Let us turn again to God's Word. I'm turning to the psalm that
we read, Psalm 69. And I want to read again the
first three verses of the psalm. We'll consider this portion with
the Lord's help for a while. This evening, Psalm 69, 1 to
3. Save me, O God. For the waters are coming unto
my soul, I sink in deep mire where there is no standing, I
am coming to deep waters where the floods overflow me. I am weary of my crying, my throat
is dried, my eyes fail while I wait for my God. We might ask the question of
whom is the psalmist speaking? The psalmist is David. Of whom
is the psalmist speaking? Is it of himself or is it of
some other man? Well, the answer might be that
he is speaking of both. He's speaking of some other man,
even his greatest son, the Lord Jesus Christ. But he's also speaking
of himself, and others who with David are found in that covenant
ordered in all things and sure. And so as we come to look at
these three verses for a little while this evening I want to
address the subject matter of the believers' union with Christ
in his sufferings. The believers' union with Christ
in sufferings we know that there's a sense in which this
book of the Psalms is the most remarkable part of all the word
of God I suppose it's that book that believers turn to more than
to any other portion how often do we have to look to the Psalms
and find so much comfort in what's recorded there because it's a
passage of scripture that is so experimental we find these
various authors many of the Psalms of course written by David but
not all Davidic authorship that we do find so much comfort as
these various men are pouring out their souls many of the Psalms
are in the form of prayers but the principal reason why the
Psalms are so remarkable is because of what we learn of the experience
of the Lord Jesus Christ and it has been well observed that
in the Psalms We have something that we don't really see so much
in the Gospels. Thank God for the Gospel of our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and how good God is in that He
has given us a fourfold Gospel. A fourfold record in Matthew,
Mark and Luke and John of all that the Lord Jesus began both
to do and to teach. All that we can read there concerning
that great mystery of godliness, how God was manifest in the flesh,
the great miracle of the Incarnation, and then what we read concerning
the life, the ministry, the miracles of Christ, and how all of the
evangelists go into some detail concerning those sufferings,
all His obedience leading up to the cross, obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross, says the Apostle. And then they
all of course bear their witness to the blessed truth of his resurrection
on the third day. They were very much chosen to
be witnesses to that truth and we see that clearly in the ministry
that follows that is recorded of the acts of the Apostles.
They witness continually to that glorious truth of the Lord's
rising again. So the Gospels are quite remarkable,
but I come back to the Psalms and the observation that has
been made by some men that the wonderful thing here in the Psalms
is that Christ's inward sufferings are revealed to us as they're
not seen there in the Gospels. The veil is as it were drawn
aside And in the Psalms we can gaze into the depths of the soul
of the Lord Jesus Christ in the midst of his sufferings. Think
of that word that we have in Isaiah 53, When thou shalt make
his soul an offering for sin. And the margin tells us that
the Hebrew is literally when his soul shall make an offering
for sin." Where in his soul? Oh, it's there in the sufferings
of the soul of Christ that we see the true soul of all those
sufferings. And how all of this is remarkably
unveiled for us here in the Psalms, and in such a Psalm as we have
here in Psalm 69. And what do we see when we read
of these sufferings? Well, we see something of the
reality of the human nature of Christ. He is God. That's the mystery of the Incarnation,
isn't it? It's God who is manifest in the
flesh, but in that miracle of the Incarnation, He is a real
man. the human nature of Christ, the
real human nature as truly human as you or I and that is a vital
doctrine a vital doctrine that he is one
with us in his human nature although there's no sin in him how he
is preserved free from every taint of sin, from original sin.
What was conceived by the Holy Ghost in the womb of the Virgin
Mary was that Holy Thing. And that Holy Thing, that human
body and soul joined to the Eternal Son of God, that Holy Thing that
shall be born of thee, says the angel to Mary, shall be called
the Son of God. He is the Son of God. But He
is also the Son of Man. And for as much as the children
were partakers of flesh and blood, we're told he likewise took part
of the same. Because his children were flesh
and blood, he takes part of the same. He becomes a real man.
Verily, he doesn't take upon him the nature of angels. He's
made a little lower than the angel. No, He takes upon Him
the seed of Abraham. The seed of Abraham. The seed
of Abraham, of course, that's believers. He identifies with
His believing people. And so we're assured that we
have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling
of our infirmities. What He feels for us in all our
sinless infirmities is nature, is human nature. Oh, we have not a high priest
which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities,
but was in all points tempted, like as we are. Yet without sin
he knew what sore temptations were, who in the days of his
flesh when he had 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
yet learned the obedience by the things that he suffered he
learned obedience as a man though he was God the mystery of the
person of the Lord Jesus Christ heard in that he feared What
a religion that man had, Jesus of Nazareth. He feared God. The
fear of God was in his heart, in all that that man did. And so of whom is the psalmist
speaking? Is he speaking of himself or
some other man? Well, let us consider. Here we
see something of the experience of Christ, and then we also see
something of the experience of David. David, as it were, representative
of believers. This is David, this is a man
after God's own heart, and every believer, of course, in that
sense, we have to say, is a man after God's own heart. What is
the promise of the new covenant? A new heart also I will give
them, a new spirit I will put within them. I will take away
the stony heart out of thy flesh, I will give thee and heart of
flesh as God and so it's the experience of believers that
we have as well as the experience of David but in the first place
to say something with regards to the experience of the Lord
Jesus the experience of the Lord Jesus this psalm is clearly a
messianic psalm might be argued, and is by some, that every one
of the Psalms is messianic. But we know that some most definitely
are, because we find these particular Psalms being referred to in the
New Testament with regards to the experience of Jesus of Nazareth. Here in verse 9 you see, the
beginning of that 9th verse, "...the zeal of thine house hath
eaten me up." And remember when the Lord drives those money changers
and those buying and selling in the temple, drives them out
of the temple. What did we read there in John
chapter 2 and verse 17? Now, the disciples remembered
that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me
up. when the disciples witnessed
the Lord doing that very thing there. You can read it in John
2, 13 following. They remembered the words here
in verse 9. But then also what that 9th verse
goes on to say. The zeal of thine house hath
eaten me up and the reproaches of them that reproach thee are
fallen upon me. And the second part of that 9th
verse is also applied directly to the Lord Jesus by the Apostle
there in Romans 15.3 Even Christ pleased not himself but as it
is written the reproaches of them that reproach thee are fallen
upon me. Paul is saying that the words
at the end of that ninth verse belong to the experience of the
Lord Jesus. And so we have this evidence
from the New Testament with regards to this psalm and as I've said
many a time if we're going to rightly understand what's written
here in the Old Testament Scriptures we have to always go first of
all to the New Testament that remarkable saying attributed
to Augustine of Hippo concerning God's Word how the New Testament
is in the Old Concealed and the old is in the new revealed. And so we have the authority
of direct quotations in the New Testament to say that this psalm
is speaking of Christ and his experience. And what of his experience? Well, two things I want to mention
with regards to that experience. First of all the sufferings,
the sufferings of Christ, and then secondly the substitution.
of Christ or this psalm most particularly speaks of Christ's
sufferings verse 20 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 wasn't
that the experience of the Lord Jesus how he treads the winepress
of the wrath of God alone alone we see it in what he experiences in the garden
of Gethsemane He takes those favoured disciples apart from
the rest and then he moves away from them a little further and
there he is agonising in prayer to his father concerning that
bitter cup that he is to drink and he wrestles in his prayer
if it be possible let this cup pass from me but not as I will
as they will. He has a human will you see And
that human will must be subject to the divine will. And I'm sure
we all struggle at times in our own souls with regards to the
will of God. For us it's not an easy thing
to be submissive to God's will, sometimes. It goes against us. And here is the Lord, what a
man is this! And as he struggles, so he goes back to those favoured
disciples, they're asleep. They're asleep. He goes off,
he prays again, he comes back a second time, they're asleep.
Three times. He might just head backwards
and forwards thrice. He ran as if he sought some help
from man. Wasn't it the experience that
David writes up here then in verse 20? I looked for some to
take pity, but there was none, and for comforters, and I found
none. But not only there in Gethsemane,
when he comes to the cross, what do we read quite explicitly?
Verse 21, They gave me also gall for my meat, and in my thirst
they gave me vinegar to drink. Isn't that a word fulfilled in
the cross of Christ? They gave him vinegar to drink,
mingled with gold, and when he had tasted thereof, he refused
it. They gave him this concoction,
this drug. And I suppose in a way it was
to ease his sufferings maybe. They say, some say it was to
help the blood to flow more freely, so his sufferings would be shortened.
But no, he will bear that that was appointed of the wrath of
God, that he must suffer in the sufferings as the great substitute
of his people, or the sufferings of Christ. We see him here in the words
that we've read as a text, these opening words. 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 calm into deep waters where
the floods overflow me. Again, in verse 14, he speaks
of the deep waters. Let me be delivered from them
that hate me, and out of the deep waters. Let not the water
flood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up. They're
not the pits, such a mouth upon them. It's as if he's overwhelmed
with all these dreadful sufferings. It was a baptism of sufferings. I have a baptism to be baptized
with, how am I straightened, he says, till it be accomplished.
And that wasn't the baptism that he submitted to at the River
Jordan. When he went into the river with
John, he was baptized, remember? John's baptism of repentance.
He'd already been baptized, that marked the beginning of his ministry.
But when he utters those words, I have a baptism to be baptized
with. And he straightened in his own
spirit till it's accomplished. It's a baptism of sufferings.
And we have it. expressed beautifully,
I think, in Gadsby's hymn on baptism, 658. For us Jesus was baptized in
tremendous agonies, mighty vengeance like a flood overwhelmed the
Lamb of God. view the swelling floods of wrath,
sink your Saviour low as death, grieve Him covered like a grave
when He died, your souls to save. And there's a verse to that hymn
that's omitted, strangely it's omitted in God's own hymn book.
For us Jesus was baptized in tremendous agony, His mighty
vengeance like a flood overwhelmed the Lamb of God And then this
verse, this was baptism indeed. Well, my mountain shake with
bread, surely sprinkling there can show such a scene of matchless
woe. That verse is omitted. Strangely, and yet how graphic
is the language that he uses here. His was a real baptism. and it was a baptism of terrible
sufferings and of course Doubtless Gatsby is mindful of such languages
we find there in the 6th of Romans where the Apostle speaks of believers
baptism Romans 6.3, Know ye not that
so 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 should
also walk in newness of life. Or baptism, you see, there's
a burying in the waters, there's an ascending out of the waters. It's the heaven-drawn picture
of union with the Lord Jesus. Or the sufferings. The sufferings
of Christ, then, are spoken of here. Save me, O God, for the
waters are come into my soul. I sink in deep mire where there
is no standing. I am coming to deep waters where
the floods overflow me I am weary of my crying my throat is dry,
my eyes fail while I wait for my God all the agonies the sufferings
of the Lord Jesus and what is all this suffering? It's substitution His sufferings are not because
of himself there is no sin in him tempted
in all points like as we are yet 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 a sinless man that holy
thing and he is never anything less than that in his human nature
he is the holy man and yet look at the language
that's used and I say the psalm is speaking of Christ verse 5
O God thou knowest my foolishness and my sins or as the margin
says my guiltiness not hid from the earth how can such language
as that be applied to the Lord Jesus Christ Well, we read of God sending
His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin. He's in the likeness of sinful
flesh. He comes to save sinners. He
hath made Him to be sin for us, says Paul, who knew no sin, that
we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. He is dying to
atone for sins not His own. the soul that sinneth shall die
and there's no cause of death in him. His human nature is an
immortal human nature in that sense. He would never die. He
could never die. It was impossible that he should
die. And yet Christ hath once suffered
for sins and suffered death for sins. Why? He suffered the just
for the unjust to bring sinners to God. The precious doctrine
of substitutionary atonement. Oh the Lord Jesus in the sinner's
place. How costly this is for him. Oh
the agonies you see. Save me oh God! For the waters
are calming unto my soul. I am weary of my crying. my throat
is dry, my eyes fail while I wait for my God he's no stoic, he
doesn't just go through those sufferings because he's some
sort of superman, he's a real man he knows real human emotions and the sufferings in another
song we read of them, deep calleth unto deep that the noise of thy
waterspouts, all thy waves and thy billows are gone over mine. Because it's not so much the
sufferings that he's enduring now at the hands of men. He does suffer at the hands of
men. Oh, how they reproach him. How they ridicule him. How they
stare at him. Hanging naked upon the truss.
The sufferings of Christ. But it's not what he endures
at the hands of men, it's what he is suffering at the hands
of his father. He's the great sin-bearer. And
yet how he cries out, you remember the language of Psalm 22? And
that awful cry, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? He feels not simply forsaken
by the disciples, he's forsaken by his God, his Father. And yet, What does he say in that 22nd
Psalm? He uses the language of appropriation. He doesn't say, God! God, why
art thou forsaken me? No. He can say, My God. My God. That's the language of appropriation.
He's always God's and God is always his. That's the mystery.
the great mystery of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ. Here
then, principally, the psalmist is speaking of the Lord. And
we would not do any justice to the psalm if we didn't place
the emphasis there. It's Christ that is being spoken
of. And of course, presently, as
a church, we will remember these sufferings. and now are we to come to that
table let a man examine himself says the apostle so let him eat
of that bread drink of that cup we examine ourselves we prove
ourselves do we know ourselves as we come to that table do we
come in that spirit of real repentance sorrowing because of our many
sins no worth in us all the worth only in the saviour of sinners
that's how we are to come the wonder of it that sinners like
Mary and you can feast upon Christ but you see this is the man who
loves sinners and that's how they scorned him wasn't it this
man receive us sinners and eat us with them or as we come to
the table do we look that the Lord will be there and that we'll
sit there as his welcome guests and he'll sop with us and he'll
drink with us But as we see the experience
of Christ, I said this is true of another man, but it's also
true of David. So let's turn in the second place
to the believer. And the wonder for the believer
is this, that there is such a truth as union with Christ. Or there's
a union between Christ and his people He is the head of the
church and the church is his body. What a blessed union there
is. It's an eternal union. It's an
eternal union and you know how the apostle brings it out so
forcibly in the language that we have there in the opening
chapter of Ephesians. How he blesses God. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as he hath
chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ, to Himself according
to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of
His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved."
A long sentence from verse 3 through to verse 6, various clauses,
but what is so prominent here is that of union. There's a union
with Christ that lies behind what the Apostle is saying. How
has God chosen His people? It's the eternal election that
He speaks of. He chose us before the foundation
of the world. But He says more than that, doesn't
He? He says He has chosen us in Him. Christ is God's first elect. My servants, whom I have chosen, mine elect.
in whom my soul delighteth, I have put my spirit upon him." You
know the language of Isaiah. He is God's first elect. And
all the election of grace are chosen in Him. That's eternal
union. You see if we, and many do despise
the doctrine of election, they don't like it, they don't want
it. But election is bound up with union with Christ. or let
us not shun away from that great doctrine that eternal election
which speaks of an eternal union between Christ and the believer
chosen in Him before the foundation of the world but if we would glory in election we're missing something so important,
so vital we need to understand that besides an eternal union
there must in time be an experience of that union there must be an
experimental union we have to come to experience what it is
to be in the Lord Jesus Christ and how Paul understood that
when he was once the Pharisee, the persecutor, how far off he
was how he hated the Lord Jesus, he had an old nature you see,
he was like everyone else, he was born dead in trespasses and
sins and yet he was always one who had that eternal union with
Christ, that's the mystery but then he has to come to experience
it, he has to be called by the grace of God and when he's called
by the grace of God how different is his attitude, his language
and he speaks of it doesn't he there in Philippians 3 his great
desire that I may know him oh that's what he wants to know
I want to know Christ the fellowship of his sufferings the power of his resurrection
the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable to his
death that's his desire He wants to know Christ in his sufferings.
He wants to know Christ in his resurrection. He wants more and
more of that experimental union that Christ might be precious.
Now, with regards to the believer's experience how does it begin? How do we
begin to come into that experience of union with Christ? Doesn't
it start with the conviction of sin? Who
was it that the Lord Jesus came to call? He tells us that they
that are whole have no need of the physician but they that are
sick. I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. If we're going to know anything
of what it is to have a real living union with the Lord Jesus
Christ, we have to begin there, we have to know that we're sinners. We have to enter in some measure,
you see, even into the language that we have here. We have to
cry out for salvation, save me! Save me, O God, for the waters
are coming to my soul. I sink in deep mire where there
is no standing. I am coming to deep waters where
the floods overflow me. Isn't this a sinner? He's under
terrible conviction. He can't do anything to save
himself, to help himself. Another psalm, David says, Iniquities prevail
against me. All my sins prevail, I'm overwhelmed
by them. I'm sinking in them, I cannot
escape them. And this is, of course, part
and parcel of the office of the Holy Ghost. When He comes, the
promise of Christ, the Comforter, when He has come, He will reprove,
He will convince the world of sin, says the Lord, of righteousness,
of judgment, of sin because they believe not on birth. And how
awful it is when we are convinced of the sin of unbelief. When
the Lord shows us that we're sinners and we're unbelieving
sinners and we cannot produce faith. We cannot believe and
we want to believe and we can't believe. And dear, dear John
Newton, how he knew it, oh could I but believe! Then all would
easy be, I would but cannot, Lord relieve, my help must come
from Thee. All that awful conviction of
sin, and that sin which so easily besets us, that sin that's there
at the root of every sin, unbelief, it's there in the Garden of Eden,
When Eve partakes of the forbidden fruit, it's unbelief. She doesn't
believe what God has said. She believes the lie of the devil.
That's unbelief. Awful. And we have to experience
that. We have to know the conviction
of our sins. our mouths stopped we often refer
to those words of the Apostle there in verse 19 of Romans 3
concerning the law we know that what things however the law said
it said to them are under the law that every mouth may be stopped
and all the world become guilty all we see God's law we know
that the law is spiritual says Paul but I am carnal, sold under
sin, I was alive without the law once the commandment came,
sin revived and I died or when he was a self-righteous man,
a Pharisee, he thought he was alive he thought that touching
the righteousness of the Lord he was blameless and he wasn't
and then the commandment came and then there was the conviction
of sin or how he cries out for deliverance and we have it here don't we
deliverance, deliverance verse 14 deliver me out of the mire
let me not sink let me be delivered from them that hate me and 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 deliverance and the comfort of verse 33 the
Lord heareth the poor and despises not his prisoners or when the
Lord shuts us up you see shuts us up to what we are shuts us
up to our sin and our unbelief just as Heman says here in Psalm
88 I am shut up and I cannot come forth shut up needing deliverance. I always remember, I've been
a Christian a number of years, but it so helped me to understand
something of my experience. I read a sermon, it was by that
man James Walsh, of course he was a great favourite with our
dear friend Andrew Robinson, James Walsh, and it was on that
text, there in Psalm 88 verse 8, the cry of Heman, I am shut
up and I cannot come forth and I suppose it was the title given
to the sermon that really attracted me it was called Prisoners of
Hope Prisoners of Hope and I read it and it so opened up to me
how the Lord had dealt with me from the beginning really when
the Lord shuts us up shuts us up to what we are if all faith
came kept under the law, shut up to the faith which should
thereafter would be revealed. Wherefore, Paul says, the Lord
is our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. That's what he
does. He brings us ultimately to see that all of salvation
is in the Lord Jesus Christ. He brought me up also out of
a horrible pit and out of the miry clay and set my feet upon
a rock and establish my going. Do you know the language that
we have there in Psalm 14? Well, that's what the Lord does. He delivers His people. But they
have to know that they are sinners, because Christ came not to call
the righteous, but sinners. And sinners are high in His esteem. And sinners highly value Him.
Nor do you value the Lord Jesus. or do you love the Lord Jesus?
If you do, surely you must be in possession of saving faith.
If you delight in Him and see salvation nowhere else, just
in Him, His person, His work. The experience of the believer
then is here in the beginning of his Christian life, when he's
convinced of his sin. But the believer's experience
is also in this psalm throughout his life as a child of God. Because what is the believer's
life? Isn't it a life of continual conflict? When he's saved there is still
a conflict. There's a conflict with the world,
there's a conflict with Satan, there's a conflict with himself.
when his pardon is signed and his peace is procured from that
moment his conflict begins says Joseph Hart and it's true, it's
true is it not? what does a believer live to
prove? he has to prove that he daily
needs saving he needs to know more and more of Christ if he's
going to grow in grace what is growth in grace? growth in grace
and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Growing
in grace is knowing more of Christ and feeling more and more our
need of that great salvation that is in Christ. Oh Paul knew
it, all wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the
body of this dirty Christ as he feels that conflict between
the new nature and the old nature. I thank God. Oh I thank God through
Jesus Christ my Lord therefore with the mind I myself
serve the Lord of God but with the flesh the Lord of sin who
fills the flesh but the real self the I myself is that that
wants to serve the Lord of God that's the real Paul the Apostle
the blessed child of God the Christian man And it's the experience
of all God's people. Paul again reminds us of that. It's the fellowship of Christ's
offerings that I may know Him, the power of His resurrection,
or when that resurrection power comes into our souls. What follows
the fellowship of His offerings being made conformable unto His
death. Unto you it is given in the behalf
of Christ not only to believe on Him, not only to believe on
him but to suffer for his sake that's the believers lot and
so he learns ever more and more of the Lord Jesus but what what
is God's promise in the midst of all these things well they
have the language there in those familiar words of Isaiah 43 Thus saith the Lord that created
thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, fear not, for
I have redeemed thee. I have called thee by thy name,
thou art mine. When thou passest through the
waters, I will be with thee, and through the rivers they shall
not overflow thee. When thou walkest through the
fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle
upon thee, for I and the Lord's, thy God's, the Holy One of Israel,
thy Saviour. So we come into the experience
of the Psalmist as he'd set before us here and we have that great
promise. And what are we to do with the
promises of God? We're to plead the promises. We're to cry out
again and again, Save me, O God! Save me, O God, I am weary of
my crying, my throat is dried, my eyes fail while I wait for
my God. Out of the depths have I cried
unto thee, O Lord. This is how we are to come, to
be always ever praying. What is the life of the Christian? It's that life of prayer, that
continual calling upon the Lord God Himself. Verse 13. As for me, my prayer is unto
the Lord in an acceptable time. Well, you know, this is the acceptable
time. Now is the acceptable time, not
tomorrow. Now is the acceptable time. Now
is the day of salvation. As for me, my prayer is unto
Thee, O Lord, in unacceptable time. O God, in the multitude
of Thy mercy, hear me in the truth of Thy salvation. Verse 17, Hide not thy face from
thy servant, for I am in trouble. Hear me speedily. Or as the margin indicates, the
Hebrew seems to be more graphic, make haste to hear, make haste
to hear me. In trouble, I am in trouble,
make haste to hear me. Or do we cry to God in those
terms, we want God to appear, we want God to come and save
us, we can't do anything, we can't save ourselves. But God
saves. There's one name under heaven
given amongst men whereby He doesn't say we may be saved.
We must be saved. We must be saved. Or thou shalt
call His name Jesus for He shall save His people from their sins. Do we believe it? Or the Lord
God grant that we might be those who do believe it. for his name's
sake. Amen.