69. Usually I wake up early on Sunday. I wake up early all the time anyway, but on Sunday morning and Thursday morning, like this morning, I wake up and one of the first thoughts that hits me is I'll be preaching today. And it hits me with such a heaviness. I feel like I could fall through the mattress. But when I get up, and I make it over to my study, it lightens up, and I begin to study and read, and I'm ready to preach. After a while, I'm ready to preach, but boy, when I first wake up on Sunday and Thursday, it hits me.

Sometimes, sometimes I break out into a sweat over it, because it is, how do you, How do you handle this? Paul said, no man is sufficient for these things. I wouldn't want to hear a man who thinks he's sufficient. God's our sufficiency. You know, it's the Lord who gives power to the message. It's not how loud I speak. I like what Doris said one time concerning those TV evangelists. She said, when in doubt, shout. And that's what they do. But it's the Lord who applies the message.

You know, we've heard the gospel of substitution for many years now. I have for nearly 50 years and some of you have probably even more than that, longer than that. And I prayed and I pray this morning and I pray that this never gets stale with us. It never gets old and stale. You think that couldn't happen, but read the letter to the church at Ephesus. They did everything right. And at the end, the Lord said, but I have one thing against you. And it's so serious that if you don't straighten up, I'm gonna remove the candlestick. You left your first love. Your heart's not in it. Your heart's not in it. They didn't leave the doctrines, but their heart wasn't in it anymore.

And I know what it is, we get busy. You know, we're just so busy in this life. I think one of the great tools of Satan is to keep you busy, busy, busy. You don't have time to read. You don't have time to think. You know, that's definitely a tool of Satan. He doesn't want you to think. He doesn't want you to use your mind. But I pray that the Lord will bless this tonight and enable me to preach

PREACH THIS MESSAGE IN THE POWER OF HIS SPIRIT, AND ENABLE US TO WORSHIP GOD IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH, AND THERE CAN BE NO BETTER WAY AS THE START OF NEW YEAR THAN WHAT WE'RE DOING TONIGHT.

YOU KNOW, I'VE OFTEN THOUGHT, SINCE THE LORD HAS SAVED ME, I'VE OFTEN THOUGHT HOW TERRIBLE TO END A NEW YEAR, TO END AN OLD YEAR drunk and start the new year trying to sober up i mean that's how bad is that i'm so glad the lord saved us from that i'm so glad he saved us from that

now let's look at this the suffering savior and the glory that followed this is a psalm of substitution and i think it's very clear

This message has actually laid on my desk for a few weeks, I was going to bring it a few weeks ago, and now I see the providence of God, this is the hour.

Now the prayers and songs of David were born from experience, and I try to be careful not to divorce David from his writings as if he were in some kind of trance well he's you know in writing i know he's under the leadership of the holy spirit but he's writing from experience he lived what he wrote i have no doubt there's some things that the lord revealed to him that he was he wrote them down but for the most part he lived the things that he wrote and we need that we need that because when you and i go through troubles hard acts and trials WE CAN LOOK BACK ON THESE OLD TESTAMENT SAINTS AND THE NEW TESTAMENT SAINTS AND WE CAN SEE HOW GOD DELIVERED THEM. WE CAN SEE HOW THEY TRUSTED THE LORD AND THE LORD BROUGHT THEM THROUGH.

SO I TRY TO BE CAREFUL NOT TO SEPARATE THE BELIEVER HERE LIKE DAVID FROM THIS EXPERIENCE BUT I ALSO WANT TO BE CAREFUL THAT I PASS OVER CHRIST AND NOT POINT HIM OUT ALSO BECAUSE He's the main reason. Without Him it makes no sense. It's useless without Christ. Any experience without Christ is useless. It's vanity of vanity is what it is.

But we can hear our Lord's voice in this prayer, this song, because that's what it's called. It's called a prayer and a song. And after I read this today, and I read that top part to the chief musician, Shoshannon, a psalm of David. When I read that, I wrote, and I thought, I'm going to write my prayer out today. And I encouraged you, Henry encouraged us to do that. And I wrote it out, you know, and it's just, sometimes it just frees you up, does me. And so I wrote it out because I thought, well, David, you can write yours out, I can write mine out. So I did.

But here, this psalm, Psalm 69, is one of the clearest messianic psalms that we have in the scriptures. It goes right along with Psalm 22. We know that very clearly that's a messianic psalm. And there's no psalm probably quoted more than this psalm. I think sixteen times it's quoted in the New Testament. Sixteen times it's quoted there.

But in this psalm, the overall view of this psalm, we will see the sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ in our place. We'll see the hatred of humanity, the gathering If you go over in Acts, the gathering of the Jews and the Gentiles against the Lord and against His Christ. But all they did was what God purposed to be done.

Sitting in my study, I thought this is a new year. But you know what? This year is already in the books. It's already in the books. Everything that's going to happen this year is already in the books. And all the years succeeding, they're already in the books. And that gave me comfort. I don't know what's coming down the road this year, but I'll tell you exactly what's going to happen. It's what God purposed to happen. He's going to rule and He's going to overrule this whole year. And that helps relieve any fear that you and I might have. It ought to. It ought to.

We see the sufferings of Christ, the hatred of humanity, and the sure victory of our Redeemer. He can't fail. Isaiah 42 says, My servant shall not fail. I like to think of it like this. He shall not, cannot, will not fail. It's an impossibility. And He's our Redeemer. He's our Lord. He's our God. He's our everything. He's our all in all. He's what He is.

Now the verses 1 through 3, we see the depth, something of the depths and we cannot this is where I feel so weak in one of the areas I feel so weak is trying to put into words the sufferings of Christ and I've realized just leave it where it is the Holy Spirit is the one who can impress us and reveal to us the depths of His sufferings. All the description I can give you won't do it, but He can do it. He can pull back that veil and let us see something of His sufferings that belong to us. They belong to us. I ought to be the one crying here. I ought to be the one crying.

The Psalm opens up with this desperate cry, SAVE ME, O GOD, FOR THE WATERS ARE COMING INTO MY SOUL, THE WATERS OF TROUBLE, THEY'VE COME INTO MY SOUL. We see it's not just physical suffering here, it's soul suffering. But don't think this is weakness on his part, it's not weakness, it's reality. This is what's happening, He's letting us know, we're getting to see what's happening. the Lord, and we re getting to see what s happening to His SOUL! It s a soul-suffering. His soul, it says in Isaiah 53, was made an offering for sin. God made it an offering for sin. His soul, His person, that s another way of putting it because we are a soul. And this is not weakness on His part, it s just reality.

OUR LORD ENTERED THE DEEP WATERS OF JUDGEMENT FOR US. I CAN'T DESCRIBE JUDGEMENT, I CAN'T DESCRIBE HELL, NO MORE THAN I CAN DESCRIBE HEAVEN, I CAN'T DO IT. HE SPEAKS OF THE DEEP MIRE WHERE THERE IS NO STANDING, THERE IS NO FOOTING. HE SPEAKS OF THE OVERFLOWING WATERS HE IS ENGULFED WITH TROUBLE. HE DESCRIBES THE WEIGHT OF OUR SIN, I CAN'T EVEN IMAGINE THAT, AND THE WRATH IT DESERVES. WE CAN NEVER HANDLE THE FULL WEIGHT OF GUILT OVER OUR SINS, WE CAN'T HANDLE IT. I WAS TRYING TO THINK OF A WORD TODAY TO SOMEHOW DESCRIBE WHAT THAT WOULD ALMOST BE LIKE.

And I thought for our part, it would render us comatose. We couldn't get up, we couldn't function. If God allowed the full weight of guilt to rest on our soul, we couldn't function. We would just become comatose. I believe it would.

Only the Lord Jesus Christ is able Only He was able to bear up under such a load. Christ bore and He felt the full measure of our guilt that you and I could never feel and never deal with.

And I thought this, and I think this is so. It really never dawned on me until today. I think this is one of the things that makes hell so unbearable. The full weight of guilt. Nobody's ever felt that. Nobody's ever felt that. And when they perish, it's son, remember. And what Abraham said to Lazarus, I mean to the rich man, he said, son, remember, in your day, you had the good things. Lazarus had the bad thing, he was poor. Oh, I tell you, the full blown weight of guilt is unexplainable.

But our Lord felt it. Our Lord took the full weight of it. And we hear Him crying here. Oh, save me, save me. Our Lord's greatest suffering. It wasn't just physical, and I don't want to minimize the physical sufferings of Christ. He felt every whip, every lash. They plucked the hair from His face. They slapped Him. They took that crown of thorns and drove it down. Then they nailed Him to a cross, dropped it in the ground, I can't even begin to think of the excruciating pain of his body.

But his soul was even more painful. His soul sufferings were more painful. He wept. He prayed until his sweat was great drops of blood. That's agony. That's absolute agony to know, I mean, I can't even explain it. On the cross his throat was parched and he cried, I thirst! That's what that rich man in hell said, wasn't it? He's buried in my hell. The rich man was thirsty. Abraham, have Lazarus to dip his finger in water and touch the tip of my tongue, for I'm tormented in these flames. And our Lord cries out, I thirst.

You and I won't experience that. We will not experience that. He waited for God. When he nailed to that cross, he waited for God. And yet, we hear this cry come out. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? You and I have no concept of what it is to be forsaken of God. Those in hell are forsaken of God. There's no mercy. It's unmitigated wrath. And that's what our Lord experienced.

And then look at the hatred He bore that that he received because he's God he received because he's God but we actually deserve this kind of hatred he said that he said my enemies are more than the hair of my head I got more enemies than I have hair on my head Every person, every angel, the fallen angels, not the elect angels, every fallen angel, every person born into this world is an enemy of Jesus Christ. Every person sitting here right now at one time was an enemy of Jesus Christ. We were enemies in our mind, Paul said, by wicked works. We were enemies. He said they hated me without a cause. Our Lord said to hate your brother without a cause is what? Murder. Murder. So everybody that hates Jesus Christ is guilty of murder. Murder of the Son of God.

from his birth to his death. Our Lord was surrounded. He was surrounded by enemies. He was surrounded by the mighty. He was surrounded by merciless people. You know, Satan, I thought about this too also, Satan is absolutely void of mercy. HE'S ABSOLUTELY VOID OF ANYTHING GOOD. VOID OF IT. You know, there's a medical term, I don't know what it is, I don't remember the medical term. But when somebody gets pleasure out of your pain, there's a medical term for that. There's a biblical term for it, I don't know what it is. LOST! But the medical field has given it a name and this person gets pleasure out of your pain. Satan gets pleasure out of our pain. The ungodly gets pleasure out of our pain. ALL EARTH AND HELL UNITED AGAINST HIM.

Turn over to Acts chapter 4. In Acts chapter 4, look in verse 27. For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed both Herod, Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, were to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before it to be done. NOW THAT DOESN'T LET THEM OFF THE HOOK. THAT DOES NOT LET THEM OFF THE HOOK. WHAT THEY DID THEY GONNA FACE IT. BUT GOD DETERMINED BEFORE THE WORLD BEGAN THIS SHOULD BE DONE TO HIS SON IN ORDER TO REDEEM A MULTITUDE OF SINNERS. AND THAT'S JUST MIND BLOWING THAT I WOULD BE IN THAT. THAT I WOULD ONE DAY STAND IN GLORY. I DON'T KNOW MAYBE IT'S MY AGE. I DIDN'T THINK LIKE THIS WHEN I WAS My early 20s and 30s and 40s and 50s, but now I'm 70. I don't know. I really hope it's not my age. I hope it's just growing in grace and the knowledge of Christ. That's what I hope it is. I hope.

But all the earth and hell are united against Him, and yet He never sinned. No God was found in His mouth. When He was reviled, you know what it says? HE THREATENED NOT! HE THREATENED NOT! HIS LIFE ON EARTH IS DESCRIBED! You know, listen to this in Acts 10 38, let me read it to you. This is HIS LIFE ON EARTH and this is going to be a witness against all those who stood against Him and standing against Him. Listen, HAVE GOD ANOINTED JESUS OF NAZARETH WITH THE HOLY GHOST AND WITH POWER, WHO WENT ABOUT DOING GOOD AND HEALING ALL THAT WERE OPPRESSED OF THE DEVIL, FOR GOD WAS WITH THEM." THAT DESCRIBES HIS WHOLE LIFE ON THIS EARTH, IN THE FLESH. HE WENT ABOUT DOING GOOD, AND THEY HATED HIM. HATED HIM. HE NEVER GAVE THEM ONE CAUSE. I CAN SAY IN MY LIFETIME, I'VE GIVEN PEOPLE A CAUSE To be upset with me, not like me. I've given people calls for that. Our Lord never gave one cause. There's not one time, there's not one ill word he ever said. Not one ill action he ever did. Not one. But he was hated. Yet he's despised and rejected of men. Though innocent in himself, they treated him as guilty. The sheep went astray, but the shepherd was smitten. Not even one of them stood with him.

He read it tonight. Peter denied him three times. Oh, I'll not deny you. And right there, three times he had the opportunity to stand up. And three times he denied him.

But listen here in verse 4, and I'm not going to touch on all these verses. But here in verse 4, He says, Then I restored that which I took not away. The latter part of that verse. I touched on this the other night, or Sunday, or last Thursday. But then I restored that which I took not away. This is what He did in His substitutionary work. He not only put away our sins, He restored. He restored the glory of God that Adam took away. We now see the glory of God in the FACE of Jesus Christ. He restored RIGHTEOUSNESS, which He never lost. He restored PEACE, which He never broke. He restored FELLOWSHIP, which He never abandoned. He restored life which He never forfeited, He never did. He restored truth which He never denied. He restored the image of God which He never marred. He restored everything, everything.

Then I restored that which I took not away. He didn't take away righteousness, Adam did that. He didn't take away the image of God, Adam did that. He marred the image of God. Our Lord restored it. You have now been created in righteousness and true holiness. That's the image of God. You are now being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ who is in the image of God. As a man, He is. You see what was said to the first Adam, let us make man in our image and after our likeness. THAT WAS ACCOMPLISHED IN THE MAN, JESUS CHRIST! THAT WAS ACCOMPLISHED IN HIM!

And though he humbled himself, and he veiled his glory, and came in the likeness of men, yet he received no pity. When he came unto his own, his own received him not. He came unto the world, and the world did not even know him. The world did not even know its own Creator. If God were your father, he said, you'd believe me. He was calling God their father. He said, oh no, no, no. If God were your father, you would believe me. That's how I know God's your father. You believe on Christ. That's how you know. You believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Those who do not believe on Christ, who will not confess Christ and follow after Christ, God's not, I'm not going to say God's your father. He's not everybody's father. He's a judge of all. He's a judge of all. But He's not the father of all. And then we see here the substitution, the substitute in verse 5 through 8, 19 through 21 is made sand for us. HE'S MADE TO BE SINFORCED, it says over in 2 Corinthians 5, verse 21. THE SINS HE DIED FOR, I WANT YOU TO LISTEN, THE SINS HE DIED FOR BELONGED TO SOMEONE, A LOT OF SOMEONES. HE DIDN'T JUST DIE FOR SIN, AND THEN IF YOU ACCEPT HIM, THEN HE'LL PUT THAT TO YOUR ACCOUNT. When He died on the cross, He died for the sins of many, it says. He died for the sins of many over in Isaiah 53. He shall justify many for He shall bear their iniquities, particular language. He didn't just die for sin of some kind of name. No, He died for particular sins for a particular people.

Now verse 5, this can only be applied to the Lord Jesus Christ if we understand substitution, our sins being imputed to Him. Oh God thou knowest my foolishness and my sins are not hid from thee. And there have been many that say well that is not Christ that is David, this part is Christ and this part is David. NO, THIS IS CHRIST OWNING MY SINS AS HIS. You see, you have substitution. You know, when I played football in high school, they would send someone in and they'd bring somebody out. THAT'S A FORM OF SUBSTITUTION. THAT'S A FORM OF SUBSTITUTION.

you know they set Barabbas free and then Christ was crucified that's the form of substitution but here is absolute substitution here it is that God takes my guilt my shame and my sins and he makes them his Only God can do that, nobody else. Let's say a son can commit a horrendous crime, capital punishment, and his father or even the judge on the bench can pass the sentence on him, but he doesn't want it to kill him. Let's say the judge is the son's father, And the judge steps down, takes his place, because he doesn't want to kill him, but he has to honor the law. Well, that's a form of substitution. But he still didn't take the guilt. Only God can take the guilt, the actual sins, make them His, and put them away. Only God can do that. This is way over my head, our head, but only God can do that. Only He can do that.

Now He says, listen, He says in verse 20, Reproach hath broken my heart. He said, I looked for those to pity me, and they wouldn't. And I looked for comforters, and I found none. all his disciples even his brethren his other brothers and sisters there in that house you know which were considered his brothers and sisters they all turned on him they all left him i looked for comforters and nobody was there that's because there's no comforters in hell there are no comforters in hell And that's exactly what he's doing, he's burying my hell. Because there's no comforter there for me.

In his thirst, it says, they gave him gall and vinegar. You know, it says in Isaiah 63, I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the people there was none with me. They wouldn't stand with me. They wouldn't stand with me. But it stood out to me today how accurate the Word of God is. I wish I had looked it up, how many years when this song was written and the cross, how many years between them? Hundreds and hundreds of years. And that's exactly what happened at the cross. He says that right here and all these years later, that's what they gave him. That's what they gave him. And those Jews read the Word of God, they read that, they read that time and time again. And what did they do? They did exactly what Peter did. Peter said, I WON'T DENY IT! The Lord said, Yes, you will. And here he said, THEY'RE GONNA GIVE ME VINEGAR AND GAUL! All these hundred years later, they give him vinegar and gaul. That's why I said, this year, it's already in the books. it's every every one of us in here every one of us our life is already taken care of this whole year i don't know what i'm going to experience but it's all it's all right because he is he has determined the end from the beginning not only of time and eternity but everybody everyone in your all's lives every life of his sheep he's determined it he's determined it He's determined our time.

I tell my sister, my brother-in-law is going through a really, really bad situation. But she'd been there for 50 days in the hospital with him. And I told her, I said, I talked to her the other day, and I told her, I said, well, our times are in his hands. what it says in Psalm, I think Psalm 56, OUR TIMES ARE IN HIS HANDS. I said OUR TIMES OF HAPPINESS, OUR TIMES OF SORROW, ARE IN HIS HANDS. TIME TO BE BORN, FOLLOWED UP BY A TIME TO DIE. And nobody said you are going to get old, nobody said that. But God said you are going to die. And it is appointed, and God keeps His appointments, He keeps Reproach, he said, broke my heart, and they gave me gall and vinegar.

And then we have here, and I'm going to wind this down, we have the prayer of the Redeemer and the judgment of those who reject Him. You see, while men mocked Him, our Lord prayed, prayed. That's how you handle trouble, you pray, you pray.

HIS CRY RESTED ON GOD'S TENDER MERCIES, ON GOD'S LOVING KINDNESS, AND THE PROMISE OF SALVATION. AS A MAN, HE BELIEVED AND TRUSTED GOD, AND HE PROVED IT BY CRYING TO HIM ALL THE TIME. He would always read of him getting up early before anybody else and went out and prayed. Sometimes he prayed all night.

But now listen, he prayed, he prayed to God, he prayed because God didn't tender and tender mercies and loving kindness but now he also prayed against did you catch that he prayed against the intercession of christ works both ways it works both ways if you read that let there he says in verse 22. Let their table become a snare before them, let their ceremonies now because they rejected Him and they wanted to turn back to the ceremonies He said let it be a snare to them. Let it become a snare to them and that which should have been for their welfare let it become a trap. Let their eyes be darkened that they see not and make their loins continually to shake. Pour out thine indignation upon them, let thy wrathful anger take hold of them."

In 70 AD that place was level. There was not one stone left upon another of that temple. That place was level. I believe it was Titus went in there and took them captive. Killed thousands, thousands of them. You know why? God answers his prayer. God and His intercession works both ways.

Here we have, last of all, the VICTORY that secured our salvation in verses 29 through 36. This psalm ends in praise. It started out with a cry, SAVE ME O GOD, THE WATERS COME INTO MY SOUL, I'M STANDING IN MIRE, THERE'S NO FOOTING! But it ends in praise, doesn't it? It ends in praise. The seed of his servants shall inherit it, and they that love his name shall dwell there.

And nobody in hell who loves Jesus Christ. There's a lot of people in hell who believe election. There's a lot of people in hell who believe particular redemption. Every Pharisee believed particular redemption. They believed election as strong as anybody, and they perished. He said, God, your father's the devil. But there ain't nobody there that loves Him. Nobody. Peter, do you love me? Lord, you know all things. You know I love you. Lord, I have a real genuine love for the Lord Jesus Christ.

Though poor and afflicted, though buffeted and shamed and crucified, He's RISEN! Oh, Jesus Christ is risen. You think he's coming back? It just struck me the other day. Um, I was thinking for 4,000 years, it kept saying, you know, somebody's coming. He's coming, he's coming. And then one day he came. The exact same thing is going to happen again. That's going to happen again.

God found no pleasure in animal sacrifices, that s what He says, I found no pleasure in Him, but He s fully satisfied in His Son, Jesus Christ. Because of Christ, the poor and needy are heard, and the prisoner is set free. In this Psalm 69, this shows us the Savior who sank into the depths of sin and this world of corruption, was crucified in our place. That's what this is reminding us of tonight, Christ crucified.

You and I can now stand in God's presence and glory and we'll be there in a little while. In a little while we'll be there. He bore our shame, endured our judgment, and secured our redemption. His suffering is real, His sacrifice sufficient, and His victory And our victory in Him is absolutely certain. Absolutely.

I think it was Henry who said this, I didn't write it down who said it, but it says, The waters came into his soul so that grace might overflow into ours.

All right, let's take the Lord's Table now. Doug and Carl are going to Pass it out. Belt out the bread and wine.