trusting me too dear. Yes, and when the world's glory
is dawning on my soul, tell me the old, old story, Christ Jesus
makes thee whole. Tell me the old, old story. Tell me the old, old story. Tell me the old, old story of
Jesus and his love. I felt slowly, I felt softly. pray often that the Lord would
allow me to speak his truths with the beauty of the simplicity
that the Lord Jesus Christ is able to speak and John is able
to relate in John's gospel. We have been looking at Psalm
69 and before you turn there I want us to read these verses
in John chapter two. that caused us to go to Psalm
69. In verse 13 of John chapter 2,
when the Jews' Passover was at hand and Jesus went up to Jerusalem,
and found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and
doves, and the changers of money sitting. And when he had made
a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple
and the And the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the ummet
that changes money, and overthrew the tables, and said unto them
that sold doves, take these things hence. Make not my father's house
an house of merchandise. And his disciples remembered
that it was written, the zeal of thine house hath eaten, This is a remarkable miracle,
and some would say that this is the greatest miracle the Lord
Jesus Christ performed. All of them are great. All of
them tell a remarkable story. But what an extraordinary scene.
The very first public activity of the Lord Jesus Christ in Jerusalem,
after his baptism, after his Temptation after him gathering
his, the first of his disciples and taking them to a wedding
feast. His first public activity in Jerusalem is this act. An
act of his anger, an act of his wrath. What must it be like to
have witnessed it? Such was the power. that word marketplace is the
word Emporium. What a great, and the word Emporium
means a large retail store, especially one for selling a great variety
of articles. That's what the, we get our word
Emporium from that word merchandise. What an extraordinary description
of the religion of the day, this day, the religion began since Adam and Eve left
the garden. It is a merchandise, and the
false churches make merchandise of the souls of men. But also,
the Holy Spirit leads us to Psalm 69, and we've been looking at it
this last couple of weeks. We looked at the truth of thy
salvation out of verse 13, And I thought I might read from verse
14 down to the end of the psalm before we sing again. And I want
us to remember that these are the words of the Lord Jesus Christ
and they are particularly and specifically and necessarily
because of what is written here, they are the words of the Lord
Jesus Christ from the cross of Calvary. And so we go straight
from that temple event to the cross. So let's read the word
of God together. The first part of this psalm
is obviously all about the substitutionary work of the Lord Jesus Christ
and his zeal for his father's house. Verse nine is the one
that speaks, and the zeal of thine house has eaten me up,
and the reproaches of them that reproach thee are fallen on me. Let's go down to verse 14 for
a moment of time. Deliver me out of the mire, and
let me not sink, Let me be delivered from them that hate me and are
out of the deep waters. Let not the water flood overflow
me, neither let the deep swallow me up, and let not the pit shut
her mouth upon me. Hear me, O Lord, for thy lovingkindness
is good. Turn unto me according to the
multitude of thy tender mercies, and hide not thy face from my
servant, for I am in trouble. Hear me speedily, draw nigh unto
my soul and redeem it. Deliver me because of my enemies. Thou hast known my reproach and
my shame and my dishonor. My adversaries are all before
thee. Reproach hath broken my heart
and I am full of heaviness. And I looked for some to take
pity, but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none.
And they gave me gall for my meat. You might recall this on
the cross. It says the word really means
venom or poison. And in my thirst they gave me
vinegar to drink. It's so evident that the Lord
Jesus Christ is speaking, and David is speaking here prophetically
of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. And then there's
remarkable verses that I want to spend a little time looking
at this morning. Let their table become a snare
before 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 the shade.
Pour out thy indignation upon them, and let thy wrathful anger
take hold of them. Let their habitation be desolate,
and let none dwell in their tents. For they persecute him whom thou
hast smitten, and they talk to the grief of those whom thou
hast wounded. Add iniquity unto their iniquity,
and let them not come into thy righteousness. Let them be blotted
out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous. and sorrowful. I am poor and
sorrowful. Let thy salvation, O God, set
me on high. I will praise the name of God
with a song and will magnify him with thanksgiving. This also
shall please the Lord better than an ox or bull that hath
horns and hoofs. The humble shall see this and
be glad, and your heart shall live that seek God, for the Lord
heareth the poor. Verse 29, there is one poor,
isn't there? The Lord Jesus Christ is poor,
and despiseth not his prisoners. that heaven and earth praise
him, the seas, and everything that liveth therein. For God
will save Zion, and will build the cities of Judah, that they
may dwell there and have it in possession. The seed also of
his servants shall inherit it, and they that love his name shall
dwell therein." That's remarkable, isn't it? to think that these
are the words of our great High Priest when he was offered up
to God, bearing the sins of his own. We have in the Psalms a
view into the words And may he cause us to know something
of what he went through. Peter describes all the scriptures
can be summed up in the sufferings of Christ and the glory that
shall follow. He went to the cross for the
joy that was set before him and he spawned all of that shame. I thought we might read I see him at Mr. Hart's about
this high priest. And may the Lord cause us to
think about the extraordinary work our high priest has done
and the extraordinary intercession that he now brings before the
throne of grace to all these people. When Aaron in the holiest
place atonement made for Israel's race, the names of all their
tribes expressed he wore conspicuous twelve-lettered stones with sculpture
bold, deep-seated in the wounded gold, glowed on the breastplate
richly bright, and being characteristic light. His hands a golden censer
held with burning coals and incense filled, which clouded all the
holy room with odorous streams of rich perfume, and lest the
A costly consecrating oil, With mingled gums and spices sweet,
Had for his office made him meet. The liquid compound from his
head, Its unctuous odours downward spread, Delicious drops like
barmy dew, Over all the man their sweets diffused. oil and blood. The tabernacle's
sacred frame and all within shared the same. So when our great Melchizedek,
the true atonement, came to make, the holy oil anoints him too,
richer than Aaron ever knew. His body bathed in sweat and
blood, showered on the ground a purple flood. The rich effusion
copious ran. God and man. Deep in his breast
engraved he bore our names with every penal score. When pressed to the earth he
prostrate lay, shocked at the sum, yet prompt to pay. The fragrant incense of his prayer
to heaven went up through yielding air. perfumed the throne of God
on high, and calmed offended majesty. May the Lord draw us
into his presence in the person and in the work
of our dear and precious Saviour. We're going to sing again. It's
for the glory of his grace. Don Faulkner wrote, he used to
write one a week for all of his ministry. We were ruined by the
fall, Adam's sin defiles us all. By our deed and by our birth,
we deserve the Lord's great curse. Helpless, hopeless sinners we,
never can our souls retrieve. We were ruined by the fall. Adam's sin defiles us all. By our deed as by our birth,
we deserve the law's great curse. Helpless, hopeless sinners we,
never can our souls retrieve. But the blessed Son of God Came
as man in flesh and blood He fulfilled the Lord's demands
And in death stretched out his hands On the cross of Calvary
Christ redeemed and set us free In the time which God has set,
the Spirit came for His elect, to regenerate and call from the
ruin of the fall. By his power and by his grace,
we were born for God's own praise. Now your purpose we fulfill,
saved according to your will. Sing this song of joyful praise. for the glory of your grace. Blessed Holy Triune God, hear
our praise through Christ our Lord. The Lord found that temple to
be a place of merchandise, a place of exchange, a place of bargaining. It is a very apt description
of so much of modern religion. a marketplace where Jesus is
put up to serve. For those who have him, there
was a famous church-wide program here in Australia 10 or 12 years
ago called Jesus All About Life. And the purpose of it was to
try and sell the Lord and sell some idea that he He had made an atonement, and
he loved all people. He made an atonement for all
people, and he had this earnest desire for all people to be saved. And to make sure they got it
right, they hired an atheist marketing manager to construct
this blasphemous program. And then they followed up with
another one, and I saw one of the scientists Jesus is, and
then dot, dot, dot, as if somehow our opinion of Jesus matters
much at all, as if we can make something of him, as if it's
just a matter of our opinion. The Lord that's presented to
us, the Lord Jesus Christ that's presented to us in the gospel
accounts throughout the scriptures, and in particular in places like
Psalm 69 that we're looking at, is not the Lord Jesus Christ.
of modern religion, but he's the Lord Jesus Christ we will
meet. We will meet when we leave this earth, we will meet this
Lord, and my prayer is that we might find ourselves the humbled
of verse 32 of Psalm 69, the humbled, the poor, that we might
find ourselves taken captive by this Lord and be declared
of him to be his prisoners. brethren. He has a description
of them doesn't he? In verse 6 of this psalm it says
let them that wait on thee and let those that seek thee. Don't
let them be confounded, don't let them be ashamed, they are
his brethren. Our Lord Jesus Christ came as
God's servant And he came with a purpose. He came particularly
in the covenant of grace. He came for his bride. He came
to redeem his bride. He came to glorify God. And see, the Lord in the temple,
as we saw in John chapter two, the Lord in the temple, the temple
is a place that was to reveal the character of God. Everything
about the temple was to reflect the Lord Jesus Christ and him
crucified. It reveals the sovereignty of
our God. It reveals the fact that God is zealous. He is a jealous God. He's jealous of His glory. The
temple reveals not only God, but it reveals man. It reveals the character of man. And the temple is a place, as
we see in Psalm 69, as the cross is, that divides humanity. The proud. the religiously self-righteous
and proud that make merchandise of men's souls, and the humble
versus the humble. The Lord comes, this Lord, who
is exalted for he dwelleth on high, he hath filled Zion with
judgment and righteousness. As I said earlier, the very first
public activity of the Lord Jesus Christ in the city of Jerusalem
is an activity in his wrath. And people might
say that he didn't actually hit anyone or any animals with that
whip, but we don't know that. To have been there would have
been to have faced someone who would have shocked you, shocked
you by the things that he did and the things that he said.
The Jews had So many remarkable advantages, what a remarkable
history they had. What a remarkable history of
the grace of God they had. They had nothing in their history
to make them proud as men. They had nothing in the worship
and service of God that would cause them to be proud. There
they were, turning this house of prayer for all nations into
an emporium, a marketplace. Our Lord speaks of the depths
of what it was for Him to be made sin for us. He says in verse
14, You can't help but think of that water flood that overflowed
that world in the days of Noah. Neither let the deep swallow
me up, nor let the pit shut her mouth upon me. The Lord suffered
all the infinite horrors of hell when he bore reproach, and he
restored that which he took not away. Our great high priest,
bearing our sins in his own body on a tree. we talk about it and we read
about it i pray the lord might cause us to have a zeal for his
glory and a zeal that's what he did, the extraordinary
depths to which our Saviour did. He calls himself a servant, doesn't
he? He says in verse 16, Hear me O thou Lord, for your loving-kindness
is good. Turn unto me according to the
multitude of thy tender mercies. We might wonder why the Lord
might be crying out for mercy when he was made his elect, and he restored that
which he took not away, even as my sins are not hid from thee. And the Lord God, in holiness,
saw sin on his Son. In his holiness and in his justice
and in his judgment, he must punish sin. It's the one place
where we see the sinfulness of sin. It's the one place where
we see our need to be made mercy-beggars before this God, as our Saviour
was. Verse 17, And hide not thy face
from my servant, for I am in trouble, he, misbelieving. Draw
nigh unto my soul to redeem it, deliver me because of my enemies.
Thou hast known my reproach, and my shame, and my dishonour. reproach. Thy rebuke, the rebuke
of God, hath broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness. I looked for some to take pity,
but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none. He must tread
the winepress alone. They gave me also good Any commentators think that that
is the point in this psalm at which it is no longer the Lord
Jesus Christ speaking, no longer the Lord Jesus Christ
praying. I'll let you know that this word,
let, that begins in verse 22 is the same word that's in verse
six. Let them not that wait on thee
at all of hosts be ashamed. Verse 15, let not the water overflow
me. Verse 22, let their tale. This is a cry of the Lord Jesus
Christ from the cross. You see, on the cross there is
this extraordinary division between humanity. The two thieves remarkably
picture that, don't they? One man, both of them came to
that cross, the sinners that day, both of them came. You would
think, as people in need of mercy, and you look and you think about
what happened to the Lord Jesus Christ and what happened to that
thief, and what happened and remained in the lives of those
people that the Lord Jesus Christ speaks of here as their. He has
his own, he has a them in this world. They are them that wait
on thee. they have then received born
their reproach. And he says, and he prays of
these others, let their eyes be darkened that they see not, and make their loins continually
shake. See their table, verse 22, let
their table become a snare. What should have been a blessing
for Israel? The Jews, what good was it to
be a Jew? Much in many ways, says Paul
in Romans 2, having been one. Having been one of those, his
eyes were darkened. What advantage has the Jew and
what profit is there in circumcision? chiefly because they, because
under them were committed the oracles of God. Under them were
committed the very words of God. What should have been a blessing,
what should have been a blessing was darkness to them. What should
have been to their welfare, let it become a trap. Let their eyes
be darkened. Let their eyes be darkened. That
darkness that fell on all the earth for those three hours is
a great picture of that darkness that can be felt, that darkness
that separates the children of God from the children of light. But they see not. The Lord Jesus
Christ had come perfectly fulfilled every single Old Testament prophecy
and he was fulfilling it as he died on the cross, he was fulfilling
it as he was buried, he was fulfilling it as he was raised, he was fulfilling
it as he gathered his people together evidence will cause them to see
that they see not. Make their loins, make their
thighs, make what they have for their strength, continually slap,
shake. Pour out thine indignation upon
them, and let thy wrathful anger take hold of them. Let their habitation be desolate,
and let none dwell in their tents. The Lord says he will leave the
house of them desolate, desolate. And just so we are reminded that
all of the acts of God are acts of justice, Because, for, there is always
justice in the judgment of God. There was justice in the judgment
of God when he poured out his wrath and his indignation upon
his Son on the cross. And there is justice in his hardening
the hearts of those. For they persecute him whom thou
hast smitten. Who smote the Lord Jesus Christ? We know the answer from Isaiah
53 Speaks of us, we're all like
sheep. Verse six, have gone astray. We turned everyone to his own
way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He's borne our griefs and he's
carried our sorrows yet we It has seen him stricken, smitten
of God, and afflicted, but he was wounded, verse five, for
our transgressions, and he was bruised for our iniquities. And the chastisement of our peace
was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed. Verse seven, he
was oppressed and afflicted, yet he opened on his mouth. He
was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before
her shearers, his dung. So he opened on his mouth, he
was taken from prison and from judgment. And who shall declare
his generation? For he is cut off out of the
land of the living, for the transgression of my people was his stricken.
And he made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his
death, because he had done no violence. Neither was any deceit
in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise
him. When thou shalt make his soul
an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, and he shall prolong
his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his
hand. Like Psalm 22 and so many other psalms, this psalm takes
us to the depths of the pain and the suffering of the Lord
Jesus Christ when he was made sin. And also, and always, our triumphant Saviour. But there
is justice, isn't there? Let them, let their eyes be darkened,
pour out thy indignation, because they persecute him whom thou
hast met with, and they talk to the grief of those whom thou
hast wounded. And then our Saviour goes on
to say, out of iniquity, unto their iniquity, and let them
not come in to thy righteousness. Let them be blotted out of the
book of the living and not be written with the righteous. He
cannot be talking about the them that wait on him. The them who are considered to
be his brethren. There is a them in this world. There is a them that the Lord
Jesus Christ came different is this picture of
the Lord Jesus Christ? So radically different from the
Jesus of this day. How different is this from what
passes as gospel in our day? That God loves you and Jesus
wants to save you and The Lord knew who those were from the
beginning. It's an extraordinary thing,
isn't it? That on the night before he died, the Lord Jesus Christ
prayed his high priestly prayer. And he says, I pray for them. I pray for them. The same them that's in this
psalm that laid on him. I pray for them, I pray not for
the world, but for them that thou hast given me, for they
are thine, and all mine are thine, and thine are mine, And I am
glorified in them. That's a lovely description,
isn't it? Of the them that the Lord says. And there is, in this
psalm, an extraordinary description. All he accomplished was to create
a possibility and an opportunity contingent upon your decision. We have dethroned the Lord Jesus
Christ, an enthroned man. If all the Lord Jesus Christ
is, This psalm doesn't picture him
as a failure at all. The two thieves picture all humanity. One became a mercy beggar that
day. One was left with his eyes darkened. One saw something remarkable. What a remarkable sight he saw
beside him. What remarkable words he heard
from the lips of Christ, we're coming to a victorious
Saviour. When we believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, we believe into Him, we believe into a victorious
Saviour. He doesn't hope to save, He saves,
and He saves to the uttermost. And people come to Him like that
thief on the cross did. They come to Him because He has
saved them. He has saved them. He says I am poor, no one has
ever been in this world. It says who being in the very made himself of no reputation,
took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness
of men, and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself
and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." Paul in Philippians 2 is speaking
as the psalmist does in Psalm 69 verse 20. Let thy salvation, O God, set
me on high. Let thy salvation, O God, set
me in a secure place. After all of this, and after
all those words of the Lord pouring out, calling on his Father to
pour out thine indignation upon them, and let thy wrathful anger
take hold of them, in verse 24, He then says, I will praise the
name of the Lord. I will praise the name of God
with a song and will magnify him with thanksgiving. This also
shall please the Lord better than an ox or a bullock that
hath horns and hoofs. The humble shall see this. What do they see? What do the
humble see? There are only humble people
on this earth. are those that see the humility
of the Lord Jesus Christ and are humbled by the fact that
He did it for them. He did it for them. They'll see
this. They'll see judgment and justice
poured out. They'll see in the very character
of God revealed on the cross Not might see this, not if they
do things, the humble shall see this. It's the glorious work
of the Holy Spirit to take the things of the Lord Jesus, to
make, to shine a light upon the Lord Jesus on the cross. sovereignty of our God, and the
wonder of redeeming love. And your heart shall live that
seek God. And I love verse 33, for the Lord
heareth the poor, he heard the poor, he heard the cries of his
Son from the cross. He hears the poor in this world
now, Let heaven and earth praise Him,
the seas and everything that moveth therein. What a remarkable
day it must have been in heaven when the Lord Jesus Christ, who
was absent, had never been absent from them, was absent. the sun. Let heaven and earth
praise him, the cities and everything that know the theorem. For God
will save Zion. God will save his church. And
Psalm 69 shows us how he will save them. And the Lord Jesus
Christ came to save his people from their sins. He will save.
He doesn't try. He doesn't make an offer. He's
not up for sale. He didn't make an offering to
humanity. He made an offering to his Father. And his Father
gloriously was satisfied with his offering. God will save Zion
and will build the cities of Judah and that they may dwell
there and have an inquisition. The seed also of his servants
shall inherit it. And they that love his name.
Can you read Psalm 69? And love the character of God
revealed. God's children do. All of God's
spiritual children May the Lord bless his words
to our hearts. We're going to sing again. Thank
you, Cole.