for
our good, but don't ever stand in judgment. Don't be like Job's
friends. At last, Christ said He was betrayed by His own close
friend Judas. He said, verse 9, Yea, mine all
familiar friend in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, had
lifted up his heel against me. Here's the Son of God in human
flesh, come to consider His poor helpless people, and yet this
was the sin and the enmity He was met with. That's the sin and enmity from
which He came to save you and me too. That was us, brethren. That was our heart right there.
That's what He came to save you and me from. So when you, you
know, we have this tendency. It's real easy. When you're treated
like this and you feel like you've, you know, You know you've sacrificed
and you've given of yourself and you've worked the long hours
and gone out of your way and done whatever for those that
profess to believe. And one day, they treat you like
this. It's easy to have a pity party.
It's easy to feel sorry for yourself and to feel like, well, how could
they treat me like this after what I've done? No. No. expect it. Shall the servant
be greater than his Lord? Shall our Lord Jesus be treated
this way and we not be treated this way? We're called not only
to believe on Christ but to suffer for His sake. But here's what
He teaches us to do. He teaches us to look to Christ
who suffered in perfect faith looking to God. He teaches us
to look to Him as He looked to the Father. Look in verse 10.
This is what Christ said in the midst of all this. But thou,
O Lord, be merciful unto me and raise me up that I may repay
them. In every time of need, brethren,
when you're treated this way, when you've done good and you've
considered the poor and you've tried to help poor sinners and
you're treated like our Lord Jesus was treated, flee to Christ. flee to Christ and ask for Him
to be merciful to you and to raise you up and leave it to
Christ to requite, leave it to Him to repay. Vengeance belongs
to Him. If we flee to Christ, we'll find all the same blessings
in Him that He found in the Father when He fled to the Father. God
favored and delighted in Christ. Look at verse 11. By this I know
that thou favorest me because mine enemy doth not triumph over
me. Christ accomplished all His Father's
counsel. He ratified His covenant. He
saved His people. He declared God just and justifier. He exalted God to the highest.
And God delighted in Him. He had great favor toward His
Son. He delighted in Him. And if you
come confessing your need of mercy to Christ, and you come
casting all your care on Christ, you're going to find out God
delights in you. for the sake of Christ. All who
come exalting His Son and by putting all their trust and faith
in His Son, the Father is delighted with them because they exalt
the Son He's delighted with and trust Him for salvation. And
that's what you'll find. And by this we know God favored
Him because He did not let any of Christ's enemies triumph over
Him. Not a one. His enemies thought they triumphed
when they nailed him to the cross and then they buried him in a
grave. They thought, oh, we got him out of the way now. We're
done with him now. Three days later, the Lord raised
him from the dead. He prayed. He said, Father, have
mercy on me. Raise me up. That's what he did.
He raised him up three days later. Satan thought he triumphed over
him on the cross, thought he had put him there and slain him
and now he had triumphed and all that was taking place was
Christ was bruising his head by taking away all the sin of
his people so that the devil has nothing with which to accuse
us to the Father anymore. He took away all his ammunition.
His enemies thought they ended all the word of Jesus and it
would never be spoken again, they wouldn't have to hear that
name preached anymore. God raised up His apostles and
here they come preaching the gospel and they're still preaching
His name today. He's still calling out His people
and saving His people. Never triumphed over Him, not
even death in the grave. And in Christ, brethren, and
for Christ's sake, that's how we know God favors us. In all
these things, whatever it is we face, we're more than conquerors
through Him that loved us. He won't let any enemy triumph
over us. God the Father upheld Christ
in His integrity. He justified Him of all these
false charges laid against Him. Look at verse 12, Psalm 41, 12.
As for me, Thou upholdest me in mine integrity and settest
me before Thy face forever. Here's one thing that is so troubling.
When men come and they talk to you and they go off and they
misquote you and they say things that are false and they lay false
charges against you, it's one of the toughest things for us
is not to defend ourselves. You want to defend yourself.
And that's one of the hardest things, is not to try to defend
yourself. But let me tell you something,
you try to defend yourself, you're going to end up in a worse mess
than you're in. As Brother Don always says, you
might get into a spraying match with a skunk, you might win it,
but you're going to end up smelling like a skunk. And that's just so. But look
to the Lord and trust the Lord and He will uphold your integrity. He will. That's what he did.
Consider how he ordered everything in providence so that all these
false witnesses ended up disagreeing with each other. They couldn't
agree with each other so as to charge him together falsely. God did that. He made it so they
couldn't agree. And then Pilate even said, his
wife said, have nothing to do with this righteous man. Here's
a heathen woman God used to call him a righteous man. And Pilate
said, I'm washing my hands of this. This man's innocent. The
ruler even said it. God used Judas after Judas had
betrayed him. Judas came back, threw the silver
down and said, I don't want anything to do with it. This man was a
righteous man. God's upholding his integrity. But most of all,
brethren, He justified Him when He raised
Him from the dead and He set Him at His own right hand, set
Him before His face. Look there, He says, verse 12,
As for me, thou holdest me in mine integrity and settest me
before thy face forever. He raised Him and set Him before
His face there at His right hand forever and ever. and he preserved
his integrity. So when you are accused and falsely
charged, brethren, don't try to defend yourself. Just trust
the Lord. He's going to uphold your integrity. You're righteous
and holy in Christ, and He's going to uphold your reputation. He will. He'll provide friends
and brethren who will defend you, and He'll make your own
enemies end up speaking the truth about you, just like He did Christ.
So look to Christ to uphold you. Now here's what I want to end
with this, brethren. If you know the love and grace
of Christ who came and considered you when you were poor and destitute
in your sins, I pray His grace and His love would constrain
you now to consider the poor. To go and do whatever you can
to send this gospel forth and to make certain that poor, desperate
sinners hear the glorious, unsearchable riches of Christ and Him crucified.
This is the only way He enriches His people, through this gospel.
And then whatever else you can do for poor folks, give them
a coat food or whatever, do it for them. Do it for them. Get
that out of the way so they don't have to be worried about all
that and have their mind focused on that so they can hear the
gospel that you want them to hear. And as you do it, and as
you reject it of men, and as men walk away, even your very
closest friend, like our Lord was betrayed by Judas, Don't
fall down and have a pity party and think, oh, woe is me. Look
to the Lord to deliver you and to strengthen you and to comfort
you and to keep you. Just as He's always considered
you poor sinner, He'll keep considering you His poor child. And as you
do so, don't try to defend yourself against false allegations and
all these things. Look to the Lord to uphold your
integrity and He will. And here's where we'll be brought.
Right where Christ came. Right here. This is His doxology
and this is where He'll bring you and me to say. Verse 13.
Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting and to everlasting. Amen and Amen. That's where the
double Amen is. He is the blessed God. and He
takes care of His people. Don't ever, ever lose sight of
that. Alright brethren, we're going
to observe the Lord's table now.