Turn with me, if you would, back
to Psalm 86. Psalm 86, just under the title
for this Psalm, you'll notice that it says a prayer of David. Don't turn, but Psalm 90 says
a prayer of Moses. Psalm 72 says, a prayer for,
which translates of Solomon. Different men were used to write
the Psalms. And these were their words. These are the words of those
men. They felt this. I've pointed this out to you
before, but this is so important. They wrote from their heart. This is what they wanted to say.
These were their words. And these are the words of every
believer who reads the Psalms. These are our words. When we read the Psalms and enter
into them, They are our words. We're saying this. Every child
of God takes these words for his or her own. Every child of
God. But the only reason that any
sinner can say, these are my words, the only reason is because
Christ said, these are my words. These are my words. When we read
the Psalms, You will hear people say for
different Psalms, this is a messianic Psalm. All the Psalms are messianic
Psalms. Whenever we read the Psalms,
if we will read them as the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, and
that's what that means when you say a Messianic Psalm, the words
of Christ himself, if we'll read them as the words of Christ himself,
we will see the gospel in the Psalm. We're gonna look at this
as our own words tonight. but only after we see the words
of Christ in this first. Psalm 86, these are the words
of Christ our Savior, Christ our substitute. And if we wanna get to the heart
of the gospel, it is Christ our substitute. That's the heart
of the gospel. Christ being the substitute for
his people. These are the words of our Lord
Jesus Christ as he is bearing the condemnation of God for us. We cannot imagine what he bore. One of these days we will Passover
into, I have a lot of reason right now to think about death
and, you know, what we're gonna experience and the day of judgment
and all of these things. And at that moment, we're gonna,
we're gonna more so enter into what our Lord endured for us. These right here are the words
that were in our Lord's heart. These are the words that were
in these men who wrote it. These are the words that are
in our hearts as we read it. These are the words that were
in our Lord's heart. As he suffered the agony of having
all of the sin of his people pressed into him. The Holy Spotless
One, what an awful thing. All of that sin pressed into
him. This is what he was crying to
the father as he sweat as it were great drops of blood. This was his communion to his
father as he stood on trial, condemned in the sin that he
took ownership of. He took our sin, our sorrow,
he made it his very own. This was his communion while
he was being mocked and spit on and beaten, tortured more
than any man has ever been tortured, marred more than any man. This
was his cry as they were driving nails through him. This was his cry as he hung in
open humiliation, humiliation, exposed so we could be covered.
This is what he said in his heart as he bowed his head and handed
his spirit to God. This was his cry while he suffered
the indescribable agony of being separated from God. Separated from God. laying in the grave, separated
from God. Now read verse one with this
in mind. He said, bow down thine ear,
O Lord, and hear me, for I am poor and needy. That just broke
my heart when I read that. That just broke my heart. How could he say that? How could
the Lord Jesus Christ, God the Son, the Creator, the
Inheritor of all things, the spotless One, the sinless One,
how could He say that? How could that be Him? How could
that possibly be Him saying that? Here's how. He could say that
because he was standing there in the place of you and me. I am poor and needy. In order to save us, he had to
become us. He had to stand in our place
as us. And that's what I am. I am poor
and needy. The scripture says, though he
was rich, he made himself to be poor, that
we through his poverty might be rich. Hold your place right
here. We're gonna flip back and forth
to a few scriptures. Go with me to Psalm 40. Psalm 40, verse 6. It says, "...sacrifice and offering
thou didst not desire, mine ears hast thou opened, burnt offering
and sin offering hast thou not required, Then said I, lo, I
come, in the volume of the book it is written of me. This is
the Lord Jesus Christ speaking. Verse eight, he said, I delight
to do thy will, O my God. Yea, thy law is within my heart. I have preached righteousness
in the great congregation. Lo, I have not refrained my lips. O Lord, thou knowest. I have
not hid thy righteousness within my heart. I have declared thy
righteousness and thy salvation. I have not concealed thy loving
kindness and thy truth from the great congregation. This is Christ
speaking. And as our substitute, bearing
our sin for us in our place from the garden to the cross to the
grave, he said in verse 11, withhold not thou thy tender mercies from
me, O Lord. Let thy loving kindness and thy
truth continually preserve me, for innumerable evils have compassed
me about. Could you imagine trying to count
your sins? Could you imagine? And then trying
to count the sin of all of his people. Can you imagine? Innumerable
evils have compassed me about. He said, mine iniquities have
taken hold upon me. The spotless one, he literally
took ownership of our sin. And he said, mine, they are mine. Mine iniquities have taken hold
upon me so that I am not able to look up. They are more than
the hairs of mine head. Therefore, my heart faileth me. Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver
me. O Lord, make haste to help me. Let them be ashamed and confounded
together that seek after my soul to destroy it. Who was that? That was us. That was his people
crying, crucify him, crucify him. Some of them were. Let them be driven backward and
put to shame that wish me evil. Let them be desolate for a reward
of their shame that saying to me, aha, aha, where did he deal
with us in that way? In his own son. He was made desolate. Let all those that seek thee
rejoice and be glad in thee. Let such as love thy salvation
say continually, the Lord be magnified. Verse 17, he said,
but I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me. Thou
art my help and my deliverer. Make no tarrying, O my God. Flip back with me to Psalm 86.
For us, for his people, he said in verse one, bow down thine
ear, O Lord. Hear me, for I am poor and needy. Hear me, for
I am poor and needy. Verse two, he said, preserve
my soul, for I am holy. And he is. He is, he is the Holy
One. But that word means one whom
thou favorest. I am one whom thou favorest. I'm one who you favor. So Lord
preserve my soul. Again, hold your place right
here and go with me to Psalm 16. Psalm 16, verse eight. It says, I have set the Lord
always before me because he is at my right hand, I shall not
be moved. This is Christ speaking. I have
set the Lord always before me because he is at my right hand,
I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and
my glory rejoiceth. My flesh also shall rest in hope. Dwell confidently. For thou wilt
not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One
to see corruption. Thou wilt show me the path of
life, In thy presence is fullness of joy. At thy right hand, there
are pleasures forevermore." From the grave, he rejoiced, even
in all of his agony, saying to the Father, I'm resting in hope. I'm resting because I know that
you will not leave my soul in hell. You will not suffer your
Holy One to see corruption. You will preserve my soul because
even though I'm enduring this for my people, especially because
I'm enduring this for my people, I'm one whom you favor and you
won't leave me here and you won't leave them here. I'm redeeming
them from this pit. I am the ransom. You found a
ransom and I'm him. Oh, preserve my soul, he said. Preserve me. Flip back to Psalm
86. Verse two says, preserve my soul,
for I am holy. O thou my God, save thy servant
that trusteth in thee. Father, he says, As you said
in Isaiah 42, behold my servant whom I uphold. He says, save thy servant that
trusteth in thee. Uphold me. Verse three, he said,
be merciful unto me, O Lord, for I cry unto thee daily. All the day, all the day. Hold your place again and go
to Psalm 22. Psalm 22, verse 1, our Lord said,
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so
far from helping me and from the words of my roaring? O my
God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not, and in the
night season, and am not silent. He said, I cry and I cry and
I cry all the day. He said, I am not silent, but
he said, I know why you're not hearing me and I know why you
have forsaken me. Verse three, it's because you
are holy. Thou art holy and you must do
right. You must punish this sin that
I'm bearing for my people. And I bow to that, and I patiently
wait until that punishment is over. Flip back with me to Psalm
86. Verse 4, he said, Rejoice the
soul of thy servant, for unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my
soul. For the joy that was set before
him, he said, Father, it is finished. It's finished. He said, into
thy hands I commend my spirit. And having said thus, he gave
up the ghost. Unto thee, O Lord, do I lift
up my soul." Now, can we see this? Can we see the words of
the Lord Jesus Christ in this? Can we honestly see our salvation? Do we get a glimpse of what it
took to save us? You know, seeing everything our
Lord endured, what all He did, why would any man think he needed
to add to this work, this horrific work? because this is what our Lord
did for us, because these are His words. These are the words
of our Lord on our behalf. Because these were His words,
these have been made to be our words. These would never be our
words had they not been His words. Had He not done this for us,
we would never cry this unto Him. These being His words, that's
our gospel. If we wanna know what our gospel
is, it's these being His words. That is our glorious news of
salvation. If He did not endure that for
us, that describes what is waiting for us. That describes what we
will endure on our own. This is our salvation. And because
Christ saved us through these very words, we can and we desire
to cry these very words to him because he cried these to the
father. We cry these to him. Now look at verse one with me
again. It says, bow down thine ear.
Oh Lord, hear me. For I am poor and needy." Because
of what Christ did, will you, you will, I know you will, but
will you bow down and hear me? Bow down and hear me. Verse two
says, preserve my soul. This is what every child of God
cries, preserve my soul. When that time comes for my soul
to leave this body, leave this earth and go back to you, the
one who gave it, Lord, preserve my soul. In what Christ did for me, for
Christ's sake, preserve my soul. Because Christ went through that,
please preserve my soul. Verse two says, for I am, by
your grace, in the one who saved me, I am holy. And without blame before you
in love one, you have shown favored to one who you favor in my savior. Oh, thou my God, save thy servant
that trusted in the alone. Save that servant that is trusting
in you period, not you plus anything you alone. You alone. We need to trust in the Lord
Jesus Christ alone. Whatever we have added to it,
we need to do what the Apostle Paul did. Count it all done and
throw it away. It is Jesus Christ alone. It
is these words. It is that work. It is that death
alone. Please save your servant, the
one who's trusting you alone. Verse three says, be merciful
unto me for Christ's sake. Please don't give me this punishment. This one that I deserve. Don't
give me this punishment that I deserve because you gave Christ
the punishment that I deserve. Please be merciful to me. Verse
three, be merciful unto me, O Lord, for I cry unto thee daily. It doesn't stop, does it? We
were just here Sunday, crying these very things. I cried on
Monday and Tuesday. And now here we are again Wednesday.
I'm gonna cry this tomorrow, Lord willing. If his mercy and
grace is good toward me, it never stops. I feel the sorrow of my
sin every day. Christ endured this to put away
all my sin, all my sin. However many more years I have
left, it's gonna be full of trouble, it's gonna be full of sin. And
I'm gonna feel the sorrow of it, and I'm gonna cry out to
Him every single day. Verse four says, rejoice the
soul of thy servant, For unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my
soul. Are there any other hands that
you want your soul to be in? Do we want our eternal fate,
our eternal security to be in the hands of anybody else but
Him? I don't even want my soul to
be in my own hands, Him alone. We lift it up to you. Not unto
us, O Lord, not unto us. Everything is unto you. We ascribe
it all to you. Your will, do with me what you
will. Don't we say that? As painful
as that is sometimes, as painful as that providence can be to
us sometimes, we know it's for good. Your will, Lord, your work, your
salvation, we ascribe all of it to you. All of it to you. All right, now that was our intro
to this message. All right, we have just finished
the intro. The whole reason I wanted to
be in this Psalm tonight was because of verse five. Everything
that we just set up, everything we just clarified, everything
we just declared, everything with all of these scriptures
that we just proved, Because of everything that we've seen
now, we can know with confidence that verse five is so. This is the conclusion because
of everything we just said, everything we just saw. This is the conclusion
we can come to. This is the only conclusion God's
people can come to. That's what I titled this message.
This is the only conclusion we can come to. Verse five says,
Thou, Lord, art good. Thou art good and ready to forgive
and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee. Here
is the body of our outline. Don't worry about how long the
intro is and how long the body is. Here's the body of our outline,
three points. The Lord is good, He is ready
to forgive, and He is plenteous in mercy. Because of that, because
of everything we just read, everything we just saw, the Lord is good
in His dealings with us right now for the rest of our days.
The Lord is good, He is ready to forgive. Do you ever need
forgiveness? and He is plenteous in mercy. Our intro has already proven
that all we have to do is look to the cross of the Lord Jesus
Christ and we will clearly see the Lord is good. The Lord is
good. The Lord is gracious. The Lord
is giving. The Lord is kind. I've entered
into the fact so many times that We have an adversary. He is not
the Lord's adversary. He's ours. He's the Lord's created
pawn, but he's our adversary, and he's not good. He's stronger
than us, and he's not good. What if he was the all-powerful
one? Thank God he's not. The one that
is all-powerful, the one that no one can overrule, the one
that no one can dethrone in his character, Aren't you so glad
God is good? He's so generous. He's so giving. He's so kind. He has been, He
is, He will forever be in the person of Christ our Savior. In the person of the Son. He
has given all spiritual blessings to us in the person of Christ
our Savior. The Lord is good. and ready to
forgive. Ready to. I love the fact that
he's ready to. It means quick to. He is quick to forgive. It's
immediate forgiveness. The word means diligent to. He will forgive us and forgive
us and forgive us. He's diligent. He's diligent.
He's diligent. The word means willing to. It is the desire of his heart. Listen to this verse, all right?
This is just a precious verse. This is Isaiah 38, verse 20. It says, the Lord was ready to
save me. Therefore, we will sing my songs
to the stringed instruments. all the days of our life in the
house of the Lord. He was ready to forgive me. The
Lord is good. He is ready to forgive and He
is plenteous in mercy. He has so much mercy reserved
in the blood that He poured out to cover all of our sin. There
is so much mercy in that blood. Mercy will never run out. It will never run out. We are
so I don't know how to word this, but we don't give His mercy enough
credit. We say, Lord, save this city,
and we think in our minds, boy, that'd be almost an impossible
task. No, it wouldn't. Speak the word. Mercy, just mercy, mercy in the
blood. Sinners who have been plunged
in the blood of the Lamb will never run out, there'll never
be a lack of mercy. Never. No matter what sins we
carry out the rest of our life, all of them will be covered in
the blood of God's mercy. I am so glad to know that. Sin,
awful sin, vile and wicked sin, fleshly sin, every time covered
in the blood of God's mercy. Every time. It'll start over
brand new every single morning. Whatever we did yesterday, today
starts over with Mercy, covered in mercy. Like our brother said,
how much mercy does the Lord have for me? It's infinite. It's infinite. Greatest news a sinner will ever
hear. Verse five says, for thou, Lord, art good and ready to forgive. and plenteous in mercy unto all
them that call upon thee. Who will call upon the name of
the Lord? He is that to all who call upon
him. Who will call upon the name of
the Lord? Here's the answer. Whoever the
Lord causes to call. In His goodness, in His grace,
in His forgiveness, in His mercy, whoever He lays hold of and causes
them to call on Him, that is what they will receive from Him.
They will receive goodness. If He lays hold and causes them
to call on Him, that is His goodness. That is His forgiveness. That
is His mercy. That's the evidence He's already
poured it on them. but that's what they'll receive
from his hand, goodness, forgiveness, and mercy. Amen. Amen. Thank God. I'm a sinner and that's
good news to me. That is good news to me. All
right, let's all stand together.