Well, let us turn to the psalm
that we read, Psalm 69. I'm sure it's a psalm that's
well known to us. I know we've looked at various
parts of the psalm. It's a long psalm and we've certainly
looked at various parts on previous occasions. But I want us tonight
to turn really just to a few words that we find at the end
of verse 17. I'll read down here in the Psalms,
Psalm 69, and reading verses 16 and 17. 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
servants, for I am in trouble. Hear me speedily. The text then is those words,
those three words at the end of verse 17, hear me speedily. We've gathered principally for
prayer, that's the purpose of our gathering here on Thursday
evenings, that we might unite in corporate prayers, the brethren
speak in prayer, we say our amens. And as we look at these words,
I want to take up the theme of urgency in prayer. Urgency in prayer. David cries out, hear me, speedily. And you may observe in the margin
that we do have an alternative reading. The Hebrew is literally,
make haste to hear me. Make haste to hear me, says the
Psalmist. and we might spend some time
observing what is the cause of such a cry as this. First of all, I want us to consider
the cry in terms of the experience of the child of God, the experience
of the Christian, and deal in that sense with four
aspects that causes the believer to cry out in that fashion. first
of all we'll see how he'll cry out of course initially when
he knows anything of the conviction of sin but then also he will
be crying out when he's engaged in conflicts with sin and then
thirdly I want us to consider how he will cry out under his
sin and then thought to say something with regards to how that cry
is made in faith. He has confidence in God as he
makes such a prayer. First of all, the beginning and
the believer's conviction of sin. We read in the middle of
the verse that he says quite plainly to the Lord God, I am
in trouble. I am in trouble. And of course, we see that right
at the beginning. His prayer is, Save me, O God,
for the waters are come in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire
where there is no standing. I am come into deep waters where
the floods overflow me. Here is someone who clearly feels
himself to be in great trouble. I recently read in a sermon these
words, There is no use in talking of salvation unless you know
sin in your experience do you suffer from it what you suffer
from no other evil is sin in other words that great evil that
we feel is nothing but trouble to us and causes us continually
to cry out unto God in another psalm David says iniquities prevail
against them and amongst those iniquities that so disturb and
trouble the child of God is an evil heart of unbelief we know
that when the spirit comes he will reprove of sin and of righteousness
and of judgment the Lord Jesus tells us as much there in John
16 and Christ says of sin because ye believe not on my or that
accursed sin of unbelief that sin which does so easily beset
us and it's the office of the Holy Spirit to bring to us that
conviction of that awful atheistic unbelief that dwells in our hearts
by nature it is the Spirit of course who
does it and he does it when he brings to us the demands of God's
holy law the apostle can say I was alive without the law once
but the commandment came and sin revived and I died we know
that the law is spiritual says Paul but I am carnal sold under
sin and now at times a believer feels as if he's shut up in that
sin before faith came we are kept under the law shut up says
Paul to the faith that should after would be revealed and here
in the psalm we do read of deliverances deliverances from that awful
prison that dreadful pit he says in verse 15 let not the water
flood overflow me neither let the deep swallow me up and let
not the pit shut her mouth upon me In Psalm 88, another psalmist
says, I am shut up and I cannot come forth, but there is deliverance. And the deliverance comes from
the Lord God. Verse 33, For the Lord heareth
the poor, and despiseth not his prisoners. They are prisoners
of hope when the Lord by his Spirit brings into their souls
that conviction. and teaches them the impossibility
of any salvation from any works of their own. All the believer
knows something then of the conviction of sin. But then also there is
that conflict, the conflict with sin. Once the grace of God has
come into the soul of that man, he will be in conflict, there
will be that warfare in himself. what we see in the Shunammites,
as it were the company of two armies we read in the Song of
Solomon. There's the old nature, there's
the new nature. And Paul, the language of Paul, we're familiar
with it there in Romans 7, I know that in me, that is in my flesh,
there dwelleth no good thing. For to will is present will,
but how to perform that which is good I find not, he cries. For the good that I would, I
do not, and the evil that I would not, that I do. So he goes on, O wretched man
that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? You have to look to the Lord
Jesus, and Him alone. There's that conflict to teach
him continually, his need of Christ as his Savior. looking
outside of himself I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord
he says but where there is that faith
in the Lord Jesus there will be with that faith that continual
conflict unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ says
the Apostle to the Philippians given on the behalf of Christ
not only to believe on him but also to suffer for his sake And
what is that suffering? It's a fellowship of his sufferings. And we were looking at those
words recently there in Philippians 3 verse 10 over the last few
weeks. On Thursday evenings we considered
that remarkable portion in Philippians 3 where the apostle speaks of
his own experiences, his great desire. to know Christ, or we
can know Christ, the power of his resurrection, he says, the
fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable to his
death, the conflict that the believer has with sin, and in
that conflict there is to be the mortifying, putting to death
the deeds of the body. And then thirdly, with regards
to the experience of the believer, when he sees the necessity of
prayer and the urgency and he needs to be helped he needs to
be delivered hear me speedily he says make haste to hear me
he cries out from under his sin I am in trouble he says here
in the middle of this 17th verse I am in trouble and then the
petitions that he is making at the beginning the opening words
of the psalm save me oh God it's a very simple prayer Lord save
me Lord help me and thou is weary in all his crying verse 3 he
says I am weary that my crying, my throat is dried, my eyes fail
while I wait for my God. There is a waiting upon God.
And it's not a passive, inactive sort of waiting. There's all
that great exercise of soul in the times. What are His prayers? They're little more than a sigh.
Our words fail Him. David says, Lord, all my desire
is before thee, and my groaning is not heard from the earth.
Lord, the experience then of the psalmist as we have it set
before us here. His urgency as he comes to his
God with his prayers and his petition. But what do we see?
In the context we see that he has real confidence in his God. That 16th verse, hear me. Hear me, O Lord, for thy lovingkindness
is good. Turn unto me according to the
multitude of thy tender mercies. And then the words that we are
considering as a text at the end of verse 17, he says again,
hear me. And hear me speedily. But there
is the confidence in the previous verse. because he is looking
to the gods of the covenant. He uses the covenant name. It's
LORD, isn't it, in capital letters. In other words, it's the Hebrew
Jehovah. It's that name that God declared
to Moses at the burning bush, I am that I am. I am the LORD. Therefore ye sons of Jacob are
not consumed. but how it speaks here of God's
covenant faithfulness the language that we have it speaks of thy
loving kindness thy loving kindness it's a word
in the Hebrew that is so full and so pregnant with meaning
and this is how it's rendered time and again in the authorised
version kindness but it has the idea of his covenant faithfulness
bound up with the idea of divine grace the eternal purpose of
the salvation of sinners that flows out from the covenant thy
loving kindness is good it is and then turn unto me according
to the multitude of thy tender mercies Oh, God's mercy so tender,
the kind God, the compassionate God is the Lord God. In the game
we see how he says it's according to the multitude of these mercies. The acceptable time. I have heard
thee in the time accepted, he says. I have succored them in
the day of salvation. Behold, now is the accepted time.
Behold, now is the day of salvation. No wonder David can go on to
make that petition at the end of the 17th verse, hear me speedily. He knows that God is a very present
help in every time of trouble for his people. Here then we
see something of the experience of David, the experience really
of the child of God. These things are written, aren't
they, for our learning that we through patience or endurance
and comfort of the scriptures might have hope but that real
experience that David is speaking of is very much rooted in the
Lord Jesus Christ because we know that there's a spiritual
union between the Christian and Christ a union between the Saviour
and the sinner and the Lord Jesus is here in
this psalm we know that we're told aren't we by Isaiah in all
their affliction he was afflicted and the Lord you see is that
one who sympathizes with all his saints in all their affliction
he was afflicted and the angel of his presence saved them in
his love and in his pity he redeemed them and he bared them and carried
them all the days of all it's the same God here in the Old
Testament that we have in the New Testament we have all that
fullness of the revelation of course when we come to the New
Testament in the Lord Jesus Christ and that remarkable ministry
that he exercised and the psalm 69 is a messianic psalm and there's
no real disputing that fact the words that we have in verse 9
the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up and the reproaches
of them that reproach thee are fallen upon me remember when the Lord drives
the money changers and the buyers and sellers out of the temple
which was to be a house of prayer to all nations the disciples
remembered that it was written the zeal of thine house hath
eaten me up they remembered this scripture when Christ was driving
those those wicked people out of the house of prayer But then
also the end of verse 19 is actually quoted by Paul, Romans 15 verse
3, "...the reproaches of them that reproach thee are fallen
upon thee." Paul quotes that very verse in reference to the
Lord Jesus Christ. But we see Christ time and again
here. In verse 20, "...reproach hath
broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness, and I look for
some to take pity, but there was none, and for comforters,
but I found none. Or when the Lord entered the
garden of Gethsemane with his disciples, and he takes those
favoured three, Peter and James and John, a little aside from
the rest, and he leaves them for a while and goes to pray,
and time and again they're weary, they're tired and they're sleeping,
and the Lord comes to them backwards and forwards thrice he ran as
though he sought some help from man we read in the hymn and yet
he found no comforters even those disciples so favoured they just
slept they couldn't watch with him even one hour he said surely
here in verse 20 we're reminded of all that was taking place
in his holy soul there in the garden I look for some to take
pity but there was none and for comforters but I found none then
in the next verse they gave me also gall for my meat and in
my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink well we go from Gethsemane
and we go to Golgotha and all the bitter sufferings that he
had to endure on the cross. They gave him vinegar mingled
with gall, and he refused it. He wouldn't take their drug drink
at all. Clearly this psalm then is a
psalm that directs us to the Lord Jesus Christ, and that's
how gracious of all comforts really, that we find Christ,
and Christ is in the words of the text, as in every part of
the psalm. What do we see here? We see something
of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus. Certainly the opening
verses very much speak of Him. The waters are come in unto my
soul. I sink in deep mire where there
is no standing. I am come into deep waters where
the floods overflow me. It was a baptism of sufferings
that the Lord Jesus endured there upon the cross. And he tells
the disciples as much as he set his face to go up to Jerusalem. I have a baptism to be baptized
with, he says. How am I straightened until it
be accomplished? It was an immersion. It was an
immersion in sufferings. There's a hymn of William Gadsby.
for us Jesus was baptized in tremendous agonies mighty vengeance
like a flood overwhelmed the Lamb of God this was baptism
indeed well might mountain shake with dread surely sprinkling
there can show such a scene of matchless woe and you know the
passage there in Romans 6 that speaks of the significance of
baptism. It is the heaven-drawn picture
of union between Christ and his child. Romans 6.3, Know ye not that
as many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized
into his death? Therefore we are buried with
him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up
from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should
walk in newness of life. Or we're identified with him
in his death, his burial, and in his rising again from the
dead. The blessings of union with the
Lord Jesus Christ in the midst of all our troubles and Peter
again reminds us he's not just Paul who sets forth these truths
Peter there in 1 Peter 4.12 Beloved think it not strange concerning
the fiery trial that is to try you as though some strange thing
happened unto you but rejoice in as much as ye are partakers
of Christ's offerings It's the fellowship. It's the fellowship
of his sufferings. The Lord suffered. And we see
his sufferings here in the Psalm just as we see it of course in
Psalm 22 and really throughout the Psalms. Time and again we
see the Lord Jesus. But what of those sufferings?
Well, Christ's death was a substitutionary death. And that truth is here in the
Psalm. The psalm speaks of Christ. Well,
what then do we make of the language that we find in verse 5? O God, thou knowest my foolishness,
and my sins are not hid from thee. How can these words apply,
belong to the Lord Jesus Christ? He is without sin, He is holy,
He is harmless, He is undefiled, He is separate from sinners,
He is made higher than the heavens, He is obedient in all His life,
even obedient unto the death of the cross. Oh yes, He was
tempted, sorely tempted in all points, tempted like as we are,
but Paul says, yet without sin. What do we see? Verse 5, we see
Christ identified with sinners. Christ identifies Himself all
together with His people. We read of God sending His own
Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemning
sin in the flesh. God hath made Him to be sin for
us. who knew no sin that we might
be made the righteousness of God in him. The way Christ has suffered as
a substitute. The great truth of substitutionary
atonement. And do we not see at the end of verse
4, he says, I restored that which I took not away. He restored
what He never took away. He answered for His people. Before
the Holy Lord of God, He was made of a woman, He was made
under the Lord, He stood in their place. He has once suffered for sins,
the just for the unjust, to bring sinners to God. And of course,
We have the tremendous language of Isaiah 53 and how plainly
we see this great truth of substitutionary atonement in that remarkable
chapter. Verse 4 of Isaiah 53, Surely
he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did
esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted, but He
was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities.
The justicement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes
we are healed. Or we, like sheep, have gone
astray. We have turned every one to his
own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. Or we have the sufferings of
Christ. But we also see that in all that he has to endure,
all that contradiction of sinners against himself, all that he
bears in his own blessed person of the wrath of God, all that
he bears, he does it as a substitute. And so what do we see? We see
that great love wherewith he loves his people. He truly is
that one who is a sympathetic high priest. We have not an High Priest which
cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. He was tempted
in all points like as we are, yet without sin. Therefore, says
the Apostle, let us come boldly to the throne of grace, that
we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Though he's touched, he sympathizes. In the days of his flesh he offered
up prayer and supplication with strong crying and tears unto
him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in
that he feared. Though he were a son, the eternal
Son of God, and yet how he suffered, how he suffered as the God-man,
the wonder of it, What does he say here in verse
3? I am weary of my crying. My throat is dried. Mine eyes
fail while I wait for my God. It reminds us of the language
of the 22nd Psalm and that great cry of dereliction. My God, my
God, why hast thou forsaken me? Or the mystery of his dying.
How could it be that there should be any division in the Godhead,
but this is God-man, this is the God-man himself who is suffering
as that great substitute of his people, and now he's weaving,
crucified through weakness, it's all mystery, it's all mystery.
And the great beauty of course, when we come to this book, the
book of Psalms, and when we see Christ in the Psalms is that
it sets before us the experiences of his soul as we don't really
see it in the Gospels we can read the accounts there in the
four Gospels of his crucifixion and of course the four evangelists
go into a great deal of detail with regards to those sufferings
But it's here in the book of Psalms that the veil is as it
were drawn aside and we're allowed in a sense to look into the very
soul, the human soul of the Lord Jesus in the midst of all his
sufferings. And that's where the real sufferings
were. We have those words in Isaiah 53.10, the margin gives
a more literal rendering when his soul shall make an offering
for sin when his soul all the pangs of his body were great
the greater the pangs of his mind when he felt so utterly
forsaken being in an agony he prayed more earnestly there in
the garden of Gethsemane as he contemplated what was before
him being in an agony he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat,
we're told, was like drops of blood falling to the ground. He knew what it was to agonize
in prayer. So we see him here in the words
of our text tonight. The Lord Jesus. What does he
say? Hear me, speedily, make haste
to him, or that we might know then something of urgency. I
do feel so often I stand here and we look at a passage such
as this and it says so much about the life of the Lord Jesus and
his prayers and one is ashamed because what do I know of such
prayers as we find here in the Word of God, here in the ministry
of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. We would spend whole nights in
prayers. Oh the Lord help us that we might be found praying
people, we gather as I said at the beginning to pray. Thank
God we can have these prayer meetings week by week and rest
assured that we do not pray in vain. The Lord will hear us and
the Lord will appear for us and we are to be bold and we are
to say to him, make haste to hear me. May the Lord bless to
us his own word. We're going to Sing as our second
praise, the hymn 687, the tune is Houghton 808. I'll read the
first verse of the hymn and then we'll sing from verse two. Ye
broken hearts, all who cry out unclean, and taste of the gall
of indwelling sin, lamenting it truly, and loathing it too,
and seeking help duly, as sinners must do.