Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to Psalm 86. Psalm 86 and reading
for our text the last three verses, verses 15, 16 and 17. Specifically the verse 15, On
My Spirit, but we read all of the verses and base our remarks
on them. But thou, O Lord, art a God full
of compassion, and gracious, long-suffering, and plenteous
in mercy and truth. O turn unto me, and have mercy
upon me, give thy strength unto thy servant, and save the son
of thine handmaid. Show me a token for good, that
they which hate me may see it, and be ashamed, because thou,
Lord, hast helpened me, and comforted me. Psalm 86 and verses 15 to 17. We are told that this psalm is
a prayer, a prayer of David, and throughout it there are many
supplications. But also in it, as in our text,
there is a mixture of a profession of David's knowledge of his God,
and a suiting his petitions to what he knows of the Lord. And how vital that is. You know, sometimes we get people
approach us as a church because we offer our free Bibles and
they approach us from overseas and they want us to virtually
supply a whole library, a theological college or things like that which
is way above our means to do at all. And we cannot help feeling
if they really knew or really thought about what we were as
a local church, what we're able to do, they wouldn't put their
petitions in that way. They're not asking with a view
to what they know about us at all. And there's much lesson
to learn from that when we come and ask something of anybody. If we want a lot of money from
somebody, we wouldn't go to someone that was on benefits that themselves
were receiving grants. If we wanted someone to do something
for us that needed much strength, we wouldn't go to a person that
was weak or a child to ask to do that for us. Or if we wanted
help with some technical thing with a computer or something
like that, we'd want to know that the person that we're going
to actually was qualified, they knew how to do it. When we have
things that are wrong with the car, it's no use going to the
checkout operator at the local supermarket and saying, look,
I've got this problem with my car. Can you fix it, please? And they would say, look, I'm
not in that business, and I don't know how to do it. But if you
went to a mechanic and went to one that you knew was qualified,
had experience, and you asked him, then the asking wouldn't
be a mess and it was something that they were able to do. We
need to bear that in mind with all of our petitions that we
come before God and everything that we ask of God. What do we
know of God? What is told us in the Word? And really we may say as if we
have any idea of our own poverty, of our own need, and then we
are told of what the Lord has to give, and then we don't ask,
and we don't come, and we don't seek help, then truly that is
foolishness. Again, you think of someone that
is labouring to do some work, struggling to lift heavy weights,
and they've got people standing by that they could easily ask
to help, and they were willing to help, but they just wouldn't
ask them to help at all. You think, well, surely that
is foolish, and surely they should be asking instead of labouring
and toiling away when help is at hand and has even been offered. We need to bear these things
then in mind when we come before the Lord in prayer. And certainly
David, a man after God's own heart, he does this. And that is reflected in our
text. The first verse, verse 15, is
a profession of what David sees his God. But thou, O Lord, art
a God full of compassion and gracious, long-suffering, and
plenteous in mercy and truth." And then he presents his petitions. His petitions also are right
through the psalm, but we're just looking at these here at
the end. We read in the first portion
there of where the law was given. No, not the law. The law given
again, and we view it in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the
Lord passed by Moses and proclaimed his name in verse 6 of chapter
34, Exodus. The Lord passed by before him
and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious,
long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy
for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. and
then outside of Christ, and that will by no means clear the guilty,
visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and
upon the children's children unto the third and to the fourth
generation." David knew the law. He knew what was written here
in Exodus. And so he presents his petitions. And we may ask, do we not only
know the Old Testament, but do we know the New? Do we know the
clear revelation of what the Lord said? Come unto me, all
ye that labour and are heavy laden. Learn of me, for I am
meek and lowly in heart. Ye shall find rest unto your
souls. The Lord who testifies, I have
not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. And again and
again evidenced in what he said and what he spoke, just what
David says here in verse 15. And yet, dear friends, we do
need to know not only by the word of God, but also by experience,
our Lord told the parable of the talents, and there's those
that had one talent, five talents, ten talents, the one that had
ten and five, they traded with the same, and they gained, and
they were commended for it, well done, that good and faithful
servant. But the one that had the one
talent, he came, and he said that he'd buried it in the earth,
and the reason why he'd buried it He said, I knew thee, that
thou art an hard man. He called him Lord, but really
he didn't know him because the Lord was not a hard man. And
so what was the result of that? Instead of like the others, trading
and gaining, with his view of the Lord being a hard man, he
just buried his talent in the earth. The sure way to restrain
prayer The sure way to ruin and destruction is to have hard thoughts
of the Lord, hard views of the Lord, and to really show that
we do not know the God of our salvation. We do not know the
gospel's message, even that which was proclaimed by the angels
from heaven when our Lord was born. On earth, peace, goodwill,
toward men and that message must be believed and known and acted
upon and what an offence to God if he tells us one thing and
we turn around to him and say well in spite of all what you
profess in the word has been gracious and kind and long-suffering
I think you're unreasonable and hard and cruel and unjust. And that will stifle all prayer,
all belief, grieve the Holy Spirit. But David, he was able to prove
personally that which the Lord was in his own life. And so when
he comes to prayer, he reminds the Lord first. And I believe
it is honouring, it is good, it is lovely in the sight of
the Lord where His people put Him in remembrance of His own
words. They're not words that we've
decided to describe the Lord with, they're His own words.
And the Lord delights to be put in remembrance of those words. And then the prayers that are
made, they are tailored as it were, they're suited to those
things. The Lord having the provision,
having what a sinner needs, and a sinner seeing that he has what
he needs and feeling his want, his poverty, he makes supplication
and asks. The Lord says, he will not come
unto me that he might have life. Ask and it shall be given you.
Seek and you shall find not. and it shall be opened unto you.
If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children,
how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit or
give good gifts to them that ask Him? And so this evening,
with the Lord's help, I desire to look at these verses. I divide
it just into two headings. Firstly, what David knew, his
God to be, and that is by the word and by experience. And secondly, the petitions that
he makes to his God. And may we find some echo in
our own hearts as well. Well, there are four things that
David knew his God to be. The first is that he was full
of compassion. That is full of pity. Our Lord, when he was upon earth,
gave those instances where his compassion was so clearly seen. We have several times, or a couple
of times at least, and recorded several times in the Word, When
the multitude came to hear his word and hear him preach, they
tarried with him three days, and they hadn't eaten anything.
The Lord says, I have compassion on the multitude, because they
have been with me these three days and have eaten nothing.
And he would not send them away empty. No doubt there was many
of those that were very poor, naturally so, but he worked a
miracle. multiplying the loaves and the
fishes to feed them. And then we have the widow of
Nain. She's coming out. Her only son
had died. He had compassion on her. He
had pity on her. He saw her, her pitiful condition. And in those days, no benefits
like we have, no pensions, no means of support. That son was
her means of support. The Lord had compassion. He commanded
them to stay still. He touched the beer and spoke
to that young man and he arose. And he worked that miracle, rising
him from the dead. We have the parables that our
Lord told. The Lord told the parable of
the Good Samaritan. the one that was taken among
thieves. They stripped him, they beat
him, they left him half dead. And then there came the priest,
then there came the Levite man of that way, they looked on him,
they just went by on the other side. The heart did not go out
to them, extending no help at all to that poor man in his condition. But then there came a Samaritan
that way, and of course the Lord was speaking to the Jews who
despised the Samaritans, those that had been left in the land
when the children of Israel went to Babylon, captivity. And the Lord said of that Samaritan,
when he came where he was, he saw him, he had compassion on
him, he went down to him, he bound up his wounds, He pouring
in oil and wine, he lifted him up, he put him on his own beast,
he took him to an inn, he gave for his welfare there and said,
if thou spend any more than when I come again I'll pay. And the
compassion that our Lord pictured with that good Samaritan, it
was an active compassion. He saw his pitiful condition,
he saw his helpless state, he saw his wounds, he saw his bruises,
and he did all to heal them and to make them right and restore
him and to lift him up again. And the Lord told that, that
parable. Shall the Lord tell that parable
of a man and to demonstrate who my neighbour is, And when the
Holy Word of God declares that the God is, and remember our
Lord Jesus Christ is the eternal God, this is the true God, and
eternal life, says John in his epistles. I and my Father are one, if you've
seen me, you've seen my Father also, to the Word that says,
but thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion, and much more. Will the Lord, when he looks
upon a sinner with his besetting sins, with his weakness, with
Satan's temptations, with his wicked, evil, deceitful heart,
with the world surrounding him that just is so suited to his
fallen nature, when he sees him with all discouragements around
him, shall he not have compassion? You know, the Church in the Old
Testament In Isaiah 49, the Lord said of Zion, Zion was saying,
the Lord hath forsaken us. He says, can a woman forget her
sucking child that she might not have compassion on the son
of her womb? Yea, he says, they may forget. Yet will I not forget thee. I've graven thee upon the palms
of mine hand. And he takes one of the most
tenderest examples of compassion of a mother upon her helpless
child, dependent upon the mother. And he says, I'm this, more than
this, to my church, my people. I know their helplessness. I know their pitiful state and
condition. I know what sin has done for
them. I know the state that they're in. I have pity upon them. I have compassion. upon them. And so the Lord told also the
parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15, where that son took
his inheritance, went into a far country, and squandered it in
riotous living. And then when he began to be
in want, he remembered his father's house. He said, I will go back.
I say, I've sinned. I am no more worthy to be called
thy son. Make me, I pray thee, as one
of thy hired servants. And he goes back, and while he
was yet a great way off, the father saw him and had compassion
on him and ran unto him and embraced him. What a reception he had,
but wait a minute, hadn't he squandered his living? The eldest
son reminded his father of that later on and was very unhappy.
It didn't make a difference. With the Father, this my son
was lost and is found again. He was dead, now he's alive. The Lord is a God, not just a
compassionate God, but He is full of compassion. It's put
in such a way as that it is a fullness, that is waiting to be poured
out. We have in Colossians, it hath
pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell. And
here is part of that fullness, full of compassion. We have a similar word in Psalm
111. In fact, there are many psalms
in many Many professions are this same word, right through
the Psalms, right through the word. But Psalm 111 and in verse
4, he hath made his wonderful works to be remembered. The Lord
is gracious and full of compassion. Full of compassion. And David
then makes profession of this. That's the first thing that he
knows of his God. Do we know that? Do we know it
from the Word of God? Do we know it in our own lives? When we have been in need, when
we have had nothing to pay, when we have been helpless, has the
Lord shown pity upon us, compassion upon us, or has He just hardened
His heart and there's been no help, no kindness, Can we really
say that of the Lord? David knew his God to be full
of compassion. He knew also that he was gracious. But thou, O Lord, art a God full
of compassion and gracious, that is kind and courteous, kind in
the face of active opposition or ingratitude. When our Lord
was speaking on earth, they wondered at the gracious words that proceeded
out of his lips. All that the Lord does is by
grace, by grace he has saved through faith and that not of
yourselves, it is the gift of God. All that the people of God need
is given by way of the kindness of God, and yet on their part,
they don't requite that kindness. And yet the Lord doesn't say,
well, I won't do that anymore, because he is gracious. What a picture we have here,
we're not coming to a tyrant. We're not coming to one like
Nabil, Abigail's husband, that she said of him that he is such
a man of Belial that a man cannot even speak to him. There are
people like that. There are fathers like that.
Their children are too frightened to speak to them because of the
anger, because of the reaction that they would get. Well, when
you're going to come, as David was here in prayer, when you
and I are going to come in prayer, what kind of reaction do you
think that we'll get? Will it be a gracious one, a
kind, a courteous one? Or will it be, go away, get away,
don't bother me, don't ask me these things? You know, when the Lord was on
earth, he might say he had time for everyone. Time especially
for those poor, the blind, those with needy cases. Crowds about
him, yet he could find time for the woman with the issue of blood. Find time for the beggars on
the wayside that were blind. The third thing that David knew
his God to be was long-suffering. Long-suffering. It is said of
the children of Israel in the wilderness, how that they tried
the Lord. They tempted Him in the desert.
He suffered their ill manners in the wilderness. The Lord is
long-suffering unto the wicked. You think of those that come
into this world, and they live through it as if there was no
God. They take of the Lord's bounties
of the food and raiment and the goods of this world, ascribe
it to themselves, go right through this world, and the Lord suffers
long. He lets them go. He gives them. causes his reign to shine upon
the just and unjust, him that serveth God and him that serveth
him not. The Lord is good to all. Tender
mercies are over all his works. He is the saviour of all men,
especially of them that believe. And yet with those that are not
his, those that rebel, those that will not have this man to
rule over him, the long-suffering that he has. We're told that
in the days of Noah, and that the Lord had already said that
the wickedness of the land of the earth was so great, and yet
Noah was a preacher of righteousness, and it is spoken of the Lord's
long-suffering in the days of Noah. He waited in the days of
Noah. Because sentence against an evil
work is not executed speedily, the heart of man is fully set
in him to do evil. Let us never take advantage,
as it were, of the long-suffering of God. And yet the long-suffering
of God is a great encouragement to those that are tender in the
fear of God. and realize they cannot cease
from sin. And they come before God again
and again, have mercy upon me. He is a long-suffering God. David
knew that, not soon provoked. What about his people in their
unregeneracy? We think of the years that we
have spent upon this earth before ever the Lord passed by us and
bid us live. And the Lord suffered our ill
manners and his long suffering with all our ways and our evil
words and works. David knew that as well. But he also knew that he was
plenteous in mercy and truth and that is the Fourth thing
he knew of him, mercy and truth. David knew that when he had committed
murder and adultery, the Lord said that thou shalt not die.
The Lord hath also put away thy sin. He didn't deserve that. The Lord said that he should
have died, but it is mercy and truth. And where the Lord shows
mercy, On a sinner, it is that Christ has died in his place. The mercy is a blood-bought mercy. We made that contrast as we read
the portion in Exodus 34. How can we reconcile that? Keeping
mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and
sin, then on the other hand, and that will by no means clear
the guilty. But aren't we all guilty? and
those that he shows mercy upon, guilty, visiting the iniquity
of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's children
unto the third and to the fourth generation, how often it is that
when a father commits sin, when they walk in ungodly ways, their
children follow them, and then their children's children follow
them, And often it is not until the fourth generation that their
snare is broken and the Lord has mercy upon them. It's a solemn
thing to be a parent, solemn thing to be a child, that is
just learning the ways of the parent and following on in their
sin and in their ways. It's a great mercy when the Lord
breaks that and shows His word. It's no wonder the Lord says
in in the Gospel and in his teaching, that if any man will follow him,
that if he loved father or mother more than me, he's not worthy
of me. There is a breaking, as it were,
that chain of ungodliness and unbelief and going out after
the Lord, believing the Lord is true. and merciful. And so when David says mercy
and truth, those two, that they go together. And the mercy of
the Lord is never an expense of truth. The truth is that man
has sinned. The truth is that when God shows
mercy, Christ has paid the penalty for that sin. And so he lets
the people go, have mercy upon them. Psalm 80, let thy hand
be upon the man at thy right hand, the son of man that thou
hast made strong for thyself, the substitutionary offering
of our Lord. Again, these words throughout
this profession of David, it's not just thou art a God of compassion,
and that thou art a God who has mercy and truth, There's these
words, full of compassion, plenteous in mercy and truth. And it is to encourage us that
there is a provision, there is a fullness in Christ. The very idea here is not the
fullness that is in God outside of Christ that cannot be imparted,
but that Righteousness, the goodness, the compassion, the mercy, the
truth in Christ is to be imparted to sinners. If we had, and sometimes
we have this in charities, where a charity will have a very clear
governing document that they may only give funds, it may be,
say, to the county of Kent, And people may have a great need,
and they may apply for funds, but they don't live in Kent.
And so they say, well, sorry, we'd love to be able to help
you, but the terms of the deed are that we can only help you
if you reside here. And so we have a fullness of
funds. We have a lot of money, but we
can't impart it to you. Well, with our Lord, He not only
says that He has a fullness, and not only says that there
is a plenteous store of mercy and truth, but it is for sinners. It is for fallen man. It's not
for angels, not for devils, but it's for those that come and
seek and pray and beg and ask and seek for these blessings
that the Lord has to give. So I want to then look, secondly,
at the petitions that David makes of his God, and it's based upon
what he knows his God to be. There's five main heads here,
we'll briefly have a look at them. The first is, turn unto
me. O, turn unto me. that the Lord's attention would
be unto him. We mentioned about those that
the Lord turned aside to in his earthly ministry. Before ever
that he spoke a word of healing, before ever that he spoke a word
to raise the dead to life, he turned unto them, his attention
was towards them. He was going to deal with their
case and their matter. And that is what David desires
here, that he might have the Lord's attention. And we know
in a natural way, if there is someone that could help us, they're
walking away from us, or they're not looking towards us, they're
talking to someone else. But if we call after them and
they turn around to us, we see their face, we see we have their
attention, then that is the very first thing that we want. We want the Lord's ear. We want
Him to hear. We want His attention. We want
to know that He actually knows our case and that His ear is
open unto us. So often through the Word we
have reminders of that sort of thing. We have the case of Abraham
going up the mount with Isaac and his son. And his son Isaac,
he says, my father. And Abraham said, here I am,
my son. And then he presents his petition,
the fire and the word. Where is the lamb for a burnt
offering? My son God will provide himself
a lamb." And of course he did, and entitled the Lord Jesus Christ. And many times when the Lord
would speak to Abraham or to others of the prophets, he draws
their attention first, and then they say that, here I am. They have his ear, and he has
their ear. And in this way, David says,
O turn unto me. Then the second thing in the
petition is have mercy on me. He has just said that the Lord
is plenteous in mercy and truth. He feels and knows he needs mercy. The psalm begins, bow down thine
ear, O Lord, In a similar way, I turn unto me, hear me, for
I am poor and needy. He makes profession of his poor
state and condition. Our Lord commended the publican
who came into the temple And his prayer was, God be merciful
to me, a sinner. Mercy can never be deserved. And the hymn writer takes it
up, mercy through blood, I make my plea. God be merciful to me. And that is what David then asks,
when was the last time you or I asked the Lord to have mercy
upon us? Mercy because of our sin, mercy
because of our wicked ways, mercy because of what we really deserved
at his hand. It's a searching question, isn't
it? How many times do we actually
ask the Lord to have mercy upon us in prayer? The third petition,
give thy strength unto thy servant. Here is an imparting of God's
strength unto David, and he describes himself as his servant. Paul says, know ye not, Ye are
his servants to whom ye obey. It's a good thing to, in prayer
as well, profess whom we serve, remind ourselves really as well
as setting it before the Lord that we would obey him and serve
him, not serve ourselves or Satan or sin, but to be the Lord's
servants. You don't have to be a minister
to be a servant of the Lord. All of the Lord's people are
His servants to do His bidding, to do His will. These people
that I form for myself, they shall show forth my praise. Ye
are the salt and light of the earth. They are the Lord's servants
to bring about that silent salt and light in the earth. But He
wants the strength Remember the Apostle Paul had been blessed
with that wonderful vision from heaven on the Damascus road,
and God gave him a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan,
lest he be lifted up through the abundance of the revelations.
And he asked in prayer of the Lord three times that that thorn
in the flesh be taken away. And the Lord said he would not
take it away, My grace is sufficient for thee. And the apostle then
was pleased with that. The Lord had said, My strength
is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, said the apostle,
I rather rejoice in my infirmity, that when I am weak, then am
I strong. So when David says, Give thy
strength unto thy servant, the strength of the Lord is his grace,
his helping hand. the sufficiency of the Lord's
help for his people, strengthened in their minds, strengthened
in their souls. David, later on, when he comes
to the end of his life, he says, and he prays again, that he might
recover strength before I go hence and be no more. Not physical
strength, but spiritual strength, assurance, comfort, good hope
through grace, And so he prays here, give thy strength unto
thy servant. It's a blessed thing to be able
to say that my help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and
earth, that the Lord has strengthened me and helped me. Then we have
fourthly, save, save the son of thine, and may, in a way it's
saying, strange term, son of thine handmaid. Of course, David
was the son of Jesse, and he did have a mother, could be looked
upon in that way. But in another way, it is the
Church of God that brings forth the people of God, and the Church,
as it were the handmaid or the birthplace, brought forth unto the Lord. It's a good thing to remind the
Lord and, well, he saves all his church. He redeemed his church. He paid their price. He suffered
in their place. He loved the church. He gave
himself for it. And the whole work that he came
to do was to save his people and save his church. His whole
Church and every one of the sons and daughters of the Church of
God shall be saved. When was the last time we asked
to be saved? That the Lord would save us.
Save us from our sins, save us eternally, save us to Himself. Every time we pray prayers, And
they're not really patterned off the prayers of scripture.
We're not really asking the vital, important things. Maybe many
things that are not so important, but these vital things we leave
out. Then we have in verse 17, show
me a token for good. Now a token is not the actual
thing, is it? It's just a, it might be a piece
of metal, a piece of plastic, might be a piece of card. Sometimes, years ago, we used
to get tokens in our breakfast cereals and you could save up
those tokens and then go to the supermarket and exchange the
tokens for a toy or something like that. So the token was something
that was given and it was given as an evidence that something
would be given in its place of substance. The token wasn't the
actual thing. And so when David says, show
me a token for good, what he wants is the goodness of the
Lord and that hope beyond the grave and those blessings in
Christ. But the token of it was that
the Lord, this side of the grave, was his God. And those things
that were given were as an earnest, or the hope, beyond the grave. And from what he says afterwards,
it is very evident it is something that not only he will see, but
those that hate him will see it as well. and be ashamed, because
thou, Lord, hast holpen me and comforted me. And those are precious
tokens that are not only read by the one that has received
them, but also those round about. In Psalm 126, we read of the
Church of God, When the Lord turned again, the
captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. Then was our
mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing. Then
said they among the heathen, the Lord had done great things
for them. The heathen saw that, they saw
what had happened. The Lord had done great things
for us, whereof we are glad. So on both sides, when the children
of Israel were brought into captivity. All the nations, they saw that.
But when they were brought out of captivity, they saw that as
well. When they were in bondage in
Egypt, that was evident to all. When the Lord brought them out
with a high hand, Rahab, 40 years later, she says, in Jericho,
they still remembered that. They had seen it. The Lord's
people are in the midst of those that look upon them. And sometimes
the Lord gives them those tokens for good, blesses them in such
a way that even those that are not the Lord's people, they can
see the Lord has a favour towards them. He has been good, gracious,
kind to them. And those of whom He has been
kind to, they give Him the honour and glory. There may be many
in the world that has these blessings, that don't fear God, and they're
like the nine lepers that did not return to give glory to God,
though the Lord had miraculously healed them. But there's one
Samaritan that turned round when he saw he was healed and gave
glory to God. That healing all would have seen.
All would have seen it. There's a blessed thing and a
real token when it is not only seen, but it is ascribed to God,
who truly is the giver of every perfect gift, cometh from above. But the Lord's people, they're
formed for God's praise, and they give Him the honor and glory
where others will ascribe to chance, to their own work, to
their own wisdom, to their own merits, but the Lord's people
say no. The token that is given, the
benefit, the blessing, the help, is given mercifully, is given
compassionately, kindly, graciously, and the Lord has suffered long
with me, but he's given me this token, and that poor soul gives
him the honour and the glory. Do you think David, after he'd
prayed this petition, and the Lord had heard him and answered
him, that he should not give thanks and glory to God? I don't
think so. May we be of those that join
prayer with thanksgiving. Come in with verse 12. I will
praise thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart, and I will glorify
thy name for evermore. May the Lord grant us this knowledge
of himself and the prayer that is suited to what we know of
the Lord both from the Word and from our own experience of His
goodness up to this time. Amen.